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How bizarre/disconcerting/unfortunate ... I'm about 90% sure that I had a review of this before, or at least a rating.
Fondly remembered fascinating retelling/reinterpretation of the traditional ballad "The Famous Flower of Serving Men."It's a book that has stayed with me for years after I read it. Recommended!
An excellent novel all around. DS is one of the very few authors who can create a realistic and consistant medieval world. Issues of gender and sexuality are dealt with with the mores of the time, which are a bit different from our own. Her characters were all multi-faceted characters, none of whom understand themselves. Even the villain is sympathetic.
I may have been disappointed by this book because it was oversold to me as THE MOST GROUNDBREAKING WORK OF FANTASY EVAR. I think if it had been just positioned as an enjoyable retake on certain fantasy tropes I would have a more positive review. I found the characters somewhat two dimensional (and one verging into Mary Sue territory). The ending left me cold. I did like the magical system she drew up in the novel; it was clearly playing by a set of rules and I would have liked to have seen it ex...
This book is based on fragments of an old English ballad that was reconstructed the ‘70s. It’s about a woman who dresses up as a man and becomes advisor to the King. It’s sort of a “Victor/Victoria” story, but told in medieval times and very serious. I found it a little dry, but I really enjoyed it. Sherman has wonderful prose and story-telling ability. She’s gone on to be nominated and win several awards for her period pieces and her YA work. Come visit my blog for the full review…https://itsta...
This is billed, on the book's back cover, as Fantasy/Lesbian and Gay Literature. That's because one of the three major characters is a man who loves other men, and another is a woman disguised as a man. The theme of gender ambiguity is intimately intertwined with the theme of homosexual love.The novel is also very much fantasy for grown-ups, in that the author, Delia Sherman, eschews the conventional happy ending of the genre in favor of a more realistic, although still moving and satisfying, re...
I love Lionel; he was hilarious. I feel bad for him, though, forever closeted and marrying a girl he doesn't love. But perhaps they can be friends. I feel really bad for Elinor, losing her husband and seven children, poor thing.A nice touch, I thought, was how there wasn't a standard alphabet. It's something you wouldn't think to do, but makes perfect sense for the time. Although I will say that the dialogue took me out of the story a little. I could understand what they said (and their was admi...
Odd book, which I missed during its initial turn 'round the great fairy-tale wheel of the 80s. (The Minneapolis 80s, I almost said, but that's an overgeneralization.)The book is based on an obscure murder ballad -- rather, on a modern reconstruction of it. (The period ballad, "The Famous Flower of Serving-Men", doesn't have much of a plot.) William Flower, a nicely-turned-out young man of no declared birth, stumbles out of a storm into the King's castle, declaring that he's looking for a job.We
I was excited about this book, which I read because it is based on an old English ballad, "The Famous Flower of Serving Men." I thought the characters were a little flat, or at least none of them engaged me. Some might be put off by the book's designation as "queer fantasy," (or at least by the ads in the back of one of the editions for queer erotic fantasy). However, I thought the predominant theme didn't have as much to do with gender, as it did with how people see what they want to see. Every...
There was nothing wrong with this book per se, but I've never been much for gender benders and I guess in the end it just couldn't hold my interest. I love reading about strong female characters but sometimes I felt that the main character's opinions seemed a little too obviously modern instead of her being a strong woman who was still of her times. Who knows, maybe one day I'll try it again.
A nice little alternative-universe gender-bendy fantasy in which no one gets a happy ending. I approve.The characterization is a little thin, and the main character, especially, is more opaque than s/he should be to truly win over the reader; the worldbuilding is excellent, clearly done by someone who has thought seriously about the medieval/Renaissance day-to-day experience; the system of magic is quite tidy and elegant.
My review from March 5, 1998My review from February 6, 2005
As a portrait of Medieval English life, both noble and peasant, this is lovely. As a novel . . . it doesn't really work. It's based on a ballad and follows a ballad's fairy-tale logic, which means the characters' actions have virtually no effect on anything that occurs. That's driven by Fate. Which is a shame, because I think, if I'd spent more time with them in a more naturalistic setting, I would have quite liked the characters. My favorite bits were the glimpses of Bet's home life, the castle...
Have always loved the ballad this is based on and enjoyed the book enormously, although I found the deliberately archaic language a little heavy going in places. Clever ending and (slightly disagreeing with other reviewers) shrewd characterisation.
Quiet, but in a good way.
I grabbed this book on Novemeber 30 when I was still reveling in the ecstacy of the end of National Novel Writing Month, and I just bought it at half price books because I only had to pay $1.50 for it. Also because I read The Fall of the Kings and liked it. This book, not so much. I had to go Wikipedia-ing because of my lamentable ignorance of middle age ballads (I had this feeling that the entire book was some sort of an inside joke I didn't get until the internet enlightened me) But that is no...
