![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Books
Michael Andre-Driussi: GURPS New Sun
Sara Ejersbo Frederiksen & Nina Anker Nissen: Alt om fanfiktion
Okay. I am very clearly not the target audience for this book. It's pretty obviously aimed at what I've taken to calling the Movella segment. That said, it seemed okay - not brilliant, and reading the terms in Danish that this segment has apparently developed for various fan fiction concepts is a bit odd (hurt/comfort = trøstefic?), but then - the book wants to be an introduction to fan fiction aimed at tweens and teenagers, and I'd say it manages well enooug, and unlike a certain alleged piece of academic work it didn't ever make me want to throw it across the room. Anyway, back to reading decent books about fan fiction - I just ordered The Fan Fiction Studies Reader as ILL.
Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves: The Silver Dream
Jon Courtenay Grimwood: The Fallen Blade
I should perhaps read Othello before continuing reading this series... though I do like the young Viking vampire.
Oscar K.: Den rejsende
H.P. Lovecraft: Farven fra rummet
I really should read more Lovecraft - and in English. I read all the stuff in Danish pretty much back as a teenager, but I've read so little in English, and really, he doesn't work that well in Danish once you're old enough to see how crappy some of the translations are...
Mestertyvens Sidste Ønske
I'm quite glad that we're getting these original genre anthologies in Danish. Admittedly, I could have used some short words about each author, but still. Anyway, the quality varies (and somebody other than me might like other stories) - some of the best stories included Overbåren by Birgitte Hollegaard & Caroline Mogensen (a very nice gothic story - admittedly, the authors don't quite make the diary sound like from the time periods involved, but nevermind), Vidunderlige Verden by Tim Sørensen (a rather different take on an elf after the end of the masquerade) and Gadeorkestret by Jakob Friis Andersen, which had me imagining things as a gloriously animated movie with a jazz score.
Okay, some of the stories were quite good, some were a bit meh - and then there was the one that disgusted me. Not in a splatter way, not in a good way, oh no. Næsten der by Stefanie Fallesen - and this is were I really miss those author bios, because there's something about this story that makes me think (at my most charitable) that it must have been written by a very naive 14 year old. It's this disgusting little piece of anti-choice propaganda that wouldn't have been out of place in a rabid American context, but what the editors where thinking including it in a Danish short story collection.
The story follows a main character who has died and is now, in the afterlife, informed that - as she is a murderer - she will have to go through a purgatory-style period of being an angel of death/reaper style character. The murder? She had an abortion. That's it. What we learn about the protagonist is the following: Her name is Amy, she got pregnant, she had an abortion, her boyfriend left her and she ended killing herself. That's it. There's no context here, no clues as to why she would have had an abortion (especially since boyfriend clearly mattered a lot to her and he was against it), nothing at all to tell me this woman's story.
Actually, I was thinking of writing a rant here, but no. Instead, I am going to fill in the blanks that the author couldn't even be bothered to attempt to hint at. So. Amy is fourteen. He's her first boyfriend and he's older - 18-19? He wants to have sex and she doesn't feel ready, but he keeps pushing her, until she finally gives in - and maybe it's guilt and maybe it's alcohol and frankly, it's more rape than anything else - but he's her boyfriend and he loves her, right? Except then her period doesn't come and she buys a test and it's positive - and she's seen De Unge Mødre, she promised herself she was never going that way, and she's just a child. Kids aren't supposed to have kids. Her mother takes her to the doctor and holds her hand the entire time and is very supportive. But her boyfriend? This gem of a young man? He freaks - screams at her, accuses her of never really loving him - except she does, she really does, she's 14 and in love and love makes you blind. She's 14 and he's left her and people are saying it gets better, but what do they know. So she ends it, because she's 14 and maybe a bit prone to overreacting. Except that's not the end, because she finds herself in a strange place, being told - this child who was hurt - that she is not the victim but the murderer and that she has to be punished. Meanwhile, back in life, a 19 year old man is chatting up another 14 year old girl...
