#me talking about PiF: best favourite best best FAVOURITE

[leojurand]

silly lymond ranking after the reread 🫶

6. queens' play:

this was my least favourite book in the series when i read it the first time, and unfortunately revisiting it didn't change that... it reinforced it. on reread i realized part of it is that i don't think this book is very exciting? there are some amazing, fun sequences (roof chase ofc), but overall i would say it lacks spark, if that makes sense. i think it's inevitable for me to not be head over heels in love with this novel because, especially compared to book 1, i don't think these new characters are that compelling. i don't really care about phelim; my favourite thing about oonagh is the way she's described (and man, do i not care about the fling she has with lymond...); and even though i think the robin stewart subplot is the best part of QP, i also don't have a lot of feelings about that guy specifically? great storyline, wonderful homoeroticism... still zero attachment to robin stewart.

the first time i read it i also thought there was way too much thady b stuff. i wanted francis crawford! but the second time around i appreciate it more, and i noticed that we actually get a fair amount of rare lymond pov in this book, which is very interesting.

so, this is either my least or second to last favourite dunnett novel. still really, really good!

5. the ringed castle

dorothy. i'm sure you did so much research about russia and russian ambassadors and the english court with mary and elizabeth but. did we have to read so much about all of that? i think dunnett is usually very good at showing the historical events and historical figures in an interesting way, but man. she failed here. especially with the english court and the russian ambassador, i could Not care less!! and another thing about this book that really misses the mark for me is philippa's characterization. i don't understand why she abandons kuzúm so suddenly and without a second thought. i dislike how she's so incredibly gorgeous and smart every man around her falls for her. i really don't like that she starts quoting literature in other languages so we see how very perfect she and lymond are for each other. it doesn't work for me at all.

i'm making it sound as if i hate this book lmao but that's not true!! i actually find lymond's character very compelling here. i'm not bothered by his cold behaviour towards everyone because i get it. i love the st mary's men in RC too. danny is perfect, and adam and alec are incredible here. the diccon chancellor storyline is heartbreaking and as horrible as it is i love its conclusion. and the crawford family drama... it hurts me in the best way possible.

so this novel has some things i very much appreciate, but some parts i'd want to skip in the future (spoiler alert: these mixed feelings will continue with the next entry)

4. checkmate

hoooo boy. okay so. this is (probably, maybe) the most popular book in the series. i know many would consider it dunnett's magnum opus. and i unfortunately disagree completely. not because i think this book is bad. i think in many ways it is exceptionally good. the prose here is unparalleled. in the first 70% of CM the drama is very engaging and keeps you reading and picking up the book again and again... even if, like me, you don't really care for this drama specifically. it's that well-written!! i fucking love all the francis/sybilla drama, as unnecessary as it may seem. i fucking love marthe and jerott's fucked up lavender marriage and their very different but equally complicated feelings for lymond. AND THE WRITING IS SO GOOD i have to say it again.

but this romance? not for me. i really tried on reread, but still couldn't get into it, sadly. i hate the misunderstandings... philippa thinking lymond was in love with güzel, and then with kate, and then that his feelings for her were only sexual. for someone so smart she wasn't thinking clearly at all.

i could forgive that easily, though. i can't forgive what happens to philippa at the end of part 4. just awful plot-point. even i, not a fan of philippa, think that was character assassination. i don't know why dunnett did it... i guess it was a popular thing to do in histfic, or in super dramatic stories in general. but i hate it. i don't like the part at sevigny, either. maybe most of all, i hate the ending, how rushed it was, philippa healing magically, lymond brushing off marthe's death and completely ignoring jerott because he's too busy having sex. wtf

and i would still give this book like, a 4.5/5. this is dunnett magic do not ask me about it i'm not a rational being!!!

okay, those three are the books in the series labeled with "complicated". these next three have all my love (or most of my love (looking at you TDK))

3. the game of kings

this book. THIS BOOK. you know those edits of cats crying surrounded by heart emojis. that's my every time i think or talk about GoK. i love it so, so much. it's not perfect but it's beautiful in all its flawed glory. on reread it was more noticeable that this was dunnett's first novel, simply because she gets so much better. but wow, what a debut novel! it's a little convoluted and heavy-handed, but it has so much charm and heart. at one point, more or less halfway through, it's almost impossible to put down. and, love him or hate him, francis crawford of lymond has has an insane gravitational pull. it's impossible not to want to know what's behind the mask.

in conclusion: game of kings my beloved

2. the disorderly knights

now this book. it's kind of crazy? definitely because this is the start of the gabriel duology, which is undoubtedly my favourite part in this series. TDK feels like a soap opera to me, maybe because of the insane levels of drama, maybe because the characters that get introduced in this book (jerott, gabriel, joleta) are so incredibly beautiful they almost make lymond seen like a normal guy.

and i eat it up! i love the insanity and drama! i think it's all so, so compelling. gabriel is scary in a way that very few villains i've read about are. he really feels almost invincible, despite being an ordinary human being. i love the moments where lymond loses his cool because gabriel is such a relentless antagonist. very painful, very fascinating.

most importantly, JEROTT. jerott blyth is my favourite character in this series and he's so. perfect in this book. like, he's terribly flawed (jerott don't throw that rock. jerott), but god, what a character. by far my favourite pov in the series and no one else comes close.

i have so much praise for this book i could talk about it endlessly but there's one caveat: joleta. dorothy why would you do that. why???? joleta's storyline is so uncomfortable to read. her character is so tragic, but it seems like we're supposed to hate her, and we're supposed to side with lymond when it's revealed that she... was abused by other adult men... ??? i'm so glad adam, alec, and i think jerott? do see her as a victim, and lymond as the one with all the power, but everyone else? idk. just very bad, and one of the moments where the series really feels like it was written in the 60s

but other than that. this book fucking rules

1. pawn in frankincense

i've talked about PiF so much i feel like i don't have any words left to describe it, but even if i hadn't talked about it at all i would still feel like no words can describe how much of a masterpiece this book is to me.

i've mentioned before that jerott is my favourite LC character, and he's arguably the main character in this book. he even mentions the title when talking about himself!! i'm both very surprised and not surprised at all about how unpopular jerott is among the veteran fans of the series. sure, he's very flawed and somewhat unlikable, but he is so compelling, so complex, so well-written, he's become one of my all-time favourite characters.

not only that, there are two other main/major characters in this book that also became all-time favourites: lymond and marthe. the lymond/jerott/marthe is one of the best this i've ever read and this is where it starts. literally dorothy was insane for that one.

from the very first chapter until the last one, PiF doesn't give you time to stop and breath and calm down. maybe my favourite beginning in any dunnett novel. and the fact that pawn's move isn't widely considered one of the best chapters in literary history? unbelievable

is this book perfect? no. is it still the best thing that has been written and will ever be written by a human being? yea :)