This is it. Tell us what you thought about the female characters and any gender issues or politics the movie raised. And feel free to talk spoilers.

This comment thread WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS.

1. Open Thread: Precious
2. Star Trek was just for women
3. Open thread: heteronormativity’s effects on all women and men

CE Murphy’s The Queen’s Bastard, A Novel is more serious fare. Belinda, the queen’s bastard, has been honed into a weapon. She kills and screws for Lorraine, the maiden queen of Aulun, and has few regrets about her path in life. However, when her magic begins to surge, and Javier da Costa, a potential threat to Lorraine’s throne, poses answers to questions Belinda does not yet know how to ask, it’ll take magic, luck, and deceit to preserve Red Queen’s rule. I keep wanting to compare this to Kushiel’s Dart, since they’re both really sensuous books involving court politics and magic. However, Belinda is a tougher heroine than Phedre. She’s not looking for sympathy, and has steeled herself into the perfect spy and lover. She is filled with rage — at her mother’s abandonment, her father’s indifference, and the way her power was hidden from her for so long. This rage bubbles out when she uses her magic sexually, expressing itself in a desire to dominate that sometimes puts Belinda in danger. She’s not a nice character, but she’s a compelling one. Very much looking forward to the sequel. If you’re looking for some magic and sex to spice up your Elizabethan court intrigue, this might be the book for you. BTW: Some reviewers on Amazon described the female characters as dwelling too much on their gendered experiences of oppression. That was actually one of the things I liked the most. Belinda’s got some specific reasons to be angry, related to her parents and her imposed profession. On top of that, she’s got to wear a corset, she can’t own property, and can be raped in the context of marriage. Um, yeah, she’s a bit angry.

I’m gonna close this post with a discussion of Jeff Noon’s Vurt. This novel centers on the adventures of Scribble as he tries to rescue his sister Desdemona from the fantasy world of the Vurt. The world is more interesting than the plot; the Vurt is accessed through colored feathers, and its interactions with the “real” have populated Scribble’s Manchester with a humourous array of characters, all tied to the virtual world biologically or politically. That was pretty cool and deserved further exploration. Instead, Noon spent a LOT of time on how Scribble was having sex with his sister, and how he loved her too much (and was therefore having sex with her) and she didn’t love him enough (and was, uh, not as interested in having sex him).  This last felt really unnecessary with the plot, and was annoying enough that I began to question aspects of the world I would’ve otherwise let slide. FOR EXAMPLE… at one point one of our guys gets shot by a Mandel(brot) bullet, and so starts dissolving into fractals. HOWEVER, he’s now able to take down the police WHO SHOT HIM by touching them, since as he’s able to contaminate others with his fractal degrading ways. Why on EARTH would the police use bullets that would give the baddies an advantage in a fight? Why don’t the fractals (which dissolve dude’s clothes) go after other inanimate objects, like the ground or walls? Sigh.

1. Reviews in Brief
2. Reviews in Brief: the burning realm
3. reviews in brief

After that, I took a break from YA fantasy and read Peter Walsh‘s It’s All Too Much. Walsh is the organizing guru from TLC’s Clean Sweep. The book is meant to offer some concrete advice for organizing your life. Walsh describes the ways in which you can de-clutter your space, offering charts, room-by-room game plans, and more. Walsh’s enthusiasm is infectious, but since I live in a studio, I found it kinda depressing. My boyfriend got hold of it, however, and has gone on a cleaning frenzy. I’ve been protectively gaurding the clutter of my dissertation, but he’s been eyeing it ambitiously. He, uh, doesn’t know my filing system includes both the alphabet and a big green box under the sink. No, I don’t know what’s in it. SHUT UP, VOICE OF PETER WALSH!

Finally, I went back to YA fantasy. That was a scary foray into the world of advice books!! Anyways, I got really into Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu’s Shadow Speaker. This amazing book is set post-nuclear war. The war’s disasters were averted because of Peace Bombs. These Peace Bombs released Earth’s magic into the world, and now people are popping up with meta-human abilities. Okorafor is an amazingly lyrical writer, with a fine eye for characterization and nuance. What’s also really fun is that she writes FROM theory (like Frantz Fanon!) ABOUT theory (like when she uses Eiji’s experiences as a meta-human girl to talk about sexism, colonialism, and caste-systems) without making it so inaccessible that YA readers would struggle with it. Her sheer inventiveness made this great fun, and I’ve been recommending it to kids all day today.

