long update
Mar. 16th, 2007 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennifer_book_geekShadows of Myth by Rachel Lee: This was okay but if it was any longer, I probably would have had a problem finishing it. It got to be repetitious with Tess constantly angsting about her lost memory. I have a big problem with most of the female characters in the Luna books. Yes, the imprint features females as main characters but it doesn't necessarily mean they are empowered or kick-ass. A lot of them fit the feisty but ultimately stupid heroine stereotype from romance novels. They do stupid things and must be reminded of their errors by men who set them straight. I hated that Tom had big issues with his love interest, Sara, having more power than him. I'll read the rest of the series since a lot of questions raised in book one weren't answered and there are only two more books and they are both pretty short. This was very much a first book in a trilogy and I didn't feel like much happened here. Oh and the one sort-of plot twist was so obvious to me.
Fruits Basket Vol. 15 by Natsuki Takaya: As much as I want to get back to the Tohru/Kyo developing romance, the Yuki story is really starting to appeal to me. I loved the play in this volume.
One Good Knight by Mercedes Lackey: Lackey's Luna series has turned out to be my favorite thing Luna has published (although Christie Golden's series would be right up there with Lackey's if I wasn't afraid that it won't get finished). I like that the Five Hundred Kingdoms series isn't all doom, gloom, angst, and gore, unlike most of the other Luna books, plus it's written and edited better and there aren't as many romance cliches and gender stereotypes in Lackey's series. But I have to complain about her virgin heroines, the fact that she ignores gay characters in this series (especially since she's so homofriendly in her other books not published by Luna), and I really didn't like the graphic, trite, and stereotypical love scene from The Fairy Godmother. Thankfully, there was no sex in book two.
I loved the heroes of this book, although Lackey's villains have always been quite static. I also loved that "George" turned out to be a girl Champion and I loved the band of women warriors (which reminded me a bit of Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment). The dragons were great- not stereotypical bad dragons that must be slayed. And the unicorns are hilarious- even if their presence requires virgin heroines. The romance aspect of the book was brief but sweet (I don't usually read romantic SFF for the romance exclusively anyway and if I did, I'd be disappointed most of the time).
Roswell High: The Watcher by Melinda Metz. I used to love the show Roswell until it started to suck. I wanted to read the books when I still liked the show, so I bought this then never got around to reading it- then blocked it from my memory because I wanted to erase everything about Roswell from my mind after the steaming pile of crap it became. But this was wishlisted on PBS so I dug it out and speed read it and it was awful. There's this particular style to some YA books that I really can't stand in which the author seems to talk down to her teen audience, plus this was a series by committee, much like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series or Sweet Valley High, and it showed. I won't be reading any more Roswell High books and I want to forget that I ever watched the show.
Sing the Four Quarters by Tanya Huff: I loved this book, despite a few minor problems with the grammar and head-hopping. I love fantasy and SF worlds like the one in this novel: the society is egalitarian, children have rights and aren't their parents' property, disabled people function well and aren't to be pitied, and people are free to love and have sex with whomever they chose. The characters were great and I loved that Annice was pregnant throughout most of the book and her pregnancy was dealt with realistically, instead of being romanticized. Her debates with Pjerin (who's name was a bit distracting to me because I kept trying to figure out how it was pronounced) over who's baby she was carrying and who would raise the child might have annoyed me if they were dealt with differently, but here it served a purpose. I also liked that Annice and Pjerin were both shown to be products of their upbringing and it wasn't totally angsty, instead they learned how to deal with it and grew up a lot as they came to terms with who they were. I didn't have a problem with the fact that while Annice had a partner, Stasya, she had a night of passion with Pjerin while she was on her Walk. I liked that sex served as a way for the Bards to connect with their people and it was refreshing to read a book in which there was no sexual guilt. I've found that almost all of the speculative fiction I've read by lesbian authors is very appealing to me because of the ways in which homosexuality and feminism are dealt with. I am very anxious to read the rest of this series now and I'm also looking forward to reading the rest of Huff's books.
In addition to reading my first Huff novel, I also watched the pilot of the show Blood Ties Sunday, which is based on Huff's Vicki Nelson series. It was very good.
Fruits Basket Vol. 15 by Natsuki Takaya: As much as I want to get back to the Tohru/Kyo developing romance, the Yuki story is really starting to appeal to me. I loved the play in this volume.
One Good Knight by Mercedes Lackey: Lackey's Luna series has turned out to be my favorite thing Luna has published (although Christie Golden's series would be right up there with Lackey's if I wasn't afraid that it won't get finished). I like that the Five Hundred Kingdoms series isn't all doom, gloom, angst, and gore, unlike most of the other Luna books, plus it's written and edited better and there aren't as many romance cliches and gender stereotypes in Lackey's series. But I have to complain about her virgin heroines, the fact that she ignores gay characters in this series (especially since she's so homofriendly in her other books not published by Luna), and I really didn't like the graphic, trite, and stereotypical love scene from The Fairy Godmother. Thankfully, there was no sex in book two.
I loved the heroes of this book, although Lackey's villains have always been quite static. I also loved that "George" turned out to be a girl Champion and I loved the band of women warriors (which reminded me a bit of Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment). The dragons were great- not stereotypical bad dragons that must be slayed. And the unicorns are hilarious- even if their presence requires virgin heroines. The romance aspect of the book was brief but sweet (I don't usually read romantic SFF for the romance exclusively anyway and if I did, I'd be disappointed most of the time).
Roswell High: The Watcher by Melinda Metz. I used to love the show Roswell until it started to suck. I wanted to read the books when I still liked the show, so I bought this then never got around to reading it- then blocked it from my memory because I wanted to erase everything about Roswell from my mind after the steaming pile of crap it became. But this was wishlisted on PBS so I dug it out and speed read it and it was awful. There's this particular style to some YA books that I really can't stand in which the author seems to talk down to her teen audience, plus this was a series by committee, much like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series or Sweet Valley High, and it showed. I won't be reading any more Roswell High books and I want to forget that I ever watched the show.
Sing the Four Quarters by Tanya Huff: I loved this book, despite a few minor problems with the grammar and head-hopping. I love fantasy and SF worlds like the one in this novel: the society is egalitarian, children have rights and aren't their parents' property, disabled people function well and aren't to be pitied, and people are free to love and have sex with whomever they chose. The characters were great and I loved that Annice was pregnant throughout most of the book and her pregnancy was dealt with realistically, instead of being romanticized. Her debates with Pjerin (who's name was a bit distracting to me because I kept trying to figure out how it was pronounced) over who's baby she was carrying and who would raise the child might have annoyed me if they were dealt with differently, but here it served a purpose. I also liked that Annice and Pjerin were both shown to be products of their upbringing and it wasn't totally angsty, instead they learned how to deal with it and grew up a lot as they came to terms with who they were. I didn't have a problem with the fact that while Annice had a partner, Stasya, she had a night of passion with Pjerin while she was on her Walk. I liked that sex served as a way for the Bards to connect with their people and it was refreshing to read a book in which there was no sexual guilt. I've found that almost all of the speculative fiction I've read by lesbian authors is very appealing to me because of the ways in which homosexuality and feminism are dealt with. I am very anxious to read the rest of this series now and I'm also looking forward to reading the rest of Huff's books.
In addition to reading my first Huff novel, I also watched the pilot of the show Blood Ties Sunday, which is based on Huff's Vicki Nelson series. It was very good.
