Kitewithfish

Wednesday Reading Meme - Nov 30 2022

2022-11-30T22:24:47Z

Bit of a milestone: I was trying to record what I've been reading this year and see how many books I actually read without putting much effort into it. I just went in and totted up all the books so far, and we're nearing a nice round number!
(For the purposes of this accounting, fanfic over 50K count as novels.)

What I've Read:
walk by faith/tell no one what you've seen by Killbothtwins
Fandom: Star Wars prequels and novels
My thoughts: The ending on this first part was a bit of a woo-woo magic solution, but it was *very* emotionally satisfying. I really enjoyed the slow building of Obi-Wan's network of people to include almost all of the Jedi who Fall in canon - he's not just fighting the existing dark siders, he's actively seeking ways to support people so they don't fall in the first place.
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31805044

Winter's Crown by Astolat
Fandom: Game of Thrones
Author's Summary: “When the Night’s King rides,” the giant said, each word slow as cold honey pouring, “the King in the North must answer. The King in the North…whose name is Stark.”
My thoughts: This fic is divided between Robb's and Jaime's POV pretty equally and that works really well. It feels like an extension of Astolat's published work, Spinning Silver, in its focus on a darker folklore element and the idea of promises made to inhuman powers and what those will cost you to keep or to break. I loved Robb's determination and slow descent into not being a being not entirely human, and the way Jaime kept pulling him back from that.
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42924834

What I'm Reading:
A soul that's born in cold and Rain knows sunlight by KillBothTwins
Fandom: Star Wars
Author Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi, time traveler, finds trouble once again when he and Qui-Gon are called to Mandalore— but not THAT Mandalore mission. This one involves still pretending to see the future, babies, a slavery ring, and bothering even more people into becoming his friend. As usual, Obi-Wan drags everyone else along for the ride, including some interesting allies.
My thoughts: This is FUN. I really enjoy the way that the ripples of the first fic are helping save the galaxy, including making Jango Fett just a better dad.
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33144037

Carry On by Tamryn Eradani
Fandom: Supernatural
Author Summary: When Sam gets into Stanford, Dean needs a bigger paycheck than Bobby's garage can give him. Luckily, he knows a guy.
My thoughts: This is Supernatural version of Needs Must by thatotherperv, which is a wildly perfect Suits fic. This variation, which was removed from AO3 when the author went pro, is delightful and indulgent in similar ways. I'm savoring.

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey - Post-apocalyptic queer women using their position of trust to circumvent the controlling powers of patriarchy and patriotism? A Western that focuses on a baby bookbinder? Adorable. I pulled this out of my metaphorical stack of ebooks that I got for free from Tor because I read this author's discussion of how this book helped her tease out why she kept calling herself "straight" and giving her queer characters tragic endings. https://www.thebooksmugglers.com/2018/06/between-the-coats-a-sensitivity-read-changed-my-life-an-essay-by-sarah-gailey.html

Still Reading - Holdovers from last week:
Westerns: Making the Man in Fiction and Film by Lee Clark Mitchell
Moby Dick by Herman Melville - Whale Weekly

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson - Book Club - I'm technically not actually finishing this in time for book club and I'm okay with that. I think it's probably better to just bask in it -plot is very much secondary. Honestly, I feel like the summaries and discussions I have read of this book undersell just how much of it is about the messiness of human relationships - there's a great deal of hard scifi awesomeness, but also a great deal about the main two characters and their slow romance.

What I'll Read Next:
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance by Dorothy Johnson - I watched this movie for the Westerns portion of the Great Queer Supernatural Re-Watch, and I was curious. The movie stars John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, and it is so perfectly apt for their types that I wanted to see if the story had been greatly altered to fit. I find Jimmy Stewart excellent in comedies and tragedies, but his style of acting is pre-Stanislovsky and it seems like it would work better for me in a theatrical setting. It felt a bit odd here. John Wayne is a piece of shit who supported the House Un-American Activitoes Committee and was ardently racist. As an actor, he's usually boring and uninspired, tho I will admit his role in Stagecoach was charming.

Library books in the house:
Maul: Lockdown - Joe Schreiber
Tiger's Daughter - K Arsenault Rivera
Riot Baby - Rochi Onyeuchi
The Silence of the Wilting Skin - Tlotlo Tsamaase
Whispers Underground - Ben Aaronovitch
Penric's Demon - LM Bujold
The Book of the Unnamed Midwife - Med Elison
The Uncle's Story - Witi Ihimaera

Newly purchased: Man, this is just an ongoing backlog

Owned and need to read: NK Jemisin's The World We Make, Frey Marske's A Restless Truth, California Bones, the Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison, Raven Song by IA Ashcroft, Kraken's Sacrifice by Katee Robert, Even Though I Know the End by CL Polk, True Colors by Karen Traviss, At The Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard, Tamryn Eradani's Enchanting Encounters Books 2 and 3, Like Real People Do by EL Massey, Rescued by the Married Monster Hunters Ennis Rook Bashe

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Wednesday Reading Meme

2022-10-05T15:46:57Z

What I've Read:

May the Blood Run Pure by Wanda Walker (Patreon exclusive - https://www.patreon.com/wanda_walker/posts?filters[tag]=May%20the%20Blood%20Run%20Pure) - Walker writes some fantasy that I really enjoy, and this one was a book that I had started tofollow back when she was publishing it in 2018. I'm glad I finished it and it was a fun read with interesting worldbuilding.

static electricity, dreaming of lightning by blackkat - https://archiveofourown.org/works/21826273 - fanfic - Moon Knight from Marvel comics ends up in the Clone Wars Cartoon - fun characters, love watching Marc and Cody try to figure each other out. Unfinished and will probably always remain so, but very fun.

Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore - Book Club book - A wild ride! "Science fantasy" is a good term for it- while the worldbuilding grounded the beginning of the book in semi-realistic world where aliens live inside of language and can subtly hack the human mind and the perceived world, the latter half of the book is half video game and half fantasy novel. Moore tied two plays that he'd previously written into a new unified whole with this book, and I don't think I've read anything quite like it. While I really enjoyed the plot and unswerving forward momentum of the book, I felt like the internal life of the characters was a bit thin. The dialogue was fantastic, but sometimes it felt like the internal voice of Isobel was exactly the same as external one. I could easily see the story working really well as a movie, where actors' choices bring more depth to each role. I'd recommend it!

What I'm Reading:

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik -I finally got to start this one, and ooooh, I'm really enjoying it. I'll try not to spoil anything since this the series end and it's all relatively new books, but I'm really interested in how El is coping with the ending of the last book, and how she's judging the choices that others have made in the context of the newly expanded world we get to see.

Two Old Women by Velma Wallis - A very quick read, and I'm trying to get it done before I return this overdue book to the library. I'm vaguely considering setting myself a goal for books by Indigenous authors for the year.

Homeworld Elegy - Ashcroft Writes - Star Wars AU - Obi-Wan/ Cad Bane - Stalled out in Chapter 2, where Bane goes to one of the occupied Duros space stations under an alias to work for the Republic intelligence service. I'm actually really excited to read this, I just seem to get distracted from it.

