#another thing i loved in that connie willis novel
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My media this week (3-9 Jul 2022)
📚 STUFF I READ 📚
🥰 The Way I Feel For You (Becassine) - 77K, Stucky, omegaverse fake-dating - reread, forever fave, has every yummy thing I love about these tropes
😊 Cards On The Table (Agatha Christie, author; Hugh Fraser, narrator) - would genuinely love to know if the line in ABC Murders sparked this or if AC already had it planned and slipped that line in as a clever easter egg; love this one for bringing so many of her 'slueuths' together, just like I loved it when HP worked with Mr. Satterthwaite
😊 The Company You Keep (orbingarrow) - post-WS canon divergent, background stucky but really very Bruce focused, really enjoyed these characterizations and seeing Bruce front & center
🥰 Paradise Lost & Found (Jennifer Knightley) - delightful contemp romance set in a tropical wedding resort with a jilted groom & a rebound fling that (obvs) develops feelings.
🥰 To Say Nothing of the Dog: Or How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last (Oxford Time Travel #2) (Connie Willis, author; Stephen Crossley, narrator) - it's been 20 yrs since I read this; a mash up of the vibes of Victorian comic literature, '30s golden age detective fiction and PG Wodehouse into a delightful time travel adventure romp. It does feel a little dated in some of the characterizations, but sadly kotowing to the narcissistic, abusive, imperious, unreasonable, reality-denying billionaire on the off chance she might donate some money and everyone pretending her behavior is 'whimsical' and 'hilarious' and not absolutely toxic feels unfortunately super fucking contemporary (but shout out to naming her Lady Shrapnell - absolute *chef's kiss* to that Wilde allusion)
🥰 Read, White & Blue (JJK) - 99K, shrunkyclunks - canon divergent newly defrosted Steve and librarian Bucky; loved it!
💖💖 +69K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖
two more in the fantastic Differently Okay Local Idiots series by One-EyedBossman (desert000rose) & SecretFandomStories, which has no-powers vets Steve & Bucky figuring out how their jagged edges fit together in a D/s relationship: Part 6: Charlie Foxtrot (16K) and Part 7: De Oppresso Liber (12K)
put out this fire (burning in my soul) (liloau, thatsmysecret) - MCU: Stucky, 19K - reunited childhood friends with firefighter Steve, a cat up a tree and a DELIGHTFUL Winnifred Barnes (the audio prompt for this was fucking hilarious and the fic absolutely did it justice)
Lesson One: La Petite Mort (AidaRonan) - OFMD: BlackBonnet, 3K - after an offscreen reunion & reconciliation, Stede and Ed come together
Take Your Time Coming Home (odetteandodile) - MCU: Stucky, 13K - reread, love this prewar 'hot rack' flatshare sorta epistolary romance
📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺
Olivia Colman reads a letter responding to an unsolicited penis photograph
Benedict Cumberbatch reads Nick Cave's letter about grief
Armistead Maupin reads a letter to his 16-year-old self
Shirley Manson reads a powerful feminist letter to her niece
Legends of Tomorrow - s6, e14-15
Our Flag Means Death - s1, e6-7
Murder In Provence - s1, e1
Bringing Up Baby
The Brokenwood Mysteries - s8, e1-2
What's Up, Doc?
🎧 PODCASTS 🎧
Sidedoor - Get Off My Lawn
🎶 MUSIC 🎶
Classic Tropical Hits
Evening In Havana
Presenting MCR
The Hits: '70s
#sunday reading recap#bookgeekgrrl's reading habits#bookgeekgrrl's soundtracks#on vacation this week but also i went visiting and so i did not accomplish as much reading as i had hoped#fanfic ftw#letters live#bringing up baby is still amazing#100% made me want to rewatch What's Up Doc? again#so we did#my parents and i were *delighted* to see new brokenwood mysteries though!#sidedoor podcast#another thing i loved in that connie willis novel#was a reasonable in universe explanation for the protags to sometimes be a little slow on the uptake#just to make the shenanigans multiply#fan makers are a *gift*
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So, June was a month! Felt like several, but apparently still just the one. Usually I measure the length of a month in books read—more books equals a “faster” month, fewer books equals a “slower” one—but that doesn’t work this time. I read nine books, so about my average. I think the number of “this was fine” books skewed things, as did The Hands of the Emperor which was excellent, but also very long.
And yes, I’ve finally read The Hands of the Emperor! It was everything I expected it to be and more, and just lovely and charming and cozy and all of things. I am bummed that my library doesn’t have the sequel, not that I’d be launching into it right off anyway. It’s the principle of the thing. The only reason it didn’t get my Review of the Month is because it’s hard to take photos of ebook covers….
On the opposite end of the spectrum, my TBR shelf book this month was a last-minute scramble and I opted for something short as a result. (And a classic, because I hadn’t read one of those in a while.) Tortilla Flat really hasn’t aged well, folks. Let’s all hope my next classic is better.
The other last-minute addition to this post is DIGGER IS HERE! I got the notice that it shipped late last week but didn’t think it would be coming to my door quite so soon. It has bookmarks, plural, you guys! I would be jumping into it next except that I’ve barely finished Shubeik Lubeik and I need to put space between excellent graphic novels.
Next up, though? One of the ARCs I hauled this month is The Frugal Wizard’s Guide to Surviving Medieval England. I’m going to be starting it today.
(Episode Thirteen is my other hauled book this month. I’d forgotten I’d requested a copy from a book rep.)
Other life events? I finally saw The Importance of Being Earnest performed! Another last-minute thing, that. I heard about it near the end of May and dithered about getting a ticket because the theatre was a bit of a trek, and then went, well, when else am I going to see it… Worth it, and that’s one thing off my bucket list.
Hopefully July has a lot of good books to make up for the kind of average reading month I’ve just had. Wish me luck!
And now without further ado, in order of enjoyment…
The Hands of the Emperor - Victoria Goddard
Cliopher, Secretary to His Radiancy, the Last Emperor of Astandalas, invites his lord on a beach vacation. He has no idea how this will change the world—or his life.
8.5/10
Pacific Islander-coded protagonist, cast contains a range of ethnicities and skin tones, 🇨🇦
Shubeik Lubeik - Deena Mohamed
A Cairo kiosk owner tries to sell off three wishes. It doesn’t quite go as planned.
9/10
Egyptian cast, largely Muslim cast, Egyptian author, #ownvoices for Egyptian
warning: depression, suicidal ideation, death of a child
Shadowlands - Matthew Green
Short histories of lost settlements from across the UK.
7/10
The Golem of Brooklyn - Adam Mansbach
Len creates a golem while stoned. This is only his first poor decision of the week. Road trip, anyone? Out in September
7/10
largely Jewish cast, 🏳️🌈 (lesbian) secondary character, Jewish author, #ownvoices for Jewishness
warning: anti-Semites, white supremacists, homophobes
The Helios Syndrome - Vivian Shaw
A freelance necromancer must help determine why an airplane crashed, while being haunted by a pilot.
7.5/10
🏳️🌈 (gay) protagonist, 🏳️🌈 (gay/bi) secondary character, 🏳️🌈 author
The Dress Diary of Mrs. Anne Sykes - Kate Strasdin
A history of Victorian fashion through the lens of a fabric scrapbook.
7/10
The Gifts - Liz Hyder
In 1840s England, a woman grows wings, a storyteller comes to London, a wife grows unsatisfied, and a doctor gets ambitious.
7/10
Black British POV character, 🏳️🌈 secondary character (gay)
warning: racism, misogyny, animal death, medical content
The Road to Roswell - Connie Willis
Francie travels to Roswell to save her college roommate from a misguided marriage, and promptly finds herself on an involuntary road trip with an alien.
6.5/10
Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck
A group of friends ramble around old-time Monterey.
3.5/10
multiracial protagonists, largely BIPOC cast
warning: racism, misogyny, alcohol, racial slurs
The Gay Best Friend - Nicolas DiDomizio
Dom’s best friends are getting married! Which is great, except he’s having to keep secrets for both of them and maybe he needs to think a bit about expectations and authenticity.
5/10
🏳️🌈 protagonist (gay), 🏳️🌈 secondary character (gay), 🏳️🌈 author, #ownvoices
Currently reading:
Nothing! I start July with a clean slate.
Stats
Monthly total: 10
Yearly total: 62/140
Queer books: 2
Authors of colour: 1
Books by women: 6
Authors outside the binary: 0
Canadian authors: 1
Off the TBR shelves: 1
Books hauled: 2
ARCs acquired: 5
ARCs unhauled: 4
DNFs: 0
January February March April May
#books#booklr#bookblr#adult booklr#book covers#book photography#my photos#reading wrap-ups#read in 2023#book recommendations#rec lists#who queue?
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Books, May - June 2021
Tess of the Road - Rachel Hartman [dnf]
A River of Stars - Vanessa Hua
The Sealed Letter - Emma Donoghue
Giant Bones - Peter S. Beagle
Moominsummer Madness - Tove Jansson *
The Beacon at Alexandria - Gillian Bradshaw *
The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster *
Libertie - Kaitlyn Greenidge
Stay - Nicola Griffith
Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age - Annalee Newitz [Thoroughly enjoyable, but also the sort of pop archaeology book where things like this happen repeatedly, and I’m sorry, but I laughed: “And then, as if by magic, the eminent University of Cambridge archaeologist Andrew Wallace-Hadrill appeared.” (As far as the narrative admits, they did not have an appointment; while they were wandering around Pompeii, collecting information about his speciality, he was wandering around Pompeii, happy to be encountered and become a source.)]
Teach Me - Olivia Dade
The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power - Deirdre Mask
We Are Watching Eliza Bright - A.E. Osworth [“I am not going to read the gamergate novel,” I said, “and especially not when it’s using 1st person plural MFA POV half of the time,” but then I voyeuristically devoured the gamergate novel which is, really, its point: “We are obsessed with what goes on where we can’t see it.”] *
Ivory Apples - Lisa Goldstein [what the hell?!? no.]
The Future of Another Timeline - Annalee Newitz
The Scarlet Seed - Edith Pargeter [the scenes that made me cry as a child still make me cry now, and that’s rather nice]
The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo - Zen Cho [Five books later, I’m prepared to admit that Zen Cho and I aligned for one glorious novel and some related characters (Sorcerer to the Crown; Rollo & Aunt Georgiana), and I’m mostly indifferent to everything else, but I keep trying because there’s always a sentence like this: “Being good-looking and interesting and having the heavy-lidded gaze of a romantic tapir does not excuse writing a foolish book.”]
Elementals - A. S. Byatt
Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth - Kevin M. Levin
What Katy Did Next - Susan Coolidge
Feed the Resistance: Recipes + Ideas for Getting Involved - Julia Turshen et al.
