Sarah Pi's comments (member since Jan 07, 2009)

Sarah Pi's comments from the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club group.

I nominate The Thread That Binds the Bones, a Nina Kiriki Hoffman novel. I think she extended it into a series later. It's been a long time since I read it, but I seem to recall the system of magic had to do with an ability to see the threads that connect things to each other and manipulate them. Feel free to dispute if you have a better recollection of it than I have.
It won the Bram Stoker Award.

Yep. That's the disdain I remember!

Have you seen the film version?

Were there parts that you liked?

Parts you missed from the book?

I thought it was well handled overall, and that all of the actors were well chosen for their roles.

Do you think the "it could happen" feeling is the reason that Margaret Atwood adamantly refused to call this book science fiction? As a teenager in Canada I saw/read a lot of interviews with her in which she decried the labeling of her book. I've always assumed it was anti-genre prejudice, but now she has written 3 books that could fit that category. My theory now is that she didn't want it dismissed as farfetched - she wanted it taken seriously.

If I remember correctly, I thought she was just a replacement, not a spy. As if they are interchangeable.

I used "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum" as my yearbook quote in high school, along with "When I look back at all the crap I learned in high school/it's a wonder I can think at all" from Paul Simon's Kodachrome. I thought I was very clever.

If I had written On Stranger Tides (good romp) and then The Stress of Her Regard (great romp) I would probably be willing to let On Stranger Tides go.

It's probably a healthier attitude toward adaptation than, say, Alan Moore's, in any case.

I was wondering how it would feel to have your book optioned but then basically torn up for spare parts. I'm guessing they'll take the plot but bend it around the already existing characters.

That said, as I remember, it was a good plot, which will hopefully make this movie better than both silly sequels to the first one, which was decent.

I'll second Dana's suggestion of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. A lot of Maguire's books falter a little toward the end, but that one doesn't.
I'll also second Soon I Will Be Invincible; I didn't love it but it was very clever.

Great articulation of the ideas in the book, Peregrine.

I did like the presence of Nathan Fillion's voice...

I haevn't watched much of the new DC animation style. I loved the early nineties Batman animated series, but I feel like what I've seen of the new style is a little less...stylized? I know Wonder Woman wouldn't be as noirish as Batman, but I just felt it was a little stilted. And I had trouble telling some of the women apart.

I liked it but I thought that Steve saved her a little too much, actually. And I didn't love the style of the animation.

I'm not a moderator, but I don't think BunWat said anything bigoted.

Kernos, I'm not sure what you mean by "If one is pushed into roles by peer pressure one is not suited for, affective disorders and addictive behavior are common.

This is not opinion, but fact. It applies to males and females."

MB Have you read World Made by Hand A Novel?
Such fascinating concepts, and overall one of the more soothing postapocalyptic scenarios, but I was really irritated by the fact that there probably weren't more than a dozen lines of dialogue for female characters in the entire book. The author seemed to imply that society would be taken over by the menfolk again -as Kernos did in message 72 ("We live in a world where technology allows for a great deal of variation from traditional rôles. But, if the world civilization collapses, from a comet or asteroid collision or effects of global warming, eg, resulting in a return to tribal, feudal or even hunter-gatherer cultures, I think traditional rôles would be forced on the majority out of the biological imperative to survive and reproduce.")

The author didn't really state a reason or back it up in any way. Most of the picture he painted seemed realistic, but there were a few things that just rankled me, and the portrayal of women was definitely one of them.

Jim - that may have been a little harsh on my part. I'm just reacting based on what is clearly a different experience than yours.

I know girls that like hot cars & loud motorcycles, and girls that change their own oil. There are more female jockeys than there used to be, just as there are more female horse trainers, more female chefs, more female CEOs, more female mechanics, more female police officers, more female carpenters. Obviously, the numbers aren't even in any of those professions. I think part of the discrepancy lies in cultural resistance. Women in the professional kitchen are often given a hard time, as are women in the jockey's room. If you look at pay statistics in the business world, you see the discrepancy again. Women trying to break into those businesses are discouraged at multiple levels.

Obviously there are differences in physiology, but I don't think they necessarily make a difference in the way we think and what we like, and I don't think that most jobs are better suited to one gender or another.
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Kernos said "But, trying to change one's basic personality, based on social reasons (eg, for girls it is better to be powerful than it is to be a housewife and raise a family) results in mental disease, especially affective disorders and addictions like alcoholism.
Who is talking about changing anyone's basic personality? I'm not entirely sure what that means. And what is the correlation between that and mental illness?

Jim said "As for the farm, I've been around them for a fair number of years - lots of farms & people. I believe women are wired differently & they don't have the upper body strength for tossing hay around. They can & will do small quantities, but large quantities are beyond them. If they do help, I get one of them to stack while I toss. It goes quicker & better."
I can toss hay bales all day long. Most of the horse farms I have worked at are run by women, all of whom are comfortable throwing large quantities of hay.

I've never known a woman that liked using a chainsaw. That's probably the most aggressive piece of machinery I use. It's mean, loud & a handful. Men seem to get along with them better - it fits their natures & strengths better...
My wife loves power tools: chainsaw, drills, you name it. She's comfortable with them and good with them. She just built a gorgeous, rock steady structure in our backyard. My uncles jumped on it trying to prove that she couldn't possibly have made something so sound from scratch. She can also outdrive every guy on the golf course on an average day.

So yes, I think men & women are better suited for some jobs due to their physical & mental natures - as a general rule. When it comes to getting a job done, I don't care who does the job, so long as it gets done well & the best way possible. There's always plenty more work to do. It's stupid to do something based on gender only - but it often is a good starting point to know who can do what best.

I don't think you mean any offense by this, Jim, but to me it sort of feels like "I'm not a racist, but..."
I'm sure that many of these generalizations are supported by your experiences. Nevertheless, none of the examples above are borne out by my experience. So we've had different experiences, and we've come to different conclusions. My conclusion would be to find the most appropriate person for a task; gender doesn't come into it.

BunWat wrote: "Retrospectively and respectively. Motherlines and Walk won retrospective awards for their respective years of publication. Say that three times and spin around fast. "

My head is already spinning. :)

Exactly!

Retrospectively, I think, Bun? The Award itself wasn't around back then.

Ben -- you could also read the excellent biography of Tiptree, James Tiptree, Jr. The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon. It's not fiction, but it's a well written and fascinating book.

Fair points, all.

I think you're right that it is not hard SF, and the science in it is primarily social science, and fairly accessible. I do think that it would be intimidating to someone who doesn't ordinarily read SF. There are a lot of ideas thrown at the reader in the early pages, before it evens out.
I think there's something inaccessible - overly formal, perhaps - about Le Guin's prose. Once I got past that - or got used to it? - I was able to enjoy the book...but to get past the beginning took me years.

Ben wrote: "Kernos wrote: "What other SF-Fan novels or series take on gender?"

There are all the winners of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, which is given to the work of science fiction or fantasy published in one year which best explores or expands gender roles.
http://www.tiptree.org/index.php?see=awa...