Deerskin by Robin McKinley
375 pages
Published 1993
Read from July 22 to July 24
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5
CW: rape, incest.
An earnest and sharply-felt retelling of one of the more unsettling fairy tales (which, given the nature of unexpurgated fairy tales, is saying something), an unflinching but compassionate examination of betrayal, rape, PTSD, and not just surviving but reclaiming one's life in its aftermath. After a vivid depiction of how readily people will blame the victim and cast her as a wily temptress leading her own father astray, the bucolic and hard-working kingdom to which our protagonist flees feels somewhat out of place, as does the ending, in which the laid-back prince physically pursues Deerskin to force her to face the thematic denouement -- a development no doubt meant to express the redemptive power of love and acceptance, but which felt just a tiny bit awkward to me. Nonetheless, one of the more excellent books I've read this year.
Friday, July 24, 2015
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
2015 read #36: The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett.
The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett
136 pages
Published 1953
Read from July 21 to July 22
Rating: ★★ out of 5
A bog-standard sword and sorcery piece gussied up with trappings of what we would now call Old Mars. An unpleasant macho man hero, a cowardly and greedy but ultimately reliable sidekick, a haughty princess whose will and inner strength the macho man immediately wants to break, an ophidian evil race whom our hero immediately hates without knowing why -- this could pass undetected within the output of Howard or Burroughs or Lin Carter (though Brackett's unadorned competence sets her worlds above Carter's tedious and turgid output). The more of Brackett I read, the more I realize, to my dismay, that The Long Tomorrow is the intelligent and sensitive outlier, at least when it comes to her longer work. A pity.
136 pages
Published 1953
Read from July 21 to July 22
Rating: ★★ out of 5
A bog-standard sword and sorcery piece gussied up with trappings of what we would now call Old Mars. An unpleasant macho man hero, a cowardly and greedy but ultimately reliable sidekick, a haughty princess whose will and inner strength the macho man immediately wants to break, an ophidian evil race whom our hero immediately hates without knowing why -- this could pass undetected within the output of Howard or Burroughs or Lin Carter (though Brackett's unadorned competence sets her worlds above Carter's tedious and turgid output). The more of Brackett I read, the more I realize, to my dismay, that The Long Tomorrow is the intelligent and sensitive outlier, at least when it comes to her longer work. A pity.
Monday, July 20, 2015
2015 read #35: Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny.
Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny
186 pages
Published 1979
Read from July 15 to July 20
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
This is the kind of rip-roaring science-fantasy insanity that only could have been published in the late '70s to late '80s, adhering to the esthetic principle, "If it's awesome, throw it in." In it, a Road is willed into being by cosmic dragons, a Road which connects all times and adjusts itself to modified timelines, altering and bifurcating as necessary to access different histories. People from all periods tool along this Road in everything from chariots to future cars to our hero's blue pickup truck -- if there's an image more emblematic of late '70s or early '80s sci-fi, I don't know it. Our hero is a typical Zelaznyan blank slate, tough and effortlessly competent and not a little bit lucky, who shrugs off assassination attempts with ease; half the time he's already friends with those beings sent to slay him. The Marquis de Sade rides a T. rex, a martial arts scene gets thrown in just because, and the book ends with all our friends off to grab a beer in Ur: "They always have good beer in Ur." Oh, and one of the dragons ends up fucking the tyrannosaur, because that's what kind of book this is.
There's nothing deep or profound here, just a splendidly what-the-fuck adventure and a perfect specimen of its time and genre.
186 pages
Published 1979
Read from July 15 to July 20
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
This is the kind of rip-roaring science-fantasy insanity that only could have been published in the late '70s to late '80s, adhering to the esthetic principle, "If it's awesome, throw it in." In it, a Road is willed into being by cosmic dragons, a Road which connects all times and adjusts itself to modified timelines, altering and bifurcating as necessary to access different histories. People from all periods tool along this Road in everything from chariots to future cars to our hero's blue pickup truck -- if there's an image more emblematic of late '70s or early '80s sci-fi, I don't know it. Our hero is a typical Zelaznyan blank slate, tough and effortlessly competent and not a little bit lucky, who shrugs off assassination attempts with ease; half the time he's already friends with those beings sent to slay him. The Marquis de Sade rides a T. rex, a martial arts scene gets thrown in just because, and the book ends with all our friends off to grab a beer in Ur: "They always have good beer in Ur." Oh, and one of the dragons ends up fucking the tyrannosaur, because that's what kind of book this is.
