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recent reading: James Tiptree, JR
Apr. 18th, 2024 01:01 pmI spent many weeks this winter sitting with the work and life of genderbending scifi pioneer James Tiptree, JR, legally Alice Bradley Sheldon. I've known for some time that Tiptree was a figure with the power to compel me; in the holiday season tumult of my changing family, Tiptree was the one I needed.
I read Julie Phillips' magisterial biography "James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon," and also worked my way more methodically than I had before through the stories collected in "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever."
The biography presented a portrait of a non-neurotypical woman of unfocused genius I feel like I've known, and been. Raised by wealthy liberal Chicagoans who moonlighted as African explorers, Alli had an epic childhood. Only through sliding with deliberate nonchalance into pseudonymity could she seem to convey the intense art that was in her.
I first became aware of Tiptree through LeGuin's published encomiums, and there's a real treat to be found in the Phillips bio of vital, playful correspondence between early SF figures like Tiptree, LeGuin, Harlan Ellison, and Joanna Russ. Tiptree's inability to connect fully with Russ, separated by pseudonymity, gender pretense, and that thing that afflicts early movement pioneers and makes them unable to connect with the full movements that come after, is poignant.
And then the stories are so very intense. Tiptree circles around biology, love, death, inspiration, and the call of the wild, often ending with gut-punches that make you need to put the book down. I've been a fan of "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" (1973) since I first read it years ago, but, of all the stories collected in this anthology, "And I Have Come upon This Place by Lost Ways" (1972) has sat with me most vividly: a portrait of an inspired scientist believing, past all safety and sanity, in the knowledge that their culture does not value or validate.
It's not a happy story, but the ending rings with strange triumph; and that strange, Pyrrhic victory sits at the core of so much of Tiptree's works, perhaps most starkly in the vore bug horror/romance "Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death" (1973). The expansiveness of Tiptree's ethical and aesthetic vision, the way her stories can contain love, predation, death, rebirth, and beyond, stretching but not breaking, helped me cope with the shifting territory of my own family group, and made the ways that loved ones fight against one another comprehensible, maybe even palatable.
The unravelling at the end of Alli's life is something, the drama getting real. A strange thing, that this person who chose suicide so many years before actually going through with it, still tragically early, and annihilated her partner as she went, tells the insights that make tough times bearable for others. But perhaps it is often so.
What I took from my engagement with Tiptree, beyond the stabilization through personal changes, was a renewed dedication to my art persona, my art community, and making what I can/do make. Tiptree's stories are, imo, impossibly valuable, and they were such a struggle to get out; every time Alli tried to "go legit," she clammed up, or made sentimental things that belied the wild true insight of her creative gifts. It was only when she let herself create for the heck of it, working through her pseudonym, that the stream of her art seemed to flow clear.
My own mother had been pushing me, over the holidays, as she often does, to "go legit," and spending time thinking about Tiptree steered me in another direction: doubling down on doing my weird shit with the people what I do it with. & the early SFF fandom energy in Tiptree's correspondence reminded me so much of my own roots in journal fandom. "Let us not desert one another ... our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world," indeed.
I read Julie Phillips' magisterial biography "James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon," and also worked my way more methodically than I had before through the stories collected in "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever."
The biography presented a portrait of a non-neurotypical woman of unfocused genius I feel like I've known, and been. Raised by wealthy liberal Chicagoans who moonlighted as African explorers, Alli had an epic childhood. Only through sliding with deliberate nonchalance into pseudonymity could she seem to convey the intense art that was in her.
I first became aware of Tiptree through LeGuin's published encomiums, and there's a real treat to be found in the Phillips bio of vital, playful correspondence between early SF figures like Tiptree, LeGuin, Harlan Ellison, and Joanna Russ. Tiptree's inability to connect fully with Russ, separated by pseudonymity, gender pretense, and that thing that afflicts early movement pioneers and makes them unable to connect with the full movements that come after, is poignant.
And then the stories are so very intense. Tiptree circles around biology, love, death, inspiration, and the call of the wild, often ending with gut-punches that make you need to put the book down. I've been a fan of "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" (1973) since I first read it years ago, but, of all the stories collected in this anthology, "And I Have Come upon This Place by Lost Ways" (1972) has sat with me most vividly: a portrait of an inspired scientist believing, past all safety and sanity, in the knowledge that their culture does not value or validate.
