Recent reading
Aug. 1st, 2017 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaAdulthood Rites by Octavia Butler (#2 in the Lilith's Brood series)
I know there's an alien species with three sexes in these books, but the humans are still heterosexual in a sort of claustrophobic way, like they're biologically destined to it. I mean, I'm mostly straight myself, though not completely, and there's at least a potential for something else for me that's completely lacking for all the characters here. Not to mention I do not feel the compulsive urge to pair up. It doesn't bother me if everyone in a book just happens to be straight, but here it's more "there's a man and a woman, of course they'll want to have sex! and of course men will abduct women to have sex with, that's just natural!" I find this view of people kind of depressing. The aliens actually also have a very standardized sexuality, where all of them form stable triads that are biologically bonded together. Uh, aside from that, there's some fairly interesting stuff where an alien-human child is conflicted about his heritage.
I feel like I'm being harsh on this book--maybe I'm misjudging it, I don't know?
Reindeer Moon by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Recced by a RL friend. This book set in the Ice Age actually has men who act less like "cavemen" than in the previous book. It's a coming-of-age story about a girl, and as a parallell story we get her life in the spirit world after she dies. The tension in the story comes from people trying to survive in harsh environments, and also from the relationships among a group of people who are partly kin and partly intermarried. I liked it! The main character has a temper and is headstrong, and sometimes makes bad decisions that have consequences, but they're not actually what gets her killed (this is not a spoiler, we learn early on that she dies fairly young). But she's also tenacious and skilled and fiercely cares about her little sister. The writing is pretty straightforward, but it grew on me, and the worldbuilding is interesting. I can't help compare the book to Kim Stanley Robinson's Shaman, which is the other Ice Age book I read fairly recently. They're different in some ways, but I can't decide which I like better.
I know there's an alien species with three sexes in these books, but the humans are still heterosexual in a sort of claustrophobic way, like they're biologically destined to it. I mean, I'm mostly straight myself, though not completely, and there's at least a potential for something else for me that's completely lacking for all the characters here. Not to mention I do not feel the compulsive urge to pair up. It doesn't bother me if everyone in a book just happens to be straight, but here it's more "there's a man and a woman, of course they'll want to have sex! and of course men will abduct women to have sex with, that's just natural!" I find this view of people kind of depressing. The aliens actually also have a very standardized sexuality, where all of them form stable triads that are biologically bonded together. Uh, aside from that, there's some fairly interesting stuff where an alien-human child is conflicted about his heritage.
I feel like I'm being harsh on this book--maybe I'm misjudging it, I don't know?
Reindeer Moon by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Recced by a RL friend. This book set in the Ice Age actually has men who act less like "cavemen" than in the previous book. It's a coming-of-age story about a girl, and as a parallell story we get her life in the spirit world after she dies. The tension in the story comes from people trying to survive in harsh environments, and also from the relationships among a group of people who are partly kin and partly intermarried. I liked it! The main character has a temper and is headstrong, and sometimes makes bad decisions that have consequences, but they're not actually what gets her killed (this is not a spoiler, we learn early on that she dies fairly young). But she's also tenacious and skilled and fiercely cares about her little sister. The writing is pretty straightforward, but it grew on me, and the worldbuilding is interesting. I can't help compare the book to Kim Stanley Robinson's Shaman, which is the other Ice Age book I read fairly recently. They're different in some ways, but I can't decide which I like better.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-05 01:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-06 05:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-07 02:30 pm (UTC)well that sounds ugh. I don't think you're being too harsh.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-08 03:02 pm (UTC)But yeah, then there's the way the human sexuality rubs me the wrong way.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-08 05:39 pm (UTC)I miss things like that like you wouldn't believe oh godIt's a matter of balance, and worthiness :)(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-08 08:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-08 09:03 pm (UTC)Literature/media-wise, I'm surrounded by things that are almost entirely bad. Admittedly some of it is my mood, but honestly, not nearly all of it. Some of the things I'm trudging through, the only good thing is "well it's something to read at least". That's... not a high enough standard to nourish my spirit, if you know what I mean.
It's going to get better. Soon. Any second now, a great book is just around the corner.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-09 07:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-09 10:52 am (UTC)Hypothesis [thank you for the free therapy session ;)] - I have a higher standard(=read: lower patience) for second language books, because despite the years of reading English, I still read it at half the speed I do my native language. I could read endless mediocre stuff in Hebrew and not care much, but English still requires some mental focus. More so for living in France and possible language attrition.
I do have a list (as well as an actual pile of books waiting), so I'm going through them, I just complain because it feels like months of "on occasion something that is mediocre, hurrah!" and nothing actually "omg so shiny I'm in love", you know? I also have a pile of short stories lying around.
I just haven't been able to bring myself to be really interested lately in a fictional word, and it bugs me. My fannish side is starved ;) Actually a lot of non-fiction reading has been good and interesting, I just sort of, they're separate categories for me not just on a shelf, but in the heart.
In short, thanks for listening to my navel-gazing rant. Here's a relevant Buffy icon.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-09 03:17 pm (UTC)I don't have the same issue with English, since I lived in the US as a kid, but I can see how that would be.
I also think my fannishness and my book-reading aren't necessarily linked. Like, I am not really fannish about anything right now, but I'm having fairly many good reading experiences? If that makes sense. My fannishness (at least when it is connected to shipping) seems to be more closely linked with romantic feelings--like, when I fell in love with someone IRL, it kind of edged out my fannishness.
Anyway, I wish you a more-than-mediocre reading experience soon!
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-09 07:47 pm (UTC)I can read good things without being shippy-fannish about them, but - okay, I can just read a good thing and it's good, but for a re-read, or even less, for *thinking* about the book or characters or ideas or world *after* the reading is finished. That kind of fannish, the *interested* part. The part that *cares* even after the consumption of source media is over. I don't mean romantic shipping, necessarily, not at all. Not that kind of falling in love :) My bad choice of wording. Just being swamped in *curious* and *wanting more*.
So: I'd be pleased to find something that is just good while I read, and then disappears. That's good too, and that too is missing from my life. But what I'm yearning for is something that lasts a little longer than the reading of a book. Something that stays in the brain later.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-09 08:10 pm (UTC)Hmm. I feel like I post about all the good books that I find and so don't have any recs to add...
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-09 08:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-09 08:58 pm (UTC)Have you tried betterworldbooks.com? They have free shipping all over the world and have a huge selection of secondhand books.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-09 09:21 pm (UTC)