What I Don't Like About the Magical Femme Fatale

So, this is a fairly common archetype, right? It exists in some sci-fi (I'm looking at you, Star Gate), but mostly fantasy.

The basics are these:

• A mysterious woman,
• who's incredibly beautiful,
• and on top of that, has magical powers of glamour and seduction,
• but ONLY over the (presumably straight) men,
• so that the one or two token female cast members get to sort everything out.

I'm willing to believe in Magical Powers of Glamour and Seduction (tm), but I have a few issues with this.

1

Why is it always always always a magically beautiful woman? There is a counterpart to the succubus, you know, and it's called an incubus.

2

Why do only the men fall for her charms? Is this a sexuality thing? If so, there are bound to be SOME gay men or gay women who, respectively, won't be tricked or will be equally mesmerised. Yet I've never seen those. Is it a 'men are fundamentally different from women and that's why the magic doesn't work on women' thing? If so, I hate the world because that's just not true.

3

Isn't it funny that the token female characters get to have an active role in sorting things out, which seems pretty interesting, but no one believe them because they are being jealous of the succubus' good looks and success with the men? Thus, woman is pitted against woman again, and all the men are safe in their knowledge that women are spiteful, jealous, hating creatures who will tear eachother apart.

I realise that the succubus is supposed to be evil, and the other women is the saviour, and usually the men are apologetic afterwards, but to have everyone dismiss the 'good' woman's (valid) criticism as hysterics is just... It's something that happens a lot in real life, except without th apologies afterwards. It seems to me as a justification for men's dismissal of women; if they were right, we'll figure it out and there will be apologies and drinks for everyone! If they are wrong, well, women are just so hysteric and jealous.

4

Speaking of the succubus as evil and the saviour woman on the other side, this is not just setting women against eachother, this is also an example of the virgin/whore dichotomy.

The succubus is actively sexual, she owns her sexuality and she seduces men because she wants to, or because she likes sex, or because she uses it as a tool to get something else she wants. This something else is always something evil, like killing people or taking over the world. In fact, she's not just seducing people, she's taking away their free will, making them mindless zombies to their desire. This is Very Evil.

Our saviour is the good woman who realises that this woman is evil, with her bare midriff and flirty ways and winks and kisses and, oh, the whole mindless zombie thing.

Mind you, I'm not saying turning people into mindless zombies is a good thing, I'm saying that the way through which the succubus achieves it is ALREADY seen as evil without the results. She's already evil because she's sexual, and when she starts turning people into zombies, well, that only confirms things. Also, it's incredibly stereotypical and overdone and frankly, uneccesary.

5

That brings me to number five: men as mindless zombies to their desire.

It's a common stereotype that men, once they are tempted, cannot resist. This is nonsense, and it's doing a disservice to men, who can be so much stronger and smarter than that. Still, it's arampant belief. Look at rape apology. "He just couldn't stop himself, after all, she was wearing a miniskirt!" It's pretty disgusting, and it implies that men are brainless cave-people who always follow their dicks. Some men do that, sure, but that is all their own fault, not the fault of their gender.

Following these assumptions (which are wrong) the idea of a woman using sexual magic to turn men into zombies is easily believable. It's also wrong, and I hope you can see why.

These are some of the things I don't like about the magical femme fatale.

On Being Gender-Ambiguous on the Internet

As those of you who have read my rant on gender and sexuality might remember, I identify as genderqueer. In everyday (meatspace) life this isn't always apparent, especially to people who don't know me well, because, lets face it, I don't look very ambiguous. I have long hair and a fairly voluminous chest paired with quite a bit of oomph in the general area of my hips. It's no surprise that, after a look at my distinctly feminine physique, no one and I mean NO ONE bothers to ask how I see myself on the gender front.

Sometimes this bothers me, because I would pretty much sell everything I own for a safe, effective, and lasting (and functional!) way to make my body reflect my inner being accurately, but to my knowledge this sort of thing does not exist and even if it would, everything I own would not be enough. In any case, I can live with people assuming. Everyone assumes a lot about other people, its part of how people work, and though I'd like to change some assumptions really badly (such as 'feminine guys are always gay' and 'all women are emotionally needy') I'm not too bothered about people in real life assuming I'm a woman. Although I'm very open about my identity and I'll happily talk about it to strangers if the subject comes up, I don't feel like explaining the intricacies of gender theory to every random passer-by. It's selfish, but there it is.

The one place I get really enthusiastic about this sort of thing is, as you might've guessed, the internet.

The internet gives me a chance to present myself as gender ambiguous in a way that real life doesn't allow me to. I can choose a picture of me, or of some object, that doesn't directly call to mind either gender, and without the visual cues, I can go out and be myself, knowing that my gender will probably not be apparent. (This provides a secondary benefit: I've noticed that (mostly male) people take me just a slight bit more seriously when they think I'm male, and they don't flirt with me so much. I don't like being flirted with just because I'm female.)