It's not a happy story, but the ending rings with strange triumph; and that strange, Pyrrhic victory sits at the core of so much of Tiptree's works, perhaps most starkly in the vore bug horror/romance "Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death" (1973). The expansiveness of Tiptree's ethical and aesthetic vision, the way her stories can contain love, predation, death, rebirth, and beyond, stretching but not breaking, helped me cope with the shifting territory of my own family group, and made the ways that loved ones fight against one another comprehensible, maybe even palatable.
The unravelling at the end of Alli's life is something, the drama getting real. A strange thing, that this person who chose suicide so many years before actually going through with it, still tragically early, and annihilated her partner as she went, tells the insights that make tough times bearable for others. But perhaps it is often so.
What I took from my engagement with Tiptree, beyond the stabilization through personal changes, was a renewed dedication to my art persona, my art community, and making what I can/do make. Tiptree's stories are, imo, impossibly valuable, and they were such a struggle to get out; every time Alli tried to "go legit," she clammed up, or made sentimental things that belied the wild true insight of her creative gifts. It was only when she let herself create for the heck of it, working through her pseudonym, that the stream of her art seemed to flow clear.
My own mother had been pushing me, over the holidays, as she often does, to "go legit," and spending time thinking about Tiptree steered me in another direction: doubling down on doing my weird shit with the people what I do it with. & the early SFF fandom energy in Tiptree's correspondence reminded me so much of my own roots in journal fandom. "Let us not desert one another ... our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world," indeed.
recent reading: LOTE by Shola Reinhold
Mar. 31st, 2024 09:13 pmI'm starting with LOTE in my recent reading catch-up because it struck a deep vein in me, in a way that was sharp and startling and affirmational.
This book is tremendously unique, but also nestles into traditions and histories where I feel at home. Reading it was an infusion of a different perspective, and a mirror held up to my own face. Reinhold's first novel, it strikes fresh notes with old tools.
There are two ways that reading this novel pierced me. The first, and more thematic and broad, is in its valuation and celebration of what it calls "fixations"; what I've been thinking of, since I read Elizabeth Freeman, as erotohistoriography, the desire to fuck the past, the life-defining erotic relationship of student to subject, reading to author. The main characters are people obsessed with historical figures, obscure artists and scene figures, and their lives are structured around these obsessions in a way that the book never mocks or minimizes. It's what these people are, and they're shown as elevated by the engagement.
Perhaps more narrowly, the particular fixations of this book are my own sort of fixation, Virginia Woolf contemporaries who are divinities of bohemian Modernism. Reinhold focuses on Black figures, part of a deep decolonialism, and also intersectionally shows the alliances between Black and queer modernist scenesters. The interaction with the past has strong historicity, often venturing into conreality academia with full faithfulness to academese and project politics.
And then there's the delightful, odd, detached, wandering characteristic of the narrative, the text of LOTE, itself. It takes so long to get a clear picture of what you're reading, where it's all going, but the vibes are crystalline and impeccable from page one. Frequently, the portrayals of cons, MBA types, and various normcore marks are hilarous. The heroine's co-fixationists are luminous. I haven't read the word "nacre" so many times in the same book, perhaps, ever. Utter aesthetic delight.
Strongly recommended if you've built your life around obscure texts or figures, especially old or grand or undervalued ones. One feels deeply seen. It feels important to practice your own worship, your private fandom, your transformative daydreaming. I wonder if Reinhold has an AO3.
This book is tremendously unique, but also nestles into traditions and histories where I feel at home. Reading it was an infusion of a different perspective, and a mirror held up to my own face. Reinhold's first novel, it strikes fresh notes with old tools.
There are two ways that reading this novel pierced me. The first, and more thematic and broad, is in its valuation and celebration of what it calls "fixations"; what I've been thinking of, since I read Elizabeth Freeman, as erotohistoriography, the desire to fuck the past, the life-defining erotic relationship of student to subject, reading to author. The main characters are people obsessed with historical figures, obscure artists and scene figures, and their lives are structured around these obsessions in a way that the book never mocks or minimizes. It's what these people are, and they're shown as elevated by the engagement.