What I'll Read Next
Library books have priority
:Darth Maul: Lockdown
Whale Rider
Thrawn -Heir to the Empire

Things I own: Might re-read City of Lies in order to get back on the page for the sequel book.
Hunting Towards Heartstill -blackkat
Think of England - KJ charles

I didn't really set a firm goal for reading a set number of books this year, but I've had a mental stake that I would like to aim for 100 books. And I'm counting fanfic towards that as long as it feels like it's at least a novel or a chunky novella. Based on my Reading Journal notes, aka, the physical notebook I set up back in January this year, I just hit 80 books

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Wednesday Reading Meme

2022-09-28T23:02:10Z

Tiny Life Update - I've been sick all weekend and took three days off work to recover from what I hope is just an annoying cold. (PCR test taken and results coming in soon, tho, so hopefully I can rest assured about that.)

Since I was a bit too sick to focus on books, I binged watched few things - The Untamed (Netflix) and A League of Their Own (Amazon) - it's hard to say which was more gay. I started Untamed back in 2020, of all times, and it's only been with some cultural handholding and fannish support that I finished it recently - but, man, did they NAIL an ending there. A League of Their Own was wonderful as a period piece, and I think they did a fantastic job with the cast and chemistry and the complexity and joy of being a queer woman in America in 1943. I heartily recommend it.

What I've Read

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance - Foz Meadows - I unabashedly loved this book. The marketing talks about the set up - a semi-medieval/semi-magical setting where with a surprise arranged marriage between two men. That's definitely there and I don't want to undersell it - but the thing that this book really excelled at was portraying a character recovering from multiple kinds of trauma who is hurt by those things in a lasting way, but also really intelligent and strong and smart and kind, who is absolutely adored by the man he's assigned to marry. I honestly love the dynamic between the two main characters, the writing gets the POV down great, and I read this in a day. Absolutely captivating for me.

I read some fanfic, too!

an act too often neglected by Ariaste (Untamed fanfic, 60K, Meng Yao/Lan XiChen modern au) This fic was an absolute delight to read just after finishing the Netflix series because these two characters spend literally the last five episodes of the series having an emotional breakdown of their complicated relationship, including attempted murder and tearful confessions of devotion while impaled on a sword. I really truly thought that fandom was overstating their whole deal and I was WRONG. This fic is about two much happier versions of these characters finding out what it's like to truly want someone for the first time, and how to translate that into some deeply amazing smut. Ariaste is a published author and I adored her last book (Alexandra Rowland, A Taste of Gold and Iron, 2022) and if you read that, this is a great next story.

To Earthward by blackkat, gh0st_rose - (Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon au, Fox/Quinlan Vox) This is a horror story about an eldritch forest that mind controls people, and, also, a love story about a policeman who cannot take a vacation and a spy. Also really funny at times.

What I'm Reading
Battles of the Linguist Mages - Scotto More - Still great, slightly slower now that we've met God and he's collaborating with aliens trying to stop the sovereign nation of California from enacting mind control on the world at large. It's kind of impossible to spoil this book in any way that matters.

Heir to the Empire - Timothy Zahn - the first Thrawn novel, now out of Star Wars canon, but beloved as a historical artifact.

Homeworld Elegy - Ashcroft_Writes - Clone wars cartoon Cad Bane centric AU - great Duros worldbuilding.

What I'll Read Next

Two Old Women - Velma Wallis
California Bones - Have put this one off too long

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Wednesday Reading Meme, and Some Thoughts on Reading with Intent, and the Hugos

2022-09-07T21:16:29Z

I owe this Wednesday Reading Meme a debt of considerable weight!

Back in January of this year, I bought myself a Reading Journal ( Read more... )

So I have to thank this meme and the other people writing their weekly reading to share - it has kept me from disparaging myself and let me realize that I have indeed not been ideal, even when I was tired and a bit overwhelmed by life.

With no further ado and leaving the lily entirely ungilded!

What I've Read
A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland - I had pre-ordered this book because I like everything this author writes, and I was not disappointed! Our main character is a prince with an anxiety disorder who has to figure out a plot against his sister's kingdom, while also proving to himself ( and his deliciously upright and decent bodyguard) that he's not actually a villain or a coward. It's very gay, it will make you feel things about the debasement of currency, there's a little bit of magic and there's a lot of focus on fealty as romance. I adored it. And the author wrote a (spoilers! full of spoilers!) coda on AO3 - what spring does with the cherry trees by Ariaste

The Idiot's Array by Ashcroft_Writes (160K) - Star Wars Clone Wars Era - Cad Bane/Obi-Wan Kenobi - After the Rako Hardeen arc, Cad Bane escapes prison and takes Obi-Wan with him in a bid to fight Dooku and prove to Obi-Wan (and perhaps himself) that he's not wrong when he sees the Jedi's dissatisfaction with his life. This has some exceptional poetry in it , and a card game as a recurring motif in their relationship, and fic is really interested in Cad Bane as a character with an interior life and morals that, while really not normal, are still viable. Also, good sex! I enjoyed the hell out of it. I'm going to read the sequel, Homeworld Elegy.

Like a Hinge, Like a Wing by Ultrageekatlarge -(56K) Batman, focused on Tim Drake - "The problem is that Tim’s spent the past month or so slowly getting murdered." This fic loves watching characters deal with trauma with compassion and realism, I'm here for it!

What I'm Reading

Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore - Reading club book!
Untamed Vol 2

What I'll Read Next

Homeworld Elegy by Ashcroft_Writes
Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage, and Survival by Velma Wallis

I feel like I owe myself a more comprehensive write up about the Hugos, so I might do that once I get a breather on it. I liked most of what I read but my goals were lofty and I am reasonably pleased with what I did accomplish.

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Wednesday Reading Meme on Thursday

2022-09-01T20:14:52Z

What I've Read
No actual books - just delightful fanfic!
I found some great Star Wars "No Body Dies/Everybody Lives" Clone Wars AU fics, include the massive series of the Reconstruction Corps AU and its spin off Reconstruction Corps AU: Open Skies (focusing on Waxer, Boil, & Numa), including the excellent Will You Walk With Me? by cac0daemonia and A New Chapter of Our Nights by cac0daemonia and sophronist

Also some good Batfam writing: A Meditation on Railroading by eggmacguffin

What I'm Reading Now
Unconquerable Sun - slow going still
A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland - OH, this is lovely. It just came out yesterday and I'm already 200 pages in. Rowland does a great job of writing characters who are anxious without being devoured by it. The fealty in this fic is just stellar, as well!

What I'll Read Next
The last of the Hugo Award nominated short stories and novelettes!
Next book club read will be Battle of the Linguist Mages

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Wednesday Reading Meme

2022-08-18T02:47:02Z

What I've Read

I have read so, so much Star Wars: Clone Wars era fanfic this week and particularly while on vacation - it's going to be a bit of a slog to write them all here but I'll try!

Those Who Can by K_R_Closson - I read her always-a-girl underpaid teacher Obi-Wan who goes to teach clones troopers on Kamino - it's brilliant.

Thirty-One Sons, Thirteen Moons by sual - Fairy tale version of Cody has to sleep with Jedi witch Obi Wan to break a curse that spits out a new son of Jango Fett every year. Features 31 sons and some dang fun writing.

A Slow Fall Towards Grace by glimmerglanger - A hard read in places, but a great review of Obi-Wan's expanded universe and Clone Wars history, with the addition of some omegaverse tropes. Obi-Wan just... sincerely believes that he is completely unloveable, in the face to Cody's steadfast adoration. Love this.