Now, I've been on the internet for a while, sometimes actively presentig as a guy, sometimes as a girl, and lately, I've been leaving the question out in the open a lot. Interestingly, this has only led to MORE attention to my percieved gender with some people. Again, to my experience they are mostly male. They somehow can not fathom that I might be neither male not female, and they badger me time after time because, you know, they just want to know.

"I'm not trying to say anything, but are you a guy or a girl?"
"I'm really sorry for asking, but I'm confused... are you female?"

I wonder why this is so incredibly important for people who I might talk to several times a week, who are not what I'd call close friends by any means, but who've come to know me a little, who know what games I play and what music I like, and what subjects I like to rant about, who might even know about my social 'issues' because I've trusted them enough to tell them. All of this might somehow change because of my gender? Is it that they want to know whether they can see my as a romantic interest? (Regardless of gender, the answer is usually yes.) Is it because they want to know whether they can see me as sexual object? (The answer here is usually no.)

I don't know, but they are very, VERY insistant about it. So insistant that I usually end up telling them that, well, I'm really neither. I'm sort of... genderqueer. This usually prompts th question:

"Well, okay, but what are you, biologically?"

Everyone who's had to do with gender identification that falls outside of the norm will understand how intensely irritating this question is. (Starting with the fact that the term 'biologically' is flawed.) Despite the friendship I've built, they want to know what's in my pants, as if it's an absolutely vital thing to know. With most of my internet friends, it simply is none of their business. What's in my pants, be it a vagina or a penis or a sparkly dildo, is my business, and that of any potential lovers. Of which I have none. So there you have it.

I answer this question with an internal sigh and an explanation that it really doesn't matter and I might very well change it if I could, but yes, I will reluctantly admit that I have ladybits. And please don't treat me any different than before you knew this, I ask them.

Unfortunately, once the pussy is out of the bag (pun completely and utterly intended), things change. Sometimes people try to hit on me, in which case the motivation for asking was probably in wanting to know whether they could see me as a sexual object. Sometimes they ort of stop talking to me much, which could have a lot of different reasons, one of them that I might have given them a bit of a lecture on gender theory. By far the most common thing to happen is that they start calling me nicknames.

Yes, nicknames. And not th sort of mutually approved things I get called all over the interwebs like Silver or Sil or even 'kitteh'. Nope, they start calling me their 'dear' and 'sweets' and 'chicka' and 'sweetheart'. I think it's obvious by the way I bring this up, but I do not appreciate people calling me names like these, especially when we are not close friends. I will allow some people to do this, but it's really the exception to the rule, especially when it comes out of nowhere like this.

I once confronted a guy who did this, and his excuse was that he 'did it to all his women friends'.

I pity his women friends.

In short, don't harrass people about their gender, it often doesn't matter all that much unless maybe you want to get involved in a romantic sense and you want to make sure you're compatible, but even in that case, don't harrass and/or badger people about it. And unless you know me exceptionally well, well enough to know the names of my cats, don't call me your dear. You are allowed to call me your Leather Daddy, though, and if that's too much for you to type, save yourself the effort and stick to Silver.

Sci-fi Cliché: Oppressive Alien Cultures

First of all, I've not been doing much book reviews because first I was stressed with the end of the academic year, then it was so hot I felt like pouring my brain out of my ears, and somewhere inbetween those two I found myself re-reading Harry Potter. So. I will continue those as soon as I finish a newish book!

But first!

Lately, one of my favourite ways to relieve tension is to multitask two or three things: playing a game (World of Warcraft, usually), watching shows online, and reading blogs. Lovely way to keep the mind occupied. This means that in the past half year or so I've watched pretty much all the crime-scene shows I could get my hands on, a good chunk of Dexter, Legend of the Seeker, and a whole bunch of sci-fi shows.

These shows include, but are not limited to: Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Star Trek: Voyager and I've just started on Star Gate: SG1.

And I've noticed a certain cliché. I'm only on episode 3 of SG1 and it's already popped up. Now, mind you, I've not finished that episode yet so I'm not going to talk about the theme in this specific show. I also don't remember seeing it in Firefly or Battlestar Galactica, so I'm not going to talk about those either. And since I was multitasking all through all of these shows, I'm a little fuzzy on the details of the thing in Star Trek, though I'm sure I saw it in there. Somewhere.

Instead, I am going to talk about the cliché in a broader sense. The cliché is this: our intrepid heroes, including one female lead, and usually no more than that, are visiting some alien/otherworldly/old-timey place, and it turns out the people who live here have a bit of a strange or outdated sense of what women should be allowed to do. (The question of why gender matters to an alien culture is a different matter.)

In short, this culture thinks the woman in our expedition needs to get back in the kitchen, cover up properly so none of the men get tempted by her dangerously seductive feminine wiles, get herself attached to a man for protection and reproduction, and while she's at it, make them dinner.

Our heroes usually don't like this, especially the female lead, who is offended, but for some reason, they never leave the place or put down an ultimatum. Probably because that would make for a short story. Instead, the female lead might do one of two things: she might try to prove she is 'one of the guys', or she might conform to the culture's feminine ideals and try to rile up in women from within.

