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lunasarielThis is looking to be a very weird weekend. For the first time in literally the entire semester, I don't have any reading that can't be done on Sunday night (Monday night, even!), I'm feeling fine, it's not raining, and I basically have nothing to do but relax. Of course, I was initially glad of the work-light weekend because it's my brother's 20th birthday on Monday (when the hell did that happen?! Where did that kid who used to eat pillbugs and build catapults and trebuchets in the back yard go, and when did he suddenly become, like, eight feet tall and a clone of our dad and constantly switching back and forth between wanting to be a mechanical and chemical engineer?), and there was an excursion into Berkeley and/or the San Francisco Zoo planned for today or tomorrow, but I just got a text saying that nothing at all is happening, which made me rageface a bit. I'd purposefully kept the entire weekend clear just so that my plans wouldn't conflict with his, because he's very much a "plan everything at the last minute," random type of guy, but now it looks like my weekend is going to consist of Dragaera, Jane Austen, and maybe watching some Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Speaking of Dragaera, I guess I've gotten used to reading 200+ pages in one go, because I just started Phoenix, the 5th book in the Dragaera/Vlad Taltos (I'm still not sure what the official series name is) series on Thursday evening, and I finished it on Saturday afternoon. It's actually kind of odd that I read it in big gulps like this, because I wouldn't describe myself as enthralled. The last time this happened, it was with Temeraire, which has since become one of my main fandoms, which I don't think will be happening with Dragaera. Understand, I don't dislike it, but I remember being sucked in with Temeraire, kicking myself for only ordering one book at a time, to the point where I broke down and bought the entire series just so that I wouldn't have to wait on the library. I guess that Dragaera just doesn't reach out, grab me by the shirt, and refuse to let me go until I've finished the entire series and checked the release date for the next one a couple of times.
That being said, I did rather enjoy Phoenix. The framing device, that of a sort of assassination instruction manual, was one of the more interesting ones so far. In fact, it's probably my favorite framing device behind the laundry list in Teckla. The framing devices are actually becoming one of my favorite parts of the series: it's very neat and inventive, and especially stands out in a genre where true invention is so hard to come by. Some of Brust's stylistic choices annoy me sometimes, but as long as he keeps these awesome framing devices coming, I'll be at least moderately happy.
Phoenix seems to be the reversal of the previous book, Taltos, in a lot of ways. Taltos was fun, swashbuckling, and action-oriented, while Phoenix was grimmer, more sociopolitics-oriented, and rather heavy on the navel-gazing for my tastes. I enjoyed Taltos' story but not the framing device, while I'm kind of "meh" about the story but loved the framing device. That's not to say there were no similarities, though: as always, I immensely enjoyed the team-building/bonding moments, especially Vlad's line about "hating [Dragaerans] in general and loving them in particular." Similarly, there were more than enough CMoAs to keep this fangirl happy in both books, and the talk about the workings of magic was interesting as always.
