#also i find fiction books set in the real world with mundane drama plots to be deeply uncompelling

[eyeswaitingfortuesdaynight]

when it's past midnight and all i can think about is how much i hate the apprenticeship of duddy kravtiz, i should probably just go to bed.

i barely remember it now, but i remember being so absolutely disgusted with how duddy treated his...girlfriend? lover? girl he definitely did not respect? that it completely overshadowed everything else about how i felt about the novel.

oh duddy learned...something? maybe? or he got rich? or lost all his friends? i really don't remember because all i can recall is a misogynistic pos that never once apologized to the woman he wronged.

[recentanimenews]

The Beauty of Takako Shimura's Queer Slice-of-Life

Fumi takes Sugimoto's hand

  When I was a teen, I wanted stories that “represented me.”

Or — let’s say it differently. I was growing up and my tastes were maturing with me.

I never really considered myself much of a fan of slice-of-life anime. To be honest, I didn’t see the appeal in watching characters do the same things I could in real life, right now. But that quickly changed when I became familiar with the work of Takako Shimura.

  Shimura’s manga mostly centers on the lives of LGBTQIA+ adolescents. Tonally, her work draws heavily from the slow burn of classic novels like Jane Austen’s Emma or Higuchi Ichiyo’s Takekurabe. Despite writing about children and teens, Shimura’s stories are rife with psychological richness and an acute attention for age-appropriate sensibilities. That’s to say that before I read any of Shimura’s manga, I didn’t see much value in stories that, on the surface, didn’t have any world-shattering stakes.

Nitori writes notes for Romeo and Juliet late at night

  Of Shimura’s manga, two have been adapted into anime so far: Sweet Blue Flowers and Wandering Son. Adapted in 2009, Sweet Blue Flowers is a yuri series following two teen girls as they navigate their feelings for each other and their peers. Wandering Son, adapted in 2012, is a coming-of-age story about two transgender adolescents in middle school. Shimura simultaneously published both manga series, with Wandering Son beginning in 2002 and Sweet Blue Flowers in 2004. Both concluded serialization in 2013.

What are the stakes in telling these otherwise mundane slice-of-life stories with queer characters? Under their pastel and watercolor aesthetic, I quickly learned both of these adaptations promised something far more fulfilling than pure warm fuzzies: realistic, and emotionally poignant portraits of a fully realized queer childhood.

“Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy”

Sugimoto texts Fumi

  Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is a classic novel all about tragic love. Sweet Blue Flowers is a similar story: sensitive and bookish Fumi Manjōme comes to the world-changing realization she is a girl who likes girls. And her dear childhood friend, Akira "Acchan" Okudaira, who attends the prestige Fujigaya Girls Academy, doesn’t have the slightest clue. Fumi is tall and has a soft voice; Akira is short and can be heard from miles away. Set in historical and beautiful Kamakura, Sweet Blue Flowers has a cozy literary vibe that reminds me of curling up with Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women as a kid. Literature itself is a recurring theme throughout the series — with Wuthering Heights and The Little Prince constantly referenced, it’s hard not to feel like this high school puppy love tale has something bigger to say about the world at large.

  Sweet Blue Flowers only covers parts of the manga, so you will have to read the series to find out how and if Fumi and Akira get together. But the anime wonderfully covers one of my favorite arcs: Fumi’s relationship with the heartthrob senior Yasuko Sugimoto, who is cast as Heathcliff in Fumi’s school play. For as much as the series is implicitly about Fumi and Akira, Sugimoto’s strenuous relationship with her family and her sexuality get lots of compelling screen time. The two have a dramatic kiss in the school library and lots of pining. But Sugimoto is hopelessly capricious and after Fumi falls for her, both get humiliated by Sugimoto’s family after she attempts to introduce Fumi as her girlfriend.

Sugimoto's sister chides her for relationship with Fumi

It’s a complicated scene. Fumi and Sugimoto are sitting while one of Sugimoto’s three sisters backtracks Sugimoto’s confession and asks if she really is a lesbian — if she really loves Fumi right now, really. Fumi is embarrassed and Sugimoto is scandalized, rushing up to her room to sulk and eventually breaking up with Fumi right then and there. It’s about as bad of a family introduction as you can get, and frustrated and confused, Fumi leaves and wonders what such a disastrous outcome could possibly mean for her romantic life.

To be honest, I was a little shocked. Rather than take the easy and escapist route, Sweet Blue Flowers isn’t afraid to take the reality of discrimination and family disapproval head-on. Thankfully, it isn’t so tragic that Fumi gives up on dating forever. We see real character growth from Fumi, who at a later point builds up enough confidence to tell Sugimoto that her behavior was wrong and that she’s much happier without her. There are even hints that Fumi and Akira might date. Shimura’s depiction of Fumi gradually becoming aware of her identity as not only a lesbian — but as a young adult capable of maturely advocating for her own needs — is one of the most exciting things I’ve seen in an anime about young LGBTQIA+ life.

  “What’s In a Name?”

Nitori accidentally runs into Takatsuki on a bridge after running away

  Wandering Son is sometimes clumped together with a genre called “gender-benders” — a story where the protagonist is a boy who becomes a girl or vice versa. That comparison has always been both funny and fascinating to me. Funny, because older series like Ranma ½ definitely have something to say about gender in their own roundabout way. But fascinating and true to the spirit of Wandering Son as well. This idea of one day “switching genders” is the only way young protagonist Shuichi Nitori can even begin imagining a future as a girl. It’s the wonderful opening of a door.

Unlike Sweet Blue Flowers, which draws from a well-established tradition of conventional yuri tropes, Wandering Son is an anomaly simply for being about transgender life in Japan. The anime adaptation picks off with Nitori and friend Yoshino Takatsuki, a masculine “girl who wants to be a boy” entering middle school. Early in the series, Takatsuki and Nitori have already made a habit of going on day trips into the next town over in clothes suiting their chosen gender identities. Takatsuki makes friends with Yuki, an adult trans woman who inevitably ends up becoming a mentor for both Takatsuki and Nitori. They shop for cute clothes, browse at gender-affirming underwear, and just hang out. Up to this point, the two middle schoolers are oblivious of the LGBTQIA+ community and innocently enough, frame their coincidental feelings as simply wanting to “switch genders” — a sentiment at odds with the realities of nearing puberty.

  "It's a play where you and I are the stars ... A play that represents my wish. Where a male Takatsuki and a female me live happily ever after with the people we care about."

  All the while, Nitori and classmate Saoirin are busy writing a "gender-bent" school production of Romeo of Juliet. This plot point is a loving reference to the Takarazuka Revue, Shimura’s love for literature, and Nitori’s colorful conceptualization of gender identity. I like to think this is a means appropriate for middle schoolers who don’t have an adult’s vocabulary to address the fantasy of “gender-bender” stories versus actual lived realities. It’s an incredibly smart way to simultaneously navigate the story from these character's ages, and to ask the older viewer directly: What assumptions do you make about gender and what do you take for granted about it?

  Even though Wandering Son doesn’t capture the entire scope of Nitori and Takatsuki’s adolescence, I think that’s okay. The real sweetness of slice-of-life anime is exactly what it says on the can. The series makes no overt gestures as to whether or not these kids will transition, leaving it ambiguous and open-ended. But besides that, it’s also a story about navigating temperamental middle school friendships, siblings, and getting into petty classroom fights. At the end of the day, Wandering Son is a deeply sympathetic but not overly idyllic or nostalgic depiction of childhood. For as much saccharine Nitori and Takatsuki have to offer, they are both anxious and afraid about what their future holds. They are learning just like us.

Dream A Little Dream Of Me

Acchan comforts Fumi

What can we get from shows essentially about doing homework, being in the school play, getting dumped by your first girlfriend, and going through puberty? Not some otherworldly enlightenment but something far more mundane: learning that most of us, regardless of sexuality or gender identity, are just normal people. Even more — that there isn’t anything inherently scandalous or “adult” about being an LGBTQIA+ youth. Everyone’s story deserves to be told.

