Bitch Planet Book 1: Extraordinary Machine by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine de Landro

Bitch Planet Book 1: Extraordinary Machine written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and illustrated and co-created by Valentine de Landro is the first volume of collected comics in an on-going series. As you can probably guess from the title, it's not a comic for children, although I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to mid-teens and older audiences. The blurb on goodreads is quite unhelpful, so instead I'm going to transcribe what is written on the back of my trade.

Are you NON-COMPLIANT? Do you FIT in your BOX? Are you too fat, too thin, too loud, too shy, too religious, too secular, too prudish, too sexual, too queer, too black, too brown, too whatever-it-is-they'll-judge-you-for-today?

You just may belong on... BITCH PLANET!

The quickest way to describe this comic, in my opinion, is "Orange Is The New Black in spaaaaace". It's not quite the same, of course, and the plot follows a different direction and a different kind of woman. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The premise is a dystopian future where the patriarchy sends "non-compliant" women to a prison on another planet. And being non-compliant can cover anything from murder to obesity to not wanting to be an over-medicated housewife who lives only to please her husband. The women on Bitch Planet are, of course, all interesting characters (while the men that send them there are less so). Even more interesting and yet to be explored in great depth are the women who work on Bitch Planet as guards etc.

The main plot that loosely ties these five issues together is the building of an inmate megaton team. They're to be the first female team and will play against some male teams. Or is it all a ploy to dispose of the most aggressive and athletic inmates? That said, the megaton team organising does not strongly dominate the plot. For example the first issue introduces us to Bitch Planet (with a bait-and-switch) and issue 3 focuses on the back story of one of the inmates, Penelope.

There's a lot of nudity in Bitch Planet, but most of it is not sexualised, which is a nice change. But if you're the kind of person who absolutely does not want to see a large number of naked female bodies in your comic... well that strikes me as a bad reason to skip Bitch Planet, but at least you've been warned.

Bitch Planet is an excellent comic that I will definitely continue reading as the trades come out. It's particularly good at taking unpleasant aspects of modern life and pushing them to the horrifying extreme. Some of those extremes resemble 1950s housewifery, but others don't seem that far away from modern reality, unfortunately. I highly recommend it to most readers, especially anyone interested in a feminist book with a very diverse cast of characters.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: October 2015, Image Comics
Series: Bitch Planet, ongoing series. Collects issues #1–5
Format read: Trade paperback, although I also got a digital ARC
Source: non-Amazon online bookshop / publisher via NetGalley

Cranky Ladies of History edited by Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely

Cranky Ladies of History edited by Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely is an anthology of stories about historical women who were not content to leave the status quo be. The stories cover pirates, queens, nuns and warriors and come from a variety of authors, many of whom I've reviewed here before.

Warriors, pirates, murderers and queens...

Throughout history, women from all walks of life have had good reason to be cranky. Some of our most memorable historical figures were outspoken, dramatic, brave, feisty, rebellious and downright ornery.

Cranky Ladies of History is a celebration of 22 women who challenged conventional wisdom about appropriate female behaviour, from the ancient world all the way through to the twentieth century. Some of our protagonists are infamous and iconic, while others have been all but forgotten under the heavy weight of history.

Sometimes you have to break the rules before the rules break you.

This was a fascinating collection of women, many of whom I hadn't heard of before, or didn't know much about before reading. The collection is framed by two stories of the women and children of Henry VIII, about whom I probably knew most before reading, which give a pleasant effect of tying the collection together.

My favourite stories were "Bright Moon" by Foz Meadows,  "Neter Nefer" by Amanda Pillar and "Due Care And Attention" by Sylvia Kelso, all very different tales — especially the latter — which are a good example of the breadth of the collection.

The only thing negative from which the collection suffered was a tendency for some of the stories to fall into a pattern of recounting their subject's life events. Sometimes this was done to fill in gaps, sometimes not, but it resulted in more telling rather than showing and came across as a bit dry at times. On the other hand, this was made up for by the stories which threw us into key events in a more active way.

