(no subject)
So, as encouraged by various persons in the general vicinity of this blog, I read Gemma Files' Hexslinger series.
The plot kicks off thusly:
MAGICAL EX-PREACHER OUTLAW: I feel like this lifestyle of riding around with my homicidal gunslinger boyfriend and our merry outlaw band, committing heinous magical felonies and murdering anyone who makes homophobic slurs in our direction, is probably not sustainable in the long-term.
AN AZTEC GODDESS: I could help with that.
*several instances of human sacrifice, one impending apocalypse, one non-consensual deification and an extremely messy breakup later*
MAGICAL EX-PREACHER OUTLAW: .... it's possible I may have made some poor life choices.
HIS NOW-DIVINE HOMICIDAL GUNSLINGER NOW-EX BOYFRIEND: YOU THINK????
The books take place just post-Civil War in a universe in which some people have magic, and magical people ... can't hang out together because they will accidentally murder each other trying to eat each other's magic, except when they manage to get round it by making out a lot instead? I wasn't entirely clear on the exact rules there. Also, magic is ... illegal? Socially frowned-upon? Allan Pinkerton is trying to recruit magic users for his Pinkerton agency, anyway. Pinkertons are highly relevant. After a magical accident, Allan Pinkerton also at one point swells up to the size of a house and starts biting people's heads off, which should give you something of a sense for the plotting style.
My feelings about the series as a whole are pretty mixed. First of all, I would be A-OK with placing a firm moratorium on fantasy novels about Aztec gods demanding human sacrifice. Why is it that nobody ever writes about Aztecs (or Mayans, for that matter) doing ANYTHING except performing human sacrifice and playing handball with intent to lead to human sacrifice? Presumably SOME PEOPLE in these VAST EMPIRES occasionally did ... other things ... with their time ...
I mean the racial politics of the books in general are not -- well, okay, that's not quite what I want to say. The racial politics are clearly very well-meant. The cast includes many characters who are not white, the Trail of Tears and the one-drop rule and the Nativist attitudes of the Bowery B'hoys are all name-checked; at one point someone delivers a speech about how if the world is going to be saved, it's because of the gays and the Chinese and the Indians and the secret Jews, so suck on that, Mr. Pinkerton!
So, like, there is plenty of representation, it is the method of it that I thought was really not always ... so well-thought-out .... I mean, some of this is period-accurate racism from within the POV of the characters, but some of it ... is not. It is great to have a major character who is a lesbian albino Chinese women, sure! It is less great to describe her as a porcelain doll literally every time she appears, or to have her first appearance in a San Francisco Chinatown brothel palace straight out of a sensationalist Victorian novel, surrounded by disposable Chinese extras. Meanwhile, her Navajo girlfriend's first appearance is whooping, on horseback, waving a tomahawk and leading a band of warriors. And then we get to the horde of anonymous Mexicans who show up to join the Cult of the Evil Aztec Goddess and sit around serenely running ropes of thorns through various orifices, because, UNLIKE AMERICANS, they're not raised to expect DEMOCRACY, which, AHHHHH, NO, STOP. I mean I am not the most qualified person to talk about this, especially since the Jewish character probably fares the best of everyone in terms of not being exotified; Yancey is great, she's three-dimensional, she has a POV and complexity and interiority! So, you know, many people can probably speak to this better, all I can say is I spent a not insignificant portion of the book with my face buried in my hands feeling really uncomfortable.
I mean I guess what it boils down to is that much of the time the series can't decide whether it's subverting and critiquing all the wildest tropes of the WEIRD WEST GUNSLINGER genre or gleefully embracing them, and so it's like "BOTH!" but sometimes I do not think it's possible to have your cake and eat it too in quite that way.
But, I mean, I say all this, but ... I read the whole thing! I did not have to, but I did; it was compelling and very more-ish, and I did very much appreciate the fact that many of the seemingly casual deaths ended up having consequences and mattering later. So there you go. IDFIC GALORE. If "homicidal gay gunslingers sarcastically recite the Bible, seduce Pinkertons, bring about and/or avert magical apocalypse in an extremely gory fashion" sounds like it's the kind of idfic that would appeal, then maybe check it out? I don't know, other people who have more unalloyed enthusiasm about these books, please feel free to chime in and make your pitch, I'm sort of stuck at "...well, I did read the whole thing!"
