About
Specfic geekrage: what it says on the tin. Hatred being the Emperor’s greatest gift to humanity, you see.
Yes I do talk about race and gender and all that stuff, though by no means do I pretend to be the god of social justice (nor is this a social justice blog), but I do find it funny as anything when people get desperately upset over discussions of these subjects paired with SF/F. Commenting policy is simple: I don’t mind disagreements with my reviews, my rants, whatever. Come with your fail though, and I’ll edit your comments and ban you. I’ve no interest in being polite to clueless fuckwads.
Here for recommendations? Check out these tags.
Media by POC that exclude white presence, promote POC perspective, and/or engage with the discourse of race: whitey needs not apply and writers of color.
Media that engage with and promote the female perspective, women’s stories and female empowerment, or otherwise deconstruct gender: gender done right and women positive fuck yeah.
Media that is sexually inclusive, reject heteornormativity and promote the visibility of marginalized orientations: shoo straight folks.
Media that feature queer women and the perspective thereof (no, lesbian sidekicks/inclusivity checkboxes don’t count): ladies rowing queerboat in het sea.
A bit of everything, as well as books that are good but don’t fit into any of the above? Hit up recommended.
Want the worst of the worst?
Here’s a showcase, name-and-shaming of the shittiest, most terrible crap I’ve ever read:
The Authority #13-29 where Mark Millar injects The Authority full of rape, racism, and homophobia GRIMDARK and shows the world what a cockstain he is. NAPALM NAPALM. DIE DIE DIE.
Fury of the Phoenix, where courtesy of Cindy Pon I dig into perpetuation of rape culture and internalized racism.
Gun, With Occasional Music, where I conclude that Jonathan Lethem can neither write nor express himself like someone who believes women are real people.
Rape Jewels is Anne Bishop’s trilogy featuring rape and godawful writing and rape rape rape everywhere. Makes Laurell K. Hamilton look literary. Trigger warnings galore.
Otherwise, check out my irredeemable verbal diarrhea on which illiterate maggots feast tag. Self-explanatory!
Tricia S.
May 23, 2011 at 10:29 pm
One of your comments over at Ferret Brain is partially incorrect, (about the Japanese not enslaving people.) While they didn’t actually had slaves the Japanese did colonize Korea and tried to take over China. In fact they told the Koreans they couldn’t practice their culture any more. I’m not being mean but you may want to brush up on your Asian history a bit.
acrackedmoon
May 24, 2011 at 4:19 am
The Japanese didn’t ship Koreans from their homes in chains, force them to work on plantations, and blithely rape them and destroy their culture, if we’re going to “brush up” on our facts: that’s what I was talking about when side-eyeing a white person trying to deflect from the racism rampant in the US by wild finger-pointing at Japan.
Oh and by the way? I’m Asian, you condescending stuck-up little ninny, and I find your reference to “Asian history” most curious. Are you one of those people who believe Asia consists entirely of Korea, China and Japan, by any chance?
Tricia S.
May 25, 2011 at 1:55 am
I’m partly Asian myself, and I know they didn’t literally enslave them. Also I wasn’t being the stuck-up little ninny you were being that while being rude to me. You are right that that white person shouldn’t wildly finger-point at Japan. But you are wrong to jump to the conclusion that I don’t know anything about Asia besides Japan, China, and Korea. Granted I still have a lot to learn but I know something about Singapore and Thailand. Also I do need to correct you on one thing, when the Japanese colonized Korea they did try to stamp out Korean culture and replace it with Japanese culture.
Thank you for giving me the context of your post and I’m sorry for any confusion on my part.
Tricia S.
May 25, 2011 at 2:17 am
I’m sorry if my last post was passive-aggressive, I was just trying to tell you not to jump to conclusions while replying to me.
acrackedmoon
May 25, 2011 at 5:30 am
Have you ever seen anyone use the term “white history”? No? Then why would you use the term “Asian history”, let alone use it to refer to only certain countries in Asia? It’s asinine. FYI I’m an Asian person who lives in Asia and grew up in Asia. Imagine how fucking annoying it is to have a foreigner lecture you on “Asian history.”
