November, Sharyn, ed. - Firebirds

[oyceter]

A nice batch of short stories that provided me with a few more names to look out for.

There was usually something I liked about every story. Particularly striking stories for me were:

- Delia Sherman's "Cotillion," an interesting take on Tam Lin in the 60s. I loved the blend of Faerie and music (which is pretty normal) and debutante ball of the 60s (which is definitely not).
- I loved the idea of Megan Whalen Turner's "Baby in the Night Deposit Box" and the details of growing up in a bank.
- Although I didn't fall in love with "Mariposa," the first few lines made me put down the book and giggle: "I've lost my soul?" Aimee repeated, almost losing her usual perfect control. The doctor nodded. "I think so. Probably in early adolescence. It happens more commonly than you might think." It sounds like such a Buffyverse type thing.
- Lloyd Alexander's "Max Mondrosch" creeped me out because that's how I felt during the job hunt, and so I don't think I'll be rereading that one for quite some time.
- Charles Vess is never bad.
- Really loved Patricia A. McKillip's "Byndley," a lovely faerie story that is near-traditional, with gorgeous language.
- I smiled the entire way through Kara Dalkey's "The Lady of the Ice Garden" for the sheer love of it and the weaving in of Japanese myth. IMHO, it's so hard to do Asian cross-over fantasies right, because too often the characters sound like Zen Masters or totally humble: "This unworthy person blah blah blah." Makes me roll my eyes. Technically, it might be a good translation, but I can never get over the awkwardness of it and the feeling of exoticism/fetishization. This lovely little story managed to perfectly weave in The Snow Queen with Heian Japan by only subtly alluding to the culture without having to shove it into the reader's face. And I loved the ending ^_^.
- Garth Nix's "Hope Chest" has been living in my head for a few days, even though (or most likely, precisely because) it scared the hell out of me and I desperately want it out of my head. Good story, creepy as hell.
- DWJ's "Little Dot," highly enjoyable, like all DWJ =). And, great cat voice.

Still very excited about the new imprint ^_^.

Links:
- rilina's review

Comments

[oyceter]

It's weird that I loved her short so much because I've previously had difficulties getting into Nightingale and Genpei. I suspect part of the difficulty with Genpei was that she was writing ala Heike Monogatari/Genji -- I read Genji once for a paper and the language really gets to me. Too many clothes! Don't think I've been able to get my hands on her YA books... more library searches!

Ooo, I really liked Kij Johnson's Fox Woman -- still waiting for her next one to either show up at my bookstore or the library or in PB.

Don't think I've heard of Jeanne Larsen. It's about time people tackle China! I also remember reading about this book, can't for the life of me remember what it's called -- something about a Brother Ox, or Tenth Son or something. Sigh. Saw it at Books Inc. And am currently reading Leah Cutter's Paper Mage (Tang Dynasty China).

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Number Ten Ox is from Barry Hughart's *Bridge of Birds*, which is a good comic fantasy; there are two sequels, which I haven't read, and which are supposed to be not as good (though not bad).

Larsen was published as mainstream literary fiction, not fantasy, which may acount for her obscurity.

Dalkey can sometimes be hit or miss for me. I haven't tried *Genpei*, but that's because I'm a few behind on her. My favorite of her novels is *Euryale*, about a Gorgon in ancient Greece, i.e., outside the scope of the previous discussion. ;)

I just picked up *Paper Mage*! But I don't expect to get to it for a little while -- there are at least three things I want to read first. What do you think so far?

Oh, two imaginary-world fantasies with Chinese influence are C.J. Cherryh's *The Paladin* and Barbara Hambly's *sisters of the Raven*, but I didn't like either of them particularly. And M. Lucie Chin had a Chinese fairy tale a while ago, *The Fairy of Ku-She*, but I remember finding it hard to get into. Peter Dickinson's *Tulku* takes place in Tibet and is very good, but the protagonists are European.

I might be able to find one or two more Asian-inflected fantasies if I looked around my shelves, but that's really nearly about it. Which is sad.

Do you read SF at all? I recommend Maureen McHugh's *China Mountain Zhang* highly.

[oyceter]

Thank you! That's it!

I've seen Euryale in a UBS, but I'm never sure if I should get it or not because it's been hit or miss before. Also eyed the Sagamore trilogy and never gotten it because I can never seem to find all three! I think I will probably end up succumbing because she's one of those people on what seems to be the seriously out of print list. Argh.

