Skinful of Shadows

[psocoptera]

Continuing my Hugo-ballot reading, Francis Hardinge's A Skinful of Shadows from the YA NotaHugo ProtoLodestar finalists. This was *so good* and I am anticipating a really difficult ranking process when it's voting time. (Maybe it's not surprising that "YA picked out by adults" is turning out to be a mostly-appealing assortment of stuff? (I think we can safely assume that the Hugo nominating demographic has very few actual Y.A.s in it, if any.) I sometimes have issues feeling too old for some YA that is more like being recced for Y.A.s than for adults, but not with these.)

So, what's so great about this one. I knew basically nothing about it going into it and couldn't predict where it was going, which is something I appreciate as an old, jaded reader, a plot original and not-obvious enough to keep me guessing! And then it ended up approaching some tropes I like from interesting angles, so that was fun. (Big spoilers behind this cut: It's sort of a lycanthropy story, without physical transformations. And sort of a multiple-personality story, without any potential ickiness of "is this sensationalizing a real-world thing". ) One thing that I think isn't too spoilery, I really enjoyed the setting at the start of the English Civil War; there was both some fun daily-life detail and a vivid sense of what that historical moment might have felt like to different groups of people. All in all I find myself back on the "I want to read more Hardinge" track again, despite having bounced so hard off of Fly By Night.

Content notes for animal harm, and also, let's say, medical abuse, that I don't have the historical knowledge to label period-typical or not? I guess for that matter the animal harm may be period-typical too, and now I'm having some incoherent thoughts about what work, exactly, "period-typical" is doing in content notes (I wouldn't say "period-typical police murders" or "period-typical transphobia" about something contemporary...). Hm.

Comments

[conuly]

Well, there are two Hardinges I can recommend you try.

If you really loved Skinful of Shadows then you might try Cuckoo Song, because that's another of her sorta-historicals.

Alternatively, my favorite of hers is Face Like Glass, but that's much more similar to Fly by Night, so.

[psocoptera]

Ooh, thank you, I've added some notes accordingly to my things-I-might-read list.

[jedusor]

imo the work "period-typical" usually does is absolving the creator of accusations of problematic content. I would much rather normalize information like "examined" vs "unexamined" and "incidental" vs "major" in content notes.

[psocoptera]

These seem like potentially useful axes, sure, I like that. Could you tell me a little more about "examined", if you would? Like, if characters in the text get upset about the thing, does that count, or if you think the *text* is criticizing the thing even if the characters aren't, or... ? (And, hey, major animal harm, in this book, as long as we're here improving my content notes.)

[jedusor]

Yeah, for me it's more about whether the creator of the thing seems to have considered the topic rather than the characters. What that looks like in practice varies widely. Also, rereading my comment, it sounds accusatory, which I did not intend! I have had no issues with your content warning practices, I was just spitballing off the "period-typical" musings.

[psocoptera]

Haha, no worries, I have a weird fondness for meta-discussion and am always pleased when people humor me with some :)