Friday, March 24, 2006

OMG!!!



I'm such a fan girl.

June, baby.

7 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

Jeremy said...

I wonder how many cover artists out there now specialize in painting the tattooed backs of women. 

Posted by JeremyT

Anonymous said...

Read it last weekend. It's awesome.

Sometimes, it's good  to be a book reviewer. And this is definitely one of those times. :)

Anonymous said...

Haven't read the author yet. Looks interesting. Which book(s) should I begin with?

Kameron Hurley said...

Hey Ian - not sure if it'll be your cup of tea. She's a great writer with a kick ass plot, great characters, and neat world building, but it's also often read as a "romance" novel cause there's quite a bit of sex (and blood and sex, which makes me a bit queasy, but the story's so damn good you just gotta get through it).

Kushiel's Dart is the first in the original series. See if you can get into it. I've actually been meaning to recommend it to Stephanie.

Anonymous said...

I'll give it a try. I don't mind the realism if it has a point. I just don't like authors that use it to sell rather than as a part of a picture. Sometimes art is dark but just because art can be dark doesn't mean it has to be trash. Make any sense?

I'm kinda out of it so I'm sure how coherent I am :P

Anonymous said...

June, baby.
Unless you're in Australia and use the public library, in which case--June '08, maybe.

Grrrrr.

And I would *not* call them 'romance' books. They have an element of romance, sure, but I wouldn't say that that's their focus. And I think that it's telling that if the female protagonist has a romantic interest, it's immedately labeled a romance book (by some people), whereas you don't see that if you have a kick-ass male protagonist who happens to have a romantic interest.

Kameron Hurley said...

imagynne -

And I agree with you that Kushiel shouldn't be read primarily as a "romance" book - but it's very much marketed that way in a lot of circles, and it's made a bunch of romance writing "best of" lists. The Romance genre very much wants to own it.

I consider it epic fantasy, myself. Well, except during that stupid scene where she has sex and, like, touches god. That was kind of cheesy.

And yes - I used to read some of my dad's old westerns, which have the female love interest and sex scenes, but *those* certainly weren't marketed as romance.

I think we also have a prejudice against romances as "weak" or "emotional" fiction because they're written by and for women, and I think we need to either shake that stigma or toss out the "romance" part of the genre and just call them "epic fantasies" or "historical fiction" or whatever sub-category they get marketed as (I personally don't like a lot of the romance formulas because I think they tend to encourage women to "sit around and wait" for some guy to save them. I know that doesn't apply to all romances, but they do have very strict formulas, and most of those really don't work for me. There's a reason these books end in marriage - that's where the story, sadly, stops. Romance books should ultimately be about passion, and I don't think you should have to do that within a certain formula. Having heroes and heroines live adventurous, passionate lives can live outside an outline).

But then, you could argue that all SF/F should be sold as Lit fiction, too. Genre's about marketing. I bet Kushiel sold a lot more because it was marketed in some circles as a "romance" book.