Books
Kushiel's Avatar
by Jacqueline Carey
Description: Theological Fantasy set in an vastly different medieval
Europe.
Third in a trilogy.
Phedre, a young gods touched
courtesan, and her consort
Joscelin, move beyond the realm of politics and
into vaster riddles of the series. This is an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. It amazes me that
a series so incredibly, hmmm...painfully graphic about pain and pleasure, is ultimately so emotionally satisfying. The final two hundred pages are like the wind in
the desert, a song, a contemplation of a single drop of rain.
Although, as per tradition in this series, everyone had to go through hell before they can go to paradise. Here,
all of the experiences that the characters have endured thus far finally clicked together into this pattern.
This book, and the series really, are about love. Love as a yielding. Love as
a fierce driving force. Love as the scouring of self. And by extension, what
does it mean to have faith. To yield and by yielding, gain.
It was interesting to finally reach of sense of it is to be the avatar of a god of punishment and conversely, mercy.
To be the pain bearer in a world where justice is so often rendered without compassion, here
then is the balance. The sacrifice in a world that is always about sacrifice.
Asherat of the Sea weeping for her lost son. Isis weeping a lake of tears for
lost Osirus. The Magdalene weeping over the Masiach’s dead body, not yet risen
from the tomb. Rahab mourning a love that never was. Hyacinth on his island,
waiting. The Tsingani restless on their long road. The ultimate evil being the
desecration/devouring of love.
Compassion. Love as thou wilt. Love. What can I say, the end made me think of Dante’s giddy paradise, which given the high level
of sex and violence in these books, is saying something.
By all means, pick up the first in the series, the end is worthy of the journey.
The Game
by Laurie King
Description: Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes head to India for some
adventure and another chapter in the Great Game.
It’s really amazing how King gets across the sensuality of having someone
brush your hair, without actually having anything happen.
Not really one of the heaviest books in the series, but the discussion of the
Great Game, the Victorian Cold War, as played between Britain and Russia from
the perspective of the 1920s was interesting. There was this sense of a world
where really big changes are just about to happen, but we aren’t there yet.
Ghandi struggles. India seethes. Lenin has just died. And in Britain, the
conservative party is out and the socialist party is in. How then, Mycroft?
Anyway, fun romp with only marginal injuries.
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