Archive for the Miscellaneous Category


Winter Reading: Queer-Friendly Science Fiction

December 20th, 2017

I know I usually write about non-Yuri stuff on Sundays, but I’ve read a pile of great science fiction recently that I wanted to share with you before the holiday season slams down on all of us and I spend my days slaving over end-of-year lists.

To start things off, I highly recommend the Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie. The Sad/Rabid Puppies hated this series with the burning of thousand fiery dyspeptic stomachs, which was good enough for me to give it a try. ^_^ I’ll do my best to no-spoiler synopsize the books, but no promises.

The series, which consists of three books –  Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy – follows an artificial intelligence that runs a troopship, Justice of Toren. The timeline of the first novel is split as Justice of Toren tells us of her experiences before and after a massively traumatic experience forces her to involve herself in the personal politics of the rule of the Imperium. The language of the Empire is non-gendered, and Justice of Toren is herself not really all that keyed into understanding gender, she she defaults to calling everyone “she.” (And for the moment, so will I.) This enraged the Puppies, as did some implied and actual homosexuality. It’s true that the different perspective on gendered language makes the book difficult for some folks, but of itself not enough to call the series good. That said, the story is not good – it’s brilliant. Characters, writing, world-building are all impeccably tight and extremely well-constructed. Leckie’s ability to create a society based around the principles of the Roman Empire that feel fresh and also very human, and her ability to create characters that are not at all human in stark contrast is astounding.

I have literally one complaint about this series and it has nothing to do with the series itself, but entirely is about my own needs as a reader. We – unfortunately, IMHO – do learn the sex of several of the main characters, when gendered language is used. I felt that to be a bit of a betrayal of the core concept. Other than that one thing, I found the entire series to be compelling reading. I’ve got Leckie’s next book, Provenance on my to-read list.

My next book of interest was Martha Wells’, All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries. This follows an artificial intelligence security bot, who refers to itself as “Murderbot” assigned to protect a scientific expedition. When it appears that they are being sabotaged, Murderbot teams up with it’s humans (despite it being generally uninterested and incapable of dealing with humans all that well) to find out what the heck is going on. 

Based on the size of this book and it’s font, I assumed it was an YA novel. I certainly could have read it easily in one sitting had I had the time. Even so it only took me two evenings to finish it. It was amusing, rather than compelling. I found myself fascinated by the behaviors of the protagonist who, despite calling itself Murderbot, seemed a peaceable enough being. There is also homosexuality in the story and gender and sexuality are topics that are covered within the story. Murderbot was, like Breq in the Imperial Radch series, not interested in sex for themselves, although it understood the concepts, and was, unlike Breq, not very good at relating to humans. More and more as the story unfolded I started developing an idea about AI behavior being patterned after or reflecting our understanding of neuroatypical thought. I can totally see the behaviors associated folks on the Asperger Spectrum reflected in these characters. I am not saying “ASD folks are like robots” or that they are inhuman. I am saying neuroatypical folks might see themselves reflected, as I did. These AIs were empathetic for me and they allowed me to see my own neuroatypicality reflected as I watched them process human relations. It seemed to me to a useful lens with which to understand my own processes.

I’m wrapping up a third book about an AI tonight (I’m still not sure if the trend here is with stuff that’s being published or just me, honestly). Autonomous: A Novel by Annalee Newitz is good, but I have some reservations about it. It follows a pharmaceutical drug pirate and biotech engineer, a woman who goes by the name Jack, as she seeks to stop an outbreak of a deadly adverse event in a reverse engineered drug she’s bootlegging. The powers that be have sent a human-AI team to track her down.

Sexuality and gender are part of the plot in this story. Jack is bisexual and that’s a non-issue, but the human detective Eliasz and his AI partner Paladin have a sexual relationship, as well. And this is where my reservations come in. Paladin is a military-grade bot, and is therefore gendered by humans as male. Eliasz has a very self-loathingly homophobic reaction to his own attraction to Paladin. When they commence an actual relationship, Eliasz ask Paladin whether he should refer to it as a he or a she. Paladin chooses “She.” I 100% support Paladin having a choice and the choice she makes, but, by making it, she allows Elisz to skip over his very serious issue with homophobia. And Paladin realizes this. So she appreciates the act of being able to consent and the fact that she is an active participant, not just a receptacle, but also thinks this is more complicated than Eliasz realizes. I agree. I’m not done with this book, should be wrapping it up tonight, so maybe I’ll feel differently in a few hours…but I don’t think so.

