Media roundup
There is a new Vorkosiverse novella coming! About Ekaterin -- "The Flowers of Vashnoi". Which, on the one hand, is not what I most wan to see in this universe (that would be Galeni, Gregor, and Ivan dealing with fatherhood please!), but I am still delighted by the fact of more Vorkosiverse.
*
33. Paper Girls, vol.1 (Brian K. Vaughan, art by Cliff Chiang) -- mm, OK, volume 3 is definitely my favorite, but this wasn't bad. I was even enjoying it well enough before the time-travel shenanigans started, when it was just the paper girls facing down Halloween teenagers. I continue to like KJ, and I find mild spoilers, I guess Tiffany (with her existential realization of how much time she spent on that stupid game) and Erin (with her creative nightmares featuring Reagan XP) pretty adorable, too. Mac I'm still not a fan of (I do find it interesting, in light of volume 3 spoilers!) how consistently she's shown to be more homophobic -- at least thoughtlessly homophobic, using "faggot" as a slur and having the only negative reaction when one of the future teens mentions a boyfriend -- than the others. Anyway, I'm definitely interested in reading volume 4, which is already out but my library doesn't have it yet. I feel like even though I read it backwards, the volumes keep getting stronger and stronger, so hopefully that bodes well for the next one and my enjoyment of it.
34. Becky Albertalli, Leah on the Offbeat -- the Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda true sequel I've been waiting for (we've ALL been waiting for) since finishing the Simon book. And it's great! I liked it more than the other Albertalli book (The Upside of Unrequited), although not quite as much as 'Simon vs.' itself. But I was totally not expecting to find myself emotionally compromised by what I was expecting to be fluffy comfort read YA -- 'Simon' was very cute and occasionally poignant, but, like, in a sweet way. This was too, but let me tell you, reading a book with teenagers wrapping up their senior year and planning to head off to college when my daughter is wrapping up her junior year and the college reality is starting to hit in earnest? Weirdly stressful!
Amusingly enough,
aome texted me from her plane trip to say she was reading the book, and I went and ordered it immediately -- in hard copy, so that L and I could both read it most easily, and let her have first crack at it -- and she finished it in one day. It was Saturday, so I got to witness her reading it, alternating between giggling and saying plaintively, "This is creepy" because of how similar/familiar certain things were. (For those who don't know, L's name is Leah -- although pronounced differently from book-Leah's, more like "Princess Leia", though she does answer to both -- and she's a proud Slytherin, definitely has resting bitch face, and also pointed out that I'm a lot younger than her friends' moms -- though not quite as young as book-Leah's mom, and not a single parent -- and our interactions are not dissimilar -- which I gather is not how other teenager daughters/mothers interact? Her friends are frequently shocked, at any rate.) We even also have different last names which no-one ever remembers)Anyway, so, yeah, this was kind of an unexpected trip for both of us, I gather...
But, like, OK, the actual book. I didn't find Leah quite AS adorable a narrator as Simon, but she was straight-up hilarious with her similes and descriptions and general creative bitchiness that did remind me of L quite a lot. Her character made a lot of sense to me, too, and I appreciated that she was quite far from cliche, in a lot of ways (in addition to personally abhorring the idea of being cliche).
I got the sense, from Simon's POV, or maybe I was just expecting it based on YA zeitgeist, that Leah was unhappy about or shy because she was plus size or something like that, and I was delighted to see that this was not the case -- the she likes her body, is offended by the question about whether she's on a diet (when she only orders a drink at a restaurant), that she feels cute in her clothes. There is the dressing room moment in contrast to that, but nobody feels 100% beautiful and confident all of the time, and that felt like the right balance. (And speaking of the dressing room scene, I loved the fact that her mother was like, "Ehh, I don't like it" about the dress Leah loved, but bought it for her anyway, once she saw how much it meant to Leah. I have totally been there, and have come around to the 'questionable' choices. But Leah's mother will need a paragraph of her own.) And I do love that, while being completely aware of the cliche-ness of this, Leah gets her "holy shit" Yule Ball moment both with Garrett and with Abby. Oh, and Leah's golden dress with little flowers, gold leather cat purse and combat boots is an amazing look (and I also liked her St Patrick's Day outfit).
And speaking of physical stuff, I also liked that Leah never drunk, never was even tempted to drink, and just found drunk people tedious -- not for any moralizing reasons but just because she didn't want to (my assumption is, because of the loss of control, although I don't think the book ever says that). And here's something I noticed that at this point I'm not sure if it's part of Leah's characterization or part of Albertalli's style, but I don't remember noticing it with Simon or Molly's POVs -- just how physical the depiction of Leah's feelings was. And, like, I want to say "gross" -- not in the sense of "disgusting", but just very grounded and down-to-earth -- not so much the racing hearts that are romantic staples but feelings that twist in her stomach, that are a punch in the guts, the "it feels like having to pee, except it's not actually pee. It's lightning" feeling. It felt very fitting to her bold and not-conventionally-romantic character.
I really liked that she was a Slytherin, but not the cliche kind of Slytherin -- blandly ambitious and catty, say -- but very Slytherin nevertheless: someone very private and controlled and, like, coiled, horrified at the idea of showing imperfections or naked emotion. When Abby and Leah are having their talk at the prom, and Leah talks about how it makes sense to wait, to let the dust settle, and Abby tells her she's right and practical -- that's such a Gryffindor/Slytherin moment. (I was very amused to learn, at the end, that Leah's birthday is ~September 20, which makes her a Virgo. She's very much a Virgo, though I agree with ikel89 that there's probably some Scorpio in there, too.) And finally, I like the way the thread of all-or-nothing, that perfectionism, is woven into every aspect of Leah's character, from the way the idea of taking commissions makes her want to delete her Tumblr entirely to the way having the dress she loves be too expensive makes her want to not go to prom at all, but how she interacts with other people -- how unyielding she is about Morgan's screw-up, how she's unwilling to accept Abby's "a little bi" label. It's a very consistent trait, and it's both a difficult one and also one that I can definitely see making her a stronger person -- driving herself in drawing and drumming and academics until she is perfect, which is as much behind her scholarship and the college band and Abby's awed reactions as native talent (although I don't think Leah herself is conscious of that at all.)
So, yeah, Leah was great. And Leah/Abby being endgame was definitely unexpected! (Well, until I asked L about the endgame ship and when I randomly guessed Abby, I could tell by her expression that this was the right answer. But I don't think this interfered with my reading enjoyment at all.) I was actually not surprised to learn that Leah was not straight -- as a matter of fact, I was feeling Leah/Nora vibes at the end of 'Simon', and was wondering if that would become canon in this book (and a lot of their early interaction, and Leah's old crush moving from Alice to Simon, suggesting Nora as the natural next target, did not do very much to dissuade me from this!) But, honestly, I'm just impressed that one of the 'endgame' pairings from the previous book was broken up. It was painful, because I really liked Nick in 'Simon', and while L did not like him here (she said he was like book 5 Harry, heh), I still did -- like, while he was clearly a huge mess, and did a lot of ill-advised stuff, I thought he was understandable and sympathetic throughout, without being a poor forlorn victim. (And cyanshadow makes the very good point that, on a meta level, it's good to see a guy being an emotional mess due to a break-up.) I do feel really sorry for him at the end of the book, and would happily read book 3 about Nick at Tufts (and Taylor, or not Taylor), because I hope he gets a happy ending, too. That said, I never particularly felt the Nick/Abby relationship in 'Simon', and this book definitely made Abby herself more interesting to me than Simon's book -- like, I liked her in 'Simon', but not in a way that made me want to read more about her, but her dynamic with Leah is much more interesting to me than her dynamic with either Nick or even Simon. Like, I thought it was adorable that she was trying her hardest to be a good Harry Potter fan to impress Leah (and naming the rented doll Hermione, aww!) Oh, and I almost forgot: the Fifty Shades phone hack was the best April Fool's prank EVER!
