Beyond Selidor

Last week's holiday in Southwold was a fantastic time to relax and read some of the many books that had been gathering on my to-read list. These were an eclectic bunch — a couple of YA novels, two of my most highly anticipated fantasy books of the year, and a fairytale-esque fantasy novel. I enjoyed most of them immensely.

( Five stories )

Last weekend I bought a batch of novellas in an attempt to lift my flagging spirits. It was definitely the right thing to do: I devoured all four books, and they certainly contributed a lot to improve my mood.

It sounds odd to describe Aliette de Bodard's 'Fireheart Tiger' as something that cheered me up: with a fantasy setting directly referencing pre-colonial Vietnam, and telling the story of a princess trying to navigate political tensions, stave off a colonising power, prove her worth to her emotionally abusive mother, and figure out how to handle the arrival of the woman with whom she previously had an affair at the head of the colonising country's delegation to her mother's court, this is not exactly a light and fluffy story. Like much of de Bodard's writing, the story imagines a world in which homophobia and sexism do not exist (jobs and the ability to hold positions of authority are not tied to gender, relationships and marriages between same-sex partners are as ubiquitous and unremarkable as those between heterosexual couples), but in which racism and colonialism play a major role. This is a well-crafted story of a woman clawing her way out of various abusive relationships, finding her voice, and getting her happy ending.

I think my favourite of the four novellas would have to be 'The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water' by Zen Cho. This was a rollicking, wuxia-inspired tale, set in a world resembling Malaysia immediately after World War II, about a band of hapless (and somewhat incompetent) outlaws, joined by a no-nonsense nun, and their various misadventures. As with all of Cho's work, it was laugh-out-loud hilarious — she is such a good writer of humour, and this novella sparkled with her characteristic wit.

'When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain' by Nghi Vo might give Cho's novella a run for its money in my affections. This story sees two human characters held hostage by a pack of shapeshifting tigers, and having to save their lives by telling an engaging story, much in the manner of Scheherazade. It's a sharp, pointed tale, with a meandering story-with-in-a-story that explores issues of memory, history, and the slippery nature of narrative. I really, really enjoyed it.

Last of this recent batch of novellas was 'The Drowned Country' by Emily Tesh, the second half of her Greenhallow fantasy m/m romance duology. Like the first book, I found this good, rather than great — I feel like the characters are underdeveloped (meaning it's hard to invest in their will-they-won't-they romance), and I feel like the central premise (that the supernatural sits uneasily next to the quotidian world, always threatening to break through in ways that evoke folk horror imagery) is also a bit underdeveloped. This was one of those novellas that I felt really would have been better as a full-length novel, although I'm not sure the author would have been able to sustain things for that long. I liked the setting, though — an obvious analogue for Whitby in England, complete with throwaway references to vampires — while at the same time feeling that the whole thing was a little unformed.

I'm currently reading the fourth Bridgerton book, but I'm finding it hard to stay motivated, possibly due to the characters in the central romance. ( Spoilers for an eighteen-year-old book )

I suspect there will be more books to come this weekend.

After my month of posting every day about books, I seem to have completely vanished from the internet, and Dreamwidth in particular. This was mainly due to illness, brought on by intense stress about the political crisis in the UK and the impending Brexit catastrophe. More about that below.

But first, I'll talk about nice things.

I spent last weekend in Germany for the wedding of one of Matthias's cousins. The cousin (and indeed that whole part of the family) live in Iserlohn, and the wedding and reception were all in that part of the world. Matthias and I flew in to Dortmund on Friday afternoon and were collected by his parents, who drove us to the hotel where we were all staying (and which would also be the reception venue). We all had dinner on the Friday night in the hotel with another aunt and uncle. The wedding itself was on midday on the Saturday, in a castle on the top of a hill, and sadly I didn't get any photos of the ceremony itself, but trust me when I say the setting was very picturesque. We then returned back to the reception for what ended up being an entire day of being fed. The reception meal at German weddings (at least in my experience) is always dinner, but as it was about 2pm at that point and no one had had lunch, we were given open bread roll sandwiches as canapes with our sparkling wine. This was then followed by coffee and a variety of cakes at 3pm, and finally the huge buffet dinner in the evening. There was also apparently a midnight snack of cheeses and fruit, but I was certainly not hungry enough by that point to investigate!

