tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65497158274872953222024-03-13T23:33:59.188-07:00Confessions of The Media Damagedtheoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-13096759850091359212012-04-27T08:46:00.000-07:002012-04-27T08:46:09.855-07:00Magistrates of Hell by Barbara HamblyI can't pretend to be at all rational about Barbara Hambly. When I read her books, it's not just about the pleasure of reading a really well-put-together story, it's the way that reading one of her books puts a hot iron to my own creative impulses. She writes not only worlds that I gladly get completely lost inside, but worlds that make me want to create ones of my own.
Though I should have known/remembered, it was a surprise to realize/remember that, though Hambly's vampire novels have been published many, many years apart, internally, it's been less than a handful of years. Which is an observation that's really here nor there except that I really need to go back and reread the whole series from the start.
One thing I like best about Hambly's vampires is that, although they can be beautiful, seductive, and—as in the case of Ysidro—hero/protagonists, she never stints on the idea that they are, first and foremost, predators and that every beautiful, seductive thing that they do is for self-serving reasons, be it protection or food. And though the relationship—triangle—between Asher, Lydia and Ysidro is central to the entire series, it definitely comes at a gradually steeper price, both in responsibility (with great knowledge, blah blah…) and in danger.
This latest book takes place in Beijing (Peking) in the days of the early Republic of China. I've read Hambly's Benjamin January series and liked it greatly, both on its own merits and for a thoughtful representation of a non-Caucasian culture by a Caucasian author. <u>Magistrates of Hell</u>, unfortunately, is somewhat more problematic than the January series, if only because, unlike the January series, <u>Magistrates</u> is written from the point of view of the colonialists. And though James and Lydia are both greatly open-minded and non-partisan for any time period, let alone this one, they're still—by necessity—people of a certain place and time, looking at Chinese culture through foreign eyes and judging it accordingly. As well, the nature of the story and the motivations behind it mean that very little of ordinary Chinese society of the time is seen. Only that part of it that particularly panders to the colonials, either through politics or through the seedy commerce of drugs, prostitution, etc. I think that Hambly does go through great pains to present China, and the Chinese, sympathetically and with relatively non-judgmental equivalency…but I also don't think she always succeeds.
In particular, early in the book, Hambly sets up a comparison between the more obvious bigots of the diplomatic corps declaring that Chinese culture/thinking/being is unfathomable because "they're not like other people", versus a vampire hunter declaring similarly about vampires because they're not human. This, on the one hand, shows up the fulcrum of bigotry, creating Otherness where none necessarily exists. But on the other hand, it's basically equating being Chinese with being a bloodsucking monster. Ouch.
Though my uneasiness about this representation of (a particular part) of Chinese culture persisted throughout the book, it wasn't so great a deal-breaker that I didn't love the hell out of the book anyway.
Since <u>Traveling With The Dead</u>, Lydia's feelings for/about Ysidro (and vice versa) have been very apparent, but in <u>Magistrates</u>, I found myself a lot more conscious of Asher's part in the triangle and how, though much less overt, in that restrained English manner, his feelings for Ysidro are no less powerful than Lydia's and how, given that Asher is fully aware of Lydia's feelings about Ysidro and vice versa, he shares Lydia with Ysidro fairly equably, other than the natural concern that he and Lydia are entangled in something of a long con by a predator. That is, there is something very polyamorous about the relationship that, while not expressed in sexual terms, is no less strong for the lack. And no less fascinating, either.
And while the trappings with which Hambly brings together these three adventurers is, in and of itself, a romp worth having, it's the ongoing unanswered question of how this relationship will/does/can resolve that keeps bringing me back when other vampire stories have long been leaving me…cold.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-64936486274938314452012-04-27T08:39:00.002-07:002012-04-27T08:41:50.382-07:00Empire of Ivory by Naomi NovikThe first time I read Naomi Novik's <u>Empire of Ivory</u>, I read it much more on the face of things, accepting the story as written without thinking a whole lot more about it. On this read-through, however, I found myself thinking a lot more about the under-story and the subsequent discomfort and interest it raised.
It's a little amusing that I read this book and Barbara Hambly's <u>Magistrates of Hell</u> so close together, because I think both books suffer from the same problem: writing about colonialists in foreign (non-Caucasian) countries from the point of view of the colonialists. This was, for me, somewhat less a problem in Novik's <u>Throne of Jade</u> because, while there was still the same "oh, goodness, aren't they <i>foreign</i>!" tone on behalf of the POV character, Laurence, China was—at least at the time—a completely sovereign (and respected) power, not yet ripped apart by Western (and Japanese) interests. Africa, on the other hand, particularly South Africa, where much of the story takes place, was an entirely different—conquered—entity.
And, on the one hand, Novik raises some <i>really interesting</i> ideas of alternate history in how the timelines of colonized nations, as in Africa and (mentioned later & briefly) in the Americas, are altered by a greater ability to fight back against invasion by the presence of an equalizing (or superior) level of defense provided in the persons of native dragons. Assuming that the rallying defense of Africa is able to continue in the face of Western powers, assuming that the Americas were never conquered-colonized, or at least not to the extent they were in our dragonless timeline…that changes the entire history of the world. In some pretty profound ways.
Sadly, though that was the most interesting part of the book for me, Novik doesn't really have or make the time to dwell on those issues as, because we are looking through the lens of a British colonialist, Laurence's main concerns—Britain and the war against Napoleon—force us to return to more European concerns.
Putting that aside, though, I think that a great deal of <u>Empire of Ivory</u>'s problem is the same as the previous volume, <u>Black Powder War</u>, in that (for me, at least), while Laurence is a sufficiently "good" and heroic person to be Temeraire's captain, he's also a very bland character.
Which is fine, when it's the Temeraire-and-Laurence show; I think I noted before that Laurence is very much set up to be the straight-man of the duo and is sufficiently unobtrusive enough as to give the reader an easy point of self-insertion, to imagine themselves in his place as Temeraire's captain and friend. But when the story rests on his shoulders alone, though not <em>bad</em>, the story is far less interesting than when Temeraire is along and contributing to the story. And though some of that could've been relieved <spoiler>during the crews' period of captivity by finding out more about the African dragons, the fact that Laurence was isolated in the cave and/or ill much of that time means that there was no real insight or greater interest offered there, either. </spoiler>
And then going back to my original point/issue and the comparison to Hambly's book… Like Hambly, I think that Novik went to some pains to show Africa and the African characters featured with humanist texture, sympathy and as little prejudice or judgment as possible (given that we're still looking through colonialist eyes of the period), but, also like Hambly, I don't think Novik always succeeds.
In Hambly's book, she sets up a comparison of bigotry in English vs. Chinese and human (vampire hunter) vs. vampire, a metaphor that works on one level, but less so when you realize that the two comparisons equate Chinese with blood-sucking vampire (monster).
Similarly, I think Novik sets up a comparison with the systematic inhumanity of slavery and the business of slavery with a similar level of Othering against the markedly un-human and yet, sentient/thinking, dragons. And, again, it's a metaphor that works on one level, when talking about Othering and bigotry when it's <i>so clearly</i> arbitrary and wrong…but it fails in the way these metaphors often do, where non-Caucasian Peoples are (continually) compared/equated to non-humans, animals, etc. to make the point.
However, on the side where it succeeds, Novik does an excellent job of conveying the horror of <spoiler>Britain's willingness to commit genocide by deliberately spreading the dragon-plague, first to France and then to points unknown, harkening (very deliberately, I'm sure) to the pox-blankets passed to Native American tribes in the Americas.</spoiler>
As well, she brings it all back to the series' strongest point: the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire; the only reason that Laurence is in a position to think anything (or do anything, for that matter) about the government's proposed pandemic. This is most poignant when Laurence is thinking of the life he might have had and muses: <em>"The vision stood at a distance almost bewildering, now; mythical, softened by a comfortable blind innocence. He might have regretted it; he did regret it, now, except there was no room in the gardens of that house for a dragon to be sleeping in the sun."</em>
The strength of Novik's vision, greater than just the bare, if fond and amusing, facts of Laurence & Temaire's relationship, is the profoundness of how Laurence is changed by his love for Temeraire, as are most dragon-friends. Certainly those with enough sense to recognize the gift for what it is. Becoming Temeraire's captain and friend takes Laurence in a direction and on an adventure he could never have predicted before it happened and, having a taste of his life with Temeraire, nothing after it could ever be the same. It seems like there's a metaphor in that, too.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-20638626957799933302010-08-29T21:08:00.001-07:002010-08-29T21:09:46.473-07:00I wanted to like Invisible Lives, by Anjali Banerjee (<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7006574-invisible-lives">Goodreads link</a>) more than I did. I did enjoy it, but in the end I found the conceit better than the execution. <br /><br />In a previous post I mentioned what I think is the main flaw of the book: it's first person point of view. First person isn't a deal breaker for me; I don't have preferences in that respect, but there are intrinsic limitations to each point of view choice. First person is often a 'telling' point of view (versus showing), which is a harder emotional sell, and requires the reader to believe that the narrator is a reasonably <i>reliable</i> narrator. As well, on some level, its success depends on you finding the narrator, if not likeable, than at least relatable. <br /><br />I don't think the problem here is cultural, at least in the respect that Banerjee does a good job of keeping her protagonist Lakshmi's situation/dilemma universal—the pressure of following family's expectation against following one's own heart. Where Banerjee fails for me, first of all, is in Lakshmi herself. <br /><br />It's a romance. You should know where it's going from the blurb. But in case I need to say it, spoilers beneath the cut.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a> It doesn't bother me that Lakshmi is devastatingly beautiful; for one thing, it doesn't feel like Banerjee makes much of Lakshmi's beauty except as a demonstration of Lakshmi's endless kindness in hiding her beauty for the benefit of others. Banerjee doesn't really fall into the main Mary-Sue trap of having Lakshmi be irresistible to all men because of her beauty, either, so it's easily hand-waveable. But, as mentioned, there is Lakshmi's huge and boundless kindness to go along with her beauty. Part of it is encoded in the story itself; the story tips over into magical realism with Lakshmi's empathetic "knowing", an extrasensory perception that gives her glimpses into people's minds and hearts to see their topmost longings, sorrows and joys. The influx of emotion from other people drives Lakshmi to help wherever she can—largely in the selection of perfect saris for her customers—and can be seen, in one sense, as self-protective. <br /><br />As well, Lakshmi's benevolent kindness is simultaneously shown as her weakness; her inability to let go of the concerns, hurts and expectations of others obscures her views of her own desires and wants…but as flaws go, it is that most Mary-Sue of traits—her flaw is that she's <i>too</i> selfless, too giving, too invested in others to the detriment of herself. And Banerjee falls into that trap in the way she glorifies the flaw at the same time she makes it the heart of Lakshmi's conflict. The fact that Lakshmi regularly makes a martyr of herself is regarded more as a cute foible, a'la Bella Swan's (and all the other heroines like her) clumsiness, than an actual problem and, once realized, Lakshmi is able to (more or less) release her 'bad habit' (with no more effort than deciding to do so) and find perfect and permanent happiness with her chosen love. <br /><br />As well, the romance itself is the paper-thin stuff of modern rom-com, based nearly quite literally on love at first sight and an acquaintanceship that encompasses one and a half dates. Though the story set up lends itself to these kinds of relationships—the crux of the story is how the lovers find their way to their HEA, thus the love itself has to be dispensed with quickly to get to that meaty middle—I don't really enjoy those kinds of stories because I'm not sold on the relationship. They don't feel substantive enough to convince me that these relationships have what it takes to make it past the first downturn and I always end up feeling vaguely cheated that I'm supposed to care very deeply about whether these people get together when I don't feel like I've been given a good enough reason for <i>why</i> they should be together. (or that I should care)<br /><br />There are, however, things I think Banerjee did really well. As I said, I liked that, although Lakshmi was supposed to be very beautiful, Banerjee didn't make a great deal of that beauty. It was a side note and not central to the story. I liked that Lakshmi had both a loving relationship with her mother and conflict. I think it's very easy to err on one side or the other, for a lazy writer, and I think Banerjee did a reasonably good job of showing the pluses and minuses of a close-knit family; the support and love on one side and the constriction and pressure to conformity on the other. I also liked that Lakshmi had close female friends who supported each other wholeheartedly and without catlike pettiness or judgment. By and large, the relationships were open and honest and emotional without being overwrought. <br /><br />The thing I liked most, I think, was that a lot of stories like this go one of two ways: either the Americanized child realizes their fault in trying to move away from their culture and rejects their Americanization or the child defies and disdains their restrictive, oppressive native culture and embraces the freedom of their Americanization. Banerjee chose to reject both options, keeping Lakshmi's deep love and connectedness to her culture front and center—and sympathetically so—while also acknowledging the parts of her that didn't <i>strictly</i> belong to Indian culture anymore. I also liked that, although Ravi was not destined to be with Lakshmi, Banerjee didn't take the easy way out and make him a jerk or otherwise horrible person (even when, I think, Lakshmi was almost <i>looking</i> for him to be). They were well suited to each other and got along and, if Lakshmi hadn't met her American beau (why can't I remember his name?) first, things with her and Ravi might very well have blossomed entirely differently. And I like the ambiguity of that; that it could have been love, except Lakshmi's heart had already spoken its (different) wants. <br /><br />I feel as though the story almost would have made a better movie than book; it didn't feel like there was quite enough of the story there to be satisfying as a novel (and, at under 200 ebook pages, it's pretty short), but with the added visuals and time compression of the cinema, I think it would be a perfect offering for a 'chick flick', with decent crossover appeal. The book, however, relates unfortunately back to its title in that respect, because it feels like too much is invisible and thin as one of Lakshmi's silk saris.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-66215293566522539762010-08-05T21:39:00.000-07:002010-08-05T21:39:55.300-07:00The Crazies - Original & RemakeI watched the original, 1973 version of The Crazies today and it was interesting to mentally compare it to the 2010 remake. Completely aside from the face that the 2010 remake features Timothy Olyphant (♥), I think it's one of the rare cases of a remake actually improving on the original. <br />
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(Spoilers beneath the cut)<br />
<a name='more'></a>What the remake creates—which is almost wholly lacking from the original—is a sense of suspense. The original (now: OC, Original Crazies) runs along two parallel tracks—the story of David (a fireman, rather than sheriff) and Judy (nurse, instead of doctor) trying to stay alive and flee the conflagration and the story of the military's efforts to contain and deal with the infection. By removing the military part of the plot, by focusing entirely on Sheriff David and Doctor Judy, and finding out only what they do, as they do, the movie creates a deeper, spookier sense of mystery and tension. Instead of being an omniscient observer, the audience is drawn more completely into the everyman characters of David and Judy, deepening the emotional resonance. <br />
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It's smarter writing, refined from another thirty years of movie making, but it's also a quasi-reflection of the changing times and climate; the military is presented facelessly, with no iconic character from that side for the audience to latch onto. The combination of protective bio-gear and riot gear makes the soldiers less human, interchangeable, verging on mechanical (something the remake exploits, when one of the soldiers is unmasked in ambush to reveal a young boy, barely out of high school). In the OC, though the soldiers are hidden behind the balloon-like HAZMAT suits of the time, it's more cartoonish, less storm trooper. Interestingly, the OC also has more(humanizing) banter and idle commentary between the soldiers, something a lot more conspicuously absent from the remake. As well, I think the remake did a better job delineating between infected and non-infected that wasn't nearly as clear in the OC, especially as the script took pains to tell you that the town's "redneck" inhabitants were resisting martial law, regardless of their state.<br />
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The remake also reflects thirty more years of movie—and police—violence, I think. First of all in the OC's idea that the inhabitants <i>could</i> cause as significant a resistance versus the remake's more impersonal brutality and impatience in the way the soldiers round up and imprison the town's inhabitants with Borg-like (resistance is futile) efficiency. Too, the remake shows multiple pogroms of men, women and children in (ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to contain the contagion. <br />
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One of the movie's more chilling scenes is Radha Mitchell's Doctor Judy strapped down to a table and being wheeled through the corridors of the high school while she pleads with her faceless captors, insisting that she's pregnant. And then, later, still strapped down but abandoned as one of her fellow townsmen, now infected, goes through the plastic sheeted ward stabbing people at random with a pitchfork. In the OC, David and Judy escape the military's quarantine efforts nearly immediately and though there's a lot of skulking and hiding, none of those scenes are nearly as emotional (or horrifying) and though there is tension as to whether they'll be able to get away, the stakes are not nearly as clearly or scarily drawn. The effect is repeated, I think, when Judy and David escape the town and make it to the outlying rest stop that was supposed to be the rally point for the survivors…only to find that everyone there had also been put down. <br />
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Being from a later time in life, I found the OC's insistence on keeping infected individuals alive and inadequately confined in the same building as the scientist working on the cure to be beyond the realm of believability, though cinematically appropriate for the time. Though, on the other hand, the loss of the military storyline—however intrinsically smart I think it was—meant the loss of seeing how badly the military bungled the operation, hoist on a petard of urgency, lack of readiness and basic bungling and stupidity inherent in any bureaucratic operation. But, as I said, the movie was really only improved by the reduction of that story line, as it was at the removal of the weird incest storyline between Kathie and her father as they both became infected. <br />
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I did, however, find it interesting how there was some passing attempt to feminize the movie a little more. Judy of the OC is, as a nurse, in a much more subservient and less critical position than Judy of the remake. As well, OC Judy—and the other main female character they pick up along the way, Kathie—don't have much to do. They largely cower a lot and beg their menfolk to do this or that, hauled along like luggage. Though Radha Mitchell's Judy isn't given significantly more to do, she is given <i>some</i> more and comes through with greater grit and agency, imo, than her older counterpart. As well, I found it interesting that OC Judy ends up infected and dies in a crossfire between Crazies and soldiers, while remake Judy survives to fight on another day with her husband. I'm not sure what to conclude, or if there's anything to conclude about the fact that OC Judy and David were not married and remake Judy and David were married, though both Judys were pregnant. <br />
