Choices are Harrrrd
*flops over with dramatic ennui*
My last four books have either been Rivers of London (Midnight Riot1 and Moon Over Soho) or Ann Leckie's Ancillary series. You can see my problem, right? Leckie, in particular, spoiled the hell out of me. Sci-fi! AIs! Default female pronouns.
1 The U.S. title of the first book.
I'm terrible at making choices. When I was a kid, my dad used to take me down the road to the gas station on Saturdays and I'd be given a dollar to spend on a candy bar and pop. I tried not to have an obvious nervous breakdown in the middle of the store every week because then he just wouldn't take me (and it was the only Dad time I had), but it's been 30 years and I'm pretty sure my heart rate just increased while typing this paragraph. MOVING ON.
So, books. Yeah, we've been here before. Recently. Did I mention choice paralysis? Ugh.
I have decided - yay me! - to read Devil in the White City over Thanksgiving so I can enjoy family together time while reading about grisly murders. I tried the audiobook from the library once already, but I had some technical issues, and I'm going for a new physical copy this time. I tend to get frustrated when I can't easily flip back to a previous section and remind myself who this person was or what they said or if that reference is what I think it is, so audio books aren't really a perfect solution for me. I do have an e-reader! It's a first gen Nook and actually getting books onto it requires extensive knowledge of the Dark Arts. Plus, it turns out that I'm not a big fan of paperwhite or e-ink type displays. And It's weird reading BOOK books on a laptop. No, I don't understand that either.
I did confirm with Ancillary Justice that I'm still allergic to (dust mites) in physical books, noticeable when reading presumably because flipping through the pages puffs the little bastards up into my air space. It wasn't enough that I stopped reading it, mind you, but it was something to factor in. Thus a new physical copy, which should be less... occupied. It was definitely easier with the much newer Ancillary Sword. Family will be headache inducing enough and Devil in the White City has been around for a decade, so it's likely the copy I would borrow would be older than Ancillary Justice and potentially cause more reaction.
(This is all getting very complicated.)
ANYWAY, book(s). I loved the world building and style of Rivers of London, but at the end of book two, I felt like I needed a break from reading the POV of the male half of the species. And I wasn't too excited about replacing it with a woman's POV written by a man, either, just on principal. Ancillary Justice came well recommended, sounded interesting (AIs! Ships! Spacccce), fit the female POV and woman writer basic craving criteria, and so I picked it up. As you might imagine, it hit the spot REALLY, REALLY WELL. I loved the way it and the sequel explored the nature of self and how really goddamn complicated it was for Breq and how it evolved and changed over the course of things. I loved the way things were messy and complicated, especially when she's trying to help people - and how much of that is a legacy and honoring a particular dead?
It's ironic because they aren't a "woman's story". They're Breq's story. But the default female pronouns and Breq's struggles to even identify gender when speaking a gendered language were unbelievably soothing to my gender wars battered brain and the heteronormative assumptions of the world that most fiction reflects.
Which is all doubly ironic, because I recently reposted a thing on Tumblr regarding fandom's issues with telling women's stories.
dsudis added a paragraph that reflects my fannish experience perfectly:For myself, I’ve made my peace with the fact that I want to work out all my issues of female experience on the bodies of male characters because it gives me a little distance from it. When those bad things happen to female characters, it’s too real, too close. I don’t want stories about women suffering violence and dehumanization; I want stories about women who are strong and fierce. I want stories about women who are as safe as I hope I am (and know I’m probably not). When I want a story about suffering and helplessness you’re damn straight I want it to be about a man, because I don’t want it to be about me.
But we established earlier in this post under the cut tag that reading BOOK books on a laptop is weird for me even though I read (fan)fic that way literally every day. It's rare that I read it another way. So, too, is this different. I think it's because I'm so attached to the characters in fic and it crosses some invisible barrier, lives a step closer to my heart, and ends up more personal.
On the other hand, that may have been what appealed to me so much about the Ancillary books - the POV(s) have a certain mental remove that makes it easier for me to read and the violence isn't gendered.
This all leads to the question, what book should I read that isn't going to piss me off as a feminist fangirl? I'm leaning towards Spin State by Chris Moriarty, but I'm open to warnings about it! Also suggestions for other books, especially any by women authors and notably lacking in gendered violence.
