Wed Reading Meme...

What you have just finished reading?

Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover by Sarah McLean - which has gotten mixed reviews. While the writer explores some interesting themes and ideas in a new, somewhat subversive manner, her execution could be a heck of a lot better. It's not necessarily horrible (I've read worse) but not all that great either. The plot has holes you could drive a couple of trucks through, the set-up instead of becoming more plausible as you go along, becomes less so. And she makes some rather lazy writing choices - going for what is easy or the short-cut. Noticed this happening a lot in genre novels. In part due to the rush to publish and the lack of good editors.

The set up is after being impregnated at the age of 16, Lady Georgiana (the daughter of a Duke) goes off to the country to have her daughter. Then returns four years later - only to be shockingly rejected by society. Furious, she persuades her stick in the mud brother, the Duke, to finance her gambling den, then enlists three down-on-their-luck nobles to become investors/part owners. To obtain membership - you have to give the owners your darkest secrets as collateral. Providing them with the means to destroy you at any time. Or you can trade in the secrets of others. Georgiana creates two aliases - one is Madame Anna - the prostitute who patrols the casino floors and is the boss of the ladies of the night. The other is the mysterious Chase, a man who holds everyone's secrets and runs the casino. Her partner in crime is Duncan West, a Scandal Sheet Newspaperman, who Chase sends the secrets to...through Anna, never in person. Duncan doesn't know who Chase is. And Duncan, alas, is being blackmailed by his nasty nemesis...the Earl Tremely regarding his own dark past, which Georgiana knows nothing about. Great idea, poor execution, reminding me of several fanfics that I've read - where I got frustrated by the execution.

What you are reading now?

Decided to take a break from McLean and tried a book rec'd by shipperx, To Please a Lady by Lori Brighton, which is a whole lot better than the McLean novel, surprising enough - considering it's below the radar while McLean's won awards. If it weren't for Shipperx, I wouldn't know it existed. Plus it's a whole lot cheaper. (Making me wonder about the validity of the RITA Awards.) Better execution and in some respects a far more innovative and complex plot structure.

Brighton also has some interesting comments on the Alpha Male/Boddice Ripper romance trope - which I'm not sure you'd notice unless you've read a lot of them. The heroine is in an abusive marriage with a titled Lord. I don't know what his title is, nor does it appear to matter - outside of the fact that he has all the power, she doesn't.
All she had was money. And back then class was power, often more so than money. It takes place in the Victorian Age. Also men had power, regardless of who was on the throne, and women were legally considered their possessions. Her husband is the typical alpha male trope that you see in these novels. Attractive, controlling, domineering, charming, sexually abusive, and broken - he was beaten and humiliated as a child. He sounds a lot like a Judith McNaught hero, making me wonder if Brighton has read her. His mistress - keeps telling the heroine that he can be saved, that he's different with her, that he's just misunderstood. The heroine, after years of mental and physical abuse does not agree. What reminded me of the McNaught and well domineering alpha male trope...going so far as the new adult novels was this exchange between the heroine and the hero (who is not her husband):

James: Why aren't you wearing bloomers?
Eleanor: Oh, my husband forbid me to wear any undergarments once we were married. He wanted to have access to me any time he wanted.
James is horrified and enraged by this.

Now in the boddice ripper/new adult novels this is often considered sexy and titillating, here it is shown as sexist and demeaning. Not to mention...spousal rape.

The hero, James, is equally trapped in an abusive power relationship. He's a male whore in a brothel that caters only to women. Years ago Lady Lavendar blackmailed James into whoring for her in return for being freed from prison, and caring for his family. Or so he believes...in reality she hasn't provided for his family at all. She blackmailed three young boys, the other two have since escaped. James believing her lies and that she saved him from prison, the workhouse, and his family from a similar fate - has stayed...but now he's beginning to wonder...if it was all a set-up.

Both characters are prisoners in relationships where someone else has all the power and is abusing it. What's subversive about the romance is the male is the prostitute with the heart of gold and female is locked in the abusive marriage. And...the trope, often romanticized in these books is laid bare.

After reading so many of the ahem, boddice rippers, it's sort of nice to see a writer take them a bit to task on a few things, albeit subtly.

3. What I'll be Reading Next?

I'm intrigued by the first book in Lori Brighton's Seduction series, I'm reading the last one at the moment. This is "To Seduce an Earl" and it's negative reviews are what's intriguing me - the reviewers don't like the fact that the guy is the damsel, in need of saving, and bitter about being a whore. I find that to an interesting twist. I also like how the writer is playing with the male and female gaze, demonstrating how it can be romantic and demeaning, depending on how it is used and who is doing the gazing.

