BLACK BLADE BLUES – meh, JA Pitts

Sarah Beauhall has more on her plate than most twenty-somethings: day job as a blacksmith, night job as a props manager for low-budget movies, and her free time is spent fighting in a medieval re-enactment group.

And as if things weren’t surreal enough, Sarah’s girlfriend Katie breaks out the dreaded phrase… “I love you.” As her life begins to fall apart, first her relationship with Katie, then her job at the movie studio, and finally her blacksmithing career, Sarah hits rock bottom. It is at this moment, when she has lost everything she has prized, that one of the dragons makes their move.

And suddenly what was unthinkable becomes all too real…and Sarah will have to decide if she can reject what is safe and become the heroine who is needed to save her world.

Blah, blah, blah. I chopped off one paragraph from this synopsis, because fuck who cares about this pedestrian shit. “Pedestrian” is indeed the best word to apply to this book which, despite its rarity in being one of the few pro-published UF featuring a lesbian, is a giant bag of meh with some nice racefail balls to go with it.

Oh, and JA Pitts is, of course, a man using initials to obfuscate his gender from the book-buyer’s first glance. Tsk, tsk. Him and Daniel Abraham with that “MLN Hanover” schtick.

 

EARTH LOGIC – Laurie Marks

Shaftal has a ruler again, a woman with enough power to heal the war-torn land and expel the invading Sainnites from Shaftal. Or it would have a ruler if the earth witch Karis G’deon consented to rule. Instead, she lives in obscurity with the fractious family of elemental talents who gathered around her in Fire Logic. She is waiting for some sign, but no one, least of all Karis herself, knows what it is.

Then the Sainnite garrison at Watford is attacked by a troop of zealots claiming to speak for the Lost G’deon, and a mysterious and deadly plague attacks the land, killing both Sainnites and Shaftali. Karis must act or watch her beloved country fall into famine and chaos. And when Karis acts, the very stones of the earth sit up and take notice.

Let me tell you the ways in which these books are awesome:

1. They are homonormative.
2. They are egalitarian.
3. They do not automatically make women’s bodies sexual objects.
4. They alerted me to the idea that a very large, very muscular woman can be searing hot.

I now want a woman I have to climb like a tree just to kiss. Oh my god. I’m not even tall, that should be doable.

 

on male “feminist supporters” and vaulting low bars

It’s news to nobody that women are subjected to far more exacting standards than men.

It should also be news to nobody that this also applies to feminism. Some men are feminist supporters. Some men are “feminist supporters.” But either way, a man needs only make a few right noises to be declared god’s gift to feminism; his words and conduct will not be put under the microscope and vivisected. A woman making the same noises, why she’s only doing her duty, and if she fucks up in any way at all: to the pits of hell with her! A male “feminist supporter” fucks up? Why, boys will be boys. At least he tried.

We set men astonishingly low bars. When they step over them with no particular effort, hardly breaking a nail and certainly breaking no sweat, it’s a matter for celebration and adulation. It’s time to send up the rallying cry: “Assemble, feminists; a man is being a vaguely decent human being! Administer hugs and kudos! Don’t scare him away! It’ll alienate the good ones!”

I say no. I say we smash those fucking low bars, make new ones, and raise them sky-high. You know, like the bars we use to measure women with? Yes, those.

 

Saladin Ahmed’s THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON and 4000 words on why I couldn’t finish it

THIS POST IS PART OF DIVERSITY PROGRAMME WHEREIN I REVIEW A MALE WRITER WITHOUT EXPRESS PURPOSE OF THRASHING HIM, HOWEVER MALE WRITERS WILL BE EVALUATED UNDER MICROSCOPE AND SUBJECTED TO HARSH JUDGMENT JUST LIKE WOMEN WRITERS

The Crescent Moon Kingdoms, land of djenn and ghuls, holy warriors and heretics, Khalifs and killers, is at the boiling point of a power struggle between the iron-fisted Khalif and the mysterious master thief known as the Falcon Prince. In the midst of this brewing rebellion a series of brutal supernatural murders strikes at the heart of the Kingdoms. It is up to a handful of heroes to learn the truth behind these killings:

Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, “The last real ghul hunter in the great city of Dhamsawaat,” just wants a quiet cup of tea. Three score and more years old, he has grown weary of hunting monsters and saving lives, and is more than ready to retire from his dangerous and demanding vocation. But when an old flame’s family is murdered, Adoulla is drawn back to the hunter’s path.

