Glorious PORN by Carol Berg

Carol Berg is BACK. I was a little worried after reading the second book in the Bridge of D’Arnath tetrology. It was not so hot compared to her other stuff.

But I just finished reading the Lighthouse duology.

Any doubts I had about Carol being a sadist were put firmly to rest when I read on the back of “Flesh and Spirit” that the main character is “addicted to an enchantment that converts pain to pleasure.”

Ah-HAH. Ahahahahaha! Hah. Aha. Heeheeheeheehee. Hee. Heh.

I chortled through the bookstore as I went to hunt down a chair to bury myself in.

Of course, upon cracking the book, I was repulsed by the fact that the world is very European-inspired, something she sort of did in the D’Arnath series but it was more the typical Euro-centric fantasy world. This, however, is very, very fucking European. The languages are derived from French and Latin. EVEN THE CONJUGATION OF VERBS IS ROMANTIC. And the main religion they explore is a fucking clone of Catholicism. It’s not that I have a problem with Europe. It’s just not as if ANYONE’S DONE THAT BEFORE. I was prepared to be put off.

But then… then, she pulls it off, with her skills of characterization and an obviously maturing writing style.

But here’s what made it great. Valen. Illiterate. Useless. A few select ethics he sticks too. Afflicted with crazy claustrophobia and a disease that drives him insane with spasms and pain and hyper-sensitivity. For which he turns to the doulon, a spell worked with magical nivat seeds, which converts pain proportionally to pleasure. Like, you have to keep hurting yourself to send the spell over the edge.

Behold:

Had I owned a mind or conscience just then, I would have wept at Jullian’s wondering stare. As it was, my arm quivered with the doulon’s burning, and all I could think was, Please, gods, make it hurt more.

[...]

The doulon itself carved paths of agony from eyes to heart to limbs. My vision blurred. My back spasmed as if an Aurellian torturer had hung me from his hook and dragged me behind his chariot. Every nerve stretched taut and snapped like drawn bowstrings, launching nets that encompassed every part and portion of my body.

Not enough. Not enough. Gods…I did not want to be this thing.

I swept my arm across the table. The lamp crashed to the floor; the oil pooled and flared. The black paste clogged my gullet, slid downward, and seared my empty stomach. Still the enchantment would not resolve, but kept building…waiting. I choked and gasped and shook, hammered my fists on the table, then gripped its edge as if to snap the oaken plank in twain. I needed more.

“Brother Valen? What’s wrong? Why do you look like that?”

“Strike me…please…use anything!” Lest I be driven to roll in burning lamp oil or gash my hands with shards of glass, damaging myself beyond recovery.

Wind tearing at his hair, Jullian backed away and pressed himself to the door.

“Do it now, boy! Make it hurt!” My heart rattled my ribs, threatening to burst. My lungs strained for air enough to feed the raging power of enchantment. I screamed at him. “By holy Iero’s hand, strike me! I beg you!”

His twelve-year-old limbs had done their share of labor around the abbey. He broke the second chair over my head. It was enough.

A bolt of joyless ecstasy shot through my head and heart and gut, wiping clean the canvas of agony, settling the shards of life and mind into their proper places.

Oh. My God. YESSSSSSSS.

I hope this isn’t spoiling anything for anyone who wants to read the books, but that was a scene from “Breath and Bone” where Valen has to beg this innocent, pious boy who he’s sworn to protect and is the one person in the world whose respect he doesn’t want to lose to hurt him enough to fulfill what is essentially a joyless, drug-induced, full-body orgasm.

This duology hit a whole list of my kinks: addiction, addiction withdrawal, claustrophobia, collars, masks, chains, forced breeding, shame, humiliation, social submission, contracts, agonizing hyper-sensitivity, beatings –did I mention claustrophobia and addiction withdrawal?– skin shredding, voluntary submission to torture, whipping, maiming, amputation, submitting in order to protect someone else, rape, sobbing, weeping, and TREES.

And then there’s dancing, nakedness, glowing tattoos, healing the land, and sacred wells.

Despite her unfortunate tendency to glorify civilized cultures, cities, and totalitarian agriculture, Carol has revived my faith in her abilities as a writer and an author. Those books were seriously satisfying on many levels. And it was kind of hilarious the way I related to them. The primary bad guy, Sila Diaglou, was intent on tearing down civilization, which led to mental conversations like this:

Sila Diaglou: “Down with civilization and cities and class stratification!”

Me: “Yeah!”

Sila Diaglou: “To do this we will torture children to death!”

Me: “No!!!”

Brothers of the Lighthouse: “We will preserve the knowledge of humankind! Like books!”

Me: “Yeah!”

Brothers: “And plows!”

Me: “No!!!”

It was interesting. And comparing it to the Rai Kirah trilogy (which I’ve been rereading), I dawns on me that she has some really sweet non-sexual man/man dominant/submissive dynamics going on. Ultimately, Carol pulls the Lighthouse world off because it’s consistent and thickly detailed, and there’s much more to it than it appears. And a lot of it is really, fucking, hot.