Reading Wednesday
Mar. 18th, 2015 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
Dawn by Octavia Butler. After nuclear war between the US and the USSR (the book was written in the late 80s) destroys most of Earth, the few surviving humans are rescued by aliens called the Oankali. The Oankali offer to heal humanity and make Earth liveable again, but they want something in return: humanity's DNA. The Oankali, you see, can absorb other species' DNA and make it part of themselves, mainly by having children that combine the two groups. Lilith is a regular human woman, chosen by the Oankali to be their go-between. It does not go easily.
Butler's novels always feel a bit like thought experiments to me. They're full of neat ideas and intriguing worldbuilding, but the prose is so lean and the characters so sparse that I don't feel any emotional connection with them.
(Also, man, she is fascinated by weird dubcon. Not sexually, necessarily, but there's a lot of the aliens telling people "you said no, but your body said yes" in this book.)
Adulthood Rites by Octavia Butler. The sequel to Dawn, this book focuses on Lilith's son, Akin, one of the first sons to be born on Earth since the nuclear war. When he's still no more than a toddler, Akin is kidnapped by a group of "Resisters", humans who live in hiding and attempt to fight the Oankali. The Oankali believe that humanity, left alone, is doomed to self-destruction (see: that whole nuclear war thing) due to an inherent contradiction in our genes: intelligence and a tendency to form hierarchies. Akin however grows up with humans, learning to understand them (both biologically and culturally) better than the Oankali have or ever could. The Fate Of Humanity will rest on his knowledge.
I liked this one more than Dawn. Akin is still a cool and distant character, but he's more engaging than anyone in the first book. There's a lot more action in this one, too: kidnappings! Gun fights! Surprise metamorphosis! It works much better as a novel.
To Rescue a Rogue by Jo Beverly. A Regency romance, a sequel to An Arranged Marriage which I read a few weeks ago (though on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
egelantier's recommendation, I skipped about ten books in between). Dare Debenham is addicted to laudanum after being wounded at Waterloo. He's determined to break free, but it's a long, slow process. Mara St Bride is a cheerful, gregarious family friend, who wants to bring brightness into Dare's life. Together they fight Mara's stalker, visit the Tower of London, save an actress from social ostracism, throw a ball, and much more. They are a seriously efficient couple.
Everything about addiction and its treatment is immensely historically inaccurate, but then, who reads Regency romances for historical accuracy? (If they did, the name "Regency" - which technically only lasted for nine years – wouldn't be used to label everything after the Middle Ages and before WWI.) Not to mention the random Chinese sidekick who appears to teach Dare tai-chi; at first I assumed he had a logical introduction in one of the books I skipped, but based on the author's note, nope, he's a new character. But by far the craziest element wasDare unknowingly adopting Napoleon's secret lovechild! OH MY GOD I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING. Does she star in a future book? I desperately need a sequel all about her. This was really enjoyable, funny and sweet and with lots of h/c.
What are you currently reading?
The Figaro Murders by Laura Lebow. A murder mystery set in Vienna in the late 1700s.
Christmas Angel by Jo Beverly. I'm skipping back to book three in the Rogues series. In this one a diplomat and a widow try to arrange a practical marriage, but will they fall in love? It's impossible to tell!
Dawn by Octavia Butler. After nuclear war between the US and the USSR (the book was written in the late 80s) destroys most of Earth, the few surviving humans are rescued by aliens called the Oankali. The Oankali offer to heal humanity and make Earth liveable again, but they want something in return: humanity's DNA. The Oankali, you see, can absorb other species' DNA and make it part of themselves, mainly by having children that combine the two groups. Lilith is a regular human woman, chosen by the Oankali to be their go-between. It does not go easily.
Butler's novels always feel a bit like thought experiments to me. They're full of neat ideas and intriguing worldbuilding, but the prose is so lean and the characters so sparse that I don't feel any emotional connection with them.
(Also, man, she is fascinated by weird dubcon. Not sexually, necessarily, but there's a lot of the aliens telling people "you said no, but your body said yes" in this book.)
