books by people I know
Dec. 15th, 2013 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraThis thing where I review every book I read suddenly becomes a little scarier when I'm reading something by someone I know personally, like, ack, what if I didn't like it, would I say so? Fortunately that's not a problem at this time!
Freaks by Julie Love is a middle-grade "real world + powers" novel, which - oh, look, I left my first-ever Amazon review, I'm just going to paste it in: "The Girl With The Silver Eyes" was one of my favorite books when I was in elementary school, and this hits the same sweet spot. I love superhero origin stories, and I love realistic, appealing kids navigating the social world, so kids with clever, inventive powers, discovering themselves and becoming friends and working as a team - magic! My only criticism is that I'd really like to see a "Freakquel" and I don't see any mention of one. I would recommend this to people who liked R.J. Palacio's "Wonder" or Rebecca Stead's "When You Reach Me" or the aforementioned "Girl With The Silver Eyes". To add a little more, one thing I particularly liked was the way that the powers are superpowers, but a powered wheelchair is also a kind of superpower, a loving grandmother is also a kind of superpower, etc.
I think I only know one contributer to the anthology Puzzle Box in person, but I'm pretty sure I know of a couple more of them in online fandom circles. I had actually meant to buy The Ships We Sail, but there was a technical snafu, which I fully intend to finish sorting out (they were extremely prompt about replying about it, I was just like, hrm, now that I have Puzzle Box right here on my phone already I can not actually resist *reading* it now), so, Puzzle Box. About which I have thoughts. Namely, I know that conventional wisdom is that Original Writing is the arete of writing and fanfiction is just sort of training wheels or masturbation or whatever. But dude, my already-high appreciation of this excellent anthology only multiplied when I realized that more than one of the stories was a serial-number file-off, because a) a story that was pretty good was now really interesting as commentary on source, a story that I wasn't so into was now interesting at all in that light, and b) the whole anthology became a sort of delicious game, like, which other of these stories might be file-offs? Could the *whole anthology be*? Is that the puzzle of this Puzzle Box? I maaaaay actually have clapped my hands in glee. Fortunately the toddler probably figured I was talking to him. Very spoilery thoughts on individual stories and guesses about fandoms under a spoiler cut.
Media Nocte, by Rawles Marie Lumumba - I really liked this as a superhero action story, although I wasn't reading it as a romance (maybe the age difference?), so the end caught me off-guard a bit. Would it make more sense if I knew it was a file-off for some fanon pairing? No guesses, though, except "maybe something DC" because I don't really know DC superhero fandom.
2 + 1 = 2, by Miriam Oudin - One of my favorite stories in the collection, I thought this had a really inventive and powerful premise. Well, two, I mean, either of the addictive, overwhelmingly lovely Otherworld and the switching-out is a gold-star idea, the combination was dynamite. Fandom? No clue.
Captain Fancyknickers and the Murkrat Irregulars, by Paul Tuttle Starr - I was less into this one (if the pirate ship was so awesome, why didn't they, like, commandeer it rather than just letting them go? confused.) but I did enjoy picturing the captain as the sexy cat-captain lady from Treasure Planet.
The Chalice of Kel, by Meg Belviso - Pastiche rather than fandom? I mean, it had that feel, of - what do I even mean. Olde timey horror like Dracula or Frankenstein.
Ahmednagar, by Whitney Bishop - I liked this one a lot. The ship was out of Firefly, but the characters just felt very much like themselves. (Or were they secretly somebody else? I remember when it occurred to me that Cassie Clare's first Mortal Instruments book could be read as a take on what it would have been like if Han rather than Luke was found to be Leia's brother, and it was suddenly so much more interesting. Fandom is like a spice, man, it's like adding that little perk of pepper to your dish, even if it's not heavy it just makes things better.)
The Hand and the Eye, by Ashley Lierman - The Buffy file-off that first aroused my suspicions. More of a "Tales of the Slayers" than actual TV characters, but, very Buffyverse. Fun!