1. Reviews in Brief: the burning realm
2. Reviews in Brief
3. reviews in brief

Magic Study is the sequel to Poison Study, once again following the adventures of Yelena as she continues to encounter political power plays and navigates her new-found magical powers. Interestingly, she discovers that she’s not at all a super-powered demi-goddess. She’s got some neato powers, sure, but she can’t start fires, which is a pretty common magic, and her insistent desire to be independent still gets her into trouble. She’s def not a Mary Sue. Also refreshing is a novel set in a nation of POC filled with characters described as such. I’m a bit miffed that the series following this, set in Sitia, has cover art featuring a bunch of blondes, but then again I’m a big mean RACIST who hates Sorceress Barbie with a passion. Plus, I like my art to follow canon. This and Poison Study would be a good gift to your precocious teen niece, who’s craving a strong female lead and can handle some mild sexuality.

I followed this with Skulduggery Pleasant, which features a skeleton mage detective and his wise-cracking Girl Wonder. The novel is narrated from Stephanie’s perspective, and is quite wry. She’s snarky, doesn’t take Skulduggery’s leadership for granted, and is quite brave. Also awesome are China Sorrows, the archetypal naughty librarian who is totally in it to win it (by this I mean she’s constantly expanding her collection of arcane archival materials) and Tanith Low, a courageous woman warrior who’s willing to take on both trolls and zombified Cleavers single handed. This young adult novel would be another good gift for the tween reader in your life.

I flipped through Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, and was amused. He’s got to dual the seven evil ex-boyfriends of the woman of his dreams, as well as finding a way to break up with his 17 year old high school sweetie. It’s a fun, kooky world marred by some racialized weirdness involving Knives Chau, the high schooler in question. While I’m down with the humor of the plot-line and get that it’ supposed to be funny that she’s going to be a batty Asian girl in a Catholic school-girl uniform, I am weirded out by the ways in which her age and race seem to be where her characterization begins and ends. It’s like with Bridge of Birds — why does subverting a genre include blatant racialized stereotypes, where the characters are in fact exactly what they appear? I’m probably going to finish out the series, just to see how it ends and if Knives improves as a character.

I also re-read Stagger Lee, and am still amazed at the depth of historical research going on in this graphic novel. Both the male and female characters emerge with startling clarity, and the writers do an amazing job of conveying the convoluted race, class, and political relationships going on in St. Louis, MO during the 1890s. They also explain the rise of the mythos of Stagger Lee/Stack O’Lee, and describe the different things folksongs do for the communities in which they emerge.

1. reviews in brief
2. Reviews in Brief: the burning realm
3. reviews in brief

See? See? It’s an Irish green, framing Boston on the top of the cover, and the primary motif of the book below that, along with a hint of the main character (or is it?) in there, too.

Boston, as you can see from the cityscape seen across the Charles River, is a presence in Spiral Hunt. Evie, the protagonist, is a bicycle messenger, and spins her cycle to destinations all over the city. Boston, for those who don’t know it, is not that large and is very bikable. It’s big enough for several distinct neighborhoods, and those are mentioned by Evie as she finds herself going through them, or to them. It’s a lot of fun for me, because I’m originally from the Boston area and am familiar with many of the areas Evie couriers through. Unfortunately, there isn’t much flavor to the environs. If it weren’t for the names and the knowledge of the locations, Evie Scelan could be anywhere along the East Coast.

Genevieve “Evie” Scelan earns extra income by Finding things. She is even listed in the phone book as a “Finder”. She finds misplaced cookbooks, lost dogs, lost children (tragically, sometimes), anything the owners want, she can literally sniff it out and track it—similar to a dog but not. It’s unique in the UF field for the power of super-smell to be used, and Ronald makes inventive use of Irish myth and legend in the rationale for Evie’s talent–which even she doesn’t know exactly how it works, or what it’s capable of.

Evie is a very assertive woman, very much in-your-face (in a way I can only say came across as totally Southie to me…it’s hard to explain), and very likable. She knows her place in her world, knows how to handle men of all kinds and has realistic flaws having to do with her mother.  She’s very real.

There are plenty of other women in Ronald’s book, too. There’s Rena Santestaban, a police detective and Evie’s friend. There’s Sarah, a Wiccan who owns a magic shop with some genuine magic objects in it. And then there’s Katie, a little girl whose much older brother, Nathan, is interested in Evie, but not overpoweringly so. There are lots of conversations that pass the Bechdel test.

Evie’s adventure starts off with a strange phone call from an old boyfriend who also had magical talent. But she hasn’t seen him in fifteen years, and has no idea what’s going on. Shortly after, we begin to find out about the undercurrent, Boston’s local magic presence and culture. So far, no elves, no fairies, no little people or leprechauns (yay!). Instead, bodies start showing up, from the past and the present, with odd lines carved or drawn into their skin and flesh. And now, Evie’s friends and acquaintances are slowly being eliminated.

