Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 20
November 16, 2023
Sword-Dancer, by Jennifer Roberson
Tiger, a male sword dancer for hire in the southern deserts with a trusty blue sword, escorts Del, a female sword dancer from the icy north with a magical pink sword, on a journey to rescue her little brother from slavery. Hijinks ensue.
First published in 1986. WOW was this first published in 1986. Here's the opening paragraph:
In my line of work, I've seen all kinds of women. Some beautiful. Some ugly. Some just plain in between. And—being neither senile nor a man with aspirations to sainthood—whenever the opportunity presented itself (with or without my encouragement), I bedded the beautiful ones (although sometimes they bedded me), passed on the ugly ones altogether (not being a greedy man), but allowed myself discourse with the in-betweeners on a fairly regular basis, not being one to look the other way when such things as discourse and other entertainments are freely offered. So the in-betweeners made out all right, too.
The fact that I actually finished this book really does credit to Roberson's way with a pulp adventure, and so does the fact that pulp action actually happens in it given the sheer page space taken up by rape, rape threats, and sexism.
Everyone in the south is sexist. Everyone in the north is also sexist, but sliiiiiighly less so because Del managed to be the only woman ever to get trained as a sword dancer there, as opposed to the south where it's never happened. Tiger (also sexist) finds it impossible to believe that a woman could a sword dancer (like a sword fighter, but awesomer) even after she demonstrates it a bajillion times until nearly the end of the book. Almost everyone Del meets threatens to rape and/or enslave her and she was raped in the backstory. About 80% of Del's total dialogue boils down to "I may be a woman, but I can do the thing."
Other than Del, there is exactly one woman in the entire book who is not a powerless wife, a whore, a slave, or raped and refrigerated in the backstory. Though possibly "refrigerated" is unfair, because the dead women are there to motivate Del, not Tiger. But still.
The depictions of the hot southern desert cultures, its cannibal tribes, its slavers, etc are basically what you would expect.
That being said, there are some pretty awesome crossing the desert sequences, including being dumped there to die without water and staggering through the sands getting horrendously sunburned, looking for oases and resting at oases, enduring a sandstorm, rescuing two adorable deadly sand tiger cubs, etc.
I read it in high school and never continued the series; all I remembered was that it had first person wiseass narration by Tiger and some good desert sequences. I re-read it after discovering yesterday that an eighth book in the series was released in 2022! Once again, I will not be continuing.
[image error] [image error]
comments
First published in 1986. WOW was this first published in 1986. Here's the opening paragraph:
In my line of work, I've seen all kinds of women. Some beautiful. Some ugly. Some just plain in between. And—being neither senile nor a man with aspirations to sainthood—whenever the opportunity presented itself (with or without my encouragement), I bedded the beautiful ones (although sometimes they bedded me), passed on the ugly ones altogether (not being a greedy man), but allowed myself discourse with the in-betweeners on a fairly regular basis, not being one to look the other way when such things as discourse and other entertainments are freely offered. So the in-betweeners made out all right, too.
The fact that I actually finished this book really does credit to Roberson's way with a pulp adventure, and so does the fact that pulp action actually happens in it given the sheer page space taken up by rape, rape threats, and sexism.
Everyone in the south is sexist. Everyone in the north is also sexist, but sliiiiiighly less so because Del managed to be the only woman ever to get trained as a sword dancer there, as opposed to the south where it's never happened. Tiger (also sexist) finds it impossible to believe that a woman could a sword dancer (like a sword fighter, but awesomer) even after she demonstrates it a bajillion times until nearly the end of the book. Almost everyone Del meets threatens to rape and/or enslave her and she was raped in the backstory. About 80% of Del's total dialogue boils down to "I may be a woman, but I can do the thing."
Other than Del, there is exactly one woman in the entire book who is not a powerless wife, a whore, a slave, or raped and refrigerated in the backstory. Though possibly "refrigerated" is unfair, because the dead women are there to motivate Del, not Tiger. But still.
The depictions of the hot southern desert cultures, its cannibal tribes, its slavers, etc are basically what you would expect.
That being said, there are some pretty awesome crossing the desert sequences, including being dumped there to die without water and staggering through the sands getting horrendously sunburned, looking for oases and resting at oases, enduring a sandstorm, rescuing two adorable deadly sand tiger cubs, etc.
I read it in high school and never continued the series; all I remembered was that it had first person wiseass narration by Tiger and some good desert sequences. I re-read it after discovering yesterday that an eighth book in the series was released in 2022! Once again, I will not be continuing.
