(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

Moved into my grandfather's place to housesit last night! :) Dragged sixth_light along with me and we watched the first nine episodes of Firefly, and then I read the new Tamora Pierce book, The Will of the Empress. It's a Circle book, so of course I love it, but, well, extra love for this one and I'll tell you why.



I really, really am enjoying this, and can't wait to finish it and then see Serenity- um, "can't wait" in the sense of "want it never to finish", of course. WHY WAS THIS CANCELLED, PEOPLE? *annoyed* Um, so, a few vague thoughts: Loved the banter. Really, really. Loved the theme tune, the premise is also pretty cool. Am consistently impressed by the face that there's no sound in space! Congratulations, Joss! I love all the characters except Jayne and Simon, who I can take or leave. But the show, as sixth_light said to me this morning, is more of an ensemble piece than a character piece and I like it that way. I'm fond of River- "I'm fixing your Bible. It doesn't make sense." "I tore these out of your symbol and they turned into paper." Wash and Zoe are lovely, especially together. Inara/Mal- people, I'm not supposed to be a hetshipper! Luckily, I can take or leave Simon/Kaylee, and I ADORE Kaylee. She's SHINY and I hope she stays forever and ever.


running out of time at icafe, so a few very brief thoughts on Empress


Um,okay, so, I think her dropping the fourbook format lately is kind of sad because I really really liked it with the Circle books and every time it switched POVs in this book I was reminded that we used to get a whole book of character X and I thought that was really good for like continuity and stuff so hat makes me sad. :( BUT THERE ARE PLUSES, and these are them: The gay! Or rather, the totally 100% canonical lesbianness including- and correct me if I'm wrong- CANONICAL Lark/Rosethorn. Lesbian!Daja- Okay with this but don't know how well she handled it but I am so impresed that she did: Tammy, as a popular writer of fantasy for young girls I'm impressed and I have sixty seconds leftso hitting post but. This was good.

Comments

[eavanmoore.livejournal.com]

It's been a long time since I read the Circle books, but I'm delighted to hear about the gay! I was beginning to think that her female characters were always going to wind up married (to older men) with children and all her worlds were going to be totally hetero.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I was pretty impressed myself- as I said, she's so mainstream, I guess she could afford to take the risk, but as you mentioned, the wonderful examples given us by Tortall (Alanna, Daine, Alianne) have kind of given us that impression. I think up until this book, the only girl whose personal story didn't end at getting married was Kel. Which sort of pleased me, because while I loved some of the potential guys for Kel I thought it was sort of empowering. But this is even more so- there's a lot of casual sexuality (as opposed to sex. Um, except Briar, who's a total manho; and she does take several steps to ensure that he's seen as being Very Responsible even while being, well, kind of a slut.) in this book, more than in any other except possibly the Alanna books when they were set at court. So. Hm, yeah. I too am pleased. :)

[eavanmoore.livejournal.com]

I went to her website looking for info about the book and read part of an interview in which she said that she'd been afraid to reveal Daja's sexual orientation. I was genuinely shocked that the books would be so popular, and so well-established as YA canon, and she would still be afraid to be, well, honest...

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I do find that really surprising- well, I wish I found it more surprising than I truly did, but I agree- her books must sell so well! And it's not like there isn't already enough sexual content in there- although admittedly not in the Circle books. :-/ It's pretty sad.

[melata-fic.livejournal.com]

Lark/Rosethorn? Wow. *grins* I shipped them a little, but not seriously. So the subtext was actual text. Hee.
But Daja? *blink* Am pretty sure that's out of the blue. Still great, though.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Although I've never really been in a Tammy fandom, as opposed to reading the books almost religiously (Tamora Pierce indirectly introduced me to my two best friends in the world, in thanks for which I even make an effort to buy all her books.) I've always thought Lark/Rosethorn as comparable with Tom/Carl in YW (you haven't read those, I think, but these guys actually occupy a similar position in this universe to Lark and Rosethorn and they're so married), and possibly being one of the biggest fslash ships out there.

As for Daja- well, she's always been kind of butch, which I sort of regret (although the girl who breaks her heart is very femmey, so six of one, half a dozen of the other, I s'pose) and sixth_light opined that "she was always kind of gay." So *shrug* What is for certain, though, is that about a chapter into this book I stopped and thought to myself "Daja is sooo gay, but there's no way she's going there." Two chapters in, I said to myself "... omg seriously Tammy, Daja is so gay." And three chapters in, I was all "OMG HOLY WTF, she's ACTUALLY GOING TO GO THERE." And was very, very pleased. :)

[melata-fic.livejournal.com]

*nods* I shipped before I knew what shipping was. And those two are so very clearly subtexty to me, but I'm used to seeing hints of femmeslash or slash where there isn't really any.

I've heard of Tom/Carl, but haven't found the books anywhere. They sound really interesting, and not just because of the couple.

I think it's Daja's butchness that made me not suspect, actually. Because mostly her tomboy types end up in relationships with guys. But hee. I love when that sort of thing happens.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have gone that far- mostly because this universe was so asexual- but once I started fiddling around in fandom, well... :P And hell yeah, they're subtexty. Well. Texty, really. :P

Oh, you should totally try to find them, they might be your thing and the fandom's lovely, although tiny- hmm, I'm not sure where you live, but if it's Wellington or Christchurch the public libraries in both of those have all the books to date, I think- the first one's So You Want to Be A Wizard. Sadly they're really hard to find in New Zealand because they haven't been published here since they first published the British editions, which weirdly didn't do too well and got canned. :(

That's true... mind you usually her main characters aren't lesbian so. :P

[melata-fic.livejournal.com]

*grin* It is a bit, but Daine ended up with Numair, didn't she? Heh.

I checked the online catalogue for the local libraries and they have a couple of her books in the adult section. Not sure if that'll be them, though.

It'll have been because of stigma about wizard books. Even now, it's Harry Potter and a few select others, but most of those aren't about wizards.

*grin*