(no subject)

[the_rck]

I've bogged down in reading Rachel Lee's Shadows of Prophecy. I read the previous book in the series, Shadows of Myth, and didn't like it enough to keep it but did like it enough to grab the next two when they came up on BookMooch. Sadly, I think I'm going to get rid of this book and the next one without reading further. I'm running aground on what I perceive as racism. I doubt the author intended the effect she's produced, but she made choices that led there.

I hope that there are other people reading this who've read at least the first book in the series and who might therefore have some opinions about it and thoughts on the issues I'm having. The things bothering me in book two were there in book one. They were simply more peripheral and more ignorable (by me).

This is going to be full of spoilers, and there are details from the first book that I may mangle a bit because I don't have it here (and because it's been at least six months since I read it). I'm also having some trouble writing things out coherently because I keep getting distracted and wandering verbally.

The books were published as part of the Luna line. They're other world fantasy with a thread of romance, one supporting couple and a lot of indications that two of the characters who aren't currently involved are Destined for each other. There's an ancient evil waking up and trying to turn everything poisonous and unpleasant. The hero, Archer, is the immortal older brother of the ancient evil. The heroine, Tess, is amnesiac and may be the reincarnation (my suspicion) of Archer's dead love, Theriel, whose choosing Archer over his younger brother set off the war that ended the First Age.

Archer has two sidekicks, brothers who he rescued from slavery. They're black and identified as being 'Anari.' As far as I can tell, the Anari are all black, and everybody else is white. This would bother me less, but the backstory explicitly includes the creation of the Anari as separate from that of the white folks. Plus, the Anari were created, in part, by Theriel (I can't recall whether any of the gods were involved or not). She seems to have intended to make a better group of people than the one that the gods had, and the gods withdrew their protection over her as a result which led to Archer's brother whose name I've forgotten being able to kill her. (It's explained that the gods aren't perfect and therefore created flawed people.) I'm not sure if the Anari were meant to be version 2.0 or 3.0. The first humans seem to have been quasi-immortal, and Archer's the only unaging person left.

The Anari have special magic to work stone and be in tune with the earth/nature. They were created to be peaceful and long lived and otherwise wonderful. Except that, ever since their creation, the humans-- the white folks-- have been persecuting them. Many of them have been enslaved or murdered or otherwise harmed severely.

In the first book, this stuff was all in the background as the six characters went on a quest to find out who was mind controlling people, poisoning crops, wrecking the weather and so on. That meant that I didn't actually *look* at the Anari and their story. (Which is on me and not on the author hiding it. It was there.) That aspect of the world came up mostly as explanation of why the brothers were loyal to Archer and why they once or twice had to pretend to be slaves so as not to be arrested and/or killed. The brothers were sufficiently interchangeable to me in that book that I never managed to see them as separate characters. I can't say how much of that was me and how much was the author. I read the chapters out of order and may have missed character development. Except that I never had that problem with any of the other four characters.

In book two, they all go looking for the Anari with the idea that they need to help them fight off the slavers, reclaim their independence and so on. There's also some notion that the Anari may have the records that will let Tess and the other woman, Sara, learn how to use their special magic. (The two of them are 'Ilduin,' part of some mystical group of women who used to do amazing things before Theriel was murdered and who destroyed a city in revenge for her death. There are twelve of the, or should be, and they haven't been gathered or trained or-- often aware of what they are-- in centuries.)

The first group of Anari they end up with put Archer in charge after only a few chapters. He's got lots of experience at warfare and is old enough to remember a time before their creation. Plus, remember, the Anari have always been a peaceful people. In spite of generations of slave raids and such. In spite of being ready, when he arrives, to go to war on their own behalf. There are some logical in-story reasons for it, apart from the fact that he's the hero, but it's rather too much for me, especially as the elders swear utter obedience to him and the two Ilduin. The addition a chapter or two later of an Anari Ilduin doesn't help my reaction.

I did peek at the end of the book. One of the brothers dies. My impression of that chapter is that it's meant to develop his surviving brother's angst and to have an impact on the Anari Ilduin (whose name I'm afraid I forget), but I can't read the remaining two thirds of the book to see if the Anari characters get better development than they have so far or if that stuff just comes out of nowhere.

I'm getting a complicated mix of serious othering, noble savages, magical negroes, what-these people-need-is-a-honky and a few other things I can't put an exact name to. Pity. I was hoping to read something light, relatively predictable and not anxiety inducing. I got the second of the three, and it could be light if I could manage not to think, but, well, I can't, and I'm not sure I want to.

I hesitated over writing this and even more over posting it. Partly because I'm still learning how to spot this stuff reliably and partly because I'm afraid both of this entry dropping into silence and of it spawning arguments. I don't know which would make me more anxious.

Of course, if I don't want things falling into silence, I shouldn't post on the weekends, and if I don't want things to be public and open for discussion, I should lock them.

Comments

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

I think your opinions are your own, and this is your journal, so you should post as you like. I haven't read the books you mention, but it sounds to me like you hit the nail on the head. It's always disappointing when a reading experience turns out this way, and even more annoying when you realize that the author wasn't thinking about how the work might sound to others.

[the_rck]

I was looking for a relatively mindless and predictable fantasy. The series is moderately popular. There are still seven people who have it wishlisted on BookMooch (which does mean that I'll have no trouble giving it and the sequel away).

What annoys me more about the author not thinking is that I suspect that she thought it halfway through, up to the point of thinking that having black characters and a black culture was a good thing. She just didn't realize that the role of the characters and culture in the story mattered, too.

[kyrielle]

I haven't read the series either but I was curious so read your entry. Based on what you've said, I think it would bother me very much also, so I'll avoid it. And yes, please, write about whatever you want - though I understand about the "silence" thing. It bugs me on a few of my posts and (for some reason) not most of the rest.

Anyway, yes, that thread in the books does sound disturbing. :/

[the_rck]

I think that, on this post, silence would bother me because it would be an indication that people didn't agree with me or didn't take my comments at all seriously. The taking seriously thing is kind of a squishy point because these books really aren't all that important. They're nothing most people will ever hear of. Except... They're symptomatic of a lot of stuff that's there in a lot of situations and that won't change without people looking at it, discussing it, and making a point that it's not okay.

[kyrielle]

Hmmm. Interesting. Most posts like this, without your extra note about worrying about silence, I would indeed not reply to ... because I wouldn't have read them, because of the cut-tag for spoilers and my lack of knowledge of the series. Only if I'd heard a lot about the series (one way or the other) and didn't intend to read it, or if I had already read it and either had an opinion or was curious about yours, would I read the details of such a post normally.

[the_rck]

I can understand all of the perfectly reasonable causes of silence in answer to a post like this. That, sadly, doesn't make it easier. This isn't quite saying that the emperor has no clothes (that grants the books too much importance), but it's also rather tentative on my part. After all, a lot of eyes other than mine have passed over those words. It's hard to believe that I'm the first person to go, "Um... This adds up to something really unpleasant?" But since I'm not the first person to read the books, the others must have (a) thought it was okay, (b) been afraid to say anything, (c) not noticed at all or (d) not cared enough to say anything. All of those add up, for me, to a pressure to be silent, to not express my discomfort for fear of making other people uncomfortable.

[kyrielle]

Hmm. And my assumption would be (e) not have read the books, unless you know that people of your acquaintance have read them. It's quite possible that other people have read them, reacted, and commented, just not anywhere that you saw/heard. Of course it's easy for me to think that, since I had never heard of them until your post, whereas you may know better among your circle of friends.