A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby - Vanessa Riley [dnf]
The Sibyl in Her Grave - Sarah Caudwell
Sabriel - Garth Nix *
Outcrossing - Celia Lake [dnf]
Mending Matters: Stitch, Patch, and Repair Your Favorite Denim & More - Katrina Rodabaugh [so I feel like this was a couple of blog posts inflated into a book]
Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake - Alexis Hall [extremely funny, made me want to bake during a heat wave, likely to suffer in reviews from mismatched genre expectations: it’s romantic comedy, not romance (I’ve just looked and yep! this is a major complaint)] *
Tales from Moominvalley - Tove Jansson
Goblin Fruit - Celia Lake [dnf]
Coffee Boy - Austin Chant [trying to do more than its length and thin characterization can carry, but also heartening in the main character’s explicit refusal to embody a limited and patronizing narrative of marginalized suffering; I wouldn’t want every trans romance to do this so overtly, just as I don’t want every queer romance to be about overcoming homophobia, but I want a few of them to (fair also to note that in contemporary settings, I find boss/intern scenarios really unappealing, and no, I don’t care if they talk about it; had it been longer I would almost certainly have bailed)]
Uncanny Valley - Anna Wiener [didn’t really plan to read this; definitely didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did - I thought it would be just another new adult navel-gazing indictment of tech bros, and it is, but it’s got seriously good style to go with it] *
Lord John and the Private Matter - Diana Gabaldon
Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England - Amanda Vickery
On Juneteenth - Annette Gordon-Reed
Salt Magic, Skin Magic - Lee Welch
Lord John and the Hand of Devils - Diana Gabaldon [read the first two novellas, but my tolerance for Diana Gabaldon’s Diana-Gabaldon-ness is relatively low and the second novel wore it out; dnf]
Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade - Diana Gabaldon
A Seditious Affair - KJ Charles [because once you’re 75+ comments into an increasingly-involved modern AU, the only reasonable thing to do is give in (looking back at the innocence of this mid-June annotation...oh, you sweet summer child)] *
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America 1619-2019 - edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain [in the end, I’m not sure the organizing principles of 5 year chunks and short word counts really allow enough scope for many of the essays, but look for this to show up on Most Challenged lists and as a target of reactionary legislation anyway]
A Gentleman’s Position - KJ Charles [see prev. entry in series]
The Secret Adversary - Agatha Christie [sometimes you should not reread your childhood books]
Fire Watch - Connie Willis
The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh - KJ Charles [possibly shouldn’t be an entry, but what the heck, it’s sold separately; see prev. entry in series]
The City of Brass - S. A. Chakraborty
American Quilts: The Democratic Art - Robert Shaw [that subtitle tells you exactly what to expect from the text, but the quilts are lovely]
Engaging Diverse Communities: A Guide to Museum Public Relations - Melissa A. Johnson
Strange the Dreamer - Laini Taylor [dnf]
#books 2021#books practical and pleasurable#i repeat:#are surprise!sexuality reveals actually a surprise to straight people? sometimes i wonder#beginning and ending with failure: how human
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WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING LATELY
Kage Baker’s Company Series
In the Garden of Iden
Sky Coyote
Mendoza in Hollywood
The Graveyard Game
The Life of the World to Come
The Children of the Company
The Machine's Child
The Sons of Heaven
The Empress of Mars
Not Less than Gods
Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea
Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers
Gods and Pawns
In the Company of Thieves
Ø Science Fiction written by a woman with Asperger’s. Wildly uneven. Main protagonist is female, but there are lots of POV characters, male and female.
Ø Big ideas.
Ø Lots of adventure, some action.
Ø Small doses of humor.
Neil Gaiman
Good Omens (with Sir Terry Pratchett)
Neverwhere
Stardust
American Gods
Anansi Boys
The Graveyard Book
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Ø Neil’s books are a road trip with Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and a baggie full of sativa.
Ø Ideas are incidental. The Milieu’s in charge.
Ø Adventure happens whether you like it or not.
Ø Cosmic humor. The joke’s on us.
Connie Willis’s Oxford Time Travel Series
Firewatch
Doomsday Book
To Say Nothing of the Dog (and the novel that inspired it – Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat)
Blackout/All Clear
Assorted:
The Last of the Winnebagos
Ø Connie loves her historical research. Blackout/All Clear actually lasts as long as the Blitz, but anything in the Oxford Time Travel series is worth reading. Doomsday Book reads like prophecy in retrospect.
Ø One idea: Hi! This is the human condition! How fucking amazing is that?!?
Ø Gut-punch adventure with extra consequences. Background action.
Ø I’d have to say that Doomsday Book is the funniest book about the black death I’ve ever read, which isn’t saying much. To Say Nothing of the Dog is classic farce, though. Girl’s got range.
Neal Stephenson
Snow Crash (After the apocalypse, the world will be ruled by Home-Owners Associations. Be afraid.)
Cryptonomicon
Anathem
Seveneves
Ø Neal writes big, undisciplined, unfocused books that keep unfolding in your mind for months after you’ve read them. He’s a very guy-type writer, in spite of a female protagonist or two. Seveneves, be warned, starts out brilliant and devolves into extreme meh.
Ø Big. Fucking. Ideas.
Ø Battles, crashes, fistfights, parachute jumps, nuclear powered motorcycles and extreme gardening action. Is there an MPAA acronym for that?
Ø Humor dry enough to be garnished with two green olives on a stick.
Christopher Moore
Pine Cove Series:
Practical Demonkeeping
The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror (Okay, yeah, Christmas. But Christmas with zombies, so that’s all right.)
Fluke (Not strictly Pine Cove, but in the same universe. Ever wonder why whales sing? They’re ordering Pastrami sandwiches. I’m not kidding.)
Death Merchant Chronicles:
A Dirty Job
Secondhand Souls (Best literary dogs this side of Jack London)
Coyote Blue (Kind of an outlier. Overlapping characters)
Shakespeare Series:
Fool
The Serpent of Venice
Shakespeare for Squirrels
Assorted:
Island of the Sequined Love Nun (Cargo cults with Pine Cove crossovers. I have a theory that the characters in this book are direct descendants of certain characters in Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.)
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal (So I have a favorite first-century wonder rabbi. Who doesn’t?)
Sacre Bleu
Noir
Ø Not for the squeamish, the easily offended, or those who can’t lovingly embrace the fact that the human species is pretty much a bunch of idiots snatching at moments of grace.
Ø No big ideas whatever. Barely any half-baked notions.
Ø Enthusiastic geek adventure. Action as a last resort.
Ø Nonstop funny from beginning to end.
Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London Series
Rivers of London
Moon Over Soho
Whispers Under Ground
Broken Homes
Foxglove Summer
The Hanging Tree
The Furthest Station
Lies Sleeping
The October Man
False Value
Tales From the Folly
Ø Lean, self-deprecating police procedurals disguised as fantasy novels. Excellent writing.
Ø These will not expand your mind. They might expand your Latin vocabulary.
Ø Crisply described action, judiciously used. Whodunnit adventure. It’s all about good storytelling.
Ø Generous servings of sly humor. Aaronovitch is a geek culture blueblood who drops so many inside jokes, there are websites devoted to indexing them.
John Scalzi
Old Man’s War Series:
Old Man’s War
Questions for a Soldier
The Ghost Brigades
The Sagan Diary
The Last Colony
Zoe’s Tale
After the Coup
The Human Division
The End of All Things
Ø Star Trek with realpolitik instead of optimism.
Ø The Big Idea is that there’s nothing new under the sun. Nor over it.
Ø Action-adventure final frontier saga with high stakes.
Ø It’s funny when the characters are being funny, and precisely to the same degree that the character is funny.
Assorted:
The Dispatcher
Murder by Other Means
Redshirts (Star Trek, sideways, with occasional optimism)
Ø Scalzi abandons (or skewers) his space-opera tendencies with these three little gems of speculative fiction. Scalzi’s gift is patience. He lets the scenario unfold like a striptease.
Ø What-if thought experiments that jolt the brain like espresso shots.
Ø Action/misadventure as necessary to accomplish the psychological special effects.
Ø Redshirts is satire, so the humor is built-in, but it’s buried in the mix.
David Wong/Jason Pargin
John Dies at the End
This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It
What the Hell Did I Just Read?
Ø Pargin clearly starts his novels with a handful of arresting scenes and images, then looses the characters on an unsuspecting world to wander wither they will.
Ø Ideas aren’t as big or obvious as Heinlein, but they are there to challenge all your assumptions in the same way that Heinlein’s were.
Ø Classic action/adventure for anyone raised on Scooby-Doo.
Ø Occasional gusts of humor in a climate that’s predominantly tongue-in-cheek.
Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St. Mary’s Series
Just One Damned Thing After Another
The Very First Damned Thing
A Symphony of Echoes
When a Child is Born*
A Second Chance
Roman Holiday*
A Trail Through Time
Christmas Present*
No Time Like the Past
What Could Possible Go Wrong?
Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings*
Lies, Damned Lies and History
The Great St Mary’s Day Out*
My Name is Markham*
And the Rest is History
A Perfect Storm*
Christmas Past*
An Argumentation of Historians
The Battersea Barricades*
The Steam Pump Jump*
And Now for Something Completely Different*
Hope for the Best
When Did You Last See Your Father?*
Why Is Nothing Ever Simple*
Plan For The Worst
The Ordeal of the Haunted Room
Ø The * denotes a short story or novella. Okay, try to imagine Indiana Jones as a smartassed redheaded woman with a time machine and a merry band of full contact historians. I love history, and I especially love history narrated by a woman who can kick T. Rex ass.
Ø The ideas are toys, not themes. Soapy in spots.
Ø Action! Adventure! More action! More adventure! Tea break. Action again!
Ø Big, squishy dollops of snort-worthy stuff.
Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell Series
The Beekeeper's Apprentice
A Monstrous Regiment of Women
A Letter of Mary
The Moor
Jerusalem
Justice Hall
The Game
Locked Rooms
The Language of Bees
The God of the Hive
Beekeeping for Beginners
Pirate King
Garment of Shadows
Dreaming Spies
The Marriage of Mary Russell
The Murder of Mary Russell
Mary Russell's War And Other Stories of Suspense
Island of the Mad
Riviera Gold
The Art of Detection (Strictly speaking, this is in the action!lesbian Detective Kate Martinelli series, but it crosses over to the Sherlock Holmes genre. If you’ve ever wondered how Holmes would deal with the transgendered, this is the book.)
Ø Sherlock Holmes retires to Sussex, keeps bees, marries a nice Jewish girl who is smarter than he is and less than half his age and he’s mentored since she was fifteen in an extremely problematic power dynamic relationship that should repulse me but doesn’t, somehow, because this is the best Sherlock Holmes pastiche out there. Mary should have been a rabbi, but it is 1920, so she learns martial arts and becomes an international detective instead. Guest appearances by Conan Doyle, Kimball O’Hara, T.E. Lawrence, Cole Porter, and the Oxford Comma.
