Kate Elliott's Blog, page 46

"Glitter Rose" by Marianne de Pierres, and why I don't review books

I have been wanting to tell you all about Marianne de Pierres' short collection GLITTER ROSE for over two months now, ever since I returned from my short trip to Australia and AussieCon4. While there, I met a number of fabulously wonderful Australian writers, and I also discovered that books in Australia are really expensive. Shockingly so, compared to our prices and even UK prices.

BUT. There is also a small press scene with intriguing authors and material that is not seen in the USA (or presumably the UK either).

With commercial houses, de Pierres has written the Parris Plessis series (NYLON ANGEL is the first), and the Sentients of Orion series, and has a YA novel, BURN BRIGHT, coming in March 2011.

GLITTER ROSE is a quartet of four spec-fic stories whose setting--an offshore island community--is as much a part of the psychology and emotion of the tales as the characters are. The collection has lovely writing, first of all, and a nuanced and mature sense of characterization, by which I mean that people have mixed and ambivalent motives and aren't all one thing or another, and the journey the narrator makes through the four stories is complex and felt, to me, true to the human condition. It also has a strong sense of place, and I am picky about sense of place. It is clear to me that the author knows and understands her landscape and how landscape flows through and changes people.

I rarely read short stories (they're not my thing). These stories made a strong impression on me; I can still call up actions and impressions from the stories in my mind's eye. Definitely worth reading and highly recommended.

In addition, Twelfth Planet Press has produced a simply excellent book as a physical object. It's nice to hold and nice to look at and nice to read as pure physical considerations. This is something small presses can do very well indeed, and TPP has done it.

So why did it take me two months to write the above?

Because I do not write reviews. I don't really have the temperament or knack or desire--or something which I can't put my finger on--to write reviews. The best I can do is write a recommendation and tell you what I liked (it is very unlikely you will see me post a negative piece on a book in the sff field, but that's a different issue).

I note this because of a recent discussion over at Torque Control about "Why I Write Reviews." It's an interesting discussion but one I didn't join in because (see above) I don't write reviews. What I do do is read reviews, sometimes, and I admire a writer who can review or critique (these have two different goals, I think) in an incisive or illuminating way. Not all reviews I read strike me as useful; ymmv with regard to the same review and two different readers of that review. In addition, some pieces called reviews seem more "reactions," which to me is also a valid piece of writing, but it's not a review per se.

I know how the joke goes: those who can't write, teach; those who can't teach, become critics. But you know, it's not true (well, okay, there may be cases where it is true, but that doesn't make it true). The best teachers I know teach because teaching is their goal and vocation. A good review or a well written piece of criticism is another form of writing expression, just as fiction or other non fiction is. I like to explore what I read, but I'll most likely do it verbally among friends and not in writing in public.

So, after you have trotted over here to check out the webpage for GLITTER ROSE, come back and tell me your thoughts about reviewing. Do you review? What are your thoughts on the differences between reviews, reactions, recommendations, and criticism?

I just wish I had posted my recommendation for GLITTER ROSE sooner

What's Coming Up on This Blog

The truth is, I have tons and tons of things I could be writing on this blog, but so often I halt myself by thinking 1) no one cares 2) this is boring and/or narcissism 3) Avoid Controversy. Which is why I admire people whose personalities are bolder in this vein than my own. I talk a good game at home (usually to myself!) but not so much in public.

Anyway, I should be working right now but started reading Sherwood Smith's CORONETS AND STEEL and I just can't stop because it is hitting all my squee. I have not been able to read secondary world fantasy for the last few months because I'm so immersed in my own; this happens periodically (not often, thank goodness), and I have learned just to ride it out.

So mostly, besides the usual non fiction reading I am doing for research, I have been reading some historical romances, but the formula of the recent batch I read just got too repetitive for me, and unfortunately I have a hard time reading Urban Fantasy/Paranormal for some reason (although you should look for Katharine Kerr's LICENSE TO ENSORCELL, coming in February 2011, because it is fabulous). As it happens CORONETS AND STEEL offers this world and fantasy in a Ruritanian romance that is Just Right for my current mood.

