-Elizabeth Bear, New Amsterdam, Seven for a Secret, and The White City. A series of linked short stories and a novella, all set in an alternate history where the English Crown still has the colonies, and where magic works. It’s very effective urban fantasy, both drawing on the stereotype of the vampire as the ultimate seducer (vampires have groupies who only live for the pleasure of providing the ecstatic gift of blood, and are drawn into various relationships with humans–that run the gamut from patrons to abusers, from friends to walking pints of blood), and it just hits so many small details in a fashion that had me nodding along: for instance, at one point, one of the (rather long-lived) main characters reflects that churches are becoming unfriendly places because religion has changed beyond all recognition, compared to what he remembers from his childhood, and this is SO true. And it has Bear’s usual pretty writing, which flows along effortlessly (even though I’m sure the actual process of couching it onto paper involved blood and sweat); and wonderful and deep characters that refuse to become established stereotypes, and feel very much like real human beings with their flaws and frailties, but also their wonderful capacity for quiet heroism. I’m very much looking forward to the last book, Ad Aeternum.

-Steam-Powered 2, edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft (review copy). I’m probably not in the target audience for this, because I’m not particularly fond of romance in general, and a lot of steampunk leaves me cold (the “mad adventure and costume” side doesn’t appeal overmuch to me). And, indeed, the main problem I had with this anthology was that I could predict a lot of the endings: if a story only has two women on stage, and it’s in a book of lesbian steampunk, well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what will happen… On balance, I thought that the best stories in the book were those that moved away from the stereotype of two women falling in love, and dealt with other aspects of the relationship: either further along in time, like Nisi Shawl’s “The Return of Cherie”, or by questioning its power dynamics and putting it into a colonial framework (such as Stephanie Lai’s “One Last Interruption Before We Begin”); or by eschewing the mad adventure steampunk altogether and focusing on much smaller-scale events (Alex Dally MacFarlane’s awesome “Selin that Has Grown in the Desert”, by far and above my favourite story in the book). I also enjoyed those stories with a very different setting and mindset: “In the Heart of Yellow Mountain” by Jaymee Goh is reminiscient of Chinese fairytales and adventures stories, and has a very unique vibe; “Not the Moon but the Stars” by Shveta Thakrar is set in a wonderfully recreated India that brims with lovely cultural details; and Zen Cho’s “The Terracotta Bride” takes Chinese Hell as its setting, deftly dealing with issues of power between the haves and have-nots (your status in Hell being, very appropriately, determined by how many children you had, and whether they’re still burning funeral offerings for you). Overall, even though I didn’t enjoy everything, the book as a whole is definitely worth reading. (and I suppose it says something about me that the stories I enjoyed most didn’t follow the brief of “independence, romance and adventure”, and tended to be written by people outside of the US, or by US POCs *sigh* I’ll go hide away now, promise).

There has been a lot of debate on the internet about the ethics of ebook piracy, a lot of which boiled down to “piracy is stealing”. I’m not saying I disagree with that, but…

Well, you should check out this links roundup from troisroyaumes over on dreamwidth, which is a little more measured. Specifically, it focuses on problematic issues with intellectual property rights seen the Western way. The part that especially resonates with me, book-wise (but there’s more here than that), was people discussing the availability of books (whether physical or electronic) in developing countries, and their price–which is a not-insignificant part of the problem. I’ve always thought that asking people to pay US prices for books or DVDs was ridiculous: take Vietnam, where the average salary is 50$. With that, if you’re lucky, you can buy maybe two English hardbacks? (and I’m being nice here, because I’m assuming said hardbacks aren’t subject to import duties). As qian points out, in Malaysia, an imported English book can cost 7-8 times the price of a meal, and getting it is a terrible hassle. I can see why it would give her the unpleasant feeling that “in almost every case, the author is not even contemplating that somebody like you will be reading it. You quite simply do not exist in their world.”

I’m already getting that impression of being ignored from all those ebook piracy posts–and I live in a developed country with high salaries, reasonable access to English-language books (amazon, book depository, few or no import taxes). I can imagine how much freaking worse it would be for people in developing countries.

ETA: fantasyecho has a further links roundup–some overlaps, but there are a few not in the original DW post. Like the earlier one–don’t agree with anything, but a lot of points are definitely worth taking into account.

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Also, one of those linked posts has a very valid point, which is that “illegal” is not a synonym for “immoral”. A lot of those blog posts about piracy don’t make a clear distinction between those two words. “illegal” is what the state thinks is bad. “immoral” is what you think is bad according to personal ethics–and if it’s exactly the same as “illegal” for you, no more, no less, you’re demonstrating a scary amount of trust in your government…

So, apparently there’s a series of books about Genghis Khan and his descendants, written by Conn Iggulden . The first book was released in the UK as Wolf of the Plains, which is nicely evocative.

In America, they’ve titled it Genghis: Birth of an Empire. Just, you know, in case you don’t get it’s about Genghis Khan, or if you don’t have a clue who this guy named Genghis Khan was and that he would later rule one of the greatest empires in the world…

*headdesk*