let's not get sloppy just because we're singing

bookelfe @ 2010-03-11T13:17:00

2010-03-11T18:15:08Z

Okay, you guys know I love Laurence Yep . . . in the way where up until recently the only books of his I had read involved CRANKY DRAGONS and CRIMEFIGHTING GREAT-AUNTS and he is an author who is actually known for writing Newbery-award-winning YA historical fiction about Chinese immigrants in San Francisco, um. But now that is no longer true, because I finally got around to reading Dragonwings, which is possibly his most famous book. (Dragon's Gate is the other famous one which may come next!)

Dragonwings was loosely based on the account of a Chinese man who, inspired by the Wright Brothers, built and tested an improved version of their flying machine in the hills of Oakland in 1909. (Because that wasn't enough awesome for him, for good measure he also built his own wireless sets and telephones for the local Chinese community.) The book is told from the perspective of Moon Shadow, the hypothetical son of the builder, who leaves his mother behind and goes to join his flying-obsessed father in America at the age of eight.

The coolest thing about the book - aside from, dude, flying machine - is how Yep is very consciously setting out to provide a Chinese perspective and not an American one. All the spoken-in-English dialogue is conveyed in italics to emphasize that most of the time Moon Shadow is thinking and speaking in Chinese, and Moon Shadow takes the time to carefully explain to the reader all the bizarre things that those wacky Americans do. One of my favorite scenes is when Moon Shadow kindly and condescendingly decides to enlighten his American landlady on the subject of dragons, because it is such a glorious reversal of the standard "kindly American shows immigrant the ways of learning!" trope.

A lot of the ugliness that was a part of the early immigrant experience is - not glossed over, exactly, but lightened. Yep is not out to write a grim and depressing book. So while institutionalized racism is very clearly a factor the threat of serious danger is always there, and there are background references to prostitution and lynch mobs, most of the white people that Moon Shadow himself encounters and interacts with on a long-term basis are surprisingly enlightened and kind. On the other hand, I don't think that everything has to be grimdarkdepressing all the time, and it's kind of nice to get to read a story like this where the protagonists get to actually win some of the time. I also really liked the focus on the sense of community and family within the Chinese company that Moon Shadow's father works for.

So in short: Laurence Yep continues to be awesome. (But because I'm shallow I still like the ones with cranky dragons and crimefighting elderly aunts best.)

In other news, in a few hours I am leaving for Chicago to descend on newredshoes >:D So if I don't see you, internets, have a good weekend!

bookelfe @ 2010-03-08T12:21:00

2010-03-08T17:19:51Z

My feelings about Margaret Atwood are complicated and go something like this:

FIRST HAND: Well, you thought The Handmaid's Tale was awesome when you read it in your high school library, right?
SECOND HAND: But it makes you kind of unhappy that she is all "ewwww, don't call my books science fiction." Seriously, what is with that attitude about sff?
OTHER HAND: Okay yes, but that aside, she does write in interesting ways about feminist issues!
OTHER OTHER HAND: But for a book written by a feminist author, man were you disappointed with the whole exotic orientalism thing going on in Oryx and Crake.
BACK TO THE FIRST HAND: But otherwise Oryx and Crake was pretty interesting, wasn't it?
SECOND HAND: Interesting, yes. But very difficult to connect to! Likewise, Cat's Eye (which you cannot now remember anything about.) Basically there seems to be kind of a disconnect between the way you see the world and the way Margaret Atwood does, which may mean that you are not the ideal audience for her.
FIRST HAND: Possibly you are sort of unfair to judge that off of three books.
CONCLUDING HAND: And yet, do you really have a strong wish to read a fourth? No? Thought not.

But then schiarire recommended me Negotiating With the Dead: A Writer On Writing, so I ended up reading a fourth after all.

My thoughts: the author of these essays is someone I like a lot better than I usually like the author of Atwood's fiction. I could have a good time hanging out with the author of the essays! They're clever and funny and grounded, and at times very incisive; overall they're a lot of fun to read, and I'm glad I did. But there's still a fundamental difference between the way I see things - in this case, the idea of being a writer - and the way Margaret Atwood does. Much of this book is about the writer-identity, the myths and mystique that surrounds that. Atwood spends a lot of time deflating the mystique, but - well, areyoumymemmy put it really well in an email conversation we were having last week, so I'm just going to quote her: she doesn't buy into the usual glamorization myths but she's sort of created her own (funnier and more realistic!) myths to replace them and they're actually pretty important to her, despite all the self-deprecation.

And it's not that I don't understand the impulse, because goodness only knows I get all shiny-eyed sometimes at the idea of being a Writer, a Real Writer, With Capital Letters Involved. But by this point in my life I find it hard to think of writing as some grand business of negotiating with the process of death, or descending into the underworld and coming out with a story; it's hard to think so self-importantly about something you do every day. I mean, if you want to write literary theory and argue that that is what writing is, then sure, fine, it's an interesting theory. But on a day-to-day basis - well, almost all of you guys are writers to some degree or another (just keeping a journal like this makes you a writer to some degre or another, I would say), so you can tell me if you disagree. But I don't think Writer-ness is a solid identity that you inhabit, like putting on a cloak: "now I am a Writer, and however petty my everyday identity may be, when I am wearing my Writer Cloak I perform the grand business of negotiating with the dead." I don't think it works that way. And if I don't have an alternate interpretation to provide, that is mostly because I'm sort of dubious about the concept of defining The Writer and The Writing Process at all.

bookelfe @ 2010-03-07T14:30:00

2010-03-07T19:30:09Z

So. I, um, appear to have gone crazy and made 320 or so Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood icons? (I guess this is not a real surprise to anyone who has been around here long enough to live through the first flower of my obsession with Princess Tutu.)

Anyway. Several text, an epic ton of bases, no real spoilers unless you count "AL BEFRIENDS A TINY PANDA" as a spoiler. (Apologies to anyone who didn't want to know that.) The five million Hawkeye and Envy icons were at genarti and cupenny 's request. I have no excuse for the five million Izumi and Olivier icons other than my desperate crushes on both of those ladies. As always, feel free to edit any bases, although crediting is appreciated.

Preview:

Text:

Bases:

In conclusion: if I say anything about going near Photoshop in the next few months or so, PLEASE SHOOT ME IN THE BACK.

bookelfe @ 2010-03-05T11:58:00

2010-03-05T16:56:48Z

I just started trying to write up a review of Lois McMaster Bujold's Mirror Dance, and realized it's kind of impossible without massive spoilers for the entire Vorkosigan series. So instead, I will just say that Wednesday was a very frustrating day for me, because I was halfway through the book and thought I had no post-work plans and instead got surprise work-related event sprung on me when all I wanted to do was be curled up on my couch tearing through the rest of the pages.

The Good:

I loved getting back to Barrayar and the focus on Cordelia and Aral, as seen through someone else's eyes; I loved their complex and believable reactions to Mark and his own difficulties with adjusting into Barrayaran society; and I loved the emphasis on becoming your own person, rather than just a double or echo of somebody else. Basically everything with the Vorkosigan family was amazing. And Gregor! And Ivan! Ivan crying at the party might have been the most actually heartbreaking part of the book, for me, and not just because Ivan is my favorite, although I won't deny it had something to do with it.

I also thought it was kind of awesome getting to see Miles being so Miles, and so clearly a completely different kind of person from Mark, even when he doesn't actually know who he is. (And oh, the web of lies that bites him in the ass: "You could be clone!Naismith or clone!Mark!" Miles: ". . . wait, what? NEITHER OF THESE SOUNDS ACCURATE.") And the flow of Jacksonian politics was actually really interesting. One of my favorite parts is when Miles reminds himself that the (apparently-sympathetic) Durona group has nonetheless been surviving on Jackson's Whole for many, many years, and warm and fuzzy altruism is nooot really in the picture - which doesn't make them the bad guys either. And as usual, the prose and plot is incredibly and compulsively readable and very hard to put down!

The Uncomfortable:

Okay. So. Thing one: I had a very hard time forgiving Mark for the near-rape incident with the clone.

Thing two: I would have been much happier if Elena hadn't forgiven him. I will be honest: I kind of hated that all it took was Cordelia explaining Mark's Tragic Backstory (which is legitimately tragic, and understandable that it makes him messed up, BUT STILL) for Elena to come in and apologize for misjudging him. No, she didn't misjudge him; that was a heinous thing that he did, and I really appreciated that Elena didn't condone it, and that the narrative was acknowledging how heinous it was - and then Elena forgave him, and I felt like I as the reader was being told that I had to forgive him for it too. And, no. I can recognize Mark as a fascinating and sympathetic and messed-up character, but that does not make it okay.

Thing three: even accepting Mark as a fascinating and sympathetic character, which he certainly is - OH MY GOD I do not trust him near girls and I don't want him dating anyone EVER. I mean, I would not really want Miles dating a friend of mine either, because fond as I am of Miles he is packed full of issues and is kind of a horrible boyfriend ("well Elli Quinn won't marry me so I'LL JUST ASK ROWAN DURONA! Surely someday someone will say yes!"). But that I could deal with! But Mark is a WHOLE DIFFERENT ORDER of desperately in need of therapy and I find myself wanting to shriek NO KAREEN GET AWAY!

I am worried this is going to cause problems with my reread of Civil Campaign. The first time I read it I could sympathize with Mark and Kareen wanting their independence, but now, man, I would be extremely concerned about my daugther dating Mark Vorkosigan also!

bookelfe @ 2010-03-03T11:46:00

2010-03-03T16:44:49Z

It seems like a large number of the creepiest ghost stories involve some sort of creepy small child. (Most often, a creepy little girl.)

Helen Oyeyemi's The Icarus Girl is a little different from the usual, in that the story is actually told from the perspective of the aforementioned creepy little girl. Jessamy Harrison is eight years old, the solitary and precocious child of a Nigerian author and her English husband; she's prone to writing poetry, curling up in closets with books above her reading level, throwing sudden and inexplicable panic attack-related tantrums and falling equally inexplicably ill. At the beginning of the book, Jessamy's family takes her to her first visit to Nigeria to meet her mother's family, where she bonds with her grandfather and with a strange girl named Titiola, whom Jessamy calls TillyTilly. TillyTilly apparently lives in an abandoned outpost of the family house, has no visible parents, speaks in broken Nigerian-accented English when they meet but is soon discussing poetry and English literature with Jessamy as if she's been doing it her whole life. She's the best (possibly only) friend Jessamy has ever had - and shortly after Jessamy returns to England, TillyTilly mysteriously shows up on her street and promises to be her friend forever! WHAT COULD BE AWESOMER.

