Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
:)
Friday, August 24, 2007
Hammerfall, by CJC
Hammerfall, by C.J. Cherryh
coming soon :)
Rider at the Gate was a sci-fi western. Hammerfall is a sci-fi desert caravan adventure. see, sci-fi doesn't always have to be about robots and tribbles! lol.
the main character, Marak Tain --- I kept reading his name as Mark Twain. which added yet another layer I'm sure. ;)
but here are the quotes already:
110. "It's my choice! It's become my choice, and I may not do choose what they want me to choose!"
340. He tried to call what he felt in his soul responsibility; but it was beyond any sense of responsibility: it was simply doing what he could do, as long as he could do it, like a man walking on his last strength.
coming soon :)
Rider at the Gate was a sci-fi western. Hammerfall is a sci-fi desert caravan adventure. see, sci-fi doesn't always have to be about robots and tribbles! lol.
the main character, Marak Tain --- I kept reading his name as Mark Twain. which added yet another layer I'm sure. ;)
but here are the quotes already:
110. "It's my choice! It's become my choice, and I may not do choose what they want me to choose!"
340. He tried to call what he felt in his soul responsibility; but it was beyond any sense of responsibility: it was simply doing what he could do, as long as he could do it, like a man walking on his last strength.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Rider at the Gate, by C.J. Cherryh. 4.5
Rider at the Gate
(but first things first: Sheri S. Tepper's premise for Grass (1998) sounds a whole hell of a lot like the basic premise of Rider at the Gate (1995)---"horses" and all! the two are very very dissimiliar in the writing styles etc, and the stories are different too. but my god the basic premise of the planetary situation is not an original of Tepper's at all. boo on Tepper.)
ok, now, Rider at the Gate. it's rather like an old-fashioned western, really, only on a far-away planet with telepathic, bacon-eating "horses". lol. (in fact I jut referenced something from Hank the Cowdog, and it fit right in ;) ) of course they're not horses at all, but the human population just seems to have named the native creatures after the familiar, Earth creatures they most resemble. and the spook-bears, goblin-cats, and nighthorses (as well as all the other native creatures) are different from Earth creatures in a very substantial way: they are telepathic, and use mind games both to protect themselves and to lure unwitting prey to their doom. it's a good thing that the powerful nighthorses are also rather curious, because if they hadn't investigated the human colonists and found them rather compelling, then the colonists wouldn't have had any defense against the other predators. entire villages went insane or were killed off with the help of telepathic manipulation before the nighthorses chose human companions called Riders. the Riders protect the villages, but the people's fear of the beasts outside the village walls includes the Riders themselves, beast-influenced as they are.
the story is about, in short, a late convoy trying to make through the mountains and to a village before winter; a nighthorse gone Rogue- insane- murdering people; a Rider who will stop at nothing to take down the Rogue who killed his partner; history between him and the other Riders converging on the same territory; a kid in way over his head trying to be of help. about not quite ever knowing what is truth, what is a trick, and what is just a dream.
it's a very good read. on a side note, I've been craving (bacon) and thinking in (brackets) for the past few days too lol.
quotes for me:
100- Humans had a need to know the connections of things, and human minds made them up if they didn't get them.
183- You could blame practically any craziness on the fact they didn't know, never knew, only guessed what another man wanted, or what he was about to do.
Hell of a way to live.
294- Burn's rider crossed the last gap above the rocks and mountainside and tottered to a rock-sheltered spot to sit down, dizzy, dry-mouthed with exertion, and feeling his skull trying to explode.
Which wasn't something he'd regret at the moment.
(but first things first: Sheri S. Tepper's premise for Grass (1998) sounds a whole hell of a lot like the basic premise of Rider at the Gate (1995)---"horses" and all! the two are very very dissimiliar in the writing styles etc, and the stories are different too. but my god the basic premise of the planetary situation is not an original of Tepper's at all. boo on Tepper.)
ok, now, Rider at the Gate. it's rather like an old-fashioned western, really, only on a far-away planet with telepathic, bacon-eating "horses". lol. (in fact I jut referenced something from Hank the Cowdog, and it fit right in ;) ) of course they're not horses at all, but the human population just seems to have named the native creatures after the familiar, Earth creatures they most resemble. and the spook-bears, goblin-cats, and nighthorses (as well as all the other native creatures) are different from Earth creatures in a very substantial way: they are telepathic, and use mind games both to protect themselves and to lure unwitting prey to their doom. it's a good thing that the powerful nighthorses are also rather curious, because if they hadn't investigated the human colonists and found them rather compelling, then the colonists wouldn't have had any defense against the other predators. entire villages went insane or were killed off with the help of telepathic manipulation before the nighthorses chose human companions called Riders. the Riders protect the villages, but the people's fear of the beasts outside the village walls includes the Riders themselves, beast-influenced as they are.
