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Robin Hobb's Soldier Son trilogy [Jun. 21st, 2008|01:25 pm]
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I should maybe have reviewed after each book, because they've all got a lot to them; but after reading the three, I can't but think of them as a whole. Onwards to spoilers!

This series also had a couple of ( skeezy race issues. Spoilers for the whole trilogy, race & gender mentions, ending of the third book most definitely spoiled to death. )

Anyway, somewhat skeezy race issues despite the solid writing.
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Karen Miller, Godspeaker series books one and two [Jun. 21st, 2008|12:50 pm]
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Empress of Mijak, Book One

This was a read that kept me turning pages. Shiny, interesting, female main character; setting which wasn't generic-medieval; and fantasy magic/gods which felt inexplicable and marvellous rather than formulaic and tedious. Let me just quote a good bit, to show the style--Miller did a brilliant job of creating an atmosphere and culture, the odd bits of jargon placed perfectly and the narrative style reflecting the main character's awesomeness. This is how you can bring a character and universe to life; writing as though the reader can smell the sand and the blood.( Read more... )
( Book Two )
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Fuck you, she's awesome [Apr. 12th, 2008|06:31 am]
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Meme, gacked from [info]gehayi, who got it from [info]dsudis:

So I was adding some new interests to my LJ profile (because I, uh... have some new interests. Yes.) and found myself feeling defensive every time I typed a female name, thinking, basically, FUCK YOU, SHE'S AWESOME, because I felt as if someone somewhere was going to be criticizing my love for them.

So, anyway, then I made a list of women who make me want to say FUCK YOU, SHE'S AWESOME. They are far from the only women who are awesome, or the only women people need to be told to step off of, but they are the top ten I feel that way about, right now, off the top of my head.

Female characters are awesome. ([info]femgenficathon is, I think, still accepting sign-ups to tell the world through fic exactly how awesome.) Here's my list, somewhat dependent on present reading/viewing material:

1. Ginny Weasley.
2. Anthy Himemiya.
3. Asuka Langley Soryu.
4. Lady Illusion.
5. Sofia (The Color Purple).
6. Cersei Lannister.
7. Winia Chester/Raquel Casull/Pacifica Casull/Seness Giat/Steyr/Zefiris (Scrapped Princess--beautiful anime).
8. Leia Organa.
9. Irene Adler.
10. Dido Twite and Juana (Joan Aiken's Wolves of Willoughby Chase series and the Felix Trilogy).

Extras:

11. Nanami Kiryuu/Wakaba Shinohara/Shiori Takatsuki/Juri Arisugawa.
12. Marie Antoinette/Jeanne/Rosalie/Oscar (Rose of Versailles).
13. Madame Du Barry (real life, not what RoV did--RoV made me look her up, though).
14. Fanny Price.
15. Samantha/Sparx/Heather/Kat.
16. Celie/Shug.
17. Lauren Oya Olamina (Parable of the Talents).
18. Vipra.
19. Kim Possible/Bonnie Rockwaller/Yori.
20. Lady Carbury/Henrietta Carbury/Marie/Winifred Hurtle/the Longstaffes (The Way We Live Now).
21. Selina Kyle, Holly, Arrowette, Secret, Empress, Tora/Ice, and Beatriz/Fire.
22. Amy Carnaby/the Countess/Cinderella (Hercule Poirot)
23. Elspeth Gordie (Obernewtyn series--post-apocalyptic mental powers and prophecy. Could kill people with her brain before River Tam was a shiny bit in Whedon's brain.)
24. Helga (Disney's Atlantis)
25. Ursula and Ariel from Disney, also the original fairytale
26. Adrienne Campbell, Investigator Frost, Emma Steel, Rose and Lionstone (kickass wormen from Deathstalker, though now I see in their author a trend to make strong women always just below the hero's level plus a habit of writing the same book over, and over, and over again).

[info]ciardhapagan suggests in [info]gehayi to write a paragraph why some of them are awesome, which I could do in comments, but I prefer here to demonstrate precisely why [info]sarah_frost should never be permitted to attempt poetry. (Female characters for T, Y, and U were particularly difficult.)

