I loved these books as a child who was struggling with my prescribed gender roles. I loved that Alanna becomes a warrior, beloved by the goddess.
TheyI loved these books as a child who was struggling with my prescribed gender roles. I loved that Alanna becomes a warrior, beloved by the goddess.
They've aged a lot better than most of the books I loved as a child, but they're still disappointing. Alanna challenges unjust gender roles. But she hasn't broadened her perspective to consider if other aspects of her society are just as unjust. She promises to protect the weak from the strong. She doesn't think about protecting everyone from unjust systems.
I'll also a little skeeved out at all these powerful men who met her as a 10 year old and want to have sex with her now that she's what, 15?
Still, she's a bad ass AND there's a magic cat. Would have made a great bus book. ...more
Read this book 40 years ago and loved it. A plucky young girl deciding not to follow the highly gendered path set down for her? Swapping places with hRead this book 40 years ago and loved it. A plucky young girl deciding not to follow the highly gendered path set down for her? Swapping places with her twin brother so he goes to the convent to learn girly things while she learns to be a knight? Surviving her first period? Learning street fighting so she can beat the crap out of her much larger and older bully? Making friends in high and low places? Finding a magic sword and fighting eldritch monsters with a prince? delightful.
Going back to it now, it hasn't aged so well. The final battle happens in a desert that our European-inflected good guys have colonized and administered. The dark-skinned natives with Arabic sounding natives still live there, subordinate. Regularly, some eldritch horror tries to summon their children to a dead city. If they go, they disappear forever. If they're stopped, they wither and die. Thus it has been since time immemorial.
Alanna and the crown prince -- who have been studying sword play and magic for a couple of years -- sneak off to get that sorted during spring break. While I kinda love that a 13 year old and a 15 year old fight and (view spoiler)[defeat (hide spoiler)]Lovecraftian monsters in that dead city that is a whole lot like R'lyeh, it's a little white-savior-y.
It also bugs me that in this noble training academy that's presented as good all the adults allow absolutely awful bullying and abuse to occur. They all seem a little sad about it, but they never contemplate whether this system is bad and should be made better. Alanna's bully breaks her limbs and blackens her eyes. It's shrugged at.
Alanna herself never seriously questions whether this system that brutally enforces gender, class, and racial hierarchies is a good one, even though she chafes against the roles her society allows her. She's just a kid so I can't blame her too much -- I sure didn't notice 40 years ago -- but reading it now, it's a little jarring.
Still, reading it as a kid who was chafing against the roles her society set for her, it was revelatory. I'm glad I got to read it then and I'm glad I stumbled on it again now. ...more
Humans have spoiled the planet to the point that there is only one city, protected by one apocalyptical weapon, and one prison left. The few crops theHumans have spoiled the planet to the point that there is only one city, protected by one apocalyptical weapon, and one prison left. The few crops there are have to be protected from the rain. There are monsters in the desert and in the waters.
It has a whole lot of the pieces of Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series, only told in the waning days of humanity’s time on earth. Or maybe of humanity's time. It's claustrophobic rather than expensive. Much less hopeful.
it's over 600 pages but those pages turned quickly. I found the ending unsatisfying but it's not like the Federation was going to come in and save the day. ...more
I liked a lot of this story. Abbott fights the darkness on several different fronts. Love that she joins public television.
The final fight was a littI liked a lot of this story. Abbott fights the darkness on several different fronts. Love that she joins public television.
The final fight was a little bit of a let down. I appreciated it for "we will make you fight those you love to do what's right." But I wanted the fight to be more than blasting light and darkness around.
Still, overall it was a lot of fun and had a powerful story to tell about not giving in to what's easy and wealth generating at the cost of your friends and your soul. ...more
Wherein Daine meets her father, travels the mystic realms with a platypus, a badger, disconnected aspects of her greatest enemy, and a horndog, and fiWherein Daine meets her father, travels the mystic realms with a platypus, a badger, disconnected aspects of her greatest enemy, and a horndog, and fights chaos.
There were parts of this book I really liked. Daine is a hell of a character, and even separated from her beloved horse and baby dragon, she's still brave, loving,smart, and good.
There's a romance between her and her mentor that was a little squicky. It never gets beyond some cuddles and kisses. I get a 16 year old's crush on her 30 something mentor who's life she saved and who has been a consistent champion. There is not quite the traditional power imbalance of such relationships given that she's the daughter of one god, the chosen of many others, and the girl who took down an empire. AND YET. That romance did not age well. The story would have been better without it.
The story is framed around a battle between chaos and order. I wish Daine had explored her own liminal character a bit more. Instead, she is a stalwart champion of order. A shape-changing, king-defending, half god champion of order.
