Of Swords and Parasols

What are you currently reading
Legend of the White-Haired Demoness by Liang Yusheng, ch 14. I think it's been about a month since 7 Seeds completely took over my kindle time, so I'm still playing catch up and trying to remember who all these secondary characters running around are.

What did you recently finish reading?

Finished Georgette Heyer's The Black Moth. Slow start but entertaining overall, though it's more a case of you can see the elements that eventually became Heyer's strengths than that it's really good on its own. I doubt I'll be reading These Old Shades, as "redeem the rapist" plots don't appeal to me. (And while it may have been a failed rape attempt in this book, not only was the intent still there, but he was obviously successful more than once in the past.) I'm curious, though, to see if we start getting some adaptations of Heyers books over the next few years, as they start entering the public domain.

Caught up with 7 Seeds, which I posted on separately.

The Last Dragon by Jane Yolen and Rebecca Guay. Graphic novel set in a medieval-lite world in which a dragon is born 200 years after the last of the dragons were supposedly chased away. When a dragon begins attacking a town, several young men are sent out to find a "hero" to fight the dragon, and instead return with a braggart more familar with spinning stories than fighting. Meanwhile, the local healer's youngest daughter comes up with plans of her own to beat the dragon. It's simple and straightforward and relies more on wit and creative thinking than flashy heroics, and is more concerned with how the dragon affects people's daily lives than with the dragon itself. Very nice little book.

Steel's Edge by Ilona Andrews. Fourth book in Andrews's "The Edge" series. I liked it more than the last 2 books in the series, but less than I do most of the Kate Daniels books. The first half is pretty much the protagonists setting out to destroy every human trafficker they can find, and it later branches out to wrap up most of the threads from previous books. I think it's supposed to be the last book in the series, but if so, I suspect it'll get revisited once or twice later down the road to focus on the teen characters as adults. My favorite part was when the heroine would invert healing magic to make her enemies sick, as I've always wondered why people with healing magic in fantasy worlds aren't able to do that more. (Sadly, the book didn't go where I wanted with that. Oh well.)

Black Bird Vol 1-3 by Sakurakoji Kanako. I read a little bit of this when it first came out, and couldn't quite remember if I disliked it or wasn't quite grabbed by it when I saw that the library had the first 10 copies, so I checked out the first 3. I feel like i need to read about 30 columes of good manga to make up for this.

The heroine, Misao, has blood that is superduper extra yummy blood that makes demons stronger. Her One True Love is a tengu named Kyo who was her childhood friend, and is now a teacher at her school. His saliva can cure wounds. Naturally, Misao is constantly bleeding. (I will pause a moment to ponder what Clamp and/or Kaori Yuki would do with this idea. Whatever it was, it'd be better than this.) The healing is frequently over Misao's protests, and often staged to look like sexual assault. This is aside from Kyo's regular sexual assaults (often at school) that are ok because they're in love and she's his destined bride. Kyo is also fond of deliberately terrifying Misao to teach her that she has to rely on his body for protection, and Misao thinking that there's no reason to refuse Kyo's sexual advances if he loves her, and that it's touching when he's cruel to her because he's trying to teach her to rely on him out of lurve. There is, I think, an average of about 1.3 rape attempts (not including anything from Kyo) per volume. All by people Kyo has warned Misao to avoid. In fact, I think every person Kyo has told Misao not to talk to (which is everyone but his servants) has tried to rape and/or murder Misao. She has to learn her lesson about never having an independent thought or decision of her own somehow, amirite?

Brain bleach required. Very glad I only grabbed a few volumes, because I probably would have felt to read the rest if I'd grabbed them.

