Geomythologist

Cheek by Jowl - Ursula Le Guin

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 09:18:56 GMT

I got Ursula Le Guin's Cheek by Jowl for Christmas - my big criticism of the book is that it is really too short and I read it all this afternoon. But there is a lot to give me thinky thoughts, and I think I will enjoy rereading it. The main essay is an overview of animal stories, which was quite fascinating, although I think probably quite US-centric - some of the books she talked about like classics, but I've never heard of them, so I can only assume they're actually still in print.

I felt the immediate need to lend it to my ex-workmate who is now doing her doctorate on George Macdonald's books (having done her masters on Margaret Mahy). Hurrah for kids' fantasy!

Although I reject Le Guin's assertion that "as for 'genre' fiction [excluding fantasy] - mystery, horror, romance, science fiction - none of it is for children; they begin to read it as they approach their teens, but not before." The books I remember most vividly from when I lived in Stokes Valley, before I turned ten, are the horrors - Under the Mountain and The Witches, which admittedly I never finished on my own because it was too scary, but was read to us at school when I was eight. If that's not a horror story, what is?

I also had a collection of horror short stories which I terrified myself on, Marghanita Laski's 'The Tower' being particularly memorable. It's kind of a pity compared to now, when I don't get scared reading things, and only rarely when watching them.

My love of science fiction started when I was nine and was given Acorna the Unicorn Girl for Christmas. Yes, it is definitely sci-fi, although the unicorn part was the initial attraction. I can certainly think of sci-fi books that are actually intended for pre-teens, just as I can think of horrors and mysteries. Maybe not the romances :) There are not nearly as many of them as there are fantasy or 'realistic' stories, but they certainly exist. So to say children never read them seems an odd assertion.

That minor quibble aside, the collection is excellent. I do love Ursula Le Guin's brain.

My classic sci-fi movie education continues

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:44:42 GMT

Every time I watch an old move, all these pop culture references suddenly become illuminated. Jesse picking pretty tunnel rat Riley. Torin Kerr falling asleep while a pilot's trying to freak her out with his flying. Tonight we watched Aliens, which I thought I hadn't seen. Turns out watching movies in the middle of the night isn't actually conducive to remembering them (although I do remember deciding not to bother to stay awake for the third one).

Thanks to the aforementioned Torin Kerr novels, I also have some understanding of how rank works in the marines. I'd like to say 'who says sci-fi never teaches you anything', except the part where the knowledge is only useful re: other sci-fi kind of renders that moot. Oh well.

I want to be a badass when I grow up. Outside of sf, only girls named Veronica make me feel like that.

Anyway, we all stayed up past our bedtimes because I didn't realise how long the movie was. Movies these days are more compressed even when they're long, I'm sure. I don't usually have a lot of patience when it comes to things happening on screen, but I guess building suspense is half...the...point. It was totally epic, and I quite like the feeling of seeing things again and only remembering them as they go along.

Though I was still surprised when it turned out Michael Biehn's character wasn't going to die. Not that I'm complaining ♥ He was a babe.

Books and more books

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:27:47 GMT

I had my interview for the publishing course last week, which I am feeling fairly happy about. Only we're not actually going to find out if we get in till the middle of January. Which is kind of annoying because it puts things on hold till then - I don't know that I'm going to get in, so I might have to find a full-time job, but I can't look for that job if I don't know I haven't gotten in.

On the other hand, I probably shouldn't complain about not having to go job hunting. I just want to plan out my life already.

One of the questions I got asked during the interview was what I had been reading lately. I guess I just have to hope no-one making the decision has a deep and abiding hatred of speculative fiction. At any rate, that's my lead-in for me to ramble about the books I have been reading lately ♥

Tiger Eye - Marjorie M. Liu

I enjoyed this, even if I was too embarrassed to read it downstairs because the cover is such a romance novel cover, and I am apparently a snob. The epic true love story actually felt based in real emotion, and was sweet and hot instead of annoying. I liked both of them, so it was satisfying all round. The side characters were also engaging, the villain suitably disturbing, and at the end the heroine makes metal sculptures about it all, hurrah. I just wish someone had warned me about the tiger sex.

Cagebird - Karin Lowachee

I have read all her books now and I am bereft, bereft I say! After reading Warchild, I actually went and reread most of Burndive, to tide me over before the arrived. Cagebird is probably the most harrowing of the lot. I felt awful for Yuri, so much so that it occasionally felt like disaster porn. Just because he goes through so much shit. I guess being uncomfortable is a good thing.

I like how these books are about Captain Azarcon as well, how his character emerges in the gaps, how he is one of the only people actively doing right, actively caring, even at the same time as he is a total ruthless badass captain.

If I'd read these books before Yuletide, I definitely would have been requesting them.

Guardian of the Dead - Karen Healey

I pounced on the reader of this as soon as I saw it. Urban fantasy set in New Zealand, with New Zealand mythologies? Yes, please. Smart and funny as well? With added geek and feminism? I am so there.

The sense of place is wonderful (yes, that feels like Christchurch, and I've never been to Napier but it feels grounded in the same way). The sense of geography, and the stories that overlie that geography (and I loved the way she pulled this off). I am a sucker for stories about stories, the big stories, and having those stories be the ones that I grew up with is just awesome.

I am really glad this is being published by Allen & Unwin, because they do a book justice, and I am just sorry it is not coming out sooner, so I can foist it on people already.

Fifth Quarter - Tanya Huff

I wish someone had told me when I was a teenager that these books were filled with queer people, and I would have made more of an effort to get my hands on them then. On the other hand, it's nice to be discovering them now. Fifth Quarter is the one about the assassin brother and sister who end up sharing the sister's body, whilst the ~~evil villain~~ ~~antagonist~~ morally ambiguous fox occupies the brother's. I feel like Tanya Huff knows me so well.

