Thoughts on Among Others by Jo Walton
Usually I don't post reviews here. And yet this isn't exactly a review. And I think it better suits LJ than Goodreads.
I finished Among Others by Jo Walton a couple of days ago. And I really need to return the library book.
I'm going to put the rest behind a cut tag.. if I can remember how to do that. There are going to be minor spoilers. Or rather, spoilers for trivial details, mostly.
This book has cover quotes from both Cory Doctorow and Robin Hobb. Score! Though it's not really like _either_ of their styles of book. So...
The basic premise is that Mori is a Welsh girl who goes off to boarding school. And she's a voracious sf/f reader. And do I mean voracious! She's getting through a couple of books a day. And she's like.. 15, I think.
Oh, and it's 1979-1980.
So the first problem I ran into was that Mori read Triton by Delany. Erk. It so happens that I was in the middle of reading that! And she promptly goes and spoils me. So I had to put Among Others down and finish reading. I read Trouble on Triton, which is the later version. But.. I don't remember any exhibition sex? Did I miss it? Was it in Triton and not Trouble on Triton? Do I just don't know what Mori/Walton mean by exhibition sex? Hrrrm.
Anyway, the Delany finished, I picked up Among Others again. I'm sure I've been spoiled for some other books along the way, but at least none of the other books were ones I was CURRENTLY READING. So hopefully I'll forget whatever spoilers there were.
The next bit that gave me a problem of a different sort was that Mori really gets into the Pern series. She reads them a bit out of order. But she really likes them. As I probably would if I'd read them at that age or younger. (I was like 19 or 20 before I ever read any, and I did that only so I could plan Pern MUSHes.) Anyway, then she goes and says.. 'I would like a fire-lizard. Or a dragon, for that matter. I'd come swooping in on my blue dragon and she'd breathe fire and burn down the school!'
Did you spot it? Did you spot the GLARING PROBLEM there? So then I had to have K and Google jog my memory loose, because yea.. McCaffrey did mix up her dragons at one point. But it turns out it was a male green that turned into a brown dragon in a later book. (Larth, and Lytol/L'tol) She never, ever said blue dragons were female. And if you've read any Pern, you know that the colors and genders of the dragons are pretty darned important. And you can't read several Pern books and get it wrong. You just can't.
I wanted to like Mori and trust her to be a fellow sf/f reader, but after that, I lost trust and faith in Walton. And believe me, she had little going into it, as I'd read Farthing and disliked it.
So then I started questioning everything. And there were things to distrust. But they were things I would've accepted on faith if she hadn't made that one huge error.
The White Dragon was coming out soon? No. It was out already.
She reads Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and then is _surprised_ there's a radio play? No.. the radio play came first, and if you look on Wikipedia, the first printing of the paperback had that info splashed all over it. I can't imagine whatever 1979 edition she read didn't mention that on the cover and the intro and whatnot.
And then she meets a boy who tells her all about cons. And she didn't even know cons EXISTED.
You can't not know that! You just can't. Not if you're reading, even the occasional, sf/f mags. Not if you're reading anthologies and collections and novels. The introductions and bios and whatnot frequently mention(ed) cons. That's how I first found out about Clarion, which isn't even a con. You just.. can't not know about cons. I don't buy it.
Albacon also tripped me up. Not because it sounds like tuna. Because to me, Albacon is held in Albany. I started to wonder if it had hosted a WorldCon or something called that. But with K's help, I figured out it's a Scottish con too.
So, anyway, I had to get all of those out in the world. I noticed, Walton. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Which is a huge shame, because I liked the book otherwise. Reminds me a bit of Green Glass Sea. Being aware that girl geeks existed in the past. (Okay, so 1979 is my past too.. I was 5 if you're keeping track.)
It's a nicely geeky book, with some fairies in it. Plus, Welsh! Boarding school!
I just can't believe she got the dragons wrong and didn't think her readers would call her out on all the details she got wrong. If you're writing for geeks, you'd better be checking this stuff.
--
If _I_ got details wrong. Maybe White Dragon was published in the US a year or two before the UK? Or something. Let me know. I can take it.
And if anyone knows about that exhibition sex, let me know too. I'm not even sure Mori and I read the same book. (We technically didn't.)
Now the person who has this book on hold will be happy.