Shimura’s world is exactly the kind of fiction I wish I had access to as a fed-up teen. Sure, there’s something widely liberating about seeing yourself depicted in the media, but it only begins there. Seeing protagonists like Nitori and Fumi gradually become more confident in themselves helped me realize the real stakes of slice-of-life dramas: even if we think we’re grown-up, we always have a little bit more growing to do.

    Blake P. is a weekly columnist for Crunchyroll Features. He likes old mecha anime, computer games, books, and black coffee. His twitter is @_dispossessed. His bylines include Fanbyte, VRV, Unwinnable, and more.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[strange-destinations]

Dear Yuletide Writer 2019

(As usual, please ignore this if you don’t know what this is about!)

Hello, and thank you so much for writing something for me!! I adore seeing what people come up with for Yuletide and I am super excited for what you end up producing. I want this to be a good and enjoyable experience for you as a writer, so don’t try to second-guess yourself too much - just have fun making whatever it is!

Squicks/DNWS - no sex, please! (And it also follows that I’d rather like to avoid any noncon, kinky stuff even if it’s nonsexual, any other sort of sexual content, etc - that’s just not my sort of thing, really.) Romance is all right, if that’s the way that you want to take things, but I much prefer close friendships and family dynamics. However!! I am pretty much completely fine with body horror/violence, hurt/comfort, etc. 

I love good dialogue, character interaction, twist endings, and imaginative plots - and worldbuilding! Happy endings are preferred but not necessary if it just isn’t working for you.

In general - if you’re thinking about making something gay/trans/queer/ace in any way, you should probably absolutely go for it, because I’m wild for that sort of thing.

AUs are… fine and good, as far as I can think of! (Obv no A/B/O or sex-related stuff please, but) canon divergence, fantasy, high school, etc seem all good to me! Especially if there’s a whole lot of clever nods to original canon in there. 

In addition, I'm always welcome to receiving stuff in interesting and unusual mediums/styles. This includes stuff like Interactive Fiction (additional info here) and multimedia stuff.

Anyway, fandom time. Let's do this, y'all!

->

Fandom: Ruby Redfort series - Lauren Child

Available:  I managed to acquire a copy of the full series online via my local library - and the physical copies were at my local library too. I don’t have a link to them, I’m afraid.

Tvtropes page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/RubyRedfort

Characters: *** Any from *** Ruby Redfort, Hitch, Blacker, Clancy Crew 

About the fandom: I just love it a lot.  I dragged its fandom out of the depths of Tumblr singlehandedly a few years ago and have been doggedly creating content for it ever since. There's just something really compelling about 'bright young kid gets accidentally adopted by spy agency' (yes i know that's not EXACLY what happens but I can dream, right?)

Prompts/suggestions:

Like I said above, I really like the idea of Ruby being essentially adopted by the whole Spectrum team.

I’d love to see some casefic! Blacker and Ruby working together to solve a puzzle or problem - either serious or mundane - or Hitch and Ruby on a stakeout of some sort. Or both!

Some general stuff I like - heists, murder mysteries, rescue missions, characters playing games (e.g. Travelling Lemon, word games, throwing increasingly ridiculous hypotheticals at each other) because they're bored or similar,

Spectrum office shenanigans - stuff that happens between books, when Ruby and everybody else aren’t in mortal danger and that LB will most likely glare disapprovingly at.

On the angstier side of things, if you want to stick Ruby in even more mortal danger than usual I am ALL RIGHT WITH THAT. Rescue missions hell yeah.

AUs??? AUs!!! Modern!AU with Ruby doing extreme sports vlogs and occasionally failing to hide the fact that she's part of a secret spy agency. Is Blacker a hacker? Or a fantasy/medieval AU? Or Ruby Redfort, in space!

I feel like I’ll be delighted with whatever you create, tbh. I can’t think of many ways you could go wrong with it.

->

Fandom: Bernice Summerfield (Big Finish Audio)

Available:  Via the Big Finish website, and all of the boxsets from Epoch to New Frontiers are available for free on Spotify! Just look up Bernice Summerfield there.

Tvtropes page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/BerniceSummerfield

Characters: *** Any from *** Bernice Summerfield, Third Doctor (Warner)

About the fandom: It’s like if Indiana Jones was shorter, actually did his job, and was a kickass woman who was also the Doctor’s companion at one point! Several points. And also she has a considerably larger family than Indiana Jones. Her spinoff kind of transcends a lot of forms of media - she’s in comics, print, animations, audio dramas, and one really hilariously terrible sort-of-fanfilm made by Lisa Bowerman and Sylvester McCoy when they were on some kind of cruise together. And it more or less transcends genre too. There’s been musical episodes right alongside the episode where someone very dear to her manipulates someone else very dear to her into killing (you guessed it) someone who is also very dear to her. It’s a wild ride. Anyway.

Prompts/suggestions:

The Warner!Doctor and Benny era of this series particularly delights me, because Benny and the Doctor just have such a lovely dynamic. There's a bit in the writer's guide for this era that mentions that the Warner!Doctor 'seems to be a grouch' but is actually 'a playful spirit who loves to have fun', and... I just love that? And there is literally no fic with them! Which is an absolute travesty.

I particularly like: heists, murder mysteries, rescue missions, adventures, playing around with genre and style.

It's Doctor Who/Bernice Summerfield!! Which means there's an infinite wealth of planets and times and worlds to explore, if you choose to set it in the regular universe. If, on the other hand, you choose to place it in the Unbound universe, slowly collapsing in on itself, there's probably a lot you can do with this too

The found family dynamic between them!! It's clear that, despite all the snarking and sniping, they really do adore each other quite a bit. If you'd lean into that, I'd be forever grateful.

Apologies for no real specific suggestions - mostly, I just would really like to see these two having fun together and being buds. But also? The angst is good too. Make me laugh/smile or make me hurt, I don't care which.

 ->

Fandom: Beanworld - Larry Marder

Available:  ...I have literally no idea where you can pick this up. I first read it at my local library. I think you can get copies at various book retailers?

Tvtropes page: Non-existent. I should rectify that.

Characters: *** Any from *** Professor Garbanzo, Mr Spook, Beanish, Heyoka (but honestly please throw in everybody in there. I love them all so much)

About the fandom: It's a weird, brilliant, complete unique experience of a comic book set in a world where the rules are very different to ours!

Prompts/suggestions:

I know that pretty much the entire point of Beanworld is that the characters are not human in the least, But I can't help but wonder what a human AU would be like!! Beanish as a struggling art student, the Hoi'Polloi as the local street gang with an unfortunate gambling habit, Heyoka as the weird chaotic neutral genderqueer acrobat who babysits occasionally and is always standing on their head. Or any other direction you want to take it in!! I adore seeing familiar characters in settings that they couldn't possibly find themselves in, in canon.

Bean shenanigans!! What sort of things do they get up to on their Goof-Off Days that we don't see on-screen?

Explore some of the friendships/relationships between the characters! I love some of those good good Bean interactions. For example (but not at all limited to):

Professor Garbanzo and Mr Spook - the ultimate BroTP. I particularly love how well they get along even when you wouldn’t expect them too - how Mr Spook isn’t really a scientific sort of guy but is really encouraging and helpful to her endeavors. It’s good and soft.

Mr Spook and the Chow Sol’jers! A dedicated fighting team that work together and protect each other every day. I’m now wondering what the Chow Sol’jer in-jokes are. They’ve gotta have some, right?

Beanish and Dreamishness - the greatest love story ever told! (If you do end up including this relationship in particular, I’d prefer it if it wasn’t the focus.) Additionally, I’d really love it if you could play around with the idea of love in the Big•Big•Picture being different to how we see it/perceive it in our world! I know it’s kind of vague, and it’s definitely not necessary, but I figured I might as well put it out there.