The original discussion involved a white person whining about people daring to ~bitch~ about the racism rampant in the US, so she went “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE RACISM OF THE JAPANESE TO OTHER ASIANS WHAT NOW WHAT NOW” in an obvious attempt to deflect her own white guilt. I’m not sure what prompted you to come here and correct me without having read the comments that preceded mine on Ferretbrain.
And of fucking course when a country tries to colonize another it tries to stamp out culture. But bringing up Japan in a discussion about racism perpetuated on people of color by white folks is about as useful as bawwing about the persecution of poor white men in a discussion regarding the intersectionality of misogyny and racism women of color are subjected to. It’s called derailing.
tam
May 25, 2011 at 6:27 pm
Are you on the twitter? Have you ever been on a podcast?
acrackedmoon
May 25, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Errrr, ixnay to both, I’m afraid.
nerdinanutshell
September 2, 2011 at 7:56 pm
I just wanted to say thank you. For years, I’ve been on a reading dry-spell, and coming across your blog gave me a solid place to look for recommendations I trust. Your blog has also helped me rethink a lot of the books I’ve read & initially liked that you’ve unfavorably reviewed, and helped me notice anti-feminist trends in other books I’ve read.
For example, a well-meaning friend of mine gifted me with the Mistborn trilogy, and this blog was heavily in my mind while reading it, because I couldn’t help but thing how badly you’d hate it, and how right you’d be to. (Trope: One Girl in All the World who is Special, and she’s Different because she’s One of the Guys and Hates All Other Women)
But from this blog, I found the Johannes Cabal books, and I read my first Tanith Lee and lamented when I could find so little of hers for sale in ebook form. And Nalo Hopkinson! I love Midnight Robber. It’s just fantastic. And now I’m reading the Etched City, and I’m already hooked. So, thank you for that.
acrackedmoon
September 2, 2011 at 8:03 pm
You’re welcome, and thank you for dropping by. :) I actually haven’t read the Mistborn books, largely because Sanderson’s stuff doesn’t really sound like things that’d interest me terribly. That, and he’s writing the WoT conclusion and I’m biased against that. Come to think of it, WoT is quite the hotbed of terrible female character tropes too.
Tanith Lee can vary widely but when she’s amazing she’s really amazing, and yes it’s unfortunate how hard it is to find some of her older works. I’m going to read some of Hopkinson’s other books soon, starting with Skin Folk, and should have a review up, er… sometime.
Inverarity Pynchon
September 2, 2011 at 9:58 pm
Huh. I did notice that Vin was a bit of a Mary Sue in Mistborn, but somehow the fact that she is contrasted with pretty much every other woman in existence didn’t register with me, partly because there really aren’t any other significant female characters in the entire trilogy, and partly because I was too busy being annoyed at the slavery apologetics and Mormon weirdness.
nerdinanutshell
September 7, 2011 at 8:15 pm
“there really aren’t any other significant female characters in the entire trilogy”
This is half my point. Vin is surrounded by a whooooole group of people, many of them fairly fleshy if not fully fleshed out, and all of them are men. They tried having a lady in the group once, but she was someone’s love interest and it didn’t work, so now there are no ladies. Because lady thieves…. are what? Non-existent? Incompetent? Entirely backstabbers? Unwilling to deal with these men thieves and their inability to deal with lady-thieves? This isn’t a story where there are two named characters, and it’s not a story where the named characters have traits that for some reason a lady-thief couldn’t have, so this whole “There is one woman of worth in this story” trope is particularly noticeable to me, especially since every other female even mentioned is described as being vapid, or silly, or mean, or manipulative. Vin doesn’t meet one female peer worth her time in any way. Men get to be good in different ways, and bad in different ways, but women only get to be bad in different ways, except for Vin, who is pointedly ‘unfeminine,” so she gets to be cool. It’s kinda bullshit.
Agreed on the slavery and Mormon BS.
I guess in general, despite some of the cool intricate world-building, the books left me feeling annoyed more than anything.