Worth the read–at least, it was for me, it was like a trip home. Margaret Ronald’s characters ring out with authenticity, but they didn’t seem to pop. Spiral Hunt is dry with the absence of sensory inputs other than Evie’s sense of smell—both magical and ordinary. It took me a long time to figure out what seemed missing, and I think that’s what it is. The plotting is okay, and the story is fine, and the characters have a lot of promise. There was a lack of emotional connection in there for me, and I love Boston and I liked these characters. I don’t ask for purple prose, and I don’t ask for an abundance of description; but I do enjoy being able to feel like I’m right there in the book with the characters.

It’s the first in a projected series based on Evie Scelan, and I’m looking forward to them. I just hope Ronald is able to ‘warm’ the story up a bit and make me feel I’m back in Beantown.

1. Jane Lindskold — Nine Gates: Breaking the Wall
2. The Tudors: Princess Margaret
3. Enchanted, Inc series by Shanna Swendson

(part one in a zombie trilogy)

I’m an apocalypse junkie. I adore the genre. It doesn’t matter what the cause is—nuclear war and winter, plague, engineered viruses, whatever (okay, I do draw the line at Left Behind) –I enjoy how everyone survives or not in a damaged or empty world.  But it’s not exactly easy to find apocalyptic fiction that stars female protagonists. You know. As the main characters.

Rhiannon Frater’s self-published entry into the zombie sub-sub genre sounded good to me. It features not one, but TWO female protagonists that are a team, devoted to each other. That’s great, because with only one very new pro book out, virtually all of the zombie books I’ve seen in the stores or on Amazon are perponderously male-centric. They might have a woman or women involved in the storyline, but either they are a joke, or sidekicks, or play a conventional role.

Frater’s protagonists escape a lightening fast zombie plague by the skin of their teeth..or the skin of the zombie’s teeth.  Kaite is married to another woman who turned into a zombie before her eyes.  Jenni is a battered housewife and mother who sees her abusive husband and innocent children turned into zombies.  She’s rescued by Katie.  From that point you get to know these two women more clearly, and how the shock and insanity of a zombie filled world affects them and the other survivors they come across as they flee across Texas, rescuing Jenni’s oldest step-son from certain death, and gleaning supplies from towns simmering with fast moving zombies.

Most of the old rules of civilization are gone, and the two women learn quickly how to use them to their advantage. If they don’t defend themselves, and rely on each other, there aren’t many others who will, or will be able to, because you never know who will be killed or zombified next. There are men, of course, and Jenni and Katie become involved to different degrees.

They also become part of the leadership in the group, but on their own merits–not on who they’re screwing or who has an interest in them.  In fact, of all the people you meet, it’s Katie who is the most likely to shoot first, and ask questions later. The male leader of the group is a pacifist. Many of the original elected male officials are ineffectual. It’s Katie who points out who the real leader is, and sparks a change for the better for the general survival of everyone.

They are central to the story, and it rarely veers from their points of view. (except where there’s odd head-hopping going on)
Frater’s book originated as an incremental on-line story. The chapters are therefore short, to point, and the writing itself is relatively raw and needs better editing. BUT, having said that, she’s got the touch, and the ability to make you care about the characters she writes about. They feel pretty real, even as they reference The Zombie Handbook and discuss classic George Romero movies, comparing the “fictional” zombies to the ones they’re experiencing. As The World Dies is the first book in a trilogy, so the ending is unfinished. It does take Jenni and Katie to a place of relative safety, a breather, before it all hits the fan again. I’m looking forward to the next installments as they come out.
Visit the writer’s blog here, and check out the excerpt you can read here [since removed ] and meet two women you wouldn’t mind meeting on the street– as long you weren’t a zombie!

Note: corrected the characters’ names–my goof! Thought I’d proofread better than that! Apologies to Ms. Frater.  (That’s what I get for staying up until 5:30 in the morning so I could finish As The World Dies! Haven’t done that in a long time)

Related posts:

1. Zombies, Apocalypses and Plagues, oh my! round-up
2. Enchanted, Inc series by Shanna Swendson
3. Only in a woman’s world

Coraline

This combination is pretty rare. There are a number of good girl characters in literature, but the ones who get to go on adventures tend to be either very very perfect (Nancy Drew, the original Mary Sue) and/or accompanied by boys (Meg, in the A Wrinkle In Time series). I’m not going to spoil Coraline for those who haven’t read the book and/or are waiting for the movie. The story follows the classic pattern of a quest story, with plenty of interesting and imaginative twists on the genre. But it’s the character of Coraline I want to talk about, and to do that I don’t need to reveal what happens.

Coraline is not special. She’s an ordinary kid with ordinary parents living in an ordinary home. She’s not gifted at solving mysteries or riding horses or playing with dolphins. She doesn’t have any outstanding personality traits, like shyness, insecurity or extraordinary kindness. She’s just a kid who happens to be female, whose curiosity leads her to an adventure, the consequences of which demand heroics from her. She makes mistakes, and she also has flashes of brilliance, as people generally do.

