I got tired of the politics in Laurie King's Holmes books. Plus I always have to jump that huge old hurdle of Holmes actually being with Russell. Not that I dismiss the possibility, it just creeps a little close to Mary Sue.

connie, that aspect also kind of gives me the wiggins, too. I can objectively appreciate that an older man can be sexy (for example, Sean Connery), but marriage? To me, it's like if Buffy and Giles had married. YWMV.

Also, I think, to put it concisely, what really bugged me about this book was that I didn't really like Russell, when she is a character that I have previously enjoyed. She has always seemed in some ways like a character of today, when in this book she's pretty much a product of her time.

I did like the fact that King dropped the whole "these characters are based on a true story" pretense.

The old "newly discovered chronicles" thing you see in new Holmes' books? It was clever the first few times I saw it, but now, just get into the story.

I brought the game home from the library , but never really got past the first few pages.

I got "A Door in the Hedge" in the mail today. What a trip down memory lane. It's very, very apparent how much McKinley has matured. The stories are good, but they very much have the flavor of sweetness that characterized her early works.

Robin McKinley describes herself on her website as “intransigent,” and relates the story about how her sensibilities were completely outraged when she read The Sheik, a gripping tale of white slavery and the harem life in the romantic desert.

Quoted from alibris dot com: “The Sheik,” the basis for the famous movie starring Rudolph Valentino, this 1919 novel tells the story of a haughty Englishwoman who is captured in the Algerian desert by a handsome prince, who rapes her, after which she promptly gives up her imperious ways and becomes a loving, surrendered wife.

The idea that woman requires that man master her like a horse or other domestic animal stuck in McKinley’s craw and pissed her off. (Alert readers may reference my earlier rant about domestic violence upthread). This feeling became part of her urge to write stories about heroines who were more than pliant sex recipients. Thus the world got to read about the mythic adventures of Aerin and Harimad-Sol, who are heroic in their own right (and get to have The Sex, off-screen).

Today, I live in a world where I’ve seen Xena, Buffy and Zoe stride across my screen and take care of business; a world where Princess Leia is no longer the only spunky heroine. I have come a long way from the disappointed four year old I once was, who sadly decided that the stories she was making up had to be about boys, since there were no stories about girls doing anything interesting. Girls only had pretty clothes, which bored me. I don’t think I can express the amount of satisfaction this trend in fiction gives me.

The idea that woman requires that man master her like a horse or other domestic animal stuck in McKinley’s craw and pissed her off.

Really? Has she re-read her own Beauty recently? I did, and it was like a Stockholm Syndrome extravaganza.

I'm all for spunky heroines, but perhaps my definition of 'spunky' is a little more out there than hers.

There was a time in the late 40s when movie heroines, at least, were damned spunky. Barbara Stanwyk has the greatest line, but I don't know what hte movie is. Typical ganger situation, she's lounging in the boss' office. Visitor to the office gives her the once-over, then says to the boss, "Is that your girl?" Barbara gives him a sneer: "I'm my mother's girl."

That's sassy. Spunky is kicking the visitor in the nuts.

Never mind the kick; I'd expect Stanwyck to just shoot the mouthy bastard.

And then straddle his bleeding body, and purr at him "Oh, honey! Was it as good for you as it was for me?"

Mmmmm. Stanwyck.