Villainesses

Lately, I've had a lot of free time, and I've used it wisely - namely, by catching up on the latest popular K-dramas.  I love historical Korean dramas in the vein of Emperor of the Sea or Jumong - a love story, lots of martial arts, sneaky politics and duplicitous deals that put Blagojevich to shame, and so on.  So on my mom's advice, I've been watching Dong Yi.  The story is set in 17th century Korea during the Joseon dynasty, and is about a slave girl who is the daughter of slave rebels.  She enters the place and, over the course of several years, catches the eye of the king.  Subsequently she is raised to court lady, royal consort, and then first rank royal consort, which puts her directly below the queen (there is an excellent summary of consort and concubine ranks in the Joseon period here).  The drama is very well done and well cast, and the story is fascinating, especially because it's based on actual events.  Historically, very little is known about Dong Yi, other than that she was discovered as a water maid in the palace and raised to consort-level, and later gave birth to the 21st king of the Joseon dynasty.

As I said, the actors/actresses are all well cast, but one historical figure really stands out.  She is Jang Ok-jeong, who herself is lowborn.  She is brilliant, educated and oh-so-sneaky.  She maneuvers herself from nothing to court lady, court lady to consort, then consort to First Rank Consort.  She then ousts Queen Inhyeon from the palace and becomes queen in her stead.  In the drama, her machinations are her downfall, and the king deposes Jang and reinstates the former queen.  When Queen Inhyeon dies under mysterious circumstances and Jang is discovered practicing some form of voodoo and wishing death on the queen, she is ordered to commit suicide by poison.  Jang gave birth to the 20th king of the Joseon dynasty, who died young - rumor has it that Jang beat her son in fury? frustration? and crippled him.  Who knows?  All I know is that she is a very famous historical figure and I guess the standing lesson for what happens when you give over to overweening ambition.  

Watching Dong Yi makes me think of other villainesses in history and literature.  Of course, the first one that comes to mind is Anne Boleyn, though it's arguable as to whether she's really a "villainess" (for a lurid but entertaining fictional account, try Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl).  Nevertheless, Anne herself helped oust Queen Katherine by convincing Henry VIII to divorce Katherine, and she became queen.  Like Jang, Anne was also educated and a consummate court player, and like Jang, Anne was also executed.  Unlike Jang, Anne gave birth to the greatest monarch in her nation's history, and helped change the face of religion in the Western world.  However, both Anne and Jang have reputations for deception and ambition.  Too bad they lived in different centuries and countries - wouldn't it be fascinating to see them in an ambition deathmatch?  I'm putting my bet on Jang - the woman was willing to commit murder.  Talk about ruthless.

So who are some other female villains, historical and fictional?  

Fans of fantasy will surely recognize Cersei Lannister from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series (so far four books published - A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows, with a fifth due...who knows?  A Dance with Dragons has been in the works for years now, and Martin has projected another two books following A Dance with Dragons).  Beautiful, scheming, murderous and incestuous - Cersei certainly has the hallmarks of a female villain, and then some.  Unlike some villains, who may have explanatory circumstances or redeeming qualities, Cersei really doesn't have any redeeming qualities.  She's pretty much an unmitigated bitch.  And you know - I kind of like her character for it. 

Then there's Mrs. Coulter from Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.  Mrs. Coulter is a woman prepared to main or kill children in order to conduct experiments on their animal daemons.  There's coldness for you.  Sure, she may redeem herself in the end, at least where her own daughter is concerned, but that's one woman you really don't want babysitting your kids. 

And for those of you who have read The Mountains of Mourning, a novella by Lois McMaster Bujold set in the Vorkosigan universe, Ma Mattulich is pretty deranged herself.  This is a woman who has committed infanticide multiple times with the justification of "cleansing" genetic mutations from the family bloodline.  She's a woman who killed her own grandchild (not to mention her own children) due to this belief, even though the grandchild had an easily correctable harelip.  She was ready to let an innocent man take the blame for her acts.  And you know...the worst part was, she was unrepentant to the end.  

And finally, though there are many more villainesses out there, I'm reminded of Alice Hong in S.M. Stirling's Nantucket series (Island in the Sea of Time, Against the Tide of Years and On the Oceans of Eternity).  Sadistic, taking pleasure in pain and torture, psychotic, and really, really into S&M...she definitely took full advantage of being catapulted 3000 years back in time into a lawless world.  Note to self: if my little piece of home is transported back to the Bronze Age, take careful note of who followed me there.  Steer clear of the kinky ones. 

Well, that's all for now, but I think it's safe to say - equal opportunity and gender rights have never been a problem when it comes to evil.

