lightreads | Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It has long been a subject of suspicion in certain quarters that I do not have a soul. (I rub elbows with politicians, guys, it’s protective coloration). Allow me to add some evidence to the case by informing you that my response to this book, like all of Cashore’s other work, was “…eh, that’s nice, I guess.”

It’s nice! It’s all about a kingdom recovering from the mass trauma of violent dictatorship, and the teenaged queen coming into her power, and her first stumbling romance, and the aftermath of lies, even the kind, protective ones. Honestly, I should be all over this thing. And it’s nice! I can appreciate that on an esthetic level, and go on about how marvelous it is that the teenaged cross-class romance isn’t intended to be the love of anyone’s life at eighteen, it’s just a sweet, complicated, warm coming of age. With birth control! Young adult fantasy with birth control! But really, I dropped it halfway through to go read something else without a flicker, and had a hard time remembering what was what when I came back a week later.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with me that I found this only minimally engaging?

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AHA, I have a THEORY. (Did you really think I wouldn't?)

This theory is based on having read rachelmanija's review, and on someone asking me, "Why isn't there a bigger Cashore fandom?" Because even though I did, very much, like the book, I finished it with zero impetus to write or read fic about it, whereas with most books I really like, there's at least some measure of "huh, I'd really like to see this story extended, and whatever happened to this character?"

Anyway-- I think it's what

rachelmanija said: as an allegory, it's really good, and as fantasy worldbuilding, it's incoherent on the large scale (I didn't notice the mental health incoherencies she points out, but although I liked the ciphering I was disturbed by how it wasn't thought-through how it slotted into their language system and how the language interacted with their history, etc.). So if you like allegories (which I do), it makes it more likely you'll like the book (which I did), but otherwise, probably not so much. Nothing to do with soul ;)

(And it made me realize that it's partially coherency of worldbuilding that sells me on a fandom. If there's nothing to hold on to when you write a fic, what's the point?)

(And it made me realize that it's partially coherency of worldbuilding that sells me on a fandom. If there's nothing to hold on to when you write a fic, what's the point?)

YES!!!! Brilliant worldbuilding extension is my favorite thing about skillful fanfic (I'm including internal character consistency as part of this). Harry Potter fic has some amazing examples of this ("Soci-ally - where all the bars & restaurants are," still makes me squee :D). So does Dresden (at least, the way Light writes it....). I've been dredging the internet trying to find Stargate fanfic that even begins to live up to the same kind of worldbuilding extension (I've got a Tok'ra fetish - where's the goddamned good Tok'ra fic, I ask you??). It seems to be a fanfic world devoid of really good world-extension, and that makes me so sad! I just can't get into even really good fic if there's no inventiveness to it.

...I have no idea whether you're interested in Stargate:Universe at all, but I recently got into it, and there's an author, CleanWhiteRoom on fanfiction.net, who is doing some freaking amazing things in the fandom (with some crossover to SG-1 and SG-A, which I know very little about). (Warning that she has some comma issues and thinks that 'alright' is a word, which drives me UP THE WALL, but you can see how much I enjoy the fic when I say that I recommend it anyway -- usually these kinds of things make me back away from the story IMMEDIATELY, and yet I kept reading CWR.)

Anyway. Back to worldbuilding. I'm going to have to amend my previous comment -- I'm not sure that a world has to have completely coherent worldbuilding (I'm not entirely sure that HP canon or SG canon has extraordinarily coherent worldbuilding) but it has to be vibrant worldbuilding that makes at least a minimum amount of extrapolation sense, I think (which both canons have). Cashore's novels have the problem that they're mostly kind of... bland, with respect to the worldbuilding, in addition to being incoherent in the ways I've already described.

Cashore's novels have the problem that they're mostly kind of... bland, with respect to the worldbuilding, in addition to being incoherent in the ways I've already described.

Yes, this, exactly. There has always been something very ... mechanical to me about her worlds. I also get the sense of containment, like all there is of this world exists on the page, and if you walk off the edge of the page there's ... nothing.

Link very illuminating, thank you.

YOU ARE. MY NEW BEST FRIEND.

*LAVISH FANNISH HUG*

I was soooo bummed to see SGU end - I felt it had more potential as a long arc-driven show than anything I'd seen since BSG got started. I was SO BUMMED when it got cancelled - it was really just hitting its stride in every way from character to universe to the gelling of the cast.

At any rate! OMG, THIS STORY!!! Force Over Distance hits most all of my kinks and a couple I never even knew I had (insert a whole post to Light here in which I dialog about her recent Service as Kink topic which made me VERY THINKY and which I need to actually type out).

I've developed a loathing of h/c stories over the years (the formulaic nature seems to mean that right quick every character is OUT of character), but this takes the trope and does it proper. Holy crap. Really, my only gripe about the story is how her lovely language apparently falls right out of her brain when the scene turns to even the slightest physical intimacy (I'm honestly tempted to search-and-replace every instance of "deepen" and "tangle" in the thing, argh!).

But...but... worldbuilding! Note-perfect character voices! Tension! Inventive narrative thinking! Tight tight story telling! Great control of long-form format! Beautiful language! Fantastic visceral descriptions for all 6 senses! And I've never seen narration via physics, math, computer code or stream-of-consciousness done anywhere NEAR this well, just effing FANTASTIC. I cannot imagine reading the insert At All Angles written by anyone and getting through it without glazing over, but she just NAILS it. Hash tables were never a better narrative invention! :D

And when she has to write sex using math....okay, then, she's SMOKIN'. Young and ai!Rush in the neural interface might be one of the hottest sex scenes I've read since the last Lightgetsin Dresden story hit the streets :D :D :D And oh so fucking painfully poignant. Everlovin' beautiful.

I've spent the better part of my day formatting all of her stories with proper chapter breaks for my Kindle (I'd just grabbed FoD via InstaPaper, but going to the trouble to format it properly is TOTALLY worth my while). This kind of formatting is a labor of love I only lavish on Mah Favorite Books :D

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! *squash!*

I AM SO GLAD YOU LIKE IT!! And so glad to find another SGU fan! (I haven't yet watched SG-1 or SG-A, but even so, I feel a little protective of SGU, the little black sheep of the family.)

Would you care to continue this discussion elsewhere? Because I have SO MUCH to say about this fic! (I mean, Light, if you'd like to continue to host us, then awesome, but since it's not really your fandom, I don't want to impose...) I just put up a rec post on my fic journal -- with a couple of other recs as well that you might find of interest. (And, okay, yeah, I wrote a couple SGU's myself since there is not enough fic in this fandom! But short ones. I can't do long-form.)

I too have THINKY THOUGHTS about Light's service topic that I have not yet figured out how to articulate!

Suit yourselves -- I have no objection to being the random fandoms cafe.

You're a dear :D

I'd be happy take it over to your LJ cause....um....I can be rather verbose - no need to subject Light to our SGU gushing (gracious offer not withstanding) :D

I'd never gotten into SG1 or SGA (despite many fan-friends who were really into them). I'm an arc-is-all person - gimme Farscape, BSG, Babylon 5 & DS9, yk? But after falling in love with SGU, we've (my sweetie is almost as big of a scifi geek as I am :P) gone back and watched SG1 and really enjoyed it for what it is. We've watched the "arc-only" episodes and that's kept us from getting frustrated by the large number of stand alones. (they did do a good job of touching on the arc within almost every ep though)

okay....see ya over on your rec thread :D

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

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