In-process book report

[hrj]

I usually wait until I finish a book before posting much about it. For one thing, sometimes it's harder to write a good review if I feel like I've said everything. And I need to set some time aside again to get caught up on reviews because I've been reading a whole bunch of shorter works lately and have a lot to say about them. Like: This is How You Lose the Time War has me thinking deep thinky thoughts about what is gender even? What does it mean for a story to have a f/f romance when the characters are deeply post-human, when the socio-cultural differences between their two cultures are vastly more different than any hint of intra-cultural gender identity? What is it about these two characters that makes them "female", other than the pronouns on the page and their apparent self-identifications?

And then there's The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics, which I'm currently in the middle of and which had me yearning to ditch the day job just so I could finish it. (I'd only just gotten to the point where they're about to kiss for the first time when the shuttle arrived at work.) And...it isn't the story itself so much that this type of story is being written by authors whose prose is so beautiful and competent. I want so much more f/f historical romance with beautiful competent prose and solidly historical grounding. And I'm sorry to have to say it out loud, but we aren't getting that from the lesfic presses and I don't think we're ever going to see that quality of historical writing from them for reasons having to do with the internal structure and dynamics of the market. And I have a lot more opinions on that but I'm very hesitant to put them down in electrons too often.

Comments

[hawkwing_lb]

Do please let us know what you think of Celestial Mechanics. (And Time War, which I loved, but which I know some people have mixed opinions about.)

[hrj]

I will! And I think both books are going to get both a review and a "this is what I spun off thinking about while reading this book." And I need to have another "I'm doing nothing but write book reviews" day in the near future so I don't get backed up (again / more/ still).