Cygnet by Patricia McKillip

Cygnet is actually a reprint of two McKillip books, The Sorceress and the Cygnet and The Cygnet and the Firebird. The duology focuses on Nyx Ro, an eccentric sorceress who lives in the bog instead of her mother's vast holding by choice, and her relative, Meguet Vervaine, a swordswoman who serves Holder Ro.  

In the first book, a Wayfarer (gypsy equivalent) named Corleu, who has distinctive white hair and a love for stories, is separated from his people, and then his True Love.  His quest to find her leads him to the bog where Nyx lives, and she decides to aid him, despite Meguet's entreaties that she return to Ro Holding.  In the second, the kinswomen get caught up in the affairs of a mage from another world, a search for dragons, and a young prince who is trpped in the form of a firebird.

My McKillip experiences seem to range from "very enjoyable, but I didn't retain much" (The Book of Atrix Wolfe, Harrowing the Dragon)  to near mad love for (Ombria in Shadow, In the Forests of Serre, Od Magic) with the few others Ive read ranging in between, with Cygnet falling somewhere in the middle.  I really liked Meguet and Nyx, and meguet's relationship with the Gatekeeper, and I liked how the enigmatic, charismatic rule was a woman who indulged her oddball, sorceress daughter, and how the pensive, committed, stoic warrior was a woman.  It was also  interesting to see elements that show up in other McKillip books all combined into one place:  the bog witch, the important animals, the vengeful mother seeking a lost child, the prince trapped in another form, the other worlds, the time travel, etc.  Despite the fairy tale set-up of most (all?) of her worlds, a lot of these elements seem to usually be kept distinct.

FREE BOOK!

Through mysterious means(buying it new a few weeks ago and then winning the Dalemark Quartet on ebay last week and it including the book as one of two extras), I have ended up with Diana Wynne Jones's Castle in the Air(sequel to Howl's Moving Castle.)  One is new and in the larger YA PB size with people riding a flying carpet on the cover.  The other is used (in good condition) in MMPB format with a flying gargoyle or demon on the cover.  It's also fulfills my shallow aesthetic needs by being the same edition as my copy of Howl's Moving Castle.  Believe it or not, this actually makes them almost equal in my eyes in terms of desirability.

Anyway, first person in the continental US to ask  can have one of their choice for free.  ETA: CLAIMED!

manga: Kaze Hikaru Vol 1

When 15-year-old Sei’s father and brother are killed by Imperialists, she shaves the top of her head (I forget the official term, sorry) and disguises herself as a boy and joins the Mibu-Roshi, Shogunate loyalists who will later be known as the Shinsengumi, for two reasons. The first is that her murdered brother had been meeting with them, and planned to join them. The second is that, when her father’s clinic was attacked, Okita Soji, a member of the Mibu-Roshi, is the only one who tries to help.

There, she finds herself assigned to Okita himself and has her idealistic views of the Mibu-Roshi dashed. Not only are the Mibu-Roshi poor, but they’re also hated by many of the people of Kyoto. In addition, many of them seem to be far from desirable as heroes to Sei. Of the leaders, Serizawa seems to be a slobbish, drunken lech, Hijikata an ill-tempered brute, and Okita, while serious and admirable in private, often imitates and plays along with Serizawa in public, seeming to be little better. In addition, many of the other men seem to be little better. As the volumes proceeds, however, she comes to realize they’re deeper than they initially appear, though still not the ideals in her head.

I like Sei. She appeals to me in a similar way that Rin in Blade of the Immortal, Sarasa in Basara and, to a lesser degree(in terms of character similarity, not appeal), Yuya in Samurai Deeper Kyo do. I’m not so big on the Mibu-Roshi members yet. I like Hijikata and Saito (who resembles Sei’s brother and was his friend) but I’m not sure how much of that is them, and how much of it is the fact that I tend to like them in most Shinsengumi stories. I suspect I’ll like Okita a good bit, but I have an instinctive “oh, not again…” to his character type. (I’m all for his normal personality, but the “tee hee” flippancy at times grates.) I do, however, like the (so far) fairly realistic portrayal of the times, including the treatment of Sei as a “pretty boy” in this environment, and that the mangaka isn’t writing the Shinsengumi as perfect or supercool.

A few comments regarding the gender bending aspect that I particularly like, in terms of using it as a narrative device. The handling of the it actually reminds me somewhat of Basara aka “the best shoujo ever”*:

( cut to save a bit of length )

*I should mention that the handling if the gender bending/crossdressing aspect is the only obvious similarity to Basara that jumps out at me. Well, that and the fact that both are gender bending in the vein of “teenaged girl pretends to be a boy to get revenge for the death of her family.” Which, in both the individual series and the grand scheme of historical and genre fiction, really isn’t that much.