all good people read good books

[blk]

I made it a point to get some more reading time in over the break than I usually do, and a quick spin through my collection (electronic and paper) turned up these three, which I finished and enjoyed. I don't usually report on my reading but felt like doing it at least for the first one.

Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner, self-described as "a

Comments

[sillyliddy]

I recently read Digger for a book club. It's very unique among the works I've read, and I would recommend it to anyone. It has a fantastical setting, but the main character is an engineer. You can also tell it was written by an anthropologist. It's available as a physical book, or you can read it in the original web comic form.

[blk]

Yes! I read and loved Digger online. I still ponder whether I want to actually buy it as a physical book. Remember tunnel 17!

[auros]

I cannot at the moment think of any other books where bisexuality was written so casually and not made into a Defining Characteristic somewhere. Anybody else know of some?

The Door Into series by Diane Duane. (n.b.: The cover of the Mass Market Paperback on Amazon is truly appalling.) Open, pansexual relationships are common and accepted, including stuff that is effectively cross-species, involving forms of "sex" that involve shapeshifting, mind-melding, etc.

Unfortunately the final volume hasn't been finished yet, and it's been over twenty years since #3 came out. :-|

[auros]

Also: The sequels to Westmark, The Kestrel and The Beggar Queen, become far more morally complex and political. If you liked the first at all, the other two are definitely worthwhile.

[blk]

I enjoyed the second a little less and am so far enjoying the third a little more. I like complexity, intrigue and character development; I don't love outright war. But this series was a pretty minor effort on my part, so it's fine.

[eub]

Swordspoint has a sequel, by the way, and I think Kushner developed as a writer -- not that Swordspoint was bad, I liked it a lot.

a few overarching conflicts that don't get resolved in the first book (but I assume they do later)

I'm not going to advise you don't finish the next two books. I will say... I have heard that if you're dissatisfied with what the trilogy does and doesn't do, that reading the second and third trilogies may help recover. That's just hearsay, though; I haven't continued there.

[blk]

Swordspoint is supposedly one of three... four if you count the recent short story in the same setting. And with 15 years between the first and the other books int he series, I'd hope for some improvement. I look forward to them!

For the Assassin books... I was relatively satisfied at the end of the first book, so if the other books follow in a similar pattern I think I will enjoy reading them. Of course I prefer to see all threads tied up neatly, but if the storytelling is good enough even that is allowed to slip a little. So we'll see.

[eub]

Ooh, another book!

Well, I'd be interested to hear what you think of the Assassin trilogy.

[dancingwolfgrrl]

I am finishing Privilege of the Sword now and love it. Not only does the bisexual guy continue, but the spunky heroine (which is my kryptonite) has a complex and shifting relationship to her initially-reluctant cross-dressing. It's totally worth your time and the Neil-Gaiman-produced audiobook is great.

[fraterrisus]

I think that some of Heinlein's treatment of his characters' sexuality would fit your description, although I'm too lazy to go look up and find specific examples to see whether or not I'm right, and there are a million ways in which his treatment of sexuality is problematic.

[blk]

Yeah, I remember thinking "... and Heinlein doesn't count" when I was thinking of "authors who include bisexuality as normal" but I can't remember why, and it's been a long time since I've actually read anything of his. Maybe it was that my impression is that Heinlein tended to conflate more variable sexuality with being a more evolved person/character, instead of something that the world in general considered normal.

[adrian_turtle]

Yeah, I remember thinking"...and Heinlein doesn't count" when I was thinking of "authors who include bisexuality as normal" but I can't remember why,

To my mind, the big difference is that Heinlein writes as if same-sex relations are good to look at, from a very heterosexual perspective while Kushner writes as if same-sex relationships are good to have and its unremarkable that many people like both. Diane Duane, mentioned above, writes from a perspective like Kushner's. So do Samuel Delaney and Joe Haldeman.

I know Kushner and Duane are young enough to have grown up reading Heinlein, and it's likely that some of their writing is in reaction to him. The others are younger than Heinlein, but I'm not sure if the early Heinlein novels mentioned sexuality at all.