By Jacqueline Carey.
This is the book that kinda prompted me to start this booklog. It's one I'd seen around and thought about reading for awhile, even though I couldn't really figure out why. Hell, it's a book about some S&M chick, isn't it? Ewwww. Until one day, when I'm hanging around in the used bookstore killing time for an hour and start flipping through it...
Trying to describe what this is about is a bitch, as someone on a message board and I were saying the other day. Most of the time the best I can attempt to explain the premise to you is about what I put in the thread: "Uh, it takes place in an alternate Earth back in the past, where Jesus had a child, kinda, and everyone in France worships that child and his companions as gods, and the heroine is a God-gifted masochistic courtesan/spy..." at which point people give me funny looks and run away.
It's not nearly as bad as it sounds.
In alternate-France (known here as Terre d'Ange), among other things, prostitution is a religious practice as well as a moneymaking one. People can be sold to one of the thirteen Houses and trained in those arts, and hopefully make enough money to free themselves. Our narrator, Phedre, was sold into one a House, but is regarded as imperfect because of the red dot in her left eye. Little do most people know that the red dot means that she's been chosen by the companion god Kushiel (former profession: loving Punisher of God) to be able to feel pleasure as well as pain when painful things happen. A man who does know what this means, former poet and prince's consort Anafiel Delaunay, buys Phedre and trains her along with his other pupil Alcuin to both be courtesans...and his personal spies into the realm. Eventually, things get interesting.
This book really isn't about sex, deep down. It's an aspect, sure, but it's not the main thing. And as for the S&M content, there really isn't all that much of it. Some somewhat squicky aspects and a few scenes, but it's not all The Story of O either. Hell, sex for the most part drops out of a lot of the book. Really, it's all about politics, with a wee bit of magic and some gods thrown in in interesting ways. It's actually quite haunting in its own way. And the heroine is totally kickass in her own way. It's great to see a girl manage to pull through and accomplish with only her own abilities to do it.
The other characters in it are also very intriguing. There's Phedre's Gypsy-equivalent fortunetelling childhood best friend, her lord Anafiel and the mystery of his life, his friend (and Phedre's patron) the mesmerizing Melisande Shahrizai, and a host of others that are fascinating. I can imagine this series as an epic miniseries on TV, except that it would cost too much and have too much bisexuality for their tastes, alas.
Excellent book.
Posted by Jenmoon at June 4, 2003 10:37 PM