Ø Nothing mind-expanding here, unless the levels of meta present in a fictional world that is about how the fictional world might not be as fictional as you thought come as a surprise to anyone in the era of tie-in books, films, tv, interactive social media and RPGs.
Ø If these two geniuses can’t catch the bad guys with their dazzling brilliance, they will happily kick some ass. Adventure takes center stage and the action sequences are especially creative.
Ø Amusement is afoot.
Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next Series
The Eyre Affair
Lost in a Good Book
The Well of Lost Plots
Something Rotten
First Among Sequels
One of Our Thursdays is Missing
The Woman Who Died a Lot
Ø In a world where Librarians are revered and Shakespeare is more popular than the Beatles, someone has to facilitate the weekly anger-management sessions for the characters of Wuthering Heights, if only to keep them from killing each other before the novel actually ends. That someone is Thursday Next – Literature Cop.
Ø Mind-bending enough to give Noam Chomsky material for another hundred years.
Ø Adventure aplenty. Action? Even the punctuation will try to kill you.
Ø This is a frolicsome look at humorous situations filled with funny people. Pretty much a full house in the laugh department.
Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Series/City Watch Arc
Guards! Guards!
Men at Arms
Feet of Clay
Jingo
The Fifth Elephant
Night Watch
Thud!
Snuff
Raising Steam
Ø If this were a game of CLUE, the answer would be Niccolo Machiavelli in Narnia with a Monty Python. Everything you think you know about books with dragons and trolls and dwarves and wizards is expertly ripped to shreds and reassembled as social satire that can save your soul, even if it turns out you don’t really have one. Do not be fooled by the Tolkien chassis – there’s a Vonnegut-class engine at work.
Ø Caution: Ideas in the Mirror Universe May be Larger Than They Appear
Ø The City Watch arc has plenty of thrilling action sequences. Some other of the fifty-million Discworld novels have less. Every one of them is nonstop adventure. Most of the adventure, however, takes the form of characters desperately trying to avoid thrilling action sequences.
Ø Funny? Even though I’ve read every book in the series at least ten times, I still have to make sure I have cold packs on hand in case I laugh so hard I rupture something.
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Steven Universe Graphic Novel Camp Pining Play (2019) - Outline & Review
The fourth original graphic novel for Steven Universe, Camp Pining Play, is a new story for the Lapis and Peridot fans, presented as a theatre project but focusing on relationships and emotional resolution more than anything. It’s new content–unlike some of the trade paperbacks that collect previously released individual issues of the comics. It is written by Nicole Mannino, with illustrations by Lisa Sterle and a cover by Francesca Perrone.
This graphic novel involves Peridot and Lapis falling in love with a piece of Camp Pining Hearts fanfiction--which turns out to have been secretly written by Lars--and after they get permission and have auditions, they put on a play that becomes ever more loosely based on the original fan work. Everyone involved seems to have input that takes the story farther from its origins, but they're determined to still present its heart . . . which becomes difficult when Lapis is uncomfortable with a central facet in the finale--a pretend fusion--but doesn't feel empowered to speak up about it even though Peridot keeps checking in with her. It's actually pretty nuanced throughout despite also having a lot of pretty superficial gags, and every character works pretty well as themselves on more than one level despite this being written by people outside the show team. As usual with my reviews, I'll discuss the story and then present a list of notable items.
(I’ve got to cut for length, sorry. Please look at the amazing sample panels under the cut even if you don’t want to read all my rambles about it.)
[SU Book and Comic Reviews]
The story:
Peridot and Lapis are reading and enjoying Camp Pining Hearts fanfiction, relishing the author's faithfulness to the show while featuring their favorite non-canon ship (Percy x Pierre). Lapis indulges Peridot's desire to hear her "Percy voice," and they praise the fanfiction while kicking around ideas of how it could become more real--like maybe it could be made into a real episode or an animated adaptation. Soon, though, they decide a play would be a great idea, though they would have to find the author and get their permission.
Using her homemade app Find-A-Clod, Peridot discovers the identity of the fanfic author, and who should it be but good old Lars Barriga--the local "Donut Butler," as Peridot calls him. Predictably, Lars first denies his authorship, then requests secrecy while admitting it. Sadie, it turns out, also knew of his hobby, and she's edited his work tirelessly all along. Lars gives his permission for them to put on a play (as long as he gets to critique it from the shadows and not have his name attached in any way), but now they have another problem: How do you even put on a play?
Sadie jumps into the organizing chair, giving suggestions worthy of Peridot's title "Donut Master." She comes up with a series of steps, manages to get Mayor Dewey's permission, and receives a one-week planning timeframe. They jump into auditions next, and though everyone's enthusiastic, no one seems too fixated on what roles they want to play (besides Amethyst, who really wants to be a shell necklace used as a prop). Steven, as the most handsome human Peridot knows, gets propositioned to play Pierre, and Pearl becomes Paulette. Lapis is elected to play Percy even though she doesn't think she's actually as cool as the character is.
After the auditions, it's time for props. Lapis and Peridot make the actors create the props, though they soon find they need to give more direction or they'll get a bunch of junk they can't use. The sets and props become amalgams of what people can make and bring from home.
Finally, the rehearsals start. Everyone's struggling a little, from people who can't get their lines right to actors trying to destroy the props (well, Onion trying to destroy the props). But most of all, everyone seems to be awkwardly going through the motions, and Lars keeps shrieking "BOO!" because of how unlike his original story everything's going. Soon they come up with some ideas about making the presentation more their own so their characters won't be so awkward, and to help with the lack of chemistry between Percy (Lapis) and Pierre (Steven), Connie comes up with a unique idea. . . .
She suggests Lapis and Steven should fuse!
Well, that's a controversial statement. Peridot's against it because she thinks their actions are enough to show their affection and they don't need fusion, and Garnet is opposed to fusion as a stage trick. But Connie isn't suggesting it willy-nilly; she thinks they'll need something big to really emphasize the characters' connection, and Amethyst thinks it'd make them seem "strong." But then everyone has ideas on how to change the story or characters, and the core creators of the production are split on how to feel about it.
The blessing is given to include more personal interpretation into the characters. Most importantly, though, Peridot decrees that the fusion at the end needs to be a fake fusion. Lapis isn't up for fusion, though she refuses to say so and ruin everyone else's time. Peridot believes this is a good compromise, but Lapis is still nervous. She keeps it to herself and the rehearsals continue.
The day before opening night, Peridot and Lapis have a heart-to-heart, because Peridot can tell Lapis is holding back a bit. She finds herself unwilling to be specific about her issue, while Peridot goes on a bit about how fun it's been to find a good balance between following rules and enjoying some flexibility. Lapis claims she's just a little shy, and pretends she is okay with the fake fusion scene. She clearly feels like she doesn't have any business objecting since it's not real, and Peridot simply takes her word for it. They distract themselves by fooling around doing voices of the characters.
Opening Night arrives and the audience is full of Beach City residents as well as some visitors. Peridot makes a speech backstage thanking everyone for helping (even the people who don't want to be acknowledged, like Lars), and she emphasizes that she appreciates Lapis's partnership. It's a very sweet moment.
But as soon as everyone scurries off to their places, Lapis gets nervous. The beginning scenes go on as planned, but then Lapis stalls with her entrance because she's freezing. She can't think about anything except how she'll have to fake a fusion. Sadie, as a background tree, gives Lapis a pep talk, and then Onion shoves her onstage and she tries her best.
There are a few minor mishaps, but everyone mostly relaxes and carries out their roles. But then the climax occurs--Lapis's character Percy saves Steven's character Pierre from a dangerous lake after he's jumped in there to get Percy's special lost necklace. This is where they're supposed to have a moment and fake-fuse, but Lapis can't go through with even pretending. She lets loose what she's been feeling while on stage, forgetting about the play.
Peridot acknowledges that she knew about Lapis's discomfort with fusion, and she blames herself for approving the scene. But Lapis doesn't want Peridot to blame herself. She told Peridot that she was okay with it because she WANTED to be. It still didn't make her okay with it, though. And now she feels that she ruined the play through the very act of trying so hard not to ruin it for everyone else. But Peridot and Steven help Lapis understand that her feelings aren't irrational even though the fusion was "fake." Peridot only wants her to do it if she wants to do it.
With that, Peridot and Lapis embrace on the stage and exchange kind words, and then a smoke effect surrounds them. Some of the other actors get Steven, Peridot, and Lapis off the stage quickly and a pyramid of other actors assembles. Mr. Smiley and Greg begin playing a "Pierre and Percy Fusion" song, and the audience watches it blankly with little understanding, but Lars is emotional and clapping.
Finally the audience applauds, Lapis takes her bows, and everyone is grateful for the lessons learned and the wonderful experience. The End.
Notable:
1. The only Camp Pining Hearts characters whose faces have been shown on the TV show are Percy and Paulette. Pierre is mentioned frequently--since Peridot ships him with Percy--but we never see what he looks like. So it's pretty cool that the artists chose not to take artistic license with his appearance and drew depictions of him in shadow.
2. Peridot's analysis of why some fanfiction is better than other fanfiction--notably, that they fulfill the desires of the readers to see ships completed while still feeling like an episode of the show--was pretty spot on!
3. The fanfiction author--Lars--uses the handle xx54d4nd10ne1yxx. Even if it's private, I'm surprised Lars would use something that translates to "sad and lonely."
4. This graphic novel probably spends the most time outside Steven's perspective that I've ever seen; Steven is only marginally in the story, and we're used to seeing things from his perspective. This is quite a departure.
5. Peridot's app, "Find-A-Clod," was so unexpectedly funny to me that I almost choked on my sandwich.
6. As Dewey is still Mayor, Lars is not pink, and Sadie is still working at the Big Donut, we can assume this takes place before the episode "The Good Lars." That feels a little weird now, considering this book is fourth in the series of graphic novels and the one that came before it (The Ultimate Dough-Down) used Sadie's departure and Lars's space adventure as a plot point.
7. Lapis's negativity manifests in this comic as insecurity and frequent naysaying/pessimism. I thought it was really well done because it wasn't obnoxiously presented--as in, it felt genuine and appropriate for someone with her past and personality, not tacked on as her defining personality trait. You could really see her trying to have fun and not be the group's spoilsport, and you could tell she really felt those things.
8. Sadie says she's happy as a background character and that's kind of meta.
9. The shipping is strong in this thing. Peridot encouraging Lapis, the two of them solidifying their relationship, and the adorable compliments are so much fun. The Lapidot shippers have received their piece of heaven.
10. I couldn't get enough of Sadie obliquely insulting Lars when he acted like it was obvious he would take the "handsome guy" role if he didn't want to stay in the shadows. Sadie's like, "Oh, I vote for Steven."
11. Mr. Smiley and Greg are musicians for the play. I think that's cute, because we've seen Mr. Smiley as an out-of-work actor/R&B singer in the show. (And obviously Greg's an old rock star.)
