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Books
Boris Akunin: She Lover of Death
I wonder why they stopped translating this series into Danish. And it annoys me that the Danish library system apparently only has this one in English (apart from ones also in Danish) - and then one in German several books later in the series...
Robert C. Berg: I skildpaddens tid
I had been meaning to read this book for a while, and I had pretty much braced myself, because the descriptions at the publisher's website and at bibliotek.dk are not exactly compelling, and it's published by Mellemgaard - but it's a Danish novel about an asexual, so I had to give it a try. And I was pleasantly surprised. The descriptions made it sound like the protagonists ends up asexual after having tried other things, and that's not it - Bobby - our protagonist - is asexual. Explicitly so. Yes, he has a few relationships with both genders, but he never - they always pursue him. In fact, his first sexual experience - as a teenage, when the girl that's been obviously pursuing his somewhat oblivious self for years has enough, corners him and climbs aboard - reads most of all to me as rape. (The fact that he deliberately doesn't see the girl for the next 25 year is also a pretty big hint, though it's never properly dealt with - and then there's the part where the girl gets pregnant and family disapproval hits him for having gotten her in trouble...)
Anyway. It's a perfectly well-written book - the author was apparently well established and award winning, so why he'd publish at that publisher is beyond me. Anyway. It's too long, and frankly, a novel detailing the life of an asexual man from his childhood in the 30s and 40s, his career as journalist and author (including a few years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam) and his unlikely ending up as family patriarch (sort of - a lot of the novel is also about his aunt Molly, the colourful one in the family), as well as his struggles with his sexuality (well, mostly other people's struggle with it - he seems to have figured it out early on) and a couple of attempts to be fixed (both times he ends up leaving in annoyance with ignorant sexologists) - well, that novel probably wouldn't have tempted me if it wasn't for an asexual protagonist.
Sara B. Elfgren & Mats Strandberg: Cirkeln
So, apparently they made this into a movie. I wonder if it's worth tracking down...
Mathilde Fibiger: Clara Raphael: tolv breve
Aspíciens Haufniensis: Københavns skygger
Am I the only one who find the whole publishing-under-pseudonym thing kinda pretentious? Anyway, it's an okay book - mostly I want more world building: is it only KU that has a magical academy? Why the hell don't they have any decent librarians? What is the magical world's legislative body? Is it national or supranational? Also, the ending annoys me, because it's such a typical US-tv-show-season-cliffhanger ending and we all know that those suck.
Jan Kjærstad: Slekters gang
I find it an interesting read compared to the Wergeland trilogy - a family contra an individual, women contra man - that sort of thing.
Det kvindelige tydningsunivers
I think I need to take a break from second-wave feminism...
Katherine Larsen & Lynn S. Zubernis: Fangasm: Supernatural Fangirls
You know, the more I read about the con-going fandom experience, the less I want it. It just - doesn't sound fun to me, waiting in lines, running for a good spot, staking out good seats and thereby blocking them for people who would have liked to see the earlier presentations. It just - sounds like no fun, too much stress and far too likely for me to go away not having experienced what I wanted. And considering I'd need to go abroad to get to a proper con (the way Copenhagen Comic Con is shaping up, I really don't count that as a proper con at this point) - no.
Apart from that, this was an interesting read, and an interesting companion to their previous book, though I must admit, their fandom experience and the experience of balancing real life and fandom didn't really resonate - probably because I am not a middle-aged woman with kids and a husband who has apparently been used to being entitled to far too much of my time for far too many years now. Though honestly? That part reads less like a fannish thing and more like conflicts that would have happened no matter what other thing the two authors would have started doing, ie. it just comes across as an entitled family forgetting that the mother is entitled to have a life too...
Ann Leckie: Ancillary Sword
I must admit, this isn't half as interesting a book as the first. Instead of the two time periods plotline, we're stuck in just one, and frankly, it's a fine book, but having read David Weber and Lois McMaster Bujold and similar books, there's not really anything particularly new or interesting in it - unlike the first.
Hannah Moskowitz & Kat Helgeson: Gena/Finn
So, this is the story of two young women who meet and bond over an online fandom, told entirely through posts, e-mails, and the occasional bit of fanfic and fanart. And then there is drama, presumably because a book all about two people being friends and squeeing over their favourite character would be weird. And between this one and Fangirl, I'm beginning to worry about whether all fangirls are supposed to have issues, or if that's just the young adult format.
Random: I doubt the book's fandom is going to be one of those that spawn large amounts of yuletide fic. It feels too - undefined. Up Below, a buddy cop show, where we get very little idea about the plot - probably because the fandom itself is more the point. The fandom in question reminding me strongly of early Supernatural fandom - there's even Jakegirls and Tylergirls (but apparently no slash-fans - and with a novel title like that, that seems a bit odd - oh well...)
