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My baby is teething, and right now I’m thankful. Because while I was up last night, listening to Sailor Boy croon our little girl back to sleep (again), I came up with an amazingly brilliant idea. And unlike most of my “oh wow this is an awesome idea” ideas I dream up in the middle of the night, this one still seems amazingly brilliant in the glaringly rational morning light. No, I’m not going to tell you what it is. lalalalalalala My copy is winging its way to me right now, but I’ve promised myself that I’m not allowed to read it until I turn in my newest short story (which still needs a title, darn it) and my book (which doesn’t, yay!)
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Vol. 5
Edited by Jonathan Strahan, Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $19.99 trade paper (546p) ISBN 978-1-59780-172-0
Strahan’s fifth anthology contains 29 wide-ranging tales. Neil Gaiman’s “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains” is a deceptively simple folktale-styled story of the price one may pay for gold. “The Sultan of the Clouds” by Geoffrey Landis untangles a complex knot of childish power. Sarah Rees Brennan’s “The Spy Who Never Grew Up” gives a beloved childhood icon a sinister update; Diana Peterfreund’s “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn” turns unicorn lore on its head; and Rachel Swirsky’s “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window” puts a fantasy spin on the temporal culture shock of immortality. This year the fantasy tales outdo the SF in depth of storytelling and characterization, though all the inclusions are strong, with few ideas left by the wayside. (Apr.) I ran across a review of Rampant that pointed me in the direction of this (apparently quite popular) discussion of the cover. Seems some dude named Joel (Who, in his profile pics, looks to be a hipster about my age) has placed Rampant on his “books to never read ever” list on Goodreads. In his “review,” he takes umbrage at the fact that the cover of the book has a picture of a teen girl on it, instead of a giant killer unicorn. Interesting point, some dude named Joel. In fact, at one point in the long long LONG ensuing discussion, he says: “then the cover should be a generic teen girl holding aloft the severed head of a giant killer unicorn. some of the blood should be dripping onto her, but she doesn’t care, because she is a warrior triumphant.” And one of his buddies, Flannery, obliges him with some alternate cover art:
(I would like to make it known that this is a much better drawing than I could ever hope to do of a similar scene, in MS Paint or otherwise.) Aside from the hair color, this is a pretty good illustration of the actual following scene in Rampant (Page 141, hardcover edition): [Valerija] jumped back. “They said come here!” She reached into her duffel. “They see what I did to this.” She held it aloft by its horn and we all gasped. The midnight dark skin, the brindled coat, the gaping maw, and most of all, the blood that oozed freely from the jagged edge where head had once met neck. A kirin’s head. Valerija Raz lifted her chin. “They said here is where I belong.” In fact, a few seconds earlier of that scene is actually illustrated here, by Emilia Argon:
This is Val arriving at the Cloisters, in full on goth gear with the unicorn head in the duffel bag at her feet. Emilia actually pointed me in the direction on an entire cache of Rampant fanart on Deviantart.com. They are so awesome. Here’s her portrait of all the girls in the Cloisters (including Wen and Flayer!):
Seriously, how awesome is that? I love love love love love it. (I’m not sure why Ilesha is holding Flayer rather than Wen but Flayer is minding a lot less than I thought he might.) What I really love about it is how perfectly she captured the girls’ personalities. Look at val’s hair! Look at Rosamund’s cross. Look at how you can really see how much younger Ursula and Ilesha are than the other girls, and that Melissende (top left) and Ursula (bottom right) are sisters. Check out the expression on Phil’s face, the weariness on Astrid’s (nice call, btw, dressing her in those drab colors). These are not “generic teen girls.” (Sorry, Joel.) Here’s another one of Astrid looking bored, by an artist named ShadowKissedAngel (a fan of Richelle Mead’s, I presume):
Love it. Love the braid! (This is the way Astrid most often wears her hair.) I love the covers of my books. I think they are really beautiful. I adore the details of the sword on the cover of Rampant, and the reflection of the charging unicorn in the expression of determination on Astrid’s face. I love her sadness on the cover of Ascendant, and I covet her pretty, pretty hair. I don’t love the fact that there’s no unicorn on the cover, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Like I said, my stick figures aren’t even as good as Flannery’s. There are probably people out there, like Joel, who (though he admits himself that as a thirty-something dude, he’s hardly the target audience) aren’t picking the book up because it doesn’t have a killer unicorn on the cover, but there are probably a lot more people who picked it up because the covers — killer unicornified or not — are really pretty. And whatever their initial motivation, the part that’s important to me is that they liked the text. They liked it enough to create their own art, like Emilia Argon and ShadowKisedAngel and the other folks on the DeviantArt Killer Unicorns Club Gallery. Art that shows the unicorns in all their killery glory:
