Friday, April 8, 2011
Ghost Shadow by Heather Graham
This story is barely worth a mention in my opinion. It's typical American surface writing - New York Times bestselling fare, a completely predictable formulaic murder mystery with a love interest, and a woman with a gift for seeing ghosts who help her solve the crime/s. Ho hum, dee dum. Toss.
The Shape-Changer's Wife by Sharon Shinn
This is a lovely little gem of a story about a young wizard in training.
Aubrey is the pure of heart hero who is tested by darkness and corruption.
His most dangerous adversary is also his teacher - the Shape-Changer.
His forbidden love is his teacher's wife - who is not quite human, although she appears to be on the surface.
At stake is the choice to become a person of power, and to choose what to do with that power. Will Aubrey choose to emulate his teacher and become the type of wizard who lusts for power and control at the price of the suffering and oppression of those he has under his control, or will Aubrey use his power to to restore balance and freedom to those he could have power over?
As I said, it's a delightful little gem for an evening's worth of reading.
Aubrey is the pure of heart hero who is tested by darkness and corruption.
His most dangerous adversary is also his teacher - the Shape-Changer.
His forbidden love is his teacher's wife - who is not quite human, although she appears to be on the surface.
At stake is the choice to become a person of power, and to choose what to do with that power. Will Aubrey choose to emulate his teacher and become the type of wizard who lusts for power and control at the price of the suffering and oppression of those he has under his control, or will Aubrey use his power to to restore balance and freedom to those he could have power over?
As I said, it's a delightful little gem for an evening's worth of reading.
Chalice by Robin McKinley - and a reflection on modern society
I loved the world that Robin McKinley creates in this book. It is a world where the land and all creatures are intimately linked to the human beings who live upon it and vice versa. The humans are literally the caretakers of the elements, the woods, the animals, the bees and so on. The land is divided up into smaller parcels called demesne, and everyone has a place and a role to play in keeping the balance. Everything and everyone is interconnected in a delicate yet strong living web of life. When the balance is upset by some human flaw in character and behavior this has dire consequences on the environment and all of it's inhabitants.
Enter a woman who had humble beginnings as a woodskeeper and a beekeeper. The landsense choses her as the new "Chalice" which is one of the most powerful positions a woman can hold in a demesne. She has had no training or apprenticeship and comes to the job in a demesne which has been neglected and abused by it's former Master who died suddenly in a fire. The land is suffering. The people are suffering. The former Master's brother who was apprenticed to become a priest of the Fire element is brought back to take up the role of Master, but he is poorly suited to the job (at first), being almost completely changed into a fire elemental himself. Then in their weakness, they must face a threat from the arrogant and power hungry Overlord and a pet outsider he proposes to replace the blood related Master with.
The story of how these two people must go through huge transformations and trials in order to save their demesne and people is a fascinating one, which drew my imagination and empathy in and caught me fast. And, I couldn't help wishing that our world was more like this one - where the priority and responsibility of keeping a healthy balance in all elements, land, resources, and living creatures was held higher than anything else.
If only humans had the "land-sense" - an awareness of, and sensitivity to the land and it's creatures that they lived upon, maybe we wouldn't be in the horrible trouble that we are in right now. Instead we have the Japanese dumping millions of tons of nuclear contaminated water into the oceans over who knows long a period of time? The radiation that has travelled in the air streams across the globe has so far reached from the West to the East coast of North America. Even where I live, I know that radiation contaminated rain has already fallen. It may be "low" levels at the moment, but radiation is radiation, and there is no end in sight to the poisonous emissions issuing from the devastated Fukushima Nuclear site. Over time it will accumulate. Over time, different kinds of radiation, with different half-lives and potencies will emerge from the site and gradually and inexorably pollute the earth, air and water for generations to come.
