![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
d_aulnoyAs I went to bed last night at 4 (I'm starting to wonder if Bryn's chronic insomnia was somehow associated with this apartment, as I haven't been this bad in *years*), my brain is too fried to write good reviews right now, so I'm going to digress into a genre that I can't rightly review formally; chick-lit vamp. fic. I'm sure that there's a nicer way to put that, but it's what it boils down to ...
So, on to my informal compare and contrast of the field as it stans. LKH started it, and now there's a whole sub-genre coalescing around her. On the one hand, this is great, as LKH started being repetitive and monomaniacal in a nymphomaniacal way somewhere back around book 6. On the other hand, I can only stand so much derivitiveness before my brain boils out of my sinusoidal cavities (hey, it's lunchtime, I get to make with the good thoughts, right?). Some of her accolytes are actually fairly decent; Kim Harrison, who I *will* be formally reviewing because of her use of fairy tales, manages to create a framework with depth, even if there are some incredibly irritating loose plot threads in _Dead Witch Walking_ (i.e. - and, P.S., SPOILER - Ivy's wish, the fact that Kalamack is *obviously* an elf), but those can be fixed with a little careful editing and TLC. Unfortunately ... what I loved about Anita Blake was the immediacy of the character. From the get-go, you knew quirks, foibles, family background ... with Harrison, there's more attention paid to the complex story-line than there is to the character, and, frankly, it's the character who's meant to draw one back for the sequel. I'll still look for the next one fairly eagerly, though ... Not so with Charlaine Harris (btw, am I the only one who thinks that the coincidence of the last names has been heightened by a savvy marketing person?). I actually picked her up after seeing the blurb on Harrison's first novel, thinking "I missed this? HOW?" Fact of the matter is, I'm glad I did ... it's not necessarily that Harris is a bad writer; the descriptive language is well-crafted, and the plot, though unfortunately bare on support and heavy on that yummy red herring, has potential. No, my problem here is simply that the book is written from the p.o.v. of a character whom I HATE with the white-hot passion of a thousand suns. Sookie (do we begin to see the problem?) is a telepathic cocktail waitress. She's blond and tan and gorgeous and well aware of it all, as her acknowledgement of the wonderfullness of her acts as the intro. to the book. She giggles, and thinks that men should take the lead, and all of those descriptions of clothing in LKH? Well, at least they come with accessories that can maim the populace. Here, it's all about the ugly outfits. In short, she's ... girly. Even if she's fighting vampires, kicking ass and taking names, she's this bastion of old-fashioned femininity that gives me the willies, largely because, well, a) I can't relate, and b) it strikes me as being the deliberately feminized version of tough, tomboyish, body-issue having Anita Blake. It's meant to be accessible, but instead it just raises the unquiet ghost of every Buffy paper that examined the meta-issues of heroism and femininity, only without the conscious irony or social commentary. No, Ms. Harris, NO!
[pant]
I suppose that my problem with all three authors can be boiled down to the fact that I do sit at the feet of the Young Trollopes: I like character driven fiction, and these character's just - ain't - cutting - it. Reading them in reverse, either abominable, underdeveloped, or, well, caught in a bad-fan-fic-like-Mary-Sue-AU for the last three books. What it comes down to is .... Please, Charlaine Harris, make your protagonist grow a spine! Or, failing that, stop making the only good Southerners in the novel the ones with pretenatural abilities, 'cause it makes me cringe to read Tanya Huff's blurb that praises it for being a vampire story that "Rural America" can call its own. Please, Kim Harrison, tell us more about Rachel! Resolve your bizarre uncertainty as to whether witchcraft is hereditary or acquirable through other means! Stay the hell away from the sec-shul draw of the vampire roommate, even if you are queering the casting! For the love of all that is [un]holy, learn from your predecessors mistakes! And, finally, LKH, I beg of you: pretend that the last three books are all a bad dream resulting from some severe head trauma of Anita's, and she's imagined the whole thing. Keep Angry!Richard as long as you like, lose the whole mated-leopard thing, keep the vamps (and Anita) within reasonable limits, 'cause there is NO reason why they wouldn't have torn the world apart by now, or kept quiet with the abilities which they aparently had, and, MOST OF ALL, I emphasize, stop listening to whoever it is who told you that sex sells, and kinky sex most of all. I say this as someone who actually bought the _Love in Vein_ anthologies (guilty secret revealed ... it was all, uh, for PZB introductions and their incisive readings of Goth subcultures). I could care less about the S&M, multiple penetration, whips and chains, verging on bestiality crap. That's what Anne Rice is for. Anita Blake was a brittle, complicated, smart-ass _chick_ who would have been a fun person to know more about. Introduce us to her family (I, for one, would love to see Judith); give us more office politics; concentrate on the truly fabulou possibilities of necromancy [side note; I find it interesting that as the characters grow ... feminized ... so do their powers]; and remember that you're writing vampire/zombie/horror ... and that means that you can resurrect her, should you so choose. C'mon, people, toss a girl a bone (femur, please).