Transactional States by glimmerglanger (Archive Restricted) - Jango/Obi-Wan. Sex slave Obi-Wan, and the slow redemption of Jango Fett after Galidraan. Just... excellent depiction of flawed, injured people choosing to be better.

Triple Zero (Republic Commando) by Karen Traviss - more in the same series as Hard Contact. There is a little less clarity of purpose here - Traviss introduces a bunch of new characters and the book gets weirdly heterosexual. I also realized that there's a lack of dialogue tags and characters speak in similar voices, so I often had to double back to figure out who was saying which lines. That said, I'm going to continue in this series.

What I'm Reading Now

Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott – Book Group - Plugging along with this until the next week book clubl.

Make Your Bed (Lie in It) by glimmerglanger

What I'm Reading Next

True Colors by Karen Traviss
Never Say You Can't Survive
Hugo short stories and nonfiction works

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Reading Wednesday - the vacation lineup

2022-06-22T20:09:13Z

I have read basically nothing new at all since last Reading Wednesday rolled around.

However, I have vacation coming! So I have a lineup of things I'm bringing with me to read.

What I will Read... On Vacation!
I have read an excellent fic by Furiosophie on Admiral Thrawn and his right hand man, Eli Vanto - https://archiveofourown.org/series/2884722 , and I have caught the itch for source material! I have not read anything about Thrawn, tho I know there is a devoted Star Wars Extended Universe following for books featuring him. So I have Thrawn Ascendency Chaos Rising by Timothy Zahn loaded up on my Kindle from the library and I think I'll give it a try.

The second translated volume of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is out so I'll go and read that, and for the Hugos Death Race I have Master of Djinn and She Who Became the Sun.

Just in case I feel nerdy but not too nerdy, I have Reading the Romance by Janice Radway with me as well, in case I feel like digging into the intersections of popular literature and patriarchy

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This is really turning in a Thursday Reading Meme for me.

2022-05-19T20:28:20Z

What I've Read

Finished The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente - A Hugo Best Novella Nominee- this really stuck the landing. I have bounced off of Space Opera because it was so dense but this was really great and the shorter length really worked for me. Tetley is really kind of fascinating because she lives in the absolute worst possible timeline and yet she's convinced that here world and her life really matter.

What I'm Reading

The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry - CM Waggoner - book club - I'm just past the halfway point and I'm delighted by how much plot this book has decided to lean into. Delly is making such interesting mistakes! The cast is basically just all women, which I kind of love for an adventure, and the world building is fascinating. My book group had some interesting question about the details of the world building.

What I'll Read Next

Far Sector, Master of Djinn, Elder Race - all hugo nominations, all physical library books.
Also out from the library, I have the Bedlam Stacks, For the Wold, and Golden Age by Naomi Novik, a Worthy Opponent by Katee Robert (more Captain Hook), the Return of the Thief as an audiobook.

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Wednesday Reading Meme

2022-04-14T00:52:22Z

What I've Read

A Conspiracy of Kings - Megan Whalen Turner - The ending lands! It's just a dang good book!

Fireheart Tiger - Aliette de Bodard - Hugos Death Race 2022 (Best Novella Nominee) - I have loved AdB since I read the Tea Master and the Detective in early pandemic, and I have a special place for her novellas. This is worth a read. We'll see if I want it for my Hugo card.

What I'm Reading

Thick as Thieves - Megan Whalen Turner - This is hilarious. Literally just wonderful writing. I am loving Kamet as the narrator.

Four Profound Weaves - RB Lemberg - I have read precisely to the point that the book club asked for and no farther. I am a virtuous and obedient book club member. But I really want to see how this goes. I love the viewpoints of both the main characters - elder trans people from different cultures, dealing with some really important personal metaphors.

Melusine - Sarah Monette - The pacing on this is just slower than I usually like. Not bad! Just, not as tight as the Goblin Emperor.

Across the Green Grass Fields - Seanan McGuire - Hugos Death Race 2022 (Best Novella Nominee) - Started this morning, probably could finish tonight if I want to. Solid so far! I like the main character, and hope that her cowardice passes as she grows.

What I'll Read Next

Um. Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyers. I rewatched the first movie and it (mostly) was really fun and I liked it. I can see the problems that others have mentioned! I'm just choosing a different interpretation!

I was also inspired by a friend's Oscars Death Race this year to try a Hugo Death Race - aka, trying to read all the works nominated in their categories, before the awards are announced in September. I made a Google Doc and everything!

So, on that list I will next read Becky Chambers the Galaxy and the Ground Within, and Alix Harrow A Spindle Splinters

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Memes of a Wednesday - Reading and Work in Progress

2022-04-06T14:40:52Z

Work in Progress - I am actually between projects! I finished the Sock Madness round 2 Plaid Pocket - https://www.ravelry.com/projects/kitewithfish/plaid-pocket-socks Since I'm not actually competing this time, I changed the heel and left off the double-knit pockets. I already know how to double knit and I thought plaid was interesting enough to leave it more visible on the leg.

Reading Meme!

What I've Read:
Queen of Attolia & King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner - I re-read both of these as audiobooks, and their praises deserve to be sung! I think these two are my favorites of this series.

Over All the Earth by Alexandra Rowland I think I need to re-read this when I'm in the right frame of mind. I felt a bit let down by the resolution of the main character's fear proving to be just...kind of not scary after all. I liked it as a visit to the continued adventures of Ylfing from Rowland's chant series. Rowland has recently done an interesting

What I'm Reading
A Conspiracy of Kings - Megan Whalen Turner. This is technically a re-read by audiobook, but, as I only read it the one time, I am discovering a whole lot of stuff I had forgotten. In particular, the second half of the story is proving a surprise to me.

Still reading Melusine, Nightmare Alley, King's Dragon

What I'll Read Next

Thicks as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner - the only debate here is, I think I'll need to read it in text form before listening to it via audiobook.
The other books in the Melusine series!
The Four Profound Weaves by RB Lemberg.

I have read almost no fanfic recently and I feel vaguely like I am returning to my childhood of hyper-reading and literally always having a book somewhere around me.

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Reading Wednesday and WiP Wednesday

2022-03-30T22:14:54Z

Work in Progress
Sock Madness 16 has dropped round 2 - It's Plaid, It has Pockets -https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/plaid-pocket-socks One thing I love about Sock Madness is watching the sheer number of projects explode on a pattern! 790 people are working on these socks this week!

Here's mine: https://www.ravelry.com/projects/kitewithfish/plaid-pocket-socks# I have gotten the right gauge with the swatch. I love the colors I picked.

What I've Read

After reading Martha Wells' All Systems Red, I went on a binge and listened to all the books in the Murderbot series.

Artificial Condition - this is where things get a bit heavy - Murderbot goes back to the location of the massacre that propelled it to learn to hack its governor module and finds a different history than it remembered. A wonderful and raw look at what freedom really looks like for MB.

Exit Strategy - Fresh from understanding its history better, Murderbot goes and meets up with the first people who were kind to it and figures out they actually need it. It's a great examination of what it's like to shape your recovery your own way.

