I haven't read the EArthsea books since I was a kid, but I don't remember Ged being black. My monochromatic upbringing probably didn't even register it (I didn't even meet a black person until about 4th grade, and my memories of him are "Huh, he looks different from me, oh, well"), or I was reading too fast and missing details.

Ged's not black, as in African; he's red-brown, as in Polynesian islander. The bad guys who come raid his island as the first action in the narrative are pointedly white.

Of course, the British edition of the series I first read has a white, strawberry-blond, blue-eyed Ged with lightning surging from his fingertips a la Emperor Palpatine on the cover. The only way they could've gotten it more wrong would have been making him a woman wearing a ton of makeup.

I like early Tepper as well, but very gender-biased. And I thought the religion in Grass was pretty much Mormonism (as in several of her other books).

The only Tepper I've read was The Family Tree, and even though the blatant anti-male viewpoint was highly annoying (I got sick of it in my feminist lit class, especially when reading James Tiptree, Jr.), the twist of the story is entertaining enough to counteract it. The whole "Nature/Women good, Humanity/Man BAD!!" was tiring, though.

Can anybody recommend good books about espionage tradecraft? Not cryptanalysis, but the stuff about how to set up dead drops, how not to be seen, &c.

No, I'm not becoming a spy or a leaker. Just 'satiable curiosity.

Can anybody recommend good books about espionage tradecraft?

Fiction, nonfiction, or both?

Nonfiction.

This is a consistent topic of discussion around our house. Tepper and later LeGuin have already been mentioned as writing horribly agenda-driven genders.

Both pikers compared to Alice Walker.

Can anybody recommend good books about espionage tradecraft? Not cryptanalysis, but the stuff about how to set up dead drops, how not to be seen, &c.

Moscow Rules, Vladimir, Moscow Rules I can't think of any off the top of my head; you can glean a lot from le Carre, of course, but it's out of date. This one: [link] looks good for surveillance, etc, but has nothing about agent running or deep cover stuff (drops, meetings etc). This one [link] written by Gordievsky who's the Frankie Fraser of KGB defectors, has all that but is probably (I've not read it) more designed to give a frisson to the armchair spy.

Yeah, Hec, but she's written great stuff, too. Her latest have devolved into writing a perfect world or something, though, which, although I find it sensuous, I can't really believe in it.

Are we back here for discussing Harry Potter, now that the Book Club is active again?

My current houseguest pointed out a difference between the British and American versions of HBP that is suggestive, and I don't think it was mentioned here during the big spoilerific discussion.

In the British version (pp 552-3 if you are keeping track), Dumbledore says: 'Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban...when the time comes, we can hide him too...'

while in the American version (same scene, but pp 591-2) he says "He cannot kill you if you are already dead. Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Nobody would be surprised that you had died in your attempt to kill me -- forgive me, but Lord Voldemort probably expects it. Nor would the Death Eaters be surprised that we had captured and killed your mother -- it is what they would do themselves, after all. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban...when the time comes, we can hide him too..."