Fun snippet: in the bit of SG1 episode 3 I've seen, the following conversation takes place:
Mongol Leader: "If you will travel this country, you must learn our ways."
Sam Carter: "I'm thinking we should just go back while we're ahead."
Daniel Jackson: "If we learn their customs we'll be okay. It's an incredible opportunity to study an ancient culture up close."
Daniel is basically telling Sam to suck up the humiliation for anthropology's sake. Can you tell this makes me angry?

The end of this template for a storyline can be a lesson in which our heroes teach this primitive, un-emancipated culture that their women are equal to their men, and sometimes better! How heartwarming. This ending is troubling in a whole-new-can-of-worms way.

Okay, so my first problem with this cliché is the same problem I have with a lot of sci-fi: who do aliens care about gender? Why do all aliens have two sexes and genders? It makes little sense. Even on Earth we have hermaphroditic creatures. In fact, why are all the aliens humanoid? I have a vague suspicion that the answer to this one is 'special effects budget'.

My second problem is that, in all the cases I can remember seeing this cliché (I might be missing one), the female lead is encouraged to undergo the humiliation for the sake of the mission. That in itself might not have been so bad, if it weren't for the fact that the pain of this humiliation is often not mentioned at all. Okay, so you might have someone mentioning the impracticality of the clothing styles, or how off-putting it is to be surrounded by submissive women (or how awesome that is), but even if the female lead expresses discomfort at being treated like cattle, she is usually told, once again, to suck it up.

Thirdly, there is the whole 'enlightened people come to educated the primitive tribe' thing. As much as I dislike cultures in which women (or any group of people) are oppressed, you can't just point and say they're savages. It's not that simple. And a group of outsiders decided that this culture could really use some changes, and (forcefully) implementing them? Someone is feeling superior! /singsong voice There are many, much better ways to show a culture overcoming equalities, than depicting them as savage and stupid, saved only by the enlightened invading aliens.

And my last point for today: in juxtaposing one culture with another, and more often than not having that disctinction be; us, the enlightened and them, the savages, we are implying something. We are implying that the us in this story, often the human race, and not rarely the human race in the present, are enlightened. We are unlike that silly savage race, who don't know to treat their women properly. We are above that. We treat women equally. We do not have sexism anymore. This is false. We might be better off than we were a hundred years ago, but we are not there yet.

There are many more details of this cliché, little things that keep popping up in culture and pop culture, that make me cringe, but this post is long enough and I will continue some other time. Maybe. Unless I forget.

Raccoon and Spider

Today, I read an article on the excellent FWD site. This is an article about the 'inner critic' in the mind of creative people, and how we are supposed to turn off this voice in out head. I think that, while brainstorming and writing rough drafts, it is a good idea to temporarily ignore this voice, but only up to a certain point. Critical thinking is a tool to be used in the creation of new things.

Then, of course, there is the fact that I, and undoubtedly many people, just can't do it. I have some mild mental issues, I won't go into the details, but it's funny how I'm hesitant of claiming my issues as what they are because I'm afraid someone else will come along and tell me how wrong I am. Hello, fear, my old friend.

In any case, these issues make sure I really sort of can't turn off the 'inner critic'. For the most, I might be able to put the volume on low for an hour or so, and tell it that it might be right but this is the best I can do, so I'm going to do it, no matter how miserable it makes me feel. I can't turn off the critic not because it has a very loud voice, in fact, it's more like a soft, seductive whisper, that leaves me straining to catch the words because...

...because I want to hear it. It doesn't give me any pleasure, but it's better than the alternative, not hearing it.

Whenever I'm in a conversation with a lot of background noise, I eventually miss a few words, or don't understand a reply. When this happens, I panic. What did they say? How am I supposed to reply? I ask them to repeat that, and often it was somethig unimportant and they try to wave it off. I respond by asking more urgently. I need to know what was said. If they even remember by then, it usually is something like 'oh, there is the bus'.

When I see a cryptic remark online, I need to know what it means. I will do research, I will ask the person in question over and over, and their denial will just make my questioning more frantic.

Why do I need to know what is said around me so desperately? As far as I've come to understand it, part of it is from fear people are secretly laughing around me. Part of it is from fear I might miss something important, or amusing. Part of it is because I believe if I don't hear everthing, know everything, I will fail. Part of it, in case of the critic, is because there is the possibility the critic is right.

I need to know what is said because I'm afraid. I need to know because I don't trust myself, I doubt myself. In fact, a lot of my fears can be traced back to doubt in the first place. I'm afraid of people because I doubt my social skills. I'm afraid of failing because I doubt my knowledge. I'm afraid because I doubt my worth.

And this brings me to the Spider. A year or two ago now, I did some research in totem animals. By research I mean, I meditated, I met two animals, one of which agreed to guide me (I first wrote 'one of which rejected me', see what I did there?), I then looked up the meaning of several animals and decided that I was fortunate to find such a good match, even though hir teachings are cryptic.

