rusty_halo

Oh! Although one thing I will give GRRM credit for: paying tribute to his influences by naming a character “Lymond.” (Although kind of insulted that such a nondescript character should bear the name. ;P)

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Finally we get to the good photos! The first day of the Lymond tour in Paris…

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Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.

I’ve read some amazing fic recently. My favorites from the past few days:

* Suck It Up by strangeandcharm
Supernatural, post-S4, Dean/Castiel, NC-17.

Author’s summary: Dean’s hungry. Dean’s very hungry.

My notes: Vampire!Dean. This is ultra-dark, scary, disturbing, and angsty, with a good plot and [highlight for spoiler] a delightful schmoopy ending. You get all the traumatic angst of Castiel breaking down trying to save scary vampire Dean, and then all the traumatic angst of re-humanized Dean having to deal with his memories of tormenting Castiel and Sam. Excellent characterization of Dean and Castiel, with awesome Sam characterization, too.

* All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men by alyse
Dark Angel, post-S2, Alec/Logan, R.

Author’s summary: Logan had grown used to the quiet in the evenings, but that was before he took a sharp left into Surrealsville, population two. (From the prompt, “Alec having seizures and Logan helping him through it.”)

My notes: Fantastic, visceral, vividly-detailed hurt/comfort with wonderful characterization. Great exploration of Alec’s vulnerabilities; perfectly tolerable even if you hate Logan.

* Every single Dark Angel fic by aflightoffancy. To be honest, they’re not actually all that good, but they’re fantastically satisfying. They’re all Max/Alec romantic adventures, with great plots, great banter, and ridiculously indulgent hurt/comfort (obviously, for some of us, that’s a plus). Unfortunately they tend to make Alec a little too perfect and to sideline Max more than I’m comfortable with, but on the plus side I’m totally in favor of their dismissal of Logan. These stories are exactly what I was craving after yelling at my screen for most of Dark Angel season two.

(I don’t know if anyone else will get these references, but basically what these fics do is turn Alec/Max into a classic Spike/Buffy shipfic–it’s all about how they’re equals and can have adventures and banter and Max can be her true self and how Alec can match Max on a level that Riley Xander Logan never could. And they turn Alec into Lymond*–so it’s all about getting through Alec’s charismatic mask to the epicly traumatized woobie underneath, and hurting him gratuitously while reveling in how superhumanly competent he is.)

* I feel like I’d be a lot more successful at getting people to read the Lymond books if I could just explain that past all the obscure Renaissance literary references and convoluted 16th century politics lies the greatest hurt/comfort epic ever written.

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I got drujan to read the Lymond books. She likes them, but hates Lymond, and accused me of “only liking him because he’s hot.” I honestly cannot fathom how anyone could hate Lymond, but anyway, she got me thinking about the myriad reasons that I love him.

Here’s a list of things that I either like or relate to in Lymond. (They’re kind of mixed up because he has a lot of traits that I don’t exactly consider “likable,” but that I connect with and that make the character more meaningful to me.)

( Why Lymond Is Wonderful )

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I finished The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope. I’m not sure how this ended up on my reading list, but it must’ve been recommended by a Lymond fan–I feel fairly certain that the author must’ve been one as well. It reads like the Lymond Chronicles remixed with the Scottish ballad the Tam Lin.

The main characters are too similar to Philippa and Lymond for it to be coincidence, but it’s done very well and I didn’t feel that it was derivate in a bad way. It was written well and incorporated its various influences into a compelling and imaginative whole.

( spoilers for The Perilous Gard and the Lymond Chronicles )

This is technically a childrens' book, but it was complex and interesting enough that I'd say it works just as well for adults. I definitely recommend it, and I think it would make a great gift for a kid as well.

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.

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* Hey, I’ve got two Dreamwidth invite codes. Nifty. Who wants one?

( * a feminist complaint about the new Star Trek movie, with mild spoilers )

* Lots of Writercon stuff happening!

• Our official t-shirts (awesomely designed by contest winner Savannah Teague) are now on sale.


• We're going to open workshop sign-ups on Thursday at noon EST--watch the website and LJ comm for details.


• If you're attending the con, we want you to sign up to run a fan led event!


