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larryhammerWhat I've recently finished since my last post, including all the convalescence reading:
Xin: The Journey of the Monkey King - A three-issue indie comic book from a decade ago loosely based on Journey to the West -- as in, set in a technofantasy world with a gender-flipped Sanzen and telling an alternate origin story for Pig. The story itself is okay, for a value of "okay" that somehow manages to include cliched sexism, but I can see why the series never took off -- not enough of the background is explained, for one thing. FWIW, the art, while clearly American, looks inspired more by Chinese manhua than Japanese manga, as well it should.
How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper - Book 1 of the series, and I think The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf would have come off a little better with this context. Not bad -- and pretty funny, actually. I would have been nice if the inevitable pregnancyTM had been explained as a result of a certain instance of clearly unprotected sex rather than the failure of condoms to block werewolf supersperm.
Fair Game by Patricia Briggs - I'm not as quick to pounce on a new Alpha & Omega book as a Mercy Thompson book, because they haven't been as interesting -- which is why I wasn't expecting a series-important event quite this big. Right then. Third-and-a-half of a series you should start at the beginning with. (Or better yet, start with the Mercy Thompson books anyway -- a coyote shifter being more interesting than werewolves anyway.)
The Lark and the Wren by Mercedes Lackey - In which not!Menolly runs away to join not!Harper-Hall but ends up instead with the Gypsy Bardic Tinker People. It's more than a little annoying that this does the shoujo romance thing of, once the heroine is romantically tied off, two-thirds through, turning into his story instead, to the point of all but losing her POV -- until then, it had been a perfectly adequate young woman's bildungsroman. It is also startlingly heteronormative for a Lackey book: even while not!Menolly's plays for room and board in a brothel, there isn't the faintest hint that sex can be anything but man+woman.
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - First time for everything. It's been a while since I've read such an extended exploration of the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Also, the further one reads, the more creepy that glass bell becomes. Ick ick ick.
A few Liaden books by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller: Fledgling, Saltation, and Ghost Ship, the first three Theo Waitley books, plus Agent of Change, from the main-line series. The first two are better, or at least were more self-contained -- when Theo discovers her heritage, the plotlines start splintering, apparently to encompass the continuing stories of characters who already have novels of their own. The last listed was the first published of the series, and has rough patches plus ends on a cliffhanger.
(Not that I'm feeling critical or anything.)
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery - One of her novels for grownups, but Valancy's story liberation would surely be the perfect wish-fulfillment for the right sort of teen. Not to mention the sly, dark humor of it all. It doesn't hurt that this has some of the loveliest nature writing I've seen in quite some time. Delicious. I love it even more than Anne of Green Gables.
(See? Not critical at all.)
What I'm reading now:
Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin, an earlier Harlequin novel of hers -- one with more category Romance tropes and less wuxia than The Lotus Palace. This one's also set earlier historically, in the turbulence following the An Lushan rebellion (so set just after the central events of "The Song of Everlasting Regret"). I'm not entirely thrilled with the hero being Caucasian (apparently a Greek or Macedonian descended Bactrian, which is at least a plausible historical hack and does highlight Central Asian influences on Chinese culture -- and yet), and not finding the story compelling enough to read quickly.
(Well, maybe a little critical.)
What I might read next:
Dragon Ship by Lee & Miller, once my library reserve comes in, and How to Run with a Naked Werewolf, currently sitting on my dresser. Or maybe some more L.M. Montgomery.
---L.
Xin: The Journey of the Monkey King - A three-issue indie comic book from a decade ago loosely based on Journey to the West -- as in, set in a technofantasy world with a gender-flipped Sanzen and telling an alternate origin story for Pig. The story itself is okay, for a value of "okay" that somehow manages to include cliched sexism, but I can see why the series never took off -- not enough of the background is explained, for one thing. FWIW, the art, while clearly American, looks inspired more by Chinese manhua than Japanese manga, as well it should.
How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper - Book 1 of the series, and I think The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf would have come off a little better with this context. Not bad -- and pretty funny, actually. I would have been nice if the inevitable pregnancyTM had been explained as a result of a certain instance of clearly unprotected sex rather than the failure of condoms to block werewolf supersperm.
Fair Game by Patricia Briggs - I'm not as quick to pounce on a new Alpha & Omega book as a Mercy Thompson book, because they haven't been as interesting -- which is why I wasn't expecting a series-important event quite this big. Right then. Third-and-a-half of a series you should start at the beginning with. (Or better yet, start with the Mercy Thompson books anyway -- a coyote shifter being more interesting than werewolves anyway.)