Heyoka and... everyone. Literally everyone. I love how she interacts with the Beans - how they’re kind of confused as to how she works, but accept her as one of them anyway - and how she interacts with people outside of the Beanworld. The sequence when she’s falling upwards and through the Inspiration Constellation, and how the Constellation is so pleasantly amused by and encouraging of her - it’s really nice. And her as the teacher to the Pod’ll’pool babies!! She’s such a cool character.

Other AUs or canon divergences! Can't think of anything specific off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's some stuff out there.

Literally anything that takes stuff from canon and extends upon it! Especially if you’re playing into the amazingly bizarre and extensive world of the Big•Big•Picture. Because the rules there are definitely not at all the same as they are for our world, and that delights me to no end. I have so many questions about it that I’m nearly certain aren’t going to be answered anytime soon. Like, where does the Thin Lake/Four Realities/Hoi-Polloi zone end?? There’s gotta be an end to it somewhere. Are there other islands like the Beanworld? 

->

Fandom: Rainbow Magic series - Daisy Meadows

Available: on your younger sister's bookshelf or at pretty much any library, bookstore or garage sale you'd care to visit.

Tvtropes page: 

Characters: *** Any from *** Rachel Walker, Kirsty Tate, Titania, Oberon (but feel free to throw in any of the million-plus other fairies that exist at your discretion)

About the fandom: Oh, jeez. What to say about this? It's such a bizarre interest of mine. The series has suffered from intense seasonal rot, with literally every book following the same formula. And there are hundreds of books. But it's such a large part of my childhood that it's hard to not feel some sort of affection for it. Plus, there's so many interesting things to explore!

Prompts/suggestions:

Feel free to throw some Kirsty/Rachel shipping in there, because we all know those two were lesbian as all hell. I'd prefer it not to be the focus, though!

Any exploration of the fact that the girls have been doing this for far longer than is strictly reasonable with no complaints, questions, or problems. They've been through like ten Christmas specials and don't appear to have aged a day since the beginning of the series. What's up with that, huh?

To that end - there's plenty of myths and legends about the rules that fae traditionally have. What about applying some of these to the RM fairies? Are Titania and Oberon the leaders of the Seelie Court, with Jack Frost as the Unseelie leader? Do they do the whole Changeling thing? Are Kirsty and Rachel Changelings?

(And bear with me for a second while I point you at a specific line from the very first book, because I think it's very good inspiration for the whole 'giving a fairy your name' thing:)

Kirsty wanted to ask the fairy so many things. But she didn't know where to start.

"Tell me your names, quickly," said the fairy. She fluttered up into the air again. "There's so much to be done, and we must get started right away."

Rachel wondered what the fairy meant. "I'm Rachel," she said.

"And I'm Kirsty," said Kirsty. "But who are you?"

"I'm the Red Rainbow Fairy - but you can call me Ruby," the fairy replied.

Very suspicious.

A Discord server I'm on has been throwing around the idea of the fairies (yes. All of them.) ending up as humans in the human world abruptly, and having to adjust to living life without magic - and dealing with the fact that somehow, their magical domains are functioning perfectly without them. Which is a very compelling idea. How do Rachel and Kirsty deal with their now-possibly-permanent, no-longer-magical neighbours? How are Titania and Oberon coping, now that they no longer have to rule a whole kingdom? What sort of the things do the fairies get up to? Where do they stay?

Aged-up Kirsty and Rachel get called upon to deal with new adult problems that are blooming in the fairy world. (Tiara The Tax Evasion Fairy, anyone?)

...or anything else.

->

Again, thank you for writing for me, and I hope you get something awesome in return from your own writer! Good luck!

[aardwolfpack]

Summaries of Unwritten Books

Remember when I said I had many planned writing projects that were still unfinished (and in some cases unstarted) years later?  Well here are the main ones, in chronological order of conception.  The first summary grew so long I had to shelve it and write a very succinct overview.

Xi is a nerve-wracking technological thriller in four parts.  The setting is a planet not unlike our own, with a seemingly organized society and global government.  The heroes are conspiracy theorists, hackers, and underground revolutionaries, while the enemy is a gigantic faceless organization enacting a secret plan that will spell the end of human freedom.  I fear these books would've been more popular if I'd published them at the Turn of the Millennium (which was when I conceived and plotted them).  In basic terms Xi is The X-Files without aliens.

Gêkí is a post-apocalyptic neo-mythical saga featuring the last surviving member of a noble clan of warriors.  As in many of my fictional settings there's a lot of weird science that's barely distinguishable from magic.  I created the main character, the setting, and some other elements for a novel I was working on in 1999 that would've brought my hard S.F. space exploration series to post-apocalyptic Earth.  That novel and series has been on indefinite hiatus since the summer of '03, and I basically forgot about this spinoff for years.  Fairly recently a friend read a scene I wrote for Gêkí and urged me to complete the novel.  The plan before was for Gêkí to have a frame story set in the "present" and three major flashbacks detailing how our hero got to that point in his life.  The relevant parts of the abandoned novel could be boiled down to a fourth flashback (preferably without involving other planets).  Otherwise I could just put the whole book in chronological order like a normal author.  In basic terms Gêkí is Star Wars meets The Dying Earth.

Truelove is a teen supernatural romance that began as a subplot in one of the Xi books but is now a separate project set on present day Earth.  "Present day" is 2004 because that's when I expected to finish the rough draft (which still isn't finished).  The plot centers around the main character's "imaginary" friend from childhood who returns nine years later as a new (and very real) student at her school.  He wants to make her life better, but she must never tell anyone that he's not what he appears and never acknowledge that anything strange is happening.  Their close bond turns to romance.  Negative elements in her live miraculously disappear one by one, but the changes to material reality and the townspeople's collective memories start to add up, and disaster looms.  Truelove is either two short novels or one long novel with two distinct halves.  The first is set in a fictional Midwestern town (my writing has a lot of these) and could be described as a high school drama, while the second half takes place mostly in other dimensions and is something akin to space opera.  It's one of those science-fantasies where everything fantastical has a scientific explanation (explicated or implied).  In basic terms Truelove is Twilight with the Q Continuum instead of Vampires.  It's better than it sounds.

Much of my art coexists (or could be made to fit) in a fictional universe I vaguely defined in 2006 and would like to showcase in a book.  The universe was originally called Dreamtime, a placeholder name I didn't really like.  It's now called Shadow Earth or Sciagæa, which I also don't like.  Possible titles for the book are Lamplight Illuminations and Inverted Omega (Ʊ).  It would be a heavily illustrated pseudononfiction book in the tradition of Wayne Douglas Barlowe, Stewart Cowley, and Brian Froud.  The main character is a fictionalized version of myself, and the premise is that I discovered a weak spot in the time-space fabric in an empty parking lot in my seemingly mundane Midwestern hometown.  Through this I made mental contact with a planet that occupies Earth's place in another universe.  The book exposits and illustrates the information and imagery I picked up before the time-space wound healed over.  The foreboding final chapter would be about a possible incursion from the other world into our own.  In basic terms Lamplight Illuminations is a more advanced version of my Deviantart gallery.

The Man from the Man from Mars (which is not a typo) was conceived in 2013, making it my newest major writing project.  It's also the only one that's really a comedy.  It's about a group of ordinary people in a nondescript Midwestern town who end up saving the world.  The plot involves an alien, a transformed human, a crystallizing plague known as the Sparkly Death, and a whole lot of other junk.  It would work best as a graphic novel, but that depends on me finding a collaborator who knows how to make one of those.  It's most likely to end up a novella, preferably with many illustrations.  In basic terms The Man from the Man from Mars is a Fifties monster movie with the brain of a Nineties comedy.

