I made a promise to myself to finish one short story a week and since I’m pretty close to finishing my story Summer.Heat.Fever. and I want to concentrate on that right now. So I’m declaring today a writing day, I’ll let y’all know if I actually do finish the story today.
Currently Reading: Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
Words From The Center, Words From The Edge 
Have you read Mead’s _Succubus Blues_? I love that book — total awesome fluffy fun — but _Vampire Academy_ really worked my nerves. I’ll be curious to hear your thoughts on it!
johanna-
Vampire Academy is already not as fun as I thought it would be, there’s the whole “makes me look like a desert princess” thing about Rose’s Turkish father and I just don’t like Lissa at all really.
I’m gonna go ahead and put Succubus Blues on my list of “to read” because of your rec. Plus I really do like Mead’s use of mythos and she made something I thought completely silly (the idea of a Vampire Academy) outside the book into something that I toltally bought into and believed when I started reading so she’s got skills. I’m anxious to see what she does with the idea of a succubus.
Yeah, that was part of what I didn’t like about VA — I didn’t like either of the main characters!
And there’s something spoily I didn’t like about it, so if you haven’t finished the book don’t read this next bit yet:
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I haaaate the whole idea of a race basically born to serve another race. Whaaat? Besides being offensive, that shit is just lazy now — c’mon, how many times has that been done?
johanna-
I haven’t finished yet and now I don’t think I will. The whole “race born to serve” pisses me off so much. I hated it with the house elves in Harry Potter and it just has a nasdty racial component. Unless the author troubles the idea of being “born to serve” it feels lazy and reminds me of the arguments always used in enslavement and/or colonization.
I remember how annoyed people got w/me when I complained about the house elves in HP, & people were all, “I’m sure Rowling is going to do something to turn the concept on its head, we just don’t know yet [this was when there were still a few books to go] & I can’t believe she’d be as simplistic as you think she is.” Um, yeah, honey, believe it.
I dunno if Mead will trouble the concept–I kind of thought maybe she would in future books, but there wasn’t enough of a hint of that to make me want to read the next one (especially since I didn’t like the main characters).
Her 2nd succubus book is basically all about bringing down a nasty conservative homophobic talk radio host, which is awesome, tho’.
johanna-
Yeah I was really disappointed by Rowling only troubling the concept a bit ’cause that was even worse than just having it. So instead of a slave race we have a slave race with Dobby who likes to get paid but he’s the shunned example that proves the rule. All other house elves are terrified by the concept of freedom, so it just reinforces enslavement in the end and of course Dobby dies horribly by the end of the series. I was just done with it. Dobby was sort of the “magical negro” of the piece, which is probably an essay I’ll write someday.
Her 2nd succubus book is basically all about bringing down a nasty conservative homophobic talk radio host, which is awesome, tho’.
Oh I’m so buying this book! I love this kind of ish, it’s like watching Rush get taken down, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.