Check out those gored sheep. So. Much. Love. As a storyteller, I think that’s the best gift in the world. Back in December I posted a list of my goals for 2011, and said I’d check in once a month to keep myself honest. How did I do in January? Writing: I wrote one of the short stories I have due this year and worked on my book. Pretty good. Home: Not a lot of movement here until the last week (though that’s officially February). Sure, I’ll count it: I cleaned out and re-organized my pantry, am in the process of doing same to the rest of my kitchen and picked out paint colors for the kitchen. Rio: I walked Rio only semi-regularly this month. The weather was very cold and very icy, which kept us indoors a lot. I’m hoping to get into a better schedule once it gets warmer. I suspect she’s in for another bad month, though. Poor dog. I’ve been falling down on my duties with Rio, which makes me feel terrible. Blogging: Yikes! I blogged only 4 times last month. I need to get better about that, too. I have some ideas on how to make that happen. Are you guys still keeping to your New Year’s Resolutions? It’s nto to late to get back on the bandwagon. Let’s cheer each other on! Afghan courtesy of Saundra Mitchell. Unicorn PJs courtesy of my sister-in-law. Of course we’re not really letting her read Rampant. She is going through my oeuvre in chronological order.
These are my first two published short stories. (They are officially in the “novelette” category.) I loved writing them so much that I contracted to write three more this year, and I’m totally feeling the pressure now. I had been told that “Errant” would appear on this list. That “Care and Feeding…” did as well was a total surprise to me, and one that has be bouncing around my house (the baby is looking at me like I’m a crazy person, and Rio thinks it’s playtime). Both books are still available for purchase, of course, and in March, “Care and Feeding…” will appear in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Five. A few folks have been really kind to write to me and tell me that they’ve suggested one or both of these stories for various other bits of recognition — thank you so much (thank you also to Aurora of the YASFF blog). A few others have asked how one goes about doing that, but I don’t know much about it. I do know that both the Nebula and the Hugo nomination periods are open. Both stories are “novelettes” according to the guidelines. Ascendant is a novel. Rampant, my first work of fantasy or science fiction, was published less than two years ago (the SSG novels were not SF), in the Campbell arena. If you feel that any of these works merit recognition, please feel free to recommend them. I write these stories to entertain you, so to know that you were entertained or moved by them is incredibly moving to me. Also, if you are in the mood to nominate an anthology in the anthology categories, I’m rooting hardcore for ZvU, because Justine and Holly did an incredible job with it.
Last week, I learned that my novel RAMPANT had been placed on the Bitch Magazine’s 100 Young Adult Books for the Feminist Reader. I was initially very pleased — it was a great list, I’d read a bunch of the books on it, and I was glad that the list compilers recognized the feminist themes in my book. I was looking at the list and saw that a discussion had sprung up around one of the titles on the list, specifically, Sisters Red, by Jackson Pearce. One comment stated “surprise” that the book was included, because there had been a blog review of the book that took issue with one passage and said it “promoted rape culture.” The response from the list compiler, Ashley McAllister, was basically “thanks for letting me know, I’ll replace it.” I was shocked by that, since I thought that the list was made up of books that the compiler/s were familiar with and, you know, recommended. Having read both the book and the blog post in question, I disagreed with that interpretation, so when the compiler came back on and said that the editors had decided to re-read (or read for the first time) three of the books on the list that “dealt with the subject of rape” I contacted them and said that there were LOTS of books on the list (I counted at least a half a dozen, very quickly) that dealt with the subject rape, including my own, and if they questioned the appropriateness of Sisters Red because one reader who has a blog disliked/misinterpreted a single pagssage, they could certainly find something similar on every other book on the list. I urged them to keep the list as originally published, as a diverse and varied selection of literature that would be of interest to a feminist reader. In the ensuing day and a half or so, I was not online — I was in Florida, visiting with my parents and watching my three month old’s bottom gum erupt with four teeth. Yes — FOUR. Anyway, I came back to see that they had chosen to remove Sisters Red from the list, as well as Tender Morsels and Living Dead Girl. At that point, a bunch of YA authors were asking to be removed from the list because they took issue with this behavior and the arguable cowardice of the editor. As I was reading their comments, I