[the-salty-digest]

“Every Heart A Doorway”, or: What if all possible fantasylands existed, and you could travel to them? (hint: you're going to die)

Title: Every Heart A Doorway (novelette, 2016 winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novella) Author: Seanan McGuire Review by: Captain Clo Verdict: imaginative worldbuilding, unimaginative plot, stilted writing in random places.

I've first hear about this book around the time it was nominated for the Nebula Award, since the book also features an asexual female protagonist and a transexual male side character. That said, simply having LGBT characters does not a good book make, and for all that this novelette is definitely enjoyable, it didn't convince me. But if you:

are looking for a fairytale-styled fantasy with an asexual protagonist (which is, let's face it, extremely rare)

like the idea of a trans boy as love interest/charming prince

don't mind purple prose terribly much

this book is for you.

In my opinion, the best thing about this novelette is definitely the worldbuilding. The plot is based on the existence of a number of "fantasylands" or "parallel universes", accessible through magical doors that only open for specific people (generally children, but not necessarily) at specific times. The core concept is the same as a journey through fairyland, with children spirited away to worlds that fall on two of four "directions": Wicked or Virtue, Nonsense or Logic. The children pass years of subjective life in these worlds – whereas in the mundane world, only months or even days pass – and they stay willingly, as they feel that these worlds are perfect for them; or at least, those who manage to come back feel that these places resonated with some aspect of their selves so perfectly, that adjusting back to life in the mundane world is completely impossible. (It's implied that those who don't fit in those worlds end up dead. Told you you're going to die.)

That's where the setting of the story, the Eleanor West's Home For Wayward Children, comes into play. The Home is a boarding school for children and teens who have come back from such worlds so deeply changed, they can't – or don't want to – live a normal life anymore. Their only desire is to go back, but all of them were either kicked out (fairies are cruel like that, after all) or came back and lost their door. On a certain level, the Home reminded me of an asylum. At first is unclear whether these worlds are real or fabrications of the children's minds, and a lot of their behaviours, in real life, would be considered signs of a deteriorating mental health. The protagonist, for example, went to an Underworld where people were forced to act as statues – without moving, eating, drinking or sleeping – and she learned that act so well, once she returned to the real world she claims she can eat and drink very little without problem. Her meals consist of fruit juice and a few fruits, and it's easy to see in this a sign (a metaphor?) of anorexia. Most of the children in the boarding school have similar "disorders", but in the end, their experiences are real, and so are the worlds they went to.

The descriptions of the worlds and how the children fit in them are all pretty interesting. There are worlds more obviously based on faitytales – with Goblin Kings and quests – and some based on classics such as Frankenstein and Dracula. Every world explains the idiosyncrasies of the children who came back from them. In their own vision, they came back as a truer version of themselves; according to their parents, they came back wrong. And so they send them to the Home to be fixed. On the one hand, the children are changed in ways that make them unable to live normally; all of them are obsessed with the idea of going back, and all of them hate who they were before. They can't empathize with the parents who were left in anguish for months, and then had their children back, but so changed as to seem mentally ill. At the same time, however, all the parents who get a description are fundamentally bad parents. For example, Kade's parents can't accept his trans identity, which emerged once he came back, and want him to act like the "girl he was before". The protagonist's parents dig through her luggage and change all her chosen clothes for boarding school – all in black and white exclusively – with the more colourful ones she used to wear. Other parents are described as outright abusers. But, at the same time, what some of these children went through in those worlds they love so much IS abuse. The protagonist, Nancy, can't aceept the simple fact that the world she went to was "High Wicked" – the creatures, or fairies if you want, that dwelled there abused her, forcing her to act as a living statue; she even knows that those who could not perform as well as her were killed, but she thinks nothing of it. She is, simply put, broken, and in mad love with the King of that world.

Unfortunately, the plot of the novelette itself isn't about any of that; it's about a string of vicious murders that start when Nancy joins the school. It's a pretty standard murder story, with a pretty easy-to-spot culprit. I guess you could say that their motivations are more proof of how broken these children are, but... I just spent a page talking about the worldbuilding, and the plot paragraph is over already.

I don't comment on a book's writing style unless I find it egregious in some sense. The prose of this novelette made me roll my eyes in some places – random, odd places, not throughout the entire book, which ruined the reading experience. Those purple prose spots jarred my willing suspension of disbelief, and made me think of old-school fiction when goth style was all the rage (no offense to those who were into the rage... I was too). Take the description of Nancy:

"She wore black – black jeans, black ankle boots with tiny black buttons marching like soldiers from toe to calf – and she wore white – a loose tank top, the faux pearls bands around her wrists – and she had a ribbon the color of pomegranate seeds tied around the base of her ponytail. Her hair was bone-white streaked with runnels of black, like oil spilled on a marble floor, and her eyes were pale as ice."

I can't, for the life of me, figure out if the author is pulling my leg here. I haven't read something that screams "edgy teen Mary Sue-self" this hard since My Immortal. Also there is something simply ridiculous in how stereotypically goth the entire concept of the Underworld Nancy went to is – with the fascinating Lord and Lady of the Dead playing wicked games with their subjects, everyone forced to wear black or white, the pomegranate seeds, and the fashion style inspired specifically by Waterhouse. The 17-year-old goth me is cackling. Some other characters are as equally quirky, with elaborate descriptions of their clothes and hair and hairstyle and eye colour... it does set the atmosphere, but it's also very close to being a mash-up of several teenage "fascinations" for the hell of it. It adds colour, I enjoyed it, but underneath it all, the plot and the style are lacking.

The prose itself is too elaborate at times, adding explanations that are simply obvious, seemingly just for the joy of adding elaborate words – the very definition of purple prose, if you ask me. Take these examples:

"Nancy brought up the rear. Stillness and speed were diametrically opposed. But she did the best she could, and they reached the attic door at roughly the same time." [Was this even necessary? "They walked to the door" wasn't enough?]

"But the shaking continued as her traitorous body betrayed her, trembling like a leaf in a hard wind." [Added appeal of too many alliterations: "traitorous body betrayed trembling". Wow. That's way too much. And use of two sets of synonims in one sentence?]

"[She] whimpered behind the gag that covered her mouth, eyes rolling wildly as she looked for a way out. She wasn't finding one." [You don't say.]

"[Loriel said], but the heat was gone; her accusations had been met with reality, and they didn't have anyplace else to go." [Am I the only one thinking of a stereotypical high school drama were the mean girl is put in her place?]

Also, the author has a fascination for the Oklahoma accent that I really don't get. I mean, it's okay if you like it, that's not the problem. The problem arises when said accent is described in slash fanfiction style:

"What'n the fuck are you doing in here again, Sumi?" he demanded, Oklahoma accent thick as peanut butter spread across a slice of toast."

"His drawl grew thicker, dripping from his words like sweet and tempting honey."

LADY. STOP. PLS. Well, at least you could argue that Kade is treated exactly the same as a fascinating cis male would be in fanfic...

Another note I want to put out there is how Nancy's asexuality is brought up in the narration. I can't put my finger on what exactly didn't work for me about it, but the two instances in which it was discussed seemed to me like two other parts in which the flow of narration was stilted. In particular, this:

"This was always the difficult part, back when she'd been at her old school: explaining that "asexual" and "aromantic" were different things. She liked holding hands and trading kisses. She'd had several boyfriends in elementary school, just like most of the other girls, and she had always found those practice relationships completely satisfying. It wasn't until puberty had come along and changed the rules that she'd started pulling away in confusion and disinterest."

This part is definitely too didactic, giving the reader a lecture on what asexuality is. Although I can understand the need to do so, I think it interrupts the flow of the story. The use of the terms "asexual" and "aromantic" don't help either, since they're not much used in common parlance and they sound almost like medical tems. Of course they aren't, but the use of "ace" would have been better, maybe (it poses the problem of how many readers might know what ace means, of course). Conversely, Kade's gender identity fits the narration much better. In bits and pieces, the reader learns how his experience in the fairyland he ended up in helped him to discover his identity, and how the discovery had him kicked out of that world. His gender identity is integrated with his backstory, and it works much better.

