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1. Wasted a heck of a lot of time last night reading this very long comment thread to a 2016 review of a Mary Balough historical romance novel in Smart Bitches. I read it - partly out of curiosity and partly to see if I wanted to read the book. It was allegedly on sale for $2.99 on Kindle (via Amazon). So after reading the whole thread - which was a long thread - I checked out the book on Amazon, only to discover the sale was over - and it was $11.99 now. Hard pass. (It tend to buy books on sale mostly now via Kindle.)
The 2016 review in of itself was hardly memorable, but the comment thread had three historical novelists respond to it. The writer of the book (which surprised me, she's a major author and they rarely do that), and two other authors - Courtney Milan, and Suleikha Snyder, who spends more time causing trouble on social media than writing books, actually they both do.
In actuality, the most interesting comment is on the second page of the comments thread near the very bottom, by an individual from Asia, who lives in Asia. They react to the long kerfuffle over the two "alleged" problematic items in Balough's novel as "you people are insane". Notably no one really responded to these two comments. And backed off. Mainly because we had a logical person jump in there and tell them they were all being self-righteous twits and get over themselves. It's a historical romance novel. Spend their time worrying about actual fixable problems not how someone might slur them unintentionally in a historical romance novel.
( see the most interesting comment below the cut )
I told all of this to mother, who responded much as one might expect:
( Read more... )
2. Finished The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies by Alison Goodman. Per the afterward - the author apparently utilized two of the chapters from her book for her doctorate thesis. If I were to guess? I'd say it was the last two chapters. The first one was very tropey bordering on cliche. The second and third were about human trafficking and the horrible conditions in private asylums in the Regency Period.
The book was rec'd by a college pal who doesn't tend to read historical romance novels. Isn't really into character so much as plot and historical accuracy. (She's a nit-picker.) And is more into contemporary or mystery. So that alone should tell you all you need to know about the book?
She rec'd it to me because the lead character made her think of me, and she loved the book.
I...liked it? It was slow in places. And the writer was clearly more interested in detailing the results of her research than building the characters relationships or the characters? I loved the main character - who I felt was for the most part, well-developed, different, and relatable. It's rare to find a tall woman in a historical romance novel (the average woman is 5'4). And rarer style to find one who is single and forty-two years of age. Who has never been married. Or been with a man per se, yet is heterosexual. That's rare. Usually if they are above the age of twenty-six, they've been married and widowed, or ruined or something.
It doesn't resolve itself at the end. Oh, the caper is resolved. The romance is not. The hero is still at large, the heroine is still pining for him and trying to figure out how to get him off, and that's about that.
So no HEA, not there won't be one, if the writer ever decides to write a sequel. That's kind of rare for an historical romance novel. I think this is more a historical woman's fiction than romance, even though there is a romance in it - it's not the central focus of the novel - the capers are, and the research.
You can always tell an academic posing as a fictional novelist - they are more interested in telling you the history than well, the story? Look at all the things I found out, don't you want me to regale you with them in all their gory details! (ME: not really. I know enough horrible things thank you very much. I do not need to add yours to the bunch. Can I have more fun banter and story instead? Because if I wanted to know all of this - I could find it easily enough on my own for free no less.)
When it comes to historical romances? I actually prefer less historical accuracy and more romance. If I wanted historical accuracy, I wouldn't be reading a historical romance novel. They are known for a lot of things, but not necessarily historical accuracy.
The story is historically accurate - no problems there. Possibly too historically accurate? If that's possible?
It has three capers or cases the heroine has to solve -( vague spoilers )
First person limited narrator. ( vague spoilers )
I'd say it swings towards hyper-realism. The men are for the most part, difficult, except for three of them, possibly four (if you include the dead). And it delves into the difficulties of people of color, the working folks, and women during this time period. If anything I'd say it's more of a historical "feminist" novel than a romance. The writer takes no prisoners with her descriptions - which are brutal and gory in places. I skimmed over a lot of it. Because I didn't want that in my head. Also there's a heavy feminist slant to the text. The writer is Australian and a historian, who was writing her thesis for her doctorate at the same time she was writing this novel. (Honestly she's either independently wealthy or has a wealthy husband - because she also has a collection of 19th century clothing from that period, fencing materials, space, and time to get a doctoral degree while writing historical romance and fantasy novels. Most people don't make a ton of money as a novelist - folks, you do more often than not, require a second income from somewhere.)