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As a story, I think The Crazies remake succeeds in a way that another movie, The Invasion, does not; if you're going to have a contagion movie, there are generally two ways you can tell the story: you can either go to the top, with the military and/or scientists who are fighting the contagion—and probably caused it in the first place—or you can go with the 'rat in a maze' story. The benefits of the top level story is that it gives the audience those all-important answers—how the contagion started, who's responsible, what's being done about it, the efforts toward a cure. Except that those answers are not necessarily as all important as they'd seem; the rat in a maze story has the benefit that events don't necessarily have to be explained at all. The tension comes from the terrible sense of not-knowing, of seeing what's happening all around you and not knowing what to do about it or how to extricate yourself from the situation. The Invasion fails because it tries to have it both ways; it tries to tell an everyman rat in a maze story and then counters it by bringing the everyman into the top level…but doing so sucks a lot of wind from the sails and makes it less interesting and less tense. The Crazies remake works precisely because of it's limited, unexplained point of view and the lack of answers only feeds into the overall emotional anxiety of the text. The trick of rat in a maze stories, however, is providing sufficient resolution to satisfy your audience, when neither the beginning or ultimate end of the story is or can be known. <br />
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The end of the remake of The Crazies is not unlike that of the recent Predators movie; the resolution is provided in the fact that our hero(ine)s have survived to face another day. I felt The Crazies was better at providing satisfying resolution from this simply because the narrative tension of the story as a whole was tighter and more vivid, where Predators unspooled in the middle. Which says to me that the (re)makers of The Crazies might not have been so crazy after all.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-84210813165376176442010-06-27T16:19:00.000-07:002010-06-27T16:22:09.992-07:00Peter V Brett - The Warded ManThe way this started was with me being sick. And, being sick, not feeling like I had the attention span to actually settle down to read something—and being rather uninterested/uninvolved with the books that I'm currently reading on the Nook—I decided that I should really start to go through the many <i>many</i> book samples that I have on my Nook and start to weed out the ones that really don't interest me. <br /><br />This seemed like an absolutely brilliant idea…except that the first two samples I went through—Jim Beaver's memoir which I've been waffling about <i>forever</i> and a book I picked up from a Goodreads friends favorable review, <u>The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake</u>—were both interesting and good enough that I wanted to buy them and they were both $10+, which I was unwilling to spend at this moment in time for a number of reasons that I won't go into lest I completely derail this post. In any case, after yet another nap (because, you know, sick) I woke up and decided to try again. <br /><br />The next sample on the list was a book that I don't even remember where I heard of it or why I picked it up, <u>The Warded Man</u> by Peter V. Brett (<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7177256-warded-man">Goodreads link</a>). I have no memory attached to this title/author at all, but it's <i>there</i>, so I clearly must have had a reason at some point. So I crack open the sample—a very satisfying one at 25 pages—and start reading. Around page 20 of the sample, I check the price: 6 bucks and change. I waffle about it a bit, think about how few books have actually caught my attention in a good way lately and decide to take the plunge. <br /><br />It was not a perfect book. There were some random POV changes, mid-scene, into characters that we never hear from (in a POV sense) scattered throughout the book. I don't know if the print book was the same, but the ebook has some annoying typos and formatting errors also scattered throughout the text. And I feel like before I talk about the book to anyone I want to hang a huge sign that disclaims: I HAVE SOME HUGE HETERONORMATIVE ISSUES WITH THIS NOVEL. <br /><br />But, all that being said, it was a pretty damn good read. And I already bought the second book.<br /><br />(Spoilers beneath the cut; trigger warning: rape)<br /><a name='more'></a>The premise of the book feels like things I've seen before, elsewhere: the post-apocalyptic civilization that's gone round the bend back to medievalism, the incursion of otherworldly creatures (in this case demons) that have destroyed or almost destroyed civilization, including key knowledge on how to fight/defeat said otherworldly creatures, the warrior/healer/bard split of the three main characters…but I think that Brett actually does a lot to breathe new life into those familiar tropes and bring them into a world that feels fully realized and wholly engaging. <br /><br />As noted above, it does fall into a lot of the same (boring) heteronormative traps; for the most part, the (white) men get to have all the adventures and do all the heavy lifting while the most that the women have to hope for is to breed early and often, to help keep the population up. There are no queer characters at all. And the one disabled character, the bard, who is missing two fingers, is relegated to the back with the women. Early on, I was pretty close to just tossing the book aside, wondering if—with its talk of a Creator and the demons being a Plague on the sinful—I'd accidentally stumbled across a piece of Christian propaganda fiction, but I did press on and, in the end, I'm glad that I did.<br /><br />Though the gender stereotyping and heteronormativity is <i>there</i>—and annoying—I feel like its largely unconscious (which doesn't really excuse it) and I feel as though Brett did make and try to make some mitigating choices.<br /><br />Let's start with Leesha. Leesha is the main female character and falls into a lot of stereotypes both for women in general and for women in high fantasy in particular. In the beginning I was pretty disgusted with her, a weepy thirteen-year old obsessed with marrying her promised beau and bearing him lots of babies. Admittedly, part of her motivation was wanting to get out of her parents' home and away from her appalling mother. As well, I think Brett goes on to show (somewhat) that a lot of her thinking is that of a very young girl who hasn't been taught to think or want any better. For all the <i>really deep</i> heteronormative 'omg get married and make babies' fervor of the society at large, there's a thread running through the main characters' stories of wanting something different and striking out to find it, even when you're not sure what it is or where to find it. At the same time, virgin (at least until her inevitable gang-rape) and virginal, ravishingly beautiful—but unable to find the right man, at least until she meets Arlen—and a dazzlingly accomplished healer who abhors violence, she falls into a great many of the female stereotypes of high fantasy, including existing mainly to be a foil for the real hero of the piece, Arlen (as evidenced by how—only a day or so after her brutal rape at the hands of multiple assailants—she immediately wants to make sweet sweet love with Arlen and bear his babies).<br /><br />However. The fact is that Leesha does have an arc of her own and only a very small part of it involves Arlen at all. Though her main desires still seem to be that of romantic pairing and childbearing, it's abundantly clear that Leesha wants to <i>also</i> do other things with her life, including put herself in danger to fight against the demons that have taken so much and terrorized them all. And though in the typically 'feminine' class of Healer, Leesha doesn't lack for bravery or courage, fighting for her own life and choices with the same ferocity that she fights to defend her friends, loved ones and fellow villagers. So there's that.<br /><br />Brett also gives us a variety of female characters as players in his story, some good, some bad, some indifferent, so we're not (entirely) forced to pin all our hopes and identification on Leesha and if there is a huge overall preoccupation with baby-making and motherhood, it does, at least fit in with Brett's vision of a humanity teetering precariously on the edge of extinction. <br /><br />In the same way, I'm of two minds about Rojer's arc. On the one hand, though disabled and not a warrior, Rojer isn't shown to lack for courage or smarts, standing up to the adversity in his life and demons with the same derring-do. The story doesn't make less of him for not being a warrior and makes much of the importance of a Jongleur (bard)'s skills. At the same time, the only romantic action we see Rojer get is an unrequited crush on Leesha which, as she gravitates toward Arlen (who, to be fair, is closer to her age), fits in with a long history of not seeing the disabled as sexually viable. As well, whatever small glimmering of regard Leesha had for Rojer is shown to be pretty thoroughly squashed (from my reading) when he's unable to defend or prevent her from being raped which does penalize him, in some sense, for not being a warrior. So I don't know. On the one hand, scrappy and brave and a tough survivor of a string of horrible misfortunes, as well as a musical talent that can mesmerize even a demon. On the other hand, not good enough to get the girl and of limited use in a fight, as opposed to Arlen, who gains literally inhuman super powers by the end of his arc. And if I'm not sure exactly what Rojer's place is/will be by the end of the projected trilogy, I feel confident that it isn't hitched to Arlen's in the same way Leesha's is. So there's that.<br /><br />Last among my complaints is the depiction of the <i>one</i> nation of brown people, the desert dwellers of Fort Krasia. From language to appearance to dress, the Krasians are clearly derived from unspecified Arab peoples and, as mentioned above, they're the only non-Caucasian peoples mentioned in the entirety of the novel. Their depiction is, at the outset kind of a mixed bag; on the one hand, they're the one people who still actually make an attempt to fight back against the demons rather than hiding behind their wards. On the moon hand, they're depicted as being a little eccentric/crazy for this (in the best tradition of the Noble Savage) and, as a result of their encoded religious beliefs about fighting against the demons, they're even closer to extinction than all the white nations. <br /><br />And, while on the one hand, Brett's world is full of "bad" characters—greedy, stupid, venal, adulterous, cowardly, etc., etc., there's generally also "good" characters to off-set the bad. However, of the few Krasians we see, the merchant (whose name I forget) is shown as venal and cowardly and the warriors that had grudgingly come to call Arlen friend over the years turn on him the moment he has something they want—the Spear of the Deliverer—without even the courage to kill him themselves, instead throwing to him a demon and turning him out into the desert respectively. There are no good Krasian characters that we see. <br /><br />Too, outsider Arlen's observations of the 'exotic' culture of the Krasians carry a familiar weight of colonialist fetishation, on the one hand admiring the Krasians for their relentless courage in facing down the demons, even though it results in heavy attrition, and on the other shaking his head over the Krasian caste system where women do most of the heavy lifting and are yet still considered chattel and hidden behind harem walls and burqa. <br /><br />This is even more worrisome as the Krasians are apparently going to figure hugely in the second novel, with the Krasian warrior Jardir taking credit for Arlen's discovery of the spear and declaring himself the Deliverer. <br /><br />Lined out like this, I feel like this says that I didn't like the book very much at all. And, seeing my reasons/reservations enumerated thus, I worry that maybe I <i>shouldn't</i> like the book very much at all, but the truth is that, for all these reservations, I <i>did</i> like the book. Very much so. These days, it's hard for me to find a book that can sweep me up and carry me off wholesale to its world the way that The Warded Man did with seemingly little effort. For the span of time that I was reading it, I was <i>in</i> it, caught up in the joys and sorrows and realness of the world, breathing that alien air and standing on that alien ground. It's a feeling that happens too rarely in my old age and never fails to delight when it does. And, even with my reservations and worries, I'm still holding out pretty high hopes for the second book, The Desert Spear. <br /><br />We'll see how this goes.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-4726557192988057882010-04-21T10:41:00.000-07:002010-04-21T10:43:15.879-07:00The Wages of Sin by Alex BeecroftI've tried twice to write the review for Alex Beecroft's The Wages of Sin and each time I've gotten bogged down in trying to explain something that feels fairly ephemeral. At a very basic, big-picture level, I liked the book. The story idea was one that interested me and I did feel invested in the romance between Charles, youngest son of the Earl Clitheroe and Jasper, the priest with a mysterious past. <br /><br />But, at a more fundamental level, I think the book failed. Because <i>how</i> you write a book is just as important as what you're writing about. Language matters. And while I understand Beecroft's to immerse the reader in her historical background by writing in the old-fashioned, bordering on florid prose of the time, I think it was ultimately a mistake. <br /><br /><a name='more'></a>Beecroft's story is one that predicates on passion. The ghost Margaret was betrayed by her love for Henry Latham, Charles's grandfather (iirc); he seduced her, knocked her up, refused to marry her and then, as the topper to a very moldy cake, sealed her and her unborn child in a wall to suffocate and die. Margaret's ally, the servant girl, Mary, was fucked by first Charles's father, the Earl and then, later, Charles's brother, George and though it's not entirely clear what Mary felt about the Earl or the exact circumstances under which either of those relationships started, it's clear by the end of the book that Mary (who's a bit unbalanced and who can blame her) both loves and hates George. And she's hardly alone in that. <br /><br />Jasper's story is just as intimately entwined with George as Mary's and from Jasper we get a larger picture of George as both very charming and incredibly careless with people (arguably, even Charles, though in a non-sexual way). Jasper is the first to show us George the seducer, who attracts men and women like moths and flame and who burns through them with equal disregard. And, in this respect, Jasper is the avatar for everything that's wrong at the root of the Latham family tree; helplessly in love with George, willing to do anything to have a moment of George's time…and ruined for it. Then, later, when he tries to extricate himself from George and refuse George's advances, George presses the point anyway, taking what he wants by pressure or personality and the power of his status. And Jasper, a bastard son who only had his calling to the church and his hopeless love for George, loses everything, defrocked and sent home in shame. <br /><br />It's a powerful story, one about abuse and privilege, love and hate, murder and ghosts, but in the end, it's that much weaker (to me, at least) specifically because of the distancing of the elaborate, pseudo-historical prose. Beecroft's prose was purple enough that, at times, I didn't even feel like I had a good grasp of <i>what</i> was happening, let alone why, and the passivity of it robs it of most of its impact. I could decipher what was going on, I understood it, but I didn't <i>feel</i> it. And for a story predicated on such deep, raw passions, it (heh) killed the story, a story that, otherwise, would've been perfect for my story needs.<br /><br />So obviously the prose was the biggest obstacle for me, from it's puzzling vagueness to its passive distancing, but it wasn't the only one. The pacing seems very much like a Poe or Lovecraft story—which fits with tone and (mas o menos) the time period—very heavy on the windup and entirely too fast and sketchy on the denouement. At 86 ebook pages, there isn't a <i>lot</i> of space to tighten up the body of the story, especially since much of it is taken up with details that may seem trivial at the time but go into the overall picture, but there's definitely room for the denouement and epilogue to be expanded and built upon into something that feels more natural and less rushed. I'm always loathe to pass judgment on a book until I read the ending because so many authors see that light at the end of the tunnel and start running for it, ruining (or at least dinging up) an otherwise good story. Such is the case here. <br /><br />Beecroft doesn't spend enough time explaining or exploring Jasper's supposed supernatural sight—its parameters or uses—and his appearance at the end is fairly deus ex machina. As well, Charles doesn't seem disaffected with his family enough to justify throwing off the expectations and obligations to throw it all over (and he certainly doesn't seem to have developed enough backbone, imo) to go into a (scandalous) ghost hunting business with Jasper and the idea itself seems unfounded and comes out of nowhere. For it to work, I would've needed to see Charles come across as more disgusted and more angry with George, in particular, and some hint that he was interested in greater independence from a family that seemed, largely to have little use for him anyway. And though Jasper makes a one-line mention of how he needs to figure out what to do with himself now that he's defrocked and disgraced, it still elt abrupt for him to suddenly turn up with the idea and for Charles to agree so easily and quickly. I could totally buy all of these things, but I felt like they needed to show up—or at least be foreshadowed—before the last 3 pages of the book.<br /><br />Overall, The Wages of Sin is an okay read. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it and I was certainly a lot more turned on by the ideas inside it than the way Beecroft executed those ideas.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-63063912457814826432010-04-21T10:39:00.000-07:002010-04-21T10:41:37.945-07:00Changes by Jim ButcherWow. Just…<i>wow.</i> <b>WOW.</b><br /><br />That would conclude the short, nonspoilery version of my review of Jim Butcher's Changes, because <i>wow.</i><br /><br />(Below the cut is less a review than a meditation on the book; very spoilery)<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>I feel like the words "game-changing" are ridiculously overused as the trendy buzz-words of the year, but I'm also at a loss for what other words to use for what just happened there. And I'm not sure where to start with all of what happened, so this may be a little (or a lot!) less combobulated than when I otherwise talk about books.<br /><br />Susan. I think Susan has been a gun on the table for a long time. And, at the same time, given Susan's circumstances—and the fact that, at the end of the day, it's the Harry Dresden Show—there isn't a lot of leeway to <i>do</i> a lot with her character. Susan's struggle would have been an interesting story in its own right, but as part of Harry Dresden's story, she was only ever going to be <i>so</i> useful a plot device. On the other hand, you don't want to just fridge a character because she's in the way. So, from a writing standpoint, I understand why Butcher shelved her character for such a long time and why she had to die here—for many reasons, from writerly to in-story.<br /><br />Killing Susan discharges the gun and puts closure on an outstanding storyline—which is clearly necessary, given the new playing field of any future books. As well, it closes another door in Harry's personal story line, one in a really startling list of painful but potentially necessary losses (I think I have more to say on that later). And, of course, we can't forget the emotional wages of Susan's death on Harry…because by now, we should all know that Butcher won't. Susan's death—and the other choices that Harry made in the course of the book, including that to become Winter's Knight—are all blows to Harry's foundation morality…and they're hardly the first, but I feel like they are some of the most devastating we've seen to date.<br /><br />(And here I feel like I want to insert a conversation I've had ongoing in my head about how important it is to know what genre of media you're partaking in; it would be useful to me, as a consumer, to know whether Dresden's overall arc is a tragedy, or action-adventure, or noir, etc., if only to arrange my inevitable expectations accordingly. There are few things worse than thinking you're ingesting one genre of media and then to realize—too late—that it's another kind entirely. But that is, I think, a conversation for another time.)<br /><br />Which brings me back to a half-formed thought about loss and anchors. There are certain things that hold us to the world, hold us to the person we are at the present time. Let's call them anchors, because that's really what they do, they moor us into a certain personality and a certain persona and help prevent drift. An anchor can be material, like a home, or immaterial, like the relationships with friends and loved ones. Or like a job, a persona which, like it or not, we invest part of our identity. <br /><br />The loss of any one of these anchors can produce radical change in our persona and personality. The loss of a beloved home, the loss of a job, the death of a loved one… If you've been through any of those things, you know from personal experience how different the person you are <i>now</i> is from the person you were <i>then</i>. A ton of our media is built on that very notion (as is the mental health industry, btw), from "villains" like the angry, fuddled killer in the movie Falling Down to more "noble" protagonists like Luke Skywalker, whose entire adventure begins on the tombstones of his caretakers/surrogate parents. Loss can either cripple us or catalyze us, but either way, it makes us change. Drastically. <br /><br />The loss of <i>all or most</i> of your anchors, particularly all at once…even as a catalyst, it can't help but being catastrophic. In the course of Changes, Harry loses his office, his car, his home. Arguably, he loses his job—and you can take your pick of factors here, from the loss of his office, to the continuing schism between himself and the Council, radically deepened here, to his acceptance of the Knighthood of Winter Court.