(no subject)
Mar. 31st, 2009 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsMichelle West's The Broken Crown is the first book in The Sun Sword, A Big Fat Fantasy Series. Cons: it has severalt of the flaws common to the Big Fat Fantasy Series. Pros: it has some merits that are not at all common to the Big Fat Fantasy Series. Also, said series is actually completed!
The flaws: First of all, there are a lot of characters. They have a lot of names. Many of these names are very similar. A lot of them involve the classic Fantasy Novel Apostraphes. I had a lot of trouble remembering who was Amara and who was Amaya and who belonged to the one region but had a noble last name that had nothing to do with that region but was unfortunately similar to the noble last name from the other region. Also, the author has the bad habit of often taking time to remind the reader of events that happened right in the previous chapter. Those are not the things I was confused about! And much of the book is pretty clearly setup for Dramatic Things That Will Happen Later In the Series, and the first hundred pages are setup for the setup with characters that we will never see again, which is why it took me a hundred and fifty or two hundred pages to get into the book at all.
The merits: The thing that makes this really stand out from other Big Fat Fantasy Series that I have read is how much of the plot is spurred by, and centered around, relationships among women. And I don't just mean the kind of badass sword-slinging women that you get in most fantasy sagas these days. Most of the plot in this book takes place in a very strict and regulated society where the standard family unit is 1 nobleman::1 head wife::small harem of secondary wives/concubines - and instead of being fetish-y and creepy, as these setups often can be, the book really focuses on the bonds that grow up between the women of the household, how they form intense relationships and a community that is as or more important than their relationship with their husband, and how despite not being recognized as having any authority they can wield power in a number of subtle ways. Also, though there is sort of a destiny thing going on, it is all about choices! Many times choices that women make that quite often do not have anything to do with who they will sleep with! Which is, overall, kind of awesome. I am sure that some would accuse Diora, the main character, of being a Mary Sue - seeing as she is the most beautiful woman in the country and also possessed of secret magic powers! - but I really like her relationships with other women and her difficult decisions and the ways in which she manages to manipulate her status. And the author does a very good job of showing a society that is completely different from ours, and involves a lot of things that we would consider terrible injustices, without vilifying it. By which I mean that there aren't any people running around with suspiciously modern sensibilities all out of tune with their cultures going 'this is all wrong! FREEEEDOM!' as happens in so many fantasy and historical novels.
Which is not to say that there are not ass-kicking women also - there are many different kinds of strong ladies involved in the plot. The more overtly ass-kicking ones live in a different culture that is not as much focused on in this book, although I suspect it will be in later books in the series, and many of them are also very cool and strong and interesting authority figures also. (And one of the protagonists reminds me a lot of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
varadia's X-23.)
So basically, though I have not yet fallen passionately in love with the series, I am definitely interested enough, and admiring enough of a lot of what the author is trying to do, that I will be reading more. Once I overcome the minor dilemma that neither local library system has the second book. NYPL, for once you have failed me!
The flaws: First of all, there are a lot of characters. They have a lot of names. Many of these names are very similar. A lot of them involve the classic Fantasy Novel Apostraphes. I had a lot of trouble remembering who was Amara and who was Amaya and who belonged to the one region but had a noble last name that had nothing to do with that region but was unfortunately similar to the noble last name from the other region. Also, the author has the bad habit of often taking time to remind the reader of events that happened right in the previous chapter. Those are not the things I was confused about! And much of the book is pretty clearly setup for Dramatic Things That Will Happen Later In the Series, and the first hundred pages are setup for the setup with characters that we will never see again, which is why it took me a hundred and fifty or two hundred pages to get into the book at all.