Book Review: Dies the Fire & World War Z

Dies the Fire, by S.M. Stirling, is an alternate history book that begins with all modern devices going kaput and people having to find a way to survive in a new (and yet, ironically, old) world.  World War Z, by Max Brooks, is a book about the zombie apocalypse.  So what do these two books have in common?

Both books do an excellent job of showing just how society could collapse in an apocalyptic scenario.  World War Z takes a far more macro and global approach.  Set after the great zombie war, in which the world has been overrun by the zombie disease, the book is composed of survivor interviews.  From the beginning of the outbreak in China, to various nations' responses to the epidemic, from covering up outbreaks or closing off borders, to the issue of mass numbers of refugees from affected and infected countries, to the great die-off of the human population, and the subsequent fight and mobilization against the zombies, Brooks takes an expansive look at the world in the face of a major crisis.  The scope of the book is impressive - he covers several years, and numerous countries, from the US to South Africa to Japan.  His micro approach is just as impressive.  Telling the story through various perspectives and showing the progression of the war, the people stories really hit home.  The one that really stuck with me was the introverted, unskilled in fighting Japanese teenager trying to escape from his high-rise apartment as his city falls apart in disease and flames.  Considering I was reading this while living in a major urban city in a high-rise, you can see why I suddenly decided I really needed a katana (which is what saved him in the end).

On the other hand, Dies the Fire keeps its action in a very small area - Oregon to be exact.  After the failure of all modern devices, and the failure of modern physics (gunpowder no longer produces the same explosive reaction), there is also a great die-off.  Pretty much all urban areas, and presumably countries that are mostly city, face starvation, disease (remember, modern sanitation no longer works either), and major crime from people who suddenly realize, they can do whatever the hell they want.  Dies the Fire follows three major groups - two groups are comprised of survivors who are just trying to get somewhere where they can survive.  Food is an issue.  Fighting bandits, and more frighteningly, Eaters (those who have resorted to cannibalism and hunting down human prey), is a big issue.  The third group is the Protectorate, led by a power-mad former medieval history professor who sees in this now backward world a chance for him to become a major power.  He recruits gang members and thugs, drive out people from Portland to die so that they don't consume meager food supplies, and enslaves those who are too weak to oppose him.  I think we've found our antagonist here.

Like World War Z, Dies the Fire does an incredible job depicting the hell in a handbasket world that could happen in the face of an apocalyptic event.  Unlike World War Z, Dies the Fire confines itself to the Oregon area.  However, in the second and third books of the Dies the Fire trilogy, The Protector's War and A Meeting at Corvallis, we find out, to a limited extent, what happened in Europe and the UK, and in some other countries.

But even so, we don't really see what happened in the rest of the US until the following series beginning with The Sunrise Lands, which takes place 20 years after the events of Dies the Fire and features the son of one of the major characters.  Stirling is still in the process of writing this second series - so far there are three books out (The Sunrise Lands, The Scourge of God, and The Sword of the Lady) with a fourth, The High King of Montival, due to be released on September 7.

If you like semi-realistic post-apocalyptic books, and if you don't want to suspend your sense of disbelief too much, Dies the Fire is for you.  However, if you really don't want to suspense your disbelief, I would recommend you stop with the Dies the Fire trilogy, and not go on to the The Sunrise Lands, as that series focuses less on survival and more on mysticism and religion.

Overall, despite the facially different topics, I think World War Z and Dies the Fire go well together as books asking, "What happens when the shit hits the fan?"

Book Review: Old Man's War

I'm rereading Old Man's War, by John Scalzi for probably the fourth or fifth time in the last year.  Ok, I'm a fast reader.  And yeah, I like my favorite books.  Books on my "constant reread" list tend to feel like old friends I'm seeing again.  Sure, I know exactly what's going to happen.  But who cares?  I like my nice, safe, familiar book worlds.

So anyway, I'm rereading Old Man's War, because, even though it's really Heinlein/Starship Troopers-lite, it's a pretty damn funny book.  Like Starship Troopers, humanity is fighting a big war against extraterrestrials, and we see this fight through the eyes of someone who is enlisted as a soldier.  But here's the catch - the soldiers are all old people from Earth, put into new, improved bodies, and set lose on all the alien species wanting to kill off humans.  Lots of action.  Lots of great, funny dialogue.  Really, the best part of the book is the dialogue.  Scalzi makes his characters eminently likable.  And you know - and here's where I'm an undiscerning sap when it comes to books - good things happen to the main character!  You root for him, he succeeds, and I'm happy.  Maybe it's not great literature, on the scale of character agony, pain and deprivation, but for this book, it works.

Plot development-wise, the book is pretty light.  It really reads like a combination of Starship Troopers and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, but instead of children, we have geriatrics.  The plot's been done before - no big surprises here.  But it's a nice, fairly happy sci-fi novel with good dialogue and funny characters.  And sometimes, that's pretty tough to find in the pretty big genre of science fiction, and that's really what makes this book worth reading.

How Did I Ever Live Without My Kindle?

Honestly, I don't know.  When I left Chicago, I donated two giant suitcases full of books to Goodwill.  I also shipped three 12x12x12 boxes of books home.  I got home, and went on a massive cleaning rampage. So far there are 6 large boxes of books, some dating back to middle school, in the garage, waiting to be disposed of.  And that's not even counting two bookshelves of books I'm keeping, and 200+ books on my Kindle.  I'm sure the amount of money I've spent on books would actually make a nice little dent in my loans (and let's not even get into that).

I've resolved that until I'm in a place where I don't expect to move for at least five years, I'm not buying another print book.  If it's not an e-book, nope, no way.  Let's hope I stick with that resolution.

A much more difficult resolution is the one where I say I won't give in to tech envy.  But those new Kindles are so cute!  And there's a graphite one!  No more covers staining the white plastic.  I want.  But no.

But really, I was a pretty big proponent of print books.  I like the feel, the smell, being able to easily flip back to reread a part of the book...but I hopped on the e-book wagon pretty quickly.  And now that I'm on that wagon, I'll pretty much do anything not to fall off it.  I'll miss the prospect of having an entire room in my future mansion devoted to books, but since, with an e-book reader I'll be able to take that entire library with me anywhere, I think I'll get over it.

Book Review: The Hunger Games

I tend to fall in love with books a lot.  Maybe it's the characterizations, or the author's ability to world-build, or maybe it's the really good banter and wit the characters display, but when that's all said and done, it's not uncommon for me to find a book I LOVE fairly frequently.  And though I reread quite a bit, there aren't that many books where I feel the need to reread it right after finishing it.  However, The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, is definitely one of those books.

After my second reread, I'm not not entirely sure what it is about the book that draws me to it.  The protagonist isn't particularly likeable.  And honestly, overall, the characters really aren't very fleshed out.  Katniss, the main character is, cynical.  Peeta, the male protagonist, is nice and likeable, but despite Collins' efforts to make you want to see Peeta as the good likeable cop, he comes off a bit dopey.  Actually, the most likeable character is Haymitch, the gruff, drunk mentor.  I feel like there's a lot more to the story there, and far more potential for deeper characterization. 

So it's not the characters.  Maybe it's the world-building?  Collins definitely paints an interesting picture here.  She sets her story in Panem, a dystopian post-America country, ruled by the Capitol, with twelve subject Districts.  After a disastrous rebellion in the past, the Districts were all defeated, with District 13 being annihilated, and each year each District must send two of its children to compete (and usually die) in the Hunger Games.  There is a lot of promise to this setting.  Since it's set in the indeterminate future, there's the ever-present possibility of "what if?"  What if this type of future comes to pass?  Calling to mind novels such as Brave New World or 1984, the dystopian world of The Hunger Games certainly draws you in as the reader. 

However, as interesting as the premise is, I do have some quibbles about how little Collins has expanded her world.  For one thing, I'm a little weird in that I love maps.  I mean, I really love maps.  If a book, especially a book that encompasses a fairly large world, has a map, I'm all over that.  Collins' Panem is basically North America.  There are twelve existing districts, the Capitol, and a destroyed district.  But where are the maps??  She gives us a few clues.  The Capitol is in the Rockies, District 12, home of the protagonists, is somewhere in Appalachia, District 4 is primarily a fishing district, but in a large landmass like North America, a map would be nice.  Additionally, I wouldn't have minded having a list of the Districts, who the heck the tributes were from each, and what the primary contribution of each District is.  Sure, greater detail runs the risk of excessively bogging down the narrative.  However, details really make the world (I mean, look at Tolkien's work - Lord of the Rings may bore me to tears, but the world he creates is truly extraordinary).  

I do cut Collins some slack in that 1) she's writing for a young adult audience; and 2) it's obvious the first book is intended to be an action-filled kick-off to her trilogy.  And she does fill in some of the gaps and does a bit of a better job on characterization in her second book, Catching Fire.  But what really perplexes me is that, I still really like this book.  Sure the characters aren't that developed, and the world is still frustratingly vague.  However, there really is something about it that hooked me, and made me want to read, and then reread it.  

I'm hoping that Mockingjay, the last book of the trilogy which will be released on August 24, will fill in more of the gaps.

However this trilogy ends, I do know one thing for certain.  I will never see Survivor the same way. 

Stars: 4