The main romance (if I can call it that) in this one is straight, but both the characters involved are bi, most of the other characters are bi, and the only one who statedly isn't is a lesbian. Why on earth did no-one tell me about this as a teenager?

I have now finished two RPGs in my life

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:24:26 GMT

After some 50 hours of gameplay, I have finished Dragon Age. Go me!

In my imagination, my mage goes and lives in Shale's old Thaig after everything. It is underground but all mossy and pretty! We'll just need a regular watch for Darkspawn, which'll keep those Warden skills fresh. Zevran comes with me, and Shale (though I am all for her going off to find out how to reverse the Golum process, I just want us to hang out ♥). Morrigan shows up with her demon baby and we all have a tea party. Alistair can't come, because he hates all my friends. None of the companions seem to like each other much, sadly.

I really wanted Alistair to be more traumatised about Morrigan. She's having your baby, kid! But afterwards, he was so blase. You're always going on about family, so go on an epic quest to meet your child. Or maybe I'll just pretend he's not smart enough to realise that that was the whole point of the sex. I suppose they don't give good sex education at the Chantry? (I am quite creeped out at how in the Morrigan & Alistair make a baby scene, your character is just standing over in the corner? Obviously Alistair only agreed to do it if he could have a threesome. Or something.)

I feel like I clearly wasn't meant to make Anora queen, because some of the dialogue afterwards was screwed up, with a couple of conversations referring to Alistair as becoming king. Yeah... I'm sorry, Alistair lets the new recruit lead the fight against the Blight, and you want me to think he's going to make a good king? Anora says, and I agree (and he agrees) that he would be dreadful. Anora knows what she's doing, who cares if she's not actually of royal blood. And I like that in the epilogue, it mentioned that she doesn't remarry, which I took to me mean no children and Ferelden had to become a democracy, hurrah! Being as Anora was pretty much 'elected'.

And then there was the part in the epilogue about Cullen going mad and killing apprentices and I was like, what? *big woobie eyes* Was it really necessary to break my little fannish heart like that? Apparently, yes.

I really wish the game had a voice actor for the PC. Even if that would've been a ridiculous number of lines to read and record - it just would've given me a voice, instead of feeling like my character never said anything. Just reading the dialogue doesn't work the same. (I also can't imagine my character smiling, because it never happens.)

In other news, I am now wearing glasses for my short-sightedness, and it is amazing. Everything looks so crisp! Trees have many individual leaves all pointing in different directions! I hardly realised how blurred everything was. And tomorrow night I am going to see Jarvis Cocker, woo-hoo!

Current obsession: Dragon Age

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:11:58 GMT

I fear, sweet internet, that I have been remiss. I have been showering my attention on someone else, letting them keep me up to the wee small hours. It's okay; I know you're not languishing without me. If anything, I'll be the one to regret my affair.

It's like this, see. Bioware has a new game out. You know, the company who proved it was possible for me to finish a game that wasn't a simulator alone? That I could play a fight in real time and not freak out?

Okay, so, it was my sister who bought Dragon Age, but I'm the one with the most play time. (She was playing when I got home today, and wasn't very amused when I asked if she was trying to beat me.) It's an epic fantasy game, which isn't anything new, and there's lots of options for how you can play it, lots of different stories you can get out of it. I am determined though to finish this first playthrough before trying out another!

Probably one of the most impressive things for me is that someone's made a game where I actually enjoy the combat. Admittedly, I'm playing on easy, but it makes me feel as if I'd like to make things more challenging on myself. Usually real-time combat freaks me out (either that or I go for button mashing - me and button combinations don't mix), but turn-based combat is boring. Wandering through landscapes having random monsters attack you isn't that exciting, and Dragon Age cuts most of that out, for which I am grateful.*

I enjoy the interaction with the companions, although I am not impressed with when Leilani starts talking about shoes! My favourite is probably Shale, who is a sarcastic golem and likes to talk about bashing people's heads in. Hundreds of years frozen in the middle of a village square has left her very unimpressed with humanity. Also pigeons. She especially loathes pigeons.

I don't enjoy having to make bad decisions :( I suspect there will be tears before the game's out.

When I haven't been playing, I've been rereading Wizard of the Grove, which is pretty much my standard for epic fantasy (no wonder I don't usually bother with the genre). It was kind of interesting reading it again as an adult - things I pick up on that I didn't before, the bits I remember and the bits I didn't, which scenes are hotter... They are an awesome pair of books. I think I will have to go finish her Quarters series next.

I am also waiting for Karin Lowachee's first book to arrive, as I really enjoyed Burndive (they're related books, but I don't believe the order matters). Even though not an awful lot actually happens - it happens in really character building ways? (I wouldn't be surprised if the author had come out of fandom, actually, because that book is really slashy.) I do wish there had been more female characters. Also less blonde people. It's like watching Shortland St - every second person is not blonde! Really!

Anyway, my sister's downstairs now for Rove, so I will be sneaking up to put in a few more hours game time. Ha, I'll make a proper gamer yet.

*See also, when I played Oblivion and went off the roads and ended up taking a much more direct route to what was supposed to be a pretty far off goal, so that when I got there, it was way too hard and I had to run away screaming. I think I did pretty well before that, considering.

I'll be over here then, not existing

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:56:08 GMT

So, I was reading back on masseffect, which is all abuzz for Mass Effect 2, what with the new squad member announcements and whatnot. One of whom is the woman on the game's cover, Miranda Lawson (voiced by Yvonne Strahovski from Chuck!) And, why yes, she is wearing a ridiculously body-hugging suit. And that is a considerably bustier model than any of the other Mass Effect females have been (whilst still looking like, you know, actual breasts, and not levitating balloons). I certainly understand why you might want to critique that.