Raseed bas Raseed, Adoulla’s young assistant, a hidebound holy warrior whose prowess is matched only by his piety, is eager to deliver God’s justice. But even as Raseed’s sword is tested by ghuls and manjackals, his soul is tested when he and Adoulla cross paths with the tribeswoman Zamia.

Zamia Badawi, Protector of the Band, has been gifted with the near-mythical power of the Lion-Shape, but shunned by her people for daring to take up a man’s title. She lives only to avenge her father’s death. Until she learns that Adoulla and his allies also hunt her father’s killer. Until she meets Raseed.

When they learn that the murders and the Falcon Prince’s brewing revolution are connected, the companions must race against time–and struggle against their own misgivings–to save the life of a vicious despot. In so doing they discover a plot for the Throne of the Crescent Moon that threatens to turn Dhamsawaat, and the world itself, into a blood-soaked ruin.

The decision to review this book germinated when Saladin Ahmed tweeted a negative review and said he felt bad, so I offered, “I could try to out-negative her if you like!”

It was a joke.

If you liked this book, stop now. If you wrote this book, really, really stop now.

 

search queries funtimes, also stats by region

At one point I was resigned to the idea that 90% of my readers are from North America or Western Europe. Recently I’ve checked my stats and, what do you know! Hits from the following countries have been cropping up in the top twenty in this order:

• Singapore
• India
• Poland
• Hong Kong
• Russia
• Thailand
• Japan

That is very neat, even if a lot of the hits are from accidental clicks via google on unrelated subjects (but if they crop up in the top twenty, chances are good they actually read the content here). There are also hits from the Philippines, Israel, Croatia, and many more. Feels good to be truly international.

Now, search queries. I continue to get strings related to “r scott bakker” very regularly. Certain trends also tell me that, say, Nick Mamatas’ LJ commands considerably more readership than Bakker’s. Not that that seems to take much, since Bakker appears to be even more midlist than previously thought.

 

follow-up on getting kids to read, and more links

My post about YA and getting kids to read generated quite a bit of discussion, and not a little bit of outrage, if clueless pasty-faced Anglophones frothing at the mouth on twitter are to go by. Well, that and people who are generally angry that I had the temerity to malign YA (and assorted other genres, but it’s the YA defenders that are the most riled up). It’s very zergling-defending-the-overmind. I hope I never come to intimately associate my identity with a genre of texts I consume (or even individual works). That’s a horrible thing to do to yourself. Here’s one that tickled me:

Ah, me and my hate of reading fiction. Excuse me, I’m going to change this blog’s name to “Requires Only Yuri.” Lesbian manga. Forever. No more books! Give me a moment to delete all the book reviews.

It also confirms rather that some people have this bizarre idea that reading fiction in particular is some exalted, exalting fetish, like going to church. Really, I wish I had the intellectual vigor to absorb more non-fiction, but I’d guess to some the height of intellectual curiosity is picking up a copy of The Hunger Games.

But enough about the easy targets. Let’s go over again where I come from:

In comparison with the public expenditure of other countries, (especially developing countries): China 13%, Indonesia 8.1%, Malaysia 20%, Mexico, 24.3%, Philippines 17%, United Kingdom and France 11%, the Thai GDP and national budget allocate considerable funds to education. By 2006 it represented 27% of the national budget. Although education is mainly financed by the national budget, important local funds, particularly in urban areas, are being released to support education. In the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority, up to 28.1% of the education budget has been provided by local financing. Loans and technical assistance for education are also received from Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and the OECF.

