Books Read in June, Women of SF/F Reading Challenge
Uh, this month I neither accomplished all the academicy things (hello pesky revisions and conference papers!) nor fannish things that I wanted. Le sigh. But after much trial and tribulation and blood, sweat, and tears (buckets of tears, really) V and I finally closed on our house on Friday! Woot! We're excited to finally own a place, but at the same time, trying not to be overwhelmed by the number of decisions that need to be made before we can move in next month. Also we are shite at picking out paint colors.
Anyway, onto the book reviews!
Ellen Kushner, Swordspoint- I had been really excited to read this one, after seeing it get so much buzz at Yuletide every year. A story of intrigue with two gay male protagonists set in a city vaguely based on Shakespeare's London? Sounds like my cup of tea, right? But, I actually ended up finding it kind of dull. All of the characters (including the protagonists) came off as unsympathetic. Now I don't mind anti-heroes and shades of grey in my characters (god knows there are a ton of them in asoiaf) but I don't know...they were just so unlikable. The romance between the hero, St. Vier, and his aristocratic lover didn't seem to put off much heat compared to say, Anafiel and Alcuin in Kushiel's Dart. I get that when this novel debuted in the late 1980s at the height of the AIDS crisis it was groundbreaking to have a m/m relationship so front and center, but 30 years later it actually seems like Kushner was a little too oblique in the way she portrayed their relationship. The only character I liked was Diane, the Duchess of Tremontaine, who was scheming and awesome and can totally have a membership at the Machiavellian Ladies Lawn & Garden Club with Melisande and Oleanna Tyrell. But of course of all the fic that is written (100+ stories on AO3) none of it is about Diane- it's all Richard/Alec boyslash. [Why oh why do I get myself into these canons where there is one awesome lady and then all the fic is dudes?!? See Hannibal.] I may read the next sequel, The Privilege of the Sword, just because it has a female protagonist, but overall I'm not too taken with the Swords of Riverside-verse
Alan Bradley, I Am Half Sick of Shadows (Flavia #4)- This is the latest in the Flavia de Luce series and is Christmas-themed. I always enjoy Flavia's tart, unique first person voice, and for that reason alone I will always enjoy reading this series. One of my favorite passages in this one is Flavia's observation that Romeo & Juliet is her favorite Shakespeare because it has a poisoning in it. But the mystery and the plot definitely feel a bit thin in comparison to some of the earlier Flavias. I think this kind of variance in quality seems to be par for the course with most long running mystery series. IMO Bradley is going to have to pull the trigger at some point about Flavia's missing mother, Harriet. Dragging it out is getting old. And I'd love to read books about Flavia and her mom solving mysteries together.
Katherine Neville, The Eight- I mentioned a few posts ago that I had decided to re-read this one after about 10 years. It does and doesn't hold up. I still enjoyed the lady-centric action and women getting to be action heroes part of the story. I also love the journeys of both Mireille and Cat from "pawns" to "queens"- that will always get me every time. But I will admit that the prose is a bit clunky and of the Dan Brown generic thriller-esque variety. Ugh and some of the sex scenes...like I get you don't want to write explicit sex, but substituting "drowning in her love" as a euphemism for "throbbing manhood" is almost just as bad. The number of historic domain characters also started to bug me. If I was Neville's editor, I would have said, "Ok, you can have 10 historical characters max. Not 25." The problem is that they are used in a way often where they aren't fully developed as characters or integral to the plot- is it really necessary that Benedict Arnold randomly shows up to guest star at one point? No. But if you want a fun, airport read that features female characters, you really can't do any better than The Eight.
N.K Jemisin, The Broken Kingdoms- I read the first book in Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy last year and loooved it and The Broken Kingdoms was a great follow up. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. I love Jemisin's world-building, the conscious inclusion of characters of color, and the allusion to issues of colonialism and class that permeates her work. I really enjoyed Yeine's POV in the first book and was wary of switching to a different narrator in this one, but I think I might have enjoyed Oree's story even more than Yeine's. Oree is a blind artist, but her paintings are a kind of magic- loved the worldbuilding there, the use of art as magic. It's just such a morally complicated universe that Jemisin creates, and it's to her credit as an author that you can find yourself having sympathy in this book for a character that was an antagonist in the first series. Not to spoil, but I found the ending really bittersweet yet definitely fitting with the tone of the book. Really looking forward to reading the last book in the series sooner rather than later.
I also signed up for the Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge. The goal is to promote female authors in SF/F. It's not too late to join- you are just asked to read 12 books by 12 different female authors that you haven't read before. I am retroactively counting Bujold, Kushner, and Erin Morgenstern toward my goal- and I could count Veronica Roth and Deb Harkness as well, but since I didn't particularly enjoy their books, I'm aiming to read more. I definitely want to use this challenge as motivation to finally read some Ocativa Butler and Ursula LeGuin. Nicola Griffith's Ammonite has been on my to-read list for a long time as well. I think Cathrynne Valente will be next, though- The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland is sitting on my nightstand. I'm open to suggestions of course. You can see my tentative list (as kmo) on the challenge page.