Besides Abby and Nick, I liked revisiting the other characters we met in 'Simon vs', too. Simon is delightfully adorkable through Leah's fond eyes (my favorite moment was probably him freaking out over having "YOUR" instead of "YOU'RE" in a text, in all caps! don't tell Bram!!), and Bram is the actual best, between the hilarious, adorable, labor-intensive promposal and the lockscreen with his baby brother, and just his steady, unassuming presence. Taylor continued the trend of being occasionally unexpectedly awesome (like the pun-off with Leah -- "Oh, nuts." "He's testicling my patience", really talented, and also hilariously self-centered. It was nice to see that while Simon considers Anna and Morgan interchangeable, despite having dated Anna briefly, they are clearly different people and Leah considers them genuine friends, even though she's now closer to Nick and Simon. I was surprised to see the arc with Morgan, the SJW/ally who ends up not getting into the school of her choice when Abby does and doesn't handle it well. Abby calling her out on it, and Abby and Bram's hurt-but-resigned reactions, and even Anna's "Yeah, don't lecture me about racism" reaction to Leah's categorical position (Anna is half-Chinese) were all interesting, and I actually don't think I've seen this dealt with at a level of nuance beyond "racism is bad". Not that this was too much more nuanced, but I felt like at least it made the distinction between "Morgan said a racist thing, which is not OK" and "Morgan is a terrible person who cannot be redeemed". (And Abby's comments about having to be "unimpeachably perfect, which probably isn't healthy, and it's just really exhausting" precisely because of things like this was also powerful.)
There are a couple of new characters introduced in the book, too. I liked what Albertalli did with Garrett -- he seems like overall a pretty nice guy, funny and clearly besotted with Leah and trying to right by her -- but also not perfect, perving on the idea of Abby and Leah together, and thinking of springing a public promposal on Leah, for whom that's basically her worst nightmare. One of the quibbles I have with the book's very abrupt ending (before we get to the timeskip email from college) is that there's zero Leah/Garrett resolution, and I feel like that's fallout we really should've seen (along with Nick's reaction to Abby and Leah getting together). My favorite new character, though, was Leah's mom. I loved all of their interactions, from the way they're super-close in a not-very-parental way, to Leah giving her a hard time about using teenage slang or not pronouncing the G in "fucking", to the way Leah's mom trolls her with the mental image of Leah attending her own prom in utero ("my little prom fetus"), to Leah's mom knowing all the school gossip but being kind of awkward with Leah's friends' parents, to the prom-prep hair session via YouTube tutorial. (I'd like to think that the awesome relationship between Leah and her mom was one of the things that L found identifiable about this book :). And while I don't feel like we got all that much of Wells, I did like the way he and Leah got to bond a little bit while prom shopping over growing up poor. And the Prince William look-alike thing was a pretty funny detail.
One of the things I've come to expect from Albertalli is something quirky and hilarious. In this case, I enjoyed the accidental prom dinner at the American Girl restaurant, complete with rental dolls that Abby, Bram, and Simon go for, the musical number/dance-off at the end, and Bram's promposal -- although I have to admit, none of it quite reached the level of the Spier family Facebook scavenger hunt in the first book.
Oh, and I did also really enjoy what a hardcore fan Leah is. Not just her fannish art Tumblr (and that she giggles to herself when she draws, apparently XP) and strong opinions on Draco characterization (which L wholeheartedly agreed with), but, like, Drarry metaphors and book 5 metaphors applied to her real life, and her TARDIS socks as everyday wear, and her other fandoms/ships -- kind of not surprised she ships Percabeth, and L totally squeed at the fact that she also ships Inej/Nina from Six of Crows. And the way texting and social media is so integrated into their lives felt spot on, too -- like, I loved the fact that Abby actually checks her phone for Leah's texts when Leah is standing right there in front of her, and of course the "two girls kissing on prom night" commission request was ADORABLE. (I suppose it makes more sense for Simon to be using FFN than AO3, since he isn't really a fanfic writer in general, it was just a one-off thing). Oh, and I giggled when Wells reminded Leah not to forget her camera for prom and she thinks "Maybe I should skip the camera altogether. I'll just bring some oil paints and a fucking easel" -- before he remembers/realizes they just use phones now.
Quotes:
"part of me wantso spew praise all over them, but something stops me. aybe it's just too painfully sincere, a little to fifth-grade Leah"
"Maybe Nora and I should make out now, just to stay relevant" (see what I mean? XP)
Leah on her mom: "She whips out these little snippets of random information, just to show off what an involved mom she is. My friends probably go home and quiz her about them with flash cards."
"I can't fuck your life. I'm monogamously fucking my own life." <-- from now on the only allowable response to FML
"Not that I've ever been anyone's girlfriend. But I imagine it feels like this. Like I'm this tiny precious wanted thing. I can't decide if I feel gross about that, or if I only think I should feel gross about it."
"Sorry to miss the game, Garrett. Turns out, you're confusing and annoying and I kind of can't deal with your face."
"Every once in a while, it hits me:I knew my mom in high school, I don't think we'd have been friends."
Leah: "Do you not know how to turn off the child locks, or something?"
Garrett: "What? Dude. I'm being a gentleman."
About Nick when dating Abbyd that particular kind of nerdywagger, that back-and-forth between braggadocio and wonder."
Abby: "And then we'll cue up thest epic, bottom-tier bullshit playlist you worked so hard half-assing."
"You know you will miss [T. How are we going to know if her metabolism is still rocking?"
"Probably from her daily Instagram updates."
Leah's mom: "Like, it was always some random lady in the grocery store. You'd be flailing around, pitching a fit, and every single time, some jerk would je to come up and tell me I'd miss it one day. Oh, she'll be off to college before you know it. Enjoy these moments now. I was like, cool story, fuck you. [...] But they were so right."
"The DJ is playing some wordless techno song that sounds exactly like robots having sex."
Simon re: Abby and Leah being together: "Like you have no idea how happy this makes me. No idea. I just wanted you guys to be friends, even, but this."
Abby: "That's right. We went above and beyond for you, Simon."
Leah: "So, you're welcome."
35. Nnedi Okorafor, Akata Warrior -- OK, reading this so soon after Binti has made me realize something about me and Okorafor's writing: I really enjoy the way she writes about Africa and the African diaspora, but the way she writes genre doesn't really work for me, for the most part. Like, with this book, I perked up whenever Sunny was interacting with her family or talking to her friends about various mundane things, or just going about her day, but as soon as we got into the magical stuff, I had to fight the urge to skim. This is... not ideal for a fantasy novel XP I'm not sure if this is because the logic of the magical interludes is neither realistic waking-world logic, nor the kind of fairy tale logic I'm used to (different underlying mythos, different logic, makes sense), and so it just feels like random stuff happening for the most part. There are a couple of more magical things that I do like -- the wasp artist and the maskerade made of bugs (EW), Sunny's mother-of-pearl comb turning back into ghost snails, or the "blowback" from Sasha making it rain being that he kept having to pee, but most of the extended magical sequences were just kind of boring to me, and even the flying grasscutter (giant magical cane rat that can turn itself invisible and fly) was kind of eh. I did like Udide the spider, though (and the way she talks in allusions and ~rap rhymes when she prophecies). But for the most part, the sections I liked had less to do with Leopard People and more to do with the real world -- Sunny's worst childhood memory and Sasha getting where she's coming from (as the other kid who grew up in the US), Sasha and Chukwu bonding over rap and stew despite competing for the same girl, the relationship between Sunny and her older brother, where they're willing to go through a lot of scary stuff to protect each other (and I'm really glad one member of her family knows what's going on with her now, at least), but Chukwu's reaction to Sunny and Chichi's return is still "go make us dinner", basically. (Character-wise, Sasha continues to be my favorite; you might be able to tell.) I really enjoy the code mixing/switching between various African languages, creole, and English, and things like the seer lady using "that's how we roll" and then asking Sunny for confirmation that she's using the phrase correctly. And the prose is unusual -- something about the mixing of vocabulary and slightly strange word order, I think; it doesn't particularly enhance the reading experience for me as such, but it stands out.
One quote from the end that I particularly liked: "Here, people argued and fought over books, and some of the books argued with and fought people."
Hugos tally (YA): 5/6. Skinful of Shadows, In Other Lands, Art of Starving / Summer in Orcus, Akata Warrior. Only the Pullman left to read, but it's the heftiest of them all.
36. Jonathan Kellerman, Motive -- this was the 2015 novel I'd apparently skipped without realizing. Not much to say about it except that it's the usual Kellerman -- I enjoy the writing, I enjoy the interaction between Alex and Milo (this was a very Alex-and-Milo focused book), the descriptions of secondary characters (my favorites here were Earl Cohen, the old lawyer I'd already met in the subsequent book, Albert Tranh the elderly friend of the second victim's family, and the old CPA couple the first victim had worked for -- not sure why there are so many retirees or other old people populating the books now...) The only thing that really threw me was a section or two that appears to be in Milo's third-person POV (rather than Alex narrating things Milo had told him), which was just weird. Spoilers I did find the Merry Santos reveal at the very end anticlimactic, but it was better than her turning up dead, and it does play into the theme of being led about by one's expectations in the context, not necessarily reality -- which I thought was a really cool premise for a mystery in general, actually.
