sigelphoenix (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} sigelphoenix) wrote,@ 2009-09-10 22:34:00 |
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The Stepsister Scheme by Jim Hines
First, some context: I first heard of Jim Hines when I found his LiveJournal during RaceFail, and appreciated his voice as one of the few white authors who spoke sense, and who also owned up to the gaps in his knowledge. So while I have resolved to support more authors of color by buying their books, I also picked up The Stepsister Scheme with confidence that I wouldn't want to bang my head against a wall or throw the book across the room.
The premise of the book itself is a lot of fun: a retelling of popular fairy tales (some Disney version, some not), wherein Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty are essentially secret agents for the queen of Cinderella's home nation. Our POV character is Danielle (Cinderella), who is new to all this business and only got pulled in because her stepsisters kidnapped her husband, Prince Armand.
The book took a while for me to get into, for a couple of reasons. First, it's a mix of comedy and drama, which is more lighthearted than what I usually go for. The comedy isn't slapstick, though, and Hines makes you smile without trying to impress the reader with his wit all the time, so I ended up enjoying it once I got into the flow of the book.
Second, I had to feel out the book to see how high my defenses needed to be. (It's something I always have to do, but sometimes books answer the question early on by being very clearly status quo - for instance, fantasy that is squarely in the Western tradition, usually medieval-ish setting, where everyone is white and straight and there might be strong female characters but no grappling with feminist issues. For better or for worse, that tells me early on to lower my expectations for the book, but at least then I know the book will entirely avoid issues of race and sexuality, and I'll need to tolerate only the omission rather than a royal fucking up.) The Stepsister Scheme, as a reworked fairy tale(s), indicates early on that there will be questioning of the norm. So Danielle is Cinderella - but she's not the demurely feminine Disney version who sings a lot and doesn't get angry. Is she Liberated (in the mainstream-fiction's-interpretation-of-f
High expectations? Sure, but I don't apologize for having them when I'm sharing the money that could be dedicated to underrepresented authors. And when these questions actively affect my reading enjoyment, the whole reason I buy books in the first place.
A brief overview on my verdict regarding these and other questions:
The Stepsister Scheme takes strong women as a given. Queen Beatrice runs her spy/agent network under her own authority, and her husband trusts her enough to let her have the necessary secrecy of his own free will, rather than because he's whipped or incompetent. Snow and Talia (Sleeping Beauty) are exceptional for their talents, but there isn't the obnoxious implication that it's shocking or less likely because they're female (like in books where, sure, the main character is a talented or powerful woman, but all the talented and powerful people around her are men, so it's clearly not the norm). Sexism is never explicitly addressed, but it's deliberately and thoroughly undermined on a regular basis throughout the story - it's never pulled out as A Teaching Moment, because the entire book is informed by anti-sexism. I feel that this is accomplished pretty consistently and organically, without being heavy-handed or slipping into eye-rolling patriarchal tropes.
Which isn't to say it's perfect. Danielle and the others don't challenge gender roles, beyond the fact that they act with more independence than you'd expect for a group of princesses. Danielle did, just like the Cinderella story, fall in love with a prince at a ball and marry him, and she blushes a little at sex (though she also enjoys it, thank god) and is immediately and unreservedly happy at her unexpected pregnancy. (As an aside, there are inaccuracies in the description of Danielle's pregnancy, which knocked me out of the story a bit.) None of these are bad attributes, of course, but they are pretty standardly feminine, so it's not that much a rejection of fairy tales.
On the other hand, Snow is also feminine, in that she is pretty and big-bosomed and flirts a lot. But she never came off as "the slutty one" - she is happily and healthily sexual, and not less valued for it. She also flirts for her own pleasure, and doesn't pretend to be dumb or undermine her own strength for it. So while standard feminine traits are in abundance, they are not portrayed as natural to all women, or separate from traits such as intelligence.
And then there's Talia - whom, let me tell you, I love. She was my favorite character in the book from her very first appearance. (Danielle is nice, but honestly, when her introductory scene included a dark-skinned servant girl? My sympathy for Princess Danielle's woes about not fitting in at court deflated.) Talia is stoic, cynical, suspicious, and easily angered. She's also a kickass fighter, due to both her fairy gifted grace and her own extensive training.