Nær og fjern: lige under overfladen 7
Science fiction short stories - nothing super fantastic, but mostly okay. I rather liked Henning Andersen's Fyrtårnet, which at first seems to be about a gay man on a colony on another planet, founded by people who really liked the Icelandic sagas - but nothing is quite as it seems. Also, Simon Christiansen's Fanget i tiden, though I suspect that's mostly the nostalgia effect due to it being written as one of those you-are-the-hero stories I read far too many of as a kid.
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Fall of Arthur
I might have liked this better (I mean, the poetry was good and relevant to some of my current interests), if it hadn't felt like a work that might easily convince me that Tolkien was a misogynistic arsehole if I didn't know characters like Eowyn exists elsewhere...
Vampyr
This anthology is good - it's vampire stories and they're not paranormal romance or urban fantasy or Twilight. These vampires are monsters, mostly. And the stories are very varied - ranging from an Indian vampiress haunting an abandoned factory in Jutland to an African monstrosity rising beneath the deck on a slaveship during the crossing, from a World War I that went off track when all the spilled blood opened a gate to hell itself to a story (Venter på Misha by Nina Holm-Jensen), which made my slash fangirl heart quite happy (and which I'd love to see a full-blown novel from. I'm not saying all the stories are masterpieces, but most are pretty good.
Carrie Vaughn: Kitty Rocks the House
I adored the Kitty/Ben/Cormac moments - I do adore the three of them, even if Amelia complicates matters endlessly (and I'm still waiting for the scene where Cormac is accidentally in the forest during full moon, unarmed, and ends up with a pair of protective werewolves cuddling up to him...)
Jonas Wilmann: Svovlild
Overtly simplistic, but okay. Anyway, dragons!
Comics
Joe Hill: Locke & Key: Alpha and Omega
Peter Milligan: Hellblazer: The Devil's Trench Coat
Scott Snyder: American Vampire 5.
J. Michael Straczynski: Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan
Total number of books and comics read this month: 16
Currently reading: Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris and Professor Moriarty: the Hound of the d'Ubervilles bySebastian Moran Kim Newman.
Michael Andre-Driussi: GURPS New Sun
Sara Ejersbo Frederiksen & Nina Anker Nissen: Alt om fanfiktion
Okay. I am very clearly not the target audience for this book. It's pretty obviously aimed at what I've taken to calling the Movella segment. That said, it seemed okay - not brilliant, and reading the terms in Danish that this segment has apparently developed for various fan fiction concepts is a bit odd (hurt/comfort = trøstefic?), but then - the book wants to be an introduction to fan fiction aimed at tweens and teenagers, and I'd say it manages well enooug, and unlike a certain alleged piece of academic work it didn't ever make me want to throw it across the room. Anyway, back to reading decent books about fan fiction - I just ordered The Fan Fiction Studies Reader as ILL.
Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves: The Silver Dream
Jon Courtenay Grimwood: The Fallen Blade
I should perhaps read Othello before continuing reading this series... though I do like the young Viking vampire.
Oscar K.: Den rejsende
H.P. Lovecraft: Farven fra rummet
I really should read more Lovecraft - and in English. I read all the stuff in Danish pretty much back as a teenager, but I've read so little in English, and really, he doesn't work that well in Danish once you're old enough to see how crappy some of the translations are...
Mestertyvens Sidste Ønske
I'm quite glad that we're getting these original genre anthologies in Danish. Admittedly, I could have used some short words about each author, but still. Anyway, the quality varies (and somebody other than me might like other stories) - some of the best stories included Overbåren by Birgitte Hollegaard & Caroline Mogensen (a very nice gothic story - admittedly, the authors don't quite make the diary sound like from the time periods involved, but nevermind), Vidunderlige Verden by Tim Sørensen (a rather different take on an elf after the end of the masquerade) and Gadeorkestret by Jakob Friis Andersen, which had me imagining things as a gloriously animated movie with a jazz score.
