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May. 20th, 2008 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nilchanceQuickie book review:
I picked Black Ships up because of its favorable review on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and... man. I've been looking for a book like this since finishing the Kushiel trilogy. Black Ships has a lot of the same elements: epic scope, first-person POV character who's a priestess for an unforgiving deity, vaguely European setting. I loved Gull, the main character who serves the Goddess of Death (presented in several facets, from Persephone to Sekhmet). I loved the trip to Egypt, I loved the broad lush description of her world, I loved the way Gull served her goddess. I loved that she fell for Xandros, who was in love with Neas, who was in love with Gull; the longing was handled very maturely. In a different author's hands (ahem, Stephanie Meyer) the melodrama could've been oppressive, but instead Gull stated very matter-of-factly that she couldn't forsake her goddess to love Xandros, and she wouldn't marry Neas and thus doom the remains of her culture to be forgotten. I loved, LOVED, that the author didn't flinch from portraying royal marital relations exactly as they were, down to the marriage of a 13 year old girl with a 30-some main character, with consummation implied.
What I didn't love: that the book felt very much unfinished. There was loving detail to the trip south, to their search for a home, and then... the goddess drops their home in their lap and tells them to be happy. M'kay. The goddess of death makes it EASY on them, then. After three hundred pages of sacrifice, searching, honor, duty, it's a deus ex machina that saves them. Frustrating. However, I DID love the balls-out Kripke-esque brutal ending. It just didn't feel like a resolution, to me. It felt like "oh, and by the way, so and so died. Sorry, Gull, it sucks to be you."
Mmm, ancient history. Also, I would lay money down that Graham is pagan.
I picked Black Ships up because of its favorable review on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and... man. I've been looking for a book like this since finishing the Kushiel trilogy. Black Ships has a lot of the same elements: epic scope, first-person POV character who's a priestess for an unforgiving deity, vaguely European setting. I loved Gull, the main character who serves the Goddess of Death (presented in several facets, from Persephone to Sekhmet). I loved the trip to Egypt, I loved the broad lush description of her world, I loved the way Gull served her goddess. I loved that she fell for Xandros, who was in love with Neas, who was in love with Gull; the longing was handled very maturely. In a different author's hands (ahem, Stephanie Meyer) the melodrama could've been oppressive, but instead Gull stated very matter-of-factly that she couldn't forsake her goddess to love Xandros, and she wouldn't marry Neas and thus doom the remains of her culture to be forgotten. I loved, LOVED, that the author didn't flinch from portraying royal marital relations exactly as they were, down to the marriage of a 13 year old girl with a 30-some main character, with consummation implied.
What I didn't love: that the book felt very much unfinished. There was loving detail to the trip south, to their search for a home, and then... the goddess drops their home in their lap and tells them to be happy. M'kay. The goddess of death makes it EASY on them, then. After three hundred pages of sacrifice, searching, honor, duty, it's a deus ex machina that saves them. Frustrating. However, I DID love the balls-out Kripke-esque brutal ending. It just didn't feel like a resolution, to me. It felt like "oh, and by the way, so and so died. Sorry, Gull, it sucks to be you."
Mmm, ancient history. Also, I would lay money down that Graham is pagan.
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Date: 2008-05-22 06:59 am (UTC)