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Jan. 19th, 2010 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liptonrm_backupOMG, am I actually going to write a substantive lj post? Well, that or something like it. ;-)
Last week I got the excellent chance to beta a really frigging amazing story: Without Mythologies by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bellatemple. It's an Anna POV-piece that takes her from angel to human to angel again, and there are, seriously, no words that I can use that would adequately describe how much I love it. Seeing the world of season four SPN through Anna's eyes is revelatory, it highlights characters and events in ways that are so inherently right even though you may never have thought of them in that way before.
Just go read it. It's fantastic.
Last week I also read Nameless by Sam Starbuck, which makes a wonderful 2for2 of great books published by authors with fannish ties. Nameless clutched at my heart and didn't let go. The premise itself is simple enough 'Mysterious Guy Arrives in Town' but it was Sam's utilzation of the mythologies that shape our daily lives and the desperation we have to connect with other people that wouldn't let me go. It was just a beautiful book and I kind of want to give it to everyone I know.
Right before I read Nameless I picked up Widdershins by Charles DeLint. I've been a fan of DeLint for a while, but I think I'm starting to part ways with him, at least as concerns his long fiction. DeLint's Newford stories became famous/popular because of the way that he infused normalcy with the supernormal, but in so doing he raises this idea that the people who have these experiences are somehow more than the rest of us; more special, more wise, more talented, just more. At one point in the series a major character was in a devestating accident and ended up being severely and permanently injured. But she was his specialist of characters, and as I started reading Widdershins there was all of this beginning prose about how difficult her life was after the accident and how much "less of a person" she was and I had this horrible feeling that she would be miraculously healed by the end of the book. So, I flipped to the end of the book and, yeap, there she was, as if the accident had never happened.
That really turned me off. It's not that I think there's any special nobility in suffering, or anything like that, but the flavor I was getting from the text was along the lines of OMG EEEEWWWWWWW I can't be disabled forever. It just left kind of a bad taste in my mouth.
Granted, I haven't gone back to read the rest of the book, so maybe it's all handled in a way that I could appreciate. But, frankly, I don't care enough to slog my way through to find out.
And what's funny is that Nameless also has a character, two of them, even, who are magically healed and I wasn't turned off by that. Maybe it was because the healings weren't about the magic but rather about love and sacrifice. It also helps that nothing happened to the characters because they were moar speshul than anyone else. Indeed, the text does a great job of pointing out how special all of the characters were, each in their own way. The story wasn't about healing disability but, rather, about how we're all damaged, every one of us, and that's okay. And the people who love us will be there through the good and the bad, if we let them.
*sighs* I love stories. I really, really do.
Last week I got the excellent chance to beta a really frigging amazing story: Without Mythologies by
bellatemple. It's an Anna POV-piece that takes her from angel to human to angel again, and there are, seriously, no words that I can use that would adequately describe how much I love it. Seeing the world of season four SPN through Anna's eyes is revelatory, it highlights characters and events in ways that are so inherently right even though you may never have thought of them in that way before.Just go read it. It's fantastic.
Last week I also read Nameless by Sam Starbuck, which makes a wonderful 2for2 of great books published by authors with fannish ties. Nameless clutched at my heart and didn't let go. The premise itself is simple enough 'Mysterious Guy Arrives in Town' but it was Sam's utilzation of the mythologies that shape our daily lives and the desperation we have to connect with other people that wouldn't let me go. It was just a beautiful book and I kind of want to give it to everyone I know.
Right before I read Nameless I picked up Widdershins by Charles DeLint. I've been a fan of DeLint for a while, but I think I'm starting to part ways with him, at least as concerns his long fiction. DeLint's Newford stories became famous/popular because of the way that he infused normalcy with the supernormal, but in so doing he raises this idea that the people who have these experiences are somehow more than the rest of us; more special, more wise, more talented, just more. At one point in the series a major character was in a devestating accident and ended up being severely and permanently injured. But she was his specialist of characters, and as I started reading Widdershins there was all of this beginning prose about how difficult her life was after the accident and how much "less of a person" she was and I had this horrible feeling that she would be miraculously healed by the end of the book. So, I flipped to the end of the book and, yeap, there she was, as if the accident had never happened.
That really turned me off. It's not that I think there's any special nobility in suffering, or anything like that, but the flavor I was getting from the text was along the lines of OMG EEEEWWWWWWW I can't be disabled forever. It just left kind of a bad taste in my mouth.
Granted, I haven't gone back to read the rest of the book, so maybe it's all handled in a way that I could appreciate. But, frankly, I don't care enough to slog my way through to find out.
And what's funny is that Nameless also has a character, two of them, even, who are magically healed and I wasn't turned off by that. Maybe it was because the healings weren't about the magic but rather about love and sacrifice. It also helps that nothing happened to the characters because they were moar speshul than anyone else. Indeed, the text does a great job of pointing out how special all of the characters were, each in their own way. The story wasn't about healing disability but, rather, about how we're all damaged, every one of us, and that's okay. And the people who love us will be there through the good and the bad, if we let them.
*sighs* I love stories. I really, really do.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-02-13 05:12 pm (UTC)I just found this review of Nameless (among other books :) ) via google, and I was wondering if you'd mind me linking it from my journal? I think what you're saying about physical ability and the comparison between the magical healing in Nameless and Widdershins is really interesting and bang-on, and I'd like to talk to some of my peeps about it. Is that cool?
no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 11:16 pm (UTC)You are more than welcome to link to my little review, and I'd be thrilled to see some of the ideas from it expanded on, especially because ever since I posted this I've felt like I didn't quite say everything I meant to say, but I'm not exactly sure what it is I left out, if any of that makes any sense at all. ;-)
So, please, link away! And thanks so much for writing such an incredible book!
no subject
Date: 2010-02-15 03:22 pm (UTC)