the story is about, in short, a late convoy trying to make through the mountains and to a village before winter; a nighthorse gone Rogue- insane- murdering people; a Rider who will stop at nothing to take down the Rogue who killed his partner; history between him and the other Riders converging on the same territory; a kid in way over his head trying to be of help. about not quite ever knowing what is truth, what is a trick, and what is just a dream.
it's a very good read. on a side note, I've been craving (bacon) and thinking in (brackets) for the past few days too lol.
quotes for me:
100- Humans had a need to know the connections of things, and human minds made them up if they didn't get them.
183- You could blame practically any craziness on the fact they didn't know, never knew, only guessed what another man wanted, or what he was about to do.
Hell of a way to live.
294- Burn's rider crossed the last gap above the rocks and mountainside and tottered to a rock-sheltered spot to sit down, dizzy, dry-mouthed with exertion, and feeling his skull trying to explode.
Which wasn't something he'd regret at the moment.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Too Far From Home, by Chris Jones. rating: 2.5-3
ok, the story itself is a 4.5, but I'm not fond of his style at all. his style gets a 2.
Too Far From Home recounts the story of three astronauts (two American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut) that were stranded on the International Space Station when the space shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry, killing all seven aboard. beyond the amazing loss of those seven who died, this left NASA with no vehicle with which to retrieve the station residents for at least two or three years. this is the story of how those station-bound astronauts finally got home.
but more than that, it's a story about the first American astronauts, and how the world viewed them when they returned to the Earth (afraid they would die just from going to space, or that they would give everyone Moon plague picked up from the dust on their boots, etc.), the American and Soviet space race, and the realities of space exploration, both for the spacemen and for those left behind on the ground.
the history provided is fascinating, and often not the aspects you hear in the media, the character background is fine, and the flow of the story is compelling. but. the writing is also very sensationalistic to the point of sounding hokey at times (page 12: "He was a chemical engineer, an inventor, a man who couldn't help wondering how engines worked, why clouds formed, what lived in the hearts of volcanoes. In his endless quest to understand more about the inner workings of the universe, he had tried and failed to become an astronaut three times; the fourth time around, he was finally given the chance to dissect the stars." --- honestly, I'd be ashamed to turn that in to a publisher. "dissect the stars"?) , quite unneccessarily. and he shows an obvious disdain and prejudice against the Russian people, which sounds like a misplaced attempt at drumming up Nationalistic pride, and is completely uncalled for and out of line. imho.
(nationalism is almost always out of line, but this, moreso, since Russia and America get along fine now. the KGB has stopped being the bad guy in all the spy movies; this should clue him in!)
(I mean, I come from Big Sky country myself. as do the Russians, which he completely ignores, insinuating that they are all "cold-souled" robotic slaves of the Soviet state. ouch! the author makes allowances for the one cosmonaut on the ISS (Nikolai Budarin) (in order for us to want to find out how he gets home) by saying that he acts more "American" than the others??? sorry, but I find the stereotypes too cliche and moronic. where's his reality check? has he never been to Big Sky country? esp the little towns in the desert-like surroundings? cultural norms notwithstanding, we from Big Sky ALL have a tendency to appear cold--- to outsiders. to those inside our group, we can be open, honest, fun-loving, and very affectionate. but each to its proper time and place. have you ever seen an old Western where the stranger walks into town and is immediately slapped on the back by people who don't know him? I think not.)
(and no, I don't usually call it Big Sky country. it's too tempting to shorten that to BS country lol.)
ignoring the storyteller, however, it is a great story.
and, hey, the town I was born in was mentioned on page 72! (my "hometown" is now San Diego; I've been a "native" of San Diego since 2001 :) ) also, one person in the book has my surname as well. won't say who, but they work at NASA. silly things, silly things, I know. but in their own way, they are "goldfish moments" too.
116 "Still learning their way, the Americans governed the lives of their astronauts by a high holy document known as Form 24, which structured the course of their mission, minute by minute, day by day." (Form 24 sounds a lot like the schedules my autistic son draws up for us to abide by.)
