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Nov. 5th, 2009 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsFirst things first: while I kind of suck at remembering birthdays in general (seriously, I will disappoint - in fact I just remembered a good friend whose birthday was four days ago that I forgot! BECAUSE I SUCK) there is one person's birthday that I always remember! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cupenny! You and me know why this day is worthy of fireworks, and it's not because of some dude who failed to blow up Parliament. :D
Secondly: booklogging! I just finished The Shining Court, the third book in Michelle West's Sun Sword series, and I think it is my favorite so far. If The Uncrowned King centered on AU Fantasy Olympics, The Shining Court takes as its centerpiece AU Fantasy Mardi Gras. Demons are planning to do SOMETHING EVIL on the festival night involving cursed masks and the Winter Queen and worlds meeting and a crazy mage and honestly I was kind of confused as to what exactly their diabolical plan was and how Our Heroes thwarted it, but that's okay, because at least I could get that the characters were busy being awesome! My favorite might have been Jewel getting more and more pissed off at being stuck in a Beauty and the Beast plotline with Avandar and then running into five million immortals (and now that West seems to have stopped telling me how awesome Jewel is every five minutes, I think I am finally, fully on the Jewel-love bandwagon!) but I also loved Teresa coolly deciding to saunter right out of her own life and disappear. With bonus cross-dressing. (Teresa cross-dressing is MAD HOT, do not deny.) I also loved the Surprisingly Badass Radann! My favorite new character is definitely Matriarch/Serra Maria; I find the whole interplay of two completely different roles in her fascinating, and I hope we see more of her. Least favorite new character: Nicu, who is pretty much just a giant tool. The books still have their flaws, but their strengths are still very much their strengths, and moreso in this volume, where even more than before pretty much everything revolves around women and their relationships with other women, and the obvious and subtle ways that they hold power.
And, speaking of, I have a question for you guys! Okay, so we know that many characters in fiction are motivated by revenge. For female characters, I feel like that revenge tends to be for either personal trauma (assault, often sexual) or for dead dudes - husbands, fathers, sons. And dudes are always going around swearing revenge for their dead girlfriends or wives, but they're just as often avenging fathers and brothers and BFF-buddies, too. I could be wrong, but I feel like it's rare for women to be motivated by revenge for other women. Diora from these books is one very strong example; if I remember correctly Gelis in the House of Niccolo series is another, though I haven't gotten up to her books yet so I might be wrong. But those are about the only two I can think of - can you guys think of any other examples of women who are acting to avenge other women? Are there a million and I'm just crazy?
cupenny! You and me know why this day is worthy of fireworks, and it's not because of some dude who failed to blow up Parliament. :D Secondly: booklogging! I just finished The Shining Court, the third book in Michelle West's Sun Sword series, and I think it is my favorite so far. If The Uncrowned King centered on AU Fantasy Olympics, The Shining Court takes as its centerpiece AU Fantasy Mardi Gras. Demons are planning to do SOMETHING EVIL on the festival night involving cursed masks and the Winter Queen and worlds meeting and a crazy mage and honestly I was kind of confused as to what exactly their diabolical plan was and how Our Heroes thwarted it, but that's okay, because at least I could get that the characters were busy being awesome! My favorite might have been Jewel getting more and more pissed off at being stuck in a Beauty and the Beast plotline with Avandar and then running into five million immortals (and now that West seems to have stopped telling me how awesome Jewel is every five minutes, I think I am finally, fully on the Jewel-love bandwagon!) but I also loved Teresa coolly deciding to saunter right out of her own life and disappear. With bonus cross-dressing. (Teresa cross-dressing is MAD HOT, do not deny.) I also loved the Surprisingly Badass Radann! My favorite new character is definitely Matriarch/Serra Maria; I find the whole interplay of two completely different roles in her fascinating, and I hope we see more of her. Least favorite new character: Nicu, who is pretty much just a giant tool. The books still have their flaws, but their strengths are still very much their strengths, and moreso in this volume, where even more than before pretty much everything revolves around women and their relationships with other women, and the obvious and subtle ways that they hold power.
And, speaking of, I have a question for you guys! Okay, so we know that many characters in fiction are motivated by revenge. For female characters, I feel like that revenge tends to be for either personal trauma (assault, often sexual) or for dead dudes - husbands, fathers, sons. And dudes are always going around swearing revenge for their dead girlfriends or wives, but they're just as often avenging fathers and brothers and BFF-buddies, too. I could be wrong, but I feel like it's rare for women to be motivated by revenge for other women. Diora from these books is one very strong example; if I remember correctly Gelis in the House of Niccolo series is another, though I haven't gotten up to her books yet so I might be wrong. But those are about the only two I can think of - can you guys think of any other examples of women who are acting to avenge other women? Are there a million and I'm just crazy?