There's nothing deep or profound here, just a splendidly what-the-fuck adventure and a perfect specimen of its time and genre.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
2015 read #34: The Big Time by Fritz Leiber.
The Big Time by Fritz Leiber
105 pages
Published serially 1958; as novel 1961
Read from July 13 to July 15
Rating: ★★★ out of 5
In an introduction penned for a 1982 edition, Leiber states his inspiration for Greta, narrator of The Big Time, was "the intensified first person [narration] of Joyce Cary." Knowing nothing myself of Joyce Cary, I heard in Greta's voice intimations of later Heinlein, slangy and cynical and a dirty old man's dream of a good ol' gal. The idea of a sex worker employed to relieve the stress of and "entertain" soldiers in a time war feels like a game of telephone with Heinlein's "--All You Zombies--". Greta's resignation to domestic violence at the hands of her time-traveling Nazi officer paramour is a step beyond even Heinlein -- or at least beyond the Heinlein I read and haven't repressed in my memories. The willy-nilly mixing of soldiers and slang from various time periods is always fun, and the Cretan warrior woman declaiming in measured lines and anachronistic lingo the botch-up of an operation was a personal highlight, but Leiber dispenses with the neat paradoxes and puzzles of the typical mid-century time travel yarn as well as the rollicking action promised by the conceit of a vast time-war. The bulk of the novel proceeds as a locked room mystery and a series of big monologues -- again reminiscent of later Heinlein. The result is a mix of neat moments and concepts muddled by the gender norms of its time, and the limited stage scenery provided by the author.
105 pages
Published serially 1958; as novel 1961
Read from July 13 to July 15
Rating: ★★★ out of 5
In an introduction penned for a 1982 edition, Leiber states his inspiration for Greta, narrator of The Big Time, was "the intensified first person [narration] of Joyce Cary." Knowing nothing myself of Joyce Cary, I heard in Greta's voice intimations of later Heinlein, slangy and cynical and a dirty old man's dream of a good ol' gal. The idea of a sex worker employed to relieve the stress of and "entertain" soldiers in a time war feels like a game of telephone with Heinlein's "--All You Zombies--". Greta's resignation to domestic violence at the hands of her time-traveling Nazi officer paramour is a step beyond even Heinlein -- or at least beyond the Heinlein I read and haven't repressed in my memories. The willy-nilly mixing of soldiers and slang from various time periods is always fun, and the Cretan warrior woman declaiming in measured lines and anachronistic lingo the botch-up of an operation was a personal highlight, but Leiber dispenses with the neat paradoxes and puzzles of the typical mid-century time travel yarn as well as the rollicking action promised by the conceit of a vast time-war. The bulk of the novel proceeds as a locked room mystery and a series of big monologues -- again reminiscent of later Heinlein. The result is a mix of neat moments and concepts muddled by the gender norms of its time, and the limited stage scenery provided by the author.
Monday, July 13, 2015
2015 read #33: The Bullet Catcher's Daughter by Rod Duncan.
The Bullet Catcher's Daughter by Rod Duncan
374 pages
Published 2014
Read from July 8 to July 13
Rating: ★★★ out of 5
The outline of this novel sounds more like a gumbo of cliches and fads somewhat past their expiration date: A steampunk alternate history in which technology is regulated by a sinister Patent Office, and traveling "gypsy" circuses cobble together arcane devices to relieve "jossers" of their money. A daughter of one of these performers, on the run from a lascivious nobleman, earns a living as a private detective, disguising herself as a man when the lights are dim, following the clues of an aristocrat's disappearance into the very world of traveling performers she had had to flee. Soon she discovers that the aristocrat absconded with contraband technology, and soon the Patent Office -- as well as the lascivious nobleman and a traveling circus jealous of its secrets -- are after her. It's like you asked someone to come up with the most contrived and steampunk-y of steampunk plotlines and turned it into an actual book. The only thing is missing is some half-baked appearance from Ancient Horrors.