<br /><br />While we haven't seen Susan in some time, it's textually obvious that, like Murphy, Susan has been a cherished (and to some extent, idealized) icon-memory in Harry's mind, a love that he's nurtured (as a self-anchor) over time. By Susan's death—and by the fact that he's instrumental in it—Harry loses both Susan-in-flesh and the cherishing of Susan, his memories of her forever tainted by his guilt and recrimination. In fan speak, he loses that as a happy place. <br /><br />As well, Harry's identity as <i>father</i>, parent, is one that's crushingly brief, gained and lost practically in the same breath, but it's no less devastating for that. In fact, as the assumption of that identity is the predicating catalyst for nearly everything that comes after it, its inevitable loss is just that little bit keener. Harry turned his entire world upside down and lost almost everything to save his little girl's life. And he didn't even get to tell her who he was. Potentially (yeah, right), he'll never see her again. <br /><br />And, though our self-identity is formed and held in-place by our anchors, self-identity is, in and of itself, a kind of anchor, a core illusion upon which all the rest is built. Though Harry would probably be loathe to self-describe himself as a hero out loud, I do think that Harry's self-identity is predicated on the idea that he's "basically one of the good guys". He casts himself as gray—and I don't argue with that—but at the end of the day, he's on the side of the White and the Light, like any good noir protagonist. And, to be truthful, for ME, nothing in Changes redacts that identity…but I also don't think Harry feels—or will feel—quite the same about it. There are choices that Harry has held in reserve as dim, desperate possibilities, like accepting the Knighthood, but that also clearly were held in his mind as points of no return; moral lines that he couldn't take back at a whim and that would fundamentally change him afterward—for the worse. By the end of Changes, Harry isn't just saying goodbye to the things he's already lost, he's saying goodbye to everything that still remains, under the expectations of what his choice(s) will cost him. At a fundamental level, Harry is—or expects to be—no longer Harry. So, on top of his other losses, Harry has lost that most important anchor—his sense of self. <br /><br />And…here's the thing about that. While Harry's choices will definitely have consequences and Harry has indeed both changed and set himself on a course that will lead to further change, the loss of his self-identity, the assumption that he is no longer the Harry he thought he was makes seem inevitable and <i>fait-accompli</i> what is really only a potentiality. Or, put another way: it's easier to be a monster if you already think you're a monster. The assumption that his choices will or have made Harry a monster makes it that much easier for Harry to be or become the monster he believes himself to be. And that's both terrifying, given Harry's power, and incredibly <i>sad</i>.<br /><br />In far less thinky thoughts, did anyone else feel like there was a spark of something with Molly and Thomas? I don't know if it delights me or horrifies me, because Molly's desire to fix everything combined with Thomas's EPIC MANPAIN (or is that vamp pain?) sounds like a teenage trainwreck waiting to happen, but on the other hand, if the crazy kids COULD find a way to make it work, I would love to see Thomas, in particular, find just a <i>little</i> happiness in his life. <br /><br />HOW EPICALLY AWESOME IS MOUSE? I'm not even a dog person and I adore Mouse. And don't even get me <i>started</i> on how glad I am that Mister is okay, okay? *sniffles* <br /><br />And, while I know this is the Harry Dresden show, is there anyone else out there who really, REALLY would love the story of Margaret LeFay? So much of Harry's story (and Thomas's, for that matter) comes as a consequence and a price of hers and, like John Winchester, there's so much conflicting anecdotal information about her and so little actual. She fascinates me so much and I'd really like to see her more or less apart from her children, as a whole and realized being. <br /><br />THAT ENDING. THAT FUCKING ENDING! OMG. And I knew it, or something like it, was going to happen because it was too peaceful an epilogue for Harry fucking Dresden, but WHAT THE HELL, MAN? WHAT THE HELL?<br /><br />What did you guys think? I know you're dying to tell me! I'm dying to hear!theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-58412454769238314652010-03-27T22:26:00.001-07:002010-03-27T22:27:18.800-07:00A Summer Without Rain By Christie GordonGenerally, when I dislike a book, I try to find something good about it. Not just something good to say, I try to find some kernel of enjoyment for myself, to hang onto through all the badness. Unfortunately, I don't think I can come up with one good thing to say about Christie Gordon's A Summer Without Rain. <br /><br />First of all, from a strictly technical point of view, the book is plagued with typos, grammatical and punctuation mistakes and formatting errors. I'd be embarrassed to let my fanfic go out looking like this novel, let alone my professional novel which, presumably I am getting paid for. <br /><br />Truth be told, I'm not even sure how to characterize the rest of the story. Though I also have a list of talking points I put together in the course of reading the book, there was so much wrong and so much I disliked about the story that I truthfully feel I won't even be able to capture them all or adequately communicate how awful it was. <br /><br />Let's start here: very early in the book, I thought to myself, "Oh, God. This is a bad yaoi novel." <br /><br />A short time later, I was looking up the author on Goodreads for an unrelated piece of information (I wanted to know if she was actually from Ireland, where the book is placed) and I saw that she had recently made a blog entry titled <a href="http://houseofmanlove.blogspot.com/2010/03/yaoi-versus-mm-romance-whats-difference.html?zx=557cf0cd4d6d8794">"Yaoi versus M/M Romance: What's the difference? Is there a difference?"</a> In the course of her post, Gordon writes: <i>I tend to think Yaoi takes this romantic emotion thing a bit further. Maybe the men don't really act like real men - but dang, we're surrounded by real men all the time, can't we just have some made up men that act how we'd like them to act for once?</i><br /><br />To which I thought, and commented to my husband, "I don't <i>want</i> my men to act like this. EVER."<br /><br />I suppose I should have put a disclaimer somewhere in the earlier paragraphs: though I have nothing against yaoi or fans thereof (I actually quite liked Under Grand Hotel, myself), I am not a fan of the yaoi paradigm. It's purely personal preference, but I don't generally like my men pretty and androgynous, I don't like the rigid bottoming politics/conventions of seme and uke, and I don't like the hysterical high-school level drama and I don't like the crying. My gods, the <i>crying…</i> (I told y'all about how I feel about the crying…)<br /><br />Though Gordon doesn't really set up a seme/uke relationship between her protagonists, Shannon and Ciaran, in nearly every other way I can think of, she's borrowed the flowery, overly emotional, cartoonish, weepy conventions of yaoi. In fact, it was literally impossible for me to think of Shannon and Ciaran as real people and I could only picture them as exaggerated manga men…though calling them men is a bit of a stretch for me. <br /><br />That's not a slight against men who have a less "manly" deportment; in the course of the book both Shannon and Ciaran fail to demonstrate even basic behaviors of adulthood, down to small things like the assertion of independence and separation from one's family. <br /><br />Okay, wait. Wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. (spoilers and bile under the cut)<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>The book is supposed to take place in Ireland, in the 1920's. And though it seems within the bounds of reason that Gordon may have been to Ireland at some point, she doesn't demonstrate any real feeling or knowledge for the land and people she's describing (down to the use of American English over UK usage in many places) to a point where I, three generations separated from Ireland and with only passing knowledge could say, "Oh, god, this is WRONG." Further, I only know the time period because the book's blurb tells me so and because of a one-line mention in the story itself in a moment of exposition where Shannon looks out on "…a typical 1920's Irish village…", a piece of writing so clumsy and awful I felt concussed. Gordon never specifies an exact year and the way the story is written shows an appalling lack of research into the world of the 20s (or economics thereof) and no real understanding of how the mindset then was different from not only modern times, but modern America. Indeed, she falls into the trap of a lot of writers of pseudo-historical fiction, populating it with any number of characters whose mindsets, language and mores are—at best—highly unlikely for their time and place, dovetailing so neatly with our modern sentiments. It's purely a fantasy world, taking what she wants from the time and place, like props, and not bothering herself too much with her many, many anachronisms. <br /><br />Then there's the prose. Gordon tells, she doesn't show. No emotion is left to your imagination; she tells you exactly what her characters are feeling at any given moment. And no emotion is less than the red-lined, heightened ultimate of that feeling, so that characters are constantly gasping, wide-eyed, weeping, seeping, heaving, racing… Every emotion carries the melodrama of the teen years, when everything is <i>life or death, right now</i>. Bur for such heightened language and flowery language, Gordon actually uses the same adjectives over and over and over, until I started to hate the sight of "beautiful" or, worse "sumptuous". And Gordon commits that cardinal sin of writing m/m by using too many he and hims in a scene that holds two (or more) male characters, leaving readers confused as to who's doing what and whose parts are where. There was further structural failure in the lack of transitions between scenes. Characters who are eating dinner in one paragraph will suddenly be in a car, inches from crashing in the very next paragraph, with no indication that a change was coming, not even some empty lines or a handful of asterisks. <br /><br />And all this is before I get to the story itself. Like a number of other novels I've read, <u>A Summer Without Rain</u> is a book that feels like it's just wasted potential. First, there's Shannon. Shannon represents the psychologically damaged half of the romantic duo. Molested by his teacher as a teen, he's been an outcast in the village ever since, with Ciaran as his only friend. In some hands, this would be a workable scenario; it's clichéd, but it's a cliché because things like it often happen. The skeeve factor comes in when Gordon keeps having Shannon correlate the sexual abuse with Shannon's burgeoning romantic relationship with Ciaran. It would have been possible for it to be less skeevy if Gordon had set up a more emotional, 'loving' relationship between Shannon and his teacher, Mr. Flanagan, but Gordon goes out of her way to call it 'the molestation' on many occasions (in itself a bit of an anachronism), uses distancing language by having Shannon almost always think of Flanagan as 'the teacher' and has Shannon point out internally and verbally to Ciaran that he didn't love Flanagan and that the only way he got through what the teacher was doing to him was by thinking of Ciaran doing it to him instead. So, on the one hand, we have a clearly abusive, unwanted sexual relationship and, on the other, we have Gordon—through Shannon—setting up a correlation between that relationship and the romantic, loving relationship between Shannon and Ciaran. SKEEVY! <br /><br />Further, Gordon posits that "everyone" in the town knows about what happened to Shannon—except Ciaran, which would be more unrealistic, except that she writes Ciaran like a brain-damaged five year old, so perhaps it's not all <i>that</i> unrealistic—and, as a result has been alternatively abusive to him or shunning, in particular his parents and the village priest, Father Brennan. Shannon's parents hit all the stereotypes of suspicious, bigoted parents and Father Brennan is the very caricature of an intolerant priest, 'forcing' Shannon into lengthy and repeated confessions of his 'crimes' (another thing that I thought Gordon was going to make something of, because of the way she described the lavish details that Brennan coerced Shannon into revealing, but no. That didn't really go anywhere either). <br /><br />Going back to what I said about Shannon and Ciaran's apparent lack of manhood… Though I don't remember her giving either boy a specific age, she describes them both as men grown and out of school. However, they both still live at home, seem to have no employment or occupation for their time, other than to run around doing as they please, and they don't seem to have gone through the necessary distancing from their family to assert their adult self or independence in any way. Specifically, the way Shannon looks at his parents and thinks about/describes how he has no choice but to do the things they demand of him speaks of an extended childhood, one where the normal teenage defiance has never been exercised. In a period of time where children under ten are working in mills and factories, etc., I found this entirely unlikely and deeply repellent. <br /><br />Truth be told, though, she doesn't seem to describe <i>anyone</i>, other than Ciaran's aunt Iona and the various tavern waitstaff they encounter in their adventures as undertaking any kind of work or employment, so God only knows what was going on there. Everyone seemed to have all the time in the world to sit around and do nothing. But I digress.<br /><br />Shannon is clearly damaged by what's happened to him. He's (naturally) terrified about being outed as a queer, his body language (as described) is one of a perpetual flincher, hair hanging in his face, shoulders hunched, etc. He's described by a number of other people as shy and he has no self-esteem to speak of. His rape—and the subsequent shaming by his peers and elders—has left him badly broken. So it would seem his character arc is clear and his necessary growth into a person with some knowledge of his own self-worth is inevitable. But, no. Gordon gave a brief tease that she was going to actually do something with Shannon's scarred psyche in the brief period of time that Shannon and Ciaran are visiting Ciaran's aunt Iona in Dublin, but the visit is over fairly quickly and Gordon never addresses Shannon's damage in any meaningful way again and she doesn't allow Shannon to make any real strides to finding himself, outside of his relationship with Ciaran. <br /><br />As I said above, Ciaran frequently comes across as a mentally-challenged child. He generally plays "the stupid man"; the character who goes, "What's that?", giving the knowledgeable character the opportunity to explain whatever it is for the audience. However, that comes across as clumsily as it usually does, especially as many of the moments where Ciaran plays Stupid Man are at times and with subjects he should already have <i>some</i> knowledge of, as someone who grew up in the village for just as long as Shannon. Ciaran also spends a lot of the book crying. Don't get me wrong, Shannon bursts into tears nearly as often, but, as Ciaran's mother has also recently died, he gets the extra tear allotment. And, as mentioned, I find it completely improbable that Ciaran wouldn't have heard <i>something</i> about what happened with Shannon and Flanagan, if it was as widespread around the village as Gordon implies. Even if Shannon had bottled it up, someone would've said something to Ciaran simply as Shannon's best friend, be it nosily or mockingly or as part of some cruel scheme to rile Ciaran up, the way that kids usually do. Who knows, maybe someone <i>did</i> and it just flew right over Ciaran's dim head. I could actually believe that, with Ciaran as depicted. <br /><br />Also entirely unrealistic is the way that, although he's never thought of a boy in a sexual way, although he's been sexually attracted to girls all his life, and though he's never looked at Shannon as anything more than his best friend, in six days of traveling with Shannon (and really it's only half that, because they're well on their way to it by the time they arrive in Dublin, never mind the trip back) Ciaran goes from completely oblivious and hetero to hard core butt-sexing, queerer than a three dollar bill, no doubts that it's him and Shannon MFEO forever. Even <i>with</i> the intervention of yenta-aunt Iona of the Sacred Lesbians. <br /><br />Ciaran doesn't seem to have any overall arc, other than the discovery of his sexual and romantic identity as Shannon's forever-mate. This doesn't even throw him for a momentary loop, so it's an entirely moot point, as far as character development. His decision to be with Shannon isn't really even entirely his own choice; Ciaran rejects Shannon when Shannon asks Ciaran to leave their village with him and return to Dublin, citing the need to stay and take care of his father. It's only when Ciaran's father admits that he's sold the family farm and pushes Ciaran to go after Shannon to live their HEA in Dublin (with his full approval, btw, another bit of unreality that Gordon handwaves with the prerequisite 'your mother and I were always forward thinkers!') that Ciaran chases after Shannon. Though Gordon posits Ciaran as an overly protected mama's boy, sheltered and naïve (oh, so naïve), she doesn't exploit that character trait for growth—Ciaran discovering his independence and maturity—either.<br /><br />The truth is, Gordon doesn't do very much with her set up at all. Shannon's fears that the straight Ciaran will reject him prove entirely unfounded as Ciaran responds favorably to all Shannon's advances from the very first. Though she gives both boys backgrounds that could have been exploited for growth, she bypasses it for any number of overwrought, tee-hee naughty sex scenes and passionate declarations of love. The background characters have no motivations or lives of their own, existing solely to help along or hinder the dim-witted lovers and vanish entirely from the narrative once they've made their attempt. The obstacles to Shannon and Ciaran's love seem more appropriate for teenage melodrama than the quest of two grown men to find love and acceptance with each other and, as best they can, in the world, and their happily ever after comes with no more effort than the two-day ride to Dublin and a random gay-bashing thrown in for laignappe. <br /><br />I feel like I've lost my dispassion in trying to describe how UTTERLY LUDICROUS I found this book and how much I loathed reading it. Truth be told, the only reason that I persisted was that I wanted to be able to write this review and I wanted to have the sense of accomplishment of reading all the books I signed up for this month, no matter how awful. A specious pride, indeed, but oh, how I have PAID, people. Oh, how I have paid. <br /><br />Four days and one book to go.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-77027588657634296782010-03-26T13:45:00.000-07:002010-03-26T13:47:13.169-07:00Oleander House by Ally BlueGiven my recent history with the genre, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, starting Ally Blue's Oleander House. It's nothing against Blue; I just don't know her work and lately I start every book with a sense of trepidation. And so, when a book is actually a good read, I find myself appreciating it more than ever before and with a great sense of relief.<br /><br />(I had a similar experience regarding acting after watching three seasons of Dante's Cove, but I digress)<br /><br />Oleander House is the first in Blue's Bay City Paranormal Investigations series. Newcomer Sam Raintree is starting his first job for the investigation group, a haunted house. His ability to put his best foot forward, however, is a bit derailed by his immediate attraction to his good-looking, married-with-kids boss, Bo.<br /><br />What surprised me most about Oleander House (and pleasantly so) is how willing Blue was to put the simmering romance between Bo and Sam on the back burner, in favor of her plot. Though the romance is a strong thread throughout and feeds into the haunted house plot, the haunted house is definitely her A storyline and the romance more the subplot. More, the haunted house plot-line was (although telegraphed much earlier than it took the characters to figure it out) interesting, quick-paced, had internal logic and fed well into her romantic subplot. There was also a decent creep factor here. I love haunted house stories and there were subtle rumblings here that reminded me of Marble Hornets (not a book), or House of Leaves, or even The Haunting of Hill House. Though I think the 'resolution' of the haunted house plotline was a little weak at the end, it was still logical, dramatic and fit well with the story Blue had set up. The secondary characters were good and balanced, fleshed out and individual and the dialogue was excellent, natural and snappy as actual conversation.<br /><br />On the other hand, I wasn't entirely sold on the romance angle. And this is why: (spoilers under the cut)<a name='more'></a> <br /><br />The thing is, I liked Sam. Though he did sometimes the kind of typical dumbass things you expect in a horror/paranormal story, they weren't out of character and they didn't strain the credulity of the story. They were the kind of dumbass things that people less paranoid than I would do in that kind of situation. At worst, Sam underestimated the danger he—and everyone else—were in, and that's…well, <i>normal</i>. And though Sam sometimes pushed his attraction to his married, supposedly straight boss in ways I thought were inappropriate and unwise, it was hard to hate, or even dislike him too much, for it, given the situation with the house and the way Bo would push back just as hard. <br /><br />Which brings me to the other half of the equation: Bo. It's obvious from the text that we are supposed to feel for Bo. I mean, he's the other half of the romantic protagonists; the story doesn't <i>really</i> work as a romance if you don't like them as a couple. But, for me, Bo's behavior was pretty unlikeable. <br /><br />I mean… I feel for anyone who is so terrified by their own sexuality that they force themself into a loveless and unfulfilling marriage in an attempt to make it go away (it never works, btw). That is indeed a kind of tragedy. On the other hand, Bo was the one who initiated the flirting, Bo was the one who made the first move by touching Sam in ways that you don't touch your employees (or even your close friends, unless you have benefits attached), and—and this is the most damning, imo—Bo is the one who <i>continued to flirt and push</i>, even after pushing Sam away and saying he wasn't interested, that he couldn't cheat on his wife, yadda yadda yadda…<br /><br />And here I'd like to make a sidenote about a couple things that bother me a lot about modern romances and that come into play here:<br /><br />1. The idea that we are helpless against attraction and, concurrently, if you have a deep attraction to someone, it is your <i>right and duty</i> to explore it, regardless of the consequences. Frankly, I just call bullshit on that entire idea. I feel like I could go into much greater detail about this and how much it makes me froth at the mouth, but my bottom line about it is "be a goddamn grown-up and keep it in your pants!" and I don't want to get too far off my topic.