highlyeccentric (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
highlyeccentric) wrote2012-10-21 04:15 pm
highlyeccentric) wrote2012-10-21 04:15 pm
Entry tags:
Books! I read some
Of late I have read
The Liveship Traders series, Robin Hobb.
And oh my, I'd forgotten how breath-stoppingly awesome these books, and Robin Hobb's storytelling, are. I had also forgotten just how much rape there is in them. Holy fuck. ALL THE RAPE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE. Which is fine by me, but how on earth did I forget about it?
I am more impressed than ever - I'm not sure I had the awareness to fully appreciate the awesomeness of this - by the fact that every single lady-character was a well-written lady character. Everyone. Not all of them, indeed very few of them, were your stock Strong Female Character, but every single one had something of substance to her, even Kekki, the Satrap's courtesan. (Or... except perhaps Sinecure Faldin's daughters, whose purpose was to be marriageable and who never stayed on screen long enough to develop personalities.)
This is also true, I think, of most of the man-characters, which is less surprising but still demonstrative of Hobb's skill. Not even the bit-part characters felt wooden, and she could and did keep introducing new characters (such as the Satrap's treasurer) right up until the middle of the climactic battle. And I continue to be fascinated by the way Kennit becomes a more and more empathetic character even as he becomes a more and more horrible person.
And moving from the breathtakingly well-written to the hilariously bad, I read
Stray by Rachel Vincent.
Vincent subscribes to the blunt instrument first-person method of characterisation. I think the MC, Faythe, describes herself as "rebellious" or "independent" or "feisty" at least once per page for the first chapter. I went along with it out of fascination (how bad can it get?) and because it's not all that often you meet a Chaucer specialist who's also a werecat.
When we're not busy being FEISTY this book, for the first 1/2 at least, exists primarily to OBECTIFY THE MENZ. Werecats, apparently, are rarely female, and Faythe gets to be surrounded by hot, primal-instinct-driven, did I mention hot, half-naked men all the time. Even though she's a prisoner in her own home, etc. OBJECTIFY ALL THE MENZ. I found this hilarious and fascinating. And a useful/necessary balance to the weird precious-daughter / status-object thing to which apparently all lady werecats are subjected.
SPEAKING OF, IF YOU WERE GOING TO CREATE A SUPERNATURAL SOCIETY LIVING WITHIN BUT NOT SUBJECT TO NORMAL HUMAN SOCIETY, AND YOU WERE BASING IT ON CATS, WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU BASE THEIR SOCIAL MORES ON 1950S AMERICA? News for Rachel Vincent: 'tabby' is not a generic term for lady cat, it's a breed. Lady cats are called queens. Oh, and even Disney figured this bit out: lionesses do the hunting. Female cats fight. *headdesk*
Good things about this book: it is fast-paced, and the crime-esque plot is pitched at the right level of complexity for the genre. And Vincent can write fight scenes and violence well. There was a ten-page attempted rape-come-fight-scene! Because, oh, yeah, there's a lot of rape (mostly attempted) and violence, both against women and generalised gore in this book. So that was, er, fun? It all belonged in the plot, so it's not exactly gratuitous, and Vincent writes fighting and gore well. I was a bit perturbed by the fact that I think we were supposed to understand that Faythe, as the Strongest Female Character, would rather die than be raped, and that her cousin's submission to rape was because said cousin was younger and less of Strong Female.
AND THEN THERE'S THE FUCKED UP STUFF THAT I DON'T THINK THE AUTHOR NOTICED.
1. It is creepy and, if not intentional, still racially icky, to have a story about uncivilised jungle cats from South America who don't respect borders and laws infiltrating American lands and kidnapping and raping American lady werecats. Just sayin'.
2. Oh, yeah, and Faythe was goddamn right in the earlier, brattier phase of the narrative: her family's fucked up and she needs out. I can see Vincent was trying for a "strong lady-character matures and shoulders responsibility" plot, which Tanya Huff pulled off rather well in that book about the Candian deer-people. But actually, Faythe's family are fucked up. Her Dad locked her in a cage for two weeks in her teens and threatens to do it again if she tries to go back to grad school. Her ex-boyfriend, her father's second-in-command, beats another dude's head through a wall when he finds out other dude kissed Fayhthe. Oh, and her parents have been setting them up since she hit puberty. This is not a healthy environment, wtf. Oh, and immediately after being rescued/escaping from your violent abusive captors and into your ex-boyfriends arms is not the mentally stable time to determine whether or not you truly love him. JUST SAYIN'.