This entry was originally posted at http://kmo.dreamwidth.org/ Comment here or there as the spirit moves you.
Anyway, onto the book reviews!
Ellen Kushner, Swordspoint- I had been really excited to read this one, after seeing it get so much buzz at Yuletide every year. A story of intrigue with two gay male protagonists set in a city vaguely based on Shakespeare's London? Sounds like my cup of tea, right? But, I actually ended up finding it kind of dull. All of the characters (including the protagonists) came off as unsympathetic. Now I don't mind anti-heroes and shades of grey in my characters (god knows there are a ton of them in asoiaf) but I don't know...they were just so unlikable. The romance between the hero, St. Vier, and his aristocratic lover didn't seem to put off much heat compared to say, Anafiel and Alcuin in Kushiel's Dart. I get that when this novel debuted in the late 1980s at the height of the AIDS crisis it was groundbreaking to have a m/m relationship so front and center, but 30 years later it actually seems like Kushner was a little too oblique in the way she portrayed their relationship. The only character I liked was Diane, the Duchess of Tremontaine, who was scheming and awesome and can totally have a membership at the Machiavellian Ladies Lawn & Garden Club with Melisande and Oleanna Tyrell. But of course of all the fic that is written (100+ stories on AO3) none of it is about Diane- it's all Richard/Alec boyslash. [Why oh why do I get myself into these canons where there is one awesome lady and then all the fic is dudes?!? See Hannibal.] I may read the next sequel, The Privilege of the Sword, just because it has a female protagonist, but overall I'm not too taken with the Swords of Riverside-verse
Alan Bradley, I Am Half Sick of Shadows (Flavia #4)- This is the latest in the Flavia de Luce series and is Christmas-themed. I always enjoy Flavia's tart, unique first person voice, and for that reason alone I will always enjoy reading this series. One of my favorite passages in this one is Flavia's observation that Romeo & Juliet is her favorite Shakespeare because it has a poisoning in it. But the mystery and the plot definitely feel a bit thin in comparison to some of the earlier Flavias. I think this kind of variance in quality seems to be par for the course with most long running mystery series. IMO Bradley is going to have to pull the trigger at some point about Flavia's missing mother, Harriet. Dragging it out is getting old. And I'd love to read books about Flavia and her mom solving mysteries together.
Katherine Neville, The Eight- I mentioned a few posts ago that I had decided to re-read this one after about 10 years. It does and doesn't hold up. I still enjoyed the lady-centric action and women getting to be action heroes part of the story. I also love the journeys of both Mireille and Cat from "pawns" to "queens"- that will always get me every time. But I will admit that the prose is a bit clunky and of the Dan Brown generic thriller-esque variety. Ugh and some of the sex scenes...like I get you don't want to write explicit sex, but substituting "drowning in her love" as a euphemism for "throbbing manhood" is almost just as bad. The number of historic domain characters also started to bug me. If I was Neville's editor, I would have said, "Ok, you can have 10 historical characters max. Not 25." The problem is that they are used in a way often where they aren't fully developed as characters or integral to the plot- is it really necessary that Benedict Arnold randomly shows up to guest star at one point? No. But if you want a fun, airport read that features female characters, you really can't do any better than The Eight.
N.K Jemisin, The Broken Kingdoms- I read the first book in Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy last year and loooved it and The Broken Kingdoms was a great follow up. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. I love Jemisin's world-building, the conscious inclusion of characters of color, and the allusion to issues of colonialism and class that permeates her work. I really enjoyed Yeine's POV in the first book and was wary of switching to a different narrator in this one, but I think I might have enjoyed Oree's story even more than Yeine's. Oree is a blind artist, but her paintings are a kind of magic- loved the worldbuilding there, the use of art as magic. It's just such a morally complicated universe that Jemisin creates, and it's to her credit as an author that you can find yourself having sympathy in this book for a character that was an antagonist in the first series. Not to spoil, but I found the ending really bittersweet yet definitely fitting with the tone of the book. Really looking forward to reading the last book in the series sooner rather than later.
I also signed up for the Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge. The goal is to promote female authors in SF/F. It's not too late to join- you are just asked to read 12 books by 12 different female authors that you haven't read before. I am retroactively counting Bujold, Kushner, and Erin Morgenstern toward my goal- and I could count Veronica Roth and Deb Harkness as well, but since I didn't particularly enjoy their books, I'm aiming to read more. I definitely want to use this challenge as motivation to finally read some Ocativa Butler and Ursula LeGuin. Nicola Griffith's Ammonite has been on my to-read list for a long time as well. I think Cathrynne Valente will be next, though- The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland is sitting on my nightstand. I'm open to suggestions of course. You can see my tentative list (as kmo) on the challenge page.
This entry was originally posted at http://kmo.dreamwidth.org/ Comment here or there as the spirit moves you.