12. New characters for Camp Pining Hearts have been invented: namely, Penelope and Parker, played by Connie and Onion, respectively.
13. Peridot is weirdly mean and disrespectful to Amethyst in this story? It seems to really come from nowhere. First she reluctantly lets Amethyst audition and grants her that she guesses she does have some talent after all, and then later when Amethyst comes in to impersonate a prop and "save the day," Peridot first voices her suspicion that Amethyst will not actually make anything better. It's weird; if you didn't watch the show, you'd think they had an ongoing rivalry or hated each other (or at least that Peridot disliked Amethyst). Hmm.
14. The central conflict of the book's story is impossible to understand or interpret without a very good understanding of the show. The book does not explain what fusion is at all (though obviously in a stage play as a symbol for a fraught scene for an actor, it represents having to kiss on stage). It also gives absolutely no mention of why Lapis has trauma surrounding fusion. If someone were trying to read this without the show's context, they might think there was some kind of awkward past or bad feeling between Lapis and Steven, since she's acting reluctant to pretend to carry out a gesture of affection with him. And even though Lapis's past with Jasper is mentioned--by name!--on the back cover, Jasper is literally not mentioned in the book anywhere. As a fan I had no trouble understanding the source of her angst, but because of this pretty important detail, the book can't be enjoyed on its own without seeing several specific episodes of the show.
15. There are some fun Easter Eggs in the crowd scenes. Play attendees include Mr. Frowney, Mr. and Mrs. Barriga, Dr. and Mr. Maheswaran, Mayor Dewey, Yellowtail and Vidalia, Nanefua and Kofi and Kiki Pizza, Barb, Mr. Fryman, and what look look some extras. All the known characters are family or the actors . . . except Mr. Frowney. Does that imply what I think it does about Mr. Frowney and Mr. Smiley? Hey, maybe they’re married now. :)
16. Lapis's speech where she emphasizes that she consented to the scene was powerful. She WANTED to be okay with pretending to fuse, but in the end, she wasn't. There are so many real-life scenarios that parallel this--when someone tries to downplay their own feelings because they feel like they're the odd person out and they will wreck others' good time if they express how they feel. But, as said in the comic, nobody there wants you to do that, and you not enjoying yourself makes it a worse time for everyone else too. Your real friends won't make you pretend.
17. You probably never thought you’d see Garnet in a squirrel costume. You thought wrong.
18. These two are too precious for words when they hug at the end of the play.
[SU Book and Comic Reviews]
#steven universe#camp pining play#camp pining hearts#lapidot#steven universe comics#su comics#myblog
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have you watched Firefly?
ages ago (freshman year of college - 2007) I watched like the first four episodes with a bunch of dormmates, but we never finished the series/season. I liked the vibe & characters (gina torres - we quit watching before summer glau’s character showed, alas), although jss whdn usually makes me want to shoot things, such as him
would you recommend? I love space opera as a genre (see: logh anime & novels) & space westerns (cowboy bebop - another series I’ve never finished lmao, sara king’s fortune books, connie willis’ uncharted territory)
[askbox party]
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The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale
Mark Yon
January 27, 2018
By the time you read this, Christmas will have just gone for another year, although as I type this it is actually October and we are rapidly moving in time towards that seasonal time of year that seems to be more than a religious celebration, that is celebrated by many who do not even have a religious belief*. The idea of giving gifts and receiving presents at a time of seasonal adversity seems to be universally regarded as a good thing. Connie Willis has said, in her book Miracle and Other Christmas Stories that “I love Christmas. All of it—decorating the tree and singing in the choir and baking cookies and wrapping presents.”
Much of our values of Christmas were created when we were at our most impressionable, when as a youngster we would stay awake waiting for Santa to visit. This was reinforced by the Dickensian celebrations of Christmas as a time of redemption, of cold snowy winters but also good food, good company and shiny gifts. Fairy tales of elves and snow, magical creatures and enchanting choirs have been written to rival such as those written by The Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen and make entertainment in such times that emphasise the goodness of Christmas.
The Toymakers taps into these feelings and creates a feel-good story, heavy on the Dickensian tone but one with less “mawkish sappiness” (as Connie calls it) than you might expect. There’s a darker side too, with a frisson of creepy thrills that make the story more than a story meant just to delight and entertain you. It will remind you of good times, of the particular joy of a childhood Christmas and yet also remind you that the festive season may also be a difficult one for some. I am sure will become a regular read at this time of year.
From the publisher: “The Emporium opens with the first frost of winter. It is the same every year. Across the city, when children wake to see ferns of white stretched across their windows, or walk to school to hear ice crackling underfoot, the whispers begin: the Emporium is open!
It is 1917, and London has spent years in the shadow of the First World War. In the heart of Mayfair, though, there is a place of hope. A place where children’s dreams can come true, where the impossible becomes possible – that place is Papa Jack’s Toy Emporium.
For years Papa Jack has created and sold his famous magical toys: hobby horses, patchwork dogs and bears that seem alive, toy boxes bigger on the inside than out, ‘instant trees’ that sprout from boxes, tin soldiers that can fight battles on their own. Now his sons, Kaspar and Emil, are just old enough to join the family trade. Into this family comes a young Cathy Wray – homeless and vulnerable. The Emporium takes her in, makes her one of its own. But Cathy is about to discover that while all toy shops are places of wonder, only one is truly magical…”
This is a magical novel in all senses of the word. Through the rich, nuanced characterisation, we discover a wonderfully imaginative world, as much Harry Potter as it is Hans Christian Andersen. Each year, through Papa Jack and his two sons, the shy Emil & the boisterous Kaspar, the Emporium tries to outdo the last year, spending the time from the appearance of the first snowdrops of Spring to the first fall of snow in Winter designing more and more outlandish toys for the next Christmas, to make each more memorable than the last. There are unicorns, loyal wind-up patchwork dogs, exploding paper trees and cloud castles, all within the vast caverns of the Emporium’s shelves.
To this we have touches of Dickensian sentimentality through the arrival of unmarried mother Cathy Wray. In typical Dickensian fashion Cathy, a pregnant runaway, takes on a job at the Emporium in 1907 and never leaves. She becomes the object of both Kaspar and Emil’s affections, which has consequences for all concerned.
The story is mainly centred around the two boys and their father, although the plot expands as other characters are added. Set initially before the First World War, we see a world in transition. In 1907 the world pictured is mainly one of simple pleasures and joy, where the world within the Emporium especially is bright and shiny, a place away from the harsh realities of the real world. With the arrival of Cathy Wray we see this world of wonder lose its innocence. This continues as the characters grow up, with the boys still rivals but yet at the same time, ones that love each other. World War 1 has consequences for them all, as it did many of the relatively innocent men who marched jollily off to war to be ‘home by Christmas’ and came back changed.
As time goes on and the tale reaches London in the 1920’s and beyond, things change and the Emporium and the people grow as well. There are good times and bad, with the ongoing rivalry between Emil and Kaspar partly to blame. The ending is bitter-sweet, rather like much of Dickens’ work.
In summary, The Toymakers is an assured magic-realism novel that will create a feel-good aura around even the most cynical of readers. It captures the excitement and the sheer joy of the Christmas season, with characters you will grow to love and situations where you will be kept up reading because you want to know what happens next.
For anyone who enjoys the change in the seasons, the preparation for and the celebration of Christmas, who wants to live in a story that has imagination, whimsy and characters that you care about in an alluring world of miracles and wonder, The Toymakers is a sheer, sparkly, shiny triumph. I loved it. I suspect that next Christmas this will be the story to read.
*I pointed this out in 2016 in THIS article.
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november reading
so with lockdown #2, my master’s thesis done & handed in etc, i just had absolutely nothing going on so this month so... lots of books. featuring Houses full of statues and birds, an AU of weimar berlin, and... the plague?