Anyway, this coming week I hereby commit to providing capsule reviews (I am not a natural "reviewer" and I find "reviews" difficult to write even if they are only one paragraph of me telling you why I liked something) of Marianne de Pierres' GLITTER ROSE, and N.K. Jemisin's THE BROKEN KINGDOMS, both Out Now.

Finally, I have almost revised through the first 13 chapters of COLD FIRE. These chapters will either get the go-ahead from my editor, or she will tell me they have to be entirely rewritten from the ground up because the opening of COLD FIRE is a little odd in narrative terms. We shall see.

So, you have a choice, Peoples.

You can say nothing. Often a prudent choice.

You can tell me about your own reading cycles.

Or you can ask me a question about COLD MAGIC -- wait, never mind, I'll do that as its own spoiler-warning post later this week, too.

Onward.

Cold Fire: Draft One

At this point it has become clear to me there is nothing more I can do on Draft One of Cold Fire, so I officially declare it finished. Even though it does not actually have an ending (it's about 15 pages short of a final sentence).

I will now commence Draft Two. In paddling terms, we might say that I need to take a slightly different line (in terms of how we're angling our course compared to the shore, the swells, the current, and the wind). Most everything will remain much the same, but the layering and emphasis, and the way I set down and explicate the political details, will differ.

aberwyn (who along with Twin A has read all but the last partial chapter) may be sorry to hear that a thing I believe she disliked, having to do with WOUNDED FEELINGS, is not likely to be cut (as in, excised wholesale). ;)

Just out of curiosity, how many of you like WOUNDED FEELINGS (this is a a subset of angst) and how many don't? Or is it purely on a case by case basis?

Signal Boost: eReader Drawing

The Carl Brandon Society is sponsoring an eReader drawing to benefit the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund.

The information is here.

The Carl Brandon Society is holding a prize drawing of five eReaders starting on November 5th and ending November 22nd, 2010. The funds raised will benefit the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship, a fund that sends two emerging writers of color to the Clarion writers workshops annually.

Entrants will have the opportunity to win one of two (2) available Barnes & Noble Nooks, one of two (2) available Kobo Readers (with Wi-Fi), and one (1) Alex eReader by Spring Design. Drawing tickets cost one US dollar ($1).

In addition, each eReader will come pre-loaded with books, short stories, poems and essays by writers of color from the speculative fiction field. Some of the writers include N. K. Jemisin, Nisi Shawl, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Terence Taylor, Ted Chiang, Shweta Narayan, Chesya Burke, Moondancer Drake, Saladin Ahmed, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, and there will be many more.

Tickets on sale from Nov 5 - Nov 22.

Why SFF sub-genres & aesthetics are like men

So there we were, writer Karen Miller and I, waiting in the Melbourne airport to board a plane to Sydney in the wake of AussieCon4. Our plane had arrived and the passengers from the incoming flight were disembarking. We were checking out the people, and while I consider myself an equal opportunity checker-outer, if my gaze strayed more to the male contingent of "the people" then so be it.

As one young man walked past, Karen remarked that she felt each person has a "body type" s/he finds at root most appealing*, and that that particular man was an example of hers. She wanted to know what mine was, and besides immediately thinking of actor Idris Elba (and, of course, of my beloved husband), I didn't really have an answer that satisfied me.

In fact, being one to dwell on this sort of thing, I have been thinking about that question off and on in the two months since. First I decided it wasn't the body type, it was the shoulders. In the end I decided it wasn't either of those; it was "physicality."

I'm not suggesting here that body type or other physiological characteristics are like sub-genres, or that we aren't all physically inhabiting our bodies (unless you know something I don't.) I am suggesting that variety and diversity and differing tastes are good things.

For me, the SFF field is like the iconic video "It's Raining Men."





Hallelujah!

Epic Fantasy, Military SF, new Gritty, Consolatory Fantasy with Unicorns, Zombies with a side of anything, Dystopia, Sparkling Vampires or Cruel Ones, Literary, Paranomal and Romantic Fantasy, Space Opera, SFF with a Mystery Crossover, Mundane SF, YA, Historical Fantasy, New and Old Weird, Cyber or Steampunk, and etc, you name it:

I am an equal opportunity ogler.

