The Dreamblood Group Read - July - The Killing Moon

I was surprised to see that this book, nominated for both the Nebula and the World Fantasy Award, is owned by less than five hundred people on LT. This is the first in Jemisin's Dreamblood duology, followed by The Shadowed Sun, which is set in the same Egypt-inspired setting but takes place years later, following different characters- we'll be following up on this July read with The Shadowed Sun directly after in August.

Here's the summary for The Killing Moon:

In the desert city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Along its ancient stone streets, there is no crime or violence. Priests of the dream-goddess, known as Gatherers, maintain order: harvesting the dreams of the citizens, healing the injured, and guiding the dreamers into the afterlife… whether they’re ready to die or not.

When Ehiru — the most famous of the city’s Gatherers — is sent to harvest the dreams of a diplomatic envoy, he finds himself drawn into a conspiracy that threatens to drag the dreaming city into war.

So begins a hugely ambitious tale of culture and empire, war and religion… and the realm of dreams.

Jemisin has described Ehiru as a "ninja priest." Interesting... I enjoyed Jemisin's Inheritance trilogy, which was written after this duology but published first, despite a few issues I had with that series I'm definitely interested to try these two out!

So, I'm through the first three chapters, and have met the three protagonists... I'm not particularly attached to any of them at this point, but I'm curious to see where things go. The set up so far feels a little bit "foreigners point out that society obsessed with corruption is itself corrupt, and natives experience a crisis of faith," but I expect that to be complicated and subverted as we go along- because we're shown the evils of Gathering and only told the good of them, things feel a bit one-sided at this point.

I am tentatively interested in Ehiru and Sunandi, but Nijiri isn't doing too much for me. The magic system of narcomancy has a lot of potential- we've seen not only dreamblood but dreambile as well in action, and I'm curious for more detail on that.

I hope to spend some more time with this one over my long weekend.

Right, I'm back from my jaunt to France and have finished my books in progress, so I'll pick this up today and jump right on in :)

Got this on my TBR, so count me in.

I'll copy over my comments from my reading thread yesterday:

I've made it through what seems to be the first section of this one, a little over 40%, and I'm just not liking it as much as I want to. The characters are headed for a change of scenery, though, so maybe that will shake things up- perhaps this is the turning point Sakerfalcon mentioned (in my reading journal)?

I am finding it a compelling and quick read, it's just that I'm still not terribly attached to any of the characters yet, the villain seems especially by the numbers (show him killing off faceless people, give him a belief that's more in line with modern sensibilities than his setting to make him more ambiguous, but then have him kill off a named character to make sure we remember he's evil...), and the world still feels very world-built, rather than like a society that could actually exist- I'm finding it hard to suspend my disbelief that the Gatherers could ever have existed without the corruption that seems a problem in the present day. Maybe that's the point, though.

I think Jemisin's writing was stronger in The Inheritance Trilogy, maybe because it was written later but also I think because she's better at first-person narratives than third-person- a lot of the characterization in the Inheritance trilogy came from the narrative voice and the narrators' descriptions of the other characters. This shows a little in the first-person interludes of The Killing Moon too.

I've made more progress yesterday evening and through the workday off and on today (while my code was compiling, of course), and I'm up to about 60%- I think this one has caught me at last.

I think what's made the difference for me is getting more characters' points of view- the other Gatherers, the Superior, and so on. (I'm a little disappointed that there aren't more female characters important enough to get POV, though. Sunandi's still pretty much the only one at this point, and much has been made by many characters about how she's Not Like Other Women, a plot point that rarely fails to irk me.) This feels to me like it's given the world more depth and detail than the relatively limited perspective we got from only the sheltered Gatherers and the Sunandi, a foreigner, before.

I think that the plot thread between the Gatherers and the Superior in particular is mostly what's caught my interest- I really needed to see the awareness in the story that the system has possibly always been open to corruption and use for personal gain, and recognition that it had been before, and the Superior's POV gave me that where the more sheltered, faithful Gatherers Ehiru and Nijiri couldn't. It's given the story some shades of gray between the ignorant and well-intentioned Gatherers and the still relatively flat Evil of the Prince; Sunandi's talk with Nijiri about using the situation for her own political advancement in Kisua has added more ambiguity there as well, though I'm not sure that was well built up for me- her motives before seemed more personal, regarding Kinja's legacy, and this seems like a change of direction. Guess I'll have to wait and see how that plays out.