I keep hoping to Seduce an Earl will drop to the $1.99 price. The other two did, after I bought them at the $3.99 price, dang it.

As an aside, revising my own book has made me a bit more forgiving of things I've found in others novels. It's hard to know what others will like. All you can do is write what you know, what comes from your heart, and what you like...and hope for the best.

Science Fiction TV Shows...coming to Syfy...and a bit on Firefly

Hmmm...Syfy's The Ascension, the Canadian science fiction alternate reality mini-series, isn't that good is it? Watching it now - and it's not holding my interest that well...it's the casting I suspect. And possibly the writing and direction, feels sort of listless.

But..Syfy has some interesting series coming up...the one I really want to see is The Expanse based on award winning the sci-fi mystery series by J.A. Corey and starring Thomas Jane.

Not sure about the reboot of 12 Monkeys as a mini-series, that was a favorite science fiction film of mine and amongst Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis' better roles. Pitt plays the villain in it.

But the mini-series based on Arthur C. Clark's Childhood's End starring Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister) looks interesting.

Sci-fi is hard to pull off well - and to appeal to a wide audience. People are nit-picky when it comes to sci-fi. That was Firefly's problem. They are hoping The Expanse will be like Firefly and Farscape...the description reminds me a little of Bladerunner meets BSG by way of Firefly in Space.

And the next season of Helix could be interesting...it's going the tropical route. But not a huge fan of gross out horror, although anything regarding the CDC and investigation of disease fascinates me...and I just get drawn to it. Major story kink - I'm thinking I may have been a frustrated pathologist in a former life or I just like the puzzle bit. Now if they'd just focus on figuring out the puzzle over the gross-out effects of the disease. Such as the Andromeda Strain and World War Z.

Confession time? I like space operas quite a bit. Actually my favorite sci-fi is non-horror in the same veine or trope as Firefly, Star Wars, Farscape, Battle Star Galatica...and well Bladerunner. Not really a fan of the extremely popular and somewhat more mainstream or universally accepted alien invasion or sci-fi horror trope made popular with series like X-Files, Fringe, Doctor Who, V, Alien, The Thing, Helix, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, etc. Because of the latter - for years I associated science fiction with scarey monsters. (Also as an aside? My paternal grandfather adored science fiction movies, monster movies, and horror novels - much to my grandmother's considerable chagrin. ) But if you happen to be a fan of the X-Files trope - The Hunters based on Whitey Strieber's books might catch your interest. I'll probably pass. Like not a fan of that trope - it's my main issue with Doctor Who actually - it's that trope. When Doctor Who veers away from that trope, I'm happy, but everyone else isn't - because everyone else loves that trope.

Firefly like Farscape - I enjoyed quite a bit, both were serialized space operas. But they had problems finding an audience. Space operas tend to. They aren't episodic, you have to follow them, and well there's that melodramatic element.
You can't just pop in whenever you feel like it. Firefly, in particular, had an uphill battle because for reasons that escape me, Whedon chose to reference 1950s Westerns. I think it may be because he studied them in film school and he was interested in exploring the tropes and subverting them. (I get that, I studied them in school too.) He'd already explored the horror trope, now he wanted to do sci-fi and westerns. But, a lot of sci-fi fans do not like that genre, which isn't exactly known for it's political correctness. (Westerns tend to be racist, sexist, amongst other things.) I honestly think if he'd dumped some of the Western bits, the show would have taken off. Because I know a lot of people who stopped watching it - because of the Western tropes. Now, I liked the Western trope...but I actually like Westerns better than horror science fiction. And Firefly was a combination of two of my favorite genres - Westerns and Sci-Fi. What I struggled with - is Whedon's obsession with the Civil War - from the perspective of the Old South. He'd just read the Killer Angels, and was obsessed with the confederates who fought the union, and why they did. Well...I hate to say this? But there's a reason WWII movies are more popular than Civil War movies. The Civil War was at its heart about slavery. You can't quite get around that. The ideas that intrigued Whedon were about people rebelling against the system or this anonymous corporate structure that wanted them to lock-step or conform. But he could have referenced that in another way, without the Western trope references that jarred many people. I think the show would have succeeded if he'd been a bit more careful with the Western trope.

Then again...

There were a lot of factors that caused that show to fail, I suspect. And, whether it failed ...may be a matter of opinion, since it did result in a movie, and there have been various comic books.