someone who will love you in all your damaged glory, raphael bob-waksberg (audio)
actually listened to this last month! anyway even tho i forgot about it, i actually really liked it! it’s a collection of short stories, all about love in some way, most with a strange twist - a couple wants a small wedding but the MIL insists they have to at least sacrifice 5 goats to the stone god and have a shrieking chorus, or it’s hardly a real wedding, right? that kind of thing. i really liked these stories; they were fun, hopeful without being cheesy (mostly), and the audio production, with lots of actors reading the different stories was fun. 4/5
the driver’s seat, muriel spark
man this novella is nasty, but in a good way - sharp, vicious, mean but so well executed. it’s also pretty hard to discuss without spoiling it & i do think one should go into this unspoiled. but it’s certainly a classic of the unhinged women genre, showing lise seemingly making herself as noticeable, irritating and off-putting as she can on a trip to an unnamed (probably italian) city. 3.5/5
the empress of salt and fortune, nghi vo (singing hills cycle #1)
a lovely novella set in an asian-inspired fantasy empire, which shows young cleric chih and their speaking hoopoe almost brilliant learn the story of a previous empress, a northerner who rose from exile as an cast-aside wife to power and of her servant, a peasant girl called rabbit. enjoyed the setting and the way this story unfolded through objects and rabbit’s retelling, and will definitely read the sequel novella which comes out in december. 3.5/5
pine, francine toon (audio)
this is a crime/thriller type book with some horror elements about a young girl whose mother has disappeared mysteriously when she was very small. she lives with her dad in the scottish highlands close to a giant forest. the beginning is pretty cool & creepy, but then like 80% of it is just the girl being sad & wanting to know what happened to her mother & the dad being an alcoholic mess. and then most of the plot happens in the last 10% & isn’t great. disappointing. 2/5
where the wild ladies are, aoko matsuda (tr. from japanese by polly barton)
a collection of short stories retelling japanese folklore stories about female ghosts/monsters with a feminist twist. on the whole, i liked these stories, but also found them a lot more light in tone than i expected; i guess i thought this would be more on the wild & raw side, so i ended up finding them a bit underwhelming. might also be a problem with lacking cultural context. will say tho that tilted axis press is great & i will seek out more of their books. 2.5/5
piranesi, susanna clarke (audio)
god this was so good! so delightful! the House with its many rooms full of tides and clouds and birds and statues is a wonderful, magical yet melancholy setting, the narrator is kind & gentle & earnest, full of wonder and curiosity at the House and its mysteries (the contrast between the narrator’s and the Other’s attitude to the House... yes), the slow building up to the numerous reveals are just. very well done. the writing is lovely (did i almost cry about the albatross? yes) and chiwetel ejiofor is a great audio narrator. just all around lovely & the ending hits just right. 4.5/5
doomsday book, connie willis
reading this book during lockdown #2.... a galaxy brain move i wouldn’t necessarily recommend. anyway this is set in a near future where time travel is used for historical research; oxford university is sending the young historian kivrin on the first mission to the middle ages (1320, which is perfectly safe, as far as medieval years go), but things go wrong and soon modern day oxford is under quarantine (ha. how wild. can you imagine.) and kivrin notices that some things are a bit off about where she is (spoiler it’s actually 1348 and y’all know what that means right... PLAGUE TIME). lots of people on goodreads found this slow and boring and while it is pretty damn slow (and for a world with time travel way too many plot points hinge on being unable to contact people by telephone), i found it riveting and uh dread-inducing throughout, but also really warm and immersive. adored this, was devastated at the end. even almost a month later i’m still in my feelings about it. 4.5/5
too loud a solitude, bohumil hrabal (tr. from czech by michael henry heim)
a novella i intellectually appreciated but didn’t really love - the narrator works as a paper compactor in a nightmarish basement full of mice (that also get crushed by the hundreds) from where he imagines rat wars in the sewers but from where he also saves hundreds of books. it’s fascinating & well-written but as soon as it gets away from the nightmare paper-crushing basement, it just loses its appeal, especially when the narrator reminisces about his relationships to women (how to simultaneously put women on a pedestal and smear shit on them!!!). 3/5
i’m thinking of ending things, iain reid
literary horror/thriller type book with a really intriguing first half, as a young woman is visiting her boyfriend’s parents for the first time while thinking of ending the relationship and things increasingly feel off (the parents are weird, there’s a picture on the wall that the boyfriend claims is him as a child, but is actually her, she gets weird voicemails from her own number). great sense of vague unease, very scary. then the second half kind of blows up the whole story in a way that i should theoretically find interesting but just found kind of underwhelming and not scary, especially since the ending then feels the need to spell it all out for you. 2/5
passing, nella larsen (reread)
ugh this is brilliant and i almost don’t have anything to say about it so i’ll just summarise it i guess. it’s a novella about two black women in 1920s america, who knew each other as teenagers and who run into each other in a rooftop bar, where both of them are passing as white. irene finds out that clare is passing full-time, married to a white man who does not know that she is black, and although she strongly disapproves, she can’t help but be seduced (the queer subtext is strong here) into renewing their friendship, which begins to threaten her sense of stability and control. this book is pretty much pitch-perfect, has a lot of things to say about race, loyalty, what happens when categories we live by are threatened or destabilised, and is also just tight and elegantly written and. ugh. brilliant. 5/5
ring shout, p. djèlí clark
an alternative history/fantasy book where the ku klux klan gets possessed by demons from another dimension and a group of black (and other marginalised) women (some men too) who are able to see these demons have to fight them from gaining more power through a showing of birth of a nation. note: the klan is still already evil without the demons, but their evil makes it easier for the demons to possess them. very cool concept, very cool setting, but i found the main character and some of the plot progression a little boring. 3/5
amberlough, lara elena donnelly (amberlough dossier #1)
this is really just the nazi takeover of weimar berlin in an alternate world (literally... the denizens of the city of amberlough are amberlinians... the two epigraphs are from le carre and cabaret...), told thru an amberlinian spy (cyril) forced to work for the nazi-equivalent (the ospies), his secret cabaret mc/smuggling kingpin boyfriend (aristide), and rough-and-tumble sally bowles (cordelia). as such, it’s extremely my shit, although i will say that donnelly makes it a bit easy on herself by making the nazi parallel so very overt; the ospies’ ideology is not particularly detailed beyond ‘real fashy’ and wanting to unite four loosely federated states. it’s just.... a bit weaksauce, and while she does include an ethnic minority for the ospies to hate, this also doesn’t feel as fundamental to their ideology as it should. also cyril sucks. but these issues may be solved in the sequels & it was a lot of fun. also.... amazing cover. 3/5
the vanishing half, brit bennett
very much in conversation with larsen’s passing, this is a 2020 historical novel about passing, colorism, and identity, in which desiree and stella, very light-skinned african american twins who grow up in a black town that values lightness very much, become separated when stella chooses to pass for white and marry a white man. the book is very immersive and engaging, and stella and desiree are interesting characters, but (i felt unfortunately) much of the book is focused on their daughters, whose chance meeting might expose stella/reunite the sisters/etc etc, but who weren’t as interesting. the plot also relies on coincidences a lot which is a bit annoying. still an interesting and entertaining read. 3/5
die stadt der anderen, anthology
printed version of an art project where three pairs of authors were sent on trips through berlin, which each person writing about what the other person showed them and how they experienced the city through the other. there was nothing earth-shaking in this, but reading it during lockdown was lovely. in conclusion i love berlin... would love to experience it again some time. 3/5
the fire this time, edited by jesmyn ward
collection of essays on anti-black racism in america, many in response to the beginning of the black lives matter movement. i don’t have much to say about it, but it is very good and i would recommend. as is often the case with essay anthologies about serious topics i don’t really think i can rate it.
intimations, zadie smith
a very short collection of essays written during early lockdown. smith is always smart and fun but i wish these had been a little more focused on politics and less on personal experience, but like, you can’t really criticise a book for not being what you wanted it to be. ‘contempt as a virus’ was very good.
superior: the return of race science, angela saini
really solid, engaging and accessible discussion of race science and why... it’s bad & dangerous, both looking at race science in the past and the invention of race, and how it is returning and regaining influence (not to say that race science ever completely disappeared, but as saini explains, it moved into a more marginal space in the sciences after ww2). 3.5/5
the hive, camilo josé cela (tr. from spanish by j.m. cohen & arturo barea)
spanish modern classic set in madrid during the last few years of ww2. told thru short fragmentary snippets with a huge rotating cast of characters, mostly lower and middle class, going about their days, with the theme tying them together being “the city, that tomb, that greased pole, that hive”, which is a very sexy line, but unfortunately it didn’t work for me. the tone is v dispassionate and in combination with the huge cast it just made me profoundly unengaged. it also has the weird habit of changing scene in the middle of a paragraph, which i found rather confusing. 2.5/5
slave old man, patrick chamoiseau (tr. from french by linda coverdale)
absolutely amazing short novel from the creolité movement aabout an old slave, seemingly resigned to his position, suddenly escaping and being pursued by the slavemaster’s terrifying monstrous mastiff through the forests of martinique, but really also about selfhood, relearning humanity, trauma and nature. the language is at turns sparse and lush and always gorgeous and the translation from french/creole uses endnotes (we love an endnote) and a strategy of doubling to retain some of the original language, which was really cool to read. so yeah this is brilliant. 4/5
mexican gothic, silvia moreno-garcia
gothic horror novel about young mexican socialite noemí visiting her recently-married cousin in her new (english) family’s isolated, creepy and dilapidated mansion after said cousin sent a disturbing and strange letter calling for help. gothic horror shenanigans involving vivid dreams, family secrets and eugenics ensue. after a slow start, i absolutely devoured the second half in one afternoon bc once it gets going it REALLY gets going. not super-scary, but a nice creepy atmosphere & reveal. also loved how it combines the clear yellow wallpaper inspo (the cousin’s letter involves people in the wallpaper) and the focus on the english family’s eugenic ideology (not a fun fact but charlotte perkins gilman was a eugenicist), and the vain & flighty but also smart & stubborn protagonist. had a lot of fun with this. 3.5/5
i’m also still reading a tale of love and darkness by amos oz which is really good but which is taking me forfuckingever.
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Quarantine Reading List
As I’m getting back into reading, I thought it would be appropriate to read all the books relating to plagues and end of the world. Just current events in general really. This is what I have on my tbr right now. Obviously I have other books on my tbr as well, but I want to finish reading the books on this list in particular during my 5 months of summer. (btw I don’t know much about these books. I prefer to go into movies/books/shows/etc. not knowing what to expect, but I will give some explanation on why I choose each book)
The Stand by Stephen King - A classic King novel. It’s a survival story where society collapsed after some sort of disease wiped most of humanity out.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel - This book along with The Stand are considered the 2 of the best books about the world ending due to a plague. This is also a survival story, but this time we follow a group of famous people apparently.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy - Another survival story following a father and son this time. I actually started this sometime last month, but wasn’t able to continue as class work demanded more attention. However, I got to say I went in without any expectations, but I was still caught off guard. I’ve heard great things about this book from everyone, but of the 5 pages I’ve read—I can already tell this is going to be rough.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks - This was also made into a movie starring Brad Pitt back in 2013 and it’s about zombies. But it has some strangely accurate details on this pandemic. The author, Max Brooks, actually did an AMA on Reddit a few weeks back to talk about the pandemic.
The Plague by Albert Camus - I read The Stranger by Camus last year for AP Lit, and I don’t know what to say. It was interesting, but I think the enjoyment of the story itself was taken away for me because I was over-analyzing it for school. It would be nice to experience his philosophy through fresh eyes.
A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe - This is by the same guy who wrote Robinson Crusoe. It’s about the Great Plague of London that happen 1665-1666. I think it’s a fictional retelling in journal entries? Defoe actually lived through this time but he was like 5 the time the plague happened. But hey, I’m here for it.
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio - This was written even longer ago during the mid-1300′s around the time of the Black Death. It contains a bunch of stories “group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death... range from the erotic to the tragic. Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic” (Wikipedia). Mood. The Decameron actually inspired one of my favorite movies, The Little Hours, so I’m kind of excited to read this one.
The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Yes, this is by the Mary Shelley. It’s set in a futuristic world ravaged by a plague. Let’s see what else the queen of sci-fic has to offer.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez - This is more romance heavy and it doesn’t really has the concept of plague from my understanding. But the title is fitting with what I’m looking for so I’ll just have to read it and see.
Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam #1) by Margaret Atwood - I read The Handmaid’s Tale by Atwood for AP Lit last year and I loved it. Her writing takes a little getting used to, but the allusions and setup are on point. Can wait to read another dystopia, this time about a plague, by her.
Severance by Ling Ma - I’ve honestly never heard of this book before but I saw this a several plague-inspired reading list so I guess I’ll read it.
Blindness (Blindness #1) by José Saramago - A plague that blinds people....? So like Bird Box but without the crazy I guess. And yes,
Bird Box (Bird Box #1) by Josh Malerman - Might as well.
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks - Another story about the Great Plague of London.
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson - The Black Death, but it killed 99% of humanity.
Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel #1) by Connie Willis - Another one I haven’t hear of before looking for plague-inspired books. I think this one is about trying to find a cure.
Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson - Set in America this time, based on the 1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts - One of the best books written on the HIV/AIDs epidemic. My only nonfiction on this list. Hopefully it’ll offer some insight as history is repeating itself.
Ok, I think that’s all the books I have that are directly plague-related. It’s a lot, but hopefully I’ll be able to finish them all before college starts again.
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Review: Just One Damned Thing After Another
In brief: Max doesn’t know what to expect when she’s hired by St. Mary’s—but when she learns they have time machines (and attractive security officers), she’s very glad she did. First in a series.
