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Oct. 29th, 2008 11:31 amTwo very different books to log today! The first is Georgette Heyer's The Masqueraders, aka (One Of) The Ones With The Crossdressing. What differentiates this from most Wacky Crossdressing Romances is that while the heroine is placidly wandering around dressed as a boy, her brother is also scampering around disguised as a girl. Equal-opportunity crossdressing is a rare and awesome thing, so I do not even care that the reasons for the disguise are ridiculously implausible at best. And everyone's biggest concern about the brother's disguise is that he might hear Inappropriate Things when he is hanging out with the ladies, and he is like, 'no no, no fear, I will make SURE to turn the conversation away from Inappropriate Lady Talk.' The hero's bouts of Authoritativeness might have turned me off of him, except that a.) the heroine calmly ignores him most of the time and b.) the big joke about the hero is that he is basically a mountain of a human being, and, let's face it, I am easily amused. So this was pretty much my experience of reading his scenes:
HERO: *enters the room and makes incisive, authoritative comment*
BROTHER: Oh look, sister, it's your large gentleman.
BECCA: Heehee! Large gentleman.
And I really liked how sensible and calm the heroine was, and also got to wave the occasional sharp pointy thing without being unbelievably expert about it. So: not my favorite Heyer read so far, but a lot of fun, and a worthy addition to my ever-growing mental database of wacky crossdressing adventures.
After that I switched gears completely out of escapism-land and turned to Daniel Alarcon's Lost City Radio. My roommate was actually the one who checked this out of the library. I read a few pages on the way home from that library trip, and was hooked enough when it came time to return it, I sidled over and asked the librarians if they could check it out again under my name.
This is a book about a city and a war. There are a few main characters, the chief among them being Norma, the host of a radio show that takes calls from people looking for those who have gone missing or disappeared in the war, now over - but the city and the war are what really come to life in the novel, and it's beautifully and painfully done. Although there's nothing overtly fantastic in the book except the phantasmic and pointless nature of the war itself, I kept thinking of China Mieville as I was reading the book. I think it's because he has this same ability to draw a place and a scenario that are more important and alive than any of the characters involved. That's not always a good thing - but for this book, I think it is.
HERO: *enters the room and makes incisive, authoritative comment*
BROTHER: Oh look, sister, it's your large gentleman.
BECCA: Heehee! Large gentleman.
And I really liked how sensible and calm the heroine was, and also got to wave the occasional sharp pointy thing without being unbelievably expert about it. So: not my favorite Heyer read so far, but a lot of fun, and a worthy addition to my ever-growing mental database of wacky crossdressing adventures.
After that I switched gears completely out of escapism-land and turned to Daniel Alarcon's Lost City Radio. My roommate was actually the one who checked this out of the library. I read a few pages on the way home from that library trip, and was hooked enough when it came time to return it, I sidled over and asked the librarians if they could check it out again under my name.
This is a book about a city and a war. There are a few main characters, the chief among them being Norma, the host of a radio show that takes calls from people looking for those who have gone missing or disappeared in the war, now over - but the city and the war are what really come to life in the novel, and it's beautifully and painfully done. Although there's nothing overtly fantastic in the book except the phantasmic and pointless nature of the war itself, I kept thinking of China Mieville as I was reading the book. I think it's because he has this same ability to draw a place and a scenario that are more important and alive than any of the characters involved. That's not always a good thing - but for this book, I think it is.