The Lark and the Wren by Mercedes Lackey - In which not!Menolly runs away to join not!Harper-Hall but ends up instead with the Gypsy Bardic Tinker People. It's more than a little annoying that this does the shoujo romance thing of, once the heroine is romantically tied off, two-thirds through, turning into his story instead, to the point of all but losing her POV -- until then, it had been a perfectly adequate young woman's bildungsroman. It is also startlingly heteronormative for a Lackey book: even while not!Menolly's plays for room and board in a brothel, there isn't the faintest hint that sex can be anything but man+woman.
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - First time for everything. It's been a while since I've read such an extended exploration of the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Also, the further one reads, the more creepy that glass bell becomes. Ick ick ick.
A few Liaden books by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller: Fledgling, Saltation, and Ghost Ship, the first three Theo Waitley books, plus Agent of Change, from the main-line series. The first two are better, or at least were more self-contained -- when Theo discovers her heritage, the plotlines start splintering, apparently to encompass the continuing stories of characters who already have novels of their own. The last listed was the first published of the series, and has rough patches plus ends on a cliffhanger.
(Not that I'm feeling critical or anything.)
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery - One of her novels for grownups, but Valancy's story liberation would surely be the perfect wish-fulfillment for the right sort of teen. Not to mention the sly, dark humor of it all. It doesn't hurt that this has some of the loveliest nature writing I've seen in quite some time. Delicious. I love it even more than Anne of Green Gables.
(See? Not critical at all.)
What I'm reading now:
Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin, an earlier Harlequin novel of hers -- one with more category Romance tropes and less wuxia than The Lotus Palace. This one's also set earlier historically, in the turbulence following the An Lushan rebellion (so set just after the central events of "The Song of Everlasting Regret"). I'm not entirely thrilled with the hero being Caucasian (apparently a Greek or Macedonian descended Bactrian, which is at least a plausible historical hack and does highlight Central Asian influences on Chinese culture -- and yet), and not finding the story compelling enough to read quickly.
(Well, maybe a little critical.)
What I might read next:
Dragon Ship by Lee & Miller, once my library reserve comes in, and How to Run with a Naked Werewolf, currently sitting on my dresser. Or maybe some more L.M. Montgomery.
---L.
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no subject
Date: 22 January 2014 03:59 pm (UTC)The Blue Castle is terrific. I missed it in my preteen Montgomery-reading years and only found it as an adult. I love the dark humor. I also like the darkness in general. Anne is always sunny, whatever may be going on in her life; she's on the sidelines in Rilla of Ingleside because Montgomery doesn't know how to write her shaken and grieving. Valancy, on the other hand, starts The Blue Castle genuinely depressed, and there's something more real about her unhappiness than anything Anne ever feels. That means when Valancy picks herself up and makes the choices she needs to repair her own life, we as readers can celebrate her triumph.
no subject
Date: 22 January 2014 05:36 pm (UTC)Exactly, about Valancy versus Anne. I love Anne, but Valancy has more personal demons to overcome, and her escape feels all the more deserved, somehow.
---L.
no subject
Date: 22 January 2014 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 22 January 2014 05:43 pm (UTC)The addition of protagonists within the same timeframe does not strike me as the wisest tactic for managing a family saga -- which this effectively is, only with a space opera instead of historical setting. Romance series, there is at least some advantage to the HEA constraint in that it limits how much previous protagonists can get involved in the current shenanigans.
---L.
no subject
Date: 22 January 2014 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 22 January 2014 05:51 pm (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 22 January 2014 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 22 January 2014 09:55 pm (UTC)You'd probably like The Lotus Palace.
---L.
no subject
Date: 22 January 2014 10:04 pm (UTC)YES, THAT. I knew there was something I had forgotten about why it bugged me so intensely. It's so very . . . is "white gaze" a thing? Like male gaze, except it assumes a Caucasian default? It utterly cheapens her as a character for me, because it makes her seem like she exists as a Chinese dress-up costume for the reader -- but not too Chinese, of course, because that might put the reader off.
no subject
Date: 22 January 2014 10:09 pm (UTC)(Anyway, I was going to add that tLP avoids just about all these tripfalls, and not just because both parties are Han -- there's a lot more respect and not just lust going on. There are non-Han characters, but from Silla.)
---L.
no subject
Date: 23 January 2014 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 23 January 2014 06:10 pm (UTC)ETA: So what are your other favorites?
---L.
no subject
Date: 25 January 2014 07:13 pm (UTC)I adore The Blue Castle and not enough people know about it. Spread the word!
no subject
Date: 26 January 2014 12:23 am (UTC)(Our local mega-used-book-store has multiple copies of all the Anne books, but nothing else by Montgomery. I am all of the Hmph! in the world, outside of camels.)
---L.