The book's treatment of mental illness interests me as well- all of the variations of mental illness seem rather lumped together at this point, but the most common seem to be something like schizophrenia and something like sociopathy (in one of the Gatherers, Sonta-i). The Dreamblood that Gatherers collect is used to treat mental illness, symptoms of mental illness are treated as evidence of the Gatherers' calling to be Gatherers, and the Gatherers' withdrawal from Dreamblood seems to exacerbate their symptoms or cause further mental illness- hallucinations, paranoia, and so on. It's interesting that the Prince is explicitly not mentally ill, and that giving him Dreamblood in an attempt to heal him has caused part of the current situation- I'm curious to see where that's going. I'm curious what you all think of this theme and how well it's handled- it seems a major part of the book to me, but I've not seen it come up much in what I've read about the book.

Enough has been teased out about what's up with the Prince and the Reaper that I'm anxious to see where it goes though the scene with the Superior with "I'll tell you everything," end scene is a narrative technique that frustrates me. I expect I'll finish this one soon, and I'm glad that there's a second book in the setting to look forward to as well.

Miscellaneous other thoughts...

- The setup with Sunandi reminds me a bit of Patricia Bray's Chronicles of Josan, which is also about a male monk and a female spy from another country and is not a romance (the monk is gay, for one thing)- the books don't have much in common beyond their basic setup, but Sunandi reminds me a bit of Ysobel.

- I'm having trouble visualizing the four-banded Dreaming Moon- are the different colors splotches, like maria on our moon, or is it something different? It seems that they cause the moonlight to be colored rather than white, going by the initial description of the city under the Dreaming Moon...

- A lot of Jemisin's terms for things don't work well for me- umblikeh is jarringly close to umbilical, and jungissa to Jung (whose work I understand was an influence here).

>3 imyril:, >4 JannyWurts: Excellent! I'd love to hear what you both think of it.

I actually read this a few weeks ago. I enjoyed it, but not enough to pick up the companion in that world she built.

In specific, I agree with quite a few of sandstone's points.

I'm also reading it at the moment. I'm at 36%, so I haven't read the second part of your post in detail, sandstone.

So far, I'm quite positive. I won't say I love it, but it keeps me engaged and is interesting. I like the characters enough, although I have to say I find the Gatherer's convictions appalling. Eugh, I believe you're better off dead, so no need to be afraid. It's not as if I'm going to HURT you, so you should welcome me with open arms when I'm killing you!All fine if someone asked for it, but in the other cases I think it's pretty disgusting. I'm hoping they'll become more reasonable in time. I can sort of see how the boy (Nijiri?) might think this way and how he might be this idealistic (love the way how his backstory is put in, by the way), but Ehiru is ridiculously naive for someone his age and background.

I'm somewhat put off by the role of women in the Gujareen society, but I like Sunandi and her friend Lin. Too bad Lin died, Sunandi and Lin seemed to have a good friendship, Sunandi even acknowledging Lin's superior skills. I like that darker skin is better. And I like that we see things from the villain's viewpoint (at least, I assume the Prince is the villain), and he makes sense. I'm curious to see where this'll go...

I found an explanation about the moons on Jemisin's blog:

But there are other gods, and a whole cosmology to contain them. The world of this story is not Earth — it’s the moon of a gas giant. They’re aware that it’s not their moon, that it’s the other way around, but they still refer to the planet as the Dreaming Moon. Because it’s so much larger than the sun in their sky, they’re not really sun-worshipers; they acknowledge Sun as one of the gods, but he’s a bit hapless, constantly getting into trouble and being reined in by Dreaming Moon. Dreaming Moon married him despite this, and they’re the parents of most of the gods (including Hananja).

How interesting! That hasn't come through to me at all from the story- I would think it would alter the day/night cycle quite a bit, wouldn't it? I suppose the bands actually are bands like those on our own solar system's gas giants.

>6 RowanTribe: Thanks for stopping by! I'm going to run a group read of the companion book next month, if you're curious. Most reviewers who have read both books seem to think the second one is better, but I think it has more of a romance plot, and I had definitely mixed feelings about the romances in Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy so I'm a little apprehensive about that.