I love to read novels, and I love that people are writing stuff in ways I would never write it. I don't need to read stuff that is exactly what I would write, or that fulfills my parameters for what I want my own work to do. I can do that already. I do it.

And I'm not much for telling other people what to do (my children can stop laughing now), by which I mean, I'm not that much into prescriptions beyond the pharmaceutical kind.

I admit the sub-genres don't all meet my taste equally. I find more stories to my liking in some than in others. Some grate quickly. Others hit my sweet spot with ease. There are politicized issues throughout the field that make my head to explode, or that make me all warm and fuzzy with possibility and excitement. Or both, in the same sub-genre perhaps. Sometimes even in the same work.

Because I can find you an example that is doing something interesting, and one that is as cliched as balloon bread. I can find a book that hammers down the tropes of any given sub-genre in a way guaranteed to repel me, and one that hauls me in with the greatest of squee.

That's why I don't like drawing too many assumptions about the whole based on a few specimens or on secondhand knowledge, or even (maybe especially) based mostly on my own personal preferences. I don't know what is going on across the entire range of any given sub-genre, even one like epic fantasy in which my feet are most firmly dug (and my apologies to Joe Abercrombie as I have not yet read one of his novels, oh, and you too, dude, you know who you are).

Furthermore, whatever my complaints about the tropes involved in any one of them, I am pretty sure I can find examples of works which examine or subvert those tropes, or which simply deal with them at face value in a competent** way. Or which just plain suck.

I do know that what didn't work for me may work for others, and vice versa.

I do know that I value the people bringing to light and voice a greater diversity in perspective in our field, in whatever sub-genre(s) they may work.

Because here's the thing. No matter what, someone I know and/or read is working in one of the many and wildly divergent tracks of the great umbrella of Speculative Fiction, which I define in its most inclusive sense. And there are a lot of writers out there I trust to be doing their best to bring their vision in their most authentic way to me, the reader. I don't care what aesthetic it dresses itself in or what weapon it uses (or if it feels obliged to use weapons at all) or what tropes and landscapes it reveals.

It's all about the physicality, people. When I read fiction that feels for me like it really inhabits the story it is telling, and in a way that catches my eye and my heart, I'm there all the way.







* I'm paraphrasing based on my memory of the conversation. Karen may remember it differently, and if she does, I hope she will correct me.
Also, I personally am speaking here at the heterosexual, cisgendered female place on that particular axis.

** competent used here in the way that means "properly or well qualified" rather than merely "adequate to the purpose."

P.S. By "physicality" I think I mean "athletic."

"'girl' books that are so good, even boys might like them"

I stumbled across Australian author Michelle Cooper's blog Memoranda. Reading reviews in the Australian-based YA review journal Viewpoint, Cooper examines a review, written by a male reviewer, about India Dark, a novel written by author Kirsty Murray:

Here's a quote from the review:

". . . astute English teachers will recognize that, despite the female narrators, this is a book that will appeal strongly to the boys in the class . . ."

To which she responds (among other things - do read the post):

"I just don't see why the gender of the characters is only an issue when the characters are female. Teachers don't often say, 'I can't give this book to my co-ed class – the narrator is a boy!'"

None of this is new, I know. People have been discussing this issue forever. And yet still, it does not go away.

I've been puzzling over a recent review at sffworld.com by Mark Yon. Not the overall review, which is positive-with-reservations and is, I think, a fair and thoughtful review that treats the material with respect.

Just over the first sentence.

"The cynical amongst you will recognise many aspects of Kate Ellliott's new series – strong heroine, rite of passage events, quest for knowledge and so on."

Now, I think it is an absolutely fair cop to point out repeating thematic elements in an author's novels. Sometimes writers know they're doing it; sometimes they don't; sometimes they have an axe to grind; sometimes it just worked out that way. But nevertheless, if the same story elements keep popping up, I think readers/reviewers should totally flag them if they feel inclined to do so or think such notice adds insight into examining individual stories as well as bodies of work.

But cynicism over it having a strong heroine?

Is this a cynicism equally displayed with strong heroes?

Would anyone start a review by saying "The cynical amongst you will recognise many aspects of [insert male writer]'s new series – strong hero, rite of passage events, quest for knowledge and so on." ?