She's also a lesbian. And non-white (her home nation is implied to be a Middle Eastern analogue). These two traits are awesome to see in a main character - but, in light of the previous paragraph, potentially a heinous stereotype. The angry woman of color? The butch lesbian? We discover later that Sleeping Beauty's prince raped her during her enchanted slumber, which evokes the "lesbian because she was raped by a man" trope.
(Hines ponders Talia's character here. Now, any rationalizations he writes in a blog post cannot and should not stand in for quality characterization and respectful treatment within the book itself. So this is less for argument and more for reference.)
Ultimately, I felt that Talia's character works more than not, partly because I love her so much and partly because these potentially stereotypical traits aren't one-sided. Sometimes her cynicism is too harsh, yes, but sometimes it is just truth, and Danielle and Snow realize it. Her athleticism and beauty coexist without being in spite of one another. Her homosexuality isn't totally tragic or totally accepted - Danielle is stupefied when she finds out, which I find much more realistic than if she had instantly been Accepting And Understanding.
For me to continue loving not only Talia, but Hines' treatment of Talia, this inconsistent introduction has to become really strong in the rest of the series. Right now my opinion of the treatment of Talia is positive but tenuous - it can become better, and Hines needs to work toward this actively. For one thing, there need to be more lesbians and more women of color, so Talia isn't stuck as the solitary representative of both (Hines does promise the former in the linked post, at least). We also need to see more representatives of her "negative" characteristics - anger, violence, ruthlessness - because the other two stars of the book, Snow and Danielle, are really goshdarned sweet, and sometimes when they stand next to Talia it just makes her seem like an asshole (or, alternately, they seem cloying).
Related to this, I was happy to have an unrelenting and unapologetic woman of color (not that she identified politically as such), and could relate to her when she was at odds with Snow and Danielle - you know, the white women who don't fully grasp the reality of the situation and thus don't understand why she's so angry. ;) Granted, I doubt that was intentional on the author's part, but I still got the benefit.
I also want to talk about Fairytown. The setting of the book is an island nation that is dominated by the human kingdom of Lorindar, but also contains the nation-within-a-nation of Fairytown, where fairies have lived ever since they lost the war to the humans.
I was glad to see that the fairies do not stand in for the Racial Other, at least in my reading. They are a colonized people (with Fairytown essentially the reservation), but Hines avoids the usual tropes: Fairytown is not backwards or poorer than the human part of the nation; it is more dangerous, but that's because fairies and fairy power are so different from what humans are equipped to handle. The humans' victory over the fairies is described as a war (conflict between equals), not treated like colonization or settlement (between subject and object); also, the reason that the humans won was one individual human's strategy, not the fairies' inferiority in weapons/warfare/bravery/blah blah blah. And fairies are not portrayed as worse or better than humans, not violent savages or noble savages - both groups have their pettiness and greed and power and innocence. They are still, of course, the Other in relation to the humans, and Hines hardly says anything radical about our conception of the Other and ourselves, in a racial sense or not. But at least it's not as crappy a portrayal as most books with fairies/aliens/etc. Is that damning with faint praise? I suppose, but while the pool of comparison should be better, it's actually pretty spectacularly bad, so the fact that The Stepsister Scheme doesn't join them means that I actually consider it one of the best white-authored books I've read in a while.
There's only one more thing I'd like to mention here: the rescue of Prince Armand is flipping hilarious. The image of a heavily pregnant Danielle defeating her ensorcelled husband by kicking him in the nuts is pretty lol-worthy.
Damn, but I had a lot to say about this book. And I even cut it down a bit. I think I'm having a little Joss Whedon Syndrome here - I feel like I'm close to really loving the work, and because of that my defenses are accordingly lowered and my expectations are accordingly raised. (See above re: omission versus fucking up.) I want to support a book that is aimed at mainstream readers and accessible to younger (teenaged) readers and also assumes that the wife being the husband's savior, or that the women being both heterosexual and homosexual, needs neither preamble nor excuse. I have high hopes that this is a book I'll be able to describe someday as, "a relatively weak start to the series, but still quite enjoyable, and man do the rest of the books really realize the potential here and get awesome ..."
