![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Slate discusses the "trend" in married couples' names. What's funny is that it really reminds me of the fandom debates over Spuffy and the like.
Susan R. Matthews, Warring States: When he showed up in An Exchange of Hostages, Andrej Koscuisko was a great character: A sadist disgusted by his own sadism, assigned as an official torturer for the judicial arm of the system-spanning government. His situation posed fascinating questions about individual survival in an unjust and evil system; was it better to be the torturer who could get the confession – true or not – with the least pain, or to refuse and see more suffering inflicted? Years later (for us and him), political events in the US have made my questions about torture somewhat different, and Koscuisko’s isolation less palatable. Meanwhile, Matthews has been elaborating the political structure of Judiciary, but not in ways that explore how torture came to be accepted or why it sticks, and I’m less interested in the political maneuverings behind selecting a new Chief Judge, which take up half this book. The other half is Koscuisko trying to get some of his people to safety and to unravel some of the political entanglement he’s in because of his presence on the quasi-rebel ship Ragnarok, but he’s mostly passive and thus not as engaging as he once was.
Steven Gould, Jumper: This YA book about an abused teen who discovers that he has the power to teleport is pure revenge fantasy. Davy flees his small-town life for fortune and love in the big city, but encounters greater problems as his powers bring him to the attention of the government. Though Davy angsts over several of his shadier acts of revenge, I was disturbed that he never really questions the morality of getting money by stealing, which is his main method. As a story of a kid turning the tables on the grown-up world, it’s probably very satisfying. As a story of learning to manage great power, less so.
William Sleator, The Boxes: Sleator’s House of Stairs was a creepy childhood favorite of mine, so I picked up this YA book (suitable for younger children than the Gould). Annie lives with her neglectful, despicable guardian aunt; the only brightness in her life is her wayward Uncle Marco, who comes and goes at random, annoying her aunt. Uncle Marco leaves two mysterious boxes with Annie, warning her not to open them. When she does, she begins a real adventure. I felt like there was a very different first draft submerged within the final version, which is a much more standard story of young kids achieving power and independence. There are still traces of the hypothetical earlier draft in the unsettling nature of the things that come out of the boxes and the cruelties they inflict on themselves and on Annie; I really wish I could have read that other story of Annie confronting the choice whether to seize power by being willing to cause (and possibly suffer) pain.
Charles Stross, The Family Trade: Book One of the Merchant Princes: Miriam Beckstein, a tech journalist, loses her job when she unwittingly stumbles onto corruption by her publication’s corporate parent. Furious, she’s preparing to strike back when she discovers that she’s actually an important heir in a family with the talent to walk through worlds; she was abandoned as an infant in our world when her mother was assassinated as part of a family dispute. In the other world, medieval-like kingdoms cover North America; the family makes its money by transporting goods faster than anyone else can (using airplanes and trucks on our side), and also by transporting goods from our world through theirs. Yay for Stross for considering the economics of a fantasy economy, and in fact making them central to the plot. Boo for the editors for calling this “book one” rather than making him write a 600-page book that actually had events and not just set-up. Even the power plays against Miriam have a distinctly just-beginning feel; plot threads are not so much left dangling as presented still on the loom. I will check out the next book, and the idea is ambitious enough that I concede he needs extensive setup, but I am ready for Miriam to make some trouble.
Jim Butcher, Furies of Calderon: Book One of the Codex Alera: Butcher has succeeded with the Harry Dresden wizard novels and has branched out into high fantasy. He would have been better served sticking with his formula, and I'm beginning to wonder whether he can write female characters at all. Amara, a main POV character, is a high-spirited, young, supertalented envoy from the ruler of her imperilled land, sent to determine what's going on in a far province. What's going on is rebellion and invasion; her life is saved by a young boy, who is unique in that he lacks a connection to a fury. Furies are spirits of earth, air, water, fire, metal, possibly etc., which provide a set of powers related to the element (water furies somehow create empathic powers as well as provide control over water itself). The boy doesn't know it, but he's Very Important. Standard elements hide some surprises, but Butcher's epithetitis (in a fight, he switches from "name" to "the former [title]" to "the [nationality]" several times), As You Know, Bob disorder, and mishandling of female characters – seriously, the licentious, crazy, slithering and tittering bad one is called "Odiana," and turns out to have Real Trauma that explains why she's got stereotypically bad female characteristics rather than stereotypically good ones – made this less fun to read than it should have been.
