Bishop, Anne - Shalador's Lady
Sat, Apr. 10th, 2010 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterAfter the events in The Shadow Queen, Cassidy is tentatively set up in Dena Nehele, but the delicate new balance between her and her First Circle is thrown off when someone new comes in...
I reread the original trilogy and The Invisible Ring after reading this, and I'm a bit sad how the hints of how a powerful Queen and her court balance out has been domesticized and made into a lot of fussing and whatnot as each successive book goes on. There are some very interesting undercurrents going on through Bishop's Black Jewel books, such as the male need to serve or the way female anger works, but sadly, Bishop either doesn't seem to be aware of the bits that push the envelope, or she shies away from them and buries them under more typical gender roles.
This book, as with the rest, has a similar dichotomy. I like how the Black Jewel books always include female friendship, and I was especially glad to see Cassidy nurturing and training a younger Queen. But I dislike how the evil women are always portrayed as sluts and bitches. I'm glad in this case, the villain isn't as unredeemable as the villains in the Black Jewel books, but I wish the world's sexual dynamics were less virgin/whore.
Still, Bishop at least managed to tone down Jaenelle and the boys' appearances; they're still a bit distracting here, but at least they serve only as supporting characters to Cassidy's plot as opposed to having plot of their own. And it's always awesome to see Karla again.
I also liked how the ending mirrors The Invisible Ring, though Bishop's handling of racial minorities in the form of the Shalador people isn't exactly subtle.
And there are hints that her worldbuliding is just not that well thought out—coffee shops and bustling downtowns make the world feel unexpectedly modern in a way that feels unintentional instead of purposeful.
Still, because there are those hints of interesting-ness (I still love the focus on the lighter Jeweled people), I keep reading the Black Jewels books. Mostly, though, I want some fanfic writer to go in and completely re-envision it to make things darker and to really shake up the gender roles. Frex, how does homosexuality or transgendered-ness work in a world so focused on male vs. female?
I reread the original trilogy and The Invisible Ring after reading this, and I'm a bit sad how the hints of how a powerful Queen and her court balance out has been domesticized and made into a lot of fussing and whatnot as each successive book goes on. There are some very interesting undercurrents going on through Bishop's Black Jewel books, such as the male need to serve or the way female anger works, but sadly, Bishop either doesn't seem to be aware of the bits that push the envelope, or she shies away from them and buries them under more typical gender roles.
This book, as with the rest, has a similar dichotomy. I like how the Black Jewel books always include female friendship, and I was especially glad to see Cassidy nurturing and training a younger Queen. But I dislike how the evil women are always portrayed as sluts and bitches. I'm glad in this case, the villain isn't as unredeemable as the villains in the Black Jewel books, but I wish the world's sexual dynamics were less virgin/whore.
Still, Bishop at least managed to tone down Jaenelle and the boys' appearances; they're still a bit distracting here, but at least they serve only as supporting characters to Cassidy's plot as opposed to having plot of their own. And it's always awesome to see Karla again.
I also liked how the ending mirrors The Invisible Ring, though Bishop's handling of racial minorities in the form of the Shalador people isn't exactly subtle.
And there are hints that her worldbuliding is just not that well thought out—coffee shops and bustling downtowns make the world feel unexpectedly modern in a way that feels unintentional instead of purposeful.
Still, because there are those hints of interesting-ness (I still love the focus on the lighter Jeweled people), I keep reading the Black Jewels books. Mostly, though, I want some fanfic writer to go in and completely re-envision it to make things darker and to really shake up the gender roles. Frex, how does homosexuality or transgendered-ness work in a world so focused on male vs. female?
Tags:
it could be worse
Sun, Apr. 11th, 2010 09:02 am (UTC)The overall Jewels world is interesting - there are so many aspects that could be explored that it's sad that some things never seem to get touched on enough. It took me longer than it should have to realize that Rainier was gay, and then I started wonder, "But how does that work?" - there really are some great things Bishop could explore, but, at the point that I stopped, she hadn't done anything. From the sounds of things, she still hasn't done anything.
Still, her world is more daring and interesting than some. A while back, I read A Ritual of Proof by Dara Joy, a "futuristic" romance set in a Regency England-ish world in which women are the ones with all the power. Unfortunately, rather than being the interesting gender role reversal I thought it would be, everything was the same, only with genders flipped. It gave me a new appreciation of Bishop's Jewels world.
Re: it could be worse
Thu, Apr. 15th, 2010 02:59 am (UTC)Yeah. I think she has better worldbuilding than a lot of the old paranormals (the newer ones are better IMO), but I want her to push the boundaries so much more! Especially because sf/f has a lot of cool gender-based worldbuilding!