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Mending the Moon, by Susan Palwick
Aug. 4th, 2014 08:25 pmWooo it's the latest Susan Palwick! Last time I reviewed a Susan Palwick novel I accidentally talked for like 1500 words whiiiich is possibly overkill? I don't have 1500 words in me this time, in part because this one is a less ambitious novel than the last. But this one was overall more successful than Shelter, I think.
It's...a literary fiction novel, I suppose you could say. It takes place entirely in our current real world and is about the reactions of various people to a terrible personal tragedy (tw for rape and murder and suicide in the book) that occurs. Except that I genuinely like the characters, and they feel like real people, and I care about them. And yes I cried.
It's a very Susan Palwick book, being about grief and loss and hard things and about how family (by blood or by choice) is important. And all that is great!
But what's really special about it is the other part - the stuff about the Comrade Cosmos comic book series and the Comrade Cosmos fandom. A number of the main characters are into CCverse, and the novel spends a fair amount of time talking about CCverse and oh dear god I love everything about this. It reads like Palwick GENUINELY GETS IT about fandom and it makes me SO HAPPY. And the book acknowledges that slash exists without getting weird or judgy about it! (and is also one hundred percent correct about what slash fans would ship because wow yes CC/EE practically writes itself)
(Also I have to say that I dearly want there to be fanart of the Emperor of Entropy at a birthday party. Lots of it. All the fanart. Also all the other CCverse fanworks.) (HELL YEAH I am requesting CCverse for yuletide this year!) (yes I already checked tumblr and AO3 and there's absolutely nothing about Comrade Cosmos and I am sad)
But the way that a fandom is a) fun for the people involved and b) also can be helpful and meaningful to people going through hard times is just... yeah.
And I love CCverse and its fandom as described in the book. I got genuinely squeeful reading each section about CCverse. And I love that the CCverse canon is explicitly imperfect - so Palwick didn't intend CCverse to be a shining paragon of a canon that does everything right. Which makes me feel better about things like the way that CC's backstory involves a fridged woman whose continued disabled existence is only to cause CC angst instead of her getting to be a person in her own right. And the only major female characters are the love interest(s) and the fridged/tragically-disabled family member. It's like...yeah. That's too often what comic books DO, unfortunately. CCverse is interesting and groundbreaking in other ways, but it also retreads some very familiar ground.
At any rate, I don't have any grand sweeping statements to end my thoughts with. But I really liked this book and I'm glad I read it. AWW YEAH SUSAN PALWICK.
It's...a literary fiction novel, I suppose you could say. It takes place entirely in our current real world and is about the reactions of various people to a terrible personal tragedy (tw for rape and murder and suicide in the book) that occurs. Except that I genuinely like the characters, and they feel like real people, and I care about them. And yes I cried.
It's a very Susan Palwick book, being about grief and loss and hard things and about how family (by blood or by choice) is important. And all that is great!
But what's really special about it is the other part - the stuff about the Comrade Cosmos comic book series and the Comrade Cosmos fandom. A number of the main characters are into CCverse, and the novel spends a fair amount of time talking about CCverse and oh dear god I love everything about this. It reads like Palwick GENUINELY GETS IT about fandom and it makes me SO HAPPY. And the book acknowledges that slash exists without getting weird or judgy about it! (and is also one hundred percent correct about what slash fans would ship because wow yes CC/EE practically writes itself)
(Also I have to say that I dearly want there to be fanart of the Emperor of Entropy at a birthday party. Lots of it. All the fanart. Also all the other CCverse fanworks.) (HELL YEAH I am requesting CCverse for yuletide this year!) (yes I already checked tumblr and AO3 and there's absolutely nothing about Comrade Cosmos and I am sad)
But the way that a fandom is a) fun for the people involved and b) also can be helpful and meaningful to people going through hard times is just... yeah.
And I love CCverse and its fandom as described in the book. I got genuinely squeeful reading each section about CCverse. And I love that the CCverse canon is explicitly imperfect - so Palwick didn't intend CCverse to be a shining paragon of a canon that does everything right. Which makes me feel better about things like the way that CC's backstory involves a fridged woman whose continued disabled existence is only to cause CC angst instead of her getting to be a person in her own right. And the only major female characters are the love interest(s) and the fridged/tragically-disabled family member. It's like...yeah. That's too often what comic books DO, unfortunately. CCverse is interesting and groundbreaking in other ways, but it also retreads some very familiar ground.
At any rate, I don't have any grand sweeping statements to end my thoughts with. But I really liked this book and I'm glad I read it. AWW YEAH SUSAN PALWICK.
