Fantasy life
Had I known just how many angry white people would be sharing the Metro with me on Saturday for Glenn Beck’s rally, I probably would have taken a cab to the airport.
Allyson Beatrice, Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby? (True Adventures in Cult Fandom): This book forced me to confront some assumptions I make about what books should be. If I shared a fandom with Beatrice, a major Whedon fan, I’d probably be pleased to read her journal. But what is reasonably well-written snark and inside baseball gossip read for free on the internet turned fairly annoying on the printed page, even though Beatrice was forthright about her desire to be seen as important by fellow fans and to convince us that she really was friends with David Fury. I just wasn’t sure what the book’s target audience was supposed to be: I either already knew this stuff (fandom is full of wonderful people and the occasional person disconnected from reality who perpetuates bad stereotypes and then some) or didn’t want to (details of how well she really did know the people from Mutant Enemy and was good at organizing promotional events, though Joss never recognizes her at parties).
Cult fandom done right: Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Unto Zeor, Forever: Digen Farris is an exquisitely overtrained channel with a crippling injury that makes it impossible to perform the high-volume work for which he was trained, transferring/channeling selyn between Gens and Simes. (Simes and Gens are complementary human mutations; in adolescence, one either becomes Sime or Gen, consuming or producing selyn.) So he decides to become the first, and only, Sime surgeon (psychic sensitivity making it too difficult for ordinary Simes to perform surgery). But, because of the death of every other Sime in his immediate family, he’s also the leader of Zeor, a key House in the Tecton (which manages channels), and he still has the needs of a high-functioning channel, in a system that is rapidly losing the ability to fulfill the needs of such channels. In his medical training, he faces discrimination from the Gens who fear losing an area of expertise to Simes (since Simes are faster, stronger, and don’t need as much sleep), on top of the basic Gen fear that Simes will kill them for their selyn. In essence, Digen is the woobiest woobie ever, and he meets a woman who’s his perfect match for producing selyn, which means they're destined to be mates-except that she’s the leader of a rebel House that doesn’t believe in putting channels in between Simes and Gens, and thus if he takes transfer from her he'll be condemned to die by attrition. It’s complicated, and epic, and I remember how fun it was when I was a teenager even though I feel it less now. If you miss the kind of books that have glossaries and appendices at the end explaining various technical aspects of selyn production and transfer that were too arcane even for an infodump, then go for it! Or, you know, if you like superwoobies.
Jim Hines, The Stepsister Scheme: Cinderella, newly returned from her honeymoon, comes under attack from her vengeful stepsisters, and, worse, they steal her husband away. Fortunately, her own stepmother sends Snow White and Sleeping Beauty (whose stories are also not exactly the way they’re told by Disney) with her to rescue him. It’s basically fun fantasy adventure with ass-kicking women (including Snow, who is a lecherous bookworm, which made me like her a lot), though of course there is a tragic rape backstory for one of them.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.
Allyson Beatrice, Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby? (True Adventures in Cult Fandom): This book forced me to confront some assumptions I make about what books should be. If I shared a fandom with Beatrice, a major Whedon fan, I’d probably be pleased to read her journal. But what is reasonably well-written snark and inside baseball gossip read for free on the internet turned fairly annoying on the printed page, even though Beatrice was forthright about her desire to be seen as important by fellow fans and to convince us that she really was friends with David Fury. I just wasn’t sure what the book’s target audience was supposed to be: I either already knew this stuff (fandom is full of wonderful people and the occasional person disconnected from reality who perpetuates bad stereotypes and then some) or didn’t want to (details of how well she really did know the people from Mutant Enemy and was good at organizing promotional events, though Joss never recognizes her at parties).
Cult fandom done right: Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Unto Zeor, Forever: Digen Farris is an exquisitely overtrained channel with a crippling injury that makes it impossible to perform the high-volume work for which he was trained, transferring/channeling selyn between Gens and Simes. (Simes and Gens are complementary human mutations; in adolescence, one either becomes Sime or Gen, consuming or producing selyn.) So he decides to become the first, and only, Sime surgeon (psychic sensitivity making it too difficult for ordinary Simes to perform surgery). But, because of the death of every other Sime in his immediate family, he’s also the leader of Zeor, a key House in the Tecton (which manages channels), and he still has the needs of a high-functioning channel, in a system that is rapidly losing the ability to fulfill the needs of such channels. In his medical training, he faces discrimination from the Gens who fear losing an area of expertise to Simes (since Simes are faster, stronger, and don’t need as much sleep), on top of the basic Gen fear that Simes will kill them for their selyn. In essence, Digen is the woobiest woobie ever, and he meets a woman who’s his perfect match for producing selyn, which means they're destined to be mates-except that she’s the leader of a rebel House that doesn’t believe in putting channels in between Simes and Gens, and thus if he takes transfer from her he'll be condemned to die by attrition. It’s complicated, and epic, and I remember how fun it was when I was a teenager even though I feel it less now. If you miss the kind of books that have glossaries and appendices at the end explaining various technical aspects of selyn production and transfer that were too arcane even for an infodump, then go for it! Or, you know, if you like superwoobies.
Jim Hines, The Stepsister Scheme: Cinderella, newly returned from her honeymoon, comes under attack from her vengeful stepsisters, and, worse, they steal her husband away. Fortunately, her own stepmother sends Snow White and Sleeping Beauty (whose stories are also not exactly the way they’re told by Disney) with her to rescue him. It’s basically fun fantasy adventure with ass-kicking women (including Snow, who is a lecherous bookworm, which made me like her a lot), though of course there is a tragic rape backstory for one of them.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.