the owl and the olive tree

This was one of my Books & Breakfast books, and it's one of the kind of books that I'm never quite sure how to review. Because I really enjoyed it! But I have no idea whether my enjoyment of it will translate to anyone else, because I enjoyed it for pushing a very particular set of my buttons.

To talk about this, I have to back up a bit and discuss The Werewolf Problem.

I love werewolf books, in theory. Werewolf: The Apocalypse was my first RPG, and I played the hell out of it, and Werewolf (old and new) remains my second-favorite set of games. (Changeling, game of my heart, is still #1.) While everyone else who gamed in my area was about blood-drinking and backstabbing, I was more about howling at the moon and ripping my enemies in half. I love Blood and Chocolate and Sergeant Angua and Elfquest (where, okay, they aren't werewolves per se, but close enough) and the Brecilian Forest quest in Dragon Age.

And then, with the supernatural romance/new urban fantasy explosion, there was a big upsurge of werewolf books!

And they let me down, man. Because I quickly came to realize that having werewolves in supernatural romance was often an excuse to have a male character who was either a) a creepy stalker, or b) a raging, possessive, controlling jackass, who in both cases a and b tended to have crazy double standards for gender into the bargain, and somehow it was Okay because it was because he was a (were)wolf! It totally wasn't his fault! He couldn't help being a stalker or a jackass and a hypocrite on top of that because *insert bizarre handwavey discussion of wolf behavior here*. Often with "bonus" scene in which the male werewolf bites and turns the human protagonist in a distressingly rapey way.

(Side note: Wolves are not like that "naturally;" claims that they are are based on outdated and rather poor science, based on wolf behavior in artificial situations. It is just as thin an explanation to me as every "well men can't help being dicks" explanation. If you like a romance in which the guy is a gigantic dick, own that. Don't blame the wolves!)

So I have slogged through many a werewolf romance in which the guy is a werewolf and the girl is a human and the werewolfyness is an explanation for him being a raving jackass. (Occasionally the girl is a werewolf too, but then there's usually some handwavium about how he's stronger and more dominant because he's a male werewolf, and my eyes roll out of their sockets.) I liked some of them, I retain a fondness for Bitten by Kelley Armstrong despite its faults, and Mercy Thompson (who, okay, were-coyote, but close enough), and a few others. But mostly I decided that the genre and I wanted different things out of werewolf books.

And then I read Nightshade (no, I had not forgotten that that was the ostensible topic of this post!), and let me tell you what, within the first chapter or so it was established that the main character, Calla, was a young female werewolf who actually hunted! And fought! And was strong! And was going to be alpha of her new pack! And was totally cool with that—and so were her packmates.

So: yeah. Sold. I had been looking for a werewolf book with a strong female werewolf who was smart and tough and assertive, and I found one, and that was basically all I needed.

There are also some interesting deconstructions of some of the things that do bug me about werewolf romances. Some of the characters expect that Calla will be "feminine" and will eventually submit to the male alpha... and that attitude, as it turns out, is not natural in the wolves-are-just-like-that handwavium, but is just as artificial as similar attitudes about human women. Calla has to make some tough choices: while she resents her parents trying to protect her, it turns out that they aren't trying to protect her due to generalized parental overprotectiveness, and she needs to face that she is genuinely putting herself and her pack in danger. Also, I found Calla's relationship with her younger-but-not-much-younger brother entirely plausible (I myself have a younger-but-not-much-younger brother, with whom I get along well), and rather charming. Even more, I appreciated that her younger brother didn't have any cliche grumpy "I am a DUDE and should be ALPHA instead of YOU" angst: he occasionally fights with his big sisters, but he also accepts her as alpha.

It's not a perfect book, by any stretch. There's a love triangle, and I know a lot of people (myself included) are getting kinda bored of love triangles. The book is awfully talky in places (and I hear the sequel is worse). It's set in Vail, CO, but was written by someone who actually hadn't been to Vail, and it kinda shows. And one of the members of the love triangle has a kind-of-ridiculous set of useful skills, on account of how he apparently deliberately modeled himself on Indiana Jones, right down to the whip. (I admit it, I laughed when he broke out the whip.)

But.

Female alpha werewolf, running around on the mountaintop, hunting and fighting, solving mysteries, and being a stone cold badass. It hit me where I live, is what I'm saying. And if you like that kind of thing too, well, maybe it'll do the same for you.

Nightshade, by Andrea Cremer

So I'm back from Sirens! Which is pretty much my favorite event of the year.

For those of you who don't know, Sirens is a yearly conference about women in fantasy literature. For an eloquent explanation of why I love Sirens, you should read what praetorianguard has to say, here.

