Today I have been mostly reading a book
Dec. 5th, 2009 05:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethand wishing I had a working light other than the ceiling one.
Peacekeeper, but Laura E Reeve.
It was in the science fiction section with a picture of a woman with a big gun on the front cover. So I bought it.
Surprise, the picture is inaccurate. There was not in fact much shooting, or indeed a bit I can remember where she had a big gun. Also, the cover lady is blonde, and I think the book lady is dark. Why they always do that?
... because then I bought the book. Oh well.
What it does have is fun and interesting world building. It's all familiar bits, but nicely arranged. There's interesting had with electronic monitoring, privacy, remote bots, and every surface being a display surface. The technical constraints of starships in this 'verse are well sketched in, the FTL constraints shape the worlds, and the weapons are central. But rather than being a book about shooting things, it's a book about getting rid of weapons too terrible to use. Cool.
Central female character still isn't quite what I was looking for. She's someone things happen to. She seems competent enough, but instead of building up to her figuring things out and saving the day, it builds up to her male business partner picking up his messages and saving her. Not quite what I was hoping for, really. The gender ratio is skewed - more male characters than female, and I believe *spoiler* by the end Major Ari was the only female that wasn't evil... yeah, there were three other women, but they all turned out to be evil, and tried to kill her. Oh, except for the one that never met her, just provided exposition that never went anywhere to the male business partner. Other than that, evil. This is only slightly mitigated by the fact they weren't competing romantically. /spoiler. It was all a bit passive. I mean she didn't even defeat any of team evil, in the end she just watched one blow themselves up. I had hopes for some daring do. There were a couple of semi daring rescues though. That was a bit cool.
A couple of things I personally could have stood to be warned about before reading: Her main battle is an internal struggle leading up to asking for treatment for addiction to drugs and alcohol. Which means there's quite a lot of concentrating on drugs and alcohol, and talking about addicts, and it's not pleasant. I like it that she decides to get treatment, but I have to have my resilient brain on to read about these topics at all. Which fortunately was true today.
The other creepy bit is there's a moment in the place they dump her while passed out drunk where neither she nor the reader really knows if she has been raped. That's... Well, for one, I could have lived without that, for another, it's a very creepy thing to have possible in a place with orderlies and an admissions process. It's saying more about me that the bits with the plain old violence don't bother me none but I miss the fic style warnings for those other topics. It's just if I pick up a military SF book I know there will be violence.
I have a vague feeling male:female was about 2:1. I'm not sure, plus some of the names are unfamiliar and I might have missed a pronoun. It passes the Bechdel bunches of times, women talk to each other about the plot.
About the plot: I had it figured out by page *spoiler* 21. Which, unfortunately, was the page which introduced the problem. This is because (a) nominative causality (b) narrative causality and (c) lack of spares. The author played fair with the clues: When everything turns out to be relevant it's not actually hard to figure. Also, naming your character after a movie villain, not subtle. But that wasn't much of a problem because then you could see the clues even when the characters missed them and watch how things worked out. ... which might contribute to me feeling the characters were passive and reactive, because come on, I know the ending! Hurry up and notice! Except characters obviously have more to think about. And I was dissatisfied with how slowly they picked up their messages, mostly because it was obvious every message mentioned was going to be key to the plot, because it was that kind of plot. So they were just sitting around being oblivious with the answers in their inbox. So it felt more like a second reading than a first reading, sort of.
Possibly I just read too much. It's like Data and the Sherlock Holmes adventure in the holodeck.
At the moment the world building is interesting me more than the character building. But I'll read the next one in the series if I find it.
Possibly I could find a whole bunch more women-with-guns-and-spaceships if I read ones written by men. I just want to avoid some of the more common problems. I mean, there was a book series recommended to me by a guy at the NSFG that he said had lots of strong women characters and I'd like it. They're all sex maniacs, but it's because of the plot! So clearly that's okay! :eyeroll: *facepalm*
On the plus side I have a women-with-guns-and-spaceships book by an author I know I'll like all waiting for me to read next. But I can't read it yet. Because, despite the poorly set out list on the inside cover, it's not the next one in the series after the ones I read already, there's a whole other book I don't got yet. Yaay! More good books! Now I just have to hunt them down.