[image error] [image error]
comments
November 14, 2023
Listen to the Nightengale, by Rumer Godden
Lottie, a child ballet dancer, has to find a way to balance dancing with a full life that includes other pleasures and relationships.
This begins with an amazing accidental puppy acquisition - she witnesses a boy steal a King Charles Spaniel from a pet shop, chases him, hurls her carrying case at him and knocks him down, is mistaken for the puppy's owner by bystanders, and goes with it. She falls in love with the puppy, finds that it's incredibly hard to care for a puppy when you need to do other things too, and then comes to a crisis when she's accepted at a famous ballet boarding school that doesn't allow dogs. (It's Doone's ballet school, but he and Crystal do not appear in this story, which seems to be set well after their time at the school.)
The puppy issue is resolved (the puppy is fine) halfway through the book, but Lottie continues to deal with balancing her dancing with other issues: friend troubles, enemy troubles, discovering her own inner emotional life, and changes in her family. It's a very interesting topic - how to have a life when you have a single thing that your entire life revolves around - but one which is more commonly dealt with in adult literature for obvious reasons.
I didn't love this as much as Thursday Children, probably because it's aimed at a slightly younger audience and is less complex, and because I love Doone so much, but it's very good.
It also has an amazingly iddy sequence which I have seen in many fanfics but no published novels before. ( Read more... )
[image error] [image error]
comments
This begins with an amazing accidental puppy acquisition - she witnesses a boy steal a King Charles Spaniel from a pet shop, chases him, hurls her carrying case at him and knocks him down, is mistaken for the puppy's owner by bystanders, and goes with it. She falls in love with the puppy, finds that it's incredibly hard to care for a puppy when you need to do other things too, and then comes to a crisis when she's accepted at a famous ballet boarding school that doesn't allow dogs. (It's Doone's ballet school, but he and Crystal do not appear in this story, which seems to be set well after their time at the school.)
The puppy issue is resolved (the puppy is fine) halfway through the book, but Lottie continues to deal with balancing her dancing with other issues: friend troubles, enemy troubles, discovering her own inner emotional life, and changes in her family. It's a very interesting topic - how to have a life when you have a single thing that your entire life revolves around - but one which is more commonly dealt with in adult literature for obvious reasons.
I didn't love this as much as Thursday Children, probably because it's aimed at a slightly younger audience and is less complex, and because I love Doone so much, but it's very good.
It also has an amazingly iddy sequence which I have seen in many fanfics but no published novels before. ( Read more... )
[image error] [image error]
comments
November 13, 2023
Book image links
Up until today, Amazon enabled you to get an image link of a book's cover with one click, which you could then post on your website. This is how I got the images for my book reviews. Today it ended that function and now only enables text links.
It is extremely cumbersome and time-consuming to upload images on DW and I'm not going to do it every time I review a book. There's also a limit to how many images I can upload. Is there any other book site that enables one-click image links? Or is there some workaround to still get that from Amazon? I really like having a nice-sized image of the book cover on my reviews.
comments
It is extremely cumbersome and time-consuming to upload images on DW and I'm not going to do it every time I review a book. There's also a limit to how many images I can upload. Is there any other book site that enables one-click image links? Or is there some workaround to still get that from Amazon? I really like having a nice-sized image of the book cover on my reviews.
comments
Thursday's Children, by Rumer Godden
This is my favorite children's novel about ballet. Yes, including Ballet Shoes. I don't know how many times I've re-read it other than "a lot."
Doone Penny wasn't supposed to be a dancer. His mother danced professionally, very briefly and in a very minor way, before marrying a greengrocer and having six boys. When Mrs. Penny finally had a girl, she decided that her daughter Crystal would have the dancing career she never had. Her final child, Doone, was the afterthought. But when Crystal has to babysit Doone by taking him along to her ballet lessons, Doone falls in love with ballet.
Doone has a whole lot of obstacles that Crystal doesn't have to deal with, as his mother doesn't take him seriously or want to spend money on his lessons, his father is outright opposed to his son dancing as he think it will make him gay, and his brothers think it's sissy and bully him. But he also has some advantages that Crystal doesn't have: adult professionals generally like him a lot and want to mentor him, and the lack of expectations means that he can pursue dance purely for the love of it, without it being tangled up in resentment and rebellion and obligation.
Rumer Godden knew a lot about dance - she studied it seriously and taught a dance school, though she I don't think she ever danced professionally. The whole book is about ballet (and secondarily music), written about in a completely engaging style. In terms of how to make the process of a particular pursuit fascinating, it's like Dick Francis wrote a book about ballet and forgot to put in a murder.