37. Sarah Pinsker, And Then There Were (N-one) (online here) -- I really liked this one! Like Six Wakes, it does something that appeals to me a lot -- it takes a specifically sci-fi idea and plays a mystery out of it, with really neat results. (But unlike Six Wakes, I felt like the execution did justice to the idea -- though, admittedly, it was a much simpler plot, and playing out over a shorter length.) Also, it's got a fucking brilliant title -- a mathematical pun. The premise is that multiple versions of the same person from across the multiverse meet at a convention put on just for that purpose -- all of the attendees are Sarah from a variety of worlds -- and one of them ends up murdered (I think this is non-spoilery, since you can pretty much surmise that from the title), with the POV-Sarah in the investigator role (even though she's an insurance fraud investigator, not an actual detective), for reasons that aren't maybe 10% believable but that I was willing to roll with -- and pretty much all the suspects are ALSO Sarahs. Spoilers from here
It took me a little while to get used to the fact that protagonist-Sarah shared the name of the author. It was also fun that the murder weapon is a Nebula Award, which actual author Sarah Pinsker has actually won. It's delicious fourth-wall fuckery! :D And that also made me wonder how many other details were autobiographical -- the girlfriend/wife Mabel? the incident with the runaway horse? Anyway, this was a really neat thing to do -- I'm pretty sure I have never before read a story where the actual real-life author was a character so minor, the protagonist never even met them :)
The plot was neat. I had guessed, at the point where POV-Sarah met the host after the incident, that this was actually R1D0 Sarah, and had suspected someone was pretending to be a different Sarah even before that, but I hadn't guessed the victim switch, or the motive, and all of that made a lot of sense. And the way the story ends is wonderfully, appropriately open-ended.
Also, I totally want the reality in which there was a 2005 Wonder Woman movie with Gina Torres. Come on, make this happen, multiverse.
Hugo tally (novellas): 6/6 (done! :D) OK, you know what? I think (N-one) might actually unseat Murderbot for the top spot. I enjoyed reading Murderbot more -- it was more fun on a character and prose level -- but (N-one) is more unique, and also novella is the perfect length for it, while Murderbot serves as the kickoff for a series, and part of what I like about it is its potential. I'll need to let this settle more, but I think right now it goes: N-one, Murderbot, Black Tides of Heaven, Sticks and Bones, Binti: Home, No Award, River of Teeth. Or to put it another way, I would be very happy if either N-one or Murderbot won, fairly pleased if Black Tides did, resigned to a Sticks and Bones win (because Seanan McGuire), be disappointed if Binti 2 won (half a book! >:/) and really, really pissed if the Hugo went to River of Teeth.
I'm not counting novelettes or shorter in my reading totals, but I've now read all of those for Hugo homework as well:
Sarah Pinsker, "Wind Will Rove" (link)-- so then after I had enjoyed the novella so much, I decided to read the Hugo-nominated novelette from the same author. And it's also lovely and... like, the opposite of didactic, I feel -- open-ended, maybe. Like, for such a short work, there are a lot of different points of view contained in it, a whole continuum, with valid arguments on all sides -- mild spoilers the narrator's grandmother, who chose to leave Earth, her mother joining the NewTime movement, her daughter and the band of intentionally ephemeral songs, Nelson and his schoolboy revolution. In general, I'm pretty impressed with how well it pulled off the idea of, basically, having a story set in the middle of a generation ship's journey where... nothing happens. Like, stuff has happened before the story starts, a generation or two before, but this story, very explicitly, is about the time between the departure and the arrival -- the generations which didn't make the choice to leave and won't get to be the pioneers, won't get to do much of anything, but are still important for being a link in the chain, and I think the story captures that beautifully and meaningfully, and doesn't feel plotless at all -- I was very impressed. And the 'countermelody' of an evolving song worked very well for me -- the ideas of evolution and synthesis. And the story does diversity the way I prefer it: casual mention of queer relationships, several characters who use singular-they, a nice ethnic/cultural mix implied in last names and offhand details, without any of those things ever being the only relevant aspects of the character. Anyway, I really liked it.
Plot/backstory-wise, I felt really sorry for Morne Brooks, the guy who had made an error which allowed the Blackout to happen ("It didn't matter that for sixteen years afterward he worked on the team that shored up protection against future damage, or that he eventually committed suicide.")
Quotes:
A person who lived her whole life on a spaceship is imagining a farm: "A sky as big as space, the color of chlorinated water. [...] A perfect carpet of green grass. Horses, large and sturdy, bleating at each other across he fields."
"Birds were the things with feathers, as the old saying went."
"Why not songs about stars, you might ask? Why not songs about darkness and space? The traditionalists wouldn't play them. I'm not sure who'd write them, either. People on Earth wrote about blue skies because they'd stood under grey ones. They wrote about night because there was such thing as day. Songs about prison are poignant because the character knew something else beforehand, and dreamed of other things ahead. Past and future are both abstractions now."
Vina Jie-Min Prasad, "A Series of Steaks" (link) -- I started reading this during the nomination period, actually, but didn't get to the end in time. It is clever, and really funny, and I kind of love Lily, she is hilarious, and I pretty much approve of her life philosophy. I like the premise of meat forgery, and the characters are cute, and the story is pretty cute too. I don't have any deep feelings about it, but it was fun.
Suzanne Palmer, "The Secret Life of Bots" (link) -- this was cute, although less creative than the other two stories. I mean, I enjoyed the bot adventures (even if they sound rather dopily like Paarfi characters XP), and I liked the glimpses of the humans, too, and the writing was entertaining enough, and more humorous than I would've expected of a suicide mission story, but plot-wise it was pretty standard fare. Still, cute.
K.M.Szpara, "Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time" (link) -- This was one of those stories I liked less the more I read of it. I started out at "OK, I'm willing to concede that "trans gay vampire" is a story that should probably exist on par with all the other kinds of vampire stories, but, like, I'm sick of ALL vampire stories", which already put it below the others I'd read till then. And I'm also not a fan of stories that are so explicitly about a particular identity and don't have much else unique going for them. I mean, as far as metaphors go, this is an effective one to explore, I guess, but pretty facile. And then I got to the half of the story that is basically porn, and, mehh -- the fact that it's issuefic porn does not improve it for me, but rather the reverse. It's not a combination I enjoy in general, and am rather meh on the idea of winning a Hugo. The touches of bureaucracy to everything were nice, but the rest of it is not really my thing. But then the more I thought about it, the more I was annoyed by this story, because I think I actually could've appreciated this set-up if it WENT anywhere. But it's literally a story that comes down to "trans gay newly fledged vampire is trans and gay" and "also they bang" -- and while I can see that appealing on an id level (although not to me personally) and on a purely "representation" level, I don't believe that's actually a story.
Aliette de Bodard, "Children of Thorns, Children of Water" (link) -- Nope. There's a hell of a lot of worldbuilding -- shape-shifting (Eastern) dragons in a kingdom under the sea! Paris apparently run by Fallen angels! some kind of House system! gangs! different types of magic! -- but, frankly, it's too much work to get into all that for a novelette. I was totally not surprised when I googled this piece and it turned out to be set in the same universe as two full-length novels, which might be able to justify that level of investment (although not for me, given that nothing else about this story -- not plot, not characters, not the writing -- worked for me). I've read things like this -- short pieces set in larger universes -- that's basically what all the Legends anthologies are -- and the good ones truly do work as stepping stones, giving you a flavor of the universe and a compelling stand-alone story to lure you into the larger piece. This... did not do that, kind of did the opposite of it, actually. On top of that, the writing style didn't work for me -- too much description of a kind I don't care for, sentence fragments and repetition that just annoyed me without having any particular effect, dialogue that I think was meant to sound natural and/or clever but was just awkward and dull. And, really, I just found it boring, and a struggle to get through, more than any of the other short works, even the ones that pissed me off.
Hugos tally (novelette): 6/6 (done! :D). "Wind Will Rove" at the top. "Steaks", the Hexarchate story, and "Bots" are pretty close together after that. I think I might give "Steaks" the edge, much as I like younger Jedao and appreciate the chance for him to have some fun goose fat shenanigans -- because I think "Steaks" works as a better self-contained story than the Hexarchate one. And "Bots" after that, not so much because it's a weaker story than the Jedao one, but because I do care about Jedao more than the random bots. I think the other two go below No Award for me. Before I read the "Children of Thorns" one, I was still debating, but I literally have not a single positive impression from "Children of Thorns", and "Small Changes" does not feel like the kind of story that deserved a Hugo -- I'd have it above No Award, even with the issuefic-y feel, if not for the erotica aspects, but that part just doesn't feel right for something at this level, not for how much of the story it occupies. So I guess the final tally is "Wind Will Rove", "Steaks, "Extracurricular Activities," "The Secret Life of Bots", No Award, "Small Changes", "Children of Thorns".