After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn. This is kind of like reading Astro City in prose form. That's not a criticism. Celia West is the non-superpowered daughter of her city's (the world's?) superheroes. At 17 she became emancipated and ran away to college, and is now a forensic accountant who does her very best to avoid her parents' superhero lifestyle. Unfortunately, her parents' secret identities were exposed when she was a teenager, and she's been kidnapped so many times that it's become boring, and the prosecutor trying her father's archnemesis for tax fraud has decided that it'd be good publicity to have her hepling on the case. There are elements of a parody in there and a pretty strong critique of superhero/vigilante culture and romanticism (one that appears to have made some Amazon and Goodreads reviewers cry in agony at the book daring to resist), and the general feel is of Silver Age surperheroes giving way to more modern superhero through the eyes of someone on the outskirts. While I haven't read superhero comics in probably 5-6 years, I read enough in the 15 years before that to see a lot of the twists coming, but that didn't affect my enjoyment.

The Adventures of Sir Balin the Ill-Fated by Gerald Morris. Part of Morris's irreverent "The Knights' Tales" series of children's books (not to be confused with his YA series, "The Squire's Tales," which can also be irreverent depending on Morris's opinion of whatever tale he's adapting at the time, but is another beast entirely). If you're familiar with the tale of Balin and Balan, you're probably going "but how do you make that a children's book?" The answer is "by relentlessly mocking obsession with fate and destiny." Light fluff, but entertaining and funny, and a quick read.

Rasetsu Vol 1-9 (complete) by Shiomi Chika. I read and enjoyed the first couple volumes of this when Viz first started publishing it a few years ago, then wasn't able to continue buying it because of finances, but the library now has the volumes I didn't, so I finally read all of it. Rasetsu is about a 18-year-old psychic named Rasetsu who was cursed by a demon when she was 15, with the demon claiming that he'd claim her for his own if she didn't find her "true love" by her 20th birthday. Thankfully, while the "find your true love" element isn't completely shelved, there isn't much of a focus on it more often than not (it's there and not something she can exactly forget, but there are other things going on) and most of the focus is on Rasetsu and her coworkers fighting malevolent ghosts and demons. There's a romantic plotline and something of a triangle, but it's generally well done (I say "generally" because I wasn't fond of the third party or his behavior, but it fits the overall plotline) and I liked the actual romance more than expected. My only real beef with it is that, as usual, Shiomi tends to surround her heroine with several men, and no other major female characters. It's connected to Shiomi's other series that was released by Viz, Yurara, in that Rasetsu's love interest, Yako, was in Yurara, and both heroines are psychics, but you don't need to read Yurara to read this.

What do you think you'll read next?

I have Natsuo Kirino's The Goddess Chronicle and the latest Kate Daniels book, and since I've read a bunch of Carrie Vaughn's standalone books, I went ahead and checked out the first couple books in her urban fantasy series. I also have the ATLA tie-in books that my library has, as I recall some listies liking them. I was going to say "I should back off a bit from manga for a while before I OD," but then I was at the Library's main branch this morning after a doctor's appointment and they had just acquired a lot of manga i haven't read yet, so that might not be happening. I also still have Kelley Armstrong's Omens to read.

What are you currently reading

Volume 4 of 7 Seeds by Yumi Tamura.  I keep thinking "I'll reach a good stopping point then post on it."  Which I shall.  Tis grand, though.


What did you recently finish reading?

Autobiography of a Geisha by Masuda Sayo, which I posted on separately.

Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time by Hope Larson. Adaptation of L'Engle's book. I'm not sure how long it's been since I read a Wrinkle in Time (not since some point in my teens, I believe, though I did read it a number of times growing up) but based on my memories, it's pretty faithful, even when we might wish it wasn't (such as the use of "moron,") and it made me remember being a kid and trying to figure out how "tesseract" is supposed to be pronounced. It left me curious about Larson's other work.

The Presence: A Ghost Story by Eve Bunting. Short YA novel about a depressed teenager, Catherine, who blames herself for her friends death in a car accident and is sent to her grandmothers for the holidays, only to find herself on the receiving end of a serial-killer ghost's attentions. (I'm not entirely certain how to phrase that, as, while he might have been a stalker pre-death, the serial-killer aspect is only as ghost.) Being familiar with fandom and how many readers react to fiction, it was a bit disturbing to read it and realize a lot of people would be rooting for Catherine to fall for and redeem the ghost, though this is thankfully not something the writer supports at all. I thought it could have been stronger and more original than it was, but it was pretty enjoyable and solid overall.

Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt. (I seem to remember several people posting on this a few years ago, but couldn't find it in the tags of the usual suspects.) A fairy tale-like novel in which the village storyteller, Keturah, who is also the granddaughter of the village midwife, follows a hart into the forest and meets Death, with whom she she makes a wager for her life. The prose is somewhat lyrical and it and much of the dialogue is more akin to what you'd expect to find in Grimm or Andersen than a modern novel, but it captures the mood and spirit of the novel perfectly. Though not perfect, I liked it a lot.

Courtship and Curses by Marissa Doyle. Regency-set YA fantasy. it starts like 80% of the Regency romances out there with Our Heroine (a witch who is lame due to polio) going to London with her two aunt's and a family friend and falling for a gentleman Who Would Totally Never Like Her Back. Then it dives off into conspiracies and assassination attempts and spyjinks and Our Hero is often forgotten in favor of Our Heroine hanging out with his female cousin and her guardians. IIRC, I enjoyed Doyle's first book a lot, despite its flaws, and the second considerably less so, though I did still enjoy it. This one, while very enjoyable, never quite felt like it lived up to it's full potential, but I'm glad I read it.

What do you think you'll read next?

I have volume 4 of A Bride's Story from the library. Beyond that, the library informs me that I have some ILLs in, but didn't tell me which, so I need to see what they are, and when they're due back.

What are you currently reading
The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan. A fictional memoir of a schizophrenic queer woman named Imp. Not really my usual cup of tea, but I'm enjoying it, especially the unreliable narrator aspect, and how she uses allusions to fairy tales to express herself. It's the kind of book where, once I finish it, I imagine I'll sit down intending to say a lot and then not come up with anything more than "it was good."

What did you recently finish reading?

Didn't finish:

I read about 1/4 of the first volume of The Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, the graphic novel series that the movie Les Aventures d'Adele Blanc-Sec is based on. It was ok, I suppose, but I didn't care for the art, and Adele herself was in about 3 pages of what I read. I may have liked it more if I'd stuck with it throughout, but I couldn't work up the interest. Pity, because I really liked the movie.

I also bounced off of the anthology Queen Victoria's Book of Spells. I'll likely revisit it, but it very much started off on the wrong foot for me.

( spoiler for the first story and brief rant about the introduction )

Finished:

Peony Pavilion by Xia Da, a single-volume, full color manhua adapting various mythological Chinese poems and short stories. Some are illustrated prose and some are full adaptations. The artwork is stunning and I enjoyed reading it a lot, but i have to admit that the individual stories themselves didn't necessarily stick with me.

Melody Drifting in the Rain by Cang Yue and Lu Jing, another single volume manhua, this time about a prince who enters into a political marriage to gain her familiy's support for his brother during a civil war. Surprisingly enough, this isn't about a romance between the two, but instead focuses on the war and the machinations of their families. Entertaining, but it felt like it should have been longer. Though, like with Fantastic Tales, I suspect a lot of that feeling comes from the fact that I'm used to seeing the stories spread out over 30-40 42 minute TV episodes. (Though I don't get that same feeling from movies as often. Ah well.)

Last in the graphic novels is volumes 13-16 of Karuho Shiina's Kimi ni Todoke, a series that I've been enjoying a lot the last few months, despite having little to say about it. I'm glad that the conflict isn't relying as heavily on misunderstandings that are fairly easy to clear up, though I still sometimes want to reach in and shake people and tell them to just sit down at talk already. I'm also rather frustrated that that my favorite character is apparently being paired off with the only character in the series who I actually dislike.

