Rating: 
Summary: Awesome
Review: This is the first in the Kushiel trilogy, which follow's a heroins quest to save her country, love and friends.
Rating:
Summary: Most Intriguing!
Review: I've just finished reading the first book (in between work anyway and as much as possible) I really did not want to go to sleep because I wanted to just keep reading and see the events unfolding. I haven't read the Tolkein books but I've seen the first two of the movies and I have to say that her works rates up their. (To me at least) A fantasy novel that should be popular for a very long time to come. ^.^V
Rating: 
Summary: wants to be too much; ends up being a mess
Review: I, like a few others out there in the mass of reviewers, just don't get the hype. This book wants to be everything - romance, erotica, fantasy, S&M, action, battle, history - but it fails on all accounts because it's stretched too thin.The sex/S&M - for a character who's some rare masochist, there's very little in the way of actual sex scenes. One page of a setting, then the "red haze" comes over her vision and *poof* next thing you know, it's the next morning. BORING. If you're going to make such a big deal of her sexual aspect, at least show it. Sheesh. I can't imagine how anyone couldn't get past those parts since they're so few and very easily skimmed over. The names/terms/made-up words - UGH. Did they need to make everything sound the same? Or give every single character like a half-dozen different names, titles, nick-names, etc.? And was it really needed to spell everything just slightly wrong? Does that make it different? Or special? It made things annoying and was impossible to keep up with many times. The politics - So. Very. Dull. There was no motivation to care what was going on politically. The (ever confusing and renamed) people involved all seemed thrown into way overdramatic directions or had no depth at all. You really just didn't care. And for the love of all that's sacred, just how many times can you hear "We're d'Ange" as an explanation or reasoning that didn't make sense and was utterly haughty and annoying? The length - it just went on and on and on and on and on and on... it's not enough that there's like fifty different locations in the book, each one just goes on forever. Too much happens. Too many things try to be incorporated. In all, I found it inspid. I really don't get the appeal. It was boring; slow; the author made up words as she went along (without bothering to inform you of them); used too many characters with too many different (but similar) names in too many different locations. You couldn't care about the characters; didn't feel for them so you didn't care what happened. I finished it only because I can't *not* but ugh, this book was the closest I've ever come to just abandoning a book. It's not any of the things it wants to be. It's a jumbled, obnoxious and yet boring mess. Give it a pass.
Rating: 
Summary: an interesting reversal of a classic scenario
Review: I've read the entire "Kushiel" series and enjoyed it, but I liked the first book the most, perhaps because it was quite shocking. The shock of it unavoidably wears off in the remaining two books. This is a fantasy/romance story with several quite original elements. One of them is a very interesting reversal of what I think is the typical scenario of an erotic plot. When you read romance (especially romance written by women authors), you know, for example, that "she" secretly lusts after "him" and would like to submit to him in sweet abandon, but will not do it without a struggle (be it internal, as a matter of psychology, or external, as a matter of various plot complications). I think the secret of the romantic scenario is precisely this: postponing for the benefit of the reader the final capitulation. Here, this is not a secret, it is something that the book tells us quite loud: Phedre likes to submit. In the alternate world of Terre D'Ange (a very stylish and... well, "very French"... universe), moral judgment is often a matter of aesthetics. Phedre is a trained courtesan who craves pain. It is her trade, and also her weapon - she is a spy with the keys to a complicated web of intrigues. An interesting underlying observation on submission as complicity between victim and executioner: take the unspoken understanding of brute force and terror away, and what you get is not equality, but role reversal. No wonder love between Phedre and Joscelin is problematic. (Of course, the end of the series solves the problem with a "happy arrangement", which I thought sort of trivialized it.)
The first book concentrates more on Phedre, without lacking in action, while the other two books develop the fantasy plot - unfortunately quite unnecessary at times, especially in book 2. There are enough plot elements to keep the reader engaged, and the series finale manages to come up with enough suspense and grand gestures to feed the reader's sense of epic adventure - although by that point the end is quite predictable. The series is well constructed and imaginative, but it doesn't quite live up to the promise of this first book. Truthfully, had I read this book when it looked like a stand-alone, perhaps I would have given it 5 stars. Now I cannot help but judge it from the perspective of the whole series, so it's a 4 on my scoreboard.
Rating:
Summary: A little bit of everything
Review: The first almost third of the book was VERY slow, though neccessary to get everything established. If you make it past this point you won't be sorry, for the book (and its sequels) is fast paced from there on out. I usually don't read fantasy but I really liked this book because enough of it was believable and it wasn't too campy or wacky. Not only is Carey a great writer, but her plotline had EVERYTHING in it. Romance, action, adventure, suspense, with some sex thrown in. A lot of these reviews mention the scenes of masochistic sex Phedre (Fay-dra) actually takes pleasure in as maybe being too graphic for some readers to enjoy. In my opinion they weren't all that bad, and lacked the usual corny and pointlessness most sex scenes in books have. I recommend this book and the two that follow! Phedre is such an amazing female, not only is she horrendously clever, but she's like Houdini the way she manages to get herself out of impossible situations. I don't know who would be fitting to be cast as her in a movie, but Orlando Bloom would be the perfect Joscelin (even though this would be like resurrecting Legolas) and I thought of Rena Soufer whenever Melisande appeared.
