Links and fiction

[rivkat]

Wow. Your views on race affect what you think about this dog (Bo Obama, as it happens).

In the same vein, Anne Fausto-Sterling on Bodies with Histories:

Or consider spirometers, which measure lung function. The normal functioning of black people’s lungs is typically presumed to be 10–15 percent below that of white people’s. As Lundy Braun, who studies the intersection of race and medical science and technology, has shown, the presumption stems from a poorly supported idea that blacks inherently have lesser lung capacities than whites. Yet spirometers are calibrated to account for this difference. Some machines actually have a “race” switch built into them, which technicians flip depending on what race they believe the patient to be. Pegging the lung function of blacks at a lower level means, among other things, that they have to be sicker than whites in order to qualify for worker’s compensation or other insurance for lung-related illness.

Quis Copyright Ipsos Custodes: Another perspective on Watchmen prequels, including discussion of copyright and fan fiction, along with the difficulty of defending as feminist the argument that one particular guy should control these characters, instead of a corporation. Unlike the author, I like the original Watchmen, though.

P.C. Hodgell, God-Stalk: I don’t really know what to say about this dense, captivating fantasy. Blasting through worldbuilding, the book introduces us to Jame, a half-amnesiac not-quite-human exile from somewhere, running for her life. She runs into a city filled with gods, only some of them alive, and finds a makeshift family that is having political troubles of its own, into which she intervenes rather decisively. She’s either named for—or perhaps is, though that’s only my interpretation of some cryptic bits—the greatest traitor known to her kind, who opened the door for the Dark Lord who’s slowly taking over the worlds. Anyway, it’s fantastical and elaborate and chewy, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Holly Black, Black Heart: Third book in Black’s curse workers series (possibly a trilogy; there is an ending to this book). Cassel Sharpe, now secretly working with the feds, has to deal with ongoing problems at school and with the love of his young life, formerly cursed to love him and now virulently angry at him. If that’s not enough, she’s part of a powerful crime family and her father will kill him if the truth comes out. Also, the feds want him to assassinate a governor who’s looking to intern curse workers in detention camps. So, you know, he has a busy schedule. It’s a quick, fun read with a dash of con artistry, and maybe his personal problems are solved with relative ease, but these are teenagers and I’m willing to believe they can turn on a dime in this way, curses or not.

Joe Haldeman, A Separate War and Other Stories: Spanning nearly 40 years, these stories even dip a bit into fantasy, but mostly it’s Haldeman’s brand of humane but pessimistic sf, with people caught up in disasters environmental and military. I enjoyed them, even the most depressing (a story set in post-plague Boston, where the military hunts the few survivors to keep them from infecting the uninfected). The title story is what happened to Marygay from The Forever War, and it’s more sweet than most of the rest.

Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic: Bechdel’s memoir of her father, her father’s closeted homosexuality, and the literary worlds they did and didn’t share is a moving exploration of the bonds of family and history. Love in its many forms is mysterious—why did her father sublimate his sexuality into restoring their house? Why did her mother stay with him for so long? Why did Bechdel hide things from herself and from her parents in the way she describes? The meditations and literary allusions that fill this graphic novel don’t answer those questions; they can’t, and that’s part of the story. I liked the confessional yet also analytical style, and the illustrations give a strong sense of the period. The book focuses on her father and his early death (perhaps from suicide); I understand there’s another volume about her relationship with her mother.

Comments

[axiom_of_stripe]

i love p.c. hodgell's books so much! it always makes me happy when someone else is reading them. :)

[marycontrary]

I think the idea isn't the hard part: the development of an idea is, and the article put its finger on why we wish the idea itself was the valuable part. I'm also pretty firmly on the side of collaborative culture, even the for-profit versions -- it would take a lot before I sided with someone's dismay at their idea being used by someone else in a new way. Thanks for linking it.

[coffeeandink]

I'm so excited you're reading Hodgell! I love her books enormously. God Stalk is my favorite because Tai-Tastigon, but she does interesting things with world-building and gender and setting up assumptions and oversetting them later, too.

[grandiose666]

Thank you so much for the links and recs. I spend lots of time feeling like my brain is moldering swiss cheese and it's nice to run into things that spark me back into awareness-- especially instant-gratification links, on bodies and abilities and health and social context and stuff. But everything is on my to-read(-eventually) list. Thank you!