>7 zjakkelien: Gathering seems to be at an odd overlap of a criminal justice system, dubiously ethical pharmaceutical manufacturing, assassination, and assisted suicide. I think their ethics are made a little bit more clear later on- there's a terminally ill woman who refuses Gathering when it's offered, and is allowed to live with no questions asked- but the system still seems extraordinarily open to abuse for political reasons. I'd like to know a little bit more about how the tithebearers are selected under normal circumstances- there's something called an Assay of Truth that happens, but what that entails is kind of vague to me.

One interesting comparison that comes to mind is the Assassin's Guild in C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner, which is kind of the inverse of this- assassinations are expected to be personally or politically motivated, but the Filing of Intent is made public and fair warning is given to the target and their bodyguard, and there are checks and balances in play.

I have to admit that I am always a little disappointed when authors invent an interesting, complex society with lots of potential and then only show it to us at its most dysfunctional, endangered, and broken point- I tend to be curious about what life is like for people who just live in places with systems like Gathering under normal conditions, who aren't themselves the biggest political movers and shakers, or characterized as being awesome by virtue of reacting against a different, being The Person Who Sees That Things Are Broken And Leads A Revolution To Victory, Unlike Those Other Contemptible Ignorant Sheeple Followers (I'm looking at you, YA dystopian genre.) I expect that epic fantasy, with its variously apocalyptic stakes, isn't really the place for such things though- the city, kingdom, world, etc almost has to be in disarray and peril.

>6 RowanTribe: >8 sandstone78: I thought the second book was far better than the first; it had more female characters and although there is a romance in one of the storylines it wasn't badly done. The story gripped me from the start and the world felt more real than in the first book.

I'm glad to hear that from you both - I'll freely admit that the fact there was supposed to be more of a central romance turned me off. I did very much enjoy the concept of the world, and if the romance isn't awful, I think I'll pick the next one up.

I'm just about to three quarters of the way through, and I'm afraid the book is losing me again...

Big spoilers here.

The caravan massacre was just a bit much, to me. I don't think it's out of character for the Prince to do something like that, but this is about the third or fourth death that's happened- Kinja offscreen, Lin's by the Reaper, Sunandi's Bromarte contact's cousin, now a third of Gehanu's minstrel caravan, and all I'm getting is "I'm so sorry for you Sunandi, you must feel really guilty, oh well, these things happen". Even Gehanu's first reaction seems to be "It's okay, I still love you like a daughter Sunandi"- I just can't help but feel that these people's first concern in the loss of their loved ones would probably not be making Sunandi feel better. With Gehanu's caravan in particular, Sunandi seems to think "this is horrible, now Gehanu won't like me" rather than "this is horrible, a bunch of people just died" and it's making it hard for me to like her- especially since the guilt we're told she feels about these things seems to disappear between scenes as the story moves on. I can understand her putting it aside, but it seems to be a big deal and just then disappears without explanation, with the sole exception of her continuing grief about Lin.

There seem to be some inconsistencies too- at some early point, there's something about a Bromarte man trying not to cry because Bromartes don't cry in front of women (with the implication to me that Gujaareen men, by contrast, do, without a problem), but in Ehiru's childhood flashback and at least one other mention it seems like it's shameful for men to cry at all. (Specifically, crying and wetting the bed are used to characterize his older brother as somewhat weak and cowardly.) In another part, I had thought we were told Gatherers don't dream, but without comment I think we've seen both Ehiru and Nijiri dream (outside of Ehiru's hallucinations) without it being remarked on. Maybe I'm misreading here, or misunderstanding?

I'm still curious to see where things go from here, but a little less enthusiastically than I was last post.

I'm less far in (about 40% I think, where the group is just about to leave the city) and I still like it. I can forget about it relatively easily while not reading, but when I pick it up, I get quite engaged. I do think Ehiru is too naive. And I'm still not entirely clear what this pradje ceremony is. It seems to be somewhat questionable, involving sleeping with young boys, possibly hurting them. As some form of test? I just read a piece about how there is inherent madness involved in this form of magic (Hananja holding the dream world in her mind, and letting everyone in, therefore not having a space to think her own thoughts). Perhaps that's where the madness comes from. If they really don't dream (and I see in the previous post that this is questionable), I can see why the Gatherers might go mad if they don't gather dreamblood. Which makes the whole process dubious: if you go mad without killing, you need to be a strong person not to kill when the situation warrants it. Difficult to question the need for killing that way...