I then tried to contact a third animal, because zie fascinates me and I would love to learn from hir. I sat down in the sun out in the countryside, closed my eyes and begged audience. After a few failed attempts I got a message through. It was harsh, loud, sudden, and followed by a metaphorical boot out the door. This was the message:

STOP DOUBTING

I don't think I quite realised what it meant. At first I thought it referred to my doubt as to whether this would get any real result, or whether the totems would even let me see a second animal.

I think, to tie this story back to the first part of my ramble, that it meant the more general doubt. I also think it didn't mean I should shut off all doubts entirely, some doubt is good, useful, but that it was meant to be interpreted more as a 'stop doubting so much and let yourself be a little'.

Truth be told, Spider was a bit angry with me, more than a bit imposing, and I don't think zie'll ever let me learn from hir until I've managed to follow her advice.

Sometimes I like my life lessons passed down to me by animals.

Book Review: The Ghost Brigades

The Ghost Brigades, John Scalzi. 2006, Tor Science Fiction, New York.
The sequel to Old Man's War.

So I said a little something about covers last time, and let me tell you I think this cover is about as appealing as, uhm. Well, it doesn't appeal to me, let's leave it to that. Luckily, covers aren't the only things I choose a book by. This is a part two (though you can read it seperately), and I picked up the first book because it had a little recommended tag and I wanted some sci-fi. I read a few pages and th style sold me, so here we are, reviewing part two!

The first thing you might notice is that it's not fantasy! Yes, you'll be seeing a few more non-fantasy titles, even though, admittedly, about half of my reading material is fantasy. Anyway, I love me some good sci-fi, too, and that's what we got here.

In short: I'm sad I finished it.

The Science

One of the most important things in science fiction is worldbuilding. Wait no, I did this last time, I mean science. Science is actually one of the things that seperate sci-fi from fantasy, and not just any science, futuristic science. A view of things to come, with scientific developments we can only dream of.

In the first book, the universe was introduced in a nicely expansive way. Humankind has ventured into space under the protective wing of the Colonial Union. Unfortunately for humankind, space is full of things that want the same planets we want, and are willing to kill for them. That is, more or less, all the people on Earth know, because Earth has been quarantined for roughly two hundred years. The CU has full monopoly on who goes into space, when and how. For inhabitants of the richer countries, there is only one way, and that is to join the army. There is a catch, however, the Colonial army only takes on people over seventy years of age.

Our protagonist (unsurprisingly male after the title 'Old Man's War') joins the army, and finds out this is viable because somewhere along the way, the CU has managed to transplant people's consciousness into new bodies. Of course, these bodies are incredibly modified and augmented, and this is where the real fun starts. Skip drives, space ships, alien races, intelligent computers inside your brain, technological telepathy, cloning, DNA architecture, and th Ghost Brigades.

All in all, the science in these books is pretty damn believable, although the reasoning behind the skip drive makes my eyes water. It's all new, and captivating, and slightly disturbing in an ethical way, which is what sci-fi is so good at.

The Space Society

Now, what makes a lot of the characters in the military so interesting is that they're either very old, or... wait, this is a pretty major spoiler. Highlight the next few paragraphs if you don't mind that.

They're either very old, or very young. You see, there is a special division of the army that is made entirely from modified DNA of dead people. These people are force-grown in a matter of months, and ready for combat two weeks after they're 'born'. They're the ghost brigades, and the second book revolves around them. They are interesting, because they have their own ways of dealing with the world, bred slaves that they basically are, and they are entirely dependant on their modifications, because they never knew anything else. Also, in a way they are still very young. For all these reasons the 'normal' forces don't really like them, and vice versa. This is a little problematic when you compare it to people with developmental disabilities, because there are a few parallels. Fortunately, this book is mostly written from their perspective, and while they may be a little different, they are still people in their own rights.

One thing that is discussed in a rather nice way is the fact that they are trained to be slaves, and don't actually have a lot of own choice. The main character in this book tries to deny this at first, but comes to realise that he has had no choices in any of the important aspects of his short life. Eventually, he starts making his own choices, and I get the feeling this is building towards a deconstruction of the ghost brigades' slavery in a next book. At least, I like to think so, because if we continue the parallel between these people, and people with certain kinds of disabilities, well, they often have to fight to make their own choices too, and I'd like to see these people succeed in gaining autonomy. I'm rooting for them!

What is also a nice change of pace is the way romance is treated in the first book, the main character comes across a ghost brigades member based on the DNA of his deceased wife, but after the initial shock, he accept fully that this person is her own person, with no obligations to him, her own life, experiences, and desires. Thumbs up for that. They end up falling in love anyway, which, well, is kind of understandable. I'm not too happy with that, but at least it's not another storyline that focuses on this guy finding his dead wife again, where she is nothing but a prize for him to win. Bleh.

