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Meme about Books [02 Jul 2008|10:56pm] I love those lists of 100 books, or 50 books, of which one is supposed to bold some and italicize others, and so on. Instead of copying one of those inevitably flawed lists, however, I'll choose this more me-focused meme. 1. A favorite book! Memory by Lois Bujold. Or, you know, lots of others. Maybe A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer. 2. A book that affected you in your YA years Childhood's End, Arthur Clarke; and also Double Star by Heinlein, along with everything else by Heinlein I could get my hands on, but that one was a favorite. 3. A favorite fantasy novel The Door Into Fire, Diane Duane. 4. A favorite sci fi novel Carnival, Elizabeth Bear. 5. An awesome book (possibly a favorite) you think not many people around you have heard of/read Hellflower (and its two sequels, Darktrader and Archangel Blues), Eluki bes Shahar. 6. A book you own more than one copy of Sorcery and Cecelia, Wrede and Stevermer. For a long time it was impossible to buy, and I kept any extras I found and gave them away as appropriate. Also, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, Diana Wynne Jones, which I could not live without a backup copy of. 7. An author whose every single book you own/will buy Mary Renault. 8. The worst book you've ever read Some vampire book I threw away. Not Rice or Sucharitkul or anybody like that. Worse. 9. A book you dislike that lots of other people you know like Wuthering Heights. Dreary rather than romantic, full of mean, unhappy people. 10. The most difficult book you've ever read Goedel, Escher, Bach, Hofstadter. (This excludes, of course, many difficult books I've only read the first part of.) A friend described reading it as being poked in the back of the knee with a stick. Re-reading it, he said, was like turning around in response, and then you *knew* someone was poking at you with the stick, even if you still didn't know why. 11. Tell me what kind of books your mom reads/read The Bible. 12. What have you read so far this year? Fanfic, Bujold, Varley, Spider Robinson, Young Wizards series by Diane Duane, The Demolished Man by Bester, Cast in Shadow (etc.) by Sagara, Doppelganger and Midnight Never Come by Brennan, Making Light, Peeps by Westerfield, Death in the Garden by Elizabeth Ironside, Nova by Delaney, First Intermissions (opera commentary), a ton of stuff I forget, and some heavy-duty environmental analysis for work which I am proof-reading over and over (and *over*) until they get it right. 13. What are you reading now? Fanfic, Cast in Courtlight by Sagara, various Saint stories by Charteris, occasional chapters from LotR. 14. What are you reading next? (list! list! You know you want to) Birds by Aristophanes, more Saint stories, fanfic, Ha'penny by Walton, and a thousand others. 14 comments|post comment

To Escapade and Back Again [12 Mar 2008|11:12pm] The thing about conventions is that they ferment and rise, like bread, and about the time they're at their best they've finished baking and you have to go home again. ( I've been in a fannish funk, but this year I got over it. ) Everybody experiences a different con, as reading two or more convention reports will tell you. For me, things started slowly but usefully on Friday, when I found the one person I needed to see before we moderated a panel together and we talked out the basics of it then and there. Then I met a bunch of other people who greeted with me glad cries (and vice versa), and *then* I went to the con suite to get a badge and schedule. There I met a person with my name, but she's the one with the sky-blue hair. Good food included pizza on Friday night, ( and then Torchwood blew me away. And later there were more panels. ) ( The Saturday night vid show ) Sunday, which should be a winding-down day, instead featured a series of fascinating panels on meta. Meta vs. Squee featuring the memorable closing line that some fans see fandom as a balloon, to be played with but not poked too sharply lest it burst; but some fans see fandom as a pinata, where you have to break the surface to get to the coolest toys. This is too good not to have been said before, but it is *perfect*. The last panel of the con for me was another Meta on Meta panel moderated more or less out of whole cloth by Rachel and Sandy. The conclusion might be that *all* fandom is intertextual meta on the shows, some in more wordy and theoretical ("academic") modes, some in more speculative-narration ("stories") modes. Yes, that's fandom. 4 comments|post comment

Not So Reluctant Announcement [06 Sep 2007|09:14pm] A friend has nudged me into doing something I should have at least started long ago. I've written a lot of stories in years (and years and years) of fandom, and I've been working on a website for them. Slowly. However, here's a note to say that the website, with some stories linked and some to come later, is up as Stranger Tales. I'm afraid the email links there don't work due to old spam and ISP weirdness, but if anyone has conversation about the site (I do welcome all comments on the stories, pro or con), I'd be happy to read your comments here. The hobbit stories are mostly up at West of the Moon (which is a lovely archive), too. And thanks to princessofg, who is a lovely person and a remarkable and prolific writer, for a little push out the door... 8 comments|post comment

