maharetr

This is both recounting reading and doubling as my Hugo writeups, so!

What I finshed An absolute fuck-ton, for me, over the last two weeks.
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit): aaahhhh! I read it, and then flailed a lot and was very spoilery in the comments of my last DW entry. After some debate and a lot of considering of the details, it’s going on the top of my Novel ballot.


(BEST NOVELETTE)
“And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead” by Brooke Bolander (Lightspeed, Feb 2015) ahhhh! Reposting review here from a few weeks ago: I. Fucking. Loved it. It took me a while to settle into the sheer amount of swearing, but once I did I was making delighted little noises at my screen. I loved the main character, I believed wholeheartedly in her grudging admittance of her feelings, and grinned fiercely at the ending. I’ll be looking up other things by Bolander, for sure.

“Flashpoint: Titan” by CHEAH Kai Wai (There Will Be War Volume X, Castalia House) Chose not to read anything published by or directly associated with Theodore Beale. Life’s too short and he’s too gross.

“Obits” by Stephen King. *makes face* What a nasty little story. Guy who writes trashy, nasty obituaries for dead celebrities finds he can write the deaths of people still alive. Guy objectifies the shit out of the women he works with, and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Plus, Character finds they have a Skill, Skill has unintended consequences, character stops doing Skill is… a nice set up, but it’s barely a story. I finished it because I usually really like King. This, not so much. The realisation that he’s still writing this type of male POV in 2015 is depressing. I’ve put this below No Award.

“Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang, trans. Ken Liu (Uncanny Magazine, Jan‐Feb 2015): That’s more like it. Well executed concept that’s woven into the tale of a character and his few days running illegal and profitable message running between the First and Second Spaces of Beijing that literally fold up the city at regular intervals. Well-crafted, and uses the physical division of the city to talk about class and labor and etc. It tempted with questions and answered at least one satisfyingly. The language was somewhat wooden, but I’ll chalk that up to translation. It could have gone into slightly more depth, maybe, but it’s still a solid entry in what was otherwise a rather weak/Castalia House field.

“What Price Humanity?” by David VanDyke (There Will Be War Volume X, Castalia House (see above)

(GRAPHIC NOVELS)
The Divine written by Boaz Lavie, art by Asaf Hanuka and Tomer Hanuka (First Second): Meh. Had good potential. I would have ranked it higher if I thought it was going to be an ongoing series of some kind, and therefore had the potential to achieve some depth. As it is, it’s a relatively shallow, macho-military hyper-violent type story, which… meh.

Erin Dies Alone written by Grey Carter, art by Cory Rydell (dyingalone.net): Webcomic, and a delightful one. A mentally ill young woman (agoraphobic? Social anxiety? Hasn’t left her house in some years) uses computer games to cope. And then the characters from her games start rocking up. This is charming, funny, and touching. There’s speculation here that the rabid puppies nomination was for the title alone, and that Beale hates someone called Erin and has no idea what it’s actually about. I’m inclined to agree, and have stuck it at the top of my ballot. I read all of it, even the half that wasn’t eligible for a Hugo having been published in 2016, I’ll be checking back on this one every now and then to keep up with it, even. Hugo worthy? Close enough.

Full Frontal Nerdity by Aaron Williams (ffn.nodwick.com). Double-meh, or half a meh, depending on what’s weaker. A long-running stand-alone webcomic that from what I can see from google images is all deep within tabletop gaming and seems very, very male. Which is fine, but I’m noticeably not its audience.

Invisible Republic Vol 1 written by Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman, art by Gabriel Hardman (Image Comics): Complicated and relatively compelling story of a journalist who finds an alternate take on the rise of the revolution/ruler that’s just fallen. Sci-fi was more of the backdrop, here, but the characters that inhabited the alternate take were suitably flawed and complicated and I liked many of them. Female lead (sort of. Mostly), and casually married gay characters! Nearly tempted to find the second volume, even.

(Side short story)
Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers by Alyssa Wong (found poking around the John W Campbell award finalists): Hella compelling tale, tightly crafted, confidently written, and very unsettling. Also queer as in NBD, and I read all 7000 words unhesitatingly in one sitting. A+. (Content notes for creepy as-fuck guys and a serial killer) This actually bumps Andy Weir off top spot for me -- mainly because while I loved The Martian, the guy now has a movie deal under his belt, and I'm betting Wong is waaaayy less known. So.

Currently reading:
The Sandman: Overture written by Neil Gaiman, art by J.H. Williams III (Vertigo): I’d read several of the original Sandman graphic novels, but they and I never quite clicked aside from the character of Death. As of writing, I'm half way through. The art is gorgeous but it’s so far-ever-so self-aware of itself as a book and verging on too smug for its own good. Still reading, but this isn't going to be the thing that gets me into Sandman proper, clearly. Ah, well.

Up next: OMG, still reeling. But probably the second Dark Tower by Stephen King.

Novellas -- reviewed in order of reading. Aiming for non-spoilery, unless there's a cut.

• Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com): Currently reading. (45/100 pages) Not as tightly written as I might have hoped, but solid enough, and compelling complications that are keeping me interested. [On finishing, a few days later:] I really appreciate the non-white POV, and the paste was neat. But...but ( fridge light logic hit HARD with spoilers )


• Perfect State by Brandon Sanderson (Dragonsteel Entertainment): Confidently written, it flirts with really interesting ideas of what it means to be alive/human/have autonomy etc, and then removes the most useful hinge of that. It's also noticeably Written By A Man, which is on one hand a reasonable thing, the author presumably being male! On the other, I'm tired of the male gaze on female characters. Not a bad story, but not the best, either.


• Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds (Tachyon): Okay, the opening paragraph of this one made me keen softly with pleasure. seriously:
  
  

  My mother had a fondness for poetry. When my sister died, but before the news of my own conscription, mother showed me passaged from a work by Giresun. It was a poem called “Morning Flowers”.
  This was an illegal act.

  
  
  That glorious moment of craft was not quite backed up by the rest of the story, but I still read its 200ish pages in an afternoon. One of my bugbears is setting up a “not-a-reader’s-now” but not grounding it enough in what “story’s-now” means in your worldbuilding. Which meant that when the story hurls forward early in the piece, I did in fact feel too adrift. That said, the plot and the idea behind it was compelling. Also, female soldiers, and a well-written female lead! A+ would read more Alistair Reynolds (yeah, I know, I’m coming to sci-fi late, okay?) Will rank highly.


• The Builders by Daniel Polansky (Tor.com): I was charmed by the Goodreads blurb, and the 10% or so that I read was well-written. A group of skilled anthropomorphized animals go on a heist after their last job went badly. It’s charming, and Daniel Polansky seems like a nice guy from my very brief background reading, I just don’t care enough about this story, and my reading time is limited. Didn’t finish, not through any particular fault of the story.


• Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold (Spectrum): this was dense and delicious -- strong worldbuilding, and a very assured narrative voice (unsurprising, given it’s Bujold). It was dense enough that I couldn’t speed read it, and had to concentrate to settle into its rhythms, but that’s almost a plus. I liked Penric, and loved Desdemona (how the demon is also twelve others was...not a thing I retained during reading, and I’m still not clear on, but I was willing to roll with it). This was a pleasure, and I’d definitely read more in this world.

Current voting:
Penric’s demon by Lois McMaster Bujold
Slow bullets by Alistair Reynolds
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
Perfect state by Brandon Sanderson
The builders by Daniel Polansky
No Award

Missed last week, la la.

What I finished: Seveneves, which was flawed in several large and small ways, but I'm ultimately really glad I read it, and Binti, which I'm going to reread a little of to try and sort my feelings about.

Also read The water tower by Gary Crew for the first time, and holy SHIT, that was a legit scary picture book. (Intentionally so, but hot damn. Well done, Crew). Like, I was so unsettled about it hours later that I slept badly. *impressed*

What I'm reading now: Perfect State by Brendan Sanderson. Half way through and rather liking it but so far am having that invariable written-by-a-man effect of "...that woman who is not the POV character, why are we not following her?" (I mean I know why, even narratively, but *whines*)

What's next: Probably The Builders by Daniel Polansky.

What I finished/What I'm reading now: Still going on Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. That said, I'm only 140 pages from the end, and I've been averaging 100 pages a day every day for the last week. That's freaking huge for me. It's been a really good read -- it's been so long since I've been itching to get back to a book when I'm doing something else. I've missed this feeling. I've even been willing to keep reading after it takes a sharp left/long time jump forward, which is saying something.

What's next It turns out The fifth kingdom... doesn't exist in the library system in my state? I'm kinda thrown. That'll have to wait until I buy my MidAmeriConII membership sometime next week, and therefore can get my hands on the reading packet. I've downloaded the free-to-read shorter pieces from the ballot to tide me over. Well, the not-obviously rabid puppy ones, anyway.

Vaguely keeping track of my reading, as I remember to do it. I'll try and remember to keep spoilers vague, and/or under a cut.

Book reviews

Paperweight by Meg Haston. An apparently run-of-the-mill story of a girl coming to terms with her eating disorder and the death of her brother, and yet near the end of it I wanted her story to just roll on forever. I would have read chapters/years more of so many of these characters, and felt a pang leaving them. I liked many of these characters, or were at least very interested in their stories, and what made them tick, and the glimpses we got of their lives. The main character, Stevie, is unlikeable and bitchy for much of the first half of the novel, but in ways that were, to me, clearly presented as unreliable narrator/defensive measures, and realistic ones at that. (I also give her kudos for the complexity of the relationships she writes about, and for no one blinking about making out with boys or girls, just ‘what was that like for you? what was the impacts surrounding that? what was that relationship like for you?’ etc) This was actually a really impressive piece of work, in retrospect. I’d totally look up more by this author.

Sandstorm by James Rollins. Was recced to me as ‘like Dan Brown, but good’, and the 50 or so pages I read backed that up: mysterious artifacts wreaking havoc! Ancient mysteries! Rollins gets bonus points for having several main female characters doing multiple things and having differing agendas. It wasn’t quite enough to keep me reading, but if you’re after a Dan Brown, but good, this looks like it would solidly, solidly fill that bill.