Network Effect - The full length novel. This one feels like it really gets a chance to dig into Murderbot as a character with real relationships, decisions to make, and a future to think about. It's definitely full of action but also just some great content of people figuring out how to be a person.

Companion to Wolves - Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette. This came from a desire to read older works by Katherine Addision aka Sarah Monette. I really liked this, but I'm a bit cautious about Elizabeth Bear's reputation, so I'm probably not going to go digging into the rest of the series. If you're wondering where all the psychic wolves content in fandom came from, this is it.

It Takes Two to Tumble- Cat Sebastien - Charming! I have written about it before. Nails the ending pretty well.

What I'm Reading

In the heady days of not having a sock project, I started... too many books.

Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner - This is an audiobook re-read and I'm really enjoying it. I figured I would lean into the urge to mainline a series I love already and I'm listening to all the books. I debated starting with The Thief, but I had re-read it in the last year so, I'm just going to live with it.

Over All the Earth by Alexandra Rowland - A novella set in the world of the Chants (traveling storytellers) with a new main character.

Melusine by Sarah Monette - Dark histories and stuff! I am liking the main character but I will probably hold it for later.

Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham - After watching the recent del Toro movie and finding it fascinating, I decided to watch the 1947 movie of the same name (a bit more sanitized by the Hollywood system), I decided that I wanted to read the book! Came in from the library today.

What I'll Read

Probably more of the Attolia series. The Cruel Prince is waiting, as well! I started the audiobook of King's Dragon by Kate Elliot, the first in a series I started in maaaaybe 1999 and never finished.

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Wednesday Reading Meme and Work in Progress Meme

2022-03-23T19:13:25Z

Work in Progress

Sock Madness 16 continues! Tho I failed to get it in under the wire, I have finished the Engelkristall socks https://www.ravelry.com/projects/kitewithfish/engelkristall annnnnd they don't fit. I'm shopping around for a friend with slightly larger feet than mine.

I'm more than 25% on the first round Ipomoea sock https://www.ravelry.com/projects/kitewithfish/ipomoea-socks - Since I am a cheerleader, I don't have to stick strictly to the pattern, and I plan to start sock 2 with some modifications - mostly, I'm adding moar beads, because I think they look pretty cool and I've gotten good at stringing them.

What I've Read
It's actually been a pretty light week for reading.

I finished In Other Lands, which was delightful to listen to. I had actually first read it back in the days when it was just a fun writing exercise on Sarah Rees Brennan's journal, and I will always have a soft spot for it.

I tried reading the Assassin's Apprentice and it just dragged - I like Robin Hobb but I was just not engaged and found the narrator a bit tiresome.

I also re-read some of Helenish's works - Theft of Assets, Destruction of Property was, as always, a touching vision of recovery. Looking is a new one, Teen Wolf, and also kind of soft and wonderful.

Edit: Just after posting this, the library gave me the audiobook for All Systems Red by Martha Wells, which I adored when I first read it and adore now. Murderbot has the whole Socially Awkward protagonist gift that I so love. I really need to go and read everything by Martha Wells.

What I'm Reading
It Takes Two to Tumble - Cat Sebastien, read by Joel Leslie. I'm close to finishing this rather delightful little story - a gruff sea captain and a kind clergyman with an unconventional family have great chemistry together and bond over the sea captain's unruly children. Dyslexia! Family secrets! Women side characters who have hopes and dreams for themselves! A rope swing!

Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes - I'm trying to finish this, but it really is YA. It's churlish to resent a book for being in a genre, but by far the elements I like the least of this books are the parts that mark is strongest as YA - the scenes in the high school, and the romance with the two brothers. I'm also not that interested in the mystery - the comparisons to The Westing Game are not, so far, earned. But I'm only halfway and there's plenty of book to read.

What I'll Read Next

I completely forgot about this after downloading it but I waaant it.
Five Times Frederick Wentworth Had the Breath Knocked Out of Him On the Ice (and one time he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding) by AMarguerite

I have Good Omens as an audiobook, as well as some Holly Black and Martha Wells and other things. I really need to find a few more audiobooks to have lined up - but I also have a new novella by Alexandra Rowland to read so, lots to get into!

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Wednesday Reading Meme

2022-03-02T21:00:59Z

What I've Read

Claimed by the Orc Prince by Lionel Hart - Don't judge me, this was a fun little bit of porn, and I wanted to add another to the Books I Read in February List
Spring in Hell and Everything's Blooming by Blackkat - Star Wars Clone Wars - Ok, this was just an excellent Hurt/Comfort story with Jon Antilles/Rex the Clone Trooper. It's just dark and wonderful.
trade your heart for bones to know by Blackkat - Star Wars Clone Wars unfinished, read to chap18 - Oh, man, this is just catnip.
Pretty by astolat - Game of Thrones - Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth - a great little epilogue about Cersei on a great story.
"Hey, check it out, there's actually fans": (Dis)empowerment and (mis)representation of cult fandom in "Supernatural" by Laura E. Felschow - This was a very interesting look at the dynamics between cult fandom and producers of the shows they love. The focus on Supernatural was a little light and a little early - I would love to see this author revisit the show's last ten years - but a very solid entry into my reading. It's in Transformative Works and Cultures 4.

What I'm Reading

Still reading Running on Lightning Feet by Blackkat from last week - the last few chapters are getting a rewrite and there's an element of risk aversion to the fact that I don't want to finish it before then.
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston - I am about ten pages in, but this book is charming and I need to get the focus set up so I can get on it.

What I'm Going to Read Next

"Renegotiating religious imaginations through transformations of "banal religion" in Supernatural" by Line Nybro Petersen
"Good and Evil in the World of Supernatural" by Avril Hannah-Jones
I don't really know - I'm not super inspired about it just today, but I have no doubt it's going to be something by Blackkat
Maybe I'll just stick my hand into the To Read pile and grab something? Who knows, there's a lot there that I could get into!

Work in Progress Report

I've signed up for Sock Madness, and the qualifying round sock pattern has just come out - so I now have a bunch of things to get into.

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Wednesday Reading Meme

2022-02-23T14:55:38Z

What I've Read

Peter Darling by Austin Chant - This novel did not disappoint me. It really leaned into the idea of Neverland as an escape for Peter Pan, and gave him a lived reality as trans man to really need to find somewhere safe to escape to. It's got excellent character development for him, from a scared little boy to a more thoughtful man, and I love watching a fantastical landscape shape itself as an extension of character development. Also, this author understands that Captain James Hook is very gay and very hot.

The City We Became by NK Jemisin - This is great and just, so fast! A real driving plot with compelling characters and a real love of New York. An excellent book to read in companion with Light From Uncommon Stars. They are both stories that center what it's like to live in a city, as a person of color, and all the joy and life and connection and frustration that entails - loving but clear-eyed.

TV Horror by Stacey Abbott and Lorna Jowett -Meh. This felt like a book report, or a literature review. Valuable to read, just a bit dry.