I'm sure everyone can guess where this is going.

There are a lot of interesting things going on in this book. Oyeyemi is writing a lot of play with doubles and identity and naming and belonging; the connection between Jessamy and TillyTilly is kind of fascinating and has a lot of room for interpretation. (Including the obvious "is TillyTilly real or is this kid JUST CRAZY?" one, but I find that less interesting than the other options.) I really like that the book is from Jessamy's perspective - and it's really interesting to see the way the adults react to this haunted and sometimes frightening child through Jessamy's own eyes - but at the same time I get the feeling that Oyeyemi sometimes found it frustrating to be limited to the viewpoint of a bright but not-necessarily-sane child. There are one or two points where she suddenly jumps to someone else's viewpoint to explain what's going on, which I found somewhat jarring. And there are a couple places, especially towards the end, where the narrative flies somewhat out of control; I left the story feeling like all the strands of metaphor hadn't quite come together enough. On the other hand, Oyeyemi is a freaking genius who wrote this book when she was eighteen, so I think this is forgivable.

bookelfe @ 2010-03-01T12:59:00

2010-03-01T17:57:17Z

First, whoever sent me the anonymous virtual gift - thank you! It makes me grin whenever I look at my profile.

Second, chlorrel recently lent me Gail Carriger's Soulless, and as total supernatural-romance fluff it was very enjoyable! The basic premise is an AU semi-steampunk Victorian England (of course) in which vampires, werewolves, and ghosts are a relatively accepted part of society; the scientific explanation for them is that they have an overabundance of soul. Our Heroine Alexia, on the other hand, is soulless, which does not mean anything in terms of her ethics and emotional functioning but does mean that when she comes into contact with a vampire or a werewolf she cancels out their supernaturalness and sends them back to default human state. The plot revolves around mysteriously-appearing-and-disappearing vampires and werewolves and a shady conspiracy and is mostly an excuse for Alexia to run around and hit people with her parasol, although it does also set up for some potentially interesting worldbuilding around the question of how vampires and werewolves are made.

This is the sort of book where the heroine is less upset about being attacked by a vampire at a ball than the hostess' distressing failure to provide snacks, the werewolf would be exceedingly respectable and an excellent marriage prospect if he weren't so Scottish (and possessed of terrible taste in cravats), the frilltastically dandyish outfits of Alexia's vampire BFF and his adoring man-harem are described in loving detail, and the bickering love interests keep referring to That Incident With the Hedgehog. If you like this sort of thing, you will probably enjoy this book. The author is desperately in need of a good Brit-picker, which could get extremely jarring, but since the whole point of the book is basically LOLVICTORIANS and while we're at it LOLVAMPIRES I am not complaining too much. It's an AU! Lots of handwaving. (It is, however, a fairly standard Victorian AU in other ways: namely, everyone is white, with the biggest divergence from the visual standard being Alexia's darker Italian skin tone. Which - is not that big a divergence. Also, while there are sympathetic non-straight characters, it's mostly played for laughs. Then again, so is everything else.)

A few things I did like about the romance, objectively speaking: Alexia is a twentysomething spinster and her werewolf boyfriend is over a century old, and whenever she starts going on about how she is too old and a spinster and on the shelf, he is like "seriously? I am feeling kind of sketchy with the age difference here already, an eighteen-year-old would be AWFUL." Also, Alexia is bossy and dominant and amazingly in charge, and her alpha werewolf boyfriend is totally into that, which is cool.

However, I think I have figured out one of the things about romance novels, even good ones, that often means they don't quite work for me: I have a self-control kink. The romance novels I have read are so often about the ~irresistible urges~ of OMG I FIND THIS PERSON SUPER HOT, with all the development of the people learning to like and respect each other woven in through the IRRESISTIBLE PASSION. And while this is a perfectly legitimate trope, and there is certainly nothing wrong with passion, I tend to find it a lot more interesting (and respect the characters more) when they are able to suppress that because of more pressing concerns. But this is just me! What about you guys? When it comes to fiction - or fic, for that matter - which do you like better?

View Poll: IRRESISTIBLE POLL

bookelfe @ 2010-02-26T14:36:00

2010-02-26T19:34:08Z

I have no content today. Here, have a quick unbeta'ed Fullmetal Alchemist ficlet! (Spoilery for chapter 79 of the manga/episode 43 of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.)

Envy is determined to maintain a lofty and dignified silence in his reduced condition, which works fine until the stupid black-and-white cat tries to eat him.

- this isn't the part he minds. Let the whatever-it-is creature just try - that's fine! He'll just take over its body, and then he'd like to see the little alkahestry girl try to pretend she doesn't care. But he doesn't get a chance, because the brat sweeps up his jar before anything can happen and launches on a lecture, braids bobbing as she shakes her finger vigorously, and, incidentally, also shaking his jar, making his body flop and his head ache and someday she is going to pay for this, he swears. Envy hates pain.

But even this he could live with - he's a Homunculus! the great Envy, who started the Ishvalan war! LITTLE GIRLS CANNOT DEFEAT HIM - if delivering the lecture didn't start her off on talking.

And talking.

And talking.

After half an hour, Envy can't take it anymore.

"Look, just what kind of delusional are you, pipsqueak? He doesn't have crisp beautiful golden hair! He doesn't have any kind of hair! Because he's a giant empty suit of armor!"

Mei Chan appears unbothered by this. "You're just jealous of Alphonse-sama's good looks," she says serenely, hoists the jar, and continues walking.

The black-and-white cat shoots a smug look at him through the glass, and Envy finds himself starting to wish that the Ishval freak had just squished him under his boot after all.

bookelfe @ 2010-02-25T14:45:00

2010-02-25T19:43:12Z

How did it take me this long to get around to reading the latest Bloody Jack book?

Rapture of the Deep: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of Jacky Faber, Soldier, Sailor, Mermaid, Spy is the seventh Bloody Jack book, and this series continues to fill me with joy in my heart despite (or perhaps because of?) the increasingly ridiculous list of Jacky's accomplishments. It helps that L. A. Meyer totally knows how ridiculous it is and wastes no opportunity to point this out.

Let us track Jacky's career progress so far:

Bloody Jack: pickpocket, cross-dressed cabin boy, midshipman, castaway, schoolgirl
Curse of the Blue Tattoo: schoolgirl, maid, actress, singer, musician, artist
Under the Jolly Roger: nanny, lieutenant, merchant sailor, cult star of a popular series of novel romances, naturalist, PIRATE
In the Belly of the Bloodhound: - actually I think Jacky does not pick up any new careers here! On the other hand, she does make out with girls, which I think somewhat balances it out.
Mississippi Jack: showgirl, playwright, owner of a merchant firm, riverboat casino operator
My Bonny Light Horsemen: cavalry officer, BALLERINA SPY
Rapture of the Deep: all of the above (except possibly riverboat casino officer) plus fighting rooster trainer PLUS: DEEP-SEA DIVER

From this alone I think some of you will understand why I love these books. (Also, okay, I am sorry but after my thesis I just have to get this out there, IDENTITY SHIFTS LIMINALITY LACK OF BINARIES okay I am done.)

I can't decide which is better, the part where Jacky invents the modern bathing suit or the part where she invents flippers. Also the boyfriend tally in this book is up to three in the same place at once, which is reasonably impressive even for Jacky. (Tiny detail, but I am also quite fond of the blatant Casablanca homage with Ric's Cafe Americano in Havana.) And yet despite the ridiculous improbableness of it all, Jacky also still has her flaws - she's still a ridiculous show-off, still prone to bursting into blubbering whiny tears ("why are you so meeeeeeean to meeeeeee!") and, best of all, still an enormous flirt and never demonized for it, because she's the hero of a picaresque romance and that's how these things work. Go Jacky!

Complaints: first of all, and this is a big one, oh L.A. Meyer. I appreciate that the freed-slave character has an agenda and goals of her own, and also gets to save the day; that is pretty cool. However, that does not help enough, because did she really have to be a cook named Jemimah? Really?

My other complaint: my favorite Jacky books are the ones that are lady-centric, and while this book had some ladies there are nowhere near enough. (I am still waiting on my Jacky-and-Amy adventure, L.A. Meyer!) However, it looks like that will be fixed soon, because apparently the next book is all about Jacky on a ship of FEMALE CONVICTS GOING TO AUSTRALIA. How excited am I? THIS EXCITED.

bookelfe @ 2010-02-24T11:47:00

2010-02-24T16:45:31Z

Okay, so between yesterday and today I have read Volume 7 of 20th Century Boys and Volume 1 of Pluto, which makes this Let's Talk About Naoki Urasawa Day over here.

In news that is unsurprising to anyone, Twentieth Century Boys continues to be my favorite Urasawa series. (Whyyyy is there only one volume every two months ;_; My life, it is tragic.) This volume did not make me shriek quite as much as the last one, but the story is pretty clearly continuing to build to awesome! elspeth_vimes, you were right, I love Kyoko KIND OF A LOT - a little bit spacy, kind of self-centered in a teenagerish way, but also clearly really smart when she puts her mind to it! And a guitarist fangirl, which is going to be really interesting in context, one suspects. I really hope she gets to meet up with Kanna in the next volume. *_* (But where was Kanna in this volume? And Little Cho? AND YUKIJI? I mean, not that The Adventures of Otcho and his Manga Artist Sidekick were not awesome as well.)

In more plot-relevant news, it was pretty obvious that Friend was not going to turn out to be Sadakiyo, not just because that would be way too early a reveal, but also because it was patently ridiculous how much Fukubei was trying to make it All About Him. "AND he got your sister pregnant, Kenji . . . BECAUSE HE WAS MAD AT ME!" The logic does not quite work there. I also facepalmed at Kenji hesitating to kill the-guy-he-thought-was-Friend because . . . HE'S KANNA'S DAD! I mean, it makes total sense for Kenji, because he's Kenji, BUT STILL. Also, I loved many aspects of the confrontation scene (Kenji and Maruo singing in the car: BEST) but I really, really wish that every character had not taken the time to stop and try to send Yukiji home. HOW MANY TIMES must she prove that she is more badass than any of them? How many times!

