Reading/Viewing Rec's?

[labingi]

It's that time again, when I ask for reading/viewing recommendations. The last time I did it, it brought me Banana Fish, so maybe I'll get lucky again:)

I'm looking for something, ideally, that I can wax fannish over, which typically means novel or series length, though X-Men: First Class is a recent exception to that--well, partially; it's got a lot of franchise behind it.

Things I like:
* Dark (but not hopelessly bleak) stories.
* Provisional (or gray) endings.
* A focus on deep human relationships with emphasis on the underrepresented ones: friendship, family, professional, random people interacting--or any mix of relationships where multiple relationships are presented as important (i.e. people have more than one person of importance in their lives).
* General avoidance of cliché (or doing it so well it ceases to be clichéd)
* Settings in other times, places, universes, etc.
* Dialogism: all important characters are allowed to speak from their own perspective. Or let's just say good characterization.
* Moral ambiguity or genuinely interesting moral problems.
* Slash or BL, mainly because it's more likely to hit the relationship points above.

Things I Don't Like
* Gender cliché (unless done very, very well)
* Donnean solipsism (A and B are in love, and everything else is reflected in their eyes--I can only think of two stories that really get away with this in a way that passes muster for me--Wuthering Heights and Mirage of Blaze: two of my fav's. Of course, WH is a giant critique of the whole thing on one level. And MoB is just... very complex).
* Stories about teen angst, unless done very well, like Buffy.
* Stories in which people's personal lives are the only thing that matters.
* Unvarnishedly happy endings

Any rec's? I'm happy to look at any medium: novels, long fan fic, anime, manga/comics, live action series...

Comments

[lilacsigil]

Have you read the manga Ōoku? It's about an alternate 16th century Japan where a plague has wiped out most of the men and the women take on men's old roles, including that of Shogun and military commanders. A lot of characters are real historical figures - but because women take on male names and some men are given female names, they're the opposite sex to their historical selves. It's not a simple role swap by any means, and while there are romances, they're completely part of the political and social story. Seven volumes have been published so far (six of them in English and the seventh on the way) and ten volumes are planned in total. There's not much in the way of same-sex relationships, but there are a few, and the writer Yoshinaga Fumi usually writes gay men, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were more.

Warnings, if you want them: character deaths, violence, including sexual violence against both men and women by both men and women, animal harm, child harm and famine.

[labingi]

I did read some of Ooku, and I did reach a state of near fannishness in the section that dealt with the first female shogun and her paramour (I can't remember anyone's names at this point). However, then their story rather abruptly ended, and the series seem to progress at a very fast trip through history that left me feeling unattached to the characters, so I eventually dropped it. I really enjoyed that section though.

[louderandlouder]

Hmm...sorry to rec the thing I've been talking about for weeks, but -- I don't remember whether you said you know the Tinker, Tailor miniseries well or Smiley's People. If you aren't lifetime-saturated with Smiley media, I think the first and third novels fulfill all of these except for gender cliche (a minor part of the story). It may be a little weak on genuinely interesting moral problems, but I think they hover around the story anyway because the characters are the type to consider such things with rigor, sort of like Death Note. It's certainly very strong on friendships, co-worker relationships, and relationships between various kinds of enemies.

[labingi]

I very much have it in mind to put these books on my reading list. I think I will enjoy them a lot; I doubt I will feel fannish about them, unless my tastes have changed more than I think they have from when I last encountered these stories. But I do look forward to reading Le Carré.