day 16 - a rigorous process called Silence
today's topic from streetslkeveins to talk about Nalini Singh's Psy Changeling series. Which you've probably seen me talk about EVERYWHERE by now and might be sick of it. BUT ANYWAY HERE WE ARE. It's been one of my favorite things about 2013, so it's not going anywhere.
I've structured this post so that it's more like hey, here's my sales pitch on why you should want to read this series and what I enjoy and what the series has to offer. So beneath the cut we go.
First off, I want to get rid of the idea that I think this series is perfect. It's not. There are things that make my head tilt and things that don't work for me, but then I can count on one hand what romance series I've ever found that has been perfect with no fault for me. We could get off on a tangent about the romance genre in general and its hangups. I don't subscribe to the theory at all that romance as a genre is terrible. I actually hate that. Rather there's definite things within it that don't work and tropes that get relied on a lot that some authors are better at doing and some aren't. So this series isn't perfect and for sure actually in the first two books there's a bit that makes you go really are we gonna rely on this overly aggressive trope. BUT, as the series progresses, for me, the author gets a lot better and actually consent is talked about a lot and I like that. Actually my biggest issue with the series overall is the lack of non-hetero romantic pairings.
I digress though.
So this series is one set in the future and one of the amazing things about this series is the world building. It's not just a romance series (even though yes every book has a romantic couple), but the author has created an amazing universe to play in and engage with. There's three races. You have the regular humans who are politically stunted until we get about six books in. We have the changelings who have their animal sides and ability to shift into said animal (the two main packs are a leopard pack and a wolf pack). And then you have the Psy, a race of paranormal skilled "humans" that basically rule over everything at the beginning of the series.
The Psy chose about a century ago to phase out having emotions. In order to stabilize their race and those with more dangerous abilities, they thought it would be best to leave behind any emotion whatsoever. As you can already predict, this strongly backfires and a hundred years later everything is starting to fall apart.
With the Psy you get a wonderful mix of people with interesting abilities. All have some level of telepathy, but most have an additional ability. Telekinesis, foresight, Justice keepers that work with the police force, scientists and healers, and some who are even more dangerous than what is basically a hopped up Sylar from Heroes.
By the time we get to where the series is set, the current year around 2070 or so, genetics have so mingled that nearly 90% of the cast and characters in her aren't white. Which is another great thing.
The Changelings in contrast are fully integrated in society as having emotions and all of that. Further, they've got an interesting set up where the Psy basically think them nothing more than animals ruled by emotions and instead, they're running businesses and holding down cities as their own.
Humans integrate in as the series progresses.
So we end up with a universe that the author has put so much thought into and it really shows. Few authors are good at maintaining this amount of world building and keeping up with it and then adding to it. For 12 books, she's done a great job at it.
Now, it is a romance series. So of course we have romance.
Each book introduces a new pairing if you will. BUT, you never lose a pairing from a previous book. The author simply opens the world wider and everyone starts interacting and weaving in together. So you never really say goodbye to anyone. Except for about two books, there's not a pairing that I didn't like. But then you can't be expected to really love everyone as a pairing, it's just like other books or any media. Some work for some people, some don't! But you have so many here.
Further, I really do adore the characters here.
Something that the author does really well is that while this series is touted as romance, it's also a series hugely about, to me, identity and identity construct. As you could guess, the Psy don't have emotions and most of them have been used by their race as soldiers or cogs in a machine. They've not been allowed to be much of anything. The same for humans and changelings we get introduced to somewhat. So this series is a lot about the idea of getting to choose who you want to be and what you want to do. It's about reclaiming yourself. So many of the characters, (Sascha, Judd, Sienna, for example) get to do that and it's great.
There's so many characters that I love out of this series. They all get to inhabit and be so much. They're given a rich amount of detail to them and get spaced out over the whole series.
And it's not even just a case of oh you get to be good now!! It's a very morally gray realistic world. People do terrible things or have done. Bad guys aren't really bad guys and sometimes the good people are assholes. It is all very complex. Which makes for good writing to me. And writing that I appreciate.
Basically, this series is just a lot of fun. Even with the world building and whatever, on a simple level the sex is great and I have fun reading the series. These days that's pretty much what I ask for outside of reading legal texts.