Edit: I forgot something. One thing I really don't like about this universe, is the way pretty much all the aliens races are described as having two sexes, male and female. What's up with this? They are aliens, not humans. (Even for humans it's not this black and white, but that's a different story.) It's mentioned a grand total of once that some races exist with up to four different sexes, in a reproductive way. Why don't we see those? Why don't the characters have a run-in with a hermaphrodite race? No, they are all described as binary reproductive structures. Yes, this means they all reproduce sexually, which leads to another set of questions, since even on earth, that's not the only option. It's a bit of a narrow view, in a universe where the writer could have really had some fun with alternative structures. Very disappointing.

The Characters

As for individual characters, there are quite a few, and quite a few good ones. I quite like Jane Sagan, one of the main characters, who is straightforward to the point of being blunt, intelligent and a little hot-tempered, but my favourite character was Cainen. Oooh yes! He's an alien scientist, captured by the ghost brigades, and a very moral creature. He is one of the people who makes sure the whole point about making your own choices gets through to our (slightly passive) protagonist.

Speaking about Jared, as much as the book works to get readers to empathise with him... he was a bit of a flat character. This might have something to do with the fact that he was created to house the consciousness of another guy, but still. He had his most personality right at the end. Also, for some reason I found his extreme affection for Zoë really annoying.

Still, there were enough things going on, and people to feel for, that the book didn't fall flat for me just because I wsan't too thrilled about the protagonist, and I have to admit the bit where his partner met her tragic end ('best beloved') really did make me want to cry.

One last thing about the characters in these books. I've run into a few gay and bi characters, but none of them are ever the main character. Sometimes it's only implied in the most casual way, which is nice, it's not really an issue one way or another, but I'd like to see some more major characters (who don't die) in this direction.

Issues Addressed

Funnily enough, this secod book hit on a few issues the first book had for me.

Firstly there is the issue of naming special forces soldiers. It's said they are given a last name of a famous person, and a random common first name. The issues is, all the names are western. Western famous people, western first names. Despite the fact that most of the army comes from rich (= western?) countries, it's troubling. This actually gets addressed in the second book, where one of the important characters describes it as a mechanism the CU uses to preserve the status quo. Waitasec. Are they actually telling us the CU is racist? Yep. They are. The whole issue isn't actually resolved as such, but I'm hopeful this awareness will set things in motion for a next book.

Secondly there is the fact that the CU fights everyone and anyone. In the first book, the main character was doubtful about this, but got convinced it was because everyone and anyone was fighting the CU. In the second book it's brought forward as a problem, and something that was likely to destroy humankind in the long run. There was also a hint of a larger plan in motion that would stop the constant fighting, but again, I'm left hoping this gets solved in a next book...

Overall Rating:
7.5/10
It's a really good book. It's a really good writer, too. There are a few things I want to see resolved, and I'm seeing possibilities for the writer to do just that in a sequel. This book has funny moments, breathless battles, tragic scenes, and moral dilemmas. It's a solid bit of sci-fi, though the skip drive still makes my head hurt. The strong point of this book isn't the characters, though, it's the world, the big picture, the political, moral and military struggles of mankind in a hostile universe. This is exactly why it's a little sad the writer hasn't taken a few more risks with this universe. Even so, I will defenitely be getting part three.

International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia

Apparently, today is that day. As a friend said, for some people, assuming they even know about it, it's an excuse to go through the movements before going back to life as usual, without too much of a thought about these issues during the remainder of the year.

Rest assured, I won't.

As of this writing, I'm twenty one, and I fully acknowledge that I probably don't know myself all that well yet. Things may change me in the future, or I may change out of myself. In ten, twenty, thirty years I may be a different person altogether. When I look back on the past five years I can see I've changed quite a bit even in that short (if tumultuous) amount of time.

One thing I don't see changing much is my identification on both gender and sexuality spectra. It might become more clear to me, because I'm only just getting through the worst confusion, but I won't do a 180 turn and I'm as confident about that as I possibly can be.

You see, I'm not straight. I'm not gay either. Bi? No, that label never fit me well. I prefer queer or pansexual. Why do I insist on such a specialised term? Don't worry, in daily life I'm not too strict about it. In theoretical terms, however, it's very important to me, as well in a personal sense of identification. It signals how I see gender.

My views on gender are not things I tend to argue about a lot, because I know there are plenty of people who disagree. I don't mind that. Let them disagree, I say, as long as they (in a nutshell) don't hate me for thinking differently. Different opinions are fine, hate and fear and everything that follows doesn't do any of us any good.

My views are, more of less, something like this: Imagine the universe. I know the universe isn't an easy thing to imagine, but bear with me. The universe is huge. For all intents and purposes, it has no beginning or end. You could go in any direction and you could keep on going forever. The universe is filled with big gaps of nothing, but also with planets, stars, clouds of dust, meteors and meteorites, tiny particles and huge chunks of complicated matter. Not imagine one planet in this universe. This planet is a person. This person is female and identifies as a woman, within the current social parameters for 'woman'. It's probably a planet in a decently-sized solar system, because I imagine there are a good number of people who feel more or less this way. A bit of a distance away, there is another cluster (western, modern) society has named 'man'. But these are not the only possibilities. There are dozens, millions, as many other planets and stars and meteors and meteorites in this universe as there are people, and then some.