I'm not that into Paper Mage quite yet, since I keep getting distracted! Got a Judith Ivory and Peter Pan at the library yesterday, hee hee. I'm a little leery right now because the novel so far still has that "first novel" feel, or something. Plus, my brain keeps getting in the way -- I keep trying to figure out how to pronounce the Chinese names and wondering if Tang Dynasty people would be using the greetings we use today and if Cutter maybe mixed up dialects or maybe I just don't know enough (etc.). I'm also having a problem with the whole "Oh this unworthy maiden blah blah" feeling of exoticism. But then, I think striking the right note there is almost impossible.

Ooo, thanks for the other tips! I got a bit scared off of Hambly a while back. I've only read her Dragonsbane previously, which I loved. Unfortunatley, the sequels made a pretty bad impression on me. I keep wondering if Midori Snyder has written anything in this vein for some reason -- maybe I accidently associated her with an Asian-inflected story in one of the Windling/Datlow fairy tale anthologies.

The lack of the Asian-inflected fantasies is sad -- I desperately want to read an Asian dragon book. I also read Tale of Monkey obsessively as a kid, as well as the other earlier creation-type myths. I feel as though it's almost been co-opted by the literary ethnic mainstream ala Amy Tan, more magic realism than straight fantasy.

I do read SF, I just tend not to venture there that often on whim. Just read a blurb on the McHugh in Amazon, sounds very interesting!! One minor reason why I like Orson Scott Card's Speaker of the Dead trilogy so much is his inclusion of the Chinese and Japanese and Portuguese/Brazilians in the future. I think that may have actually been the first time I read about Asian people in sf.

Spamming your LJ

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

(I am writing up reviews. Really I am not being a creepy stalker-person!)

There are only two Sagamore books, which may be why you feel like you can't find the entire trilogy. ;) I don't like them, though; I don't think Dalkey is at her best with comedy.

I agree with you *entirely* about *Dragonsbane*. I think it is her best book. I read the first two sequels and have done my best to wipe them from my memory. *Sisters of the Raven* is just okay; I offer it as a subject rec and not a book rec, if that makes sense.

Midori Snyder hasn't done a novel with Asian influences yet, although there are some in her Bordertown stories.

Oh! Asian dragon book -- have you read R.A. MacAvoy's *Tea with the Black Dragon*? I have very mixed feelings about the sequel, *Twisting the Rope*, but *Tea with the Black Dragon* has a Chinese dragon in it and is wonderful.

There is a little more fantasy if you widen Asian to include Indian or Polynesian (you could even get Earthsea in, since the Archipelagans are racially Polynesian), but there still isn't a lot. The other Chinese SF novel I know about is Paul McAuley's *Red Dust* (Chinese cowboys on Mars), but I haven't read it yet. And an SF novel that was translated *from* Chinese was recently published by Columbia, I think, but I haven't given it much of a look because it's only in a fairly expensive hardcover.

Oh -- there's that Chung Ko series by David Wingrove which I've never tried because it looks absolutely awful.

I'm told Somtow Sucharitkul/S.P. Somtow's *Jasmine Nights* is set in Thailand, but he often gets too horrific for me, so I haven't read it.

Is it really dumb to ask if you've read Maxine Hong Kingston as well as Amy Tan? (I haven't actually read Amy Tan.)

Re: Spamming your LJ

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Oh, *duh*. I knew I was missing something obvious. Geoff Ryman's *The Unconquered Country* (also in the collection *Unconquered Countries*). It's *wonderful*, although also devastating.

Re: Spamming your LJ

[oyceter]

Hee! No prob ;). I noticed the great gush of reviews, which are always fun to read.

And am now realizing that the stupidity of me has reared its head again. Ah well, was bound to show up eventually ;).

I picked up Dragonsbane randomly back in maybe middle school? hrm. We were lucky and had an English teacher who loved SF/F and donated a lot of her old books to the school library. I suspect otherwise I would have been stuck with nowhere to go after finding Tolkien! I loved Dragonsbane, still do. Was so excited when I found out there was a sequel, and then, well, it just got worse. It reminded me a lot of Sheri S. Tepper's Beauty for some reason -- I think the tone, or the incredibly dismal future.