But she's a barely-educated 16 year old badass who, not to spoil it, saves the world. May she have a long and wonderful life. Great way to spend a few hours.
Wherein Daine joins an ambassadorial delegation from her Narnia-inflected home to the Calormen-inflected empire to the south. She is there specificallWherein Daine joins an ambassadorial delegation from her Narnia-inflected home to the Calormen-inflected empire to the south. She is there specifically to help treat the emperor's ailing birds. She does such a good job the emperor wants to keep her.
There are parts of this book I really liked. The Graveyard-Hag, a local goddess who takes an interest in Daine, was a fantastic character. The stormwings continue their journey from hated foe to respected other. And the dinosaurs were utterly delightful.
The book's racial and sexual politics haven't aged well. While Pierce did much better in her fantasy universe than Lewis and so many others, there was a whole lot of "Europe good/Africa bad" thrumming through the subtext. While women have more agency in this world than many Tolkein/Lewis inflected fantasy, the worlds are still deeply misogynistic. And I cringed every time Daine's mentor made it clear to the Other Boys that she was Off Limits
But the characters were vivid; even the baddies had agency, and when the dinosaurs rise up, I was smitten. ...more
Wherein our young heroine Daine and her many animal companions foil a plot against the rightful king and queen by those who would poison the world to Wherein our young heroine Daine and her many animal companions foil a plot against the rightful king and queen by those who would poison the world to extract a little value. Enjoyed reading it a lot. Appreciated that Daine had to confront her own racist-inflected hatred of Stormwings, though it bugged me that she did it because she met "one of the good ones." Suppose fantasy is inherently a deeply conservative genre.
Weirdly ephemeral, though. Finished it yesterday and barely remember what happened. ...more
Millennium after humanity made a really good go of destroying itself, the children of Earth have started to find each other again, found strange new lMillennium after humanity made a really good go of destroying itself, the children of Earth have started to find each other again, found strange new life, and are building a post scarcity society. As part of that adventure, some of them are tracking down the other people who may have survived.
This new society is made up of humans and Humans (humans who have been genetically engineered to have fellow feeling with others); uplifted octopuses and spiders, a repeatedly re-instantiated AI version of a terraformer who survived the great collapse, super-intelligent parasitic slime mold, and most recently, uplifted corvids.
A small science mission has found Imir. Terraforming had begun there when humanity pulled the trigger. Millennia later, a refugee ship from Earth arrived and did its best to colonize the planet.
(view spoiler)[It didn't work. They all died. But a machine recorded their experiences and has been running simulations of how they might have survived since). (hide spoiler)]
Our plucky band sets up an away mission trying to figure out how to save the colony from the seemingly-inevitable environmental collapse that's coming. Most particularly they befriend a young girl, Liff, who really tries to do right as xenophobia rises and her society collapses.
Explores deep themes of identity, sentience, generational trauma, and obligation. Liff steps up and faces the thing in the dark in a way that really touched me.
Did it have anything particular to say about identity, sentience, generational trauma, and obligation? That I'm less sure of. The climax of the book was people talking on a gray plain. They come to a conclusion about some of that, and act on it.
The narrators aren't always reliable, for narratively reasonable reasons, but I was finding that a little frustrating.
I appreciated that, to some extent, this book is about Odin's ravens visiting Ymir before the cow started licking. ...more
Wherein Xingquin, the daughter of the Moon Goddess, makes hard choices, pisses off a lot of monarchs, and burns down a lot of stuff.
I liked the actioWherein Xingquin, the daughter of the Moon Goddess, makes hard choices, pisses off a lot of monarchs, and burns down a lot of stuff.
I liked the action scenes a lot. Xingquin is a serious badass and while I'm not sure how she got that badass in that short of time, I do appreciate it.
But I'm baffled how she basically spends her time propping up an unjust system - a system that has brutalized her and her family -- or fretting over the fact that two immortal princes are madly in love with her. One seriously betrayed her trust. The other one has parents who hate her.
The book reads easy. Would have made a good bus book. But it could have been more.
Miri and Leah were a happily married couple. Leah is associated in some way I do not understand with a mariReminded me a lot of The Yellow Wallpaper.
Miri and Leah were a happily married couple. Leah is associated in some way I do not understand with a marine research center; Miri appears to help write grant applications. They lived in an apartment and had lots of friends.
Then Leah went on a deep sea mission that went terribly wrong. Instead of three weeks as planned, they were down there for months in the dark before the ship seemed to come back to life and let them take a quick look around before returning to the surface. Some of them. She came back changed and keeps changing. Miri grieves her bitterly.
This book bounces back and forth between Leah's time in the dark and what happened after the return.
