late-August books
Sep. 3rd, 2006 08:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jinianThe Sirens Sang of Murder, Sara Caudwell. More snark and fun with Professor Tamar and the barrister brigade is always good.
Queen Bees and Wannabes, Rosalind Wiseman. From![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
read_o_rama. Interesting summary of roles girls play and how they can break out of them or succeed better within them. Reinforces my feeling that I was completely oblivious to a whole hell of a lot of social crap in school. That type is not included, I think so parents can't blow off the whole book by assuming their kid is that one. Oblivious was a pretty good way to be overall. The book certainly explains why I crashed and burned when I did try to play social games, though.
Kushiel's Scion, Jacqueline Carey. Not as smutty as Carey's first book, this story about Imriel, who appears as a hidden child prince in the first Terre d'Ange trilogy, sill struck a good balance between the kink-induced angst and the interesting politics and events. And I had the back seat of the too-large vehicle all to myself on the way up to Whistler, so my concern over shocking fellow travelers turned out not to be a problem.
The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner. Wonderful. Extremely naive Katherine is roped into learning swordplay, which ladies do NOT learn, and breaking with her family by her uncle the Mad Duke, who is utterly fabulous. She learns a whole lot, very amusingly, and there is much effective resonance with Swordspoint. I'm going to have to reread that and The Fall of the Kings right away.
Regeneration, Julie Czerneda. Species Imperative 3 (complete). Pretty good alien-biology payoff in this one, though nothing to match the stunning revelation in the first. Excellent alien personality stuff. (Human personality less so: Mac is supposed to have matured a lot, but it seemed like more telling than showing.) The relationship plots came out all right, maybe a little underplayed, but the large-scale conflict resolved pretty well. Czerneda's improving overall, I'd say, and I found her worth reading to start with.
Outlaw School, Rebecca Ore. Library shelf. Short on typical narrative structure and long on empathy. How playing the cards you're dealt can turn into a belief system, and what is right to do, and what else people do and think justified. Very plausible depressing future, good struggle against it by the characters. I'll definitely look for more Ore.
Try To Feel It My Way, Suzette Haden Elgin. Fromjenett. The idea of touch-dominant people having trouble interacting with the majority of us sight-dominant folks is interesting, and I think I'll be able to keep an eye out for it in the future. Of course, as this is Elgin, there was a lot of insight into the language people use and how that tends to reflect the ways they think. Not immediately applicable to me, but good stuff.
Babylon Sisters, Pearl Cleage. More relationships among women and less M/F romance in this one than in Baby Brother's Blues. I'm still really enjoying reading more books where whiteness is not at all the default, so I don't have a lot of criticism to offer, though whatcoffeeandink said about the positive spin on vigilantism was in my head throughout. It's almost a handwave to cause the plot, like FTL travel; these women need to concentrate on their relationships rather than the dangers of living in the city, so ta-da! Blue Hamilton will protect them! Problem solved.
Without a Net: the Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class, ed. Michelle Tea. From Making Light. I hadn't really thought about my family as working class before, but, though our problems were never as large as the ones the authors write about in this anthology, "without a net" describes us very well. My parents have been very practical and now have much more money than we used to, but Mom's horror of looking like "poor white trash" and a few other things make a bit more sense now.
Entirely outside my experience was "Dirty Girl" by Tara Hardy, who talks very clearly about her construction of flashy, high-femme gender presentation as rebellion against a history of poor brown women who weren't allowed to be sexual, can't construct an understated, "feminist-looking" femininity because they can't afford to -- and they don't -want- to look like their oppressors. She said it beautifully, which I can't. Definitely something to read.
"Getting Out" by Frances Varian: Her family pushes, everyone pushes, to get the smart girl educated so she didn't have to be working class like them. She says,
The Queen in Winter, Claire Delacroix, Lynn Kurland, Sharon Shinn, and the reason I read it, Sarah Monette. Fromcoffeeandink. I enjoyed the three lesser stories, though the Shinn frustrated me with its lack of follow-through on the magic system (no geeking, therefore lame) and the Delacroix in some less definable way. They all centered on a romantic pairing to the exclusion of other interesting stuff, which I guess is what can happen with short stories in general. Monette's had more non-romance plot, a good country-house mystery, and I just prefer her writing to the others'.