Adulthood Rites by Octavia Butler. The sequel to Dawn, this book focuses on Lilith's son, Akin, one of the first sons to be born on Earth since the nuclear war. When he's still no more than a toddler, Akin is kidnapped by a group of "Resisters", humans who live in hiding and attempt to fight the Oankali. The Oankali believe that humanity, left alone, is doomed to self-destruction (see: that whole nuclear war thing) due to an inherent contradiction in our genes: intelligence and a tendency to form hierarchies. Akin however grows up with humans, learning to understand them (both biologically and culturally) better than the Oankali have or ever could. The Fate Of Humanity will rest on his knowledge.
I liked this one more than Dawn. Akin is still a cool and distant character, but he's more engaging than anyone in the first book. There's a lot more action in this one, too: kidnappings! Gun fights! Surprise metamorphosis! It works much better as a novel.
To Rescue a Rogue by Jo Beverly. A Regency romance, a sequel to An Arranged Marriage which I read a few weeks ago (though on
egelantier's recommendation, I skipped about ten books in between). Dare Debenham is addicted to laudanum after being wounded at Waterloo. He's determined to break free, but it's a long, slow process. Mara St Bride is a cheerful, gregarious family friend, who wants to bring brightness into Dare's life. Together they fight Mara's stalker, visit the Tower of London, save an actress from social ostracism, throw a ball, and much more. They are a seriously efficient couple.Everything about addiction and its treatment is immensely historically inaccurate, but then, who reads Regency romances for historical accuracy? (If they did, the name "Regency" - which technically only lasted for nine years – wouldn't be used to label everything after the Middle Ages and before WWI.) Not to mention the random Chinese sidekick who appears to teach Dare tai-chi; at first I assumed he had a logical introduction in one of the books I skipped, but based on the author's note, nope, he's a new character. But by far the craziest element was
What are you currently reading?
The Figaro Murders by Laura Lebow. A murder mystery set in Vienna in the late 1700s.
Christmas Angel by Jo Beverly. I'm skipping back to book three in the Rogues series. In this one a diplomat and a widow try to arrange a practical marriage, but will they fall in love? It's impossible to tell!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 01:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-22 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-21 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 08:25 am (UTC)(lady beware is a direct sequel, it's kind of... weird. shocking delight turned out to be one of my favorites! it has a very delightful heroine).
what IS it with octavia butler and weird xeno dubcon? i've read the one with, like, xeno dubcon mpreg, and neeeeeeeeeverrrrr again.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-21 02:54 am (UTC)Now I'm tempted to write my own Regency (well, I guess Victorian?) about Napoleon's secret daughter. She should marry, I don't know, Nelson's secret son.
Ha, I've only read two other of her books, and they ALL had various sorts of dubcon. It doesn't upset me or anything, it's just slightly more about her id than I think I want to know.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-21 04:58 pm (UTC)(but for this subsection of characters, read demon's bride first! it's adorabe and short and one of my favorites, and you'll meet marie and vandemien later on. well, you already did).
i also really like that there's a shift somewhere mid-series from rescued women (from poverty, from worse marriages, etc.) to rescued MEN; in second half of the series the women are the ones who are rich or more emotionally together and know it, and they're in control of the narrative.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-21 06:25 pm (UTC)And that is an excellent shift. I know the first way is popular (and I can like it too!) but I generally prefer the second. Though I am really enjoying Christmas Angel!
no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 08:55 am (UTC)Also everything is compulsory heterosexuality everywhere, and when she did incorporate queerness (e.g. in the vampire book), the way she did it...urgh. I will never understand why, when she explicitly said she was straight and wrote very straight books, she got a rep as a queer author after her death.
I really wanted to like her books more - she obviously was brilliant, her ideas and world-building are fascinating, and yet...
no subject
Date: 2015-03-21 05:25 pm (UTC)I do want to try her time-travel book (which I think most people agree is her best one?), but she's just not a favorite of mine.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-21 05:36 pm (UTC)