Archive for the Queer Fiction Category


Summer Reading – Little Women

June 24th, 2012

As a child, I read omnivorously – as I imagine many of you might have, as well. I originally approached this review from the perspective that I was too busy reading books about cowboys and horses and soldiers to have properly read a much girls’ literature, but upon retrospect, I find that I actually did read quite a bit of girls’ lit – both books for girls and about girls. So it kind of stuck out that, among all the books about soldiers and cowboys and barbarians and horses, I managed to read Pollyanna and Pippi Longstocking and all of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books, but I had never read Little Women.

This wasn’t much of a problem until I became involved with anime and manga. No one ever asked if I’d read it. I didn’t need it for a book report or a research paper (although I imagine that if the me I am now were back in school for literature, it would surely appear in any footnotes that this alternate me might create.) It’s awkward to have read so many materials that refer to Little Women and never have actually read the thing itself.

The story is more bound up with Yuri than you might initially expect. The first Japanese lesbian organization was known as the Wakakusa no Kai. Wakakusa (young grass) also happens to be the Japanese title for the Little Women. (These two facts are not likely to be related, it may well be a coincidence. Wakakusa is also a term that is analogous to the political meaning of  “grassroots” in English.) And, well-known to long time Yuri fans, the characters of Bakuretsu Tenshi are named Meg, Jo, Amy…and Sei. Lastly and probably highest on the list of motivation for me was the fact that contained in Maria-sama ga Miteru: Soeur Audition, is the the magnificent story titled “Joanna,” which is the specific moment in which Yumi and Touko’s relationship alters permanently. In this story we learn that Touko, despite being a first year student, has earned the role of Amy in the Drama Club’s rendition of Little Women.

So now, I have read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. And to my surprise, I did not hate it. Although deeply bound in morality and gender roles that I myself do not particularly care for, the characters were real enough that I felt that the setting – and the lectures on morality that filled the corners of that setting – paled in comparison with the characters themselves. Meg was by far and away the least interesting to me. Amy is at first is quite annoying, but by the end is quite possibly the most interesting character, and Jo will always be an appealing character to anyone who is or was a tomboy. Beth wasn’t easy to like, being so pale, tragic and perfect. And now I think I understand why Sei is not named Beth and why in other references to the story, Beth is not named, but referred to. Aside from Beth being pale and tragic and ultimately sloughing her mortal coil, Amy’s eventual child is also named Beth…and is also weak and possibly not long for the world. Well, clearly we’re not going to name a character “Beth” unless we plan on killing her off.

Amy and Jo deserve center stage, precisely because they are both wildly imperfect. It’s not their accomplishments that make them interesting, or their successes, but their faults and their failures. Even though both end up married with children, neither really lose any of their essence in any way. Of course the morality play tells us that they set aside their artistic pursuits….but neither did so in order to be good wife, wise mother. Amy realized on her own that talent is not the same thing as genius and set her brush aside voluntarily since she did not have genius. Jo stops writing after she’s reached a certain level of success because…she’s done with it. Neither connects the artistic drive to unfulfilled desires or replaces it with more common, more “feminine,” desserts of marriage and family.

Okay, yes, I would have loved for Jo to be the crazy aunt, traveling the world and writing fabulous, famous stories from afar, but hey, this wasn’t my book. ^_^

When I began the book, I started as a fan of Jo. Now, finished, I stand with Amy. Like Touko before her, she charmed me, eventually.

Not a bad read.

Ratings:

Characters – 8
Story – 7

Overall – 8

As I fill in random gaps in my reading, I’ll review them here, because it makes sense to do so when they are relevant. Little Women was surely relevant. Next up in this series, that classic of lesbian vampire literature – Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu.





Lesbian Novel: Super Otome Taisen

February 3rd, 2011

Mori Natsuko-sensei a master of the craft of writing. The fact that her writing is pornographic does not diminish this fact one bit.

Super Otome Taisen (スーパー乙女大戦) is a collection of short stories that were published over a period of several years to create an epic whole.