The world of ballet school has all the pleasures of a boarding school story plus backstage drama. All the characters you know from theatre are there. Yuri Korszorz is the brilliant, sexy ballet star and choreographer who throws the school into a tizzy when he swoops in to look for a few young people to dance in his new ballet. I know the type well. We had one of them at my college. I had a massive crush on him, heard rumors that he had affairs with students, and felt both creeped out and jealous. Yuri is beneficial for the students with whom he has completely professional interactions with, and destructive or destabilizing for others. (The inappropriate touching consists of one kiss, but he also does some inappropriate toying with emotions.)
Most of the ballet adults are, thankfully, much more positive iterations on mentor and teacher figures; if they have feet of clay, it's mostly in a way that isn't harmful to anyone but themselves. Godden's characterization of a rather large cast is excellent, sketching in the minor characters vividly and the main ones - Doone, Crystal, and Mrs. Penny - brilliantly.
Doone in particular is an unusual, memorable character. He struggles with schoolwork due to what we can recognize as dyslexia or some other learning disability, but which Godden apparently observed well enough to depict without knowing what it was. Doone is a quiet, earnest, rather literal-minded boy with a gift for both music and dancing, a love for dancing that probably surpasses even his talent for it, and an understated stubbornness that enables him to persevere through being ignored, being actively discouraged, and worse. For Doone, everything about dance is fraught except the dance itself. He's the epitome of keeping his eyes on the prize, but for him, the prize is just to keep dancing.
[image error] [image error]
comments
Doone Penny wasn't supposed to be a dancer. His mother danced professionally, very briefly and in a very minor way, before marrying a greengrocer and having six boys. When Mrs. Penny finally had a girl, she decided that her daughter Crystal would have the dancing career she never had. Her final child, Doone, was the afterthought. But when Crystal has to babysit Doone by taking him along to her ballet lessons, Doone falls in love with ballet.
Doone has a whole lot of obstacles that Crystal doesn't have to deal with, as his mother doesn't take him seriously or want to spend money on his lessons, his father is outright opposed to his son dancing as he think it will make him gay, and his brothers think it's sissy and bully him. But he also has some advantages that Crystal doesn't have: adult professionals generally like him a lot and want to mentor him, and the lack of expectations means that he can pursue dance purely for the love of it, without it being tangled up in resentment and rebellion and obligation.
Rumer Godden knew a lot about dance - she studied it seriously and taught a dance school, though she I don't think she ever danced professionally. The whole book is about ballet (and secondarily music), written about in a completely engaging style. In terms of how to make the process of a particular pursuit fascinating, it's like Dick Francis wrote a book about ballet and forgot to put in a murder.
The world of ballet school has all the pleasures of a boarding school story plus backstage drama. All the characters you know from theatre are there. Yuri Korszorz is the brilliant, sexy ballet star and choreographer who throws the school into a tizzy when he swoops in to look for a few young people to dance in his new ballet. I know the type well. We had one of them at my college. I had a massive crush on him, heard rumors that he had affairs with students, and felt both creeped out and jealous. Yuri is beneficial for the students with whom he has completely professional interactions with, and destructive or destabilizing for others. (The inappropriate touching consists of one kiss, but he also does some inappropriate toying with emotions.)
Most of the ballet adults are, thankfully, much more positive iterations on mentor and teacher figures; if they have feet of clay, it's mostly in a way that isn't harmful to anyone but themselves. Godden's characterization of a rather large cast is excellent, sketching in the minor characters vividly and the main ones - Doone, Crystal, and Mrs. Penny - brilliantly.
Doone in particular is an unusual, memorable character. He struggles with schoolwork due to what we can recognize as dyslexia or some other learning disability, but which Godden apparently observed well enough to depict without knowing what it was. Doone is a quiet, earnest, rather literal-minded boy with a gift for both music and dancing, a love for dancing that probably surpasses even his talent for it, and an understated stubbornness that enables him to persevere through being ignored, being actively discouraged, and worse. For Doone, everything about dance is fraught except the dance itself. He's the epitome of keeping his eyes on the prize, but for him, the prize is just to keep dancing.
[image error] [image error]
comments
November 12, 2023
comments
November 7, 2023
In which I inaugurate a podcast
I was interviewed for the first episode of a new podcast, Reasons Not to Quit, by the brilliant Hanne Blank. The podcast interviews people who had reasons to quit and didn't; she's got some amazing guests lined up for future episodes.
Here's my interview. I discuss my horrific medical ordeal of 2015-2017, the kindness of friends including several of you reading this, and namedrop Jeff Vandermeer, Michael Swanwick, and George MacDonald. There's both a podcast and a transcript.