At this point I'm completely done with short story, novelette, and novella nominees, which had been one of my Worldcon goals, as well as all graphic novel nominees, which I hadn't thought about. And I've got one YA book to go (Book of Dust) and two (really, three, because I still need to finish Obelisk Gate) to go on the novel. Plus I want to give Divine Cities (and poooossibly Stormlight) a chance for the series voting, and read the LeGuin "related work" essays. And I think everything else I can rely on the voter packet for, although I'm also reading a couple of things proactively to get a feel for the Campbell nominees I haven't sampled yet -- I'm in the middle of The Bear and the Nightingale (Arden), Heroine Complex (Kuhn), and An Unkindness of Ghosts (Solomon), and only have one writer I've completely not samples (Ng, whose novel my library does not have in any format). Thoughts so far:
- Katherine Arden -- ~35% into The Bear and the Nightingale, I'm impressed by a Western writer doing such a decent job with !Russia, and the writing is lovely, but the Vasya thing is still getting on my nerves
- Sarah Kuhn* -- ~30% into Heroine Complex (Asian superheroines in SF; but really just chick lit pretty much, although fairly amusing)
- Jeannette Ng -- looks like she's got some short stories + Under the Pendulum Sun (which "features a fantastical journey that takes place in gothic mid-19th century England")
- Vina Jie-Min Prasad -- check, the fluffy Yuletide-esque short story and "Series of Steaks"
- Rebecca Roanhorse -- check, "Authentic Indian Experience" short story
- Rivers Solomon -- ~30% into An Unkindness of Ghosts, which is impressively ambitious and a more enjoyable read than I'd been expecting
(The Hugo ballot opened for voting earlier this month, so I went in and voted on all the categories I was done with or nearly done with, just in case.)
I also read a couple of (non-Hugo-homework) short stories I happened to come across:
"Daughter of Odren" by Ursula LeGuin (an Earthsea short story) -- I spotted it among the e-book LeGuin titles when looking for the Hugo-nominated essays and snapped it up. It was OK; definitely not one of my favorite Earthsea stories, but the writing is the usual gorgeous, solid, down-to-earth prose of the books, and it was nice to dip back into the universe. Spoilers! I liked the contrast between the prodigal brother/lord and the sister who had embraced her less exalted role, the way they had very different ideas about motivations and solutions, and how neither was ultimately 100% right, but Weed was definitely way closer to practical than Clay's take. It's kind of Earthsea takes on mansplaining, with not a whole lot else unusual going on, but it's lovely to be back in this universe, and see the hints of the larger story in mentions of the new king and Roke, outside the scope of the tale itself.
"Opal" by Maggie Stiefvater -- this was a really fun short story addition to the Raven Cycle universe, because Opal's POV is absolutely hilarious. Thematically, I appreciated the glimpse at Ronan and Adam post main story, though I would've liked seeing it more directly, too. Opal's blend of cheerful and creepy and generally otherworldly was pretty great, and I enjoyed her rivalry with Chainsaw. Also, the story has a bunch of hilarious quotes like: "Opal came to understand that Adam's car was supposed to be more like Ronan's, but there was something wrong with it called shitbox."
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Oh yeah, and while I was reading diligently through Hugos homework in the short form, I also read ~300k of Check Please! fic by emmagrant01 (who I had not realized was in this fandom before stumbling across the behemoth): Something Like This (E, Jack/Bitty, divergent AU in the sense that it's a story started before the two of them got together in canon and was subsequently Jossed by the comic). Features a very appropriately intense Jack POV, and, like I've come to expect from emmagrant01 fic, really great slow burn and well-crafted OCs and well-realized secondary characters. Also, hot.
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Also, L and I finally finished watching The Shape of Water, which was... OK? I mean, it was a pretty movie with impressive performances, but, like, a very uninspired and bare-bones story. Like, I was impressed with just how much personality and emotion Eliza was able to get across without speaking, and the Creature had impressive personality too, considering it wasn't even human, and I did like Giles and especially Zelda as characters, and spoilers! Dmitri/Bob was nicely sympathetic (way more sympathetic than I was expecting a Russian spy to be), while Strickland was perfectly heateable, but... in the service of what? As a love story, it REALLY didn't work for me, because what do they really have in common? Well, OK, Eliza was kind to the Creature and treated him as a sentient being and danced with him and stuff, but it's quite a leap from being grateful for that and, you know, being in love. And her reasoning about how the Creature doesn't feel she has a lack is just weird, too; I mean, Giles and Zelda don't seem to regard her as anything lesser, either, and while they are presumably not potential partners for requited love, it does suggest that, you know, some humans out there might be... And, I mean, yes, both L and I fully expected the "scars" on her neck to turn out to be gills, so she's not fully human either, but she's clearly also not whatever the Creature is, so...
Anyway, it was a pretty movie, and quite often a funny one, but also rather too gory for my taste in places -- everything to do with Strickland's fingers was SO GROSS! (I had to look away), and the extended torture scene was also not what I wanted to be watching. And then there was the Creature eating Pandora the cat (after which L lost all her sympathy for him).
Oh, right, and I meant to comment on all the Russian, of which there was a lot. The text was actually perfect. The delivery was... less terrible than it could've been, except for one of the characters, fortunately not the guy playing Dmitri (who lived in Vilnius for a while, so maybe that helped). Still, for the people who aren't Dmitri and don't have to blend in with the Americans, and who therefore ONLY speak Russian, or just about, how hard would it have been to cast some actual Russians, seriously?
I totally don't understand why this won an Oscar -- I mean, OK, it's pretty but shallow (get it? heh). Then again, I think del Toro's movies are just not for me, maybe (I liked the Hellboy movies well enough, but found Pacific Rim incredibly overrated, andnever bothered with Pan's Labyrinth or Crimson Peak). L was also highly underwhelmed, saying that she didn't care about any of the characters or what happened to them, which was also largely true for me, except for Zelda and maybe Giles, and I was momentarily sad about Dmitri.
I was glad to have had L's company in watching this, because we could snark about it. And then, because I'm a good parent, I told her about and showed her this (NSFW Creature dildo)
Hugos tally (dramatic long form): 3.5/6 (but we'll call it 4). I'm still debating between TLJ and Thor 3 for top spot. Thor 3 was really funny, and definitely redeemed the sub-franchise for me, but TLJ had Luke being interesting (and hilarious) to me for the first time in like 30 years... But TLJ also had the weird non-arc for Finn, and a bunch of other things I don't much care for. I still think Logan was robbed, but as it stands, we're probably talking: Thor, TLJ, Shape of Water (because at least I felt like finishing it, and I was impressed by the acting, if not the story), Wonder Woman. And I need to dig up the copy of Blade Runner 2049 I have lying around somewhere and watch it, and then think about whether or not I actually want to watch Get Out.
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And, to bring a third medium into this, because why not -- I mentioned in a previous post that ikel89 had got be listening to Be the Serpent podcast (tagged as "a podcast of extremely deep literary merit"). Now, I generally don't do podcasts -- the audio form doesn't work for me for stories (too slow, and I start tuning out), and while the occasional neat factoid-based thing is cool to listen to, I don't think I was ever able to listen more than 30 min at a time. Well, ha, this one I mainlined all 7 episodes (each about an hour) in less than a day. (I actually used earbuds with the phone for the first time, which required borrowing them back from the rodents XP) The podcast is three fans/fantasy authors who all seem like really neat people with interesting things to say and good chemistry together, and listening to the podcast is very much like the best kind of fandom discussion on LJ -- genuine insight, love for the material, tropey squee, intriguing personal details, random historical/scientific trivia and geeky references as it comes up, poems, etymology, philosophy, fannish inside jokes. It's very much like listening in on a conversation your friends are having, and there were lots of places where I was like, "yes! and what about X -- that also fits exactly what you're saying" or just grinning and thinking "I know, right?" I also like the fact that the book discussions are not unmitigated squee -- the three Serpents (because they're all at least partly Slytherins) do disagree and critique novels they didn't like as much, but it's in the good-natured way of civil fannish disagreement (~ykinmk rather than "your fave is problematic" or whatever). I started with Episode 6 (because who needs chronology), which snagged me by containing reference to In Other Lands (which they all loved), Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (which there was fond critique/disagreement on), Vorkosigan fic, Killjoys. Other episodes have referenced LeGuin, The Broken Earth trilogy, Justine Larbalestier's Liar, Sorting Hat Chats, The Goblin Emperor, and one of the episodes closes with a quote from PTerry -- these ladies have good taste, is what I'm saying. And the episodes all get transcripts, too, so it's easy to look stuff up later.
