Banner of the Damned. Sherwood Smith.

Smith, Sherwood. Banner of the Dammed. Daw Books, 2012.

I've never read anything by Sherwood Smith before, and I can't entirely remember why I put this particular book on my Amazon wishlist (and thus ended up with a copy of it for Christmas this year). I think it might have had to do with liking the intro:

The scribes have three rules.
First Rule: Do not interfere.
Second Rule: Keep The Peace.
Third Rule: Tell the truth as we see it (3).

I immediately want to know who "the scribes" are, since if they have this very particular set of rules, they must be more than just random note-takers. They're clearly an organization. I also want to know about "The Peace," since it's in caps and therefore presumably refers to something more specific than what we mean when we casually reference "keeping the peace." Finally, I'm altogether fascinating by the idea of "truth as we see it," since I'm big into how everyone sees objects and experiences from different angles (and therefore capital-T Truth doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me).

That seems like enough of a reason to read a book. I mean, additionally, it's a fantasy book. There's a castle on the cover, and folks on horses carrying pennants. This book is obviously up my alley, at least on first glance.

Within the first 20 pages, I've discovered that the fantasy society described in the book has a cool way of discussing sexuality.

There are many words with elen, to love, as base. The feminine suffix "as" combined with third person singular "el" meant a preference for women, as "an" was the suffix for a preference for males, elendre meant a preference for both, and elor, for the person who prefers to remain asexual. And, combining zad, or storm, to the adjective form of love, elend, indicated a wild passion. We all used the term--but about food or fashions or the momentary ecstasies of youth. None of us knew what the adults meant, though we all thought we did (19).

I like that the words for attraction relate to the gender of the "attractee" but don't tell you the subject's gender. What matters isn't whether a woman likes women or a man likes women--what matters is what you like, regardless of what you are. There's something neat about that, not the least of which is how unlikely it would be to foster anything readers might consider homophobia or heterosexism. (I'm not saying there couldn't be anything like that in the society--just that the way they name attractions seems like it wouldn't add to it.)

From this point forth, here be spoilers. If you haven't read the book and you're planning to do so, stop here until afterwards!

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The narrator isn't sure what her sexuality is at first, but through the course of the novel we find out that she's "elor"--asexual. She loves Birdy, one of the young men with whom she grew up, but she can't bear the thought of being physically involved with him. Actually, that part seemed a little overdone to me: For some reason, she apparently can't even handle giving him a hug. Hugs not being inherently sexual, I'm really not sure why they couldn't exchange the basic types of physical affection any pair of platonic friends typically exchanges. Other than that, though, I enjoyed how the writer handled her narrator's asexuality. The object of the narrator's nonphysical affections ends up in a romantic relationship with another women, who is also friends with the narrator. They all remain friends/involved, and the other woman knows and accepts that Birdy's first and primary love is the narrator. This is perhaps easier for her than it might otherwise have been because she's polyamorous and has other lovers, though she shares her life long-term with Birdy. Birdy at first isn't sure if he can handle a love relationship that doesn't involve sexuality (or apparently even physical touch, at all), but ultimately decides that he can.

This book actually explores various aspects of relationships and how they do and don't work.

One of the major characters falls in love and then is separated from her lover. She's a princess, and her sister--the Queen--marries off her lover to someone else. The queen then encourages the princess to wed, and though the princess is broken-hearted, she finds that she does feel some level of attraction to a newly introduced character. Also, she wants to get far away from her home now that her lover has been married off. She and the new character marry, and she follows him to his homeland.

She does her best by her husband, but the princess is never able to reach the depth of relationship and love with him as she had--still has, though they do not see each other--with her lover. A big part of that relates to how her husband is a man of very few words, which itself relates to the way warriors are raised (from the age of 10) in the husband's society. The way you can see the depth of feeling and connection between the princess and her lover is through their conversation; it's depthful, meaningful, philosophical. Her conversations with her husband, on the other hand, are about daily concerns, and they mostly "do away with words." Considering that most books seem to show closeness and romantic connection in much more physical ways, I found it fascinating to see closeness shown through meaningful conversation.

The societies presented in the book are developed in admirable detail. The social goings-on and motivations of Colend were especially well-described. Some people argue that "world building" might as well be called "navel gazing," but when it's done well...no, I can't agree. World building is fascinating when it's done well. Sherwood Smith does it well.

These were some of the most interesting elements of the book for me, which makes sense when you consider that characters and their relationships are what draw me. Yes, there were other things going on--more about magic, about politics, etc. You'll have to read the book to learn more about that. Oh, and the plot worked, which is pretty much all I really ask for from a plot. It was even somewhat interesting--though its trajectory was clear, as plot trajectories often seem to be, from relatively early in the story. I don't care much about that. What interests me in a book is almost never the plot, and knowing the plot in advance does not negatively affect my reading experience. I'm way more interested in characters, characters, characters. And societies. And sexuality.

I'm definitely going to seek out Smith's other books...as soon as I finish a few more of the titles already on my TBR list. :)