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After some days of huddling and messed-up sleep patterns, today I got up before 1000hrs. And then proceeded to wander around Athens from noon until four, walking in the relative cool of thirty degrees centigrade. There was a Syrian solidarity march making its way down to Syntagma Square, bongo drums and call-and-response in Arabic, Syrian flags and scarves and banners featuring Assad with a pig's nose or monkey's face.
I've been reading bad lesbian romance and watching New Tricks and The Bourne Identity and the two sequels - Identity is revolutionary in the genre, of course, but I think many of its later imitators, including its own sequels, don't realise that what made it revolutionary wasn't the lean, visually-arresting realism of the fight scenes, or the subdued hues of its colour palette. What made it revolutionary was the fact that it wasn't an action thriller. It worked primarily as a psychological thriller: the focus is on character, mystery, the danger is intimate and personal - Bourne is himself afraid of what he is - as much as it comes from outside.
And Marie is fucking brilliant. Interesting as Nicolette Parsons becomes in the third film - no. I will never forgive the fridging of Marie.
(What the Bourne franchise did right, in all of its instalments, though? The women are smart, and competent, and save themselves. They're not freaking super-assassins, and when the freaking super-assassin tells them to go - they go. And they damn well stay gone.)
Onto the books. But first, a digression. Many of the books I've been reading in the last three or four days are - to make no bones about it - bad books. Narratively and technically naive, relying on familiarity with tropes to fill in the blanks left through lazy and/or careless writing: like much romance, actually.
But sometimes one needs the entertainingly bad.
Books 2012: 142-155
142-145. R.M. Meluch, The Myriad, Wolf Star, The Sagittarius Command, and Strength and Honor. DAW, 2004-2008.
Interesting space opera by a women writer (this is an insufficiently frequent occurence that I find it noteworthy) but marred, however, by clunky prose, some unpleasant rape culture skeeviness, and the fact that once again, the future is American - except for the parts where it's Roman.
Still, I look forward to getting my hands on the next one. Space opera yay!
146-149. Gun Brooke, Protector of the Realm, Rebel's Quest, Warrior's Valor, and Pirate's Fortune. Bold Strokes Books, 2005-2011.
I'm embarrassed to have read these. Bad skiffy lesbian romance. Entertainingly bad, naively bad... Why did I enjoy reading there again?
Oh, right. Women. Nothing but women.
150-154. Xenia Alexiou and Kim Baldwin, Lethal Affairs, Thief of Always, Missing Lynx, Dying to Live and Demons Are Forever. Bold Strokes Books, 2007-2012.
...Ebooks are bad for instant gratification of the popcorn urge. These? SPIES ROMANCE LESBIANS. It's bad. But like crack. Crack with assassinations.
(No, I do not feel this way about heterosexual romance. It is the mere fact of the women having all the screentime that gets me. Women! Being important to each other! Having friendships! Having... really somewhat tedious sex scenes, but that's romance for you. The sex scenes are almost always tedious and serve no other purpose beyond SEX NOW.)
155. Lee Battersby, The Corpse-Rat King. Angry Robot, 2012.
Reviewed for Tor.com. This book has no plot and feels hectic, yet empty. Do not recommend.
I've been reading bad lesbian romance and watching New Tricks and The Bourne Identity and the two sequels - Identity is revolutionary in the genre, of course, but I think many of its later imitators, including its own sequels, don't realise that what made it revolutionary wasn't the lean, visually-arresting realism of the fight scenes, or the subdued hues of its colour palette. What made it revolutionary was the fact that it wasn't an action thriller. It worked primarily as a psychological thriller: the focus is on character, mystery, the danger is intimate and personal - Bourne is himself afraid of what he is - as much as it comes from outside.
And Marie is fucking brilliant. Interesting as Nicolette Parsons becomes in the third film - no. I will never forgive the fridging of Marie.
(What the Bourne franchise did right, in all of its instalments, though? The women are smart, and competent, and save themselves. They're not freaking super-assassins, and when the freaking super-assassin tells them to go - they go. And they damn well stay gone.)
Onto the books. But first, a digression. Many of the books I've been reading in the last three or four days are - to make no bones about it - bad books. Narratively and technically naive, relying on familiarity with tropes to fill in the blanks left through lazy and/or careless writing: like much romance, actually.
But sometimes one needs the entertainingly bad.
Books 2012: 142-155
142-145. R.M. Meluch, The Myriad, Wolf Star, The Sagittarius Command, and Strength and Honor. DAW, 2004-2008.
Interesting space opera by a women writer (this is an insufficiently frequent occurence that I find it noteworthy) but marred, however, by clunky prose, some unpleasant rape culture skeeviness, and the fact that once again, the future is American - except for the parts where it's Roman.
Still, I look forward to getting my hands on the next one. Space opera yay!
146-149. Gun Brooke, Protector of the Realm, Rebel's Quest, Warrior's Valor, and Pirate's Fortune. Bold Strokes Books, 2005-2011.
I'm embarrassed to have read these. Bad skiffy lesbian romance. Entertainingly bad, naively bad... Why did I enjoy reading there again?
Oh, right. Women. Nothing but women.
150-154. Xenia Alexiou and Kim Baldwin, Lethal Affairs, Thief of Always, Missing Lynx, Dying to Live and Demons Are Forever. Bold Strokes Books, 2007-2012.
...Ebooks are bad for instant gratification of the popcorn urge. These? SPIES ROMANCE LESBIANS. It's bad. But like crack. Crack with assassinations.
(No, I do not feel this way about heterosexual romance. It is the mere fact of the women having all the screentime that gets me. Women! Being important to each other! Having friendships! Having... really somewhat tedious sex scenes, but that's romance for you. The sex scenes are almost always tedious and serve no other purpose beyond SEX NOW.)
155. Lee Battersby, The Corpse-Rat King. Angry Robot, 2012.
Reviewed for Tor.com. This book has no plot and feels hectic, yet empty. Do not recommend.