Perhaps more narrowly, the particular fixations of this book are my own sort of fixation, Virginia Woolf contemporaries who are divinities of bohemian Modernism. Reinhold focuses on Black figures, part of a deep decolonialism, and also intersectionally shows the alliances between Black and queer modernist scenesters. The interaction with the past has strong historicity, often venturing into conreality academia with full faithfulness to academese and project politics.
And then there's the delightful, odd, detached, wandering characteristic of the narrative, the text of LOTE, itself. It takes so long to get a clear picture of what you're reading, where it's all going, but the vibes are crystalline and impeccable from page one. Frequently, the portrayals of cons, MBA types, and various normcore marks are hilarous. The heroine's co-fixationists are luminous. I haven't read the word "nacre" so many times in the same book, perhaps, ever. Utter aesthetic delight.
Strongly recommended if you've built your life around obscure texts or figures, especially old or grand or undervalued ones. One feels deeply seen. It feels important to practice your own worship, your private fandom, your transformative daydreaming. I wonder if Reinhold has an AO3.
no subject
Mar. 29th, 2024 09:39 amJob hunting is so needlessly stressful and unpleasant. But it proceeds apace; interview this afternoon!
I'm starting so many seeds this spring. I want to fill out the garden, but, as I hope our time here will be coming to an end soon, I don't want to spend a lot of money on it this year; so, as many starts as I can get going! Between new starts and volunteers, I'm getting comical quantities of lupines. The opposite of a problem, lol.
I need to write about recent reading. I've got behind there. RN, I'm trekking through James Meek's "To Calais in Ordinary Time," which I picked up for plague reasons, but am most interested in because I want to see where the formalist experiment with period prose is going, and how Meek is going to pay it off. The writing is simple but truly archaic. Time spent reading untranslated Chaucer, and reading French, are helpful in smoothing the experience.
My dad and sib got a room for eclipse viewing, and I'm invited to roll along if desired. IDK... there's been a lot of schlepping about since my parents started splitting up, and these two-sisters-and-one-parent excursions keep being Weird and A Lot. Maybe I'm sticking with my newer family unit. B's 19th birthday coming up shortly before the eclipse date, and I want him well fussed-over, since his ties with his biomom have definitely been fraying over the last year.
I'm starting so many seeds this spring. I want to fill out the garden, but, as I hope our time here will be coming to an end soon, I don't want to spend a lot of money on it this year; so, as many starts as I can get going! Between new starts and volunteers, I'm getting comical quantities of lupines. The opposite of a problem, lol.
I need to write about recent reading. I've got behind there. RN, I'm trekking through James Meek's "To Calais in Ordinary Time," which I picked up for plague reasons, but am most interested in because I want to see where the formalist experiment with period prose is going, and how Meek is going to pay it off. The writing is simple but truly archaic. Time spent reading untranslated Chaucer, and reading French, are helpful in smoothing the experience.
My dad and sib got a room for eclipse viewing, and I'm invited to roll along if desired. IDK... there's been a lot of schlepping about since my parents started splitting up, and these two-sisters-and-one-parent excursions keep being Weird and A Lot. Maybe I'm sticking with my newer family unit. B's 19th birthday coming up shortly before the eclipse date, and I want him well fussed-over, since his ties with his biomom have definitely been fraying over the last year.
I read MacDonald's memoir-about-T.H. White "H Is For Hawk," and heard that she'd co-authored an SF novel with a thank-you to the fanfic writers of the AO3. So I had to read that.
( spoilers )
( spoilers )
Catching up on my writing-about-reading backlog!
( Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane mysteries by Dorothy Sayers )
( Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane mysteries by Dorothy Sayers )
no subject
Sep. 9th, 2023 03:02 pmThis was very much the right week to start reading the Harriet Vane/Peter Wimsey books. Gaudy Night proves a needed aid.
read Ursula K. Le Guin's Eye of the Heron, which has been on my shelf for a long time. Enjoyed it very much!
It reminds me of: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow; Le Guin's own "The Word for World Is Forest" and The Tombs of Atuan; and Jane Eyre. Passionate young people, communitarian/nonviolent ideology, and the struggle with encroaching power on a penal colony world that's populated by 2/3rds Brazilian mafia dons and 1/3 nonviolent peace activists from the 22nd century.
The final images and discussions of breaking away from the familiar and venturing onward into unknown places, when needed for the attainment of an ideal of peaceful individual freedom and self-actualization, with resulting loss of possessions and social safety net, but gain of self-confidence and inner quiet, resonated with me powerfully.
