1767

That's the number of books (some of them duplicates, as many are galleys/ARCs and then final versions) that I currently have here in my possession. I knew it was somewhere around 1700, but I wasn't for sure how close it was to that. I suspect I'll reach 2000 either later this year or early next, depending on how many review copies I continue to receive and whether or not I spend as much money buying books (especially imports) this year.

What about you? What's the approximate size of your personal library?

January 11-17 Reads

I think for a while at least, I'll try to have a regular Saturday post updating my reading list for that week, with short commentaries in case I don't end up writing a review of that book soon afterward.

6 Carlos Ruiz Zafón, El Juego del Ángel (re-read) - Posted a second review of it on Tuesday.

7 Shaun Tan, Tales from Outer Suburbia - Although I am uncertain if I will attempt a review, I did enjoy this new book of his quite a bit. Thought the writing came close to the wonderful weirdness of the images, although the stories didn't quite have the same impact on me as did his The Arrival. Still a book I'd recommend for most to read.

8 James Morrow, Shambling Towards Hiroshima - I am thinking about writing a review of this quasi-alt-history short novel in the near future, but on the whole, I enjoyed it. I just need to think about it some more before I write anything more about it, however.

9 Richard Morgan, The Steel Remains - Just wrote a review of it today.

10 Zoran Živković, The Last Book (re-read) - This is one of those books that I might never write a proper review for, as it is difficult to sum up just why the prose and plot appealed to me, but suffice to say that this tale of mysterious deaths in a bookstore will appeal to those of us who love books being at the center of a deadly mystery.

11 Roberto Bolaño, Nocturno de Chile - I'll probably write a short commentary on this feverish stream of consciousness-like novel when I do a post on several of Bolaño's books sometime in the coming months. That last line was a killer one, but I'll leave it up to others to read it to discover why.

12 Angela Carter, Heroes & Villains - Short fantasy novel from the 1970s that I just finished. Combines elements of Western past and possible future (barbarians co-existing with certain technological developments) that revolves around an interesting relationship between two characters. Enjoyed it, but I think I need to re-read it before I could ever think of writing a proper review of it.

In Progress:

Michael Moorcock, Gloriana - 50 pages in and the writing is quite a bit different from his Elric novels. Intriguing, so far. Hope to finish it later tonight.

Brian Evenson, Last Days (re-read) - just begun. Want to have a review ready by Monday.

Future Plans for this Holiday Weekend:

Felix Gilman, Thunderer (re-read); Gears of the City

Jo Graham, Hand of Isis

Jack Finney, Time and Again


*wonders if Fábio will feel pressured now*....

Richard Morgan, The Steel Remains

When a man you know to be of sound mind tells you his recently deceased mother has just tried to climb in his bedroom window and eat him, you only have two basic options. You can smell his breath, take his pulse, and check his pupils to see if he's ingested anything nasty, or you can believe him. Ringil had already tried the first course of action with Bashka the Schoolmaster and to no avail, so he put down his pint with an elaborate sigh and went to get his broadsword. (p. 3)

After five SF novels, British author Richard Morgan begins his first fantasy novel, The Steel Remains, with a short, sharp attention-grabbing introduction that serves to introduce the reader quickly to nobleman's son-turned-mercenary Ringil Eskiath, one of three main characters (Archeth and Egar being the other two) whose stories Morgan tells during the course of the novel. Neither Ringil (or Gil) nor the other two characters are naive youths, as Morgan makes abundantly clear throughout this novel.

Much attention has been given in other quarters to Morgan's statement that he aimed to write a fantasy that would utilize noir-style tropes. One of the characteristics of noir leads is their alienation from society and their tendency to operate from the peripheries. Gil certainly fits this mode as in addition to being a mercenary who is past his fighting prime, he is a homosexual in a society that views homosexuality as being an anathema. While many other reviews that I have read note this feature about Gil, they either tend to shy away from considering the ramifications of this in the context of the story setting or they complain that "there is too much explicit gay sex" in this novel. I disagree. For every "faggot" or "perverter of youth"comment, for scenes such as the one between Gil and his father, who has disowned him, there is a very real character development. Gil is very complex and in the hands of other authors, perhaps he would be portrayed as a victim. Morgan, however, takes a different tact. In a day and age where it seems to be popular to take the Will and Grace approach towards having a cuddly, friendly, almost completely-asexual gay buddy, or conversely to have a handsome, brooding, gay victim of hatred and misunderstanding, Morgan's portrayal of Gil as being a gruff, cynical, sometimes lusty man with a middle age paunch not only is quite refreshing, but it opens up narrative possibilities for the future.

However, not as much can be said about Archeth and Egar. I found their characters to be not as well-developed as Gil's, perhaps because as travelers whose main narrative purpose seems to be to corroborate some of Gil's observation as he undertakes a quest at his mother's bequest to free a cousin of his from slavery. Their relative undeveloped characterization is a microcosm of sorts for the story itself. While I found myself enjoying the chapters that starred Gil and I wanted to read more about how he made his way through the world and how he dealt with the near-constant ridicule at the hands of family and others who knew him only from hearsay, the story itself of Gil, Archeth and Egar discovering that a long-vanished race might be returning with a nefarious purpose to be a bit too sketchy in this trilogy opener. Perhaps Morgan had some tough narrative decisions to make in regards to how much exposition ought to take place in what essentially was a prologue to what promises to be a larger affair.

Therefore, despite my enjoyment at reading a very well-realized complex character whose sexuality is more than just an "exotic" element tossed in to make the character "interesting," unfortunately The Steel Remains contains significant flaws such as not having as interesting complementary characters and having a main plot element that isn't developed sufficiently for the first volume of a trilogy. While I have high hopes that the sequels will address most, if not all, of my concerns, at the moment Morgan's first foray into fantasy made for a frustrating reading experience, as it was tantalizing with its hints of greatness before it settled for being merely a prologue for the (hopefully) real treat ahead.