In other words, each person's individual gender identity is unique. There aren't two genders, just two forms of expression that are agreed to be the two points we use to measure everyone by. There are innumerable genders.

Does that mean people's physical bodies don't matter? Of course they matter. Bodies are actually very important. But to pretend that everyone with breasts or a vagina thinks, looks, acts, wants exactly the same and that everyone with a penis is the opposite of that is, in my mind, at best a cruelly simple view of people. Because people, you see, are complicated. While there may well be differences in the human species dictated by the set of chromosomes someone has, those differences are far outweighed by the differences between each individual person, or the similarities we share as a species.

I myself am only on the fringes of that vast planetary group we call woman, and my tiny little planet is careening wildly through space. My gender is fluid, the exact way I identify or want to express myself changes, depending on a whole host of variables. Usually I'm content with people assuming I'm a woman, maybe a slightly strange one, but definitely a woman. Sometimes I desperately want to look like that other cluster, man. Sometimes I even enjoy digging into femininity. Almost all the time I'm not quite the one, but not really the other. I would like to perfect a look of androgynity, but in the meantime, I'm more or less content here, on my little floating rock, skidding from one end of the universe to the other.

You can probably see how a theory of gender like this one would make labeling sexuality more complicated as well. Most labels for sexuality are based on a binary of genders. Homosexuality, attracted to the same, heterosexuality, attracted to the other, bisexuality, attracted to both. What if there are more than two genders? What if the number of genders is equal to the number of people? These terms would become, not meaningless, per se, but insufficient. What about all those other genders, all those other people, who don't quite fall inside the binary, or are miles outside that?

And that is why I prefer a term for my sexuality that doesn't presume two genders, like queer or pansexual. Because I'm not straight, and I'm not gay, and I'm not bi.

I am pansexual, and I am queergender.

http://www.dayagainsthomophobia.org/

NOTE: This is my own, personal blog, and if anyone feels the need to tell me how wrong/filthy/unnatural/disgusting/strange/queer I am, well... have fun! I appreciate your opinion, but you're probably not going to change mine. I also reserve the right to delete comments that I think cross a line. ...that is, if anyone's even bothered enough to leave a comment in the first place. Hah!

Book Review: The Court of the Air

The Court of the Air, Stephen Hunt. 2007, Tor Fantasy, New York.
"A fantastical tale of high adventure, low-life rogues, and orphans on the run."

First off, let me just say something about the cover. I know you should never judge a book by its cover, but from a commercial point of view, covers are immensely important. People are more likely to pick up a book with a cover that appeals to them, so it's important to try and match covers with target audiences. This... does not always work. I've seen books with awesome covers which were, frankly, crap. I've also seem awesome books with covers that were just plain ugly.

As for this book? I love that cover. It reminds me of Jules Verne, and with that parchment colour I think that's exactly the type of thing they were going for. You see, this book is steampunk fantasy.

In short: I don't even know where to start.

Honestly. I don't know where to start. This is a good book. There are no obvious flaws, if anything, it could stand to be a little more of what it was. There are things in there I really would like to read more about, bits of background, details of daily like. Luckily for me, there's a part two. It was also rather obvious in some places where the writer got his inspiration, but as a mythology fan, I was more excited to recognise the elements than annoyed at the fact that I could see them.

Worldbuilding

This seems like a good place to mention worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is the creating of a world around the story, the larger picture, the background for the characters to play out on. A writer can go about it in a lot of different ways, but the important part is that the reader gets the feeling that there is more than the characters' immediate surrounding, that things are not just there to accomodate the story. Which they really are, but if that's obvious it gets a little boring. Unless you're writing a-- but that's a different story!

All narratives need a little or a lot of worldbuilding, even non-fiction ones. Most of the work's already done for the writer, in that case, but they still need to make sure it reads as a larger world. In fantasy and sci-fi, it's especially important, because you're working with a world that is not our own, and the differences are what make it interesting.

This book has heaps and mountains of the stuff. Fortunately, the writer doesn't insist on describing all of it, which also gets boring real fast, but gives the reader a little glimpse of these strange and fascinating things, moving the story along with just enough information to make the reader curious, but not really enough to satisfy that curiosity. That really made me want to keep reading, to figure out more about this world.

For example, this world has a history that comes across as centuries of events, of which the reader only gets little bite-sized chunks, which is good when it comes to history. There is a race of steam-powered robots, or steammen, with an ancient civilisation, an own State, a King, a pantheon of Steamo Loas, etiquette and political alliances. The navy of Jackals is a fleet of airships, blimps and zeppelins, the gas for which is mined by creatures called graspers. Debates in the political system of Jackals work by the politicians hitting eachother with sticks.

I could go on for a while. The best thing is, all of these things seem right and logical. They are in context with the rest of the story.