(Also: Mon-chan. :( :( :()

The first volume of Pluto I just finished on the subway this morning, and I am a.) really fascinated by the worldbuilding and interested to see where it is going and b.) really, really torn about whether to stop and go read the Astro Boy story it's based on, or, alternately, read all of Pluto, go find the Astro Boy story, and then read Pluto again! (It's only eight volumes or so . . . so it won't take that much time! Um.) So far, the story as I read it - completely unspoilered by any context - appears to be about a mysterious killer who is taking out famous/influential robots, and the robot detective who is investigating the case. The part that fascinates me is the range of robots we see and their integration into society - some of them look completely human and some of them don't at all, but regardless of their appearance they can marry, hold paid jobs, adopt children. (I kind of loved Prizefighter Robot and his five million adopted kids, I'm not going to lie.)

It does keep throwing me, I'll admit, how similar the character designs are to some of the designs in Monster. I don't have this problem with the art in 20th Century Boys - while it's totally recognizable Urasawa and there is some overlap in character designs (Kanna and Nina, anyone?) most of the main cast look different enough that I'm not jarred - but with Pluto I keep forgetting that I'm reading a totally non-Monster story and being like "HEY AN UNDERGROUND JAPANESE DOCTOR IS THAT - no. No, that's definitely not." It doesn't help that it's set in Germany. Though I do love the thought that Urasawa puts into drawing his futuristic cities. And also, into everything, because, let's face it, it's Naoki Urasawa.

bookelfe @ 2010-02-23T12:15:00

2010-02-23T17:13:37Z

I am pretty sure most of my thoughts on Michelle West's The Riven Shield (fifth book in the Sun Sword series) are highly spoilery, so basically elspeth_vimes is the only one who will have interest in much of this entry. Suffice to say: the series is I think still getting stronger as it goes, and even though I occasionally get lost in all the politics of who is what is where is aligning with whom, I can finally see things building to some kind of conclusion. Also, this is the most amazingly culture-clash-y book yet, which I love! The most fascinating parts of the book for me were actually Valedan and his Northern allies/Northern-influenced Southern allies trying to interact with the Callestas, who are interacting based on an entirely different set of ground-rules, and how the book does not shy away from the consequences of those rules. I also love Alina manages to force the possibility of moving between the two worlds, which is why she is awesome. (And Telakas the Least Menacing Demon continues to be hilarious, if . . . possibly only in my head. "Shit, I didn't mean to actually wound her seriously! Um . . . crap.")

Also awesome: SERRA TERESA KILLING A DEMON DEAD. I find it hilarious that everyone else's battles with demons take about twenty or thirty pages minimum, and Teresa takes hers down in, like, a page. AND THEN GOES INTO A COMA. But I am convinced that she will recover! Otherwise she would have just been dead.

However, I will admit that I have pretty much no idea what was happening during the whole epic battle of epicness with rivers rising and demons popping up all over the place and Avandar and the stag freaking out and Kallandras and his elf-buddy having their epic bromance. There was some dramatic manipulation of the elements! I'm pretty sure Jewel/Avandar is now pretty much canon! Other than that, WHO KNOWS, let us get back to the complicated politics now. The kai Lamberto showing up at the last minute was pretty awesome, though.

IN OTHER NEWS: areyoumymemmy linked to this beauty last night, and I - I don't even have words. Andrew Lloyd Webber. Andrew. Lloyd. Webber. Everything points to a production beyond my WILDEST DREAMS OF RIDICULOUS. *_*

Meg shoots Christine dead in a jealous rage.

Meg shoots Christine dead. In a jealous rage.

LEAVING THE PHANTOM ALONE WITH HIS AND CHRISTINE'S FANFIC BABY.

BRB LAUGHING FOREVER AND EVER. (milliways_bar people, I am suddenly filled with PROFOUND SORROW that Meg is retired and this can never be bar-canon.)

Other comments/highlights: the Phantom lures the child to his lair in a scene filled with the gorilla automaton, walking skeleton and a hanging chandelier of 20+ Medusa like skulls that come to life in song

there are some good bits like when u first see the phantom. He's feeling up one of the christine dummies like in the first one and suddenly she is bathed in coloured lights and her dress spins up into the air and flies off

I can't even suspect it of being a joke, for lo, I know in my heart, it is ALL TOO REAL.

OKAY GUYS WHO IS COMING TO NEW YORK TO SEE THIS WITH ME *_* *_* *_* *_*

bookelfe @ 2010-02-19T19:50:00

2010-02-20T00:50:50Z

Thing the first and MOST IMPORTANT: I WILL LOVE genarti FOREVER AND EVER, and THIS IS WHY.

(Okay, there are in fact COUNTLESS reasons why, but Fullmetal Alchemist ANGST BINGO CARDS are high up there on that list! No spoilers, MUCH HILARITY.)

Thing the second: in_the_blue tagged me for a meme!

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag five people.

"But the kai el'Sol had spoken.

Jevri attended them, boy and girl; Jevri made clear - to the wife, not the husband - that the boy's welfare and sanity depended on her ability to keep him still. Jevri was wise, and although Marakas had acknowledged that fact from the first day they had met, he found it a surprise and a blessing to be so often reacquainted with the knowledge.

As for himself, he was given leave to draw his sword."

- Michelle West, The Riven Shield

(Oh, Michelle West. I am very fond of your books, but this passage does not really show off your deathless prose. It does show off your fondness for Ridiculous Fantasy Names, however. My favorite is how the commanders of the army are named Valedan kai di'Leonne, Ellora AKalakar . . . and Bruce Allen.)

I am not tagging five people. Instead I will say, if you have a book near you right now and you are reading this, just do it! I have an insatiable curiosity about what people are reading.

Thing the third: shoroko tagged me for another meme!

Rules: List ~~seven~~ eight songs (birdseyeview added one) you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your fall (winter?). Post these instructions in your LJ along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to. (Still not tagging people. But do it if you want!)

This is a long one and so I am putting it under a cut.

1. River Town, Live (Lyrics)

you'd better turn back before the frost sets in
these desert nights are for weathered men
the ones who've already given in

As with many songs, I fell in love with this one when I started mentally planning out a vid to it. Now every time it comes up, I go back and listen to it and mentally align it with footage. But also, it is just so much more epic than the apparent theme would suggest.

2. C'est La Vie, Coralie Clement (Lyrics

c’est la vie qu’on mène
on baigne dans son sang tout baigne

This is a cute, quirky song in French with lyrics that occasionally jump all of a sudden into the incredibly creepy without you noticing! Because it's a cute, quirky song in French.

3. Seed of Wonder, Jesca Hoop (Lyrics)

ah oh ah no ah - all i want is to be writing
to be writing

once that wish did land
like a star in my hand - it burned and it burned and it burrowed in

Jesca Hoop is a recent musical discovery of mine and I have fallen kind of in love with her. This is my favorite of her songs, but I could listen to almost any of them forever.

4. Downfall, Matchbox 20 (Lyrics)

here we go again
ashamed of being broken in

This is another song I did not actually care about that much, and then I got a vid for it in my head and it won't go away now. "But it's so deep!" I explain to myself, upon which I then respond to myself, "Self, it is the same lyrics over and over." But I don't care, I love it anyways.

5. Blue (Da Ba Dee), Max Raabe and the Palaas Orchester (Lyrics)

And everything is blue for him and hisself
And everybody around
Cos he ain't got nobody to listen to

schiarire sent me a CD of Max Raabe songs when I first moved into my new apartment to distract me from moving-stress. And THAT IT CERTAINLY DID. Max Raabe basically covers pop songs in German cabaret style. It is GLORIOUS. *_* Oops . . . I Did It Again is the most brain-twisty, but this one is the one that gets stuck in my head the most.

6. Don't Stop Me Now, Queen (Lyrics)

i'm burning through the sky yeah!
two hundred degrees
that's why they call me mister fahrenheit

Something about the lyric "That's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit" cracks me up every time! Also it makes me want to chairdance. Look, I like Queen, okay, I never said I had claims to taste!

7. The Setting of the Sun, Seth Lakeman (Lyrics)

come all young fellows that carry a gun,
beware of late shooting when the daylight is done.
it is my reckoning that many hazards they may run.
I shot my true love at the setting of the sun

This is another one that makes me start giggling every time I hear it. Look, sometimes, you're having a rough day, you mistake your girlfriend for a swan, you accidentally shoot her. IT COULD HAPPEN TO ANYONE.

8. Listen, Tryad (Lyrics)

are we now finally seeing
what we’ve been always being

Sometimes, I want to listen to loud dancing music; sometimes I want to listen to quiet, whispery music, and this song falls into the second category.

Thing the fourth: no seriously, I'm still expiring of joy over the bingo cards.

bookelfe @ 2010-02-18T12:34:00

2010-02-18T17:32:57Z

schiarire recommended me A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in a Conquered City, the diary of an anonymous woman who was living in Berlin when it fell to the Russians in WWII. I am glad I read it, but it's going to be a difficult book to write about. Everything else is under a cut for potential triggers.

The main talking point of the book - the reason it was met with enormous controversy when it was initially published in 1959, and never published again until after the author's death - is the mass rape of German women that occurred when the Russian army conquered Berlin. The author is raped numerous times, and eventually affiliates herself with an officer to try and protect herself from casual rape by other soldiers. Her landlady, a fifty-year-old widow, is raped on the staircase by a sixteen-year-old boy. Some women escape by hiding in crawlspaces or attic lofts for weeks with almost no food or water; a different kind of torture. It becomes an almost casual question when women meet: "How many times . . .?"

And in-between all the brutality, there are the scenes of staggering absurdity, a bizarre kind of normality. When sober, Russian soldiers come to the author's house and discuss politics and architecture over tea. The widow frets over missing stockings and bits of jewelry. One soldier asks the author to help find him a nice girl. Another soldier, one of the ones who raped the author on the second day, comes back and declares eternal love for her; the author sardonicaly dubs him "Romeo." She classifies the Russians she meets: "An entirely new specimen!" She writes about the brutalities the Germans have done, too; they hear reports of German soldiers swinging the heads of Russian babies against the wall, and, towards the end, the stories about the concentration camps start to come out over the radio. This isn't propaganda or a story of victimization. It's a clear and cold-headed account of what happens to women in wartime. And in the aftermath, life continues. As the city slowly runs out of food, people re-open barbershops and movie theaters, and talk about how strange it is not to go to work (except of course on the days when they are sent to forced labor.)

