When I was in college, I had quite the crush on this guy named Josh. The reasons for this crush were many and myriad, but it endured largely because he JUST. KEPT. BEING. AWESOME. One time, when he saw a group of prospective students walking by, he turned to the friend he’d been talking calmly to a moment before and screamed, “You stole my fucking watch!” They then proceeded to chase/beat the crap out of each other in front of a group of horrified seventeen-year-olds and their flabbergasted parents.
“Why would you do something like that?” I asked him later.
“I figured we didn’t want anyone who’d be scared of a little brawl coming here” he shrugged, grinning evilly.
One time he and I were discussing the various dorms on campus; he decided to classify them according to their “feel.” “Founders is, of course, that gross tenement no one wants to live in but where all the art happens,” he said. “And the Village is for maladjusted weirdos—myself included. But I just can’t figure out what the Ridges are.”
The Ridges were two buildings set as far away as possible from the rest of campus; I’d lived there for the first two years of college. “They’re the ‘burbs,” I said. “White flight communities.”
“They are, aren’t they?” Josh laughed. “No one who lives in the Ridges wants anything to do with the rest of us!”
Which is why I moved out of them and into the Village my junior year.
Now, objectively speaking, the Village was the shittiest place to live on campus. They were the oldest buildings, had no air conditioning, and although they were all single rooms, the builder had been a madman so you were pretty likely to end up with accommodations around the size of a shoebox. And irregularly shaped, too. Fortunately, I had a corner room, which means that I got more space than my nearest two neighbors put together. But even I suffered in my palatial apartments, because there was no airconditioning in the summer and during the winter, the heating system broke down.
Yeah, that’s right: no heat, in the middle of an Appalachian winter. That was fun. Not.
And of course, this being my school, they didn’t believe us. Didn’t believe us when we said we had no heat. After several complaints from various chilled residents, someone finally came over with a thermometer and measured how fucking cold it was in my room. And then they did something. Ugh.
In the meantime, I wrapped myself in several dozen quilts, cupped a mug of hot tea in my freezing hands, and let Anne Bishop entertain me. One of my really good friends at the time was crazy for her—excuse me, CRAZY for her. Only all caps will do justice to her passion for the Bishop. I read The Black Jewels trilogy largely to humor her, but the Tir Alainn books were actually pretty decent. I just remember being puzzled as to why in the hell Bishop focused so much on one character in the first book, only to drop her almost entirely in the next two, and then bring in the Savior of All at the very beginning of the last book without any sort of forewarning.
Even while slowly freezing to death, I can be hypercritical. Can you imagine what kind of havoc I’ll wreak in a nursing home? I can hardly wait!
Anyway, Shiyiya, a frequent (and awesome!) commenter here has just finished mainlining everything Bishop. And I remember those first moments after reading Bishop, when you’re sitting there going, “What the fuck did I just read, and how the hell do I process it?” I think we owe it to Shiyiya to come together as a community and talk about How Anne Bishop Makes Us Feel. Because seriously, that is just not some shit you can read and then never think about again. It’s going to haunt her if we don’t Talk It Out.
Okay, I’ll go first: although I read, loved, and totally agreed with this, I have to admit that I was vastly entertained by The Black Jewels trilogy, and had NO IDEA how ridiculous it was until Rachel Manija Brown pointed it out. Yep. Me. Not seeing the ridiculous. I blame the hypothermia.
What say the rest of you?
I think it’s kind of hard to notice the ridiculous when the books are constantly going HERE THIS GUY IS KILLING RANDOM WOMEN WHO ARE TORTURING HIM AND THIS GUY IS RAPING LITTLE GIRLS AND THIS GUY IS DEAD AND THESE CHILDREN DIED HORRIBLY.
Though, The Invisible Ring isn’t all massively intense DARK SHIT and I didn’t really think much of the magic cock ring thing there either, and I read it first. This may be because I have a tendency to read slashfic.
I did vaguely wonder if the silver and gold invisible rings were cock rings too or if they were back to being normal rings.
I don’t tend to notice things being ridiculous cos I get caught up in the story. I did really notice her recurring themes in her series though, which I’m not sure if I usually do. Then again I don’t normally read three series by the same author in a row, that kind of binge was unusual
Yeah, you have a point. I think it takes a pretty special set of circumstances to see past MOLESTATION MURDER CASTRATION!!!1!! on the first read.
