Rediscovery: Daggerspell by Katharine Kerr

[james_davis_nicoll]

Daggerspell by Katharine Kerr

Comments

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

I don't recall how long I stuck with that series, but I do recall feeling that the sequels were getting worse rather than better.

[felila.livejournal.com]

First book of a series is often the tightest.

I am reminded of the Aubrey-Maturin series. The first book gallops over a huge swathe of plot, and as the series grows, each book covers a smaller and smaller slice of time.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

So, is there any consensus about what book is when things start to go formulaic?

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

If memory serves, I finished book three and tossed book four aside half-way through. That's one data point rather than a consensus, of course.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

If you mean the Aubrey-Maturin books, I generally think of them as one very, very long novel, almost all of which I like.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

For the Aubrey-Maturin books, I'd say they come to a natural end with book twelve.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I remember quite liking this, and a couple more in the series, then things starting to kind of drag on. Eventually I gave up on the series.

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

One of the things I remember being impressed by in the series was the way the celtic flavouring was enhanced by people not using the words 'yes' or 'no' (apart from one gnome I think nodding a yes). This gave it a very authentic feel because the Gaelic languages (certainly Scottish, probably Irish) don't actually have words for 'yes' or 'no', just positive and negative replies using appropriate verbs. So 'it is' or 'just so' work, but 'yes' doesn't.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

"Do you know," said the Thin Woman, "that a Leprecaun came here to-day?"

"I do not," said the Philosopher, "and notwithstanding the innumerable centuries which have elapsed since that first sleeper (probably with extreme difficulty) sank into his religious trance, we can to-day sleep through a religious ceremony with an ease which would have been a source of wealth and fame to that prehistoric worshipper and his acolytes."

"Are you going to listen to what I am telling you about the Leprecaun?" said the Thin Woman.

"I am not," said the Philosopher. "It has been suggested that we go to sleep at night because it is then too dark to do anything else; but owls, who are a venerably sagacious folk, do not sleep in the night time. Bats, also, are a very clear-minded race; they sleep in the broadest day, and they do it in a charming manner. They clutch the branch of a tree with their toes and hang head downwards—a position which I consider singularly happy, for the rush of blood to the head consequent on this inverted position should engender a drowsiness and a certain imbecility of mind which must either sleep or explode."

"Will you never be done talking?" shouted the Thin Woman passionately.

"I will not," said the Philosopher..." --James Stephens, The Crock of Gold

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

I love that book more than I probably should.

[felila.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone with a background in anthropology and history, and also as someone who knows the author, I would point out that Kit based the book on a great deal of research. If she had stayed in academia, she would have ended up as the chair of a Celtic studies department somewhere, or at least as a tenured professor of linguistic anthropology. Or history of Western occultism :) When I first read the book, years ago, I was impressed that she did not do the faux-medieval schtick so popular at the time.