What I'm Reading

One Last Stop by Casey Mc Quiston - Just getting started on this but I already feel a lot of sympathy for the main character - she feels very displaced and isolated but maybe, carefully, this is the place for her to find a landing spot.

running with lightning feet by blackkat - Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) AU Fic that's focused on an AU where the Nightbrother Feral, the little brother of Darth Maul and Savage Opress, survives longer than in canon, and falls into the hand of oddly compassionate Jedi. Blackkat does amazing writing, and while I watched some of the Clone Wars cartoon in the past few years, I clearly did not connect to it the way that this author did. They are bringing out so many nuance of the injustice and hardship and personal cost of war that this CHILDREN'S CARTOON set up and then could not fully delve into. This focuses on the parallels between the clone soldiers (Wolffe, mostly, but a large cast) and how they parallel the Nightbrothers' experience on Dathomir - property, with lives largely unimportant to the people who control their fate. It's great, it's sprawling, I am slightly afraid of the fact that the last few chapters are not posted. But I have been mainlining Blackkat's works for the past few days due to Anxiety About Real Life and there are so many very long works that are being continuously updated that I'm willing to roll the dice here.

What I'll Read Next

"Hey, check it out, there's actually fans": (Dis)empowerment and (mis)representation of cult fandom in "Supernatural" by Laura E. Felschow
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
Something from the To Be Read pile

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kitewithfish @ 2022-01-26T14:50:00

2022-01-26T20:17:47Z

What I have Read
I have finished Light from Uncommon Stars and it's lovely - it's doing a wonderful job of taking the metaphors and emotions associated with human experiences and changing only the facts underneath. Refugees are from another planet, rather than another country, but the feeling of being lost and adjust to their new surroundings - that's still deeply human. The end has its cake and eats it, too!

What I'm Reading
I have started uhhh, a bunch of things!

A friend recommended the audiobook of Garth Nix's Abhorsen series, because Tim Curry reads it! Thus, I am about a third of the way thru Sabriel and I'm delighted with the whole thing. He does a great job with the whole array of voices. It also scratches an itch - I haven't been doing much with audiobooks in the last few months and I am wondering if I should.

I started reading 17776: What Football will look like in the future, from the advice of another friend. It is one of the weirdest but also most sweet stories I have read. It's less one story than several, linked together from the viewpoint of several satellites who have gain sentience. It's... just fucking charming. But it also is a slight downer in that it seems to be taking the viewpoint that, faced with immortality, human beings would find time a burden to be endured. I have to say, I suspect we would just all get progressively weirder. I'm not sure if this is a book, really, but it's mostly text based and long, so I'm calling it a novella at least.

TV Horror - I'm on chapter 2, I have to finish chap 4 for Saturday.

What I'll Read Next
Several books I want to read have come out! And my book group has voted on books to read, so I am very pleased to get to read them.
The Missing Page (Cat Sebastien), Some by Virtue Fall (Alex Rowland), Iron Widow (Xiran Jay Zhao), and The City We Became (NK Jemisin)

In a slightly reading related thing, I realized that TikTok and social media in general have made me sink a lot of time into them that I... don't actually enjoy. I have given up a lot of social media, so maybe this is one that I should consider dropping as well.

Edit:

Totally forgot my Work in Progress post!

I finished the Scylla socks, and am now working on a pattern descriptively called "Damensocken mit Frontpatch" aka, women's socks with a front patch. These have a very odd construction, that adds a significant amount of engineering challenge to the pattern - you knit the socks without the front portion, and then you fill it in with a square later. Since I have gotten to the point where knitting one sock and then finishing the other might be simpler than trying to keep them both up to speed on the same set of needles, I am debating breaking my Never Finish One Sock First rule to just... finish one sock and see how they end up.

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Wednesday Reading Meme and Work in Progress Meme

2022-01-19T16:15:29Z

Work in Progress

My current sock project, Scylla in Malabrigo Candome, nears completion - I have picked a fancy slipped stitch form of ribbing to complement the slipped stitch pattern. I'm ignoring the charted instructions with some glee to add extra yarn overs in the rows before the slipped stitches so that the fabric doesn't tug itself out of alignment. While I love the yarn, it's knitting up quite dark and it's a challenge to get the level of contrast I want on the slipped stitches, but I'm very pleased with how soft it is and how well it's knitting up.

Reading Meme!

What I've Read

I've finished House of Leaves! (Mark Danielewski) This book was a TOME, but a fascinating read. I think it has some fame for being just a very weird book, which it is, and I felt like the ending was more of a fizzle than a bang, but that might be because I read a lot of the Appendices and the Whalestoe Letters as they became relevant to the book, rather than at the end. I really enjoyed it as a deeply impressive act of typesetting - which sounds like faint praise but it's really not. This book weaves the physical reality of the book into the narrative, in some straightforward ways and in some deeply strange ones. It's definitely horror - it left me with a somewhat abiding sense of unease and distrust towards reality around me - and it's a book that cries out for annotation. I really enjoyed watching the book talk to itself and then commenting on that in the extremely large margins.

I suppose I have a bit of personal myth built around this book. I have an emailed library notice from 2009 that confirms I ordered it from a public library for pick-up, which means I specifically requested it. I think that I found it first in my college library, but I just can't be sure - the only edition that I have ever seen was published in 2000, and I definitely did not encounter it before high school. I have tried to pick it up and read it so many times that I eventually bought the book because I knew I would never get thru it in the timeframe of a library check-out. But it's still been ten years and I have a vivid and enduring memory of getting to a very early part of the novel, where the main characters measure a home's interior wall over and over with greater tools and increasing precision, only to confirm again and again that they are encountering an impossible thing - the interior wall is larger than the exterior wall, the house is not interested in the limits of physical space, and they are encountering something that is uninterested in conforming to human perception. And every time! I would get to that part and bail! It was too much!

I suspect that the last calendar year's focus on horror films has really helped me get into the headspace where I could pick this book up and actually finish it.

I have also finished the much briefer but extremely creepy Through the Woods by Emily Carroll, a graphic novel that showed up at my house without me ordering it! I have no idea where this came from, though I recognize some of the comics, especially "His Face All Red" from its rounds on Tumblr. The book is excellent and deeply weird. I highly recommend it, but maybe not late at night.

What I'm Reading

I started and then put down Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. The premise is quite charming - aging rockers in a fantasy world where a 'band' is not a group of musicians but a team of fighters, and the main character, Clay, is legitimately charming. But I keep bouncing off the random casually misogynists asides. They are not bad as, say, Jim Butcher and his weird fetish for sexy teens, but just... it's very clear that this is a man with no interest in women as characters trying to write his female side characters in a not sexist way, and landing flat. And he's included a fair number of women side characters! He definitely thinks that having his main characters robbed by a team of unsexy women is a plus!

I'm still delighted by the tone and the concept - it's got an 'inspired by Terry Pratchett' vibe in terms of really exploring the edges of what it means to do "battle of the bands but they have swords" reality, so I'm going to go back to it! But, oof, those little grace notes about ugly prostitutes or pretty women being sell outs are just... not my vibe, my dude.

I have picked up The Missing Page by Cat Sebastien, I am about 20 pages in and it's already delightful and making me want to read the previous novel again for the sheer joy of being in an excellently written mystery. Also, I love the fact that we immediately get to revisit the Cottage Lesbians from the previous book - it's a soft and gentle comfort to think that in every era of history, we have always found each other.

I'm also reading a Temeraire novel-length fanfic "Terror in War, Ornament in Peace" by WerewolvesAreReal, in which William Laurence makes some different decisions after the end of the canonical events of Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik, and we see a lot more of Napoleon Bonaparte.