There’s a lot to criticize about public education in Thailand, but as you can see, funding isn’t exactly one of them. I know, I know, the US is a third-world shithole, but I can’t quite come to grip with the idea of an education system so appalling it has trouble teaching its students their native–and often only–language. Students here do have trouble with English, but you know, that’s a second language. The idea that some US schools are supported by advertisements is pretty fucking unreal. Totally alien, even. How does that even work! I’ve never seen a single ad at schools in my life, and certainly not themed Coca-Cola days. That’s dystopian stuff, that is.

I make fun of the US a lot, but I still maintain a faint conception that a first-world country surely can’t be so desperate. That’s why I have a lot of trouble wrapping my mind around all the poverty, the terrible healthcare, and all the rest (so many school shootings! What hideous crime rates!). The sheer dissonance between how the US presents itself and its actual reality cannot be stressed enough. If I told a Thai friend today that many people in the US live hands-to-mouth, have to put up with debilitating illness/injuries due to a lack of healthcare, they won’t believe me. That’s not even getting started on the misogynistic regime.

Apart from that, I did quite make an ass of myself by not thinking of several perspectives: of living in a white world (and therefore having to get white literature aka the western canon, which is end to end dead white people), of students with learning disabilities, and immigrants (though having said that, there were immigrants in the discussion and they were talked over by people who weren’t). For that, my apologies.

I still don’t think “get them to read YA no matter how shitty” is the magical panacea or even that it’ll solve any problem at an appreciable level, but hey.

 

R. Scott Bakker, Neuropath, and the Spoon of Secrets

You’re all sick of this by now, I bet.

But I failed to cover the funny bits in Neuropath. Why yes, they exist!

Kind of.

She brought her feet to the floor, leaned forward with a skeptical frown. ‘Now that looks about as sexy as stuffing a turkey.’

‘Yeah, but it shows the spoons. Very sexy.’

‘The spoons?’

‘Yeah, where the bum meets the…’ He swallowed, then said, ‘It would be easier to show you.’

Her knees drifted a finger’s-breadth apart. ‘Show me, then,’ she said, her voice thick, her eyes bright with an oh-my-God-I’m-doing-this look.

Thomas pushed the coffee table aside and knelt before her.

A low-volume ‘fuck-me-fuck-me-fuck-me-fuck-me‘ floated through the living room.

He placed his palms on her knees. She sighed. Parting her legs, he slowly pressed his hands under her skirt, sliding his thumbs past her knees, across bare skin, down into the hollow of her inner thighs.

‘There,’ he whispered, resting his thumbs in the divots to either side of her panties. ‘The sexiest part of the female anatomy,’ he said. ‘The spoons.’

SPOONS.

If someone could just explain to me which part of a woman looks like a spoon… or indeed, a pair of spoons? Would it be safe to say that R. Scott Bakker is possibly the only person in the world who thinks of spoons when he sees a woman? I think it would be. It’s also safe to say that Bakker’s long and away taken Laurell K. Hamilton’s crown of bad sex writing. Or misogyny. Or rapeyness. Or anything, really. The crown? Allll his. And the spoons, too.

Some of what follows is rapey, I think. I’m not sure about the context, but just in case, rape and gendered slurs trigger warning.

 

R. Scott Bakker – Neuropath of Misogyny

RAPE TRIGGER WARNING

I come bearing a gift.

By which I mean bearing a curse. What’s this curse? Over 3,000 words of rapefare from that most favored of punching bags, R. Scott Bakker. Specifically it’s from his non-fantasy thing–I’m not sure what genre it falls into other than “mumbo-jumbo”–Neuropath. Now, by and by I’ve come to view Bakker as rather harmless if socially incompetent; his boon companion Peter Watts is a far more loathsome piece of shit (although anecdotes have it that Watts is, in real life, quite socially incompetent as well and that translates to a certain kind of schoolboy pettiness. Now imagine if he, Watts and Pat have a drink together at a con–but never mind, that’s a vile image: so much smug idiocy concentrated in one place!).