It was a terrible book! And yet it was quite fun. ODD. I shan't be reading the other eight books in the goddamn series, though.
The Liveship Traders series, Robin Hobb.
And oh my, I'd forgotten how breath-stoppingly awesome these books, and Robin Hobb's storytelling, are. I had also forgotten just how much rape there is in them. Holy fuck. ALL THE RAPE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE. Which is fine by me, but how on earth did I forget about it?
I am more impressed than ever - I'm not sure I had the awareness to fully appreciate the awesomeness of this - by the fact that every single lady-character was a well-written lady character. Everyone. Not all of them, indeed very few of them, were your stock Strong Female Character, but every single one had something of substance to her, even Kekki, the Satrap's courtesan. (Or... except perhaps Sinecure Faldin's daughters, whose purpose was to be marriageable and who never stayed on screen long enough to develop personalities.)
This is also true, I think, of most of the man-characters, which is less surprising but still demonstrative of Hobb's skill. Not even the bit-part characters felt wooden, and she could and did keep introducing new characters (such as the Satrap's treasurer) right up until the middle of the climactic battle. And I continue to be fascinated by the way Kennit becomes a more and more empathetic character even as he becomes a more and more horrible person.
And moving from the breathtakingly well-written to the hilariously bad, I read
Stray by Rachel Vincent.
Vincent subscribes to the blunt instrument first-person method of characterisation. I think the MC, Faythe, describes herself as "rebellious" or "independent" or "feisty" at least once per page for the first chapter. I went along with it out of fascination (how bad can it get?) and because it's not all that often you meet a Chaucer specialist who's also a werecat.
When we're not busy being FEISTY this book, for the first 1/2 at least, exists primarily to OBECTIFY THE MENZ. Werecats, apparently, are rarely female, and Faythe gets to be surrounded by hot, primal-instinct-driven, did I mention hot, half-naked men all the time. Even though she's a prisoner in her own home, etc. OBJECTIFY ALL THE MENZ. I found this hilarious and fascinating. And a useful/necessary balance to the weird precious-daughter / status-object thing to which apparently all lady werecats are subjected.
SPEAKING OF, IF YOU WERE GOING TO CREATE A SUPERNATURAL SOCIETY LIVING WITHIN BUT NOT SUBJECT TO NORMAL HUMAN SOCIETY, AND YOU WERE BASING IT ON CATS, WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU BASE THEIR SOCIAL MORES ON 1950S AMERICA? News for Rachel Vincent: 'tabby' is not a generic term for lady cat, it's a breed. Lady cats are called queens. Oh, and even Disney figured this bit out: lionesses do the hunting. Female cats fight. *headdesk*
Good things about this book: it is fast-paced, and the crime-esque plot is pitched at the right level of complexity for the genre. And Vincent can write fight scenes and violence well. There was a ten-page attempted rape-come-fight-scene! Because, oh, yeah, there's a lot of rape (mostly attempted) and violence, both against women and generalised gore in this book. So that was, er, fun? It all belonged in the plot, so it's not exactly gratuitous, and Vincent writes fighting and gore well. I was a bit perturbed by the fact that I think we were supposed to understand that Faythe, as the Strongest Female Character, would rather die than be raped, and that her cousin's submission to rape was because said cousin was younger and less of Strong Female.
AND THEN THERE'S THE FUCKED UP STUFF THAT I DON'T THINK THE AUTHOR NOTICED.
1. It is creepy and, if not intentional, still racially icky, to have a story about uncivilised jungle cats from South America who don't respect borders and laws infiltrating American lands and kidnapping and raping American lady werecats. Just sayin'.
2. Oh, yeah, and Faythe was goddamn right in the earlier, brattier phase of the narrative: her family's fucked up and she needs out. I can see Vincent was trying for a "strong lady-character matures and shoulders responsibility" plot, which Tanya Huff pulled off rather well in that book about the Candian deer-people. But actually, Faythe's family are fucked up. Her Dad locked her in a cage for two weeks in her teens and threatens to do it again if she tries to go back to grad school. Her ex-boyfriend, her father's second-in-command, beats another dude's head through a wall when he finds out other dude kissed Fayhthe. Oh, and her parents have been setting them up since she hit puberty. This is not a healthy environment, wtf. Oh, and immediately after being rescued/escaping from your violent abusive captors and into your ex-boyfriends arms is not the mentally stable time to determine whether or not you truly love him. JUST SAYIN'.
It was a terrible book! And yet it was quite fun. ODD. I shan't be reading the other eight books in the goddamn series, though.