ETA: For those keeping track at home, it took me 3 tries and a Google search to get the lj-cut thing right.
I finished Among Others by Jo Walton a couple of days ago. And I really need to return the library book.
I'm going to put the rest behind a cut tag.. if I can remember how to do that. There are going to be minor spoilers. Or rather, spoilers for trivial details, mostly.
This book has cover quotes from both Cory Doctorow and Robin Hobb. Score! Though it's not really like _either_ of their styles of book. So...
The basic premise is that Mori is a Welsh girl who goes off to boarding school. And she's a voracious sf/f reader. And do I mean voracious! She's getting through a couple of books a day. And she's like.. 15, I think.
Oh, and it's 1979-1980.
So the first problem I ran into was that Mori read Triton by Delany. Erk. It so happens that I was in the middle of reading that! And she promptly goes and spoils me. So I had to put Among Others down and finish reading. I read Trouble on Triton, which is the later version. But.. I don't remember any exhibition sex? Did I miss it? Was it in Triton and not Trouble on Triton? Do I just don't know what Mori/Walton mean by exhibition sex? Hrrrm.
Anyway, the Delany finished, I picked up Among Others again. I'm sure I've been spoiled for some other books along the way, but at least none of the other books were ones I was CURRENTLY READING. So hopefully I'll forget whatever spoilers there were.
The next bit that gave me a problem of a different sort was that Mori really gets into the Pern series. She reads them a bit out of order. But she really likes them. As I probably would if I'd read them at that age or younger. (I was like 19 or 20 before I ever read any, and I did that only so I could plan Pern MUSHes.) Anyway, then she goes and says.. 'I would like a fire-lizard. Or a dragon, for that matter. I'd come swooping in on my blue dragon and she'd breathe fire and burn down the school!'
Did you spot it? Did you spot the GLARING PROBLEM there? So then I had to have K and Google jog my memory loose, because yea.. McCaffrey did mix up her dragons at one point. But it turns out it was a male green that turned into a brown dragon in a later book. (Larth, and Lytol/L'tol) She never, ever said blue dragons were female. And if you've read any Pern, you know that the colors and genders of the dragons are pretty darned important. And you can't read several Pern books and get it wrong. You just can't.
I wanted to like Mori and trust her to be a fellow sf/f reader, but after that, I lost trust and faith in Walton. And believe me, she had little going into it, as I'd read Farthing and disliked it.
So then I started questioning everything. And there were things to distrust. But they were things I would've accepted on faith if she hadn't made that one huge error.
The White Dragon was coming out soon? No. It was out already.
She reads Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and then is _surprised_ there's a radio play? No.. the radio play came first, and if you look on Wikipedia, the first printing of the paperback had that info splashed all over it. I can't imagine whatever 1979 edition she read didn't mention that on the cover and the intro and whatnot.
And then she meets a boy who tells her all about cons. And she didn't even know cons EXISTED.
You can't not know that! You just can't. Not if you're reading, even the occasional, sf/f mags. Not if you're reading anthologies and collections and novels. The introductions and bios and whatnot frequently mention(ed) cons. That's how I first found out about Clarion, which isn't even a con. You just.. can't not know about cons. I don't buy it.
Albacon also tripped me up. Not because it sounds like tuna. Because to me, Albacon is held in Albany. I started to wonder if it had hosted a WorldCon or something called that. But with K's help, I figured out it's a Scottish con too.
So, anyway, I had to get all of those out in the world. I noticed, Walton. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Which is a huge shame, because I liked the book otherwise. Reminds me a bit of Green Glass Sea. Being aware that girl geeks existed in the past. (Okay, so 1979 is my past too.. I was 5 if you're keeping track.)
It's a nicely geeky book, with some fairies in it. Plus, Welsh! Boarding school!
I just can't believe she got the dragons wrong and didn't think her readers would call her out on all the details she got wrong. If you're writing for geeks, you'd better be checking this stuff.
--
If _I_ got details wrong. Maybe White Dragon was published in the US a year or two before the UK? Or something. Let me know. I can take it.
And if anyone knows about that exhibition sex, let me know too. I'm not even sure Mori and I read the same book. (We technically didn't.)
Now the person who has this book on hold will be happy.
ETA: For those keeping track at home, it took me 3 tries and a Google search to get the lj-cut thing right.