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timerippleBCMFest yesterday: A day of music, song, dance, and frozen margaritas. And frozen me. It was COLD. I skipped the ceilidh because I have massive bruises on both knees and what I think are shin splints from trying to walk in all this ice.
I'm now sitting in my garret, chair pulled up to the drafty window. Outside I can see the snow-dusted sidewalks and trees and other snow-capped garret roofs and the church and it's all too romantic for words, it really is.
Christmas vacation was pretty quiet. It snowed the first week, which meant a white Christmas for the first time in my life. Watched samurai movies with my dad. Baked a mountain of cookies, then had to eat them. Usually for New Years we sit around, watch TV, and do puzzles. This year would be different, I vowed.
This year, there would be Scrabble.
The pond thawed out enough for me to go down and check on the JE fish a few times. I saw (probably) the same one of the Tomas a few times, and the last day there were at least six fish hanging out-- Toma, Toma, a few others, and one that was either unexpectedly undeadfish!Senga or unexpectedly bigfish!Chinen.
I did some reading along with the residual teenage sulking, so I should probably talk about that.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. It was cool and beautifully written, because this is Gaiman, but I always feel kind of let down or baffled by his Big Final Confrontation Scenes. Or something. I dunno. I liked it quite a lot, but wasn't overwhelmed with love.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling. The tales were cute, but the best part was Dumbledore’s commentary. Oh, Dumbledore! Never let it be said that that wizard did not have an ego.
Queen’s Play by Dorothy Dunnett. Second in the Lymond Chronicles. Francis Crawford continues to be brilliant and strange and of labyrinthine mind, and (bizzarely) instigates a mad scavenger hunt across the rooftops of Renaissance Paris, among other things. Dunnett has a real gift for awesome secondary characters who are much more accessible than her hero. Somehow she even makes this work. In this book, she pulled off a really good fake-out with one of them early on. I love a really good fake-out. Also massive political scheming, good-guy royalty, and a plot point menagerie.
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. Like Queen’s Play, this book features massive political scheming, good-guy royalty, and a plot point menagerie. It also covers standard fantasy territory, which I’ll confess I was a bit wary of. Kingdoms in peril. Beautiful (if intelligent and brave) princesses. Nonstandard spelling and unpronounceable names. Sigh.
But Self, I said to myself, This is Lois McMaster Bujold. This is the author who made you like science fiction. (Well, her science fiction.) Her nonstandard spelling and unpronounceable names signal not fantasy convention but well-developed sociopolitical systems. You like well-developed sociopolitical systems, I said to myself. Give it a chance.
So I did, and it was good. I liked the older-but-wiser hero, the politically savvy women, the foreign-language grammar lessons, the complex religion involving five gods, one of which is named the Bastard. I mean, come on! How awesome is that? Bujold’s writing about sex can be self-conscious to the point of coyness, but luckily things like character and plot get in the way of that.
I love unique, memorable characters, and Bujold’s great at that (see also Miles Vorkosigan; That Idiot Ivan). But she also excels at plot, and plot is my Secret Weakness as a reader. Character is important. Voice is crucial. But oh, how I adore plot! I keep it close and visit it clandestinely by moonlight and bring it shiny presents, and it whispers sweet, sweet things to me in the dead of night.
Ahem. Moving right along, but still in that vein:
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I know, I know. But it is my duty. I first got interested in the phenomenon when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cleolinda started writing her insightful and increasingly hilarious commentaries. And I kind of wanted to see the movie after reading some of the actor interviews and things. So. I may need to re-read, because I read it on two airplanes and was kind of groggy at the time. But I do have a few thoughts. 1) Bella is so empty that she makes a really good reader proxy; 2) Edward (as has been said before and not by me) has no personality; and 3) he chuckles his lines far too much.
The movie was SO MUCH much better, I don’t even have words for it. And thus are all those placards in the Coop reading “The Book Is Always Better!” proven wrong.
Actually, the book kind of reminded me of Elsie Dinsmore somehow. Huh. (It should be noted that this is not a shining recommendation.)
Well, after all the bloated descriptions and mindless detail and Bella’s constant whining, I wanted something slim and quietly beautiful; something understated and unique and wonderful. So I picked up my ARC of Heartsinger by Karlijn Stoffels (tr. Laura Watkinson). It hits shelves this month, so if you want an antidote to Twilight, check it out!
Speaking of unspeakably beautiful books, I brought back with me both volumes of The Orphan’s Tales by Catherynne M. Valente. While I can live without them by my side, and have done so, I don’t want to any longer. *snuggles them, but carefully, because they have thorns*
And on a different note, after reading an article about Mara Kay’s Masha, I’ve become interested in school stories. Any recommendations? Magic is of course a plus but not required!
