amo, amare, amaui, amatus/a/um (sum)

[timeripple]

I have just realized something about my Goat-Girl stories. There’s no angst or personal drama, ever. Everyone is just too darn happy. For a girl who’s spent half her life as a goat, our heroine is amazingly well adjusted. Somebody will have to have a Dark and Mysterious Past.

snowqueenofhoth, this song is entirely too catchy. It is like a Japanese "Surfin' USA". I blame you.

Monday, 22 October 2007
Oh, my throat. Owwwww. Called in sick and spent the day lounging around reading some of yesterday’s acquisitions...

You must understand that yesterday I set out on foot through the rain, trusty umbrella in hand, radiating my innocent ambition of finding some place called Kidsbooks. I was just fine on the five-block downhill trek, past the gas station and pub on Broadway, and down another block of apartment buildings. But then... O then, dear readers, I was distracted by a large sign reading “Used Books & Records.” I stumbled out in triumph an hour later bearing The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy, and The Light Princess and Other Stories and The Grey Wolf and Other Stories by George MacDonald. Thinking that these were sufficient previously-owned riches for one afternoon, I sauntered on my merry way beneath the dripping awnings. I may have also been humming “Into the Woods”. Fatefully so, dear readers; for soon thereafter I happened upon another used bookstore with a few perfunctory shelves of mystery and fiction and an entire three walls of SF glory. I placed the following upon the counter for purchase:

Shards of Honor, by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Warrior’s Apprentice, by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vor Game, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Moon-Flash, by Patricia McKillip
Bellwether, by Connie Willis

only to be informed that a sixth purchase would secure a twenty-percent discount. At the current exchange rate, who am I to argue with such bounty? So I added to the stack Daughter of Exile by Isabel Glass. Yes, I can spot a Kinuko Craft cover at fifty paces, why do you ask? :P

I never did make it to Kidsbooks.

All this book-buying seems a little extravagant to me, but one must keep in mind that there is a civic strike on and therefore there are no libraries. Also, I now work in the publishing industry (sort of)! It is my duty to familiarize myself with the material of my profession. It is Research.

Do you have a favorite Lois McMaster Bujold book? How about a favorite picture book? How about a favorite picture book published in 2006 or 2007 (more research)?


Saturday, 27 October 2007
There are no words to describe adequately the wonder that is the UBC Educational Library. An entire floor full of picture, children’s, and YA! I nearly fainted from glee. I promptly made off with Alanna: The First Adventure and In the Hand of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce and The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. I spent most of In the Hand of the Goddess saying things like “George! Jonathan! Why?”, “What? No!”, “She’s totally going to end up with Jonathan, isn’t she”, “Poor, poor Alex!”, and “That is NOT what I meant!!!”. I am now reading The Thief and being amused by everyone’s obsession with soap.


The people in my publishing class are providing me with lots of fodder for observation. There is the one with green hair and combat boots; the previously-published one; the one who starts every sentence with “JK Rowling...”

This is going to be entertaining.

Comments

[cadragongirl.livejournal.com]

have you ever read the day boy & the night girl by george macdonald? that's one my favorites by him, though i often wondered during what part of the day did they actually did to sleep?

i like your goat-girl stories, as you very well know, & i personally wouldn't change anything, but you haven't exactly finished the last one yet, have you? at least, i have yet to see the next bit & have been waiting for quite a while. *poke, poke, nudge, nudge*

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

Photogen and Nycteris? I love that one! Also The Light Princess.

Goat-Girl
Er. *meekly goes to look stuff up about the Plot Point Kourios*

[kayselkiemoon.livejournal.com]

I wrote you an email and left you a voice message! did you get them? perhaps the gmail address I used is no longer what I should use? *misses you*

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

No, no, I got your email! I shall reply in detail shortly, never fear! If you called my cell phone, though, I'm afraid I won't get the message until I get back to CA. I'll send you my updated contact info and a pretty postcard to boot. Vancouver has much prettier postcards than LA. :) *misses you too*

[snowqueenofhoth.livejournal.com]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha


Oh, T&T how I love thee. ♥

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

*l* Most Jrock I can take or leave, but that one is just TOO FUNNY.

[kayselkiemoon.livejournal.com]

my cell phone, though, I'm afraid I won't get the message until I get back to CA.

good heavens! well, that makes sense. what are you doing for a phone in the meantime? for local calls and your parents and whatnot?

yay postcards! ^_^

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

I have a cell phone, but I have to iron out some details with the company. And apparently voicemail is a feature you have to request during set-up, grrrr. Bizarre. As for the parents, email has kind of always been our staple because unless I actually live with them, the call is long distance, and email is just easier for me because I am incapable of having a Regular Schedule.

[satakieli.livejournal.com]

You found a copy of Shards of Honor that was just Shards of Honor? Oh, how I envy you! Also, you remind me that I must check The Light Princess out of the library here. It's been too long since I read it, and the family copy is, naturally, with the family rather than with me.

My favorite Bujold is probably Memory or Komarr, for various reasons, though I have a soft spot for Falling Free; my engineering-sf fanishness goes way back. Paladin of Souls is something special. Of those, only Falling Free can ideally be read without previous ones as enriching background, though one of the nice things about Bujold is the way that (at least until these last few books) any one of her books picked up individually could be enjoyed that way. Favorite Bujold is difficult to answer. Least favorite is much easier! The Hallowed Hunt, no contest. :-)

Did you just start reading Bujold?

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

I picked up A Civil Campaign just this last summer and gradually became fascinated. I do have to say that all the various - what are they? Not omnibus(es), but two or three in one volume - are really confusing. Having read A Civil Campaign, I am desperate to find Komarr. (And oddly enough I seem to have a soft spot for That Idiot Ivan. Cordelia, of course, = WIN.) I must keep a lookout for Paladin of Souls; I seem to remember a delighted furor on several fronts when it was published.

[satakieli.livejournal.com]

That idiot Ivan has definitely grown as a character since The Warrior's Apprentice. He's always had more going on than Miles could see, though.

I've heard Cordelia described as the ultimate published Mary Sue. Would that all Mary Sues were written so well!

heh... When I started reading the Miles books, my sister wrote out a suggested reading order so I could go through them without looking at the spoilerific timelines. The collections weren't out at that time; I can only imagine how they must complicate things.

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

Would that all Mary Sues were written so well!

If only!

One of the things I love about the books is the number and variety of foils: Ivan vs Miles, Miles Vorkosigan vs Admiral Naismith, Cordelia vs the whole of Barrayaran society...

Since I started almost at the end of the series (to date, anyway), I find the timelines more helpful than not. Although they are kind of spectacularly spoilerific, aren't they!