Finished:
Okay, I'm formally halting my push through The second mountain, and taking a leaf out of my own advice. "If you've renewed it twice and still haven't made it [an arbitrary distance in, but I know it when I feel it, each book], then are you really enjoying it? You don't have to keep reading, you know…" I might dip in and out, but not trying to achieve anything anymore.

Instead, I'm reading backwards through the 13 Stories, 13 Doctors, and it's like a breath of fresh air of being Able To Finish A Thing. So you're getting each story individually, if briefly.

The thirteenth doctor: Time lapse by Naomi Alderman. Ahahahaha, okay, I retract some of my bitterness. The dislike of the POV stands, but the reveal spoilers ) was excellent, and worth reading, even if moar spoilers )

The twelfth doctor: Lights out by Holly Black. Solidly written. Neat concept, and the emotional arc was a good one. I was abruptly So Tired of heterosexism, though, and of what felt like the unnecessary human-related puberty elements. There's a whole new bunch of species you’ve got going there! Do get even more creative, please.

The eleventh doctor: Nothing o'clock by Neil Gaiman. I dislike the abrasive relationship between the doctor and Amy, but I frequently disliked that it in the show. That said, the central idea! Holy SHIT. HOLY SHIT. Thank you, Mr Gaiman, I think, for the most effective jump scare/eye-widening moment of horror I've read in living memory. BRAVO, sir.

Currently reading:
The tenth doctor: the mystery of the haunted cottage charmingly meta so far, and has made me chuckle several times.

The big book of post-collapse fun by Rachel Sharp. I keep putting off reading this, even though it's comparatively very short, in case it's really not as good as I was hoping. Also I kinda worry it'll unsettle me if I read it too late at night, which, as two concepts together are sort of contradictory. Heh.

Up next:
As many of the Dr Who stories as hold my interest.
I'm also eyeing off Exhalation by Ted Chaing – more short stories.

Also, argh. I have been burned by the last…three? Lee Child/Jack Reacher books, but I picked up the (next one? Past tense, anyway) and the opening pages are so seductively good. This is Sherlock Holmes for people skills, and it's all my competency kinks rolled into one, and yet bitterly burned. *makes face*
Finished:
To be taught, if fortunate by Becky Chambers.
This was a very companionable read. It’s the sort of plot of a road trip novel in space, if the road trip had been funded by earth crowdfunding, which is sort of what’s happened here. The writing is a slight step below spectacular maybe (which is still head and shoulders above most works), but the world building is top notch, as is the feel of the science, and the depictions of the wonders – and traumas – of space and other planets. I found myself very faintly impatient with the ending while I was reading it, and then while I was drifting off to sleep that night, I found myself thinking of the ‘discoveries’ my mind thought we’d just learned we’d made, and then thinking ‘yes. Go on. Yes.’ – the story felt that real that it had just gently settled itself into my consciousness, and that’s unsettlingly cool. The quote that the title comes from was written at the end, and is fucking amazing.

Currently reading
The second mountain by David Brooks. Still reading. I feel like it’s starting to spin its wheels a little, 100 pages in, so I’m hoping for new material and ideas soon. ETA: true to form, the chapter ‘Vampire Problems’ was not at all what I thought it was going to be about (how to stop say, toxic people dragging you down), and was in fact about how to make a choice that was going to entirely change your identity and selfhood, when you only have previous/current self’s knowledge on how to make that choice. Fantastic concept, that then also slid back into repetitive examples. In theory persisting, in practice I’m putting off reading it, but I also feel like I’m putting off reading anything at the moment, so grain of salt.

The big book of post-collapse fun by Rachel Sharp. I was deeply charmed by what I read in the sample, and wanted to curl up in this world, with this character, enough to buy the book. The rest of the book is slightly more wobbly than that, but I’m reading along, gamely enough.

Time lapse (The 13th doctor short story) by Naomi Alderman. This reads very much like an episode. That’s…not a bad thing, I guess? And it’s a neat premise for an episode – everyone on the planet has forgotten the year 2004 – but I’d been hoping for a written story, something that showed me the inner thoughts of a particular character, say. I read an interesting post about point of view, and how basically ‘camera length’ away from the characters POV is an entirely valid point to write from, and it might be! It’s just not the version I prefer, and it’s the version I’m trying to write myself away from. There’s so little feeling or intimacy with it, and that’s what I realise I’m craving in my fiction.

