Putting on Airs
Sep. 27th, 2009 01:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Airs Beneath the Moon by Toby Bishop
I read this book in two days. I have noticed that my book reviews tend toward the synaesthetic elements, but this was not tasty. It has this brackish overtone.
The book was good. Mostly coherent, low error level, lots of action, interesting-ish people, and good (or at least decent) world building.
My problem is that I don't accept the premise. Firstly, winged horses. Secondly bat-winged horses with "pinions". Thirdly, that riders of winged horses must be trained in one singular place regardless of suitability. Fourthly that having winged horses would inspire neighboring countries to actively defend the horsed-country. I could see political alliances, trade agreements, a general lack of hostility, but not an active military defense. Fifthly, why would winged horses only like chaste women? (Never men, never a woman who's had a child.)
Once I got past the premise issues, the book was fine if irritating. The basic conflict in the book comes from the heir apparent rebelling against the social elevation of horsemistresses (an ironic term since chastity is required) so they do not need to curtsy to him. Usually worldviews where chastity is honored solely in women, women are denigrated and subservient and considered worthless chattel to be raped and abused in the guise of "protecting" their value. Then the debased women are considered proof that women are inferior and need to be subject to men's dominance. It's exactly the kind of argument that cannot be defeated without discarding the original assumptions.
You can see I am making a circular argument. I disagreed with the book's premise but found it interesting once I got past that, only to argue with the author's written perspective where the premise is faulty. There does seem to be this overtone where the author doesn't agree that women are just livestock because the heir apparent who thinks females are inferior is definitely presented as the villain. But I'm afraid that I don't think writing about a world where everything is different but women are powerless is a cautionary tale. We've had that for decades now and women aren't paying any attention. So whenever someone new writes it, it reads like an instruction manual for how to oppress women. It certainly does here because these horsemistresses are the piddly country's only military operations and they stood back and allowed evil to progress while wringing their hands and saying, "If only we could do something!"
It's really hard for me to get past that.
Throughout the book, the villain gets more villainous. Throughout the book, the good "guys" get more handwringingly useless. Then the book stops. Obviously there will be sequels. Hmm. This was apparently from 2006, and the sequels were released one per year. Whatever.
It was vaguely interesting, but there were too many detail problems and way too much sense that this was an instruction manual on how to oppress women who have gotten too uppity.
I read this book in two days. I have noticed that my book reviews tend toward the synaesthetic elements, but this was not tasty. It has this brackish overtone.
The book was good. Mostly coherent, low error level, lots of action, interesting-ish people, and good (or at least decent) world building.
My problem is that I don't accept the premise. Firstly, winged horses. Secondly bat-winged horses with "pinions". Thirdly, that riders of winged horses must be trained in one singular place regardless of suitability. Fourthly that having winged horses would inspire neighboring countries to actively defend the horsed-country. I could see political alliances, trade agreements, a general lack of hostility, but not an active military defense. Fifthly, why would winged horses only like chaste women? (Never men, never a woman who's had a child.)
Once I got past the premise issues, the book was fine if irritating. The basic conflict in the book comes from the heir apparent rebelling against the social elevation of horsemistresses (an ironic term since chastity is required) so they do not need to curtsy to him. Usually worldviews where chastity is honored solely in women, women are denigrated and subservient and considered worthless chattel to be raped and abused in the guise of "protecting" their value. Then the debased women are considered proof that women are inferior and need to be subject to men's dominance. It's exactly the kind of argument that cannot be defeated without discarding the original assumptions.
You can see I am making a circular argument. I disagreed with the book's premise but found it interesting once I got past that, only to argue with the author's written perspective where the premise is faulty. There does seem to be this overtone where the author doesn't agree that women are just livestock because the heir apparent who thinks females are inferior is definitely presented as the villain. But I'm afraid that I don't think writing about a world where everything is different but women are powerless is a cautionary tale. We've had that for decades now and women aren't paying any attention. So whenever someone new writes it, it reads like an instruction manual for how to oppress women. It certainly does here because these horsemistresses are the piddly country's only military operations and they stood back and allowed evil to progress while wringing their hands and saying, "If only we could do something!"
It's really hard for me to get past that.
Throughout the book, the villain gets more villainous. Throughout the book, the good "guys" get more handwringingly useless. Then the book stops. Obviously there will be sequels. Hmm. This was apparently from 2006, and the sequels were released one per year. Whatever.
It was vaguely interesting, but there were too many detail problems and way too much sense that this was an instruction manual on how to oppress women who have gotten too uppity.