154-5 "They came to appreciate how their days unfolded exactly as they wanted them to. They liked never having to alter their routine to make room for someone else in it. They were never caught in traffic or in the rain, bumped into on the sidewalk, jostled on the subway, tied to a desk for hours each day. They never caught colds. They never had to keep appoitnments of cut the grass. They were never rushed. They were never late."
also discussed is how Skylab rebelled against ground control, and actually went on strike. on page 178 the astronauts watch their first movie in space and realize how oversensitized they've become to sudden motion, flashing lights, violence, and gore (or how callous they were to it on Earth). when they return to Earth, it is mentioned how they are oversensitive to even a temperature change of a few degrees etc. I read this and thought, "I wonder how many people CJC has inside NASA!" lol
Too Far From Home recounts the story of three astronauts (two American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut) that were stranded on the International Space Station when the space shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry, killing all seven aboard. beyond the amazing loss of those seven who died, this left NASA with no vehicle with which to retrieve the station residents for at least two or three years. this is the story of how those station-bound astronauts finally got home.
but more than that, it's a story about the first American astronauts, and how the world viewed them when they returned to the Earth (afraid they would die just from going to space, or that they would give everyone Moon plague picked up from the dust on their boots, etc.), the American and Soviet space race, and the realities of space exploration, both for the spacemen and for those left behind on the ground.
the history provided is fascinating, and often not the aspects you hear in the media, the character background is fine, and the flow of the story is compelling. but. the writing is also very sensationalistic to the point of sounding hokey at times (page 12: "He was a chemical engineer, an inventor, a man who couldn't help wondering how engines worked, why clouds formed, what lived in the hearts of volcanoes. In his endless quest to understand more about the inner workings of the universe, he had tried and failed to become an astronaut three times; the fourth time around, he was finally given the chance to dissect the stars." --- honestly, I'd be ashamed to turn that in to a publisher. "dissect the stars"?) , quite unneccessarily. and he shows an obvious disdain and prejudice against the Russian people, which sounds like a misplaced attempt at drumming up Nationalistic pride, and is completely uncalled for and out of line. imho.
(nationalism is almost always out of line, but this, moreso, since Russia and America get along fine now. the KGB has stopped being the bad guy in all the spy movies; this should clue him in!)
(I mean, I come from Big Sky country myself. as do the Russians, which he completely ignores, insinuating that they are all "cold-souled" robotic slaves of the Soviet state. ouch! the author makes allowances for the one cosmonaut on the ISS (Nikolai Budarin) (in order for us to want to find out how he gets home) by saying that he acts more "American" than the others??? sorry, but I find the stereotypes too cliche and moronic. where's his reality check? has he never been to Big Sky country? esp the little towns in the desert-like surroundings? cultural norms notwithstanding, we from Big Sky ALL have a tendency to appear cold--- to outsiders. to those inside our group, we can be open, honest, fun-loving, and very affectionate. but each to its proper time and place. have you ever seen an old Western where the stranger walks into town and is immediately slapped on the back by people who don't know him? I think not.)
(and no, I don't usually call it Big Sky country. it's too tempting to shorten that to BS country lol.)
ignoring the storyteller, however, it is a great story.
and, hey, the town I was born in was mentioned on page 72! (my "hometown" is now San Diego; I've been a "native" of San Diego since 2001 :) ) also, one person in the book has my surname as well. won't say who, but they work at NASA. silly things, silly things, I know. but in their own way, they are "goldfish moments" too.
116 "Still learning their way, the Americans governed the lives of their astronauts by a high holy document known as Form 24, which structured the course of their mission, minute by minute, day by day." (Form 24 sounds a lot like the schedules my autistic son draws up for us to abide by.)
154-5 "They came to appreciate how their days unfolded exactly as they wanted them to. They liked never having to alter their routine to make room for someone else in it. They were never caught in traffic or in the rain, bumped into on the sidewalk, jostled on the subway, tied to a desk for hours each day. They never caught colds. They never had to keep appoitnments of cut the grass. They were never rushed. They were never late."