>12 zjakkelien: It might be a minor spoiler since the information is only slowly dealt out, but from what I gather the pradje is more like a vigil, where the Gatherer deliberately goes without Dreamblood to see if he will give into the temptation to take a life- the boy's- to get Dreamblood to ease the withdrawal symptoms.

The issue brought up at Nijiri's test when we first hear about the pradje was a little confusing, but as I read it the pedophile thing was different- one of the teachers offered to make sure Nijiri didn't get pradje duty in exchange for sex. With the way the other Gatherers were like "pedophile, whatever" basically and the thing was dropped, I wasn't sure if the whole thing was a setup to see how Nijiri reacted maybe?

The story does look at some of the questions you raise at the end of your post there. The Gatherers seem to be "mad" in various ways before they are selected, so it's not clear to me how much is withdrawal and how much is their symptoms, no longer treated by dreamblood, coming back out- later it's said that Gatherers' bodies "no longer produce dreamblood" because of their gathering, so maybe their original problems come back, even worse because they don't have their own body's naturally produced dreamblood to balance things out?

Dreamblood seems to be a fix all treatment for their issues but also addictive- kind of both medication and recreational drug. So we sort of end up with a mental health patient who needs medication to function slash junkie who will kill to get a fix...

Okay, I'm about a third of the way through, and finding it easy to engage with so far (which seems to be the trend, reading the thread and avoiding the spoilers) - although I've not fallen in love with the world or the characters, and I'm quite specifically annoyed that Lin has been killed, as she intrigued me (I like the archetype of the worldly child/adult, and while I'd sort of half-expected she might die eventually, I assumed she had a bigger role to play), although I'm amused that the two pale-skinned characters so far (Lin and the Bromarte) have both been killed - neat role reversal vs traditional fates for incidental POC.

I read the Gatherers attitudes to the paedophile priest more strongly - yes, that scenario with Nijiri was a test, but they struck me as disapproving, rather than accepting, of the priest's proclivities. I still read it as a form of corruption, but perhaps that was my sensibilities creeping in rather than theirs coming through. Thinking back, they were far more explicitly disapproving of Nijiri's acceptance and silence (lack of rebellion) as an expression of his low caste, although they called out that this had implications for the boys he left behind in the priest's clutches. They didn't specifically say they'd do anything about that... I suppose I just sort of assumed they might.

One thing I found interesting in the confrontation between Ehiru and Sunandi was that he could sense her belief in what she said. zjakkelien called him naive (which I suppose he is, in so far as he says he must go back and discuss her accusations with the Hetaya), but he feels senior / empowered enough to make his own decisions; he doesn't blindly follow instructions - he follows his faith with open eyes. It would be very easy for him to say that she has been judged guilty, as this isn't a judicial system that allows for defence or appeal, and that no matter what else she claims, she admits to spying and must therefore die as corrupt. There may well be a Reaper at large, and he could investigate that after she is dead - her life is utterly irrelevant to that truth, and he could be grateful for her sharing it without showing her mercy for it. The Lawful Good interpretation of justice, if you will. She is still guilty, within the narrow definition of Gujaareen law. Arguably, even his own suspicions that he is being used - that repeated phrase - could be held secondary to the fact that as a spy, she is corrupt - and the defence that 'everybody's doing it' is hardly much of a defence ;)

I'm always intrigued by the notion of quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - the idea of a state that embraces peace, rejects corruption, and kills to protect these principles is both so high-minded and so ruthless that it can't help but be corrupt unless there's checks and balances at every stage. As far as I can see, the Gatherers are a law unto themselves - faith alone is meant to keep them honest - unless I've missed something.

As noted above, I'd be very curious to see how this plays out for the common citizen (although I think we're meant to get a sense of that from Ehiru's first Gathering, which is welcomed).

I agree, imyril, Ehiru is very sincere, and follows his own conscience, not just the letter of his religion. I think he is a very moral man. I find that sincerity irking, though. In his case I think there is a kind of stupidity to it. The insistence that Gathering is not killing for instance. Really? Killing is to cause someone to become dead. Gathering is causing someone to be dead. You could argue that it is not murder, but how could you say it is not killing? Even Ehiru's own people don't really understand this, or it wouldn't have to be carried out with such stealth. Clearly someone from another society would have more problems with it. Someone in the book (the non, I believe) says that this is one of Ehiru's biggest faults, that he cannot see things from more than one point-of-view. I haven't read far enough yet to get all the allusions to mental illnesses in Gatherers (and I'm not reading the spoilers yet!), but perhaps these are partly to blame? Scary, your nation's executioners are mentally unstable in essence... Or perhaps it's mostly convenient...