3. Also finished Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie - this was via audible or an audio book. I couldn't get into it on E-book, but audible worked for me. The narrator is amazing, she manages to do ten different voices, plus songs. I was impressed.
It's a hard sci-fi space opera book, emphasis on hard sci-fi. The point of view or protagonist is an ancillary of a spaceship, the Justice of Toren.
Breq is the name she goes by. She was destroyed by the ruler of the realm, and is seeking justice for her destroyed ancillary parts, and her friends on board the ship. She's AI or a piece of equipment - a human body turned into a part of a ship or ancillary part.
The story is told in the present, and via flashbacks to events that happened on board Justice of Toren over nineteen years ago. More engrossing than I thought it would be. Once I got past all the gender pronouns being she - because the Ancillary basically sees everyone as she or female, and can't tell the difference - it worked. It works better in audio - because the narrator was good at distinguishing the voices, so I could ignore the pronouns. I'm not sure why the writer went with she and not they, I'd have gone with they for the most part with an Ancillary, but I guess it's the traditional view that ships are given a female gender, and likewise would assume everyone else was female.
It's interesting in that the villain is rather complicated, as is the Ancillary's desire for justice. And it deals with the view - do the ends ever justify the means? The idea that to save the world - or the universe, you kill everyone who gets in your way of creating that ideal universe or vision? Is this justified? (What's disturbing to me is this theme keeps popping up in various stories I've read or seen in various media. It's most likely just a coincidence, but disturbing nonetheless. I saw it in Fall Out today as well. Everyone wants to save the world - they just disagree on how, and some seem to think that as long as they achieve their goal, whatever they do to get there is justified.)
And..
4) Finished Uncanny X-men 700 or X-men 35 which was 88 pages. That was a great read. Had similar themes to Ancillary Justice (again disturbing that), but overall uplifting. I rather enjoyed the conclusion to the Kraokan age arc, and am enjoying the few pages setting up the From the Ashes Arc. There's a special bit with Nightcrawler, Rogue and their two mom's (Mystique and Destiny) - which has the creator of the characters delve into their family issues revealing his thoughts about their family dating back to the 1980s and 90s. Marvel was always a bit more liberal and progressive than the other comic book institutions. Also more character focused. (Just stay clear of the online comic book fandom - they are frightening.)
The 2016 review in of itself was hardly memorable, but the comment thread had three historical novelists respond to it. The writer of the book (which surprised me, she's a major author and they rarely do that), and two other authors - Courtney Milan, and Suleikha Snyder, who spends more time causing trouble on social media than writing books, actually they both do.
In actuality, the most interesting comment is on the second page of the comments thread near the very bottom, by an individual from Asia, who lives in Asia. They react to the long kerfuffle over the two "alleged" problematic items in Balough's novel as "you people are insane". Notably no one really responded to these two comments. And backed off. Mainly because we had a logical person jump in there and tell them they were all being self-righteous twits and get over themselves. It's a historical romance novel. Spend their time worrying about actual fixable problems not how someone might slur them unintentionally in a historical romance novel.
( see the most interesting comment below the cut )
I told all of this to mother, who responded much as one might expect:
( Read more... )
2. Finished The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies by Alison Goodman. Per the afterward - the author apparently utilized two of the chapters from her book for her doctorate thesis. If I were to guess? I'd say it was the last two chapters. The first one was very tropey bordering on cliche. The second and third were about human trafficking and the horrible conditions in private asylums in the Regency Period.
The book was rec'd by a college pal who doesn't tend to read historical romance novels. Isn't really into character so much as plot and historical accuracy. (She's a nit-picker.) And is more into contemporary or mystery. So that alone should tell you all you need to know about the book?
She rec'd it to me because the lead character made her think of me, and she loved the book.
I...liked it? It was slow in places. And the writer was clearly more interested in detailing the results of her research than building the characters relationships or the characters? I loved the main character - who I felt was for the most part, well-developed, different, and relatable. It's rare to find a tall woman in a historical romance novel (the average woman is 5'4). And rarer style to find one who is single and forty-two years of age. Who has never been married. Or been with a man per se, yet is heterosexual. That's rare. Usually if they are above the age of twenty-six, they've been married and widowed, or ruined or something.
