A Twist of Things to Come

Oy! Something doing every single day last week with the home school gang! It was a blast, but I'm worn out.

But, enough about that. ;) I'm hopeful that we'll have some Doctor Who stuff up on GC soon, what with Eleven's debut and all, but for today I have an interesting digression on certain Norse Gods (in keeping with our recent trends). The Essential Thor: Another Geeky Norse Mythology Moment, by Amalia the Savage re-examines the Thor love. Always a blast!

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This past week, while a full social calendar, left me with the realization that, if I'm to get anything at all done, my online involvement must suffer. It already has, to a great extent. I'm just saying, if you don't see or hear from me for a while, it's just that I'm slammed. I have a lot to do before we go on our road trip in two weeks, and then we'll be pretty much out of state and away from easy internet access for weeks.

Then there's the writing. I'm behind on what I wanted to do, but the plan had some time built into it, so I think I'm still good. The morning of Friday was all set for writing, then a friend from Georgia whom I hadn't spoken to in months called with news. It was great to reconnect and make plans and all.

I've been off the writing for long enough for me to get physical symptoms, so it must happen today.

I finished reading Kitty and the Midnight Hour, and I have to say that, while it is a pretty typical example of the urban fantasy genre, a few things surprised me. My mind drew some parallels to early Laurell K. Hammilton, which is not a bad thing. Carrie Vaughn has a decent grasp of plotting (I think early LKH may be superior in that regard) and her writing is clear and straightforward. It's not too precious, and it doesn't have the stylistic issues that early LKH had (repetitive phrases, some heavy cheese).

Still, the typical thing is for the kick-ass chick to be, well, kick-ass with monsters but submissive in bed. Kitty does that, too, but in this she seems to be fighting her way out of being a submissive member of the pack, finding her strength. I'm honestly tempted to read more, and see where it goes. If vampirism is the fantastical metaphor for sexuality, then maybe lycanthropy, in these novels, may turn out to be a metaphor for the young adult identity crisis, or a sort of fantasy feminist awakening.

Kitty was tough for me to read at first, slinking through life, not standing up for herself. Whining. I think maybe I saw a bit my younger self in her. In any case, I couldn't really identify with her victimhood, but I could identify with getting pissed off enough to fight back. The tipping point between anger and fear is not really new to me. I've been there, and learned to be strong without benefit of rage.

So, yeah. Fun fluff. I saw the main plot reveal coming a mile off, which was disappointing, and I'm not running out to snap up copies of all her books. But I will read more if the next book drifts into my path, I think.