I actually really think you all should read this book, and I highly encourage you to purchase it rather than borrow it (for similar reasons as I encouraged you to buy Silver Phoenix).
First, some context: I first heard of Jim Hines when I found his LiveJournal during RaceFail, and appreciated his voice as one of the few white authors who spoke sense, and who also owned up to the gaps in his knowledge. So while I have resolved to support more authors of color by buying their books, I also picked up The Stepsister Scheme with confidence that I wouldn't want to bang my head against a wall or throw the book across the room.
The premise of the book itself is a lot of fun: a retelling of popular fairy tales (some Disney version, some not), wherein Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty are essentially secret agents for the queen of Cinderella's home nation. Our POV character is Danielle (Cinderella), who is new to all this business and only got pulled in because her stepsisters kidnapped her husband, Prince Armand.
The book took a while for me to get into, for a couple of reasons. First, it's a mix of comedy and drama, which is more lighthearted than what I usually go for. The comedy isn't slapstick, though, and Hines makes you smile without trying to impress the reader with his wit all the time, so I ended up enjoying it once I got into the flow of the book.
Second, I had to feel out the book to see how high my defenses needed to be. (It's something I always have to do, but sometimes books answer the question early on by being very clearly status quo - for instance, fantasy that is squarely in the Western tradition, usually medieval-ish setting, where everyone is white and straight and there might be strong female characters but no grappling with feminist issues. For better or for worse, that tells me early on to lower my expectations for the book, but at least then I know the book will entirely avoid issues of race and sexuality, and I'll need to tolerate only the omission rather than a royal fucking up.) The Stepsister Scheme, as a reworked fairy tale(s), indicates early on that there will be questioning of the norm. So Danielle is Cinderella - but she's not the demurely feminine Disney version who sings a lot and doesn't get angry. Is she Liberated (in the mainstream-fiction's-interpretation-of-f
High expectations? Sure, but I don't apologize for having them when I'm sharing the money that could be dedicated to underrepresented authors. And when these questions actively affect my reading enjoyment, the whole reason I buy books in the first place.
A brief overview on my verdict regarding these and other questions:
The Stepsister Scheme takes strong women as a given. Queen Beatrice runs her spy/agent network under her own authority, and her husband trusts her enough to let her have the necessary secrecy of his own free will, rather than because he's whipped or incompetent. Snow and Talia (Sleeping Beauty) are exceptional for their talents, but there isn't the obnoxious implication that it's shocking or less likely because they're female (like in books where, sure, the main character is a talented or powerful woman, but all the talented and powerful people around her are men, so it's clearly not the norm). Sexism is never explicitly addressed, but it's deliberately and thoroughly undermined on a regular basis throughout the story - it's never pulled out as A Teaching Moment, because the entire book is informed by anti-sexism. I feel that this is accomplished pretty consistently and organically, without being heavy-handed or slipping into eye-rolling patriarchal tropes.
Which isn't to say it's perfect. Danielle and the others don't challenge gender roles, beyond the fact that they act with more independence than you'd expect for a group of princesses. Danielle did, just like the Cinderella story, fall in love with a prince at a ball and marry him, and she blushes a little at sex (though she also enjoys it, thank god) and is immediately and unreservedly happy at her unexpected pregnancy. (As an aside, there are inaccuracies in the description of Danielle's pregnancy, which knocked me out of the story a bit.) None of these are bad attributes, of course, but they are pretty standardly feminine, so it's not that much a rejection of fairy tales.
On the other hand, Snow is also feminine, in that she is pretty and big-bosomed and flirts a lot. But she never came off as "the slutty one" - she is happily and healthily sexual, and not less valued for it. She also flirts for her own pleasure, and doesn't pretend to be dumb or undermine her own strength for it. So while standard feminine traits are in abundance, they are not portrayed as natural to all women, or separate from traits such as intelligence.
And then there's Talia - whom, let me tell you, I love. She was my favorite character in the book from her very first appearance. (Danielle is nice, but honestly, when her introductory scene included a dark-skinned servant girl? My sympathy for Princess Danielle's woes about not fitting in at court deflated.) Talia is stoic, cynical, suspicious, and easily angered. She's also a kickass fighter, due to both her fairy gifted grace and her own extensive training.
