Bishop, Anne - Dreams Made Flesh

This is a compilation of four short stories (actually, three short stories and a novella) that take place in the world of Bishop's Black Jewels trilogy. I suspect it won't be interesting to anyone who isn't already familiar with the world.

I wouldn't recommend this series to anyone who didn't like the trilogy, and it's not even essential for those who did, but as I have a strange liking for the world, I actually enjoyed it despite multiple spork-worthy points. For anyone interested, these are the same spork-worthy points that are there in the entire trilogy, if you want to use that as some sort of litmus test.

( Spoilers for the Black Jewels trilogy )

And now, I feel I must explain why I still like this trilogy, despite its many (MANY) flaws, as I have just confessed to not liking Bujold prior to this and everyone probably thinks I am insane.

Probably for a very good reason...

None of Bishop's other books have worked for me, and by "didn't work for me," I mean that I guffawed at inappropriate moments, nearly chucked the books against a wall, and/or rolled my eyes at every other sentence.

The latest one I attempted, Sebastian, had me rolling around on the floor laughing because a piece of territory many of the incubi and succubi lived in was called the "Den of Iniquity."

Unironically.

Also, one restaurant in the Den of Iniquity served Penile Delights (penis-shaped breadsticks, probably with a side of creamy white sauce, no I swear I am not making this up!). The hero, an incubus who longs for love, manages to find a woman who only wants to be loved. As she is innocent and frightened and an orphan whom even the gypsies abandon to a cruel family who treats her like Cinderella, he calls her "rabbit" as a nickname, which I happen to find distinctly unsexy.

And then he takes her to aforementioned restaurant and has the owner cut the penis-shaped breadsticks into pieces so as to not frighten his poor, delicate rabbit's sensibilities. And then, while aforementioned innocent and frightened woman is eating the dismembered penis-shaped breadsticks, Sebastian (aforementioned incubus hero) grows increasingly aroused by the shape of her mouth around breadsticks (dismembered), and this may just be where I nearly fell off the bed because I was laughing so much.

Sadly, I suspect this was not because Sebastian had some sort of odd, masochistic dismemberment kink.

The final touch was aforementioned innocent and frightened woman dressing up in a catsuit and realizing her own sexual power (as signalled by a strut and actually meeting people's eyes, as all moments of taking control over your sexual power are). Sebastian, now confused by his animal metaphors, decides that she is like a tiger. Except when she is like a rabbit. Or maybe she is.... a rabbit-tiger!

I SWEAR I am not making this up!

The thing is, the Black Jewels trilogy is just as cracktastic as this, if not more so, but the crack for Black Jewels actually works for me. I suspect this is because in the Black Jewels trilogy, Bishop has written directly from her id, and everything is so over the top and insane and cracktastic that it works its own strange magic on me. I mean... there are gender issues like no other and characters who are either Good or Bad as exemplified by sexual perversions or the lack thereof and unicorns and magical cock rings and Capital Letters and Colored Jewels and the Mary Sue to end all Mary Sues and not just one, but THREE, devilish sexy alpha bastards and the most abused people ever (who also happen to be the most powerful people ever). And yet.

It works for me.

( Id-inspired crack )

Links:
- tigerbalmv's review of Sebastian (spoilery)

Duane, Diane - Deep Wizardry

Alas, I didn't like this one as much as So You Want to Be Wizard, and, judging by the comments, most people seem to like this book best.

Nita and Kit are summer vacationing at the beach; they end up encountering a whale wizard (nifty!). S'ree (the whale wizard) lets them know that the Lone Power is looking to wreak havoc again, and that she needs their help to re-bind him beneath the ocean, as was done long ago. Nita soon discovers that the world of the ocean will demand more from her than expected and that even the Pale Slayer (Ed the shark whose name is actually much longer that Ed) has a place in the ecosystem. All while trying to slip out under her parents' noses.

This didn't end up working as well for me because I tend to dislike environmental themes/ecological themes in fiction, along with circle-of-life themes. Yes, yes, everything has a place and everything is balanced and humans muck that up, and I knew that already. The themes may have worked much better on me if I'd been younger and not read more books with these themes in them, or if there had been a deeper investigation of them. Also, I figured out how the book would end many chapters before the fact, which took out a great deal of the suspense and the emotional power of the ending.

Also, stories in which kids disobey their parents or must sneak around under their noses always make me uncomfortable, probably because I was the type of kid who was scared to death of being yelled at by my parents. This is definitely an idiosyncratic reaction, but as this is the book in which Nita must confront the intersection of her wizardry and her parents, I don't think there was anything Duane could have done about it. For what it's worth, Nita's parents don't act stupid and Nita and Kit don't act stupid, but I get uncomfortable just the same.

I suspect this is a really cool book for people who like underwater ecosystems and whales and dolphins, but since I like Manhattan more, I enjoyed the first book more.