Things Done Instead of Blogging

[leahbobet]

I appear not to have blogged in a week. It seems I really didn't have that much to say. >.>

Stuff I've been doing instead:

1) I'm the new support person for the OWW, filling ccfinlay's prodigious shoes*. This means moderating the writing list, answering support questions, and doing a grab bag of other stuff I'm just getting started on. There being some backlog, this has eaten a bit of time.

So far, I'm enjoying it. It's good work and I'm glad I put my name in for the job.


2) Essays. 'Nuff said.


3) My mommy, being a nice mommy (and no, she doesn't read this LJ, so I say that because I think so, not out of obligation) took me for a spa half-day on Sunday. Among other things, I was persuaded to get the manicure/pedicure bit in A Colour That Isn't Blue.

(I like blue nailpolish. It is more punk-rock than other nailpolish, and if you have to be painting your nails, punk-rock is a good way to be.)

Instead I got this:

I think this colour is rightfully called Death Plum. It makes me feel like a sexual predator. I see it on my little toes and think perhaps I'm not seducing and destroying enough hapless innocent men.


4) List of books I've read since the last time I did a Book Reports post:

#64 -- Austin Grossman, Soon I Will Be Invincible
#65 -- Megan Whalen Turner, The Thief
#66 -- Elizabeth Bear, Undertow
#67 -- Sean Stewart, Resurrection Man
#68 -- Stephen King, The Drawing of the Three
#69 -- Brett Savory, In and Down
not-#70 -- T. A. Pratt, Blood Engines
#70 -- Karen Joy Fowler, Sarah Canary
#71 -- Robert Charles Wilson, Blind Lake
#72 -- Nick Sagan, Idlewild
#73 -- Charles Stross, Halting State
#74 -- Robertson Davies, What's Bred in the Bone
#75 -- Emma Bull, Territory
#76 -- Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents
#77 -- Liz Williams, The Demon and The City
#78 -- Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice
#79 -- Sharon Shinn, General Winston's Daughter
#80 -- Michael Chabon, Gentlemen of the Road
#81 -- Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia
#82 -- Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia
#83 -- Tricia Sullivan, Maul
#84 -- M. John Harrison, Light
#85 -- Ellen Kushner, Swordspoint
#86 -- Liz Williams, Precious Dragon
#87 -- Justine Larbalestier, Magic's Child
#88 -- Ellen Kushner, Thomas the Rhymer
#89 -- Guy Gavriel Kay, The Summer Tree
#90 -- Guy Gavriel Kay, The Wandering Fire
#91 -- Guy Gavriel Kay, The Darkest Road

If anyone wants to hear about any of those, you may have to ask. Because I am not gonna catch up on a book report backlog that big.


5) Braindeath. Actually, most of what I've been doing this week is having braindeath.


Ba-da-bee-ba-da-beeee--- That's all folks!

*You thought I was gonna say 'pants', didn't you? Feelthy!

Comments

[timprov.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to your reaction to Swordspoint. I just finished The Privilege of the Sword and so my head's kind of in that world.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I liked it a lot. I had a Bad Moment with the teensy prologue -- the first two pages or so that were all about snow and rooftops? -- where I looked at that really stylized prose and my heart sank, because I wanted to be able to read this book and like it. Thankfully the overly stylized prose went away.

The characterization sort of made it for me; in a way Alec's the star, not St. Vier. Although it's a book ostensibly about St. Vier and where revenge within the system becomes revenge outside the system, and whether either is right, etc.? Alec is the most vivid, complex, human, fascinating character there. You can't stop watching him. He's waspish and depressive and has a spine made of iron inside. He steals the show. And he's rather unromantic: he's a pain in the ass most of the time, demonstrating that the problem with people who are flailing (as ksumnersmith has said) is that they tend to punch you in the mouth. His trouble isn't romanticized. He's wholly, messily real in a world where some of his contemporaries appear to have one foot in the realm of legend.

I thought it was really well done. Entertaining on that surface level and well-crafted and has things to say for itself. It was pretty much what I wanted to read when I brought it home. I do just wish that little intro and outro could have not happened. *g*

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

But -- But --

St. Vier is totally fascinating to me as the most unassuming and least forgettable protagonist ever. He's a professional killer who actually behaves like a professional. I read that book when it came out and remembered him perfectly even before I reread it last year.

