ase

If I do not post this now I will never finish it.

The Vagina Monologues (Eve Ensler): The play which gets annual stage time on college campuses (and youtube). Since it's a play, it really should be seen, not read, to get the full effect. However, I keep brilliantly noticing it's playing about a week after the performance(s).

Too much girly feelings-sharing makes me nervous. I know I have schizophrenic trust issues, and I mostly accept this. The Vagina Monologues are all about sharing your feelings, and getting a little TMI, and safe spaces, and it probably says something that my favorite piece was "Because He Liked To Look At It", which is one of the funny pieces, not one of the Deeply Tragical monologues. (Links: YouTube - and it says a thing that I only got one hit on that monologue - and text.) Letting it all hang out goes against my grain, unless it's done with courtesy, intelligence and humor that cuts sharper and quicker than rage.

Star Wars: X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar (Aaron Allston): Wedge Antilles breaks up with girlfriend Qwi Xux, and is conveniently assigned to a diplomatic mission on a pilot-lovin' planet with which the New Republic would really like an alliance. Recommended after romance complaints for Wedge-and-Iella content. Complete fluff. Allston has a weakness for repetition that drives me nuts, and could really use a copy editor to clean up sentences like, "she was beautiful, but it was not her beauty that jolted Wedge - not her beauty that made him feel as though he had taken a punch to the gut."

The romance: it was a B-plot in an action story and did what it was supposed to, which is give two secondary characters a happy relationship. I was surprised by how little bearing it had on the A-plot; "Wedge and Iella in love" could have been "Wedge and Iella in best friends forever land" with much the same impact on the main action story.

Plot comments: pilots, no Jedi. Flying, no fathers. Comedy, not tragedy. Deep like the puddles you happily splash through in your small yellow rainboots. If there's a message or theme, it is that you should treat people with respect and honor, and they'll reward you with courage, love, and gaudy cloaks you want to burn. And nothing don't mean nothing if it ain't free.

Edit: Shoutout to scifantasy for being a total fanboy and correcting the title.

Farthing (Jo Walton / papersky): A prominent politician is murdered in 1949 Britain, eight years after a peace settlement with Nazi Germany.

By the way, this is alternate history.

( I've read most of Walton's novels to date, because how can you not root for an author whose usenet sig reads, I kissed a kif at Kefk? Really solid fun. )

Glasshouse (Charles Stross): A postop memory surgery job decides to participate in a psychology experiment simulating pre-Acceleration social dynamics.

( Readable, but not memorable. )

Conclusions? Rec for the SF crowd; not running down the street trying to shove this down people's throats. Adequate storytelling.

In the Bleak Midwinter (Julia Spencer-Fleming):
Live son of dead girl:
detective complications.
Snow sweeps Millers Kill.
A baby on the church steps brings together Police chief Russ Van Alstyne and Episcopalian priest Clare Fergusson in an investigation that points at the most and least respected families of small town Miller's Kill. (Together, they fight crime!) Kill is an example of borrowing from Dutch, and refers to a creek. The doubled English meaning is merely convenient for mystery writers.

( Cut for spoilers and length. Together, they fight crime! )

Conclusions: I would rec this to romance readers looking for a mystery; I might rec this to mystery readers who don't mind romance; I am saving the rest of the series for trashy travel reading, or any time I want an excuse to displace some yelling about characters flying in the face of sense. The blurbs are compelling, and the characters given sufficient backstory and depth that I am curious about what happens next ("together, they fight crime!"), but my curiosity is tempered by the occasional character idiocy.