I actually want to talk about a book that I consider one of my favorites of all time… Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury.

It is both fantasy with a dash of science fiction but more importantly it is a spartanly written yet lush book about interesting characters, family dynamics, dynastic ambitions, and a little bit of intrigue. Some of it very violent.

For some people it is a hard read because of the content about a society struggling to survive but the reader actually joins this society when it is fairly far along on its course and along the way there is a subtle understory that eventually unfolds in bits and pieces for the reader to knit together. It doesn’t really very vital for key to the main stories but it does lend a rich undercurrent to a back story that is left untold and it is almost like a treasure hunt for the reader to figure out how these people ended up where they are and how they came to be in the society that they’ve built.

Obviously I won’t go into it much further because if somebody does want to read this I don’t want to spoil them.

Read its Wikipedia for more information (without spoilers): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtship_Rite

It was written back in the 19 eighties and I can tell you that the brilliance of Kingsbury’s writing still holds up today. There is really so much I’d like to talk about but I have to pick through bits and pieces to figure out what I could say and what I can’t. The book follows the social evolution of a family consisting of three brothers and their two wives with the catalyst of the story being the leader of their clan ordering them to marry a religious heretic when they have already promised to marry someone else. The members of the family act in their own specific ways… Some are trying to figure out a way to make it work while others are against the whole thing.

Their society is based on the political weight of how many people you speak for and this heretic has a huge following that the leader wants to bring into the fold. It is a complicated story but told simply and I how several copies of the book because if I have a friend I think will enjoy it, I gifted to them. I’m sure every single person that I’ve given it to so far has been — what the fuck is wrong with this person that I know?

I can accept that.

I wish I could write as well as Kingsbury and I wish I could craft world is tightly knit as his. Probably a lot of my fondness for this book has to do with my admiration for his skill and how he approaches the viewpoint of his writing. He writes with brash intelligence and never assumes the reader can’t keep up. He respects the readers’ intelligence and crafts the story in such a way that every time it is read, the reader discover something new or see something in a different light.

But when it is all said and done — it’s just an enjoyable book.

Some books are available on Amazon. If you do plunge in, let me know how you do! https://www.amazon.com/Courtship-Rite-Donald-Kingsbury/dp/067145224X/