November, Sharyn, ed. - Firebirds Rising
This was a bit of a mixed bag for me; but then, short-story collections invariably are as I'm not the biggest short-story fan in general.
I liked Diana Wynne Jones' "I'll Give You My Word" for the wordplay, I liked the oddness of Kelly Link's "The Wizards of Perfil," and I liked the view of a house through three different eras in Tanith Lee's "The House on the Planet."
My favorites ended up being Kara Dalkey's "Hives," which reminds me a little of Scott Westerfeld's YA SF -- the combination of social science and science fiction, with an extra dash of trendiness from So Yesterday. The story is about girl cliques and girl social dynamics, as brought into focus by the use of cell phone implants that make it sound like people are talking inside your head. I'm still a little wary about nearly everything involving girl cliques because of how it always plays into the "girls are catty!" stereotype, whether it means to or not, and this story didn't do enough with the trope to act as a commentary on it instead of a straight-up illustration of it. On the other hand, I loved the narrative voice of the POV character, and I loved that it was something that wasn't about white, middle-class girls. (More on this later.)
The other one that I loved the pieces was Ellen Klages' "In the House of the Seven Librarians," in which an old library ends up closing itself to the world, and seven librarians raise a girl. There is so much book love in this story that I couldn't not love it. I'm not sure what to say about the story, except that it so much sums up my feelings toward libraries and books and things like the Dewey decimal system versus Library of Congress, obsessive-compulsive categorization, nooks and crannies, and booksbooksbooks.
And now, back to white middle-class girls. Most of the authors in the collection were women; most of the stories were about girls. Both of these things make me happy. And yet...
I swear I don't go looking for this stuff. I don't know if there are any writers of color represented, and out of the 16 stories, four potentially star girls of color. Two definitely have girls of color; the other two I'm guessing about due to cultural cues or just not knowing (Kelly Link's story, which feels vaguely Middle Eastern because it has an outdoors market, and Pamela Dean's Liavek story, which I am just picking up for the names). As mentioned above, Dalkey's story is about a Latina Veronica Mars, whom I love very much.
Then I realized the story was set in a vaguely grungy Bladerunner-esque future in which urban centers have lots of crime, are generally lower class, etc. Emma Bull's "What Used to Be Good Still Is" also has a Latina in it; she's the mover of the piece but not the POV character. This one is also set in a lower-class environment, only more rural than urban, more in the past than the present. And I seriously doubt Bull or Dalkey were writing to stereotype, but when the majority of stories in the collection are about middle-class white girls and when the two stories definitely about girls of color also have them as lower class...
I will give props in that there were other POC as side characters in the stories; Tamora Pierce's in particular had a lot of them. Unfortunately, since her heroine was white, the other POC were largely villains, as those were the only spots open in the story.
Again, no ill will. And yet, there's still that larger pattern. Dalkey and Bull's stories wouldn't have been problematic at all if the collection had been chock-full of girls of color, but because it wasn't, they were.
I liked Diana Wynne Jones' "I'll Give You My Word" for the wordplay, I liked the oddness of Kelly Link's "The Wizards of Perfil," and I liked the view of a house through three different eras in Tanith Lee's "The House on the Planet."
My favorites ended up being Kara Dalkey's "Hives," which reminds me a little of Scott Westerfeld's YA SF -- the combination of social science and science fiction, with an extra dash of trendiness from So Yesterday. The story is about girl cliques and girl social dynamics, as brought into focus by the use of cell phone implants that make it sound like people are talking inside your head. I'm still a little wary about nearly everything involving girl cliques because of how it always plays into the "girls are catty!" stereotype, whether it means to or not, and this story didn't do enough with the trope to act as a commentary on it instead of a straight-up illustration of it. On the other hand, I loved the narrative voice of the POV character, and I loved that it was something that wasn't about white, middle-class girls. (More on this later.)
The other one that I loved the pieces was Ellen Klages' "In the House of the Seven Librarians," in which an old library ends up closing itself to the world, and seven librarians raise a girl. There is so much book love in this story that I couldn't not love it. I'm not sure what to say about the story, except that it so much sums up my feelings toward libraries and books and things like the Dewey decimal system versus Library of Congress, obsessive-compulsive categorization, nooks and crannies, and booksbooksbooks.
And now, back to white middle-class girls. Most of the authors in the collection were women; most of the stories were about girls. Both of these things make me happy. And yet...
I swear I don't go looking for this stuff. I don't know if there are any writers of color represented, and out of the 16 stories, four potentially star girls of color. Two definitely have girls of color; the other two I'm guessing about due to cultural cues or just not knowing (Kelly Link's story, which feels vaguely Middle Eastern because it has an outdoors market, and Pamela Dean's Liavek story, which I am just picking up for the names). As mentioned above, Dalkey's story is about a Latina Veronica Mars, whom I love very much.
Then I realized the story was set in a vaguely grungy Bladerunner-esque future in which urban centers have lots of crime, are generally lower class, etc. Emma Bull's "What Used to Be Good Still Is" also has a Latina in it; she's the mover of the piece but not the POV character. This one is also set in a lower-class environment, only more rural than urban, more in the past than the present. And I seriously doubt Bull or Dalkey were writing to stereotype, but when the majority of stories in the collection are about middle-class white girls and when the two stories definitely about girls of color also have them as lower class...
I will give props in that there were other POC as side characters in the stories; Tamora Pierce's in particular had a lot of them. Unfortunately, since her heroine was white, the other POC were largely villains, as those were the only spots open in the story.
Again, no ill will. And yet, there's still that larger pattern. Dalkey and Bull's stories wouldn't have been problematic at all if the collection had been chock-full of girls of color, but because it wasn't, they were.