If there's something I missed or further want to talk about, I'm definitely up to it in the comments! This got long, so oops!
I've structured this post so that it's more like hey, here's my sales pitch on why you should want to read this series and what I enjoy and what the series has to offer. So beneath the cut we go.
First off, I want to get rid of the idea that I think this series is perfect. It's not. There are things that make my head tilt and things that don't work for me, but then I can count on one hand what romance series I've ever found that has been perfect with no fault for me. We could get off on a tangent about the romance genre in general and its hangups. I don't subscribe to the theory at all that romance as a genre is terrible. I actually hate that. Rather there's definite things within it that don't work and tropes that get relied on a lot that some authors are better at doing and some aren't. So this series isn't perfect and for sure actually in the first two books there's a bit that makes you go really are we gonna rely on this overly aggressive trope. BUT, as the series progresses, for me, the author gets a lot better and actually consent is talked about a lot and I like that. Actually my biggest issue with the series overall is the lack of non-hetero romantic pairings.
I digress though.
So this series is one set in the future and one of the amazing things about this series is the world building. It's not just a romance series (even though yes every book has a romantic couple), but the author has created an amazing universe to play in and engage with. There's three races. You have the regular humans who are politically stunted until we get about six books in. We have the changelings who have their animal sides and ability to shift into said animal (the two main packs are a leopard pack and a wolf pack). And then you have the Psy, a race of paranormal skilled "humans" that basically rule over everything at the beginning of the series.
The Psy chose about a century ago to phase out having emotions. In order to stabilize their race and those with more dangerous abilities, they thought it would be best to leave behind any emotion whatsoever. As you can already predict, this strongly backfires and a hundred years later everything is starting to fall apart.
With the Psy you get a wonderful mix of people with interesting abilities. All have some level of telepathy, but most have an additional ability. Telekinesis, foresight, Justice keepers that work with the police force, scientists and healers, and some who are even more dangerous than what is basically a hopped up Sylar from Heroes.
By the time we get to where the series is set, the current year around 2070 or so, genetics have so mingled that nearly 90% of the cast and characters in her aren't white. Which is another great thing.
The Changelings in contrast are fully integrated in society as having emotions and all of that. Further, they've got an interesting set up where the Psy basically think them nothing more than animals ruled by emotions and instead, they're running businesses and holding down cities as their own.
Humans integrate in as the series progresses.
So we end up with a universe that the author has put so much thought into and it really shows. Few authors are good at maintaining this amount of world building and keeping up with it and then adding to it. For 12 books, she's done a great job at it.
Now, it is a romance series. So of course we have romance.
Each book introduces a new pairing if you will. BUT, you never lose a pairing from a previous book. The author simply opens the world wider and everyone starts interacting and weaving in together. So you never really say goodbye to anyone. Except for about two books, there's not a pairing that I didn't like. But then you can't be expected to really love everyone as a pairing, it's just like other books or any media. Some work for some people, some don't! But you have so many here.
Further, I really do adore the characters here.
Something that the author does really well is that while this series is touted as romance, it's also a series hugely about, to me, identity and identity construct. As you could guess, the Psy don't have emotions and most of them have been used by their race as soldiers or cogs in a machine. They've not been allowed to be much of anything. The same for humans and changelings we get introduced to somewhat. So this series is a lot about the idea of getting to choose who you want to be and what you want to do. It's about reclaiming yourself. So many of the characters, (Sascha, Judd, Sienna, for example) get to do that and it's great.
There's so many characters that I love out of this series. They all get to inhabit and be so much. They're given a rich amount of detail to them and get spaced out over the whole series.
And it's not even just a case of oh you get to be good now!! It's a very morally gray realistic world. People do terrible things or have done. Bad guys aren't really bad guys and sometimes the good people are assholes. It is all very complex. Which makes for good writing to me. And writing that I appreciate.
Basically, this series is just a lot of fun. Even with the world building and whatever, on a simple level the sex is great and I have fun reading the series. These days that's pretty much what I ask for outside of reading legal texts.
If there's something I missed or further want to talk about, I'm definitely up to it in the comments! This got long, so oops!