And yet, for its first two-thirds or so, The Bullet Catcher's Daughter elevates itself above the triteness of its outline, thanks largely to Duncan's zippy prose and his appealing narrator. Only in the last third of the book does the momentum break down, impeded by a change of scenery less interesting than Duncan perhaps supposed, weighed down by the appearance of new central characters that have little life except as plot contrivances. The twists at the end carry no emotional weight because of how little effort went into these characters. We're told the missing aristocrat was motivated by love and a desire to smash the class hierarchy, motivations the glossary implies are carried forward in ensuing volumes by our narrator, but we aren't shown this -- the mere telling of it feels like the last gasp of a storyline that ran out of steam (har har) a hundred pages before.
Perhaps the ensuing volumes will better serve the promise of Elizabeth Barnabus as a character, though I'm not sure what surprises the setting itself might be able to offer, given how generic its setup has been thus far.
374 pages
Published 2014
Read from July 8 to July 13
Rating: ★★★ out of 5
The outline of this novel sounds more like a gumbo of cliches and fads somewhat past their expiration date: A steampunk alternate history in which technology is regulated by a sinister Patent Office, and traveling "gypsy" circuses cobble together arcane devices to relieve "jossers" of their money. A daughter of one of these performers, on the run from a lascivious nobleman, earns a living as a private detective, disguising herself as a man when the lights are dim, following the clues of an aristocrat's disappearance into the very world of traveling performers she had had to flee. Soon she discovers that the aristocrat absconded with contraband technology, and soon the Patent Office -- as well as the lascivious nobleman and a traveling circus jealous of its secrets -- are after her. It's like you asked someone to come up with the most contrived and steampunk-y of steampunk plotlines and turned it into an actual book. The only thing is missing is some half-baked appearance from Ancient Horrors.
And yet, for its first two-thirds or so, The Bullet Catcher's Daughter elevates itself above the triteness of its outline, thanks largely to Duncan's zippy prose and his appealing narrator. Only in the last third of the book does the momentum break down, impeded by a change of scenery less interesting than Duncan perhaps supposed, weighed down by the appearance of new central characters that have little life except as plot contrivances. The twists at the end carry no emotional weight because of how little effort went into these characters. We're told the missing aristocrat was motivated by love and a desire to smash the class hierarchy, motivations the glossary implies are carried forward in ensuing volumes by our narrator, but we aren't shown this -- the mere telling of it feels like the last gasp of a storyline that ran out of steam (har har) a hundred pages before.
Perhaps the ensuing volumes will better serve the promise of Elizabeth Barnabus as a character, though I'm not sure what surprises the setting itself might be able to offer, given how generic its setup has been thus far.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
2015 read #32: Spindle's End by Robin McKinley.
Spindle's End by Robin McKinley
422 pages
Published 2000
Read from June 30 to July 7
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
A fun and thoroughly enjoyable restructuring of the tale of Sleeping Beauty, charming and folksy and populated by a progressive cast of strong, competent women. The prose gets a little breathless and busy at times, hurrying forward and backward to develop the story, jumping ahead and then backfilling events in between, a common enough storytelling technique that nonetheless got to be too much at times for my currently addled attention span. That's not a mark against the book itself, merely against my ability to stay invested these days in anything for longer than about a hundred pages. The ending especially was hectic with everything going on, a messy gathering of threads dropped throughout the foregoing four hundred pages that I couldn't help but feel could have been handled more elegantly. That doesn't detract from the essential humor and sweetness of the book as a whole.
422 pages
Published 2000
Read from June 30 to July 7
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
A fun and thoroughly enjoyable restructuring of the tale of Sleeping Beauty, charming and folksy and populated by a progressive cast of strong, competent women. The prose gets a little breathless and busy at times, hurrying forward and backward to develop the story, jumping ahead and then backfilling events in between, a common enough storytelling technique that nonetheless got to be too much at times for my currently addled attention span. That's not a mark against the book itself, merely against my ability to stay invested these days in anything for longer than about a hundred pages. The ending especially was hectic with everything going on, a messy gathering of threads dropped throughout the foregoing four hundred pages that I couldn't help but feel could have been handled more elegantly. That doesn't detract from the essential humor and sweetness of the book as a whole.
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