IBAR Second Week (Second Year) [16 Aug 2007|11:54pm] Someone amid the many recent posts about characters of color, suggested a challenge: Write something about an interracial pairing. I've been watching Torchwood, mainly for the pretty, and admiring the woefully under-used character Toshiko Sato. And she's also in one bit of a DW episode, which leads to this crossover. It's completely non-explicit, so don't get your hopes up, but the somewhat understated pairing is Martha/Toshiko. The challenge post, Anna's post-kerfluffer multifandom inter-racial ficathon, by annavtree is here. # # # ( Story ) 10 comments|post comment

Four Operas and Slash [17 Mar 2007|01:46pm] Hello, I haven't been dead, just resting. Also, I've seen four operas within the past couple of months (three of them within the past two weeks), which puts me kind of on overload, especially since they were about as different as four examples of the same art form can be. They were, for a start, all contradictory about slashiness in different ways: Masked Ball looks perfect for slash, in the tradition of featuring a strongly emotional male couple as the lead tenor and baritone, but on a closer look the story is tangential to traditional slash. It does have other priceless moments (and also some of Verdi's best music). The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny, a 1920s satire on capitalism and other modern perversions, has exhibitions of sex and mention of boy whores as well as female whores, but it's all a sideline. Sexual proclivity (and race, for that matter) mean no more than choosing black shoes or brown ones. There is no such thing as love, only solvency. The main theme of the opera negates most of the slash genre. The Coronation of Poppea actually includes a duet for Nero and another male character that has aspects of a sexual encounter and is often staged as one. And, it doesn't matter in the face of Nero's obsession with Poppea. It's a graphic demonstration that imperial Rome and the 1640s (the opera is going on 400 years old, and is still remarkably topical) both knew that bisexuality is what the man who has everything has, and so what? What matters is political power. As far as slash is about love or romance, it doesn't belong in this opera. Wicked has an obvious female couple who are perfect for slash. There are, in fact, stories for it in some small-fandoms listings. The catch, aside from f/f slash being less universally popular than m/m, is that it's not called an opera. I say it's an opera for the same reasons Carmen is: music enhances and supports a substantial portion of the drama. (The main body of opera in English since the 1920s, some of it very grand indeed, has been called musical theater, Broadway musicals, and so on. These are structurally operas.) Slash, or not quite, in Un Ballo in Maschera Seeing Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball for the non-Italians among us) reminded me that it's the reason I haven't posted more delicious exposés of how opera illustrates a history not only as romantic, but also just as slashy as you hoped it was. ( Read more... ) 5 comments|post comment

Slashing More Opera [16 Aug 2006|10:07pm] La Forza Del Destino contains the usual baritone/tenor/soprano star trio, in which it's easier than usual to notice that the baritone and tenor spend a lot more time, singing with more fervor, with each other than either (or both) of them do with the soprano. The Force of Slashy Destiny and Bad Drama Various Expositionary Plot stuff happens in the first act, establishing that there's a soprano in the opera, that the initial setting is Spain, and that melodrama is the guiding principle of the universe. ( An act or so later ) La Forza Del Destino and Racism In the interests of continuing to blog (or post) with awareness of racism: La Forza Del Destino is one of the few operas that not only includes a nonwhite character, but makes this an explicit plot point. ( Read more... ) 2 comments|post comment

International Post Against Racism [18 Jul 2006|06:59pm] I wanna post about opera. So I will. Opera and race, and American racism, and Grendel. Opera as an art form is seriously European-based, seriously dominated by Dead White Male Composers, and so on. As a purveyor of stories it's racist by default. (It's also sexist as hell, even more than it may be racist. But that's not the point here.) It's equally incontrovertible that opera as an art form privileges the human voice above anything and everything else. A coloratura soprano is a coloratura soprano regardless of her so-called race*, actual skin color, or ethnic background. The arts of recording and stage makeup being what they are, you may never know what color her skin is unless you want to find out. *Genetic groupings by appearance within humanity have enormous cultural significance, but they aren't biologically different enough to be "races" in any other context. ( This doesn't, of course, make opera as a performance art colorblind... ) I won't say that seeing real-world social problems is entirely a new experience in the opera house. There's Porgy and Bess, the exception that proves the rule about opera and race. There's that whole sexism thing, which makes the average opera heroine, exactly as written, a feminist martyr to the contemporary view. However, the standard opera repertoire, as a product of centuries of privilege, is firmly in the position of race being a non-issue, and this production... isn't. 7 comments|post comment