Ellen Kushner will forever be my hero for giving me deliciously difficult-to-like characters. (Yes, Alec is unforgettable too, and another of my favorites -- I'll give you that.)

And I love that I've never heard anyone whine that it isn't a real fantasy.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Heh. I wonder what it says about me that I expect nothing less of a professional killer than professionalism? St. Vier's actions are...par for the course, almost? I give him a nod and a "very well then" and we move on with our lives.

It so is a real fantasy. Real fantasies don't need magic, I think, or even an active spec element: they can be those stories that live in the fantasy archetype world.

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

(I am strong and resist an impassioned lecture on the complexities of Richard St. Vier. We shall just have to agree to disagree. Sigh.)

Of course it's a real fantasy. People can feel it, even if they can't point to it.

But I don't think Riverside is the fantasy archetype world. It's got deep roots, but it's too particular. I can't even think of anything it's linked to.

Now I'm trying to decide if it's more or less a fantasy than, say, Tipping the Velvet (and not because I don't believe Victorian lesbians existed!)

...Yes, it's a fantasy, and Tipping the Velvet isn't.
But I don't know why.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, I'm not saying he isn't complex. It has more to do with...my expectations of professionalism than anything else?

I think it might be...tone? I dunno. There is something about that world, the pace, the way the story's told, and the combination of all that which makes this book undeniably genre. I could not put my finger on it if I tried, but it's in the fantasy mold, or something...

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

Tone, roots, and a hint of possibility, maybe -- good call.
It's a book where magic could happen, it just doesn't choose to.
(Thank you for indulging my book-geekery; I had a lovely time.)

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

It's a book where magic could happen, it just doesn't choose to.

Oh, I like that. :) That's exactly right.

I will indulge your book-geekery anytime!

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

I'd be particularly interested in hearing about #64, not-#70, and #77, if you're inclined to report about them.

I remember reading Blind Lake and feeling a bit puzzled, so I'd love to hear what you think of that one as well.

Austin Grossman -- Soon I Will Be Invincible

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

The Grossman is fun. It's somewhat first-novelly, and I do wish someone would write a superhero book where characters were not instantly matchable with their JLA counterpart, but fun.

(Really, I haven't read JLA since I was ten. And I could still do it. Writers of the universe, build a better superteam.)

The real strength of that one is in the characterization and weaving in of the thematic elements. One of the two PoV characters is your Lex Luthor archetype, and I suspect the other one exists largely to throw him into relief. There's a great discontinuity between insides and outsides here (which is thematic) and it's wonderful to watch in action. You get very used to not-Lex's narration, his idea of himself, his insights into why he is a villain and those other kids he went to school with are heroes (much hay is made in comparing the whole thing to high school politics, but subtly enough). And then he comes out and speaks actual dialogue, and it's that hackneyed, over-the-top villain dialogue, and the disjunct sends you sprawling in an incredible way. There's a lot being said in that thematically, I think: how the insides don't match the outsides. A frustration in...all those deep things, all those things that have meaning and context and how they never quite make it out, how we express in cliches without meaning to. There's a bit of sorrow for that, I think: the gap between the world in our heads and the world in the world. It's sad that they can't be the same. And of course, that leads you to the imposing of one's will on the world outside the heads: taking over the world. *g*

So yeah, it's quite coherent in its themes and how they weave into the archetype of the superhero story. Where it falls down a little is in the structure -- alternating chapters, and while that serves the book well at the beginning it slows the momentum closer to the end -- and in the other PoV character, the aspiring hero, having...not really enough to do. She has dead spots in her narrative.

Overall a good read. I'll pick up his next.

(next rock!)

Re: Austin Grossman -- Soon I Will Be Invincible

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting these and satisfying my curiosity. I'll check out the Grossman and Williams sometime soon, if I don't get distracted by other shiny things.

T.A. Pratt -- Blood Engines

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

This...just couldn't do it. Massive amount of disappointment in that, as I like this author's short work. I take it easier when a book doesn't do it for me when I wasn't expecting it to; disappointment of positive expectations hits me considerably harder.