( brief spoilers )



Wide Open by Deborah Crombie, a gothic novel about Hallie, a soldier serving in Afhanistan who is on a 10 day compassionate leave after her sister's (Dell) death. Arriving home in South Dakota, she learns that while her sister's death was officially ruled an accident, most people in town believe it was a suicide. Hallie, however, believes that her sister was murdered, and is resolved to find the truth in the limited time she has. Thanks to being technically dead at one point in Afghanistan, Hallie also sees ghosts, and her ghosts lead her to believe that Dell's death is connected to the disappearances of several other women over the last few years, and that the disappearances are supernatural in origin. Hallie appears to have PTSD, but it isn't directly dealt with within the narrative. With the exception of one scene, I enjoyed the book a lot.

( potentially triggering spoiler )

There's a sequel, apparently, though my library doesn't seem to have it yet, sadly.


What do you think you'll read next?

I have no idea. Really, I consider this question to be very cruel. HOW CAN I KNOW WHAT READING MOOD I'LL BE IN IN FIVE DAYS IF I'M NOT JUST CONTINUING WITH WHAT I WAS READING?

Uhm...I don't feel up to anything heavy or that might spring things on me, so probably a romance novel or two, and maybe one of the Kelley Armstrong books I still have from the library.

Like Mitchell’s Shadowed Summer, The Vespertine is about two girls with a close friendship who get caught up in spooky-mysterious going ons and there are, like, boys wandering around in the background or something. But that’s about all they have in common.

Set in 1889 Baltimore, Amelia is sent to the big city to get some polish and find a husband. There, she quickly bonds with her cousin, Zora, and finds her popularity increased when she starts having premonitions that come true. Except that when she starts predicting bad things that come true, she gets blamed for them.

Mitchell tries to emulate the prose and feel of Victorian Gothics, with mixed success. The prose is actually awkward and offputting at first, IMO, but soon improves greatly. But while I liked it, I couldn’t quite help feeling that Mitchell was trying to hard a at times. That said, I’d very much like to see what a second historical gothic of hers would be like

I only read the first four books (originally a trilogy, but the fourth was, I understand, written after the fans cried too much about the ending), not the new books that I understand may be someone else using the pen name, which is owned by the publisher.

These aren’t as good as the other L.J. Smith books I’ve read, but not, IMO, anywhere near as bad as people say they are. If nothing else, I’ve certainly encountered far worse that’s been called better.

I prefer the plot of the TV series, but wish it’s sensibilities were closer to those of the books. The books are a pretty straightforward vampire/human teen romance series, whereas the show moves past that as a focus fairly quickly, and moves on to smalltown mythology and magically almost-racially equal history where the supernatural is real. But in the books, there’s a plotarc early on where Stefan, the vampire boyfriend, is kidnapped. Elena marches up to the person she believes is responsible, tells him she will figuratively rip out his spine and beat him up with it if he’s hurt her boyfriend, then gathers up her sidekicks and rescues the damsel. In the series, Elena is told that she’s a delicate flower whose safety must not be risked, and ordered to wait in the car. I am so impressed with this updating, even with the increased threat level, let me tell you.

The books have far, far fewer dead women, no rapes (and the one rape attempt results in the attempted rapist being beaten to a pulp, and every single character hates his guts for the rest of the series) and takes people’s attitudes and actions far more seriously, and never expects us to start sympathizing with abusers and rapists because they have angst. For that matter, though still not my type, I have pretty much no problems with Damon, and would have far fewer problems with the series if they’d left him the way he was. I mean, my book/tv character preference varies on an individual basis, but that’s the only one that I feel strongly about.

I do agree with some dislikers of the books that the last book is the only one that’s really good, and it’s notably the only one that’s really like the other LJS books I’ve been reading, but I also really liked how Elena’s pursuit of Stefan in the first book reminded me of Cordelia’s interest in Angel in the first season of Buffy, and, well, almost nothing that reminds me of pre-Angel mid-season 3 Cordy is bad in my book. I’m extremely disappointed that the TV series cut Meredith out, but they also transferred a lot of her personality traits to Bonnie (and a lot of book!Bonnie’s traits to tv!Caroline) resulting in Meredith being my favorite in the books, and Bonnie my favorite in the show.

