Recently read books + fic rec
Oct. 24th, 2013 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaA Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason
This is anthropological SF about first contact with aliens with less technology. I have a hang-up which can make it hard to enjoy these kinds of books: the aliens often seem too similar to humans. In this book, they look like humans with fur. The women live in villages, and the men become unsociable at puberty and go out to live by themselves, and in spring, the women go into "heat" and go to seek out a man to have sex with. I dunno, it just bothers me that the physiology and behavior of the aliens is so similar to humans, to the extent that the anthropologist learns their language in just a few weeks? It's such a huge coincidence. This wouldn't bother me if the book were fun space opera or something, but it does when the book is hard SF (there's an appendix describing the physics behind the drive of the spaceship) and the nature of the aliens is the focus. About halfway through, one of the scientists says something to the tune of "can this really be convergent evolution, or is it too much of a coincidence" and after that I expected them to unravel this mystery. But no, it was just a throwaway line. Arrgh, don't bring up issues in your worldbuilding like that and then just drop them! (Le Guin really gets to have the best of two worlds in her Hainish novels, because in those, there's a reason why all those worlds have people who are similar, but different enough to be alien.) But maybe my hang-up is because I'm taking things too literally and I should try to read it more as a metaphor for human cultural differences? Ah well.
Anyway. The main character is a (female) human anthropologist (Lixia), and it's about her meeting and traveling with an alien woman (Nia). There are other characters, too, but those two are at the heart of it. And then there's all the policy disagreements up in the mothership. The book is pretty obviously about the problems of colonialism, and all the human characters in it think and talk about that a lot.
With regard to the aliens, I'm not sure I like the approach where you take stereotypical gender roles ("women are more sociable than men") and exaggerate them? OTOH, the alien society isn't monolithic at all: there are all kinds of characters who don't quite fit the mold, both male and female, and many of them question their own assumptions and customs.
Maybe it sounds like I didn't enjoy the book, but I did! It's 500 pages and I finished it in 2-3 days. The characters are likeable and interesting, especially Nia. The writing had kind of a deliberately choppy character with short sentences, especially in the alien POV sections, but the style carried over into the human sections as well. It was actually very readable, though, and obviously it's making me think.
I also read Hästarnas himmel, by Gunnar Isacson. This was the book that my blind date from a few weeks ago loaned to me, and I enjoyed it. It's a short memoir from the 1950's about workhorses on a farm in northern Sweden, and has some lovely writing and nature description.
As for fic, I can rec you Home For Next Year, byscribe! It's a 55,000-word Kowalski/Vecchio fic, which is not a pairing that I am in any way emotionally invested in, but this fic is so good that it really made me care about them together! There's a lot of Fraser in it, too, and a lot of Vecchio family stuff, and in general, it's just a really good story. Go read it, people.
(Only very tangentially related: where are the long F/K/V fics from Fraser's POV? Every single long F/K/V fic is from the POV of one of the Rays, at least from what I've seen. Is this because of the need to develop the K/V relationship, which is not canonically established? I'd really like to see that from Fraser's POV, though.)
This is anthropological SF about first contact with aliens with less technology. I have a hang-up which can make it hard to enjoy these kinds of books: the aliens often seem too similar to humans. In this book, they look like humans with fur. The women live in villages, and the men become unsociable at puberty and go out to live by themselves, and in spring, the women go into "heat" and go to seek out a man to have sex with. I dunno, it just bothers me that the physiology and behavior of the aliens is so similar to humans, to the extent that the anthropologist learns their language in just a few weeks? It's such a huge coincidence. This wouldn't bother me if the book were fun space opera or something, but it does when the book is hard SF (there's an appendix describing the physics behind the drive of the spaceship) and the nature of the aliens is the focus. About halfway through, one of the scientists says something to the tune of "can this really be convergent evolution, or is it too much of a coincidence" and after that I expected them to unravel this mystery. But no, it was just a throwaway line. Arrgh, don't bring up issues in your worldbuilding like that and then just drop them! (Le Guin really gets to have the best of two worlds in her Hainish novels, because in those, there's a reason why all those worlds have people who are similar, but different enough to be alien.) But maybe my hang-up is because I'm taking things too literally and I should try to read it more as a metaphor for human cultural differences? Ah well.
Anyway. The main character is a (female) human anthropologist (Lixia), and it's about her meeting and traveling with an alien woman (Nia). There are other characters, too, but those two are at the heart of it. And then there's all the policy disagreements up in the mothership. The book is pretty obviously about the problems of colonialism, and all the human characters in it think and talk about that a lot.
With regard to the aliens, I'm not sure I like the approach where you take stereotypical gender roles ("women are more sociable than men") and exaggerate them? OTOH, the alien society isn't monolithic at all: there are all kinds of characters who don't quite fit the mold, both male and female, and many of them question their own assumptions and customs.
Maybe it sounds like I didn't enjoy the book, but I did! It's 500 pages and I finished it in 2-3 days. The characters are likeable and interesting, especially Nia. The writing had kind of a deliberately choppy character with short sentences, especially in the alien POV sections, but the style carried over into the human sections as well. It was actually very readable, though, and obviously it's making me think.
I also read Hästarnas himmel, by Gunnar Isacson. This was the book that my blind date from a few weeks ago loaned to me, and I enjoyed it. It's a short memoir from the 1950's about workhorses on a farm in northern Sweden, and has some lovely writing and nature description.
As for fic, I can rec you Home For Next Year, by
scribe! It's a 55,000-word Kowalski/Vecchio fic, which is not a pairing that I am in any way emotionally invested in, but this fic is so good that it really made me care about them together! There's a lot of Fraser in it, too, and a lot of Vecchio family stuff, and in general, it's just a really good story. Go read it, people. (Only very tangentially related: where are the long F/K/V fics from Fraser's POV? Every single long F/K/V fic is from the POV of one of the Rays, at least from what I've seen. Is this because of the need to develop the K/V relationship, which is not canonically established? I'd really like to see that from Fraser's POV, though.)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-24 10:00 pm (UTC)One very simple explanation that I've talked with people about regarding F/K/V is that it's really hard to distinguish the Rays from Fraser's POV. If you're using one Ray for POV then the other can be referred to by their last name, but it seems out of character for Fraser to use their last names and using their full names gets awkward fast.
Thanks for the rec! :D
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-25 11:25 am (UTC)Yeah, that is a problem, but I'm sure it can be got around? I mean, I once wrote a 12,000 word fic that almost entirely avoided the words "he" and "she" (the fic was in first person). Like, I'm pretty sure you can use context to distinguish between them. (Also, I've always wondered why more Ray/Ray fic isn't written in first person, with "Ray" used to refer to the other Ray. That way they could use first names.) I'd just like to see the evolution of an F/K/V relationship from Fraser's perspective. Then again, this is easy for me to say, since I am never going to write this fic myself. *g*
The comment below me points out that
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-04 05:17 pm (UTC)(I am not looking at your random suggestions of things what should be written. Not Looking! Cannot afford more plotbunnies until...a long time from now. :) )
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-05 08:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-25 01:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-25 11:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-02 03:11 pm (UTC)My favorite of her is The Potter of Bones, happily available online! It's about the invention of an entire branch of science!
(Have I told you about my former brother-in-law the anthropologist? He studied the Faroe Islands and that's why I got to visit them once. Being that close to an anthro colors my opinion, towards the opaque and chilly side).
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-02 08:42 pm (UTC)Yeah, I've read and enjoyed The Potter of Bones!
(No, I don't think so? I don't think I've known any anthropologists. And cool, I'd love to get to the Faroe Islands some time--I hear they have an exciting moss flora.)