brainwane: My smiling face, including a small gold bindi (Default)
I know many people use Wednesday as a regular "post to Dreamwidth about what media you're experiencing" day. I don't necessarily intend to keep up that tradition, but this week I add my voice to the multitude.

Reading: I just finished Phyllis Ann Karr's At Amberleaf Fair which I found via a Jo Walton list of books in which no bad things happen. Indeed it is very low-stakes compared to a lot of fantasy! Leonard heard me describe it and suggested the adjective "cozy". Maybe! It's a short and gentle read, and I enjoyed it in ways that reminded me of the bits of the Steerswoman series where Rowan spends time learning about, like, the Outskirters. Also I have been attempting to close tabs which means reading short speculative fiction and in some cases liking it well enough to bookmark it as a recommendation.

Listening: I've been listening to radio shows and podcasts that play lots of music, like my friend Mike's show on his old college radio station, this chill KEXP mix that reminds me of "Music from the Hearts of Space," and BBC Introducing Mixtape. RIVVRS's "Run" in this episode reminded me of Guster's "Center of Attention".

Watching: We're watching The Repair Shop for comfort some nights while watching dinner -- so soothing, people fixing things -- but also mostly keeping up with the same stuff that [personal profile] skygiants is, the National Theatre and Shows Must Go On plays. This past weekend Leonard and I decided to skip The Sound of Music because I didn't want to feel rushed trying to watch that and do WisCon. And we got about 25 minutes into A Streetcar Named Desire (I've seen a production before, he hasn't) and stopped and will not finish; I don't want to have to deal with watching Blanche duBois right now.

Playing: Just Animal Crossing, still. Less in the past few days because of WisCon and work. I wonder what the next big time-limited thing will be.
brainwane: My smiling face, including a small gold bindi (Default)
I am rereading a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine branded novel, A Stitch in Time, which is basically Garak's memoir about his entire life. It is written by Andrew Robinson, the actor who played Garak, and in it he is clearly bisexual (which is also how Robinson, in the DS9 documentary that came out 1-2 years ago, said he played Garak (even though it was never explicit in the dialogue)). And I just find it so charming and cool that Robinson got so great at being inside Garak's head that he was able to write this entire backstory novel.
brainwane: My smiling face, including a small gold bindi (Default)
I was reading a bit of military SF whose protagonist is a woman, and it got into more "galaxy-spanning intrigue and conspiracy" stuff, and I realized that what I had actually wanted was chick lit about a woman's career as a space mercenary and her ambition to get promoted. (As Leonard put it, "Can a space woman have it all?")

I welcome recommendations for, like, The Devil Wears A Prada EVA Suit. Pro fic and fan fic are both of interest!

(So far I think what I know to read in this subgenre is Elizabeth Moon's work (edited 30 Jan to add: I read a single Moon book once, Trading in Danger), and Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik which someone recommended.)

Feel free to publicly link this to help find more recommendations!
brainwane: My smiling face, including a small gold bindi (Default)
A blog carnival you can join:

You know those books that you can’t stop thinking about, won’t shut up about, and wish everyone around you would read? The ones that, if taken in aggregate, would tell people more about you than your resume? I decided I wanted to write a list of those. Then I told some friends, and they wanted to write their own lists too. So we’re going to do a little blog carnival, and I’d like to invite you (yes, you) to join us.


Participate between now and December 15th, 2019! I'm going to.
brainwane: My smiling face, including a small gold bindi (Default)
I have now read The True Queen, Zen Cho's latest novel! It was diverting but I didn't love it as much as I enjoyed Sorcerer to the Crown.

pretty spoiler-free review )

Anyway! It has many fine qualities, it's funny in places, it just didn't strike me the way some of her previous work did, but I continue to be a fan of her work!
brainwane: My smiling face, including a small gold bindi (Default)
Over on my general blog I posted about loving Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman series, which I just devoured!!!
brainwane: My smiling face, including a small gold bindi (Default)
Last night I finished Ann Leckie's new book Provenance. I enjoyed it! Some thoughts:

* Leckie writes fairy tales -- by which I mean this is a novel about an ugly-duckling princess, justice, and the importance of speaking respectfully to strangers. And a Leckie book is clear in its moral message: treating others like things is wrong, respecting and taking care of others is right, see examples A1-ZZ6.

spoilers )
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I read an advance reader's copy of Ada Palmer's debut novel Too Like the Lightning, which comes out today. It's good in a lot of ways. But it also deserves tons of content notes and trigger warnings, for, among other things, graphic depictions of sexual assault and murder and incest. And, specifically, you as the reader will be asked to sympathize with and share spoiler ) I wish more of the reviews of this book specifically and clearly said this.

Good things: In some ways it feels like Stephenson's The Diamond Age in a good way (world-spanning and engaging with the futures of Asian civilizations, rethinking of nation-states, an important child, touches of Enlightenment retro discourse), and it also reminds me of how I enjoyed Locke's Up Against It (mystery investigation driving the plot along urgently, musings on vocation, the alienness of a sub-society that innovates with bodymods, easy transport across long distances, lots of characters in their 70s or older, high-stakes intrigue among kings and their viziers). More about Palmer's interaction with history in her blog posts about the book.

This is the kind of scifi-of-ideas that award-nominatey people will be talking about, I predict. And I may well write more about it sometime.

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