It is Christmas Eve at St. Anna’s private Catholic school. In the Teresa dorm, a minature Angel named Lilith tells seven girls that they have been chosen by God to save the Earth.

The “senshi” are third-years Mikiko – honor student, former president of the Student Council;  Makoto – out lesbian, and “Casanova” of the school; second-years Karen – a half-Japanese supermodel; Sasa – the school bad girl; Fuyuko – otaku and president of the SF/Fantasy club and; first-years Goth-Loli Yumeno and…Mana. I’ll get to Mana in a bit.

The “senshi” gig isn’t quite what one might expect – they are told that their sexual energy will power the giant robot guardian Super Gaia as she fights off equally giant monsters that attack the planet. This requires them to either masturbate or have sex with one another to free Super Gaia from the tentacle-y clutches of the monsters.

During the course of their adventures, the senshi undergo some awakenings. Mikiko discovers a sadistic streak, while Sasa learns that she’s a masochist. Yumeno – who yearns for Karen –  also learns she has a mean streak, School Casanova Makoto is summarily rejected or ignored by almost every one of the others, Karen and Fuyuko discover a mutual love of tentacle play and fall in love and Mana develops a kind of telepathy with Lucretia, the giant sea anemone tentacle monster they keep in the dorm and Lucretia’s baby tentacle monster, Koro-chan.

Right from the beginning, there’s a few things that are not right about the situation and it’s otaku Fuyuko who notices them first. For one thing, the monster design is inconsistent (and she can identify which anime and live-action designers they remind her of.) She also comments on the set design. And, as she points out, the Angel that is their contact has the name Lilith, which doesn’t sound like someone that the Christian God would chose to save the Earth. Fuyuko comments that Lilith’s wings are more like an insect’s than an angel’s and calmly mentions that for all they know, the God they are serving is Beezelbub, Lord of Flies.

Karen, discovers something’s up when she overhears Lilith talking to “God” who has a very high-pitched voice and whom Lilith refers to as “Director.” To keep Karen quiet, Lilith imprisons her with Lucretia. Karen doesn’t really mind that much and Lucretia is very gentle with Karen – even going so far as to feed her. Nonetheless, I had a really hard time being comfortable knowing Karen was involved in “tentacle play” for three days straight.

It’s Mana who saves the day. Mana is a really weird character. She’s totally asexual and never involves herself at all with any of the other senshi. When she discovers Lucretia’s baby, she puts Koro in a bowl and raises it. From there, she develops empathy that evolves into telepathy. When Mana realizes that Koro-chan misses her mommy, she gets the locked door open by asking Lucretia politely to open it. Ultimately, this frees Karen (who, mind you, asks to go back after a bath and a meal.)

The climax (herhn herhn) of the book comes when Yumeno, disgusted at what Karen has become, blames Lilith and concocts a plan to punish her. She engages the help of Mana (to whom she had always been kind) and Koro-chan. The little tentacle monster is just the right size to detain and “play with” Lilith. The senshi gather and force Lilith to tell them what’s up. It turns out that the role of “God” has been played by an alien AV director who wanted to create a reality show for the human fetishists in the universe. And it was a big success, she admits. I really felt that Mori-sensei dropped the ball here – she needed to have had Mikiko demand royalties for them all. Oh well, can’t have everything. Oh and Earth? Never really in danger…

The senshi are returned back to their lives which, amazingly, they slip right back into. They gather together one last time to say goodbye to the graduating third-years. You get one guess as to how that turns out.

In the final scene, Mikiko and Makoto are walking the campus and they see a beautiful woman, with perfect proportions and a very western face. They go running up to her…it can’t be…Super Gaia? I won’t spoil the ending. You’ll just have to read the book to find out. ^_^

In the same way that Sempai to Watashi takes the idea of BDSM and kind of beats it to death and then still runs with it until it stops being sexy, sort of normalizes and then becomes both more profound and more silly than ever before, Super Otome Taisen does the same with tentacle rape.