Then I think that, yes, they would, if that was considered a thematic element. "Male Writer's heroes are always wise-cracking swordsmen who get the best of their opponents."

Are female narrators in and of themselves a thematic element?

Michael Neate in his review of Cold Magic bravely tackles the question of female narrators for male readers head on. "I thought perhaps a 28 year old male just isn't meant to connect with a young, female voice."

Fortunately(!), he decides he is wrong (he liked the book and the voice). He goes on to write another post about making an effort to diversify his reading in which he asks himself, among other things, "Am I really that narrow-minded?"

This process of self-examination is one I go through myself, although not usually on this particular axis, and I think that asking the question goes a long way toward opening up the horizon of seeing voice as human rather than gendered (or along some other intersectional axis).

In fact, I ran into Michelle Cooper's post because she quotes also from a review of Cold Magic in that same journal in which the reviewer posits that Cold Magic "is intrinsically a girls' book."

To which she responds: "You'd think boys and girls belonged to completely different species, reading this."

Traitors' Gate now on Kindle

I have gotten many emails in the last six months asking about the availability of Traitors' Gate on Kindle.

It is now available on that platform, together with the first two volumes of the Crossroads Trilogy, Spirit Gate and Shadow Gate.

In Which that Might Be Me & My Crew on Hawaii 5-0

The daughter of one of my crewmates posted on my Facebook wall to say that she thinks it is our crew (or some of our crew, at any rate) in a quick 2 - 3 second dusk shot in the most recent episode of Hawaii 5-0, the one called Ho'olaulea, I think.

I find this pretty amusing.

The clip is at about 24:30 or thereabouts: there's a setting sun, and then a canoe being paddled by what is quite likely some elements of our crew (the show is meant to take place at the North Shore), and then it goes to a kid playing the ukulele and singing while there is a pretend gathering going on that looks kind of weird to me, but whatever.

Anyway, I cannot tell you that it absolutely is me in that shot -- it could be Karen -- or someone else -- and there is no telling when that particular bit of extra business was filmed, but I think it is quite likely that is a Manu boat and Manu Senior Masters women.

What I can say is that looks like a canoe coming in at the end of its run, kind of a warm down, as it were. Water is gorgeous, yeah?

Also: I am mostly on twitter right now as I am trying to finish the first draft of this book and I am oh so close but not close enough.

"Please give us tall girls a break once in a while."

A lovely post excerpting letters from female readers to Astounding Tales in the early 1930s.

The entire post is well worth reading, but my favorite line comes from the young woman who finished her letter to the editor of A.S. by writing:

Another word to ye Authors: Please do not always have the girls in your stories such sweet little bundles of humanity. Aren't there any tall girls in your imaginations? Please give us tall girls a break once in a while. It makes me feel better. Thanks.

It is the best among us who give me hope

The rescue of the Chilean miners is ongoing. To read about how these men--and the people who have worked for weeks now to keep them alive and now rescue them--have conducted themselves under such adverse conditions is to see how tenacious and steadfast and, well, amazing human beings can be.

It's one reason I am not a pessimist. A realist, I hope, but not a pessimist. Human beings can be cruel, violent, greedy, and ignorant. Alas, that goes without saying. They can also be kind, gentle, generous, and wise. I like what the rabbis say: that we all have a good inclination and an evil inclination. Both are present in each of us, all the time. The rest is up to us, nor does any individual always succeed in acting to his or her best heart; sometimes we succumb to our worst. And there are those who do awful things, far too many of them, of course, driven by so many different motives and influences.

But when the shift foreman states his intent to come up to the surface last, because he is an ordinary man who does his job, and his job is to see all his crew up, then I am heartened. I hope to see Luis Urzua up soon, because when we see him that means they'll all have been rescued.

I guess the rabbis might say that, too: we might all wish to consider ourselves shift foreman for something in life, not necessarily the same thing and not necessarily all the time. But I also expect that the position of shift foreman--however you want to expand that definitionally in terms of metaphysical, spiritual, mental, emotional, or other terms--allows people to rise to the occasion, to give them purpose and focus to say: I know what needs to be done here and now, and I am going to see that it is done. In a way, it's a rare opportunity. Just like life, I suppose: rare, temporary, and precious.