D0tski read and liked Mars's review of Kushiel's Dart (Kushiel's Legacy, #1):

"I usually don't like to review books until I finish them, but I don't think my complaints with this book are ones that will be rectified in the rest of the tome.
-Very few authors do political intrigue well. Carey is not one of them, since I hav...more I usually don't like to review books until I finish them, but I don't think my complaints with this book are ones that will be rectified in the rest of the tome.
-Very few authors do political intrigue well. Carey is not one of them, since I have no idea what's going on half the time.
-Part of the reason for this is that characters are poorly introduced, often with little context to remember them by or in groups of several people such that you have no idea which characters to remember and which ones won't be reoccuring. Just difficult to keep track of who's who, in general. I don't think the use of primarily French names helps.
-If an author is going to set their plot in an alternate universe Europe, I've never understood the point of thinly veiling the countries with other names. Relating to this point and the prior one, when one reads a fantasy book, one assumes that the language has been translated from whatever the characters speak into English. (Or, y'know, whatever language that reader happens to speak.) So what's the point of naming characters with French phrases like "de" and "Duc"? Why use French when English will do?
-Foreshadowing. Oh my goodness, the awful, awful foreshadowing. It is usually done somewhat like this:
Phedre: "I had no idea that this event would later become important!"
The point of foreshadowing is that the audience doesn't know that the event will later become important, though they may suspect. This style of foreshadowing is both lazy and irritating, and has none of the sublety that makes for good foreshadowing.(less) "