The merits: The thing that makes this really stand out from other Big Fat Fantasy Series that I have read is how much of the plot is spurred by, and centered around, relationships among women. And I don't just mean the kind of badass sword-slinging women that you get in most fantasy sagas these days. Most of the plot in this book takes place in a very strict and regulated society where the standard family unit is 1 nobleman::1 head wife::small harem of secondary wives/concubines - and instead of being fetish-y and creepy, as these setups often can be, the book really focuses on the bonds that grow up between the women of the household, how they form intense relationships and a community that is as or more important than their relationship with their husband, and how despite not being recognized as having any authority they can wield power in a number of subtle ways. Also, though there is sort of a destiny thing going on, it is all about choices! Many times choices that women make that quite often do not have anything to do with who they will sleep with! Which is, overall, kind of awesome. I am sure that some would accuse Diora, the main character, of being a Mary Sue - seeing as she is the most beautiful woman in the country and also possessed of secret magic powers! - but I really like her relationships with other women and her difficult decisions and the ways in which she manages to manipulate her status. And the author does a very good job of showing a society that is completely different from ours, and involves a lot of things that we would consider terrible injustices, without vilifying it. By which I mean that there aren't any people running around with suspiciously modern sensibilities all out of tune with their cultures going 'this is all wrong! FREEEEDOM!' as happens in so many fantasy and historical novels.
Which is not to say that there are not ass-kicking women also - there are many different kinds of strong ladies involved in the plot. The more overtly ass-kicking ones live in a different culture that is not as much focused on in this book, although I suspect it will be in later books in the series, and many of them are also very cool and strong and interesting authority figures also. (And one of the protagonists reminds me a lot of
varadia's X-23.)So basically, though I have not yet fallen passionately in love with the series, I am definitely interested enough, and admiring enough of a lot of what the author is trying to do, that I will be reading more. Once I overcome the minor dilemma that neither local library system has the second book. NYPL, for once you have failed me!
no subject
Date: 2009-03-31 06:11 pm (UTC)(There's a character in the manga Angel Sanctuary whose name I get wrong every time, which is twice as embarrassing because she is my favorite!)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-31 06:32 pm (UTC)First time this happened to me, I was maybe 7? My parents had picked up a set of 'Childrens Classics' which was easy-to-read adaptations of such books like Black Beauty, A Christmas Carol and, most important, The Three Musketeers. Cue me talking to mom about that last one, after I had finished it.
"Oh, and then Darten-Argen-" "Wait. Who?" "Darten-Argen! He... he shows up in the begining to be a Musketeer and gets his letter stolen-" "You mean d'Artagnan!" ".... who's that?"
No one had told me how the name was supposed to be pronounced, and the only other language I had any experience in was Spanish. (Through neighborhood and school.) I needed a mental 'sound' for his name, and that's how it ended up.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-31 06:39 pm (UTC)- I mean, to be fair, when I was 7, I also did that with actual words that I had read-but-not-heard-aloud. I still remember the first time I tried to to use a fancy word to talk about an accident - I was babbling blithely on about the character's unfortunate 'mishup', and my parents were like "...what are you talking about?" To this day I still have trouble remembering which is the right pronunciation for 'mishap'!
no subject
Date: 2009-03-31 06:42 pm (UTC)My mom was a fan of western books as a child, and she told me about one of the first times her dad took her to see a western movie. The characters were in a saloon, and there were some 'ladies' of dubious virtue present as well. Nothing happened (ah, family friendly movies!), but afterwards, my grandfather asked her if she knew what those 'ladies' were.
"Oh, yes! They're 'wars'!" >_>
ie, 'whores' by a young kid who hadn't ever heard the word.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-31 06:51 pm (UTC)I think I would have liked to see your grandfather's face!
no subject
Date: 2009-03-31 07:11 pm (UTC)...
...
*goes to ask*
no subject
Date: 2009-03-31 07:17 pm (UTC)I TOTALLY got the story wrong. No, it wasn't my grandfather taking mom when she was young. It was her and my dad out at the movies, either dating or married. (ie, college age at least) Mom still hasn't heard the word by then in context.
And I still have no idea why dad would have asked her if she 'knew' what those women were. *facepalm*
no subject
Date: 2009-03-31 07:25 pm (UTC)Teaching your date about ladies of the night is TOTALLY THE WAY TO HER HEART.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-31 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-31 06:49 pm (UTC)I really do love that play on D'Artagnan's name though because it makes sense.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-31 07:11 pm (UTC)At least the other three musketeers had easier names!