Up next:
Um. Maybe T Kingfisher’s horror story? I dunno how wise a choice that is, though…
Finished reading:
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood.
Huh. Where to start? I know that some of my reactions to various things were blunted because I'd already processed the things having read surprisingly … not spoilery, but a surprisingly detailed descriptions of some book moments in a review. So, I'll go below a cut.

No explicit spoilers I don't think, but don't read if you'd rather go in cold to your own read )

We who are about to… by Joanna Russ, published 1976.
A spaceship accident strands a small, disparate group of people on an unknown planet, hundreds of years from rescue. The female narrator isn’t interested in uselessly maintaining humanity. The first half of this was more harrowing reading than The Testaments, actually. For all that Gilead is horrific, and chews people up and spits them out, there’s a structure here, even if it sucks. Like the Joker says: “Everyone stays calm if things are going to plan. Even if the plan’s horrifying.”

Is there a point to surviving? Is there a point to keeping ‘humanity’ going in a place where natural attrition means we’ll die out much sooner rather than later? Russ says no, and while I’m hypothetically inclined to agree, watching the disagreements flare into violence and force and then disintegrate entirely, is grim stuff. I was utterly gripped by the first half. The second half meandered as the character chose to starve, and then gripped me for the last few pages so tightly I barely breathed.

There’s an opacity to Russ’s writing – there’s conclusions reached or ideas formed that seem to be happening just under the surface of the paragraphs, and I can’t tell if that’s the narrative choice to not state them aloud, or if I’m not making the connections. I’m also not sure if it’s a 1970s thing or a Russ thing. I’m pretty sure I found similar issues with the parts of The female man that I read. Glad I read it, if only to have read something from 45ish years ago. Not sure how I felt about it as a novella unto itself.


Currently reading:

The second mountain by David Brooks
Absolutely captivated by his chapters on the valley and the wilderness – those metaphorical (or literal) times when life smacks you off your stable perch and leaves you rattled and questioning everything, and you need to go away for a while to reassess you Everything. Less convinced by his writing on the soul – I think we have one, but I also think animals have souls, too. I am deeply distrustful of any ‘things that separate us from animals!’ spiels at this point. Although I think he’s talking about a moral centre and I’m talking about a life force, so *shrug*. Continuing to read with interest, little bits at a time.

To be taught, if fortunate by Becky Chambers.
Started! I love her concepts SO MUCH. I keep forgetting her writing isn’t as quite as polished and deft in turn. This is still good, twenty ish pages in.


Up next:
Argh, I feel like there’s so many, again, but my brain’s not working.
Finished reading
On eating meat by Matthew Evans. I stalled out on this one for a while there, and I’m not totally sure why. Possibly because I was feeling bogged down in a technical details and the like, and when I don’t have a whole lot of brain to spare, it all felt like too much effort. Have pulled through that and into the later part of the book which is about balancing humanity’s diets and land use. It’s really noticeably western-centric in these parts. Not in an unexpected way, I guess, but there’s been no mention of the entire swaths of the world that are lactose-intolerant (or, to put it more realistically, have not needed to develop the tolerances to consume another species’ milk). And possibly he doesn’t need to mention it, it just feels like a notable silence.

Having now finished. He makes some excellent points (by which I mean I agree with a lot of them, if not all of them), but it also feels a bit like all he's made are points, rather than a coherent overarching argument. Part of that might be that there are just a lot of disparate points that make up a whole, but it also made for disjointed reading, which was also possibly why it took me so long. Chapters didn't flow into each other or connect to each other, and even the points made within chapters didn't flow, and were often broken up with a … I don't know the technical term, a fancy page break symbol, which didn't help. 3.5 whatevers out of 5.

Currently reading
How powerful we are by Sally Rugg. All of the behind-the-scenes (and before camera) activism by GetUp and co on the campaign for marriage equality. Sally Rugg is fantastic, and I'm loving this, and have been inhaling this. The wins and the sacrifices, the regrets, and the raging, and the battle still to come.

The second mountain by David Brooks. Tentative chapter skimming. Reading the introduction, and already found an 'oof' line: "A commitment is falling in love with something and then building a structure of behaviour around it for those moments when love falters." (page xx)


Up next

I have a Plan, Goddammit. Once I finish Powerful, I get to buy The Testaments on Tuesday from Rabble Books. Oh god so much trepidation, so much interest. There’s talk of it being about the downfall of the Gilead regime, and I trust Atwood to do it much, much more than I trust the show to show a rebellion/fighting back against Gilead.

I'm also gonna read the 13th doctor's short story, which I got from the library, purely because Naomi Alderman wrote a 13 story, and I’m here for both of these things, so hard. And then work my way backwards through the doctors, and see how many I get through.

