![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
piranhathis is book 3 in the falls chance ranch series of free, online reads, available in the authors' blog: http://fallschanceranch.blogspot.com/
at the start of the book dale is away from the ranch for a month on his first real project since his breakdown, which brings back a lot of the stress and unfortunately derails his recovery. upon returning to the ranch so his family can help pick himself up again, he continues seeing strange and sometimes scary events around the ranch, and the vivid nightmares get worse and worse. not knowing whether the events he sees while awake are a product of his own anxiety or a mystical connection to the past, his analytical mind cannot leave this unsolved problem alone, and he keeps following the clues to a spiritual place on the ranch called "mustang hill", a clearing in the woods where nothing grows, petroglyphs are carved into rocks, and something intangible seems to haunt the place, ready to attack. of his partners, jasper is the only one who also senses some of the things dale experiences on mustang hill, and helps him explore their meaning.
unfortunately this book has 2 strikes against it for me right off the top -- domestic discipline, and sorta-native-american mysticism. i have complicated feelings around appropriation and this hits them right smack in the middle and i felt uncomfortable the entire time. not the discomfort of "you really ought to examine your own preconceptions here", like i feel about the domestic discipline, but discomfort with the myth of oppressed people being used by someone not of those people to elevate a character also not of those people. using 9-11 is alas another half strike. it's not the authors' fault, there's nothing wrong with the storytelling, the authors strike me as sensitive and tolerant and thoroughly well-meaning, and the story is potentially a very touching one for somebody not-me, but i am desensitised and allergic due to years of cold-blooded exploitation by american politicians, and the unrelenting erosion of civil rights in its wake. which reminds me: dear ranger & rolf; please do not use "politically correct" in your books unless you actually WANT to sound like american rightwing nitwits. people who use it over here usually have problems with empathy, and consider it a bleeding-heart liberal weakness. they would hate the people in your books for being deviants in every which way, and a little spanking would not reconcile them. eradicate the term from your vocabulary; you'll be better off.
all that said (just blurt it out, dale), i actually found dale's development very interesting even though it is partly headed in a direction i can't relate to, and i was glad to see jasper show more of himself (even though the character of jasper makes me uncomfortable (see appropriation)). i also don't quite grok how jasper got into DD; it seems to make absolutely no sense to me from looking at his beliefs.
it's quite a fascinating journey, and has a bit of a mystery feel to it, which really attracts me. and i am clearly too tired to do this review justice, so for now, this is it. it sounds more negative than i actually feel; i still love the series, i still love dale, i can't get enough of reading about him. the love and affection that runs through these books -- not just for people alive today, but for people of the past, their culture and history, and the land on which they lived -- is wonderful, heartwarming, and inspirational.
at the start of the book dale is away from the ranch for a month on his first real project since his breakdown, which brings back a lot of the stress and unfortunately derails his recovery. upon returning to the ranch so his family can help pick himself up again, he continues seeing strange and sometimes scary events around the ranch, and the vivid nightmares get worse and worse. not knowing whether the events he sees while awake are a product of his own anxiety or a mystical connection to the past, his analytical mind cannot leave this unsolved problem alone, and he keeps following the clues to a spiritual place on the ranch called "mustang hill", a clearing in the woods where nothing grows, petroglyphs are carved into rocks, and something intangible seems to haunt the place, ready to attack. of his partners, jasper is the only one who also senses some of the things dale experiences on mustang hill, and helps him explore their meaning.
unfortunately this book has 2 strikes against it for me right off the top -- domestic discipline, and sorta-native-american mysticism. i have complicated feelings around appropriation and this hits them right smack in the middle and i felt uncomfortable the entire time. not the discomfort of "you really ought to examine your own preconceptions here", like i feel about the domestic discipline, but discomfort with the myth of oppressed people being used by someone not of those people to elevate a character also not of those people. using 9-11 is alas another half strike. it's not the authors' fault, there's nothing wrong with the storytelling, the authors strike me as sensitive and tolerant and thoroughly well-meaning, and the story is potentially a very touching one for somebody not-me, but i am desensitised and allergic due to years of cold-blooded exploitation by american politicians, and the unrelenting erosion of civil rights in its wake. which reminds me: dear ranger & rolf; please do not use "politically correct" in your books unless you actually WANT to sound like american rightwing nitwits. people who use it over here usually have problems with empathy, and consider it a bleeding-heart liberal weakness. they would hate the people in your books for being deviants in every which way, and a little spanking would not reconcile them. eradicate the term from your vocabulary; you'll be better off.
all that said (just blurt it out, dale), i actually found dale's development very interesting even though it is partly headed in a direction i can't relate to, and i was glad to see jasper show more of himself (even though the character of jasper makes me uncomfortable (see appropriation)). i also don't quite grok how jasper got into DD; it seems to make absolutely no sense to me from looking at his beliefs.
it's quite a fascinating journey, and has a bit of a mystery feel to it, which really attracts me. and i am clearly too tired to do this review justice, so for now, this is it. it sounds more negative than i actually feel; i still love the series, i still love dale, i can't get enough of reading about him. the love and affection that runs through these books -- not just for people alive today, but for people of the past, their culture and history, and the land on which they lived -- is wonderful, heartwarming, and inspirational.
no subject
on 2014-03-13 10:45 (UTC)When reading a series I often times find myself in a spot like this 3 or 4 books in. I don't know if authors gets bored or if they have multiple ideas running through their head by that point or what but yeah... the 3rd or 4th books are often "different" from the initial books.
Also Native-American mysticism is really hard to pull off if an author doesn't do their research into it. It can read "off-ish", confusing or down right silly.
no subject
on 2014-03-13 13:24 (UTC)but i am mostly uncomfortable with the white brit becoming a man of native-american mysticism, chosen by the spirits, when there is a perfectly fine native american man, albeit cherokee (while the locals were shoshone), already living on the ranch, who is also quite sensitive to those spirits. that's where i feel appropriation rear its ugly head. why the heck is dale the chosen one when jasper cares just as much? couldn't we find some other mission for dale?
heck, i adore dale; he's a wonderful character, and it's not like he's trying to be one of those white people who grab onto native spirituality. he doesn't, at all. he has no clue what to do about this for quite a while (heck, he thinks it might be part of his mental breakdown). and i know that no matter whence you hail, sometimes things entirely foreign to your own cultural background feel like "home". part of me wants to be happy that he has found a mission and a place to belong. when i was much younger, this would have pushed all my positive buttons. but it just doesn't sit quite right anymore. i am not sure whether i am making too much of it either, because i think there's nothing per se wrong with borrowing from other cultures as long as one does so mindfully and without distorting it. just.... yeah. it doesn't feel quite right here.
somebody else might not have those problems because as i said, there is actual research, and the series excels in rich, authentic appearing world building -- i mean, it's written by brits, but mostly takes place on a ranch in wyoming, and i really think they're doing an ace job.