[thesaltydigest]

Review: “Every Heart A Doorway”, or: What if all possible fantasylands existed, and you could travel to them? (hint: you’re going to die)

Title: Every Heart A Doorway (novelette, 2016 winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novella) Author: Seanan McGuire Review by: Captain Clo Verdict: imaginative worldbuilding, unimaginative plot, stilted writing in random places.

I’ve first hear about this book around the time it was nominated for the Nebula Award, since the book also features an asexual female protagonist and a transexual male side character. That said, simply having LGBT characters does not a good book make, and for all that this novelette is definitely enjoyable, it didn’t convince me. But if you:

are looking for a fairytale-styled fantasy with an asexual protagonist (which is, let’s face it, extremely rare)

like the idea of a trans boy as love interest/charming prince

don’t mind purple prose terribly much

this book is for you.

In my opinion, the best thing about this novelette is definitely the worldbuilding. The plot is based on the existence of a number of “fantasylands” or “parallel universes”, accessible through magical doors that only open for specific people (generally children, but not necessarily) at specific times. The core concept is the same as a journey through fairyland, with children spirited away to worlds that fall on two of four “directions”: Wicked or Virtue, Nonsense or Logic. The children pass years of subjective life in these worlds – whereas in the mundane world, only months or even days pass – and they stay willingly, as they feel that these worlds are perfect for them; or at least, those who manage to come back feel that these places resonated with some aspect of their selves so perfectly, that adjusting back to life in the mundane world is completely impossible. (It’s implied that those who don’t fit in those worlds end up dead. Told you you’re going to die.)

That’s where the setting of the story, the Eleanor West’s Home For Wayward Children, comes into play. The Home is a boarding school for children and teens who have come back from such worlds so deeply changed, they can’t – or don’t want to – live a normal life anymore. Their only desire is to go back, but all of them were either kicked out (fairies are cruel like that, after all) or came back and lost their door. On a certain level, the Home reminded me of an asylum. At first is unclear whether these worlds are real or fabrications of the children’s minds, and a lot of their behaviours, in real life, would be considered signs of a deteriorating mental health. The protagonist, for example, went to an Underworld where people were forced to act as statues – without moving, eating, drinking or sleeping – and she learned that act so well, once she returned to the real world she claims she can eat and drink very little without problem. Her meals consist of fruit juice and a few fruits, and it’s easy to see in this a sign (a metaphor?) of anorexia. Most of the children in the boarding school have similar “disorders”, but in the end, their experiences are real, and so are the worlds they went to.

The descriptions of the worlds and how the children fit in them are all pretty interesting. There are worlds more obviously based on faitytales – with Goblin Kings and quests – and some based on classics such as Frankenstein and Dracula. Every world explains the idiosyncrasies of the children who came back from them. In their own vision, they came back as a truer version of themselves; according to their parents, they came back wrong. And so they send them to the Home to be fixed. On the one hand, the children are changed in ways that make them unable to live normally; all of them are obsessed with the idea of going back, and all of them hate who they were before. They can’t empathize with the parents who were left in anguish for months, and then had their children back, but so changed as to seem mentally ill. At the same time, however, all the parents who get a description are fundamentally bad parents. For example, Kade’s parents can’t accept his trans identity, which emerged once he came back, and want him to act like the “girl he was before”. The protagonist’s parents dig through her luggage and change all her chosen clothes for boarding school – all in black and white exclusively – with the more colourful ones she used to wear. Other parents are described as outright abusers. But, at the same time, what some of these children went through in those worlds they love so much IS abuse. The protagonist, Nancy, can’t aceept the simple fact that the world she went to was “High Wicked” – the creatures, or fairies if you want, that dwelled there abused her, forcing her to act as a living statue; she even knows that those who could not perform as well as her were killed, but she thinks nothing of it. She is, simply put, broken, and in mad love with the King of that world.

Unfortunately, the plot of the novelette itself isn’t about any of that; it’s about a string of vicious murders that start when Nancy joins the school. It’s a pretty standard murder story, with a pretty easy-to-spot culprit. I guess you could say that their motivations are more proof of how broken these children are, but… I just spent a page talking about the worldbuilding, and the plot paragraph is over already.

I don’t comment on a book’s writing style unless I find it egregious in some sense. The prose of this novelette made me roll my eyes in some places – random, odd places, not throughout the entire book, which ruined the reading experience. Those purple prose spots jarred my willing suspension of disbelief, and made me think of old-school fiction when goth style was all the rage (no offense to those who were into the rage… I was too). Take the description of Nancy:

“She wore black – black jeans, black ankle boots with tiny black buttons marching like soldiers from toe to calf – and she wore white – a loose tank top, the faux pearls bands around her wrists – and she had a ribbon the color of pomegranate seeds tied around the base of her ponytail. Her hair was bone-white streaked with runnels of black, like oil spilled on a marble floor, and her eyes were pale as ice.”

I can’t, for the life of me, figure out if the author is pulling my leg here. I haven’t read something that screams “edgy teen Mary Sue-self” this hard since My Immortal. Also there is something simply ridiculous in how stereotypically goth the entire concept of the Underworld Nancy went to is – with the fascinating Lord and Lady of the Dead playing wicked games with their subjects, everyone forced to wear black or white, the pomegranate seeds, and the fashion style inspired specifically by Waterhouse. The 17-year-old goth me is cackling. Some other characters are as equally quirky, with elaborate descriptions of their clothes and hair and hairstyle and eye colour… it does set the atmosphere, but it’s also very close to being a mash-up of several teenage “fascinations” for the hell of it. It adds colour, I enjoyed it, but underneath it all, the plot and the style are lacking.

The prose itself is too elaborate at times, adding explanations that are simply obvious, seemingly just for the joy of adding elaborate words – the very definition of purple prose, if you ask me. Take these examples:

“Nancy brought up the rear. Stillness and speed were diametrically opposed. But she did the best she could, and they reached the attic door at roughly the same time.” [Was this even necessary? “They walked to the door” wasn’t enough?]

“But the shaking continued as her traitorous body betrayed her, trembling like a leaf in a hard wind.” [Added appeal of too many alliterations: “traitorous body betrayed trembling”. Wow. That’s way too much. And use of two sets of synonims in one sentence?]

“[She] whimpered behind the gag that covered her mouth, eyes rolling wildly as she looked for a way out. She wasn’t finding one.” [You don’t say.]

“[Loriel said], but the heat was gone; her accusations had been met with reality, and they didn’t have anyplace else to go.” [Am I the only one thinking of a stereotypical high school drama were the mean girl is put in her place?]

Also, the author has a fascination for the Oklahoma accent that I really don’t get. I mean, it’s okay if you like it, that’s not the problem. The problem arises when said accent is described in slash fanfiction style:

“What'n the fuck are you doing in here again, Sumi?” he demanded, Oklahoma accent thick as peanut butter spread across a slice of toast.“

"His drawl grew thicker, dripping from his words like sweet and tempting honey.”

LADY. STOP. PLS. Well, at least you could argue that Kade is treated exactly the same as a fascinating cis male would be in fanfic…

Another note I want to put out there is how Nancy’s asexuality is brought up in the narration. I can’t put my finger on what exactly didn’t work for me about it, but the two instances in which it was discussed seemed to me like two other parts in which the flow of narration was stilted. In particular, this:

“This was always the difficult part, back when she’d been at her old school: explaining that "asexual” and “aromantic” were different things. She liked holding hands and trading kisses. She’d had several boyfriends in elementary school, just like most of the other girls, and she had always found those practice relationships completely satisfying. It wasn’t until puberty had come along and changed the rules that she’d started pulling away in confusion and disinterest.“

This part is definitely too didactic, giving the reader a lecture on what asexuality is. Although I can understand the need to do so, I think it interrupts the flow of the story. The use of the terms "asexual” and “aromantic” don’t help either, since they’re not much used in common parlance and they sound almost like medical tems. Of course they aren’t, but the use of “ace” would have been better, maybe (it poses the problem of how many readers might know what ace means, of course). Conversely, Kade’s gender identity fits the narration much better. In bits and pieces, the reader learns how his experience in the fairyland he ended up in helped him to discover his identity, and how the discovery had him kicked out of that world. His gender identity is integrated with his backstory, and it works much better.

