Catching up–those are both a bit late, but they do make for awesome sharing:

-Alexander Chee on comics, X-men and race, especially with regards to growing up mixed-race. It’s a great post, especially with regards to the experience of belonging neither here nor there–there must be other such accounts, but this is the first one I’ve seen. I’m probably reading the wrong blogs again, but the issue of mixed-race people often seems to get skipped over, or assimilated to POC problems. Which it is, partly–but for me, it does seem to bring extra problems, such the ones Chee points out. Mostly speaking from my own and limited experience there…

-Tricia Sullivan on the SF ghetto and issues of classification within the genre. Brilliant. Just darn brilliant.

-For the gamers amongst us, particularly those who’ve played Mafia/Werewolves (of Thiercellieux if you hail from France): there are people writing articles about Mafia game theory… Wow.

So, I’d say very quiet weekend, except that we had a big birthday bash at home (it was the H’s birthday celebration). In which we established, not for the first time, that I dearly love making dipping sauces: respectively roquefort cream, tzadziki, and hummus with peanut butter (don’t laugh. Our badly-supplied store didn’t have tahini paste, and this was the only acceptable substitute). Also, that I don’t like cutting veggies (I cut my finger after the 4th cucumber and the 10th carrot), and that the H remains the king of breads (not entirely sure of my madz translation skills here. I think that’s the closest term for a loaf-shaped delicacy that involves flour, milk and cheese. He made two, a turkey-dried tomato one, and a salmon-rocket one).

The party went well, though the last guests left after 4:30am (and a good game of Arkham Horror). Went to have lunch with my grandmother in a Chinese restaurant. I had my English translation of Dream of Red Mansions handy, and was pleasantly surprised when the waiter chatted with me about the book, what it was called in French (I strongly suspect he didn’t read the English title, but instead the Chinese characters that are in the upper left-hand corner of the book), and about whether the translation was any good (to which I had to admit I had no idea….).

And here we are on Monday. Still reading Dream of Red Mansions, and have started dipping into The Key to Chinese Cooking, which has a very interesting dissection of the various cooking methods and the reasoning behind them. It’s a pity this kind of book with detailed instructions (the kind that tell you what to do and why you’re doing it, thus laying the groundwork for experimentation of your own later on even though they can be a bit over-didactic) has fallen out of fashion in France, and has been replaced with books which only contain recipes.

Oh, and the link of the day? The newest xkcd on women and science is made of awesome. Meanwhile, I’m off to plot a novella.

If you’re interested in Asian cooking at all, there is a fascinating link over at Malinda Lo’s website. (the article’s focused on China, but a lot of it applies to other Asian cookbooks, and probably other cultures as well)

It’s a bit of a mouthful (it’s an academic article, and it’s quite long), but it takes a look at the notion of authenticity over time, and how it’s mainly built to exclude certain people from the norm (whether the norm is the lost motherland, or later on, the “typical” Chinese American experience). It’s also a very highly detailed analysis of the social and cultural norms behind cookbooks, and it’s fascinating to see the amount of tropes and messages that lurk at the heart of the books. I’ll certainly never view a cookbook in the same way ever again….

So, by now everyone’s seen Niall Harrison’s article about the (mis)representation of women in reviewing. Not everyone might have seen the followups: Juliet McKenna, Kari Sperring (who has started an awesome list of women to read), and Sherwood Smith, who has a great reflexion on which viewpoints are considered the norm (and great comments, too).

One sentence in what Sherwood wrote struck me:
The sense that men write about Important Things and women write about Domestic or Sentimental Things still appears to be pervasive.

And it did make me want to elaborate, on something I’ve been meaning to blog about but haven’t so far. Sherwood touches on it a bit, I think–mostly in the context of literature–but I kind of wanted to take it a step further.

See, the one thing I hate most about gender perceptions? That Important Things cannot be Domestic or Sentimental: the pervasive notion that the things men do are Important; and the things women do are not (I’m using “the things men do” in a sense of traditional gender roles–which, thankfully, have evolved quite a bit since the 19th Century). That somehow, it’s still more Important to talk about war and fighting as a soldier, still more Important to talk about science and inventing things–than it is to talk about taking care of a household, about raising children, all the myriad things that are the traditional prerogative of women. It’s sort of like saying, “as a woman, you cannot have worth until you do the things of men-essentially until you become a male surrogate.” And it saddens me, because it dismisses so-called “feminine” activities as unworthy: it’s just another way of putting men first. [1][2]

Not sure how clear this is? I’m struggling to articulate it into words.

[1]Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s important that women who want to have a career be able to have one; that as a woman, you can be a soldier or a scientist or any occupation that catches your fancy. But I do think that as a man or as a woman, you should be allowed to stay home and take care of the kids, and be a good homecook–and not be ridiculed. That being a feminine boy should have as much worth as being a tomboy–which is so not the case today.
[2]Which is why we need more books that aren’t about traditional male activities such as saving the world and getting the girl; books like Jo Walton’s Lifelode, and Cao Xuequin’s Dream of Red Mansions (which, pretty impressively, was actually written by a man).

-Reviews of Harbinger of the Storm by Antony at SFbook.com and by Josh Vogt at Examiner.com. And one of Servant of the Underworld by Hannah Mariska at Fantasy Faction
-Also, if you feel like voting for Servant of the Underworld in the BSC Book Tournament, by all means go ahead 🙂 (it’s set against Ian McDonald’s superlative The Dervish House, though…)

–“Casa Jaguarului in Umbra”, aka the Romanian version of “The Jaguar House, in Shadow”, is up at the SRSFF website. Many thanks, as always, to Cristian Tamas and to Antuza Genescu for the translation. There is a French version forthcoming in Galaxies as well.
-Both “The Jaguar House in Shadow” and “Age of Miracles, Age of Wonders” make the 2010 Tangent Online Recommended Reading list . Lots of familiar names on that list, and plenty good stories too.
-And because it’s International Women’s Day, a video with Dame Judi Dench and Daniel Craig:

(even though I’m sceptical about the efficacity of International Women’s Day, I have to say the video sums up a lot of my feelings on the subject)

-Ove Jansson aka Cybermage:

Aliette de Bodard has done it again. Harbinger of the Storm is an action packed Aztec mystery opera with magic, interventions from the gods and more twists and turns than the first book. (…) The story is self contained and can be enjoyed standalone, but you will not want to miss out on the first. I wish it was 2012 already even if the world is going under while I read the final Obsidian and Blood.

–Violin in a Void:

[Acatl] leads us into an increasingly dark and bloody tangle of mythology and political intrigue that is not merely a worthy successor to Servant of the Underworld, but a tighter, pacier and altogether more exciting read. (…)It’s a complex but intriguing story, and I for one am thoroughly satisfied with this sequel. According to De Bodard’s blog the final book in the Obsidian and Blood trilogy will be titled The Master of the House of Darts, and its due for release in November 2011. If De Bodard continues to build on what she’s done so far, it’s going to be epic.

–Publishers Weekly (starred review):

Political intrigue and rivalry among a complex pantheon of divinities drive this well-paced murder mystery set at the height of the Aztec Empire in the late 15th century.(…) De Bodard incorporates historical fact with great ease and manages the rare feat of explaining complex culture and political system without lecturing or boring the reader.

Er, wow? PW starred review is certainly most intimidating, and I’m very glad a lot of people seem to think HoS is a better book than its predecessor. I’d be going for a liedown if I wasn’t %%% busy…

The blog is still on official darkness notice, but just a quick word to go and read Ekaterina Sedia’s superb post, “Seeing Through Foreign Eyes”, on writers and foreign cultures (touches on insider vs. outsider cultural approaches, and the disproportionate value attributed to “outsider” books):

So the issue with books set in foreign cultures, I think, that even though many SF/F readers call for more perspectives and diversity, they don’t really want that. They want someone familiar to show them some exotic stuff without actually challenging the readers’ assumptions or values. But really, if you want to experience a different perspective and a different mindset, read a book in translation.

Yes, yes and yes.

-A few Harbinger reviews: Falcata Times, Gillian Polack, the Outhousers. And a less enthusiastic, though still very interesting one over at Solar Bridge. Money quote: “De Bodard is dangerously addictive.” Can I put that on my website?

-Orson Scott Card interview over at Goodreads

-Shweta Narayan’s excellent “Eyes of Carven Emerald” from Clockwork Phoenix 3 is online at SFSignal. I love her approach to steampunk (think Hindu/Muslim), and her narrative structures are always interesting. Here, a tale of Alexandros’ conquests is interleaved with excerpts from a fairy tale set in India. Check it out!

-Via the World SF blog: The Rough Guide to Modern Malaysian Science Fiction and Fantasy. Fascinating read.

-Reposting a fascinating comment by Dylan Fox on ebook issues (which came either from John Scalzi or Paul Cornell, we’re not sure): publishers think that readers buy hardbacks for early availability, so they priced early release ebooks the same as hardbacks or higher. Whereas readers tend to buy hardbacks “because they look good and last longer, they’re more tactile and look better on our shelves, which are the exact qualities that ebooks lack”. Interesting…

-And, talking about ebooks…. Six e-book trends to watch for in 2011. Some interesting stuff in there.

–Jeff Vandermeer on short fiction anthology Leviathan 5: “This anthology, the latest in the World Fantasy Award winning and PKD award finalist series, will focus on weird fiction and fantasy from newer writers, probably defined as writers with two or fewer books published in English. We are going to do something fairly unprecedented in the history of genre and have between 15 and 20 associate/foreign language editors in other countries so that many writers who do not write in English would be able to submit. Up to 30,000 words of the 100,000 words might be fiction newly translated for Leviathan 5.”. I’ve ranted enough about the prevalence of English language on the SF scene, and this seems like a great way to showcase a more diverse set of writers to the English-speaking crowd. More at the link–including various ways to help out the project.

-Paul Cornell on ebooks: some terrific points (the one on reader vs. publisher expectations on hardbacks was one of those “oh, of course” moments). Well worth a read. And, if you read this blog, you should know I’m cheering on for point 14, and adding a few choice words specific to those poor, benighted people like me who want to read in one language different from the authorised one in their region. At least with DVDs you get a choice of subtitles. And dear God, point 16–yes. Definitely point 16. If I have to pay for an ebook, I want a proper table of content–at the very least.
-Courtesy of Roberto Quaglia (and Ian Watson, who was doing the filming at the time), the video of last year’s Eastercon panel on “Writing in English as a Foreign Language” (with Roberto, Gérard Kraus, Anna Ferruglio Dal Dan, and Claude Lalumière, who actually was with me on the exact same panel at the 2008 worldcon–except it was in French 🙂 )
-And now for something lighter (via Lee Harris and Mark Charan Newton): automatic Daily Mail headline generator. As Lee says, not quite 100% accurate, but still scarily on the mark.

Off to wrap the last Christmas present now. See you later 🙂