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1079607.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).
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33. Paper Girls, vol.1 (Brian K. Vaughan, art by Cliff Chiang) -- mm, OK, volume 3 is definitely my favorite, but this wasn't bad. I was even enjoying it well enough before the time-travel shenanigans started, when it was just the paper girls facing down Halloween teenagers. I continue to like KJ, and I find mild spoilers, I guess Tiffany (with her existential realization of how much time she spent on that stupid game) and Erin (with her creative nightmares featuring Reagan XP) pretty adorable, too. Mac I'm still not a fan of (I do find it interesting, in light of volume 3 spoilers!) how consistently she's shown to be more homophobic -- at least thoughtlessly homophobic, using "faggot" as a slur and having the only negative reaction when one of the future teens mentions a boyfriend -- than the others. Anyway, I'm definitely interested in reading volume 4, which is already out but my library doesn't have it yet. I feel like even though I read it backwards, the volumes keep getting stronger and stronger, so hopefully that bodes well for the next one and my enjoyment of it.
34. Becky Albertalli, Leah on the Offbeat -- the Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda true sequel I've been waiting for (we've ALL been waiting for) since finishing the Simon book. And it's great! I liked it more than the other Albertalli book (The Upside of Unrequited), although not quite as much as 'Simon vs.' itself. But I was totally not expecting to find myself emotionally compromised by what I was expecting to be fluffy comfort read YA -- 'Simon' was very cute and occasionally poignant, but, like, in a sweet way. This was too, but let me tell you, reading a book with teenagers wrapping up their senior year and planning to head off to college when my daughter is wrapping up her junior year and the college reality is starting to hit in earnest? Weirdly stressful!
Amusingly enough,
aome texted me from her plane trip to say she was reading the book, and I went and ordered it immediately -- in hard copy, so that L and I could both read it most easily, and let her have first crack at it -- and she finished it in one day. It was Saturday, so I got to witness her reading it, alternating between giggling and saying plaintively, "This is creepy" because of how similar/familiar certain things were. (For those who don't know, L's name is Leah -- although pronounced differently from book-Leah's, more like "Princess Leia", though she does answer to both -- and she's a proud Slytherin, definitely has resting bitch face, and also pointed out that I'm a lot younger than her friends' moms -- though not quite as young as book-Leah's mom, and not a single parent -- and our interactions are not dissimilar -- which I gather is not how other teenager daughters/mothers interact? Her friends are frequently shocked, at any rate.) We even also have different last names which no-one ever remembers)Anyway, so, yeah, this was kind of an unexpected trip for both of us, I gather...
But, like, OK, the actual book. I didn't find Leah quite AS adorable a narrator as Simon, but she was straight-up hilarious with her similes and descriptions and general creative bitchiness that did remind me of L quite a lot. Her character made a lot of sense to me, too, and I appreciated that she was quite far from cliche, in a lot of ways (in addition to personally abhorring the idea of being cliche).
I got the sense, from Simon's POV, or maybe I was just expecting it based on YA zeitgeist, that Leah was unhappy about or shy because she was plus size or something like that, and I was delighted to see that this was not the case -- the she likes her body, is offended by the question about whether she's on a diet (when she only orders a drink at a restaurant), that she feels cute in her clothes. There is the dressing room moment in contrast to that, but nobody feels 100% beautiful and confident all of the time, and that felt like the right balance. (And speaking of the dressing room scene, I loved the fact that her mother was like, "Ehh, I don't like it" about the dress Leah loved, but bought it for her anyway, once she saw how much it meant to Leah. I have totally been there, and have come around to the 'questionable' choices. But Leah's mother will need a paragraph of her own.) And I do love that, while being completely aware of the cliche-ness of this, Leah gets her "holy shit" Yule Ball moment both with Garrett and with Abby. Oh, and Leah's golden dress with little flowers, gold leather cat purse and combat boots is an amazing look (and I also liked her St Patrick's Day outfit).
And speaking of physical stuff, I also liked that Leah never drunk, never was even tempted to drink, and just found drunk people tedious -- not for any moralizing reasons but just because she didn't want to (my assumption is, because of the loss of control, although I don't think the book ever says that). And here's something I noticed that at this point I'm not sure if it's part of Leah's characterization or part of Albertalli's style, but I don't remember noticing it with Simon or Molly's POVs -- just how physical the depiction of Leah's feelings was. And, like, I want to say "gross" -- not in the sense of "disgusting", but just very grounded and down-to-earth -- not so much the racing hearts that are romantic staples but feelings that twist in her stomach, that are a punch in the guts, the "it feels like having to pee, except it's not actually pee. It's lightning" feeling. It felt very fitting to her bold and not-conventionally-romantic character.
I really liked that she was a Slytherin, but not the cliche kind of Slytherin -- blandly ambitious and catty, say -- but very Slytherin nevertheless: someone very private and controlled and, like, coiled, horrified at the idea of showing imperfections or naked emotion. When Abby and Leah are having their talk at the prom, and Leah talks about how it makes sense to wait, to let the dust settle, and Abby tells her she's right and practical -- that's such a Gryffindor/Slytherin moment. (I was very amused to learn, at the end, that Leah's birthday is ~September 20, which makes her a Virgo. She's very much a Virgo, though I agree with ikel89 that there's probably some Scorpio in there, too.) And finally, I like the way the thread of all-or-nothing, that perfectionism, is woven into every aspect of Leah's character, from the way the idea of taking commissions makes her want to delete her Tumblr entirely to the way having the dress she loves be too expensive makes her want to not go to prom at all, but how she interacts with other people -- how unyielding she is about Morgan's screw-up, how she's unwilling to accept Abby's "a little bi" label. It's a very consistent trait, and it's both a difficult one and also one that I can definitely see making her a stronger person -- driving herself in drawing and drumming and academics until she is perfect, which is as much behind her scholarship and the college band and Abby's awed reactions as native talent (although I don't think Leah herself is conscious of that at all.)
So, yeah, Leah was great. And Leah/Abby being endgame was definitely unexpected! (Well, until I asked L about the endgame ship and when I randomly guessed Abby, I could tell by her expression that this was the right answer. But I don't think this interfered with my reading enjoyment at all.) I was actually not surprised to learn that Leah was not straight -- as a matter of fact, I was feeling Leah/Nora vibes at the end of 'Simon', and was wondering if that would become canon in this book (and a lot of their early interaction, and Leah's old crush moving from Alice to Simon, suggesting Nora as the natural next target, did not do very much to dissuade me from this!) But, honestly, I'm just impressed that one of the 'endgame' pairings from the previous book was broken up. It was painful, because I really liked Nick in 'Simon', and while L did not like him here (she said he was like book 5 Harry, heh), I still did -- like, while he was clearly a huge mess, and did a lot of ill-advised stuff, I thought he was understandable and sympathetic throughout, without being a poor forlorn victim. (And cyanshadow makes the very good point that, on a meta level, it's good to see a guy being an emotional mess due to a break-up.) I do feel really sorry for him at the end of the book, and would happily read book 3 about Nick at Tufts (and Taylor, or not Taylor), because I hope he gets a happy ending, too. That said, I never particularly felt the Nick/Abby relationship in 'Simon', and this book definitely made Abby herself more interesting to me than Simon's book -- like, I liked her in 'Simon', but not in a way that made me want to read more about her, but her dynamic with Leah is much more interesting to me than her dynamic with either Nick or even Simon. Like, I thought it was adorable that she was trying her hardest to be a good Harry Potter fan to impress Leah (and naming the rented doll Hermione, aww!) Oh, and I almost forgot: the Fifty Shades phone hack was the best April Fool's prank EVER!
Besides Abby and Nick, I liked revisiting the other characters we met in 'Simon vs', too. Simon is delightfully adorkable through Leah's fond eyes (my favorite moment was probably him freaking out over having "YOUR" instead of "YOU'RE" in a text, in all caps! don't tell Bram!!), and Bram is the actual best, between the hilarious, adorable, labor-intensive promposal and the lockscreen with his baby brother, and just his steady, unassuming presence. Taylor continued the trend of being occasionally unexpectedly awesome (like the pun-off with Leah -- "Oh, nuts." "He's testicling my patience", really talented, and also hilariously self-centered. It was nice to see that while Simon considers Anna and Morgan interchangeable, despite having dated Anna briefly, they are clearly different people and Leah considers them genuine friends, even though she's now closer to Nick and Simon. I was surprised to see the arc with Morgan, the SJW/ally who ends up not getting into the school of her choice when Abby does and doesn't handle it well. Abby calling her out on it, and Abby and Bram's hurt-but-resigned reactions, and even Anna's "Yeah, don't lecture me about racism" reaction to Leah's categorical position (Anna is half-Chinese) were all interesting, and I actually don't think I've seen this dealt with at a level of nuance beyond "racism is bad". Not that this was too much more nuanced, but I felt like at least it made the distinction between "Morgan said a racist thing, which is not OK" and "Morgan is a terrible person who cannot be redeemed". (And Abby's comments about having to be "unimpeachably perfect, which probably isn't healthy, and it's just really exhausting" precisely because of things like this was also powerful.)