Oooo! Dragon! Mm, summary sounds good. Plus, it's set in San Francisco. I always associate San Francisco with the turn of the century for some reason, and I love that aura. Not that that had anything to do with the story... It reminds me a little of that Ursula K. LeGuin short story that of course I have forgotten the name of. Dragon disguised as man, lives under a hill (I think), is eventually found out (I think by Ged?).

Translated Chinese SF -- that's awesome! Don't hear much about that back at home. Usually the Chinese SF/F sections of the bookstores back at home are all translations. I have a theory that the martial arts books are the Chinese equivalent of fantasy, at least.

Not dumb at all, considering I haven't read her! I only read Tan because we had to read Joy Luck Club for a class, and I just kept going for two or three more books. Strangely, I wasn't that into Asian-American lit. I think I can get annoyed with authors working out their Asian identity issues (esp. Tan) because their issues can sometimes be very different from mine.

Barbara Hambly

[(Anonymous)]

The DRAGONSBANE sequels are by far the worst things Barbara Hambly has ever written. She's an uneven writer, but her best is at the DRAGONSBANE level.

I highly recommend a duology, THE SILENT TOWER and THE SILICON MAGE. A shy computer programmer and an obsessive martial artist help an eccentric wizard fight a very creepy villain in both our world and his. Funny, exciting, well-characterized, and touching. Don't be put off by some outdated computer terminology at the beginning. There are two other books which are related to those, DOG WIZARD (a sequel) and STRANGER AT THE WEDDING (loosely related); they are good but not essential.

I also highly recommend a trilogy, THE TIME OF THE DARK, THE WALLS OF AIR, and THE ARMIES OF DAYLIGHT. All the adjectives applied to the duology also apply to the trilogy. There are two sequels, MOTHER OF WINTER, which is very dark and also very darkly comic, and ICEFALCON'S QUEST, which has some good stuff in it but is generally depressing and unnecessary, though not in the same way or as much so as the DRAGONSBANE sequels.

Other good ones are THOSE WHO HUNT THE NIGHT, a clever gaslit scientific vampire mystery, and the more romantic but also darker sequel, TRAVELING WITH THE DEAD; and, believe it or not, a pitch-black Star Trek novel, CROSSROADS.

Hambly's characters are often misfits, but not the usual sort of pretend-misfits, Cinderellas who need nothing but a new dress and a pair of contacts to succeed. She consistently writes about people with genuine problems relating to others, and whose talents are never going to be as strong as they desperately wish they were. You saw some of this in DRAGONSBANE.

It gives her best books a sense of melancholy and realism which makes the victories moving and believable, if and when they come. Fantasy is often accused of wish-fulfillment; much of Hambly's work is about such wishes, and their heartbreaking impossibility, and what it would mean if they ever came true.

Rachel Brown

Re: Barbara Hambly

[oyceter]

Thanks. I've never actually picked up her stuff outside of Dragonsbane for some reason, and the sequels did a pretty good job of convincing me Dragonsbane was a fluke.

Those Who Hunt the Night sounds particularly promising to me ;). Gaslights and vampires, mmmmm.

I loved Dragonsbane because of Jenny and John and how John wasn't the typical fantasy hero, adolescent and armed with magical powers. I loved how Jenny was getting old and how she was more often than not disappointed by her own magic. Wow, I haven't reread this book in a while!

Asian fantasy

[(Anonymous)]

There is a truly pathetic lack of Asian fantasy in English. Right now my best source for it is manga and anime.

I recommend FUSHIGI YUUGI, REVOLUTIONARY GIRL UTENA, HAIBANE RENMEI, and anything by Hayao Miyazaki. All of those are funny and cool and have interesting characters (and female protagonists, though be aware that the Japanese idealize "girlish" and "cute" more than the typical American feminist does) and are all quite different from anything Western.

Rachel Brown

Re: Asian fantasy

[oyceter]

Ooo, I actually wrote my senior thesis on Utena. Haven't watched Fushigi Yuugi -- looked a little too girly for me, which is funny because I read a ton of shoujo manga. I worship Miyazaki. Although until lately, he didn't really incorporate Asian/Japanese mythology into his stuff -- he had a lot of European pastiche stuff. Reminds me a lot of the settings of a lot of the shoujo manga written in the seventies. And his next thing is Castle in the Air, which is also much like that.

I find it interesting because a good deal of anime and manga doesn't go with the Japanese myths. Fushigi Yuugi's got its romanticized version of China, Evangelion is chock full of Christian imagery. But then I guess there's stuff like Inu Yasha and Kenshin.