Also, you weren’t weirded out by the cock ring because you read a lot of slash? Allow me to take a few minutes to feel really, really old. And also kind of naive, because I’m pretty sure I didn’t even know what a cock ring WAS until I was like, twenty. This is what happens when you’re raised in the South…
That was my first best guess. Either that or general porning.
HI THE INTERNET HAS CORRUPTED ME BEYOND RECOGNITION.
When I was in elementary school I thought where people had written ‘fuck’ on the walls they had misspelled ‘duck’. My friend Salika, who went to a different school where they wrote it on puke green tiles, thought they were misspelling ‘yuck’.
Now I am discussing magic cock rings and child rape on the internet! Oh internet, how I love you.
(A friend first introduced me to harry/draco slashfic when I was thirteen :s)
My stars! *clutches pearls*
Oh, hell. When I was fifteen, my friends and I had a lot of fun with a pornfic! generator. Let’s be honest, it’s been going on forever. Cavemen children probably wrote dirty stories on rocks and then threw them at each other.
The internet makes it So. Much. Worse. though. Because you can look at just about anything on the internet, and some of that anything is pretty damn disturbing.
A lt of books are also pretty damn disturbing though! LIKE ANNE BISHOP. Rape, castration, child molestation, cannibalism, slavery, general torture….. LOTS AND LOTS of general torture, in Tir Alainn. Adolfo, he is nucking futs.
Goddamnit wordpress STOP DOING THE PUTTING MY COMMENT ABOVE WHAT I’M REPLYING TO THING
It just occurred to me, as I was reading the review, that:
a) all immigrants to Kaeleer must wear a Restraining Ring as of the second book
b) Daemon Sadi’s valet, who he brings with him to Kaeleer in the last book, is ‘fully shaved’ (complete penectomy, happened in the first book)
c) how would you put on a cockring without even a stump?
The fact that there are wtf in the series is not going to stop me reading it, I mean I already skipped most of the sex scenes due to the extreme prevalence of orgasms during vaginal sex. I read the series for the character interactions; it is fluff to suit my mood (some days Georgette Heyer just isn’t right).
I had gotten the impression that the ones in Ebon Rih didn’t have to and it was just the threat of everybody murdering them that kept them in line.
All Jaenelle’s First Circle have Jaenelle’s equivalent – the Ring Of Honor – which they all got after Lucivar insisted upon getting his equivalent to the Restraining Ring because he had read the rules of immigration.
I’m assuming that once they have fulfilled the requirements of immigration and no longer have to serve the contract they signed up for when immigrating, that they may change that along with who holds their contract.
Oh yeah, I forgot the boyos had that. Why does nothing male (Excapt Daemon with the Consort’s Ring) wear rings on their FINGERS?!
I was meaning the people Lucivar got from the service fair, though. I didn’t get the impression that Falonar and the rest were ringed.
I’d hazard a guess that males who use weapons regularly or fight habitually don’t wear rings for reasons of it being a bad idea. They catch on things and you can get your finger crushed with your own ring – a hand being squeezed hurts more if there’s a ring on it.
There’s a Steward’s Ring and a Consort’s Ring, and Lucivar wears a wedding ring but the Master Of The Guard doesn’t have a ring to show that he holds that position.
My very vague memories seem to indicate that it was the person holding the contract whose job it was to see that the male was wearing a Ring. Lucivar was demanding his because it was proof that he served Jaenelle. And having proof would be safer for everyone, I suspect, as well as a mental safety net for him. Jaenelle was reluctant to bother because no one would ever ask to see it so why bother?
Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Still an unhealthy obsession with cock rings though.
Yes, I can agree, said Anne Bishop friend was CRAZY about her. I read Black Jewels. I don’t remember much of it. Eh. What’s the Tir Alainn about?
Fae, witches, and the Inquisition. A lot of it is pretty horrifying, because Inquisition.
I have those, too. What I got out of the trilogy was a discussion of the effects a lack of maturity and consideration for consequences can have on the people around the selfish, immature one.
Also the bringing to light of the issues the fae male had with the scenes of his treatment of the witch in the first book. I enjoyed those, it having highlighted for me some of the issues I have with persons who act the way the fae male did.