Book Review: The House of the Stag by Kage Baker

Title: The House of the Stag (Lord Ermenwyr Book 2)
Author: Kage Baker
Published: New York: Tor, 2008 (2008)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 350
Total Page Count: 164,062
Text Number: 479
Read Because: recommended by phoenixfalls, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The story of the Yendri liberation from slavery, and their goddess's marriage to a demon lord. The House of the Stag has a slow start, one too epic, archetypal, and, frankly, predictable: it reads as parable more than a human story. But as the characters develop, the book improves. Baker has a knack for combining heavy-handed with surprisingly subtle. While less exuberant than Anvil, it benefits from that book's humor and varied worldbuilding; the politics are too clear-cut, but the interpersonal narratives have welcome nuance. The central cast has personality and charm, and (while I take issue with how Baker handles everything related to sexuality) the love story develops a quiet conviction. I preferred The Anvil of the World, but The House of the Stag lives up to expectations as a prequel—it's (anti)heroic enough to make history, but human enough to be a story worth telling.

It can also be read as a stand-alone.

New kitty! Meet Daredevil.

Hello, internet! We have a new cat.

It's been long enough since Mama's passing that it finally feels like the right time. Dee's been watching the humane society's website for cats with special needs but affordable upkeep, and when Daredevil showed up see seemed like a good fit. She's blind due to a congenital defect, but well-adjusted, outgoing, and highly affectionate. She's also so teeny-tiny.

( Medical details and her history. )

She came to us at two years old-ish and 6.5 pounds which, if you were counting, is super teeny omg. She's nearly half August's size. She makes tiny-man Gilly look big. She's a short-haired tortoiseshell.

Dare takes a little bit of time to adjust to new spaces and stimuli, but is proactively engaged with her environment; she's bright and observant, and has already conquered the bathroom and is eager to get out to the rest of the house. Disability isn't inspiration porn, even in cats, but the degree to which this cat is engaged with her environment is amazing. She tracks sound so well it seems like she's making eye contact with what she's "looking" at; she's a great example of how much cats use their whiskers to explore and navigate their environment. Being blind from birth probably helps, since she's unaware of what she's missing; it probably also helps that she's bold and friendly. She's refined the tools she has to engage with her environment, and damn but does she use them. She makes my cats look like lazy slackers.

She has a teeny little meow, and is moderately vocal (a good bit of meowing for attention, but so far no yowling for the pure pleasure of making atrocious noises), purrs persistently, and kneeds a lot—that last is winding down a touch as she gets a little less frantic for human interaction, but I'll still be maintaining the hell out of her claw trimmings. She's quite playful, and absolutely able to bat and chase cat toys. It will be interesting to see how her behaviors change as she adapts to living her and to plenty of human interaction—Gillian, for example, was very needy when he first came here and now is happy to take his humans for granted.

And she is so wildly different from Mama that there's no hidden regret or sense of betrayal. Dare is her own unique cat, not a replacement.

Juu, who cares, show us pictures.


(From the humane society's adoption page.)


(Taken by me, on her first day home.)


(Taken by Dee.)


(Taken by Dee.)

I do dumb liveblogging/picspamming on my tumblr (cat tag) these days, just fyi.