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samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Friday, December 3rd, 2010 09:06 am
King's Blood Four, Necromancer Nine, Wizard's Eleven, The Song of Mavin Manyshaped, The Flight of Mavin Manyshaped, The Search for Mavin Manyshaped, Jinian Footseer, Dervish Daughter and Jinian Star-Eye by Sheri Tepper. Re-reading for comfort. There are a lot of ideas I like in these earlier books and I like reading books about women and their choices. I was particularly struck by Mavin explaining rape to Mertyn and how she covered some of the complexity of the social dynamic.

Cut for potentially triggering quote about sexual assult and food )

The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer and The High King by Lloyd Alexander. Re-reading also for comfort, my brain is tired. Gentle, heroic and probably very good for young-ish boys. Darn, this was one of the series I loved when I was a child and now I read it and it still has many fine qualities but it’s so obviously a story about boys, as if their story is the only one worth telling.
samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Monday, February 15th, 2010 01:17 pm
  • The Little Known by Janice Daugharty. LibraryThing Early Reviewers Book. Coming of age story set in a poor, segregated town in South Georgia. African American 12 year old boy Knot ends up with a bag of money when a bank robbery near him goes wrong. I love the way Knot is paralysed by the money, he has thousands of dollars but each note is too big for him to spend so he becomes a cautious Santa and of course no recipient spends the money on what he thinks they should. His pathway to adulthood is woven around his attempts to fix the various significant issues in his life.
  • Ill wind, No Love Lost, Heat Stroke, Oasis, Chill Factor, Midnight at Mart's and Windfall by Rachel Caine. Supernatural romance-ish in which hotrod loving Joanne and her weather working powers end up in the middle of a war between the Wardens, the Djinn and the Earth herself. Not startlingly good but hypnotic in that way attractive emotional writing can be.
  • The Alleluia Files by Sharon Shinn. Shallow self-centered Jared the angel falls for Tamar, rebel with a cause. I think I’ve overdosed on books where the dramatic tension is about a culture that simply *cannot* get over being sexist/racist. Maybe it’s just that all the books in this series end in a resolution that makes you think the culture is going to improve and then every new book tells you it got worse instead. It’s a bit like that awful epilogue to Harry Potter – I wanted them to have learned from their mistakes.
  • Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods by Sheri Tepper. Sequel. Marianne reset her life in book one and Marianne2.0 doesn’t understand everyone else doesn’t remember how the day will go, but gradually as she grows up she has more unexpected experiences and learns to cope. Sadly, her enemies haven’t forgotten her and she gets mindwiped and sucked into an alternate reality. Has an interesting take on what it would be like to grow up twice with your adult personality sitting there in the background nudging you at critical times – when both of them ‘own’ the body, whose needs are more important?
  • Fledgling by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. Coming of age story in the Liaden universe; can stand alone. Theo, a young woman growing up on a ‘safe’ world run by scholars struggles with her incompatibility with said world culture and blossoms when her mother takes her off planet on a mission of her own. I enjoyed this!
samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 12:51 pm
  • Gossamer Axe by Gael Baudino. Re-reading. Musical feminist fantasy, sweet.
  • After Long silence or The Enigma Score by Sheri Tepper. Re-reading. Alien first contact… it takes a while because the humans get shunned for years on account of not being truthful. I am very fond of this bit: “…sang of greed and pride, things that the viggies understood to some extent. She sang of lying, which they did not understand but were willing to take on faith. Then together they sang of what they had learned,…
  • Souls by Joanna Russ. Novelette (20k words) in which a Nun runs rings around a Viking horde and then it turns out to be science fiction.
  • When it Changed by Joanna Russ. (4.4k words) in which Man makes contact with Whileaway, which is sadly unimpressed.
samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Wednesday, October 19th, 2005 09:44 am
Ecology, feminism and aliens. Read an amusing review saying book should be read with earplugs to survive the shrieking of axes being ground. Probably best enjoyed by confirmed Tepper lovers.

Jewel Delis is a member of a semi-underground movement dedicated to the preservation of Earth species; her moody half brother Paul is a gifted linguist. They travel to the planet Moss whose indigenous inhabitants are suspected of being sentient - taking with them some genetically enhanced dogs Jewel is trying to protect. Alien races with private agendas abound.
samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Monday, January 24th, 2005 06:32 pm
Was a bit hard to relate too - generation gap methinks.

Much re-reading of Sheri S. Tepper including Singer from the Sea, The Visitor, The Fresco and Shadow's End - all that feminism and pantheism was vewwy nice.