(no subject)

[skygiants]

So, as encouraged by various persons in the general vicinity of this blog, I read Gemma Files' Hexslinger series.

The plot kicks off thusly:

MAGICAL EX-PREACHER OUTLAW: I feel like this lifestyle of riding around with my homicidal gunslinger boyfriend and our merry outlaw band, committing heinous magical felonies and murdering anyone who makes homophobic slurs in our direction, is probably not sustainable in the long-term.
AN AZTEC GODDESS: I could help with that.

*several instances of human sacrifice, one impending apocalypse, one non-consensual deification and an extremely messy breakup later*

MAGICAL EX-PREACHER OUTLAW: .... it's possible I may have made some poor life choices.
HIS NOW-DIVINE HOMICIDAL GUNSLINGER NOW-EX BOYFRIEND: YOU THINK????

The books take place just post-Civil War in a universe in which some people have magic, and magical people ... can't hang out together because they will accidentally murder each other trying to eat each other's magic, except when they manage to get round it by making out a lot instead? I wasn't entirely clear on the exact rules there. Also, magic is ... illegal? Socially frowned-upon? Allan Pinkerton is trying to recruit magic users for his Pinkerton agency, anyway. Pinkertons are highly relevant. After a magical accident, Allan Pinkerton also at one point swells up to the size of a house and starts biting people's heads off, which should give you something of a sense for the plotting style.

My feelings about the series as a whole are pretty mixed. First of all, I would be A-OK with placing a firm moratorium on fantasy novels about Aztec gods demanding human sacrifice. Why is it that nobody ever writes about Aztecs (or Mayans, for that matter) doing ANYTHING except performing human sacrifice and playing handball with intent to lead to human sacrifice? Presumably SOME PEOPLE in these VAST EMPIRES occasionally did ... other things ... with their time ...

I mean the racial politics of the books in general are not -- well, okay, that's not quite what I want to say. The racial politics are clearly very well-meant. The cast includes many characters who are not white, the Trail of Tears and the one-drop rule and the Nativist attitudes of the Bowery B'hoys are all name-checked; at one point someone delivers a speech about how if the world is going to be saved, it's because of the gays and the Chinese and the Indians and the secret Jews, so suck on that, Mr. Pinkerton!

So, like, there is plenty of representation, it is the method of it that I thought was really not always ... so well-thought-out .... I mean, some of this is period-accurate racism from within the POV of the characters, but some of it ... is not. It is great to have a major character who is a lesbian albino Chinese women, sure! It is less great to describe her as a porcelain doll literally every time she appears, or to have her first appearance in a San Francisco Chinatown brothel palace straight out of a sensationalist Victorian novel, surrounded by disposable Chinese extras. Meanwhile, her Navajo girlfriend's first appearance is whooping, on horseback, waving a tomahawk and leading a band of warriors. And then we get to the horde of anonymous Mexicans who show up to join the Cult of the Evil Aztec Goddess and sit around serenely running ropes of thorns through various orifices, because, UNLIKE AMERICANS, they're not raised to expect DEMOCRACY, which, AHHHHH, NO, STOP. I mean I am not the most qualified person to talk about this, especially since the Jewish character probably fares the best of everyone in terms of not being exotified; Yancey is great, she's three-dimensional, she has a POV and complexity and interiority! So, you know, many people can probably speak to this better, all I can say is I spent a not insignificant portion of the book with my face buried in my hands feeling really uncomfortable.

I mean I guess what it boils down to is that much of the time the series can't decide whether it's subverting and critiquing all the wildest tropes of the WEIRD WEST GUNSLINGER genre or gleefully embracing them, and so it's like "BOTH!" but sometimes I do not think it's possible to have your cake and eat it too in quite that way.

But, I mean, I say all this, but ... I read the whole thing! I did not have to, but I did; it was compelling and very more-ish, and I did very much appreciate the fact that many of the seemingly casual deaths ended up having consequences and mattering later. So there you go. IDFIC GALORE. If "homicidal gay gunslingers sarcastically recite the Bible, seduce Pinkertons, bring about and/or avert magical apocalypse in an extremely gory fashion" sounds like it's the kind of idfic that would appeal, then maybe check it out? I don't know, other people who have more unalloyed enthusiasm about these books, please feel free to chime in and make your pitch, I'm sort of stuck at "...well, I did read the whole thing!"

Comments

[agonistes]

Since I try not to have opinions about things I haven't read, I will not comment on the actual books, but instead:

Why is it that nobody ever writes about Aztecs (or Mayans, for that matter) doing ANYTHING except performing human sacrifice and playing handball with intent to lead to human sacrifice? Presumably SOME PEOPLE in these VAST EMPIRES occasionally did ... other things ... with their time ...

Jacqueline Carey, man. The human sacrifice bit comes up (and is pretty important) but is also used as a moment of cross-cultural understanding in the last book of the last Kushielverse trilogy. And we spend a lot of time with the Aztec and Inca analogues with the point being "yo, these people have history and culture and gods of their own, when in Rome, not like we have room to judge." It's not perfect, but it is much better than what you have described.

[skygiants]

Oh, that's good to know! Someday I will probably take the Jacqueline Carey plunge. (Re-plunge. I did read the first Kushiel book, that one time, when I was ... probably too young to fully appreciate a Kushiel book.)

