Dept. of Monday Again
Bits and Bobs and Tiny Tornadoes
I kept meaning to post, and check on others' posts, all last week. It didn't happen. But the old bicycle beckons and I'm a sucker for checking my balance on it.
ETA: I mentioned links, and didn't include them. Here they are.
I've been reading all about this year's mess of a Hugo Awards ceremony. Most of the folks on my f'list have probably heard a little about it, but here are a few links, just in case.
My first reaction? Jesus Harold Christ, the face palming is almost insurmountable.
My second? I am so disappointed in GRRM. (Not Silverberg. He's often struck me as a cold and arrogant fellow, something I was wont to forgive when I was young because he was A. Genius. Everybody. Says. So. and the stories I read of his suggested that they were right. I'm older now, and I think that he - older still, but not wiser - shouldn't be let off the hook).
On the other hand. GRRM has always struck me as someone approachable, open, and kind. What he apparently did during the award ceremony isn't what an approachable, open or kind person would do. Or a polite, non-self-absorbed person. Or anyone who understood that SFF and its attendant culture is - and should be - different from what it was in the past. Anyone who understood that, just as we take down statues of slavers and don't count that as destroying history, we should stop valorizing people like John W. Campbell.
Oh, and should be someone who learns how to pronounce peoples' names because it's the right thing to do, FFS.
In other SFF news, I am now reading "Harrow the Ninth," by Tamsyn Muir, and it is so far (73 pages in) even more of a glittering mind fuck than the first story in the series, "Gideon the Ninth," which I read with eyes wide and mind seduced. Mixing science and fantasy in a way that doesn't feel derivative is really hard; doing love stories with unreliable and, at least initially, unlikable* narrators is even more difficult. Muir does both. And her imagery!
In slightly less elevated fare, BB and I just finished Season 2 of The Umbrella Academy. I really, really enjoyed it. It's bonkers, possibly more bonkers than the previous season. There was at least one piece of violence I could have done without, and one character who I'll miss like crazy, but on the whole, it was very worthwhile bingeing. I think BB agrees.
And in final news, my little neighborhood apparently got hit with a small tornado. I didn't know about it until First Born called in a panic, having seen pictures of our block all the way out in Seattle.
And yes, we have a lot of damage within a stone's throw. Within a one block area there are at least three trees totally uprooted, damaging roofs, flattening cars and, unfortunately (at least according to one of my neighbors who's usually in the know) two significant injuries; two people in a van that one of the trees landed on. The nearest tree down is just across the alley from me, and at last glance it was still blocking the street. We're very, very lucky; this block still has power. Gotta love living on the edge of the Great Plains.
*Not really unlikable, now that I think of it. But unreliable? Kinda.
Tomorrow, very possibly a political post. This entry was originally posted at https://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/774087.html?mode=reply, where there are currently
comments. You can comment there or here, but prefer to read over on DW. You can comment there using open ID if you don't have a DW account.
I kept meaning to post, and check on others' posts, all last week. It didn't happen. But the old bicycle beckons and I'm a sucker for checking my balance on it.
ETA: I mentioned links, and didn't include them. Here they are.
I've been reading all about this year's mess of a Hugo Awards ceremony. Most of the folks on my f'list have probably heard a little about it, but here are a few links, just in case.
My first reaction? Jesus Harold Christ, the face palming is almost insurmountable.
My second? I am so disappointed in GRRM. (Not Silverberg. He's often struck me as a cold and arrogant fellow, something I was wont to forgive when I was young because he was A. Genius. Everybody. Says. So. and the stories I read of his suggested that they were right. I'm older now, and I think that he - older still, but not wiser - shouldn't be let off the hook).
On the other hand. GRRM has always struck me as someone approachable, open, and kind. What he apparently did during the award ceremony isn't what an approachable, open or kind person would do. Or a polite, non-self-absorbed person. Or anyone who understood that SFF and its attendant culture is - and should be - different from what it was in the past. Anyone who understood that, just as we take down statues of slavers and don't count that as destroying history, we should stop valorizing people like John W. Campbell.
Oh, and should be someone who learns how to pronounce peoples' names because it's the right thing to do, FFS.
In other SFF news, I am now reading "Harrow the Ninth," by Tamsyn Muir, and it is so far (73 pages in) even more of a glittering mind fuck than the first story in the series, "Gideon the Ninth," which I read with eyes wide and mind seduced. Mixing science and fantasy in a way that doesn't feel derivative is really hard; doing love stories with unreliable and, at least initially, unlikable* narrators is even more difficult. Muir does both. And her imagery!
In slightly less elevated fare, BB and I just finished Season 2 of The Umbrella Academy. I really, really enjoyed it. It's bonkers, possibly more bonkers than the previous season. There was at least one piece of violence I could have done without, and one character who I'll miss like crazy, but on the whole, it was very worthwhile bingeing. I think BB agrees.
And in final news, my little neighborhood apparently got hit with a small tornado. I didn't know about it until First Born called in a panic, having seen pictures of our block all the way out in Seattle.
And yes, we have a lot of damage within a stone's throw. Within a one block area there are at least three trees totally uprooted, damaging roofs, flattening cars and, unfortunately (at least according to one of my neighbors who's usually in the know) two significant injuries; two people in a van that one of the trees landed on. The nearest tree down is just across the alley from me, and at last glance it was still blocking the street. We're very, very lucky; this block still has power. Gotta love living on the edge of the Great Plains.
*Not really unlikable, now that I think of it. But unreliable? Kinda.
Tomorrow, very possibly a political post. This entry was originally posted at https://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/774087.html?mode=reply, where there are currently
comments. You can comment there or here, but prefer to read over on DW. You can comment there using open ID if you don't have a DW account.