<br /><br />2. The idea that, as long as no genital contact happens, it's not cheating. Now there's a certain amount of idle, meaningless flirting that I don't think is cheating. But flirting with intent, coy, covert touching, kissing, emotional infidelity…all that is definitely cheating in my mind. Fidelity is not just keeping that nickel between your knees; it's also giving away those things that should only belong to an SO, including intimacy and intimate trust.<br /><br />In Oleander House, both Bo and Sam are, I think, guilty of the first and I do wish Sam had been more definitive in pushing Bo away, both in mind and deed. However, I did feel like Sam had a greater awareness than Bo that they were in commission of the second and I felt that Bo was certainly a lot more guilty of it and of being an asshole because of it.<br /><br />Because here's my thing: it's one thing for Bo to be unfaithful to his wife. And bottom line, that's <i>not okay</i>. I don't care if the relationship is dead and vacant; you divorce or you stick with your vows. But putting that aside, I thought it was incredibly cruel and selfish for Bo to continue to tease and chase Sam, who he <i>knew</i> was attracted to him, after declaring that nothing could happen between them and using his marriage—and ostensible heterosexuality—as a shield to hide behind. <br /><br />Attraction happens. It doesn't always happen to or with the right person, or the appropriate person or in ways we want it to. And I accept that. I think that's okay. It's what we <i>do</i> with that attraction that matters. And, knowing that someone is attracted to you…it's knowing where they're vulnerable. It's spotting their Achilles heel. And to use that knowledge, to manipulate the person and their attraction to you, to make yourself feel good, to give yourself the pleasure of their attraction, with no intention of following through on it…it's shitty, assholish behavior. <br /><br />Bo runs hot and cold throughout the novel, pushing himself at Sam and then shoving Sam away. I know that it's a product of that same, tragic fear, but my response to that is, "Man-up, strap it on, and get a hold of yourself." It's a reason, but it's not an excuse for his behavior. It's even worse when Sam draws this behavior to Bo's attention (and speaking of, I'd like to give Blue a big round of applause there for not only acknowledging the problem, but having Sam bring it to Bo like a freaking ADULT), Bo acknowledges it…and then goes on to repeat the same behaviors. And, again, I get <i>why</i> Bo does it. I think it's <i>entirely</i> psychologically valid, especially for his character.<br /><br />But it's still asshole behavior. <br /><br />And, as a result, it's harder for me to be invested in a relationship between Bo and Sam, when I think Bo is kind of a jerk. What I said to the husband was this: "It succeeds as a story, but it failed as a romance." <br /><br />That being said, I am willing to see where Bo and Sam go from here and to give Bo the chance to get his shit together and become a partner more 'worthy' of Sam (I feel like I want to write a whole 'nother essay about 'worthy' and 'deserving', when applied to interpersonal relationships, especially romantic ones, but that's a subject for another time). I've already bought the next three books of the series and I'm looking forward to Blue's evocative but no-nonsense prose, I'm looking forward to 'seeing' Sam (and the other characters) again and I'm looking forward to the next investigation. I think we all know I'll likely be reporting back.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-28192037217105604042010-03-25T15:36:00.000-07:002010-03-25T15:39:07.759-07:00Conquest by S.J. FrostConquest, by S.J. Frost, was a book I disliked so much my husband was afraid to be around me while I was reading. I can't blame him; if I'd been on the other end, the number of sighs, growls and outright shouts of, "OH, COME THE FUCK ON!" would've been…offputting, to say the least. It's a book I disliked so much that I made a <i>list</i>. A list of talking points I wanted to cover in the course of this review. <br /><br />But first, a <s>couple</s> few disclaimers: <br /><br />1. One of my problems with the book is that of personal preference. I don't like insta-love books, where the protagonists see each other across a crowded room and immediately know they're meant for each other forever. It's a valid story type, a lot of people like it, I'm just not one of them. I prefer stories where the protags have to work for their relationship and their happy ever after.<br /><br />2. I don't like stories where the protagonists are (for a given value) perfect, and all the story's conflict comes from the cruel, uncaring world outside. I don't think all relationship conflict in the story needs to come from internal conflict, but I want a balance of internal growth with external drama. <br /><br />3. (And this one should be obvious, but I'm gonna say it anyway) This is all just how I felt about this book and is, obviously, predicated on those above two issues. So take this review how you will.<br /><br />Truth be told, I feel like Conquest failed me on two fronts: technically, the writing itself wasn't very good (I'll get into more detail about that in a second) and the story itself was both uninteresting and contrived (more on that, too).<br /><br />Okay. So we're going to skip over the fairy-tale set up of how the band of the title, Conquest, goes from being a nowhere bar band to being the financial rival of the top names in the business in under a year, okay? Just…handwave all that, because…whatever. Just handwave it, all right?<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>First of all, it's incredibly exposition heavy. Long, tedious paragraphs where Frost describes every point of her protagonists' appearance, everything that's in the room around them, every movement and gesture that they make. <br /><br />I have a modest example. This is while the protagonist Jesse looks at himself in the mirror:<br /><blockquote><i>At five foot seven, he was lithe and fit, his biceps firm with sinewy strength, his abdomen lined in muscle, his smooth chest well-defined. He ran the backs of his index and middle fingers along his slender jaw, then lathered his face and took his razor carefully over his flawless skin. His black hair toweled and styled to accentuate the sharp, jagged angles around his face, with enough length in back to fall just to the top of his neck. Long enough to get a messy look, but able to style neatly when he wanted. Dressed in jeans faded on the thighs and a black V-neck shirt that clung to his lean frame, she slid three small silver hoop earrings into his left earlobe and a fourth up in the cartilage, then two more in his right earlobe. Around his neck, he fastened a choker of two thin black leather cords with a gold pendant of a sixteen-rayed sun that rested in the hollow of his throat.</i></blockquote><br />Similarly, it's not enough for Frost to say that Jesse and his brother Brandon go from the car to Brandon's apartment, she writes them climbing out, closing the door, going up the steps of the stoop, opening the building door, going up the inside stairs, walking across to the door of Brandon's apartment, unlocking the door, and then going inside…where she proceeds to describe every stick of furniture in Brandon's apartment and its relative placement to all the rest of the furniture and to Jesse. She drops the brand names of everything every character uses like she's doing movie product placement and gets an Amazon kick-back for each mention. At times, it reads like she pulled the description straight from the promotional material. It's <i>excruciatingly</i> detailed and she leaves absolutely nothing to the reader's intellect or imagination. <br /><br />The dialogue is equally clunky and stilted and what should be relaxed, amusing banter generally reads as trying too hard. The POV is all over the place, switching mid-scene with no real transition and introduces random, unneccessary one-use POVs in the last third of the book. Worse, (omg, so much worse), the book's premise is of love between two musicians and the book is bogged down <i>in several places</i> by the inclusion of song lyrics. <br /><br />And I have two things to say about that: first of all, they're just painful and ludicrous and over the top emo lyrics that made me roll my eyes and snicker (and occasionally inflict them on The Husband, who took to putting a pillow over his head); secondly—and this goes hand in hand with the nitpicky, uber-detail of the rest of the book—sometimes it's <i>better</i> for your story to leave some things to the imagination. A certain amount of name dropping, for example, be it a place (the book is set in Chicago, and don't even get me started about how Frost got THAT all wrong!) or a brand name or a celebrity of the time, grounds your story in the real world and can give it a level of verisimilitude that helps sell your story. But, taken over the top, it just ends up looking amateurish and dates your material badly. More than that, if you want me to actually believe that your two musicians are these uber-amazing virtuosos, giving me bad emo poetry as song lyrics is not helping me buy your story. It's actually just the opposite. <br /><br />Which brings me to my next point: the <i>rampant</i> Mary-sue-ism. Jesse is perfect; he's handsome as an angel, he's fit, he's charismatic, he can play any instrument he lays his hands on and sing like the angel he appears to be, on top of it. Evan, his other half, is no different, light to Jesse's dark. Jesse's worst "flaw" is that he's impulsive and doesn't know how not to love with his whole heart. Evan's worst "flaw" is some minor self-esteem issues that have no bearing on the actual story arc, and gets resolved after a good talk, a good cry and a tearful fuck. They can look at each other and <i>know</i> what the other is thinking, from their first moments together.<br /><br />More than that, Brandon, Jesse's brother, is "the best actor Chicago has ever seen", Jesse's BFF, Kenny, is a guitar god to rival Stevie Ray Vaughn and so is Evan's guy-pal and guitarist, JJ. In fact, the only imperfect people seem to be the women. There are basically three women mentioned in Conquest. There's Kenny's girlfriend, a clingy, shrieky gold-digger, there's Evan's mom, a shrewish harpy who begrudged every penny spent on Evan's musical education and who couldn't be bothered to take care of her cancer-ridden husband before his death, and there's Trish, Conquest's drummer, who, while supposedly awesome, still isn't good enough to keep up with Jesse, Kenny, or Julian, the Julliard trained pianist, who flirts with everything with a dick, including Jesse from the moment she meets him, who pitches a tearful tantrum when she can't get the song right (with requisite 'take some Midol!' references) and who falls in love with Jesse and tries to make a move on him while he's drunk and passed out. Yeah, the woman-hating is thick in this one. And intensely repellent. <br /><br />There's also a thin scrim of "all heteros are homophobic" subtext that threads through the book but is never really addressed. Kenny, who is supposedly very laid-back and accepting, nonetheless demonstrates a lot of discomfort with even discussion about Jesse's gayness and damn near flips his lid when Jesse brings Evan home (though this is later kind of handwaved by the idea that Kenny was only thrown for a loop because it's EVAN ARDEN, rock god). Tim, the cartoonish (and requisitely fat, sweaty and dumb) "villain" of the piece, is unprofessional, bigoted and harasses both Jesse and Evan when he finds out they're queer and together. Greg, the owner of Phoenix Records, is shown to be superficially tolerant, but he leans on both Jesse and Evan to hide both their queerness and their relationship 'for business' and is also depicted, like Kenny to be frequently uncomfortable with public displays of affection. Trish, as mentioned, frequently and volubly pouts about the fact that "all the good ones are gay" and throws herself at Jesse at every opportunity, while giving Evan the cold shoulder. In fact, all of the straight people shown are kind of assholes. <br /><br />Which… I probably could have dealt with that kind of one-dimensional characterization if Frost had actually <i>made something of it</i>, but the book has no real singular conflict arc that carries through the whole book; it's only a series of minor scuffles that's quickly resolved with a minimum of fuss. Kenny's resentment is laid to rest after a talk with Jesse. Tim gets the snot beat out of him by Evan and then is fired, his threats to out Jesse and Evan pure bluster that comes to nothing. Greg "wins" in the sense that Jesse and Evan are still closeted and keeping their relationship under wraps (for the moment), but there's no real sense of threat there, either. And Trish fades back to being a nonentity. <br /><br />On the one hand, homophobia—aversive and active—is unquestionably a problem in the real world. That's not my nitpick. But the fact that Frost raises its specter, flirts around the edges of it, and then actually does nothing to address the homophobia she's invoked and flirted around in any meaningful way is both a wasted opportunity and poor writing. The fact that she chooses to invoke it in the most over the top, cartoonish ways is also poor writing. I would have been far more interested and engrossed in the story of how homophobia was affecting Jesse and Evan at the professional and personal level. Instead, she chose to show it more as schoolyard bullies picking on the golden boys and that, frankly, was overwrought and boring. <br /><br />And then lastly… Okay, look. If you spend the whole book showing how supernaturally, psychically, bordering on soul-bonded these two characters are, to know each other without a word being exchanged and then hinge the denouement on a contrived fight created by Evan to shove Jesse away "for his own good" and "to protect him from himself" and have Jesse fall for it, when the relationship has ben entirely rock-solid and unquestionable to that point....you have just undermined the whole premise you spent two hundred pages setting up. <br /><br />More than that, Frost then drags it out for another fifty or so pages, while Jesse and Evan pine after each other in the most transparent, pathetically obvious way. This is especially ludicrous because she's also spent those two hundred preceding pages making them gab to each other about every little problem they've suffered under the sun, they suddenly clam up and lose the ability to talk to each other with the emotionally naked honesty that they've given to each other from the first moments of their meeting. She creates a sudden doubt between them where NONE existed before that moment and…it's just shoddy. There's no other word for it. Wait. No. Contrived. It is so obviously, pathetically contrived, plucked from every bad rom-com template out there. The fact that they can't actually <i>stay apart</i> through their supposed separation takes the absurdity up another level and it's actually an anticlimax (which takes a special skill, I think, to muff that up) when they get back together for their "happy for now" ending. <br /><br />S.J. Frost is part of the online book group I belong to, and she seems like a nice person (though I find it a little conversation stifling and creepy, the way she's personally responded to every comment someone made on the Conquest discussion thread). In the discussion thread, I saw that she mentioned that, for her, books are a form of escapism. And that's a valid viewpoint.<br /><br />On the other hand, I think that once an author has gone through as much trouble to ground her story in the real world as Frost has, with her constant name-dropping, the willing suspension of disbelief can only be maintained by upholding that real world connection. Once you take an urban, real world setting, and then try to make your characters act in a fantastical way, you lose your audience. And if you want fantasy, then you need to establish up front that you are writing in a fantasy world. <br /><br />So, for me, Conquest ultimately fails because Frost failed to establish the rules of her own game.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-17330554680065324452010-03-24T13:38:00.000-07:002010-03-24T13:39:48.747-07:00Downtime by Tamara AllenYou know, it's funny. I find it's harder for me to write about a book that I liked than one I didn't. I'm not sure why that would be, but I'm certainly finding it to be the truth as I sit here and try to think about how to talk about Tamara Allen's Downtime.<br /><br />When my book group was doing nominations for this month's book, I perused the blurbs for all the suggestions and I'd stuck Downtime on my 'to-read' list then, based mostly on my own fondness for time-travel stories. I had a mental mix-up about what book was actually our book of the month—the group has two 'featured' books, generally, the Book of the Month and the Featured Author book and I got them crossed—and so I didn't actually acquire or start reading Downtime until a couple days ago. <br /><br />Getting the book in an ebook version was actually rather tricky. None of my usual vendors carried it and I ended up having to go through Smashwords, which was my first time at that site. Nonetheless, the book was worth the little extra effort for acquisition. <br /><br />Downtime is the story of Morgan Nash, an American FBI agent in London, who gets sucked back to 1888. And, as it's a romance, there's obviously a love story there. <br /><br />I'm looking at those words and they sound terribly dry, but it's safe to say that Allen infuses the premise with a lot more life and color than I do by that description. (spoilers beneath the cut)<br /> <br /><a name='more'></a>The modern-time book ends are actually the least interesting—and the least convincing—parts of the story. The motivations behind Nash's presence in London are rather pasted on and somewhat unconvincing, but as they're just there to get Nash in place for the rest of the story, I'm inclined to overlook it, especially since the juicy middle of the book is such a pleasure. <br /><br />As well, I had a slightly difficult time buying that Nash was so easily distracted from the means to get himself back home (a magical tome that goes missing, creating a need for Nash to stay longer than anticipated) in favor of investigating Jack the Ripper. I feel like it eventually makes sense, once Nash's interest in Ezra (and Ezra's return interest) becomes obvious; Nash is an unreliable narrator when it comes to his own feelings and it makes sense that, once his motivation to return home lessens because of his attachment, he'd focus more on the Ripper case than the efforts to get him back home, but I felt like the shift came slightly too early in the book, before Nash's motivation was in place. But again, not a deal breaker and, in the end, I do think it fits with Nash's character and the overall story. <br /><br />I'm reading Allen's other book, Whistling in the Dark, at the same time and, in both books, there's a slow build to the chemistry and the relationship that I really enjoyed, especially when so many other books try to sell not only attraction, but love, on first sight. Morgan and Ezra's relationship was as gradual but inevitable as a flower blooming and I found myself similarly as gradually swept up in caring about the relationship to a point where I had to put the book down a couple times at crucial moments to both calm myself down and laugh at myself. <br /><br />If you're looking for smut, this probably isn't the book for you; most of Allen's sex scenes are fade to black or play coyly with romance novel euphemisms, but honestly, I will trade all the porn in the world for emotional porn, and Allen delivers in spades on that front. <br /><br />As well, she gives Morgan and Ezra a pantheon of equally fleshed and interesting characters to play off of, each with their own thoughts and agendas that don't always fall in with those of our protagonists, even when the character in question is a friend. I came to adore Derry and Hannah and Kathleen and I was surprised at both the charm she infused into Sid and how much I felt for him by the end of the book, a truly charismatic 'villain'. <br /><br />My biggest complaint about Allen's writing is that, although she demonstrates great talent at world-building, juggling a historical narrative for a modern audience, dialogue and overall story, her ability to convey physicality is not equal to her other abilities. In both Downtime and Whistling in the Dark, I find myself often confused as to where her characters are in space and in relation to each other and her action moments—as in an bodily attack, or a crowd situation—are even muddier, meaning I had to sometimes read passages more than once to figure out what had just happened. And I feel like Allen must be aware of her shortcomings in this area as she often tries to shortcut the action by skipping to the moment just past it and then fill in the blanks with exposition…but, for me, it's not a successful strategy and only adds to the confusion. <br /><br />…and now I feel like I've damned Allen with faint praise, but all of my issues with her writing are minor, at best, and dim in comparison to how much I was involved in the story itself—not only the very sweet, quite adorable romance between Morgan and Ezra, but in the entire world she creates around them. As well, one of the difficulties of time-travel stories is how to deal with the potential for time-tampering and, in the case of a romance, how to deliver an HEA when the protagonists 'exist' hundreds of years apart from each other but Allen manages to resolve all her plotlines in a way that supported the suspension of disbelief, made sense for what had already been written and was, in all ways, satisfying.<br /><br />I recommend Downtime to those who like plotty, sweet romances and, as soon as I finish Whistling in the Dark, I expect I'll be recommending it, too.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-89224307880685339462010-03-20T20:01:00.000-07:002010-03-20T20:03:01.491-07:00Into TemptationI have to confess (heh) that I wanted to see the movie Into Temptation primarily for Jeremy Sisto. And, given the trailer and my history of watching "my boys" in the movies they've worked, I was truthfully expecting very little. But instead, I really enjoyed the movie, as bittersweet to the taste as it turned out to be.