Victor Pelevin: The Sacred Book of the Werewolf
Mats Strandberg: Färjan
Comics
Alison Bechdel: The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For
Matt Fraction: Hawkeye: Rio Bravo
Stephan Franck: Silver vol. 1.
Christos Gage: Angel & Faith: Live Through This
Christos Gage: Angel & Faith: Daddy Issues
Well, so far I'm enjoying this series far more than the Buffy season 8 series.
Ed Greenwood: Forgotten Realms
Vincent Mahé: 750 Years In Paris
Scott Snyder: American Vampire 7.
Tom Taylor: Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Three vol. 1.
So, Injustice is basically DC doing a civil war? And the Spectre is possessed by the Joker, correct?
Anyway - so, apparently CW either has or might get the rights to do a season two of Constantine as part of their 'verse, and I think this comic, as well as those Justice League Dark ones, is the main reason why that'd worry me. Because it just feels deeply jarring to read about a John Constantine in a superhero setting. Oh, he'd make an interesting cameo - it's all DC, after all - it's just. The Hellblazer comics were dirty and gritty and though occasionally the world was at stake, mostly it was much smaller scales and much darker - they don't really blend well with superheroes. But at the same time, I really would like to see John Constantine interact with at least the Waverider crew, and he exists in the 'verse, so... Anyway...
Osamu Tezuka: Black Jack vol. 1.
Yana Toboso: Black Butler vol. 18.
William Vance: Ramiro: Le Bâtard
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Brian K. Vaughan: The Private Eye
Total number of books and comics read this month: 25
Currently reading: Johnny Alucard by Kim Newman.
Total number of books and comics read this year: 148
Boris Akunin: She Lover of Death
I wonder why they stopped translating this series into Danish. And it annoys me that the Danish library system apparently only has this one in English (apart from ones also in Danish) - and then one in German several books later in the series...
Robert C. Berg: I skildpaddens tid
I had been meaning to read this book for a while, and I had pretty much braced myself, because the descriptions at the publisher's website and at bibliotek.dk are not exactly compelling, and it's published by Mellemgaard - but it's a Danish novel about an asexual, so I had to give it a try. And I was pleasantly surprised. The descriptions made it sound like the protagonists ends up asexual after having tried other things, and that's not it - Bobby - our protagonist - is asexual. Explicitly so. Yes, he has a few relationships with both genders, but he never - they always pursue him. In fact, his first sexual experience - as a teenage, when the girl that's been obviously pursuing his somewhat oblivious self for years has enough, corners him and climbs aboard - reads most of all to me as rape. (The fact that he deliberately doesn't see the girl for the next 25 year is also a pretty big hint, though it's never properly dealt with - and then there's the part where the girl gets pregnant and family disapproval hits him for having gotten her in trouble...)
Anyway. It's a perfectly well-written book - the author was apparently well established and award winning, so why he'd publish at that publisher is beyond me. Anyway. It's too long, and frankly, a novel detailing the life of an asexual man from his childhood in the 30s and 40s, his career as journalist and author (including a few years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam) and his unlikely ending up as family patriarch (sort of - a lot of the novel is also about his aunt Molly, the colourful one in the family), as well as his struggles with his sexuality (well, mostly other people's struggle with it - he seems to have figured it out early on) and a couple of attempts to be fixed (both times he ends up leaving in annoyance with ignorant sexologists) - well, that novel probably wouldn't have tempted me if it wasn't for an asexual protagonist.
Sara B. Elfgren & Mats Strandberg: Cirkeln
So, apparently they made this into a movie. I wonder if it's worth tracking down...
Mathilde Fibiger: Clara Raphael: tolv breve
Aspíciens Haufniensis: Københavns skygger
Am I the only one who find the whole publishing-under-pseudonym thing kinda pretentious? Anyway, it's an okay book - mostly I want more world building: is it only KU that has a magical academy? Why the hell don't they have any decent librarians? What is the magical world's legislative body? Is it national or supranational? Also, the ending annoys me, because it's such a typical US-tv-show-season-cliffhanger ending and we all know that those suck.
Jan Kjærstad: Slekters gang
I find it an interesting read compared to the Wergeland trilogy - a family contra an individual, women contra man - that sort of thing.
Det kvindelige tydningsunivers
I think I need to take a break from second-wave feminism...
