The stories that stay

[dolorosa_12]

Thirty Day Book Meme Day 19: Still can't stop talking about it

I mean, most of the things I'm fannish about are books, and most of those books are old! In the case of some of my most beloved fandoms of the heart, I've been thinking and talking about those books for close to twenty-five years, and show no signs of stopping. I posted a not completely exhaustive list at the last friending meme I ran:

I'm both extremely multifannish, but extremely loyal to the fandoms in which I'm invested. Most of my fandoms are small, Yuletide-eligible book fandoms: Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and Sally Lockhart Mysteries books, The Pagan Chronicles series by Catherine Jinks, Galax Arena and the Space Demons trilogy by Gillian Rubinstein, pretty much everything Victor Kelleher has ever written, the Bone Season series by Samantha Shannon, the Romanitas trilogy by Sophia McDougall, the books of Kate Elliott, Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows duology, Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Cycle, S. A. Chakraborty's Daevabad series, Katherine Arden's Winternight trilogy, The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton, Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver and Uprooted, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and a whole lot of mythology, folk tales and fairytales.

Talk to me about any of those books, and I'll keep talking!


20. Favorite cover.
21. Summer read.
22. Out of print.
23. Made to read at school.
24. Hooked me into reading.
25. Never finished it.
26. Should have sold more copies.
27. Want to be one of the characters.
28. Bought at my fave independent bookshop.
29. The one I have reread most often.
30. Would save if my house burned down.

Comments

[laurenthemself]

The Space Demons trilogy and Galax-Arena, but we never ever talk about Terra-Farma.

[dolorosa_12]

Terra Farma, what Terra Farma? ;)

On a more serious note, Presh and Allyman are my favourite characters from Galax Arena, so there was no way I was going to enjoy Terra Farma! The book was perfect as a standalone, and I have always been baffled as to why Rubinstein felt the need to write a sequel.

The Space Demons trilogy is amazing. I reread it a few months ago, and it's still just as good.

[laurenthemself]

It still makes me mad that the sequel was so bad.

I've got to reread Space Demons; I was always so fascinated with the idea of the Skymaze.

[dolorosa_12]

It really was so, so bad, and I've wondered if Rubinstein was forced to write it due to publisher pressure, because I think it was her last book aimed at children — after that she went on to write Japanese-inspired fantasy novels aimed at adults under the Lian Hearn pseudonym. And she told me, back when I was a book-reviewer for The Canberra Times and interviewing her about one of her Lian Hearn books, that she had made the decision only to write for adults because her children had grown up and she felt disconnected from the experiences of children as a result.

[merit]

People: it is so hard to signup for Yuletide, as I don't have enough fandoms.

Ah, if only~~ my favourites also deserve love

[dolorosa_12]

Exactly. Megafandoms freak me out — I feel drowned out, overwhelmed at the speed with which things move, and a huge pressure to perform. Fandoms of one, on the other hand, are perfect — they give you space to explore the canon and fanworks (and create your own) at your own pace.

[schneefink]

In the past two or so years I'm reading a lot more books again, but most of them are tiny (if even existent) fandoms and I find it very hard to "be" in a fandom like that. (Also because every time I read a great book I'm reminded that there are more great books out there and rather than reread I look for the next one.) Makes me look forward to Yuletide even more ;)

[dolorosa_12]

As I said to merit above, I find it easier to be in those tiny fandoms of one, because the megafandoms feel overwhelming, prone to drama, and impossible to meet people. Whereas when it's you and two other people, they're much easier to find, and there's much more pressure to create a harmonious environment. I just generally find it easier to say things about books, and feel intensely fannish about book characters and scenarios, to be honest.

Yuletide is my favourite time of the fannish year.

[regshoe]

I completely agree about tiny fandoms—there's nothing like loving a really obscure old book and spending ages delving into what makes it so great and picking it apart, and I think small-to-nonexistent fandoms in some ways give you more room to do that. And then it's always such a nice surprise to find other people who love the book too!

[dolorosa_12]

Exactly. I'm not saying that tiny fandoms are free from drama — if you have a smaller pool of people, one argumentative individual can have a disproportionately disturbing effect — but in my experience they tend to be a better environment than megafandoms. This is because in those smaller fandoms people recognised that we were the only people online ever to want to talk about the books in question, so minor differences of opinion or shipping preferences or something were ignored in favour of creating a harmonious space to discuss the books.

[orcofnewyork]

I still remember picking up the first His Dark Materials book at a book fair the year it was first published in America and I have that copy to this day. Do you have a favorite scene in the series? Are there any concepts from the series you enjoy seeing as a fusion elements in fic like daemons or the subtle knife?

Please, please, please sell me on the rest of the Crown of Stars series by Kate Elliott! The first book I wanted to love so badly and many parts I really did, but the mixed black heroine experiencing most of the book in slavery and raped left me so uncomfortable (especially since the world wasn't our world and had no historical basis for that trope of black female suffering plus I'm a bookish mixed black reader myself). But I loved the world and I want to see how things shake out! But none of my other friends have read it so I have no one to say "don't worry, keep going, it gets amazing." (Please don't take this as a criticism of Elliott, I know the series is old and the awareness and culture of writing POC characters was very different than it is today!) Sell me! I want to embrace the rest of the world! <3

I could talk Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell for HOURS! It's definitely in my top five desert island books.

[dolorosa_12]

I have a couple of favourite scenes in the His Dark Materials books — all those in the first book that involve Lyra travelling to the North, the different communities she meets and interacts with, and in particular all the instances where she's travelling through those harsh landscapes, under the beautiful aurora, listening to people talk about multiverses, dæmons, philosophy and so on. I also love her and Will's descent to the land of the dead — heartbreaking, and painful, and powerful — and the final chapters in the land of the mulefa, when Lyra is 'tempted' by Mary's story, and she and Will come of age.

I'm not a fan of crossovers or fusions and particularly dislike dæmon AUs, especially since they're often mistagged as HDM fic, but I know they're very popular in fandom.

Now, when it comes to Crown of Stars, bear in mind that I have only read the series once, and that was over fifteen years ago. It's not my favourite of Elliott's works, although I still enjoyed reading it. You're right to note that the framing of Liath's story is troubling, and I can certainly see why it would be painful for you to read (and I've always found it the most illogical part of the worldbuilding — the series is meant to be set in a matriarchy, and yet the only described instance of rape and abuse is by a man against a woman. I think Elliott was trying to make a point about abuse victims not being believed if their abusers held societal power and privilege, and slavery being a context in which consent is, anyway, impossible, but I can also see that it's troubling that she would choose the sole mixed, and black, character in the series to do so). If I recall correctly, Liath's fortunes do pick up later in the series, and her story has a happy ending, but I'm not sure it's worth ploughing through seven very long books just to get to that point.

All Elliott's works are secondary world fantasy, and all of her heroines are women of colour. In some of her imagined worlds, this means they experience discrimination and structural racism of a similar kind to that in our world (Court of Fives is based on Ptolemaic Egypt, and looks at issues of colonialism, although it ends in a successful revolution lead by the (black) mother of the series' heroine), whereas in others pretty much everyone is a person of colour and so the racism of our own world isn't mapped onto the experiences of the books' characters (this is the case for the Crossroads trilogy, and the Spiritwalker books). I'm not of the opinion that white authors should never write from the perspective of characters of colour — particularly in a secondary-world setting — but I leave it up to you as to whether you consider this to be a dealbreaker.