Now onto lighter matters .... Belatedly stolen from cataptromancer, via alice_ayers, because, well, it ties into my subject line, and after the review bitchery I feel like having fun.
1. Name a book you love no matter what anyone says.
For me, this position will be occupied by Robin McKinley's _Sunshine_ - I know that many felt that it was a Buffy spin-off, but, a) the idea of Robin McKinley as a Buffy fan tickles my fancy, and, b) I thought that she did an incredible job of world-building.
2. Name a book you loathe no matter what anyone says.
_A Confederacy of Dunces_. I've been criticized as a "humorless hyper-feminist" for hating this book (which really makes me think that I ought to have a warp-drive around here somewhere), but, honestly, it has nothing to do with Ignatious Riley (sp?). I just loathed the language, and wanted to use it to line a bird-cage.
3. Name a book you think is undeservedly obscure.
Nicholas Christopher's _Veronica_. One of the most gorgeous NY books out there, one of the best Magical Realist works that I've ever read, published as mainstream (where it sank), and mostly unknown to the f&sf community, as far as I can tell.
4. Name a book you think is undeservedly famous.
_Da Vinci Code_. This should be a "'nuff said" situation, but, really ... while I may spend most of my time off in Fairyland, I actually also love thrillers, and, all I can say is that Morrell did it first, and Morrell did it better. I think that I may also be irritated with it because it's invariably chosen as the "Favorite Book" in the Onion personal ads by the wankers who choose to write to me.
5. Name a book you think you ought to read.
There is much guilt behind this, but ... I've never read all of _Sandman_. I know, I ought to say something like, oh, "Paradise Lost," but I've read most of the books, classic and non, that I "should," either out of obligation or curiousity. This is one that I've missed, just because, well, I'm a broke grad. student, and those collected editions are 'spensive!
6. Name a book you think I ought to read.
Go forth and read the collected oevre of Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, RIGHT NOW.
Post yours now and win a decoder ring!
So, on to my informal compare and contrast of the field as it stans. LKH started it, and now there's a whole sub-genre coalescing around her. On the one hand, this is great, as LKH started being repetitive and monomaniacal in a nymphomaniacal way somewhere back around book 6. On the other hand, I can only stand so much derivitiveness before my brain boils out of my sinusoidal cavities (hey, it's lunchtime, I get to make with the good thoughts, right?). Some of her accolytes are actually fairly decent; Kim Harrison, who I *will* be formally reviewing because of her use of fairy tales, manages to create a framework with depth, even if there are some incredibly irritating loose plot threads in _Dead Witch Walking_ (i.e. - and, P.S., SPOILER - Ivy's wish, the fact that Kalamack is *obviously* an elf), but those can be fixed with a little careful editing and TLC. Unfortunately ... what I loved about Anita Blake was the immediacy of the character. From the get-go, you knew quirks, foibles, family background ... with Harrison, there's more attention paid to the complex story-line than there is to the character, and, frankly, it's the character who's meant to draw one back for the sequel. I'll still look for the next one fairly eagerly, though ... Not so with Charlaine Harris (btw, am I the only one who thinks that the coincidence of the last names has been heightened by a savvy marketing person?). I actually picked her up after seeing the blurb on Harrison's first novel, thinking "I missed this? HOW?" Fact of the matter is, I'm glad I did ... it's not necessarily that Harris is a bad writer; the descriptive language is well-crafted, and the plot, though unfortunately bare on support and heavy on that yummy red herring, has potential. No, my problem here is simply that the book is written from the p.o.v. of a character whom I HATE with the white-hot passion of a thousand suns. Sookie (do we begin to see the problem?) is a telepathic cocktail waitress. She's blond and tan and gorgeous and well aware of it all, as her acknowledgement of the wonderfullness of her acts as the intro. to the book. She giggles, and thinks that men should take the lead, and all of those descriptions of clothing in LKH? Well, at least they come with accessories that can maim the populace. Here, it's all about the ugly outfits. In short, she's ... girly. Even if she's fighting vampires, kicking ass and taking names, she's this bastion of old-fashioned femininity that gives me the willies, largely because, well, a) I can't relate, and b) it strikes me as being the deliberately feminized version of tough, tomboyish, body-issue having Anita Blake. It's meant to be accessible, but instead it just raises the unquiet ghost of every Buffy paper that examined the meta-issues of heroism and femininity, only without the conscious irony or social commentary. No, Ms. Harris, NO!