Crossposted to Dreamwidth. Comment here or there. ♥ Blue :)
My last four books have either been Rivers of London (Midnight Riot1 and Moon Over Soho) or Ann Leckie's Ancillary series. You can see my problem, right? Leckie, in particular, spoiled the hell out of me. Sci-fi! AIs! Default female pronouns.
1 The U.S. title of the first book.
I'm terrible at making choices. When I was a kid, my dad used to take me down the road to the gas station on Saturdays and I'd be given a dollar to spend on a candy bar and pop. I tried not to have an obvious nervous breakdown in the middle of the store every week because then he just wouldn't take me (and it was the only Dad time I had), but it's been 30 years and I'm pretty sure my heart rate just increased while typing this paragraph. MOVING ON.
So, books. Yeah, we've been here before. Recently. Did I mention choice paralysis? Ugh.
I have decided - yay me! - to read Devil in the White City over Thanksgiving so I can enjoy family together time while reading about grisly murders. I tried the audiobook from the library once already, but I had some technical issues, and I'm going for a new physical copy this time. I tend to get frustrated when I can't easily flip back to a previous section and remind myself who this person was or what they said or if that reference is what I think it is, so audio books aren't really a perfect solution for me. I do have an e-reader! It's a first gen Nook and actually getting books onto it requires extensive knowledge of the Dark Arts. Plus, it turns out that I'm not a big fan of paperwhite or e-ink type displays. And It's weird reading BOOK books on a laptop. No, I don't understand that either.
I did confirm with Ancillary Justice that I'm still allergic to (dust mites) in physical books, noticeable when reading presumably because flipping through the pages puffs the little bastards up into my air space. It wasn't enough that I stopped reading it, mind you, but it was something to factor in. Thus a new physical copy, which should be less... occupied. It was definitely easier with the much newer Ancillary Sword. Family will be headache inducing enough and Devil in the White City has been around for a decade, so it's likely the copy I would borrow would be older than Ancillary Justice and potentially cause more reaction.
(This is all getting very complicated.)
ANYWAY, book(s). I loved the world building and style of Rivers of London, but at the end of book two, I felt like I needed a break from reading the POV of the male half of the species. And I wasn't too excited about replacing it with a woman's POV written by a man, either, just on principal. Ancillary Justice came well recommended, sounded interesting (AIs! Ships! Spacccce), fit the female POV and woman writer basic craving criteria, and so I picked it up. As you might imagine, it hit the spot REALLY, REALLY WELL. I loved the way it and the sequel explored the nature of self and how really goddamn complicated it was for Breq and how it evolved and changed over the course of things. I loved the way things were messy and complicated, especially when she's trying to help people - and how much of that is a legacy and honoring a particular dead?
It's ironic because they aren't a "woman's story". They're Breq's story. But the default female pronouns and Breq's struggles to even identify gender when speaking a gendered language were unbelievably soothing to my gender wars battered brain and the heteronormative assumptions of the world that most fiction reflects.
Which is all doubly ironic, because I recently reposted a thing on Tumblr regarding fandom's issues with telling women's stories.
dsudis added a paragraph that reflects my fannish experience perfectly:For myself, I’ve made my peace with the fact that I want to work out all my issues of female experience on the bodies of male characters because it gives me a little distance from it. When those bad things happen to female characters, it’s too real, too close. I don’t want stories about women suffering violence and dehumanization; I want stories about women who are strong and fierce. I want stories about women who are as safe as I hope I am (and know I’m probably not). When I want a story about suffering and helplessness you’re damn straight I want it to be about a man, because I don’t want it to be about me.
But we established earlier in this post under the cut tag that reading BOOK books on a laptop is weird for me even though I read (fan)fic that way literally every day. It's rare that I read it another way. So, too, is this different. I think it's because I'm so attached to the characters in fic and it crosses some invisible barrier, lives a step closer to my heart, and ends up more personal.
On the other hand, that may have been what appealed to me so much about the Ancillary books - the POV(s) have a certain mental remove that makes it easier for me to read and the violence isn't gendered.
This all leads to the question, what book should I read that isn't going to piss me off as a feminist fangirl? I'm leaning towards Spin State by Chris Moriarty, but I'm open to warnings about it! Also suggestions for other books, especially any by women authors and notably lacking in gendered violence.
Crossposted to Dreamwidth. Comment here or there. ♥ Blue :)