McKinley, Robin, ed. - Imaginary Lands

[oyceter]

It's funny, I remember enjoying this anthology a great deal, but story-by-story, I think I only really liked two or three. But I really liked those. Also, even if I hadn't, it would have been worth it just for a McKinley story I hadn't read before.

I read James P. Blaylock's "Paper Dragons," Robert Westall's "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" and Patricia A. McKillip's "The Old Woman and the Storm" around when I first got home from Wiscon, which means that I now don't remember them at all. I vaguely remember liking the McKillip but not being blown away by it, but that's it.

I wasn't very impressed with Michael de Larrabeiti's "The Curse of Igamor," which felt a little too self-satisfied and smug, despite the humorous tone, and I downright disliked Joan D. Vinge's "Tam Lin" (I suspect this, coupled with my dislike of The Snow Queen, means I am probably not a Vinge fan). Her Jennet/Janet flounced and described her own looks to me and defied her father's wish for her to get married by going to the fair; basically, she reminded me of every "spunky" romance novel heroine ever.

Jane Yolen's "Evian Steel" was a somewhat more interesting than usual take on Excalibur and Avalon, but a) I've read it before in another collection and b) so sick of Arthurian legend! Also sick of Celtic mythology and Welsh mythology! Have read entirely too many!

And despite completely not getting God Stalk, I still liked Hodgell's "Stranger Blood," which is odd and disturbing and has a whole background and world that I continue to not understand.

I loved Peter Dickinson's "Flight," which was the only story in the book that didn't feel white. I can't exactly pinpoint why it didn't read as your standard Eurofantasy to me (though Westall and Blaylock's stories aren't Eurofantasy either, from the little I recall). Possibly it was the mention of the World Elephant. "Flight" isn't really a story, and I could not for the life of me keep track of the timeline or the general narrative, but I loved loved loved the tone and the world and all the fun little details Dickinson puts in for his narrator, a historian of that world.

I loved Robin McKinley's "The Stone Fey" as well, though I am now completely confused about Damar. The Damar of "The Stone Fey" and The Hero and the Crown both read like the same country, but they don't feel anything like the Damar of The Blue Sword. I'm thinking about this mostly after having a few discussions post-Wiscon on Damar and the White Savior trope and all. Because the Damar of "The Stone Fey" reads very much as Eurofantasy (the dog's name is Aerlich, for example).

Aside from that, I really liked that McKinley subverts the standard "human lured by supernatural lover" trope, and, like almost all her things, I love the sense of the every day, of details like that of sheep and doggy mannerisms and farming.

Comments

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

"Paper Dragons" and "Big Rock Candy Mountain" are explicitly American fantasy, although they may be white American fantasy -- I don't remember, which probably means they are white or unmarked, which we mostly read as white.

The Hero and the Crown is set a long time before The Blue Sword, but I don't know if that accounts for the differences you see. I should reread them.

[oyceter]

I think I need to reread the first three stories. I'm sort of impressed in a weird way by how completely I don't recall them.

I think I'm going to reread McKinley soon too.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

You are for the win. I found this book in a Book Passage at Hay on Wye (book passage = random alley piled high with books, with a trust box at the end of the alley where you put in your change) and I have a habit of dipping in and out of short story books, and now I can!

[oyceter]

Oh awesome! Though, of course, YMMV ;).

Also, I want book passages here too. boo.

[estara.livejournal.com]

From what I understood about Stranger Blood it's a fragment of a possible (?) future for Jaime if she can get her brother and her race to accept her. So her competent self-assurance isn't quite where she's at right now.

(To Ride a Rathorn: visiting a university whose lower floors get sucked into travelling with a mirage seasonal occurence and no one being sure where they end up and all the scholars being fascinated and exited on when they stop and when they move on and trying to explore it - MARVELLOUS cool bit!)

SPOILERRRRRRRRR

... though I read an interview with P.C.Hodgell somewhere (can't remember) that has Jaime and her brother tending in the direction of them becoming a couple (since he's the creator and she's the destroyer face of the three-faced god, with a cousin as the status-quo balance face), which I really do not want. Jaime has so many other problems, she really doesn't need that, I think just acceptance by her brainwashed-by-father's-fear-and-hatred brother would be enough. Oh well.

SPOILER END

[oyceter]

Ah, gotcha.

I am so confused by the world and what's going on that I didn't pick up on that at all.

[chomiji]

Isn't Mount Alban - the floating university wafting along on the weirding storm - mostly in Seeker's Mask? To Ride a Rathorn is set almost entirely at Tentir, the Kencyr West Point, and its environs.

I have heard that same bit of info on Jame's fate re Torisen ... let's see: right here, in the answer to Question 3. [Warning: that page is chock full o' spoilers right from P.C. Hodgell herself. But it's fascinating if you like the series ... which I most definitely do.]

[estara.livejournal.com]

Thanks for knowing the link, and you may be right about the university bit not being in the most recent book, I read it right when it came out last year and haven't reread the series for a fifth time yet...

... but I still remember at as being part of TRAR...

I guess my memmory just sucks, which comes as no surprise.

[seajules]

I remember being so excited to read this, for the new McKinley and because she edited, and I remember being very underwhelmed. I liked "The Stone Fey" all right, though I too had problems with not recognizing the Damar she was talking about (I felt bad for being less interested in the Damar of this piece and The Hero and the Crown than that of The Blue Sword, because I worried I was exoticizing, but the fact is that I've read a glut of Eurofantasy, and I do like that the Damar of TBS is different). The thing that's really stuck with me all these years, though, is just how much I loathed Vinge's "Tam Lin." Jennet and Tam both read as modern, spoiled teenagers to me, her Fey left no impression on me whatsoever, and the ending sucked all the magic out of the tale. Feh.

[oyceter]

I worry about exoticizing too -- esp. when it comes to Japan. But in the end, I think having more non-Eurofantasy is worth it (also, so sick of the Celtic!).

OMG! "Tam Lin"! I really hated it! Just.. gah!

[perkinwarbeck2.livejournal.com]

What I thought about "Flight" is that it wasn't just the world elephant but the Obs and the nose flutes. It felt like an abstraction of India and Central Asia in the same way that most fantasy is an abstraction of Britain and France. I love the way it has a real sense of history of a totally weird place. The only thing that's like it is Angelica Gorodischer's Kalpa Imperial, which I read years and years afterwards. (Imaginary Lands had YA publication in Britain and I read it from the school library.)

I was slightly afraid when I started reading this review that you were going to say it was cultural appropriation, and I'm very glad you liked it too. In fact your views on the stories are pretty much the same as mine, minus the "OMG it mentions menstruation, that's so brave!" reaction I had to "Evian Steel" when I was only just old enough to have an informed opinion on that subject! I'm absolutely positive it was the first story I ever read that mentioned it.

[oyceter]

Yes, I loved the history and the footnotes and all the details that Dickinson put in!

I think I may have had the "OMG! Menstruation!" reaction when I first read "Evian Steel," but that was a couple years ago, so I don't really remember anymore...