Too many shadows, whispering voices
Hello, all. Hope you are doing okay.
I have been sucked down a hole of Olympics excitement. Suddenly I am bothered about sports, pretending I know wtf is going, and enjoying the Gymnastics particularly . I also have Paralympics tickets, so woo hoo!
I am writing and working on a few of the wips, and I hope to finish and post at least 5 fics before the end of August (I am going away week after next so intending to police the almost-complete ones then).
My digital camera has finally died (it could have been fixed but it was too expensive). I have been trying to remember when I got it, and suspect it may have been around the time Dad & Lesley got married, which would make it 7 - 9 years old. Whatever the actual figure is, it served me well and was very well behaved. It was a Sony, and believe me when I say I am actually quite upset I can’t get a new Sony. Still, I am going to (hopefully) buy my new one this afternoon.
I apologise in advance for the photo spam that will appear.
Recently I have read the following books:
Dead to Me by Cath Staincliffe - Scott and Bailey prequel
This is essentially a rehash of my Luther: The Calling non-spoilery review, but OH MY GOD, if you are a Scott and Bailey fan, read this book. It is everything you could ever want from Scott and Bailey fic: perfect voices, interesting plot, and so much backstory omg.
Seriously. Read it.
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
The tagline for this was ‘a zombie novel with brains’, which initially made me expect a book where the zombies were intelligent and organised. That’s not really what it’s about, and tbh if you’re going to use that as your tagline then you should make sure there are some brains in it one way or the other. And this is a pointless tiny niggle because that’s not why I picked it up. ANYWAY.
The Zone One in this is in New York City, and it takes place after the zombie invasion and in the clearout. There’s some interesting themes running through the book, identity and how people recover from trauma etc. One of the things I found interesting was how people seemed to pick nicknames up as real names, but didn’t really take advantage of having a clean slate to just go off and do whatever they wanted etc. There’s also some intriguing stuff about branding and sponsorship in the new era.
I don’t know if the author’s planned more books in the series (other cities and camps are mentioned) but I’d be interested in reading them.
Britten and Brülightly by Hannah Berry
This is an odd one. It’s a graphic novel with an interesting art style, and the main character - Britten - is a detective.
His sidekick - Brülightly - is a teabag.
To be honest, I found this tricky to get past. Britten only spoke to Brülightly once in the presence of other people, so I couldn’t work out if Britten had had some psychotic break in the past and really thought he was talking to a teabag, or if this was the type of world where teabags can talk.
Still, it’s a pretty interesting art style and a little noir mystery, and it was the author’s first graphic novel, so I will probably look out for their other stuff.
How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
I have been waiting to read this for aaaaaaages. I have read extracts and the first chapter on Kindle, but I hadn’t got the whole thing.
It is mostly excellent. Funny, clever, honest, chatty. I was annoyed at the parts where Moran says that women just haven’t made the contributions to the world that men have (massively paraphrasing). I understand the point she is getting at, but the problem is not that women weren’t involved in things in the past, it’s that by and large their contributions were ignored at the time and have continued to be ignored. You can find intelligent, amazing, inspirational women throughout history. You just have to look.
Still, that aside, it’s a really good read.
This entry was originally posted at http://hestia8.dreamwidth.org/33926.html.
I have been sucked down a hole of Olympics excitement. Suddenly I am bothered about sports, pretending I know wtf is going, and enjoying the Gymnastics particularly . I also have Paralympics tickets, so woo hoo!
I am writing and working on a few of the wips, and I hope to finish and post at least 5 fics before the end of August (I am going away week after next so intending to police the almost-complete ones then).
My digital camera has finally died (it could have been fixed but it was too expensive). I have been trying to remember when I got it, and suspect it may have been around the time Dad & Lesley got married, which would make it 7 - 9 years old. Whatever the actual figure is, it served me well and was very well behaved. It was a Sony, and believe me when I say I am actually quite upset I can’t get a new Sony. Still, I am going to (hopefully) buy my new one this afternoon.
I apologise in advance for the photo spam that will appear.
Recently I have read the following books:
Dead to Me by Cath Staincliffe - Scott and Bailey prequel
This is essentially a rehash of my Luther: The Calling non-spoilery review, but OH MY GOD, if you are a Scott and Bailey fan, read this book. It is everything you could ever want from Scott and Bailey fic: perfect voices, interesting plot, and so much backstory omg.
Seriously. Read it.
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
The tagline for this was ‘a zombie novel with brains’, which initially made me expect a book where the zombies were intelligent and organised. That’s not really what it’s about, and tbh if you’re going to use that as your tagline then you should make sure there are some brains in it one way or the other. And this is a pointless tiny niggle because that’s not why I picked it up. ANYWAY.
The Zone One in this is in New York City, and it takes place after the zombie invasion and in the clearout. There’s some interesting themes running through the book, identity and how people recover from trauma etc. One of the things I found interesting was how people seemed to pick nicknames up as real names, but didn’t really take advantage of having a clean slate to just go off and do whatever they wanted etc. There’s also some intriguing stuff about branding and sponsorship in the new era.
I don’t know if the author’s planned more books in the series (other cities and camps are mentioned) but I’d be interested in reading them.
Britten and Brülightly by Hannah Berry
This is an odd one. It’s a graphic novel with an interesting art style, and the main character - Britten - is a detective.
His sidekick - Brülightly - is a teabag.
To be honest, I found this tricky to get past. Britten only spoke to Brülightly once in the presence of other people, so I couldn’t work out if Britten had had some psychotic break in the past and really thought he was talking to a teabag, or if this was the type of world where teabags can talk.
Still, it’s a pretty interesting art style and a little noir mystery, and it was the author’s first graphic novel, so I will probably look out for their other stuff.
How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
I have been waiting to read this for aaaaaaages. I have read extracts and the first chapter on Kindle, but I hadn’t got the whole thing.
It is mostly excellent. Funny, clever, honest, chatty. I was annoyed at the parts where Moran says that women just haven’t made the contributions to the world that men have (massively paraphrasing). I understand the point she is getting at, but the problem is not that women weren’t involved in things in the past, it’s that by and large their contributions were ignored at the time and have continued to be ignored. You can find intelligent, amazing, inspirational women throughout history. You just have to look.
Still, that aside, it’s a really good read.
This entry was originally posted at http://hestia8.dreamwidth.org/33926.html.