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The Requiem of Janus by Nicole Wilkinson
Sep. 2nd, 2010 04:34 pm
Janus is a High Priest in a Fantasy society. Even if he is a priest, chastity is not one of the requirements of his job description, and indeed Janus has no issue to “use” his servants in many different ways. During an important ceremony, Janus notices Alcaeus, a young guard, white hair and red yes (an albino apparently from the description). Of course as expected from his character, Janus immediately wants to possess the young guard, and doesn’t matter if Alcaeus has already a lover; on the contrary it’s probably the lover the key to reach Alcaeus: Baldir, Alcaeus’s lover, is badly ill and he is slowly dying; Janus has the power to heal him, but his services are very expensive and Alcaeus has nothing on him that could be of valor for Janus, if not himself.
Janus barters with Alcaeus for the good health of his lover; indeed Alcaeus loves Baldir, but maybe since his lover has been long ill, or maybe since they have been lovers since they were only little more than children, the passion between them has thinned, and only a “comfortable” feeling is still simmering between them. Alcaeus accepts Janus’s offer and little by little the excuse he gave to himself, that it was only for the love of his Baldir, has very little reason to exist. Alcaeus is attracted by Janus and it would have been the same even if they had met in different circumstances.
Even if Janus did not start has a positive character, I hardly read him like a villain; he gave me more the impression of a man who was captive of his own role. Janus is responsible for a lot of thing, he is apparently wealthy, but he has not really anything for himself. Alcaeus is “something” he can own for his own sake; Janus looks to Alcaeus like a jealous child would do with a coveted toy that his neighbour owns. Janus, High Priest, wealthy and young, is envious of Baldir, poor and ill man, since Baldir “owns” something really important, the love of Alcaeus; even when Janus forces Alcaeus to bed him, he is still not satisfy, since he still doesn’t possess what Baldir does, the love of the man.
The novel is quite long, but even if it’s an heavy fantasy setting, a completely new society, it’s not overwhelmed of details, so that the set doesn’t distract the reader from the story.
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Amazon Kindle: Requiem for Janus
Reading List:
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Janus is a High Priest in a Fantasy society. Even if he is a priest, chastity is not one of the requirements of his job description, and indeed Janus has no issue to “use” his servants in many different ways. 
1) Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee. The smartest, leanest, and most provocative novel I’ve ever read. It’s a master class in how to write fiction, and it’s a master class in human history—in about 200 pages. Set in South Africa, it’s the story of David Lurie, a man suffering with the grave mental disorder previously known as Romantic Idealism. I’ve read it more than a dozen times, and each time, as I try to decide whether David is Lucifer or Lear, Don Juan or just a decadent college don, the swift, startling action sweeps me into a larger story, and I can’t tell if the proponents of Truth and Reconciliation are forging a new democracy or if they are hopeless romantics. 
2) Someday This Pain Will be Useful to You by Peter Cameron. This is one of the only true books ever written about youth—that bittersweet moment when our longings are more than we can be. It helps that every sentence is exquisitely calibrated. 
Breakfast with Scot: A Novel by Michael Downing 
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This is a “comfort zone” novella, probably like the coffee place where the story is set. Tyler was Nash’s older brother best friend and he was always there while Nash was growing up; Nash loved both his brother than Tyler, only maybe in a different way. When both Tyler than Luke decided to enlist in the Marine Corp, Nash worried for both of them, and when Luke died in a mission, Nash lost both of them. Years later he is probably mourning both losses, only that while for one there is no solution, for the other indeed solution seems to come when Tyler enter Nash’s coffee shop one day.