more books
Jun. 2nd, 2007 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittyA few days ago, I read The Sharpest Edge, which ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
an_gadhar gave me for my birthday a while back. I liked the book; it reminded me a lot of Silverglass, which I also read recently. I had no idea that there was so much early swashbuckling dyke fantasy out there! And it's not in a lesbian separatist men are evil kind of way, either. Anyway, again: I liked it. Three stars, and I'm planning to read more in the series.
I decided to reread Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold. How I made that decision is sort of a long story and probably not that interesting to other people, so I'll skip it. What I found interesting about rereading the first book, Shards of Honor, was that it wasn't as upsetting as I remembered it being. Although I did choose to skip over most of the part with the evil therapists. Right.
What I found most interesting about rereading the second book, Barrayar, was how differently I interpreted the sections about birth, the natural model versus the technological model. A natural birth is described in the book, and after the birth is over, the mother says out loud, "Padma said... I'd have the best doctors. Padma said... there'd be no pain. Padma said he'd stay with me... damn you, Padma!" In contrast, after the mechanical birth, that mother says, "Welcome to Barrayar, son... Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe certainly isn't going to supply it. Always be a moving target. Live. Live. Live."
I guess there's not really a way for me to NOT notice stuff about birth, anymore. Anyway, Bujold seems to believe implicitly in the technocratic model. The best way to have a baby is through a machine. Sigh.
an_gadhar gave me for my birthday a while back. I liked the book; it reminded me a lot of Silverglass, which I also read recently. I had no idea that there was so much early swashbuckling dyke fantasy out there! And it's not in a lesbian separatist men are evil kind of way, either. Anyway, again: I liked it. Three stars, and I'm planning to read more in the series.I decided to reread Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold. How I made that decision is sort of a long story and probably not that interesting to other people, so I'll skip it. What I found interesting about rereading the first book, Shards of Honor, was that it wasn't as upsetting as I remembered it being. Although I did choose to skip over most of the part with the evil therapists. Right.
What I found most interesting about rereading the second book, Barrayar, was how differently I interpreted the sections about birth, the natural model versus the technological model. A natural birth is described in the book, and after the birth is over, the mother says out loud, "Padma said... I'd have the best doctors. Padma said... there'd be no pain. Padma said he'd stay with me... damn you, Padma!" In contrast, after the mechanical birth, that mother says, "Welcome to Barrayar, son... Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe certainly isn't going to supply it. Always be a moving target. Live. Live. Live."
I guess there's not really a way for me to NOT notice stuff about birth, anymore. Anyway, Bujold seems to believe implicitly in the technocratic model. The best way to have a baby is through a machine. Sigh.