Longer-term side plans.

Becky Chambers novella "To be taught, if fortunate..", and the Joanna Russ novella "Those who are about to…". I learned about the latter after reading about the former, and they sound like the flip sides of the same coin – both extensive space travel, one brutally grim and the other hopeful. We'll see.

The post-apoca book of fun by Rachel Sharp.

I also somewhere in all this want to watch the last season of Black sails. Oh, self.
maharetr: Comic and movie images of Aisha's eyebrow ring (The Losers) (Default)
( Aug. 26th, 2019 10:12 pm)
Finished reading:
Dead blondes and bad mothers by Sady Doyle. Loved it. Had tiny quibbles (it wasn't immediately clear if the work she referenced at the start of one chapter was fiction or non, for example), but that doesn't stop it from being a brutal 4.5 out of 5 in-the-end hopeful stars.

Put aside:
The light between worlds by Laura E. Weysmouth. British children during the Blitz are sucked away to a portal fantasy land, and then returned. This is, in theory, the story of their lives after. In practice…ehhhhh. For context, I am d e s p e r a t e for narratives that talk about what it's like After you get back from years of growing into power/adulthood in your fantasy world, to be thrust back into your child/teenage body like nothing has happened, and how you cope, and what you do. I'm also desperate for a fictional narrative that interrogates Narnia's "the humans are here! We are saved and shall be subservient!"

This…wasn't that. And it's not at all fair of me to judge a book by what it isn't, but I'm still also finding myself judging it for what it is doing, from a writing POV. The present day narrative had no hooks, or momentum for me, and the portal-fantasy chapters didn't have any relationship to the present day. They also jumped forward considerably, and didn't do anything to negate the 'this is already over and done with' in-the-past effect. I had no questions, aside for why the main character and her sister weren't talking, and that was not actually enough to keep me reading past page 100. Alas.

Currently reading:
On eating meat by Matthew Evans. The prologue was a bit lurchy, but the book has promise for when I'm feeling mildly fortified.

Up next:
SO MANY books are coming out Very Soon, and I don't have brain to list them atm.

I tentatively borrowed David Brook's The second mountain from the library, and am just as tentatively considering reading it.
What I'm reading:
Put aside:
Blackout: How is Energy-Rich Australia Running Out of Electricity by Matthew Warren. It's time to admit I don't have the brain space for 'entirely new-to-me topic' right now. It might be worth picking up over the holidays when I've got less going on.

Currently reading
Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power by Sady Doyle. This was one I've had my eye on for a while. I half-accidentally subscribed to the free section of Doyle's essay email list Thing, and she very sensibly opened up her email essays to non-paying subscribers in the lead up to her new book, because damn she's good at this, and I never would have thought to buy it without that nudge. It was even worth giving Amazon money for the ebook, honestly.

Bad mothers is an impeccably referenced (SOURCES, FOOTNOTES, THANK YOU), compelling written cultural analysis of women-as-monstrous in western culture. It dissects the brutal loop between cultural narratives about women, cultural representations (books, movies) of those narratives, and then the very real violence that men inflict on women as a result, closing the loop. It’s gruelling reading, but Doyle's warmth and humour shines through. Her dry, deadpan comment about Bram Stoker's wedding night had me muffling my laughter on a packed morning train. I've inhaled about 30% in three days, which is good going for me right now. I'm also keen to get back to it each time, which is so very welcome.

Up next:
The light between worlds by Laura E. Weymouth, waiting on reserve for me at the library!
DNF:
The secret runners of New York by Matthew Reilly
This was on my possible to read list, and then the universe dropped it in my lap, so I snapped it up. Matthew Reilly seems like a really nice guy! I've met him a few times. I adored Ice Station, even if I couldn't bear any of his others, at all. I live/d in hope of finding another Ice Station, and I was super into the synopsis of this: time travelling girls, post-apoca, and running? Hells yes, yes please. Goodreads described it as Gossip Girls meets Fury Road which … okay? Willing to give that a go.

The prologue was…not well written. Which is potentially fine, I'm willing to put up with clunky writing in order to read a good time travel, honestly, and I know Matthew Reilly is not actually a wordsmith. But then we hit the main story, and *exhales*. Angry ranting below: sexism, racism, ableism )

Finished reading:
The gentleman’s guide to vice & virtue by Mackenzi Lee. To my pleased surprise, this saw its improbable alchemy conclusion all the way through, utterly straight-faced it (pun not intended), and then stuck the queer romance landing. It made me all misty, even. Really, really pleased. I'll probably take a break between this one and P&P so I don't risk burning out on the style, but I'm looking forward to it.

