The Year in Reviews
Jan. 1st, 2016 09:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjThis will be the last of my year-end summary posts. Falling on Friday, as it does, I thought I'd sum up all the reviews I've posted in 2015.
Scheduling one day a week to do reviews has worked out fairly well - at least as long as I have a backlog of the lesbian movie reviews to fill in around the new material. This isn't a list of absolutely everything I read or watched this year. There were some book re-reads that I didn't blog, and I'm very irregular in reviewing short fiction. I also skipped a few new movies if they didn't grab me enough (or, in the case of the new Star Wars movie, because everyone's freaking out about spoilers, so I just did my discussion in some carefully labeled online discussion spaces). You could also count my discussion of podcasts and web magazines as reviews of a sort, but I haven't included them here. I've organized things by type of media and then somewhat thematically in the larger categories.
Books: Non-fiction
I don't generally do full reviews of non-fiction (other than the entire Lesbian Historic Motif Project being extensive reviews).
Margaret of Parma: A Life by Charlie R. Steen
Books: Fantasy
Five of these thirteen are 2015 publications, all are by female authors, most are fantasy as opposed to science fiction (only the Itäranta falls more in SF). Only two are by non-caucasian writers (although they're both in the 2015 publications, making 40% for that category).
Random by Alma Alexander
Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear
Passion Play by Beth Bernobich
Queen's Hunt by Beth Bernobich
The Ghost Dragon's Daughter by Beth Bernobich novelette?
Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold novella
The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle audio
The Golden City by J. Kathleen Cheney
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard
Cold Magic by Kate Elliott
Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta
The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner also my pre-review
Books: Lesbian
Most of these are historical romance, with the Douglas being the only fantasy entry. (Although I could have double-entered Karen Memory here for lesbian fantasy.) Believe me, I would love to read more books in the intersection between fantasy and lesbian fiction, but I'm also very wary of much of what's being published in that intersection. Part of it is having some very specific tastes and standards, but part of it is a touch of paranoia around reviewing books too close to my own work. The simple fact is that I know that a lot of them aren't going to be up to my standards, but it's very easy for some people (especially in the close-knit and somewhat high-strung field of lesbian literature) to see a critical review by a fellow author as being a malicious attempt to "take down the competition". It isn't a competition. And yet I've seen enough things out there on the web to be extremely cautious about reading and reviewing lesbian fantasy unless I know right off the top that I'm going to love it, or I know that the author and the author's dedicated fans have a professional attitude. I suppose a could make an exception to my "review everything" rule, but that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't want people to think that I'm deliberately avoiding books in this category because of this issue. There's also that I would very much want to love, love, love any lesbian fantasy novel I read, and it would annoy me more than usual if I found it simply ok. And of the five entries here (counting the three Bassett works as a single item), two made me wince, one was "eh, ok", one was "promising", and one was "I liked this!"
Lily in Bloom, My Lady's Service & A Sweet Revenge by Marie-Elise Bassett novelettes
Rebeccah and the Highwayman by Barbara Davies
Lancelot : Her Story - by Carol Anne Douglas
Petticoats and Promises, by Penelope Friday
Rughum and Najda by Samar Habib
Books: Other
I don't read much fiction that doesn't fall in either fantasy or lesbian fiction, but enough people had made comparisons of my books to Milan's historic romances that I decided to check one out. The Bechdel falls in here because it isn't a novel (or even really fiction).
The Duchess War - Courtney Milan
Are You My Mother: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel
Live Performance
In addition to my usual Cal Shakes run (although I missed reviewing Twelfth Night for some reason), I took in three Broadway shows during two New York trips, and a local small theater production. Interestingly, that's more shows than the first-run movies that I reviewed (although possibly not more than I saw).
Cal Shakes: King Lear
Cal Shakes: The Mystery of Irma Vep: A Penny Dreadful
Cal Shakes: Life is a Dream
Broadway: Hand to God
Broadway: Fun Home
Broadway: Hamilton - An American Musical
Or by Liz Duffy Adams (Anton's Well Theater Company)
Historic Cookery (i.e., recipes I tried out)
Some years, the historic cookery section is much larger.
Alpennian Almond Cakes
Movies: Lesbian movie reviews
I revived (and reprised) a series of short reviews of lesbian movies in order to have a back-log of review material to fill in when nothing else offered. I still have a lot of items on video I could include here, but I'd need to actually watch them again!
Bar Girls
Carol (also under first run)
Cynara: Poetry in Motion
Fingersmith
If These Walls Could Talk
The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love
Kissing Jessica Stein
Mädchen in Uniform (1931, German)
The Midwife's Tale
Tipping the Velvet
When Night is Falling
Movies: first run
Other movies that I remember seeing, but clearly didn't review include the final Hunger Games movie and the new Star Wars movie. ETA: OMG and how could I forget Mad Max: Fury Road? Since I'm likely to use this post as a memory prompt for my Hugo nominations, I may keep adding to it if I remember more.
Carol
Into the Woods
Jupiter Ascending
The Martian
Mr. Holmes
Products and Services
Not so much a review as an explanation why I won't be trying and reviewing the product at the current time.