A is for Asuka, who kicked Angel arse,
B for du Barry, who made Louis laugh,
C is for Celie, to Shug gave her heart,
D is for Dido, the traveller's raw art,
E is for Elspeth, made destiny's vice,
F is for Fanny, integrity no price.
G for young Weasley, fiery and sure,
H is for Helga, a volcano no cure,
I is Irene, brighter than Holmes,
J for Juri, leopard to her bones.
K is for Kim, impossible a breeze,
Oya Olamina, planted Earthseeds.
M for Marie, in doomed love with Fersen,
Nanami Kiryuu, some strange scheme certain,
Oscar the leader, courage unfurled,
P for Pacifica, spoiled girl loves the world.
Q for Queen Cersei, defiant through nasty ways,
R bloody Rose, gladiator (it pays),
S for Selina, cat-thief extraordinaire,
T is for Tora, Fire and Ice a pair.
U is for Ursula, strong Sea-Witch still;
V is for Vipra, villain of own will.
Winia, Wakaba, good friends forever,
X is for Xena, dangerous endeavour,
Y for Yori, ninja gifts to lend,
And Z is for Zefiris, Earth's freedom to mend.
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FF.Net Woes [Mar. 23rd, 2008|02:12 pm]
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[mood | angry]

In lieu of an angry icon, I'm using Cersei Lannister, who can pass as an effective villain on her good days.

I post at FF.Net. (I know, I know, maybe that means I deserve whatever I get.) It's a popular site. It's not likely to disappear from the Internet any time soon. It's better organized than LJ. They have an Ace Lightning category.

I also use a double dash as a scene break.

--

Not hard on the eye, right? I found it easier to use than bigger line breaks that tended to disappear on me.

Now, not only has FF.Net stripped such line breaks entirely (not replacing them or anything of the sort, oh no!), I can't even get the official line breaks to work on Safari--they disappear on me still! Hence, in [info]ckret2's words, my stories are now "a befuddling stream of undivided mush".

I don't have over a hundred stories there like some others on [info]ckret2's post, but I've still got a fair amount up there, especially old stories I am really not looking forward to re-reading.

This sucks.
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[Mar. 20th, 2008|01:45 pm]
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[mood | busy]

I'm not American, I just sometimes read American blogs because there are better Bush jokes than Howard jokes. (Rudd jokes now, of course.) And the Jeremiah Wright thing--"God damn America"--isn't really my business...but I decided to have Thoughts On Patriotism anyway, with suitable digression into American comic books. :D

I like being Australian. We have kangaroos frolicking about our school ovals, adorable possums coming out in the dark, magpies half-scalping us as we pass under trees, founding fathers who weren't slaveowners and don't get mistaken for fundamentalist Christians, a nice small country with many of our cities developed recently enough to be modern (what can I say--I like suburbia). We've got mateship and barbecues, fewer fundies and better urban planning than other countries.

But Australia also kind of sucks. The land was stolen. There was genocide. White Australia. The Stolen Generation. Cronulla riots.

When people are hurt, there's every reason to damn something.

This post is about an American comic hero. It's about Steve Rogers' return from the dead; it's about the true Captain America fighting the Commie Smasher version.

America is nothing! says Captain America--who wears the flag for a costume, who punched Hitler in the jaw. America is a piece of trash! Without its ideals--its commitment to the freedom of all men--

I love that.

Steve is right. When a country loses its way--the McCarthyism that he was specifically responding to, racism and prejudice--then it's right to call it nothing. It's a piece of cloth; it's an ideal. Is that what needs defending at the cost of humanity?

When it was the Christians damning America for excessive tolerance towards fags, abortionists and witches, they were Republican heroes, Frank Schaeffer writes. I don't--at all--agree with such a position. But there's a hypocrisy, and a fact: a country is worth only as much as its people do.

People trump flags. Always.

(I read a transcript of Barack Obama's following speech on Pandagon--it's pretty awesome. :) )
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Storm Hawks [Dec. 2nd, 2007|11:53 pm]
Brief background: kids' animated series, airgliders and crystals in era-uncertain fantasyland.

It is really very racist to include a character as a typical species representative (all non-humans are culturally monolithic, of course) whose entire thing is being big, brown, and stupid. Not reflecting any bad racial stereotypes at all, that. Slightly offset by the Twofer token girl (thanks, TV Tropes) being the smartest person on the team, but there was this particular screencap...



I know it's probably a parody of the Blues Brothers or Elvis or something, and it only lasted a few seconds in a single episode, but...pretty definite fairy-floss afro there. Not doing any favours at all to the existence of the stereotype and its non-ironic representation, is it?