Currently reading:
Blackout: how is energy-rich Australia running out of energy? by Matthew Warren (Still) reading. I'd not picked it up for most of the week, low-key resisting the dryness, but I'll keep persisting, a few pages at a time.

Up next:
Not sure, still. Some sort of fiction to balance out the non-fiction, I imagine. Probably Family of Origin. Also, self, start pre-ordering things while you can in fact pre-order them and count towards people's stats.

THE LIST
Non-fiction
- On eating meat, by Matthew Evans – an ethical omnivore’s take on eating meat
- Growing Up Queer in Australia, edited by Benjamin Law
- Quarterly Essay on Safe Schools, Moral Panic 101, by Benjamin Law
- Dead Blondes & Bad Mothers: on monsters & the fear of female power, by Sady Doyle, out 13/8/2019
- Yes Yes Yes: Australia’s Journey to Marriage Equality by Shirleene Robinson, Alex Greenwich
- How powerful we are, by Sally Rugg, out this month. Another marriage equality campaign book, that I’m looking at specifically because there’s apparently a chapter on the impact on queer Australians during the vote, which is not something that I’ve been able to find any sort of data on at all.

Fiction
- The lady’s guide to petticoats and piracy, by Mackenzi Lee
- Family of origin – novel by CJ Hauser of above article, which was released two weeks ago.
- The light brigade by Kameron Hurley – still waiting curiously to see if this is going to make it to Australia
- Seafire – N C Parker – girl pirates!

New addition!:
- The light between worlds by Laura E Weymouth. Looks like Every heart a doorway but better
As I emerge, blinking, from the depths of months of Hugo reading…

Finished reading:

Vox Machina : Origins (I, graphic novel)
I'd heard...not great things? But they were going Cheap, and I'd been hearing Much better things about Origins II that's just rolling off the press now, so.
Vox Machina : Origins I, Issue 1 wow, so Matt Colville really doesn't like Vex, huh? (I don't know the difference between a 'story by' and a 'script' credit, but I'm stubbornly in denial that Matt Mercer might have written Vex that cold) Having said that, the twins banter actually still made me laugh aloud, and the comedic timing with Keyleth was pitch-perfect. So that's rather large something. And I like the art a lot.
Issue 2...it's sort of a problem when I legit feel more for the random nameless paladins and their dead party member, and like Tiberius Stormlord, more than Grog or Scanlan. Like, that's not great. Then on into Issues 3-6 The comedic timing of the twins becomes actual sniping and arguing when they're alone, apparently, and I hate that. The art is still impressive, but I'm feeling like this is a comic that's really only for diehard fans, and I say that as someone who's watched nearly the first quarter of campaign 1. Or it's just not that great. I have more hopes for Origins II, given that's being helmed by the woman who's also writing/helming the animated series. Also I've heard people who've griped about I speak far more warmly about II

The crane wife by CJ Hauser. Okay, it's not a book, but I still want to quietly cup it in my hands and offer it to people. It's a memoir article by a woman who cancelled her wedding a week out from the big day, and why, and how she's grappling with her life, and it's fucking devastatingly good. Content notes for infidelity, but also subtle, brutally effective gaslighting and emotional abuse. It made me cry, and made me feel infinitely fragile and also bigger than I had been before I started it. Set aside ten minutes to read it, and then time after for a quiet sit and a cup of tea, or something.

Currently reading:
Blackout: how is energy-rich Australia running out of energy? by Matthew Warren The 'setting of the basic groundwork' of the early chapters was also 'teetering in the edges of my ability to understand and retain'. A diagram or two might have helped. I'm deep in the chapter on political decisions that got us to now, and all the places that I'm seeing where things could have been achingly different. I didn't know Melbourne was one of the first cities in the world to have a(n embryonic) electricity grid. It's sort of inescapably dry, but still good, necessary knowledge to have.

The gentleman’s guide to vice & virtue by Mackenzi Lee. Well-to-do son of an earl goes on his Grand Tour/1800s gap year. This is charming and queer and well-written, and often deftly funny in that sort of way that looks effortless but takes real skill. It actually reads like quality fanfic (pleasing tropes especially), which I appreciate in spades in a published book. The author does point out racism and sexism, pointedly. I would have also preferred a stab at the colonialism inherent in both the era and the idea of a Tour, but that might have made it a rather different book. As it is, the writing style carries the day. The plot itself wobbles a little on the fact that while alchemy might have been a serious field of study in the 1800s, we still don’t have a cure for (spoiler redacted), so the main impetus falls a little to the side. At 350 of 520 pages, I'm still enjoying myself, though, and I'm really looking forward to the sequel/companion book which focuses on Felicity, who I'm adoring.