Content notes: Medical gaslighting, suicidal thoughts, climate change. But there's jokes too. I think it's more uplifting than depressing.
If nothing else you should click the link to see a delightful portrait of Alex, wrapped around the neck of a typically unflattering selfie of myself. (I take the worst selfies. A 13-year-old friend said I always make a face like a grumpy old man.)
comments
Here's my interview. I discuss my horrific medical ordeal of 2015-2017, the kindness of friends including several of you reading this, and namedrop Jeff Vandermeer, Michael Swanwick, and George MacDonald. There's both a podcast and a transcript.
Content notes: Medical gaslighting, suicidal thoughts, climate change. But there's jokes too. I think it's more uplifting than depressing.
If nothing else you should click the link to see a delightful portrait of Alex, wrapped around the neck of a typically unflattering selfie of myself. (I take the worst selfies. A 13-year-old friend said I always make a face like a grumpy old man.)
comments
November 6, 2023
Marianne, the Magus, and the Manticore, by Sheri S. Tepper
Marianne is a young woman whose parents were from the tiny country Alphenlicht, but was raised in America. After her parents died when she was a teenager, she found that her traditional father had left his substantial estate to her... in a trust controlled by her horrible half-brother Harvey, who attempted to rape her when she was thirteen. He withholds the money from her, forcing her to squeeze every penny. However, she sells her mother's jewels to buy an old house, which she lovingly restores by herself, in between studying for a graduate degree and working in the campus library.
Marianne meets Makr Avehl, the Prime Minister and Magus of Alphenlicht, when he comes to campus for a lecture series. (Alphenlicht is so tiny that "Prime Minister" doesn't have quite the usual meaning or importance.) He looks exactly like Harvey but is much nicer. Realizing that they must be distantly related, they immediately bond and flirt.
He discovers that Harvey has been attempting to work evil magic on her by sending her unpleasant gifts, such as a painting of a girl being menaced alone at night and a Japanese wood carving of a creepy ghost, and replaces them with similar but positive ones, like a painting by the same artist of happy girls lighting up the night and a Japanese wood carving of two mice gnawing a nut, to break the spell in a way that won't alert Harvey that it's been brokem.
Marianne begins learning more about Alphenlicht and its magic and her heritage, while she and Makr Avehl try to figure out who's been teaching Harvey magic...
The first half of this book, which is the part I described above, is a favorite comfort read of mine, and I've re-read it many times. Despite the dark elements, it has a powerful atmosphere of coziness and healing.
Sometimes a book strikes a chord with me that doesn't have much to do with its objective merits. Writing out the story of the first part of this book, it has a weird quasi-incestuous theme with her love interest looking just like her abusive half-brother, and being related to her albeit distantly. No idea what's up with that. But Marianne is charming, I could read forever about her restoring the house she loves, I adore her getting taken out for dinner and lavished with affection and good food, and the Alphenlicht lore and magic is fascinating.
Halfway through the book, Marianne is whisked into a series of bizarre, surreal, dreamlike otherworlds. Until now, I never managed to get very far into the second half of the book, despite re-reading the first half multiple times, even though the entire book is under 200 pages long. This time I determinedly plowed through to see if it ever gets back to the charm of the first half. The answer is no. It ends very abruptly with a transfer to a different timeline, which I assume is picked up in one of the sequels which I've never read.
So this is an extremely odd book, only half of which I even find readable let alone good. And yet I can't tell you how many times I've taken it off the shelf to re-read Marianne's date with Makr Avehl, or the box of evil gifts and its replacement box of similar good ones, or her happiness at waking up in a house she's made beautiful.
Do you have any books that you love only in part, but you love the parts a LOT?
[image error] [image error]
comments
Marianne meets Makr Avehl, the Prime Minister and Magus of Alphenlicht, when he comes to campus for a lecture series. (Alphenlicht is so tiny that "Prime Minister" doesn't have quite the usual meaning or importance.) He looks exactly like Harvey but is much nicer. Realizing that they must be distantly related, they immediately bond and flirt.
He discovers that Harvey has been attempting to work evil magic on her by sending her unpleasant gifts, such as a painting of a girl being menaced alone at night and a Japanese wood carving of a creepy ghost, and replaces them with similar but positive ones, like a painting by the same artist of happy girls lighting up the night and a Japanese wood carving of two mice gnawing a nut, to break the spell in a way that won't alert Harvey that it's been brokem.
Marianne begins learning more about Alphenlicht and its magic and her heritage, while she and Makr Avehl try to figure out who's been teaching Harvey magic...
