Books and comics read in September 2014
Wednesday, 1 October 2014 13:53![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats
*Ultimate Spider-Man: Hobgoblin
Queen of Nowhere - Jaine Fenn
*Mighty Avengers: No Single Hero
Dark Goddess - Sarwat Chadda
*Sparrow Hill Road - Seanan McGuire
Doctor Who: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang - David A. McIntee
The Winter Long - Seanan McGuire
Doctor Who: The Deadstone Memorial - Trevor Baxendale
The Outskirter's Secret - Rosemary Kirstein
*Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China - Jung Chang
*Secrets and Sapphires - Leila Rasheed
*All-New X-Factor: Not Brand X
*New Mutants: Return of Legion
Lazarus: Family
Didn't finish (content notes: discussion of the first two things covers (mostly non-sexual) consent issues and, in the second one, incest):
Secret Avengers: Reverie: I have finished worse comics than this in the past, but I got a couple of issues into this one and just couldn't any more. I picked it up because it had Black Widow, Maria Hill and Mockingbird on the cover, but inside it had an awful lot of Coulson (who I basically can't stand any more), and when Natasha did show up her catsuit was mostly unzipped and she was upside down and her boobs were defying gravity. And then there was the bit where Natasha and Clint agree to join the team (having been shown a file we don't get to see) and have their memories wiped after every mission, shake hands with Coulson and then find out that the handshakes implanted the memory-wiping nanobots, and when they object he just laughs it off because after what he just showed them, did they expect he'd just let them walk out, and ugh ugh ugh enough.
The Enchantment Emporium - Tanya Huff: This book has been on my radar for ages - I added it to my amazon wish list four years ago - and as a result I probably stuck with it longer than I should have. It has the bones of a decent urban fantasy, but unfortunately the flesh on those bones is made of skeevy consent issues, binary gender and incest. D: The book's heroine, Allie, is part of a magical family in which the Aunties (ie the post-menopausal women in the family) are very focused on keeping the magical bloodlines within the family. In practice this means that everyone marries their cousins (outside marriages are permitted but rare, and the Aunties have the right of veto), and since there are lots more girls than boys, the tradition is that the boys choose. (It's not stated whether the girls have the right to refuse; the implication is that this situation never arises. It's also implied that no-one ever wants to get divorced.) And the way they work this out is that all the cousins have lots of sex with each other, as long as they're less than seven years apart in age, until they work out which ones they should pair off with. (To be fair, there is at least one polyamorous relationship mentioned (I think - it's hard to tell sometimes which cousins are sleeping together and which ones are just really close (*shudders*)).) This could have been a book about how CREEPY this all is, but... not as far as I could tell. Also, Allie and her family are constantly using charms to modify other people's behaviour for their own convenience, and this is never seen as wrong. "Gale girls get what they want," is the repeated mantra, whatever anyone else wants. I skipped to the end and found a bit where Allie's best friend realises the Aunties made his boyfriend cheat on him so he'd go to Allie and be there when she needed him and DDDDDDDDDDD: Allie tells him she'll deal with it and it is NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. In conclusion: ICK.
The Copper Promise - Jen Williams: This book apparently started life as four novellas, and I spent the first one wishing that they'd been made into four books instead of one. It felt really rushed, which is ridiculous for a book about adventurers exploring a mysterious citadel full of traps and treasure. If there was ever an excuse to spin things out and pack in lots of worldbuilding, characterisation and other cool stuff! But as it was, the Climatic Final Battle arrived around page 80, far too soon for me to care that much about the outcome. And then section two took a sudden turn into gore, grimdarkery and manpain. :/ If I'd enjoyed part one more I might have kept going, but as it was... there were over four hundred pages left and life is too short.
Anyway, some things I did finish:
Ultimate Spider-Man: Hobgoblin
I had a major issue with this volume in that Peter keeps making MJ responsible for his feelings. Which in and of itself was OK - he's a teenager, he's going through a lot, he's desperately trying to keep everyone he loves safe and very aware that he can't - but the text really validated this. MJ hardly ever gets to speak without Peter interrupting her; he tells her off for not listening to him and then doesn't listen to HER. And when she does get to speak, after Peter has broken up with her, what she says is that she needs to prove herself worthy of Peter, and that everything about Peter is special. D: I like this series a lot, but I really do not enjoy this aspect of it.
Mighty Avengers - No Single Hero
Al Ewing is rapidly advancing up my list of excellent comics writers. The writing on this was great: really funny ("I have a Mayor, and an army. What do you have?" *ENTER SHE-HULK* "We have a lawyer." :DDD; I also enjoyed Sam Wilson getting defensive about how sometimes he does stuff without Steve, honest), but also with some interesting themes developing around the use of heroism and the meaning of being an Avenger. I may have to start getting this in singles when it relaunches in November. (Without Greg Land on art, hurrah! Because he's doing the Spider-Woman book instead, whyyyyyy.)
