(Note: I'm using the terminology that Carey uses in the book; if any of the terms are racist or otherwise problematic, please let me know and I will edit to reflect that.)

So I just read the first two volumes of Jacqueline Carey's Agent of Hel series. Despite adoring Carey on the strength of her Kushiel's Legacy series and Santa Olivia I had been ( Read more... )

You know all those wonderful SFF novels where the aliens/robots/orcs are clearly metaphors for nonwhite people in today's society? They are not actually about nonwhite people. They do not pass the Johnson Test. They may serve as valuable teaching tools to other white people. . . but I am not an alien or a robot or an orc, so they do not in any way ( Read more... )

Step 1: Choose between Light (20 books) or Full (40 books) Challenge

Step 2: Choose three categories in Part I and one category in Part II

Step 3: Read a new-to-you book in half (for the Light) or all of the subcategories in the categories you have chosen within one year of your start date.

PART I

Choose three of the six categories.

Dark Fantasy & ( Read more... )

Note: Yes, this is totally a request for recommendations. ;)

In my reading lately I've begun to see patterns in plots; casting my mind back through all the stuff I've read in the past I've then begun to see holes in the patterns. So here are three plots I've read a lot of versions of, and the alternatives I wish I could read once or twice. (Another ( Read more... )

WARNING!!! MAJOR SPOILERS for Ellen Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword, N.K. Jemisin's The Kingdom of the Gods, and Stephen King's The Dark Tower follow after the cut.

I just finished N.K. Jemisin's The Kingdom of the Gods, the third and final book in her Inheritance Trilogy. I really liked but did not love it, as I really liked but did not love ( Read more... )

I really wanted to write something long and insightful about the ways Sharon Shinn improves on Robin McKinley's colonial fantasy The Blue Sword in her General Winston's Daughter, and the ways in which she STILL fails by making the story all about the white folks, and by taking all of the racism out of her colonialist narrative, but I got a couple ( Read more... )

I like keeping track of genre awards like the Hugo and Nebula. I don't think they necessarily pick the best books out there all the time, but they do provide interesting data points in my tracking of the genre I love. They also provide a handy reading list, if ever I run out of things I've found on my own. (HA! Like that'll ever happen. . .)

But not ( Read more... )

WARNING: Very mild spoilers for Marion Zimmer Bradley's Lythande and probably also for Bradley's The Forbidden Tower and Anne McCaffrey's The Tower and the Hive series and Catherynne M. Valente's The Habitation of the Blessed.

I wanted something to reread a couple afternoons ago; something I loved but had not read in years (which eliminated all of ( Read more... )

This is a meme wherein you note which of the female SF writers you've read out of the total list that got started in the range of years. This post is for writers who got their start in 1990-1993; previous posts are here and here. (Note: It's now alphabetical by first name. It's also culled from ISFDB, so extremely long. *grin*)

Originally posted ( Read more... )

This is a meme wherein you note which of the female SF writers you've read out of the total list, and give a few lines about why you like/dislike them. This post is for writers who got their start in the 1980s; the first post, about writers who got their start in the 70s, is here, and posts on writers who got their start in the 90s, and 00s are ( Read more... )