Drinker Tailor Doctor Spy, by Whitney Reynolds - I never read DS9 fic (maybe a few isolated Kira/Odo stories, but I didn't follow the fandom at all) but this is so patently Bashir/Garak that I don't even need to have. Except the AO3 version would have had more explicit sex, and I am the kind of person who may in fact go see if I can find it.
Moxie, by Alison Wilgus - My other favorite. A solid story with some vivid visual descriptions with its serial numbers removed (I loved the "night at sea" stuff), a gorgeous, perfect present-day America Mulan AU with its mask removed. (Uh, that was a very mixed metaphor. Too much squee for one metaphor, sorry.)
Moon and Memory, by Laura Blackwell - I found this really confusing. Like, I could sort of see what they were getting at, and I theoretically liked the premise, and yet I found it really hard to follow, and emotionally unsatisfying. Would it have made more sense as fanfiction? Possibly... Percy Jackson or something?
Start All Over Again, by Jenifer K. Leigh - I totally failed to connect with this story, like, I just didn't feel any urgency or investment in it, but Erik has a helmet and talks about mutations, so I'm pretty sure who he's got to be, which would make Bob Charles, and Leah and Gloria... Angel and Raven, I guess?
The Angels of Lost Days, by E. Steen Comer - More Olde Timey horror, maybe Edgar Allen Poe? I sort of felt like I didn't get the punchline. Okay, no, wait, this is maybe a stretch, but web research has turned up an interesting possibility and if it *did* happen to be right, wow, that is really clever and awesome. Yves Jacquemard wrote a mystery novel, The Eleventh Little Indian, that was itself "fanfic" for Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, which is of course about a bunch of people dying in various "poetic justice" sort of ways, and so in "Angels", all the inventive "time" deaths, and "who is the eleventh man" - okay, see, I really did not care about this story just as a story, but trying to unravel the puzzle of it, this is so much fun! And if it's all just a coincidence, who cares, I have a really great theory going here!
Now how am I going to boil all that down for an Amazon review, without mentioning fanfic (since that sort of seems like it should be, I don't know, a secret bonus for those who know, or something.)
Freaks by Julie Love is a middle-grade "real world + powers" novel, which - oh, look, I left my first-ever Amazon review, I'm just going to paste it in: "The Girl With The Silver Eyes" was one of my favorite books when I was in elementary school, and this hits the same sweet spot. I love superhero origin stories, and I love realistic, appealing kids navigating the social world, so kids with clever, inventive powers, discovering themselves and becoming friends and working as a team - magic! My only criticism is that I'd really like to see a "Freakquel" and I don't see any mention of one. I would recommend this to people who liked R.J. Palacio's "Wonder" or Rebecca Stead's "When You Reach Me" or the aforementioned "Girl With The Silver Eyes". To add a little more, one thing I particularly liked was the way that the powers are superpowers, but a powered wheelchair is also a kind of superpower, a loving grandmother is also a kind of superpower, etc.
I think I only know one contributer to the anthology Puzzle Box in person, but I'm pretty sure I know of a couple more of them in online fandom circles. I had actually meant to buy The Ships We Sail, but there was a technical snafu, which I fully intend to finish sorting out (they were extremely prompt about replying about it, I was just like, hrm, now that I have Puzzle Box right here on my phone already I can not actually resist *reading* it now), so, Puzzle Box. About which I have thoughts. Namely, I know that conventional wisdom is that Original Writing is the arete of writing and fanfiction is just sort of training wheels or masturbation or whatever. But dude, my already-high appreciation of this excellent anthology only multiplied when I realized that more than one of the stories was a serial-number file-off, because a) a story that was pretty good was now really interesting as commentary on source, a story that I wasn't so into was now interesting at all in that light, and b) the whole anthology became a sort of delicious game, like, which other of these stories might be file-offs? Could the *whole anthology be*? Is that the puzzle of this Puzzle Box? I maaaaay actually have clapped my hands in glee. Fortunately the toddler probably figured I was talking to him. Very spoilery thoughts on individual stories and guesses about fandoms under a spoiler cut.