saw that McAllister had responded to my comment from a day earlier, saying how happy she was that I was happy to be part of such a diverse list. There was no comment about whether or not they reconsidered Rampant. At that point, I asked them to remove Rampant from the list. There is a lot of talk going on right now about how the authors who asked to be removed from the list did so “in solidarity” with the removed authors. While I definitely support that motivation, it was not my motivation. Frankly, my motivation can be summed up in the graphic accompanying this post. (Credit for the graphic goes to Sarah W. of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.) Sisters Red was removed following: 1) there are characters in the novel who express anti-feminist, “victim blaming” views which may be traumatic to the reader, 2) there was a reader of the book who chose to interpret that character’s viewpoint as being the one sanctioned and championed by the author. Yes, and George Lucas really hates kids, since he let Anakin go on that child-killing spree in Revenge of the Sith. If this is the justification by which Sisters Red was removed from the list — that someone on the internet read a passage of it and didn’t like it or didn’t understand it — then Rampant does not belong on the list, either. There have been people who didn’t like or understand passages of it. There have been people who interpreted the fact that immediately after being raped, one character experiences confused, guilty feelings about what happened to her (and is also blamed by another character), as being anti-feminist and triggering and the other buzzwords that Bitch Magazine is so concerned about. Here’s an example (whited out for spoilers): “Is it?” Lilith folded her arms over her chest. “Guess I’m just not like perfect, easygoing Neil, who is far too polite to say the things that need to be said. Well, maybe it’s not proper, but if you’d stayed inside, where you belonged, this never would have happened.” “Enough!” I shouted so loudly that the words reverberated off the mosaic walls. Phil’s chin was high but trembling. “How can you possible talk that way to her, knowing what she’s been through?” “Because Philippa knows full well she’d get a hell of a lot worse from her father. Why do you think she’s staying here rather than going home?” Phil wouldn’t meet my eyes. My novel includes passages such as these because the characters live in OUR world — a world where one in six women is sexually assaulted, a world where women can and do feel confused or guilty after being raped, a world where women are sometimes — even often — blamed for being raped. We write to explore these topics. I wrote because I, personally, find this subject matter to be very close to my heart. I would never attempt to speak for every woman who has been sexually assaulted, but I was very concerned with crafting a story that reflects with integrity and honesty the experiences of those around me who have been through similar situations. That the supportive role is played by the heroine of the novel and the victim blaming comes from the mouth of a character who is wrongheaded and insane at best and villainous at worst should probably make it pretty clear how I feel about the issue, but whether or not I was successful in portraying what I set out to is not the issue here. The passage (and others like it) exists, and some people have had problems with it. If this is the metric by which the Bitch List is judged, then Rampant is only on the list because they didn’t happen to get a complaint about it yet. I was initially honored to be on the list because I thought it meant that Bitch had read my work, appreciated its feminist outlook, and was recommending it to others. Now I think they just didn’t happen upon one of these negative reactions. I’ve recently learned that the editors of Bitch have chosen not to honor the request of writers that asked their books to be removed from the list. It seems to be a misunderstanding as to the nature of the list — we were considering the list to be an honor (one we could deny), and they were considering it as a review. We were considering it to be a published list that could be printed out and passed along to librarians or teachers interested in tracking down recommended reads. There are many such lists in the YA world — ALA’s lists for reluctant readers, NYPL’s “Stuff for the Teen Age,” Locus’ list of recommended SFF reads — but apparently, that’s not what this was, since the most recent comment from the editors is that the list will be in a state of constant flux (rather like the IMDB top films, or the Amazon bestseller list, perhaps?) Anyway, that’s my take. I think it’s inappropriate for them to have removed those books from their list, but I also think it’s inappropriate for my book to remain on it, given the way the editors seem to give a lot of weight to the misguided complaint of a reader or two. And, as a former journalist, I think that’s not how good journalism works — stand by your opinions, correct your facts. Liz B (School Library Journal) Okay. Now I’ve spent my baby’s naptime responding to this instead of working on the book I have due next month. I’ll be back presently to talk about another list where my work has appeared this week. But this one makes me happy! |
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