Rolling in Angst

[jethrien]

So I just finished Jacqueline Carey's Banewreaker. (For readers of some of her other work, it's substantially less...err...risque, shall we say.) It's basically giving Lord of the Rings the Paradise Lost treatment. That is, the Sauron-analog is totally justified in his actions, his lieutenants work for him because each of them was horribly betrayed by their own people and the dark god actually keeps his promises, and the party of good guys are self-righteous hypocrites who slay everything that's vaguely different from them.

It's beautifully done, as all her work is. It's also probably the angstiest ball of angst I've read in years. Relentlessly, wallowingly angsty. With a side order of angst. And angst-sauce. Also earnest. And angsty.

I didn't think I had a limit for well-written angst, but this may well be approaching it.

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's past my angst limit. :)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I mean, I enjoyed it and will be reading the second book. But consider yourself warned.

[oblvndrgn.livejournal.com]

I think you'd like it. I find it a bit less angsty, although Sauron is definitely Emo, the Emo God of LiveJournal. I like how the orc-analogues are portrayed. But read both books together, it's really the same one big story.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

And Usashin is his prophet. Of angstiness. (C'mon, the insane, nearly beaten to death as a child, broken beauty who has managed to be rejected by not one but three races and parents?)

I also really liked the orc-analogues.

[chantal1382.livejournal.com]

....with beans full of angst?

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Well, her last series had Face of God ocean, so why not.