Overall, interesting and fascinating are the two words that best describe this collection. I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to dip into the lives of a variety of historical women. Although it's not technically a speculative fiction anthology, I strongly feel it will appeal to readers of spec fic as well as readers of main stream and historical fiction. As always, some notes on individual stories follow.

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Queenside by Liz Barr — A scene among Henry VIII's women.

The Company Of Women by Garth Nix — Bees and Lady Godiva and unpleasant magic.

Mary, Mary by Kirstyn McDermott — A tale about Mary Wollstonecraft's life, especially her darker moments. While interesting, I found it a bit too depressing to really enjoy.

A Song For Sacagawea by Jane Yolen — a poem or, I suppose as the title says, a song.

Look How Cold My Hands Are by Deborah Biancotti — An account of the end of Countess Erzébet of Báthory, the most prolific known female serial killer. Interesting and dark.

Bright Moon by Foz Meadows — My favourite story so far. About the Mongolian princess who refused to marry any man who couldn't beat her in wrestling.

Charmed Life by Joyce Chng — About the empress who discovered silk to make women's lives easier.

A Beautiful Stream by Nisi Shawl — I think this story could've been tighter. Although I got the drift — a wartime spy fearing those around her might be used as leverage — I found it difficult to follow.

Neter Nefer by Amanda Pillar — the story of Hatshepsut taking the throne, told front eh pint of view of her daughter. An enjoyable story and one of my favourites.

The Dragon, The Terror, The Sea by Stephanie Lai — Chinese pirate lady who commands a large fleet. She tries to stop opium taking over China but fails obviously. I liked this one.

Due Care And Attention by Sylvia Kelso — A lady doctor and much angst about speeding at the turn of the century. A very fun story. (Alarming how recently the benefit of putting cold water on a burn was discovered.)

Theodora by Barbara Robson — The story of a Roman empress, framed by a historian's scathing commentary of how she was bringing down the Roman Empire (by, y'know, being nice to women and stuff). An enjoyable read.

For So Great A Misdeed by Lisa L. Hannett — a rather long story about an island of woman who had several husbands, all of whom died. Although the length was necessary to cover all the key events in her life, it felt a little drawn out.

The Pasha, The Girl And The Dagger by Havva Murat — A girl is abandoned by her father for being born a girl but secretly rescued by her aunt. She grows up to be a kick-arse knight.

Granuaile by Dirk Flinthart — Irish pirate queen who has a run in with Poseidon.

Little Battles by L.M. Myles — A story about Queen Eleanor at age 70, who was still kicking are. A nice tale about a lady who knew what was what.

Another Week In The Future, An Excerpt by Kaaron Warren — Written in the style of Catherine Helen Spence who wrote a book about time travel into the future (1988), this considers the same character going another 100 years forward. The foreword explains that it is written as though the author wrote it in the final years of her life when she was feeling less hopeful about the world. It’s a very engaging and interesting read. I liked it more than I expected to from the description.

The Lioness by Laura Lam — story about a French pirate queen and a young man that crosses her path.

Cora Crane And The Trouble With Me by Sandra McDonald — told from the point of view of Cora's diary, languishing forgotten in some archive. Quite a clever way of telling. I enjoyed it.

Vintana by Thoraiya Dyer — A queen of Madagascar who olives both her husband the king and her lover. Set at a time when French Christians were insinuating their way into the king's graces and the traditional ways were under threat. A good read.

Hallowed Ground by Juliet Marillier — A having reached old age reflects upon her life and upon new hardships she and her sisters face. A very enjoyable story.

Glorious by Faith Mudge — A story about princess Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, and her life in the confusing English court (and out of it) of the time. An enjoyable read. 

4 / 5 stars

First published: March 2015, FableCroft Publishing
Series: No
Format read: ePub
Source: I received an eARC but I ended up reading the nicer-formatted backer epub edition which I received for backing the Pozible campaign of this project last year
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge

Crewel by Gennifer Albin

Crewel is Gennifer Albin's debut novel and, as I discovered when I reached the end, the first of a series. (Although it's almost self-contained.) A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for review. This review contains mild spoilers but nothing major or of plot-related importance.