It doesn't resolve itself at the end. Oh, the caper is resolved. The romance is not. The hero is still at large, the heroine is still pining for him and trying to figure out how to get him off, and that's about that.
So no HEA, not there won't be one, if the writer ever decides to write a sequel. That's kind of rare for an historical romance novel. I think this is more a historical woman's fiction than romance, even though there is a romance in it - it's not the central focus of the novel - the capers are, and the research.
You can always tell an academic posing as a fictional novelist - they are more interested in telling you the history than well, the story? Look at all the things I found out, don't you want me to regale you with them in all their gory details! (ME: not really. I know enough horrible things thank you very much. I do not need to add yours to the bunch. Can I have more fun banter and story instead? Because if I wanted to know all of this - I could find it easily enough on my own for free no less.)
When it comes to historical romances? I actually prefer less historical accuracy and more romance. If I wanted historical accuracy, I wouldn't be reading a historical romance novel. They are known for a lot of things, but not necessarily historical accuracy.
The story is historically accurate - no problems there. Possibly too historically accurate? If that's possible?
It has three capers or cases the heroine has to solve -( vague spoilers )
First person limited narrator. ( vague spoilers )
I'd say it swings towards hyper-realism. The men are for the most part, difficult, except for three of them, possibly four (if you include the dead). And it delves into the difficulties of people of color, the working folks, and women during this time period. If anything I'd say it's more of a historical "feminist" novel than a romance. The writer takes no prisoners with her descriptions - which are brutal and gory in places. I skimmed over a lot of it. Because I didn't want that in my head. Also there's a heavy feminist slant to the text. The writer is Australian and a historian, who was writing her thesis for her doctorate at the same time she was writing this novel. (Honestly she's either independently wealthy or has a wealthy husband - because she also has a collection of 19th century clothing from that period, fencing materials, space, and time to get a doctoral degree while writing historical romance and fantasy novels. Most people don't make a ton of money as a novelist - folks, you do more often than not, require a second income from somewhere.)
3. Also finished Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie - this was via audible or an audio book. I couldn't get into it on E-book, but audible worked for me. The narrator is amazing, she manages to do ten different voices, plus songs. I was impressed.
It's a hard sci-fi space opera book, emphasis on hard sci-fi. The point of view or protagonist is an ancillary of a spaceship, the Justice of Toren.
Breq is the name she goes by. She was destroyed by the ruler of the realm, and is seeking justice for her destroyed ancillary parts, and her friends on board the ship. She's AI or a piece of equipment - a human body turned into a part of a ship or ancillary part.
The story is told in the present, and via flashbacks to events that happened on board Justice of Toren over nineteen years ago. More engrossing than I thought it would be. Once I got past all the gender pronouns being she - because the Ancillary basically sees everyone as she or female, and can't tell the difference - it worked. It works better in audio - because the narrator was good at distinguishing the voices, so I could ignore the pronouns. I'm not sure why the writer went with she and not they, I'd have gone with they for the most part with an Ancillary, but I guess it's the traditional view that ships are given a female gender, and likewise would assume everyone else was female.
It's interesting in that the villain is rather complicated, as is the Ancillary's desire for justice. And it deals with the view - do the ends ever justify the means? The idea that to save the world - or the universe, you kill everyone who gets in your way of creating that ideal universe or vision? Is this justified? (What's disturbing to me is this theme keeps popping up in various stories I've read or seen in various media. It's most likely just a coincidence, but disturbing nonetheless. I saw it in Fall Out today as well. Everyone wants to save the world - they just disagree on how, and some seem to think that as long as they achieve their goal, whatever they do to get there is justified.)
And..
4) Finished Uncanny X-men 700 or X-men 35 which was 88 pages. That was a great read. Had similar themes to Ancillary Justice (again disturbing that), but overall uplifting. I rather enjoyed the conclusion to the Kraokan age arc, and am enjoying the few pages setting up the From the Ashes Arc. There's a special bit with Nightcrawler, Rogue and their two mom's (Mystique and Destiny) - which has the creator of the characters delve into their family issues revealing his thoughts about their family dating back to the 1980s and 90s. Marvel was always a bit more liberal and progressive than the other comic book institutions. Also more character focused. (Just stay clear of the online comic book fandom - they are frightening.)