S'pose I should've given up after the blackface (used as a disguise, in the context of an otherwise white not!Australia). And I have the feeling a profit-greedy pair of villainous brothers with rather large noses and vaguely Hebrew-sounding names (I might be mistaken as I couldn't hear properly) were...well, yeah.

You don't really expect quality for these sorts of shows, but you don't expect offensive-quality ick.
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God Is A Capitalist, Apparently [Nov. 13th, 2007|05:57 pm]
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[mood | busy]

For an article whose title is How To Stop Fretting Over Politics And Start Living Abundantly, this Ladies Against Women article has sure got a long list of things apparently worth fretting over.

( Read more... )
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[Oct. 31st, 2007|06:21 pm]
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[mood | entering exam hell]

You know, it's probably downright unfair to only write about something for purposes of complaining. And this is from a blogger from a site I read on a fairly regular basis, Heartless Bitches, which has some things on it I very much like such as the Nice Guys section, Auntie Dote's column, and Dear Fuckin' Bon's archives. It was a site I found early on and which definitely influenced me in the direction of feminism, for which I'm grateful, and while there are aspects that aren't quite feminist enough for me these days it's still in my bookmarks right under Ladies Against Feminism for me to check out as a palate-cleanser. (Quick link recently featured on that last: a new Monstrous Regiment documentary that isn't quite Pratchett.)

But I think there's always been a strong line taken on the site in favour of what they call responsibility, a stress on taking responsibility for one's own problems, which made me slightly uneasy at times with how far it went. Of course responsibility is a great and a good thing--but this post by editor Natalie takes a sharp turn off the victim-blaming cliff on which the notion teetered.

( Read more... )
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[Oct. 25th, 2007|03:53 pm]
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[mood | annoyed]

When Fangirls Attack linked to this article about How To Date Girls If You're A Fanboy. It does suggest self-confidence, which is generally a useful thing in those strange circumstances they call "getting off the computer and meeting people", and throws in a dash of that passive-aggressive-manipulative how-to-get-women-to-chase-you-man-of-mystery business about walking away at odd moments and letting her wonder if she's been rejected so that she's all nicely desperate for you.

And there was this.

If she said no just repeat steps 1 and 2 [ask a woman out] until you get a yes. (He seems to mean "ask different women out", but the phrasing around made me think he was advocating stalking at first.) Eventually someone will say yes. They will most likely have hairy legs, man-hands and a mustache but you are a man and man’s got to do what a man’s got to do...even if it is with Ms. Bigfoot.

I hate that line so much. It says: if you're hairy-legged or otherwise don't match the beauty standards (who does?) and magically get a guy, maybe he'll be a guy like this dating the only person he can get while thinking you're a monster the whole time. I can't think of many things more humiliating than that in a relationship. The reason why I think it'd be humiliating is probably because I'm a woman, which kind of sucks. Attractive and desirable women dating less attractive men for their pocketbooks is presented as being a lot more common than the reverse, and while there's some laughter for the men involved it's still not the same thing as this horrid-looking, trollish woman of sexist stereotype who puts out enough to keep her guy around while he hasn't got anything better. (More sexism: men want sex and women want money as their incentive to put up with a relationship that doesn't genuinely attract them.) I don't know which way of looking at unequal relationships is better, the idea that if your partner really thinks you're awful it's your problem or it's okay for your partner to not really fancy you as long as you're getting laid.

Anyway, according to the article it's good to Have A Girlfriend even if you hold her in contempt, becuase she's an Actual Woman with an Actual Pussy and that's enough to make up for all her negative traits, like opening her mouth:

Lunch is also a great time for you to talk to each other. Actually she will be talking and you will be doing what? DUDE!!!! Nod and smile, nod and smile!!!

Not true. If you really want to impress a woman, don't be sexist.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe men like women. Well, that's too general and very inaccurate--but men like this clearly don't.

Date her even if you think she's Bigfoot. Date her even though she's opening her mouth and carrying on and you're nodding and smiling and not thinking about what she has to say at all. Date her even though you hate her, because...

I think I'm lost at the 'because'.

The article finishes thus:

As I send our Fanboy Nation out to woo the women of the world, I have one word for the ladies out there.

Mace.
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Gay Dumbledore brief ranting [Oct. 22nd, 2007|07:26 pm]
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Like I said last brief entry, JKR totally did a Good Thing in announcing it. All credit to her for that act.