There are a couple of new characters introduced in the book, too. I liked what Albertalli did with Garrett -- he seems like overall a pretty nice guy, funny and clearly besotted with Leah and trying to right by her -- but also not perfect, perving on the idea of Abby and Leah together, and thinking of springing a public promposal on Leah, for whom that's basically her worst nightmare. One of the quibbles I have with the book's very abrupt ending (before we get to the timeskip email from college) is that there's zero Leah/Garrett resolution, and I feel like that's fallout we really should've seen (along with Nick's reaction to Abby and Leah getting together). My favorite new character, though, was Leah's mom. I loved all of their interactions, from the way they're super-close in a not-very-parental way, to Leah giving her a hard time about using teenage slang or not pronouncing the G in "fucking", to the way Leah's mom trolls her with the mental image of Leah attending her own prom in utero ("my little prom fetus"), to Leah's mom knowing all the school gossip but being kind of awkward with Leah's friends' parents, to the prom-prep hair session via YouTube tutorial. (I'd like to think that the awesome relationship between Leah and her mom was one of the things that L found identifiable about this book :). And while I don't feel like we got all that much of Wells, I did like the way he and Leah got to bond a little bit while prom shopping over growing up poor. And the Prince William look-alike thing was a pretty funny detail.
One of the things I've come to expect from Albertalli is something quirky and hilarious. In this case, I enjoyed the accidental prom dinner at the American Girl restaurant, complete with rental dolls that Abby, Bram, and Simon go for, the musical number/dance-off at the end, and Bram's promposal -- although I have to admit, none of it quite reached the level of the Spier family Facebook scavenger hunt in the first book.
Oh, and I did also really enjoy what a hardcore fan Leah is. Not just her fannish art Tumblr (and that she giggles to herself when she draws, apparently XP) and strong opinions on Draco characterization (which L wholeheartedly agreed with), but, like, Drarry metaphors and book 5 metaphors applied to her real life, and her TARDIS socks as everyday wear, and her other fandoms/ships -- kind of not surprised she ships Percabeth, and L totally squeed at the fact that she also ships Inej/Nina from Six of Crows. And the way texting and social media is so integrated into their lives felt spot on, too -- like, I loved the fact that Abby actually checks her phone for Leah's texts when Leah is standing right there in front of her, and of course the "two girls kissing on prom night" commission request was ADORABLE. (I suppose it makes more sense for Simon to be using FFN than AO3, since he isn't really a fanfic writer in general, it was just a one-off thing). Oh, and I giggled when Wells reminded Leah not to forget her camera for prom and she thinks "Maybe I should skip the camera altogether. I'll just bring some oil paints and a fucking easel" -- before he remembers/realizes they just use phones now.
Quotes:
"part of me wantso spew praise all over them, but something stops me. aybe it's just too painfully sincere, a little to fifth-grade Leah"
"Maybe Nora and I should make out now, just to stay relevant" (see what I mean? XP)
Leah on her mom: "She whips out these little snippets of random information, just to show off what an involved mom she is. My friends probably go home and quiz her about them with flash cards."
"I can't fuck your life. I'm monogamously fucking my own life." <-- from now on the only allowable response to FML
"Not that I've ever been anyone's girlfriend. But I imagine it feels like this. Like I'm this tiny precious wanted thing. I can't decide if I feel gross about that, or if I only think I should feel gross about it."
"Sorry to miss the game, Garrett. Turns out, you're confusing and annoying and I kind of can't deal with your face."
"Every once in a while, it hits me:I knew my mom in high school, I don't think we'd have been friends."
Leah: "Do you not know how to turn off the child locks, or something?"
Garrett: "What? Dude. I'm being a gentleman."
About Nick when dating Abbyd that particular kind of nerdywagger, that back-and-forth between braggadocio and wonder."
Abby: "And then we'll cue up thest epic, bottom-tier bullshit playlist you worked so hard half-assing."
"You know you will miss [T. How are we going to know if her metabolism is still rocking?"
"Probably from her daily Instagram updates."
Leah's mom: "Like, it was always some random lady in the grocery store. You'd be flailing around, pitching a fit, and every single time, some jerk would je to come up and tell me I'd miss it one day. Oh, she'll be off to college before you know it. Enjoy these moments now. I was like, cool story, fuck you. [...] But they were so right."
"The DJ is playing some wordless techno song that sounds exactly like robots having sex."
Simon re: Abby and Leah being together: "Like you have no idea how happy this makes me. No idea. I just wanted you guys to be friends, even, but this."
Abby: "That's right. We went above and beyond for you, Simon."
Leah: "So, you're welcome."
35. Nnedi Okorafor, Akata Warrior -- OK, reading this so soon after Binti has made me realize something about me and Okorafor's writing: I really enjoy the way she writes about Africa and the African diaspora, but the way she writes genre doesn't really work for me, for the most part. Like, with this book, I perked up whenever Sunny was interacting with her family or talking to her friends about various mundane things, or just going about her day, but as soon as we got into the magical stuff, I had to fight the urge to skim. This is... not ideal for a fantasy novel XP I'm not sure if this is because the logic of the magical interludes is neither realistic waking-world logic, nor the kind of fairy tale logic I'm used to (different underlying mythos, different logic, makes sense), and so it just feels like random stuff happening for the most part. There are a couple of more magical things that I do like -- the wasp artist and the maskerade made of bugs (EW), Sunny's mother-of-pearl comb turning back into ghost snails, or the "blowback" from Sasha making it rain being that he kept having to pee, but most of the extended magical sequences were just kind of boring to me, and even the flying grasscutter (giant magical cane rat that can turn itself invisible and fly) was kind of eh. I did like Udide the spider, though (and the way she talks in allusions and ~rap rhymes when she prophecies). But for the most part, the sections I liked had less to do with Leopard People and more to do with the real world -- Sunny's worst childhood memory and Sasha getting where she's coming from (as the other kid who grew up in the US), Sasha and Chukwu bonding over rap and stew despite competing for the same girl, the relationship between Sunny and her older brother, where they're willing to go through a lot of scary stuff to protect each other (and I'm really glad one member of her family knows what's going on with her now, at least), but Chukwu's reaction to Sunny and Chichi's return is still "go make us dinner", basically. (Character-wise, Sasha continues to be my favorite; you might be able to tell.) I really enjoy the code mixing/switching between various African languages, creole, and English, and things like the seer lady using "that's how we roll" and then asking Sunny for confirmation that she's using the phrase correctly. And the prose is unusual -- something about the mixing of vocabulary and slightly strange word order, I think; it doesn't particularly enhance the reading experience for me as such, but it stands out.
One quote from the end that I particularly liked: "Here, people argued and fought over books, and some of the books argued with and fought people."
Hugos tally (YA): 5/6. Skinful of Shadows, In Other Lands, Art of Starving / Summer in Orcus, Akata Warrior. Only the Pullman left to read, but it's the heftiest of them all.
36. Jonathan Kellerman, Motive -- this was the 2015 novel I'd apparently skipped without realizing. Not much to say about it except that it's the usual Kellerman -- I enjoy the writing, I enjoy the interaction between Alex and Milo (this was a very Alex-and-Milo focused book), the descriptions of secondary characters (my favorites here were Earl Cohen, the old lawyer I'd already met in the subsequent book, Albert Tranh the elderly friend of the second victim's family, and the old CPA couple the first victim had worked for -- not sure why there are so many retirees or other old people populating the books now...) The only thing that really threw me was a section or two that appears to be in Milo's third-person POV (rather than Alex narrating things Milo had told him), which was just weird. Spoilers I did find the Merry Santos reveal at the very end anticlimactic, but it was better than her turning up dead, and it does play into the theme of being led about by one's expectations in the context, not necessarily reality -- which I thought was a really cool premise for a mystery in general, actually.