What I'll Read Next
I'm going to finish Light from Uncommon Stars after this book club meeting (I hate to read ahead)
Finishing The Missing Page
Some By Virtue Fall will be out next week!
Need to do more SPN Queer Rewatch Reading - TV Horror chapters 3-4
I bought Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Between Men because I adored reading Epistemology of the Closet
I'm vaguely interested to see what Mark Danielewski has done since House of Leaves - there are some interesting ebooks of his floating around.
Might hunt down more of Emily Carroll's digital works because her wikipedia pages suggests that some of them are interactive in a way that can't be booked.

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Wednesday Reading Meme and Wednesday Work in Progress Meme!

2022-01-13T03:09:28Z

What I've Read

I report with some chagrin I have not read any books to completion since last week.

I have read or re-read some excellent fanfic! I re-watched the first season of the Witcher on Netflix with my sweetheart, and, uh, surreptitiously watched season two on my own. So I felt in the mood for some Witcher fic

I started with some of the classics - Astolat's Blooded Crown, and Misethere, and Never Did Run Smooth - https://archiveofourown.org/series/621487 and I have been branching out, so if anyone knows anything good, I am happy to find recs!

What I'm Reading

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki - this book is keeping me on my toes! One element that I am really enjoying is how much of an ensemble piece it feels like - you get to see into the lives and deep feelings of many side characters. Some of them have turned into important characters! but some of them are just people you meet for a short little bit, see how the characters impact them, and then they go on their way. It's a bit old messy love letter to LA. I have to stop for a while until the book club catches up, but I'm really looking forward to it.

TV Horror: Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen by Stacey Abbott, Lorna Jowett - a bit dry, a bit slow, a bit academic. Not really breaking my brain.

What I'll Read Next

House of Leaves remains a slow but rewarding challenge.

I've had an anxious few weeks and I'm prone to overpurchasing when I am a bit frantic, so I have some new ebooks to read! Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eams, Sweet Disorder by Rose Lerner, and Paladin's Hope by T. Kingfisher have all recently been added to my Kindle.

Work in Progress

It has been an great week for knitting! (and also purchasing yarn, rein it in, kite) I have been working on Scylla socks, pretty slipstitch pattern designed for variegated yarns. To no one's shock, I have ignored the scripted heel in the pattern and done a Fish Lips Kiss heel and just finished that on the second sock, so now I get to do the leg! I'm hoping to do these a bit longer in the leg because I feel the winter chill coming in around the ankles a bit too much.

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Wednesday Reading Meme

2022-01-05T16:33:15Z

What I've Read

Neon Yang's The Descent of Monsters (Tensorate #3) & The Ascent to Godhood (Tensorate #4)
These quite short novellas are both the most experimental entries in the Tensorate series. Monsters is a great epistolary detective story with a new character who is outside the central band of rebels established in the previous two novels. Chuwan is an investigator for the Protectorate who's been assigned to discover when went wrong at a site for secret experimental magic, and gradual discovers that she's being asked to hide something. It's just as fucked up as the rest of these books would suggest. Bonus Rider!

Godhood takes off from the end of Monsters, and it looks forwards and backwards at the same time. The scheme that Chuwan uncovered in the last novella has come to fruition but it's in the background of this book - it focuses instead of the rise of the Protector Sanao Hekate and her vicious reform of the crumbling empire she inherited, as viewed by the servant she molded to her service. It's got excellent vibes about mourning someone who betrayed you.

Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi, Vol.1
Ok, this is just a fun book, with goofy characters and a brisk plot and lot and lots of tropey fun. I definitely enjoyed this more than The Untamed on the level of handling the flashbacks. The Untamed seems to have run all the flashbacks together into a 30+ episode story inside their main present-day plot, but that just felt absurdly ponderous to me. This books drops the flashbacks into the present plot in much more engaging small chunks.

The Untamed also suffered for cutting out the overt gayness of the characters in Grandmaster - there are times when characters act and react in ways that only make sense if they are open about the fact that at least one character is overtly gay - leaving that information out makes some interactions incomprehensible. There's a gay hole (heh) in the center of the Untamed, and this book filled it (hehehe!). I really wish I had been able to snag a copy of the unofficial translation before it was taken down.

What I'm Reading
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
I've picked this book up again - I'm feeling the academic tone of the text, and this is one book that just BEGS you to write in the margins as you read it. Narrative layers on top of layers that just make the whole thing fascinating and interwoven and direly creepy. I am definitely jumping around in the text to read the stuff in the Appendices as they become relevant.

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
For book club - I have just barely started this but people were very enthused with this choice so I'm going to hope for the best.

TV Horror: Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen by Stacey Abbott, Lorna Jowett
For the Great Queer Supernatural Rewatch project - this is more an overview text on how horror TV has evolved over time. Not super engaging, but important background!

What I'll Read Next
Through the Woods by Emily Carroll - I received this book from Amazon without a note - I didn't order it! And it just arrived one day! Graphic novel.
Sweet Disorder by Rose Lerner (recommended via tiktok's Fat Girls in Fiction reading club)
The Missing Page by Cat Sebastian (comes out 1/18/2022)
Some by Virtue Fall by Alexandra Rowland (comes out 1/25/2022)

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Reading Journal Glamor Shots, some reading and knitting notes

2022-01-05T03:06:42Z

Well, the reading journal set up is complete!
The book I picked is pretty and makes me think of a library shelf - and yes, I did pick it because I liked a particular TikToker's version.

I figured out a few things I wanted to keep track of:
-Books I Started Reading
-Reviews of Books I Finished
-Books I Want to Read

I always love starting writing in a book from both directions - I suspect I'm going to fill out the Books I Want to Read section faster than the books I actually read section. But that's hardly a flaw - it will give me a lovely menu of potential reading material to choose from!

In actual reading, I semi-accidentally started to read The Wicked King by Holly Black the other day (it was on my kindle!) and was able to remind myself that, no, actually, I had wanted to get back into House of Leaves and finish it, dammit , and my determination has paid off! My stymied bookmark has inched forward!

In knitting, I have started the slip stitch pattern section of my Scylla socks - I am very impressed with how the prior knitters had made great notes on the project and helped each other out, so my project in the Malabrigo is knitting up very nicely.

I have purchased a slightly unwise amount of sock yarn with which to while away the winter, so I'm thinking that I will have lots to look forward to! One skein is ready for me at the local yarn shop, but the weather has been so miserable that I haven't wanted to get on my bike and go down - Maybe Thursday.

Edit: 1/5/2022 It's become clear I need to add a Preorders section to this journal when I realized that I had no idea whether or not I have pre ordered a book from a favorite author. So, I have gone thru and tried to round up as many pre-ordered books as I have awareness of to prevent myself from buying a book twice.

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Reading Thoughts

2021-12-30T00:58:38Z

(A computer crash ate the last attempt to put this all down and that is something I am trying to avoid this time!)

So, I have been thinking about doing a reading notebook this year - I kind of want to be a bit more deliberate about writing down what I have read, and what I thought about it.