Up next:
Not sure. There's a bunch of things that I've either bought (On eating meat, by Matthew Evans), or been gifted (P&P), plus books that are about to come out any second now…(I'm trying to compile a list)

On eating meat, by Matthew Evans – an ethical omnivore’s take on eating meat
The lady’s guide to petticoats and piracy, by Mackenzi Lee
Family of origin – novel by CJ Hauser of above article, which was released two weeks ago.
Growing Up Queer in Australia, edited by Benjamin Law
Quarterly Essay on Safe Schools, Moral Panic 101, by Benjamin Law
Dead Blondes & Bad Mothers: on monsters & the fear of female power, by Sady Doyle, out 13/8/2019
Yes Yes Yes: Australia’s Journey to Marriage Equality by Shirleene Robinson, Alex Greenwich
How powerful we are, by Sally Rugg, out this month. Another marriage equality campaign book, that I’m looking at specifically because there’s apparently a chapter on the impact on queer Australians during the vote, which is not something that I’ve been able to find any sort of data on at all.
The light brigade by Kameron Hurley – still waiting curiously to see if this is going to make it to Australia
Seafire – N C Parker – girl pirates!
Hugo 2019 graphic novel category done about as much as I'm going to get to, probably. Now with feelings-thoughts on Black Panther and Abbott (and a bunch of the rest) here.
General thoughts on:
The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton
Tess of the road, by Rachel Hartman
The cruel prince by Holly Black
The Call
Children of blood and bone

Now with Dread nation by Justina Ireland

Some emotional beat spoilers for the Belles, and there's a fair amount of overall feelings, if you're the easily influenced type *raises hand* )
General thoughts on:
The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton
Tess of the road, by Rachel Hartman
The cruel prince by Holly Black

Now with The Call and Children of blood and bone.

Some emotional beat spoilers under a second cut for the Belles, and there's a fair amount of overall feelings, if you're the easily influenced type *raises hand* )
The Lodestar (Young Adult Not-Hugo) ballot now, because that's what came back to the library first.
The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton
Tess of the road, by Rachel Hartman

Now with The cruel prince by Holly Black

Some emotional beat spoilers under a second cut for the Belles, and there's a fair amount of overall feelings, if you're the easily influenced type *raises hand* )
maharetr: Comic and movie images of Aisha's eyebrow ring (The Losers) (Default)
( Apr. 4th, 2019 09:53 pm)
Have finished:
My grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry by Fredrik Backman. Finished, with a few tears on my part, and some low-key odd ableism on the author's part (not naming the 'boy with the syndrome', ever? Really?), and some tiny puzzlements, but still satisfying and I'm glad I read it. Was very similar to Extremely loud and extremely close from some years back, but I liked it much, much better. It felt like it was much less about making a Grand Point, and more about telling a cosy story about a group of people.

Strange waters Samantha Mills. OH GOD. So each year I mean to do at least some reading of the works rounded up by Asking the wrong question's Abigail Nussbaum as Hugo nominations in time to actually add my nomination. This year at least, I got around to reading one or two at all, never mind the long-past deadline *cough*. But HOLY GOD, I hope this short story made it. (ETA: sad it didn't, but so it goes) I love time travel stories So Much, as a preface, and this one both mashed my buttons and is also, I think, devastating in its own right. 6000 or so words and highly recced.

Currently reading:
Spindle's end by Robin McKinley. Despite my frustrations with Beauty, the things I loved about it were enough to sway me into picking up the next available (to me) one. I'd actually read the first page a few times over the last few years, and kept bouncing off it for whatever reason, but apparently cosy domestic magic is 1000% what I'm about right now, because yup here for needing to de-magic your teakettle and asking bread to stay bread, very much. A hundred or so pages in and it strikes me as a deeply leisurely read, and one that I don't wan to rush through for the sake of having read it, so I'm putting it aside for a few months probably because...

Up next:
Clearing the decks because the Hugos are here! The Hugos are here!
.

Profile

maharetr: Comic and movie images of Aisha's eyebrow ring (The Losers) (Default)
maharetr

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Powered by Dreamwidth Studios

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags