Re: Recently Read - July, 2006

In article <1153102454.686139.146940@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
sienamystic <sienamystic@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jack Tingle wrote:

I'll definitely read the next book. This is the best pulp fantasy
since Jo Baldwin started her 'Weather Warden' series. Maybe even
better. How can you not like a story that makes the blood-sucking
vampire Mistress more sympathetic than the fundie Senator?

I enjoy the setting of the Weather Warden books, but took a strong
dislike to the main character which has kept me from rereading the two
I have, or seeking out more of them (if there are more). She seemed to
teeter precariously on that Mary Sue edge, and her preoccupation with
clothing just didn't interest me at all.

Assuming y'all both mean the "Rachel Caine" [1] books, I find myself
.... perplexed by Jack Tingle's admiration. I actually skimmed at least
the third book, if not the fourth, trying to figure out whether the
plot, which mildly interested me, ever went anywhere; but it just
seemed to keep getting more and more tightly twisted in escalations
of "Everyone loves me and I'm extra-super-powerful but still everyone
wants to kill me". [2] Yuck.

At the time, it didn't occur to me that this is a short definition of
what many of us mean by "Mary Sue". And no, I'm not especially
interested in having iteration number ten of whether that's the correct
definition or not; I'm well aware that it at least isn't complete.
The annoying auctorial tendency exists and needs a name whether or
not those exact three syllables are acceptable. But I'm intrigued
by my evident recurring denseness when confronted with this pattern.
I guess because I've found value in some exemplars so am reluctant
to put it in the "drop on sight" category.

It's not clear to me whether this reaction of mine to "Rachel Caine"
means I should mistrust the OP's opinion of the (snipped) Vaughn books,
or not.

Joe Bernstein

[1] It's a pseudonym, according to the copyright page, but possibly
out of a desire not to blacklist her, I've forgotten the author's
presumptively real name.

[2] Huh. Put *that* way, I see that this is also a description of
my home country's self-perception. Which throws interesting light
on both... Has anyone ever written the story of the Character Too
Powerful To Be Allowed To Live - cf. e.g. <Stormqueen!> - *from
that character's POV* ? And have they done it well?

--
Joe Bernstein, writer joe@xxxxxxxxxxx
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/> "She suited my mood, Sarah Mondleigh
did - it was like having a kitten in the room, like a vote for unreason."
<Glass Mountain>, Cynthia Voigt
.

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