The author was a journalist; her voice is intelligent and often witty, occasionally cruel, and full of black humor, which makes the parts where she lets her bitterness show hit that much harder.

I feel like I'm writing a lot about what's in the book, not what I thought. But I don't know if I can really formulate many of my thoughts. I think, though, that it is worth reading, if you can take it; I have never read anything before that discusses rape so frankly. The author knows this frankness is a temporary commodity, too, writing about how as soon as the soldiers come back, the subject will be taboo; "each one of us will have to act as if she in particular was spared." That's one of, but not the only, thing that makes this book so valuable.

bookelfe @ 2010-02-17T11:57:00

2010-02-17T16:55:38Z

I have had a vague resolution to read The Lightning Thief before the movie came out for months, which chlorrel finally facilitated by shoving her copy into my hands. And I did, in fact, finish it the day the movie came out! I am the best resolution-keeper.

For the most part, I enjoyed the book! For anyone in the world who doesn't already know the premise: the series is narrated by twelve-year-old Percy Jackson, who finds out in the first chapter or two that he is secretly the son of one of the Olympic gods and monsters are trying to kill him. On the down side, he promptly gets stuck with a couple of downer prophecies and a dramatic cross-country quest to save the world. On the bright side, when things aren't going to hell, he gets to go to half-god summer camp!

I liked Percy's voice, and the way Rick Riordan is clearly having epic amounts of fun throwing in all the bits and pieces of mythology he remembers and gently poking at it, which makes for a lot of fun for the reader as well. I also had a lot of fun with the cross-country-road-trip aspect of the story, especially the parts that took place in cities I know and could go "hey, I recognize that!" On the other hand, I spent a bit of time cringing and trying to ignore the "GREEK GODS ARE THE FOUNDATION OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION IS SUPER IMPORTANT" part of the mythology, because: what, and no. (It could have been worse! The book made no sweeping appropriative claims about the rest of the world; instead, it just ignored it. Wait, maybe that's not better. I'm not sure. However, Greek mythology is in no way the only Western mythology, Rick Riordan!) I also suspect I was feeling more sympathetic to [SPOILER ANTAGONIST] and his goals than I was supposed to. The system is messed up! Down with the gods! REVOLUTION IN OLYMPUS, I am all for it! I do not actually expect the series will complicate its own setup enough to go to the "revolution in Heaven" place, but I secretly hope it surprises me and does. chlorrel has promised to keep supplying me with books and I will be continuing to read them.

In other news, I spent far too long last night reading through a linked collection of Fullmetal Alchemist bonus chapters that are not up in the scanlations, and many of you are probably sick of me babbling by now so I will keep this short, but man, guys. You know how sometimes you love many aspects of a story, while sadly getting the impression that the author does not share your priorities or actually like you all that much?

Yeah, Hiromu Arakawa is not one of those authors. Hiromu Arakawa LOVES ME AND WANTS ME TO BE HAPPY. >:D It is like she sat down and thought to herself, "what would make Becca happiest?" And then provided me with:

- Hawkeye hanging out with a lady friend and Hawkeye and Winry influencing each other in ways that have nothing to do with dudes!
- Hohenheim dispensing sage advice FROM THE TOILET. With his pants around his ankles!
- THE OFFICE: TEAM MUSTANG. Falman obsessing over paperclips! Havoc falling asleep and drooling on his paperwork! The FMA equivalent of prank wars!
- Mustang being INCREDIBLY, GLORIOUSLY MANPAINY . . . before his team shoots him down and dumps paperwork on his head
- and, of course, BABY IZUMI BEATS UP EVERYONE, which, okay, I feel the need to summarize this one:

18-YEAR-OLD IZUMI: *marches into the frozen wastelands with only a knife and the clothes on her back*
BRIGGS SOLDIER: Hey, you must be a spy! I will take you to justice. >:O
IZUMI: Aren't you supposed to be protecting the population, not harassing them?
BRIGGS SOLDIER: Around here, the law is survival of the fittest!
IZUMI: Really? WELL OKAY THEN. >:D *beats up Briggs soldier, steals all his stuff*

IZUMI: Man, surviving in the wilderness is annoying. *drop-kicks a wolf*
IZUMI: Stupid cold! *beats up another Briggs soldier*
IZUMI: And I don't even have a boyfriend yet! *beats up a PACK of wolves*
IZUMI: I guess I'll have some deep revelations about the universe now. *JUDO THROWS A BEAR*

If this is not proof that Hiromu Arakawa loves me and wants me to be happy, I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS.

bookelfe @ 2010-02-16T13:22:00

2010-02-16T18:20:16Z

I am still reading my way through Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series; I read Black Betty towards the end of last year, and A Little Yellow Dog last week, which puts me at halfway through (I think there are ten books total.)

The plots of these books really don't actually stick in my mind that well - mostly because, like many noirs, they are crazy convoluted and involve about six double-crosses per book. Black Betty is the one that is actually most super-classical-noir, with a Very Complicated Family that has Very Complicated Family Secrets and Secret Parentage (I think there might even be a decoy daughter!) and so on; A Little Yellow Dog has petty schoolhouse theft and identical twins and a sinister toy croquet set. (Seriously, that is all of the plot I remember and I read it last week.) What does stick in my mind is how carefully Mosley ages up Easy, and actually moves him through the timeline. The concerns of the books set in the forties and the fifties and the sixties are different. In A Little Yellow Dog, which is set in the sixties, no one is worrying about COMMUNISTS like they were three books back, they are worrying about drugs. From what I understand the next book in the timeline follows the LA race riots. Easy ages, too, and his family grows - in five books, he's accidentally (and kind of hilariously) acquired two adopted kids and a dog, all of which are relevant to and ground his life.

Basically, I have some problems with Easy as a character, and some problems with the books' treatment of women (that I tend to trace back to Easy as a character, rather than Mosley), but all this is interesting and unique enough that I keep reading. I can't think of any other mystery series that jumps from decade to decade so quickly and grounds its concerns in different eras so precisely. Then again, I certainly have not read all that many mystery series - can you guys think of any?

icon meme redux

2010-02-12T20:28:10Z

So yes I already did this once this week. But am I ever going to turn down a chance to procrastinate more, on a Friday when I am counting down the hours until the arrival of a BUS (AND TRAIN) LOAD OF AWESOME PEOPLE? The answer is: NO.

The meme continues to be: Comment here and I will pick six of your icons, you then copy and paste this in your LJ along with your explanations/comments/squeeage about each one.

From vivien529:

The cap is from the musical version of Notre-Dame de Paris; the gentleman there is Clopin, who in the book/musical is the leader of the Gypsies and, if all you know is the Disney movie, a SIGNIFICANTLY MORE BADASS figure. One of the things I really like about the musical is how they turn Clopin into a voice of critique and anger; his songs are about racism and classism and anti-immigrant sentiment, which is pretty awesome considering the, uh, epic racism of the source text. (He is also the only guy who is not at some point or another a creepy jerkface about Esmerelda. Go Clopin!) The keywords and the text on the icon come from one of my favorite songs, sung by the Gypsies after they've been deported from Paris. The full lyric is comment faire une monde sans misere, sans frontiere, which translates loosely to "how to make a world without misery, without borders." It is my anti-racist icon, hence the commentary, Clopin: fighting racism since 1492 (the year in which the story takes place).

This is Olive from Pushing Daisies! She and Emerson were basically tied for the position of "character of my heart" in this show. She is a tiny perky pie waitress with a knack for solving crimes, and also, singing. In this scene, she is disguised as a snotty rich lady in order to lure a Robin Hood-type into robbing her apartment so she can catch him out! AND SHE IS FABULOUS. Keywords: too fabulous, for obvious reasons! Commentary: as queen of everything Olive is officially too awesome to deal with you. Is there anything more to be said? :D

elspeth_vimes made this icon for me, after single-handedly getting me to read the Twelve Kingdoms books, both of which are things I OWE HER GREATLY for. :D Yoko is the heroine of Sea of Shadows, the first book in the series, an Ordinary Japanese Schoolgirl With a Secret Destiny. SPOILER ALERT: she is totally king of a magical land. (No, not queen.) The commentary and keywords are from Iron and Wine's song "Woman King" - someday you will see a woman king, sword in hand, swing at some evil and bleed. Which I like for Yoko both because she is epically badass and because it doesn't come easy for her.

More awesome ladies! This is Mei Chan from the new Fullmetal Alchemist series, right as she is in the process of yanking her BFF Scar out from under the noses of his enemies with her mad alkahestry skills. I love the composition of this icon, with the blue light and the magic, and how powerful she looks, and hence the keyword is ablaze. The comments are some of the things a girl can do, which are lyrics from a Noe Venable song, "Tinkerbell"; in the song, the line leads to a depressing and short list of options, and I kind of love that I can counter that in this icon with Mei Chan, the smallest and youngest of the FMA female characters who does a lot more with her power than just make pretty lights.

This is the main cast of Capital Scandal, a kdrama about Korea in the 1930's under Japanese rule. It involves swing dancing, romantic bets, and REVOLUTION. \o/ At one point near the end of the series, all the revolutionaries get together for dinner and snap a group photo, which, as my commentary says: such a dumb thing to do and yet so adorable! The keywords are children of the revolution, from the song of the same name. I like this icon but I rarely use it and I may switch it out at some point.

This is one of the icons that fire_and_a_rose made for me. As you can see, it is of a creepy girl holding a teacup; the tea leaves are a monarch butterfly. The keywords, tea party, and the commentary, creepy butterfly tea party, okay, but when has that ever stopped me? are I think pretty self-explanatory. I use it for being creepy! Or for commentary involving tea.

From newredshoes (who gave me seven, but two are the same as Viv's):

Another one from fire_and_a_rose's icon set! It is from an illustration, I think, and I kind of love how unnerved/awkward the girl in the illustration looks. Kind of like she's about to raise her hand and go "I was just turned into an ostrich, can I be excused?" The keywords hence are artistically unnerved and the commentary is painting says it wasn't me!