Sparrow Hill Road
I'm not usually a fan of ghost stories, but I LOVED this. The melancholy tone of the ghost story bits was just right, and Rose Marshall is a wonderful heroine. Her story is not done. <3
Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China
I enjoyed this biography of Cixi, de facto (and often de juro) ruler of China for decades in the late nineteenth century, very much. It did sway into hagiography from time to time, I felt - the author always seemed to impute the best of motives to Cixi, and slightly glossed over the fact that she directly ordered the killing of quite a few people, some of whom were definitely innocent - but I gather that this is in response to the fact that Cixi has been significantly monstered over the last century, so I am more forgiving than I might otherwise have been. (It did feel a little like I'd come in on the second half of a conversation a few times, but that's due to my ignorance of Chinese history rather than the book, and it didn't mar my enjoyment of it.) One thing I really appreciated was how it both subtly and explicitly centred the experiences of Chinese people, particularly since the last book I read about this period (almost exactly a year ago!) did not really do that. I also liked that it showed the strong connections Cixi formed with other women, particularly with Empress Dowager Zhen, who was her co-ruler for the first few decades, neatly spiking the idea that for a woman to succeed in a patriarchal society they have to do it by trampling other women.
Secrets and Sapphires
So this YA historical romance promised MELODRAMA and SCANDAL and ROMANCE and it definitely delivered. But it also delivered Indian characters, queer characters and discussion of feminism and, less expectedly for this type of book, colonialism. And in a way that's just what I want? I want light, fluffy books to have diverse casts and to engage with gender and race just as much as I want serious books to do that. (Especially YA; teenage me would have eaten this up with a spoon.) It's not a great book by any means (though it's not terrible either) - the characters, plot and setting don't entirely convince all the time, and it has some class issues - but it was fun and readable and I shall be looking for the second one, if only to find out how the cliffhangers get resolved.
All-New X-Factor: Not Brand X
This had kind of a black mark against it from the start, because the new X-factor team is much less diverse than the previous iteration, and I docked it a star for that, but that aside I did enjoy it. There was definitely a nice energy and zip to the writing; the kinetic, messy art style worked for it; and I liked that the new team was well differentiated from the previous one by means of the new roster and set-up, but still had kind of a similar sensibility. So I won't be rushing out to add it to my pull list or anything, but I will be getting the next volume as soon as the library has it.
New Mutants: Return of Legion
This arrived for me from the library when I was still debating whether to try and read the New X-Men run that precedes it first, so apparently Past Me made up her mind and then forgot about it? Kind of wish she hadn't bothered, though, as I didn't like this much. It was clearly a follow up to events I haven't read about; the two characters I was most interested in (Karma and Dani Moonstar) didn't have much to do, and I didn't think much of the other characters. (Cannonball I actively hated.) Plus gratuitous grimness and not particularly great art. Blargh.
Queen of Nowhere - Jaine Fenn
*Mighty Avengers: No Single Hero
Dark Goddess - Sarwat Chadda
*Sparrow Hill Road - Seanan McGuire
Doctor Who: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang - David A. McIntee
The Winter Long - Seanan McGuire
Doctor Who: The Deadstone Memorial - Trevor Baxendale
The Outskirter's Secret - Rosemary Kirstein
*Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China - Jung Chang
*Secrets and Sapphires - Leila Rasheed
*All-New X-Factor: Not Brand X
*New Mutants: Return of Legion
Lazarus: Family
Didn't finish (content notes: discussion of the first two things covers (mostly non-sexual) consent issues and, in the second one, incest):
Secret Avengers: Reverie: I have finished worse comics than this in the past, but I got a couple of issues into this one and just couldn't any more. I picked it up because it had Black Widow, Maria Hill and Mockingbird on the cover, but inside it had an awful lot of Coulson (who I basically can't stand any more), and when Natasha did show up her catsuit was mostly unzipped and she was upside down and her boobs were defying gravity. And then there was the bit where Natasha and Clint agree to join the team (having been shown a file we don't get to see) and have their memories wiped after every mission, shake hands with Coulson and then find out that the handshakes implanted the memory-wiping nanobots, and when they object he just laughs it off because after what he just showed them, did they expect he'd just let them walk out, and ugh ugh ugh enough.
The Enchantment Emporium - Tanya Huff: This book has been on my radar for ages - I added it to my amazon wish list four years ago - and as a result I probably stuck with it longer than I should have. It has the bones of a decent urban fantasy, but unfortunately the flesh on those bones is made of skeevy consent issues, binary gender and incest. D: The book's heroine, Allie, is part of a magical family in which the Aunties (ie the post-menopausal women in the family) are very focused on keeping the magical bloodlines within the family. In practice this means that everyone marries their cousins (outside marriages are permitted but rare, and the Aunties have the right of veto), and since there are lots more girls than boys, the tradition is that the boys choose. (It's not stated whether the girls have the right to refuse; the implication is that this situation never arises. It's also implied that no-one ever wants to get divorced.) And the way they work this out is that all the cousins have lots of sex with each other, as long as they're less than seven years apart in age, until they work out which ones they should pair off with. (To be fair, there is at least one polyamorous relationship mentioned (I think - it's hard to tell sometimes which cousins are sleeping together and which ones are just really close (*shudders*)).) This could have been a book about how CREEPY this all is, but... not as far as I could tell. Also, Allie and her family are constantly using charms to modify other people's behaviour for their own convenience, and this is never seen as wrong. "Gale girls get what they want," is the repeated mantra, whatever anyone else wants. I skipped to the end and found a bit where Allie's best friend realises the Aunties made his boyfriend cheat on him so he'd go to Allie and be there when she needed him and DDDDDDDDDDD: Allie tells him she'll deal with it and it is NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. In conclusion: ICK.
