Book information

Books in the Series

• Kushiel's Dart
• Kushiel's Chosen
• Kushiel's Avatar

Author: Jacqueline Carey

Plot Synopsis: In the nation of Terre d'Ange Phedrè is born, unwanted and cast off. She's given into the service of the Night Court (no, she's not sold to an 80s legal situation comedy, but rather to the nation's guild of prostitutes. Said guild, like most of the mechanisms of this nation, is derived from the religion created at the time said nation was founded), where she discovers she is favoured by the angel-cum-god Kushiel, and born to bear pain with joy. She is adopted into the home of a compassionate man who nonetheless has covertous use for her talents and trainings, becomes a courtesan in this man's service, acquires a faithful protector and has many adventures.
    In some ways, the early plot structure resembles that of Les Miserables (Victor Hugo's book, not the musical; while I love the latter, it lacks the complexity of character of the book) written with a feminist agenda, which is just a fascinating way to have gone. This resemblance fades midway through the first novel, however.

Commentary: Yes, I'm being purposefully banal in my description of the plot beyond what you could glean from the back cover of the books. Ninety percent of the joy you derive from this series stems from seeing in which direction Carey takes the plot; and the other half comes from the richly painted characters she's set up. The rest of your joy will come from the beautiful tapestry in front of which the story plays out.
    Hmm, that might add up to more than a hundred percent. Eh, I'm a programmer, what do I need with math skills?
    The Kushiel cycle is a fascinating take on the fantasy genre, delighting me at every turn. Carey seems to have set out with the purpose of exploding many of the conventions one would normally find in a genre book and the risk has paid off. Let's list what comes to mind, shall we?