We depend upon the Sun for our lives, for the growth of plants and so on. But if the Sun itself were to suddenly visit the Earth, it would kill all of us, and everything on the planet. Balance. Proper time and place. Life is a delicate thing. Most humans are so arrogant, (like the Overlord and his outlander usurper wanting to supplant the ones who have the natural land sense and care for the land.) we think we can continue to rape, pillage, plunder the earth and all of it's denizens, and live our artificial lives which are in complete disharmony and imbalance with everything else, including ourselves with no consequence. But, like in Chalice, everything really is interconnected, earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. What happens on one corner of the Earth will eventually affect the other areas of the Earth.
It's not just the radiation which is worrying me. There are so many other things that worry me which human beings in power are responsible for. There are Genetically Modified crops and other organisms. There are cloned animals. There is the over dependence upon fossil fuels. The latest thing seems to be silver nanoparticles which are destroying essential microbes and plants and who knows what else as they've just started to study their effects... There is Big Science, Big Pharma and a powerful Western dominated mono-medical industry that I simply do not trust or respect, which in turn does not respect or acknowledge alternative or more natural forms of health management. Big bloated and falsely inflated Money. Big Government. Big Military and War. Poverty. Human Trafficking and Slavery. Exploitation and Abuse of all kinds. I could go on and on...but the point is, the direction in which we are headed is, I fear the wrong direction, and I find it hard to live my brief little life as a human being on this planet and feel any sense of peace or harmony or purpose in relation to the human societies I see around me. I'm very troubled by all of this. My heart feels heavy. My spirit is saddened. I'm ashamed of my fellow human beings. I do the best that I can with my little life. I exercise and try to make healthy environmentally conscious food choices. I live a very modest life with the smallest carbon footprint I can make. But, I know that this little bit that I do is not enough. I think that ultimately the human race is going to kill itself and everything around it will suffer and be destroyed along with us.
Over the last couple of weeks since Fukushima, I kept thinking about the "Resident Evil" movie series. The Umbrella Corporation is the source of a powerful biohazard virus which either turns people into flesh devouring mindless zombies, or causes unpredictable, usually horrifying mutations in living creatures. Alice is the one rarest of all exception - she bonds with the T-virus and gains super-powers which the Umbrella Corporation lusts to own and control and use for its own power and profit.
For the first time I began to think of zombies as more than the mindless, disgusting, ravening creatures of horror film I have always seen them as. I began to see them as metaphors for the large majority of humans who mindlessly and selfishly consume everything advertised to them as desirable, as they scramble just to exist (and be "successful") within the artificial structures and machinery of society created for (and by) them. And, the world in Resident Evil which dries up and becomes mostly dead from the effects of the T-virus is the dead and destroyed world which I see in our future.
No wonder I escape into the type of books that I do. They offer alternative realities in which all of these issues can be explored and examined and experimented with. When bad things happen in each of my dark dystopian books it is a small catharsis for me to mourn the pain, the violence and bloodshed, the myriad of evils, corruptions and injustices, the losses, disasters, and horrors I see happening all around me every day. Sometimes "good" and balance wins. Sometimes, just like in life, "bad" and imbalance wins.
Enter a woman who had humble beginnings as a woodskeeper and a beekeeper. The landsense choses her as the new "Chalice" which is one of the most powerful positions a woman can hold in a demesne. She has had no training or apprenticeship and comes to the job in a demesne which has been neglected and abused by it's former Master who died suddenly in a fire. The land is suffering. The people are suffering. The former Master's brother who was apprenticed to become a priest of the Fire element is brought back to take up the role of Master, but he is poorly suited to the job (at first), being almost completely changed into a fire elemental himself. Then in their weakness, they must face a threat from the arrogant and power hungry Overlord and a pet outsider he proposes to replace the blood related Master with.
The story of how these two people must go through huge transformations and trials in order to save their demesne and people is a fascinating one, which drew my imagination and empathy in and caught me fast. And, I couldn't help wishing that our world was more like this one - where the priority and responsibility of keeping a healthy balance in all elements, land, resources, and living creatures was held higher than anything else.