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/371936.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.
The plot kicks off thusly:
MAGICAL EX-PREACHER OUTLAW: I feel like this lifestyle of riding around with my homicidal gunslinger boyfriend and our merry outlaw band, committing heinous magical felonies and murdering anyone who makes homophobic slurs in our direction, is probably not sustainable in the long-term.
AN AZTEC GODDESS: I could help with that.
*several instances of human sacrifice, one impending apocalypse, one non-consensual deification and an extremely messy breakup later*
MAGICAL EX-PREACHER OUTLAW: .... it's possible I may have made some poor life choices.
HIS NOW-DIVINE HOMICIDAL GUNSLINGER NOW-EX BOYFRIEND: YOU THINK????
The books take place just post-Civil War in a universe in which some people have magic, and magical people ... can't hang out together because they will accidentally murder each other trying to eat each other's magic, except when they manage to get round it by making out a lot instead? I wasn't entirely clear on the exact rules there. Also, magic is ... illegal? Socially frowned-upon? Allan Pinkerton is trying to recruit magic users for his Pinkerton agency, anyway. Pinkertons are highly relevant. After a magical accident, Allan Pinkerton also at one point swells up to the size of a house and starts biting people's heads off, which should give you something of a sense for the plotting style.
My feelings about the series as a whole are pretty mixed. First of all, I would be A-OK with placing a firm moratorium on fantasy novels about Aztec gods demanding human sacrifice. Why is it that nobody ever writes about Aztecs (or Mayans, for that matter) doing ANYTHING except performing human sacrifice and playing handball with intent to lead to human sacrifice? Presumably SOME PEOPLE in these VAST EMPIRES occasionally did ... other things ... with their time ...
I mean the racial politics of the books in general are not -- well, okay, that's not quite what I want to say. The racial politics are clearly very well-meant. The cast includes many characters who are not white, the Trail of Tears and the one-drop rule and the Nativist attitudes of the Bowery B'hoys are all name-checked; at one point someone delivers a speech about how if the world is going to be saved, it's because of the gays and the Chinese and the Indians and the secret Jews, so suck on that, Mr. Pinkerton!
So, like, there is plenty of representation, it is the method of it that I thought was really not always ... so well-thought-out .... I mean, some of this is period-accurate racism from within the POV of the characters, but some of it ... is not. It is great to have a major character who is a lesbian albino Chinese women, sure! It is less great to describe her as a porcelain doll literally every time she appears, or to have her first appearance in a San Francisco Chinatown brothel palace straight out of a sensationalist Victorian novel, surrounded by disposable Chinese extras. Meanwhile, her Navajo girlfriend's first appearance is whooping, on horseback, waving a tomahawk and leading a band of warriors. And then we get to the horde of anonymous Mexicans who show up to join the Cult of the Evil Aztec Goddess and sit around serenely running ropes of thorns through various orifices, because, UNLIKE AMERICANS, they're not raised to expect DEMOCRACY, which, AHHHHH, NO, STOP. I mean I am not the most qualified person to talk about this, especially since the Jewish character probably fares the best of everyone in terms of not being exotified; Yancey is great, she's three-dimensional, she has a POV and complexity and interiority! So, you know, many people can probably speak to this better, all I can say is I spent a not insignificant portion of the book with my face buried in my hands feeling really uncomfortable.
I mean I guess what it boils down to is that much of the time the series can't decide whether it's subverting and critiquing all the wildest tropes of the WEIRD WEST GUNSLINGER genre or gleefully embracing them, and so it's like "BOTH!" but sometimes I do not think it's possible to have your cake and eat it too in quite that way.
But, I mean, I say all this, but ... I read the whole thing! I did not have to, but I did; it was compelling and very more-ish, and I did very much appreciate the fact that many of the seemingly casual deaths ended up having consequences and mattering later. So there you go. IDFIC GALORE. If "homicidal gay gunslingers sarcastically recite the Bible, seduce Pinkertons, bring about and/or avert magical apocalypse in an extremely gory fashion" sounds like it's the kind of idfic that would appeal, then maybe check it out? I don't know, other people who have more unalloyed enthusiasm about these books, please feel free to chime in and make your pitch, I'm sort of stuck at "...well, I did read the whole thing!"
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/371936.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.