Books and comics read in October 2014
Tuesday, 4 November 2014 09:13![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats
Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties - Rachel Cooke*
Princeless: Save Yourself
Green Arrow: Quiver*
Unmade - Sarah Rees Brennan
Princeless: Get Over Yourself
The Mad Ship - Robin Hobb
Doctor Who: The Gallifrey Chronicles - Lance Parkin*
Doctor Who: The English Way of Death - Gareth Roberts
The Ghost Bride - Yangsze Choo
The Mummy Case - Elizabeth Peters
Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie
If This Is A Man/The Truce - Primo Levi
Star Wars: Razor's Edge - Martha Wells*
Her Brilliant Career
This study of ten Fifties career women was good but flawed. To tackle the flaws first, I could really have done with a kind of summing up chapter putting the women in context: were they anomalies? Were they indicators of a larger trend that's been forgotten? Were they trailblazers? It might also have been interesting to discuss how and why the myth of the Fifties woman came about. The book touches on these things from time to time, but I really wanted more. I would have also liked to have seen some non-white women included: Cooke talks about how she selected the women covered in her introduction, but never mentions race. (I was also a little uncomfortable with the fact that the three lesbian women were lumped into one chapter under the heading of "trouser wearing women", though I was glad they were included, and they were all involved with each other, so.) All that aside, I enjoyed reading this a great deal: all the women included were fascinating and their stories were well told.
Green Arrow: Quiver
This comic has quite a lot of things I disliked: whitewashed Connor, lots of microagressions re gender, Ollie being a jerk. But it was also well written and contained the introduction of Mia Dearden (who is great) and some really good writing for Batman, especially when he was hanging out with Steph, so overall I'm glad I read it.
Doctor Who: The Gallifrey Chronicles
The last of the Eighth Doctor Adventures! :( And a book I had really mixed feelings on. On the one hand: the Fitz/Trix relationship was really cursory and underdeveloped; I HATED the Sam thing; and the writing wasn't amazing. On the other: the alliance between Trix and Anji was awesome and I loved the hopeful note it ended on.
Star Wars: Razor's Edge
This book was slightly let down by the fact that the character voices didn't come through very strongly, and also because one character might as well have been wearing a giant hat with "BY THE WAY I AM A TRAITOR" written on it. But other than that it was a solid space adventure with a lot of good stuff for Leia to do. I enjoyed it.
I didn't get round to reviewing half the stuff I meant to this month! I also really recommend Princeless, Unmade (...though I recommend reading the two previous books, Unspoken and Untold, first), The Ghost Bride and Ancillary Justice.
Princeless: Save Yourself
Green Arrow: Quiver*
Unmade - Sarah Rees Brennan
Princeless: Get Over Yourself
The Mad Ship - Robin Hobb
Doctor Who: The Gallifrey Chronicles - Lance Parkin*
Doctor Who: The English Way of Death - Gareth Roberts
The Ghost Bride - Yangsze Choo
The Mummy Case - Elizabeth Peters
Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie
If This Is A Man/The Truce - Primo Levi
Star Wars: Razor's Edge - Martha Wells*
Her Brilliant Career
This study of ten Fifties career women was good but flawed. To tackle the flaws first, I could really have done with a kind of summing up chapter putting the women in context: were they anomalies? Were they indicators of a larger trend that's been forgotten? Were they trailblazers? It might also have been interesting to discuss how and why the myth of the Fifties woman came about. The book touches on these things from time to time, but I really wanted more. I would have also liked to have seen some non-white women included: Cooke talks about how she selected the women covered in her introduction, but never mentions race. (I was also a little uncomfortable with the fact that the three lesbian women were lumped into one chapter under the heading of "trouser wearing women", though I was glad they were included, and they were all involved with each other, so.) All that aside, I enjoyed reading this a great deal: all the women included were fascinating and their stories were well told.
Green Arrow: Quiver
This comic has quite a lot of things I disliked: whitewashed Connor, lots of microagressions re gender, Ollie being a jerk. But it was also well written and contained the introduction of Mia Dearden (who is great) and some really good writing for Batman, especially when he was hanging out with Steph, so overall I'm glad I read it.
Doctor Who: The Gallifrey Chronicles
The last of the Eighth Doctor Adventures! :( And a book I had really mixed feelings on. On the one hand: the Fitz/Trix relationship was really cursory and underdeveloped; I HATED the Sam thing; and the writing wasn't amazing. On the other: the alliance between Trix and Anji was awesome and I loved the hopeful note it ended on.
Star Wars: Razor's Edge
This book was slightly let down by the fact that the character voices didn't come through very strongly, and also because one character might as well have been wearing a giant hat with "BY THE WAY I AM A TRAITOR" written on it. But other than that it was a solid space adventure with a lot of good stuff for Leia to do. I enjoyed it.
I didn't get round to reviewing half the stuff I meant to this month! I also really recommend Princeless, Unmade (...though I recommend reading the two previous books, Unspoken and Untold, first), The Ghost Bride and Ancillary Justice.