A Probability of Being

Today I bought myself the classic Kobo eReader, which is the 1st gen device that is going out of the way to make way for the 2nd gen device. The main difference between the two is this: the 2nd gen device has WiFi, so you can download ebooks directly into the eReader, and it's a smidgen faster.  I'd been holding out on getting an eReader, mainly waiting for the tech to boom so I could find a device that suited me best, but as it is? There are a ton of books being released in ebook formats right now that I want , great online magazines that release their stuff in eReader formats, and when I last moved from Nova Scotia to Ontario, I was miserable at the book culling I had to commit (and my dad wasn't pleased with the four banana boxes of books either).  But with the Kobo classic going out, the local Coles was selling it for $128. I visited it a couple of times, asking completely different sales assistants each time if I could have a look, admiring it, wondering what colo...

For those who have never read Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape , I have to say, you are missing out. When I first read the book , I was deeply moved, and in its own small way, although it states truths that most of us already knew, having it all in one place distilled the facts and tendrils of knowledge into a revelation of its own.  Yes Means Yes! was edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti, both famous names in the feminist blogosphere. Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, performer and activist, and has received several grants, done a lot of cool things, like found the WAM! conference. You can totes look her up . Her main site is CounterQuo.org , which is very flashy, but if you can read it, it's got really neat stuff. Although the talk was on rape prevention, how rapists operate, rape culture and other awful stuff, Jaclyn Friedman was upbeat and cheerful, presenting her argument with pop culture references, using really vernacular lang...

Note: I started this post back in November, so some of the ideas are kind of dated. Lately, I've been considering what "multi-culturalism" means, whether it's in fiction or in everyday life. I find that whenever discussions of multiculturalism comes up, it's very much like talking about racism, in the "we shouldn't discriminate against each other on the basis of culture! We should be free to share what we have, no matter what!" sort of way that erases actual concerns about the concept. It was only while reading Buck Godot, Zap Gun for Hire , by Phil Foglio that I started to put my finger on why I'm starting to really doubt whether it actually exists in real life, and why, in discussions about multiculturalism around people who aren't really knowledgeable about issues surrounding race and privilege, I always find myself uneasy, despite their good intentions. (Aside, you know, from believing that the road to Hell is paved with good inten...

The blurb on the back of Soulless reads thusly:  Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.   Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire -- and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.  With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart? Little did I know that the action really delves into this within the first chapter itself. I'm not used to this....

Really, just the name and the cover alone should make anybody want to pick up this little gem. I don't like horror, and I don't like zombies (I know, travesty, I know!), nor do I like the tagline on the cover (“She loved her country. She hated zombies”) and the blurb on the back, which unimpressively, simplistically presents the book's premise as “can she dedicate her life to saving her country when her heart belongs elsewhere?” sounds rather wishy-washily like an odd romance novel.  The book doesn't even open with the titular character, but with a setup for side characters Quimby and Perkins. Quimby is preparing for a night of debauchery when the zombies he's been keeping break free from their prisons, devour the prostitutes he has ordered for the night, and worse, there's photographic evidence. He resurrects Perkins, and thus start their misadventures into the world of the supernatural. We first meet our titular character as she is writing into her diary t...

Gordon Dahlquist opens Vol 1. with Miss Temple having been dumped by her fiance. Now, this should ordinarily scare away any reader, but as it happens, there is something about the title of the book(s) which gives one pause before dismissing this outright. Also, consider that within the first page we are given Miss Temple's reaction to the breakup, but also a little, less-than-flattering tidbit about her: "The manner of dismissal she barely noticed - indeed, it was just how she would have done such a thing (as in fact, she had, on multiple galling occasions)- but the fact of it was stinging." We are given scrumptious details about her breakfast and the little relationship before its end, and Dahlquist is all about the details. He notes the food she's eating, how she eats it, the furnishings, the nervous gazes of aunt and maids, everything. Because Miss Temple is not the kind to just weep, and because she is, ultimately, petty and prideful, she sets off to find out why ...

I first heard about Secret Identities from angry asian man, who is made of win. I tracked down a couple of the previews on Youtube where comic panels had been voiced over. The whole list can be found here. In fact, Secret Identities was so well-marketed that even though I pre-ordered it through a local bookstore, I couldn't get my grubby little mitts on it until a month after it had come out, because the shippers kept running out of copies! To me, it was a very good sign, and I was hopeful that it was worth the wait. Was it? Oh yes. Every page was worth the whole month. When I first heard of the idea - an Asian-American Superhero Anthology - I was intrigued. I don't really like how these things center around America. I understand that the Asian diaspora reaches across and is most acknowledged in America, but Asians don't only live in America. There is a piece which is set in the Phillipines, with a set of siblings who share the same father. I have a strong feeling that t...

