For the past few weeks, i have been totally immersed in jacqueline carey’s series Kushiel’s Legacy. It’s divided into two trilogies, and the final book is being released next month. One of my friends got an early copy of it, and promised to let me borrow it. So, i’ve been reacqainting myself with this world by rereading the first 5 books. And they ain’t small.
It’s not my absolute favoritest series of books (George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire holds that honor), but it’s way near the top of the list. It falls into the same sort of genre as Martin’s books, though — the same type of setting, a midieval type world with kings & queens and intrigue & politics, with various factions try to sieze control of the throne. Carey’s books are probably considered fantasy, although the fantastical elements are more of what i think of as supernatural than typical fantasy. For example, different kids of gods with different powers, or dead spirits possessing living people. In contrast, typical fantasy might include things like dragons and elves or other non-human entities.
The world map of the first book resembles Europe. In later books, the advertures reach out to further places, and include much of Asia and Africa. All the countries have different names, but the descriptions of the nationalities are often similar to their real counterparts, so the imagination has something to go on.
The first series of books revolves around Phedre. She is born with a red mote in her left eye, marked by the gods to endure pain as pleasure. Yes, sexually. She is raised as a courtesan, although in that world, it is a type of calling that is not only tolerated, but revered. And, she is also trained as a spy.
This combination makes for quite an interesting story. There’s certainly a lot of sex. Not all of it is of the painful kind, but there is some of that too, although she appears to enjoy it. Phedre gets tangled in a net of intrigue, and has to figure out how to save the throne for its rightful heir. As you might guess, the means for accomplishing this task is sometimes obtained through sex. But it’s well-done; it’s part of the story and not just gratuitous.
It really is an amazingly well-written story. Carey made her debut with this series, and it’s impressive that this is someone’s first body of work. If you like fantasy, you’ll probably like this. You’ll definitely like it if you like George Martin.