Thoughts: While reading this book, I learned that I am a sucker for fantastical academic shenanigans. This shouldn’t have been a surprise—I have read Connie Willis, Jasper Fforde, Genevieve Cogman, Terry Pratchett…—but there you go. Madcap journeys through space and time, on a quest for knowledge, equal part pitfalls and pratfalls—what isn’t to love?
This isn’t a deep book by any means, but it doesn’t need to be. Most of the fun, honestly, lies at least partly in how hard it isn’t trying to have a deeper meaning. This is pure entertainment*, though that doesn’t mean bad things don’t happen or that when they do, they’re not treated appropriately. It does, however, mean that the characters are a bit two-dimensional, their motivations and histories are a little typical, and so on, but the way Taylor’s built the world, that works.
I did wish a few times that the pace would slow down so we could visit more of the eras mentioned. There are a lot of missions that get glanced over I wanted to see in detail! (I get why not, though.) My only actual complaint is that Taylor could’ve been tighter or more obvious when it comes to internal time. There’s a moment when Max mentions how long she’s worked for St. Mary’s that threw me, because I hadn’t gotten that sense at all.
I didn’t love the book enough to rush out for the next book immediately, but Taylor is firmly on my “no-brainer pick-me-up list” now and she’s made my rec lists as well.
*Yes, of course that means explosions, frenzied chases, and fight scenes.
Warnings: No actual dinosaurs were injured during the production of this novel. Also sexual assault, miscarriage, and misogynistic characters of two genders.
7.5/10
#just one damned thing after another#jodi taylor#science fiction#fantasy#academia#humour#time travel#book reviews#book recommendations#read in 2017#adult booklr
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sick book tag meme
tagged by @robb-greyjoy thank you I love books! i used to burn through almost 200 books per year so i really have to dig through my memories to get the best ones!
I would be honored if any of my followers were to consider themselves tagged!
1. Diabetes - a very sweet book:
Connie Willis’ “To Say Nothing of the Dog” she has some other books set in this universe but those can get suspenseful or tragic. Not this one! I’d put Wodehouse here, but he’s more funny than sweet. There is another novel I’d put here, but it is a part of a murder mystery series and naming would spoil it :)
2. Chickenpox - a book that you read once and will not read again:
I read de Sade’s Justine and Juliette and it took me a million years and boy was that a gross repetitive slog but I was afraid that if I stopped a fat guy who’s been dead 200 years would pop out of Hell to call me a pussy. Well he can eat it because I made it through, I don’t have to do it again, and I learned some... interesting things about how certain people view the world on the way.
3. Influenza - a contagious book that spreads like a virus:
asoiaf good god I wish I’d never heard of it, unfinished (high quality) fantasy series give me anxiety i need to know what happens to all my babies. I won’t be able to move on with my life until i see the end of it so I have to engage in fandom. now I try to get everyone to read the books so I’ll be able to talk to them about it.
4. The Cycle - a book that you read every month, every year, or very often:
I don’t reread that much? certainly not on a regular basis. I’ll probably read the existing asoiaf books in their entirety if the next one ever gets a release date.
maybe the Solar Cycle, I reread that one and mean to do it again, but a year is too short a time frame for my rereads.
5. Insomnia - a book that kept you up all night:
I finished “Epiphany of the Long Sun” at three in the morning which is the worst time to have finished that book. I had to order the sequels immediately.
6. Amnesia - a book that’s been forgotten and failed to leave an impression on you:
there are probably three-digit quantities of these. If I could remember their titles, they wouldn’t qualify. I’ve read a lot of garbage.
7. Asthma - a book that took your breath away:
Hyperion. The sequels were merely ok and Dan Simmons is one of those Americans who went insane after 9/11 and his later books suffered for it but oh, man. Hyperion was amazing.
From much earlier in my life: Huckleberry Finn. Fuck the haters.
8. Malnutrition - a book that lacked food for thought:
I read the entire Sword of Truth series and am dumber today because of it.
9. Motion Sickness - a book that took you on a journey through time and space:
“The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman” Angela Carter was one weird lady (see also: The Passion of New Eve.)
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I've run out of good books to read, I naturally thought of you as someone to recommend others. I read the riddle master trilogy because of you and liked it so hunting for anything you like really! Pretty please
You read Riddle-Master!!! I really cannot overstate how excited I am whenever someone tells me they’ve read those books, so this makes me very happy!
Other recs...let’s see. I don’t know your taste in books, really, so I’ll just toss out some random ones. If you’ve already read them all, let me know and I’ll try again.
1. His Dark Materials will probably feature on just about any recs list I ever make, because these books were my Formative Fantasy Experience at age 7 and I never got over them. They also feature two of my favourite characters in fiction, and one of my favourite...well, ‘relationships’ is not really the word I’m looking for, but it’ll do in a pinch. This is one of those series that reveals something new every time I read it; I loved the story as a child and I love it as an adult and some of the things I love have shifted, but there are enough layers in there to be intriguing no matter what you’re looking for. These books are also somewhat Controversial and admittedly not for everyone - if you (or anyone else reading this) want more detail/explanation of that, feel free to message me.
2. If you enjoyed Riddle Master, I’d recommend Alphabet of Thorn, also by Patricia McKillip. It features more of her beautiful, lyrical, dreamlike prose, along with a rather fascinating take on the nature of stories. It’s probably my favourite of her standalone novels.
3. Neverwhere might be my favourite of Neil Gaiman’s works. A familiarity with London takes this book from good to excellent, because he doesn’t stop at the surface level; the nature of the city is woven through the story and warped in a way that somehow perfectly captures the reality while at the same time painting a picture that is nothing like it at all. Gaiman is always good at twisting the mundane in alongside the magical to both juxtapose and seamlessly combine, and this book hit that balance just right for me. If you like his weirder side, American Gods is also incredible. The ‘I believe’ monologue has been burned into my brain since I first read it, because wow. If you are not as much a fan of his weirder side, may I suggest Stardust?
4. You may have heard of some guy called Brandon Sanderson, so I’m not going to spend that much time on his books here, but I’ll toss out a recommendation for The Emperor’s Soul, which is probably one of the lesser-known stories in his Cosmere universe, but is also one of my favourites. Shai is such a compelling and fascinating character, and the novella deals creatively with the nature of identity.
5. Time travel is usually a pet peeve of mine rather than a fondness, and I’ve never been all that into historical fiction, but Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book might be the exception that proves the rule.
6. In a sea of vampire stories that range from uninspiring to cringeworthy, Sunshine by Robin McKinley stands out as an excellent exception. This is dark urban fantasy done right with a side of freshly baked cinnamon rolls (literal, not figurative, and . If you imagine a story that is its own coffeeshop AU, this is precisely nothing like that. Well, except for the coffeeshop. The narrative is very stream-of-consciousness and if you find loose ends frustrating this book is probably not for you, but if that doesn’t bother you, it’s definitely worth a read. (Even the loose ends are done well).
7. Speaking of Robin McKinley, The Blue Sword is another childhood favourite. I haven’t read it in probably over a decade, so I suppose I should go back to it before recommending it, but I read a lot of your standard fantasy hero’s journey stories in that time, and this is one of the ones that stands out in memory, so that probably says something.
8. It’s not fantasy or scifi, but I really loved The Still Point, by Amy Sackville. The prose is beautiful, and the way the chronology is split, with two separate and not-quite-linear timelines anchored more by the evocation of still summer heat and frigid arctic winter, suits the story (stories?) perfectly. It’s definitely one of the better examples of nonlinear storytelling I’ve come across. “It is exhausting enough, grasping at the past as it slides through the present, without letting the future interfere.”
9. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is one of those books where I know full well it has its flaws, and some of those would maybe put me off if it were any other book, but I love it to pieces. You know those books (or characters) that feel like they were written either as a personal attack on you or a personal gift to you or really a combination of the two because damn you, author, why must you do this to me? Yeah.
10. Throwing a random nonfiction rec in here with A Primate’s Memoir, by Robert Sapolsky. It’s worth reading even if you’re not particularly science-oriented, because the science and research is really only a backdrop against which the story is set. I laughed out loud, in public, on numerous occasions while reading this and it’s another regular feature whenever I recommend things.
11. I see Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein recommended frequently, and I wholeheartedly agree. Another historical fiction story, which again is not usually my thing, but it’s excellent and surprising, and very well-told.
12. Kushiel’s Dart, by Jacqueline Carey, is another that is very much Not For Everyone, and actually when I think about it it should in so many ways have fallen into the Not For Me category, but it didn’t and I enjoyed it immensely. I liked the first book better than the rest in the series, but YMMV.
14. Vicious, by V.E. Schwab, is just fun, if you enjoy friends-to-enemies and/or villains and/or superheroes. It’s unapologetically edgy and honestly kind of ridiculous, and doesn’t at all try to be anything else, which is what makes it work.
15. Howl’s Moving Castle, by Dianna Wynne Jones. If you’ve seen the movie, the book is...well. It’s sort of the same story, by which I mean if you were to write out the main plot points on index cards you’d end up with a roughly matching set, but other than that it’s almost completely different. And kind of incredible.
16. It’s definitely for younger readers, but one of the series that’s held up well for me is the Young Wizards Series, by Diane Duane. The first one reads a bit like the first Harry Potter book in the sense that it’s almost too young to work well as a starting point if you’re older, but even by the second book it grows up quite a bit. I’ve always enjoyed the way she’s constructed her magic system, and you can tell she’s a writer who knows her science but also sees art and beauty in it.
17. Bone, by Jeff Smith, is my favourite graphic novel, though it’s frustratingly difficult to get hold of a complete copy. It’s weird and fun and surprising.
18. Operation Mincemeat, by Ben Macintyre, is another nonfiction book, and I know there are a million and one WWII stories out there, but this one is wild. If you’re even remotely into espionage/intelligence type stories, give this a read.
My goodreads is also here. It’s not even close to a complete list, but anything I’ve given three or more stars is something I’d say is probably worth a try. Also if anyone else reading this has recommendations to add, please feel free!
#this turned out to be a rather random list#but maybe you'll find something#recommendations#asks#beyourowntailwind
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Crosstalk
By Connie Willis
Official Synopsis:
Science fiction icon Connie Willis brilliantly mixes a speculative plot, the wit of Nora Ephron, and the comedic flair of P. G. Wodehouse in Crosstalk a genre-bending novel that pushes social media, smartphone technology, and twenty-four-hour availability to hilarious and chilling extremes as one young woman abruptly finds herself with way more connectivity than she ever desired.
In the not-too-distant future, a simple outpatient procedure to increase empathy between romantic partners has become all the rage. And Briddey Flannigan is delighted when her boyfriend, Trent, suggests undergoing the operation prior to a marriage proposal - to enjoy better emotional connection and a perfect relationship with complete communication and understanding. But things don't quite work out as planned, and Briddey finds herself connected to someone else entirely - in a way far beyond what she signed up for.