If only humans had the "land-sense" - an awareness of, and sensitivity to the land and it's creatures that they lived upon, maybe we wouldn't be in the horrible trouble that we are in right now. Instead we have the Japanese dumping millions of tons of nuclear contaminated water into the oceans over who knows long a period of time? The radiation that has travelled in the air streams across the globe has so far reached from the West to the East coast of North America. Even where I live, I know that radiation contaminated rain has already fallen. It may be "low" levels at the moment, but radiation is radiation, and there is no end in sight to the poisonous emissions issuing from the devastated Fukushima Nuclear site. Over time it will accumulate. Over time, different kinds of radiation, with different half-lives and potencies will emerge from the site and gradually and inexorably pollute the earth, air and water for generations to come.
We depend upon the Sun for our lives, for the growth of plants and so on. But if the Sun itself were to suddenly visit the Earth, it would kill all of us, and everything on the planet. Balance. Proper time and place. Life is a delicate thing. Most humans are so arrogant, (like the Overlord and his outlander usurper wanting to supplant the ones who have the natural land sense and care for the land.) we think we can continue to rape, pillage, plunder the earth and all of it's denizens, and live our artificial lives which are in complete disharmony and imbalance with everything else, including ourselves with no consequence. But, like in Chalice, everything really is interconnected, earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. What happens on one corner of the Earth will eventually affect the other areas of the Earth.
It's not just the radiation which is worrying me. There are so many other things that worry me which human beings in power are responsible for. There are Genetically Modified crops and other organisms. There are cloned animals. There is the over dependence upon fossil fuels. The latest thing seems to be silver nanoparticles which are destroying essential microbes and plants and who knows what else as they've just started to study their effects... There is Big Science, Big Pharma and a powerful Western dominated mono-medical industry that I simply do not trust or respect, which in turn does not respect or acknowledge alternative or more natural forms of health management. Big bloated and falsely inflated Money. Big Government. Big Military and War. Poverty. Human Trafficking and Slavery. Exploitation and Abuse of all kinds. I could go on and on...but the point is, the direction in which we are headed is, I fear the wrong direction, and I find it hard to live my brief little life as a human being on this planet and feel any sense of peace or harmony or purpose in relation to the human societies I see around me. I'm very troubled by all of this. My heart feels heavy. My spirit is saddened. I'm ashamed of my fellow human beings. I do the best that I can with my little life. I exercise and try to make healthy environmentally conscious food choices. I live a very modest life with the smallest carbon footprint I can make. But, I know that this little bit that I do is not enough. I think that ultimately the human race is going to kill itself and everything around it will suffer and be destroyed along with us.
Over the last couple of weeks since Fukushima, I kept thinking about the "Resident Evil" movie series. The Umbrella Corporation is the source of a powerful biohazard virus which either turns people into flesh devouring mindless zombies, or causes unpredictable, usually horrifying mutations in living creatures. Alice is the one rarest of all exception - she bonds with the T-virus and gains super-powers which the Umbrella Corporation lusts to own and control and use for its own power and profit.
For the first time I began to think of zombies as more than the mindless, disgusting, ravening creatures of horror film I have always seen them as. I began to see them as metaphors for the large majority of humans who mindlessly and selfishly consume everything advertised to them as desirable, as they scramble just to exist (and be "successful") within the artificial structures and machinery of society created for (and by) them. And, the world in Resident Evil which dries up and becomes mostly dead from the effects of the T-virus is the dead and destroyed world which I see in our future.
No wonder I escape into the type of books that I do. They offer alternative realities in which all of these issues can be explored and examined and experimented with. When bad things happen in each of my dark dystopian books it is a small catharsis for me to mourn the pain, the violence and bloodshed, the myriad of evils, corruptions and injustices, the losses, disasters, and horrors I see happening all around me every day. Sometimes "good" and balance wins. Sometimes, just like in life, "bad" and imbalance wins.
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