also discussed is how Skylab rebelled against ground control, and actually went on strike. on page 178 the astronauts watch their first movie in space and realize how oversensitized they've become to sudden motion, flashing lights, violence, and gore (or how callous they were to it on Earth). when they return to Earth, it is mentioned how they are oversensitive to even a temperature change of a few degrees etc. I read this and thought, "I wonder how many people CJC has inside NASA!" lol
Saturday, August 4, 2007
No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu (again) --- 5
No Future Without Forgiveness
***first review of this book (please read)***
when I first tried to read this book, I had just finished a broad review of the history of sub-Saharan Africa (including the complete history of South Africa) and Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom (which I just realized I never reviewed! gaah). so I was familiar with the history---the long, sorted history of relations between the Dutch settlers who came to call themselves Afrikaaners, the various black African native peoples, the "coloureds" (of mixed Dutch-African descent from very early in the colony's history), and the Indians (yes, that's the country of India, thank you). I was familiar with apartheid, the resistance to and armed struggle against apartheid, and the amazing dissolution of apartheid and a democratically-elected new government.
after centuries of internal conflict, South Africa could have easily (and indeed was fully expected to) become yet another battleground of the world: like Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Hertzogovenia, Israel and Palestine, Afghanistan, Angola. this kind of conflict does not just go away. even if people try to smooth it over, forget about it, and move on, if you don't deal with the foundations and results of that conflict, it will rise again to drag you back down.
however, if you hold the equivalent of war tribunals or the Nuremberg Trials, in South Africa, well then you'd be hunting down literally thousands of people who participated in apartheid; and running up enormous court and jail costs in a country that had serious economic concerns including food, medicine, and housing; and really then you run the risk of just reversing the oppressed and the oppressor. none of this is conducive to long-term healing of a nation where people have to live and work with each other, and same with their descendants, and their descendants after them. this does not serve the peace.
so South Africa tried a different way. after a new Constitution was approved, one of the first things the new government did was to try to deal with the anger and hurt of people throughout the country by setting up a Truth and Reconcilliation Commission. they made it where if you had committed a gross human rights violation under apartheid (with certain cut-off dates and restrictions), you could apply for amnesty, and if you received amnesty, you couldn't be prosecuted for that offense in criminal or civil court. but. you had to confess in full, in public, and you had to hold yourself accountable.
that way no one could say they "didn't know" any more. the whole country would be made very well aware of what had been going on, and the people responsible would have to accept their accountability, and the people who had not dared ask questions or who had looked the other way had to accept their own kind of accountability too.
victims of apartheid (meeting requirements, because otherwise there'd be just too many people to deal with) could also come forward and tell their stories and receive reparations to help them heal and move on.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu was the Chairperson of the Truth and Reconcilliaton Commission, and in this very expressive book explains the thinking behind such an experiment, as well as its successes, drawbacks, and crises that almost derailed the whole thing.
I knew this when I started reading, and again I knew what kinds of things had been going on during apartheid (including routine torture and abductions), but when I got to part where the book quoted a person who was applying for amnesty, saying what he had done, and he was torturing someone for information, and shoved a knife up the victim's nose... well, then I felt a knife going up my nose. and I had to leave the book for another time!
finally I have come back to it, with enough distance but not too much, and I'm glad I read it. (and no, it wasn't full of that kind of thing (examples of torture), but of course it had to have some in there so the reader had an inkling of what they were dealing with.) it is a book full of promising ideas and concepts that I hope make people think. it gives options that are too often overlooked in the world today, and sadly they're the options that might just work. nobody is going to say that South Africa is a perfect place now, with rivers of chocolate and fields of lollipops, but they have a peace that is working. and that's saying something.
I give it a 5, because I think it is so important and needs to be read. and thought about. and applied to our lives. I think we could all find a little more peace if we tried.
quotes:
the concept of Ubuntu is introduced on page 31- "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours... A person with ubuntu... has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they are less than who they are."
54 "In the spirit of ubuntu, the central concern is the healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships, a seeking to rehabilitate both the victim and the perpetrator, who should be given the opportunity to be reintegrated into the community he has injured by his offense."
83 "The point is that, if perpetrators were to be despaired of as monsters and demons, then we were thereby letting accountability go out the window because we were then declaring that they were not moral agents to be held responsible for the deeds they had committed. Much more importantly, it meant that we abandoned all hope of their being able to change for the better."
141, included in a PBS documentary by Bill Moyers ("Facing the Truth") : "She said she survived by taking her spirit out of her body and putting it in the corner of the cell in which she was being raped. She could then, disembodied in this manner, look on as they did all those awful things to her body, intending to make her hate herself just as they had told her she would. By doing this she could then imagine that it was not she herself but a stranger suffering this ignominy. With tears in her eyes she told Moyers that she had not yet gone back to that room to fetch her soul and that it was still sitting in the corner where she had left it.