This is an icon of NELLIE BLY, dashing lady journalist, who did an enormous publicity-stunt trp around the world in less-than-80-days, beating Phileas Fogg's fictional record. It was such a hit that they made contemporary trading cards of her! Which is where this icon coes from. Both the commentary and the keywords are from text on the trading cards - 'Oh, Fogg, goodbye,' said Nellie Bly/'it takes a maiden to be spry' and The World looked on, and cried, 'Well done!/ The globe was bravely trotted!'

This is a screencap from Elizabeth: The Golden Age, which - look, you guys know my thing for Queen Elizabeth, it is no secret. I didn't think the movie was particularly fabulous, but I love that shot of her standing on top of the map of the world, directly over England. Unsubtle? Yes. Gorgeous? ALSO YES. The keywords are royaume inconnu, which translates to "kingdom unknown" and is from the song "Tango (Princesse)" by Julie Zenatti, because I like pretentious French keywords. In keeping with the theme of pretentiousness, the comments are she is an island, which is a play on both "no man is an island" and the fact that Britain is an island and as the Queen she officially is Britain. I THOUGHT I WAS BEING VERY CLEVER OKAY.

spellcoats made this one off the cover of the compilation of all four books of the Dalemark Quartet. The boy in the cover is Mitt, whose fictional career includes trying to blow up the government at age twelve, becoming a hired assassin at age fifteen, and shortly thereafter - SPOILER ALERT - becoming king of the country. The cover artist decided that the best way to represent all this was with a teenaged boy wearing a kitty-ears hat and being REALLY SULKY about it. spellcoats and I both find this really hilarious, because . . . we're easily amused? Um. Anyway, the keywords are DANGEROUS REVOLUTIONARY, because: LOL.

This is Al from Fullmetal Alchemist! genarti has pointed out that he is kind of unrecognizable in this icon, which is true; normally he looks like a giant suit of armor. Here, he looks like a ridiculous blobby cartoon because he is SO SHINY EYED WITH DELIGHT about having made friends with a tiny angry panda that is trying to bite his fingers off! The keywords are basically just *_* because: ADORABLE PANDA. Tiny ferocious creatures that try to snap off your fingers ARE the ultimate in cute!

From littledust, two of whose picks were already requested:

This is Cowboy Guy Riley! I stole it from shati back in the days when I was first using my LJ and had no idea what icons to take, and wanted something to convey ABSOLUTE GLEE. He just looks so happy! *fuzzles his hat* And I have never deleted it, because as the commentary says, there is nothing that conveys happiness better than Cowboy Guy Riley. The keywords, self-explanatorily, are cowboy glee!

fire_and_a_rose made this icon for me at my request. I love the poem "Song" by John Donne epically - not least because of the way it is used in Howl's Moving Castle - and the line teach me to hear mermaids singing is one of my favorites. And she illustrated it beautifully! The keywords are teach me to hear mermaids singing, creatively, and the commentary is til human voices wake John Donne and he drowns, because Eliot is awesome and I am a dork about poetical intertextuality.

This is Freddy Rodriguez, who was my PB for original character Preston Vasquez in mercuriasz's awesome postapocalyptic game The Wasteland. Preston is still my favorite OC ever; he was a super idealistic college student who liked playing bass and expositing on political theory, and also, was a werewolf. Did I rip half his character off Oz? MAYBE. The keywords are wasteland considering, because he looks very thoughtful here, and also hip and zen because it was replacing another icon I had, and because Preston is. The commentary is your ideas are interesting and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter because I mostly use it for interesting discussions!

From futuresoon:

This is Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club having his head slobbered upon by a large and affectionate dog. It is hilarious both because Tamaki thinks he is SUPER COOL and because generally Tamaki is the one slobbering upon other people like a large and affectionate dog . . . the keywords are EAT YOUR HEAD (with love!) because that is basically what is going on here. I use it for expressing LARGE AMOUNTS OF LOVE for other people who may or may not reciprocate. Tiny hearts, y'all! Your hair tastes good! Um.

This is an idea stolen off shati, who made this genius icon: I wanted a reciprocal one! And then I took this screencap from Notre-Dame de Paris with a gargoyle looming helpfully, and it seemed fitting. The gentleman in question is Quasimodo, by the way. I love Notre-Dame de Paris, as I have said before, but the DRAMATIC STAGING!!!! never fails to crack me up. The keywords are hello friend and the comments basically express my debt to shati.

This is another unrecognizable icon of an FMA person . . . someday I will get better ones! ANYWAY I still like it though. This is Riza Hawkeye, of Fullmetal Alchemist, who is so awesome I don't even have words to describe it. The keywords are one day more, which is actually from the Les Miserables song because you wouldn't know it but Riza is kind of a SECRET REVOLUTIONARY AGAINST INJUSTICE. But it's also because so much of her character is about getting through the day after the worst thing has happened, and the next day after that, and that's kind of what this icon is for. The commentary is don't wake me up without a master plan, which is a lyric from the song "The Light Before We Land" by the Delgados. Riza's boss is prone to making master plans; Riza is prone to snarking at him. (Also, their master master plan is the best thing ever, and tied into that secret revolutionary against injustice thing, and spoiler spoiler flail!)

The lady here is Nice from Baccano!, one of my favorite characters from that series! Why is she looking so happy? YOU MAY WELL ASK and the answer is, because she just exploded a train carriage. :D? The keywords are maybe too excited . . .? because the thrill she gets from explosions is not creepy at ALL, and real nice girl because I cannot resist a pun. The commentary is to be clear, it is an evil eye because there is a BOMB BEHIND IT which is a reference to my favorite Baccano! vid ever, which contains, among other things, the line she was standing there with that evil eye. Which is hilarious when applied to Nice, because behind the glasses and the eyepatch? In the empty eye socket? SHE KEEPS A SPARE BOMB. Yeah.

I made this icon from the manga 20th Century Boys; it shows Kenji, the hero of the series, who has found the BEST WAY to meet people in public while hiding from the cops . . . taking a job as the giant bunny mascot who passes out flyers for strip clubs. IT'S AN EFFECTIVE DISGUISE OKAY. Hence the commentary, for all your world-saving needs: THIS DUDE. As Kenji says: "This is the defender of justice who's gonna save the world from danger!" I love Kenji because he is the least officially badass hero ever; his strategy for saving the world is to play guitar hopefully at people. And yet, when it comes down to it, he is totally hardcore awesome. The keywords are love and peace are on hold today, which is another quote from a flashback in the series; Kenji is facing down bullies alone because his BFF Otcho is now a hippie who believes in love and peace, but when the chips are down, Otcho comes racing to the rescue! And then kicks ass. NEVER STOP BEING STEALTH AWESOME, GUYS. <3333

I rarely have a chance to use this icon, but I love it passionately. You guys know Sokka is my favorite, right? Because he is the comic relief, and the Normal One, but when it comes down to it, he can be legitimately hardcore and also legitimately heartbreaking. This is from the very beginning of the series, when he prepares to face the entire Fire Nation BY HIMSELF to defend his tribe, and <333333 SOKKA. The lyrics are soldier boy, which is the title of an old song about a little boy who goes with his father to war; the commentary is sometimes Sokka breaks my heart too, because he does.

From spellcoats:

This is Cha Song Joo, my favorite lady kdrama character EVER. Courtesan, revolutionary leader, and ASSASSIN, with by the way the most amazing collection of outfits in any TV show, ever. Here she is wearing a traditional Korean hanbok with an AMAZING hat (it is her outfit from the credits) and looks incredibly gorgeous, as always. The keywords are costume drama to convey my enormous love for the costume; the commentary is not the way I am likely to use it most often, but the prettiness! because normally the costume drama I am talking about is Western in nature. Though I am trying to change that! (SO PRETTY GUYS.)

Another one from the set fire_and_a_rose made for me. I like it because it conveys the sense of rambling through somewhere not-quite-known, with no set destination in mind. The keywords are my wandering days from the Belle and Sebastian song "My Wandering Days Are Over", because mine are not yet! And the commentary is fields of green and gold, because I think I had the song "Fields of Gold" in my head at the time.

This was originally an RP icon for talkstohats, that I stole for my own use because I liked it so much. The screencap is from the film version of Howl's Moving Castle, and I altered it to make Sophie's hair red because SHE IS A REDHEAD, OKAY, and because in my heart that makes it relate to the book rather than the movie, which is not as good. >.> Although it is very pretty and good for making icons out of! The keywords are a life less ordinary from the Carbon Leaf song of the same name, which I love, about taking a step outside the everyday and the humdrum (which is basically Sophie's entire arc in the book), and also calcifer magic for more self-explanatory ones. The commentary is her hair is very orange, but it matches Calcifer but that's okay because I was not very good at changing hair color back then. (And hahaha, I say that like I am better at it now . . .)

Another one from fire_and_a_rose's icon set for me! I like this one because of the light through the dark clouds; I use it for unexpected hope. Keywords: through the clouds, self-explanatory; commentary is and I could not ask again, from Dar Williams' song "I Saw A Bird Fly Away," which has the same kind feel for me. And because there is a bird. Flying away. In the icon. Yes.

dramaturgca made this for me from the Tin Man miniseries. I liked the series okay, but my favorite character hands-down was Baby Azkadellia (the flashback non-evil version of the villainness), who was a.) adorable and b.) demonstrated more sense than ANYONE ELSE IN HER ENTIRE FAMILY. I spent much of the story really annoyed at the rest of the cast for not being awesomer to her! Here she has just lit a magic lantern and is very proud of herself. The keywords are lantern lit, uncreatively, and the commentary is proving az is, in fact, the smartest, because she totally is.

- am I done? I think I'm done. I think that has also cured me of wanting to talk about my icons for a LONG TIME *laughing* Mad kudos to anyone who actually read all the way through that!

bookelfe @ 2010-02-11T12:07:00

2010-02-11T17:05:23Z

I think I've mentioned before that I have this problem with Patricia McKillip books where they fade completely out of my head about a month after I've read them. This problem is especially pronounced for the Riddle-Master of Hed trilogy, which were the first McKillip books I ever read. I thought I had at least vague memories of them, and then I visited rymenhild last year during Yuletide Madness, and she kept trying to bounce Riddle-Master fic ideas off of me and I was like ". . . who's Deth? Who's Raederle? I'm - I'm pretty sure there were riddles in there somewhere . . ." So finally I got Riddle of Stars, the one-volume trilogy compilation, out of the library to refresh my memory. Because having a one-volume trilogy compilation means I can count it all as one book for my reading quotas. >.> (Sidenote: I love terrible 1970's fantasy-novel covers so much. *_* Look at this fabulousness! The pants! The creepy alien children! THE PANTS!)