<br /><br />Sisto plays a priest, John Buerline, who hears the confession of a prostitute, Linda (played by Kristen Chenowith), who tells him she plans to kill herself on her birthday, leading Beuerline in a long, agonizing search to find her before she can carry out her plan. <br /><br />One of the things that I really liked is the lack of sensationalism. Prostitution isn't made out to be something glamorized or titillating, neither is Linda's abusive background. The priests of the piece, Buerline and his mentor, O'Brien, are merely men and, while they have their flaws, they're mostly the everyday venal sins of regular people. The movie itself feels very stripped down in that respect; rather than making everyone within it larger than life, it puts a magnifying glass to something very ordinary, showing shine beneath the tarnish.<br /><br />It's rather funny that I ended my day with this movie because I was talking with some friends today about another movie that we'd all seen at different times, Six: The Mark Unleashed, which is very distinctly a Christian film. It's also an awful film and one of the places I felt it failed (which I talked about in this conversation) was in the fatuous, inaccessible way that it portrayed faith and the value thereof. <br /><br />On the other hand, I felt like Into Temptation was a far superior film in that respect, even though it is not specifically a religious movie. Buerline is something of a misfit priest; he has trouble relating to his congregants, to the men and women who come to the shelter he started, to people in general. He's well-meaning, but he's soft and rather naïve and lacks the self-confidence and charisma that could overcome those first two obstacles. What he does have, however, is that deep-seated, rock-solid need to help. To save. And while the jaded, more streetwise part of me spent a lot of the movie going, "Oh, god, John, <i>no</i>…" I did and do have to respect his determination to do what he felt was the best thing, through both embarrassing and dangerous situations. More specifically, though we never see Buerline pray (outside of church services) and though we see very little outward sign of his faith, his persistence and his genuine emotion and empathy illuminate his character and his faith far better than any amount of spoken prayer. Buerline walks it like he talks it. And while it's a faith not always certain of its footing, it is a faith that is always striving, which seems like the more workable and more reasonable kind. <br /><br />Too, I really enjoyed his relationship with O'Brien. Though their scenes were often short, the genuineness of respect and camaraderie and friendship were warmly present without a lot of exposition. O'Brien's concern and protectiveness for his friend…and his understanding that Buerline had to go his own way, regardless of any advice given was beautifully acted and beautifully presented. It's not too often, anymore that clergy are presented with such quiet even-handedness and it was really refreshing to watch. <br /><br />(Spoilers beneath the cut) <a name='more'></a>And though Buerline, in the end, failed to save Linda, I didn't feel like that failure undercut the overall hopefulness of the movie—in fact, I think that kind of defines hopefulness—and I felt that the presence of Buerline's efforts to save her were still so present, right down to the gift of Buerline's rosary to Linda by the homeless man, Gus, in her final moments. It would have been as easy to see them saving Linda as the path she actually took (and since we didn't actually see her jump, I can totally fanwank a coda where she walks off into the night and starts a new life entirely from scratch) and the fact that she did, supposedly/indeed, jump doesn't detract from that. <br /><br />In the end, it's Buerline's story and, though he's a priest, it's in many ways an every person story, embattled by helplessness and mistakes and obstacles, trying to find a way. A way through. And, again, though Buerline doesn't, in the end, save Linda, I think he does find a way through.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-35594591789679133002010-03-20T06:58:00.001-07:002010-03-20T07:00:09.730-07:00Dead & Buried by Barbara HamblyYou know, I do, sometimes, also, read books which I actually enjoy! <br /><br />I'm a huge Barbara Hambly fan. Though I won't say that I own everything she's written (there are definitely some short stories I haven't gotten my hands on), I will say that I own—and have read—nearly everything she's written, including obscurities like the Beauty and the Beast tie-in novel. I am a Barbara Hambly <i>fan</i>.<br /><br />So there was much rejoicing in the land when I heard that the British publisher Severn House was picking up a new Benjamin January book (hopefully with more to come) and even more joy when I got my hands on my own copy of Dead & Buried. <br /><br />If you've been reading this journal at all lately, you know I've been struggling through a number of books that have left me less than happy. The Husband, too, because he has to hear me growling about it. So Dead & Buried was really good for both of us. On Twitter, I compared it to aloe on sunburned skin and yes, it really was that great a relief to me.<br /><br />For those not in the know, the Benjamin January books are historical mysteries set in pre-Civil War New Orleans (largely). Benjamin January is a free man of color, a surgeon and a musician who returns to Louisiana after a long absence in Paris. Hambly has an advanced degree in History and it shows in her work. Her great love for New Orleans comes through with equal transparency, both the city itself and the deep-reaching, complicated culture that is its background and backbone. <br /><br />In reading D&B, there was a pleasure, of course, in seeing again characters like Ben, Rose, Hannibal and Abishag Shaw. But there was also a familiar pleasure in just reading again those names which we only know in passing, like Bernadette Metoyer and Crowdie Passebon. It's a quiet but clever illustration of the world Ben lives in, to give the reader that experience of vague but neighborly connection, the familiarity of the faces and personalities that surround him and inform his reality. <br /><br />On a more personal level, one of the reasons I love the series so much is that I feel like Hambly really <i>gets</i> both the complications of family life and that of Southern families, in particular. I feel such an odd sense of nostalgia as I read the books, bittersweet reminders of my own relatives and relationships with them. I can see my own family peeking through the pages and it's a rare thing for me to find an author that can or does evoke that, let alone so well.<br /><br />I also always enjoy the construction of Hambly's mysteries, similar to a Hidden Picture puzzle, where all the pieces are present but require the right focus and context to put together. I like that they can be put together, by the reader, given enough thought and I like that, even so, they don't always turn out like I thought they would. <br /><br />(spoilers beneath the cut)<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>Specifically, I'd figured out pretty early on that Germanicus Stuart was Hannibal's son. But the circumstances which I'd constructed around how he came to be conceived were vastly different than the reality.<br /><br />(Which may just be an indication that my slash goggles are on tighter than I'd ever realized, because—especially with the reference to Achilles and Patrocles at the end—I'd been vaguely convinced that Derryhick and Germanicus's father were lovers and that Hannibal and Germanicus's mother ended up having an affair on the side, rather than the much simpler solution that Hannibal <i>is</i> the former Viscount and Gerry's father. Clearly, I have officially been in fandom too long.)<br /><br />It's funny to me because I actually finished Dead & Buried well before I finished Soul Bonds and yet it's the review that took me longer and was intrinsically more difficult to write. While I seem to have quite a lot to say about those books that have made me miserable—and why—it seems much harder to talk fairly or cogently or logically about something that gave me such great pleasure. So perhaps it'll just have to be enough to say that it did, and that I recommend the entire series highly, and that I think everyone should go and buy Dead & Buried, dammit, so Severn House will publish lots more.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-5867526398466501282010-03-18T22:52:00.001-07:002010-03-18T22:54:44.741-07:00Soul Bonds By Lynn LorenzEach book I read seems to raise the bar, but I honestly think Soul Bonds is one of the worst books I have ever read. This is especially annoying because I'd read one of Lynn Lorenz's books previously and while it didn't blow me away, I'd found it perfectly readable. This, on the other hand? Not so much.<br /><br />Lorenz's prose is still perfectly readable, if a little florid (there's a lot of use of 'backdoor' and 'sweet rose', if you know what I mean). But the premise, the characterization and execution are all so painfully ludicrous that I couldn't wait to get to the end and, if I wasn't reading it for a specific purpose, I would've put it down long ago. Worse, there's actually a kernel of a really brilliant idea here (imo) that Lorenz <i>completely overlooked.</i><br /><br />(completely and incredibly spoilery beneath the cut)<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>The premise of the story is one that should, actually, be custom designed for my narrative kinks. Sammi (yes, that's a male name, don't even get me started) is a sex slave, owned by the dastardly Donovan. He escapes from Donovan's clutches and takes to picking up men in bars so that he can hide out at their place overnight. He's aided in this by his (undefined) mental abilities that allow him to read emotion and thought and anticipate his lover's every sexual want and need. One night, on the prowl, he comes across Mitchell, and discovers that Mitchell is his soul mate. Literally. <br /><br />Now. Like I said, there's a really interesting idea here: Sammi is young, poor, uneducated, from an abusive background—both at his natural home and in foster care—and a street hustler turned high-class sex slave turned street hustler. Though he's a tremendously stereotypical figure, he's also a character with a lot of potentiality, especially when contrasted with the older, more 'normal' Mitchell. <br /><br />Mitchell is much more opaque (or really, much less developed) than Sammi. He's an engineer who works at a cube farm. He had one significant lover, who died, and he's been drifting ever since. He has one best friend, the P.I., Brian. His homophobic boss hates him. And…that's really all we know about Mitchell. <br /><br />But in any case, there's an interesting implication in Lorenz's set-up: what do you do when your soul mate is a (potentially amoral) grifter/hustler who uses the soul bond to <i>bind you to them for life</i> just to force you to protect them from their enemies? How do you love and trust someone who would use your love and trust in that way? <br /><br />Alas, that is distinctly <i>not</i> the story Lorenz writes.<br /><br />Instead, Lorenz completely ignores her own set up in favor of a bunch of shallow, ridiculous events that don't really exploit or explore her own world-building. Which brings me back to Sammi again.<br /><br />A street-urchin with no special training to develop his gift, it doesn't make any logical sense that Sammi would know a soul bond when he feels it or how to exploit it with Mitchell. It makes no logical sense that Sammi (however good a lay his mental powers make him), at twenty-three (and thus of no interest to pedophiles) and with no education to speak of or deportment training (to make more of him than a bed-toy), would be worth half a million dollars to a mysterious buyer in Rome—unless they know of and are planning to exploit his mental powers. However, their intentionality must be taken as read, since it's yet another plot line left ultimately unexplored except for its face value. And Sammi himself, though he's been on his own from a very young age and only under Donovan's thumb for the last three years of his life, is written more like a sheltered child than a street-wise, grown-up-too-soon man. <br /><br />A lot is left unexplored and in really strange ways that shatter my suspension of disbelief. I can more-or-less swallow the set up of Sammi meeting and picking up Mitchell in the bar, using the attraction of the soul bond and his own mental powers to overcome Mitchell's reservations. Okay, sure. But after having been 'lifeless' and numb since the death of his previous partner, the fact that Mitchell finds himself in love, that he takes Sammi in without question, that he's willing to support Sammi financially and emotionally after one night and almost zero conversation…it stretches belief that Mitchell wouldn't have some concerns about himself, about Sammi and about the relationship, especially given what a straight arrow he seems to be. <br /><br />It further stretches credibility beyond the breaking point when, after Donovan's muscle has broken into Mitchell's apartment to retrieve Sammi, prompting Sammi and Mitchell to go on the lam, that not only does Mitchell continue to have <i>no questions</i> about what the hell is going on, Mitchell's friend Brian has no concerns, either, when Sammi & Mitchell show up on his doorstep. I don't know about you, but if my BFF shows up one night out of the blue and tells me how he and his new boyfriend of two days, the hustler—who is <i>living with him</i>s—need a place to stay, because the hustler's crazy ex has forced them out of the apartment…I'm going to have some concerns. I'm going to need to take my friend aside at some point and make sure they haven't lost their mind and that the hustler isn't taking advantage of them. My loyalty is going to be with my <i>friend</i> and while I might be willing to give the two of them a place to stay and my support, my loyalty is not going to automatically spread to double-wide coverage. That shit has to be earned, thank you. <br /><br />And why did no one call the police? Why in gods' name did no one even <i>think</i> to call the police? I can kind of hand-wave it for Sammi, who has probably been pathologically avoiding the police (and any agent of authority) his entire life, but why on earth didn't Mitchell or Brian, both 'normal', law-abiding citizens not call the police? I could have accepted even a specious, hand-wavy reason, but the fact that no one even thought of it at all, even to dismiss the possibility, is beyond the pale. It feels even less likely when Donovan's goon makes a ruckus at Mitchell's job and none of the cube dwellers there call the police, either. <br /><br />The unreality continues this way, culminating when Sammi and Mitchell are captured by Donovan's goon and taken back to Donovan's penthouse. You know, the place he actually lives? The <i>entirely identifiable</i> address where he lives? Yeah. <br /><br />So the goon takes Sammi and Mitchell to the penthouse and <i>this</i> is where Lorenz decided to call into question all the aspects of Sammi & Mitchell's relationship into question that should have been on Mitchell's mind from the start.<br /><br />Sidebar: And really, I'm loathe to even call what Sammi & Mitchell have a relationship. Lorenz makes the same cheap mistake that a lot of authors make when writing soul bonds: she tries to substitute the mere existence of the soul bond as a substitute for chemistry, conversation or time spent doing any thing other than fucking. And, truthfully, it never works. It's always cheap and facile and fake as…well, as fucking a street hustler and trying to pretend it's love. /sidebar<br /><br />So, in the course of this confab with Donovan, Mitchell gets knocked around a little, resulting in an out-of-nowhere moment where Sammi shares Mitchell's pain—and his broken nose. Consistent with the illogic of Sammi knowing that he and Mitchell are soul bonded, this moment of shared pain leads Domick to <i>instantly deduce</i> that Mitchell and Sammi are soul bonded and he has his goon hustle Mitchell out of there…only to drive him safely home. <br /><br />There's so much wrong here that I don't even know how to start unpacking it all. But let's start like this: as with Sammi, there's no textual reference or reason given for Donovan to even know what a soul bond <i>is</i>, let alone that it's the first (correct) conclusion he'd draw from the events at hand. It makes no sense that his first thought would be "soul bonds" and have that be the case. Hell, most people you meet on the street probably wouldn't know what a soul bond is, if you asked them. It's not a commonplace part of modern culture. So there's that. <br /><br />Then, too, there's the <i>utter stupidity</i> that Donovan would bring Mitchell to his personal home, make him aware of the nature of his business, openly expose himself to kidnapping (at the least) charges (of Mitchell, if not Sammi)…and then not only let Mitchell go, but have his man just drive Mitchell home and drop him off. While Sammi might have a harder time selling a case to the DA because of his background and lack of credentials, Mitchell is a fairly upstanding member of the law-abiding, aboveboard community. He'd make a damn fine credible witness. So unless Donovan was planning to pull up stakes and completely vacate, it's shooting himself in the foot to: a) let Mitchell see him, let alone in the commission of a crime, b) let Mitchell know where he lives, so he can lead the police straight to his door (if it ever occurred to Mitchell to call the police for anything, which I have my doubts about) and c) let Mitchell go. <br /><br />Of course, Donovan isn't the only stupid one. Mitchell gets back to his apartment (after figuring out in the elevator on the way down that he and Sammi are soul bonded; again, an assumption there is ZERO BASIS FOR) and, instead of calling the police, as any sensible person would, especially one who is supposedly so deeply in love with the person who is now <i>being held captive</i>, Mitchell calls his BFF Brian. And then he takes a nap. <br /><br />*headdesk, headdesk, headdesk*<br /><br />The denouement is just as ludicrous as the rest. Brian, at least, cops a clue and calls the police. Not unreasonably, the police have been sniffing around Donovan's trail for some time; this is just the excuse they need to get a solid arrest. And hey, while they're out, why don't Brian and Mitchell come along on the raid?? You know, just for kicks? <br /><br />Then, though the entire book is called Soul Bonds and has a general premise of soul bonding, the only time Lorenz actually makes use of the soul bond is for Mitchell to soothe the claustrophobic Sammi (who is locked in a closet as a means of keeping him docile) as they make their way up to the penthouse. Donovan and his goon are easily arrested and, with Sammi's testimony, they'll be put away for a long time, allowing Sammi and Mitchell to get back to their soul bonded man-loving (with some random, equally out of nowhere BDSM—with bonus ball waxing!) <br /><br />And now I can finally, thankfully move on to another book.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-31582615981975457642010-03-13T17:00:00.000-08:002010-03-13T17:02:20.666-08:00The Mask He Wears by Fae Sutherland and Marguerite Labbe. Another book where there was so much I disliked about it, I barely know where to start. <br /><br />So let's start with the premise: Ian is the secretary to lawyer Stephen. Ian has a crush on Stephen, Stephen has a crush on Ian. There are two basic problems that I have with this:<br /><br />First of all, we're told that Ian is head over heels in love with Stephen and vice versa, but we never really get to see what it <i>is</i> about Stephen or Ian that's so worth turning their personal and professional lives upside-down for. It's all tell, no show and it's much harder for me, as a reader to be invested in a relationship that I never get to see.<br /><br />Secondly, there's a huge power disparity between lawyer Stephen and Ian the secretary that never gets addressed. And it's not just that Stephen is a lawyer and Ian is the admin (I'm sorry, secretary belongs back in the 50's, yo), Stephen is also Ian's <i>boss</i>. While I'm willing to let the author take me on a trip to either explore the unequal power dynamics or create a way to make the relationship work despite the wild inequality of power, the power disparity has to be acknowledged. I need to know that the author knows it's there, the elephant in the room. <br /><br />(Spoilery beneath the cut)<br /><a name='more'></a>The fact that Stephen felt that a work event was the right place to make his move on Ian is, in and of itself, a demonstration of his power. Power that he has and Ian doesn't. The consequences of someone as important as Stephen making a pass at an admin are (generally) far less and (potentially) far less career-endangering than the consequences of Ian rebuffing those same advances from his boss. And though Ian holds supreme confidence that Stephen would simply go back to business as usual if Ian were to reject him, it comes across more as naïveté than "Stephen is just that awesome". <br /><br />Truth be told, the actions and thoughts of both men come across as incredibly naïve, throughout the book. TMHW is another example of hyper-romanticism, where communication between the parties is open, free and without reservation from the opening scenes, where both parties are confident in the other's interest and that the interest and commitment level is mutual and equal. <i>Without having ever discussed it, even once.</i><br /><br />Though they don't seem to have any relationship outside the workplace, both Ian and Stephen are confident that they are in love with each other and that their love is life-long and committed. By the time they've had their first kiss, they're talking love-of-my-life permanency and Ian, at least, is horrified and outraged by the suggestion that they date and get to know each other better before taking their (potential, not-yet-existing) relationship to the next level. Only pages later, Stephen is ready to throw away his marriage (of convenience) and his career at the law firm for Ian…with whom he's never even had a single date.<br /><br />Now personally—and as someone who has had a gentleman or two, in her time, confess that he's her soulmate within a <i>very</i> short period of time (and yet, still after some dating!)—I find that all creepy and weird, not romantic. I know that's probably blasphemy, given that it's such a staple trope of the romance genre, but there it is: creepy and weird. Unless we're talking soul-bonds, but this is not that kind of story. I'm not saying you have to sample the milk before you buy the cow, but my goodness, at least go and look at it. Don't buy it sight unseen off of craigslist, to stretch a metaphor to breaking.