But then someone in the comments has to bring up the idea that, in 'real life', people with breasts that large are never that skinny.

It's not nice being told you don't exist.

I remember a post on a forum I once lurked on that linked to a statuette of Aphrodite someone had made. The responses to which were along the lines of, real women never look like that; if he's saying it's based off a real person, it must've been a porn star (because those must be implants); slender people don't get breasts that big. I went along and had a look, and was confused - Aphrodite's body looked perfectly normal to me. More normal than the tiny breasts nudes usually had!

Then I realised why - it looked like me. It looked like my body, that I had to import bras for from the UK because they didn't then sell my cup size here, bloody expensive bras that I couldn't try on, and my chest would ache if they fit badly, and I could never find tops that fit right, and every time I went into a lingerie store ended in tears. My body that I saw in the mirror everyday. But people never think you're as big as you are. And so my body was an unrealistic one. A nonexistent one.

Fun fact: boobs look different with clothes on! Surely women know this.

So if the Miranda Lawson character were wearing, you know, a top, a normal top, not too much cleavage (but not too high-necked, because that makes them look bigger), and if that top were modelled realistically (Orihime, I'm looking at you), you wouldn't notice that her breasts were especially large. Especially because, you see they're not.

It's been a long time since I got emotional over my breasts. Not since I had my reduction, in fact! But wow, can one person's comment ever bring it back. And it's like - your feminist critique of a video game character shouldn't make another woman feel bad about her body. My body is not cgi.

-

There's this scene in Love and Rockets where the famously well-endowed Luba is at the beach. Luba is in a swimsuit; her breasts are sort of squashed and undefined. In other words, they look like large breasts actually do when you stuff them in a swimsuit. It may have got skeevier later, but I will always love Gilbert for that.

No more BSc for me!

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:46:06 GMT

I am very much enjoying being 'on holiday' (for a value of holiday that means very soon I will be working the Christmas retail rush). I don't have to study! I can watch television in the evenings and not feel like I should be doing something else! I never have to think about rocks again if I don't want to! It's my choice.

I do have to finish making up my CV, and writing a letter about why I am special and ought to be welcoming in the publishing course. I'm thinking I should cut the parts ranting about how NZ publishers don't appreciate sci-fi & fantasy. It shows I'm passionate?

Otherwise, since my last exam, I have been entertaining my niece, and making ice cream. I can report that my niece is tiring and charming, and that ice cream is delicious even if you eat it before it's frozen properly. I'm also bemused to learn that ice cream isn't so much frozen cream as frozen custard. I thought at first that custard was some sort of technical ice cream making word, because I think of custard as coming from powder, but no, actually custard. Fancy that.

I was going to write a review of BR Collin's new book, A Trick of the Dark, but all I really have to say is that it gives my intense writerly envy. It's a - psychological-fantasy thriller? Not as heart-breaking as her first book, but she is an amazing, gripping writer.

I'm not sure whether to be amused or depressed by the concerted effort gone to in the biography on the inside flap not to mention that she's a woman. I read it on the internet, but really, isn't every author who uses their initials these days a woman? Okay, not MT Anderson. But everyone else. I'll just pretend some people don't like their names. Must be it.

Madeleine L'Engle spoiled me for books featuring nephilim*

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:33:52 GMT

I was kind of wary when I picked up Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush, Hush, because I'd heard about the fallen angels book, and whilst I'm all for angels in theory, I'm not for 'true love'. Particularly not when reincarnation gets involved, unless you're a snarky supernatural detective show ripping it apart. I don't expect a YA romance to do much ripping apart. I was surprised when I started reading the book though, because it was a lot less serious than I had expected.

And then I realised that the fallen angel book I'd heard about wasn't this one. There just happened to be two YA paranormal romances about angels that came out at pretty much the same time. I suppose once you've done vampires, faeries (zombies, even), fallen angels are the next logical step. I just want someone to write me my epic dragon romance, but I suspect I'll have to do that one myself.

I quite I enjoyed this book, because whilst the romantic interest was often a stalky jerk, the book actually acknowledged that he was a stalky jerk and I didn't have to think about it. I could just let it amuse me. It wasn't particularly memorable though, and I was kind of disappointed when the angels turned out to be – I don't know, teenagers? Surely there are more important things that could motivate an angel than some love affair? Really.

Also, I am not impressed by references to the Book of Enoch that make out like it's some esoteric 'lost' book (as in, they don't have copies in Heaven's library?) Okay, it's kind of esoteric, and I think for a long time only the Ethiopian Church really knew about it, but it's on my bookshelf – hell, I should probably just tag the damn thing on here – and so you don't get brownie points for mentioning it. It's not having the effect you want for me. Sorry.

Entertaining while I was reading it, but doesn't bear too much thinking about. I will just end up picking it to pieces, even once I get over the mythology.

Dragon + Sentient Building = OTP

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:02:18 GMT

Having, finished Cast in Silence I have now read all the Chronicles of Elantra books thus far out. Whatever am I going to read next?

At the end of book 2, this was my list of things I wanted more of:

more Lord Nightshade

more history

more secrets

more Teela being snarky

more of Kaylin's Dragon tutor being snarky

more hangouts at Nightshade's awesome creepy house

Kaylin gets to bust some heads

Amendations after reading book 3 and realising I'd completely forgotten about Tiamaris from the first book:

more Tiamaris

more sentient buildings

more Ybelline

Things that I was never expecting to encounter:

time travel

Because I do not deal well with time travel, I just go la-la-la-la-la in my head and try not to think through the implications. I do like how it changes the relationship between Kaylin and Nightshade, and I really loved seeing young!Nightshade. And Kaylin, giving away so many of those spoilers! No wonder Nightshade has a thing for her.

