2011 Reading #34: Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
31. Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge.
32. Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith.
33. The History of the Danes (Gesta Danorum) by Saxo Grammaticus, translation by Peter Fisher, edited by Peter Fisher and Hilda Ellis Davidson.

34. Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin. Oh yeah. All my high-fantasy misgivings and gender questions from the previous books are acknowledged here. The style is less epic and more personal, making the perils much more frightening and real. The cultural assumptions of the feudal, male-dominated society are pointed out and questioned, to a greater or lesser degree. And the wizards of Earthsea lose their breezy gloss and are revealed as just men, in some cases deeply flawed and dangerous ones. Tenar, from The Tombs of Atuan, is the protagonist here, and she's a wonderful character to revisit long after the events of that book. Since escaping her fate as the servant of the Nameless Ones, she's been intermittently content; she's raised a family and made a life, and yet the way in which it is so easily uprooted here forces here to realize that she's never been fully at home. I loved this both as a story of characters I cared about, and as Le Guin's answer to her own work.

2011 Reading #35: Edge of Our Lives by Mark Rich

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
31. Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge.
32. Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith.
33. The History of the Danes (Gesta Danorum) by Saxo Grammaticus, translation by Peter Fisher, edited by Peter Fisher and Hilda Ellis Davidson.
34. Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin.

35. Edge of Our Lives by Mark Rich. Mark is a prolific guy; as his biography states, his printed nonfiction amounts to more than a million words. I'm partial to his fiction, however. Mark is sort of like a Golden Age SF writer, master satirist, and modern poet wrapped up in one package. This volume includes some stories I've seen before, in zines like LCRW and the late, lamented Say...; of these, I'm particularly fond of "Fear of Tall Buildings" and "Swathes of Grass." Other highlights include "Beercan Medusa," "Asleep In the Arms of Ambience," and the title story, about defense AIs who base their emerging personalities on a soap opera, and what happens when that soap opera gets canceled. If this is the first you're hearing of Mark, I encourage you to check out his stuff.