Characters

There are so many characters I'd like to talk about. Let's start with our two main characters. As an aside, these two do not develop a romantic relationship, despite being of opposite genders. This is a plus in my book, because all too often writers stuff in a romantic subplot which really doesn't work with the rest of the story and just annoys me. It's nice to see a thoughtful, deep and action-filled book without too much romance.

The character the readers are introduced to first is Molly Templar. She's an orphan, loving in a poorhouse, only just come of age, and with a strange affinity for mechanical engineering and steammen. The poorhouse is a pretty miserable place, considering she rather read than spend her days being hired out as laundry maid. Her salvation comes when a wealthy aristocratic woman buys her out, except that this madam turns out to be a madam, and Molly to be educated as a whore. Her first customer gets assasinated right in front of her and she flees, only to find the entire poorhouse has been massacred. It gets worse for her, though. All through her tribulations, she's a consistently level-headed young woman with a dreamer's streak. Her ambitions are not very high, but they are higher than what's expected of her, as a Sun Gate Poorhouse girl. This makes her a little rebellious. All considered, she takes her world being turned upside-down pretty well.

Our second protagonist is Oliver Brooks. He's also an orphan, living with his uncle, and he's a fey child. There is a thing in Jackals called the fey curtain, a sort of veil across the world. It's described as mist, shifting and creeping into people's homes. The thing is, any person that comes in contact with this curtain mutates in some way or other. Many die horribly, but especially children survive and develop strange powers. People are, unsurprisingly, horribly afraid of these children, and often have them put into magical torcs which can kill them with a single word.

Anyway. Oliver is suspected to be fey, so he's watched closely. He can't do much of anything, he's kicked out of school and the only job he can get is running errands for his uncle. One day he comes home to find his uncle assassinated. He runs to the police, who don't believe them. They die soon after. He's saved by a mysterious associate of his uncle's, and taken on a cross-country trek to the celgas mines. For him, too, things get worse. He's decidedly less stable than Molly, and doesn't take to his responsibilities well. When he is given a magical set of rifles, his instability only gets worse. At some point in the story, something in him seems to snap and his cruel side comes to the surface. He is honestly a little frightening sometimes.

One of my favourite characters was King Steam, the sovereign of the Steamman Free State. He is incredibly, incredibly old, very wise, and really a little tragic. He's single-handedly build up the steamman race after some dark disaster in the past, drawing the designs for every single one of his people. He is also a slipthinker, a type of steamman who can spread their consciousness over several mechanical bodies, or mu-bodies. Slipthinkers can control several bodies at once like this, and are powerful, held in high esteem, and very rare. Unfortunately for me, King Steam ends up dying n the final grand battle of the book, but I have to say, it was appropriate in the narrative. And anyway, the steamman believe he reincarnates, so he never really dies.

Another of my favourite characters is a spry old lady, and when I say old I do mean old, damson Loade. Her friends call her Mother Loade, which makes me giggle. She and her late husband Locke set up the greatest, best, and most successful gun manufacturing and selling business, Locke and Loade. This makes me giggle too, because I like puns. She end up going out in a blaze of glory. Literally.

Did I mention the writer isn't afraid to kill his characters off? I always admire that in writers. It's a difficult balance to strike, between unfairly and unsatisfactorily letting everyone die, and playing god just to keep the nice people alive against all odds.

I think this is a decent place to wrap up, so here we go:

Overall rating:
8.5/10
I. Love. This. Book. I really do. I mean, steampunk Loa! It's a really good blend of fantasy, the steampunk oil and grime, and nods to our own history and mythologies. The world is fantastic, and I'm glad there are at least two more books set in it, and the characters are engaging, each with their own pasts and issues and strong points.

Book Review: The Magician's Apprentice

The Magician's Apprentice, Trudi Canavan, 2010, Orbit, Great Britian.

I bought this book in the UK. The girl in the shop told me it was a good one when I came up to pay, and I had a short conversation with an acquaintance about how nice it was.

Yeah. No.

In short? Meh.

The longer story? I've got this great big 700 page fantasy story lying on my desk, and it feels like I just read a 5000 word short story. And not in a good way, believe me. Now, I'm not saying it's a bad book, really, but it's not a good one, and this is why.

Characterisation

I didn't want to know the characters. The main character, Tessia, has about as much depth as a pond, and her biggest development is falling in love with the man she hated at the beginning of the book. The fact that she's to become a magician doesn't do much to her. She isn't sad about losing her old life, apart from some mild anxiety about moving out of her parent' home, she isn't ecstatic about getting to be a powerful magician, which will probably give her the opportunity to carry out her dream to be a healer. She's just sort of... content. When her parents die, we are told she's broken up, but we see her getting over it in a space of a few pages. When she's in the middle of a war she seems a little subdued at all the death and horror around her, as if she just discovered the milk's gone sour. When she discovers how to heal with magic, which is a huge achievement, something she's been hoping to figure out ever since she started her apprenticeship, she... well, she seems pleased, I guess. When she and her twoo lurve get together, she... seems a little smug, at most. Yeah. I did not really feel compelled to root for her, considering she has the personality of a spoon.

