(no subject)

My life the last while has been mostly SEWING! And a certain amount of telling the Bride she doesn't have to panic, and that I genuinely think we can make it. Which is even true after yesterday.

After the wedding, I am having a silly movie night. After that, I am going to get quite thoroughly into making more pottery (my brain seems to have made the shift to prioritizing visual work over written, though I got some editing done this week.) And call the person I need to call for driving lessons. And make more formal plans with the person I asked for mandolin lessons. IN other words, I intend to completely fill the days, just differently, with variety and less stress.

forodwaith, I've been meaning to call you. Sorry! How's wednesday?

Some recent Books:

Adam Stemple - Singer of Souls

Probably the single most disturbing ending I've seen to a book in quite a while. The book as a whole is a take on faerie almost as dark as Bear's, combined with a point of view character who is occasionally a jerk, but with good reason. It's entertaining, and nicely, even compactly written; the only weak point I saw technically is that the music descriptions involve too many strict terms (naming chords, for instance, only works for someone who knows their music enough to know what such a chord sounds like. I sing, I've previously played instruments, I can sometimes read music and I certainly understand chord theory and I can't 'hear' them)

But I came on the end unaware and unguessing it could turn that way, though of course it seems inevitable .... brrr. MUch more troubling than any of the usual suspects for dark endings; like the protagonist loses, or the protagonist wins at the cost of his life, or the tragedy ending where everyone dies but those to tell the tale. Stemple has an evil mind.

I need to look up his other books and collaborations. I just needed to be forewarned.


Tim Eldred - Grease Monkey

Highly enjoyable, essenitally a mosaic novel in comic book form; about two mechanics in space, one an enthusiastic youth, one an ape given human-level intelligence, working for the only all-female space fighter team, It feels light, or even slight, when you're reading, as most of the set pieces have a comedic aspect, but like the best comedies, you think about the underlying world, and there are some solid things to think about. But it's too much fun.


Sarah Monette - The Bone Key

I hven't been reading a lot of short fiction lately, but some of these stories are ever so good. The collection is a series of related stories, featuring the same protagonist; a shy, slightly tongue-tied man working in a museum, who nonetheless ends up with steel enough to cope with all sorts of necromantic nastiness. A lot quieter than her novels, but as creepy, if in a very different way. As complained about by others, the time period of the stories is somewhat vague; arguments could be made for any part of the twentieth century from the twenties to just before cell phones, and barring the obvious war years. Booth spends most of his time dealing with artifacts and bones, though, not with culture, so the vagueness of tine seems to fit with showing his narrow world. But I think the Green Glass Paperweight alone is worth the cost of the whole collection -- and it's far from the only good or worthwhile story. The opening "Bringing Helena Back", and "Elegy for a Demon Lover", at minimum, come close to the same strength. And the opening paragraphs to the one about the Italian necklace (The collection is not in front of me) are worth pointing out and admiring, though the whole doesn't stand together as well as the other three above


Promethea, books three and four

Well, Moore does not, as it happens, continue to sacrifice plot for long dull treatises about magic. But only because the long treatises on magic become the plot. Not sure what i think of it, to be honest. I think I care enough to see if book five is at the library and finish it off; but not much more than that. HUGE kudos, however, to the artist, who sometimes has to depict some very unusual pages.


Tom Holt - Wish You were Here

For a while this was my emergency book. Then I realised that with it as my emergency book, I was wanting to tow along any other book I could find to avoid having to read more. It suffered the eight words of death*, and then some. I think this is the second time I've tried to read Tom Holt, and the first left me unimpressed, but I could at least finish it.


Naomi NOvik - Victory of Eagles

Excellent. I liked getting Temeraire's point of view more, especially. And I liked Wellesley even as I had to regret his final decision. But a fabulous book (I'm honestly not sure I can write more review than that), and thank heavens this one isn't a hair-pulling cliffhanger as with Empire of Ivory. There's clearly more to come for these characters, but I'm okay taking a breather this time. As long as Naomi comes up with more books of some kind Very Soon Please?


Connie Willis - Fire Watch

I read this once and decided that as a collection, it had two good stories in it (Fire Watch and Blued Moon). I picked it up again anyhow, since people keep talking about a Letter From the Clearys as a big deal. I've decided that, these earlier stories not being as loud for the most part as the later work, I was missing some of the subtleties. Some of them I appreciate much mroe this reading. Some of them, I still think are Willis's sophomore work, and needed a bit more something. I enjoyed the Bone Key more as a whole collection, though a couple of Willis's stories individually are better.


Currently in the middle of:
Martha Wells - City of Bones - very much liking. (Shock.)
Leah McLaren - The Continuity Girl - Mildly amusing Chick lit. Emergency Book level material.

To read:
Jo Walton - Ha'Penny
Margaret Mahy - Alchemy
Dorothy L. Sayers - Gaudy Night.


* "I don't care what happens to these people."

