B-log: Faces Under Water

I have a particular fondness for authors who are talented enough to attempt to retell fairy tales (in no small part because the majority of my stories, both finished and incomplete, are right along those lines). So when I journey to my local library, I have a list of certain authors whose work tends to fall into that category and for whom I look. True to form, my library tends not to have those authors' works and, on the rare occasions it does, I tend to find their books from different genres.

Faces Under Water, by Tanith Lee, was one of those books: picked up because I knew the author's name and figured "well, why not?" Having read the book, I can now answer that question. Lee's storytelling style, while gorgeous, lacks a sense of clarity and comprehensibility. Which is all well and good, except rumor has it that something might have been happening in the plot and it would have been nice to have been able to follow along. That, however, is the least of the book's flaws.

The story, once I figured it out, was not all that bad. Furian, a young lordling who abandoned his family for reasons unknown, is working around the canals of Venus (Venice) when he comes upon a mask under the water, presumably still attached to the body last wearing it. He takes it to his doctor friend and proceeds to forget all about it, at least until a couple of hitmen start hunting him and he falls for a lovely maiden in a butterfly mask. Thing "get weirder" as Furian finds himself enveloped in a giant conspiracy run by some fairly prominent members of Venus
and it is only with the help of Doctor Shaachen's magic and his newly found love that he has the smallest chance of survival.

I was particularly unimpressed with Furian as a hero. His motives are never clear and, while Lee clearly wants him to be the archetypal lord's son with a heart of gold, you get the feeling that Furian's behavior is because his author is directly forcing him to be this way and he's cooperating rather sullenly. His love for the butterfly lady is completely unbelievable and feels much more like fleeting lust cemented by sex with a wooden doll. And then he has his clichéd moment of doubt in order to add to the angst. That just killed it for me. I have no problem with creating situations in which the hero/ine is unsure of a lover's fidelity and behaves accordingly. But in order for me to believe that Furian actually doubted her, then he would have to be an utter moron. To be fair, though, his behavior in the rest of the book does not suggest any differently, but I'm incapable of rooting for a hero with a total of two brain cells to rub together who is supposed to be intelligent.

If you can get past the first one hundred pages, which are tedious beyond all measure, there is a reasonably interesting mystery behind it all. What is happening is clear (err, except to Furian the idiot) from the beginning, but the how is what kept me reading and the way Lee ties everyone together is extremely satisfying. The book's high point is definitely Doctor Shaachen and his magic; everything was much more entertaining when he was around.

Lee does have a lovely way with words and the images she can evoke are almost better suited to poetry than to fantasy. Her descriptions of Venus are deliciously full and inviting. Despite the strange and dreamy quality of her words, the place she creates comes through with all the vividness of a surrealist painting. It is disappointing to find that the material does not remotely do justice to the language.

B-log: Daughter of the Blood

Moving on in the realm of my ever so sophisticated literary taste, I recently reread Daughter of the Blood, by Anne Bishop. Something that is very clearly not children's literature. I would certainly not recommend it for anyone under sixteen (though I'm sure a select few precocious and gruesome thirteen year old girls would get a kick out of it). The plot is nothing new - the chosen one is born and must be helped to achieve HER destiny by a supporting cast including aged (50,000 years, give or take) mentor, snarky friends and gorgeous love interest. What makes this book so special, at least in my eyes, is a combination of two things. Firstly, it is a very well handled reversal of the fantasy norms. And secondly, it is unpretentious.

Daughter of the Blood is the first book in the Black Jewels Trilogy, which already sets the tone for the rest of the series. Bishop has created a world with the usual roles of light and dark are reversed, where darkness implies more power and, as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility. The magic users, called "The Blood" have been misusing their power and unbalancing the semi-precarious relationship between the genders; using men to dis-empower women and women to keep men on a tight leash.

Into this world is born "Witch", the most powerful of all the Blood. It is up to her to save the realms, assuming she lives long enough. This first book is our introduction to the ways of the blood and to some of the main characters, including Daemon Sadi, who is destined to be witch's lover; Lucivar Yaslana, Daemon's half brother and Saetan SaDiablo, the High Lord of Hell. I'm sure you're groaning by now, but don't be fooled by the names. These men are deadly, but follow a code of honor as strict as any knight. And they are, without a doubt, drop dead gorgeous.

Bishop is not trying to create a realistic cast of characters and, if that is something that bothers you. don't read the book. However, if you're willing to acknowledge her characters as some sort of (specifically male) ideal, then you're good to go. And the story itself is quite creative and fun to follow, especially for those of us who enjoy a good fantasy, but have had our fill and then some of the Richard Rahls, Rand al Thors, Aragorns and even Harry Potters that populate the literature. The Black Jewels trilogy is high fantasy geared towards women, with the goal of providing enjoyment. As a professor of mine once said, Romance Novels are pornography for women. We'll call this softcore for geek girls, then.

Part of the appeal of this book is how Bishop deliberately twists her Universe to make women the dominant sex. This is another lovely genre reversal and much of the book seems to be based on the premise of men deferring to women. Women have a higher caste and queens rule the territory, not kings. However, it is made clear that men, being the physically stronger sex, are there to protect and serve the women. So these blood males are bred to have all the qualities that females instinctively look for in a mate: good genes, commitment, protection, etc. Bishop might not have originally had this in mind, but she created the perfect male...from an evolutionary perspective. And, while that certainly goes a long way in explaining Lucivar and Daemon's appeal, the complex world she creates from the simple reversal of one gender role and the rule of light and dark is astounding.

Daughter of the Blood is only the first book and much of it is really focused on building this universe and examining how things can go terribly wrong with the system, in a manner reminiscent of some of the gender problems in our own. The next two focus on how "Witch" needs to set things right. This book receives such a high recommendation from me because I do find myself going back to it and rereading it. Is it great literature? No. But it sets out to accomplish a certain task and it does so masterfully, if in a little bit more gory detail that I could write with a straight face. Oh, and once again, rated R for the amount of sex, violence and combinations of the two.