And now for something... [22 Feb 2005|07:12pm] This one took me by surprise. It's not funny, but I didn't end up wanting it to be. Possibly it's a bad dream. Oh, well. Comedy tomorrow, tragedy tonight! OF LOVE AND FAITH In a Land Undetermined, maybe France, maybe Spain, maybe one of the multitudinous Germanies that shared the Hapsburgs with Spain, in some slightly pre-enlightenment era, there lived a poor but honest jailkeeper, ( and his daughter Marcy. He'd hired a hard-working youngster, Fidelio, as his assistant... ) 6 comments|post comment

More of Something Completely Different [17 Feb 2005|09:50pm] Slashy views of the World's Great Operas, Continued. ON ATTENDING DON CARLO Program notes. This is one of the most confusing operas in the repertoire, and that's saying a lot. Just to start with, Verdi wrote two versions in different languages, and both of them bear only the thinnest resemblance to the history they're supposedly based on. The ostensible love plots are non-starters. The slash subtext is thick enough to cut with a knife, but even that doesn't go much of anywhere. I guess you could say this is an opera about oppression by the Spanish Monarchy, the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, and the impossibility of maintaining a successful love affair of any kind whatsoever at the Spanish court. It is not, however, anything at all like Monty Python. ( Carlo is unlucky in love ) 7 comments|post comment

And Now For Something Completely Different [12 Feb 2005|11:35pm] Some time ago -- maybe a year or so -- I put up a bit of opera slash, and really, it's time to do another. SLASH STORIES FROM THE OPERAS For those who haven't seen much in the way of grand opera or (since live opera is lamentably expensive) who haven't heard any operas or even watched one on TV: an opera from the classical repertoire is usually about several men and one or maybe two women, all emoting passionately at every possible opportunity. There is frequent swordplay and swearing of oaths, and much skulking in graveyards or dark forests or back alleyways, between episodes of being found in inappropriate bedrooms or in disguise or both. No wonder it's slashy. Opera is famous, of course, for its m/f love stories, but there's more to it than that. With all the extra male characters, it's easy to read between the lines of the score. Cosi Fan Tutte is on the face of it about two men who each love a woman, and who also each make love to the other's woman (and vice versa), which is only slightly over the top by operatic standards of behavior. (It probably helps that the story was written by one of the more infamous libertines of the 18th century -- Lorenzo da Ponte was thrown out of all the best cities in Europe by outraged fathers and husbands, but he wrote the text to three of Mozart's operas before he left.) However, slashy subtext can be found here, and I am pleased to present a reasonably accurate -- yet revealing -- retelling of the events of the opera: ( They All Do It ) 13 comments|post comment

comfort reading and then some [04 Nov 2004|02:43pm] The suggestion to post a piece or three of "comfort reading" for today prompts me to suggest re-reading the acceptance speeches for the Golden Mushroom Awards, still given in all their smutalicious glory on the GMA site. It doesn't contain a story as such, but for those whose grasp of narrative structure isn't at its best today, these are perfect. If you do want to (re)read one or many narrative structures held up almost entirely by Freudian similes and large smiles, the many links should prove intriguing as well. 3 comments|post comment

A bit of slashy news [30 Oct 2004|02:59pm] Rambling, or surfing, around the web turns up some interesting things -- well, that's a given. Here's another website for Slashy Pro Novels, which is frankly larger, older, and more comprehensive than my listing of same. Well, mine's more, um, um, exclusive! More personal! And this one has lots of books I don't mention and in some cases haven't even heard of. If you're interested in reading slashiness on actual paper in actual bindings -- okay, that kind of thing costs money, but it's often more convenient than taking your computer monitor into the bath, and you don't have to turn it off during takeoff and landing -- check this site out too. 1 comment|post comment

