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It Came From The Library!
Oct. 20th, 2009 10:41 amMagic Street by Orson Scott Card
What did we ever do to you, Mormons? Sure, we made fun of your silly religion, but whose religion don't we make fun of? Aside from the Muslims, because they'll cut our heads off.
For some reason, the premise of this book is taking the elf characters from A Midsummer Night's Dream and making them into black stereotypes. It's an okay premise, but the elves end up so unrecognizable that you could plug in any mythology and have the same result. Here, Oberon is just a Big Bad, Titania is just a femme fatale, and Puck is... well, Puck is at least a trickster, but there are so many 'shut the puck up' type jokes that you really wish he wasn't.
I'll give Card (Scott Card?) credit for doing a book with African-American leads, even if there does seem to be an undue fascination with the 'black/not black' divide, like he isn't writing about black issues so much as white men's issues with blacks. The problem is that, well, it's a middle-aged Mormon writing black kids in L.A. I know how odd it is for someone in suburban Texas to criticize someone's depiction of life in a middle-class black neighborhood, but I'm pretty sure no black person has ever called anyone a "motorcycle mama."
There is an interesting conceit, which is that at one point the Big Bad possesses a young pastor and gives him the power to do miracles. A lot of authors would have the pastor immediately turn into a religious zealot who wants to burn heathens and such, but to his credit, Card gives the character a crisis of faith where he wants to do good, but he doesn't know if he can use evil power to do it. Unfortunately, the storyline is given a pretty short shift. The third act has a bunch of wheel spinning as the characters explain the plot to each other ad nauseum, all to set up a climax that is pretty hard to follow.
There is one other thing I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for not mentioning.
( Spoilers. )
Angel: After the Fall
You know, I really tried to get into this, but after a while, it kinda got old how literally all the female characters were either evil, psychologically unstable, or harem girls. Well, not all of them. There's Kate, who is in a flashback, and Cordelia, who is Gwen Stacy.
Did you like that? I'm proud of it. Gwen Stacy, c'mon, that's some good shit.
What did we ever do to you, Mormons? Sure, we made fun of your silly religion, but whose religion don't we make fun of? Aside from the Muslims, because they'll cut our heads off.
For some reason, the premise of this book is taking the elf characters from A Midsummer Night's Dream and making them into black stereotypes. It's an okay premise, but the elves end up so unrecognizable that you could plug in any mythology and have the same result. Here, Oberon is just a Big Bad, Titania is just a femme fatale, and Puck is... well, Puck is at least a trickster, but there are so many 'shut the puck up' type jokes that you really wish he wasn't.
I'll give Card (Scott Card?) credit for doing a book with African-American leads, even if there does seem to be an undue fascination with the 'black/not black' divide, like he isn't writing about black issues so much as white men's issues with blacks. The problem is that, well, it's a middle-aged Mormon writing black kids in L.A. I know how odd it is for someone in suburban Texas to criticize someone's depiction of life in a middle-class black neighborhood, but I'm pretty sure no black person has ever called anyone a "motorcycle mama."
There is an interesting conceit, which is that at one point the Big Bad possesses a young pastor and gives him the power to do miracles. A lot of authors would have the pastor immediately turn into a religious zealot who wants to burn heathens and such, but to his credit, Card gives the character a crisis of faith where he wants to do good, but he doesn't know if he can use evil power to do it. Unfortunately, the storyline is given a pretty short shift. The third act has a bunch of wheel spinning as the characters explain the plot to each other ad nauseum, all to set up a climax that is pretty hard to follow.
There is one other thing I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for not mentioning.
( Spoilers. )
Angel: After the Fall
You know, I really tried to get into this, but after a while, it kinda got old how literally all the female characters were either evil, psychologically unstable, or harem girls. Well, not all of them. There's Kate, who is in a flashback, and Cordelia, who is Gwen Stacy.
Did you like that? I'm proud of it. Gwen Stacy, c'mon, that's some good shit.