• If you're interested in selling something in our dealer room you can sign up as a vendor.


• We've posted interviews so that you can learn all about our fantastic guests.


• And more news is coming soon!

Are you coming to Writercon? Yes, I'm asking YOU. If you're involved in fanfic in any way--reader, writer, feedbacker, beta, comm mod, ficathon organizer--Writercon is for you. Think about attending--you can find out more info at Writercon.com or writercon or just ask me and I'd be glad to answer any questions you may have.

* Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) is awesome. It reminds me of the 80s music I listened to in high school. Which makes sense as it was released in ... 1980. Wow, man, it's like everything in my life is running in one big circle! *is a dork*

* I've been spending a lot of time reading Twitter. YEAH I DON'T KNOW, OKAY. It's addictive, though: behind the scenes snippets from Rachel Maddow, extra jokes from Stephen Colbert, a daily stream of adorkable geekery from Bowie's son Duncan Jones, fan wank from Trent Reznor, and of course all the latest NYC vegan news from SuperVegan... plus little life updates from various friends, past and present, RL and fannish. And I can read it all on my phone!

( * Doctor Who finale SPOILERS )

* Picked up The Disorderly Knights to continue my re-read. I think what stopped me for a couple months there was that it was coming up on what is, to me, the most traumatizing character death of the series. But I got past it. (*sniffle*)

And, wow, glad I'm continuing, because I just hit a couple of my favorite lines of the entire series:

"I would give you my soul in a blackberry pie; and a knife to cut it with."
(p. 331, and I don't want to spoil which character says it)

( and a longer scene, with mild spoilers for The Disorderly Knights )

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I was thinking how weird it is that I went from obsession with Dorothy Dunnett’s historical fiction series The Lymond Chronicles to obsession with the music of David Bowie. They seem so different. Then I thought:

They both come from Britain around the 60s/70s and concern a central figure who is charismatic, frequently androgynous, (questionably) bisexual, a social “outsider,” and whose core concerns center around identity, worldly success, and the struggle for human connection.

Both works are dripping with ambiguity and complexity; both make frequent use of allusion; both focus often on the dark side of human nature (suicide and insanity); both are concerned with music, art, and decadence; both revolve around the construction of identity and the question of “true” self (construction of differing identities to appeal to a particular audience and achieve a particular goal, the difficulty distinguishing between performance and reality, whether what you do changes who you are).

I think the biggest difference is that Bowie (I’m thinking particularly Ziggy) is postmodern, ironic, self-aware, very much of the 1970s, whereas the Lymond Chronicles are pretty rooted in the philosophy and style of the historical era they describe.

Must think further on this. Possibly completely insane.

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I haven’t been posting much, because I’ve been stressed out and busy and tired, and who wants to hear about that?

I have, however, accumulated a couple of mildly interesting (I hope) things to post about.

( the Watchmen movie )

* Then the next night, jaydk and I saw Coraline. Proof that you don't need to be "edgy" to make a good movie: it was far better than Watchmen. Smart, funny, well-written, beautifully filmed--the 3D was absolutely lovely. The story was creative and intriguing and eerie, and the lead character was clever and brave. Why do childrens' stories do such a superior job of portraying three-dimensional female characters? Is it just that we've been culturally conditioned to be unable to fathom a post-pubescent female in a way that doesn't put her sexuality front and center?

* I'm seeing a lot of talk about Doctor Who finale casting spoilers. As far as I can tell, they're from a tabloid that regularly makes shit up, so why is anyone taking them seriously? Am I missing something? (This is a genuine question. Is there any reason to believe them? I don't want to get excited about something that's completely fabricated.)

* I'm reading Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about Lincoln and his cabinet. It's really interesting and I'm enjoying it, but I wish she'd stop spelling out what the reader is "supposed" to think. I can make up my own mind about what these guys did and why they did it; I don't need the author inserting her own explanation that so-and-so was arrogant and ambitious on every page. Still, it's mostly good. After being so absorbed in the 2008 election, it's fascinating to see how American politics worked 150 years ago.

* And I'm still in the middle of The Disorderly Knights. I'm going to finish it and then take a break from the Lymond series, since it's been less than six months since I re-read Pawn in Frankincense. Speaking of which, my mom just finished it and is in awe. In retrospect, I think Pawn is the best written and most moving book of the series.

