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.
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
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.
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.
This is my personal blog, and the opinions expressed here are solely, completely, and absolutely my own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any past, present, or future employer, business partner, contact, or associate.
Labor is hard work. Forcing
women to labor against their will -
is slavery.
"I'm not afraid of storms,
for I'm learning to sail my ship."
-Louisa May Alcott
"No person is your friend who demands your silence."
-Alice Walker
"I never expect men to give us liberty. No, women, we are not worth it until we take it."
- Voltairine de Cleyre
"The vote means nothing to women.
We should be armed."
-Edna O'Brien
"The dogma of woman's complete historical subjection
to men must be rated as one of the most fantastic myths
ever created by the human mind."
-Mary Ritter Beard
"They sicken of the calm that know the storm."
-Dorothy Parker
"I got kicked out of ballet class because I pulled a groin muscle.
It wasn't mine."
-Rita Rudner
"Adventure is worthwhile in itself."
-Amelia Earhart
"Don't be afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin." -Grace Hansen
"I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex." -Katharine Hepburn
"Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow
talent to the dark place where it leads." -Erica Jong
"I have always had a dread of becoming a passenger in life."
-Margareth II, Queen of Denmark:
"I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things.
I don't do any thing. Not one single thing."
-Dorothy Parker
"You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you." -Mary Tyler Moore
"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." -Anais Nin
"No more tears now; I will think about revenge." -Mary, Queen of Scots
"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in
which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the
thing which you think you cannot do." -Eleanor Roosevelt
"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." -Muriel Strode
"People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute." -Rebecca West:
"If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain.
You are confined by your own repression."
-Toni Morrison
"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." -Delores Ibarruri
"Study as if you were going to live forever; live as if you were going to die tomorrow." -Maria Mitchell
"This is the precept by which I have lived: Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes."
-Hannah Arendt
"If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it."
-Toni Morrison
"I have no regrets. I wouldn't have lived my life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say."
-Ingrid Bergman
"We know that we can do what men can do, but we still don't know that men can do what women can do.
That's absolutely crucial. We can't go on doing two jobs."
-Gertrude Stein
"The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off." -Gloria Steinem
"It's all make believe, isn't it?" -Marilyn Monroe
"I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems
without signing them, was often a woman." — Virginia Woolf
"I'm just a person trapped inside a woman's body."
-Elayne Boosler
"Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed.
If I fail, no one will say, 'She doesn't have what it takes.'
They will say, 'Women don't have what it takes.'"
-Clare Boothe Luce
"Soon they'll be telling you you can't be Batman, Shakespeare, President, or God.
Little fat baby, going on schoolgirl, you can be anyone, but it won't be easy."
-Marilyn Hacker
"We've begun to raise daughters more like sons...
but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters."
-Gloria Steinem
"Remember our heritage is our power; we can know ourselves and our
capacities by seeing that other women have been strong."
-Judy Chicago
"My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people:
those who work and those who take the credit.
He told me to try to be in the first group;
there was less competition there."
-Indira Gandhi
"I want to walk through life instead of being dragged through it."
- Alanis Morissette
"Nothing will work unless you do."
-Maya Angelou
"Feminism is the radical notion that women are people."
-Cheris Kramare and Paula Treichler
7 comments so far. What are your thoughts?
I wonder how many cover artists out there now specialize in painting the tattooed backs of women.
Posted by JeremyT
Read it last weekend. It's awesome.
Sometimes, it's good to be a book reviewer. And this is definitely one of those times. :)
Haven't read the author yet. Looks interesting. Which book(s) should I begin with?
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.
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
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.
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.
Post a Comment