Speaking of magic, the eventual revelation that Aibynn was exactly what he appeared to be was a bit of a letdown. In a series where everyone is, like, a groundbreaking wizard/witch hybrid, or the reincarnation of a famous warlord, or some legendary figure in disguise, or even all three at once, it's not at all unreasonable to expect a preternaturally laid-back, mysterious musician with uncanny, inexplicable powers and uncertain motivations to be more that he seems, but him actually being just this guy who got caught up in a bunch of events totally unrelated to him annoyed me a bit. TBH, I expected him to be a god in disguise, given how heavily deities and metaphysics featured in Phoenix, but I guess it wasn't to be, so :\
Wile I'm on the topic of revelations, George R.R. Martin himself would be proud of the chronological/metaphysical/magical/logical snarl that is Aliera. So she's the daughter of a famous wizard? Okay. Her body was destroyed and her soul imprisoned in a staff for centuries before it could be recovered from the Halls of Judgment? Sure, why not. She's the reincarnation of an extremely important Dragaeran historical figure (who, incidentally, was related to the people that Morrolan and Vlad, her cousin and frenemy respectively, are apparently the reincarnations of)? Um, if you say so... She's the daughter of the Demon Goddess? What? She's the mother of the apparently time-travelling enigmatic little girl who's always popping up everywhere? WHAT? Oh, and don't forget her sentient magic sword that she won off of a dead man and fascination with chaos magic and magical genetics! She's a perfect example of Crazy Awesome and I adore her, but damn, could her backstory get any more confusing? Wait, don't answer that. XD
The whole rebellion/uprising thing that took up a good 2/3 of the novel was very much in the Teckla vein, where I don't enjoy it per se, but it's something that needs to happen, and Vlad needs to develop in these ways, even if I don't particularly like it. Noish-pa got himself a CMoA, which I have to admit I enjoyed, but I wish we could have learned a little more about what actually happened. The situation at the docks, with the ships flip-flopping in allegiance, and the siege of the Palace in particular are a couple of scenes that I'd rather wanted to see, especially because the palace thing might have given us a chance to see Morrolan in action, and I never get tired of seeing Team Dragon kick ass and take names. (Which, BTW, is a reason why I enjoyed the whole "Vlad goes to negotiate with Greenaere" scene, although I'll talk more about this in a moment.) The Empress is an interesting character, especially with her views on politics and her perception of her place in the chain of command (again, very GRRM-esque), and I wouldn't be totally adverse to seeing some more of her. I'd also like to get a chance to talk to her human lover, if only to see how *that* one came about, but I'm not terribly hopeful on this front.
Vlad and Cawti were definitely the low point of the novel for me. I'm coming to see that one thing that I cannot forgive, fiction-wise, is self-made problems. I know that most fictional problems are self-made to one degree or another, but here, when Cawti made the rather useless and frustrating gesture of refusing to be released from prison until her compatriots could leave, too (TBH, I thought that Kelly apparently having some sort of secret arcane sociopolitical knowledge that no longer applies and could potentially destroy the world would end up being a bigger plot point than it turned out to be), I just headdesked. She's fallen so far from the snarky, capable badass that she used to be (which, granted, isn't entirely her fault), and now seeing her as a proponent of all these misguided ideals was actually kind of painful, similar to the way watching Ned try to arrest Joffrey, or later, renouncing the truth to save Sansa's life, is painful. We know she can be so much more, and with just a little savviness, she could be. Ugh.
Despite all the GRRM/ASOIAF comparisons I've been making, this whole book had a very Changes flavor to me. Vlad started to remind me very strongly of Harry in his decision to die rather than let innocents die for him, as well as the ever-present first-person snark. Aliera, in all her destructive, slightly alien, fiercely loyal glory, felt very Lea, and even Morrolan being so fiercely loyal, not to mention described in terms suspiciously glowing and sexy for a platonic relationship (although I do ship Morrolan/Vlad, but am indifferent to/slightly against Harry/Thomas), was very Thomas. There was, of course, the Doomed Romance between two previously close lovers whose life choices had driven them apart, and eventually brought them both to emotional, if not always physical, ruin. Even the ending, with Vlad's decision to either "die" or actually die as in start his life over to make up for past mistakes, had a certain Dresdenesque feel to me.
Back at the beginning of this post, I mentioned Jane Austen. We've just finished Persuasion in ENGL 45B, and we're going to be starting Northanger Abbey (my favorite Austen!) next week or the week after in ENGL 125A, after reading the book it largely parodies, The Castle of Otranto. Jane Austen is legitimately one of my favorite authors, and certainly my favorite one from this literary era (and even ever-so-slightly edges out Arthur Conan Doyle as my favorite writer of the 19th century), but Persuasion is probably my least favorite of her books. It strikes me very strongly that this isn't the Jane Austen who wrote Pride and Prejudice or Mansfield Park. This is a Jane Austen at the end of her life, who is coming to terms with the fact that "those who make happy endings rarely get them" (thank you, Granny Weatherwax), that she'll never have the perfect romance, happy ending and all, that she always writes about. Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth aren't caught up in the bloom of young love the way, say, Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney were. They're full-fledged adults who are dealing with the repercussions of past errors, and, just as the author is, realizing that sometimes things just don't work out the way you wanted them to. They get their happy ending, of course, but throughout the whole novel, there's this sense of the weight of past mistakes and missed opportunities, the pressing-down of the passage of time, the constant awareness of how things could have been, even should have been.