Publication Date: January 20, 2009 (US); already available in the UK. Hardcover.

Publisher: Del Rey (US); Gollancz (UK)

Differing images of beauty

While I'll write an essay later this weekend on the issue, I thought I'd devote this post to contain 14 images, from photographs to illustrations and paintings, of women of various ethnic groups and over a span of 500 years, to emphasize just how cultural the concept of beauty might be. I know I've left out quite a bit and while there might be a bit of nudity in a few of these, the intent is not to titillate here. Just pay attention to how the women are posed, to the similarities and differences in facial structure, and then feel free to comment on these images.

Y.T.s, Beauty, and Covers

Interesting reaction at Neth Space to an article on Bookspot Central on the "best looking women" on SF/F book covers. While Ken's reaction is more to the presumption of sexism being involvement (all those cheesecake-type poses), my own reaction was to notice a uniformity there. All those skinny white gringas, with nary a cover devoted to a woman of another ethnic group.

The US (the world's largest English-language publishing market) has an ethnic breakdown of roughly 66% of the population being non-Latino Caucasians, 14.8% Latinos of any racial identification, 13.4% being African or African-American descent, and the rest being Asian, Native American, Pacific Islanders, and other racial/ethnic groups. Within each of those groups and between them as well, there are varying standards of what constitutes "beauty." While one shouldn't expect a 1:1 correlation between ethnic group preferences and mass cultural products (such as said SF/F book covers), the complete lack of coverage to these other beauty standards is "interesting," to say the least. Perhaps if one squints enough and imagines some of the darker-haired brunettes are Latina, there might be a representation of the country's second-largest socio-ethnic group, but unless one does that, it's pretty much a traditional country club setting - whites only.

I have received the majority of the books whose covers were depicted in that Bookspot Central link and while I tend to just roll my eyes at the poses depicted, it is again "interesting" that in the 200+ titles I received last year, that I cannot recall a single image containing a woman of a different ethnicity than Caucasian on the cover. Not a single one. Is the market that heavily skewed towards Caucasians that Y.T. is the default ethnicity? That certain Caucasian standards of beauty are so dominant in the SF/F readership/publishing that whenever any of the other 1/3 of the US's ethnic groups is portrayed on a SF/F cover (or perhaps on any color) that it is "exotic" in perhaps a kindred sense to how freak show performers were viewed?

Nice timing on this, as I had a student ask me today if I would be having the students doing anything for Black History Month next month. I told her that I'll have to work around the curriculum on that one, as there are certain "standards" I have to cover in rapid-fire fashion (I'm expected to cover the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Migration of the 1910s-1920s, the emergence of blues and jazz as musical forms in only a week, or else I'll be "behind" when it comes to covering the "important" material), but that I personally value discussions of the history of ethnicity and gender relations enough that I probably will develop an enrichment lesson that would include some presentations in February and March (time permitting, alas) for Black History and Women's History Months. For far too long, ethnic minorities and women were shunted aside in the history textbooks being utilized in elementary, middle, and high schools. I can't help but wonder if something similar is happening within the SF/F field, or if this cover art thing is an anomaly.

Update: The article linked to above has been pulled. I was going to comment over at the original article's site this morning, but since I cannot do that there, I'll just note that although the topic of that article didn't thrill or upset me (I got the humor behind it and understood it wasn't Damon's - the article writer - intent to write anything but a humorous post), my reaction was based almost solely on the covers themselves and not what he had written. It is something that had been percolating (like strong coffee, I guess!) in my mind for a while and that article just brought it to mind. I do have a post or two planned for this weekend to further explore this topic, but in the meantime, I would hope that none reading this would take my comments as a judgment on anyone involved in it. I prefer to see it as a discussion/learning opportunity and not as a cause to castigate anyone. So...who's up for a discussion of how beauty has evolved over time?

So I recently took part in an interview of Scott Bakker

Last month, while some people were perhaps developing this odd idea that there was some sort of "feud" brewing (people being so melodramatic and such, said with a nudge-nudge and a wink-wink, saying nothing more but with a chuckle in mind, as nothing could be further from the truth, at least in my eyes...), I submitted a few questions at the request of Pat of Pat's Fantasy Hotlist (with Adam Whitehead of The Wertzone participating as well) for a joint interview of Scott Bakker. Bakker finally answered recently and Pat just posted the resulting interview.

Now for a fun game: See if you can pick out which questions I asked. There's something in common in how I phrased my questions (hint: If the word "whilst" is used, it was Adam asking those questions. Pat asked a few others and those are of the sort that come from being in repeated contact with the author, which I haven't been recently.) that ought to make it easy for people to pick mine out (another hint: when I interviewed Patrick Rothfuss almost two years ago, he and I were poking fun at a certain element in my questions, one that is easily seen in the current interview). So up for having fun?

Now back to wondering if I'll wake up in the morning with the temp in the positive or negative Fahrenheit range and if school will be held (most of the counties east of me have closed due to the near-record cold).

Two quick thoughts after having finished Richard Morgan's The Steel Remains

1. Many of the reviews that I've read of this novel, positive and negative alike, never really explored what makes Ringil's character so intriguing.

2. If noir fiction revolves around characters living on the peripheries of their societies, then could one argue that having a male homosexual who is not desexualized or just only a passive victim as a/the lead character is perhaps the extension of this tension between individual/society to its deepest, most difficult levels?

Full review this weekend, perhaps. I do have quite a few things to say, none of which deal with "hype" or "buzz" ;)