( the Moonlight TV series )

Also, maybe it's just that I don't watch modern American TV anymore, but ... what is with the women? As in, they are all exactly the same: tiny, emaciated, sharp-featured, and young. No matter what character they're playing--boss, geek girl, random vampire--they are all pulled from such an incredibly narrow archetype of "woman" that it's just completely absurd. Watching a show like this, you'd never even imagine that women exist on planet Earth larger than a size four, older than thirty-five, and without those sharp facial angles that Hollywood defines as "beautiful." At least the men are allowed to have some diversity of age, size, and facial features, depending on the character they're playing, but every single woman first has to fit into this absurdly narrow definition of "attractive" before anything else is taken into account.

This is why I can barely watch American TV anymore. Once you step away from it for a while, you come back and suddenly it's like being hit over the head by how ridiculous it is. This narrow bunch of nearly-identical Hollywood model types plays pretty much every female character and the majority of male characters. Sure, an occasional talent pops through, but it's painfully obvious that these people are cast almost entirely for their looks with no regard for skill. You end up with a bunch of interchangeable Barbies and Kens running around posing as every variety of adult human being. How am I supposed to take any of it seriously?

* But speaking of American TV that doesn't suck, I have become completely addicted to The Rachel Maddow Show. It passes the Bechdel Test every night! Real women talk to each other about real issues! With none of the insipid concessions to what "women" are supposed to care about--no celebrity gossip, no plastic surgery, no cooking and baking, no fashion bullshit, just women as real individual human beings, with their own perspectives, who care about the world around them. (This shouldn't be such a shock and a rarity!) And Rachel is brilliant, witty, funny, sweet, and adorable beyond words. I know she's not perfect and I do disagree with her sometimes, but I always love watching her. She makes me wish Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert would do less joking and more news--after I watch her show, I feel like I'm not getting enough content from them. (Don't worry, I still love them. Jon Stewart's smackdown of Jim Cramer was a thing of beauty.)

* Oh, and I'm still listening to David Bowie. Ziggy Stardust remains my favorite, but I've added Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane, and Diamond Dogs to the lineup and am enjoying them all. I tried to listen to Scary Monsters on the advice of my friend Jason, but aside from "Ashes to Ashes" it just totally didn't work for me. I don't understand what happened to Bowie in the 80s. It's like he went from brilliant and hot and amazing to ... just ... so boring and annoying and straight. Maybe I'll understand it better if I take each album chronologically. Or it could just be the Bowie draws from the zeitgeist of the decade, and the 80s was ... well, the 80s.

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I bought another copy of The Disorderly Knights because the pages are falling out of my original.

I think the third read is the charm with these books. It’s like everything comes into focus and I suddenly understand and appreciate everything that’s happening. The first read is just about figuring out what the hell is going on, the second is figuring out what the themes and subtext and underlying meanings are, and the third read is putting it all together to make a wonderful brilliant whole.

( major spoiler for Queen's Play )

So, The Disorderly Knights. I'm only 66 pages in and already wanting to blog about it. I really need to hook up with one of these Dunnett re-reading groups so that I'll have more people to discuss this with!

( spoilers for The Disorderly Knights, and why Gabriel is like Bernie Madoff )

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I finished my third read of Queen’s Play, and have started on Mary Doria Russell’s Children of God, sequel to The Sparrow. (I know, I didn’t like The Sparrow to begin with, but my friend Cat wants to see what I think of the sequel, and I’m hoping that if I read it, she’ll feel obligated to read The Game of Kings in return [without stopping a third of the way through because it’s “written weird”], and then I’ll have someone in real life to talk about it with! I was all excited that my mom read it, but as usual my mom thinks it’s insane to talk about something you’ve read [or watched, or listened to] so that turned out to have been pointless.)

Anyway, Queen’s Play. I want to do another, kind of definitive re-read of the Lymond series, while taking notes on great lines and interesting bits, and looking up every quote and reference that I don’t recognize. But in the meantime, here’s my brief thoughts on Queen’s Play, take three.

( SPOILERS )

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