Cool Stuff I Have Read Recently
Jul. 17th, 2010 01:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dunmurderinThe Man Who Came Early by Poul Anderson. I mentioned this book in reference to other time travel stories about people who end up back in time and have to muddle through as best they can. Usually in these stories, the folks from the future have a decided advantage over the primitive screw-heads of the past. "The Man Who Came Early" doesn't.
The story centers around an American soldier from 1955 (the story was written in 1957) who is stationed in then-modern day Iceland and who ends up back in Saga Era Iceland. The story is told from the POV of one of the Icelanders who finds him and is told about four years after the event. Suffice to say that the modern American doesn't fit in so well in 8th century Iceland, due to a lack of cultural understanding and of any useful skills (or at least what the locals think of as useful skills).
Poul Anderson is one of my favorite classic SF&F authors. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism and his love of the past shows through in this story (and in other works like his fantasy novel, The Merman's Children). Anderson has the ability to really put you in the place of the story. "The Man Who Came Early" is one of those wonderful historical stories that keeps its sense of place while also being accessible to the modern reader.
Confessions of a Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim, is a memoir of her childhood as an actor and specifically about her work on "Little House on the Prairie" where she played Nellie Olson. She also discusses her strange family life growing up (her parents were actors AND Canadians!) and also how playing Nellie helped aid her recovery from childhood sexual abuse. The book is very, very funny and while I remember despising Nellie Olson, I love Alison Arngrim. Those with abuse triggers may want to tread carefully when reading this book, while most of it concerns the show and Alison's acting career the sections about abuse -- particularly when she confronts her abuser -- can be wrenching.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett. For those white writers who fear writing characters of color lest they get things horribly wrong? Read this book. Kathryn Stockett's book isn't perfect but it is a very good example of how to get things right (then again, I'm a white woman so take that with a grain of salt).
Stockett's story concerns the lives of three women in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi. Two of them, Aibileen and Minny, are maids in the homes of wealthy white women. Aibileen is raising her 17th white child, a young girl largely neglected by her own mother, shortly after the loss of her adult son. Minny is raising three children and dealing with an abusive husband as well as the fact that she has a reputation for 'mouthing off' to white women. The third character, Skeeter, is a young white woman who has returned home from college and who is trying to find out what happened to Constantine, the maid who raised her.
The book does a very good job of showing the tensions of the time period in overt and in subtle ways. It also demonstrates the sheer perversity of the Jim Crow attitudes -- one of the subplots involves the local Head Mean Girl/Snooty Bitch convincing Aibileen's employer to put in a second bathroom in the garage for the maid since it's not right for blacks and whites to share a toilet. Of course, she has no trouble eating food that blacks prepare for her but god forbid their buttocks share a toilet seat!
While the book doesn't end with all sides joining hands and singing Kumbaya as they share a bathroom together, the characters all end up in a better place than they were when they started.
Lion's Blood by Stephen Barnes. An alternate history novel wherein Islamic Africa is the major world power and Europe is a tribal and 'backward' place. The main characters are Kai, the son of a wealthy black landowner and Aidan, a young white man captured in Ireland and sold into slavery along with his mother and sister. The book takes place in the 1870s.
I'm not versed enough in the history of the time to say how accurate Barnes's point of departure and worldbuilding is, but the book *feels* right. The worldbuilding makes sense in and of itself, even if history might not have played out that way really. The book starts off from Aidan's POV in Ireland prior to his being abducted by Norsemen and switches back and forth between Aidan and Kai's perspectives. Both characters are well-drawn, realistic and sympathetic. There's a sequel, Zulu's Heart, that I'm on the lookout for as well.
The story centers around an American soldier from 1955 (the story was written in 1957) who is stationed in then-modern day Iceland and who ends up back in Saga Era Iceland. The story is told from the POV of one of the Icelanders who finds him and is told about four years after the event. Suffice to say that the modern American doesn't fit in so well in 8th century Iceland, due to a lack of cultural understanding and of any useful skills (or at least what the locals think of as useful skills).
Poul Anderson is one of my favorite classic SF&F authors. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism and his love of the past shows through in this story (and in other works like his fantasy novel, The Merman's Children). Anderson has the ability to really put you in the place of the story. "The Man Who Came Early" is one of those wonderful historical stories that keeps its sense of place while also being accessible to the modern reader.
Confessions of a Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim, is a memoir of her childhood as an actor and specifically about her work on "Little House on the Prairie" where she played Nellie Olson. She also discusses her strange family life growing up (her parents were actors AND Canadians!) and also how playing Nellie helped aid her recovery from childhood sexual abuse. The book is very, very funny and while I remember despising Nellie Olson, I love Alison Arngrim. Those with abuse triggers may want to tread carefully when reading this book, while most of it concerns the show and Alison's acting career the sections about abuse -- particularly when she confronts her abuser -- can be wrenching.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett. For those white writers who fear writing characters of color lest they get things horribly wrong? Read this book. Kathryn Stockett's book isn't perfect but it is a very good example of how to get things right (then again, I'm a white woman so take that with a grain of salt).
Stockett's story concerns the lives of three women in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi. Two of them, Aibileen and Minny, are maids in the homes of wealthy white women. Aibileen is raising her 17th white child, a young girl largely neglected by her own mother, shortly after the loss of her adult son. Minny is raising three children and dealing with an abusive husband as well as the fact that she has a reputation for 'mouthing off' to white women. The third character, Skeeter, is a young white woman who has returned home from college and who is trying to find out what happened to Constantine, the maid who raised her.
The book does a very good job of showing the tensions of the time period in overt and in subtle ways. It also demonstrates the sheer perversity of the Jim Crow attitudes -- one of the subplots involves the local Head Mean Girl/Snooty Bitch convincing Aibileen's employer to put in a second bathroom in the garage for the maid since it's not right for blacks and whites to share a toilet. Of course, she has no trouble eating food that blacks prepare for her but god forbid their buttocks share a toilet seat!
While the book doesn't end with all sides joining hands and singing Kumbaya as they share a bathroom together, the characters all end up in a better place than they were when they started.
Lion's Blood by Stephen Barnes. An alternate history novel wherein Islamic Africa is the major world power and Europe is a tribal and 'backward' place. The main characters are Kai, the son of a wealthy black landowner and Aidan, a young white man captured in Ireland and sold into slavery along with his mother and sister. The book takes place in the 1870s.
I'm not versed enough in the history of the time to say how accurate Barnes's point of departure and worldbuilding is, but the book *feels* right. The worldbuilding makes sense in and of itself, even if history might not have played out that way really. The book starts off from Aidan's POV in Ireland prior to his being abducted by Norsemen and switches back and forth between Aidan and Kai's perspectives. Both characters are well-drawn, realistic and sympathetic. There's a sequel, Zulu's Heart, that I'm on the lookout for as well.