Okay, some of the stories were quite good, some were a bit meh - and then there was the one that disgusted me. Not in a splatter way, not in a good way, oh no. Næsten der by Stefanie Fallesen - and this is were I really miss those author bios, because there's something about this story that makes me think (at my most charitable) that it must have been written by a very naive 14 year old. It's this disgusting little piece of anti-choice propaganda that wouldn't have been out of place in a rabid American context, but what the editors where thinking including it in a Danish short story collection.
The story follows a main character who has died and is now, in the afterlife, informed that - as she is a murderer - she will have to go through a purgatory-style period of being an angel of death/reaper style character. The murder? She had an abortion. That's it. What we learn about the protagonist is the following: Her name is Amy, she got pregnant, she had an abortion, her boyfriend left her and she ended killing herself. That's it. There's no context here, no clues as to why she would have had an abortion (especially since boyfriend clearly mattered a lot to her and he was against it), nothing at all to tell me this woman's story.
Actually, I was thinking of writing a rant here, but no. Instead, I am going to fill in the blanks that the author couldn't even be bothered to attempt to hint at. So. Amy is fourteen. He's her first boyfriend and he's older - 18-19? He wants to have sex and she doesn't feel ready, but he keeps pushing her, until she finally gives in - and maybe it's guilt and maybe it's alcohol and frankly, it's more rape than anything else - but he's her boyfriend and he loves her, right? Except then her period doesn't come and she buys a test and it's positive - and she's seen De Unge Mødre, she promised herself she was never going that way, and she's just a child. Kids aren't supposed to have kids. Her mother takes her to the doctor and holds her hand the entire time and is very supportive. But her boyfriend? This gem of a young man? He freaks - screams at her, accuses her of never really loving him - except she does, she really does, she's 14 and in love and love makes you blind. She's 14 and he's left her and people are saying it gets better, but what do they know. So she ends it, because she's 14 and maybe a bit prone to overreacting. Except that's not the end, because she finds herself in a strange place, being told - this child who was hurt - that she is not the victim but the murderer and that she has to be punished. Meanwhile, back in life, a 19 year old man is chatting up another 14 year old girl...
Nær og fjern: lige under overfladen 7
Science fiction short stories - nothing super fantastic, but mostly okay. I rather liked Henning Andersen's Fyrtårnet, which at first seems to be about a gay man on a colony on another planet, founded by people who really liked the Icelandic sagas - but nothing is quite as it seems. Also, Simon Christiansen's Fanget i tiden, though I suspect that's mostly the nostalgia effect due to it being written as one of those you-are-the-hero stories I read far too many of as a kid.
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Fall of Arthur
I might have liked this better (I mean, the poetry was good and relevant to some of my current interests), if it hadn't felt like a work that might easily convince me that Tolkien was a misogynistic arsehole if I didn't know characters like Eowyn exists elsewhere...
Vampyr
This anthology is good - it's vampire stories and they're not paranormal romance or urban fantasy or Twilight. These vampires are monsters, mostly. And the stories are very varied - ranging from an Indian vampiress haunting an abandoned factory in Jutland to an African monstrosity rising beneath the deck on a slaveship during the crossing, from a World War I that went off track when all the spilled blood opened a gate to hell itself to a story (Venter på Misha by Nina Holm-Jensen), which made my slash fangirl heart quite happy (and which I'd love to see a full-blown novel from. I'm not saying all the stories are masterpieces, but most are pretty good.
Carrie Vaughn: Kitty Rocks the House
I adored the Kitty/Ben/Cormac moments - I do adore the three of them, even if Amelia complicates matters endlessly (and I'm still waiting for the scene where Cormac is accidentally in the forest during full moon, unarmed, and ends up with a pair of protective werewolves cuddling up to him...)
Jonas Wilmann: Svovlild
Overtly simplistic, but okay. Anyway, dragons!
Comics
Joe Hill: Locke & Key: Alpha and Omega
Peter Milligan: Hellblazer: The Devil's Trench Coat
Scott Snyder: American Vampire 5.
J. Michael Straczynski: Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan
Total number of books and comics read this month: 16
Currently reading: Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris and Professor Moriarty: the Hound of the d'Ubervilles by
Tags:
From:
no subject
Good to know. Maybe I shouldn't read it, then?
From:
no subject