Because y'all are my vampire peeps
Sep. 17th, 2010 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupI just finished Sunshine, by Robin McKinley. Has anyone read it? I find myself wanting to fannishly, lovingly analyze it to bits. With company.
ETA: spoilers in comments.
ETA: spoilers in comments.
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Date: 2010-09-18 05:03 am (UTC)Okay. So. First: I love that this is not about vampire sex. I love that Sunshine is totally aware of the concept of fantastical vampire sex, and there's this teaser here and there, and yet at the end her relationship with Con is all about a deep friendship.
Plus, it's that "unlikely allies/friends" thing, which I have such a kink for.
Your turn.
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Date: 2010-09-18 05:08 am (UTC)I also totally agree about the sex thing. The UST? makes it hotter.
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Date: 2010-09-18 05:13 am (UTC)I love just how individual an individual Rae is. Writing-wise, it's book strongest point, I think. The book talks about the shadows lying still on people who are most themselves, but even as she goes through all her identity crises Rae is always very much herself.
I thought the whole bad-gene part-blood vs. magic handler question was one thing too many. Most all the other world-building worked for me, but that just felt muddled.
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Date: 2010-09-18 05:20 am (UTC)The supporting characters were also wonderful - Charlie, Rae's Mom, Yolande, the coffee house regulars, the SOFs...I always find any story that's focused closely on just a few characters benefits hugely from having a vibrant secondary cast on the background. Like Rae, they really kept the book grounded.
The coffee shop! Death of Marat! I had such a vivid picture of the coffee shop and Old Town in my head. Overall, I found that I was able to slip into the world of the book almost seamlessly - it was difficult to stop reading once I started. ;) (You're totally right about the senses, that's what does it.)
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Date: 2010-09-18 05:31 am (UTC)Yes. And yet there's no skimping - she has no trouble (unlike me *g*) in going on about the action scenes for pages and pages, where it's warranted. She also spends a lot of time on internal reflection, which most of the time works fine, too, although there were spots where it was theoretically in the middle of a scene and I wondered if Pat or whoever was staring at her, waiting for her to come from her thoughts.
Sometimes I just had to sit back and laugh at the meandering, though. Rae has a penchant for rabbit trails, and a lot of them seem to be there for the pure joy of it. It make me think of Neal Stephenson, especially Cryptonomicon, which is a 900-page exercise of Stephenson geeking out about all his favorite topics.
You're so right about the supporting cast. I hadn't thought of that contrast of vibrant supporting cast vs. story focused on two people, but yeah, it kept Rae and Con from getting lost in each other (unlike, say, Twilight, of which I'm fond of saying that my favorite character in the first book was Bella's truck).
About the worldbuilding: I did wonder how, if vampires are so extremely effective, they hadn't already overrun the human race. That seemed a bit convenient.
I loved the slang and curse words. Oftentimes these are ghastly, but hers worked for me. "Carthiginian," especially. Also "flash" and "spartan" and "Shiva wept."
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Date: 2010-09-18 05:42 am (UTC)(Not to distract us from LOVELY SUNSHINE AND VAMPIRES AND BAKED GOODS, but the supporting cast thing is part of the extensive revisions I'm doing on my current fic. It's strange how that makes everything better, especially fic which is otherwise shippy.)
(NEAL STEPHENSON. Love Cryptonomicon to death, could not get past midway through the Baroque trilogy. I own all three, but have been stalled for the same number of years. Alas. He is great but even better when forced to edit things down a bit.)
I agree, the action scenes are very well done. I also like all the scenes we got of Rae on her own (mostly), exploring her own magic, that she does have her own magic. I think that's why she's my favorite human heroine in a book about vampires, because she has been given this wholly separate life and identity. Although I love Buffy with my whole heart, this is a problem with the show's worldbuilding - Buffy as the Slayer is always going to be dragged toward darkness and towards death. She needs her friends with her to keep her grounded. I don't think Buffy is weak in any way, but the game, for her, is rigged. What a contrast it is, to see Rae stand in the sunshine on her own, and have that equal and separate power that is hers alone.
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Date: 2010-09-18 05:59 am (UTC)Maybe that's one of the reasons so much mediocre shippy fic is, in fact, mediocre. When the only fully-realized characters are the two halves of your romantic couple, it makes it feel like the romance is occurring in a vacuum, which just feels unhealthy and unappealing.)
(I decided that I did not possibly know enough history to appreciate what Stephenson was trying to do with the Baroque trilogy, and there were too many other books in my life for to try and wade through those.)
I also like all the scenes we got of Rae on her own (mostly), exploring her own magic, that she does have her own magic.
Yes. Very much so. Agree with you about Buffy - even when she's not being actively dragged down, she is pretty much defined by what she fights. There were would be no Slayer were there not evil to slay.
Aesthetically, too, the sunshine/dark contrast was very pleasing. I liked how McKinley pointed out that people with water affinity were so much better at putting out fires than those with fire affinity, and the best at walking across deserts. In fact, I think the irony of the book's title was a lot of what got me to pick it up in the first place. (Yay, marketing. *g*)
The urban fantasy books (of which this is one, I suppose, although it feels as though McKinley hadn't really been steeped in the genre as a whole, which makes sense given her background) focus so much on the dark, romanticizing it even when they're not explicitly trying to make it appealing. The dark side is edgy, wild. It's what Buffy goes to Spike looking for in S6.
Rae, on the other hand, is terrified of and frequently nauseated by it all. She wants nothing to do with it, even when it turns out she can do something about it. Evil is not sexy, after all, and when one has spent all night heroining one doesn't have the strength to take advantage of one's vampire ally when he offers. Being a hero is not any fun at all.
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Date: 2010-09-18 09:09 am (UTC)When the only fully-realized characters are the two halves of your romantic couple, it makes it feel like the romance is occurring in a vacuum, which just feels unhealthy and unappealing.)
Absolutely. The best/most interesting shippy fics that I've read are ones in which the main characters have other relationships and ties beyond each other. (A corollary: secondary character bashing is also a one-way trip down the Bad Writing hole.)
Evil is not sexy, after all, and when one has spent all night heroining one doesn't have the strength to take advantage of one's vampire ally when he offers. Being a hero is not any fun at all.
This is why I love this book so much. At the end of the day, it's the warmth of goodness and life, and home and sunshine and cinnamon rolls, which is able to fuel Rae's evil-fighting with Con. Her vampire bond with Con arises from her struggle to live - his blood is the only thing which can rid her of the poison.
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Date: 2010-09-18 04:12 pm (UTC)Can I just say again how much I love how her and Con's friendship turns out? Those last three pages are just pitch-perfect. He admits to actually liking her company, and now they're going off together to just do the Con equivalent of 'hanging out.' After everything else, all they've gone through, it's sweet in the best way.
I'm reminded of something someone said about FFL - maybe on the audio commentary? - that the whole episode is a struggle between sex and death and the question is, which one will win. And then we get to the end, to the porch scene, and blow the whole sex-and-death dichotomy out of the water with a third option. The end of Sunshine is a little like that, to me, although Rae and Con's dynamic is not Spike and Buffy's dynamic, and so their third option looks different. But as someone who disbelieves that sex and death are the only options, ending on that third option is extremely satisfying.
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Date: 2010-09-18 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 06:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 06:22 am (UTC)