Book #12- Kushiel's Chosen, #13 - Kushiel's Avatar, and #14 Brave New Worlds

[corrielle]

12. Kushiel's Chosen by Jacqueline Carey


At the end of Kushiel's Dart, Phedre's clever arch-nemesis Melisande escaped.  This, of course, has terrible implications for the stability of Terre d'Ange and everything Phedre cares about, so Kushiel's Chosen is all about Phedre's attempts to thwart Melisande's next plot before it can throw Terre d'Ange into chaos.  Just as the first novel in the series was a heady mixture of court intrigue, battles, and adventures in far off places, this one manages to mix echoes of Dumas (if La Dolaroasa wasn't modeled off of the Chateu d'If, I'll eat my shoe) and Stevenson (in the pirate/sea story sections) nearly seamlessly.

Throughout, Phedre stays clever, keeps her wits about her, and makes friends in strange places.  It was interesting to see d'Angelines from the point of view of the other "civilized" places she travels to, like La Serenissima and Krite.  They are not universally loved, and their regard for women and openness about sexuality is by no means a given in other places.

It is interesting to not that the two relationships that Phedre most... values (or more correctly, I should say "responds to") are interesting to note:  we've got Joscelin, her monk among libertines, and Melisande, who can exercise an incredible amount of control over Phedre because of what Kushiel's Dart makes her want. That Phedre manages so often to deny it is a testament to her strength of will.  And when she falters... well... it's a good thing that Joscelin is around when he's most needed.


13. Kushiel's Avatar by Jacqueline Carey


This is by far the darkest and most disturbing book of the series. I started reading in the afternoon, and when it was past time for me to sleep, I was nearly halfway through the book, and I was in a place so awful I couldn't stop reading for fear of what my dreams would be like if I did.  So I read until I was sure everything was ok.

Still, this was a good entry into the series.  Phedre and Joscelin are older and wiser, and they have the wisdom of long experience to help them find balance between them.

Things get interesting when Melisande's son goes missing.  Lots of people want to find him, but Phedre is the only one who wants to get to him for non-political reasons.  That quest, coupled with her determination to free Hyacinthe, will take her all over the map, and to a dark, terrible place where evil and darkness incarnate just happen to be on the verge of launching a fight for world domination.  That's the part that had me up reading until 2 AM.  I am... fairly thick skinned when it comes to disturbing imagery described in print (no pictures).  But this part of the book was hard for me to take.  It's good, and it makes sense and is in character and well written and really interesting from an objective, unemotional standpoint... and I almost couldn't handle it.

One of the things I really like about this series is the way that it explores the variety of forms that love can take.  Imriel's capacity for affection despite all he's been through is a good example of this.  There's Phedre and Joscelin, of course, but there's also the twisted, messed up love of the Mahrkagir, the love Melisande has for her son, Phedre's love for Hyacinthe, and the pulsing, interconnected nature of all things that Phedre sees when she has the Name in her head, waiting to be spoken.  (By the way, I think the whole plot line with the Name is... fascinating, and one of the neatest takes on divine essence in a human body that I've ever read.) 

I was utterly satisfied in the end.  I think the next book is going to focus mostly on a grown up Imriel, so this is a good end for the part of the story that Phedre is central to.


14. Brave New Worlds edited by John Joseph Adams


A couple of years ago, I decided that when I taught novels in my introduction to literature class, I was going to do two dystopian works.  It gets my students' attention, and on the whole I have more stimulating discussion and more student engagement then I did when I used to teach… say… The Awakening.  So, for the last few semesters, it's been Brave New World and The Handmaid's Tale for me and my Intro to Lit folks. So, when I saw a collection of short stories titled Brave New Worlds, I figured I should buy it.  You know… for classroom use. ;-) 

Having read through it, I'm not sorry I bought it, and I may even be working a couple of the stories into my next course, at least in an extra credit kind of way. Teaching considerations aside, this is a really neat collection.  Some of the authors' names I recognized immediately--Ursula LeGuin, Phillip K. Dick, Robert Silverberg--and others I had never heard of before in my life.  As it turned out, some of the stories by those new-to-me authors ended up being my favorites. The stories are... not exactly grouped by category, but they did seem to be placed so that stories dealing with similar themes were more or less together.  It made me think a lot about the various ways that societies can go terribly, horribly wrong, and what our imagining of those societies says about us and our worries.

Thematically, some of the stories that were most disturbing to me were those where the truly horrific elements of the dystopian society centered around control of reproduction, either by restricting it or making it compulsory.  The ones that really stood out to me here were "Auspicious Eggs" and "Pop Squad" -- two stories that depict two societies whose attitudes towards childbirth and pregnancy are perfectly diametrically opposed.  And, while I think they speak to two very different fears (a forced return to radicalized, traditional religious values on the one hand and overpopulation on the other) they were both terrifying.  So often, the term "choice" gets linked to abortion rights, so it was fascinating to read about a world where the choice to have a child was the taboo, forbidden act.

And speaking of issues that are all tangled up in questions of gender and sexuality and oppression... the story "O Happy Day" turned a lot of the tropes of the dystopian genre upside down.  It's the first story I've ever read where women were the oppressors, and not in a campy, B-movie "We are all amazons and capture men to take to our camp for breeding" kind of way. It made me distinctly uncomfortable, and it made me think.

The shadow cast by 1984 is a long one, and many of the stories in this collection deal with mechanization, individuality, and government control.  Some of the societies in these stories use types of surveillance that even George Orwell couldn't have imagined that wouldn't seem too far off to a reader now. There was also a healthy dose of corporate culture bashing, which made me smile a bit.  (I think "Dead Space for the Unexpected" and "Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman" were especially fun.) And for a story that asks, "What happens when the machines we create to make our lives easier take over... benignly?" the story "Resistance" is an interesting read. 

Another overarching theme of dystopian fiction that is present here is this:  emotion, creativity, and humanity will find a way to express themselves, even under the most hostile of conditions. Brave New World plays with this a great deal, and it's the crux of another of my favorite stories in this collection, "Jordan's Waterhammer."  That's also a story that asks, "What price do those without value pay to support those with value?  Whose backs does a society live off of?"  Of course, the story that really deals with that  in a simple, stunningly effective way is Ursula LeGuin's "The Ones that Walk Away from Omelas."  I'd never had a chance to read it before and... wow.

One of the big questions that I ask my students when we read the two novels I assign in, "What are the trade offs here? What have these societies given up in order to get the things they consider important?" This question is brought into sharp relief in the story "Of A Sweet, Slow Dance in the Wake of Temporary Dogs." (Which also happens to be one of the coolest titles ever.) I…  can't even talk about why and how it deals with that question without giving something away that is better left to the story to reveal, but I can say that it was both one of the most beautiful and the most horrifying stories in the whole collection.

And finally... I think the story that gives the ones previously mentioned a run for their money in the "disturbing" category would have to be "Sacrament." We debate the definition of torture all the time... this society doesn't.  They know exactly where their lines are.  And after I read this story, I had to get up, walk away, pet my cats, and not read anything else for a while.  It's good. But not for the psychologically squeamish.

I've mentioned a few of my favorites here, but the entire thing is worth your time if you're a fan of mind-bending, occasionally terrifying "what ifs."