37. Sarah Pinsker, And Then There Were (N-one) (online here) -- I really liked this one! Like Six Wakes, it does something that appeals to me a lot -- it takes a specifically sci-fi idea and plays a mystery out of it, with really neat results. (But unlike Six Wakes, I felt like the execution did justice to the idea -- though, admittedly, it was a much simpler plot, and playing out over a shorter length.) Also, it's got a fucking brilliant title -- a mathematical pun. The premise is that multiple versions of the same person from across the multiverse meet at a convention put on just for that purpose -- all of the attendees are Sarah from a variety of worlds -- and one of them ends up murdered (I think this is non-spoilery, since you can pretty much surmise that from the title), with the POV-Sarah in the investigator role (even though she's an insurance fraud investigator, not an actual detective), for reasons that aren't maybe 10% believable but that I was willing to roll with -- and pretty much all the suspects are ALSO Sarahs. Spoilers from here
It took me a little while to get used to the fact that protagonist-Sarah shared the name of the author. It was also fun that the murder weapon is a Nebula Award, which actual author Sarah Pinsker has actually won. It's delicious fourth-wall fuckery! :D And that also made me wonder how many other details were autobiographical -- the girlfriend/wife Mabel? the incident with the runaway horse? Anyway, this was a really neat thing to do -- I'm pretty sure I have never before read a story where the actual real-life author was a character so minor, the protagonist never even met them :)
The plot was neat. I had guessed, at the point where POV-Sarah met the host after the incident, that this was actually R1D0 Sarah, and had suspected someone was pretending to be a different Sarah even before that, but I hadn't guessed the victim switch, or the motive, and all of that made a lot of sense. And the way the story ends is wonderfully, appropriately open-ended.
Also, I totally want the reality in which there was a 2005 Wonder Woman movie with Gina Torres. Come on, make this happen, multiverse.
Hugo tally (novellas): 6/6 (done! :D) OK, you know what? I think (N-one) might actually unseat Murderbot for the top spot. I enjoyed reading Murderbot more -- it was more fun on a character and prose level -- but (N-one) is more unique, and also novella is the perfect length for it, while Murderbot serves as the kickoff for a series, and part of what I like about it is its potential. I'll need to let this settle more, but I think right now it goes: N-one, Murderbot, Black Tides of Heaven, Sticks and Bones, Binti: Home, No Award, River of Teeth. Or to put it another way, I would be very happy if either N-one or Murderbot won, fairly pleased if Black Tides did, resigned to a Sticks and Bones win (because Seanan McGuire), be disappointed if Binti 2 won (half a book! >:/) and really, really pissed if the Hugo went to River of Teeth.
I'm not counting novelettes or shorter in my reading totals, but I've now read all of those for Hugo homework as well:
Sarah Pinsker, "Wind Will Rove" (link)-- so then after I had enjoyed the novella so much, I decided to read the Hugo-nominated novelette from the same author. And it's also lovely and... like, the opposite of didactic, I feel -- open-ended, maybe. Like, for such a short work, there are a lot of different points of view contained in it, a whole continuum, with valid arguments on all sides -- mild spoilers the narrator's grandmother, who chose to leave Earth, her mother joining the NewTime movement, her daughter and the band of intentionally ephemeral songs, Nelson and his schoolboy revolution. In general, I'm pretty impressed with how well it pulled off the idea of, basically, having a story set in the middle of a generation ship's journey where... nothing happens. Like, stuff has happened before the story starts, a generation or two before, but this story, very explicitly, is about the time between the departure and the arrival -- the generations which didn't make the choice to leave and won't get to be the pioneers, won't get to do much of anything, but are still important for being a link in the chain, and I think the story captures that beautifully and meaningfully, and doesn't feel plotless at all -- I was very impressed. And the 'countermelody' of an evolving song worked very well for me -- the ideas of evolution and synthesis. And the story does diversity the way I prefer it: casual mention of queer relationships, several characters who use singular-they, a nice ethnic/cultural mix implied in last names and offhand details, without any of those things ever being the only relevant aspects of the character. Anyway, I really liked it.
Plot/backstory-wise, I felt really sorry for Morne Brooks, the guy who had made an error which allowed the Blackout to happen ("It didn't matter that for sixteen years afterward he worked on the team that shored up protection against future damage, or that he eventually committed suicide.")
Quotes:
A person who lived her whole life on a spaceship is imagining a farm: "A sky as big as space, the color of chlorinated water. [...] A perfect carpet of green grass. Horses, large and sturdy, bleating at each other across he fields."
"Birds were the things with feathers, as the old saying went."
"Why not songs about stars, you might ask? Why not songs about darkness and space? The traditionalists wouldn't play them. I'm not sure who'd write them, either. People on Earth wrote about blue skies because they'd stood under grey ones. They wrote about night because there was such thing as day. Songs about prison are poignant because the character knew something else beforehand, and dreamed of other things ahead. Past and future are both abstractions now."
Vina Jie-Min Prasad, "A Series of Steaks" (link) -- I started reading this during the nomination period, actually, but didn't get to the end in time. It is clever, and really funny, and I kind of love Lily, she is hilarious, and I pretty much approve of her life philosophy. I like the premise of meat forgery, and the characters are cute, and the story is pretty cute too. I don't have any deep feelings about it, but it was fun.
Suzanne Palmer, "The Secret Life of Bots" (link) -- this was cute, although less creative than the other two stories. I mean, I enjoyed the bot adventures (even if they sound rather dopily like Paarfi characters XP), and I liked the glimpses of the humans, too, and the writing was entertaining enough, and more humorous than I would've expected of a suicide mission story, but plot-wise it was pretty standard fare. Still, cute.
K.M.Szpara, "Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time" (link) -- This was one of those stories I liked less the more I read of it. I started out at "OK, I'm willing to concede that "trans gay vampire" is a story that should probably exist on par with all the other kinds of vampire stories, but, like, I'm sick of ALL vampire stories", which already put it below the others I'd read till then. And I'm also not a fan of stories that are so explicitly about a particular identity and don't have much else unique going for them. I mean, as far as metaphors go, this is an effective one to explore, I guess, but pretty facile. And then I got to the half of the story that is basically porn, and, mehh -- the fact that it's issuefic porn does not improve it for me, but rather the reverse. It's not a combination I enjoy in general, and am rather meh on the idea of winning a Hugo. The touches of bureaucracy to everything were nice, but the rest of it is not really my thing. But then the more I thought about it, the more I was annoyed by this story, because I think I actually could've appreciated this set-up if it WENT anywhere. But it's literally a story that comes down to "trans gay newly fledged vampire is trans and gay" and "also they bang" -- and while I can see that appealing on an id level (although not to me personally) and on a purely "representation" level, I don't believe that's actually a story.
Aliette de Bodard, "Children of Thorns, Children of Water" (link) -- Nope. There's a hell of a lot of worldbuilding -- shape-shifting (Eastern) dragons in a kingdom under the sea! Paris apparently run by Fallen angels! some kind of House system! gangs! different types of magic! -- but, frankly, it's too much work to get into all that for a novelette. I was totally not surprised when I googled this piece and it turned out to be set in the same universe as two full-length novels, which might be able to justify that level of investment (although not for me, given that nothing else about this story -- not plot, not characters, not the writing -- worked for me). I've read things like this -- short pieces set in larger universes -- that's basically what all the Legends anthologies are -- and the good ones truly do work as stepping stones, giving you a flavor of the universe and a compelling stand-alone story to lure you into the larger piece. This... did not do that, kind of did the opposite of it, actually. On top of that, the writing style didn't work for me -- too much description of a kind I don't care for, sentence fragments and repetition that just annoyed me without having any particular effect, dialogue that I think was meant to sound natural and/or clever but was just awkward and dull. And, really, I just found it boring, and a struggle to get through, more than any of the other short works, even the ones that pissed me off.
Hugos tally (novelette): 6/6 (done! :D). "Wind Will Rove" at the top. "Steaks", the Hexarchate story, and "Bots" are pretty close together after that. I think I might give "Steaks" the edge, much as I like younger Jedao and appreciate the chance for him to have some fun goose fat shenanigans -- because I think "Steaks" works as a better self-contained story than the Hexarchate one. And "Bots" after that, not so much because it's a weaker story than the Jedao one, but because I do care about Jedao more than the random bots. I think the other two go below No Award for me. Before I read the "Children of Thorns" one, I was still debating, but I literally have not a single positive impression from "Children of Thorns", and "Small Changes" does not feel like the kind of story that deserved a Hugo -- I'd have it above No Award, even with the issuefic-y feel, if not for the erotica aspects, but that part just doesn't feel right for something at this level, not for how much of the story it occupies. So I guess the final tally is "Wind Will Rove", "Steaks, "Extracurricular Activities," "The Secret Life of Bots", No Award, "Small Changes", "Children of Thorns".