The xenobotany and xenobiology around the transported human colonists are delightful, as are the language- and cultural-level indicators of the colonists' varied Earth backgrounds.
And, I very much appreciated the well-reasoned trope inversion of the communitarian villagers having better-made goods and crafts than the corrupt, fashy City. Le Guin writes about inequality in trade, and you expect it to lean the one way, but it goes the other, and then you're delighted by how "of course" the surprise direction feels.
It reminds me of: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow; Le Guin's own "The Word for World Is Forest" and The Tombs of Atuan; and Jane Eyre. Passionate young people, communitarian/nonviolent ideology, and the struggle with encroaching power on a penal colony world that's populated by 2/3rds Brazilian mafia dons and 1/3 nonviolent peace activists from the 22nd century.
The final images and discussions of breaking away from the familiar and venturing onward into unknown places, when needed for the attainment of an ideal of peaceful individual freedom and self-actualization, with resulting loss of possessions and social safety net, but gain of self-confidence and inner quiet, resonated with me powerfully.
The xenobotany and xenobiology around the transported human colonists are delightful, as are the language- and cultural-level indicators of the colonists' varied Earth backgrounds.
And, I very much appreciated the well-reasoned trope inversion of the communitarian villagers having better-made goods and crafts than the corrupt, fashy City. Le Guin writes about inequality in trade, and you expect it to lean the one way, but it goes the other, and then you're delighted by how "of course" the surprise direction feels.
no subject
Dec. 2nd, 2022 01:46 pmI read Zen Cho's book "Black Water Sister," and liked it very much. And experienced a lot of feelings about my own grandmother, the spiritualist, who I'd give anything to have back again to talk to.
Watched "Fiddler on the Roof" with A. He'd never seen it. What a beautifully structured work. Still makes me cry, after all this time. I played Chava in a school production when I was 13.
Lots of complicated nostalgia/homesickness emotions of late. Thinking about past loves. Reflecting on the lingering entanglement of my remote, difficult place, and how it's connected to my life and choices. Proofread a wingshooting book project, partnering w my folks' company, written by an old client of theirs who was around a lot when I was growing up. Conservative, gentlemanly. White. Familiar. Sometimes I feel like an exile, other times like an escapee.
Many of my elders are struggling with health declines this season. My father had a mini-stroke, and realized that he needs to get his blood pressure back to safe levels. He told my sister and I that it reminded him of taking acid. And others in the chosen family system have had scares and struggles. We've never gone to that little local hospital so many times in a sixmonth.
I made such a good run at my Vorkosigan WIP, and then life hit me between the eyes, and work, and I lost my momentum.
This is an unfocused little ramble of a post. I'm trying to write more in my own voice.
Watched "Fiddler on the Roof" with A. He'd never seen it. What a beautifully structured work. Still makes me cry, after all this time. I played Chava in a school production when I was 13.
Lots of complicated nostalgia/homesickness emotions of late. Thinking about past loves. Reflecting on the lingering entanglement of my remote, difficult place, and how it's connected to my life and choices. Proofread a wingshooting book project, partnering w my folks' company, written by an old client of theirs who was around a lot when I was growing up. Conservative, gentlemanly. White. Familiar. Sometimes I feel like an exile, other times like an escapee.
Many of my elders are struggling with health declines this season. My father had a mini-stroke, and realized that he needs to get his blood pressure back to safe levels. He told my sister and I that it reminded him of taking acid. And others in the chosen family system have had scares and struggles. We've never gone to that little local hospital so many times in a sixmonth.
I made such a good run at my Vorkosigan WIP, and then life hit me between the eyes, and work, and I lost my momentum.
This is an unfocused little ramble of a post. I'm trying to write more in my own voice.
Reading: The Intuitionist
Jan. 25th, 2022 03:43 pmI should mention that I recently finished Colson Whitehead's debut novel "The Intuitionist," and found it delightful. The book follows the first Black female elevator inspector in the Guild, who belongs to a school of praxis known as Intuitionism. Deliciously, it's never quite clear if Lila Mae et al come from an alternate universe where elevator inspecting is extremely Serious Business socially and politically, or if it merely looms large in the psyches of all of our characters who are deeply involved in the business and its philosophical and historical minutiae.