Also queued for me is Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer, which I am told also deals with gender in an intelligent way. It’s worth noting that Tor is really reach out to find and publish interesting books on sexuality and gender (and by women,) and so are getting a lot of my money these days. ^_^

If you’ve read anything you think people ought to know about for their winter reading, throw it out in the comments! We can all always use a good book recommendation.

 

 





Ichigo Mashimaro Manga, Volume 8 (苺ましまろ)

December 17th, 2017

Barasui is consistent, I’ll give him that. The last volume of Ichigo Mashimaro was 4 years ago, and the previous one was four years before that. Nice work if you can get it.

Unfortunately for us, a lot of what made Volume 7 so brilliant is gone in Volume 8. Miu has stopped playing to Chika’s intelligent straightman and has returned to playing to Matsuri’s tiresome gullibility.  I’m not sure why Ana just doesn’t get up and walk way at this point. Chika can’t, they’re in her room, and she clearly likes the background noise.

In Volume 8 of Ichigo Mashimaro, we have Miu pretending to be an alien, and Chika subtlely undermining her, but it’s mostly Miu saying ridiculous stuff and watching Matsuri being amazed. This wears thin in a short time.

The best chapter by far is one that begins with Nobue face down on the ground.  Miu concocts a complex and fascinating series of rebuses that send the other four on a quest for something. The puzzles are complicated and erudite, which meant that it was Chika and Nobue doing the heavy lifting. It turns out that the something in question is Chika’s diary. Nobue shows us that cruel streak she occasionally has and reads passages out loud until Chika snaps and knocks her lights out. It wasn’t a feel-good story, but once again, I find myself on team Chika.

The final chapters hinge on the classmate who is always being sent out to stand in the hallway and his particular forms of cluelessness, and a Q&A game played by the gang while at a hot spring. 

Not the funniest issue, but possibly the most emotionally complicated. The best thing to come from it were definitely the t-shirts I got in Akihabara.

Ratings: 

Art – 7
Story – 6
Characters – 5 for everyone else, 100 for Chika
Service – 6 Not as much, but still….

Overall – 7

Amusing rather than funny. I think Barasui’s a little tired of doing this.





Winter Reading: “Abyss” Novel Series by Emily Skrustkie

November 12th, 2017

 It’s kind of obvious to most people interested in and embedded in pop culture that we are going through a massive cultural cramp right now as previously silenced and controlled voices find that they don’t actually have to be quiet to protect other people’s fragile sensibilities.

The folks who have decided that gaming and perverting the awards systems to fuel their egos; Gamergate, the few people left arguing that Jane Foster as Thor or female Ghostbusters destroys their childhoods and the Sad and Rabid Puppies are, in a nutshell, pathetic. But they, and their political counterparts, have done the rest of us a service. They serve as a sign post to a miserable, regressive position on the future.  And by being those signposts, we can just as easily look in the opposite direction for inspiration.  And so, I have been spending my days reading science fiction and fantasy again as I had not in many years. I’m using the puppies’ “Do Not Want” lists as my to-read list, and it’s been great.I don’t think I’ve been this happy reading science fiction and fantasy in decades. It’s not suitable for Okazu, but I finished Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor last week. If you have a YA reader of any age who liked Harry Potter or who wished not all magic users were white or male, have them start with Akata Witch. Brilliant stuff. I’m also reading Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch series, which I’ll be reviewing here. 

But today I want to talk about a different kind of monster than those who inhabits the Internets. Today we’re talking about giant monsters. Giant Sea Monsters.

Emily Skrutskie’s The Abyss Surrounds Us follows sea-beast trainer Cassandra Leung on her first day testing her skills in controlling the giant monster, the Reckoner, she has trained to fight pirates. Instead of taking down the pirates, Cassandra is captured and forced to train a Reckoner that will belong to the pirates themselves.  

The dialogue and plot are pretty-high tension, as befits both Cas’ character and the situation. There’s violence which is wholly appropriate to the story. And there’s a sexual tension and relationship that builds up between Cas and her captor Swift, who is one of four trainees’ being groomed by their strict, strong and openly manipulative captain, Santa Elena. Swift wants to be captain someday and she’s probably going to be.