Rating:
Summary: This book is NOT to be missed
Review: Okay...so I'm writing the 5,00289 review on this book. I couldn't not write it. This is one of my favorite books ever. Dark historical fantasy with an intricate, very deep plot. This is one book you won't regret picking up. High recommend! Along with all the rest of the books in this series. If you like fantasy, you've just found the mother-lode.
Rating:
Summary: Kushiel's Dart Is Excellent
Review: Jacqueline Carey is an excellent writer that captures your
attention in the first few pages. Phedre no Delaunay,
the lead female, is a powerful and seductive person who has
very much intelligence with politics as she does in the bed chamber. Carey captures readers and leaves them breathless. This is a book you won't want
to put down until you get to the last page.
Rating:
Summary: Intermingled pleasure and sorrow.
Review: If you'd like to skip the review, just know that I recommend this book, ardently. I won't summarize, but here are a few of my first impressions: Yes, it is fantasy, and no, there is no magic. Mostly, anyway. Carey takes a hundred or so pages to set everything into motion. Generally it's a letdown when authors invest so much time on the setting, as most of them don't efficiently use the information set forth there later on (rather, they are just warming up to their own story). You will see Carey, by contrast, relying heavily upon this information all throughout the series. Don't doze through the beginning--though to be realistic, it's hardly trudging reading. I was very entertained. The fighting scenes are incredible. ...The best, I think, out of all fantasy I have read thus far (including such big names as Modesitt Jr., Jordan, Brooks, Williams, Martin)--and I am not saying this out of the bias one incurs by freshly completing a novel. I will enjoy Carey's fighting scenes until I find an author who is better at writing them. As for Carey's writing style: It's very concentrated. She wastes no words whatsoever (unlike, i.e., Robert Jordan). Oh, you'll see Carey have Phedre--the main character--ramble occasionally, but it's evident that this is intended to color her personality and is not due to lacking on Carey's part. This brings me to Phedre. Wow. Suffice it to say that Carey has shown me that I do indeed have an imagination. On a sidenote, I am especially impressed with Carey's understanding of mens' misunderstanding of women. I am male, for the record. As for the other characters... I have truly connected with them. Upon completing this book, I have felt the hallmark sadness we all feel when abandoning characters we have grown attached to. I usually don't feel this. For comparison's sake, I have not felt this attachment with characters in Jordan's or Brooks' books--since ALL of Jordan's characters become permanently annoying at some point, and Brooks' characters are saturated in cliche. With Modesitt Jr., I have felt the attachment fairly so, and Williams and Martin, very much so. I think I am most attached to Carey's characters, though. I notice that, like Martin, Carey is not afraid to kill her characters. Fantasy authors generally don't like to do that, both because of time invested and, more importantly, because the prophetic nature of typical fantasy allows for (requires, even?) all the Good characters to go through hell and come back alive. Carey not only kills important characters ruthlessly, but makes excellent use of their deaths when she does. Everything changes once a character dies--and change, of course, is good. And even then, after all the major change is through with, you will see dead characters having an impact on the story at hand. Perhaps the best thing about Kushiel's Dart is its emotional intensity. True to its theme, when the book is not climaxing, it's sinking--always, always there is the undertone of intermingled pleasure and sorrow. I really, really enjoyed it.
Rating:
Summary: One of THOSE books
Review: It's such a treat to find a book with so much woven together, and done well. While it's not in our universe, it is in a parallel one that mirrors our own in a beautiful fashion. I found the story just a bit difficult to get into -- the first 50 pages or so were good, but not completely absorbing. Then, suddenly, I found that all I wanted to do was read this book and find out what happened now. The twists and turns were such that you just HAD to know!! I didn't want to work, didn't want to sleep, and discovered that long stop lights and heavy traffic were a good thing. (CAUTION: I do not recommend that.) It's also one of those that has such an after-glow about it that it's difficult to go on to the next book. Highly engaging, but be prepared to lose some sleep over this.
Rating:
Summary: Another page turner.
Review: When I bought this book, I was a little wary of it being part of a trilogy. I wanted a self-contained novel. Nicely, Kushiel's Dart stands on its own. Phedre no Delaunay is an anguisette, a spy and a scholar. There is subtle magic on Phedre's world. She makes her way through life with stubborn determination, using whatever fate throws in her path. She is like a much darker "Mistress of the Empire", the saga from Feist and Wurt. I was engrossed in the story. This is a page-turner. However, some of the scenes it describes are intended for mature audiences. I really enjoyed the characters, and now I am getting the next two books in the series.
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