I fell down a rabbit hole last night on Youtube, watching videos made by bullet journal influencers (a thing that exists!) about their own book journals and the elaborate art projects and data collection that they are planning on using to set lofty goals for their reading in the new year. Bullet journalling seems to have turned into art journals in the last few years, as far as I can tell? There is watercolors and scrapbooking and lots and lots of washi tape. I last checked in to the bullet journal system in about January of 2020 bc I did want to be a little more thoughtful about things, and I've modified it enough that it's hardly like the minimalist lists that were part of the initial structure. It is quite useful to have some mechanisms to check out what you're working on and if it's working out for you.

That said, I have some clear thoughts about what I do NOT want in a reading journal:
- Annuality - I am not making a reading journal for 2022, I am just setting up a journal to write down what I am reading and how I think about it, it will not turn over in 2023 automatically.
-Star based rating systems - I might use one as a joke, but I think they are a bit dumb.
-Goals - I am not trying to hit 50 books or whatever. I might count things up at the end of the year, I might not, it hardly matters. I have Storygraph for stats if I really want them.

Things I do want:
-A Ravelry-like vibe - On Ravelry, you're working on your version of a project, with your needles and yarn, and while I see lots of people's other projects based on a similar pattern, it's not about a competition or making the socks for an audience. It's for me to wear them. The reading journal is for me, an aide memoire.
-A way to track publishing - I am going to count fic over 50K as a book, so fic v. self published v. traditional publishing is something I want to track.
-A To Be Read section - I keep buying books and forgetting to read them or getting distracted. I want some structure there to keep hold of things.
-Books are entered as they are started - I want to record what books I start and don't finish or set aside. Those are also interesting.
-Short book reviews - maybe a few sentences, very simple and breezy, about books that I do finish and want to talk about.
-genre - some way of tracking that

There is a part of me that is honestly just as interested in writing up all the media I enjoy in a similar way - not just which books I have read, but which movies and tv series and when I watched them and what I think of them. That seems like it might be a big goal to enter into all at once, tho, so I am going to put a hold on that for now.

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Reading Wednesday Meme

2021-12-30T00:22:44Z

Currently reading:

Still on The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (aka, Mo Dao Zu Shi) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, the source material for the Netflix Chinese drama, the Untamed.

I am finding some of the issues I had with the show (when I tried to watch it several times) persist. This is mostly tone issues - it's a bit jarring to read stuff where something truly ghastly and horrible is happening but the main characters reaction is minimal or nothing. There's also an odd thing of POV, where the author will shift into one character's mind for the duration of a few observations and then move on, and that exposition are often dumped after an event. Something will occur and then characters will react Very Strongly, and the story will have to pause for a paragraph or two and explain all the backstory. (Example - a haughty young man makes a sneering comment in public about his fiancee, who we have never met or seen mentioned before but [we are now informed] is a nice girl but nothing special and only engaged to this guy because their mothers were friends. Hearing him, two people absolutely lose their shit about his bad behavior - because it's their fucking sister! All of this information arrives after the fact. We have never seen this haughty young man before.)

Overall, I can see why fans went apeshit over this book and I'm also willing to bet that this novel works better in its original language. I keep wondering about the allusions I'm missing (which I know I am) and how I work to catch up. It's all going a bit better now that I'm taking notes.

Recently finished

Once & Future by spqr on AO3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/35856907) - Reminiscent of The Accidental Warlord and His Pack by inexplicifics, (Links: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683661). This is a very charming story about Jaskier kissing an enchanted statue and it turning out to be a hot dude. Lovely fic, deeply uninterested in the violent edges of the Witcher universe. Just got posted this week!

The Witcher and the Lordling: Into the Mountains by Alex51324 (https://archiveofourown.org/series/2331386) - Technically, this second entry in this series is not entirely finished but it didn't impede my enjoyment at all. In an alternate universe where Witchers were not culled so much as leashed, Geralt and Jaskier break free and head out into the world. If you would enjoy reading a detailed breakdown of how to make a winter camp in the woods with nothing but a few tools and some knowhow, this is a great fic.

Up next:
Really I need to get back into House of Leaves before I completely forget the characters and the plot. I've also got the last two novellas of Neon Yang's Tensorate series up with my book club, so those will probably be the next on my list.

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Life update and some reading recs

2021-12-22T16:30:12Z

What I've Been Up To:
- Professional Life -
I started a new job at a new place! Still a university, but much smaller and with a much more tight staff. Crucially, it is completely remote, and responded to Covid with much stronger protocols and much more humane approach to the staff. They were not advertising the position as remote, but they are expanding to have remote staff as something they learned from the pandemic, so I'm feeling quite hopeful about this place and a return to the part of my job that I really liked.

In the weeks before and after I left, two people from my old team at my old university also left and moved to new places - I'm pleased for all of them.

-Social Media-
I'm still doing Tumblr and TikTok as my main incoming information - both of them seem to be good at showing me new things, which I really value. I'm basically off Facebook, Instagram, and anything else except Dreamwidth (eh, sorry for going dark at lot there!)

-Journals-
I've become moderately obsessed this week with book journals that I have seen on Tiktok - they seem part of an enjoyable tread of maximalist bullet journaling which is rather attractive as an art form. I started a bullet journal in January of 2020 and it rapidly turned into a hybrid model of a journal with a to-do list - it never really took the turn of involving all the colored pencils and stencils and graphs that people seem to like, but it did involve an investment in my own pleasure in the form of buying myself nice journals to write in, nice stickers to put in them, and nice pens to write with. All of those things, working from a mindset of "You are allowed to buy yourself Enough Things so that you don't start hoarding them to Save For Later" has really worked - I got out of my own way a bit there.

Partially I am a bit jealous of my sister, who has a notebook where she has written down every book she's finished since her early teens. It's patchy - she lost the habit for a few years - but it's kind of charming and I like the idea of it as a compact aide de memoir.

What I've Been Reading

-Traditional Publishing -
A Marvellous Light by Freya Markse - https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/9ae07ba5-fd85-44d6-ac5d-f9d45b3b21e7 - An excellent first novel! Really enjoyed the story, the characters were charming. It felt like someone took a look a Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and was like, but what if the story was brisk and breezy and queer?

Red Thread of Fortune by Neon Yang - https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/be5daded-a3d3-427a-9bc5-c122fee68b7a Short, solid, not as dark as it seems like it should be from the premise. Takes place after the Black Tides of Heaven, and seems like they are both stories pulled from a mythology that exists just to the side of other novels. Really good stuff.

Have His Carcase by Dorothy Sayers - https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/40d83eee-cab2-4a83-b05d-cc0400c3fdc4 This novel was very very solid and just a touch too slow for my attention. The characters and their banter were charming enough to carry it - for a mystery reader with more taste for the genre, I think it would come across better.

- Self Published -
Morning Glory Milking Farm by C.M. Nascosta - https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/cda06f38-9c67-42c3-89a1-b6d016fbc5aa Oh, god, just read the summary. It's sexy and goofy and absurd and a little too on the nose about the post-college millennial life

Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard - https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/2b1c3268-5abe-4e82-85e5-c2e98b4450a5 - Absurdly long, deeply kind, a book in which the main character saves the world by being the most organized person in an empire and actually being put in charge of the damn thing. And by, saves the world, I mean establishes universal basic income, decentralizing the nobility, and instituting government reforms based on his fantasy!Polynesian background that emphasizes the good in people being fostered and leadership as a duty.