[preserving-ferretbrain]

City of Stupid

by Dan H

Monday, 06 October 2008

Dan "reviews" Cassandra Clare's City of Bones

I'd like to start this review (which like most Ferretbrain reviews will actually be more of an extended ramble and will involve strong spoilers from the outset) by citing a quote from the last page of City of Bones (told you there'd be spoilers) which I think perfectly highlights the problem I have with Urban Fantasy: 

"And there it was spread out before her like a carelessly opened jewellery box, this city more populous and more amazing than she had ever imagined: There was the emerald square of central park, where the faerie courts met on midsummer evenings; there were the lights of the clubs and bars downtown, where the vampires danced the nights away at Pandemonium; there the alleys of Chinatown down which the Werewolves slunk at night, their coats reflecting the city's lights. There walked warlocks in all their bat-winged, cat-eyed glory; and here, as they swung out over the river, she saw the darting flash of multicoloured tails under the silvery skin of the water, she shimmer of long, pearl-strewn hair and heard the high, rippling laughter of the mermaids."

Now I freely admit that this is a personal bugbear, but it actually kind of pisses me off that in order for the good Miss Clare to find any sense of wonder in the city of New York she has to imagine that it's full of cheap, derivative White Wolf characters.  Repeat after me, Urban Fantasy writers: vampires do not make the world more interesting. Werewolves do not make the world more interesting. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter.  Anyway, onto the book. By the way, this gets kind of incoherent. This is because reading City of Bones has actually caused me to suffer physical brain damage. 

First Things First: The Harry Potter Connection  I really, honestly, didn't want to do this. I spent the first half of the book saying "no, it's just because you know she was from that fandom, just because the villain's got an agenda of racial purity, a name beginning with V, and a secret society backing him up which he started when he was in high school, that doesn't mean it's not still an original work of fiction."  Then it turned out that the scruffy, bookish older character, who had a crush on the heroine's mother and while never popular at school had managed to find his way into a clique of popular kids and was very pleased about it was a fucking werewolf. His name is "Lucian," by the way.  In short: it's a Harry Potter AU in which Lily married Voldemort and gave birth to Draco and Hermione, while Remus Lupin hung around looking sad.  Okay, it doesn't map exactly: the Voldemort-analogue's Death-eater-analogue seems to have started out as more of a Marauders-analogue, and the Dumbledore-analogue appears to have been part of the group as well. There are enough parallels, however that if you're already aware of where the author started off you just can't stop making comparisons.  Although Mr Not-Lupin was my breaking point, it's the villain that really strikes me as being a bit similar to a certain well known figure from a certain well known series. His name is Valentine (that's his first name, by the way, his last name is Morgenstern). Everybody starts the book thinking he's dead. Many years ago he started a war which nearly tore apart the Shadowhunter World, and although he was defeated people still fear his return. His rise to power relied on a sinister organisation which he founded at the age of fucking seventeen. Oh, and of course he's dedicated to an agenda of racial purity, and talks about blood all the time.  So, yeah. Bit familiar really.  And I never thought I'd say this, but the difference between Valentine and Voldemort is that Voldemort actually works (at least until the point where he gets resurrected and starts acting like a muppet). In a children's series set in a boarding school, you can accept the idea that the path to world domination begins in the sixth form. In a Young Adult series set in actual New York you really can't.  But that's enough about Why It's A Bit Like Harry Potter, because it really is too easy.  Style, Plot and Pacing: Full Tilt to Nowhere  It has been said that Drama is real life with the boring bits taken out. This is almost certainly true, for a reasonably strict definition of the "boring bits". Certainly I wouldn't want to watch a drama that was actually, genuinely shot in real time, with hour long scenes of the characters doing housework or playing World of Warcraft (note that 24 in no way counts as "shot in real time," it's just a 24-episode drama series that happens to give its episodes numbers for titles). However it's important to recognise that there are lots of bits which don't count as boring, and which good drama leaves in. Things like establishing character, laying the groundwork for your plot, and having lines of dialogue that aren't fucking one-liners.  City of Bones is real life with all the bits that don't involve people being actively awesome taken out. So the dialogue consists entirely of characters exchanging pithy quips or heated emotional outbursts, the action judders from fight to explosion to exposition without passing through anything in the middle. Our esteemed editor gave up on the book on page 63 when she got to the "Jace on the Piano" scene, I very nearly gave up on the book about a hundred pages later when it was revealed that Clary's mother had been married to Valentine.  I'm just going to let that paragraph hang there for a bit.  Hopefully you're now thinking "hold on Dan, why did you find that so annoying, are you going to explain to us why we should care about this, or are you just going to leave it there with no context or explanation."  Which is exactly how I felt about that scene.  Valentine, in case you've already forgotten (and to be honest I wouldn't blame you) is the racially motivated villain of Clare's totally original fantasy world. By page one-hundred-and-whatever we know bugger all about the guy except that he's the Designated Villain of this particular secondary creation. He apparently started a (totally original) war a few years ago in an attempt to purge the world of non-humans, and everybody thought he was dead but maybe he isn't dum dum dummmmm!  The problem is that the only thing that Valentine has done so far is maybe not be dead and possibly be implicated in abducting Clary's Mother because he's maybe looking for a thing called the Mortal Cup. It's sort of like having the "I Am Your Father" scene in Star Wars take place before the destruction of Alderaan. We find out that Jocelyn (Clary's mother and before you ask, no, nobody in this entire book has a name that isn't stupid) was married to Valentine before we really find out why we should give a shit about either of them (insofar as we ever do).  Incidentally our esteemed editor has pointed out that, tellingly, the moment she gave up on the book was the moment that made it bad romance, while the moment I gave up on it was the moment that made it bad fantasy. Make of that what you will.  Anyway, the basic plot is that there's this waste of space called Valentine who started a totally original war about sixteen years ago, and who is now looking for a thing called the Mortal Cup because he wants to create an army of Shadowhunters to wipe out the Downworlders (non humans to you and me) and safeguard the world from demons for all time.  There's a couple of things I'd like to say about that.  Firstly: Bored. So bored.  Secondly: Apart from the fact that he's Designated Evil, what exactly is wrong with this plan? Half the Downworlders we meet actually are horrifically dangerous and actually do kill people. It's not unreasonable to suggest that they should be dealt with, and the idea of making more Shadowhunters is actually a really good one. But Valentine is evil so, whatevs.  Anyway, in order to safeguard the Mortal Cup from Valentine they for some unfathomable reason have to go on a long CRPG quest where they talk to people, who send them to talk to other people, who help them to unlock Clary's Super Special Self Insert Memories which apparently contain the Key to Everything. After about five chapters of "now you must go here, now you must go here, now you must go to a party with a gay warlock" they finally find out that actually her memories will come back on their own, she just has to give them time, and also the magic feather isn't really magic and it was just her all along.  Sorry, I'm actually boring myself writing this.  So then there's a filler chapter where they have to rescue one of the supporting cast from vampires and another filler chapter where the vampires are attacked by werewolves and Jace and Clary go flying on a vampire motorbike. Then there's some angst and drama, then they go get the Mortal Cup because Clary realises that she's known where it was all along, but only she has the power to retrieve it because zomg special. Then there is Betrayal! Then there is Exposition! Then eventually the fucking thing ends and I can go back to doing something more interesting like unblocking our waste disposal unit.  The final revelation of the book is that not only was Valentine married to Clary's mother but that he was also her father. The book seems to expect me to be surprised at this, but given that her real father was supposed to have died before she was born leaving no personal effects whatsoever or any evidence that he'd ever existed and since, true to form, Shadowhunters never marry Mundanes (because what would somebody who isn't Teh Speshul possibly have to bring to a relationship) anybody with half a brain has already worked out that Clary's father is probably her mother's husband.  But! It also turns out that Valentine is Jace's father, having faked both his and Jace's death, and assumed the identity of Michael Wayland (one of his followers, who he killed) in order to evade detection. Then he faked his death a second time and sent Jace to live at the Institute. The institute which is full of photographs of the real Michael Wayland, and of Valentine, which Jace somehow never recognised. This final whammy ends in a classic exchange that goes something like this: 

"But, the Wayland ring-" "Ah yes," said Valentine, looking at Jace's hand, where the ring glittered like snake scales. "The ring. Funny isn't it how an M worn upside down resembles a W."

