Mira's Last Dance by Lois Mcmaster Bujold
Feb. 2nd, 2018 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lightreadsMira’s Last Dance
3/5. Another Penric novella. Better, even though this is still the middle chunk of a novel and not a standalone story. But it’s a mostly charming tale in which Pen cross-dresses and allows one of his demon’s shadow personalities to come forth to have kinky sex for money, which is not what I was expecting. It’s all rather wholesome? And weirdly unchallenging? Like, I’ve been waiting and waiting for this series to engage with Pen’s gender identity, since there are a dozen women in his head with him and who sometimes are able to become him. And this story really doesn’t, except for some glancing and shallow tussles with pronouns. And it doesn’t really engage with the queerness of the scenario either. I mean, it doesn’t have to, but I’d rather it did.
Mostly, though, this book rotates around two failed marriage proposals. One delivered to Pen as a lady by the man he seduced. And one delivered by Pen to his traveling companion. Both proposals miss their mark, but they don’t inform each other the way they clearly ought to. Pen refuses because it’s patently ridiculous and he has shit to do and he doesn’t want that guy oh and also that guy thinks he’s a lady. And Nikys refuses because she says she wants a stable life. And yet the life she is given is stifled and clearly not what she wants. IDK, these two proposals – and the whole novella – are trying to be about the space given to women and the space given to men. The huge amount of leash given to Pen, in particular. And the two proposals are supposed to be stitching that up, but they … don’t. Maybe the third part of this just-write-a-novel-jFC will do it.
3/5. Another Penric novella. Better, even though this is still the middle chunk of a novel and not a standalone story. But it’s a mostly charming tale in which Pen cross-dresses and allows one of his demon’s shadow personalities to come forth to have kinky sex for money, which is not what I was expecting. It’s all rather wholesome? And weirdly unchallenging? Like, I’ve been waiting and waiting for this series to engage with Pen’s gender identity, since there are a dozen women in his head with him and who sometimes are able to become him. And this story really doesn’t, except for some glancing and shallow tussles with pronouns. And it doesn’t really engage with the queerness of the scenario either. I mean, it doesn’t have to, but I’d rather it did.
Mostly, though, this book rotates around two failed marriage proposals. One delivered to Pen as a lady by the man he seduced. And one delivered by Pen to his traveling companion. Both proposals miss their mark, but they don’t inform each other the way they clearly ought to. Pen refuses because it’s patently ridiculous and he has shit to do and he doesn’t want that guy oh and also that guy thinks he’s a lady. And Nikys refuses because she says she wants a stable life. And yet the life she is given is stifled and clearly not what she wants. IDK, these two proposals – and the whole novella – are trying to be about the space given to women and the space given to men. The huge amount of leash given to Pen, in particular. And the two proposals are supposed to be stitching that up, but they … don’t. Maybe the third part of this just-write-a-novel-jFC will do it.