The Riddle-Master of Hed, the first book in the trilogy, is actually my favorite of the three - it has the best blend of the dreamlike/fantastical and the mundane that is one of the things I love in McKillip. Morgon is the Prince of Hed, a tiny island known for hard-headed farmers and very little else. His duties mostly include organizing shipments of wheat and fixing the roofs of his pig-herders, which is why everyone is a bit startled to find out that he won an ancient crown in a riddle-contest with a ghost and is keeping it under his bed until he can figure out what to do with it. Morgon is eventually dragged on a journey to claim his Preordained Destiny, complaining all the way about how he really has to get back for the potato harvest and is not interested in magic harps or magic prophecies or magic swords (especially not magic swords.)

Heir of Sea and Fire I like almost as much as Riddle-Master. The premise is kind of awesome: Raederle, the princess whose hand Morgon is entitled to claim (thanks to winning the riddle-contest) is sick and tired of waiting around for him to come back from his quest. So she picks herself up and goes looking with him, along with Lyra, the warrior princess of a neighboring kingdom, and Tristan, Morgon's cranky and determined younger sister. Three princesses questing after a missing prince! How is this not awesome? Along the way, Raederle figures out she has mysterious powers heritage etc. of her own.

Harpist in the Wind, the conclusion, I actually did not like as much - not to say it is not a strong and epic conclusion, because it is, but pretty much the whole book was one epic dreamlike battle sequence/chase sequence after another without the grounding bits of sanity I liked so much from Riddle-Master. I had a hard time keeping track of what was going on some of the time, although that may partly have been because I was zonked out while I read it. The complicated multilayered secret identities did not help.

We'll see how long it takes me to forget the entire plot this time around!

you don't want to know how much time I spent on this

2010-02-11T02:16:35Z

So, that TV meme! newredshoes gave me a prompt last week, which I have taken forever to do because I could not stop myself from having the BIGGEST CAST IN THE HISTORY OF FAKE TELEVISION.

THE MEME
1. Comment to this post with "I surrender!" and I'll assign you the basis of some TV show idea. (Science fiction show, medical drama, criminal procedure, etc...)
2. Create a cast of characters, including the actors who'd play them
3. Add in any actor photos, character bios and show synopsis that you want.
4. Post to your own journal.

THE PROMPT
A team of thieves who are trying to construct the perfect city! (So, er, yes, apparently they are all Carmen Sandiego.) (Which, uh, not quite where I went with that. *sheepish*)

TYPE:
Hour-long plotty-sff-action drama, USA, with wacky episodic hijinks contrasted against a darker ongoing arc – kind of halfway between Leverage and BSG. 5 episodes in the first miniseries/season; later brought back for another 13-episode series, then ignominiously killed before anything could actually be resolved, or, for that matter, most people could learn the names of a significant proportion of the enormous cast.

RATING:
TV-MA

OPENING CREDITS SONG:
Mole, The Mountain Goats

I am a mole
sticking his head above the surface of the earth

ENDING CREDITS SONG:
We Built This City, The Starship

We just want to dance here
Someone stole the stage

(Yes, the tonal whiplash is deliberate. IT IS A GENIUS EFFECT I AM TELLING YOU.)

SYNOPSIS:

After the war, the only ones left in the city are those who knew the hidden places to hide, those who didn’t have anything to lose or defend and have long experience with going undercover – beggars, thieves and criminals, the inhabitants of the underworld. In the aftermath, they call themselves moles. Now they have to recreate their city from the rubble, and they’re doing it the way they know best . . . by stealing what they need from the enemy that destroyed them.

The show jumps between the new leaders of the city as they attempt to rebuild, and the members of the Job, an assortment of criminals who have gone undercover in the empire that turned on the city. The city and the empire are never named. The general aesthetic cannot be pinned down to a historical period; the world has radio tech, and some motor-driven vehicles, but overall it is clear that the level of available technology is early twentieth-century at best.

in the city

the politician: Adriana Varma (Rekha Sharma)

Adriana was born in the slums, but her marriage to a man who made connections sent her spiraling up among the city’s political elite. When the war came, she used her husband’s relations with the gangs who control the underworld and her own memories of childhood to hide herself and her daughter, and became one of city’s few daylight citizens to survive the destruction. Now she’s the highest-ranking person left, and the political trophy wife is discovering untapped reserves of authority – enough to stand up that first day after the destruction and assume de facto leadership of the moles. Not everyone is happy about having Adriana in charge, and the empire is far from her only enemy, so it’s a good thing she’s got a core of solid steel. (SPOILER: Adriana has long-term plans, and they don’t just involve rebuilding the city – she also wants to make sure that this can never happen to them again. It’s possible that she wants to go so far as turn the empire’s own Ultimate Weapon against itself and destroy the whole place. Moral event horizon ahoy!)

the adorable moppet: Jessie Varma (Shriya Sharma)

Adriana knows the rule: if an eleven-year-old child can poke holes in her plans, then they are doomed to failure from the start! Jessie is the one person Adriana can be herself with, and she tells her daughter just about everything – she’s a precocious kid, and Adriana figures that by this stage there’s not much point in sheltering her daughter from the realities of life. Jessie spends much of her time trying to restore the library, which none of the adults seem to see as a priority. When everyone else’s plans get too convoluted, Jessie is often able to point out the obvious without looking up from whatever book she happens to be reading at the time.

the moral center (sort of): Dorothea “Dee” Kapoor (Anjali Jay)

Dee is Adriana’s younger sister – the one who didn’t leave the slums. Instead, she ran with a gang of petty thieves, stealing small stuff like radios and identity cards and selling them black-market for what was usually just enough to get by . . . and when it didn’t stretch quite far enough, she could always hit up Adriana. Dee never had much ambition, but she has a good heart and is capable of occasional flashes of brilliance – Adriana runs the operation to infiltrate the empire, but it was Dee’s brainchild, and she’s the one who gave it its commonly used nickname of the Job. (Adriana has another name for it: Operation Take Everything.) Dee loves her sister and supports her wholeheartedly, but she’s becoming increasingly concerned by Adriana’s capacity for ruthlessness.

the housebreaker: Bobby Kang (James Kyson Lee)

Bobby is one of Dee’s best friends, a member of her gang before the war. He’s cheerful and happy-go-lucky, and an excellent hand with locks. Now Adriana and Dee have him putting those skills to use – he’s in charge of the group that breaks into abandoned houses to consolidate food and resources in the places where people are actually living now. “Responsibility” and “legitimacy” are a little weird for Bobby, but he does the best he can, and is 100% loyal to Dee and Angie. He also spends a surprising amount of time shirtless. Why? NO REASON. (Picking locks is hard work, okay.)

the killer: Turner (Christopher Eccleston)

Turner is a murderer. Not much else is known about him. He’s a very efficient killer and he’s been on the run for a long, long time. Jessie likes him. Dee doesn’t. He follows Adriana’s orders, working as her watchdog and, occasionally, her executioner. As for his reasons – those are still unclear. Are there hidden reserves of manpain there? MAYBE. Does he stalk around in long swishing leather coats? ABSOLUTELY.

the accountant: Bonita Andino (America Ferrera)

Bonita grew up in a major organized crime family; she kept the books. The rest of her family stayed to fight for their city. Bonita was afraid, and hid. Now, as far as she knows, she’s the only member of her family left. She’s never been by herself before in her life, and she’s still dealing with her guilt about running instead of staying, but Adriana finds her organizational skills and her knowledge of many of the city’s assets invaluable. Bonita is shy but likeable and destroys sets of spectacles at an astounding rate (sooner or later, the city is going to run out, and it will be Bonita’s fault.) Over the course of the first season, she and Adriana develop a mutual attraction; while Adriana is hesitant for a number of reasons, as Bonita grows more confident she becomes increasingly willing to push the boundaries of their relationship. (SPOILER: neither Adriana nor Bonita ends up evil or dead.)

the rival: Gavriel Alvarez (Edward James Olmos)

Gavriel was a major figure in organized crime, and had connections to Adriana’s husband; he helped her gain control in the aftermath of the war, picturing her as a unifying puppet-figure with himself in the background and was somewhat surprised when she turned out to be capable of holding power on her own. Intelligent and ruthless, he is also dedicated to the recreation of the city and capable of pulling people together for a common cause. For the moment, he supports Adriana, believing that unity is better for the rebuilding of the city than dissent. Adriana needs his skills, but if she makes a mistake, he may use his influence to try and bring her down.

on the job

the contact: Oliver Arnold (Jack Davenport)

Oliver is a smuggler and the long-suffering central contact for the Job. He’s from the city, but when the war came he happened to be in the empire arranging for some shipments of black-market whiskey, and he prudently decided to remain and consolidate his position rather than return to be killed. The self-preservation instincts run strong in this one, and every so often he still wishes he’d had the sense to turn his back on Adriana’s wacky proposal and fade himself into life in the empire. This is not helped by the fact that everyone he works with is to some degree or another insane. He rules the radio, but, alas, does not rule any of his teammates. At all.

the con artists: Sherri Sanders and Stacey Sampson (Ashley Crow and Cristine Rose)

Sherri and Stacey have been a partnership as long as anyone can remember. Con artists extraordinaire, they are dazzling and untrustworthy and excellent at what they do. Currently, they are engaged in buying up enormous amounts of supplies for an imaginary coalition, with imaginary money, and having them shipped to the city. Will there be trouble when their deception comes out? Maybe, maybe not; Sherri and Stacy are the best, and somehow they always manage to come out on top. Hopefully this time their luck will extend to the rest of the city, too. When they are not engaged in pulling six or seven deceptions at once on the unwitting citizens of the empire, Sherri and Stacey like to spend time with their other hobby: making Oliver’s life a misery. Note: Sherri is fifty and Stacey is sixty and both of these ladies are mad hot. Everyone better recognize!