I should explain that L. J. Smith is not an incredibly good writer. She is not a bad writer (I‘ve read far worse. Some were much more popular.), but, while competent, the first few chapters of each of her three series that I’ve read recently (actually, I've started Dark Visions and it's true there too, though i'm not too far into it) have been rather, uhm, bad. But then the stories kick into gear and the books, though tropey as all get out, become incredibly fun.
Jenny Thornton is shopping for a birthday gift for her boyfriend, Tom, when she notices a strange game store in a bad neighborhood. As she’s being followed by two strange boys, she decides to be a proper gothic heroine and go into the strange store in the strange neighborhood, and buy an unknown game in an unmarked white box from the strange boy who works in the store. Fear not, she does have a brain that functions just fine. I did warn about the first few chapters.

The game turns out to be enchanted, and sucks Jenny, Tom, and five of their friends into the world of the game, where she learns that the boy at the store, Julian, is actually an otherworldly Shadow Man, who wants her to be his bride. But he’s generous, so Jenny and her friends can go if they can escape the house by morning. Otherwise, she’s his and the rest are screwed.

There are two main kinds of Abducted Bride plots. The more common and recognized plot involves a young woman being forced to marry a stranger-often an Other- usually pay repay a debt, fulfill an obligation, follow tradition, or to save a (typically male) family member from wrath. Example: Her father didn’t ay attention to whose garden he stole a rose from. In this type, you usually have a woman in an impossible situation making it work for her. I have a lot of respect for it, though it sadly often ends up represented as a Stockholm Syndrome plot. In my preferred type, the Other is in love with the young woman from afar (possibly for years) and instead of showing up with flowers and going “Hey, how ya doin’? I‘m Joe and we had History together last year.” he expresses his affection by abducting her or a loved one and giving her an impossible task to fulfill or she/they are his forever/doomed. Example: He kidnaps her baby brother and tells her she has 12 hours to get through The Maze of Doom and storm his castle. And then he cheats.

I prefer the latter because it usually results in the heroine thoroughly trouncing the Sexy Other on multiple counts, soundly rejecting him, and going on to be awesome and autonomous. The Forbidden Game is this type of Abducted Bride tale, and Julian apparently likes rejection, because he keeps coming back for more.

The bulk of the character development and creepiness both are in the last volume of the trilogy, which accounts for why I like it best, though once it gets going, I liked all three.

The only real problem that I had with the series was Tom, Jenny’s boyfriend. I liked Jenny and the rest of her friends (especially Dee, who was my favorite) but I disliked Tom even before we met him, because of how Jenny talked about him as if everyone had assigned her identity as being an extension of his, and how she didn’t seem to view herself as a separate being from him.  And then he actually showed up and not only do we learn that he really does take her for granted as much as it seemed, but when she asks to talk to him about something important in his first scene, he publicly embarrasses her. LJS is definitely aware of the problems in the relationship and addresses them throughout the series, but sees it as more fixable than I do. I was hoping the series would end with Jenny rejecting both suitors and seeking a future free of the influence of Tom-and-Jenny, but it wasn’t to be, though at least Jenny at the end is determined to no longer be ruled by the assumption of Tom-and-Jenny. I never got over being annoyed at his even being there, though. Like, I don’t like Julian, either, but his character is an essential archetype in a mythic narrative I like, so I’m totally fine with him being there? Put I felt rather put-upon that Tom was there.

That said, it’s actually pretty easy to ignore Tom, especially in the last book, and he and Tom-and-Jenny don’t interfere with the overall enjoyment.

Anyone want to rec me some gothics?  Books, movies, TV, etc., as long as I can actually, you know, get ahold of them.  Preferably legally.  Foreign language TV and movies are fine, too.

Vampires are out unless you have amazingly compelling arguments.  Girls boarding schools, spooky mansions, creepy woods,  secret passages witches, ghosts, Servants Who Know Things,  sisters and long-lost women are in.  Romance is optional as long as there are no wives locked in the attic or dudes who killed their last girlfriend.  Those types are out.  (Bonus points for things where the heroine falls for the scary dude but takes  him down for being an evil creepster instead of True Love Conquers All.  I feel the world needs more stories like that.)

