Odalisque by Fiona McIntosh

[lightreads]

Note: My copy was the bound galleys. I think the book came out in the past week or two –it just took me a while to get around to reading it.

Right, so. Book one of what the publisher is calling a “new epic fantasy trilogy” (this made me laugh). A historical fantasy set in a vaguely Turkey-inspired country. The Zar has died, leaving the title to his young heir, the heir’s scheming mother, and the loyal outlander head of security. The new Zar’s harem of beautiful women is assembled, and young Ana’s arrival signals the beginning of the newest battle in an old clash between the favored demon god and the Goddess whose worship is oppressed.

I’m sitting here trying to figure out just why I disliked this book so much. I mean, there are plenty of books out there which are shallow and predictable, whose authors clearly grocked the ‘show, don’t tell’ thing entirely backwards, yet which I find amusing and enjoyable. This one was just obnoxious. I think partly it’s that it’s just so freaking transparent -- OMG, who do you think the Goddess incarnate is? Is it the orphan heroine whose name derives from the Goddess’s? I can’t tell!

Incidentally, I really wanted to refer the author to rule three. This isn't exactly a feminist-reimagined historical, but it's just too apt (click the link, you will not regret it).

Also, this book is gory and violent and repulsive in ways that didn’t work for me, and I’m not talking about the fact that it is gory and violent and repulsive (though did I mention the sexual slavery? The graphic castration scene? Various disgusting executions?). It took me a while to put my finger on the problem, but I think I finally got it when I remembered scenes of equivalent violence and horror from George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy, set in a similarly medieval world. But in Martin’s books, the occasional horrific scene is simply an element of the corpus as it were, a logical outgrowth of the world and a way to illuminate character or drive the plot that repels the reader while also making her somehow . . . complicit in deed and trauma alike. The violence in Odalisque, on the other hand, felt very much like a big blunt hammer (one of many) with which to bang the modern reader’s head. It felt to me like an artifact manufactured particularly to play on modern sensibilities and, more often than not, to show us bang bang bang who the good and bad guys are. And that made it feel vaguely like fetish, and I really disliked it.

I didn’t like the book as a whole, if you weren't getting that, and I have no intention of pursuing the series.

Now to figure out how to say the above to the publisher while ensuring that they continue to use me as a reviewer. Damn.

Comments

[treewishes.livejournal.com]

See, they should get you to read these things before they actually hit the *publish* key.

If you're in the mood

[josanpq.livejournal.com]

May I rec The Lies of Locke Lamora, the first in a new scifan series by Scott Lynch? He began the story on LJ, was picked up by an editor who was cruising LJ for stories.

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

No, see, that's called reading the slush pile, and I really can't fathom how cranky that would make me.

Though I must admit it's always just a little bit satisfying to read a new release like this, because there's a little voice in my head muttering I can do way better than that.

Re: If you're in the mood

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

I keep hearing about this book from a great variety of people. *underlines it on the list*

And I did not know that's how he got published. *impressed face*

[minyan.livejournal.com]

That set of rules is *brilliant*.

And makes me want to set a novel in 14th century Toledo, or 10th century Cordoba, even more than I already do...

Or invent a few spicy stories about the private life of Oliver Cromwell, maybe? ;-)

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

You should quite possibly do all of the above. You've got one ready reader right here.