Before you know it, it's Friday
I kind of missed the Wednesday reading thing, but I only read one new book, so there's not a lot to talk about. Only, there is.
I reread the rest of Gibson's Sprawl trilogy. I always forget how much I like Count Zero, so it was nice to realize that all over again. And then I reread the trilogy that starts with Pattern Recognition, which is such an amazing book. The second two are excellent but I think this reread was the first time I actually want fan fic for one of Gibson's novels. I want more backstory about one of the characters (Milgrim, in case anyone's curious). I get that part of the point is that he doesn't really have a past, or more that his past self is essentially someone else, but I found myself wanting to know more about him.
The new thing was another historical--The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak. It did a good job of showing the crazy that was the Russian court during the late years of Empress Elizabeth's reign and the early years of Catherine the Great's reign and I liked the main character--a spy who worked for the Chancellor. Things get complicated for her when she becomes loyal to Catherine. The thing I didn't like was the way the book ignored the main character's marriage. Although she doesn't love her husband, we get the feeling that she begins to realize that he's got more depth and the feeling that they did make things work after a fashion. Only we don't see much of that, which is a pity. Women in historicals are always being married off to men they can't stand and I'd dearly love to see the transition from dislike to a partnership.
I really really hate the "married to a horrible awful dude who rapes his wife and is old and creepy" trope. Yes, it happened, but I think it's a cheap and easy source of angst for a character. I actually have an idea that I will never write--the OFC is a middle class girl who marries a middle-aged man and is totally matter-of-fact about it. She gets along with him and they come to respect and have a degree of affection for each other. Because her husband's a draper who has some upper class patrons, our heroine ends up in the service of Anne of Cleves (possibly keeping an eye on her for someone at court, like Norfolk or Cromwell). Anne's story involves plenty of angst for anyone who was at all loyal to her, so you don't need horrible, awful husbands (well except for Henry, of course).
If there was a need for more angst, I could go with some sort of religious thing--either having her be Catholic or too Protestant. As for the love story, I'm sure my heroine could fall in love with some minor noble or maybe even Anne herself. I've always liked the idea that Anne was a lesbian and that was one more reason she was totally fine with being divorced.
And I said there wasn't a lot to talk about.
crossposted from http://telesilla.dreamwidth.org/305910.html |
comments | you can comment at my DW using OpenID
I reread the rest of Gibson's Sprawl trilogy. I always forget how much I like Count Zero, so it was nice to realize that all over again. And then I reread the trilogy that starts with Pattern Recognition, which is such an amazing book. The second two are excellent but I think this reread was the first time I actually want fan fic for one of Gibson's novels. I want more backstory about one of the characters (Milgrim, in case anyone's curious). I get that part of the point is that he doesn't really have a past, or more that his past self is essentially someone else, but I found myself wanting to know more about him.
The new thing was another historical--The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak. It did a good job of showing the crazy that was the Russian court during the late years of Empress Elizabeth's reign and the early years of Catherine the Great's reign and I liked the main character--a spy who worked for the Chancellor. Things get complicated for her when she becomes loyal to Catherine. The thing I didn't like was the way the book ignored the main character's marriage. Although she doesn't love her husband, we get the feeling that she begins to realize that he's got more depth and the feeling that they did make things work after a fashion. Only we don't see much of that, which is a pity. Women in historicals are always being married off to men they can't stand and I'd dearly love to see the transition from dislike to a partnership.
I really really hate the "married to a horrible awful dude who rapes his wife and is old and creepy" trope. Yes, it happened, but I think it's a cheap and easy source of angst for a character. I actually have an idea that I will never write--the OFC is a middle class girl who marries a middle-aged man and is totally matter-of-fact about it. She gets along with him and they come to respect and have a degree of affection for each other. Because her husband's a draper who has some upper class patrons, our heroine ends up in the service of Anne of Cleves (possibly keeping an eye on her for someone at court, like Norfolk or Cromwell). Anne's story involves plenty of angst for anyone who was at all loyal to her, so you don't need horrible, awful husbands (well except for Henry, of course).
If there was a need for more angst, I could go with some sort of religious thing--either having her be Catholic or too Protestant. As for the love story, I'm sure my heroine could fall in love with some minor noble or maybe even Anne herself. I've always liked the idea that Anne was a lesbian and that was one more reason she was totally fine with being divorced.
And I said there wasn't a lot to talk about.
crossposted from http://telesilla.dreamwidth.org/305910.html |
comments | you can comment at my DW using OpenID