Reading people's reviews, there seems to be an obsession with whether Kaylin should end up with Severn or Nightshade. I like the way the books merrily ignore such concerns, and concentrate instead on mysteries and saving the world. It's so practical. Besides, I'd rather have her go for Tiamaris. That might just be me and my thing for dragons though.* At any rate, Severn bores me, Nightshade, whilst being considerably more fascinating, probably doesn't present a healthy option, and really, I'm not reading these books for any romance that might eventuate (see above, right?).

So, in this book, we head to Barren, the fief where Kaylin spent the six months between Severn killing the kids and her becoming a Hawk. What does she do there? Why, she learns a trade! Only she doesn't want people to know about her past as a teenaged assassin (and fair enough), so when the man who calls himself the fieflord sends for her, she's in somewhat of a conundrum.

I don't recall if we ever find out why exactly he wanted her, but due to some ill portents she and Tiamaris are sent there anyway. We meet the woman who was her mentor in that time, who is a total badass with her own, unexplained, agenda. Also, they go and have tea with Nightshade and discuss the other fieflords, including Kaylin's ex-boss, Barren.

When they were first sent to Barren, I thought, Kaylin's going to become the fieflord! It wasn't till they were back in the past that I changed my mind and decided Tiamaris was going to become the fieflord. This book definitely came through on the 'more Tiamaris', and also on the 'more sentient buildings', where Kaylin's fumblings take that second part to its logical conclusion when she gives the Tower a name. It is kind of tricky to explain coherently, but it is awesome.

I love the world of this series, and all the different ways we get to see it, from the mythic past to the glimpses of the different cultures. And I like seeing Kaylin mature. I just hope the series doesn't end with the end of the world! It's always imminent.

Book four provided plenty of Ybelline, and Sanabalis being snarky, so I shan't complain of a lack of those things here. There's also very little in the way of Teela being snarky. But pretty much everything else on my list was fulfilled, and really, after Tiamaris flying, what else do I need?

*See also, Princess Maker 2 (if I can't get the ending I want, I'll at least have her marry the Young Dragon, dammit!), Spirited Away, The Enchantment Emporium.

Ending BSG

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 05:41:51 GMT

This is kind of spooky: we just had finished watching Battlestar Galactica (forever!), and turned off the DVD. The TV happened to have been left on the Documentary Channel. Which was showing a program about Atlantis, complete with theories of Earth being visited by aliens, who mated with our ancestors.

Coincidence much?

I'm kind of not sure what I think of the finale, probably partly because I spoiled myself early, so how am I meant to separate my thoughts from everyone else's? But it was just so blatant at the end, my gosh!

Also, sucks to be Lee. Uh, and Tory. And geez, I'm so glad they decided the Centurians had earned their freedom, like they could grant it (still not impressed with the Centurian-lobotomisation thing). And I don't even know what I think about Kara, just disappearing because her work was done, but then, she was an angel at that point, right? So her death had already happened, but... but it's not fulfilling.

I am not distressed by the whole ships into the sun thing. They'd probably run out of antibiotics and stuff anyway, and there's no way they could support a city. I want to know what Athena knows about farming, though? Particularly as the plants themselves are pre-agricultural. So I guess no wonder that their society obviously just fades away (and their colonialism fails, hah!)

The whole conversation that happened on beccatoria's journal back in the day is an interesting one. Not that it makes me feel any more kindly towards the ending. Though I'm still kind of reluctant to feel bad about it? It was just kind of a meh ending, and all the gender issues and such pile on top of that.

Maybe now would be a nice time to go back and reread Le Guin's 'Paradises Lost'. Where the people find their habitable planet and have to set about making homes, and that is the end of the story as it is in BSG. But without robots. They lose their ship, but that is because other factions have chosen to keep it, chosen to keep traveling. There is diversity of opinion! And the planet is not already inhabited, at least with what we know from the story, so no miraculous ability to interbreed with the aliens.

Actually, I was really hoping when we saw Hera on Earth that we'd get to go see her make friends with some human v0.0 kids. Because that is much nicer than smarmy jokes. She could join up all the civilisations then.

In other shows, we are starting to watch Farscape! We watched the first episode before BSG, and I'm like, wow, look, a father who admits he's proud of his son without being under some kind of extreme emotional duress. I am quite excited by all the aliens; who needs CGI when you have puppets, right?

Also, Claudia Black is a babe and that is all.

BSG gets good again, undoubtedly just in time to tear my heart in little itty pieces

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:57:14 GMT

We are nearly finished with Battlestar Galactica, at long last. Only Daybreak left, and I'm kind of trepidous - being as I've already spoiled myself utterly for the end. Particularly as I really enjoyed the last disc - the first half of the season didn't really do it for me, what with all the politicking (Sorry, Gaeta), but then, oh my gosh.

Cylons! Cylon history! Machine race manipulating other machine race! Sam! Kara! Oh my gosh, Sam and Kara, oh my babies.

Balter being a jerk again (excellent) and talking to Head Six (more excellent). Balter being awful and self-obsessed, and oh, Kara, my darling.

On the other hand - did Caprica's baby really die because Tigh didn't love her enough? Is that really what they're saying, because Caprica didn't think Tigh didn't love her enough? Did someone program in monogamy?

Also: child stealing wot? Though I liked seeing Roslin's reaction. I would be more inclined to be sympathetic towards Boomer if she hadn't gone and had sex with Helo when he thought she was his wife. As if she hadn't broken their hearts enough stealing Hera.

Mostly, my heart is all tangled up with Kara and Sam. I have no hope it won't end in tears.

