(no subject)

[rhivolution]

A few wee points before I go make myself a snack:

- Tepper's The Visitor, in synopsis:

PEOPLE: [do stuff]
APOCALYPSE: [happens]
PEOPLE: [do stuff]
WEIRD SHIT: [happens]

could have been better. I've enjoyed some of her lesser books more, mostly because I found the setting/characters hard to relate to. I spent most of the book trying to figure out how she'd finesse things to make it science instead of fantasy, which she doesn't do as well as she might have intended. Also, the back cover text, while being utterly true to the narrative, made me think the book was going to be different than it was. Expectations, my fault.

She does keep the proselytizing more subtle than usual in the first half of the book, or maybe that's because it reads like the usual fucked up politics that one finds in the usual fantasy novel. Except then the last fifty pages take WEIRD SHIT: [happens] up to eleven and we get treated to Tepper's odd musings about religion, which is that prescriptive religious faith is dumb, prescriptive atheism is dumb, cultural relativism is dumb and gets people dead--so everyone should just believe in The Truth, which is defined really obtusely and non-sensically. Basically about where I was at, age 19.

- alexandraerin has it right on the nose with what bugged me about DW Xmas this year--namely, she notes the unclear gender stuff, whether or not Moff is taking the piss. (spoilers)

- I've got both mine in TR New Year's top levels, should you be interested! Going to meet reqs despite failing most of the month with work stress.

Happy Gregorian New Year's Eve!

Comments

[revena]

I finally put The Visitor in my "to the used bookstore" pile last time I did a shelf purge. I'd read it a couple times (I am sort of a Tepper fan, despite my many reservations. IDK) and liked parts, but overall it was very meh, and I really didn't connect with any of the characters. Sometimes her stuff is really thought-provoking and/or engaging, and sometimes I just wish it was enough to spend too much time re-reading in hope of finding that spark.

[rhivolution]

Aye, exactly! The characters...Nell and Dismé are okay but never really develop too much. Whereas Gibbon's Decline and Fall is arguably less good a book, but I like it a lot better because the scenario and characters (sucker for women's colleges and female friendships from college, yes I am) are far more accessible and interesting.

Lately I've really liked The Companions and The Margarets, so...idk.

[revena]

No, totally. I enjoyed The Margarets too, even though huge parts of me were going OH GOD THAT MAKES NO SENSE AND IS ACTUALLY KIND OF OFFENSIVE the whole time, and I'm the same way about The Gate to Women's Country, which is probably one of my all-time favorite books despite eugenics. But then, say, Six Moon Dance left me completely cold.

[rhivolution]

Yeah, some parts of Tepper I have to stick my fingers in my ears and go LALALA at, because she's very much Second Wave in her thinking and not giving a crap about any offense in the cause of presenting her view of social justice.