(no subject)

My life the last while has been mostly SEWING! And a certain amount of telling the Bride she doesn't have to panic, and that I genuinely think we can make it. Which is even true after yesterday.

After the wedding, I am having a silly movie night. After that, I am going to get quite thoroughly into making more pottery (my brain seems to have made the shift to prioritizing visual work over written, though I got some editing done this week.) And call the person I need to call for driving lessons. And make more formal plans with the person I asked for mandolin lessons. IN other words, I intend to completely fill the days, just differently, with variety and less stress.

forodwaith, I've been meaning to call you. Sorry! How's wednesday?

Some recent Books:

Adam Stemple - Singer of Souls

Probably the single most disturbing ending I've seen to a book in quite a while. The book as a whole is a take on faerie almost as dark as Bear's, combined with a point of view character who is occasionally a jerk, but with good reason. It's entertaining, and nicely, even compactly written; the only weak point I saw technically is that the music descriptions involve too many strict terms (naming chords, for instance, only works for someone who knows their music enough to know what such a chord sounds like. I sing, I've previously played instruments, I can sometimes read music and I certainly understand chord theory and I can't 'hear' them)

But I came on the end unaware and unguessing it could turn that way, though of course it seems inevitable .... brrr. MUch more troubling than any of the usual suspects for dark endings; like the protagonist loses, or the protagonist wins at the cost of his life, or the tragedy ending where everyone dies but those to tell the tale. Stemple has an evil mind.

I need to look up his other books and collaborations. I just needed to be forewarned.


Tim Eldred - Grease Monkey

Highly enjoyable, essenitally a mosaic novel in comic book form; about two mechanics in space, one an enthusiastic youth, one an ape given human-level intelligence, working for the only all-female space fighter team, It feels light, or even slight, when you're reading, as most of the set pieces have a comedic aspect, but like the best comedies, you think about the underlying world, and there are some solid things to think about. But it's too much fun.


Sarah Monette - The Bone Key

I hven't been reading a lot of short fiction lately, but some of these stories are ever so good. The collection is a series of related stories, featuring the same protagonist; a shy, slightly tongue-tied man working in a museum, who nonetheless ends up with steel enough to cope with all sorts of necromantic nastiness. A lot quieter than her novels, but as creepy, if in a very different way. As complained about by others, the time period of the stories is somewhat vague; arguments could be made for any part of the twentieth century from the twenties to just before cell phones, and barring the obvious war years. Booth spends most of his time dealing with artifacts and bones, though, not with culture, so the vagueness of tine seems to fit with showing his narrow world. But I think the Green Glass Paperweight alone is worth the cost of the whole collection -- and it's far from the only good or worthwhile story. The opening "Bringing Helena Back", and "Elegy for a Demon Lover", at minimum, come close to the same strength. And the opening paragraphs to the one about the Italian necklace (The collection is not in front of me) are worth pointing out and admiring, though the whole doesn't stand together as well as the other three above


Promethea, books three and four

Well, Moore does not, as it happens, continue to sacrifice plot for long dull treatises about magic. But only because the long treatises on magic become the plot. Not sure what i think of it, to be honest. I think I care enough to see if book five is at the library and finish it off; but not much more than that. HUGE kudos, however, to the artist, who sometimes has to depict some very unusual pages.


Tom Holt - Wish You were Here

For a while this was my emergency book. Then I realised that with it as my emergency book, I was wanting to tow along any other book I could find to avoid having to read more. It suffered the eight words of death*, and then some. I think this is the second time I've tried to read Tom Holt, and the first left me unimpressed, but I could at least finish it.


Naomi NOvik - Victory of Eagles

Excellent. I liked getting Temeraire's point of view more, especially. And I liked Wellesley even as I had to regret his final decision. But a fabulous book (I'm honestly not sure I can write more review than that), and thank heavens this one isn't a hair-pulling cliffhanger as with Empire of Ivory. There's clearly more to come for these characters, but I'm okay taking a breather this time. As long as Naomi comes up with more books of some kind Very Soon Please?


Connie Willis - Fire Watch

I read this once and decided that as a collection, it had two good stories in it (Fire Watch and Blued Moon). I picked it up again anyhow, since people keep talking about a Letter From the Clearys as a big deal. I've decided that, these earlier stories not being as loud for the most part as the later work, I was missing some of the subtleties. Some of them I appreciate much mroe this reading. Some of them, I still think are Willis's sophomore work, and needed a bit more something. I enjoyed the Bone Key more as a whole collection, though a couple of Willis's stories individually are better.


Currently in the middle of:
Martha Wells - City of Bones - very much liking. (Shock.)
Leah McLaren - The Continuity Girl - Mildly amusing Chick lit. Emergency Book level material.

To read:
Jo Walton - Ha'Penny
Margaret Mahy - Alchemy
Dorothy L. Sayers - Gaudy Night.


* "I don't care what happens to these people."