Tell me something new, please

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:09:50 GMT

Catching up on Shakesville, there's a post up on climate change, and how the last time greenhouse gases were as high as they are today, there were no ice sheets. I read this and go, uh, duh? This is news? I mean, sure, people are always doing new research showing this sort of thing, but I've been looking at those curves my whole degree (only four years, but it feels like forever!). My 100 level Antarctica paper did a lab on it just the other week, so it's even fresh in my mind.

Also made the mistake of reading a comment by a climate change skeptic, which of course rarks me up. Hello, the scientists actually studying climate change don't know about sunspots and natural climate cycles? For god's sake. And saying a 200-1000 year error in a core date is a big deal? We're talking at least hundreds of thousands of years, people. And it's generally harder to get an accurate date, than, say, a temperature estimate.

Here is something future climate change models don't take into account, and it's not any of those things people like to mention. It's hurricanes. And yet, models for the huge warming event back in the Eocene don't get up to the temperatures recorded then unless you model for hurricanes. Which doesn't really suggest good things for us.

I should really just stay away from climate change discussions. There will always be someone there to piss me off.

Holly Black does comics - I approve

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 06:37:24 GMT

I just finished The Good Neighbors: Kin, which is a comic by Holly Black and Ted Naifeh. I'm more familiar with his work than hers, being quite fond of Courtney Crumrin, but I liked the one novel of hers that I've read, and hey, any YA urban fantasy comic book? Yes, please.

It's weird, I've been looking at the reviews on Goodreads, and a lot of people have commented that it was jumpy, sketchy, and so on. Which wasn't something I noticed at all. A lot of those same people noted they weren't really comics readers, so they're noticing something I'm entirely used to in the medium? Also comments on Holly Black's abilities in the medium (it being the first comic she's ever written) such as this:

Worst of all it seems that Black has no idea how comics work as a story-telling medium, and with no sense of pacing or purpose the story clunks along until it... ends.

...when I thought it was probably the best comic I've ever read by someone who is usually a novelist. It's not overly wordy, for one thing, one of my pet peeves in comics. I thought her pacing was actually really good it didn't feel to me at all like it was going too fast.

Obviously, it's a first volume, and you're not really getting anything more than an introduction to the story. I don't expect it to tell a complete story-arc, although it did actually sum up a couple of the mysteries, whilst leaving what it obviously going to be the major arc mostly in mystery. So I don't find the 'sudden' ending frustrating. I'm used to manga, after all! (And gosh darn it, why do I have to wait for April for the next volume of Silver Diamond, that's a whole year between 4 & 5. Ridiculous, Tokyopop.)

The story's fairly standard (teenaged girl who starts seeing faeries, hello, I wonder why that is), but with enough mystery in it to be intriguing. Also, pictures! I like Ted Naifeh's art and I like getting to see him draw in a more 'realistic' style. Creepy faeries, antlers 'n'all – I suppose I don't usually get to this stuff illustrated, and it's a treat.

I really enjoyed Kin, and I'll be keen to read more (whenever the next volume arrives in New Zealand). Now Mum's going to read it she can give me her opinion. (Near-)instant sounding board!

Proper researchers make pages on Amabel Williams-Ellis. I can't get in.

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:43:00 GMT

So, I decided that I would make a set of proper pages about Amabel Williams-Ellis. I google her name again, because I want to be able to link to the page that gave me most of the biographical information I have about her, only to discover there is an apparently quite thorough site on her on Orlando, which is a site on British women's writing run by Cambridge University. And it's subscription only, and I don't know that my uni has access to it. It's so taunting!

Actually the Orlando Project as a whole looks amazing.

The original website I found her on isn't up anymore. The internet is so changable. I shall go ahead with my project, fancy Orlando website I can't get into or not...

From a 1960 review I found of her series of kids' science books:

Mrs Williams-Ellis is able to convey the excitement and importance of her subject matter with accurate simplicity and enjoyment. Few enough are the scientist-journalists who can popularise science successfully; to succeed in doing this for children without distortion or whimsy is even rarer.

Cast in Courtlight (Chronicles of Elantra #2)- Michelle Sagara

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:19:21 GMT

Cast in Courtlight is the second book in Michelle Sagara's Chronicles of Elantra, following the adventures of Kaylin, once a street kid, now a Hawk, the equivalent of the police force for her world. But Kaylin is not your everyday cop: since childhood, she has born a set of markings, like tattoos but that they change, written in a language no-one can read, and giving her powers no-one can quite understand. The first book revolved around the mystery of these markings, and of a series of child murders in the slums that were once her home. In the second book, Kaylin has saved the world, and dealing with the fallout from that.

What I am loving most about these books is the world-building. It's secondary-world fantasy, but it's very much urban too – our heroine is a cop, the magical technology is sophisticated enough that the world feels fairly modern. At the same time there is a sense of history, steeped in old dark magic, which people don't understand, but which they have built their civilisations over nonetheless. In Kaylin's trip to the Barrani Courts, we get a glimpse into the workings of this ancient magic, which the Barrani are dependent on, and which the Barrani – barely – keep controlled.

Elantra is a world of several races, in the fantasy sense of the word (also the everyday sense of the word, I am thinking). We've thus far only had glimpses into the histories of these peoples – probably we know the most about the Barrani - but what there is is intriguing. I'm probably reading these as much to find out about the world as for the plot and characters.

The world-building then, is awesome. The plot is engaging. The writing is merely serviceable – I thought this book had a better flow that the first in the series, but you still get entire conversations where you don't really know what they're on about. On the other hand, the use of eye colour to show emotion in some of the races that worked so well for me in the last book didn't here - I just couldn't recall the distinction between blue and green, rendering all references to those colours meaningless.

