Of ficathons and books read
Sep. 21st, 2019 02:15 pmOnly two more days to sign up for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
startrekholidays! Come on, you know you want to. How else is Janeway going to meet Georgiou?
Speaking of exchanges, Yuletide nomination time is almost upon us, and since I've spent the last month or so having immense fun swapping stories about Frederick the Great and assorted contemporaries with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cahn and mildred_of_midgard - for more about how and why this is fun see this post - it looks like I'm volunteering to write in the newly so dubbed "18th Century Frederician RPF" fandom. Not "18th Century Prussia", which was nominated last year, because yours truly has set her heart on getting the Austrians in - to wit, Maria Theresia and Joseph II - and possibly wants to branch out to the French as well. Anyway, cahn has already drafted a fabulous promo post - as required by Yuletide rules - which will soon be up.
ETA:cahn's Yuletide promo post: 18th Century Frederician RPF!
In other news, I've read The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. Generally speaking, I'm wary of sequels (unless the author from the beginning announces his book will take up more than one volume and she/he's aiming for a saga). And I've heard nothing good about s2 and s3 of the tv version of The Handmaid's Tale. But Margaret Atwood, when I saw and heard her at last year's Frankfurt Book Fair, was so fabulously together, sharp and to the point that I couldn't imagine her writing a book unless she really really wanted to, which at the very least would make it worth reading. Also, my first Atwood wasn't The Handmaid's Tale but The Robber Bride, and thus I'm not so much emotionally tied to Handmaid's Tale.
Judgment without spoilers: definitely worth reading. It's set fifteen years after the events of the earlier books, chooses another format - I would say the tropes she mostly plays with are spy thrillers, of all the things -, and has three different narrators, only one of whom showed up as a character of note in the original novel (the other two did, too, sort of, kinda, but without actual characterisation due to their, hm, age), and all of whom have a different perspective than Offred did, so Atwood doesn't repeat herself. (Since one of the narrators is Aunt Lydia, otoh, she does include flashbacks on the early Gilead days from Lydia's pov, though. I'm told the tv show did an episode about Lydia's past in its recent seasons which, however, is different from the past provided in the novel. Since I only watched the first season, I couldn't say.)
Back when The Handmaid's Tale first was published, in the 80s, I suspect a lot of readers must have thought it couldn't happen in the US. The world - and alas the US - has changed a lot since then, and the impression I had was that Atwood is very aware dystopia as a warning isn't necessary anymore. Instead, some hope at the end of the tunnel - how to fight dystopia, so to speak - is more needed than ever, which I felt was what the novel was going for. There's also a lot of cooperation - enforced, voluntary, with emotional blackmail, out of dire necessity, out of affection, all variations - and as totalitarian dicatorships go, the utter corruption of Gilead within feels very familiar (and satisfyingly is used against it).
( It gets vaguely spoilery now. )
All in all: a captivating book. Probably not destined to become a postmodern classic as well, but I'm glad to have read it. (Still staying away from the later seasons of the tv show, though.)
startrekholidays! Come on, you know you want to. How else is Janeway going to meet Georgiou? Speaking of exchanges, Yuletide nomination time is almost upon us, and since I've spent the last month or so having immense fun swapping stories about Frederick the Great and assorted contemporaries with
cahn and mildred_of_midgard - for more about how and why this is fun see this post - it looks like I'm volunteering to write in the newly so dubbed "18th Century Frederician RPF" fandom. Not "18th Century Prussia", which was nominated last year, because yours truly has set her heart on getting the Austrians in - to wit, Maria Theresia and Joseph II - and possibly wants to branch out to the French as well. Anyway, cahn has already drafted a fabulous promo post - as required by Yuletide rules - which will soon be up. ETA:
cahn's Yuletide promo post: 18th Century Frederician RPF! In other news, I've read The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. Generally speaking, I'm wary of sequels (unless the author from the beginning announces his book will take up more than one volume and she/he's aiming for a saga). And I've heard nothing good about s2 and s3 of the tv version of The Handmaid's Tale. But Margaret Atwood, when I saw and heard her at last year's Frankfurt Book Fair, was so fabulously together, sharp and to the point that I couldn't imagine her writing a book unless she really really wanted to, which at the very least would make it worth reading. Also, my first Atwood wasn't The Handmaid's Tale but The Robber Bride, and thus I'm not so much emotionally tied to Handmaid's Tale.
Judgment without spoilers: definitely worth reading. It's set fifteen years after the events of the earlier books, chooses another format - I would say the tropes she mostly plays with are spy thrillers, of all the things -, and has three different narrators, only one of whom showed up as a character of note in the original novel (the other two did, too, sort of, kinda, but without actual characterisation due to their, hm, age), and all of whom have a different perspective than Offred did, so Atwood doesn't repeat herself. (Since one of the narrators is Aunt Lydia, otoh, she does include flashbacks on the early Gilead days from Lydia's pov, though. I'm told the tv show did an episode about Lydia's past in its recent seasons which, however, is different from the past provided in the novel. Since I only watched the first season, I couldn't say.)
Back when The Handmaid's Tale first was published, in the 80s, I suspect a lot of readers must have thought it couldn't happen in the US. The world - and alas the US - has changed a lot since then, and the impression I had was that Atwood is very aware dystopia as a warning isn't necessary anymore. Instead, some hope at the end of the tunnel - how to fight dystopia, so to speak - is more needed than ever, which I felt was what the novel was going for. There's also a lot of cooperation - enforced, voluntary, with emotional blackmail, out of dire necessity, out of affection, all variations - and as totalitarian dicatorships go, the utter corruption of Gilead within feels very familiar (and satisfyingly is used against it).
( It gets vaguely spoilery now. )
All in all: a captivating book. Probably not destined to become a postmodern classic as well, but I'm glad to have read it. (Still staying away from the later seasons of the tv show, though.)
