shitty YA cheatsheet with Farla – more on Graceling

Farla is a blogger who makes it a thing to dissect a lot of shitty books, many of them shitty YA (insofar that such a thing as “non-shitty YA” exists, which I’m not convinced it does in any appreciable quantity). I’ve been reading her take on The Hunger Games and Graceling, both books that curiously feature emotionally broken “strong” female protagonists, both books that  (witness here a frothing fanboy defending the lack of homosexuality in The Hunger Games) feature unbelievably atrocious world-building, unbelievably idiotic names, and unbelievably terrible writing.

Even by YA standards (and those standards are so very low to begin with) Kristin Cashore can’t fucking write worth one bird dropping.

Since I’ve been reading along I thought I might as well do the meta thing and comment on the commentary. Farla has this irritating habit of equating “third-world” to places of starvation with no electricity–

The fence is supposed to be electrified, but it only rarely is because they only get a few hours of electricity a day. This is the first suggestion this is more third-world than primitive.

–and I imagine it’d blow her mind to realize that some of us have not only electricity (constantly and reliably!) but also plumbing and Internet access), and this kind of third/first-world thing comes up a whole shitting lot in her analyses.  It’s that mindless, casual thing a lot of westerners do and they don’t even think it’s offensive in any way. This is why we want to kick you in the mouths, folks, and laugh as you choke to death on your own teeth. This is also why:

This is all particularly inane given that it’s standard in Western society that you can’t actually force someone into a marriage, there has to be some nominal amount of acceptance

Non-westerners, of course, constantly rape women and marriages aren’t even about nominal amount of acceptance oh fuck you. But, unfortunately for people who like Graceling this doesn’t mean I disagree with her views on Cashore’s steaming pile, so let’s get to that.

 

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.

 

giving up on GRACELING and why I’m done with YA

I got through 38 pages of Graceling before calling it quits. This isn’t because it’s an offensive book in any way. It’s because the writing, in two words, is intolerably shit.

Now you may tell me that it’s an excellent, pro-feminist book; you may tell me Katsa is a fantastic character with believable whatever. And you know, I believe you, really I do. I believe it’s a pro-feminist book, reviews of it have suggested it is so. I’m sure you enjoyed it and have perfectly valid reasons to love it. I recognize that a girl-positive novel is important, especially a YA one.

But to me personally and individually it isn’t enough; Feminism 101 is all well and good, but I’m not obliged to love it when it’s done up in mediocrity and generic setting by an author who as far as I can tell has no grasp on narrative structure or characterization whatsoever, and who harbors not a single original thought in her pages. If I’d felt such an obligation, I would have finished Malinda Lo’s Huntress, and if nothing else “East Asian lesbians who do stuff” is a far more interesting premise than “straight white girl who can kill with bare hands zzzz.” I’m just not that desperate. I’ve read Carter and Valente and Sedia, and just freshly I’ve come away from Helen Oyeyemi. Not only do these authors handle feminism at a more nuanced, more mature level, they can actually write–and whatever you may think of Cashore’s prose, you’ll probably agree that she doesn’t stand a chance next to Helen Oyeyemi or Nalo Hopkinson. It’s not that because Oyeyemi and Hopkinson exist Cashore doesn’t need to, it’s just that I’ve read better than Graceling. I’ve just read better, and on a personal level I find no reason to settle for something so direly third-rate when I’ve far from exhausted the first-rate stuff.

So this isn’t going to be a review. I’m just going to share my annotations on the book.

 

TRIPTYCH lolblog p.2 – furry blue aliens and their ribcage cocks

YOU WILL SUFFER. YOU WILL ALL SUFFER.

He has chosen to be a “he.” Humans use pronouns to distinguish between individuals of specific genders. They have two genders among his people as well, of course — almost every copulating species does — but they aren’t as finicky about labelling them. They don’t dwell on sexuality and gender performance on his world…or rather, they did not. He has the reproductive organs of a male, or what the humans categorize as such, so he has decided that it is easiest to simply submit to the use of the aligned pronoun instead of insisting on the neutral.

DO YOU SEEEEEEEEE. Then the “males everywhere don’t know how to deal with an upset female” moment and toilet seats come up and all is lost.

 

STAR WARS: where feminism goes to die, racism goes to thrive, and Drew Karpyshyn continues to prove that tie-in writers are worthless

I wasn’t going to do anything with Karpyshyn’s Revan except treat it as another bit of evidence that tie-ins can’t be taken seriously and that Star Wars is, overall, kind of shit and utterly lacking in anything of merit. Two things made me review this, at least partially, because you can’t pay me to read every word of this juvenile tripe.