The hero’s journey – or any sort of heroic quest containing any of its elements – was developed for men. Its whole purpose was to show cultures how great men distinguish themselves from ordinary men.Those cultures didn’t want to believe women could find greatness through the same journey, and neither did Joseph Campbell, who taught lots of female students at Sarah Lawrence how going on the hero’s journey would make them “pseudo-male.” We could debate for days where this fear of women doing “men’s work” comes from, but my guess would be it’s rooted in the belief that the way men get sex from women is to beat off male competitors (at which point the woman automatically grants sex as a reward), so if women become competitors with men, how on earth does the social order work then? It sounds silly now – tons of individuals now realize that women who don’t need male partners frequently still want them. And yet echoes of the old way of thinking, of the negation of female drives to achieve and desires for sex, show up every time a TV show or book reminds us that Career Woman still isn’t complete without a man. We’re a long way from being truly past all that crap.

A book like Coraline, aimed at children, can actually have significant impact on the culture (who doesn’t remember a book from childhood that shaped our world view?). It normalizes the idea of a girl on a quest by simply showing one without making an issue of her gender, without making her an exception to the rule that girls can’t quest. This girl does.

1. Review– Coraline (the movie)
2. Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere: writing The Other
3. Sookie Stackhouse series–Charlaine Harris

Gail Carson Levine’s Fairest is unacceptably awesome. It’s a retelling of Snow White so creative that at times I found myself genuinely surprised at the plot twists. Levine uses the story of Maid Aza and Ivi to tell a tale of TWO Snow Whites — both whom are placed in danger because of beauty, its lack, and the fear of its loss. Plus, the beauty that panicks people isn’t just of the face and the body — it’s also of the voice, which I know will devote some of the more musically inclined readers out there. It’s a young adult novel, BUT ISN’T FLUFFY. Levine’s prose is so elegant (and fun!) that I’ve been keeping my copy by my computer to flip through when I need a break from critical theory. <3

Chanukah Guilt was another a surprisingly good, fast read. I was a bit concerned at points, since it takes a good minute for the action to really get going, but the characters are enjoyable enough that this wasn’t a huge concern. Rabbi Aviva Cohen is a twice-divorced rabbi living in southern Jersey. She’s also an older foodie (in her 50s), and relishing her delightfully single life. Her family is quite kooky, and one of the B-plots features her lesbian neice’s changing relationship with her autistic son. This kooky family is, I think, key to one of the underlying missions of the book, since a lot of it has to do with what it means to be a Jewish American in the 21st century. The answers Schneider offers are quite varied, ranging from Aviva’s goofy joy in life to Trudy’s modern family to the more secular Jewish-ness of the murder victim’s family. These dynamics are honestly more fun to explore than the murder mystery itself. Good times!

1. reviews in brief
2. reviews in brief
3. Reviews in Brief

POC are handled fairly well in the context of the world Murphy’s constructing; Nadya, unlike many of the white people in the book, knows that there are “different kinds” of Indians, just as there are different kinds of whites, and it’s this knowledge that ends up really alienating her from the world of the majority. Not only is she a woman who SECRETLY TURNS INTO A WEREWOLF, but she’s a WHITE woman willing to befriend/ fall in love with brown peoples. I was a bit concerned this would turn into one of those romances where the white woman is able to heal all the red man’s flaws through the magic of her cooter. Thankfully, Murphy avoided that pitfall, and instead created a heroine able to recognize that solidarity across types of marginality is one of the first steps in creating a homespace.

*For the record — that’s much, much better than a Secret Agent Lover Man.

*Elizabeth was supposed to be travelling with this wagon train, but was delayed.

1. Falling Woman
2. Feminist Author Pat Cadigan offers an astute commentary on the publishing industry
3. 20 on the 20th — Pat Cadigan

Arriving on the scene is Diane, Elizabeth’s estranged daughter. She’s trying to come of age, recovering from the death of her father and a really crudtastic break-up. Do not, however, get it twisted. She’s not a nubile virgin sacrifice; she’s a twenty-something career woman in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, trying to regain the mother she never had. Her arrival fits into Zuhuy-kak’s plans quite nicely, tho; you don’t need to be a virgin to be sacrificial.

Diane’s arrival on the dig spurs into motion a series of events dedicating to reviving a dead faith. On the line are the wrath of a goddess, the sanity of her mother, and Diane’s own life. In the end, this surprisingly sensuous take on the academy leaves no one innocent and no one uninjured.

1. Nadya by Pat Murphy
2. Reviews in Brief
3. reviews in brief