Jo Walton ([info]papersky) wrote,
@ 2006-10-31 17:09:00
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Another mixed bag of Farthing Reviews.
I am home.

American Heritage Magazine, which is apparently cool and mainstream and prestigious, though I couldn't find a copy in Minneapolis airport, have a long, thoughtful and historically well-informed review of both Farthing and Priest's The Separation (which I haven't read) and say that Farthing is at first charming and finally harrowing. Thanks to Cat of Green Man and Michael Walsh of Old Earth Books for drawing this to my attention, because I'd probably never have found it otherwise.

Possibly my favourite description of Farthing of all time in [info]cassiphone's review a fine-edged chisel wrapped in a buttered crumpet.

Strange Horizons think it's unsubtle and there's also a long comment there that thinks it's cliched.

Christian Sauve is fairly positive with reservations and clearly also knows fewer gay people than I do. I still don't know what's with that. I expect Samuel Delany has this problem all the time, eh?


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[info]mrissa
2006-10-31 10:12 pm UTC (link)
I am always startled when someone claims that enjoyment of a book I enjoyed relies upon knowledge of something else specific that I haven't read/seen.

I'm glad your travel was safe.

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[info]barberio
2006-10-31 10:22 pm UTC (link)
Frankly, I think Sauve's opinions on gay characters seems to border on mildly offensive. "First among those is the almost comical accumulation of gay and bisexual characters. There are perfectly good and serviceable dramatic reasons why one of the book's main characters is gay: that's not a problem. Similarly, I could buy the bisexuality of another major character without blinking."

So we need a dramatic reason for a character to be gay?

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[info]lalouve
2006-11-01 09:48 am UTC (link)
Yes, I reacted to that, too. We can only have gay people in books if that's essential to the plot? Is the heterosexuality of characters ever submitted to this kind of requirement - as in, 'unless their straight love affairs are a central theme, they cannot be straight'?

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[info]juliansinger
2006-10-31 10:25 pm UTC (link)
American Heritage used to be more specific and detailed. It is still a very good magazine, though glossier nowadays. (And not much found in airports.)

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[info]juliansinger
2006-11-01 03:31 am UTC (link)
Right, yes, you already /linked/ to American Heritage. Sigh.

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[info]beamjockey
2006-10-31 10:39 pm UTC (link)
I imagine that it was quite a feat for a reviewer hip to "point of departure" and the Sidewise Award to get a review of two alternate-history novels into American Heritage, a straight history magazine.

I'm not a regular reader, so maybe they review what-if books frequently, but I doubt it.

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[info]jenett
2006-10-31 11:17 pm UTC (link)
I'm trying to figure out how I missed the AH article - because I not only read it for work, but I do quick subject cataloging on the major articles, so I actually *do* look at pretty much every page.

It's quite an intriguing magazine, though I tend to wish there was a European history equivalent.

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[info]janetmk
2006-10-31 11:26 pm UTC (link)
It appears that the review is a Web article (posted 21 October). It's in the entertainment section rather than the magazine section of the American Heritage Web site.

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[info]kip_w
2006-10-31 11:21 pm UTC (link)
If I'm reading the word choice of the long commenter at Strange Horizons correctly, he thinks it's de trope.

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[info]coalescent
2006-10-31 11:43 pm UTC (link)
he thinks

s/he/she (Timmi Duchamp = L. Timmel Duchamp.)

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(Anonymous)
2006-11-01 12:02 am UTC (link)
Thanks. Now that I reflect on it, I don't even recall looking to see the writer's gender before sending that. Rather careless of me.

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[info]montoya
2006-10-31 11:30 pm UTC (link)
So if American Heritage isn't a right-wing think tank, what am I thinking of?

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american heritage
[info]pir_anha
2006-11-01 12:00 am UTC (link)
a possible naming conflation of the heritage foundation and the american enterprise institute? they're the two top right-wing think tanks.

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Re: american heritage
[info]beamjockey
2006-11-01 12:44 am UTC (link)
I think this is right. The magazine is much older than the tank-thinkers, having been started in 1954 (in its present form).

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[info]carandol
2006-10-31 11:57 pm UTC (link)
I can't help being tickled by the idea of you being reviewed in the same breath as Christopher Priest :-) Feels like one of those science fiction moments...

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[info]randwolf
2006-11-01 05:25 am UTC (link)
My word--the Strange Horizons guy sounds stung. Great going! (I'll read it eventually. Maybe sooner, now that I am out of work.)

...what the devil is a crumpet, anyway?

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[info]lalouve
2006-11-01 09:53 am UTC (link)
Small squishy yeast bread fried in a pan, with nice holes in it for melting butter to run down.

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[info]mjlayman
2006-11-01 09:41 pm UTC (link)
Similar to the US english muffin, but more resistant to the teeth.

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[info]lalouve
2006-11-01 09:52 am UTC (link)
Anti-semitism & anti-immigrantism, even when coupled with the rhetoric of Eugenics & a legislation of class elitism are not in & of themselves sufficiently totalitarian to be fascist.

I'm so relieved to hear this. That means that the nationalist party which got elected into various city councils this fall, with the agenda of throwing out immigrants and promoting a vague kind of Swedish identity, isn't fascist. Sure had me fooled.
Actually, the reshaping of the state into a totalitarian one seems to come later, after enough people have bought the rest of the agenda. You don't win elections (which is how a lot of Fascist parties came into power, after all) by promising to abolish everyone's rights once you're elected.

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Missing link
[info]ejmam
2006-11-01 05:33 pm UTC (link)
The Strange Horizons link is messed up for me; it comes up doubled. I don't know if the problem is my computer or the link, though.

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"101 Best Books of 2006"
(Anonymous)
2006-11-12 05:12 pm UTC (link)
Andrea showed me a flyer that she got from the book club: "101 Best Books of 2006". They include Farthing in the (small) fantasy section. :-) I'm under the impression that that flyer is included in the packets for a wide variety of book clubs.

Joel

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