The two best things about the series are the way that pirates are portrayed as pretty much terrible people and the Reckoners. There’s alliances, rather than friendships among the pirates…even within a crew. And Santa Elena plays the trainees off of one another, so none of them know enough to take over individually and they don’t know enough to gang up on her and take over together. Skrutskie takes the kind of manipulation and maneuvering we all know from school and work and lays it out as the actual standard operating procedure of the ship.  The beasts are portrayed as beasts. No warm fuzzy mammal-bonding here. These are giant sea-going creatures like squids and whales and turtles, trained to be ship-destroying machines. They are terrifying.

Edge of the Abyss begins a few weeks after Cas has been captured and has negotiated her place in the crew. It opens the world of the pirates up a little larger, and we can see the symbiosis between the pirates and the oceans and their prey, the ships from the land countries. The story swirls more tightly around Swift and Cas’ relationship and how it affects their work, the crew and the larger political relationship with the other pirates, and their relationship with the boats they attack.  But mostly, it’s about Cas and Swift. Their relationship is tempestuous, to say the least. 

The ending of Edge of the Abyss is abrupt, however, I felt it was the right choice to make. Stretching this book into a third story would have been forced and exhausting. By ending it the way she did, Skrutskie left room for a third book without needing cleanup of leftovers, and equally, she could leave this book where it is, wrapped up tightly without need for a sequel. 

Most importantly, Skrutskie has given us a more modern, more realistic, and yet still futuristic idea of pirates and piracy that fails to glorify the lifestyle, even as it is embedded within it. And it gives us an image of women and men as pirates on more or less equal footing without explanation or handwave. And, for us, it provides a same-sex young female couple without  coming of age or coming out clogging up the larger story.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

I found these two books to be enjoyable. Perfect for teen or older reader looking for a more realistic image of pirates and less historical fantasy. No Johnny Depps need apply, but Natalie Portman would make a damn fine Santa Elena. 





Akarui Kiokusoushitsu, Volume 1 (明るい記憶喪失) Guest Review by Bruce P

November 8th, 2017

 I’m headed for Massachusetts to eat and drink and talk queer manga at Harvard tomorrow, heavy-hearted with the fresh loss of my dear friend Bruce. I’d like you all to read this and lift a glass of something tasty to his memory.  Here is the final Guest Review by Bruce P.

So you bought a copy of Practical Problems in the Forbidden Art of Reanimation, only to find it has nothing to do with Sailor Moon Crystal – but you’re having fun with it anyway, following the step-by-step instructions. Your hand-stitched project is now lying shackled and inert on the slab; electrodes have been implanted; dynamos are screaming in anticipation; lightning is crackling in the midnight sky outside – when you reach step 37 and realize, shoot, you forgot to pick up a brain. Well, no biggie. You pack a light snack and head down to the local morgue.

It’s dark as you creep in, hacksaw in hand, and begin opening the frosty vaults. You work at peeling back the rubber sheets – they tend to stick – and look over the corpses, trying to identify just the right kind of brain to harvest for use in…Maxine. But can you really gauge the quality of what’s inside those craniums from their frozen faces alone? Fortunately, you’ve broken into the Yuri wing, and your years as a fan are your guide…

 

Vault #1. 1940’s hairstyle done up in Play-Doh. Obviously a blithe Takemoto Izumi character. Too whimsical. Next.

 

#2. That aquiline nose and cold-chisel chin – clearly from the Takamiya Jin family. Bitter chocolate, when you’re looking for Milk Duds. Next.

 

#3. Eyes like pitted olives in search of a Martini. Must be a Morishima Akiko character. Too Perky.

 

 

#4. A double, how romantic. But cauliflower ears from the boxing rings of Hell – Oku Hiroya’s spawn of course (remember Hen?). These two have been on ice a while. Too pendulous (oh, you do remember Hen).

You are about to despair, when the final vault reveals a truly gruesome sight:

#5. Mouth gaping like a dirigible hangar – the unmistakable trademark of an Oku Tamamushi character. Overwrought, and potentially clinically insane. But on the plus side, this brain fits in a sandwich bag.

Excellent.

The preceding bit of seasonal froth highlights a curious fact: Oku Tamamushi has clearly made wide gaping mouths his personal artistic trademark. His work is instantly identifiable. This clever branding was a true flash of inspiration, the kind of thing you just don’t pick up in art school (not if it’s accredited). And he really gets to practice his yawning orifices in the 4-koma series Akarui Kiokusoushitsu, Volume 1  aka Cheerful Amnesia, (明るい記憶喪失). The title is honest and accurate. The cover character is in fact a violently cheerful Yuri amnesiac, and that is pretty much all there is to the story. It’s a long a haul to the end of the volume.