But before I depress myself too seriously, I've been tossing around the idea of a general Regency 'verse, comprised of Jane Austen, the Aubreyad, Temeraire. Of course, this is funny because Temeraire is the direct literary descendent of the Aubreyad, which is in turn the direct literary descendent of Jane Austen, each author reading the one before and building off their ideas. I know I'm not the only one to imagine Lizzie Bennett as the captain of a Longwing, but any of these characters/verses interacting with any of the others, especially during the Invasion era (going by the Temeraire timeline), would be amazing to see. I've already expounded on why a Temeraire/Aubreyad fusion would be the best thing since sliced bread, but throwing the Austenverse into the mix could only make things better. People like Darcy and Tharkay would get along amazingly well, of course, and it would be kind of hilarious, but also secretly slightly sad, to see the culture clash between the marriage market that so often dominates the Austenverse, and the aviators, for whom marriage is very pointedly Not An Issue. I don't have a specific plotline or anything for this 'verse, just a lot of amusing, and almost always scandalized, scenes of people (of both the human and draconic variety) reacting to each other.
Speaking of a certain Regency AU, I'm a little bit bummed that I missed doing a Temeraire bit under the "headcanon" question in the last meme, because, as it turns out, I have a LOT of headcanon in that 'verse. For example:
- Granby and Little are amicable exes. They had a typically casual thing going on, but Granby knew it was over the instant Little set eyes on Chenery. Granby managed to tell both of them that Laurence knew what was what before they met with Laurence in Brazil, and the three of them had enormous amounts of fun trolling him. Granby also had a thing with Dayes way back in the day (possibly canon, given his initial reaction to Laurence?), but his First True Love was Tom Pullings of the Aubreyad when they were both stupid teenagers. They pledged Everlasting Devotion to one another, as one does, but then demands of the service and all that, and Pullings ended up married to a nice girl. He and Granby ran into each other sometime after Granby got Iskierka, which was slightly awkward, as they'd never officially broken off their understanding. They were both a little sad to realize that they were no longer ZOMG IN LUUUURVE, but both had other people in their lives by that point, and so were relatively okay with one another. Granby still secretly considers the day Pullings' ship sailed away one of the worst of his life, not least because both he and Pullings seriously considered giving up their careers in order to run away together, and, TBH, remembering that feeling scares adult!Granby a bit.
- Lady Allendale was cool as a cucumber during the Invasion. Her husband was ill, possibly dying, her beloved youngest son was missing, possibly dead, and definitely dishonored beyond all imagining, but she still kept a stiff upper lip, especially for the sake of those around her, for whom she became an immense source of strength. She was somewhat disconcerted when her lands were pretty much left alone by the French, but quickly capitalized on it by taking in as many refugees from surrounding, harder-hit estates as possible. She capital-A Approves of Jane when they finally meet after the Invasion, and is slightly disappointed to find out that she's no longer involved with her son. Jane was all set up to dislike the stuffy society matron she expected Lady Allendale to be, but rather surprised herself when the two of them got along great and started making plans for dragons' rights, snarking over how dumb the Admiralty can be, and things like that.
