Kushiel's Dart | Jacqueline Carey | I am so glad I randomly picked this up!

Kushiel's Dart | Jacqueline Carey | It was good.

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Kushiel's Dart

	Kushiel's Dart Jacqueline Carey Tor Fantasy, 2002 - 816 pages average customer review:based on 324 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

I am so glad I randomly picked this up!

I ran across this book at the library one day while browsing the sci-fi/fantasy section and checked it out on a whim. I had no inkling of what I was getting into. That was a few months ago; I've since bought it and read it twice more, along with the sequels, and I'm now reading the series for the fourth time thanks to the recent release of the fifth book ("Kushiel's Justice").

This is one of those rare books that causes me to miss my bus stop even on re-reads. The world Carey has imagined is just fascinating, and I couldn't help but love the characters who populate it. I suppose you could call this book a romance or a fantasy, but it's so much more than the labels suggest. It's got all of the above and more: sex (duh, the main character is a courtesan), intrigue, adventure, friendship, politics, culture clashes, battles, religion ... I still struggle to describe it, and usually just give up trying and insist that people read it so they can see for themselves.

I'm not really a big fan of the "romance" or "fantasy" genres in general -- or any genre, now that I think of it. I am a fan of creative stories with interesting, believable characters and gripping plots, whether they are set in 14th-century alternate-universe France (which this one might be?) or World War II England or 40th century Mars.

I can't say enough good things about this series. Give it a try. You will almost certainly be glad you did.

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It was good.

I must admit that I didn't start off as a believer. I was browsing in my local bookstore when I happened across this title, and the blurb at the back of the book is a big repelling factor. It makes it sound like it's going to be mostly painful (both for the character involved and the reader to `view) sex.
When I stumbled across the title in my local library therefore, I was predisposed to hate it, so it turned out a surprise when I actually really enjoyed it!

All the previous reviews have explained the plot out several times previously, so I won't waste any reader's time regurgitating it in my review.

Sure there's a lot of painful sex, but it's done in a strangely tasteful way and it all adds in meaningful ways to the plot, unlike other fantasy authors who simply use it as an obligatory scene to spice up a dull area in the book. The blend of mythic traditions (Norse, Pictish, Celtic) had the potential to turn very, very nasty, but Carey handled them with care and respect, and they've rewarded her by blending seamlessly into the storyline. Some of her new elements, such as the novel `night court' sub-society, I predict are soon going to be picked up and reused by other authors as being far too good to leave well enough alone.

The wanderings of the central character are compelling, the detail is believable, and the writing itself is polished and fluid. If you liked `Daughter of the Forest' then this is the next book on your reading list.

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A fascinating beginning.

Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Dart (Tor, 2001)

After my first day on Kushiel's Dart, I tallied up the pages I'd read, extrapolated, and budgeted a month for finishing this nine-hundred-page doorstop. It's now five days later, and I finished it last night. There's a lesson to be learned from this: sometimes the pace of the opening pages of a novel do not prepare the reader for what is to come. (Not that I advocate dropping the fifty-page rule, by any means, but just something to note.) I really should know better; Martin's now-iconic A Song of Ice and Fire has one of the slowest first hundred pages I've come across in a modern fantasy series.

Kushiel's Dart is the story (or the first bit of it, anyway) of Phedre no Delaunay, who lives in an alternate-world France during what would seem to be (and my apologies if I'm showing my ignorance of European history here) an era roughly akin to the reign of Louis XIII. This land of Carey's, though, is about as different from Earth as could be. Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a son named Elua, and it is he and his disciples who form the basis of civilized religion in this world. France (Terre d'Ange) and England (Alba) are not trade partners, nor are they enemies; the English Channel is uncrossable, thanks to a figure named the Master of the Straits, capable of whipping up storms to sink any boat that tries to make contact with the other civilization. Italy (Caerdicci) is a land filled with plotting slithery-type folks (okay, so that doesn't really differ from Alighieri's description of Italy a few centuries before all that much). Everything from Germany eastward, as far as we know, is ruled by the Skaldi, northern barbarians. Terre d'Ange is not, to put it mildly, in a terribly strategic position. As if the threats from the outside weren't enough, politics is waged like war within the kingdom. Phedre's patron, Anafiel Delaunay, is one of the combat's most adept players, and he brings Phedre-- born into a house of courtesans-- up to be not only the courtesan she was born to be, but a spy as well. And while the first half of the book seems nothing more than Phedre's memoirs, eventually the plot is revealed in all its glory. And then the real adventures begin.