A Slashy Light on Some Things but Not Others [30 Sep 2004|05:46pm] Elizabeth Lynn has several books from the 80s that should definitely be in the listing of Slashy Published Books: ( and also ) One book that's not going on the list, even though it's a good read on its own terms is Good Omens, (1990) Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. ( Related to this ) there's an LJ essay about the kinds of love slash exemplifies, namely erotic rather than asexual. I don't agree with everything the essay says, since some of it seems to me to suggest pertinent questions of "Just what's so bad about sex, anyway?" The parallel and equal question of what's so bad about *not* having sex in a given relationship or story or comfortably furnished boudoir is a fair one, granted, but it's hard to avoid hearing a tinge of self-righteousness in it. A useful reply is here. I found them through the Virgule listing for LJ discussion of slash and other fanwriting topics. Edited to add: One more essay on how relationships are sexualized here. Just as something meta to read until while waiting for the FotR Extended DVD, of course... 8 comments|post comment

Does slashy have to be trashy? [08 Sep 2004|04:01pm] Even in a good way? The slashy books list (now slightly updated) is surely idiosyncratic, being more or less my own list of memorable books with a slash flavor. However, is the tilt toward fantasy/SF trilogies on the one hand and sensitively-told Historical Homosexual Character stories on the other just what I happen to have run into in the course of a misspent reading life, or does it indicate some qualities inherent in slash as a genre on its own? Now that I'm looking for slash in non-fannish writing? It's no secret that the sources for slash tend to be the visual equivalent of genre fiction ( such as... ) But there's still the other part of the slashy book list, the titles that present same-sex love stories that do read something like slash, usually but not necessarily in historical settings. Several of these have been suggested by other fans who know slash when they see it, and I've added some in the current update and will be adding more as I find and read them. These aren't genre fiction in the pulpy or paperback sense. ( Read more... ) 13 comments|post comment

About Slash and Boundaries [29 Aug 2004|11:31pm] A recent discussion on slash in teasel's LJ included many issues, and I'm looking now at what readers like in slash and where they find it. I've been making a list of commercially published books that have something of the same feel as slash in fanfiction, and the webpage is HERE. Since putting it up a few days ago I've had some excellent recommendations to add to it; some of those are in the current updated version. I'm sure I'll be adding more in the future. Thanks to everyone who wrote to me! ( not all slashy stuff is gay ) This is all a bit ancillary since the main listing is for stories that feel like slash in the same-sex definition, except for not being fanfiction. This isn't quite the same as gay love stories, but the categories certainly overlap. Maybe I should ask if you can cite some gay or same-sex books that *aren't* slashy, by way of clarifying the possible books that *are*? 23 comments|post comment

Not the Beginning: Some Reflections [22 Apr 2004|10:15pm] Smeagol and Deagol find the Ring, each in his own way. It's not the beginning of the whole story of the Ring, but it's the beginning of Gollum, pivotal to the destruction of the Ring. If there had been no Gollum for Frodo to pity, there would have been no Gollum at Mount Doom to get the job done, however badly, when pity and valor fell before the Ring's power. ( But then Bilbo might not have found the Ring at all... ) There's not a lot to say about Gollum, really, except that he's almost as much a tragic figure as Frodo, except he was never nice to start with. However, even a sneaking thief doesn't really deserve five centuries of boredom, torment and loneliness. There are some beautiful essays about the LotR movies in teasel's posts, including HERE and HERE and a bit in the discussion posts HERE that pick up on Gollum's role as well as a host of other interesting things. ( But anyway ) When he's nearing Mount Doom Frodo will come to forget the taste of food and touch of grass, as Gollum has forgotten the taste of bread and the softness of the wind. Frodo doesn't seem to forget his own name, which may show how he remains different from anything Gollum has become. 6 comments|post comment

Halflings and Men [20 Apr 2004|10:10am] Merry and Pippin in FotR join Frodo and the the Fellowship and walk the road it takes them on with everyone else. They may have been relegated to providing useful incidents and comic relief, but they did so on their own two feet. In TT, they're carried by Orcs and later by Ents more often than not, but in between they rescue themselves from the Orcs and argue the Ents into joining the war, as small but proactive characters. In RotK, each comes into his own as an individual and both mature as characters, and yet they spend large parts of the action following other characters' leaders, often enough mounted on somebody else's horse, literally and figuratively. ( As hobbits among Big Folk... ) 13 comments|post comment