- In a similar vein, Mrs. Granby is kind of terrifyingly competent, and all her children are complete mama's boys and girls. When her husband died, her children ranged in age from seven to negative three months but, with the help of his brother, she kept his coal business going until her oldest son could take over. When she finally meets Laurence, she takes him aside and asks him, quietly and seriously, if John drinks more than he ought, because they've been getting some rather outrageous letters from him, and his father had the trick of writing with a steady hand, however wild his ideas and imaginings were, when he'd had too much. Laurence tactfully bypasses Granby's temporary descent into alcoholism during the Invasion, and assert that, yes, he really did fall off a dragon, yes, he did get kidnapped by his own dragon twice, yes, he really did only avoid marrying the Empress of the Inca because Napoleon flew in on a giant white Chinese dragon to submit his own suit at the very last moment, yes, their ship did explode twice, and yes, their surgeon, who was really only a drunken barber anyway, did get eaten by an alligator in the Amazon. The Granby family is, in general, large and clannish, and proud, albeit a bit wary, of John, who writes to them religiously, but is somewhat personally estranged. They're all also unusually tall, and Laurence is slightly alarmed to find out that Granby's two older brothers are even taller than he is, although none quite so accident-prone.
- Aviators are ridiculously gossipy. Maybe it comes from living in such close, cloistered quarters with one another, but they're constantly all up in one another's business. This is one of the things that Laurence found the hardest to get used to, after the strict formality of the Navy, even though privacy on a ship is a strict matter of courtesy, when everyone can hear everything anyway, but pretends not to. This gets especially bad when he realizes that aviators aren't nearly as straight-laced/discreet/monogamous/marriage-oriented as the "polite society" he's used to, and even now he spends quite a bit of brainpower ignoring all the Goings-On, as well as restraining himself from dishing out well-meaning lectures left, right, and center. The rest of the aviators consider this just another one of Laurence's little quirks, and smile indulgently or tease him mercilessly as their feelings dictate.
Sorry, no meme this time. I'm working on one (when am I ever not?), but I'll save it for tonight or tomorrow, when not having scads of reading will start to seem really weird, and I'll need to do something at least semi-constructive to keep my hands occupied.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 01:55 am (UTC)I took me something like three reads to stop fining Aibynn annoying and to kind of just enjoy his oddness -- in fact, I just looked up my write-up from the last Phoenix reread (that, actually, you might not want to click on just yet, for spoilers for something that's hinted at/foreshadowed but not revealed in Phoenix), and I had said: "I actually found Aibynn amusing rather than annoying this time around, too,because I remembered he wasn't really there *for* anything, and could just enjoy his cloud cuckoolanderness without being irritated by it." (I gather from mailing list discussion that he is based on a drummer friend of Brust's.)
I love Noish-Pa's CMoA, but the thing I love about it best is that he can't bring himself to kill the female guard -- he maybe a badass, but Eastern prejudice, essentially, holds him back where it would not have occurred to a Dragaeran to make a distinction.
She's a perfect example of Crazy Awesome and I adore her, but damn, could her backstory get any more confusing? Wait, don't answer that. XD
It's only gotten one added layer of complexity so far, with the identity of Devera's father that was revealed/confirmed in the last book. But, yeah, Brust was having himself some fund with Aliera.
I wouldn't be totally adverse to seeing some more of her. I'd also like to get a chance to talk to her human lover, if only to see how *that* one came about, but I'm not terribly hopeful on this front
One gets to see more of both Zerika and her human lover in the third part of the prequels, the ones set before and immediately after Adron's Disaster. I never payed much attention to her in the books, but the prequels made me like her quite a bit (
and semi-ship her with Morrolan, in that, if-she(/they?)-weren't-with-someone-else sort of way>.>)I can actually sort of see why Cawti refused to be released from prison, even though that doesn't make it any easier for me to sympathise with the revolutionaries as a whole. She knows the Empire doesn't care about a bunch of uppity Easterners and Teckla, but she also knows that Vlad cares about her and that Vlad has some powerful friends. I'm pretty sure that once the Empress released her, nobody the least important would care about the other prisoners, but while Cawti is with them, there is some chance that Vlad's powerful allies will continue applying pressure. Which, I can't be sure that's what she was thinking, and if it is, it's a pretty callous move to use her relationship with the man she is leaving that way, but at least there's a way in which it could be practical for her to refuse. (More likely, though, in light of some recent canon, it's partly that she doesn't want to be released through Vlad's intercession, in which case I find it ridiculous again.)