That the second half of the book is good is, to be fair, not much of an accomplishment. Once you start packing in the action, it's pretty easy to make just about anything readable. What truly impresses me about Kushiel's Dart is that, even with the slight pacing problems of the first fifty or so pages, the first part of the book is just as good. I should mention at this juncture that I don't really do memoirs. Why bother, especially in an age where one can become a star by writing a memoir (rather than writing a memoir because one is a star)? Writing of the "and so it went" variety just doesn't normally work for me. Unless you've got a really good, solid writer on your hands. And the first half of this book is constant, unrelenting "and so it went," to the point of the phrase "and thus it was..." being used multiple times. And I still lapped it up. Why? Because, unlike most of these wannabe memoirists writing actual memoirs these days, Phedre no Delaunay is actually an interesting character. Which, I guess, is easier to do if you're fictional, but Phedre's voice reads real. She's naïve in all the places you'd expect, with a gradually increasing sense of wisdom (and somewhat unavoidable cynicism, given her various plights). These characters interact with one another well, and they're very well-drawn. They could just move around and talk, and it would be interesting. (Oh, wait, that's the first half of the novel.)

There are a few weak points in the novel, most of which are first-novel-blues kinds of things. Chief among them is repetition; the repeated piece that stood out most to me was everyone's wryness. And I mean everyone. They all had wry grins, or spoke wryly, or what have you. I don't think I've seen the word "wry" that much since my last kosher meats convention. (I hasten to add that bad puns are entirely the fault of the review author, and the book is not cursed with them.) That said, such things are certainly not going to keep me from reading what promises to be the rest of an absorbing, fascinating series. ****

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welcome to Terre d'Ange...

I hesitated reading Kushiel's Dart for a number of years for that most superficial of reasons: the cover art. Kushiel's Dart looked like little more than a romance novel wrapped in the swaddling of fantasy. This novel, however, has received a fair amount of critical acclaim and good buzz has popped up in some of the online venues I keep an eye on. So, it is with a mild amount of trepidation which I opened the cover.

The story begins early on in the life of Phedre, a young girl who would soon to be given over to the care of the Night Court, a group of professional courtesans. After spending several years trained at the Night Court she is adopted, or better yet, purchased by a man named Delaunay. Delaunay purchased Phedre's "marque", that which Phedre will need to earn back before she has her complete freedom again. She is not a slave, but she is owned. Delaunay has grander plans than just using Phedre as a source of income. Phedre is to be trained to look, listen, and think, to work as something of a spy for Delaunay has she goes on her assignations with the elite of Terre d'Ange.

The first hundred pages or so cover Phedre's training, her friendship with a gypsy boy named Hyacinthe, and her training by Delaunay. Jacqueline Carey is setting the stage for what is to come and to prepare Phedre and the reader for the rest of the novel. It would be very easy, however, to close the book any time during the first hundred pages in frustration because while there is quite a bit going on, there is the feeling that nothing actually happened.

The second hundred pages or so solve this problem as Phedre is permitted to start earning her marquee back and starts working as a courtesan for Delaunay. These second hundred pages can veer, at times, to soft core pornography. There is a good deal of sex, and because of the nature of Phedre's gift (she is an anguissette, touched by the god Kushiel, which is of a benefit to her "work" and allows her pleasure in pain), the sex is frequently violent. Carey toes a very fine line in showing the reader the nature of Phedre's work without going into too explicit detail. There are several instances, though, where Carey shows us more than the others so we better know just how violent and sexual things are for Phedre and just how much pleasure she gets from the pain.

This is only the beginning of the story, though. There are still five hundred more pages of "action" and plot. When the intrigue which Delauney has introduced Phedre to but never quite gave her all of the details about comes full circle to threaten Delaunay and Phedre's life, Phedre must choose survival over pride and expedience over her own desires and wishes. Phedre must use all of the skills at her disposal, intellectual and physical, to survive and protect Terre d'Ange from treachery internal and threats external.

Kushiel's Dart was a pleasant surprise. The first person narration from Phedre was very effective as Carey perfectly captures the voice of the character and when Phedre declines to graphically explain certain events it does not harm the story, but rather gives the story shading and perspective from the narrating character. Carey is, perhaps, a bit long winded and spends a bit too much time having Phedre dealing with whatever her current situation is. It is all appropriate for the story, but Kushiel's Dart is also a 700 page doorstop of a novel and there is some fat in the novel which could well have been trimmed. In particular, the first two hundred pages had extraneous text, though Carey does a very good job in making reference later to what seemed at first to be padding. This is to say that while Kushiel's Dart is very much on the wordy side, Jacqueline Carey makes even unimportant events early on become important later in the novel. Because of this, it is difficult to say exactly what should have been trimmed, but 700 pages is still a bit much to ask for from the reader for a first novel.

With all of that said, Carey does an excellent job making Phedre a believable character and the political intrigue and motivations credible. Phedre's world feels like a place that could possibly exist. As the novel progresses, Phedre still uses the physical tools she has at her disposal (her body), but Carey no longer goes into great detail in what goes on between the sheets. This is to Carey's and the novel's benefit because had the sex not taken a back seat later in the novel Kushiel's Dart would have been little more than a soft core novel with some fantasy elements (i.e. more suited to be shelved in the romance section than fantasy).

Kushiel's Dart far exceeded my expectations and while I feel no inclination to rush out and find a copy of the next book, Kushiel's Chosen (another 700 page doorstop), I did enjoy the time spent in Terre d'Ange and will likely return for another visit to the intrigue of Phedre's world.

- Joe Sherry

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