So first off, I would like to admit that I have never so much as read Pride and Prejudice . I read Sense and Sensibility for my CPU program and that was enough Austen for me. I've heard Austen's books described as "battles of wits" and great critiques of her time. Secondly, I suppose I must point out once more that I don't come from that culture where middle-class and upper middle-class ladies sat around drinking tea, contriving to get their daughters married by attending balls and whatnot. Thirdly, I'm really not into that kind of thing. That period, for me as a woman, represents everything that is helpless for women about patriarchal culture. (Which is why I liked and hated the movie the Duchess . I just know what kind of period it's set in, and how since it's based on real events, things cannot be helped.) Fourthly, I don't like zombies. I don't like the horror genre much, and even parodies can disturb me - Shaun of the Dead gave me nightm...

So, this book, which came out earlier this year, is revolutionary . It is chock-ful of discussions, stuff to agree with, stuff to disagree with - this book is thoughtful . There is so much going on in here: discussions centered around young women, around immigrant women, around minority women, around transwomen. Discussions about legislations, about how larger narratives hurt women personally, about how women deal with their crises and the obstacles between them and owning their sexuality. There were 27 essays, all about women on some level. Three directly, clearly addressing men and men's role in turning around the sexual narratives we currently have for a true sexual revolution. Some quick thoughts about each: Essay #1 by Jill Filipovic of Feministe : This is a great introduction to the general ills which face women today, whether consciously or not. I find it to be quite North America specific at some points, but there are definitely carry-overs to other cultures and countries ...

I just finished A Sultan in Palermo last week. Which means I am totally up to date on all of Tariq Ali's excellent Islam Quintet books. I read the Book of Saladin when I was home in Malaysia, partly because I was bored, partly because it was right there on my brother's table, and partly because I'd seen a Malay translation. I was deeply impressed by the Book of Saladin , and I jumped at the first chance I had to buy the rest of the books. What can I say? Outside the Lines was having a massive sale since they were moving. The first thing I noted about the stories? How real Tariq Ali made the characters. Each of them had a story. Each of them had a past, and most of them have futures (except for the majority of the unfortunate characters in Shadow of a Pomegranate Tree ), which do not necessarily require some dramatic out-of-this-world revelation... it's all part of life for them. Men and women, all of them have good sides to them, and all have bad sides, and sometim...

David Eddings died a few weeks ago. This was hard on me. June 6. His wife had died a couple of years earlier. He was 77. They wrote amazing stories together (and I was pleased when he acknowledged her role in his writing). David & Leigh Eddings, the books would say. A power couple. So when he died, I took it kind of hard. It is hard to quantify just how much the Eddingses have affected my life and informed my writing. Especially when I consider that I've only read the iconic Belgariad , the Mallorean , Belgarath the Sorcerer , Polgara the Sorceress (and I got it backward, I started with Lady Polgara's story, then Belgarath's, before reading the rest in the proper fashion) and the Redemption of Althalus . Was he a formula writer? Oh yes. Were his characters sometimes silly caricatures? Oh yes. Did he use some of the most awful cliches ever? Hell yeah. But he did all of that on purpose, and I love him for it. He just wanted to write a good story, that would entertain gen...

Marilyn French, novelist and staunchly feminist writer, has died, aged 79. I meant to write Marilyn French fanmail. My first book by her was Beyond Power . I remember seeing it, and remembering a book by Nietsche of the same name. I bought it from Venus Envy, intrigued by it. I don't remember why, exactly, I picked it up, although I know I'd heard of it before then. It took me six months to get through the book. I wasn't reading anything else. I wasn't working much that summer, either. I would read a few paragraphs (paragraphs!) and then have to stand up and pace my apartment, piqued, my mind roiling with what I'd learned in those few paragraphs, my frontal lobe parsing the information that had been dealt to me. I had thought before then that human problems stemmed from an inability to get along, more deeply from greediness. But even then, it couldn't make sense to me. Humans were greedy, yes. But that didn't, in my mind, justify the amount of bloodshed and ...