(The copy of Das Kapital, or whatever, that Kelly apparentlfy found, continues to be a weird throwaway reference, though the mailing list likes to argue about what it means and where the documents came from.)
part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-08 01:55 am (UTC)this whole book had a very Changes flavor to me
Never thought of it that way, but that's actually spot on. As Phoenix is the house of both decay and rebirth, this book is meant to be that for Vlad's personal arc, so it's thematically the same sort of book, and you are so right about the other parallels, which I wouldn't have thought of.
Morrolan being so fiercely loyal, not to mention described in terms suspiciously glowing and sexy for a platonic relationship
Right? Vlad pays a little too much attention to how dashingly Morrolan's cloak is bilowing and so on.
Dragaera (I refer to the Vlad-centric books as the Vlad Taltos series, but because there are also the prequels, which don't feautre Vlad, and also something that I haven't read that's set in the same world but is basically an Eastern fairy tale, I refer to the whole canon as Dragaera, but I'm not really sure what other people do) -- anyway, Dragaera was a really odd fandom trajectory for me. I started reading these books when I was still in college, I think, or maybe even high school -- years ago! And I enjoyed them just fine, and kept on reading as I found them. Took a long break, came back, read some more, reread a couple. And then, when I got to Iorich, I reached some kind of critical mass, and this long-term simmering blossomed into full-blown obsession (as you can see). It's not even anything about Iorich -- it's not even a favorite of mine. But there's something about this series (for me, anyway) where the books are essentially stand-alone but it builds on itself and (I find) improves on rereads.
I'm curious to see what you'll think of the next one, Athyra. I should warn you that lots of people in the fandom seem to hate, not so much the book itself, as the narrator. It's the first of the books not to be narrated entirely by Vlad, and the only Vlad book not to have any Vlad narration at all. This makes it odd, but I actually liked the outside look at Vlad, even though I missed the Vlad-and-Loiosh banter.
Granby managed to tell both of them that Laurence knew what was what before they met with Laurence in Brazil, and the three of them had enormous amounts of fun trolling him
Hee! It would be like the aviators to do that!
I like your headcanon for Lady Allendale and that she and Jane would like each other, and just all of your Temeraire headcanon in general -- great fun! :D
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-08 03:53 am (UTC)He used to go to Reed, up in Oregon, but now he's going to the junior college I used to go to, but has plans to transfer to Davis next year. I think he's swinging back towards mechanical engineering at this point, but if he does settle with chemical, I'll make sure to send him your way!
I took me something like three reads to stop fining Aibynn annoying and to kind of just enjoy his oddness
I have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason I found him interesting to begin with was that I spend the whole book waiting for him to reveal himself to be a patron god of the island and, like, get into a showdown with Verra or something.
One gets to see more of both Zerika and her human lover in the third part of the prequels, the ones set before and immediately after Adron's Disaster.
So I'm assuming Zerika made him immortal or something? Or is it the guy from the prequels different from the one mentioned in Phoenix?
I'm pretty sure that once the Empress released her, nobody the least important would care about the other prisoners, but while Cawti is with them, there is some chance that Vlad's powerful allies will continue applying pressure.
Interesting! This hadn't occured to me; I pretty much assumed that it was due to an excess of idealism/martyrdom, but if she had an actual, logical reason for it, it makes more sense. I don't know if it makes her any better of a person, but at least this would mean that she wants to actually do something constructive, instead of dying nobly for The Cause.
Vlad pays a little too much attention to how dashingly Morrolan's cloak is bilowing and so on.
Exactly, he even describes him as looking "romantic"! It was pretty much "Morrolan was standing in the prow of the boat, his ebon locks blowing about his austere, angular face, his black cloak streaming out behind him like the wings of a dragon...oh, yeah, and then my wife and some other chick were there, too, I guess." It actually reminded me a bit of Jon Connington soliloquizing about Rhaegar in ADWD, only with much more snark and much less emo.
it builds on itself and (I find) improves on rereads.