<br /><br />Pulling back to the nuts and bolts, for a 45 page story, it reads fairly slowly, bogged down in pages and pages of exposition and rumination with very little dialogue or action. More, a lot of the exposition is repetitive, stating the same information in slightly different ways within sentences of each other. <br /><br />Though the middle of the story was moderately stable, the beginning and end of the book have POV changes within the same scene and without any real transition, creating irritation and confusion. There's also a lack of consistency in POV; I'd say a good 80-90% of the story was from Stephen's POV, leaving only about 10-20% for Ian to get his say in. Though I don't think a story has to be 50/50 equal, I do feel that if you're going to split the POV between your two protagonists, there should be a better representation and a better reason to have the other person's POV than to just fill in the cracks. <br /><br />I also felt that, at least in the beginning, the authors didn't have a good grasp of Stephen, in particular, writing his personality with explicit inconsistencies that took me out of the story. <br /><br />If you tell me that your MC is in a marriage of convenience, because it fits with his career and then tell me that he doesn't care what people think and never has, if you tell me he was isolated in high school and only becoming BFF with his future beard-wife gave him the security to 'put himself out there', but you tell me that he doesn't care what people think and never has, if the whole freaking premise of your story is the masks that people wear and you tell me that your MC doesn't care what people think and never has, I call bullshit. Similarly, if you have your other MC just about having the vapors in outrage at the thought of being someone's piece on the side, I don't buy it if—before anything's been said or done but a declaration of love—the first thing he does is show up at his wanna-be lover's office, strips off his clothes and demands some sexing on the desk. Just…think it through, okay? No, people are not one hundred percent consistent; in fact, they are often downright contradictory, but come on. There's a difference between in-character, psychologically grounded inconsistency and plain ol' sloppy writing. <br /><br />Overall, it all felt like sloppy writing.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-65023629095672703432010-03-12T21:20:00.000-08:002010-03-12T21:21:43.418-08:00Live For Today by Carol LynneThere are two things that I just don't like in my fiction: lots of crying (by men or women) and the unironic use of the word "lover". Live for Today has lots of both.<br /><br />Unfortunately, I feel like that's only where the books problems start. (Mildly spoilery below the cut)<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>But first, a disclaimer: Live for Today is actually part of a series. It is, in fact, the final 'book' in the series. From what I've gleaned, the protagonists, Luc and Justin are only the main couple in the very first book, but it seemed like they were in the background of many or all of the rest. However, I didn't read any of the previous books in the series and so all my reactions to it are based on it as a standalone story. Reading the previous installments may have changed some of my perceptions about the book, but they wouldn't have changed them all. <br /><br />First is the most obvious: I think Lynne could have given a better nod to potential new readers. Though it wasn't terribly hard to piece together the relationship between Justin and Luc, the other relationships between peripheral characters was left a lot more opaque, giving the feeling of being invited to a party where everyone already knows each other and you don't know anyone. <br /><br />As I said above, this is the last book of a series of 12 books, so I both understand why this is so and I understood what I was getting in to, coming to the series so late (though I thought they were less interconnected than they apparently are), but it would've been nice if Lynne could have given a new reader a greater in.<br /><br />2. The problem with stories where the couple starts out in (romantic) trouble, is that you run the risk of losing your audience before you ever get to the make-up sex. Couples in trouble are usually couples at their worst, bitter, defensive, hurting each other for the sake of hurting each other… If this is the state from which you introduce your protagonists, if this is your reader's first impression of the putative heroes, there's a high risk of your reader coming to dislike your characters for being assholes and jerks before you get a chance to show their good side and the chemistry that brought them together in the first place. <br /><br />Which was definitely the case here. Having no previous history with Justin or Luc, no view of them when their relationship worked, I found them both intensely unlikeable and felt no real investment in whether their relationship would founder or resolve. <br /><br />Worse, I didn't think either character got any better or more likeable as the story went on. Though Justin had the 'excuse' of his medical condition, he still read very unsympathetically, alternating between screaming high drama and tearful high drama in a way that felt vaguely abusive. On the other hand, Luc (O, saintlike Luc) seemed clearly Lynne's favorite, putting stoically up with Justin's every tantrum and put-off, grateful only to have whatever scraps of attention Justin was willing to bestow on him. But I have no fondness for martyrs and I had no fondness for Luc. More than anything, I saw him as Justin's enabler, a feeling borne out by the fact that it took another character stepping in to make Justin get his head on straight. <br /><br />3. Going back to a bigger picture, I feel like the scope of the story was way too big for the time and space Lynne devoted to it. 80-some pages just isn't long enough to do justice to a relationship in crisis, the long road to recovery created by Justin's medical crisis and creating a fitting end to the series. As a result, Lynne does a lot more telling than showing (which is generally less convincing), a lot of skimming over both physical time and Justin & Luc's emotions, and a lot of reliance on cliché storytelling to crutch the story along. Trying to compact such a big story into such a short form does story and reader a disservice and it showed. More than that, for a book whose title and blurb talked about "living for today" and Justin's recovery, I felt like not enough time was given over to that motif and plotline, glossed over shallowly in favor of...nothing in particular.<br /><br /><br />4. I'm just not a fan of Lynne's writing style. That's purely personal—and subjective—but there it is. Lynne writes men who cry in pretty much every scene. No, seriously. She's continually having Luc and Justin refer to each other as 'his lover', 'his partner', 'his man', 'the man that he loves' and I find it clumsy and off-putting. Just use names, ffs! More ephemerally, I feel like there's a lack of adultness in the portrayal of Justin and Luc. Everything between them is such high drama, all screaming or tears, life or death, flouncing away from each other in a high dudgeon, or begging tearily for forgiveness. Did I mention the crying? All the crying? Yeah. And then lastly, Lynne is one of those writers who peppers her sex scenes with verbs like "sawed" and "stabbed" and "howled", which I find extremely unsexy, so I didn't even have the smut to fall back on. <br /><br />I do wonder how much of my opinion would change if I'd read the entire series, or at least the first book that detailed Luc and Justin's initial romance, but the quirks that turned me off Lynne's writing seem unlikely to improve by going back to earlier books. And given how much I didn't enjoy reading this, I'm just not willing to give it a try.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-65735385133268192092010-03-11T18:59:00.000-08:002010-03-11T19:00:10.622-08:00Maritime Men by Janey ChapelSo on the one hand, Janey Chapel is someone I know, someone I've met, someone I admire. On the other hand, the reason I know her, have met her and admire her is, initially, at least, because of her writing.<br /><br />So reading Maritime Men was just as much a pleasure as I thought it was going to be. <br /><br />From a writing standpoint, Chapel hits all the right notes: her characters have distinct voices and personality and the tight, terse language of her prose follows and enhances that of her characters and the world in which they live. (I feel like I have <i>so much more to say about this</i>, but it's tangential to the actual review) The dialogue reads naturally, sounds real. <br /><br />As a reader, the chemistry between Eli and Cooper is vivid and hot, but I never feel like it's being spoon-fed to me, it's just <i>there</i>, for me to pick up and feel much more viscerally than if Chapel <i>told</i> me how Meant For Each Other these guys are. In part, this works because she created an existing (platonic) relationship for the two before changing the playing ground between them…but it wouldn't work nearly so well if Chapel wasn't so talented at writing the characters in a way that shows their existing rapport.<br /><br />Very personally, I like men who act and talk like men (though what that means isn't inelastic)—especially when they're military men—which is what Chapel writes. Their communication is present, without being voluble and overwrought. There's not a lot of brow-clutching or hand-wringing. Cooper (the POV character) doesn't spend a lot of time worrying or speculating about what it all means, where it's all going, whether this is all True Love. By his own words, Cooper's a simple guy with simple wants and that comes across. Though this approach doesn't work for all stories, I felt like it did work here, fitting with the character and the situation (and the scope of the story). <br /><br />And, though at 48 pages on my Nook, there's not a lot of room for deep plot, the relationship between Eli and Coop fills up the space and time beautifully. I'm glad I already have Anchors Aweigh ready to go on my Nook.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-28743846372456314962010-03-11T07:33:00.000-08:002010-03-11T07:34:51.770-08:00Calendar Boys: March - Kiss Me by Jamie CraigThere's an art to short story writing. I think it's much harder than writing a novel, because a short story has such a limited space to introduce the characters and the conflict and then create a satisfying resolution. It requires a specific economy of vision and language that's hard to carry off.<br /><br />Kiss Me does not carry it off. <br /><br /><a name='more'></a>First—and most importantly—there's no conflict. There could've been conflict. There was a set-up made for conflict—a relatively insecure photographer dating a porn star who wants a real relationship—but Craig didn't follow up on her set-up, instead penning the couple's fairly uneventful dates, where their biggest 'problem' is the unlikeable Mal's case of blue-balls when Alejandro won't put out until <i>the third date!</i><br /><br />Mal's insecurity about Alejandro and Alejandro's career comes briefly into play a few pages from the end—too late to create any tension or do much good—but is resolved quickly by Alejandro's heartfelt reassurances.<br /><br />Which leads into my next problem: lack of realism. Okay, the entire set-up of the gorgeous photographer and the equally gorgeous porn star isn't one that reeks of realism. But. Within the boundaries of your set up, you still need to create an acceptable level of realism for your reader to swallow the tale you want to tell. A mistake that Craig makes—and one that is all too common in the genre, imo, is the lack of realism inherent in the concept of immediate trust/total communication.<br /><br />Mal and Alejandro are immediately open to each other, pretty much on first contact. They look at each other and <i>know</i> how the other is feeling, <i>know</i> that the other is just as into him as he is to them. They verbally pour out their feelings to each other and confess how no one has ever made them feel like this before…<i>pretty much on first meeting.</i><br /><br />…and my willing suspension of disbelief comes to a crashing halt. <br /><br />Real relationships are more tangled than that, more uncertain. By the time we are adults, our scars have taught us to censor what we say and to withhold total trust until said trust is <i>earned</i>. We might think we've glimpsed our soulmate across a crowded room, but we don't <i>say</i> so on first meeting…unless we want the object of our desire to think we're psycho. And if we're on the receiving end of such a declaration after first meeting…we're likely to think something is functionally wrong with the other person, up to and including psychosis. <br /><br />More than that, from a writing standpoint, it's easy, lazy writing. Communication is a negotiation, it's a slow process of learning a similar but foreign language as we study the vagaries of how our partner does—or doesn't—communicate. Miscommunication is inevitable (and a good source of conflict/tension) and so when the two main characters are openly, unguardedly communicating and in total sync with each other, especially on short acquaintance, it throws me out of the story. Because relationships just ain't that easy. <br /><br />Another problem I had was with characterization. Alejandro and Mal read too much alike. Though I read the story in epub format, the natural formatting of the story itself meant that there were times I wasn't sure who was talking, their voices too similar to tell them apart. (it probably didn't help that I started disinterestedly skimming about halfway through, but it was a problem before then) Other than their physical appearance, there wasn't a lot to distinguish them otherwise, either, and I felt through much of the story that Craig herself couldn't make up her mind how to characterize them—Mal, in particular.<br /><br />Initially, Mal is presented to us as relatively shy and uncertain, amazed that someone as gorgeous as Alejandro would be interested in him. Later, he comes off as toppy and aggressive, driving the relationship and always pushing Alejandro for more. Then, toward the end, his uncertainty surfaces again, just in time for Alejandro to soothe it away. Too, even the presentation of his job as a photographer seems inconsistent and indecisive—first he's struggling and just starting out, then he's actually on the cusp of success and expanding his business into other states…it feels all over the place and ill thought-out. <br /><br />The greatest disappointment for me is that the story did have a lot of potentiality. I liked the dynamics that put the big, buff porn star as the physical bottom of the relationship and I would've been interested in how that played with a toppy Mal if he hadn't also come off as kind of a jerk (the tantrum in the parking lot when Alejandro didn't put out on the second date REALLY turned med off). Alejandro as a successful, moderately famous porn star and Mal as a just-starting-out, 'average' guy had a lot of potential to it, from the issues of infidelity (or perceived infidelity), an income disparity, experience disparity, etc. The set up was rife with conflict threads Craig could have picked up and it was a disappointment that she didn't choose to go with any of them.<br /><br />Overall, I was just disappointed, period.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-58180454579878695902010-03-07T05:12:00.000-08:002010-03-07T05:13:52.756-08:00Channeling Morpheus for Scary Mary by Jordan Castillo PriceIn recent years, I have not really been a vampire fan. It's a truth that's hard to spot, given that I continue to read the Anita Blake and the Southern Vampire books and True Blood is still appointment watching for me, but it's true, even so. A good story will always suck me in, but a vamp story will seldom get a second look from me to even find out if it's good. <br /><br />Which is why it was both a surprise and delight that I enjoyed reading Jordan Castillo Price's <u>Channeling Morpheus for Scary Mary</u> so much. Though I generally try to approach all books with an open mind and heart, I'll confess that I came to this one really expecting to dislike it. I haven't had the best of look finding m/m books that I enjoy, lately, and between the vamp thing and everything else, I was feeling pretty cynical about the whole thing. So JCP had a lot of prejudice on my part to overcome and the fact that I did enjoy the book as much as I did is a testament to how hard JCP worked to involve and enmesh me in the world she'd created. Successfully. <br /><br />I think I might have felt somewhat less satisfied, as a reader, if I hadn't come into the book knowing that it was an omnibus of five novellas that had been published separated; read as a single whole, there was some transitional choppiness from one novella to the next and that could've been confusing and/or irritating if I hadn't come in with that previous knowledge. <br /><br />I also thought that Wild Bill felt like a pretty blatant Spike (BtVS) rip-off, look to feel. But neither of those really minor mental stumbles was enough to overshadow the story that Price was telling or my interest in it. <br /><br />I liked Michael; he was the right balance of bravado and vulnerable for his age and character; his stubbornness and determination, even when scared and in over his head (which he frequently was) won me over. He didn't spend a lot of time hand-wringing and brow-clutching; he was always very action-oriented, practical and yet, not afraid to cop to his feelings or to let himself be protected or feel protected when necessary. I liked Bill, who was not an all-seeing, all-knowing slick Euro-vamp, but instead a being trapped physiologically—and arguably mentally—at an age not much older than Michael and just as scared and uncertain beneath a similar veneer of jaded bravado. <br /><br />Though each novella was, perhaps, fairly predictable, I never had a strong sense of where the greater story arc was going and I love that uncertainty. I don't <i>want</i> to be certain of where the story is going and, though I felt reasonably sure that Michael and Bill would end up happy in the for-now sense of an HEA, I was entirely interested in how that would happen and how that happiness would be engineered. <br /><br />On the other hand, I do wish Price had taken the time to perhaps flesh out each story a little more. The character of Mary is, in theory, so integral to Michael; his best (and seemingly, only) friend, the one from whose death all Michael's subsequent actions spring. She felt like a gun on the table that was underused. Not that I would've wanted Mary to show up as a vamp later; I think that would've been trite and overdone. But I think I would've liked to have seen more of who Michael <i>was</i>, and that would've required Mary. <br /><br />Which leads into my next thought; though I loved the book and I loved Michael and Bill, I felt like JCP's vision was a little myopic when it came to anyone outside of them. Other people were only characterized thinly, shallowly, and Price's prose—which was otherwise blunt and interesting—seemed to fall down and become more confused when she was juggling more than two characters. More than once, I felt confused as to what was physically happening and though I could piece it together, it stood out from the rest of the time, when she painted the picture of Michael and Bill so vividly.<br /><br />I think most of all, I really loved Price's voice for the book and her style in general. It was blunt and unsentimental while still being emotional. It read perfectly for the characters and for the overall tenor of the book. There was a palpable sense of both Bill and Michael's isolation and their fringe existence—separately and together—set apart from the bright teem of 'normal' society. There was an equally vivid sense of how both Bill and Michael were looking for connection while simultaneously—especially in Bill's case—being afraid of it. Those emotions are not things a reader—or, more fairly, <i>I, as a reader</i>, want to be told. They're things that need to come through relatively sub-textually, through voice and setting and action and I felt like Price nailed it. <br /><br />More, I felt a real and present sense of regret when I reached the end of the book, wanting to read more, know more, see more. There's nothing better or more satisfying that an author can do for me.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-3806740334385098522010-02-26T18:33:00.000-08:002010-02-26T18:35:55.843-08:00And Call Me In The Morning by Willa OkatiFor me, the worst thing about Willa Okati's <u>And Call Me In the Morning</u> is that it's not a bad book. It just wasn't a book I really found good, either. The book suffers from the same problem I have with a lot of books in the romance genre, which is extreme predictability.