No. No it fucking doesn't, you moron. For a start it's a ring, and rings are fucking circular. You can't wear it "upside down" because people look at your hand from different angles. And what the hell kind of family crest is it that's just the first letter of your freaking surname with no context or decoration? Where the hell did that come from, My First Heraldry Kit? And why didn't the people at the institute, most of whom were your former allies, recognise your family crest? And why didn't you just have him wear the actual insignia of the family you were pretending to be from you stupid, derivative stock villain?  In short the plot is stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. The pacing is shot to hell, full of scenes that seemed like a cool idea at the time, or which only exist to showcase some part of the setting. It's full of cheap shortcuts and copouts and unadulterated nonsense.  "Characterisation." You Notice I Used Sarcastic Quote Marks  There isn't any. I'm really sorry to come back to the fanfic thing again, but the fact is that the only way to get sense of personality from any of the characters in the damned book was to assume that they were their Harry Potter analogues and work from there.  That's right guys. This book makes Harry Potter look like a thoughtfully constructed work of character-driven drama. While Voldemort's actions frequently seem at odds with his alleged motivation (if he's so afraid of death, why does he treat his Horcruxes so carelessly, if he cares so little for life, why doesn't he kill the heroes when he gets the chance?) at least I know that he's supposed to have some kind of reason for his actions. Valentine on the other hand just feels like a puppet going through the motions of villainy in order to provide the story with some semblance of direction.  Then there's Jace. Who. Never. Says. Anything. That. Isn't. A. One. Liner. And okay, I know that part of the deal is that he's been so terribly hurt that he can't allow himself to have normal feelings which is why his love for Clary is so special but fuck that. "Makes constant wisecracks" is not a psychologically realistic portrayal of an emotionally scarred teenager, it's a cheap bit of sub-Buffy wish fulfilment. Towards the climax of the book they face an honest to god Demon Lord and he actually gives it sass.  Look, it really is very simple. Your readers take their cues from your characters. If you show us a scene in which your protagonists fight a Big Scary Demon and they act like it Isn't Scary At All, then we, the readers will assume that the Big Scary Demon is in fact Not Scary At All. If your characters are unimpressed by your world, it doesn't make the character look cool, it makes the world look unimpressive. Those who are following in their textbooks will find this principle outlined in Chapter One under the heading "Show Don't Tell, Dumbass."  Let's see, who else is actually in this turd of a novel? There's Alec, who is gay and Isabelle, who is his sister, who wears thigh high boots and carries a whip, and has hair "nearly the precise colour of black ink". Leaving aside the fact that the description makes her sound like the World of Warcraft Succubus her main function in the book is to be theoretically sexy but only enough to make the quiet, unselfconscious beauty of Clary to look special by comparison.  Then there's Hodge, who betrays everybody, which would come as more of a shock if I had the slightest grip on his personality beyond "well he's probably a bit like Dumbledore but I don't know really".  And that's it. Jesus Christ there are only about eight characters in the entire fucking book, you'd think one of them might have had some semblance of an identity. You would have thought wrong.  Unanswered Questions: Who Runs This Idiot World?  So, how did Jace not recognise that his father looked like Valentine, and not like the man who was actually supposed to be his father?  Why, if the only way to get more Shadowhunters is for them to be born to existing Shadowhunters, or for them to be made with the Mortal Cup (at a terrible risk) why the fuck don't Shadowhunters ever marry Mundanes?  Why isn't the Clave doing anything?  How did Valentine manage to put together a world-dominating secret conspiracy at the age of seventeen?  What's so fucking special about Clary?  Why is saving the world being left in the hands of five teenagers?  Are there really two more books in this series?  Why didn't I do the sensible thing and stop reading on page 114? 

Themes: Books, Sci-fi / Fantasy, Young Adult / Children, Cassandra Clare

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Comments (go to latest)

Wardog at 16:24 on 2008-10-09

You make me so damn glad I stopped reading at page 63. So. Damn. Glad.

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Wordless at 07:05 on 2009-11-10

I could've realized something when i noticed that the people who positively reviewed the series were a) Stephenie Mayer and b) Cassandra's close friends. To be honest I was a bit suspicious when Holly Black referred to her as "Cassie". but my main issue is this: 

Why, if the only way to get more Shadowhunters is for them to be born to existing Shadowhunters, or for them to be made with the Mortal Cup (at a terrible risk) why the fuck don't Shadowhunters ever marry Mundanes?

Why, if the only way to get more Shadowhunters is for them to be born to existing Shadowhunters, or for them to be made with the Mortal Cup (at a terrible risk) why the fuck don't Shadowhunters ever marry Mundanes?

Are Shadow Hunters...sterile? Obviously not, since Jocelyn had two children and both are successful shadow hunters....noting one even has "special powers" from them doing the nasty. Sooo what's the issue then? I pondered this for a good fat chunk of the book until i came to: "Sure," Jace said "But we haven't had the cup for years now, and a lot of us die young. So our numbers slowly dwindle." "Aren't you, uh..."Clary searched for the right word."reproducing?"....(skin a bunch of irrelevant ramble)"Sure he said."we love reproducing. It's one of our favourite things." okay heres the thing using the shadow cup 20% success rate, doing the old-fashioned ovaries and sperm route-about the same thing.So whats the point? I mean going after valentine would just kill the few shadow hunters they have and so why bother? Apparently seeing as everyone's doing like they do on the discovery channel let him have the cup. but this issue was left abandoned instead pursuing the predictable Jace heritage. in short i was bored and sickened....and confuzled but much later. After my feet stopped cramping.

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Wordless at 07:52 on 2009-11-12

Also the werewolves....*sigh*the werewolves...These are supposed to be human well at least half human. so I don't understand how sentient beings would kill each other for leadership of the pack. Really...that set evolution back at least a hundred years. Aleast. I mean even in the wild though male wolves fight they don't KILL each other...because that would be stupid. okay sure I'm taking some liberties but seriously when i read that i was like WTF.

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Shim at 13:15 on 2009-11-12

Actually, although I agree it seems kind of sad she can't find wonder in the city as it is - to me the most grating thing is that the "wonder" in America is all European. I'm just about willing to buy werewolves (being basically human) and even vampires, although I don't like the modern twist on vampires anyway. But mermaids in the rivers in ANY city? Easily visible? Not flippin' likely given the pollution, tidal barrages and so on you get. However, I'd like to reserve my major anger for the "faerie courts in Central Park". All fey-based mythology I know of has them inhabiting a kind of overlapping reality, usually underground or in magical hills or whatever, and rarely having any contact with humans. There's no reason for them to up sticks en masse and move to America. Especially given that in a world where this stuff is real, America would be quite full enough of the indigenous fantastic races like Baykok or Ishigaq or Kushtaka (all of which I just looked up; what do I know about Native American mythology? still more than CC, apparently). Or does she imagine the Faerie imitated their mortal cousins and had their own little genocide?

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C J Morgan at 17:03 on 2009-11-12

Or does she imagine the Faerie imitated their mortal cousins and had their own little genocide?