Mort by Terry Practchett. This was his third, and it shows -- I finished it, but I was only ever charmed, and not emotionally invested in Mort, or in the princess he was trying to save. The plot seemed to take a relatively long time to appear, and it all seemed sliiightly noticeably self-conscious as a piece of writing. I’m currently reading Guards, Guards, which is noticeably stronger all round, and I’m enjoying much more.

Shipwrecks, Sailors, and 60,000 years by Jackie French. Early Australian history with a children’s audience in mind. THIS is what I want out of my Australian history. It finishes with Captain Cook, but it starts with all the Indigenous history available and easily digested, and literally spends almost half of the 170 page book focusing on how the original settlers lives, and their nations, and their ways of life and their rich cultural histories. And then it talks about the known-in-detail discoveries of the continent, never once assuming the “and Captain Cook settled the land, of course!”. I appreciated this book so much. Would absolutely read more of her Fair Dinkum Histories series. Highly recced.

(I want to figure a better title for these posts. Hmm)

1. Today was a good day, and an excellent Saturday. Woke up and did my stretches (again! nearly like a whole habit!). Got up early-ish for a weekend -- like, 8am.

2. Took Kenobi to the vet with chaosmanor. He's doing so well -- paw healing up, and generally so pleased on the Good Drugs. We're to continue to do ridic rigorous healthcare things for another week, and bring him back next Saturday.

3. I finished cupidsbower's beanie! At so long last! Now that I've reminded myself I can knit, at least for short periods, and I've removed the faint guilt of 'you should be working on the beanie', suddenly I want to knit All The Things. Next up on knitting: finish the ten-stitch doily thing from even more forever ago, and maybe start a table runner for the sideboard \o/

4. It stormed today! And wasn't too hot! Kiba was so Alert and On Guard during the whole thing, poor darling. It feels like it's rained so little, and I'm almost never home to savour it properly. I've missed it so much.

5. chaosmanor and I took Kiba to the park where he ran around happily, and fetched our somewhat clumsily thrown balls with great glee. He was less pleased with the compulsory shower afterwards (hello grass allergies, ugh), but endured it stoically.

Bonus: the I played more Fallout 4, and refreshed Tumblr a lot, and now it's not even 11:30 and I'm pleasantly tired. Winning :)

Maybe not five, but we'll see.

1. Today was a bit of a wash, mentally and productivity wise, because I was sicker (cold-ier) than I realised, and the afternoon was a bit of "sitting and staring".

2. I didn't drive to Granny's as planned because of it -- I stayed home and hung out with samvara while she played Fallout, and then I went off and played Fallout myself for a while. I did call mum though, to check that she'd got my text message about piking (1+ adult point to me!), and she was totally relaxed about it, and mentioned that Granny was also cold-ish.

3. I mentioned to her that now she'd organised her will and in particular given me enduring power of guardianship that I really wanted to sit down with her (and Granny) and have the end-of-life conversations -- what she wanted, organ donation etc. I don't think she was expecting that at all, but dude, I need it. Also, I should start thinking about my own.

4. Finally sent off the Insurance Adjustment form for my super, and got the 'change of fund' form from work. Filled out the change of fund form even! Handing it back in tomorrow. Wild progress, I hope.

5. I borrow-nicked chaosmanor's beard trimmer to buzz my underarm hair, which worked a treat (prepping to wear super pretty blue top with cap sleeves). So easy and quick.

Bonus: made smoothie! Drank it while waiting for the bus, and it was okay. Looking forward to experimenting from all your comments <3

Fellow Yuletider, hi!

Whee! Here we go again! (Alt: If it's your first time, welcome!) I hope you're excited and not freaking out too much.

My general likes/dislikes have tended to stay consistent through the years. Feel free to read back through the tags below, and this year's is below, if you want.
( likes/dislikes )

( Fandoms! )

Paths not your own (unthought knowns) (5702 words) by maharetr
Fandom: Captain America (Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Characters: Winter Soldier, Natasha Romanov
Additional Tags: Brainwashing, Memory Loss, Hydra (Marvel), Torture, Mission Fic, Pre-Movie(s), Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence

Summary:
He remembers nothing.
There is nothing to remember.
But there are things he knows.

For the first time in forever I have written and finished a thing! And I'm posting about it! *needs to go lie down now*

Ante-up Creator! Hi!

How you doing? I'm seriously excited it's that time of year again -- Losers things! I hope you're stoked, and not freaking out too badly. Hopefully you're going to look at my letter and go 'yaaay! I can do that!' If you don't... can I offer you reassuring hugs, and 'you're making something, just for me! So much love! <3.'?

Okay! This is a compilation of general notes from my Losers letter last year, and my Yuletide letter/s. You can also check out my 'dear writer' tag for the original letters.

( General things! )

( More specific things! )

( Things I'd rather/rather not have )

If you'd like to double-check something or want more specific details, I imagine you can contact kate or lady_krysis and they'd pass on a message?

Best of luck! Have fun! <3