I'm now sitting in my garret, chair pulled up to the drafty window. Outside I can see the snow-dusted sidewalks and trees and other snow-capped garret roofs and the church and it's all too romantic for words, it really is.
Christmas vacation was pretty quiet. It snowed the first week, which meant a white Christmas for the first time in my life. Watched samurai movies with my dad. Baked a mountain of cookies, then had to eat them. Usually for New Years we sit around, watch TV, and do puzzles. This year would be different, I vowed.
This year, there would be Scrabble.
The pond thawed out enough for me to go down and check on the JE fish a few times. I saw (probably) the same one of the Tomas a few times, and the last day there were at least six fish hanging out-- Toma, Toma, a few others, and one that was either unexpectedly undeadfish!Senga or unexpectedly bigfish!Chinen.
I did some reading along with the residual teenage sulking, so I should probably talk about that.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. It was cool and beautifully written, because this is Gaiman, but I always feel kind of let down or baffled by his Big Final Confrontation Scenes. Or something. I dunno. I liked it quite a lot, but wasn't overwhelmed with love.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling. The tales were cute, but the best part was Dumbledore’s commentary. Oh, Dumbledore! Never let it be said that that wizard did not have an ego.
Queen’s Play by Dorothy Dunnett. Second in the Lymond Chronicles. Francis Crawford continues to be brilliant and strange and of labyrinthine mind, and (bizzarely) instigates a mad scavenger hunt across the rooftops of Renaissance Paris, among other things. Dunnett has a real gift for awesome secondary characters who are much more accessible than her hero. Somehow she even makes this work. In this book, she pulled off a really good fake-out with one of them early on. I love a really good fake-out. Also massive political scheming, good-guy royalty, and a plot point menagerie.
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. Like Queen’s Play, this book features massive political scheming, good-guy royalty, and a plot point menagerie. It also covers standard fantasy territory, which I’ll confess I was a bit wary of. Kingdoms in peril. Beautiful (if intelligent and brave) princesses. Nonstandard spelling and unpronounceable names. Sigh.
But Self, I said to myself, This is Lois McMaster Bujold. This is the author who made you like science fiction. (Well, her science fiction.) Her nonstandard spelling and unpronounceable names signal not fantasy convention but well-developed sociopolitical systems. You like well-developed sociopolitical systems, I said to myself. Give it a chance.
So I did, and it was good. I liked the older-but-wiser hero, the politically savvy women, the foreign-language grammar lessons, the complex religion involving five gods, one of which is named the Bastard. I mean, come on! How awesome is that? Bujold’s writing about sex can be self-conscious to the point of coyness, but luckily things like character and plot get in the way of that.
I love unique, memorable characters, and Bujold’s great at that (see also Miles Vorkosigan; That Idiot Ivan). But she also excels at plot, and plot is my Secret Weakness as a reader. Character is important. Voice is crucial. But oh, how I adore plot! I keep it close and visit it clandestinely by moonlight and bring it shiny presents, and it whispers sweet, sweet things to me in the dead of night.
Ahem. Moving right along, but still in that vein:
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I know, I know. But it is my duty. I first got interested in the phenomenon when
cleolinda started writing her insightful and increasingly hilarious commentaries. And I kind of wanted to see the movie after reading some of the actor interviews and things. So. I may need to re-read, because I read it on two airplanes and was kind of groggy at the time. But I do have a few thoughts. 1) Bella is so empty that she makes a really good reader proxy; 2) Edward (as has been said before and not by me) has no personality; and 3) he chuckles his lines far too much. The movie was SO MUCH much better, I don’t even have words for it. And thus are all those placards in the Coop reading “The Book Is Always Better!” proven wrong.
Actually, the book kind of reminded me of Elsie Dinsmore somehow. Huh. (It should be noted that this is not a shining recommendation.)
Well, after all the bloated descriptions and mindless detail and Bella’s constant whining, I wanted something slim and quietly beautiful; something understated and unique and wonderful. So I picked up my ARC of Heartsinger by Karlijn Stoffels (tr. Laura Watkinson). It hits shelves this month, so if you want an antidote to Twilight, check it out!
Speaking of unspeakably beautiful books, I brought back with me both volumes of The Orphan’s Tales by Catherynne M. Valente. While I can live without them by my side, and have done so, I don’t want to any longer. *snuggles them, but carefully, because they have thorns*
And on a different note, after reading an article about Mara Kay’s Masha, I’ve become interested in school stories. Any recommendations? Magic is of course a plus but not required!