the investigator: Angelena Marron (Dana Davis)

Angie is the third surviving member of Dee’s gang, cheerful, reliable and loyal (well – reliable and loyal if you’re Dee or Bobby). She was initially sent in as a support member, pulling small cons and thefts to make sure that Oliver has the funds he need to run the various aspects of the Job, but a chance discovery might expand her role into something much bigger. Because Adriana is starting to suspect that not all of the city’s missing were killed. Some of them may have been taken instead, for purposes unknown – and the most important theft of all might be stealing them back. Note: most of the show’s “previously ons” happen within the context of Dee and Angie talking over the radio to fill each other in on what’s been happening; they are total BFF and have no secrets. (This means they have no secrets from Oliver, either. Although he kind of wishes they did.)

the enigma: Babe (Dante Basco)

Angie found Babe wandering around the streets of the empire –no memory, no identity – and thought he looked weirdly familiar. She nicknamed him “Babe” as a joke, though she’ll never tell him whether it’s because he was helpless like a baby or because she thinks he’s kind of cute. Experienced at passing for a normal law-abiding citizen herself, she’s helped him settle into a relatively normal life and promised to help him find out about his past – after all, he might just hold a clue about what’s happened to the rest of the city’s missing. Babe is a sweetheart with a well-developed sense of humor about his situation. SPOILER: It turns out that Babe is actually Nico Reyes, a cousin of Bonita's who acted as the muscle on a lot of the nastier mob interactions. When he finds out about some of the things he’s done, he’s not so sure he wants to remember.

the streetwise kid: Eun Suk (Shim Eun Kyung)

Eun Suk is a street kid, prone to lying and picking pockets and generally being a brat. She’s also a consummate survivor. Adriana sent her along on the Job to get to know her opposite numbers, the street kids of the empire; she’s well aware that kids on their own often have to be more aware of what’s going on than the law-abiding adults who are supposed to be in charge. Eun Suk has few personal moral strictures, but she does have a strong sense of injustice, and despite her age is good at getting people to follow her (at least, up until they stop and ask themselves what the hell they’re doing.)

the gang leader: Jimmy Varsity (Bobby Edner)

Jimmy leads a gang of street kids in the empire. They’re out for themselves and nothing but – until they meet Eun Suk. After some initial conflict, Eun Suk gets Jimmy and his gang interested in finding out some of the empire’s secrets – not for her sake, but for their own. After all, they’re the unwanted of the empire; if anything shady is going down, they’re at more risk than anyone. Jimmy and Eun Suk are both prone to bossiness and crash heads a lot, especially as Eun Suk gets more integrated with the gang and becomes a kind of de facto rival leader, but when they work together they’re unstoppable. Also, at some point, it is vitally plot-relevant that Jimmy and Babe perform a beatboxing rap together.

the spy: Jun, aka Judith Park (Han Go Eun)

No one knows anything about the weapon that destroyed the city, other than that it exists. Jun’s job – known to Adriana Varma and none other – is to steal it. As glasses-wearing scientist Judith Park, the former assassin has begun infiltrating her way into the infrastructure of the empire’s military. Her task is made more difficult by the fact that she has no connections to the rest of the team working within the empire; she’s a lone agent, and her mission is not to be revealed to anyone. (Note: this role makes excessive use of the trope that someone wearing glasses looks completely harmless and like an entirely different person. Note 2: many of the most tense scenes between Jun and Eric take place while they are out dancing. Why? BECAUSE.)

the chessmaster: Eric Lee (Ryu Jin)

Always calm, mild-mannered and unfailingly polite, everyone knows that Eric Lee is deceptively important to the empire’s army and no one is quite sure what he does. Does he know the secret of the empire’s new weapon? Is he behind the experiments that are driving military expansion? Is he maneuvering his way to power, or are his motives something else entirely? Jun is determined to find out his secrets and bring them back to the city before he realizes hers . . . if he doesn’t know them already. Theirs is a deadly game of deception, seduction, and SWING DANCING.

bookelfe @ 2010-02-09T14:43:00

2010-02-09T19:42:00Z

This is apparently a memeish week for me! Anyway I like this one, so I am stealing:

Today has been declared lurker amnesty day! Have you read me but never commented? Do you surf by occasionally? Here for the ~~fic~~ book babbing? Say hello! You are under no obligation to ever comment or delurk again, but here's a chance to do so in a post just for that.

I am friendly, I promise! My babble is worse than my bite. :D

bookelfe @ 2010-02-08T11:54:00

2010-02-08T16:52:51Z

ceitfianna gave me icons to babble about!

The meme: Comment here and I will pick six of your icons, you then copy and paste this in your LJ along with your explanations/comments/squeeage about each one.

winding_path made this icon for me for my birthday few years back after I commented wistfully that I wanted it, because she is amazing. This was right after I first saw Firefly and I was enchanted by the idea of Saffron TRAVELING IN TIME to marry King Henry the Eighth. (Come on, guys, you know that fic would be brilliant. Brilliant!) Anyway, I love Anne Boleyn despite her manifold and historically documented flaws (or maybe because of them . . .?) and the joke is that Anne::the Tudor court as Saffron::Serenity in terms of the bemusement of the peope around them as to why this person is suddenly Head of Household; hence the comments, anne boleyn and saffron = kindred spirits. I use it for Tudoriana and also for LOLhistory.

fire_and_a_rose made this one for me as part of a gift set. Unimaginatively, the keywords are birds are friends and the comments are we are friends too! I love it and hardly ever use it, because it is almost too sweet for me to feel comfortable using it on a regular basis. I cannot express affection without a protective screen of irony!

This is an icon I made from Princess Tutu, from a flashback in which the prince-character Mytho rescues a tiny puppy. (For those of you unfamiliar with Princess Tutu - rescuing small animals is all Mytho ever does. Sometimes he plummets out of windows to do it. Sometimes, he is not wearing pants when that happens.) Anyway, I really liked the way it came out and I use it mostly to indicate comforting hugs; the keywords are both tiny puppy and tiny kitten because I used to have a small-kitten-hug icon that I used for similar purposes and later deleted. The comments are it's okay puppy dog, tiny fakir will chase away the bad guys because my favorite part of the icon is how while Mytho soppily cuddles puppies in the foreround, you can see tiny six-year-old Fakir in the background fighting off puppy-tormenters with a giant stick.

This is my one Middleman icon! Someday I will make more. The scene is of Wendy Watson in the process of excitedly talking Ida's ear off about ART CRAWL, but the way it came out makes it look like she is making funny faces in long-suffering Ida's direction while the Middleman looks tolerantly on, hence the extremely mature keywords of neener neener. Because I am twelve, this pleases me. It is an icon for making funny faces at people. Also, for TEAM MIDDLEMAN. The comments are also doubles as ART CRAWL due to context, because I really wanted to make myself an ART CRAWL icon and could not find a screencap of people shouting ART CRAWL that I actually liked.

spellcoats made this icon in a fabulous book-cover-icon post (that also included some amazing Dalemark icons!) It's the cover of one of the Queen's Thief books - I believe an edition of The King of Attolia - which I love with a fiery passion for all the complicated emotions and politics and hardcore queens and smartass thieves. The icon shows Attolia's hand on the shoulder of her new husband and indicates to me that he is willingly submitting to her authority because she is badass and in charge. :D I haven't used it much yet, but just wait until I start rereading the books in preparation for the publication of the fourth one, and you will start seeing it ALL THE TIME. The keyword is queen's thief, unoriginally, because that is the name of the series. The comments are all my literary book covers are of kings because I'd just uploaded a bunch at the time, among them Mitt (Future King of Dalemark) and Yoko (Future King of Kei). I don't actually like either the keyword or the comments and will probably change them at some point.

This is an icon of Rachel from Baccano!, the most badass information agent of all time. In this scene, a serial killer has invited her to lunch and asked her for romantic advice, and over the ziti is enthusing about the expressionless, silent face of his beloved and how amazing she looked when she was cutting a swathe through twenty people. He doesn't know if she loves him or if she wants to kill him, but EVEN IF she wants to kill him, that doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't have a chance with her! Rachel's face I feel reflects the appropriate response to this, and thus the keyword is whut. The comments are even being a big damn hero does not prepare you for Claire Stanfield, because while Rachel can keep her poise in a lot of situations (including rescuing about five people from hostage situations in one day) this is a little bit beyond the pale.

I love babbling about my icons, especially since some of the ones I like best I never use. I love babbling about other people's icons, too!

bookelfe @ 2010-02-04T12:37:00

2010-02-04T17:35:38Z

Months ago schiarire told me that Hilary Mantel was writing a book set in Tudor England, to which my response was basically "wow, she is writing a book FOR ME."

(Look, I know I am not the only person here to confess to an enormous fascination with those wacky Tudors. I would say, 'in my defence, I liked them before it was cool!' On the other hand . . . I don't think there ever was a time when it wasn't cool. But I didn't know it was cool when I was eight!)

Anyway, Wolf Hall is a biopic novel about Thomas Cromwell, a man of Humble Origins who became extremely powerful and influential with Henry VIII during the years of wacky shufflings when he was trying to ditch Katherine and marry Anne Boleyn. Cromwell has been portrayed pretty negatively in Tudor media before, generally as contrasted against Saintly Thomas More (see: A Man for All Seasons) and Mantel is pretty clearly writing against that, showing him a as a logical and clear-thinking as well as ambitious person who is trying to create a different kind of country than the one he grew up in. People of rank frequently remark that Cromwell is a person, with mild surprise; the line that sticks with me is where he's thinking about the struggle to get people to accept Anne Boleyn, and muses that a country where Anne Boleyn could be queen might be a country where Cromwell could be Cromwell.

Mantel is also really, really good at writing complicated politics, and the way they do and don't intersect with the personal - how political enmity can be a kind of friendship, and alliances can turn to enmity like that. I think it's a very good book. I didn't love it the way I loved A Place of Greater Safety, but that's possibly because the emotional intensity did not run quite so high. It's a more logical, quiet book, to fit the protagonist.