( spoilers: thoughts on lit fic and twist endings )
( spoilers: thoughts on lit fic and twist endings )
no subject
Aug. 14th, 2021 01:55 pmread Ursula Le Guin's Lavinia today; wept so hard when it ended that I scared myself a little. From -- fulfillment? I don't remember such things hitting me so hard when I used to read all the time as a teenager. Or did I have less fear of that intensity back then?
about the Frederica Quartet
Jun. 7th, 2021 05:16 pmThese books did exactly what I needed them to do, exactly when I needed it. In the last gasp of this awful year-plus of covid, these four novels of A.S. Byatt's engrossed me, helped me think, helped me feel.
As a whole, the group of novels remind me of a looser, more capacious and many-layered, dare I say laminated, version of the same sort of creative project as The Children's Book. The latter makes sense as a refinement and compaction of the former, crushing all of the creativity and intellectual angst and family drama and period detail into a single long novel, instead of breaking the portrait down into four discrete, shorter works. I like the baggier version very well, although I also admire the streamlined punch of The Children's Book.
But these novels are so inclusive, with so much interpolated material, such long discursions presented embedded into the text! Huge chunks of novels, reviews, essays, newspaper pieces, research notes, legal transcripts, reproduced as a part of the narrative. What a rich, impressive, mentally varied style! There's so very much to eat.
Byatt directly thematicizes this very concept, giving her central character Frederica an experimental interest in the idea of creative and personal "laminations." Frederica imagines that if she can seal off separate layers off her thought and person, she can have more of the various identities available to her as a midcentury modern woman. Sometimes, she succeeds in this. But it's the same thing Byatt does with the multimedia multivocality, putting one thing against another to set up resonances, arraying a diverse archive about life and academia and creativity and being female.
( The Virgin in the Garden )
( Babel Tower )
As a whole, the group of novels remind me of a looser, more capacious and many-layered, dare I say laminated, version of the same sort of creative project as The Children's Book. The latter makes sense as a refinement and compaction of the former, crushing all of the creativity and intellectual angst and family drama and period detail into a single long novel, instead of breaking the portrait down into four discrete, shorter works. I like the baggier version very well, although I also admire the streamlined punch of The Children's Book.
But these novels are so inclusive, with so much interpolated material, such long discursions presented embedded into the text! Huge chunks of novels, reviews, essays, newspaper pieces, research notes, legal transcripts, reproduced as a part of the narrative. What a rich, impressive, mentally varied style! There's so very much to eat.
Byatt directly thematicizes this very concept, giving her central character Frederica an experimental interest in the idea of creative and personal "laminations." Frederica imagines that if she can seal off separate layers off her thought and person, she can have more of the various identities available to her as a midcentury modern woman. Sometimes, she succeeds in this. But it's the same thing Byatt does with the multimedia multivocality, putting one thing against another to set up resonances, arraying a diverse archive about life and academia and creativity and being female.
( The Virgin in the Garden )
( Babel Tower )
no subject
May. 21st, 2021 10:38 amI want to take some time to talk about my recent reading!
( Ruth Coker Burks, All The Young Men )
( A.S. Byatt, Angels and Insects )
( Ruth Coker Burks, All The Young Men )
( A.S. Byatt, Angels and Insects )
recent reading
Feb. 19th, 2021 01:40 pmLife's been a bit intense and snowy and cold here, and we're still quite "locked down" in terms of day to day life ... so I've been reading a bit of fiction, to pass the afternoons :)
( The Children's Book, AS Byatt )
( The Awakening and Other Works, Kate Chopin )
( The Children's Book, AS Byatt )
( The Awakening and Other Works, Kate Chopin )
reading/watching
Sep. 25th, 2020 05:30 pmBook read: Ursula K. LeGuin, "City of Illusions," a great break of quiet and thoughtfulness in these trying times. Culminates in a tense sfnal standoff with mindreading aliens, but big chunks of the middle are about wandering alone through the deep forest until you almost forget how to form words.
Show watching: Lovecraft country, funny, tense, clever, audacious, not for the faint of heart, I'm enjoying it wholeheartedly but find I do better if I don't try to bring preconceived notions of the characters and scenarios to bear on each new episode. Take it as the gift it is and spit out any bones you don't want to digest.
