I'm enthralled by Anne Bishop's "The Black Jewels" series
Yesterday I finished Anne Bishop's "The Black Jewels" trilogy. I know there are more books in the series, and I will get to them, but the first trilogy stands on its own. I'm kicking myself for being 25 years late to the party. Granted, I was only born a year after "Queen of the Darkness" came out... but still!
This post is just an unorganized collection of my observations:
The gender essentialism at the foundation the series is quite interesting. While I understand the limitations of creating a fantasy world where X is always X, Y is always Y, and X and Y have a strict constant relationship to each other, I think Anne Bishop pulls it off somehow. Maybe I'm just a sucker for the way women are always at the top of the Blood's caste system and men live to serve them. I also respect the unapologetic commitment to the gender binary in the book, in all its uncomfortableness.
The Chosen One doesn't get a POV! I really liked that we only see Jaenelle through the eyes of those perceiving her. It made her really feel like a mythical heroine-goddess. I think it's very difficult to capture the thoughts of any fantasy book's Jesus-figure in a way that preserves their power and mystique and doesn't make also them have to go "omg, l'm not like other girls!" | liked forming my own opinions on Janelle from the outside looking in. This made a lot of sense partly because Janelle is a small child for the whole of the first book and having her POV that young wouldn't have served a purpose.
Again, comes back down to the stringent gender roles in the series, but Daemon and Jaenelle growing to love each other as she gets older had me feeling all warm and fuzzy and ready to tear up. Daemon, in general, is a very well-developed and fearsome character in my opinion. Daemon fits in perfectly in a series revolving around sex, seduction, and sadism.
The brutality... I quite appreciated the discussions surrounding sexual abuse, rape, and trauma. Each of those horrible experiences was interwoven with the magic system and the worldbuilding, and while Bishop's presentation of rape is grim and blunt, it also pertinently addresses the horror rape inflicts upon victims and its inherent unforgivability.