There was a DJ playing (as always) the cheesiest collection of both German and English-language music, and I danced for hours. We finally staggered up to bed around 1am. Now normally I would be able to sleep fine, even with the DJ still going several floors below, but because my body's been in panic mode pretty much for the past three weeks, my sleeping abilities are wrecked, and I ended up not being able to sleep at all that night, even though the DJ finished up around 2.30 and then it was deathly quiet. Luckily I didn't need to do anything on the Sunday beyond being driven to the airport (with a detour to a nearby lake which we walked around in the sunsine).

On Monday I went down to London after work to go to a panel discussion at the Piccadilly Waterstones between Samantha Shannon, Zen Cho, Tasha Suri, and Zoe Marriott, moderated by their fellow author Katherine Webber. It was a fun talk — all, with the exception of Marriott (who was a bit rambly) were great speakers, and although it didn't really tell me anything new about their books, it was great to see them in conversation, bouncing ideas off each other and gushing over one another's books.

From the heights to the depths: the ghastly, stressful political, economic, social and psychological catastrophe that is Brexit. For several weeks, I was feverishly following every moment: Twitter open with various commentators live-tweeting sessions in the House of Commons, the Guardian's frenzied politics livefeed open in the next tab over. This did serious damage to both my mental and physical health (I couldn't sleep, I had panic attacks that lasted all night, I had nightmares, the lack of sleep gave me a cold, at one point I literally vomited from stress at work), and in the end I had to stop. I had been following every moment because I was afraid something terrible would happen and I would miss trying to stop it. On Wednesday last week, after a particularly bad night of panic attacks, I realised that I had to just completely switch off everything. So no Twitter, no news — I can't even go to news websites to look up articles on something else, in case I see anything Brexit-related. I've been living in a sort of cone of silence for over a week now, and it's helping, mostly.

I do know that the EU allowed Britain a longer extension, because Matthias told me this morning, meaning that the country will still be in the EU tomorrow, and I will still be an EU citizen for now. I'm assuming we'll have to hold EU parliamentary elections now, although even that was unclear (but surely the EU would be mad to offer an extension to October without making the EU parliamentary elections a condition?). But the panicked uncertainty was too much for me, so I think I'll have to maintain my distance.

I see also that Scott Morrison has finally called an election, so that will be another thing to vote for in May. I'm hoping desperately that all the polls are right and we're going to get a change of government (although the prospect of Bill Shorten being rewarded for essentially not being Scott Morrison is pretty depressing; I met Shorten at a dinner party before he was an MP and I was not impressed). I'm imagining that the campaign will be dismal and ugly.

So that's been my life for the past couple of weeks. I've been listening to a lot of M83. Carry on, carry on/ and after us the flood indeed.

That title doesn't quite scan, but it will have to do.

Via Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, probably the best thing I've read all week: Nine Ways We Can Make Social Justice Movements Less Elitist and More Accessible, by Kai Cheng Thom. Really important stuff.

Read this essay by Sofia Samatar about being a black academic.

On a related note, Black Sci-fi Creators Assemble at Princeton and Imagine Better Worlds than This One, by Rasheedah Phillips.

Kari Sperring talks about justice, socialism, fantasy utopias, and Terry Pratchett.

Here's Alana Piper on the myth that 'women secretly hate each other'. Nothing throws me out of a story faster than female characters with no female friends, so this post was right up my alley.

Kate Elliott needs your help in a workshop on gender defaults in fantasy.

Shannon Hale writes about writing outside her culture. Note that at least one of the recommendations of books 'by Asian-American authors' is not by an Asian-American author, but rather, a Palestinian/Egyptian-Australian. It's still a good list.

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz interviews Zen Cho. I wait impatiently for my copy of Sorcerer To The Crown to arrive.

As always, the new posts at Ghostwords are a delight.

Two new reviews are up on Those Who Run With Wolves:

Vida Cruz reviews Of Sorrow and Such by Angela Slatter.

I review Space Hostages by Sophia McDougall.

It has been twenty years since two formative works of my teenage years, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and the film Hackers, were released. Here's an interview with the Hackers director.

The Toast remains amazing. Two of my favourite recent posts: Dirtbag Milton (I remember studying him in uni and being furious about how badly he treated his daughters), and How To Tell If You Are In a Lai of Marie de France.

I hope your weekends are glorious.

The links this week are a bit of a mixed bag, partly because I've been somewhat distracted, and as a result this post is a bit shorter than usual.

Tade Thompson made some important points about literature and diversity, storified by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz. I see Tade's thoughts as another part in the conversation I linked to last week.