Changeling, Delia Sherman. Wiscon reading. In which fairies are autistic -- of course they are! Rules-lawyering, obsessive-compulsive, very literal, in their own world... A mortal changeling in the fairy version of Central Park gets into trouble, in the course of which she meets her opposite number, and together they make up approximately one questing hero. I identify with Changeling (the one living in the mortal world), who says things like "The flowers are all botanically correct" when complimented on her embroidered jacket. Excellence in details: .nyb TLD for New York Between!
(I am a total Sherman and Kushner fangirl, as I am with few other authors. Probably I kind of made a fool of myself at their reading Wednesday, but whee! I got to see them again! And they are such good readers.)
Dzur, Steven Brust. Vlad tries to do his old thing in a small, personal plot, with some success; I think it was good that I didn't reread the grand and awesome Issola right before it, though I had to play catch-up on details a little. Built on a solid foundation of very nice food porn. (Also, Vlad is totally on to Kiera. Maybe.)
The Five Fists of Science, Matt Fraction & Steven Sanders. Ridiculous use of mecha in a mutual-assured-destruction plot around 1900. Unclear whether authors actually think the plot is a good idea. Tesla a giant freak: check. Mark Twain a charming asshole: check. Some guy they made up who has one hand solely to manifest the title and talks very little: um, okay. Also, Lovecraftian black magic.
Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto. To chapter 205.
Nausicaa 5-7 (complete), Hayao Miyazaki. Even better than I thought it would be. The manga's very different from the movie and I think much more effective. (Darn, I will have to watch the movie again!)
Off Beat 1, Jen Lee Quick. The story's interesting: super-smart kid given to obsessive spying latches on to his mysterious (and cute) new neighbor boy, who does in fact seem to be part of a giant conspiracy. I kind of hate the art, which makes everyone look either sulky or bovine almost all the time, but I'll probably read more of this as it comes out.
Queen Bees and Wannabes, Rosalind Wiseman. From
read_o_rama. Interesting summary of roles girls play and how they can break out of them or succeed better within them. Reinforces my feeling that I was completely oblivious to a whole hell of a lot of social crap in school. That type is not included, I think so parents can't blow off the whole book by assuming their kid is that one. Oblivious was a pretty good way to be overall. The book certainly explains why I crashed and burned when I did try to play social games, though.Kushiel's Scion, Jacqueline Carey. Not as smutty as Carey's first book, this story about Imriel, who appears as a hidden child prince in the first Terre d'Ange trilogy, sill struck a good balance between the kink-induced angst and the interesting politics and events. And I had the back seat of the too-large vehicle all to myself on the way up to Whistler, so my concern over shocking fellow travelers turned out not to be a problem.
The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner. Wonderful. Extremely naive Katherine is roped into learning swordplay, which ladies do NOT learn, and breaking with her family by her uncle the Mad Duke, who is utterly fabulous. She learns a whole lot, very amusingly, and there is much effective resonance with Swordspoint. I'm going to have to reread that and The Fall of the Kings right away.
Regeneration, Julie Czerneda. Species Imperative 3 (complete). Pretty good alien-biology payoff in this one, though nothing to match the stunning revelation in the first. Excellent alien personality stuff. (Human personality less so: Mac is supposed to have matured a lot, but it seemed like more telling than showing.) The relationship plots came out all right, maybe a little underplayed, but the large-scale conflict resolved pretty well. Czerneda's improving overall, I'd say, and I found her worth reading to start with.
Outlaw School, Rebecca Ore. Library shelf. Short on typical narrative structure and long on empathy. How playing the cards you're dealt can turn into a belief system, and what is right to do, and what else people do and think justified. Very plausible depressing future, good struggle against it by the characters. I'll definitely look for more Ore.
