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the_graylien's review against another edition
1.0
Although Orson Scott Card is one of my very favorites, I really didn't care for this book...
morporum's review against another edition
5.0
When the author signed my copy, he wrote "For Dan: a tale of sweetness and light".
He didn't mean it.
This is possibly the darkest, bloodiest, most unrelentingly depressing fantasy I've ever read, and I love it. I've read it six times. This probably says something not very flattering about me, but there you are. It also is beautifully written, thoroughly realized, and haunting. I can't recommend it highly enough, provided you've got a taste for the disturbing.
Which I apparently do.
He didn't mean it.
This is possibly the darkest, bloodiest, most unrelentingly depressing fantasy I've ever read, and I love it. I've read it six times. This probably says something not very flattering about me, but there you are. It also is beautifully written, thoroughly realized, and haunting. I can't recommend it highly enough, provided you've got a taste for the disturbing.
Which I apparently do.
cuddlesome's review against another edition
2.0
Well. I don't really know what to say.
I think I first read this book when I was around eleven and didn't have a very good grasp of what the heck is happening in this book--that being lots of child death/rape, torture porn, and other ickiness. Maybe I blocked it out. I knew it disturbed me back then and now but I thought I'd give the audiobook at double speed a listen yesterday, and well... hm. I don't think I'd recommend this book to anyone.
The best element is probably the worldbuilding that Card references in [b:How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy|31363|How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy|Orson Scott Card|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386924121l/31363._SY75_.jpg|10966] that I also read all that time ago. The religion and layout of the land was really interesting, and that's coming from someone who usually doesn't really care about that sort of thing.
I think I can safely get rid of my hard copy that I've kept around all this time because OOF this is not a story that's very fun to relive. I feel like I'm being a little generous giving two stars but I also didn't despise it outright enough to give it only one even though I probably should.
I think I first read this book when I was around eleven and didn't have a very good grasp of what the heck is happening in this book--that being lots of child death/rape, torture porn, and other ickiness. Maybe I blocked it out. I knew it disturbed me back then and now but I thought I'd give the audiobook at double speed a listen yesterday, and well... hm. I don't think I'd recommend this book to anyone.
The best element is probably the worldbuilding that Card references in [b:How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy|31363|How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy|Orson Scott Card|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386924121l/31363._SY75_.jpg|10966] that I also read all that time ago. The religion and layout of the land was really interesting, and that's coming from someone who usually doesn't really care about that sort of thing.
I think I can safely get rid of my hard copy that I've kept around all this time because OOF this is not a story that's very fun to relive. I feel like I'm being a little generous giving two stars but I also didn't despise it outright enough to give it only one even though I probably should.
dernhelms_bag's review
5.0
“Dark and Powerful” is spot on.
This one turned my stomach and I had to take a break a few times and debate finishing it, but I’m glad I did. It haunts for sure.
This one turned my stomach and I had to take a break a few times and debate finishing it, but I’m glad I did. It haunts for sure.
smcleish's review
3.0
Originally published on my blog here in June 2003.
There is an immense number of ways that fantasy authors have used to depict magic. Usually, particularly in writers who are just re-using the standard accoutrements of the genre, it is basically an alternate way to perform actions, or a way to do the impossible. This reduces it to a narrative convenience, which is not in the end terribly interesting unless it makes it possible for the author to concentrate on other things. There are few novels which present magic as something innate in the world yet disturbing; Hart's Hope is one of their number.
The plot of Hart's Hope is basically similar to that of many fantasy stories, a tale of magic and an usurped throne. A king, himself an usurper, is deposed by the daughter of the man he ousted. She was raped and discarded by him as part of the legitimization of his rule, but now, taking the name Beauty, she uses dark and forbidden magic not just to take her revenge but to submit the whole kingdom to an regime of unprecedented rigour - generally just by heaping obscene torments on the former king and his friends. She is even able to chain up the gods, rendering them virtually powerless. (Of them, the Hart is the symbol of masculine power, the Sisters of the feminine, while God has certain aspects of Christianity as it must have seemed to the pagans of northern Europe in the early Middle Ages.)