A and I have been reading Prydain aloud at bedtimes; we're just getting to the point when Fflewddur acquires Llyan -- or, as A said this morning, when Llyan acquires Fflewddur :)
Prydain-but-almost-origific rec: Daughter of the Sea (149963 words) by Saeriellyn
Chapters: 39/39
Fandom: Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Angharad of Llyr/Geraint
Characters: Angharad of Llyr, Gwydion (Prydain), Regat of Llyr, Eilonwy (Prydain), Achren (Prydain), Arawn (Prydain)
Additional Tags: chronicles of prydain, Prequel, AU, Romance, Novel, Long, Unplanned Pregnancy, Politics, Good versus Evil, Fairy Tale Elements, Alternate Mythology, Feminist Themes, Matriarchy, Romantic Soulmates, lunar biorhythms, no canon knowledge necessary, Stand Alone, High Fantasy, Welsh mythology - Freeform, Non Explicit
Summary:
Show watching: Lovecraft country, funny, tense, clever, audacious, not for the faint of heart, I'm enjoying it wholeheartedly but find I do better if I don't try to bring preconceived notions of the characters and scenarios to bear on each new episode. Take it as the gift it is and spit out any bones you don't want to digest.
A and I have been reading Prydain aloud at bedtimes; we're just getting to the point when Fflewddur acquires Llyan -- or, as A said this morning, when Llyan acquires Fflewddur :)
Prydain-but-almost-origific rec: Daughter of the Sea (149963 words) by Saeriellyn
Chapters: 39/39
Fandom: Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Angharad of Llyr/Geraint
Characters: Angharad of Llyr, Gwydion (Prydain), Regat of Llyr, Eilonwy (Prydain), Achren (Prydain), Arawn (Prydain)
Additional Tags: chronicles of prydain, Prequel, AU, Romance, Novel, Long, Unplanned Pregnancy, Politics, Good versus Evil, Fairy Tale Elements, Alternate Mythology, Feminist Themes, Matriarchy, Romantic Soulmates, lunar biorhythms, no canon knowledge necessary, Stand Alone, High Fantasy, Welsh mythology - Freeform, Non Explicit
Summary:
"A crown is more discomfort than adornment." ~Dallben
Angharad of Llyr, heir to the throne, and her impossible choice between duty and love.
Prequel to The Chronicles of Prydain, full-length novel based on the short story The True Enchanter. Standalone novel/no canon knowledge necessary to enjoy this fic, though it will make it more meaningful.
reading/watching
Jun. 28th, 2020 06:43 pmRewatched Hannibal s1-2 with A, had a great time -- and now we've stalled out partway through s3, almost exactly where I for no particular reason left off watching when s3 first aired. The narrative urgency just ... drops? and it's perfectly nice, but my attention wanders.
Now we're back in Farscape, in the peak of the cloned John era. I continue to be fascinated by the narrative choice to double the protag and just roll with it. They can do two different types of John storylines, without having to juggle continuity. And it lets them hook up John and Aeryn while still maintaining fantastic levels of narrative tension.
Read the first half of Diane Duane's The Book of Night With Moon, a 90s fantasy novel about cat wizards maintaining interdimensional portals in Grand Central Station. I like it better when they're being wizards than when they're being cats. I think bc I live very near to my cats, so fanciful bits about what they get up to when the people are away aren't as interesting to me as stories about their choices in interspecies families. But the prose is lovely, and the magic worldbuilding is pretty and intricate. (I suspect I'd also get good hometown vibes from the setting if my city was New York, not Chicago.)
Now we're back in Farscape, in the peak of the cloned John era. I continue to be fascinated by the narrative choice to double the protag and just roll with it. They can do two different types of John storylines, without having to juggle continuity. And it lets them hook up John and Aeryn while still maintaining fantastic levels of narrative tension.
Read the first half of Diane Duane's The Book of Night With Moon, a 90s fantasy novel about cat wizards maintaining interdimensional portals in Grand Central Station. I like it better when they're being wizards than when they're being cats. I think bc I live very near to my cats, so fanciful bits about what they get up to when the people are away aren't as interesting to me as stories about their choices in interspecies families. But the prose is lovely, and the magic worldbuilding is pretty and intricate. (I suspect I'd also get good hometown vibes from the setting if my city was New York, not Chicago.)