The need to recall such details means it's probably best to read the books in quick succession - it's been a few months since I read the first, and it took a while to catch back up. Sagara did a pretty good job of jogging your memory without overexplaining, but the world is just so dense, and it's easy to lose track.

A couple of notes with my feminist hat on: I appreciated in this book how Kaylin was required not so much for her services as a Hawk, but rather in her role as a midwife – it's not her job, but she has healing abilities that mean she's often called on for difficult births. I liked that we had a stereotypically female role being the one necessary to save the day.

Also, even though Kaylin's most important relationships are with men – with Severn, with the Hawklord, with Nightshade – they're not the sum of her relationships. Which is apparently an area urban fantasy has been known to fall down. She and Teela are mates, the Barrani Consort takes a shine to her, she interacts with women in ways that aren't related to men, and defines herself in the memory of her 'girls' who died. She is an uber-powerful woman, without that meaning there aren't other awesome women who are important to her.

I am totally keen for the next book now – more excited than I was for this one, certainly. Things I am hoping for: more Lord Nightshade, more history, more secrets, more Teela being snarky, more of Kaylin's Dragon tutor being snarky, and more hangouts at Nightshade's awesome creepy house. I'm also hoping Kaylin gets to bust some heads (we didn't have so much of the crime-fighting in this book).

What new and amazing powers will Kaylin take on in this next book? Which important people will she matter to? I dont know, and I can't wait!

Not quite a haunted house, but still out to get you.

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:09:33 GMT

I was going to write review of all the urban fantasy I've been reading this month, but when I started I got distracted by sentient buildings. Buildings that are always changing; buildings that want to trick you, want to test you. Buildings with a mind of their own.

Tanya Huff's Wizard of the Grove was a formative instance of this for me, as it was for so much else in the sf genre. It's what appealed to me so much in The Secret Garden: the idea of a house so large it can actually hold secrets. It probably dates back to The Labyrinth for me, to the geography of a place that wants to trick you, a place that is always changing, that has a mind of its own. You go into the house, maybe, or you go underground. Did the underworld Persephone wandered through change around her? Would the pomegranate tree be there for anyone else?

I was thinking about this as I finished Michelle Sagara's Cast in Courtlight (late) last night. Our hero Kaylin is called to the Barrani courts, where the building predates any civilisation still extant. The buildings the Barrani lords make their homes in have an inconstant geography, as we saw in the first book of this series, but Courtlight goes further with it.

We see the ways in which Barrani life is inseparable from these buildings, the ways in which they test themselves against the buildings, against the intelligence behind the buildings themselves. It is not necessarily a friendly one, and indeed there is a dark secret behind the tests the Barrani take. This is what kept me gripped through the long hours of the night.

Further instances of buildings that like to keep you on your toes:

The house in Flora Segunda, Crackpot Hall. Which is also a boy, if it wants. The main reason I fell so badly for this book was the house - when oh when will Flora's Dare come out in paperback so I can at last buy a copy?

Probably the best known, Hogwarts. What with the Room of Requirement, the near bountiless potential for exploration... The Philosopher's Stone is probably the most literal example of the test, but the geography of Hogwarts forms a key element in later books as well.

Tanya Huff's The Better Part of Valor. In this one, instead of a building we have 'Big Yellow', a mysterious spaceship with rooms that shape themselves to the memories of those who come inside, which tests them, and which seems to have its own intelligence. To explain any further would be a spoiler for later books, but it's pretty awesome!

The Tanya Huff book that started it all for me, Wizard of the Grove. Which was written as two books. In the second one, Crystal and her companions venture into the lair of a long dead wizard; but wizards love games, and time has not dulled its danger. Crystal has to pull some serious badass-ery to get them out of this, and personally, I think I'd rather the a less malevolent building.

Chilblain Hall, the home of Glister in Andi Watson's comics for young girls. Chilblain Hall is always changing, always presenting Glister with something new and exciting, and, as we see in The House Hunt, it is a house that can get in a huff. The nicest house of the lot.

In Tanith Lee's Claidi books, there are many large houses, and many secrets. That of Wolf Star Rise fits best in this category: the rooms physically, palpably move round. It's less old magic and more steampunk. This was my favourite of the Claidi books: the Rise is probably why.

The icon for this post is particularly relevant, as it's taken from the Gormenghast miniseries. The rooms of Gormenghast might not move around, but castle is big enough that you could never know it all – and it definitely has a presence of its own.

And for movies, what else was The Cube? Probably the closest of the books in terms of the nastiness of the tests is Wizard of the Grove, but unlike any of these books, The Cube is definitely horror. The tests aren't really to be overcome; you are pitted against your companions as much as against yourself. It is probably all a ginormous metaphor.

Buildings always change in dreams. A favourite of mine was when my brain took this to its logical conclusion and assumed I must be in some kind of alien construction where the house was out to get me; it didn't want me there, and it changed its best to kill my group off. Sarah's Labyrinth may not be real – its her own inner landscape she pits herself against, perhaps. The logic of these houses may be very much like dream logic; you cannot approach them rationally. You have to trust to your own wits and instincts that you can take what the building throws at you, that you can navigate through and not be forever lost. And if you stay still, you lose.

That YA fiction, it is so mysterious and its appeal so baffling.

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:14:43 GMT

I wanted to write a response to the article The Wilberforces are Coming: Sally Conor asks why writing for young adults has become so unbearably hip, which appeared in this month's Booknotes. Booknotes is the magazine of the New Zealand Book Council, and I've never been particularly impressed with their coverage of children's books. Probably the subtitle makes it obvious why the article annoyed me - it's written from the perspective of an outsider, who doesn't quite get the appeal, and insists upon postulating on things that 'insiders' have already dealt with many times before.

I want to argue with her insistence on calling Under the Mountain YA when the main characters are 11 year olds, when by the standards for YA she gives, and more knowledgeable people like Kate de Goldi assert, it is simply just a children's books. I want to argue with her snarky attitude to Twilight. I particularly want to argue with this quote from Bernard Beckett on the proliferation of speculative fiction in YA,

‘They have social permission to read these books because they’re perceived as okay for adults. They might also offer some escapism for a particular audience, but mostly teens just want to appear grownup and these sorts of books offer them a middle ground in which to read like an adult while still exploring the concerns of a teenager.’

I wanted to argue with it all. Except then I read karenhealey's first column on YA for Strange Horizons, Where the Popular Kids are Sitting, and my gosh, if she couldn't have been responding to the exact same article (because people expounding on YA without really knowing it is nothing new.) And I no longer need to work myself up, because really, Karen's article rebuts Sally Conor's better than I would have anyway. Why couldn't Booknotes have got her instead?

Buying speculative fiction in New Zealand... or not.

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 06:15:02 GMT

This week, it has been declared, is NZ Speculative Fiction Blogging Week. Hey, I'm in New Zealand, and I spend most of my time thinking about speculative fiction! I spend most of my money on it too. But all too often, that money bypasses New Zealand bookshops, New Zealand publishers (regardless of whether or not New Zealand authors are involved. It's usually not.)

An example of this is something I have observed at publisher roadshows, that the lists of books they want you to sell over Christmas don't contain much in the way of sci-fi/fantasy. Sure, publisher roadshows are fun – you get drinks and nibbles, you commiserate with your workmates over the lack of vegetarian options, you get free books, and hopefully the presenters are entertaining.

Only they can also be somewhat depressing. It's a bit sad when they present their list, and it's filled with books for men who 'don't read', or with romantic beach read, and no books whatsoever for the person who reads multiple books in a week, and buys most of those.

I guess there just aren't enough people like me to justify selling to us. In the Random House roadshow, the only books I would have considered picking up were the cookbooks. Okay, and maybe the teen novel involving romance with an angel. But outside of the children's books, there was no fantasy, no science fiction. Zilch.

The Hachette roadshow was a little better – they had Kristen Cashmore's latest book (though I haven't read Graceling yet, on account of trade paperbacks being ridiculously expensive), along with Robert Jordan, not that I've ever gone there, a collection of Sookie Stackhouse short stories. A new Stephen King that seems very similar to Michael Grant's Gone. Diana Gabaldon, does she count? Not necessarily books I'd buy either, but ones I might actually look at. So, maybe 10% of the list. Which seems reasonable. Not like 0%.

It's interesting to contrast that a vast majority of the children's books they presented are some sort of speculative fiction, but that's a topic for another day.

So it's no wonder I buy most of my books from overseas – adult sci-fi and fantasy clearly aren't prioritised by publishers, and most of the titles I'm interested in are never distributed here. Hell, there are New Zealand authors whose work is never distributed here. How many people know that Maurice Gee, one of New Zealand's most well known authors, has a daughter who is also a novelist? Except instead of writing respectable books about unlikable people, or shoving all her genre work into kids' books, she writes romantic historical fantasy. (She also majored in geology, which I find very heartening.) Her books aren't distributed in New Zealand.

Nalini Singh was a name familiar to me from the net long before I realised she was a New Zealander. She writes paranormal romance. She was a Guest of Honour at the sci-fi con in Auckland this year, but again, her books are distributed here. You want them, you have to order them off the net, or do a special order at the bookshop and get them imported.

Clearly if you want to write sci-fi/fantasy in New Zealand, better make sure you stick to children's books. Same if you want to read it. It's not that I don't want to support the New Zealand book industry – I work in a bookshop, dammit, it's that when I have to special order nearly every adult title I might want to read, of course I'm going to just order them over the net. Maybe that cuts off the demand here, but honestly, I work part-time, I have fees to pay, I'm not going to put in the extra money and effort to ensure the NZ book industry knows what I want. And in the mean time, The Book Depository continues to get my money (though god knows how they make anything with all the free shipping.)

I do some squeeing about Blood Ties

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:27:21 GMT

I realised the other night just how many awesome competent ladies there are on Blood Ties. Why? Because in the episode 'Bugged', Henry and Mike get together and work on a case without Vicki (Henry's being all protective, the idiot). What's this, two male characters together without a women around? What's wrong with this picture?

This is Blood Ties, that's what, and Vicki Nelson doesn't care if every other damn show has its boys hang out together all the time, Blood Ties is all about the ladies, and you men are only here because Vicki thinks you're cool enough. And you should just tell her what's going on all ready, because it's not cool to hold out on your partner.

Here's what I realised - there is only one male recurring support character (Mike's cop partner). As for female support characters, we have Kate, whom Mike also works with – she has a bit of a crush on him, is very good at her job, is disdainful of Vicki (asking Mike to trust her and let her in while at the same time dissing Vicki for her weird cases, oh baby).

We have their boss Crowley who is very hard-line, by the rules, whom we could see as a 'bitch' – but hell, someone has to pay mind to the rules, and the show wants us to sympathise with her even as she gets in the way of our heroes.

We have Dr Mohadevan, their go-to pathologist, who is awesome at her job and also willing to accept the supernatural, and who behaves very fondly towards her cadavers. We have Dr Sagara, a professor at the university with an interest in the occult, and a onetime lover of Henry's, who gets to be an attractive older lady!

The experts they turn to in this show are all women. And our two main male characters are there for their relation to Vicki. Who is the badass who gets to beat people up (whilst being contrasted by other women who are not about to beat people up but still get to be entirely awesome). It is like someone took some other show and performed a genderswap!

Which is part of how this show went from somewhat guilty addiction to OMG ♥♥♥. Mystery and excitement, magic and romance, and it lets women be the main players. I wouldn't have thought I could have been so pleased with an adaption of books I love.

Misheard lyrics

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:48:57 GMT

My musical obsession at the moment is the new Metric album, Fantasies. There's a refrain on the second song that to me sounded like,

Everybody, everybody just won't fall into line
Everybody, everybody just won't play with me

I imagined it was about a girl-child who wants to boss everyone around only no-one'll do things her way. Except listening to the rest of the lyrics, the song blatantly wasn't about that. And I'm rather bad at understanding Canadian accents in songs.

It actually goes,

Everybody, everybody just wanna fall in love
Everybody, everybody just wanna play the lead

Which is far lest interesting, and I'm sorry that my imagined song doesn't actually exist.

Andi Watson, oh my heart

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 05:58:06 GMT

My birthday present from my sister and her partner arrived today. I took a picture to show off because it is just that exciting!

That is Kitty and Tamsin from Skeleton Key. Pushing a giant kitty (who is not Kitty, because Kitty is short for Kitsune and is actually a fox spirit. See her moth eyebrows?)

Skeleton Key is one of my favourite comics, which I first read back when I was just a little high schooler. Tamsin dresses up as a skeleton and has a key which makes doors open up onto other worlds. Kitty comes through and lives with her, pretending to be a Japanese exchange student. There are adventures and other worlds and also high school drama, and then also leaving-high-school-to-be-a-grown-up drama.

And that is an actual picture drawn by actually Andi Watson. With rubbed out pencil marks and everything. Oh, my heart.

Tanya Huff is still my favourite

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 01:09:23 GMT

I finished Tanya Huff's latest book, The Enchantment Emporium yesterday. It starts off slow, because even though it's urban fantasy you've got a whole world to introduce. But the time I was halfway through, reading it on my walk up to uni, I had a huge grin on my face which probably scared more than a few people.

It wasn't as funny as the Keeper books, say, which have me laughing out loud, but definitely enjoyable, with moments of id-tastic excitement. Dragon Lords! Hot smoking Dragon Lords! 13 year old teenage boy Dragon Lords! Also a huge focus on family, not just family by blood, but the family we choose and claim for ourselves. And the best use of the maiden/mother/crone trope I have ever seen.

We are watching the TV show of her Vicky Nelson books at the moment, Blood Ties, and I'm a bit addicted. It may not be the most sophisticated vampire show around, but it has excitement and beautiful people and loads of UST, and really, what could be better for relaxing in the evenings?

At uni

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:04:57 GMT

OK, I have really got into this essay on Bauman's work. Even if it is a higgledy-piggledy mess at the moment, it's such juicy stuff, I am actually getting quite worked up. Of course, that doesn't mean I won't procrastinate on it, but I know what I'm arguing now.

It is nice at the moment because even though it is only August, spring has sprung and we are having gorgeous sunny days, complete with epicly strong winds. The pink magnolias are out, but the white ones that are my favourites are still to come, and the daphne is all out and smelling gorgeous. I have adapted my usual walk up through the Gardens so that I can walk by as much of it as possible.

Flowers = more awesome than sitting inside working on an essay.

Bauman's Gardens

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 07:52:02 GMT

I have just finished reading Zygmunt Bauman's Modernity and the Holocaust, which was pretty epic, in terms of the scope of the book and as a reading experience. I bought it after we read an excerpt for my religious studies class, because that excerpt had pretty much blown my mind. The ideas it deals with, of how society manipulates morality, I don't think I'd ever really come across outside of science fiction.

So now I'm going to be writing an essay on this book - one of the suggested topics was to do a "critical appraisal". I don't really know what that entails, but I figure I'll figure it out as I'm writing ;)

I have to try not to get distracted by the ways it applies to "my thesis". Which is the imaginary English Lit PhD I am planning on false utopias in YA fiction. There are so many of them! There is one coming out by a NZ author next month, only a year after another NZ author did one! What does this say about our current society and its fears, hmm? Possibly I just find the proliferation annoying because it increases the number of works relevant to my thesis, and also means I need to update my database.

Bauman uses the metaphor of society as a garden a lot, something that gets designed, with the approved plants being support and shaped in particular ways, while 'undesirables' get weeded out. The books I am thinking of focus explicitly on the designed society - small scale, the survivors of some kind of apocalypse. Lois Lowry's The Giver is probably the most well known (also the only one that I wouldn't consider straight sci-fi), but Louise Lawrence's Andra was my favourite as a girl. Spooky how their names are so similar.

Of course, these books are set in societies of not even a thousand people, so you don't get millions of people who don't fit into your ordered world and need to be 'disposed of'. Urgh. Really, Modernity and the Holocaust was about the scariest reading experience I've had since I was eight. I wish I only had ways of applying it to science-fictional worlds and not our own - but then there would be no need for that particular sci-fi, would there?

Kristen Stewart needs more make-outs

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:46:28 GMT

We're watching 'Into the Wild', which is about this American boy who decides to hitchhike to Alaska. At one point he meets Kristen Stewart. Kristen Stewart comes onto him, and gets shut down. Admittedly, she's sixteen, and he's a college graduate.

But I can't help thinking, poor Kristen Stewart, none of the boys will have sex with her.

In every movie I have seen her in, she tries to have sex with a boy, and in none of these (three) movies does she get any. The closest she gets is in Fierce People, where she and Anton Yelchin rub paint all over each other. That was a really... disconcerting movie.

But apparently in more recent movies she gets to have affairs with married men and also be a teenager hooker. Which doesn't really seem satisfactory either.

God, why am I making a post about Kristen Stewart?

Probably because I'm not paying any attention to this movie. Young men on emotional journeys, so over it. Plz to be having more spaceships already...