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November, Sharyn, ed. - Firebirds Rising
Sun, Aug. 19th, 2007 09:54 pmThis was a bit of a mixed bag for me; but then, short-story collections invariably are as I'm not the biggest short-story fan in general.
I liked Diana Wynne Jones' "I'll Give You My Word" for the wordplay, I liked the oddness of Kelly Link's "The Wizards of Perfil," and I liked the view of a house through three different eras in Tanith Lee's "The House on the Planet."
My favorites ended up being Kara Dalkey's "Hives," which reminds me a little of Scott Westerfeld's YA SF -- the combination of social science and science fiction, with an extra dash of trendiness from So Yesterday. The story is about girl cliques and girl social dynamics, as brought into focus by the use of cell phone implants that make it sound like people are talking inside your head. I'm still a little wary about nearly everything involving girl cliques because of how it always plays into the "girls are catty!" stereotype, whether it means to or not, and this story didn't do enough with the trope to act as a commentary on it instead of a straight-up illustration of it. On the other hand, I loved the narrative voice of the POV character, and I loved that it was something that wasn't about white, middle-class girls. (More on this later.)
The other one that I loved the pieces was Ellen Klages' "In the House of the Seven Librarians," in which an old library ends up closing itself to the world, and seven librarians raise a girl. There is so much book love in this story that I couldn't not love it. I'm not sure what to say about the story, except that it so much sums up my feelings toward libraries and books and things like the Dewey decimal system versus Library of Congress, obsessive-compulsive categorization, nooks and crannies, and booksbooksbooks.
And now, back to white middle-class girls. Most of the authors in the collection were women; most of the stories were about girls. Both of these things make me happy. And yet...
( I swear I don't go looking for this stuff. )
I liked Diana Wynne Jones' "I'll Give You My Word" for the wordplay, I liked the oddness of Kelly Link's "The Wizards of Perfil," and I liked the view of a house through three different eras in Tanith Lee's "The House on the Planet."
My favorites ended up being Kara Dalkey's "Hives," which reminds me a little of Scott Westerfeld's YA SF -- the combination of social science and science fiction, with an extra dash of trendiness from So Yesterday. The story is about girl cliques and girl social dynamics, as brought into focus by the use of cell phone implants that make it sound like people are talking inside your head. I'm still a little wary about nearly everything involving girl cliques because of how it always plays into the "girls are catty!" stereotype, whether it means to or not, and this story didn't do enough with the trope to act as a commentary on it instead of a straight-up illustration of it. On the other hand, I loved the narrative voice of the POV character, and I loved that it was something that wasn't about white, middle-class girls. (More on this later.)
The other one that I loved the pieces was Ellen Klages' "In the House of the Seven Librarians," in which an old library ends up closing itself to the world, and seven librarians raise a girl. There is so much book love in this story that I couldn't not love it. I'm not sure what to say about the story, except that it so much sums up my feelings toward libraries and books and things like the Dewey decimal system versus Library of Congress, obsessive-compulsive categorization, nooks and crannies, and booksbooksbooks.
And now, back to white middle-class girls. Most of the authors in the collection were women; most of the stories were about girls. Both of these things make me happy. And yet...
( I swear I don't go looking for this stuff. )
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