Saturday, October 04

Life

Ready for the Weeekend

Well, I survived the week, and now it's a long weekend here in Pixy Land.

On my way home from the salt mines this evening, I dropped in on my friend Richard, who owns a book store. (Dymocks on the corner of Pitt and Hunter streets in Sydney.) I was looking for a copy of Kushiel's Chosen, the sequel to Kushiel's Dart, the latter having been my bedtime reading material these last few nights.

Normally I avoid long fantasy novels; it's a rare author who can hold my interest for eight hundred pages (much less ten volumes of eight hundred pages each). But when work gets particularly hectic, I sometimes find it hard to get to sleep, because my mind is still buzzing hours after my body has left the office. During one particularly wearing project I read the entire Recluce series, something I wouldn't contemplate when my brain was functioning normally.

As I was saying, for the past week my sleeping pill of choice has been Kushiel's Dart. This book - I don't know how many of you have read it - this book has the same strange attraction as a road accident. You know that you don't want to look; you know what you will see if you do look, and you know that you won't like it. But you have to look anyway, just to have your fears confirmed.

Kushiel's Dart takes place in an elegantly conceived world, with most of the story occurring in a version of France called Terre D'Ange, the land of angels. The D'Angelines are literally descended from angels, and consider themselves something of a breed apart from normal mortals. More beautiful and longer lived.

Though, I must say, rather less intelligent.

The well named Eight Deadly Words in story-telling are I don't care what happens to these people. That's not quite the feeling Kushiel's Dart inspires. Rather, it is a case of I would quite enjoy seeing the villains of the piece being disembowelled and buried upside down in a nest of fire ants. As for the heroes, well, they all need to be whacked upside the head with a clue-by-four, and then sent off to trade school so they can become good and useful members of society.

Post-hole diggers, perhaps. Latrine attendants.

The story is told by Phedre, a masochistic whore sold into slavery by her parents. Her role in the tale is almost entirely passive; she is tossed about on the sea of events and rarely takes a hand in anything. Even when, late in the book, she makes a heroic bid to get a vital message through to a besieged town, there is little sense of excitement or adventure. And she is promptly captured anyway.

The book has been described as erotic, but if you find some of the sex scenes in Kushiel's Dart erotic, then you are a very disturbed individual. The whips, well, those were bad enough, but when Phedre finally gets together with Melisande and the Warning: If you are easily squicked, stop reading now. I mean it! scalpels come out, well... Ugh.

If I had written this book, it would have been about six hundred pages shorter, because Phreddie would have driven a stake through Mel's heart right after that scene. Or possibly even before. Maybe that's why I'm not a best-selling author. Or maybe it's because I haven't finished writing my first book yet.

Well, anyway, I never claimed to be able to resist a good train wreck, so I went to look for Kushiel's Chosen. I didn't spot it immediately, because someone neglected to inform the people stocking the shelves that Card (Orson Scott) comes before Carey (Jacqueline).

What I did find while I was browsing, though, was a copy of A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay, in the wonderful Fantasy Masterworks series, and - completely unlooked for - a new Terry Pratchett novel, Monstrous Regiment.

Well, that goes straight to the top of my to-be-read pile, of course. And since I have nothing planned for the weekend other than setting up a blog or two, maybe a forum, and a little light house keeping,* I may as well go get started on it now.

See you all in the morning.

* Trim the wick, clean the lenses, sound the foghorn, that sort of thing.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:13 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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1 Enjoy your books--you've earned the rest.

Posted by: Susie at Saturday, October 04 2003 12:07 PM (0+cMc)

2 A new Terry Pratchett? Sorry... have to run! [Door slams in distance.]

Posted by: Old Grouch at Saturday, October 04 2003 09:53 PM (2eMGv)

3 Well, Everyday Stranger sent me this direction. So, if you do not like long novels, should I even ask...Ya I should, have you read Middle Earth?

Posted by: Wired Nerve at Sunday, October 05 2003 02:37 PM (lV0lo)

4 Middle Earth? You mean, Lord of the Rings? Yes, but only twice. Tolkien was a rare author indeed.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, October 05 2003 08:57 PM (jtW2s)

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