I suspect this book is a meditation on powerlessness in the face of great forces. Our characters don't do much. Much is done to them, which they endure with a level of passivity and executive disfunction that stressed me out.
Leah, if I recall correctly, was Jacob's first wife, who he married out of duty and trickery. He was madly in love with Leah's younger sister Rachel. Their parents tricked him into laboring seven years for Leah's hand and seven more for Rachel. Leah, like so many people in the Old Testament, was overshadowed by her younger sister and resented. Miri might reference Miriam, Moses's sister; the bitter sea.
It's deep, I suppose. A meditation on being acted on; on being transformed by work and tides; on surviving after loss. But it did not resonate with me.
Judge George Boldt was a good soldier, a good public servant, and a good judge. He presided over one of the most consequential trials in Washington StJudge George Boldt was a good soldier, a good public servant, and a good judge. He presided over one of the most consequential trials in Washington State History: United States v. Washington. That case determined that many of the local tribes had a treaty right to up to half the harvestable salmon in Washington and Washington State had a treaty obligation to comply with that. Fifty years later, “derivative� litigation on that is still being litigated.
I had a hazy sense that Judge Boldt was an old white guy in a bowtie. He was. But he was also a man who, from working at the elbow of the governor in a position of enormous influence, volunteered to serve in World War II. Before he went, he supported the Japanese Internment. There, he served with Japanese soldiers. He came back an implacable foe of internment. He recognized his country had done wrong and spoke about it frequently.
He also presided over the trial of the Seattle 7, which in ways I don’t completely understand, gave us The Big Lebowski. The Seattle 7, like the Chicago 7, were anti-Vietnam war protestors. The trial was theater and Judge Boldt did not like his part in it. They were charged with conspiracy to start a riot. Ultimately, the defendants served time for contempt but nothing else.
Not long after, the same federal attorney who filed and later dismissed the charges against the Seattle 7 brought United States v. Washington. The critical witness was Dr. Barbara Savadkin Lane, an anthropologist who had done significant research into the Northwest tribal nations. She blew the state’s expert out of the water.
Hughes does not shy away from the claims Judge Boldt stayed on the bench after dementia had set in. Maybe he did. Hard questions.
I kept being pulled out of it by how annoying the two main characters are. They're locked in trauma and are makiGreat world building. Bang up ending.
I kept being pulled out of it by how annoying the two main characters are. They're locked in trauma and are making bad choices as if they really are Romeo and Juliet only older, without parents, and with incredible resources and a good friend network. And yet, the replicate a whole lot of the steps.
I also kept getting pulled out of it by a contradiction in the leading lady, Laila. She's presented like she's got the history, background, skills, and sophistication of a woman in her 30s. But she's a teenager. The dude is also given this amazing suite of skills and history that makes me think he's at least in his 30s. But he's head over heels for this 19 year old. Hurm.
But the magical world is fresh and fun; there's a mechanical leviathan; and there are wonderful side characters.
Breezy little book cataloging some of the salacious and the headline fodder.
From this book I learned:
When the documents were presented to President HBreezy little book cataloging some of the salacious and the headline fodder.
From this book I learned:
When the documents were presented to President Harrison that would establish Washington as a state, the seal fell off. He refused to sign them, delaying our entry into the union by 10 days (34-35);
We presented the president with a pen made from gold mined in the state to sign the documents with. He declined in favor of his regular steel pen (35);
In 1884, the local justice of the peace shared a building with a brothel. The judge asked to be relocated. Two members of the city counsel got big mad at the judge for that (45-46);
The Tacoma Humane Society was established in 1888, the fourth in the nation. The final straw was public abuse of a bear cub by a drunken logger. (48);
"When the Northern Pacific Railroad finally arrived in Tacoma, the population was 113 white men, 12 white women, and, interestingly, 2.5 Chinese." (69).
Misses a lot of the true awfulness of our history. For example, she discusses the "donation" of land to the military for a base but fails to mention we just took it from the tribes. She touches lightly on the extractive industry that drove and continues to drive species to extinction.
High profile kidnappings get a lot of air time. By the third one, I was skimming.
I was amused that the Java Jive was featured. (115) I don't think it's wicked, but it does look like a coffee pot.
All in all, a good book for a waiting room or a fun way to spend a lazy evening. But it could have been more....more
A selection of Berger columns, mostly from the first decade of the millennium. Not all have aged well. He's a little too focused on some big ideas thaA selection of Berger columns, mostly from the first decade of the millennium. Not all have aged well. He's a little too focused on some big ideas that failed, like the monorail.
Great introductory essay by Tim Egan. Worth reading to get some curmudgeonly history of Seattle if you need some of that. ...more
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