Yeah, I'm getting that impression. The thing that really threw me off about Jhereg was that we're just thrown into the narrative, without any time to really adjust or find out about the new society, class/House system, magics, etc. I enjoyed the story/mystery fine, and I have a feeling that, when I re-read these earlier books, I'll like them a lot more for actually knowing who's who and what's what, leaving me free to just enjoy it.
I like your headcanon for Lady Allendale and that she and Jane would like each other
Thanks! I may have actually cheated a bit on this one, because either Jane mentioned something in canon about meetin Lady Allendale, and getting introduced to a lot of society ladies, and maybe starting the women's rights movement early, or this particular bit of headcanon has just REALLY worked itself in deep. XD
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-08 05:53 am (UTC)It's not super-clear how, but it does appear to be the same guy. He is a powerful witch, and people use this as evidence that witches can live a lot longer than the normal Easterner span -- he would be close to 250 right now. (Noish-Pa seems to be pretty spry for his age, too.) The Empress's lover has not yet appeared on-page in the Vlad books, so it's not clear if he is young or old-looking or what.
but at least this would mean that she wants to actually do something constructive, instead of dying nobly for The Cause.
That's actually why it occurred to me, because I don't see Cawti as someone who would die nobly for The Cause, unless she (a) had to, and/or (b) thought it would actually contribute to the cause by dying nobly for it (which, actually, she probably does think is the case).
"Morrolan was standing in the prow of the boat, his ebon locks blowing about his austere, angular face, his black cloak streaming out behind him like the wings of a dragon...oh, yeah, and then my wife and some other chick were there, too, I guess."
*snerk* And laughing at the Jon Connington comparison, too. And, yeah. Like, Taltos is deliciously slashy. But there are a couple of lines in the later Vlad books where I'm just like, "I'm not sure how to read this in the context of a platonic relationship", and this is one of them.
Jane did write about meeting society ladies, but I don't remember Lady Allendale being among them (you read these more recently than I, though, so you might be right). I would not be at all surprised if they did get along really well, and kickstarted the women's right movement (along with Lily and Perscitia, and possibly Iskierka, once she runs out of enemies to fight).
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-08 10:29 pm (UTC)Iiiinteresting! So I guess that means there's not much of a ticking clock in terms of Vlad's age. I mean, not everybody can be as awesome as Noish-pa, and one of the things I was interested in seeing as the series progresses (I get the feeling that the rest of the series spans quite a number of years) is how, if at all Brust would deal with Vlad's advancing age/experience, like Jim Butcher is starting to have to do with Harry (continuing Dresden Files references FTW!).
thought it would actually contribute to the cause by dying nobly for it (which, actually, she probably does think is the case).
Yeah, that's how I read it. At the place she's at right now, I can kind of follow her thought process, and I can see her kind of hoping that her martyrdom will become a rallying point for the revolution.
there are a couple of lines in the later Vlad books where I'm just like, "I'm not sure how to read this in the context of a platonic relationship"
I approve! ^.^
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-08 11:10 pm (UTC)(Speaking of Brust and Butcher, looks like Brust has recently gotten into reading The Dresden Files. Also, I wonder if Butcher is a fan of Brust's. The tone of the Dresden books is very similar (though Brust's style is considerably more ostentatious, with the framing devices and jumping around timelines and so on), but a lot of Brust's own first-person smartass style (for which the Vlad books are the trope namer, indirectly) comes from Zelazny, and Butcher's could too. I'd certainly be curious to know.)
At the place she's at right now, I can kind of follow her thought process, and I can see her kind of hoping that her martyrdom will become a rallying point for the revolution
I could see that, too. Cawti seems to be a fairly conflicted person, with quite a lot of Issues, even in later books than this, so I pretty much could see any kind of motivation from her.
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-09 07:10 pm (UTC)Heh. Seeing Vlad as an old man would be, I suspect, kind of hilarious. But at least we have Noish-pa for all that!
Speaking of Brust and Butcher, looks like Brust has recently gotten into reading The Dresden Files.