She's also a lesbian. And non-white (her home nation is implied to be a Middle Eastern analogue). These two traits are awesome to see in a main character - but, in light of the previous paragraph, potentially a heinous stereotype. The angry woman of color? The butch lesbian? We discover later that Sleeping Beauty's prince raped her during her enchanted slumber, which evokes the "lesbian because she was raped by a man" trope.
(Hines ponders Talia's character here. Now, any rationalizations he writes in a blog post cannot and should not stand in for quality characterization and respectful treatment within the book itself. So this is less for argument and more for reference.)
Ultimately, I felt that Talia's character works more than not, partly because I love her so much and partly because these potentially stereotypical traits aren't one-sided. Sometimes her cynicism is too harsh, yes, but sometimes it is just truth, and Danielle and Snow realize it. Her athleticism and beauty coexist without being in spite of one another. Her homosexuality isn't totally tragic or totally accepted - Danielle is stupefied when she finds out, which I find much more realistic than if she had instantly been Accepting And Understanding.
For me to continue loving not only Talia, but Hines' treatment of Talia, this inconsistent introduction has to become really strong in the rest of the series. Right now my opinion of the treatment of Talia is positive but tenuous - it can become better, and Hines needs to work toward this actively. For one thing, there need to be more lesbians and more women of color, so Talia isn't stuck as the solitary representative of both (Hines does promise the former in the linked post, at least). We also need to see more representatives of her "negative" characteristics - anger, violence, ruthlessness - because the other two stars of the book, Snow and Danielle, are really goshdarned sweet, and sometimes when they stand next to Talia it just makes her seem like an asshole (or, alternately, they seem cloying).
Related to this, I was happy to have an unrelenting and unapologetic woman of color (not that she identified politically as such), and could relate to her when she was at odds with Snow and Danielle - you know, the white women who don't fully grasp the reality of the situation and thus don't understand why she's so angry. ;) Granted, I doubt that was intentional on the author's part, but I still got the benefit.
I also want to talk about Fairytown. The setting of the book is an island nation that is dominated by the human kingdom of Lorindar, but also contains the nation-within-a-nation of Fairytown, where fairies have lived ever since they lost the war to the humans.
I was glad to see that the fairies do not stand in for the Racial Other, at least in my reading. They are a colonized people (with Fairytown essentially the reservation), but Hines avoids the usual tropes: Fairytown is not backwards or poorer than the human part of the nation; it is more dangerous, but that's because fairies and fairy power are so different from what humans are equipped to handle. The humans' victory over the fairies is described as a war (conflict between equals), not treated like colonization or settlement (between subject and object); also, the reason that the humans won was one individual human's strategy, not the fairies' inferiority in weapons/warfare/bravery/blah blah blah. And fairies are not portrayed as worse or better than humans, not violent savages or noble savages - both groups have their pettiness and greed and power and innocence. They are still, of course, the Other in relation to the humans, and Hines hardly says anything radical about our conception of the Other and ourselves, in a racial sense or not. But at least it's not as crappy a portrayal as most books with fairies/aliens/etc. Is that damning with faint praise? I suppose, but while the pool of comparison should be better, it's actually pretty spectacularly bad, so the fact that The Stepsister Scheme doesn't join them means that I actually consider it one of the best white-authored books I've read in a while.
There's only one more thing I'd like to mention here: the rescue of Prince Armand is flipping hilarious. The image of a heavily pregnant Danielle defeating her ensorcelled husband by kicking him in the nuts is pretty lol-worthy.
Damn, but I had a lot to say about this book. And I even cut it down a bit. I think I'm having a little Joss Whedon Syndrome here - I feel like I'm close to really loving the work, and because of that my defenses are accordingly lowered and my expectations are accordingly raised. (See above re: omission versus fucking up.) I want to support a book that is aimed at mainstream readers and accessible to younger (teenaged) readers and also assumes that the wife being the husband's savior, or that the women being both heterosexual and homosexual, needs neither preamble nor excuse. I have high hopes that this is a book I'll be able to describe someday as, "a relatively weak start to the series, but still quite enjoyable, and man do the rest of the books really realize the potential here and get awesome ..."
I actually really think you all should read this book, and I highly encourage you to purchase it rather than borrow it (for similar reasons as I encouraged you to buy Silver Phoenix).