What makes Hart's Hope different is its atmosphere, which is cruel and dank, brutal and sordid. The nature of the magic in Card's world is part of this atmosphere; it is about the shedding of blood - by cutting oneself or by using menstrual blood, or, in the case of Beauty, by the sacrifice of a child carried to a ten month term. I was recently reading John Sutherland's book about puzzles in nineteenth century fiction, [b:Is Heathcliff a Murderer?|448282|Is Heathcliff a Murderer? Great Puzzles in Nineteenth-Century Fiction|John Sutherland|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1174864107s/448282.jpg|436940], and one of his articles comments on how strong a taboo there was against mentioning menstruation. Even in the twentieth century, with so many taboos broken that some writers seem to transgress for the sake of it, it is unusual to find a novel where menstrual blood has such an important (and uncontrived) place. This means that it provides a large part of the disturbing nature of magic in Hart's Hope.
This is quite early Orson Scott Card, and his work since has been more accessible and mainstream. Hart's Hope display at least as much imagination as any of Card's later writing, even if it is more difficult to get into.
There is an immense number of ways that fantasy authors have used to depict magic. Usually, particularly in writers who are just re-using the standard accoutrements of the genre, it is basically an alternate way to perform actions, or a way to do the impossible. This reduces it to a narrative convenience, which is not in the end terribly interesting unless it makes it possible for the author to concentrate on other things. There are few novels which present magic as something innate in the world yet disturbing; Hart's Hope is one of their number.
The plot of Hart's Hope is basically similar to that of many fantasy stories, a tale of magic and an usurped throne. A king, himself an usurper, is deposed by the daughter of the man he ousted. She was raped and discarded by him as part of the legitimization of his rule, but now, taking the name Beauty, she uses dark and forbidden magic not just to take her revenge but to submit the whole kingdom to an regime of unprecedented rigour - generally just by heaping obscene torments on the former king and his friends. She is even able to chain up the gods, rendering them virtually powerless. (Of them, the Hart is the symbol of masculine power, the Sisters of the feminine, while God has certain aspects of Christianity as it must have seemed to the pagans of northern Europe in the early Middle Ages.)
What makes Hart's Hope different is its atmosphere, which is cruel and dank, brutal and sordid. The nature of the magic in Card's world is part of this atmosphere; it is about the shedding of blood - by cutting oneself or by using menstrual blood, or, in the case of Beauty, by the sacrifice of a child carried to a ten month term. I was recently reading John Sutherland's book about puzzles in nineteenth century fiction, [b:Is Heathcliff a Murderer?|448282|Is Heathcliff a Murderer? Great Puzzles in Nineteenth-Century Fiction|John Sutherland|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1174864107s/448282.jpg|436940], and one of his articles comments on how strong a taboo there was against mentioning menstruation. Even in the twentieth century, with so many taboos broken that some writers seem to transgress for the sake of it, it is unusual to find a novel where menstrual blood has such an important (and uncontrived) place. This means that it provides a large part of the disturbing nature of magic in Hart's Hope.
This is quite early Orson Scott Card, and his work since has been more accessible and mainstream. Hart's Hope display at least as much imagination as any of Card's later writing, even if it is more difficult to get into.
peridotmage's review
4.0
Beautiful magical tale, once again OSC weaves deep questions into entertaining story. Power, freedom, sacrifice, love, debt, crime, justice.
sevenebulas's review
2.0
This book was totally psycho. Definitely my least favorite Card book to date.
mholla's review
1.0
I feel like this book was by a different author than my beloved Ender's series. I am disturbed on so many levels by his conception of love, religion, and society, because they're all crude and sexual beyond tolerance. With this, I resolve to not read anything else by OSC outside of the Ender/Bean series. I'm just so over it.