263 (a thing I took to heart, even out of this context) "So I told those dedicated workers for peace and reconcilliation that they should not be tempted to give up on their crucial work because of the frustrations of seemingly not making any significant progress, that in our experience nothing was wasted, for in the fullness of time, when the time was right, it would all come together and those looking back would realize what a critical contribution they had made."
270"Forgiving and being reconciled are not about pretending that things are other than they are... True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the pain, the degredation, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end dealing with the real situation helps to bring real healing."
"There but for the grace of God go I."
***first review of this book (please read)***
when I first tried to read this book, I had just finished a broad review of the history of sub-Saharan Africa (including the complete history of South Africa) and Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom (which I just realized I never reviewed! gaah). so I was familiar with the history---the long, sorted history of relations between the Dutch settlers who came to call themselves Afrikaaners, the various black African native peoples, the "coloureds" (of mixed Dutch-African descent from very early in the colony's history), and the Indians (yes, that's the country of India, thank you). I was familiar with apartheid, the resistance to and armed struggle against apartheid, and the amazing dissolution of apartheid and a democratically-elected new government.
after centuries of internal conflict, South Africa could have easily (and indeed was fully expected to) become yet another battleground of the world: like Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Hertzogovenia, Israel and Palestine, Afghanistan, Angola. this kind of conflict does not just go away. even if people try to smooth it over, forget about it, and move on, if you don't deal with the foundations and results of that conflict, it will rise again to drag you back down.
however, if you hold the equivalent of war tribunals or the Nuremberg Trials, in South Africa, well then you'd be hunting down literally thousands of people who participated in apartheid; and running up enormous court and jail costs in a country that had serious economic concerns including food, medicine, and housing; and really then you run the risk of just reversing the oppressed and the oppressor. none of this is conducive to long-term healing of a nation where people have to live and work with each other, and same with their descendants, and their descendants after them. this does not serve the peace.
so South Africa tried a different way. after a new Constitution was approved, one of the first things the new government did was to try to deal with the anger and hurt of people throughout the country by setting up a Truth and Reconcilliation Commission. they made it where if you had committed a gross human rights violation under apartheid (with certain cut-off dates and restrictions), you could apply for amnesty, and if you received amnesty, you couldn't be prosecuted for that offense in criminal or civil court. but. you had to confess in full, in public, and you had to hold yourself accountable.
that way no one could say they "didn't know" any more. the whole country would be made very well aware of what had been going on, and the people responsible would have to accept their accountability, and the people who had not dared ask questions or who had looked the other way had to accept their own kind of accountability too.
victims of apartheid (meeting requirements, because otherwise there'd be just too many people to deal with) could also come forward and tell their stories and receive reparations to help them heal and move on.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu was the Chairperson of the Truth and Reconcilliaton Commission, and in this very expressive book explains the thinking behind such an experiment, as well as its successes, drawbacks, and crises that almost derailed the whole thing.
I knew this when I started reading, and again I knew what kinds of things had been going on during apartheid (including routine torture and abductions), but when I got to part where the book quoted a person who was applying for amnesty, saying what he had done, and he was torturing someone for information, and shoved a knife up the victim's nose... well, then I felt a knife going up my nose. and I had to leave the book for another time!
finally I have come back to it, with enough distance but not too much, and I'm glad I read it. (and no, it wasn't full of that kind of thing (examples of torture), but of course it had to have some in there so the reader had an inkling of what they were dealing with.) it is a book full of promising ideas and concepts that I hope make people think. it gives options that are too often overlooked in the world today, and sadly they're the options that might just work. nobody is going to say that South Africa is a perfect place now, with rivers of chocolate and fields of lollipops, but they have a peace that is working. and that's saying something.
I give it a 5, because I think it is so important and needs to be read. and thought about. and applied to our lives. I think we could all find a little more peace if we tried.
quotes:
the concept of Ubuntu is introduced on page 31- "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours... A person with ubuntu... has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they are less than who they are."
54 "In the spirit of ubuntu, the central concern is the healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships, a seeking to rehabilitate both the victim and the perpetrator, who should be given the opportunity to be reintegrated into the community he has injured by his offense."
83 "The point is that, if perpetrators were to be despaired of as monsters and demons, then we were thereby letting accountability go out the window because we were then declaring that they were not moral agents to be held responsible for the deeds they had committed. Much more importantly, it meant that we abandoned all hope of their being able to change for the better."