Now there is a story I would read. ...or write. *adds to list of ideas*

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Dan H at 23:58 on 2009-11-12

Hi guys, sorry for the lack of commentage, blame NaNoWriMo

okay heres the thing using the shadow cup 20% success rate, doing the old-fashioned ovaries and sperm route-about the same thing.So whats the point?

To be fair, presumably natural born Shadowhunters have about a thirteen year period where they're just kids, so the cup would be a better way to build an army *fast*. Of course Valentine does not in fact *do* this.

[imaginingintensely]

10 Books I Read This Year

This was originally going to be a top 10 list, but looking back over my Goodreads ratings I realized that my ratings varied widely depending on my mood when I finished the book. So instead this is a list of 10 books that I read and enjoyed this year. There were a couple of things that affected my reading habits this year: my mental health was not very good, this was the first full calendar year that I have not been studying English, and I started following the Vaginal Fantasy book club online. This meant that I read a lot more Young Adult and Romance novels and tended to choose books for amusement rather than to learn. I have also been trying work against the belief that genre fiction is not “real literature,” which I realized that I had unconsciously assimilated. An interesting side effect of reading more YA and romance was that the majority of the authors I read were women, 72%. Although it is also worth noting that most of these were white women as only 17% of the authors were POC. So, in no particular order, here are the books:

The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas (2017) The Hate U Give tells the story of sixteen-year-old, Starr Carter, as she witnesses her friend being shot by a police officer and deals with the aftermath of the shooting. It explores race, racism, police violence, and media coverage while also taking up issues of class, family, community, and self-discovery. This topical novel does an excellent job of finding a balance between the mundanity of everyday life as a teenager and serious political discourse. Thomas tempers the dark emotionality of grief and trauma with humour and family. This is the kind of Young Adult novel that I wish was around when I was a teenager and believe should be explored in High School English classes.

Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place - Daniel Coleman (2017) I took a class from Dr. Coleman, while doing my Master’s degree at McMaster and was interested to see what he was doing in his writing and research; so when this book came out I picked it up. Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place is a combination of local history and life writing that tells the story of one specific plot of land, Coleman’s yard in Hamilton, Ontario. Coleman constructs this narrative through conventional historical research as well as oral history and indigenous sacred narratives. Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place acknowledges the settler colonial history of the land and attempts to work against western conventions by affording the land and animals as much importance as humans and by giving all source material equal importance. Reading this book made me wish I had got to know Hamilton better while I lived there and want similar books about other places I have lived in. However, it is worth noting that because the book is so place-specific it might not be as captivating for those who have not visited or lived in the Hamilton area.

Throne of Glass (Series) - Sarah J. Maas (2012-) The Throne of Glass series is an epic YA fantasy series that follows teenage assassin Celaena Sardothien as she fights against a growing evil taking over her world. The series has magic, mystery, intrigue, lost heirs, and fae kingdoms. It is a fun and enthralling read and Celaena is a badass heroine. However, the series is not without its faults. There is the usual YA love triangle drama, and I still have not forgiven Maas for killing off one of my favourite characters in the first book solely to provide motivation for Celaena. The first couple of books tend to fall into female exceptionalism, where one woman is exceptional by magic or skill in a world dominated by men and the narrative ignores the continued system oppression of women. However, this does improve somewhat as the series progresses and introduces more female characters and slowly reveals that Celaena is flawed, but willing to grow and change.

Saga (series) - Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (2012-) I frequently find it difficult to find comics that I like. Often I will appreciate the text but not the illustrations or vice versa. However, Saga written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples is a beautiful melding of words and images. The series tells the story of two soldiers from opposite sides of an intergalactic war who fall in love and have a daughter, Hazel. Saga is about trying to raise a family and forge and maintain relationships during a conflict. It continually asks the reader whose lives matter and whose stories are worth telling. The illustrations are colourful and stunning and the pacing stretches and compresses time to fit the narrative. I keep lending it to my friends so I thought it was well worth putting on this list. One note though: the series does contain graphic violence and explicit sexuality so if that is not what you are into you may want to give it a pass.

Me, My Hair, and I - ed. Elizabeth Benedict (2015) I got this book as a Christmas gift from my sister two years ago, while I was doing research on hair for my MA. Now that I am done my MA I finally had time to read it. Me, My Hair, and I is an anthology of women’s writing about their hair. Because of the variety of authors, I enjoyed some pieces more than others, but because they were all written by professional writers they were all well done. The topic of hair provides a fascinating lens through which to look at women’s lives and relationships. Many of the stories talked about culture, beauty standards, femininity, sexuality, and mother-daughter relationships. While I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I would have appreciated more entries about body hair and queer hair.

This One Summer - Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki (2014) This One Summer follows pre-teens Windy and Rose through a summer at their families’ cabins at Awago Beach. The book focuses on their relationships to each other, their families, and the other residents in the small lake community. It is slow, quiet graphic novel that focuses more on place, feeling, and female friendship than plot. As always, Jillian Tamaki’s illustrations are full of life and emotion and depict the Canadian landscape beautifully.

Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body - Sara Pascoe (2016) Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body is a combination of British comedian Sara Pascoe’s autobiography and an exploration of evolutionary history. It examines what it means to be a woman in contemporary British culture and the thousands of years of evolution that contribute to women’s experience of their bodies. This book is grounded in Pascoe’s personal experience of her body which makes it funny, moving, and intriguing. Admittedly, Pascoe is a comedian and not a scientist so the science sections of this book are not as strong as the autobiographical section, but they do go some way to complicating how we think of women and inviting the reader to think beyond the present.

Midnight Crossroad - Charlaine Harris (2014) I picked up Midnight Crossroad because I heard about the television series based off of it and wanted to read the books before I tried it. The book is a murder mystery and takes place the small town of Midnight, Texas, which is inhabited by psychics, vampires, fallen angels, witches and all manner of other supernatural beings. A few years ago, I read and enjoyed all of Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries, which become the television series True Blood. Midnight Crossroad takes place in the same universe as the Southern Vampire Mysteries and has much of the same humour and small town setting. One major difference is that Midnight Crossroad features a large ensemble cast and switches point-of-view narration between characters, which took me a little while to get used to. I also watched a bit of the television series, and will probably return to it at some point, but I preferred the slow pacing of the book because it fits the small town setting better.

Turtles All the Way Down - John Green (2017) This is YA novelist John Green’s most recent and, in my opinion, best novel. It tells the story of the teenage Aza as she reconnects with an old friend, looks into a mysterious disappearance with her best friend, and struggles with OCD. Green draws on his personal experience with OCD as well as his life as a parent to create a realistic portrayal of mental illness and parent-child relationships. The conversations between Aza and her mom remind me so much of conversations I’ve had with my mom, especially the line “I see the pain on your face and I want to take it from you.” But I think what I liked best about the book was that it does not ascribe to a curative model of mental illness, but instead presents ways of managing and living with it.

Burn for Me - Ilona Andrews (2014) I debated for a while which romance novel to include on this list before deciding on this one. Burn for Me takes place in an alternate reality where a serum was created in the Victorian period allowing humans to develop magical abilities. While the serum was quickly outlawed, the magical abilities became hereditary and magical families began to shape society. Set in a version of the present, Burn for Me follows private investigator Nevada Baylor as she becomes caught up in an investigation into a conspiracy. The novel is fast-paced and entertaining in a way the makes me think it would make an excellent action movie, and of course everyone is attractive. It also has some interesting worldbuilding as it deals with the ramifications of the altered history. However, the book is not unproblematic: the meet-cute between Nevada and the hero, Connor “Mad” Rogan, is him kidnapping her and he continues to act overprotective and hypermasculine throughout the book. Though Rogan does become a more complicated character as the novel reveals his family life, military past, and PTSD. Also, the cover art is just plain bad and not an accurate depiction of the novel.