Minor setbacks and more book reviews.

[lenora_rose]

My paycheque last week did not arrive. Usually, if the temp agency does not receive my hours for a given week, I have at least one, and often two, phone calls. This time, no warning. I'd thought it was due to the long weekend (They mail our cheques) but, no love, and this week's cheque arrived in timely fashion. Sigh. I guess I fax them tomorrow.

OTOH, I've seen the first season of Criminal Minds for significantly lower than I expected, and if I had more paycheque, I might have forgotten that I'm broke, and owe several people birthday presents or money. So, um, yay for being broke? Or maybe just yay for not impulse shopping.

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One of the things I'm supposed to be doing these days is attempting to get my learner's permit again (I had one several years ago, but too long ago for their records, which are apparently four years.) I keep running into setbacks. Today i was ready for the test, mentally, or at least felt I was. However, the last time I needed to get a learner's, you walked in and did it. They needed ID on the spot, of course, but that's easy enough. and I checked and it said that you do not need an appointment for a written test.

Alas, the last time I got my learner's was late '02 or '03 (I explicitly set it up to learn in winter, snow being much harder than pavement). Since it is a bureaucracy, it took a while to put through some 9/11 security rules. (It was just after progressive licensing, which had been on the agenda since pre-9/11, for example.) So I didn't know that these days you need to talk to Autopac and show them government ID to get into the system before you can stroll in casually to take the test. Basically, they have to have proof somewhere that you're really a citizen and really live where you say.

So, because I don't carry my passport with me, I couldn't take the test today. Bleah. Easy fix, I should ahve it next week.

____

I cleaned out my keyboard a little the other day. Now two of my arrow keys and one of the "Alt"s, though in place and working, are not held in place by anything, so they come out if I press them in any way but very precisely, and sometimes even then they "jump" a bit. I hardly ever use "alt", so that's okay, but the moving arrows are a nuisance.

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Colin and I are talking about taking in an event, not this coming weekend, but the weekend after. This has several disadvantages:

- I'm working a totally new job on that Friday (It's a one Friday every two weeks, so not exactly the big bucks.) and even though it's a relatively close event, that puts our departure time later than ideal.

- My cousin's social is that weekend. I meant to at least put in an appearance, even if it meant missing half of the game.

- There's a good chance I'm also busy the weekend after: which, if I'm absent the week of the event, would mean two weeks of not-gaming. If I'm in town, at least I can make it for enough to make it worthwhile.

- I suspect that soon I'll be needing to be more active with work for Amy's wedding.

However, it has a few advantages:

- outdoor archery!

- seeing out of town friends again

- Fun!

- I suspect some clay work might be portable... to finish/work on, as well as possibly to sell.

It might help, though, if I finish at least the new underdress. (Which would also mean practice with a cotehardie-like thing, which is good, as that's what the bridesmaids dresses are mdoelled after.)





Some books I've read recently, in fairly quick:

Naomi Kritzer - Freedom's Apprentice / Freedom's Sisters (Read in Vancouver)

Apprentice was a re-read, to get me back into the feel of the setting of this trilogy (I didn't think I needed to go to the start of book one, Freedom's Gate, but I didn't trust myself to jump into book three without some re-introduction.)

Mostly satisfying. I was disappointed when the genies' own world and culture felt altogether just as mundane as the one on this side of the gate, though I could appreciate the mirror-image intention of it. I liked the effort to portray something very like bipolar disorder as the price for magic -- although I didn't always *feel* it when Lauria was in manic state. I thought parts of the solutions were rushed or not wholly reasoned out -- detailing the points I mean would be spoilery -- and not always just in ways that were in character. And I'm not sure I was convinced by any of the romances or possible romances, though I did totally believe in the sisterly bond with Tamar and Lauria, as a sisterly bond.

Margaret Mahy - The Pirate Uncle (read msotly in Vancouver)

Mahy writes two kinds of books: fairly serious YA that explore complex themes, atypical families, and teenaged romances, frequently with a supernatural bent, and always steeped in New Zealandness. And totally absurd young kids' books with pirates, adventure-book cliches, witches and silliness.

