Some of the things you dislike most I liked :) I can't really comment on the prose or pace as I read this really quickly one night when I had insomnia and thus the critical part of my mind was even more absent than usual.
I feel like there's heaps of books (maybe not strong fighter chick books? I can't think of that many I've read recently) where it's an unspoken assumption the woman will want children and have them as a natural end to romance. Even if the main character in The blue sword doesn't talk about wanting children we see them all cutely pop up as a natural epilogue at the end. And the ones who don't seem like they are just trying to rebel against the mores of their societies, whereas Katsa seems to just not want kids. Which is how some women are but they aren't in books that much. (the anti-marriage thing I take as a product of the society where you don't get to run around doing your own thing and being independent after you're married, even if you're husband is nice, becuase that wasn't marriage).
And I liked that they had sex in the middle of the story to get that first lust out of the way which made more room for the romance to continuing developing in the rest of the story. I'm not sure the rest was completely carried off (suspect you might be right the author was trying to focus on politics/action more after that) but hey I appreciated the attempt.
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sarken
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-30 06:40 am (UTC)I feel like there's heaps of books (maybe not strong fighter chick books? I can't think of that many I've read recently) where it's an unspoken assumption the woman will want children and have them as a natural end to romance. Even if the main character in The blue sword doesn't talk about wanting children we see them all cutely pop up as a natural epilogue at the end. And the ones who don't seem like they are just trying to rebel against the mores of their societies, whereas Katsa seems to just not want kids. Which is how some women are but they aren't in books that much. (the anti-marriage thing I take as a product of the society where you don't get to run around doing your own thing and being independent after you're married, even if you're husband is nice, becuase that wasn't marriage).
And I liked that they had sex in the middle of the story to get that first lust out of the way which made more room for the romance to continuing developing in the rest of the story. I'm not sure the rest was completely carried off (suspect you might be right the author was trying to focus on politics/action more after that) but hey I appreciated the attempt.