Katherine Larsen & Lynn S. Zubernis: Fangasm: Supernatural Fangirls
You know, the more I read about the con-going fandom experience, the less I want it. It just - doesn't sound fun to me, waiting in lines, running for a good spot, staking out good seats and thereby blocking them for people who would have liked to see the earlier presentations. It just - sounds like no fun, too much stress and far too likely for me to go away not having experienced what I wanted. And considering I'd need to go abroad to get to a proper con (the way Copenhagen Comic Con is shaping up, I really don't count that as a proper con at this point) - no.
Apart from that, this was an interesting read, and an interesting companion to their previous book, though I must admit, their fandom experience and the experience of balancing real life and fandom didn't really resonate - probably because I am not a middle-aged woman with kids and a husband who has apparently been used to being entitled to far too much of my time for far too many years now. Though honestly? That part reads less like a fannish thing and more like conflicts that would have happened no matter what other thing the two authors would have started doing, ie. it just comes across as an entitled family forgetting that the mother is entitled to have a life too...
Ann Leckie: Ancillary Sword
I must admit, this isn't half as interesting a book as the first. Instead of the two time periods plotline, we're stuck in just one, and frankly, it's a fine book, but having read David Weber and Lois McMaster Bujold and similar books, there's not really anything particularly new or interesting in it - unlike the first.
Hannah Moskowitz & Kat Helgeson: Gena/Finn
So, this is the story of two young women who meet and bond over an online fandom, told entirely through posts, e-mails, and the occasional bit of fanfic and fanart. And then there is drama, presumably because a book all about two people being friends and squeeing over their favourite character would be weird. And between this one and Fangirl, I'm beginning to worry about whether all fangirls are supposed to have issues, or if that's just the young adult format.
Random: I doubt the book's fandom is going to be one of those that spawn large amounts of yuletide fic. It feels too - undefined. Up Below, a buddy cop show, where we get very little idea about the plot - probably because the fandom itself is more the point. The fandom in question reminding me strongly of early Supernatural fandom - there's even Jakegirls and Tylergirls (but apparently no slash-fans - and with a novel title like that, that seems a bit odd - oh well...)
Victor Pelevin: The Sacred Book of the Werewolf
Mats Strandberg: Färjan
Comics
Alison Bechdel: The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For
Matt Fraction: Hawkeye: Rio Bravo
Stephan Franck: Silver vol. 1.
Christos Gage: Angel & Faith: Live Through This
Christos Gage: Angel & Faith: Daddy Issues
Well, so far I'm enjoying this series far more than the Buffy season 8 series.
Ed Greenwood: Forgotten Realms
Vincent Mahé: 750 Years In Paris
Scott Snyder: American Vampire 7.
Tom Taylor: Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Three vol. 1.
So, Injustice is basically DC doing a civil war? And the Spectre is possessed by the Joker, correct?
Anyway - so, apparently CW either has or might get the rights to do a season two of Constantine as part of their 'verse, and I think this comic, as well as those Justice League Dark ones, is the main reason why that'd worry me. Because it just feels deeply jarring to read about a John Constantine in a superhero setting. Oh, he'd make an interesting cameo - it's all DC, after all - it's just. The Hellblazer comics were dirty and gritty and though occasionally the world was at stake, mostly it was much smaller scales and much darker - they don't really blend well with superheroes. But at the same time, I really would like to see John Constantine interact with at least the Waverider crew, and he exists in the 'verse, so... Anyway...
Osamu Tezuka: Black Jack vol. 1.
Yana Toboso: Black Butler vol. 18.
William Vance: Ramiro: Le Bâtard
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Brian K. Vaughan: The Private Eye
Total number of books and comics read this month: 25
Currently reading: Johnny Alucard by Kim Newman.
Total number of books and comics read this year: 148
From:
no subject
How did you like this? I seem to at some point have put it on my list of books to check out, though I can't remember when.
You know, the more I read about the con-going fandom experience, the less I want it. It just - doesn't sound fun to me, waiting in lines, running for a good spot, staking out good seats and thereby blocking them for people who would have liked to see the earlier presentations. It just - sounds like no fun, too much stress and far too likely for me to go away not having experienced what I wanted.
I've gone to a fan-only con (Bitching Party in Seattle) with no famous guests and stuff, and it was great. There was none of the bad stuff you mention! But I think that kind of con and the kind you describe are different things.
From:
no subject
The Sacred Book of the Werewolf? It's - a bit weird. Partly probably because it's Russian and that in itself is kinda fun, because I read too much American and English fantasy and never enough from other areas. But it's also - kinda sex-obsessed? Not even pornographic, just - and weirdly philosophical in places, and sometimes just plain surreal. The world it presents is interesting, and I adore the bitchy/friendly/territorial fox sisters spread out all over the world, but in the end, it didn't quite fit my tastes. (Also, I suspect things got lost in translation or just didn't have the right impact even though they got explained, you know?)