My feelings can be summed up by this image, which features a quote by Nnedi Okorafor, one of our guests of honor, and which is part of a monster bag I won at the auction on the last day:

From Sirens 2011

(But more about the monster bag later.)

Anyway!

This year's theme was "monsters," with Justine Larbalestier, Nnedi Okorafor, and Laini Taylor as Guests of Honor. Which was a pretty exciting lineup!

I came in early to help with setup, so I was already there before the Sirens Supper on Wednesday. The Supper is an optional event, the night before the conference proper begins, where people who come in early (staff, sometimes guests, and a handful of attendees--often repeat attendees) come in early to share a meal. Since the Sirens supper is smaller than the conference as a whole (I think it had around twenty people this year?), it allows for smaller, more intimate discussions.

I brought my husband, jmpava, to Sirens for the first time this year. I know he was a little nervous, but I think the Supper helped a lot, because it was a place he could get to know a few people before the whole conference fell on his head.

Anyway, I wound up sitting with Artemis and Marie Brennan, and we talked about all kinds of things, from books to travel to sleep to dealing with RSI. It was great to catch up. Then Amy asked an icebreaker question, and we all went around the table answering it: name one book that changed your life.

I chose Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones, which was the book that taught me that you could make friendships through books. And I don't think that I've ever told the story of how it changed my life here, so now I will!

( How "Howl's Moving Castle" Changed My Life )

We lingered a while, chatting, and then I went to bed earlyish in preparation for the first "real" day of the conference.

I have a head cold. (I blame PAX.) It's one of those things that I can't really complain about, because it's not a big deal in the grand scheme, but in the short term it is making me uncomfortable and also temporarily very stupid.

In the meantime, I have been cheering myself up with Igor Shpilenok's Russian nature photography from the Kronotsky reserve. It's all gorgeous, but I'm particularly fond of his photographs of a fox he calls Alisa, who is familiar enough with him to allow him to photograph her close up.

All of the pictures make me happy!

Fox on the prowl.

Chanterelle mushrooms, aka "little foxes", plus one actual little fox eating billberries.

Fox in a summer meadow.

Fox hunting ground squirrels. (Note that, while there is no blood or gore, there is a shot of a fox with a dead ground squirrel, so you can skip that if you'll find it upsetting.)

No foxes, but a most lovely twilight.

No foxes, but a salmon run and a happy bear.

No foxes, but fog and sunny not-sunflowers.

Fox, lake, and mountain.

Ever since Diana Wynne Jones passed away, I've been doling out the new-to-me books a few at a time to make them last. This is one of my most recent "new" reads.

It's clear from the beginning that magical things are going on at Melstone House, because Andrew is first informed that his grandfather has died and left him the place by his deceased grandfather's ghost. But Andrew can't figure out exactly what's going on: why everyone keeps referring to his "field-of-care," what document he's supposed to be finding among his grandfather's voluminous papers, or why Aidan Cain has run away and sought him for help. But he'd better figure it out quickly, because something sinister is rapidly encroaching on the property...

This is what I think of as a very typical Diana Wynne Jones book: set in a world almost but not quite ours, with a large cast of highly eccentric characters, a scale that is small but with potentially far-reaching results, and a protagonist (or protagonists) who is always just one step behind the rapidly-unfolding (and rapidly-complicating) plot. That said, "typical Diana Wynne Jones" is in no way a criticism. This book contains many of the things that I like about her as an author, particularly the large, eccentric, mostly-likeable cast of characters and the way all the tangled plot threads tie up at the end in a big, messy climactic ending. DWJ does the "gloriously chaotic ending" better than pretty much anyone I can think of.

Some of the things that I liked about the book are hard to talk about outside the spoiler cut, like the way it plays with a certain set of tropes. Let me just say that it manages to deal with some common tropes in way that are a little uncommon without hanging a big "I am subverting this trope! Look at me subvert!" sign on it.

The book did some other things that I think of as classic Diana Wynne Jones, and again, in a good way. It is very funny, in some places funny enough to make me giggle out loud. The humor is character-based, which is my favorite kind. And that ties in with another thing I appreciated: serious emotional subjects are handled with a sensitivity and a deft touch that makes them feel honest without being sledgehammer-like. There is one scene where a character grieves, and it felt completely real to me, but it wasn't like wading through a quagmire of angst.

I wouldn't say this was one of my very favorite DWJ books. It's very light, and again, it's doing something she has done many times. But good DWJ is great by most other standards, and this is definitely good. I'd recommend it, especially as a book to read if you're having a bad day.