[pant]
I suppose that my problem with all three authors can be boiled down to the fact that I do sit at the feet of the Young Trollopes: I like character driven fiction, and these character's just - ain't - cutting - it. Reading them in reverse, either abominable, underdeveloped, or, well, caught in a bad-fan-fic-like-Mary-Sue-AU for the last three books. What it comes down to is .... Please, Charlaine Harris, make your protagonist grow a spine! Or, failing that, stop making the only good Southerners in the novel the ones with pretenatural abilities, 'cause it makes me cringe to read Tanya Huff's blurb that praises it for being a vampire story that "Rural America" can call its own. Please, Kim Harrison, tell us more about Rachel! Resolve your bizarre uncertainty as to whether witchcraft is hereditary or acquirable through other means! Stay the hell away from the sec-shul draw of the vampire roommate, even if you are queering the casting! For the love of all that is [un]holy, learn from your predecessors mistakes! And, finally, LKH, I beg of you: pretend that the last three books are all a bad dream resulting from some severe head trauma of Anita's, and she's imagined the whole thing. Keep Angry!Richard as long as you like, lose the whole mated-leopard thing, keep the vamps (and Anita) within reasonable limits, 'cause there is NO reason why they wouldn't have torn the world apart by now, or kept quiet with the abilities which they aparently had, and, MOST OF ALL, I emphasize, stop listening to whoever it is who told you that sex sells, and kinky sex most of all. I say this as someone who actually bought the _Love in Vein_ anthologies (guilty secret revealed ... it was all, uh, for PZB introductions and their incisive readings of Goth subcultures). I could care less about the S&M, multiple penetration, whips and chains, verging on bestiality crap. That's what Anne Rice is for. Anita Blake was a brittle, complicated, smart-ass _chick_ who would have been a fun person to know more about. Introduce us to her family (I, for one, would love to see Judith); give us more office politics; concentrate on the truly fabulou possibilities of necromancy [side note; I find it interesting that as the characters grow ... feminized ... so do their powers]; and remember that you're writing vampire/zombie/horror ... and that means that you can resurrect her, should you so choose. C'mon, people, toss a girl a bone (femur, please).
Now onto lighter matters .... Belatedly stolen from cataptromancer, via alice_ayers, because, well, it ties into my subject line, and after the review bitchery I feel like having fun.
1. Name a book you love no matter what anyone says.
For me, this position will be occupied by Robin McKinley's _Sunshine_ - I know that many felt that it was a Buffy spin-off, but, a) the idea of Robin McKinley as a Buffy fan tickles my fancy, and, b) I thought that she did an incredible job of world-building.
2. Name a book you loathe no matter what anyone says.
_A Confederacy of Dunces_. I've been criticized as a "humorless hyper-feminist" for hating this book (which really makes me think that I ought to have a warp-drive around here somewhere), but, honestly, it has nothing to do with Ignatious Riley (sp?). I just loathed the language, and wanted to use it to line a bird-cage.
3. Name a book you think is undeservedly obscure.
Nicholas Christopher's _Veronica_. One of the most gorgeous NY books out there, one of the best Magical Realist works that I've ever read, published as mainstream (where it sank), and mostly unknown to the f&sf community, as far as I can tell.
4. Name a book you think is undeservedly famous.
_Da Vinci Code_. This should be a "'nuff said" situation, but, really ... while I may spend most of my time off in Fairyland, I actually also love thrillers, and, all I can say is that Morrell did it first, and Morrell did it better. I think that I may also be irritated with it because it's invariably chosen as the "Favorite Book" in the Onion personal ads by the wankers who choose to write to me.
5. Name a book you think you ought to read.
There is much guilt behind this, but ... I've never read all of _Sandman_. I know, I ought to say something like, oh, "Paradise Lost," but I've read most of the books, classic and non, that I "should," either out of obligation or curiousity. This is one that I've missed, just because, well, I'm a broke grad. student, and those collected editions are 'spensive!
6. Name a book you think I ought to read.
Go forth and read the collected oevre of Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, RIGHT NOW.
Post yours now and win a decoder ring!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-07-09 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-09 05:22 pm (UTC)By the way, *big* congratulations on getting permission for a visit - now if only they'll just make it a regular occurence!
no subject
Date: 2004-07-09 07:06 pm (UTC)The visits will be regular as soon as they move him to a place where I can actually make regular visits. I'm in now - the power of several pending lawsuits can work miracles, it seems. Where are the tales where the prince is stuck in the tower waiting to be rescued? That's the one I'm living right now. heh
no subject
Date: 2004-07-09 10:17 pm (UTC)Thanks for sending me the beautiful story - will send a formal critique ASAP!
no subject
Date: 2004-07-10 05:52 am (UTC)You're welcome, and take your time. I'm in no rush for anything.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-10 04:05 am (UTC)i keep trying to pick up harris, and something about it repels me. i'm glad that i'm not missing anything.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-12 06:45 pm (UTC)