What Are You Reading Wednesday
Apr. 3rd, 2019 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricCurrently Reading:
Audio: Ben Aaronovitch, Lies Sleeping
Fiction: Sulari Gentil, A Decline in Prophets
Non-Fiction: Lauren Elkin, Flaneuse
Lit Mag: Technically the summer Meanjin, but I haven't touched it for a while
Recently Finished: Finished on planes
The Mage Winds by Mercedes Lackey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Well, this continued to deliver exactly what I came here for: magic horses! Political intrigue (more complex, this time)! Telepathic sex (tbh, could have exploited the premises more thoroughly)! Once again including solid male-female friendships, female characters with actual flaws (although tbh Nyara could have used some personality flaws - all her weaknesses are trauma derived), and supremely handwavey magic.
On the other hand, now including: genre-typical orientalism and noble savage tropes, a Magic Quest To The Noble Savage To Learn Magic, and a pretty fucking deeply embedded association between 'kinky sex' and 'megalomaniac evil blood magic taking over the world'.
On a craft level, the plotting definitely has become more complex, and stands up fairly well; but reading them as an omnibus makes it obvious how weak the conclusion is. Bam, bad guy dead, everyone home, in a tiny page count. What now? HOW DOES POLITICS???
I realise if I want politics and complex resolutions with my magic duels, I could be reading Game of Thrones. Believe me, the day is coming. Sigh.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Well *this* made me cry on a plane. I don't really know how to review it, but some notes:
- from the title to the epilogue, it's suffused with a strong sense of place, and a particular love of Kabul. I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.
- I would like to follow it up with a book by an Afghani woman (this is a book deeply *about* women, and afaik Hosseini doesn't commit any major Fail, but still), and wow, it is hard to find recommendations of fiction by Afghan women writers, even in diaspora. Non-fiction and journalism, sure, but fiction? Wikipedia lists three short story writers, two of whom haven't been translated. One is a novelist who is translated into French, though Goodreads only lists one of her books. I could fish a few more novelists out of the Wikipedia list '21st century Afghan women writers', but the ones with titles listed in English, either the title has been translated by the wiki article but the book isn't translated, or the book has vanished without a trace.
Up Next: I still have one KJ Charles in my Kobo awaiting me...
Music Notes: I somehow started listening to Maggie Rogers, and I think I approve. Still listening to Grace Petrie on loop.
Audio: Ben Aaronovitch, Lies Sleeping
Fiction: Sulari Gentil, A Decline in Prophets
Non-Fiction: Lauren Elkin, Flaneuse
Lit Mag: Technically the summer Meanjin, but I haven't touched it for a while
Recently Finished: Finished on planes
The Mage Winds by Mercedes LackeyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Well, this continued to deliver exactly what I came here for: magic horses! Political intrigue (more complex, this time)! Telepathic sex (tbh, could have exploited the premises more thoroughly)! Once again including solid male-female friendships, female characters with actual flaws (although tbh Nyara could have used some personality flaws - all her weaknesses are trauma derived), and supremely handwavey magic.
On the other hand, now including: genre-typical orientalism and noble savage tropes, a Magic Quest To The Noble Savage To Learn Magic, and a pretty fucking deeply embedded association between 'kinky sex' and 'megalomaniac evil blood magic taking over the world'.
On a craft level, the plotting definitely has become more complex, and stands up fairly well; but reading them as an omnibus makes it obvious how weak the conclusion is. Bam, bad guy dead, everyone home, in a tiny page count. What now? HOW DOES POLITICS???
I realise if I want politics and complex resolutions with my magic duels, I could be reading Game of Thrones. Believe me, the day is coming. Sigh.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled HosseiniMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Well *this* made me cry on a plane. I don't really know how to review it, but some notes:
- from the title to the epilogue, it's suffused with a strong sense of place, and a particular love of Kabul. I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.
- I would like to follow it up with a book by an Afghani woman (this is a book deeply *about* women, and afaik Hosseini doesn't commit any major Fail, but still), and wow, it is hard to find recommendations of fiction by Afghan women writers, even in diaspora. Non-fiction and journalism, sure, but fiction? Wikipedia lists three short story writers, two of whom haven't been translated. One is a novelist who is translated into French, though Goodreads only lists one of her books. I could fish a few more novelists out of the Wikipedia list '21st century Afghan women writers', but the ones with titles listed in English, either the title has been translated by the wiki article but the book isn't translated, or the book has vanished without a trace.
Up Next: I still have one KJ Charles in my Kobo awaiting me...
Music Notes: I somehow started listening to Maggie Rogers, and I think I approve. Still listening to Grace Petrie on loop.
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