Also - I can't quite put my finger on why, but for some reason I felt like this book was a lot better for women than the others of hers I've read. Which is weird, because it's not like there were all that many of them. But, I don't know. An Experiment in Love and The Giant, O'Brien are the kind of books that make you feel like there is no way to be female and happy, at all, ever. A Place of Greater Safety does not make you massively depressed to be a woman but it does not make you feel like as a woman you can have much of an impact on anything either. In a weird way Wolf Hall does not have so much of that distinction, which is bizarre, considering it is Tudor England and you would think it would have even more of one. (And I love Mantel's portraits of Mary Boleyn and Jane Seymour, especially.)

Maybe the thing is that this book opens a bit of a broader world for everyone - and speaking of, it was SO WEIRD to reach the end of a Mantel book and not feel like the world was entirely a hopeless and crushing place! I was utterly boggled until I realized that she is currently writing a sequel which will presumably take us to Cromwell's execution and remedy that oversight.

Anyway, while I am talking about Tudors, I am curious: how much of a widespread phenomenon is Tudorphilia? Are the Tudors crazy overrepresented? Does everyone know the names of Henry VIII's six wives growing up? I feel like it's a bit of trivia that people are way more likely to know than, uh, any other piece of English-history trivia, and not only because of John Rhys Meyers (though the overrepresentation has increased in recent years). But I could be wrong on this. I would like to know all of your thoughts!

bookelfe @ 2010-02-02T12:41:00

2010-02-02T17:40:19Z

Okay, so up until now I've been liveblogging Fullmetal Alchemist as I read through scanlations, which basically comes out to a lot of cheerful random babble. I'm not saying I'm not going to do that anymore - I may or may not - but I want to talk about Volume 15 separately.

Fullmetal Alchemist is a shonen manga; the main plot, as advertised, follows two teenaged brothers who committed an ill-advised attempt at bringing back the dead, who are On A Quest to reverse the damage they did to themselves in the attempt. They work within the military system, and it's clear from the beginning that the country's military - and therefore most of the adult characters in the story - has been deeply shaped by a campaign that took place six years ago, the Ishvalan War of Extermination. As the story progresses, you learn bits and pieces about the war. Most people won't talk much about it; almost everyone is scarred by it; the initial main antagonist is a survivor from the other side, out for revenge, and the kids can't understand why some of their superiors think he might have a point.

In Volume 15, Edward Elric, the Hot-Tempered but Idealistic teenaged protagonist, who doesn't believe in killing or revenge, finally asks Lieutenant Hawkeye to tell him about the war. The rest of the volume is a brutal and complex extended flashback of a genocidal war - largely from the perspective of the soldiers who are on the attacking side. A soldier in the midst of a breakdown tries to show mercy and is promptly warned that he could be court-martialed for it; one doctor is conscripted to perform torture on prisoners, and others are killed by a patient lashing out for the loss of his entire family; an officer is killed by one of his men on the battlefield, after stupid decisions that endanger lives; our young idealistic viewpoint characters kill and kill and wonder why, but do nothing to stop or change it. It's an atmosphere where the most psychopathic and sadistic character in the story becomes the voice of hard truth: "Maybe you were prepared to kill one or two people, but not thousands? The moment you put on this uniform, you knew something like this could be expected of you. Why do you act as though you're the victims?"

It's an incredible gutpunch to see these characters that you have grown to like and respect over the course of the story, and have them lay it out flat: they have done unforgivable things. In a just society, they would be war criminals. Arakawa makes them completely identifiable, and at the same time does not give an inch about the brutality of what they are doing. What makes it work, why it's so strong and not an apologia, is that this isn't a story about people who feel really bad about their actions and thus are redeemed and forgiven. Edward tries to say, but the whole thing was due to [supernatural forces underlying the story]; they're to blame, not you. Hawkeye tells him that isn't how it works. No matter who was pulling the strings, human beings did those things to other humans. In a later chapter, the doctor who committed torture meets with his wife and son, after an extended separation. He's given up practicing medicine out of guilt and trauma. His son says to him, "I know you've done things that can't be forgiven." But that doesn't mean the doctor should give up the chance to save more lives. Forgiveness and redemption are not on the table here. It's about accountability, and taking responsibility, and doing your absolute best to make sure it doesn't happen again.

There's a note at the front of the volume from the author: In researching this volume, I interviewed veterans who had been at the front during World War II. I read countless books, examined film footage, and listened to many detailed and intense stories firsthand, but the comment that affected me the most came from a former soldier, who lowered his gaze to the tabletop and said, "I never watch war movies."

I read the Ishval flashback arc of the manga in scanlation over the weekend. Yesterday, I went out and bought the volume - the first one I have actually bought, although now I think I do eventually intend to buy them all (if only for the hilarious commentary at the back of each volume) - and reread it through again. I don't know if the volume would stand on its own without the rest of the manga, though I think it might; on the one hand, it's a powerful story in and of itself, and on the other I suspect it has a lot more impact once you've already spent fourteen volumes getting to know the postwar versions of the characters involved. Either way, it's one of the strongest fictional depictions of war and its consequences that I've ever read.

bookelfe @ 2010-02-01T11:26:00

2010-02-01T16:25:19Z

Am I ever going to pass up an opportunity to babble extensively about AWESOME LADIES? The answer is: no, I most certainly am not!

Therefore, stolen from in_the_blue and a few other people by now: name a canon you know I know, and I'll tell you (in no particular order) my three favorite females and why. And then I'll name a canon for you, because I'm just as curious as I am eager to share.

bookelfe @ 2010-01-31T21:49:00

2010-02-01T02:50:00Z

Over at the milliways_bar-specific Haiti auction, I offered, among other things, custom romance novel covers for a $2 donation. (People to whom I owe mixes and icon sets, they are on their way soon!)

Anyway, the auction closes tomorrow, and I kind of have my hands full on mixes and icons for a bit, but if anyone over here wants another romance-novel cover for a $2 donation, that is definitely a thing I can do - they're easy, I have fun making them, and every $2 helps!

For sotto_voice:

I am SO EXCITED about that title, by the way. I HOPE IT INSPIRES YOU TO FIC.

For wanderlustlover:

I leave it to your discretion which is the virgin. (Who am I kidding, we all know it's Edward really.)

For genarti:

Technically this cover may not have started out as a romance novel, per se . . . BUT YOU KNOW WHAT, IT IS NOW.

bookelfe @ 2010-01-28T11:51:00

2010-01-28T16:49:56Z

So a certain household in Boston and I seem to have created a kind of unofficial mutual lending library; most recently, genarti lent me Mary Paik Lee's autobiography, Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America.

Mary Paik Lee and her family were part of a relatively small group of Koreans who came to America answering a call for farm laborers in Hawaii in 1905, before the anti-Asian immigration laws that shut that option down; her family spent the next several years wandering from place to place trying to make a living and support themselves through various depressions and in spite of the fact that they were very often made unwelcome. The most incredible thing about her autobiography is just how much history it spans - it was published in 1990 when Lee was ninety years old, and, uh, not to belabor the obvious, but eighty-five years covers a LOT of time and changes in society. As always, even if you know about the history abstractly, it is very different reading a first-person account of it. (I have a vague memory of schiarire reading this book a while ago and remarking that Mary Paik Lee was extremely nice about everyone she encountered. This is true! However, every once in a while she does write about standing up and spitting a piece of injustice in somebody's face, and every time she did I wanted to cheer.)

I will say, I felt sort of uncomfortable reading the appendix in the back where the editor, scholar Sucheng Chan, carefully recounts every change she made to the manuscript. I don't know the conventions of scholarly historiography; maybe every editor of an autobiography that is meant to be used as a historical record goes through afterwards and takes out all mentions of things that seem to be incompatible with recorded facts. I'm an English major, not a historian, and I kept having this instinctive cringe reaction: "Stop altering the text! THAT IS WHAT FOOTNOTES ARE FOR!"

bookelfe @ 2010-01-27T11:52:00

2010-01-27T16:50:57Z

Some reasons why Elf Queen of Shannara was one of my favorites as a kid:

1. It is about a girl! There is one other Shannara book that is about a girl (or at least, there was at the time I was growing up; there may be more now.) She is Headstrong and Overconfident and at the end her brother has to rescue her from going evil. Not so in Elf Queen, where Wren basically tears through the jungle overcoming demons and moral dilemmas all by herself. (Well, the snarky porcupine-cat helps too.)

2. It is also the only Shannara book EVER to pass the Bechdel Test, which I liked even though I did not know what the Bechdel Test was. Wren has important relationships with other ladies! That have nothing to do with dudes! It is sad how excited I get about this, but you must understand that this never happens in Shannara books EVER.

3. It is a freaking creepy book. Props to Terry Brooks, who had me jumpy with tension all through the reading of it - most of the book involves our protagonists traversing through Creepy Jungle and getting attacked by monsters, which you'd think would get old after a while, and admittedly occasionally does, but it is a really, really creepy jungle!

4. The Dark Secret of the origins of the monsters, which is not super-original, but is, nonetheless, very creepy. See above.

5. The snarky porcupine-cat, who is too good for the elves, and knows it.

6. How hilariously little page time the semi-hemi-demi love interest gets before he goes evil. And how instead of agonizing about it, Wren is kind of sad but totally accepts it, deals with it, and then heads off to TRACK HIM DOWN and get her important magical MacGuffins back, while her sidekicks are still like "NO IT CAN'T BE! NOT GAVILAN!"

7. How the moral dilemma is basically Wren going, "You said to bring the elves back. You did not tell me the elves were MORONS. >.<"

8. The high body count! Uh, normally I would not be so excited about this, but it is kind of awesomely unexpected how all these people who are set up to be Important Characters totally get chomped and die like a chapter into the Epic Journey.

Other rereading notes: I felt a little bit like a clairvoyant while reading this, because every time a character was introduced, I would remember nothing about them except whether or not they were going to die, and sometimes how. Turned into a vampire! Eaten by a spider! It was a little creepy. Vague premonitions also made the one Coll chapter much harder to read, because I really like Coll and what already looks like a bad decision on the first read looks TEN TIMES MORE AWFUL as a decision when you have faint memories of doom running through your mind from when you were twelve. Soooo I spent that chapter pretty much trying to telepathically send the message "DON'T DO IT DON'T DO IT DON'T DO IT" to a fictional character. Tragically, it did not work. (It never does.)

Also, for some reason, although Wren was totally my point of identification as a kid (see above re: lady protagonist), these days I still continue to identify with Walker Boh more than anyone. I wish I knew WHY.