Media Nocte, by Rawles Marie Lumumba - I really liked this as a superhero action story, although I wasn't reading it as a romance (maybe the age difference?), so the end caught me off-guard a bit. Would it make more sense if I knew it was a file-off for some fanon pairing? No guesses, though, except "maybe something DC" because I don't really know DC superhero fandom.
2 + 1 = 2, by Miriam Oudin - One of my favorite stories in the collection, I thought this had a really inventive and powerful premise. Well, two, I mean, either of the addictive, overwhelmingly lovely Otherworld and the switching-out is a gold-star idea, the combination was dynamite. Fandom? No clue.
Captain Fancyknickers and the Murkrat Irregulars, by Paul Tuttle Starr - I was less into this one (if the pirate ship was so awesome, why didn't they, like, commandeer it rather than just letting them go? confused.) but I did enjoy picturing the captain as the sexy cat-captain lady from Treasure Planet.
The Chalice of Kel, by Meg Belviso - Pastiche rather than fandom? I mean, it had that feel, of - what do I even mean. Olde timey horror like Dracula or Frankenstein.
Ahmednagar, by Whitney Bishop - I liked this one a lot. The ship was out of Firefly, but the characters just felt very much like themselves. (Or were they secretly somebody else? I remember when it occurred to me that Cassie Clare's first Mortal Instruments book could be read as a take on what it would have been like if Han rather than Luke was found to be Leia's brother, and it was suddenly so much more interesting. Fandom is like a spice, man, it's like adding that little perk of pepper to your dish, even if it's not heavy it just makes things better.)
The Hand and the Eye, by Ashley Lierman - The Buffy file-off that first aroused my suspicions. More of a "Tales of the Slayers" than actual TV characters, but, very Buffyverse. Fun!
Drinker Tailor Doctor Spy, by Whitney Reynolds - I never read DS9 fic (maybe a few isolated Kira/Odo stories, but I didn't follow the fandom at all) but this is so patently Bashir/Garak that I don't even need to have. Except the AO3 version would have had more explicit sex, and I am the kind of person who may in fact go see if I can find it.
Moxie, by Alison Wilgus - My other favorite. A solid story with some vivid visual descriptions with its serial numbers removed (I loved the "night at sea" stuff), a gorgeous, perfect present-day America Mulan AU with its mask removed. (Uh, that was a very mixed metaphor. Too much squee for one metaphor, sorry.)
Moon and Memory, by Laura Blackwell - I found this really confusing. Like, I could sort of see what they were getting at, and I theoretically liked the premise, and yet I found it really hard to follow, and emotionally unsatisfying. Would it have made more sense as fanfiction? Possibly... Percy Jackson or something?
Start All Over Again, by Jenifer K. Leigh - I totally failed to connect with this story, like, I just didn't feel any urgency or investment in it, but Erik has a helmet and talks about mutations, so I'm pretty sure who he's got to be, which would make Bob Charles, and Leah and Gloria... Angel and Raven, I guess?
The Angels of Lost Days, by E. Steen Comer - More Olde Timey horror, maybe Edgar Allen Poe? I sort of felt like I didn't get the punchline. Okay, no, wait, this is maybe a stretch, but web research has turned up an interesting possibility and if it *did* happen to be right, wow, that is really clever and awesome. Yves Jacquemard wrote a mystery novel, The Eleventh Little Indian, that was itself "fanfic" for Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, which is of course about a bunch of people dying in various "poetic justice" sort of ways, and so in "Angels", all the inventive "time" deaths, and "who is the eleventh man" - okay, see, I really did not care about this story just as a story, but trying to unravel the puzzle of it, this is so much fun! And if it's all just a coincidence, who cares, I have a really great theory going here!
Now how am I going to boil all that down for an Amazon review, without mentioning fanfic (since that sort of seems like it should be, I don't know, a secret bonus for those who know, or something.)