I'm also troubled by the fact that corruption is apparently considered to be absolute. What we consider to be corruption must be corruption everywhere, because we think it is ok to kill people for it, even foreigners. It doesn't allow for different viewpoints. It doesn't allow for people changing their ways. At least I think not, not having seen anything about the system for being chosen for gathering, it's a bit difficult to say.

To me, Ehiru's naivete lies in his inability to see that his system is open to corruption. He believes that his system works and could not fail. A pre-teen might be excused to believe such a thing, but someone who grew up in the royal family and someone his age? I'm sure circumstances will force him to see more clearly, but for a guy with his position, he should at least acknowledge the possibility that things might go wrong somewhere.

>15 zjakkelien: Actually, that's a very good point: from the hints dropped by the Prince, it's clear that growing up in the Palace was about politics, intrigue and murder to get ahead - and rather out of kilter with the rest of Gujaareh. I wonder how that's meant to reconcile. I mean, that's basically corrupt, right?

Ok, I finished it, so now I can go and read all the spoilers...

>11 sandstone78: About the dreaming, I don't remember either Ehiru or Nijiri dreaming without it being visions or hallucinations.

>13 sandstone78: It seems to be true that the Gatherers are all mentally unstable somehow, but in that case, what exactly is Nijiri's instability?

Sorry, wasn't finished yet, but had to go and eat apple pie.

I was a bit surprised that so few people died in the battle in the end. I thought that reaping was fast, and once you had gotten reaped, there was no unreaping anything. But apparently, only a few people died when Ehiru managed to stop obeying the Prince.

I liked that Sunandi had a better understanding of Gathering in the end, but it seems to me there are still issues with it. I have to admit, though, I thought at first that the standard for corruption was quite rigid, and perhaps sometimes it is, but there is some allusion to the fact that one can see in someone's mind whether they are corrupt: doing wrong things (such as spying) for the right reasons (trying to prevent a war) is not corrupt. Ah, wait, maybe I'm wrong. What they did was determine madness (in the Prince). When no madness was found, evil deeds were judged to come from corruption.

Overall verdict: I liked it, the Egyptian-like world, the narcomancy and the links to mental instability makes it interesting. I was very interested while reading, but it was easy to put away. And, the last third or so, I got impatient with it. It was nice, but I also wanted to finish it so I could go read something else. I'm debating a bit about reading the second book. Since it'll be a group read, I might give it a go, but I don't think I would otherwise.

I finished it this evening... I'm glad I read it, but I'm not sure I found it satisfying. I'm glad there's another book in the setting, because I want to know more about things there wasn't space for in this volume.

(Thinking back on it, there are actually quite a lot of elements that applies to- the dream humors other than dreamblood and the range of narcomancy, the shunha/zhinha divide and the caste system- I think all we really see are military and servant caste people?, the role of women and what's up with them being stronger in Ina-Karekh, the significance of the Gatherers' using a different name in dreams, the different paths of Hananja's faith besides Gathering- especially the Sisters, the planet being a moon of a gas giant...)

I think it's interesting that one of the protagonists in The Shadowed Sun is the Prince's favorite son, Wanahomen too.

I was pleased that I hadn't guessed some of the twists near the end. I had assumed the Prince had just grabbed some guy to be his Reaper, so the reveal that it was Ehiru's mentor- and that was who had been speaking in the interludes- was interesting, and the reveal that Inunru, the founder, had been a practically immortal megalomaniac tyrant was interesting too- although, since that came from the Prince, I'm not sure how much of that was reliable information and how much he had twisted to suit himself?

The same with the revelation that Dreamblood was given out by the Hetawa to "the elite of the city" to control them with supply and demand- if that was the case, why only four Gatherers? How could Sunandi and Kinja, or the Prince's General Niyes and others, who all lived in those elevated circles not have known about this? That didn't make sense to me.

It also contradicts completely what the Superior had said about how the Prince got a taste of Dreamblood- from an attempted healing. I don't think we get enough objective information to know what was going on there- the Superior's confession cut off at the interesting part, and then Rabbeneh and Sonta-i handle him off-screen and we never go back to their POV or get closure on what all was said there.