Then someone told me about the rapefare in Neuropath.

Here follows a close reading and dissection of about 3,000 words (more than 10 pages in paper!) of rapefare. I was warned it would be disgusting, but after a while I found it merely hilarious. There’s a weird, off-putting tone to this as of a schoolboy dipping a stick into his own fresh excrement, then running at people to wave said stick in their faces. This isn’t edgy, haunting, horrifying. It’s very simply disgusting in the same childish, mindless way and suggests that Bakker perhaps needs to be house-broken. If Chris Priest believes Charles Stross to be an incontinent puppy, then one can only imagine Bakker as a piglet suffering from explosive diarrhea. It rolls around in–well, you know. Obeying its natural instincts, as it were.

 

Laurie Marks – FIRE LOGIC

The earth witch who ruled Shaftal is dead, leaving no heir. Shaftal’s ruling house has been scattered by the invading Sainnites. The Shaftali have mobilized a guerrilla army against these marauders, but every year the cost of resistance grows, leaving Shaftal’s fate in the hands of three people: Emil, scholar and reluctant warrior; Zanja, the sole survivor of a slaughtered tribe; and Karis the metalsmith, a half-blood giant whose earth powers can heal, but only when she can muster the strength to hold off her addiction to a deadly drug.

Separately, all they can do is watch as Shaftal falls from prosperity into lawlessness and famine. But if they can find a way to work together, they just may change the course of history.

I put off reading this book for a long time. For, well, obvious reasons: the cover art, the summary, everything about this screams generic fantasy. But since being generic has never impeded the commercial success of a fantasy novel, I would like to demand: why isn’t this more widely read?

Because though the setting is generic, this is a book that’s packed with some very large ideas, and some of the very best execution of those ideas I’ve ever seen in the genre.

 

links of interest, this round wankful

Rachel Marone has been banned from Kickstarter. Why? Because she’s being targeted by a cyberstalker.

Daniella from Kickstarter here. Throughout the duration of your project, Extreme Futurists, there was an incredible amount of comment spam that several members of Kickstarter staff removed on your behalf. It has come to our attention that this comment spam has persisted at an alarming rate, and that you have engaged in conversation with the spammer. There are now over 300 spam comments that include your own engagement on your project.

[...]

The spammer being referred to here is also my cyberstalker of over 10 years. This is a notorious and serial harasser with hundreds of targets.

Not just an asinine ban, but sets a dangerous precedent.

Nick Mamatas wishes to end greek pride. I agree. Geek pride, I feel, is something you engage in earnestly only if you have nothing in which to take pride whatsoever. I’m not talking about enjoying geekdom; geek pride is the thing when you turn what you consume into your identity and assume that anyone else enjoying the same thing is instantly your best friend forever. That is just very very sad.

A subculture is not a counterculture. A consumer culture is not a subculture. We are not all in this together. Your social Laws (Godwin’s, etc.) are as insipid as any aphorism your grandmother might have cross-stitched and put on display two generations ago. What you think is cool is not cool. What you decide is uncool is also uncool. Your counter-snobbery is snobbery. Your snobbery is snobbery. You do not rule the world. Obama flashing a Vulcan salute does not mean that you rule the world.

I’m guessing this post got linked to congregations of exactly the kind of geeks he’s talking about, as many of such breed turned up to show just why they don’t get it (“this is pretty much the same as saying let us put an end to ethnic pride“), why they are just very very sad people, and why they deserve to be mocked. I particularly liked this one:

You make a lot of assumptions along the lines of “Jews have big noses” and “blacks are lazy”. I am unimpressed with your grasp of reality.