The Pirate Uncle is kind of in the territory between: it's full of odd piratical imagery, kids' adventure story cliches, absurdities, odd family relationships, romances, and a running serious theme. Also, lots of humour, and some strong modern New Zealand coastal imagery.


Alma Alexander - Worldweavers: Gift of the Unmage (Just after the Vancouver trip)

I confess, at one point I was very worried that this book, in spite of some solid writing, was going to provoke a rant on the Magical Negro trope (Although in this case it would be First Nations.) Several of the minor characters are from different First Nations groups (Anasazi and -Quilcah-(sp?)), and two of them are explicitly present to teach the main character some part of their traditional magic.

This was smoothly avoided, however; the characters are real, solid people, nobody is present just to be exotic, wise, and mysterious, or just to get sacrificed. The different traditions are present to help create a new kind of magic, emerging from all of them, not for mere colour.

The book as a whole feels necessarily episodic, since several parts of the story take place in wholly different locations with wholly different people, but they're all bound together nicely - for now. Being first in a series, it also does suffer a little from introductionitis - there's enough plot here that a reader is unlikely to curse and swear if it's all they had to read on a desert island, and there was no hope of seeing the sequels, but it also has a lot of earmarks of being the start of a bigger story.


Lisa Goldstein - Tourists (Just after worldweavers.)

Technically a reread, but I usually remember books I've read better than THIS (I'd remembered the mother's experience with the taxis. I'd forgotten most else, including the fact that there were two daughters, not one.) A strange book, more magical realism than fantasy. About feeling alien in a foreign country. And a lot of other things, like myth and reality, anthropological observation and acceptance versus being a part of a place.

I like Lisa Goldstein's work, in general. For literary fantasy and magical realism, she's accessible, even friendly. (I find le Guin's more literary works, for example, rather colder.) Her writing is smooth on the surface, inclined to state things directly, giving the impression everything is plain, while the subtext makes it clear that it's otherwise. They tend to seem slow, with not much happening, and like the violence, even if it happens on page, something startling and alien, not a part of how the world should work at all. On the other hand, I kind or appreciate the worldview, and, as with the plain-looking sentences, more is happening underneath. I remembered quite liking this one and its feeling of culture shock, where even the most earnest of the family members end up reacting badly to being in Amaz and not America. My opinion didn't change. I can see why she has a smallish following and not-great sales, but I also deeply regret that more people don't appreciate these books.


Horace Walpole - The Castle of Otranto (Last week)

I had this on my shelf anyhow, but I blame rachelmanija for talking about gothics. Since this is the uber early gothic.

Now I want to read more of the modern ones - not necessarily this second, but sometime. Fortunately, her last threads on the subject named names. So I wrote some down.


Tanya Huff - Blood Trail (This week)

Since she was at the Convention, and I'd only read one of her books (Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light), and that years ago, I thought it only fair to read more. A friend of mine described her books as solid entertainment, well made and not inclined to insult one's intelligence, but not likely to make one jump up and down... well,t he way I was yesterday about what Bear and Bull are doing with the Shadow Unit Finale. Oh, and also, that she managed to grab onto the vampire meme early and well. (That was pretty close to my impression from the one book I read, except that the meme was the Urban Fantasy of the Elves & Rock n' Roll variety)

That's about right. I did particularly like her werewolf pack dynamics, she was smart and the characters we were told were competent in their areas really were.

Good enough to remind me to pick up more of hers if I'm in the mood for solid entertainment but *not* deep psychological warpings of my mind or heavy literariness, or some Dunnettery.


Just Started / on the to-read pile:

Cassandra Clare - City of Bones
Dorothy Dunnett - The Disorderly Knights (Started a while ago, read a few chapters ehre and there, so I haven't abandoned it. I've been in the wrong mood to keep going, it seems)
Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette - A Companion to Wolves (!!!)

Comments

[anghara.livejournal.com]

I sincerely hope that I have NOT committed Magical Negro trope - am aware of it and it does annoy me too - so I am glad that you let me off the hook on that one. Hope you pick up book 2 - which DOES pick up the pace of the entire story arc - and see what you think as the plot thickens, as it were.

Thank you for the review!

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

Nope: you avoided it neatly. You also wrote a pretty good book in the doing.

How can I *not* pick up a book called Spellspam? ;)