Arisa and Mari have been living together for some years. But as the story begins Arisa is lying comatose in the hospital, suffering from a severe case of plot device. When she awakens, she has no memory of Mari or their life together. Mouth wide open she wonders who this lovely, unfamiliar, unsmiling woman is sitting by the bed. When Mari informs her she’s her lover, Arisa’s little brain short-circuits. She blushes, shrieks, squirms, squees, wriggles, and generally provides evidence as to why Mari never once smiles through the rest of the Manga. What Arisa doesn’t do is close her mouth. Not now, not when they head home, not when she sees their big fluffy bed. Not much of ever, actually. Oku Tamamushi has a brand, and Arisa is intent on getting that contract for Volume 2.

From this point on Arisa has to get reacquainted with the intimacies that go with living as a couple. She doesn’t manage it well. She actually doesn’t manage it at all. She’s just so embarrassed and excited and squirmy to know that her lover is this lovely, unfamiliar, unsmiling woman (wait, wasn’t that page 1? Yes, and many, many pages beyond). It’s heavy going for Mari as they work their way from holding hands to soapy bath-times to the frilly underwear.  It’s heavy going for us all.

There’s one bright spot in all this. Mari heads out of the house for work in a sharp suit; Arisa follows her to find what office she works in. She is shocked to discover that Mari is in fact a welder. All she can do is stand with (guesses?) her mouth open. But really, there are far too few Yuri stories that feature skilled metalworkers, just my opinion. Obviously, even fewer good ones.

Arisa blunderingly (she really is a pill) outs Mari to her fellow workers. But the old guy in the shop is cool with it, to Mari’s relief, and the creepy young guy is just sad because he had a crush on her.

The essential Arisa is revealed in a flashback of how the two met. Mari is working the counter in a fast food place. Schoolgirl Arisa takes one look and is rooted to the spot in an agony of open-mouthed love. She returns to stare again day after day. Then one time Mari is not there, and Arisa, bewildered, simply sits faithfully waiting, pining away, hour after hour, heedless that the trains have stopped running. Mari shows up late and lugs the poor passed-out thing home. So, there it is, she’s Hachiko. If she was fuzzy it might be cute.

Four-komas are essentially newspaper comic strips, which are of course meant to be read on a one-strip-a-day basis. The majority of 4-komas are best approached in this fashion. This one would benefit from much greater intervals.

Ratings:

Art – 5.  Fairly routine 4-koma material.
Story – 4.  Without the amnesia, this could be a low-budget parody of Minamoto Hisanari’s Fu-Fu – the two women living together in each are even similar ‘types’: the free-spirited flake passionately in love with her taller, serious partner. But it does have the amnesia. And so much less.
Characters – 5.  A welder and an Akita. Unique, possibly, for a Yuri series, but not entirely healthy.
Yuri – 9.  A 10 would be %100 good Yuri. This is just %100 Yuri.
Service – 8.  Less in what is actually depicted, than in servicey situations, such as Mari arriving home with injured hands, requiring Arisa to wash her in the tub (blush, squee, squirm).

Overall – 5. This actually got a bump up to 5, less on merit, really, than as an encouragement for more Yuri stories with professional metalworkers. Or electricians. That just came to mind. Must be these screaming dynamos.

And if you think disinterred body parts electrified to walk the night are grotesque, consider that Akarui Kiokusoushitsu Volume 2 is now out.





In Memoriam, Okazu Superhero Bruce P

November 7th, 2017

Hi folks. I have no idea what to say here. This is the second time I’ve lost someone important to me, someone who I met because of Yuri. Okazu Superhero, Guest Reviewer and my very dear friend Bruce Pregger has passed away.

If you’re a long time reader, you’ve read many of his hilarious reviews and his event reports (I’m putting them all, and this post, into a new category, so they can be found simply) here on Okazu. He’s traveled with me to several continents and I’m going to miss him so much, I can’t even express myself.

Ah, crap. I hate this. 

I had a guest review of his all scheduled to run on Wednesday, it will still run, but dammit, Bruce, you were supposed to go with us to Tokyo in 2 weeks. Dammit.

Goodbye Bruce, you will be missed.