• The Gulf of Magic: This is going to be the hardest point to cover, which is why I'm tackling it first. Despite the fact that in much of fantasy you have people riding all over the landscape, hurling fireballs and shaking the firmament as they draw lightning from the sky, do you ever get the feeling that there's an unconscious, invisible divide between the mundane and the magical in most of these worlds? It's very hard to put into words, but it feels in these books as though the author has taken our world's past and, however skillfully, 'bolted on' the mystical side of things into their book. There's a sense of magic either being seen as a one-to-one drop-in replacement for science, or else a world law best honoured in the breach with little reconciliation of how the presence of interventionalist gods, spell-singers and the like would actually affect the universe's society.
      The best fantasy books I've read have managed to avoid this gulf, and I'm glad to say that the Kushiel series manages it as well. There's very little overt magic-use (save for those few individuals who, when they appear, shake the firmament), but its existence is truly reflected in the behaviours of the people and the structures of their societies. The characters (at least the ones to which we're introduced in the beginning) are Merovingians and they know it. Their society is built around that fact. When a character swears an oath to a god, something happens.
      One of the most jarring devices I've seen used in fantasy is to establish that seers are puisient, accurate and able to glimpse beyond the misty veils of the future... only to have a character in said book scoff at them, ignore their prophecy and thus stumble head-long into danger. This is not just bad foreshadowing (and I'll make a case that it's the exception rather than the rule when prophecy is used well as foreshadowing); it's also a very poor use of the world one has built. The Kushiel series, on the other hand, never falls to this. Though some may not believe in the potency of one god's demands, this is usually because said person serves a different god, who holds with a different set of rules, traditions and adherences. The conflict thus generated is natural, and does not jar.
• Swords and Sorcery, Might and Magic: The main character in these books is a submissive. This does not mean that she's a mouse who must grow into a lion; it is her fated portion to accept pain and yield to another's will (though don't be fooled, the character does grow). There have been other genre books about characters who must solve their problems by means other than strength of arms or potency of spell, but they tend to be more the exception than the rule (and possibly why I tend to dwell more in the science fiction shelves, where more of this kind of thing can be found). Phedrè overcomes her obstacles through cleverness and submission, which is a fascinating combination about which to read. Her status as a submissive is not a simple fact, but is always an important part of her character and how she approaches the problem at hand.
• The Left-Handed Path of Drama: I'll be frank, I'm sick of hearing the phrase 'it's dramatically appropriate'. Ever since literature has been around, there have been people desperate to pigeonhole genres into to-do lists (read The Cid if you want to see a perfect example of what happens when you feel you have to adhere completely to The Dramatics) to follow and marks to hit. We do have a need for our literature to follow some patterns (starting with formalized language and moving to the more abstract qualities, like setting, plot structure and the like); but we always seem to be in danger of becoming hide-bound and staid in what we produce. How many movies or books have you taken in where you can guess what's going to happen next because the next move made is 'dramatically appropriate'? Worse, how many have you taken in where you can guess the entire structure of the plot in the first five minutes?
      This is another place where the Kushiel series shines. In many cases the characters don't necessarily take the dramatically appropriate path: they take the most appropriate path. I'll try to illustrate this without spoilers -- there is one character (my personal favourite in the series) who is an oath-sworn warrior. There are many points where he bumps up against his oath and has to make hard decisions as to whether he will honour or break it. In almost every case, where the sinister path of drama would dictate he make one choice, he makes a far more difficult (and in terms of writing, more challenging to the author; and thus, more interesting to the reader) choice.
• Moralcentricity: One of the reasons the above point is even possible comes out of another choice which Carey made that I find interesting. Despite the fact that the book is written from the first-person perspective, it never actually adopts a moral centre. The reader is never given a safe path to follow; the reader is never given an Absolute Decree that 'this is the correct choice'. The characters make choices for themselves and must at times come to terms with the fact that what is right varies from land to land, person to person; this is another place where the main character's ability to yield becomes very important, as she is able to submit herself to the dictates of other cultures and other people in order to see through their eyes. Fortunately, however, she is not perfect in this and gets into terrible rows with those who hold moralities too 'wrong' to her own (which is a feature, rather than a negative. A completely pliant character would have reduced the level of interesting conflict in this book considerably. Phedrè is a very strong-willed character when she's not submitting).
• Action: There's a lot of it. It's not all clashes of arms (see a few points above). Most of the action, in fact, is on the social plane. It's no less thrilling for this; in fact, the dynamic between Phedrè and the series' main antagonist is one of the most electric I've read.
• Sexuality: I've not seen a book take a divergent look at sexual this well since Tanya Huff's Sing The Four Quarters. This can be a flaw (see below) and a strength in one; for the most part, however, it's a strength. Sensuality is an essential part of the culture in this book and a cornerstone to the main character's personality. There's nothing gratuitous about its use here; I honestly can't think of how the book could have been written without it (which is not to say that overt sexuality has to be a part of fantasy; it just had to be a part of this series).
      And thus I need to furnish a warning here: if you have trouble with depictions of sexuality (see Flaws below), especially submission/pain, you may need to either mentally prepare yourself for reading this series or give it a miss altogether. I have personal (emotional, not moral) problems with such imagery and so feel it necessary to make the caveat.

Flaws: I've discussed this series' strengths, and I believe it has quite a few of those. I should, however, hit some of the books' low points if only to not paint them with too glowing a brush.

• Frustration: Unless you have the patience of a saint, you will find yourself frustrated with some or all of the characters in any given scene. There are times when you will want to slap said characters around. This is not always a negative however, as the satisfaction of watching how someone with a very different outlook than yours clears these challenges can be profound.
• Structure: The first two books resemble most a skein of interconnected and tangled threads. The last book maintains this in part, but seems far more linear than the other two. I felt a slight dissatisfaction at this, though it may have been for the best. Hard to say in retrospect.
• Sexuality: I'm a lightweight when it comes to depictions of sex. I get squick easily. It's a failing of mine, and it meant that there were portions of this book that I had to simply skim, because I didn't want to know exactly how tab A fit into slot B (with a whole lot of scoring the paper along the way). There's nothing gratuitous in this book, it's all appropriate... but if you're like me, know your limits and be aware that you will have to deal with them.

Moments to Watch For

• Beautifully described fight scenes.
• Powerful emotional scenes (there are spots where I was in tears)
• Interesting and well-painted divine interventions.

Recommended: Yes. With the above caveats, it's a very worthwhile book series.

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