But BOOSUCKS to everyone who thinks it didn't belong in the book. (Well, to the opinion, not the people holding it.) Yeah, this way we get the pleasure of all the delayed reactions and the point well made that Dumbledore was a person like any other person and his sexuality didn't change anything he was, but it belonged in the actual books rather than cut out to please censors. The whole relationship with Grindlewald and how that was kind of just slightly important to the plot? The parallel of Snape/Lily, doomed Dark loves with tragic endings, and how that factored into the Snape/Dumbledore relationship which was of course not at all relevant to the books? [info]callmecaito has a very funny list of bad ways Dumbledore's sexuality could have featured in the text, but [info]marauderthesn has an edit to the Kings Cross scene that's perfect.

"I was frustrated with my family responsibilities," Dumbledore said. "I was desperate to feel as important as I had at school, I was taken with Grindelwald's ideas, I was in love - "

"You were in love?" Harry said, confused.

Dumbledore looked at him and suddenly he understood.

"Oh," he said, feeling stupid. "I didn't know that you and Grindelwald - "

"It felt as though we were compatible in every way," Dumbledore said. "Until the day that - that Ariana died..."

We would still have gotten that Dumbledore, the person we knew and (may have) cared about was exactly the same person he'd been in six books, we just knew one more fact about him and that fact changed absolutely nothing about who he was. Slash doesn't mean NC-17. The mention of "gay" doesn't mean the mind automatically switches to hot sexings a-going on. Gay isn't pedophilia, either. (Some jokes in [info]callmecaito's post depend on those misconceptions.) We should have gotten over this by now and realised that it's kind of good to acknowledge the existence of more than heterosexuality.

It's true we didn't hear about the Patils' or Anthony Goldstein's religious practices, but we still could assume Hindu and Jewish options existed, and the Christianity wasn't quite as overt as...Harry/Ginny. Ron/Hermione. Bill/Fleur. Tonks/Lupin. Molly/Arthur. Nicholas/Perenelle. Grey Lady/Bloody Baron. Kendra/Percival. Snape/Lily. James/Lily. Luna/Dean. Cho/Michael. Draco/Pansy. Draco/unknown. Petunia/Vernon. Andromeda/Ted. The Lestranges. Frank/Alice. Lucius/Narcissa. Merope/Tom. Teddy/Victoire. Xenophilus/Luna’s mum. (Arguably implied) Bellatrix/Voldemort. (Teased) Scorpius/Rose. All the hetpairings defintely have their good points, but... We assume the authors are writing the characters straight (or writing the characters maybe sort of gay but not mentioning the word because it's hard and they might lose readers) unless there's evidence otherwise, because straight is the default. [info]kate_nepveu raises this point in relation to John Scalszi on race. We imagine the characters to be default when we're not given the clues to go against stereotype--and authors really should have the courage to have their characters come out and say GAY, GAY, GAY ALREADY.
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Poor Albus/Minerva 'shippers! [Oct. 21st, 2007|10:15 am]
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Dumbledore is gay, gacked from the_hms_stfu, [info]ataniell93, and [info]gehayi. (There's also already homophobic response, where one commenter praises his son for doing a crude parody called "Dumb Gay Fag".)

What will this mean for the hetshippers? It's easy to come across as homophobic by writing a gay character straight, but het also allows for the immediate anti-sexist side effect of female characters important in the story. And of course the revelation's secondary canon; thus cue the reopened debate on its precise status. I feel sorry for Jossed Albus hetshipping, especially those with slashy side pairings; but new information makes AUs for us all. And of course I have total SQUEE that JKR has come forth with this; it would have been better had she felt able to include it in the books themselves, but she certainly deserves at least a small chocolate-chip cookie for this stand. :D
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Fanficcing a homily [Oct. 3rd, 2007|06:07 pm]
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[mood | listless]

The short version of this rather poorly written parable (by "Pastor Jerry Ross") goes like this: a Princess is raised in isolation and taught lovingly by her father the king in preparation for her Prince, starts sneaking out to the village she's told is beneath her, marries the wrong guy, gets knocked up, Prince comes too late for her, the dirty slut cries and realizes too late she really ought to have let Daddy pick her husband for her. As excellent as it generally is to listen to parental advice on your sig. other (and I can't help but think of Agatha Christie's short story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding in which the reaction of a grandmother to an Unsuitable Young Man is eminently sensible and absolutely dead-on), I have real objections to this thesis being taken too far…so I wrote a sequel, though I can't say it's much better written. ( Read more... )
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[Sep. 30th, 2007|09:36 pm]
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[mood | irritated]

Shorter Sheri Tepper's Fresco:

It's okay to fake historical records if you're doing it for a Good Cause, and there's nothing like a good brainwashing by superior alien beings to make people all better. In a sidenote, the ACLU really sucks.