It is almost more than she can handle - especially when the stress of managing her all-too-eager-to-communicate-at-all-times family is already burdening her brain. But that's only the beginning. As things go from bad to worse, she begins to see the dark side of too much information, and to realize that love - and communication - are far more complicated than she ever imagined.
Review:
This is the first book I’ve read by Connie Willis - an accomplished author in sci-fi, which is not really my jam. This book makes me reconsider my favourite flavours.
This book takes all the weird reality of the near-future and puts it into romantic perspective. Communication one hundred years ago was sending letters that took weeks or months to get from one person to another, now we have texts that reach each other in milliseconds and the guilt that comes with taking a night off.
In the near future, Connie Willis explores a *minor* elective brain surgery (still not over that part) that allows couples to communicate more intimately by basically beaming emotions brain-to-brain. I’m scared, you feel it - you’re in love, I feel it, etc. Enter Briddey - an executive at a tech company neck-in-neck with Apple experiencing a whirl-wind office romance with another exec, Trent. Trent is the opposite of a commitment-phobe, says I love you and suggests a surgical connection all within six weeks. Despite the cautionary warnings of her crazy nosy, extremely annoying relatives and one weird coworker, Briddey agrees - excited for the enhanced connection, and a possible departure from her life with marriage vows.
What comes next is a lesson in the dangers of over-communication, being *too* reachable, jumping feet first into new relationships, and judging books by their covers. There really aren’t any huge surprises in this story, no sharp left hand turns but a few things come up to keep you interested. And the real lesson, in my opinion, is that there will be someone that fits into your life - they might just not be who you’re expecting.
Bottom line, unlikely to cause a three alarm book hangover but it will give you a smile with the last page flip.
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Romance novel recs
@fayrinferno and anyone else who’s interested! Recs are under the cut! (Because despite how there’s only a few of them, I got pretty wordy, pfft.)
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Bellwether, by Connie Willis (contemporary)
This book is labeled as science fiction, and technically that’s correct—in the respect that it’s a work of fiction about people who work in the sciences. In truth, it always read more like a contemporary romance to me than anything. The story follows Dr. Sandra Foster as she studies fads, works for a corporation that is getting swept up in its own management fads, and develops a fascination with a man who seems to buck every single trend:
When you spend as much time as I do analyzing fads and fashions, you get so you can spot them at first sight: eco-hippie, jogger, Wall Street M.B.A., urban terrorist. Dr. O’Reilly wasn’t any of them. He was about my age and about my height. He was wearing a lab coat and corduroy pants that had been washed so often the wale was completely worn off on the knees. They’d shrunk, too, halfway up his ankles, and there was a pale line where they’d been let down.
The effect, especially with the Coke-bottle glasses, should have been science geek, but it wasn’t. For one thing, there were the freckles. For another, he was wearing a pair of once-white canvas sneakers with holes in the toes and frayed seams. Science geeks wear black shoes and white socks. He wasn’t even wearing a pocket protector, though he should have been. There were two splotches of ballpoint ink and a puddle of Magic Marker on the breast pocket of the lab coat, and one of the patch pockets was out at the bottom. And there was something else, something I couldn’t put my finger on, that made it impossible for me to categorize him.
As it was written in the ’90s, it’s a bit dated, and as it isn’t a formal romance novel, there are no steamy sex scenes (and you have to wait all the way until the end before you even get a kiss), but it’s still a delightful read, and an interesting examination of herd mentality and chaos theory, to boot. I reread it every couple years because it’s so fun and comforting.
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All Through the Night, by Connie Brockway (historical - Regency)
I’m actually in the process of trying to finish up a formal, comprehensive review of this, but in a nutshell the book can best be described as, “Regency-era James Bond and Regency-era Catwoman fall in dark, obsessive, co-dependent love.” It’s a deliciously angsty, emotionally complex story, rife with sexual tension and featuring a refreshingly self-destructive heroine. (Self-destructive heroes are a dime a dozen in romance novels, but self-destructive heroines are something of a rarity, as the “love of a good woman” trope is still going strong in the genre.) While it does have erotic scenes, they’re on the elegant (as opposed to raunchy) side, and I find them particularly notable in that they’re not of the “insert sex scene here” variety, but actually serve a purpose as far as plot and character-development goes. The erotic scenes also have a bit of a BDSM flavor to them, but as this was written long before the Fifty Shades craze, those BDSM aspects are pleasantly psychological and actually make sense, character-wise (as opposed to just being crowbarred in in an attempt to cash in on a trend). So the focus is on, like, relinquishing control instead of whips and chains and what-have-you.
If I have any criticism? It’s that at one point the author uses the hilariously clinical phrase “turgid member.” (I literally rolled my eyes and giggled the first time I read it. XD)
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Lord of Danger, by Anne Stuart (historical - Medieval)
Another book I plan to do a formal review of. Ignoring the goofy title, Lord of Danger is a rather dark historical that follows Alys and her younger sister Claire, as they’re taken from the convent that has been their home all their lives and sent to live with their half-brother Richard, who has decided it’s about time he finally got around to using them as political pawns. Namely, he intends to marry one of them off to his chief advisor, Simon, who (for all my Escaflowne followers) reminds me so much of Folken Fanel it almost hurts. Dude even has a messed-up right hand/arm, seriously. Again, rife with sexual tension, but surprisingly light on the sex scenes, themselves. (There are only two, and they total a couple pages, at most.) I feel I should warn, though, that there is an attempted rape at one point, and that the first sex scene between the hero and heroine is a little dubious on the consent front. (There’s a drugging involved, but it was accidental, and…it’s complicated. YMMV. I gave the book a little bit of side-eye when I got to that part, but it wasn’t enough to ruin the story for me.)
It isn’t a perfect book, and in some ways I think it would have worked better as a piece of straight-up dark erotica (as opposed to a traditional romance), but there’s still a lot of good to be found in it (and the Esca character parallels are strong, pfft).
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The Coffee Shop Romances, by Jennifer Montgomery (contemporary)
I’m possibly biased, as the author is one of my LJ (now DW) friends, but these novellas are exactly my sort of comfort reads. They all focus on various workers at a coffee shop on the campus of the fictional Hawkins University. While obviously related, they all stand perfectly well on their own, so no need to worry about reading them in order or anything like that. Also (and I only mention it because it’s such a common problem when it comes to novellas), the pacing is amazing, and you never get to the end, feeling like the story should have been three chapters shorter, or else three chapters longer. They’re not too steamy—most of the eroticism is restrained to kisses, and what little sex does happen tends to be a fade-to-black situation. I love them all (though I’ll confess I have not yet read The English Breakfast Affair), but my favorite might just be Holiday Blend. It features a delightfully prickly, introverted heroine and a second-chance romance of sorts:
He beamed. “We did have some great discussions, didn’t we?” he said. “Even if they were all about movies.”
Eleanor bristled again. “What’s wrong with movies?”
“Nothing! Nothing’s wrong with movies. Jesus. It’s just, how well can you get to know a person based on the movies they like?”
Eleanor’s entire blog was predicated on the idea that similar book and movie tastes were an excellent basis for friendship, and for the most part she had found it to be true. “If you’re discussing the movies, and not just listing the ones you like—then it tells you a lot about the person to know why they like something. So, so, for instance—someone who sees Casablanca as a love story, and thinks the ending is sad because Rick and Ilsa don’t get together, isn’t going to have much in common with someone who sees it as a story of redemption—about choosing loyalty and self-sacrifice, rather than taking the easy way out.”
David looked at her intently. “So which Casablanca do you watch?”
“The one about loyalty,” Eleanor said quietly. “It’s the most important thing in the world to me.”
FYI, the author also writes f/f and m/m erotica under the name Cat Delaroche. (Yanno, if you happen to like her writing style and if erotica is your thing.)
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Amelia and the Outlaw, by Lorraine Heath (historical - Western)
Yet another book I plan to write a full review of. I went into this book not expecting much (it comes from the same line as Catherine and the Pirate, after all, and that book is rife with eye-rolling ridiculousness and bad writing), but came out pleasantly surprised. It’s YA, so there’s nothing steamier than kisses, but one of my favorite things about it is that—despite being aimed at a younger audience—the author didn’t feel the need to dumb down her writing. The book reads very much like an adult novel, with all the complexities you would expect from such a thing, it’s just that the main characters happen to be teenagers.
The story focuses on nineteen-year-old Jesse Lawton, who has spent the last five years in prison for bank robbery. At the start of the story, he still has five years left on his sentence, but the new judge on his case has seen fit to let Jesse serve out the remainder of his time on the judge’s ranch. It’s here that he meets the judge’s beautiful and rebellious daughter, Amelia, who quickly develops a fascination with the former outlaw.
Amelia (again for all my Esca followers) reminds me a lot of Millerna in that she’s very much the princess of the ranch, and while she’s smart and well-intentioned, she’s lacking in wisdom. (She also wants to go into a traditionally male profession and become a lawyer when she grows up.) Some people might find her annoying, but I found her pleasantly flawed and realistic. There’s a decent amount of tension between her and Jesse, because while she wants to help him, she’s too privileged to realize the precarious position she puts him in every time she tries to have a conversation with him or otherwise draw him out of his shell. It’s an interesting sort of power imbalance you don’t often see in the romance genre, and certainly don’t often see addressed with such maturity.
And as for Jesse, oh Jesse. He’s quite possibly one of my favorite heroes, to be honest—a stoic badass on the outside, and an anxious little boy on the inside, who’s constantly afraid he’s going to fuck up. As someone who’s spent a good chunk of his formative years in prison (and who had a decidedly unstable, and even downright abusive, childhood before that), he doesn’t really know how to function in normal society. There are all these little things that everyone else takes for granted—how to shake hands, how to make small talk, what to do during a picnic, etc.—that makes every interaction a veritable minefield for him, to the point where he almost starts to wish he was back in prison. At least he’s familiar with how prisons work, after all:
“Do you like sweet things, Jesse?” Amelia asked.
He stilled. Sure he liked sweet things. He nodded. “A good-tempered horse.”
Robert burst out laughing. Colleen covered her mouth to hide her smile.
Amelia’s eyes sparkled. “I meant sweet things to eat.”
“Oh.” He felt foolish. Outlaws never talked about what kind of food they liked to eat. He didn’t fit with these people. Never would. Still, he searched his memory for the last time he’d eaten something sweet and mumbled, “Gumdrops.”
Amelia’s face lit up. “Lemon?”
He nodded.
“Me, too. If I’d known, I could have purchased some when we were in town.”
He shook his head. “I’m already going to have to work extra days at the ranch after I’ve served my time so I can pay the judge back for everything you purchased for me today,” Jesse said. “I don’t need gumdrops.”
Everyone looked at him as though they were surprised to find him sitting near them.
He looked away from them. He really wished he were standing by the river. Alone. Alone was the way he’d been for most of his life. He was more comfortable with it than sitting with these people and trying to belong.