( Spoilers have a magic stained glass window. )

Enchanted Glass, by Diana Wynne Jones

Good thing: Dinner last night! I wound up making a chopped salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, brined goathorn peppers, green olives, red bell pepper, and red leaf lettuce. Using a trick I learned from Cook's Illustrated, I drained off some of the tomato water (cherry tomatoes are full of delicious juice, but left to its own devices the juice can just wind up pooled at the bottom of the salad bowl), reduced it on the stove, mixed it with a little wine vinegar, and used it as the base for a vinaigrette. Then I made a pasta sauce of garlic, artichokes, lemon, garlic, shredded chicken, goathorn peppers, garlic, parsley and olive oil, and served it over penne. It was all very good.

Bad thing: I woke up this morning with a sore throat and the telltale pressure of nasal congestion. Since I don't have allergies, that usually means a head cold is on its way. I am attempting to stave it off by using the neti pot and drinking a lot of OJ. Also, Sudafed. We'll see.

So, having got back from vacation, I get to make myself dinner again. Yay! Time for another dinner poll.

I have some artichokes that badly need to be used, so the first list is What To Do With Artichokes. And I have been seriously craving fresh salads, so the second is What Kind of Salad. There will also be some kind of grain, probably bread.

(If the artichoke dish doesn't include a protein, I'll add an appropriate one--beans, tofu, tempeh, bacon, or chicken--to the salad.)

I have my new netbook! I decided to get an Asus eeePC, mostly because I've been quite happy with the one I borrowed from ceph, and it seemed smart to go with a known good. As an added bonus, they had one in pink!

The one I got isn't quite this one, but it's a close cousin. Since it's cute and pink, I had to name it Pinkie Pie, after the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic character.

Anyway! This means that I now have A Computer Of My Very Own (not a work computer, not a borrowed computer, but My Very Own) for the first time in... weeks and weeks and weeks. Today I expect to spend mostly getting this set up to my preferences, fiddling with settings, downloading stuff, etc. But tomorrow I'll get to work catching up.

Yay!

Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

After Diana Wynne Jones passed away earlier this year, I started rereading some of my favorites of her books. (Not in any kind or orderly or organized fashion; for that, see swan_tower's DWJ project.) It's hard for me to actually decide what my favorite DWJ book is. Archer's Goon is a possibility, Charmed Life is a possibility; Witch Week is a possibility. But Howl's Moving Castle is a strong contender for favorite. It's also one of the earliest DWJ I read: after Archer's Goon but before Charmed Life.

The book is set in a mildly fairy-tale-esque world—fairy-tale-esque enough that its protagonist, Sophie, knows that (being the oldest of three children instead of the youngest) she is not meant for great things, and is only going to get into trouble if she sets off to seek her fortune. So she settles into the boring but sensible work of trimming hats at the hat shop her father owned before he died. But the Witch of the Waste arrives on Sophie's doorstep with a curse, and sets her off to seek her fortune (and cross paths with the wicked magician Howl) whether she planned it or not.

I think the thing I love most about this book, have always loved most about it, is how grounded and sensible it is. For instance, Howl has a pair of seven-league boots that Sophie and Michael (Howl's apprentice) use to visit one of Sophie's sisters. Seven leagues is twenty-ish miles... and of course it's hard to steer or navigate if you go ten miles at a step. And the way Sophie justifies sticking around Howl's castle is by acting as a housekeeper... complete with details of exactly how much work it is to clean up after a layabout wizard and his teenage apprentice if they haven't cleaned in years. (It made me want to go do some spring cleaning of my own, in fact.)

The characters are really what make this book. Well, and the setting (I love the odd combination of fairy-tale and realistic of the world, and of course the castle is marvelous). There's a plot involving the Witch of the Waste and a missing prince, but it's really an excuse for Sophie to be clever and sensible and no-nonsense, and for Howl to be brilliant and lazy, and for Calcifer the fire demon to be... thoroughly Calcifer, and so on. Even the more minor characters, like Sophie's sisters and the dog, are so beautifully-drawn even in just a few lines that I feel like I know them, and would happily have tea with them.

This is part of the genre I think of as "cozy fantasy," and it's one of my ultimate comfort reads. It's funny and warm, tremendously readable, and I highly recommend it.

(The Miyazaki movie tends to split the opinions of fans of the book. While it has the same story, in fairly broad strokes at least, it turns the sensibility of the book upside-down: where the book is pragmatic and grounded even in its more magical details, the movie is dreamlike even in its more mundane details. I think that's why it feels so different—at least to me—even though the characters and plot are largely similar. I like both, but they are very much not the same.)

I have not yet read the sequels, partly because I'm afraid that very few things could live up to this book. Those of you who have read Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways: what do you think of them?

And now for some spoilery commentary:

( Spoilers express their feelings with green slime )

May the Fourth be with you!

 
 
 

I couldn't help it.

Happy Easter, if you celebrate.