I never did really fully understood why the Prince killed all of his brothers and their mothers beyond "he's corrupt" (killing them all to get them out of the way doesn't really jive with his whole stated "gotta free the royal family from control of the Hetawa" motive, or really seem relevant to the whole "become a living god" thing honestly- he doesn't seem terribly bothered about having sons that might challenge him someday, so why brothers? because he can feel like he owns the sons? what exactly was between him and Ehiru anyways- he just seemed to want to kill the last brother off, or what?), or, honestly, why he was bothered about Sunandi and Lin and Kinja getting the information that he was planning a war back to Kisua- if the Kisuan army had come for him, he already had the Reaper at least by the time of the beginning of the story, right? Time for training him, I guess? But there wasn't really any of that necessary for Ehiru...

I'm not sure what to think about Ehiru becoming a full-on Reaper at the end, or maybe more accurately Sunandi's reactions to him. It was almost like the more he became like her stereotypes of what Gatherers were in the beginning- heartless mass-murderers- the more she believed Gatherers weren't like that an weren't all bad? The whole part about "incorrect Gathering/Reaping destroys souls" seemed to get lost somewhere along the way in Nijiri's "Hananja's totally cool with this (mainly because we have no other options and don't want to die)"- the other Gatherers didn't seem as bothered by what Ehiru and Una-une had become or anything as I would have expected from people who actually believed in the faith of Hananja- I would have at least expected mourning for all of the people whose souls were destroyed by abomination and/or basically cursed to eternal wandering in terrible conditions...

Like I felt a little earlier with the deaths surrounding Sunandi, things seemed to bend in a way that centered them on Ehiru- his pain and suffering is at an end, so the pain and suffering is behind us, now we have to move on.

Oh, one more thing- I was kind of surprised Meliatua didn't really play a role in anything...

I think many things are left more unexplained than I would like, and I don't feel that I'm given enough information to fill in the blanks satisfactorily myself- maybe in a reread some of the things I'm wondering about will be clearer?

>18 zjakkelien: I was surprised too- it seemed very fast with Ehiru before that, yet thinking back the other Reaper was slow enough with Nijiri that Ehiru could interrupt him. I'm guessing it's the amount that slowed him down? I was a little confused by Ehiru appearing to Sunandi and feeding on her- that was a hallucination induced by the Reaping I guess?

I think by the end, Ehiru, Nijiri, and Sunandi all had a morality based more on intentions than outcomes- and I think that's really kind of dangerous given some of the things that happened. Some of it is necessary so things like killing Sunandi for basically doing her job don't happen, but others, for example the Superior, seem to have taken things too far.

Edit to add: I guess Nijiri's instability was just being traumatized by his mother's death? Or maybe that would give him more empathy and understanding toward people in that situation? I didn't really feel like he had one so much as he was picked for that, hmm...

Hope your pie was good!

>19 sandstone78: *laughs* Yes, the pie was good.

It's true that Ehiru was able to interrupt the Reaper when he was reaping Nijiri, but then it took a Sharer to heal him, and I believe it was supposed to be very close? But perhaps it's slower when you do a lot of them at the same time...

I also missed a larger role of Meliatua, and I didn't like how the Superior confesses to the Gatherers, but then does not less us know. I do think the information about Inunru fits a lot better with how Kisua feels about narcomancy, so I'm inclined to believe that for now.

I got the feeling that the Prince killed all his brothers, because they grew up the same way he did, so he couldn't trust them. His sons, he raised, and he raised them to be loyal, so that was ok. The way he felt about Ehiru afterwards is a bit strange, because he seems partly almost protective of him. But since he then turns him into a reaper, maybe it was just to make sure he could make use of his gifts...

The Prince actually made decent sense to me - he wants to inherit, and then to be unchallenged, so his actions make absolute sense, especially when thinking about Egyptian dynastic shenanigans. He's not in line to get what he got, so he took it, and then he immediately took steps to insure that no one else copied his idea and did the same to him.

His sons aren't a threat because 1) he raised them as a loving father (unlike his own parent) and 2) he's convinced he's going to have absolute power, so even if they do rise up later, their petty human rebellion would not concern him.

As for Ehiru, I think that is a really nasty combination of jealousy and desire and really twisted-up guilt and co-dependence because of what the Prince did to all his other family - Ehiru is all that he has left, so he wants to keep him, but he also needs to use him, and the need overrides the want.

(sorry, trying to be vague - I never learned how to spoiler tag)

>21 RowanTribe: It's perfectly clear, RowanTribe. And your point 2) makes sense, I hadn't thought of that.