[evewithanapple]

It is idfic. It is absolutely, positively idfic (which I can say because I know the author and thus I KNOW she wrote it as idfic) and it's a kind of id that really works for me because it happened to hit like twenty of my buttons- ALTERNATE HISTORY RELIGION LEARNING TO HAVE FRIENDS QUEER PEOPLE EVERYWHERE WOOOO. So it worked for me; it will most definitely not work for everyone. Also-

one non-consensual deification and an extremely messy breakup later

*hums* He ate my heart and then he ate my braaaaaaain~

[evewithanapple]

Oh! And re: Aztecs, Aliette de Bodard has the Obsidian and Blood trilogy, which is about a MAGIC DETECTIVE in the Aztec Empire. There is human sacrifice, but since it's about the day-to-day life experiences of people living in the Empire, there is also a lot of family stuff and other things going on.

[skygiants]

Oh, interesting! I've never read any of Aliette de Bodard's stuff, and I always kind of meant to. Thanks!

[elsane]

I was going to mention these!

I was also going to facepalm mightily. Representaion is great but...it's not the whole story by a long shot...

[skygiants]

Yeah, like, it's one of those things where you can SEE the directions the effort is going in, and .... where it's going completely off in the wrong direction ...

[skygiants]

IT'S VERY TRUE THAT I HAVE NEVER COME ACROSS A MORE APPROPRIATELY LITERAL USE FOR THAT SONG.

[mneme]

Re aztecs:

Have you read the Flora books? There are Aztecs! Sure, yes, they -do- do human sacrifice, but it's a big Aztec empire, and they run things -- so unsurprisingly, they do lots of things that aren't human sacrifice too! (like intrigue! And have parties! And..well, it's like a Diane Wynne Jones book set in an Aztec-client-state version of California, so, um...lots of stuff).

[skygiants]

I am very fond of the Flora books! I was happier with the Aztec stuff when the one main Aztec character was morally ambiguous and not EEEVIL, though.

[mneme]

Um, yeah. I wasn't amazingly fond of the third book (though I'd totally buy and read a fourth book) partially because of that change in his character (I think it was in the third book? Maybe it was in the second?) and partially because it didn't -really- end the story even while it revealed a bunch of secrets.

I -loved- the morally ambiguous Aztec from the first book, though!.

[skygiants]

Is the third one supposed to end the saga? I've been trying to find out if there will be a fourth, because ... the third pretty much just seemed like setup for interesting stuff to happen in the fourth! But I can't turn up anything.

[shati]

After a magical accident, Allan Pinkerton also at one point swells up to the size of a house and starts biting people's heads off

on that day, humanity received a grim reminder

Reading all the recs to this post so far is giving me this surreal neighborhood block party gossip effect, like, "Oh, yes, the Aztecs down the block, lovely people. There's the human sacrifice but you'd barely notice." It's true, I wouldn't, I never talk to my neighbors.

[skygiants]

IT'S TRUE THOUGH. Allan Pinkertitan.

Ha! What a block though. Across the street is the Romans, constant butt-grabbing, so gauche.

[shati]

!! Can we live in the world where every single story about the ancient Romans brings up their butt-grabbing, and there is only one story about the Aztecs that mentions human sacrifice at all and it's Queen Seondeok? I'M MAKING A WISH. Shrimp levels can remain static.

[skygiants]

This is the first and only time I've wished I was a vengeance demon! I WANT TO LIVE IN THIS WORLD.

[silveraspen]

HIS NOW-DIVINE HOMICIDAL GUNSLINGER NOW-EX BOYFRIEND: YOU THINK????

This is where I started giggling and didn't stop. Just so you know.

[skygiants]

IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME, says magical ex-preacher outlaw. This entire set of books: the "IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME" Saga.

[evewithanapple]

SHE SAID SHE'D MAKE BOTH OF US GODS AS LONG AS I LET HER MURDER YOU AND EAT YOUR HEART! HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW he asks.

(Ed weeps silent tears of frustration in the background.)

[skygiants]

It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, Book 1: "So I said, OK, sure, Apocalypse! Sounds good!"
It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, Book 2: "Look, how was I supposed to know that inviting the most wanted men in the country to my wedding would turn out poorly?"
It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, Book 3: "When I said 'we can help the hexes integrate into society' I DIDN'T ACTUALLY MEAN INTEGRATE INTO YOUR DIGESTIVE SYSTEM, ALLAN PINKERTON."

[evewithanapple]

Well in fairness to Yancey, she didn't invite them so much as try to do damage control after they showed up. The giant salt monster man was not an entirely forseeable conclusion!

(Although if we're being ENTIRELY honest here, coming on the heels of the Redheaded Pistoleer scene, I did not feel entirely sorry for the townspeople . . .)

[skygiants]

It's true! It's definitely less dramatic an OOPS than Rook's (I mean, there are very few OOPSes that are MORE COLOSSAL than Rook's.)

On the other hand, like, we know that Ed is just a real sweetheart who shouldn't be handed over to the law, but, like, if my daughter accidentally got me killed by failing to tell law enforcement that Mr. Most Wanted was hanging out in my hotel, I would probably AT THE VERY LEAST try to use this as a teaching moment ...

[sovay]

It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, Book 3: "When I said 'we can help the hexes integrate into society' I DIDN'T ACTUALLY MEAN INTEGRATE INTO YOUR DIGESTIVE SYSTEM, ALLAN PINKERTON."

+1.