-Fanfiction-

Soldier's Heart by Alex51324 - I re-read this sprawling, gorgeous thing again, and it was just in time. The WWI setting was profoundly helpful in re-watching the Lord of the Rings films and catching on thematic resonances in that work that I hadn't paid attention to before. Tho, also, probably some of that is from trying to do media studies in a more thoughtful way.

What's on My Mind
-Covid-
Not again. Please. I am very glad now I got my booster, since that seems to keep Omicron at least from being quite as spreadable. But I am about to leave on a trip and there are literally no antigen tests in any pharmacy for a 50 mile radius - they all sold out within two hours of showing up in the store.

So, it's a family visit with some masks and antigen testing and strong precautions about avoiding people outside the bubble.

-Great Queer Supernatural Re-Watch -
Thank god I didn't call off my Great Queer Supernatural Re-Watch - that nonsense is sustaining me thru the idea of another winter in insolation. We're resolved to do more careful reading about race and whiteness in the show - after season 3 there are almost no characters of color in the show at all, but there is a LOT of symbols and ideas that work on ideas of whiteness and masculinity, and we need some more tools to think about those.

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Sort of back from being sort of away

2021-08-27T13:03:06Z

I am freshly back online from a lovely vacation that involved very little structured time - exactly what I needed!

We visited some friends in southern states, which involved some magnificent fish dishes and some truly excellent BBQ. (After a lovely sampling of available sauces, I have picked a mustardy one that went well on everything, and purchased a bottle to take home.)

Bookwise, I picked up Andy Weir's most recent book, Project Hail Mary, a novel very much in line with The Martian for "smart person does thoughtful science carefully for high stakes and laudable goals." Overall I thought it was a fun and fast-paced read with a character, Ryland Grace, an extremely smart person who is also doing some really interesting things.

I do notice an element from The Martian that has carried over here, which is that Weir is pessimistic about politics and governments functioning together well and quickly in groups when faced with major stakes - in The Martian, this is handled by having all the committed scientists do an end-run around the politicians of their various countries to work together directly, any fallout in their future be damned- and Weir just doesn't really return to that, but it feels relatively natural; in PHM, this is handled by giving one character a 'get out of international law free' card for the scope of the scientific project they are working on, and then pointing out that there will be consequences for their actions later. While I think the second approach might better convey the idea that, actually, it's quite hard to make large groups of people work towards a single goal, no matter how much it's in their own interests, I preferred the first approach. PHM shunts the problem of imperfect authority to one side and says, this single person will make the right call - which is just moving the problem of authority onto one person rather than handling it.

I'm mentioning it here because I'm chewing it over a bit - it's pretty clearly a plot device to let Grace get to the cool science faster with less political discussion and I think it does the job quite well. But, man, if they had picked the wrong person to be the de-facto dictator of the big important science, none of this would have worked at all.

I'm also reading House of Leaves, which I have started before and put down before - I think this time will be better because I am less freaked out by the horror elements, and I have more time to devote to reading it on this vacation. I'm also letting myself write in the margins a lot, which is a great way of tracking my progress and my thoughts in a book this prone to sending the reader towards the end notes.

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ugh, this book

2021-06-15T15:45:24Z

Read Laura Lam's Pantomime - truly did not enjoy this book. I'm venting here a bit because a friend of mine REALLY enjoyed it and I feel bad for disliking it so much.
SPOILERS Behind the Cut!
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In summary: This book is a debut novel; it shows. Lam doesn't seem to like women very much. The start is slow and kind of bad, but the ending is rushed and worse.

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I was googling a thing the other day

2020-06-23T13:22:38Z

CW: animal harm? people harm? Not detailed.

Specifically, I was googling to find out how many days it's been since March 13th, and I didn't get further than "How many days since..." and Google autocompleted the phrase.

So, I think a lot of people are *done* with being in quarantine.

It's been 102 days since March 13th, by the way.

I fell off the Dreamwidth radar, mostly due to a case of The Sads (nonclinical, dog related).

We ended up having to send the dog back to the rescue league. She'd come in to them without a history, so they gave us the information they could about her behavior issues, but it turns out that she's actually not just food- and animal-aggressive; she's pretty aggressive across the board.

She bit me; it wasn't provoked by anything, and it came after an overall slow increase in aggressive behavior as she got more comfortable living with us. No stitches, but it broke skin and it could have been much worse if luck hadn't happened. I couldn't come off high-alert around her after that. We were not equipped for that level of aggression. So, back she went to the shelter, and I no longer have a dog. This was all covered in an f-locked post, but since I am REAL stringent about my access levels, most folks probably didn't see it. I was real fucking sad, friends. I hated having to make that call, even if it was the right one.

Quarantine life without a dog to give it some structure is really annoying, it turns out - I screwed up my sleep schedule and I'm working on getting back to normal there (reasonably good results) - I'm definitely exercising less. But, also, my anxiety levels are waaaay down, so maybe she was NOT a good fit for us.

I have some recs! I did read some excellent things!

Pro-fic:

Title: The Murderbot Diaries (series - Starts with the novellas All Systems Red (2018), then Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy (all 2018), then Network Effect (2020), with another novel planned for 2021. I do recommend reading them in order, but the novellas do a reasonably good job of starting
Freebie short story (prequel, does not give away main plot): https://www.wired.com/story/future-of-work-compulsory-martha-wells/
Link: http://www.marthawells.com/murderbot.htm
Author: Martha Wells
Summary: (All Systems Red) "On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid -- a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot." Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is."

Why I love it: I deeply, deeply love Murderbot, as a protagonist, as a character, as the viewpoint on this larger world. Wells did an amazing job of putting us in the mindset of this person in this world, jaded and scared and trying to figure out what it WANTS, other than to be *left alone* by the weird humans who are treating it like a Real Person. Murderbot is profoundly competent and proficient within a certain field (protecting humans, dealing with semi-sentient technology, managing security systems that might be hunting it) and has a scathingly critical eye of people who are trying to do dumb things that compromise the safety of a client. Murderbot does *not* went to be a human being, thankyouverymuch, it just wants to not have to deal with all these damn FEELINGS that Other People have. Only other people. No one else.

Not to spoil too, too much - Murderbot's story is about recovery from trauma. (I'd say of the moral injury variety, but also a lot of dehumanization, because it is literally not human.) Murderbot is classified as equipment, despite the fact that it's sentient and has organic human components in its composition - and this story is about figuring out what 'being a person' would mean in a world where literally every other thing like it is literally equipment. So, content note for that; but since we see this world from Murderbot's viewpoint only, it never feels like that dehumanizing viewpoint is ever given any narrative weight - it's so clearly wrong that, as a reader, I was mostly furious on Murderbot's behalf.

If I had any notes about this series, it's that there's a pacing change between the novellas and the novel. That's not a flaw! The novel involves a larger cast, more complicated plot, and opens the point of view up a bit to several other characters. It's called Network Effect for a reason - Murderbot isn't running a solo mission a this point, and we actually get to see how the character grew internally and expanded their network of "their people." It's wonderful - Murderbot gets people who love it, as its flawed, devoted, twitchy, misanthropic self. I adore this series, and the novel is excellent - its pacing is different and that wasn't quite the ultraviolence popcorn that my brain wanted just then, so it was a bit slower.

I liked this series so much that I went and found Martha Wells's other series, Tales of Raksura, and I've finished the first book of that series and I'm into the second.

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