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Mar. 12th, 2022 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsThree reference points for Light From Uncommon Stars:
1. I don't think I would have thought of Daniel Pinkwater ifaamcnamara hadn't mentioned the comparison, because the prose style is very different, but Ryka Aoki's joyously zany worldbuilding -- the premise of Light From Uncommon Stars involves both the literal devil wandering around making Faustian bargains to promising violin students and a family of alien refugees from outer space running an L.A. donut shop -- feels kind of delightfully neon in the same way that Pinkwater's does
2. In college I took a class on California Fiction, and one of the books we read was Karen Tei Yamashita's Tropic of Orange; it has now been almost 15 years since that class so I remember essentially nothing about the plot, but what I do remember is the deep and affectionate portrayal of LA as a palimpsest of diasporic subcultures -- not just as a grounding backdrop against which increasingly wild events can (and do) occur but as one of the book's main character in and of itself -- and this book also made me feel like that and also made me broadly nostalgic for the weird and great experience of that class overall
3. You know the Pern trilogy about Menolly the harper, and how she's horribly abused and has no opportunity to learn music despite her unbelievable natural talent, but then she runs away and gets rescued by an authority figure who recognizes said unbelievable natural talent, and her innate humility and kindness and purity of heart win her the love of everybody she encounters and eventually allow her to gain self-esteem and acclaim? Or the Mercedes Lackey book about Lark the fiddler, and how she's horribly abused and has no opportunity to learn music despite her unbelievable natural talent, but -- or the Mercedes Lackey book about Talia who loves to read, and how she's horribly abused and has no opportunity to follow her passions despite her unbelievable natural talent, but -- you know, it's truly not worth listing all the Mercedes Lackey books I have devoured uncritically in my time; anyway, it's a classic for a reason! and neither Anne McCaffrey nor Mercedes Lackey could have been in any way trusted to write about a trans protagonist and the the specifically transphobic violence that violin prodigy Katrina Nguyen is fleeing, nor would they have had been anywhere near as inventive with the aforementioned neon vibes of the plot enclosing this time-honored premise
1. I don't think I would have thought of Daniel Pinkwater if
aamcnamara hadn't mentioned the comparison, because the prose style is very different, but Ryka Aoki's joyously zany worldbuilding -- the premise of Light From Uncommon Stars involves both the literal devil wandering around making Faustian bargains to promising violin students and a family of alien refugees from outer space running an L.A. donut shop -- feels kind of delightfully neon in the same way that Pinkwater's does 2. In college I took a class on California Fiction, and one of the books we read was Karen Tei Yamashita's Tropic of Orange; it has now been almost 15 years since that class so I remember essentially nothing about the plot, but what I do remember is the deep and affectionate portrayal of LA as a palimpsest of diasporic subcultures -- not just as a grounding backdrop against which increasingly wild events can (and do) occur but as one of the book's main character in and of itself -- and this book also made me feel like that and also made me broadly nostalgic for the weird and great experience of that class overall
3. You know the Pern trilogy about Menolly the harper, and how she's horribly abused and has no opportunity to learn music despite her unbelievable natural talent, but then she runs away and gets rescued by an authority figure who recognizes said unbelievable natural talent, and her innate humility and kindness and purity of heart win her the love of everybody she encounters and eventually allow her to gain self-esteem and acclaim? Or the Mercedes Lackey book about Lark the fiddler, and how she's horribly abused and has no opportunity to learn music despite her unbelievable natural talent, but -- or the Mercedes Lackey book about Talia who loves to read, and how she's horribly abused and has no opportunity to follow her passions despite her unbelievable natural talent, but -- you know, it's truly not worth listing all the Mercedes Lackey books I have devoured uncritically in my time; anyway, it's a classic for a reason! and neither Anne McCaffrey nor Mercedes Lackey could have been in any way trusted to write about a trans protagonist and the the specifically transphobic violence that violin prodigy Katrina Nguyen is fleeing, nor would they have had been anywhere near as inventive with the aforementioned neon vibes of the plot enclosing this time-honored premise
