2008 in review: anime

I’m not counting Rose of Versailles because I haven’t finished it. I think I blogged everything fairly extensively, so just a few brief comments each.

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Extraordinary Engines: The Definitive Steampunk Anthology, edited by Nick Gevers

Sadly, my initial impressions (please go back and read the post of you haven’t yet) were pretty representative of the book as a whole. Individually, I think each story actually holds up well on its own, but combined, they become problematic to me. Also, this may just be me, but several stories didn’t seem to be steampunk so much as Victorian SciFi. Unless cloning and drugs that manipulate genetics and alter behavior are considered steampunk.

There were several stories I really wanted to like. But then, out of twelve stories, the women were represented by a psychic (in the one story I really liked) a girlfriend with no lines, a cold wife who reprograms a sexbot to kill her husband the next time he uses it (I actually really wanted to like this one, but the wife-and narrator-was portrayed extremely negatively until the last couple of pages) an arrogantly stupid girl, a woman ho castrates evil men and dumps them on a deserted island (again, really wanted to like this one, but I thought the character was portrayed as fairly evil by the end, as were her friends) and a Pygmalion type of waif who takes over her benefactor’s life…well, of the above, we have 1 positive portrayal, 2 neutral, and the rest of the women were evil or stupid. My joy, can you feel it?

On an individual basis, the story that I really liked was Marly Youmans’s Static, with the steampunk psychic murder mystery. Ian R. MacLeod’s Elementals (the Pygmalion one…except it isn’t really Pygmalion-like…) is interesting it that it combines the ideas of steampunk with the era’s interest in fairies, shown from an outsider’s point of view. Adam Roberts’s Petrolpunk played around with parallel dimensions and Robert Reed’s American Cheetah moved the setting to the Old West and featured robotic recreations of Abe Lincoln and famous outlaws. Jeff VanderMeer’s Fixing Hanover was interesting, though I admit I was mostly interested in it to see if it sparked my interest in his steampunk anthology. I really wanted to like Kage Baker’s Speed, Speed the Cable as I’ve heard good things about him, but it left me cold. I am open to recs, though.

And now I think I’ll read a Victorian fantasy set in Egypt with a woman as a main character. Or so the back cover reassures me.

Bleach question

After lunch with Mom today, I stopped by Waldenbooks  (Which is closing!  Leaving me only with Hastings for local books!  They have horrible customer service!  They act annoyed and bitter if you ask a question and are put out if you order a book!  Woes!) and ended up talking to a couple people in the manga section.  As one does.  (Technically, I was beside the manga section looking at SFF, having already checked for the few manga I was looking for.)

Anyway, I'm a couple months behind on Bleach scans (I'll catch up when it sounds like the current arc ends or comes to a new stage) but they started either spewing out spoilers or seeing what I'd buy in to.  Either way, I'm vaguely irritated-though much less worried about Bleach spoilers than other series-but curious as to whether or not it's true.

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Skip-Beat Vol 16

Oh, so this is where the “totally in bed with flowers” picture I’ve seen circulated a lot is from. Apparently it was the request of a fan who won some sort of contest. I both approve and disapprove. There is to be none of that in the actual manga until people are of age. Assuming people ever start communicating in the same language. The mini-manga surrounding the picture may actually be my favorite part of this volume.

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