Thanks for the link! I'm rather amused that he points out the moment in Fool Moon where Butcher has to stop the plot entirely, mid-action sequence (I think?), to describe a character's mindset, and manages to pull it off without annoying the reader or breaking the story's flow, because exactly this is one of the things I love (when done right)/hate (when done wrong/too often) about Brust. I really enjoy some of his little flourishes, like the aforementioned framing devices, but I've also seen him go overboard with them to the point of "Yes, dear, we can see that you're a Very Good Author. Now can we please get back to the real plot?", so it tickles me that this is something he admires in Butcher. XD (Also, I loved the discussion about feminism that evolved in the comments!)
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-09 10:41 pm (UTC)Yes, I found that pretty interesting, too :) And I agree that it's something Butcher mostly does well. Brust seems to be a lot more about Trying Cool Things even when they don't necessarily serve the story. I kind of love that about the series, but it can be frustrating, especially on first read (and this is probably in large part why I tend to like his books a lot better on rereads).
And, yes, the feminism discussion was interesting! I'm not surprised that Brust, with his penchant for action girl characters, finds Harry's sexism irritating. It doesn't actually interfere with my enjoyment of the books, except for the short stories, but I am closer to agreeing with Brust's criticism than with the folks in the comments who are being all "no no, it's just chivalry!" :P
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-10 06:03 am (UTC)Exactly! I enjoy Butcher's straightforward style, while Brust's ostentatiousness is such that a little of it goes a long way. Of course, most of Brust's Trying Cool Things experiments work out very well, but on the first time around, sometimes I wish he'd just cut to the chase.
I am closer to agreeing with Brust's criticism than with the folks in the comments who are being all "no no, it's just chivalry!" :P
Ugh, yes. I know a person or two like that, and I have yet to be able to beat it into their heads that calling it chivalry doesn't mean that it's not also sexism. XP I take the, er, chivalrists' point that they're just trying to show affection/respect, but however you dress it up, it's still the same old inequality.
I also really liked that one of the posters differentiated from Harry's sexism and Butcher's, where Harry himself genuinely feels that this is the best way to act, while the narrative punishes him for treating Murphy like a damsel in distress, and rewards him when he treats her like an equal.
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-10 07:54 am (UTC)Yeah, I think it's fair. I actually don't mind Harry's sexism -- it's very clearly a flaw, but so is his tendency towards being a lone wolf (which he has fortunately been overcoming), and to overreact to stuff like the McCoy = Blackstaff revelation, and other things.
Butcher's... issues bother me more because I can't write them off as a character trait. This is why the short stories bother me -- because the sheer incidence of damsel-in-distress-ness there goes beyond Harry's issues (though there's questionable behaviour towards Murphy -- which he isn't "punished" for -- and ogling and whatnot). And it's weird to me, because in the Codex Alera books Butcher has characters and societies where I didn't notice this to be a problem at all, so it doesn't seem to be an inherent issue with him. Maybe he just thinks that's how you're supposed to write noir and doesn't realize how skeevy it occasionally gets?
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-11 12:18 am (UTC)Interesting! I confess I've never read the Codex Alera, but I've heard that it's a very different animal from the Dresden Files. Maybe Butcher has just been writing Harry so long that the sexism has become kind of ingrained into how he writes that world, and CA gave him a chance to start afresh. (I also like the doesn't-know-how-to-write-noir idea, especially because how angrily people on Brust's blog reacted to comparing him [Butcher, that is] to Raymond Chandler.)
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-11 12:28 am (UTC)The thing that irritates me about Alera is that there appears to be a dissonance between the moral pallette it's pretending to have vs the one that's actually borne out by the narrative. I have a feeling it thinks it's a grey fantasy along the lines of ASOIAF, but the good guys triumph without losses and the bad guys are summarily punished, and everybody who is good loves the noble protagonist, and he is demonstratably more awesome than his morally-questinable predecessors and yet more successful than they because... well, he's the hero, I guess?
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-11 06:27 am (UTC)Whelp, that's another one for the pile!
Ugh, the "I'm the hero so I'm automatically good and the people who like me are automatically good and the people who don't are automatically bad" thing is a peeve of mine, though. Eh, well, snark and a good ensemble can make me forgive quite a few errors!