(I did like the main character and her daughter lots and the actions taken for gender equality were absolutely gorgeous, but the aliens were so colonialist in a way Tepper doesn't seem to pick up on, and I can say that as successful as the novel may be as a vehicle for the author's theories, I really don't agree with some of them.)
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Rape apologist of the day [Sep. 30th, 2007|09:44 am]
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[mood | frisky, of course]

Feminism's rape fallacy, by David Cox. ( Read more... )

Rape apologists hate men too.
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Not That It's At All Interesting... [Sep. 9th, 2007|02:22 pm]
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[mood | good]

...but my grandmother gave me a watch last year. The truth is I don't wear watches often, and it's a little too tight, but I wear it anyway on some occasions and pull it out of my bag to know the time. And I dropped it and the face cracked a month or maybe more ago because I am a careless twit, so it was sometimes hard to make out the time...and yet today the cracks are almost healed, the face transparent and all the numbers plainly visible.

I'm strangely enthused, scepticism notwithstanding. Nothing weird ever happens to me like it does to some people, so the Strange Incident Of The Suddenly-Clear Watchface pleases me, as boring as it is! (Great-grandads coming out of walls? Furniture shrieking until one discovers a murder was committed there? Never mind that, my...uh, watch got bettter...)
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[Sep. 8th, 2007|01:40 pm]
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[mood | amused]

Reminder to self: whatever philosophical, political, fandom or other opinions you hold, it is inevitable that you will find at least one other person who agrees one hundred percent on your position, does so for reasons you consider blatantly immoral and self-serving, defends it with all the cerebral acuity of a blind monkey throwing feces at a typewriter, and from whose company you would run screaming into the arms of any detractors who at least understand complete sentences; and none of this will make the opinion one whit less valid.
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If Abstinence Works, Why Marry A Widow/er? [Sep. 6th, 2007|02:33 pm]
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(A bit of a rehashing of an older post.)

I don’t think people with deceased spouses shouldn’t remarry—in fact, it’s probably a very healthy thing to be able to find happiness with someone else, and most of us would prefer our partner to be happy even if not with us. It’s perfectly Biblically appropriate, too, and even mandated in the Old Testament.

But I do find it somewhat inconsistent with the notion of abstinence, in this day and age at any rate. ( Read more... )
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[Sep. 1st, 2007|04:17 pm]
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[mood | boggled]

Just couldn't not share this Fundies Say The Darndest Things quote...

"A few hours after conception, a tiny heart begins beating."

(The guy's site is poorly designed and doesn't have much material, but there's some fun stuff. Jesus totally turned it into non-alcoholic wine, why you should let Daddy pick your husband for you, and pleasure is of the devil.)
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[Aug. 31st, 2007|05:04 pm]
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[mood | sad]

My favourite librarian at the Law Library has just retired. :(

It feels a lot like the end of an era. Sort of. Why do people, even acquaintances you smile at and help carry overnight returns in in the morning and ask to borrow Australian Constitutional Law and Theory on short-term loan three times in a row, have to go? Depressing.

But next week she'll be en route to Western Australia with her husband, and should have a great holiday, and might come back to visit sometimes. I know my grandparents are having an excellent time being retired, and I know she'll enjoy it. I'm also glad I got to say goodbye to her, several times (a little awkwardly), and bought her the clichéd box of chocolates and a card. They gave her flowers and a big morning tea today, and announced the retirement on the megaphone at 4:32 PM.

Goodbye, the best law librarian I know. May you and your family go well.
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Review: Glenda Larke, Isles of Glory trilogy books one and two [Aug. 31st, 2007|11:40 am]
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[mood | chipper]

I really enjoyed these books. Engagingly written, a strong heroine like a lungful of fresh sea air, and a thoroughly excellent plot (actually the best part about them, I reckon). I didn't want to put them down, for the plot above any character considerations—I'm sure most people would get the plot twists faster than I did, but it really was interesting to read how it all worked out. ( Spoilerphobes shouldn't read, but I'm attempting not to ruin the endings because they really are good books. )
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