Peacekeeper, but Laura E Reeve.
It was in the science fiction section with a picture of a woman with a big gun on the front cover. So I bought it.
Surprise, the picture is inaccurate. There was not in fact much shooting, or indeed a bit I can remember where she had a big gun. Also, the cover lady is blonde, and I think the book lady is dark. Why they always do that?
... because then I bought the book. Oh well.
What it does have is fun and interesting world building. It's all familiar bits, but nicely arranged. There's interesting had with electronic monitoring, privacy, remote bots, and every surface being a display surface. The technical constraints of starships in this 'verse are well sketched in, the FTL constraints shape the worlds, and the weapons are central. But rather than being a book about shooting things, it's a book about getting rid of weapons too terrible to use. Cool.
Central female character still isn't quite what I was looking for. She's someone things happen to. She seems competent enough, but instead of building up to her figuring things out and saving the day, it builds up to her male business partner picking up his messages and saving her. Not quite what I was hoping for, really. The gender ratio is skewed - more male characters than female, and I believe *spoiler* by the end Major Ari was the only female that wasn't evil... yeah, there were three other women, but they all turned out to be evil, and tried to kill her. Oh, except for the one that never met her, just provided exposition that never went anywhere to the male business partner. Other than that, evil. This is only slightly mitigated by the fact they weren't competing romantically. /spoiler. It was all a bit passive. I mean she didn't even defeat any of team evil, in the end she just watched one blow themselves up. I had hopes for some daring do. There were a couple of semi daring rescues though. That was a bit cool.
A couple of things I personally could have stood to be warned about before reading: Her main battle is an internal struggle leading up to asking for treatment for addiction to drugs and alcohol. Which means there's quite a lot of concentrating on drugs and alcohol, and talking about addicts, and it's not pleasant. I like it that she decides to get treatment, but I have to have my resilient brain on to read about these topics at all. Which fortunately was true today.
The other creepy bit is there's a moment in the place they dump her while passed out drunk where neither she nor the reader really knows if she has been raped. That's... Well, for one, I could have lived without that, for another, it's a very creepy thing to have possible in a place with orderlies and an admissions process. It's saying more about me that the bits with the plain old violence don't bother me none but I miss the fic style warnings for those other topics. It's just if I pick up a military SF book I know there will be violence.
I have a vague feeling male:female was about 2:1. I'm not sure, plus some of the names are unfamiliar and I might have missed a pronoun. It passes the Bechdel bunches of times, women talk to each other about the plot.
About the plot: I had it figured out by page *spoiler* 21. Which, unfortunately, was the page which introduced the problem. This is because (a) nominative causality (b) narrative causality and (c) lack of spares. The author played fair with the clues: When everything turns out to be relevant it's not actually hard to figure. Also, naming your character after a movie villain, not subtle. But that wasn't much of a problem because then you could see the clues even when the characters missed them and watch how things worked out. ... which might contribute to me feeling the characters were passive and reactive, because come on, I know the ending! Hurry up and notice! Except characters obviously have more to think about. And I was dissatisfied with how slowly they picked up their messages, mostly because it was obvious every message mentioned was going to be key to the plot, because it was that kind of plot. So they were just sitting around being oblivious with the answers in their inbox. So it felt more like a second reading than a first reading, sort of.
Possibly I just read too much. It's like Data and the Sherlock Holmes adventure in the holodeck.
At the moment the world building is interesting me more than the character building. But I'll read the next one in the series if I find it.
Possibly I could find a whole bunch more women-with-guns-and-spaceships if I read ones written by men. I just want to avoid some of the more common problems. I mean, there was a book series recommended to me by a guy at the NSFG that he said had lots of strong women characters and I'd like it. They're all sex maniacs, but it's because of the plot! So clearly that's okay! :eyeroll: *facepalm*
On the plus side I have a women-with-guns-and-spaceships book by an author I know I'll like all waiting for me to read next. But I can't read it yet. Because, despite the poorly set out list on the inside cover, it's not the next one in the series after the ones I read already, there's a whole other book I don't got yet. Yaay! More good books! Now I just have to hunt them down.