While Mikiko is the leader of the team, it’s Fuyuko who is protagonist for most of the book. Her open otaku-ness allows Mori-sensei to really trot out some serious sci-fi/fantasy obscura. Now I too know about “Stalingrad Fuyu Keshiki.” You can tell that Fuyuko is the protagonist, too, because she is the only one who gets the girl in the end. Makoto remains a court fool and Sasa is the group whipping girl, but Fuyuko and Karen find true love. Mana gets a new baby tentacle monster to raise. And they all live happily ever after….

…

Ratings:

Overall – 8





Lesbian Novel: Futari no Hitori Asobi

January 25th, 2010

It’s always a pleasure to read a collection by Mori Natsuko, and today’s short story collection Futari no Hitori Asobi (二人のひとりあそび) is no less stimulating than any other.

The primary differences between this collection and the previous two of Mori-sensei’s work that I’ve reviewed, Sempai to Watashi and Himeyuri-tachi no Houkago are twofold: In this volume there is more straight sex than in the previous two and there’s less outrageously funny behavior. In fact, more than once, I thought to myself, “I think she’s getting old, because everyone in this book is all love-dovey and warm-hearted.” There’s less sadism in her BDSM in most of the stories, except the very first.

The first story was about a young woman who is cruelly tortured in class and falls in love with the sadist (female) who rescues her. This ends with a three-way relationship between the sadist, the protagonist and a guy who is everyone’s bitch.

This was followed by a number of straight stories that involves some light B&D and cross-dressing by the guys, including a strange story from the perspective of a crazy woman who has fantasy sex with her dead (male) lover. And a few group sex stories.

Probably the most disturbing stories follows the love/sex triangle of two men and a woman and the plant-boy that they find on a park bench and one of them takes home and raises. I can’t properly communicate how odd this story was and how awkward, as it started as porn, then sort of became sci-fi then bounced unhappily between horror, sci-fi and romance, sorta. And then there was the very yucky father/daughter incest one which I had wiped out of my head until I flipped back for this review.

As always with Mori, you have to expect at least one incest story. In this case, there was the one above and a lesbian sister with a little non-consensual sister loving. Since the older sister was named Reina, I couldn’t stop myself from imagining Elina and Reina from Queen’s Blade, which probably made the story more interesting for me than it might otherwise have been. ^_^

My favorite stories – other than the first one, which started pretty harshly, but I began to like the sadist when she responded to “I like you” by slapping the protagonist across the face – were the last two.

In the next to last story, a woman starts to recognize that she may be a lesbian, and is approached by a classmate who confesses that she is, in fact, gay. Kanae then offers to help Noriko learn what women do in bed. As their relationship develops, Noriko realizes that Kanae actually is in love with her and she sheds her childish crush on another classmate. Their relationship deepens a bit and threatens to become an actual thing, as the curtain is drawn on them.

The final story is the title story. If you know any Japanese (or indeed anything about Mori-sensei’s work) you’ll know exactly what the story is about. Nao meets Isako on a chat board and they play with themselves, together.

So, as I said, it was an entertaining read, but it definitely lacked the crazy humor and hard edge to the BDSM that I expect from Mori-sensei. All the warm, soft feelings for people in the throes of bound ecstasy was sort of cute and fuzzy, but I think I like her better when she’s making me shriek with appalled laughter.

Ratings:

Story – Variable, from 3-8
Characters – Same
Lesbian – 10 when it’s a 10

Overall – 7

The last two stories might be something I’d hand to another lesbian, particularly the next to last one. It actually dealt with some of those “what does it mean to be a lesbian” questions that Yuri rarely deals with.





Lesbian Novel: Songs From the Other Side of the Wall

October 28th, 2009

Today falls under the “now for something completely different” category. But first, let me tell you a story.

When I first started writing Yuri fanfiction, I was pretty much one of a handful of women writing in the genre and, as far as I can remember (which isn’t very far,) I was *the* out lesbian doing so. So, I got a lot of emails from people – women who were happy to see stories by a woman, not some nerdy teen boy, etc and also from guys who wanted my feedback. Many of these guys wrote to me to tell me how other people said “they wrote women well.” I almost invariably disagreed, because any writer who sees his or her characters as “men” or “women” is probably too caught up in gender roles to write anyone well.