I got about three chapters in. A lot of what I like about Pratt's shorts is the craft: this doesn't mean necessarily the stylistic elements, but the way things are put together, the joints, etc. The individual voice. I couldn't find much of that here. While I know that novels and short stories are different beasts, Strange Adventures of Rangergirl is definitely a Pratt book. Blood Engines feels whitewashed or crit-burned, or...just anonymous: it could have come from anyone. It is every other paranormal fantasy with a heroine whose violence is mistaken for assertiveness etc. etc.. It is aggressively of its type.

There are many infodumps. I suspect the book started once in a different place, earlier, and then someone said "you started too early" and now all the background that we were supposed to get from that old beginning has been airdropped into the narrative as it stands. One does not get very far without coming across an information cache. The pacing was, because of that, very stop-start. Just when something got happening, we'd fall into a pit of background.

I quit when I hit the part where the protagonist reveals herself as, well, an unrepentant sociopath.

This is not my preferred genre to read in, and up against all that stuff up above, it became time to put the book down.

Liz Williams -- The Demon and the City

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I liked this. I mean, on a craft level, they're not the best. They're sprawling, messily-paced, top-heavy monsters of books, and I wish she'd stop making every scene a chapter. But they are also so very fun. Singapore Three and the people in it are very vibrantly alive, and the plots do come together despite that top-heavy messiness, and so you can trust these books to figure it out and pull all the threads in to make something that is a satisfying and whole conclusion.

These are one of my candy reads, and I require my candy to demonstrate a certain amount of skill and intelligence (and no werewolf smut). I like them lots.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I can only endorse blue nail polish if it is sparkly blue. (I also don't do fingernails, ever, because I notice chips in it immediately and then have to take it all off.) I did, however, have a bottle of a dark chocolatey red called "vixen" for awhile there.

My most recent color has been sparkly purple, sometimes with dots of milky lavender painted on top. Not that I ever don't wear socks, this season. But I secretly have painted toenails.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

This (http://shopwiki.com/detail/?q=blue+nail+polish&s=642636&o=114175003&d=CoverGirl+Continuous+Color+3+In+1+Nail+Polish,+Electric+Blue+132) is my blue nailpolish. It was chosen because it was, while not sparkly, the bluest blue nailpolish available in the drugstore. It is aggressively blue.

The other reason I like blue nailpolish is because when it starts to chip all over? That too is punk rock. So you don't have to redo your nails after like four days if one is lazy, as I am.

[delta-november.livejournal.com]

When you were reading #89 through #91, did you not hear a little voice in the back of your head crying "Guns. Bring guns. They're easy to buy in 1980s Canada and they kill orcs but good."

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I actually did. >.>

Also, a louder voice that went "okay, this whole plot arc with Dave and his not being good with words like Kevin's good with words and neener neener Kevin? Then how the hell did he get through law school? Furthermore, why is Kim, the medical intern, just wrapping wounds up and hoping for the best with the benefit of 20th century medical training?"

I suspect this was not meant to be scrutinized. :p

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

What did you think about Fionavar? I read them last year or so, hoping to be stunned into worshipfulness... But mostly was just, "Hm, okay." :S

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I am in awe of the emotional arc. The whole sequence with Paul and the Summer Tree is...incredibly done. Most of the emotional work is incredibly done. He does use that one character in peril! trick once too often, though. The last time it happened, when the peril is in fact real and final, I didn't believe it because they'd gotten out of it twice before. That loss impacted me absolutely not at all.

I think it, in the last third, falls very much into the LotR-pattern kind of book. And I've read a lot of those, so...eh. Hm, okay. I thought all the really good stuff was in the first book, before it started to dance the dance of the obligatory quest plot coupons.

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

Yes, I will definitely agree with that. The emotional arcs *were* well done, and the Summer Tree. *nod* I liked the use of language and was curious about a few things, but I do remember not being very concerned about the final batter bits.

Good thoughts. Thank you.

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

How was the Sharon Shinn -- or, what else was it like? I loved her Summers at Castle Auburn and The Shape-Changer's Wife, liked but didn't love her Safe-Keeper's Secret, and haven't read the rest.

(Is this a new(ish) trope -- the teens-in-conquered-lands fantasies? I'm thinking The Blue Sword, A Great and Terrible Beauty, maybe Flora Segunda -- seems like there are others... They all do interesting things with it, just trying to decide if there's a pattern... Or, maybe the "new" is just that the conquered lands seem more closely related to familiar historical examples...)

(Have exceeded my ellipses quota, must stop now.)