At this point I'm completely done with short story, novelette, and novella nominees, which had been one of my Worldcon goals, as well as all graphic novel nominees, which I hadn't thought about. And I've got one YA book to go (Book of Dust) and two (really, three, because I still need to finish Obelisk Gate) to go on the novel. Plus I want to give Divine Cities (and poooossibly Stormlight) a chance for the series voting, and read the LeGuin "related work" essays. And I think everything else I can rely on the voter packet for, although I'm also reading a couple of things proactively to get a feel for the Campbell nominees I haven't sampled yet -- I'm in the middle of The Bear and the Nightingale (Arden), Heroine Complex (Kuhn), and An Unkindness of Ghosts (Solomon), and only have one writer I've completely not samples (Ng, whose novel my library does not have in any format). Thoughts so far:
- Katherine Arden -- ~35% into The Bear and the Nightingale, I'm impressed by a Western writer doing such a decent job with !Russia, and the writing is lovely, but the Vasya thing is still getting on my nerves
- Sarah Kuhn* -- ~30% into Heroine Complex (Asian superheroines in SF; but really just chick lit pretty much, although fairly amusing)
- Jeannette Ng -- looks like she's got some short stories + Under the Pendulum Sun (which "features a fantastical journey that takes place in gothic mid-19th century England")
- Vina Jie-Min Prasad -- check, the fluffy Yuletide-esque short story and "Series of Steaks"
- Rebecca Roanhorse -- check, "Authentic Indian Experience" short story
- Rivers Solomon -- ~30% into An Unkindness of Ghosts, which is impressively ambitious and a more enjoyable read than I'd been expecting
(The Hugo ballot opened for voting earlier this month, so I went in and voted on all the categories I was done with or nearly done with, just in case.)
I also read a couple of (non-Hugo-homework) short stories I happened to come across:
"Daughter of Odren" by Ursula LeGuin (an Earthsea short story) -- I spotted it among the e-book LeGuin titles when looking for the Hugo-nominated essays and snapped it up. It was OK; definitely not one of my favorite Earthsea stories, but the writing is the usual gorgeous, solid, down-to-earth prose of the books, and it was nice to dip back into the universe. Spoilers! I liked the contrast between the prodigal brother/lord and the sister who had embraced her less exalted role, the way they had very different ideas about motivations and solutions, and how neither was ultimately 100% right, but Weed was definitely way closer to practical than Clay's take. It's kind of Earthsea takes on mansplaining, with not a whole lot else unusual going on, but it's lovely to be back in this universe, and see the hints of the larger story in mentions of the new king and Roke, outside the scope of the tale itself.
"Opal" by Maggie Stiefvater -- this was a really fun short story addition to the Raven Cycle universe, because Opal's POV is absolutely hilarious. Thematically, I appreciated the glimpse at Ronan and Adam post main story, though I would've liked seeing it more directly, too. Opal's blend of cheerful and creepy and generally otherworldly was pretty great, and I enjoyed her rivalry with Chainsaw. Also, the story has a bunch of hilarious quotes like: "Opal came to understand that Adam's car was supposed to be more like Ronan's, but there was something wrong with it called shitbox."
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Oh yeah, and while I was reading diligently through Hugos homework in the short form, I also read ~300k of Check Please! fic by emmagrant01 (who I had not realized was in this fandom before stumbling across the behemoth): Something Like This (E, Jack/Bitty, divergent AU in the sense that it's a story started before the two of them got together in canon and was subsequently Jossed by the comic). Features a very appropriately intense Jack POV, and, like I've come to expect from emmagrant01 fic, really great slow burn and well-crafted OCs and well-realized secondary characters. Also, hot.
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Also, L and I finally finished watching The Shape of Water, which was... OK? I mean, it was a pretty movie with impressive performances, but, like, a very uninspired and bare-bones story. Like, I was impressed with just how much personality and emotion Eliza was able to get across without speaking, and the Creature had impressive personality too, considering it wasn't even human, and I did like Giles and especially Zelda as characters, and spoilers! Dmitri/Bob was nicely sympathetic (way more sympathetic than I was expecting a Russian spy to be), while Strickland was perfectly heateable, but... in the service of what? As a love story, it REALLY didn't work for me, because what do they really have in common? Well, OK, Eliza was kind to the Creature and treated him as a sentient being and danced with him and stuff, but it's quite a leap from being grateful for that and, you know, being in love. And her reasoning about how the Creature doesn't feel she has a lack is just weird, too; I mean, Giles and Zelda don't seem to regard her as anything lesser, either, and while they are presumably not potential partners for requited love, it does suggest that, you know, some humans out there might be... And, I mean, yes, both L and I fully expected the "scars" on her neck to turn out to be gills, so she's not fully human either, but she's clearly also not whatever the Creature is, so...
Anyway, it was a pretty movie, and quite often a funny one, but also rather too gory for my taste in places -- everything to do with Strickland's fingers was SO GROSS! (I had to look away), and the extended torture scene was also not what I wanted to be watching. And then there was the Creature eating Pandora the cat (after which L lost all her sympathy for him).
Oh, right, and I meant to comment on all the Russian, of which there was a lot. The text was actually perfect. The delivery was... less terrible than it could've been, except for one of the characters, fortunately not the guy playing Dmitri (who lived in Vilnius for a while, so maybe that helped). Still, for the people who aren't Dmitri and don't have to blend in with the Americans, and who therefore ONLY speak Russian, or just about, how hard would it have been to cast some actual Russians, seriously?
I totally don't understand why this won an Oscar -- I mean, OK, it's pretty but shallow (get it? heh). Then again, I think del Toro's movies are just not for me, maybe (I liked the Hellboy movies well enough, but found Pacific Rim incredibly overrated, andnever bothered with Pan's Labyrinth or Crimson Peak). L was also highly underwhelmed, saying that she didn't care about any of the characters or what happened to them, which was also largely true for me, except for Zelda and maybe Giles, and I was momentarily sad about Dmitri.
I was glad to have had L's company in watching this, because we could snark about it. And then, because I'm a good parent, I told her about and showed her this (NSFW Creature dildo)
Hugos tally (dramatic long form): 3.5/6 (but we'll call it 4). I'm still debating between TLJ and Thor 3 for top spot. Thor 3 was really funny, and definitely redeemed the sub-franchise for me, but TLJ had Luke being interesting (and hilarious) to me for the first time in like 30 years... But TLJ also had the weird non-arc for Finn, and a bunch of other things I don't much care for. I still think Logan was robbed, but as it stands, we're probably talking: Thor, TLJ, Shape of Water (because at least I felt like finishing it, and I was impressed by the acting, if not the story), Wonder Woman. And I need to dig up the copy of Blade Runner 2049 I have lying around somewhere and watch it, and then think about whether or not I actually want to watch Get Out.
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And, to bring a third medium into this, because why not -- I mentioned in a previous post that ikel89 had got be listening to Be the Serpent podcast (tagged as "a podcast of extremely deep literary merit"). Now, I generally don't do podcasts -- the audio form doesn't work for me for stories (too slow, and I start tuning out), and while the occasional neat factoid-based thing is cool to listen to, I don't think I was ever able to listen more than 30 min at a time. Well, ha, this one I mainlined all 7 episodes (each about an hour) in less than a day. (I actually used earbuds with the phone for the first time, which required borrowing them back from the rodents XP) The podcast is three fans/fantasy authors who all seem like really neat people with interesting things to say and good chemistry together, and listening to the podcast is very much like the best kind of fandom discussion on LJ -- genuine insight, love for the material, tropey squee, intriguing personal details, random historical/scientific trivia and geeky references as it comes up, poems, etymology, philosophy, fannish inside jokes. It's very much like listening in on a conversation your friends are having, and there were lots of places where I was like, "yes! and what about X -- that also fits exactly what you're saying" or just grinning and thinking "I know, right?" I also like the fact that the book discussions are not unmitigated squee -- the three Serpents (because they're all at least partly Slytherins) do disagree and critique novels they didn't like as much, but it's in the good-natured way of civil fannish disagreement (~ykinmk rather than "your fave is problematic" or whatever). I started with Episode 6 (because who needs chronology), which snagged me by containing reference to In Other Lands (which they all loved), Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (which there was fond critique/disagreement on), Vorkosigan fic, Killjoys. Other episodes have referenced LeGuin, The Broken Earth trilogy, Justine Larbalestier's Liar, Sorting Hat Chats, The Goblin Emperor, and one of the episodes closes with a quote from PTerry -- these ladies have good taste, is what I'm saying. And the episodes all get transcripts, too, so it's easy to look stuff up later.
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1079607.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).