So, when recently I received a message on Facebook from Dan Holloway asking me to read and possibly review his lesbian novel, Songs From the Other Side of the Wall, I cringed. Years of reading sad attempts at “realistic” lesbians written by men made me reluctant to read this. I told Dan that I would read the book with one upfront condition – if I hated it, I would not review it, because no one would gain from me skewering it. If I did not hate it, I *might* review it, but no promises. Dan was totally cool with that. And he never once said he “wrote women well,” so I had some hope.

Songs From the Other Side of the Wall is a *very* good book.

6 pages into it, I was really, really enjoying it. The main character was likable, real and yes, I would have her over for lunch.

The story follows Szandrine, (don’t roll your eyes – there’s a reason for her name,) a young Hungarian musician, after the loss of a dear online friend and his sister, with whom Szandrine had fallen in love at first sight.

Dan’s writing is convincing – Szandrine is mature for her 17 years, but still 17. Her poetry, songs and writing ring absolutely dead-on true for her personality and age.

The story travels in intent, and often location, all over Europe, which I quite liked. But above all what holds this book together is Szandrine; her loves, her likes and dislikes, her quirks and even her stupid skinny jeans. lol

It’s a rather complicated story, and not perfect – there about three handwaves too many to be perfect. There was one instance – one in the entire book – where the author’s voice overshadows the character’s – easily ignorable. And honestly, I didn’t love the ending. I didn’t like where it had been going, and I wasn’t thrilled with where it ended up, but I never once thought about stopping reading. Overall, a great read. Thank you Dan, for being brave and sending me this book. And for writing women well. :-)

Ratings:

Story – 8 Good story, but too many handwaves
Characters – 9 Very real people
Lesbian – 10
Loser Anything – .5, because chances are without pictures, they couldn’t follow it.

Overall – 8

Now, here’s the best part – you can read this book too. For free. Dan is offering his book as a free PDF download on his website. If you like it, I ask one thing from you – when it becomes available in print – buy it. The hard copy I received is a softcover trade book of decent quality. Definitely worth a buy.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Songs as much as I did.





Lesbian Novel: American Goth (and Event News)

January 16th, 2008

In honor of the fact I will be joined *tonight at 6:30* for a book signing at Jim Hanley’s Universe, by author J.D. Glass, today’s review is something I wrote for her brand-new shiny novel, American Goth.

C.S. Lewis once said that myths “are lies…breathed through silver.” Perhaps, then, we can see fiction as a golden filigree of words forged by a smith into an ornament that decorates our lives with tales that are not real, but are not really lies.

American Goth is such a book – an alchemical reaction of ink, paper and intent, forged in the mind of a writer to tell a tale of a quest, of a destiny, of the life of a woman.

In American Goth Glass combines and balances many tensions, as a young woman grasps at her chance to make a life after tragedy; rebuilding herself and her emotional stability with unfamiliar (to her) surroundings, people and rites. Glass’s blend of music, ritual and sex forms a bond of its own, as we find ourselves drawn into Samantha’s life, her quest and her growth.

Less hard-edged than Glass’s previous novel, Red Light, this novel is no less edgy. Like a piece of Celtic knotwork, the reader will be following multiple threads through many connections, until the whole resolves itself into a powerful and exquisitely detailed pattern.

This was the book that I was waiting for when I was 20, when a large part of my time was spent combing through literature searching for some reflection of myself in the universe. I imagine that there are quite a few young, pagan, lesbians out there who will be delighted to train with Samantha, to find themselves part of a destiny greater than themselves and most of all, to find love.

**

Join us tonight to get your own copy of American Goth signed by JD, Shoujoai ni Bouken or Yuri Monogatari signed by me and Tough Love signed by Abby Denson, for a faboulous triple play of fun! I hope to see you there!