February Books
Mar. 1st, 2005 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienBut first, a mini-rant ...
Electrolite pointed out this ... person's ... views on women science fiction writers:
At which I snort derisively, and point at Elizabeth Bear, Kristine Smith, Karen Traviss, Chris Moriarty, and K. D. Wentworth among the newish blood, not to mention Bujold and Cherryh, none of whom is a particularly good fit to that sweeping generalization, though they do perhaps have more characterization and fewer subatomic particles than an old-fashioned hard-SF purist might prefer. I also note the large quantity of sprawling fantasy series written by men.
Anyway, this month's reading; spoilers may lurk behind cuts and links.
Destroyer, C. J. Cherryh
Spin State, Chris Moriarty
The Wizard Hunters, Martha Wells
Wilderness at Dawn, Ted Morgan
I Dare, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross
Hammered, Elizabeth Bear
There seems to be a minor trend lately for tough, flawed, older heroines, with spotty pasts coming back to haunt them and artificial enhancements giving them gyp. (See also: Kristine Smith, Chris Moriarty). Jenny Casey is another of these, living in a grim dystopian fairly-near future, with global warming, a much diminished USA, drugs and gangs and nanotech and VR and a roaming escaped AI wearing the personality of Richard Feynman. It's a grim, gritty, violent book (the first of a trilogy), but ends on a relatively upbeat note. Oddly, I found that the snippet of the sequel included at the end seemed to wrap the whole thing up in a more satisfying way than the actual ending.
Crossing the Line, Karen Traviss
I loved City of Pearl, to which this is a sequel, and this was not a disappointment. The glimpses of alien societies were interesting. Somehow, the aliens manage to have very different priorities and motivations from humans while remaining remarkably scrutable. It was, however, even bleaker than its predecessor, taking a dim if not unrealistic view of human nature. It's poignant that the closest thing to a villain manages to bring about so much awfulness more by weakness than anything. The ending ... well, if I didn't know there was a sequel in the pipeline, I'd be tempted to class this with Mary Gentle's Ancient Light; the situation at the end is almost that grim.
The Grand Tour, Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
After the last two, I was badly in need of something light and cheerful. I was considering a Heyer re-read before I remembered this was sitting in the queue. It served that purpose to admiration, though it wasn't as perfectly delightful as Sorcery and Cecilia. Our heroines are newly-weds, off on their wedding tour of Europe, and getting entangled in a magical conspiracy. The married relationships are sweet, but lack the suspense and tension of a romance.
Electrolite pointed out this ... person's ... views on women science fiction writers:
Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics, so they either write romance novels in space about strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent but lonely women who finally fall in love with rugged men who love them just as they are, or stick to fantasy where they can make things up without getting hammered by critics holding triple Ph.D.s in molecular engineering, astrophysics and Chaucer.
At which I snort derisively, and point at Elizabeth Bear, Kristine Smith, Karen Traviss, Chris Moriarty, and K. D. Wentworth among the newish blood, not to mention Bujold and Cherryh, none of whom is a particularly good fit to that sweeping generalization, though they do perhaps have more characterization and fewer subatomic particles than an old-fashioned hard-SF purist might prefer. I also note the large quantity of sprawling fantasy series written by men.
Anyway, this month's reading; spoilers may lurk behind cuts and links.
Destroyer, C. J. Cherryh
Spin State, Chris Moriarty
The Wizard Hunters, Martha Wells
Wilderness at Dawn, Ted Morgan
I Dare, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross
Hammered, Elizabeth Bear
There seems to be a minor trend lately for tough, flawed, older heroines, with spotty pasts coming back to haunt them and artificial enhancements giving them gyp. (See also: Kristine Smith, Chris Moriarty). Jenny Casey is another of these, living in a grim dystopian fairly-near future, with global warming, a much diminished USA, drugs and gangs and nanotech and VR and a roaming escaped AI wearing the personality of Richard Feynman. It's a grim, gritty, violent book (the first of a trilogy), but ends on a relatively upbeat note. Oddly, I found that the snippet of the sequel included at the end seemed to wrap the whole thing up in a more satisfying way than the actual ending.
Crossing the Line, Karen Traviss
I loved City of Pearl, to which this is a sequel, and this was not a disappointment. The glimpses of alien societies were interesting. Somehow, the aliens manage to have very different priorities and motivations from humans while remaining remarkably scrutable. It was, however, even bleaker than its predecessor, taking a dim if not unrealistic view of human nature. It's poignant that the closest thing to a villain manages to bring about so much awfulness more by weakness than anything. The ending ... well, if I didn't know there was a sequel in the pipeline, I'd be tempted to class this with Mary Gentle's Ancient Light; the situation at the end is almost that grim.
The Grand Tour, Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
After the last two, I was badly in need of something light and cheerful. I was considering a Heyer re-read before I remembered this was sitting in the queue. It served that purpose to admiration, though it wasn't as perfectly delightful as Sorcery and Cecilia. Our heroines are newly-weds, off on their wedding tour of Europe, and getting entangled in a magical conspiracy. The married relationships are sweet, but lack the suspense and tension of a romance.