Steven Gould, Jumper: This YA book about an abused teen who discovers that he has the power to teleport is pure revenge fantasy. Davy flees his small-town life for fortune and love in the big city, but encounters greater problems as his powers bring him to the attention of the government. Though Davy angsts over several of his shadier acts of revenge, I was disturbed that he never really questions the morality of getting money by stealing, which is his main method. As a story of a kid turning the tables on the grown-up world, it’s probably very satisfying. As a story of learning to manage great power, less so.
William Sleator, The Boxes: Sleator’s House of Stairs was a creepy childhood favorite of mine, so I picked up this YA book (suitable for younger children than the Gould). Annie lives with her neglectful, despicable guardian aunt; the only brightness in her life is her wayward Uncle Marco, who comes and goes at random, annoying her aunt. Uncle Marco leaves two mysterious boxes with Annie, warning her not to open them. When she does, she begins a real adventure. I felt like there was a very different first draft submerged within the final version, which is a much more standard story of young kids achieving power and independence. There are still traces of the hypothetical earlier draft in the unsettling nature of the things that come out of the boxes and the cruelties they inflict on themselves and on Annie; I really wish I could have read that other story of Annie confronting the choice whether to seize power by being willing to cause (and possibly suffer) pain.
Charles Stross, The Family Trade: Book One of the Merchant Princes: Miriam Beckstein, a tech journalist, loses her job when she unwittingly stumbles onto corruption by her publication’s corporate parent. Furious, she’s preparing to strike back when she discovers that she’s actually an important heir in a family with the talent to walk through worlds; she was abandoned as an infant in our world when her mother was assassinated as part of a family dispute. In the other world, medieval-like kingdoms cover North America; the family makes its money by transporting goods faster than anyone else can (using airplanes and trucks on our side), and also by transporting goods from our world through theirs. Yay for Stross for considering the economics of a fantasy economy, and in fact making them central to the plot. Boo for the editors for calling this “book one” rather than making him write a 600-page book that actually had events and not just set-up. Even the power plays against Miriam have a distinctly just-beginning feel; plot threads are not so much left dangling as presented still on the loom. I will check out the next book, and the idea is ambitious enough that I concede he needs extensive setup, but I am ready for Miriam to make some trouble.
Jim Butcher, Furies of Calderon: Book One of the Codex Alera: Butcher has succeeded with the Harry Dresden wizard novels and has branched out into high fantasy. He would have been better served sticking with his formula, and I'm beginning to wonder whether he can write female characters at all. Amara, a main POV character, is a high-spirited, young, supertalented envoy from the ruler of her imperilled land, sent to determine what's going on in a far province. What's going on is rebellion and invasion; her life is saved by a young boy, who is unique in that he lacks a connection to a fury. Furies are spirits of earth, air, water, fire, metal, possibly etc., which provide a set of powers related to the element (water furies somehow create empathic powers as well as provide control over water itself). The boy doesn't know it, but he's Very Important. Standard elements hide some surprises, but Butcher's epithetitis (in a fight, he switches from "name" to "the former [title]" to "the [nationality]" several times), As You Know, Bob disorder, and mishandling of female characters – seriously, the licentious, crazy, slithering and tittering bad one is called "Odiana," and turns out to have Real Trauma that explains why she's got stereotypically bad female characteristics rather than stereotypically good ones – made this less fun to read than it should have been.
Tags:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
(Names changed to protect the ridiculous.)
All things considered, it seemed like an elegant compromise; and after all, if you're going to change your first name, your wardrobe, and your goolies, that's the time to work the kinks out of your surname as well.