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

The Shinn was interesting. It is...the fluffiest, girliest book about colonialism and murder ever written. Which is a little unnerving: it's light and fun and enjoyable reading and then it kinda punches you in the mouth with the brass knuckles on. But it's compulsively readable, and if you liked her other stuff I think you'll like it (those are the ones I liked of hers too). She's getting better at endings.

I think it's an old, old trope. The Blue Sword isn't a very new book, but it's very much a riff on that subgenre of Indian colonial literature. A Great and Terrible Beauty is a direct refit of Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess. Alas, I haven't read Flora Segunda. But yeah, there were tons of British books about people's adventures etc. in the colonies, and I think with the emergence of post-colonialism and the recognition of the damage colonial powers did in the places they just took over, people are revisiting that literature to put a new spin on it, argue with it, and so forth. Which is why there's lots of faux-British India showing up.

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that's what I meant to mean -- the new twist is happening now, and fantasy writers are more likely to point direct fingers at history in more complex ways, rather than move it somewhere camoflauged and safe, and keep it generically good/bad.

What I loved about those two of her books was how complicated some of the characters' choices were. It will be interesting to see if she carries that off in a fluffy girlie brass knuckles book. Thank you for the feedback!

And I absolutely loved Flora Segunda. She's gone on my hardcover buy list.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we are more likely to call society on its shit in certain interesting ways (and a hell of a lot less likely in others). That old Star Trek "it's the future so it's just made up la la la" escape clause. *g*

That's the funny thing with Shinn, and the thing I think gets her such a large audience. Her books look like girly fluff. They're really, really not. There's serious complicated plotting (actually, it occurs to me Summers at Castle Auburn is another of those postcolonialist books) and some rather brutal emotional content and the tackling of Big Issues without making them look like Big Issues. She is writing very hard books in some ways while disguising them as easy books and getting away with it. I wonder why that took me so long to notice... :p

Enough people on my flist liked Flora Segunda that I really ought to read it.

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

Summers at Castle Auburn is the disguised kind, yes, which is part of how it gets away with the Big Issues. Sounds like the new one is Big Issues with a different kind of tone/genre surface, maybe?

"...the tackling of Big Issues without making them look like Big Issues."

Exactly. More of these, please! I like smooth, transparent, preferably funny -- with Big Issues. Not picky or anything... Flora Segunda goes in this category; that's probably why it sprang to mind. Also I think Jennifer Crusie, from a different angle -- Faking It and Welcome To Temptation, anyway. (And I'm talking Big Issues in a personal sense, not in a impersonal save-the-world sense.)

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Two of the people I work with are big Jenny Crusie fans. I am never quite sure if that's one of the things I'll like; I have low overlap with their reading tastes. They're more in the romance corner of the world.

Actually, one of these days I need to get pointed to romance I would like, if it exists. I'm not sure if my reading preferences violate the genre expectations of romance books all by themselves, or if they make romance novels which are dark and gritty and realistic and everybody dies. *g*

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

Tell me your reading preferences, and I'll run it by an expert.
If you do not read at all for emotion, you probably won't like most romance. (Or horror, for that matter.)
kjones at infohell dot net if you want to take it offline.

(I hear that everyone used to die in Japanese romances, but they're switching to HEA now also.)

(IMHO, Swordspoint is an excellent romance, and abides by all the important rules, just not the publishing ones. But I do know the publishing rules, too.)

Jennifer Crusie's later work is structurally amazing to me -- she does very cool things with motifs and layers. I'm still dissecting some of her books, and I'm a pretty careful, pattern-oriented reader. Her books are as much about community and family (and not in the Family Values sense) as they are about 1:1 luv. Faking It is currently my favorite again (art forgery! Three Faces of Eve! '50s girl bands! needlepoint animals with pointy teeth! muffins vs doughnuts! and deep ouchy stuff about what it means when someone rips your art away from you.)

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I tend to read...hm. Hard SF and fairy tales, and not a lot between. I am very much about realism in characters, complex characters (Alec!), characters who have the flaws and quirks and twists of real human beings. I have no interest in protagonists who are too cool for school, which is what bars me from a lot of the chick lit I've examined.

I am also very much about rigorous story logic: it can all hang on the magic whatever, but the internal logic of the story has to match. I enjoy a good emotional arc, but again, it has to ring true.

I am not opposed to HEA, if I feel they've earned it.

