Finished at last
Jun. 23rd, 2007 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksIt seemed to take forever for me to finish In the Name of Identity, in part because I kept going back and rereading sections. Maalouf's book is fairly short (~150 pages) but has some huge ideas. His style is very accessible and the tone of the book was philosophical without being dense or reliant on a lot of jargon. Maalouf wonders about the human tendency to narrow identity to a single factor (religion, primarily) and its cause; then moves on to the tendencies to demonized the "Other" which for many people today is modernization; and on to the tension between standardization and uniformity. I thought his observations about the relationship between religion and democracy were interesting, especially since religion is so change-averse. Maalouf also touches briefly on language as identity, which is something I find very interesting.
I've got Maalouf's The Crusades Through the Eyes of the Arabs TBR, but I'm not going to start it until I finish The Assault on Reason and Blackwater, which have been languishing half-read on my coffee table.
On the fiction reading front, I finished Creepin' a paranormal anthology edited by Monica Jackson and published by Kimani. B- from me. Tara Marie loved it, as did Bam. Me, I loved one story, liked two others, and thought the remaining two were less than impressive.
*Payback is a Bitch by L.A. Banks. Sidney is in the midst of a nasty divorce, looking for help from Brick, the friend of a friend who'll get dirt on Skanky Husband. Oh, how did I hate this story? Passive, naive, stupid heroine; skanky villain sex -- the threesome and gay sex telegraph villain, of course, because good guys don't do that kind of thing; the hero who gives back her money after watching the heroine wank because it wouldn't be right? WTF? The only thing I really liked about this story was the dialogue. D
*Heat of the Night by Donna Hill. I'm not really sure how to describe this one without completely giving the plot away. Basically, there's a woman and an incubus and that's all I'm sayin'. Choosing the first person POV was interesting, because the narrator came across as kind of scatty and unreliable...which is actually important, IMO. B
*Vamped by Monica Jackson. Joy's fiance Andre is a hottie, but a bit of a homebody; her friends think she's making him up because he never comes out with her. For good reason, apparently: he's trying to avoid the attention of a vampire who's been feeding on him for years. What happens when Joy finally coaxes him into a night out? This is an interesting plot and I really enjoyed the story until the last two pages; the solution to the vampire problem and Joy's "infection" didn't work for me and was too much of a deus ex machina (literally). B+ dropped to a B-.
*Balancing the Scales by J.M. Jeffries. Paloma is a singing sensation (a Vegas singer with her own show six nights a week) who catches her husband cheating on her...plus she learns he's run through all her money. What's a woman to do? Get revenge, of course. But revenge costs -- it's a very high price, is she sure she wants to pay? More skanky villain sex; another stupid heroine. The whole "I'm a creative entertainer and I trusted my manager and loved one to take care of me" is a cliche that gets on my last nerve. And was a little too reminiscent of the dumb heroine in the Banks story. C-
*Avenging Angel by Janice Sims. Sarai is a detective who hunts pedophiles, as well as being a Grigori (good guy angel). She's married to a human who knows what she is and loves her, after having been dumped by one of the other types of Nephilim, a child of the Sons of the Morning. Hindsight being 20/20, the ex wants Sarai back, so her big conflict is dealing with him and his interference in her life. This was my favorite story; I loved the big confrontation between Good and Evil, and the strong heroine. A-
I've got Maalouf's The Crusades Through the Eyes of the Arabs TBR, but I'm not going to start it until I finish The Assault on Reason and Blackwater, which have been languishing half-read on my coffee table.
On the fiction reading front, I finished Creepin' a paranormal anthology edited by Monica Jackson and published by Kimani. B- from me. Tara Marie loved it, as did Bam. Me, I loved one story, liked two others, and thought the remaining two were less than impressive.
*Payback is a Bitch by L.A. Banks. Sidney is in the midst of a nasty divorce, looking for help from Brick, the friend of a friend who'll get dirt on Skanky Husband. Oh, how did I hate this story? Passive, naive, stupid heroine; skanky villain sex -- the threesome and gay sex telegraph villain, of course, because good guys don't do that kind of thing; the hero who gives back her money after watching the heroine wank because it wouldn't be right? WTF? The only thing I really liked about this story was the dialogue. D
*Heat of the Night by Donna Hill. I'm not really sure how to describe this one without completely giving the plot away. Basically, there's a woman and an incubus and that's all I'm sayin'. Choosing the first person POV was interesting, because the narrator came across as kind of scatty and unreliable...which is actually important, IMO. B
*Vamped by Monica Jackson. Joy's fiance Andre is a hottie, but a bit of a homebody; her friends think she's making him up because he never comes out with her. For good reason, apparently: he's trying to avoid the attention of a vampire who's been feeding on him for years. What happens when Joy finally coaxes him into a night out? This is an interesting plot and I really enjoyed the story until the last two pages; the solution to the vampire problem and Joy's "infection" didn't work for me and was too much of a deus ex machina (literally). B+ dropped to a B-.
*Balancing the Scales by J.M. Jeffries. Paloma is a singing sensation (a Vegas singer with her own show six nights a week) who catches her husband cheating on her...plus she learns he's run through all her money. What's a woman to do? Get revenge, of course. But revenge costs -- it's a very high price, is she sure she wants to pay? More skanky villain sex; another stupid heroine. The whole "I'm a creative entertainer and I trusted my manager and loved one to take care of me" is a cliche that gets on my last nerve. And was a little too reminiscent of the dumb heroine in the Banks story. C-
*Avenging Angel by Janice Sims. Sarai is a detective who hunts pedophiles, as well as being a Grigori (good guy angel). She's married to a human who knows what she is and loves her, after having been dumped by one of the other types of Nephilim, a child of the Sons of the Morning. Hindsight being 20/20, the ex wants Sarai back, so her big conflict is dealing with him and his interference in her life. This was my favorite story; I loved the big confrontation between Good and Evil, and the strong heroine. A-