What first caught my attention was the blurb which I saw reposted somewhere or other online. Copied from Goodreads:

Incapable. Awkward. Artless.

That’s what the other girls whisper behind her back. But sixteen year-old Adelice Lewys has a secret: she wants to fail.

Gifted with the ability to weave time with matter, she’s exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in the world of Arras, being chosen as a Spinster is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, eternal beauty, and being something other than a secretary. It also means the power to embroider the very fabric of life. But if controlling what people eat, where they live and how many children they have is the price of having it all, Adelice isn’t interested.

Not that her feelings matter, because she slipped and wove a moment at testing, and they’re coming for her—tonight.
Now she has one hour to eat her mom’s overcooked pot roast. One hour to listen to her sister’s academy gossip and laugh at her Dad’s stupid jokes. One hour to pretend everything’s okay. And one hour to escape.

Because once you become a Spinster, there’s no turning back.

Of course, the blurb only captures the opening of the novel (as a good blurb ought) and there's much more to the story than I was expecting. The worldbuilding is excellent. I can't argue with the fact that it's a dystopia, but it struck me as a much more realistically built one than, for example, the Divergent/Insurgent universe.

The world runs on magic. They have a level of technology a bit more advanced than ours and, as far as I could tell, magic is what makes it all work. The magic is based around the idea of the world as a tapestry woven from reality. Certain magic users, of varying levels of power control all aspects of the world including crops and food production, birth, death, and weather. The old and dying are woven out of the tapestry to save them the pain and suffering of death, births are scheduled and any dissidents are rewoven to make them better contributing members of society.

Women are the only ones who might have the power to see and manipulate the weave. However, the society is strongly patriarchal. The ordinary citizens live in neighbourhoods segregated by the gender of their children so that under-age boys and girls rarely meet. The girls are all tested for potential Spinster skills at sixteen and then those that aren't called are expected to be married and starting a normal family unit by the age of eighteen after meeting potential suitors in very controlled environments. Homosexuality is, of course, dangerous deviant behaviour (and I liked that the author bothered to address this directly — albeit briefly — instead of just ignoring it). The evil patriarchy aspect lacks some subtlety, but that's OK because not everything has to be subtle to be a real threat.

All the girls aspire to be called by the Guild to be Spinsters because if they're not they're stuck being secretaries and assistants or maybe nurses. Only men are allowed to have Real and Important jobs. Needless to say, despite women having all the magical power, the Guild is run by men. Spinsters get to live in the lap of luxury, but it's very much a gilded cage, as Adelice quickly realises. They're never allowed to leave, but at least they get to look pretty! The fact that Albin touched on the ways in which clothing can be used to restrict freedom was one of my favourite things. Sure, Adelice's complaints about some of the clothes being uncomfortable might seem trivial on the surface but being forced to wear a dress with no underwear to a ball then not having time to change properly afterwards isn't exactly liberating. At least she's allowed to wear pants sometimes, just not while she's being a doll on a Guild official's arm.

Adelice isn't stupid. She starts off a bit naïve, but less so than the other girls because her parents prepared her to fail her spinning test. Her parents didn't tell her everything, though, and she doesn't adjust that well to the gilded (and sometimes dank and stony) cage she's thrust into. There was a minor twist which I suspected before Adelice worked it out, but I was gratified that she did work it out herself; I was expecting her to be surprised when someone finally told her. She makes a few dangerous decisions, mostly relating to not being a docile drone, but these seem entirely in keeping with her character. Looking back with end-of-book hindsight, playing along better would probably not have made as much difference as she hopes.

I think I've probably prattled on long enough about Crewel, which I enjoyed very much. I recommend it to YA dystopia fans, of course, but also to anyone interested in a not too heavy feminist book. I enjoyed how the author used her heavily patriarchal world to emphasise some aspects of oppression. But if that's not your thing, it's possible to read the book as just another dystopian society shrouded in secrecy and not worry about the gendered power-plays.

4.5 / 5 stars