The Copper Promise - Jen Williams: This book apparently started life as four novellas, and I spent the first one wishing that they'd been made into four books instead of one. It felt really rushed, which is ridiculous for a book about adventurers exploring a mysterious citadel full of traps and treasure. If there was ever an excuse to spin things out and pack in lots of worldbuilding, characterisation and other cool stuff! But as it was, the Climatic Final Battle arrived around page 80, far too soon for me to care that much about the outcome. And then section two took a sudden turn into gore, grimdarkery and manpain. :/ If I'd enjoyed part one more I might have kept going, but as it was... there were over four hundred pages left and life is too short.
Anyway, some things I did finish:
Ultimate Spider-Man: Hobgoblin
I had a major issue with this volume in that Peter keeps making MJ responsible for his feelings. Which in and of itself was OK - he's a teenager, he's going through a lot, he's desperately trying to keep everyone he loves safe and very aware that he can't - but the text really validated this. MJ hardly ever gets to speak without Peter interrupting her; he tells her off for not listening to him and then doesn't listen to HER. And when she does get to speak, after Peter has broken up with her, what she says is that she needs to prove herself worthy of Peter, and that everything about Peter is special. D: I like this series a lot, but I really do not enjoy this aspect of it.
Mighty Avengers - No Single Hero
Al Ewing is rapidly advancing up my list of excellent comics writers. The writing on this was great: really funny ("I have a Mayor, and an army. What do you have?" *ENTER SHE-HULK* "We have a lawyer." :DDD; I also enjoyed Sam Wilson getting defensive about how sometimes he does stuff without Steve, honest), but also with some interesting themes developing around the use of heroism and the meaning of being an Avenger. I may have to start getting this in singles when it relaunches in November. (Without Greg Land on art, hurrah! Because he's doing the Spider-Woman book instead, whyyyyyy.)
Sparrow Hill Road
I'm not usually a fan of ghost stories, but I LOVED this. The melancholy tone of the ghost story bits was just right, and Rose Marshall is a wonderful heroine. Her story is not done. <3
Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China
I enjoyed this biography of Cixi, de facto (and often de juro) ruler of China for decades in the late nineteenth century, very much. It did sway into hagiography from time to time, I felt - the author always seemed to impute the best of motives to Cixi, and slightly glossed over the fact that she directly ordered the killing of quite a few people, some of whom were definitely innocent - but I gather that this is in response to the fact that Cixi has been significantly monstered over the last century, so I am more forgiving than I might otherwise have been. (It did feel a little like I'd come in on the second half of a conversation a few times, but that's due to my ignorance of Chinese history rather than the book, and it didn't mar my enjoyment of it.) One thing I really appreciated was how it both subtly and explicitly centred the experiences of Chinese people, particularly since the last book I read about this period (almost exactly a year ago!) did not really do that. I also liked that it showed the strong connections Cixi formed with other women, particularly with Empress Dowager Zhen, who was her co-ruler for the first few decades, neatly spiking the idea that for a woman to succeed in a patriarchal society they have to do it by trampling other women.
Secrets and Sapphires
So this YA historical romance promised MELODRAMA and SCANDAL and ROMANCE and it definitely delivered. But it also delivered Indian characters, queer characters and discussion of feminism and, less expectedly for this type of book, colonialism. And in a way that's just what I want? I want light, fluffy books to have diverse casts and to engage with gender and race just as much as I want serious books to do that. (Especially YA; teenage me would have eaten this up with a spoon.) It's not a great book by any means (though it's not terrible either) - the characters, plot and setting don't entirely convince all the time, and it has some class issues - but it was fun and readable and I shall be looking for the second one, if only to find out how the cliffhangers get resolved.
All-New X-Factor: Not Brand X
This had kind of a black mark against it from the start, because the new X-factor team is much less diverse than the previous iteration, and I docked it a star for that, but that aside I did enjoy it. There was definitely a nice energy and zip to the writing; the kinetic, messy art style worked for it; and I liked that the new team was well differentiated from the previous one by means of the new roster and set-up, but still had kind of a similar sensibility. So I won't be rushing out to add it to my pull list or anything, but I will be getting the next volume as soon as the library has it.
New Mutants: Return of Legion
This arrived for me from the library when I was still debating whether to try and read the New X-Men run that precedes it first, so apparently Past Me made up her mind and then forgot about it? Kind of wish she hadn't bothered, though, as I didn't like this much. It was clearly a follow up to events I haven't read about; the two characters I was most interested in (Karma and Dani Moonstar) didn't have much to do, and I didn't think much of the other characters. (Cannonball I actively hated.) Plus gratuitous grimness and not particularly great art. Blargh.