The prose might not be the most amazing thing in the world, but the emotional resonance is there all the same; Jesse is simply heartbreaking, and the story is as much about him learning to trust other people as it is about him and Amelia falling in love (though the two are obviously related). The ending is perhaps a little pat, but (not to get too spoilery) I appreciate that the author didn’t outright demonize a character when she very easily could have (and when other authors probably would have).
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I also kind of want to mention the contemporary Imaginary Men, by Anjali Banerjee, but it’s been about ten years since I read it, so take that with a grain of salt. I do remember liking it, though, and thinking it was a fun, light read. It features a matchmaker heroine and a hero who I want to say had some Mr. Darcy vibes about him, but I may just be confusing things with Bride and Prejudice, which came out around the same time.
#romance novels#fic rec#(i mean not really but whatevs that's the tag i have)#anyway i hope this is/was useful and maybe you'll find something good?#bellwether#all through the night#lord of danger#coffee shop romances#amelia and the outlaw#EDIT: i forgot to mention it but if anybody happens to want to read ''amelia and the outlaw'' and can't find it let me know#i have a pdf of it i can send your way#i know how difficult it can be to track down old obscure books like that
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From Stephen King to Helen Thorpe, Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame honors literary legacy
Over the course of 18 books and more than three decades, Mary Taylor Young has written about everything from Rocky Mountain National Park to the tall grasses and stark skies of Colorado’s Eastern Plains.
Young’s passion and curiosity drives these books that have chronicled the state’s natural wonders and heritage — not awards or sales receipts.
But it’s nice to get a little recognition every once in awhile.
“As freelancers, we often write and put our work out in the world without getting direct feedback,” said Young, who is among the 21 inductees in this year’s inaugural Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame class. “And I’m not writing mass-market fiction. I’m writing about native landscapes, wildlife and the communities of Colorado. Local and regional literature doesn’t get the same attention or accolades.”
That’s why Judith Briles created the Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame, which as far as she (or this reporter) can tell is the first of its kind in the nation. As a publishing and writing coach based in Denver, Briles had long wanted to recognize the diverse authors that make up Colorado’s writing scene. She only recently discovered the time and resources to do it.
“I felt that there was a need to recognize exclusively just authors,” Briles said of the nonprofit, all-volunteer organization, which will debut publicly at a Sept. 14 ceremony at the Courtyard Marriott Cherry Creek. “We already recognize writers, and authors are obviously writers, but this is just for authors. After all, you don’t want a dermatologist doing your brain surgery, do you?”
The list of authors include not just living, Colorado-based writers such as Young, but late authors such as Louis L’Amour and best-selling industry pillar Stephen King, who formerly lived in Boulder and was frequently inspired by the time he spent in Colorado (see “The Shining,” which is based on The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, or its 2013 sequel, “Doctor Sleep”). National best-seller Clive Cussler, who lived in Colorado, is on there, but so is Helen Thorpe, John Fielder, Margaret Coel and Connie Willis.
Briles, who moved to Colorado in 1989 from Hermosa Beach, Calif., sees strength in Colorado’s adventurous mix of homegrown and transplanted authors, who have tackled subjects ranging from pioneer and mining history to naturalist guides, murder mysteries and sci-fi. They all feed into a deep yet underappreciated legacy of novels and nonfiction books that runs through the bedrock of the state’s identity, she said.
“I’m a champion of words, because I believe they can change lives and save lives,” Briles said. “But it’s a lonely thing, because you get into these silos. Authors just want to write, but no one is going to read your books if you don’t market yourself, especially today. So that’s what I try to teach them, and that’s why I created this — to give them recognition and a place to come together.”
“We (authors) know what it takes to create awesome books that teach and inspire,” said board chairwoman and children’s author Lisa Reinicke, in a press statement. “Now we’re dedicating ourselves to honoring fellow authors who’ve proven their worth to our society. We’ll be making sure their legacies never die.”
The Sept. 14 induction ceremony, which is being attended by 11 of the 16 living authors on the list, is almost sold out, Briles said. That’s good news for the upstart event, which has lately managed to get the attention of some of the biggest names on its list. Briles’ favorite reaction was from W.C. Jameson, the 76-year-old author of more than 100 books, 1,500 published articles and essays, and 400 songs.
“I said, ‘I don’t know if you ever get up here from Texas or have relatives who can accept for you, but we’d love to have you,’ ” Briles remembered. “And he said, ‘Little lady, I will be there with my boots on.’ “
Horror titan King and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright – another living but non-Colorado-based honoree, who once worked in the Denver Post’s library — won’t be there. But King is sending a message via fellow inductee Jerry Jenkins, Briles said. And L’Amour’s widow, daughter and even the family’s publishing attorney will attend to honor the late, great Western writer whose work has sold more than 325 million copies.
Briles also decided to contact L’Amour’s publisher, Penguin Random House, to request donations for the table displays.
“I just wanted 10 of his books for our centerpieces, because everyone who attends gets to choose a book to take with them,” she said. “But (Penguin) got so excited they sent me 200 books. So now my vision is to take these donations from publishers and have a gallery (of inductees) that will tour Colorado libraries and make their work more accessible, whether it’s with physical books, e-books or audio books.”
Briles is in contact with writing organizations in other states looking to start their own author halls of fame. But for now, she’s planning on holding induction ceremonies once every other year in Colorado, and the next class will drop from 21 members to 12. Getting the word out about this new organization is her most immediate challenge.
“We’ve got a lot of publishing going on in this state, and we have for decades,” Young said. “That’s not new. But as we swing toward increasingly video-based information, it’s important to keep attention on the written word.”
When you watch a video, Young said, you’re seeing somebody else’s visual interpretation of that material. When you read, you remove that step and are tasked with creating the imagery yourself. That’s what makes writing special.
“That’s a really rich and engaging thing,” she said. “Reading involves the reader in the creative process in ways they probably don’t even think about. What a wonderful thing to celebrate.”
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from News And Updates https://www.denverpost.com/2019/09/12/colorado-authors-hall-of-fame-judith-briles/
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From Stephen King to Helen Thorpe, Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame honors literary legacy
Over the course of 18 books and more than three decades, Mary Taylor Young has written about everything from Rocky Mountain National Park to the tall grasses and stark skies of Colorado’s Eastern Plains.
Young’s passion and curiosity drives these books that have chronicled the state’s natural wonders and heritage — not awards or sales receipts.
But it’s nice to get a little recognition every once in awhile.
“As freelancers, we often write and put our work out in the world without getting direct feedback,” said Young, who is among the 21 inductees in this year’s inaugural Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame class. “And I’m not writing mass-market fiction. I’m writing about native landscapes, wildlife and the communities of Colorado. Local and regional literature doesn’t get the same attention or accolades.”
That’s why Judith Briles created the Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame, which as far as she (or this reporter) can tell is the first of its kind in the nation. As a publishing and writing coach based in Denver, Briles had long wanted to recognize the diverse authors that make up Colorado’s writing scene. She only recently discovered the time and resources to do it.
“I felt that there was a need to recognize exclusively just authors,” Briles said of the nonprofit, all-volunteer organization, which will debut publicly at a Sept. 14 ceremony at the Courtyard Marriott Cherry Creek. “We already recognize writers, and authors are obviously writers, but this is just for authors. After all, you don’t want a dermatologist doing your brain surgery, do you?”
The list of authors include not just living, Colorado-based writers such as Young, but late authors such as Louis L’Amour and best-selling industry pillar Stephen King, who formerly lived in Boulder and was frequently inspired by the time he spent in Colorado (see “The Shining,” which is based on The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, or its 2013 sequel, “Doctor Sleep”). National best-seller Clive Cussler, who lived in Colorado, is on there, but so is Helen Thorpe, John Fielder, Margaret Coel and Connie Willis.
Briles, who moved to Colorado in 1989 from Hermosa Beach, Calif., sees strength in Colorado’s adventurous mix of homegrown and transplanted authors, who have tackled subjects ranging from pioneer and mining history to naturalist guides, murder mysteries and sci-fi. They all feed into a deep yet underappreciated legacy of novels and nonfiction books that runs through the bedrock of the state’s identity, she said.
“I’m a champion of words, because I believe they can change lives and save lives,” Briles said. “But it’s a lonely thing, because you get into these silos. Authors just want to write, but no one is going to read your books if you don’t market yourself, especially today. So that’s what I try to teach them, and that’s why I created this — to give them recognition and a place to come together.”
“We (authors) know what it takes to create awesome books that teach and inspire,” said board chairwoman and children’s author Lisa Reinicke, in a press statement. “Now we’re dedicating ourselves to honoring fellow authors who’ve proven their worth to our society. We’ll be making sure their legacies never die.”
The Sept. 14 induction ceremony, which is being attended by 11 of the 16 living authors on the list, is almost sold out, Briles said. That’s good news for the upstart event, which has lately managed to get the attention of some of the biggest names on its list. Briles’ favorite reaction was from W.C. Jameson, the 76-year-old author of more than 100 books, 1,500 published articles and essays, and 400 songs.
“I said, ‘I don’t know if you ever get up here from Texas or have relatives who can accept for you, but we’d love to have you,’ ” Briles remembered. “And he said, ‘Little lady, I will be there with my boots on.’ “
Horror titan King and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright – another living but non-Colorado-based honoree, who once worked in the Denver Post’s library — won’t be there. But King is sending a message via fellow inductee Jerry Jenkins, Briles said. And L’Amour’s widow, daughter and even the family’s publishing attorney will attend to honor the late, great Western writer whose work has sold more than 325 million copies.
Briles also decided to contact L’Amour’s publisher, Penguin Random House, to request donations for the table displays.
“I just wanted 10 of his books for our centerpieces, because everyone who attends gets to choose a book to take with them,” she said. “But (Penguin) got so excited they sent me 200 books. So now my vision is to take these donations from publishers and have a gallery (of inductees) that will tour Colorado libraries and make their work more accessible, whether it’s with physical books, e-books or audio books.”
Briles is in contact with writing organizations in other states looking to start their own author halls of fame. But for now, she’s planning on holding induction ceremonies once every other year in Colorado, and the next class will drop from 21 members to 12. Getting the word out about this new organization is her most immediate challenge.
“We’ve got a lot of publishing going on in this state, and we have for decades,” Young said. “That’s not new. But as we swing toward increasingly video-based information, it’s important to keep attention on the written word.”
When you watch a video, Young said, you’re seeing somebody else’s visual interpretation of that material. When you read, you remove that step and are tasked with creating the imagery yourself. That’s what makes writing special.
“That’s a really rich and engaging thing,” she said. “Reading involves the reader in the creative process in ways they probably don’t even think about. What a wonderful thing to celebrate.”
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from Latest Information https://www.denverpost.com/2019/09/12/colorado-authors-hall-of-fame-judith-briles/
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