Try To Feel It My Way, Suzette Haden Elgin. From
jenett. The idea of touch-dominant people having trouble interacting with the majority of us sight-dominant folks is interesting, and I think I'll be able to keep an eye out for it in the future. Of course, as this is Elgin, there was a lot of insight into the language people use and how that tends to reflect the ways they think. Not immediately applicable to me, but good stuff.Babylon Sisters, Pearl Cleage. More relationships among women and less M/F romance in this one than in Baby Brother's Blues. I'm still really enjoying reading more books where whiteness is not at all the default, so I don't have a lot of criticism to offer, though what
coffeeandink said about the positive spin on vigilantism was in my head throughout. It's almost a handwave to cause the plot, like FTL travel; these women need to concentrate on their relationships rather than the dangers of living in the city, so ta-da! Blue Hamilton will protect them! Problem solved.Without a Net: the Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class, ed. Michelle Tea. From Making Light. I hadn't really thought about my family as working class before, but, though our problems were never as large as the ones the authors write about in this anthology, "without a net" describes us very well. My parents have been very practical and now have much more money than we used to, but Mom's horror of looking like "poor white trash" and a few other things make a bit more sense now.
Entirely outside my experience was "Dirty Girl" by Tara Hardy, who talks very clearly about her construction of flashy, high-femme gender presentation as rebellion against a history of poor brown women who weren't allowed to be sexual, can't construct an understated, "feminist-looking" femininity because they can't afford to -- and they don't -want- to look like their oppressors. She said it beautifully, which I can't. Definitely something to read.
"Getting Out" by Frances Varian: Her family pushes, everyone pushes, to get the smart girl educated so she didn't have to be working class like them. She says,
There exist the wealthy and the working class. At Vassar I learned the two are not mutually exclusive. No matter how rich I might become, I will always be the daughter of a janitor. I will always look the woman who empties my garbage in the face. I will always say thank you to the man who serves me lunch. I am one of them, and I do not want to Get Out unless they can come too.Am I getting out? Have my parents already done it? I'm proud to be smart and (now) a good student, and I've never had much in common with most of my family... but am I leaving behind something I should respect more? I can't think of anything I perceive as positive. I'll be thinking more now.
The Queen in Winter, Claire Delacroix, Lynn Kurland, Sharon Shinn, and the reason I read it, Sarah Monette. From
coffeeandink. I enjoyed the three lesser stories, though the Shinn frustrated me with its lack of follow-through on the magic system (no geeking, therefore lame) and the Delacroix in some less definable way. They all centered on a romantic pairing to the exclusion of other interesting stuff, which I guess is what can happen with short stories in general. Monette's had more non-romance plot, a good country-house mystery, and I just prefer her writing to the others'.Changeling, Delia Sherman. Wiscon reading. In which fairies are autistic -- of course they are! Rules-lawyering, obsessive-compulsive, very literal, in their own world... A mortal changeling in the fairy version of Central Park gets into trouble, in the course of which she meets her opposite number, and together they make up approximately one questing hero. I identify with Changeling (the one living in the mortal world), who says things like "The flowers are all botanically correct" when complimented on her embroidered jacket. Excellence in details: .nyb TLD for New York Between!
(I am a total Sherman and Kushner fangirl, as I am with few other authors. Probably I kind of made a fool of myself at their reading Wednesday, but whee! I got to see them again! And they are such good readers.)
Dzur, Steven Brust. Vlad tries to do his old thing in a small, personal plot, with some success; I think it was good that I didn't reread the grand and awesome Issola right before it, though I had to play catch-up on details a little. Built on a solid foundation of very nice food porn. (Also, Vlad is totally on to Kiera. Maybe.)
The Five Fists of Science, Matt Fraction & Steven Sanders. Ridiculous use of mecha in a mutual-assured-destruction plot around 1900. Unclear whether authors actually think the plot is a good idea. Tesla a giant freak: check. Mark Twain a charming asshole: check. Some guy they made up who has one hand solely to manifest the title and talks very little: um, okay. Also, Lovecraftian black magic.
Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto. To chapter 205.
Nausicaa 5-7 (complete), Hayao Miyazaki. Even better than I thought it would be. The manga's very different from the movie and I think much more effective. (Darn, I will have to watch the movie again!)
Off Beat 1, Jen Lee Quick. The story's interesting: super-smart kid given to obsessive spying latches on to his mysterious (and cute) new neighbor boy, who does in fact seem to be part of a giant conspiracy. I kind of hate the art, which makes everyone look either sulky or bovine almost all the time, but I'll probably read more of this as it comes out.