The Backlog has been updated, if you want to browse books I already have for recs.

Faced with the threat of Noes! Marriage! Theodora Lestrange flees Edinburgh to visit her friend Cosmina in Rumania, and get inspiration for the gothic novel she hopes to write. Cosmina expects to marry her cousin, Andrei Dragulescu, who has recently returned home after slutting his way through Europe. The locals, unsurprisingly, think the Dragulescu men are vampires. There’s also a character named Frankopan, if you were curious.

It plays out like a straight gothic, but self-aware, maybe a bit too much so. The prose is also torrid but stops just short of inducing genuine eyerolling, and a lot of the book plays out like this:

COSMINA: I am beautiful and fragile and hint of mystery!
ANDREI’S MOTHER: I am of ancient nobility and deeply concerned about these modern ways that say silly things like “vampires aren’t real, so you shouldn’t stake your dead husband.”
LOCALS: The nobles are crazy vampires!
THEODORA: OMG my gothic novel will be awesome!
LOCALS: Noes! Another one!
ANDREI: DAMMIT I HATE THIS! I don’t wanna be stuck in a gothic novel! Vampires aren’t real! I wanna go see if there’s a part of Europe I haven’t slutted my way through yet!
LOCALS: He will kill us in our sleep!
THEODORA: Best! Gothic! Novel! Ever! Also, you are hot, but possibly a killer, so I’m gonna try resisting that for a bit.
LOCALS: How dare you reject our beloved master!
PEOPLE: *die*
VILLAINS: *cackle*
ANDREI: I pine! I throb! I long! I angst!
THEODORA: Oh, who cares if you’re a vampire or not!
LOCALS: Isn’t it great?

Sadly, it never completely takes off. I think because none of the characters really manage to go beyond the tropes they’re poking at, and also because Raybourn’s last book was also a take on gothics, and a better one.

Young woman marries mysterious older man to escape life of drudgery, goes to his awesome gothic mansion, and learns that everyone is obsessed with the seemingly perfect first wife. Oh, and the housekeeper is in love with the dead wife. It’s ok. I’m pretty sure the second wife almost is eventually, too.

Despite the rather meandering beginning, this is a ridiculously engrossing gothic novel. I like the idea of narratives centered around solving the mysteries of a woman whose presence is stronger than that of the characters actually on the page, but they rarely ever completely work. Actually, outside of Rebecca, I think only Twin Peaks has managed to make it completely work for me. (And that stopped being good once that element was gone, though that isn’t the only reason.)

The resemblances to Jane Eyre are even more blatant when reading than when hearing about it, and wow, are they similar. Daphne du Maurier was apparently obsessed with the Brontes, which is something I get. Though, the narrator of Rebecca (she never gets a name) doesn’t learn about any of the bad stuff (which is not actually the same bad stuff!) until after she’s married to Mr. Rochester Mr. de Winter and doesn’t have any other options, so I can sympathize with her. Also, she doesn’t reject all other options to marry a man who tried to trick her into being his mistress, tells little girls they’re sluts because they have French mothers, treats every woman he meets horribly, and locks his wife in the attic and tries to pretend she doesn’t exist, all of which makes Jane Eyre one of the very few fictional characters I actually dislike for her romantic choices. (I mean, for her sake, I hope their new house doesn’t have an attic that locks, but…) Also, I sometimes apparently lower my standards, because I realized halfway through that the fact that he didn’t try to pretend his first wife didn’t exist made me consider trying to like de Winter. Though he was still a loser, and so I didn’t.

I feel I am doing a very bad job of explaining this, but it is awesome and you should read! Also, I suspect it’s something that anyone with any opinion of Jane Eyre can appreciate on that level, though it shouldn’t be read just for JE. Also, I may have cackled evilly every time Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, tried to depress the heroine into suicide by talking about how awesome Rebecca was. Let’s not dwell on what that likely says about me.