141, included in a PBS documentary by Bill Moyers ("Facing the Truth") : "She said she survived by taking her spirit out of her body and putting it in the corner of the cell in which she was being raped. She could then, disembodied in this manner, look on as they did all those awful things to her body, intending to make her hate herself just as they had told her she would. By doing this she could then imagine that it was not she herself but a stranger suffering this ignominy. With tears in her eyes she told Moyers that she had not yet gone back to that room to fetch her soul and that it was still sitting in the corner where she had left it.
263 (a thing I took to heart, even out of this context) "So I told those dedicated workers for peace and reconcilliation that they should not be tempted to give up on their crucial work because of the frustrations of seemingly not making any significant progress, that in our experience nothing was wasted, for in the fullness of time, when the time was right, it would all come together and those looking back would realize what a critical contribution they had made."
270"Forgiving and being reconciled are not about pretending that things are other than they are... True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the pain, the degredation, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end dealing with the real situation helps to bring real healing."
"There but for the grace of God go I."
guilty as sin --- further comment on Pretender
(review of Pretender, C.J. Cherryh)
hmmm. I mentioned that I think of Bren as an ENFJ, because he's so freakin' like me (an INFJ). and guess what? oh yes that's right...
I'm guilty as sin of doing the same thing as Bren Cameron.
now, indulge me, because this is as close as I can get to Bren's situation, okay? but I have two autistic children. when I am advocating for them or interacting with them and the community at large, I have no trouble whatsoever reminding everyone that autistic people think, communicate, and perceive the world differently than neurotypicals do, and that doesn't make the autistic right or wrong or the neurotypicals right or wrong, and that accomodations must be made that honor the intrinsic humanity of both sides in such a way that we can all get along. I mean, I've been living with this reality for nigh-on ten years, so I know this, right?
so why is it when I am alone with my autistic kids, all summer, that this kind of thinking starts to slide away? why do I find myself thinking, "really it shouldn't be so difficult; why do I always have to change everything for them?" I honestly forget, for periods of time, that maybe I make accomodations for them, but that's Nothing compared to the effort they put forward as autistic people in a non-autistic world. it's nothing. and they do try. and I should know that. I do know that. why in the world do I forget? why do I not remember when it seems most critical?
let's see; would this fit the situation?
my hat goes off to you, CJC. you really know your characters. even if your readers have a hard time putting up with them lol :)
so I pick up Pretender, and, yes, Bren-ji is still stuck in that same awkward place I left him. there's nothing for it but just be brave and read. the hard part is... he doesn't seem to think he's in an awkward place. I feel like he's making a monumental fool of himself in some instances, or just that he's not with the program, and he apparently doesn't pick up on this at all. it about kills me. it seems especially bad for this to happen in Pretender, because by now he really should know better... right?
....
especially all his internal postulations involving hiding the heir out of harm's way until everything has been taken care of and decided? Bren does seem to have problems (still) thinking in atevi terms---unless he's explaining the atevi culture to someone else. then, he has little problem. when he is just thinking to himself, however, he doesn't seem to engage that regulatory check, that but-they're-not-human catch, as often as he should.
hmmm. I mentioned that I think of Bren as an ENFJ, because he's so freakin' like me (an INFJ). and guess what? oh yes that's right...
I'm guilty as sin of doing the same thing as Bren Cameron.
now, indulge me, because this is as close as I can get to Bren's situation, okay? but I have two autistic children. when I am advocating for them or interacting with them and the community at large, I have no trouble whatsoever reminding everyone that autistic people think, communicate, and perceive the world differently than neurotypicals do, and that doesn't make the autistic right or wrong or the neurotypicals right or wrong, and that accomodations must be made that honor the intrinsic humanity of both sides in such a way that we can all get along. I mean, I've been living with this reality for nigh-on ten years, so I know this, right?
so why is it when I am alone with my autistic kids, all summer, that this kind of thinking starts to slide away? why do I find myself thinking, "really it shouldn't be so difficult; why do I always have to change everything for them?" I honestly forget, for periods of time, that maybe I make accomodations for them, but that's Nothing compared to the effort they put forward as autistic people in a non-autistic world. it's nothing. and they do try. and I should know that. I do know that. why in the world do I forget? why do I not remember when it seems most critical?
let's see; would this fit the situation?
I seem to have problems (still) thinking in autistic terms---unless I'm explaining autism to someone else. then, I have little problem. when I am just thinking to himself, however, I don't seem to engage that regulatory check, that but-they're-not-typical catch, as often as I should.
my hat goes off to you, CJC. you really know your characters. even if your readers have a hard time putting up with them lol :)
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