Perdido Street Station was my kind of book. So is Sunshine. So is The Riddle-Master of Hed or The Last Unicorn.

Hope this is useful as a datapoint. *g*

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

That helps.

I do think you might like Faking It and possibly Bet Me (deconstructed Cinderella, with about six other areas of deconstruction in addition to the weddings mentioned in the blog buymeaclue linked to (thanks for the link!)). Faking It does actually remind me of Sunshine in some ways (emphasis on community, deconstructing the trope while contributing to the genre, focusing on practical & complicated life rather than melodrama)... And I think her characters rock.

You'll know within a chapter or two if you'll enjoy it or not (as long as you trust her to deconstruct what she's setting up.) I'll check with my romance expert for more ideas. Do you read mysteries?

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I have read some of the Cadfael mysteries and old Agatha Christies (Poirot, mostly) and liked them. I am a great fan of the entire Sherlock Holmes...which I just realized my ex might have lifted from my library two years ago, dammit.

I haven't read much that's current.

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

Okay.

(The mysteries question was in case you'd like romantic suspense, of which I know nothing. Not sure from your response.)

I think Crusie is probably the place for you to start with actual romances.

Other suggestions of fringe-romances (act like romances, read by romance readers, but not necessarily actually published as romances):

Julie and Romeo (or pretty much anything) by Jeanne Ray (Ann Patchett's mother) (because I adore her characters)
Bellwether by Connie Willis (she writes a lot of romances -- do you like them?)
The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough (great protagonist, plot perhaps lifted from LM Montgomery's the Blue Castle, but better -- reads kind of like a dusty Australian Cinderella to me, but with a bit of kick)
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

and finally -- this is really not a romance, but I suspect you might love it: The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett.

(Yeah, I know -- not what you asked for, so I'll see what my expert can dig up, too... I think my favorite historicals-with-witty-banter would really not be your cup of tea. Unless you love To Say Nothing of the Dog as much as I do?)

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Oh, I loved Bellwether. I like Willis's stuff because it's...deconstructive at the same time it's providing a straight plot of whatever it's riffing? Actually, the same way Shinn's works, but more deliberately obvious. Uncharted Territory was very much that kind of book.

I find To Say Nothing of the Dog fairly charming, but I don't know that I'd want to read more of it.

I will try the above ones and report back!

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

I like Willis's stuff because it's...deconstructive at the same time it's providing a straight plot of whatever it's riffing?

That's how Crusie works, too (at least for my reading of her work).

No guarantees you'll like the others, but we can hope for the best. They aren't really deconstructive, though, so if you hate the characters, stop.

Good luck!

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Crusie is in some ways the romance writer for readers who don't like romances. Which isn't to say that they _aren't_ romances. But they do things (interest in family, strong female relationships, mostly smart and independent characters) that don't trip my usual romance hot buttons, at least.

(This is a neat post about how she subverts and also upholds romance novel convention: http://orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com/105179.html)

If the spirit moves, I'd be interested in your thoughts about any or all of these:

#65 -- Megan Whalen Turner, The Thief
#67 -- Sean Stewart, Resurrection Man
#76 -- Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents
#81 -- Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia
#82 -- Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia
#83 -- Tricia Sullivan, Maul

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

It now being Sunday, I suspect I'm not going to get to book-reportage for this batch until I'm out of this next week and the hell it brings. M'sorry. :/

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

No worries! You could even not get to book-reportage ever and that would be okay. :-p

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I see it on my little toes and think perhaps I'm not seducing and destroying enough hapless innocent men.

There aren't enough hapless innocent men. Damn it.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they closed the factory. :/

[monkeyman.livejournal.com]

That's because nowadays too many women are posting on their blogs and giving their plans away. ;)

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

That's because nowadays too many women are posting on their blogs

And men. *g*

And you'd think all those hapless boys would be happy. They know exactly where to queue now!

[monkeyman.livejournal.com]

Well, by definition, they aren't heavy on the sense.

[monkeyman.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed Undertow. Not an all-time favourite but a damn good book.

And I am looking forward to that Charles Stross when I can afford it. Glasshouse was a big step forward for my relationship with his books -- up until then, I thought he was a great writer, but I didn't really feel much for his characters.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

It's a good book. It's not as good as Glasshouse, I think, but that was an excellent book.