<br /><br />(spoilers beneath the cut)<br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br />Not just that our intrepid star-crossed lovers will get their HEA (though I never really had a doubt about that) but even down to the finite, small details like the big anaphylactic shock crisis of Zane and the strawberries. Not only were all these elements introduced in the first third of the book (hello, Chekhov, my friend, we meet again!) but they were signaled, like a flag-man guiding down a jumbo jet. I felt like Okati was shouting, "LOOK HERE, LOOK HERE!" and the most surprising thing about the book, I think, was that Eli <i>didn't</i> take the job at Duke. <br /><br />At the end of the day, what I like most, what's my greatest narrative kink is the way(s) in which a writer defies my expectations. At no point did I feel like I got that, here. <br /><br />More than this, the predictability of the book was further weighed down by the lack of any significant conflict throughout the story. If you're going to do the two (ostensibly) straight boys fall for each other trope… <br /><br />Look, this can go two basic ways that I can see; either there was a latent queerness in them that they realized/decided early on was societally and personally unacceptable and they buried it years ago, only to be brought out by this particular person at this particular time or, after decades of fairly contented heterosexuality, this burning beacon of awesomeness comes along to make you redefine your sexual identity to a different place on the bell curve than you thought. In either case, there's a journey there. <br /><br />A journey that doesn't really happen in ACMitM, something I find more than a little unbelievable in a story about two men who are 40+years old. Zane is accepting of redefining their relationship from the start, without a visible qualm or second thought anywhere along the way. Zane's panic attack at the end is really more about self-esteem and his fear of being happy than his sudden sidestep into queerness. <br /><br />Eli, who is, after all, the POV character through all the book's events, seems to have the requisite shaky nerves, but rather than taking us on an internal journey through Eli's qualms and fears and the breakdown of his masculinity as constructed, Okati instead forces Eli's positional shifts based entirely on external (and clichéd) events, like the need to stand up for Zane and himself to their bigoted coworkers or the aforementioned anaphylactic shock scare. Moreover, the need for Eli to 'get over it' feels like it's couched more in Eli's ability to hold hands with (or kiss) Zane in public than to go through a restructure of the person as whom he's always defined himself. <br /><br />It feels even more damning in the lack of any real, dimensional secondary characters to help pull the slack. The only two women of the piece, Diana and [name] are pretty much there to be the yentas for Zane and Eli. I can't think of a single moment in the story that they were part of that didn't somehow involve them enabling the relationship between Zane and Eli and I, at least, found their characters painted in too broad strokes to even be particularly interesting. <br /><br />Taye and Richie largely seem to exist to be "the good gays"; Taye is Eli's mentor into the world of gayness and, other than almost killing Zane and bringing about the big "climax" of the story by doing so, Richie largely exists to be Taye's partner and show Eli that gays can, too, have loving relationships. I like them better than the women, if only for their willingness to be That Gay Guy and mentor Eli through his Gay Panic, but there's no more real substance to them than there is to Diana and . <br /><br />Because the secondary characters feel so entirely functional—existing only to serve a particular plot function—the lack of internal journeys for Eli and Zane feels that much less convincing and that much less (again, for me) interesting. I just didn't care about this story, these guys, their friends. There was nothing there that engaged me on an emotional level and, though Okati's prose is perfectly workmanlike, it tells a great deal more than it shows, which is much less convincing.<br /><br />Going back to the climax, the trouble there is the same trouble I have with a number of TV shows which is this: attempting to create dramatic tension by threatening to kill off one of the main character only works if the reader/watcher has reason to believe you'll follow through with the threat. JJ Abrams goes out of his way to <i>not</i> kill his characters, even when to not do so creates narrative absurdity and a break in the willing suspension of disbelief. Joss Whedon (and Eric Kripke, for that matter) are held in such terror by fandom because we all know, all too well, that they are more than willing to pull the trigger and will do so with <i>glee</i>. <br /><br />Within the romance genre, the likelihood that the author will actually kill half of the couple they've spent these hundreds of pages to build is unlikely, in the extreme. And for quite reasonable reasons: people generally read romance to get their HEA. The stories where the protagonists die usually get classed in a different genre. <br /><br />So while Zane nearly dying from the consumption of strawberries in his shake was supposed to be the huge, pivotal scene of the story, I found it's dramatic effect nearly nonexistent because of a) the long, telegraphing wind-up to get to that part and b) the fact that Zane dying would ruin the romance and there was still another 40 pages to go. Quite frankly, I had no expectation that Okati would pull the trigger, and thus it makes the entire wait to see if Zane will live or die rather flat. <br /><br />While flawed, it is abundantly obvious to me that at least some of my issues with ACMitM are subjective and taste oriented, rather than an actual fault of the writing or construction process. And, at the end of the day, I feel as though it's an excellent example of a story that is written well enough but that still falls completely short, simply for not hitting the reader's preferred narrative kinks.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-56719461354484691612010-02-07T13:26:00.000-08:002010-02-07T13:30:28.360-08:00Meeting a Neighbor's Needs by Qwillia RainOkay, so I just finished Meeting a Neighbor's Needs, by Qwillia Rain and honestly, I just feel lied to and absolutely furious about this book. Completely enraged. What started out as a fairly lighthearted (if questionable) sexy romp between neighbors turned into horrifying, graphic rape masquerading as romance. <br /><br />The entire book is largely plotless smut...which isn't, in and of itself a problem, if that's what you're in the mood for. But what the warnings describe as a BDSM relationship bears no resemblance to a safe, sane, consensual BDSM relationship and the lack of consent or even the recognition of the protagonist as a <i>person</i>, with the right to refuse turns my stomach. <br /><br />Heavy spoilers. Talks about consent issues, and rape; may be triggery to some.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>To be fair, the book starts out a little questionably: George, the male protag, breaks into Gina's apartment while she's having sex with her on-his-way-out boyfriend. George takes over and gives Gina what she hasn't been getting from Boyfriend Bob. It's a little sketchy, but I can handwave that because the story is clearly more a sexual fantasy, a'la Letters to Penthouse (or maybe 9 1/2 Weeks) than anything more serious. <br /><br />The problem is that the book keeps getting more and more questionable from its already sketchy start. While in a bookstore, George gets Gina riled up and then sends her into the bathroom and tells her to take her panties off, with the presumption that they're going to have a rendezvous in there. Instead, George sends in a stranger, who penetrates Gina before she's even aware that it's not George in the stall with her. Gina's later acquiescence and excitement is supposed to make everything all right, but now I'm squirming and for all the wrong reasons. <br /><br />George's next plan of attack is to ambush Gina <i>in her own apartment</i>. As she arrives home from work, he blindfolds her, ties her up (they'd never tried bondage before, either, at this point), and plies her with <s>roofie</s> aphrodisiac dosed wine. George has also invited his friend Mike to come and play, again, without talking it through or getting consent from Gina. For me, there's a kind of visceral horror at the idea of even a man I trust invading <i>my</i> physical space (apartment) without permission, let alone inviting his buddy into it. The fact that he's invited his buddy over to <i>share</i> Gina without the two of them talking about it first takes that visceral horror and turns it into rage. <br /><br />George and Mike continue to drug Gina and use her in every orifice for an unknown number of hours and over her explicit, verbal protests: <i>"Though I think I voiced some protests over my treatment, both men turned a deaf ear. My body was their plaything. My control over it was severed."</i><br /><br />After Mike leaves, George drugs Gina again and continues his assault (and despite the fact that Gina derives pleasure from these experiences, I can't think of another word to use here) and then allows her to pass out. <br /><br />When she awakes, there are even more strange men in her apartment (another 5, not including George). Gina again explicitly and verbally protests. George puts on the pressure, promising it'll just be the one time. He then goes on to tell her that the men have already been viewing and fondling her <i>while she was unconscious: "They've already seen you, Gina. Touched and tasted you while you were resting."</i><br /><br />And the gang-bang begins. And goes on for pages. At the beginning of this entire rape interlude, we're told this assault goes on for thirty-six hours; it feels like every moment of it is lovingly described—including the many, many times that Gina says no and is completely ignored by the men using her for their pleasure. <br /><br />And…here's my thing. I get that this is essentially a woman's rape fantasy, packaged up for sale. I don't have issues with rape fantasy at all. To be perfectly honest, I have plenty of my own rape fantasies, as long as it meets two basic criteria: don't present it to me as rape=love & romance and warn me ahead of time that there are consent issues present in the text. <br /><br />Further, I don't have problems with bondage or domination or submission. If you've read my fic, you know those are themes I <i>frequently</i> explore and play with, both in formal BDSM relationship and in less formal ones. But I have criteria there, too: consent is made clear and explicit and the sub's boundaries are respected. The sub should <i>know</i> that s/he is in a BDSM relationship and not just have it <i>sprung</i> on hir. The sub should <i>consent</i> to having a BDSM relationship and not just have it assumed by the dom that whatever he does is a-okay. And the dom should respect the sub's boundaries and the boundaries should be set and accepted before any of this bullshit happened. <br /><br />Being an abusive asshole is not the same thing as being a dom and it's definitely not being a good dom. I could have had zero problems with this book if the basic criteria of consent were met. But they weren't. And that's the difference between BDSM play and rape and abuse. BDSM play=sexy fun times. Rape and abuse=PT wants this dude's pecker cut off with a rusty axe. It takes a lot to trigger me. That's not a boast, it's a statement of fact. Rape fantasies do not, per se, trigger back to my own experiences. This triggered me. And angered me. And sickened me. <br /><br />This was not what I signed up for. And it definitely didn't meet my needs.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-32707058170798839642010-02-07T13:20:00.000-08:002010-02-07T13:37:51.135-08:00Zero at the Bone by Jane Seville[This is a reprint of a previously posted review; it is posted here for posterity]<br /><br />Zero At The Bone is (for me) a difficult book to talk about or characterize, because on the one hand, I was very involved in the story, I was engaged by the relationship and so, in very broad strokes, I would say I enjoyed it.<br /><br />At the same time, there were so many small, niggling quibbles I had with the story that I found myself simultaneously frequently irritated by it, rolling my eyes at it and generally making my husband miserable as I talked back to the book. (Someday I hope he'll get used to this, but I'm not holding my breath.)<br /><br />In trying to quantify my irritation with the book, my first thought about it is that it's a slash story, rather than a LGBT thriller/romance, which are two very different beasts, imo. And now, having said that, I'm going to dance away from that point and talk about some other specifics that will, hopefully, lead back into establishing what I mean by that.<br /><br />(Detailed spoilers after the cut)<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>First of all, I didn't like Jack. It took nearly the whole book for me to realize that, but I honestly didn't like Jack and I never felt for his man-pain as much as I think I was supposed to. And that's a little surprising to me, because Jack is usually the character I <i>would</i> empathize/identify with most strongly, with his strong morality about doing the right thing at the cost of his own life (either literally or figuratively, through the need for him to go into Witsec). I would also usually empathize strongly about the sense of loss he undergoes through the course of the story, losing his home, job, family, friends and even his identity, in the interest of doing the right thing. Normally, this would be the kind of character I would eat up with a spoon. So why didn't I?<br /><br />1. I don't think Jack's sense of loss is really present in the story. There is, of course, the loss of identity in that he's no longer Dr. Jack Francisco, and there's the loss of his job, for which he's spent a lifetime preparing. And while I'm not trying to undercut those losses, which are great…other than that, Jack didn't seem to have much to lose. Though we know he's lost the ability to have contact with family and friends, we have no connection to anyone specific, no one that Jack is missing in particular, just a faceless mass of people. Late in the book, Jack explicitly admits that his life was largely void of connection: he'd lost all his friends, he had no lovers and there's still no mention of family at all. But more than that, there's no real sense of <i>history</i> to Jack. Up until the point where the attraction between Jack and D becomes explicit, there's no indication that <i>either</i> of these men has ever been attracted to another man before and the text references an ex-wife for both of them. That's not to say that I need either of them to be more explicitly—or flamingly—gay, but I think the book would've been stronger if there'd been <i>some</i> indication that Jack had a life before D. The absence of a history—or even the sense of a history—for him left him feeling like a much less rounded (less <i>real</i>) character and made the story feel like the "I'm not gay, I'm just gay for YOU" trope, which is not a favorite. To be fair, I think Seville made some effort at the end to say/show that both Jack and D <i>weren't</i> just queer for each other, but it was so late in the game, at that point. I wish she'd taken care to establish that sooner and I wish that she's given Jack more a sense of history. Especially since D has such a filled in history.<br /><br />2. To me, Jack comes off as tremendously privileged. This is something I have less a concrete basis for than a basic, irrational, gut feeling. But. Going back to my previous point, the main thing that Jack loses is his job. Which is devastating, especially given the years of schooling he's gone through to get it, don't get me wrong, but the fact that most of his brow-clutching revolves around a job rather than people is less sympathetic—to me!—than if the opposite were true. I also feel that Jack's <i>constant</i> demands for information from D is incredibly privileged—especially when so many of those demands are for personal/emotional information from D that Jack is not entitled to on their very short acquaintance. In one sense, it fits very well with the image of a privileged and well-respected doctor, used to having his own way and his demands met, but again, it made him less sympathetic a character to me and was actively irritating at times. <br /><br />3. The crying. I mean this literally and metaphorically; the literal amount of time that Jack spent welling up in tears, either because of the beauty of what was going on or the epic unfairness of what was going on was a huge turn-off. I'm not quite of the school that men can only honorably cry if they're watching <i>Brian's Song</i>, but I also don't like characters (male or female, for that matter) who are tearing up or bursting into tears every five minutes. Metaphorically, Jack had way too many 'feeling' moments for me. I mean…okay, I write slash. I am down with the stories about boys talking about their feelings. To a point. But there were so many times I felt like the book crossed that line, especially with two characters that have so little reason to trust each other or want to open up to each other. At one point, Jack muses on the fact that he's cast as the damsel in distress part of the scenario and while I won't stereotype gender so much as to statically characterize men or women in that way, I do feel that Jack often fills the <i>stereotypical</i>, Hollywood infused "woman" role throughout the book, even down to the openness of his body language. (and the lack of lube; more on this later)<br /><br />D, on the other hand, became my character of choice. Not because of his epic man-pain so much as the reasons I tend to gravitate toward military and hit man type characters: they're efficient, ruthlessly practical, they don't spend nearly as much time in Hamlet-esque brow-clutching about the misfortunes of fate. Secondly, because D <i>does</i> have the history that Jack is so painfully missing, it's much easier for me to <i>feel</i> for D. At the beginning of the book, he's so shut down and shut in, so self-protected from his pain and the things that he's done that he questions not only his manhood, but his humanity, for all intents and purposes, sexually non-functional. He's a Terminator, by presentation. Too, because of this, much of the book is taken up by his transformation. Though Jack is the one in danger and the catalyst for events, it's much more D's book. He is the one with the character arc, he's the one who goes through the greatest change to reach his reward by the end. <br /><br />That being said, I really couldn't stand D's dialectical speech all the way through. I've never been a huge fan of dialectical speech and I feel like a little goes a long way. It was incredibly distracting and incredibly annoying that every single sentence of dialogue that D spoke had to have the 'to', 'you' and 'can't' altered into 'ta', 'ya' and 'cain't'. I get it. He's got an accent. Fine. Now knock it off. <br /><br />One of my pet peeves of fanfic versus profic (and I'm not saying profic is free of this problem, btw) is the number of authors that take the easy way out. I've talked about this most specifically regarding the Criminal Minds fandom and a lot of my issues there are relevant to my complaints here. D is an extremely damaged individual. Extremely damaged, both by external and internal events. <br /><br />His personal tragedy—the loss of his wife and beloved daughter, and the subsequent feelings of inadequacy and impotence—was co-opted and corrupted by his military supervisors (the people who are, on some level, supposed to be protecting him) to turn him into a killing machine. Further, given his implied disconnection from his family, the lack of any mention of his parents…it can be implied that D's problems didn't start with the military. And add to that the fact that he's deeply disassociated from his own sexuality…it's a lot of damage. D is really, really fucked up. And while Seville gives a nod to that by showing everything is not hearts and flowers between D and Jack by the end (and kudos to her for that, even if the ending chapters dragged on WAY TOO LONG) a lot of D's problems do seem to miraculously clear up through the luvin' of a good man and the healing power of cock. In, like…three months (I'm not 100% clear on the timeline while they were on the run, but the implication is that this all happens over the summer, iirc). <br /><br />Too, there's not a lot of room for Jack to deal with <i>his</i> issues while on the run and he does have the aforementioned empty life, but his resolutions feel as slickly easy as D's: he gets his life, name and beloved job back <i>and</i> he gets D on top of it, the love of his life. Whereas D has a pretty big character arc with a lot of internal and external change, Jack more or less ends up in the same place he left (okay, he moves to Ohio…seriously? Ohio?) but with the addition of a hot, hunky former-hitman-gone-legit partner. The lack of any real change for Jack and the easy resolution is less than satisfying for me.<br /><br />Now some more random thoughts:<br /><br />I really dislike it when an author spends 90% of a book in a single (or even dual) POV and then, somewhere in the last third of the book or so, introduces a new POV character. I dislike it even more when that character's POV is only used once or twice and then never heard from again. It speaks of sloppy writing to me. 90% of the book is split between Jack and D, but there are random appearances by Petros and Megan as POV characters and it was just…sloppy. Find another way to get at the information or incorporate other POVs from the beginning. <br /><br />The rescue of Jack and D from Josey's (also Josie…pick a spelling, yo) evil clutches smacks a lot of dues ex machine. The style of the book is very much like an action movie and I know that kind of rescue is their stock in trade, but the convenience of Petros alerting Megan that something was up and then Megan getting through to Churchill and then the Witsec team assembling and arriving <i>just in time</i>…yeah. Bring on the chariots of the gods, man. The whole Josey/revenge/good business plot was kind of convoluted and <i>meh</i> anyway. Obviously, it was really just an excuse to get these two and on the run and fall in love…but maybe that shouldn't have been so obvious. <br /><br />Sex, affection, the lack of lube and body language. Going back to slash tropes, I found the rampant lack of lube through much of book and Jack's seemingly endless ability to come without having his dick touched a little annoying. Further, the fact that <i>neither</i> of them (paranoid hitman and highly professional doctor) had a single thought or qualm about immediately and consistently bare-backing it was a little WTF. <br /><br />Too—and a little more nitpicky—I was a little put off by how immediately and profoundly affectionate Jack became once he and D were sexually involved. IDK. That one's a little hard for me and rootbound in my own ideas about affection and masculinity, but if Jack were that affectionate, it would seem to me that he would have more interpersonal relationships and that it would similarly manifest in those relationships rather than spring Athena-like from Seville's forehead. The amount of affection Jack displays and the relative ease of it goes back to what I said about Jack coming across like a stereotypical Hollywood heroine. <br /><br />I'm also a little sketchy about how easily D's vestigial gay panic was dealt with. On the one hand, okay, yeah. Gay panic is somewhat overrated. OTOH, the subtextual clues about D seems to suggest that he comes from a very blue-collar, heteronormative, under-privileged background. He married the girl he knocked up, even though he wasn't particularly attracted to her or interested in a hetero relationship, with the implication of "because that's what you do". He went into the Army to support his ex and child, because it was the only way he saw to provide them with a decent living wage and live up to his responsibilities. He served in the DADT Army and his one previous homosexual experience ended with the guy going bugshit and trying to knife him after just a hand job. And then he completely divorces himself from any expression of sexuality at all for several years, even masturbation. So while gay panic isn't all it's cracked up to be, if there was a character that was crying out for a little gay panic, it's D. His easy acceptance of Jack's queerness and his own seems less character motivated and more like the author wanting to gloss pass all that messy psychological stuff.<br /><br />(y'all know how I like my messy psychological stuff)<br /><br />Similarly, the lack of any prejudice or even reserve among <i>all</i> the peripheral characters felt unrealistic and more like the wish-fulfillment of slash, where we are more likely to write stories about unremarkable mpreg and the existence of similarly unremarkable same-sex full-status marriages in Victorian England. Further, the idea that Megan, and Churchill, in particular, would act as Jack and D's yentas just reads completely false. I can kind of handwave Megan, because she's dedicated so much of her life to following D around and trying to fulfill her life-debt to him (and I have some issues with her damage and lack of internal life and her apparently endless ability to blow off her job to follow D around, but okay, whatever) but it's much more difficult to imagine Churchill (who is supposed to be good at his job) thinking that his star witness hooking up with an assassin is a good or smart or security conscious idea, no matter <i>how</i> much they love each other. I certainly have a nearly impossible time imagining him letting D come and hang out in Jack's hotel room, no matter how necessary that very thing was to the set up of the denouement. <br /><br />The resolution. It's very difficult for me to imagine that the Dominguez brothers' lawyer was so incompetent that he set Jack up to make such a thorough slam-dunk in the courtroom, however emotionally satisfying it was to read Jack's smack-down (and it was satisfying, don't get me wrong). It was such a huge and inexplicable misstep that I felt like it had to be the set up for some other legal wrangle further down the line…except it wasn't. <br /><br />It's difficult for me to imagine that D had the capability of seducing and setting up the six lieutenants of the Domingez's organization, though I can <i>kind of</i> hand wave that with the idea that D was just really thorough with the people he picked. But it's a pretty big handwave, given that these people are giving up their way of life and all contact with everyone outside of their immediate family—plus the risk of any extraneous family members being executed as an example of the undesirability of desertion—all their belongings, all their friends, etc….in order to do what? Own a cantina and work their asses off to keep the business afloat? Like I said, it's a big handwave. It's mortally difficult to believe that everyone, up to and including Raoul Dominguez, would go along with this with no fuss, muss or bluster. It gives Jack a neatly wrapped up story-line, but I find it unbelievable in the extreme. Other than Josey/Josie's rather insane revenge scheme, everyone was entirely too rational, too willing to play along, too absent of their own agendas and ambitions to feel <i>real</i>. <br /><br />But getting past all that, the ending simply dragged on too long. Though I don't think Seville needed to necessarily end the story the moment Jack and D got together for good, so much of what happened afterward felt extraneous, gratuitous and unnecessary, as well as being the obvious set up for a sequel. And while that's good for the author (and despite all my criticism here, I would be interested in buying and reading the sequel; I am that invested in Jack and D and where they go from here), it wasn't so good for the story, leaving the ending feeling messy and literally unfinished, lacking in solid closure. <br /><br />I do believe it's possible to give a story solid closure <i>and</i> leave room for a sequel, but so much of the final chapter/s and the epilogue were devoted to setting up the mystery of D's new case (and really…at the end of a romance when I should be basking in the awesomeness of Jack & D, did I <i>really</i> need to hear about a seven year old getting raped and tortured to death??) and the fact that Jack and D still have a lot to work out between themselves and the rest of their lives that it took away from the afterglow feeling I like to walk away from my books with and I feel like it all would've been better served to start the next book than finish this one.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-16946613915719261322010-02-07T12:32:00.000-08:002010-02-07T12:33:53.179-08:00Flirt by Laurell K HamiltonI have a love-hate relationship with the Anita Blake books. There's a great deal about LKH's writing that leaves me unsatisfied, irritated and otherwise exasperated. I refused to even start the Merry Gentry series because of it but my attachment to the Anita Blake series has been really difficult to sever and even harder to explain (to myself or anyone else).<br /><br />Actually, a lot of my LKH problems are the same as my problems with a lot of TV shows: I dislike the main character(s), but I have deep and irrational love for some of the secondary characters and that keeps me limping onward through less than satisfying stories. *shrugs* C'est la vie.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>I actually think that LKH has improved over the last few AB novels; the middle of the series got kind of swampy and I actually did stop reading entirely for a few years, but then curiosity—and a library card, so I didn't have to spend MY money—won out. <br /><br /><u>Flirt</u>, her latest, has a lot of the stylistic quirks that I find so irritating, most notably the way it feels like LKH does most of her thinking <i>about</i> the story <i>in</i> the story, working things out as she goes along. The action and plot get bogged down for pages of <s>sex</s> Anita thinking and thinking and thinking about what's going on and why it's happening and what she can do about it and what it's going to mean in both the short and long term. As well, there are often long conversations between Anita and the other people in the book (most often the 'villains' of the piece) about what's happening and why and what to do about it and what it means, etc.<br /><br />From the standpoint of a writer, it feels sloppy. As I said, it feels like she's doing all her processing in the story itself and though one of my major complaints about the series as a whole is, indeed, LKH over-identifying with Anita and working out her own life-issues fairly transparently through Anita…it doesn't get any less irritating for knowing it's one of her quirks. Sometimes you need to step away from your book and do your thinking <i>first</i> and then come back to the story with an actual plan. <br /><br />From the standpoint of a reader, it's boring. I skim through those pages so quickly, trying to pick up the thread of action/plot again and supremely uninterested in Anita's hand-wringing about What It All Means. Obviously there does need to be time for Anita to process and deal with the very radical things that have happened in her life, but the way LKH does it in huge blocks of reflective exposition just doesn't work for me. <br /><br />Also, when it comes to the conversational scenes, it's just unbelievable. The notion that everyone would sit down (and this does to apply to Anita's friends/allies, but especially the villains) and discuss what's going on and what to do about it and how this happened to them…it feels so fake. Even when people are on your side, they're not always willing to sit down and talk things out and figure out what's happening. <i>People just don't work that way.</i> Not universally. And though it's more action oriented (and thus less boring) than the long exposition of Anita's thoughts, that marginal improvement is torpedoed by my eye-rolling exasperation at how unrealistic it all is. *sighs*<br /><br />Okay, on to things I liked. Despite the fact that I don't really like Anita, I am glad that LKH has neither reformed her nor made her stagnant. Though characterized mostly by her anger, irrationality and stubbornness, Anita in later books is a changed person. Still characterized by those traits, but struggling with them, working on them, and, in some areas, making huge strides that she was incapable of in earlier volumes. I do appreciate LKH for allowing Anita to grow and evolve while keeping in mind that doesn't mean an entire 180 in personality. Change is a slow, gradual process, often terrifying and exasperating at the same time. While I think there's a lot LKH doesn't really do well about depicting the human experience, this is an area she's really starting to excel.<br /><br />I like Nicky. I think I'm a bit of a sucker for the right kind of beta male and Nicky definitely fits the bill; there's a pathos to his story and personality that falls right in line with my narrative kinks. But more than that, I think there's interesting potential to Nicky as a character, representative of Anita finally crossing the line of coercion. Though I don't really trust LKH to develop it the way <i>I</i> would want, he does, as a character, present some fertile ground for story-telling as the ramifications of his enslavement develop and are explored.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-58675358856487241312010-02-07T11:31:00.000-08:002010-02-07T13:38:14.711-08:00Crossing the Line by Laney CairoI recently joined a m/m romance group on Goodreads to try and increase my repertoire of books. Though there's a fair number of epubs out there, the quality of work produced varies a lot from book to book and I was hoping to get some recommendations to help me find the 'good stuff'. <br /><br />The group has a kind of challenge each month to read books in different genres. One of the February challenges was to read something with transgender or cross-dressing as the theme and a rec led me to <u>Crossing the Line</u> by Laney Cairo. At 46 e-book pages, it's really a short story, not a book, and a quick read. <br /><br /><a name='more'></a>I really wanted to enjoy the book more. The relationship between 18 year old Isaac/Belinda and the older Nathaniel (I don't think we ever get an age on him) is both hot and sweet. Watching Belinda find herself and explore her identity and sexuality through her first lover is delightful and I read most of the story with a smile. <br /><br />However, it does feel like the author tried to cram a novel's worth of story into a short story and the ending is both incredibly abrupt and sloppily attached to the rest of the story, making me feel like Cairo either was in a rush to finish or didn't know how to end it and just slapped something together. Either way, it puts a sour note in what was otherwise toothsomely sweet.<br /><br />In an expanded version, I would've liked to have seen more of Belinda's birth and development in its earlier stages; when she first began experimenting with her identity and figuring out that Isaac was really (or mostly, since Belinda doesn't seem to identify as trans, in contrast to her friend Lisa) Belinda. I would also like to see more of what happens with Belinda after Nathaniel, that all-important redefining and re-finding of self after the first big love-affair. <br /><br />Bound by the constraints of such a short story, Belinda's conflicts are quickly and easily resolved—hiding her identity from her mother, conflict or potential conflict at school if outed, finding a place to live and figuring out a life plan once she is outed and rejected by her mom. It can be handwaved because it is such a short story, but it would've been interesting to see those conflicts explored more deeply and in more detail. <br /><br />On the other hand, I found it really delightful that the revelation of her full gender identity to Nathaniel turned out to be such a non-issue, even though Nathaniel identified as "bent but not gay". His open-mindedness, his naked and obvious pleasure in Belinda herself and in their sex life, his obvious care…these were all tremendously appealing qualities. As an older man (and a 'shiftless' artist, at that) picking up a young, queer cross-dresser, it could've been a much seedier and much more sordid relationship. In the wrong hands, it really would've come across as manipulative and creepy. But though I was preemptively cringing against that very eventuality, it never materialized and instead, Nathaniel turned out to be pretty much everything a first love should be. I really liked that.<br /><br />As well, I liked that, though Lisa's mom is first presented to us as an alcoholic—another character that could've easily been blown into a judgmental and irrational stereotype—she's instead presented as caring and supportive in ways that Belinda's mom is definitely not. There's a unexpected richness to Cairo's characterization that was really a pleasure to read after having been burned so many times. I'd definitely be willing to look into more of Cairo's work and see if the bungled ending is an endemic authorial problem or a fluke. <br /><br />And I really need to look into finding more good trans and/or crossdressing fiction.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6549715827487295322.post-91869657477146729832010-02-07T08:55:00.000-08:002010-02-07T08:56:52.429-08:00Reading Comprehension: Do U Haz? (More on the Nook)Some further thoughts on the Nook. Or…really, mostly about Barnes and Noble and a little bit about the Nook.<br /><br />Barnes and Noble has one of the worst websites (for such a large company) that I've ever had to deal with. Right now, I'm trying to make decisions about what to put on my Nook. Do I put new books that I'm interested in reading but that are untried—and therefore possibly not something I'm interested in keeping permanently—or do I put beloved, already-read books—and run the risk of having nothing new and interesting to read on my fairly expensive piece of tech? <br /><br />My decision was to do a little bit of both; to take a chance on some new books that had promising samples and also buy a fair number of old favorites that I haven't re-read in a while and am interested in reading again. However, there are a lot of "old favorites" that I will be interested in acquiring at some point and so I've been tagging them to my ebook wish list. <br /><br /><a name='more'></a>B&N has deemed this different from my (regular) wish list and, at the same time, has made it infinitely harder to get to from their website. I can't do it directly from the home page. I can't get to it from the eBook page. It's nearly all the way at the bottom of the page if I go to "My B&N". <br /><br />(Note: most of the "My B&N" page doesn't work with ebooks. For example, the "My Library" function seems to think I haven't bought anything for the last 18 months, while my eBooks Library is a different module and not entirely visible. There really needs to be greater integration between the two, imo. Stop stigmatizing ebooks if you want people to invest in them! Also, giving me the option to reorg the "My B&N" modules as will be most useful for <i>me</i> would be a lot more attractive/useful than the current format)<br /><br />It's also reachable from the very bottom of the "My Account" page, where they've stuck all of "digital management". Which is basically everything that has to do with my Nook and ebooks. It shouldn't be that hard, man. <br /><br />In the last thing I wrote, I talked about the inconvenience of buying ebooks; there's no option to sum up your purchases in a shopping cart like you would/could with regular book purchases; each ebook has to be bought individually and buying it takes you to a different page than the one you were browsing. And they don't even give you a link option to go back to the page you were previously browsing. Your options are to go back to the ebook home page or DIY. <br /><br />If you <i>are</i> interested in getting back to the page you were browsing (say, to buy another book from your already filtered search) it's strangely difficult to do so. Just hitting the back button on your browser will take you, not to the page you were just looking at/shopping from, but the page you were browsing before <i>that.</i> So you have to either re-search/re-filter, or you have to jump forward another page. Just clicking on the author's name isn't very helpful, either, because that will bring up all formats by that author, not just ebooks, and you have to filter down again. It's ridiculous, and ridiculously frustrating and it says to me that B&N hasn't thought this out very carefully, which is further frustrating to someone who has (by proxy) invested in a system they couldn't even bother to think through. <br /><br />Sidestep: In the last post, I think I was fairly critical about the way B&N has organized it's "collections" because it excises 90% of what I read. And that's still true. OTOH, it struck me last night how far we've come that Romance, as a genre, has become acknowledged, legitimized and accepted as "proper" or "real" reading material, that it's included in their collections as something that will be interesting to the greater majority of owners. Ditto YA. Both of these genres have been disparaged a lot and they've really opened up to the reading community at large. (And they're not always tucked in the back corner of the store anymore!) It feels like the Virginia Slims tagline: you've come a long way, baby. /sidestep<br /><br />Another problem that I am unsure where to place the blame is the availability of the books that I do read. A comparison of PoC (specifically black) authors/books in the B&N store vs. Amazon's Kindle store: B&N has a single Alice Walker book and a Sparks Note (like Cliff Notes) book for The Color Purple. Amazon has 3 Alice Walker books: 2 poetry books and an anthology. B&N has no books by Gloria Naylor, just a Sparks Note for Women of Brewster Place. Amazon has no books by Gloria Naylor. B&N had three books by J. California Cooper, a pleasant surprise. Amazon has the same 3. B&N has 10 Toni Morrison books and several Spark Notes. Amazon has 12(ish) books by Toni Morrison. B&N has 3 fiction and 1 nonfiction book by very mainstream author Terry McMillan. Amazon has the same books, plus 1 more fiction book. Amazon has 7 books & 3 anthology type books by romance author E. Lynn Harris. Amazon has 7 novels and 1 anthology. Amazon has 16 books by Eric Jerome Dickey, B&N has 12. For Walter Mosley, B&N: 19, Amazon: 21. <br /><br />I'd be interested to see how it holds up against authors of other ethnicities, though I don't think I'm experienced enough with authors of other ethnicities to do a comprehensive search. Amy Tan, who is arguably the best known Chinese author in the US has 5 books on Amazon and 4 on B&N, with a couple Spark Notes thrown in. Lisa See has 7 books on Amazon and 6 on B&N. <br /><br />I don't <i>think</i> that can be or entirely is a PoC authors versus white authors problem: neither service has To Kill a Mockingbird, for example which seems like a huge oversight. Neither service has the Harry Potter books, which I think has more to do with Rowling and her publisher than a desire to exclude her, given how much money the Potter series can and does bring in. <br /><br />A lot of authors' older series have not been given ebook treatments in favor of their new stuff. Sometimes, as in the case of Barbara Hambly, it seems pretty hit or miss. B&N have part of her Benjamin January series…but not the whole thing. At the same time, they have all three of her Star Trek tie-in novels…but neither of her Star Wars books. Her most famous books are arguably the Darwath novels and the Windrose Chronicles, neither of which are on B&N and it seems like a huge oversight, given the vampire craze, that neither of her vampire books are carried. Though Amazon seems to carry Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan books (or some of them, I'm not sure) in ebook format, B&N doesn't have <i>any</i> (which means I should've bought that paperback, <lj user=catdancerz>). Amazon carries Jennifer Roberson's Volume 1 omnibus of the Tiger & Del books, and the two books of her newer series Karavans, but B&N doesn't have any ebooks by her at all. And neither carry the Cheysuli Chronicles, even in omnibus form, as ebooks.<br /><br />Obviously, the technology is new and profit focused. Obviously, this is the main problem with allowing corporate entities control what books are "worthy" of conversion and sale, which, as usual, overlooks the obscure, genre and niche offerings for the powerhouses that are likely to make them more money. And I can only speculate on the legalities of authors (theoretically) getting their rights back and being able to convert and offer their own back-list, even if they had the time, skill and willingness to do such a thing. I'm just dipping a toe into all of this, obviously, and I don't have my ear on the pulse like masters of the ereaders like <lj user=amothea>, but I wonder if there's anything, any movement, to preserve "non-profitable" books like, say, Hambly's Unschooled Wizard series or the fairly obscure Quirinal Hill Affair/Search The Seven Hills from obsolescence. <br /><br />Getting back to the Nook itself. For those that might have missed the edit, there is a search function in the library and it's possible to organize the data by author, title, etc. I wish there was a way to collapse the data to, for example, just list the authors (with the option to expand a given author) instead of a list of each author and their books. <br /><br />I also reiterate that I really <i>really</i> wish the "go to" function had an option to go to a specific page, since ALL the other go-to functions require the Nook to remember where you were last and that's not always working for me. <br /><br />Relatedly, a little bit about buying books from samples. One problem that is not specific to B&N is regarding the samples themselves. Out of a 17 page sample, 8 or more pages may be given to the cover, title page, copyright page, dedication, etc. That means I have 9 or less pages of actual book to make my decision from. Some books catch you on the first page and that's not much of an issue. Other books, I still don't feel strongly enough about it to lay down my $10 and I'd like a little more time with the book to see if it's worthwhile. I like the books best that give 42 (or so) page samples. <br /><br />But let's say that you decide you like the book and you want to buy it. It downloads to your Nook, you open it back up…and you're back at the beginning. And, because the go-to function doesn't allow you to go to a specific page and the Nook has no "memory" of you having read the book before, you have to manually toggle through all the pages again. Which is enough of a pain with 17 pages (8 of which are useless crap anyway) but it feels interminably annoying with 42 pages (8 of which are useless crap). I'm not sure if it's because the full ebook is a completely separate file that replaces the sample or what, but it doesn't make it less aggravating to me, the end user. <br /><br />Despite all my criticism, I'm still enjoying the Nook very much. I'm excited about books, new and old. I'm excited about the possibility of reading some old favorites that are currently inaccessible in storage. I'm reading more than I have in a while, I'm making time for reading more than I have in a while. These are all good things.theoscillatingfanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05541600467253440901noreply@blogger.com0