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-14 08:55 pm (UTC)Heh, curious to see what you will think of Alera! It's a fun world with some fun characters, and I enjoyed the series on the whole even though aspects of it frustrated me a lot.
the "I'm the hero so I'm automatically good and the people who like me are automatically good and the people who don't are automatically bad" thing is a peeve of mine, though
It's actually weirder than that, with Alera, because I feel like Butcher set out to *not* do that... and then kind of did it anyway? Like, without spoiling too much, there's a ruthless couple whom you might as well think of as Lannisters, and they are shown, early on, to be very ruthless and quite amoral, but also competent realists. But every time they go up against a shiny-eyed idealist, they lose. And there are characters with interesting shades of grey -- but they are all either shown the light and fall in with the hero or die.
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-14 09:45 pm (UTC)For sure! And the next 2 single volumes would be great, since I haven't, per se, started Athyra yet. *nerdshame*
they are shown, early on, to be very ruthless and quite amoral, but also competent realists. But every time they go up against a shiny-eyed idealist, they lose.
Huh. Actually, the Lannister comparison is interesting, because it seems that GRRM has spoiled me for believing it when shiny-eyed Good Guys inexplicably defeat ruthless and amoral Bad Guys, especially when the only reason the shinies win is because they're morally right. Don't get me wrong, this can be done well, but, still, huh...
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-14 09:50 pm (UTC)Oh, and -- O has expressed an interest in coming with me (for Parkside's mac'n'cheese). Being O, he may well change his mind a bunch of times about this, and in any case, he has promised to take along a book and sit there quietly if he does come along, but I hope you don't mind if he does end up coming with :)
it seems that GRRM has spoiled me for believing it when shiny-eyed Good Guys inexplicably defeat ruthless and amoral Bad Guys
Exactly. I think Butcher does this with mixed success in Alera, and it's not the only thing that happens -- there are good guys who are also ruthless and do some things of questionable morality, which is one of my favorite aspects of the series, but the shine-eyed Good Guys defeating the Bad Guys bugs me when it happens for overly contrived reasons, and it does on occasion.
Re: part 2 :)
Date: 2012-04-14 10:16 pm (UTC)Not at all. A chance for good mac'n'cheese should never be passed up! ^.^ (Also, I have a cousin only a few years older than O, and very similar in temperment, who I've been thinking of recommending AtLA to, so I'd love to get both your takes on it, if he does come.)
there are good guys who are also ruthless and do some things of questionable morality,
Good to know! Being an unabashed Thomas fan, I think that Butcher does antiheroes/good people doing bad things rather well on occasion, but he does have a tendency to slip into the whole Good Guys vs. Bad Guys thing.
meet-up
Date: 2012-04-10 11:25 pm (UTC)I'm really sorry, but I completely forgot that this Friday is actually the potluck at the rodents' school -- rather, I thought it was much later in April, but, alas. Could we reschedule for Saturday instead? Or Sunday if you prefer. (I would probably leave the rodents at home and have a little more freedom/time anyway.) Six would still work for me, but I can be flexible, too, if a different time would be better -- just let me know!
Re: meet-up
Date: 2012-04-11 12:12 am (UTC)Absolutely! Actually, this works out really well, as there's an English Department thing that I was eyeing sideways happening on Friday, so Saturday is great.
Six still works for me. Is the pub still okay, or are you getting tired of it?
Re: meet-up
Date: 2012-04-11 12:16 am (UTC)Pub is still more than OK with me! But if you're getting tired of it, we can think of something different. There's a Thai place I like that I think shouldn't be too crowded at 6. Or we could try our luck with burritos (in the sense that it will probably be packed around 6...) and then, because it's not a sit-down sort of place, go hang out at the zombie coffee shop. Totally up to you, though! I love going to Parkside, and I don't think I've been since you and I hung out there last.
Saturday at six it is!
Re: meet-up
Date: 2012-04-11 12:21 am (UTC)Re: meet-up
Date: 2012-04-11 12:29 am (UTC)