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz had some further thoughts on the matter.

Zen Cho posted 'Ten Things I Believe About Writing'. There's also a great interview with her up at Kitaab:

I write stories as a way of answering questions.

Another post by Rochita talks about language, identity, and the process behind writing her latest published story, ' Bagi: Ada ti Istorya':

While thinking of language recovery, I found myself thinking too about what lies buried in language. What narratives had I chosen to erase when I chose to leave behind that language? What narratives could be pulled out of a text or a few lines or a word? What memory–what emotion would rise up from the use of a language that has lain dormant for so long.

More on language and storytelling: Samantha Shannon interviewed her Dutch translator, Janet Limonard.

I loved this new, bilingual Ghostwords post.

Kate Elliott had lots of thoughts about Mad Max: Fury Road, and Charles Tan storified them.

This review of Mad Max: Fury Road by Julianne Ross really resonated with me:

But where Fury Road really surprises is in its genuine respect for the five women Furiosa is trying to save. They are beautiful, generous and kind — deliberately feminine traits that have allowed them to survive as long as they have, and which the movie refuses to treat as a burden or incidental.

This Mad Max fanvid by jocarthage is simply breathtaking.

Happy Friday, everyone!

So. Lots of stuff to get through this week, as my corner of the internet has been particularly full of people doing wonderful, clever and awesome things.

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz had a busy week. Here's Rochita on the uses of anger, her new short story, and being interviewed for Lightspeed magazine's author spotlight.

Catherine Lundoff has had so many submissions to her 'Older Women in SFF' recommendations post that she's had to split it into two. Part one, part two.

I really liked this review of Zen Cho's writing by Naomi Novik.

This review by Sarah Mesle of the most recent episode of Game of Thrones made a lot of points I've been struggling to articulate. Content note for discussion of violence, abuse and rape.

I really appreciated this thoughtful post by Tade Thompson on safety, community and dissent.

Natalie Luhrs makes some really important points here:

This is part of the ongoing conversation about the importance of different voices in our community. About making space for people who have been told–explicitly and implicitly–that what they have to say isn’t worthwhile and that they need to sit down and listen and that someday, maybe, they’ll be allowed to speak.

This list of Best Young Australian novelists looks great, and reflects the Australia that I grew up in. Congratulations to all the winners!

I have to admit that the #hometovote hashtag has been making me cry.

I wrote two longish posts this week. One is over at Wordpress: a review of Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. The other is here at Dreamwidth/LJ, and is a primer to Sophia McDougall's Romanitas trilogy.

My mother is a radio journalist. Her programme this week is on Eurovision, and you can listen to it here (not geoblocked). There are additional features . I am an unashamed Eurovision fan, and as you can see, it runs in the family.

Texts from Hieronymous Bosch made me laugh and laugh.

Happy Friday, everyone.

This week's post is a little early, as my partner's parents are in town and I have to grab whatever time I have to myself when I can.

I really liked this essay by Kari Sperring in Strange Horizons. It's ostensibly about Katherine Kurtz, but its broader point is that the 'women who made fantasy [and science fiction]' keep getting ignored, erased or forgotten in the genre's history.

In a similar vein, Renay has written at Fantasy Book Cafe about recommendation lists that contain no women.

Also by Renay, a review of The Lynburn Legacy by Sarah Rees Brennan for Ladybusiness.

This post by Tumblr user allofthefeelings is a reaction to a very specific fandom situation, but I feel it has broader applicability, given that it talks about unexamined preferences, narrative default settings, and representation (within texts, of fandom and of fannish culture and preferences).

I have a not-so-secret love of '90s teen movies, so this post on Tor.com by Leah Schnelbach and Natalie Zutter about teen movies that adapt or draw on Shakespeare's plays was right up my alley.

Abigail Nussbaum reviews Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho for Strange Horizons.

Here's an interview with Zen Cho by Sharmilla Ganeson in The Star.

My friend Raphael Kabo wrote this poem called 'Axis' for Noted Festival. He writes a lot about identity, alienation and place, which are themes very dear to me.

Still on the theme of poetry, Athena Andreadis shared an older post on Sapfó (Sappho) of Lésvos.

This is a raw, emotionally honest post by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz about the struggle to find her voice and courage after ill-treatment, silencing and the twisting of her words and judgement of her actions. I continue to be awed by her words, bravery and determination. SFF needs more people like her.