Ok, I've finished this morning and... I'm conflicted. It's well-written, it's an interesting setting, stuff happens, but I felt it lost internal consistency as it went along (for reasons largely called out here already), and crucially I never began to give 2 hoots about any of the characters.

It leaves me curious about some of the world mechanics, but with little motivation to tackle the sequel (although I may still join you as this wasn't an unpleasant or aggravating read, it was just... a read... and I was hoping for more :)

I liked as I noted above that Ehiru could choose to place a tithe bearer in abeyance if he felt an error had been made: judgement is not absolute. From there we learn that corruption is about intent, not deed - which is very interesting, and seems to provide far more wiggle room than I expected, but this book wasn't the time or place to explore the consequences.

I didn't much like the male dominance of the tale. Gujaareh may consider its women to be goddesses, but that seems to be limited to worshiping them in bed and considering them greater in dreams (which goes unillustrated). Beyond that, they're mothers, servants, keeping house, and invisible in the story; even Meliatua disappears after a promising start. Very disappointing; the Hetawa and the upper castes are full of men and men alone.

I didn't particularly like Sunandi either. I felt I was told who she was and what she was like more often than I saw it, and that we we learnt about her past in all the wrong order - some of the previous scenes / actions might have had more resonance or meaning with that context. sandstone78 makes good points on how everyone else seems to exist to make her feel better - that bothered me too. The first we hear of the depth of her relationship with Gehanu is when Gehanu ought to be mourning someone else.

While I'm not big on Basil Exposition and I could see Jemisin working hard to build a foreign society without him, I do think we learnt a lot out of sequence in a way that was ultimately less helpful.

But I do like Jemisin's prose - easy to read, flowing - and as this is early work there's enough interesting ideas in it to give me hope her later books may address some of the character rounding and development issues.

Any further comments on this one, anyone? The group read for the second half of the duology, The Shadowed Sun, will be next month- I'll post the thread this week to get things rolling. I'm curious to see where it goes- many reviews I've read seem to think the second one is better because the reader is already familiar with things and Jemisin doesn't have to do as much exposition to explain the setting and magic, but I'm hoping for some more detail in those areas myself.

>24 sandstone78: I'm with you - I found the world building more interesting than the plot and characters, so more of this would make me happy ;) although of like to see engaging people too!

I tried, I really did, but I've made only 68 pp in 6 weeks. I can usually make it thru the first and second books of a trilogy hoping for a satisfactory ending. The suck fairy got to this book during printing.

>26 Jasper: It took me three tries before I was able to read past the first couple of chapters of The killing moon. The library must have thought I loved the book given how many times I checked it out before I finally persevered and read the whole thing. I did end up enjoying it, perhaps a bit more than some of those who've been discussing it here, but I agree that for a while it is a slog. It must have been all the positive praise, and the fact that Jemisin seems like a pretty awesome person, that made me keep going back and trying again. I had no such problems with the second book - it sucked me in right from the start and didn't let go.

The thread is up for The Shadowed Sun for August!

>26 Jasper: I can understand that, I think. I felt to some degree that the suck fairy must have gotten to it in between the time it was published and everyone reviewed and loved it and the time I read it.

I did push through the initial slow part and it did improve part of the way through, but by the end I was less happy with it again for a number of reasons and didn't like it as much as I'd hoped. The setting worked for me, but the characters didn't, really, in a number of ways (particularly how the story seemed to bend minor characters' mindsets and behavior around them.)

If there's anything in here that caught you enough that you're curious about reading more by Jemisin, I thought The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and sequels were better put together and more compelling- they're driven by their first-person narrators' voices, which worked better for me than the third-person narration in this one, and they have more focused central mysteries. (The characters are still a little flat to me in those, though, and I'm still iffy on some of the romantic dynamics especially in the first books, but I really liked the third book, The Kingdom of Gods.)

>27 Sakerfalcon: I'm looking forward to the second book! I have a feeling The Killing Moon will improve for me on re-read, when I don't have to devote as much energy to figuring out how things work and I can focus more on what's going on.

Just finished this book last night. I generally enjoyed but at the end I'm a bit confused. Ehiru, as a Reaper seems to kill Sunandi at the end of chapter 39, but then how is she living and interacting with Nijiri at the end of the book. Can anyone explain to me how that worked?