The first half of this book, which is the part I described above, is a favorite comfort read of mine, and I've re-read it many times. Despite the dark elements, it has a powerful atmosphere of coziness and healing.
Sometimes a book strikes a chord with me that doesn't have much to do with its objective merits. Writing out the story of the first part of this book, it has a weird quasi-incestuous theme with her love interest looking just like her abusive half-brother, and being related to her albeit distantly. No idea what's up with that. But Marianne is charming, I could read forever about her restoring the house she loves, I adore her getting taken out for dinner and lavished with affection and good food, and the Alphenlicht lore and magic is fascinating.
Halfway through the book, Marianne is whisked into a series of bizarre, surreal, dreamlike otherworlds. Until now, I never managed to get very far into the second half of the book, despite re-reading the first half multiple times, even though the entire book is under 200 pages long. This time I determinedly plowed through to see if it ever gets back to the charm of the first half. The answer is no. It ends very abruptly with a transfer to a different timeline, which I assume is picked up in one of the sequels which I've never read.
So this is an extremely odd book, only half of which I even find readable let alone good. And yet I can't tell you how many times I've taken it off the shelf to re-read Marianne's date with Makr Avehl, or the box of evil gifts and its replacement box of similar good ones, or her happiness at waking up in a house she's made beautiful.
Do you have any books that you love only in part, but you love the parts a LOT?
[image error] [image error]
comments
November 4, 2023
Nonfiction Book Poll
Have you read or heard of any of these? Which should I select to read and review this week?
View Poll: Nonfiction book poll
comments
View Poll: Nonfiction book poll
comments
November 3, 2023
All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By, by John Farris: DNF
This opens with an absolute banger of a horror scene in which the groom goes berserk with his dress sword at a fancy 1944 Southern wedding, written in overheated Southern prose like Pat Conroy's Prince of Tides. It then slows down. A lot. There's a lot of racism of the sort where the author is sometimes clearly depicting rather than endorsing (Black people in America), and sometimes not so much (Africans), and even more weird sex.
I was in more of a "bloodbath at the wedding" mood than a "bizarre snake hallucination sex" mood, but I might return to it some time.
Cut for weird sex. ( Read more... )
[image error] [image error]
comments
I was in more of a "bloodbath at the wedding" mood than a "bizarre snake hallucination sex" mood, but I might return to it some time.
Cut for weird sex. ( Read more... )
[image error] [image error]
comments
November 1, 2023
Posterchildren: Origins, by Kitty Burroughs
Posterchildren is a rather labored pun based on posthumans (mutants with powers) being called "posters" in this universe. Posterchildren can apply to Maillardet's Academy, which is much like Professor X's School for Gifted Youngsters.
This is what I'd hoped Cute Mutants would be: diverse teenage mutants exploring their powers and their relationships with each other. Posterchildren has 100% less Tumblrspeak, which made it much more enjoyable for me. The characters are very likable and the powers are fun when they're explored, though they aren't always. There's some important characters whose power never even gets mentioned, or if it did it was in one sentence and I blinked and missed it.
This is basically a novel-length New Mutants with original characters fic, focused heavily on just hanging out at school. It's a lot of fun if you go in with that expectation and the knowledge that it basically just stops without resolving any outstanding plot issues. There are a bunch of shorter subsequent stories but they're mostly about the supporting and minor characters.
I read this because it was in the Yuletide tag set, but then no one requested it. I'm glad I read it though. I enjoyed it and if an actual sequel ever gets written (unlikely) I would read that too.
You can get Posterchildren: Origins plus bonus stories at this site.
[image error] [image error]
comments
This is what I'd hoped Cute Mutants would be: diverse teenage mutants exploring their powers and their relationships with each other. Posterchildren has 100% less Tumblrspeak, which made it much more enjoyable for me. The characters are very likable and the powers are fun when they're explored, though they aren't always. There's some important characters whose power never even gets mentioned, or if it did it was in one sentence and I blinked and missed it.
This is basically a novel-length New Mutants with original characters fic, focused heavily on just hanging out at school. It's a lot of fun if you go in with that expectation and the knowledge that it basically just stops without resolving any outstanding plot issues. There are a bunch of shorter subsequent stories but they're mostly about the supporting and minor characters.
I read this because it was in the Yuletide tag set, but then no one requested it. I'm glad I read it though. I enjoyed it and if an actual sequel ever gets written (unlikely) I would read that too.
You can get Posterchildren: Origins plus bonus stories at this site.
[image error] [image error]
comments