Apple Watch
Scheduling one day a week to do reviews has worked out fairly well - at least as long as I have a backlog of the lesbian movie reviews to fill in around the new material. This isn't a list of absolutely everything I read or watched this year. There were some book re-reads that I didn't blog, and I'm very irregular in reviewing short fiction. I also skipped a few new movies if they didn't grab me enough (or, in the case of the new Star Wars movie, because everyone's freaking out about spoilers, so I just did my discussion in some carefully labeled online discussion spaces). You could also count my discussion of podcasts and web magazines as reviews of a sort, but I haven't included them here. I've organized things by type of media and then somewhat thematically in the larger categories.
Books: Non-fiction
I don't generally do full reviews of non-fiction (other than the entire Lesbian Historic Motif Project being extensive reviews).
Margaret of Parma: A Life by Charlie R. Steen
Books: Fantasy
Five of these thirteen are 2015 publications, all are by female authors, most are fantasy as opposed to science fiction (only the Itäranta falls more in SF). Only two are by non-caucasian writers (although they're both in the 2015 publications, making 40% for that category).
Random by Alma Alexander
Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear
Passion Play by Beth Bernobich
Queen's Hunt by Beth Bernobich
The Ghost Dragon's Daughter by Beth Bernobich novelette?
Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold novella
The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle audio
The Golden City by J. Kathleen Cheney
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard
Cold Magic by Kate Elliott
Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta
The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner also my pre-review
Books: Lesbian
Most of these are historical romance, with the Douglas being the only fantasy entry. (Although I could have double-entered Karen Memory here for lesbian fantasy.) Believe me, I would love to read more books in the intersection between fantasy and lesbian fiction, but I'm also very wary of much of what's being published in that intersection. Part of it is having some very specific tastes and standards, but part of it is a touch of paranoia around reviewing books too close to my own work. The simple fact is that I know that a lot of them aren't going to be up to my standards, but it's very easy for some people (especially in the close-knit and somewhat high-strung field of lesbian literature) to see a critical review by a fellow author as being a malicious attempt to "take down the competition". It isn't a competition. And yet I've seen enough things out there on the web to be extremely cautious about reading and reviewing lesbian fantasy unless I know right off the top that I'm going to love it, or I know that the author and the author's dedicated fans have a professional attitude. I suppose a could make an exception to my "review everything" rule, but that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't want people to think that I'm deliberately avoiding books in this category because of this issue. There's also that I would very much want to love, love, love any lesbian fantasy novel I read, and it would annoy me more than usual if I found it simply ok. And of the five entries here (counting the three Bassett works as a single item), two made me wince, one was "eh, ok", one was "promising", and one was "I liked this!"
Lily in Bloom, My Lady's Service & A Sweet Revenge by Marie-Elise Bassett novelettes
Rebeccah and the Highwayman by Barbara Davies
Lancelot : Her Story - by Carol Anne Douglas
Petticoats and Promises, by Penelope Friday
Rughum and Najda by Samar Habib
Books: Other
I don't read much fiction that doesn't fall in either fantasy or lesbian fiction, but enough people had made comparisons of my books to Milan's historic romances that I decided to check one out. The Bechdel falls in here because it isn't a novel (or even really fiction).
The Duchess War - Courtney Milan
Are You My Mother: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel
Live Performance
In addition to my usual Cal Shakes run (although I missed reviewing Twelfth Night for some reason), I took in three Broadway shows during two New York trips, and a local small theater production. Interestingly, that's more shows than the first-run movies that I reviewed (although possibly not more than I saw).
Cal Shakes: King Lear
Cal Shakes: The Mystery of Irma Vep: A Penny Dreadful
Cal Shakes: Life is a Dream
Broadway: Hand to God
Broadway: Fun Home
Broadway: Hamilton - An American Musical
Or by Liz Duffy Adams (Anton's Well Theater Company)
Historic Cookery (i.e., recipes I tried out)
Some years, the historic cookery section is much larger.
Alpennian Almond Cakes
Movies: Lesbian movie reviews
I revived (and reprised) a series of short reviews of lesbian movies in order to have a back-log of review material to fill in when nothing else offered. I still have a lot of items on video I could include here, but I'd need to actually watch them again!
Bar Girls
Carol (also under first run)
Cynara: Poetry in Motion
Fingersmith
If These Walls Could Talk
The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love
Kissing Jessica Stein
Mädchen in Uniform (1931, German)
The Midwife's Tale
Tipping the Velvet
When Night is Falling
Movies: first run
Other movies that I remember seeing, but clearly didn't review include the final Hunger Games movie and the new Star Wars movie. ETA: OMG and how could I forget Mad Max: Fury Road? Since I'm likely to use this post as a memory prompt for my Hugo nominations, I may keep adding to it if I remember more.
Carol
Into the Woods
Jupiter Ascending
The Martian
Mr. Holmes
Products and Services
Not so much a review as an explanation why I won't be trying and reviewing the product at the current time.
Apple Watch