Things Unseen [16 Apr 2004|04:12pm] and a bit more whining about things seen Even in LotR the book, the Palantiri aren't seen much, although they exert a behind-the-scenes effect on the plot. Both Saruman and Denethor proved to have been corrupted by looking into Seeing Stones when Sauron could affect what they saw. Behind that, however, the Seven Stones were surviving artifacts of Numenor, part of the royal regalia. Weathertop, the old Amon Sul, had held one before it was destroyed in older wars; when Gandalf used it as a message-point and Aragorn and the Nazgul met there, it was not by chance. The movie splendidly dramatizes that battle to showcase Aragorn and the Nazgul, as well as advancing Frodo's side of the plot. ( but in the movie... ) It's not entirely clear whether Denethor is knowledgeable and all but prescient because the blood of Numenor runs true in him, or because he has access to a Palantir and gets information, however distorted, from it. Boromir, also, shows some small signs of having seen a Palantir (he knows too much about Sauron as early as the council of Elrond; instant Ringlust; as favored heir of Denethor he might have been given a glimpse of the secret Palantir). On the other hand, Faramir has clearly *not* been corrupted by a Palantir with Sauron in the network, but he sees deeply into the hearts and minds of men (and hobbits) anyway, so it's doubtful that Denethor owes all his information to the Seeing Stone. 3 comments|post comment

Theoden and Aragorn, Rohan and Gondor [08 Apr 2004|05:24pm] Things Unsaid (In The Movies) This, too, *rolls eyes* is not about slash, but some parts of it make me wonder. If there's any sex going on in the Golden Hall, they hide it well. However, there is a layer of unspoken connection, a growing relationship between these two characters signalled by things unspoken, analogous to the subtextual indicators that can suggest slash under less politically-fraught circumstances. Does that mean sex might sometime, just occasionally take a back seat to saving the world? Oh the other hand, maybe it just means I have a dirty mind about politics as well as sex. When Aragorn rides into Meduseld in Two Towers, who is he? We the audience have had a whole movie and the background of LotR to tell us Aragorn son of Arathorn is Isildur's heir, with a right to claim the throne of Gondor if he can win it. About three hours of screen time have shown us a quiet-spoken diplomat, fearless warrior and hard-headed leader, someone capable of standing up to the challenges he's likely to encounter even on the road to a throne. In the movie story there's no indication at first that he would be remembered in Rohan either by face or by name, and indeed his acceptance by Eomer seems to be a fortunate judgment of pure character. It's true that someone patently human, along with an Elf and a Dwarf, are hard to mistake for an orc horde and would be more than likely to *oppose* orc hordes, whatever other agenda they may have. Even so, the very stripped-down version of their conversation with Eomer barely gives any suggestion of why the unknown interlopers on the Horselords' land weren't sent straight back over the horizon. If Eomer recognized the name "Aragorn," he didn't give any sign of it. Still, Eomer did accept Aragorn and his companions as legitimate travelers and they later arrive at Meduseld in company with Gandalf and riding Rohan's horses, and are welcomed there. Early in RotK there's a moment that puzzles me, sometimes in a good way. After Pippin's encounter with the Palantir, Gandalf says Mordor will attack Minas Tirith, soon. The unspoken question is, what to do about the information. Theoden asks, what does Rohan owe Gondor? It is not bluster or denial, surely, but it *is* spoken as a challenge and a serious question. Does it mean, "I'm ready to be convinced," after Theoden couldn't count on Gondor for support at Helm's Deep? Is it a question to Aragorn about whether he will speak for Gondor and Gondor's future? ( they don't speak of it directly ) Theoden seems to understand at least what Aragorn has to do, and perhaps what he is trying to accomplish, that the Paths of the Dead aren't a hopeless detour but a desperate and necessary step in winning Gondor if it is to be won at all. Either Elrond or Aragorn must have given him *some* idea of why Aragorn insists on taking a seemingly impossible path -- but nothing is spoken for the audience to hear. Without that knowledge, Theoden taking his people to a hopeless battle at Pelennor wouldn't be much better than Denethor ordering Faramir to Osgiliath. With it, his taking that course for his people might be in the spirit Faramir *accepts* the order to Osgiliath, that of making a possible contribution to a possible victory, even if it seems most likely to be no more than a heroic death. 8 comments|post comment

Arwen Undomiel [02 Apr 2004|04:50pm] The change between Arwen in LotR the book and in the movies, shifts the dramatic tension in several places. Indeed, discussion on the previous post helped me understand how the changes dramatize some implications that *are* in the text of LotR (if you include appendices), even though they do change the surface storyline in more than timing or details. ( The relationship ) Arwen's choice of mortality means that even if Sauron loses, the Elven value of her beauty will diminish and die. Elrond's attitude toward Arwen promising herself to Aragorn can be more than worry about a daughter marrying a short-lived mortal. It could also be fear for the symbol of Elvenkind disappearing. ( and a question ) 2 comments|post comment

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