Her fellow apprentice, Jayan, is little better. He goes through a development from jealous and aloof to... hopelessly in love yet still jealous and aloof. To be fair, I liked his practical view on the romantic subplot. Sadly, I hated the romantic subplot.

Our third major character is Stara, a woman in the very restrictive neighbouring country. She was the only reason I kept reading. Oh yes, I liked Stara. She starts out as a rather naive little girl, come to live with her father. When it turns out he only wants to marry her out, she starts hating him, which is only made worse when he forcibly reads her mind. She then goes on to become a major player in the underground slave resistance. This character has the best motivation, the most interesting character, and evokes the most empathy with the reader. Sadly, she also gets the least screentime.

Style

The style was, truth to be told, easy to read. It read quickly, even though there were a few consistent bumps in the road that kept slinging me out of the carriage.

One of these is the writer's insistance on making long, strung-together sentences every now and then, in which it isn't really clear anymore who was doing what, and I had to read them three times just to get what was going on. The writer also has a tendency to chance perfectly good english words for more 'exotic' sounding ones. This is a common problem with fantasy (and sometimes sci-fi) as a genre. There are no hours, for example, and none of the animals and plants are familiar. For some reason, there is an animal that's described as having wool, which pretty much makes it a sheep to me, but which is called a reber. If this animal is notable different from a sheep, I didn't notice it and it should've been explained. Otherwise, it's a sheep, dammit.

Speaking about animals, there's a little glossary of words in the back of the book, three pages long. Half of these words are made-up fantasy words, about ten of which actually figure in the book. The discriptions are a little redundant:

Squimp - squirrell-like creature that steals food

Alright, so we have a non-squirrell that wasn't even in the story. The rest of the glossary consists of the relevant definitions of tribes of people, titles and a few misc. words. Although it's more interesting to read what exactly the characters mean when they address someone by 'Lord' than the fascinating bit about the squimp, (Try saying that out loud. Squimpppp.) this is all something that isn't really necessary. Readers will figure it out as they go, because it's not like any of the terms are that different to require extra explanation:

Lady - wife of a Kyralian landowner

Oh my squimp!

Magic

One of the nice things of fantasy as a genre is the mucking about with magic. No, wait, I take that back.

Magic, when done right, is pretty awesome and I personally can't get enough of it. I have a few conditions, though. Among these are my hate of magic as deus ex machina, demand that the magic is, if not logical, at least intelligent or too complicated or mysterious for anyone to understand, and magic being part of the world as a whole instead of just thrown in for giggles somewhere.

The Apprentice does one of these things right.

The magic is part of the larger world, and it seems pretty firmly embedded. The only armies that are important are armies of magicians, most important people/men have some magical training, natural talents have special laws.

Unfortunately, this means that magic is used for everything. How shall we light the fire? Magic. Why does Sachaka fear Kyralia? Magic. How will we fight these people? Magic. How can we cross this river? Magic. This doesn't mix well with the story's view of the lower classes, who still toil in the fields and do their labour-intensive jobs at their own cost. Is every single magician really so ignorant? It's something that haunts me throughout the story, grating.

Worst of all, however, is the way magic is explained. Now, magic comes in two forms; regular and high magic. High magic is awe-inspiring and only for the best, it's dangerous and very important. According to the book, it takes a lot of practice to use magic properly, but what we see is Tessia visualising her magic, and that's all the theory we get. Further exploits in magic work like this: Jayan wants someting to be so, and it is so. Higher magic? It's the art of transferring someone else's magical energy into yourself, like a battery. How's it done? You cut the other person's skin to break the natural barrier, you reach inside them, take it, and make sure to tuck it in with your own neatly. Done! The reader gets treated to another secret in the course of the story, how to kill someone while sleeping with them. Basically, you wait until they orgasm, because the natural barrier breaks down at that point, reach inside them, take... I think you get the rest.

How is all of this such a great secret? Magic's given this world the wheel, but they can't figure out how to make it roll. Up until the discovery of healing through magic, the difficulty level is about at knee-height. There's an initial threshold, and a lot of practise, but that doesn't explain why everyone seems so... well, so stupid. These people do not come across as smart magicians, at least, not once you know the whole secret of their magic. I really expected a little more.

Overall Rating:
5.5/10
It's a little boring and unchallenging, the system of magic is unimaginative and simple and most of the characters are flat. Still, it's a quick read and it's not nearly the worst I've read.

I Buy Books

I buy books.

To help myself get a handle on my book-buying habits I've decided to start reviewing books. For every new book I start, I have to review one first. This is meant to reduce The Pile a little. What is The Pile? Allow me to illustrate:


These are my unread books as of today. There are a few half-finished ones missing from the picture. So yes, The Pile needs to be reduced.

=>Click here for the reviews.

P.S.
That whole regular creative writing thing? Yeah. I'm writing, but most is too long, too unfinished, or just too plain bad to see the light of day.