The first is that it is another bit of evidence that tie-ins can’t be taken seriously and its worth is somewhere in the region of subzero. Not a single word in this text hints at an imagination, originality, or that the writer is capable of writing at any level above “lowest common denominator Star Wars fanboy who only reads other Star Wars fanfiction and nothing but.” You could dig and dig, and not a single sentence would present itself as evidence that Karpyshyn has ever read anything more advanced than movie novelizations, D&D fiction, and possibly Eragon.

The other is that this book is what you’d get if Jim Butcher contributed to the turdpile of Star Wars tie-ins instead of his very own Anita Blake-derived turdpile.

 

Lyda Morehouse’s ARCHANGEL PROTOCOL

First the LINK-an interactive, implanted computer-transformed society. Then came the angels-cybernetic manifestations that claimed to be working God’s will…

But former cop Deidre McMannus has had her LINK implant removed-for a crime she didn’t commit. And she has never believed in the angels.

All that will change when a man named Michael appears at her door.

This is a book I had some hope for. It falls neatly into the domain of “leather-clad chick fights and fucks supernatural shit,” a subgenre I’ve always had great contempt for due to its endless reiterations of the exact same chick (white, straight, American) fucking the exact same thing (werewolf, vampire, angel, fairy; sometimes a combination of all four) while going through the exact same plot (caught up in a great supernatural conflict). But Archangel Protocol differentiates itself by playing footsie with cyberpunk, setting up the tried and tiresome tropes in a futuristic America overrun by religious zealotry, Internet addiction and hackers. The protagonist, whose name I actually no longer remember because she’s very much like other such protagonists, is an ex-cop kicked off the force due to her role in testifying to the guilt of her partner, who shot the Pope stone dead. Amidst this is a socio-political climate controlled, or soon to be controlled, by a politician credited with bringing “angels” into the web: entities half digital, intensely supernatural, that can bring rapture and ecstasy.

Morehouse wastes all this potential within about the first five pages.

 

WICKED LOL’LY: fish in a barrel

Rule #3: Don’t stare at invisible faeries.

Aislinn has always seen faeries. Powerful and dangerous, they walk hidden in mortal world. Aislinn fears their cruelty—especially if they learn of her Sight—and wishes she were as blind to their presence as other teens.

Rule #2: Don’t speak to invisible faeries.

Now faeries are stalking her. One of them, Keenan, who is equal parts terrifying and alluring, is trying to talk to her, asking questions Aislinn is afraid to answer.

Rule #1: Don’t ever attract their attention.

But it’s too late. Keenan is the Summer King who has sought his queen for nine centuries. Without her, summer itself will perish. He is determined that Aislinn will become the Summer Queen at any cost—regardless of her plans or desires.

Suddenly none of the rules that have kept Aislinn safe are working anymore, and everything is on the line: her freedom; her best friend, Seth; her life; everything.

lol

loooool

This is me taking absolutely cheap shots at fish in a barrel, not going to lie.

 

Kim Harrison’s HOMOPHOBIC WITCH WALKING

Someone had the gall to recommend me Kim Harrison’s Dead Witch Walking as “urban fantasy that’s not like LKH’s crap, really it’s not!” because, knowing that I consider UF a boiling pot of undiluted excrement, she thought it’d change my mind. It didn’t. I’m just glad the author got no royalties from my purchase.

 

My hateletter to Robin McKinley

Robin McKinley: Deerskin

As Princess Lissar reaches womanhood, it is clear to all the kingdom that in her breathtaking beauty she is the mirror image of her mother, the queen. But this seeming blessing forces her to flee for safety from her father’s wrath. With her loyal dog Ash at her side, Lissar will unlock a door to a world of magic, where she will find the key to her survival-and an adventure beyond her wildest dreams.

It’s not me, McKinley. It’s you. I tried your Sunshine and found it unreadable tripe. I tried this one to give you another chance, but it was so very hard. You made me jump through hoops of incompetent prose. You padded the text with needless words and characters I can’t distinguish from corpses. You never rewarded me; for each block of mundane descriptions, you served me up with five more. It started off as mild affection because your book’s got its heart in the right place but, more and more, I realized that heart isn’t enough. I need brains. I need words that are beautiful. I need interesting settings. I need characters for whom I can find it in me to dredge up some measure of I care.

Toward the end there was only strained silence. From silence to ennui; from ennui to antipathy, and by the time I reached the midpoint all I could think of was HATE. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.

 

SILVER PHOENIX quotespam: like herpes it keeps giving

Quotespam! Special edition; includes things I didn’t quote in my article at Ars Marginal. Yes, this is how much this book offends me and I want to share my misery. If I had to suffer through so much of it, then by god SO WILL EVERYONE ELSE.