octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

I hadn't read this particular Potter story before, and though it's more substantial than most of them when it comes to story, it doesn't quite have the charm of the rest. I don't care that much about Pigling Bland or the idiotic Pigwig, and if any piglet deserved to be turned into bacon it is tiresome little Alexander. The whole litter is redeemed, however, by the fact that one of the piglets has been named Suck-suck. That particular detail is terrible and entertaining all at once.

I read and reviewed each of the Potter stories in here separately, so this is basically just for my own records. The rating for the collection is an average of the individual ratings: 4 stars each for Benjamin Bunny and Jeremy Fisher (the latter being the stand-out of the collection), 3 stars for Tom Kitten; and finally Pigling Bland who at 2 stars really was a bit bland and should probably be turned into bacon, just for entertainment value.

A collection of essays and criticism on the theme of authorial exclusion - how being kept from a full immersion in craft has materially disadvantaged certain sets of writers. This is manifested in what Olsen calls silences: those long periods in an author's life where nothing is written or published because other aspects of life take priority. There's a strong focus on how poverty keeps artists from their craft, and how impoverished creators are by necessity forced to concern themselves more with earning a living than with getting on with the business of creation. The biggest example Olsen uses to support this is a novella I'd never heard of before: Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis, which tells the story of an iron-labourer and sculptor who comes to a terrible end, his potentially genius art nearly all gone and himself driven to suicide by deprivation and injustice. (The excerpts included are excellent, I'm going to have to find a copy.)

Naturally poverty is affected by a number of other factors - intersections with race and gender, for example - and the bulk of the silences that Olsen is concerned with are those of women, who have historically been so burdened by the care of others that they've been unable to be artists in the same uninterrupted manner that their husbands enjoyed. Olsen backs up her argument with a mountain of quotations and excerpts from primary sources, conveying both through these women and her own first-hand experience the despair of women writers who've been forced into the silences that so undermine their work. It's painful and fascinating reading.

Likeable YA time travel story, albeit one that borrows very heavily from Octavia Butler's far superior Kindred. Sophie, looking for an adventure, goes through a maze and ends up 100 years back in time, mistaken for a slave by her own relations. As is (realistically) always the case in these stories, she finds her situation both educational and unpleasant. The historical portions of the story are well-told and seem to be well-researched, as far as I can tell from my own admittedly ignorant perspective. Far less convincing is the 1960 frame story of a difficult mother and absent father, and in both 1860 and 1960 Sophie's relationship with her apparent and actual fathers is so very minimalistic it almost becomes a plot hole in itself.

A really enjoyable retelling of the goose girl fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm, one that doesn't shrink from the horrible bit (I won't say what, but anyone familiar with the original will know what it is and I'm not talking about the nail-barrel). I have to admit it took a little while for the main character, Ani, to grow on me - she improved markedly when out of her element in Bayern - but on the whole the characterisation was all very well done. Even nasty Selia was convincingly evil, and convincingly capable as well - she nearly won, and it was all because of excellent preparation and planning. If only she'd been able to use her powers for good... even knowing how she ended up, I found her genuinely threatening. For a story that relies on secret identities, though, it was clear who the other one was from the moment he arrived, and the ruse that exposed Selia in the end was so painfully obvious I was surprised that she fell for it.

A really very funny collection taken from Barry's long-running cartoon Ernie Pook's Comeek, centred round the character of Marlys. All the kids here, Marlys included, are absolutely children - they're not grown-ups with childish faces, they're exactly as flighty and imaginative and ridiculous as children actually are. (Not that I know any children, frankly I make a point of it. But I remember being one, along with my sister, and Marlys and co. are absolutely familiar.) It's all extremely recognisable, whether the kids are trying to make friends with a neighbour's dog, doing book reports for school, or sneaking off to go swimming with the good towels. The more you read through, the more you realise just how accomplished it all is.

First off I have to say this: what an appalling cover for such an excellent book. I can't help but look at it and think of how in Native Tongue women's interests are trivialised and made to appear ridiculous by men, and while I don't know who approved and created that cover they couldn't have made this book look more ridiculous if they'd tried.

That being said, this is really, profoundly excellent. I had some initial trouble with the premise (all rights taken away from women, making them essentially the property of men) but, as in The Handmaid's Tale (even more so, actually) the thought processes of the men are so nastily, selfishly, contemptuously consistent that it becomes all too horribly believable. By the end, though, I was laughing my arse off in utter delight, because of course it would play out that way, of course! For all the cant from the men in this world about how feminism has destroyed women, it becomes crystal clear by that ending as to how the lack of feminism has destroyed men, how much sense and subtlety and imagination it's drained from them. And the world the women are bringing into being via language, the way they've learnt to manipulate that language into reality, is absolutely fascinating. Nazareth, especially, is outstanding, but what resistance fighters these women are. Absolutely recommended.

One of my favourite Star Trek novels, primarily I think because of the sustained focus on character. The frame story's a little thin, but that's forgivable here because it's not really the point - it's merely an excuse to give the backstory of all the supporting characters of Voyager. They're all decently well-written, but naturally some are more interesting than others and the real stand-out here is Tuvok. I may be biased because he's one of my favourite characters on the series anyway, but Taylor's building of his background is both immensely believable and immensely interesting. It can't have been easy trying to form a regular Vulcan character after the enormity that is Spock, but Tuvok is completely unlike him and yet still as fascinating, and his desert sojourn especially is outstanding. Worth reading for that alone.

Look, Forster is an excellent writer - he is particularly and lethally observant - and this short novel is no exception. There's certainly an awareness of the black humour behind the snobbery and selfishness of all these terrible people, and I can enjoy reading it and admire the skill of it without loving the result. Basically I find it very hard to love a book so stuffed full of extremely silly people, and with the best will in the world the coach accident at the end is high melodrama at best. (If only the book had wallowed fully in that drama and taken out a few more of the characters...)

This might actually be the first western I've ever read, and I only read it to tick off Task 7 of BookRiot's 2018 Read Harder Challenge. And you know what, I'm glad I did. Leonard's writing is pacy and (at its height) compulsively readable, and for most of these seven stories I was genuinely interested. However, given that it's a short story collection I found, as is often the case, that I liked some stories more than others. For example "The Captives" was really excellent, the high point here I think, but I can't say I cared much for "Under the Friar's Ledge". On the whole, though, the quality was pretty high. I finish this task not entirely convinced that I'm going to be a western convert from here on out, but thinking that I'd definitely like to read more of this particular author.