if you want me, satisfy me
It took me an hour and forty five minutes to get to work this morning. Thank you, MTA. (in light of that, I did stop in at Starbucks for an iced latte. Sometimes I just need an iced latte.)
And then the printer jammed the first time I tried to print something, and it still is not working.
At least my period didn't arrive during that epic commute, which I was kind of braced for, since it's a couple days late (last month, it was exactly on time, just before we boarded the cruise ship, because of course it was).
But I am so done with today. So done! And apparently tomorrow is going to be worse, since instead of 36°F and raining, it's going to be back below freezing and snowing. After raining all day today. So disgusting. I am so sick of winter. Fuck winter. I hate it so much. Give me all your 95°F days and your heatwaves. I'll even take the stifling, stinking subway over this. I mean, I prefer summer to winter anyway, but this is fucking ridiculous and I'd like to lodge a complaint.
Enough of that. On to bookish things! What I'm reading Wednesday:
What I've just finished
Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor, which is the first in a series of time travel novels, but I don't think I'm going to be reading the rest. The story itself is interesting (though I get the feeling this totally originated as Oxford Time Travel series AU fanfic, whether the author is actually in fandom or not), but there were some things in it that I did not like at all, which dropped it down from "I definitely liked this" to "I mostly liked this with huge caveats that make me side-eye the author a little."
The time travel stuff is fun and I loved the idea of observing the dinosaurs or saving scrolls from the Library of Alexandria, but there were several moments in the middle that made me go "ugh, no, DO NO WANT."
Firstly, the protagonist's adversarial relationship with the IT lady Barclay - I was really hoping Taylor would subvert the obvious interpretation of Barclay - that she was EEEEVVVILLL because Max (the protag) "stole" the man she was interested in. But no, Barclay is exactly that obvious and paper thin, and Max therefore never has to have a moment of empathy for her at all.
Then, not only is Sussman (was that his name? I think that was his name) from the EEEVVVILLL faction of time travelers who only do it to make money (which I thought was nicely foreshadowed), he's also an EEVVVILLL RAPIST who assaults Max in her sleep (and films it!). Just in case you didn't think he was evil enough for not helping out when a hospital was on fire.
THEN, after Max has been kicked out of St. Mary's (the time traveling organization) by that Evil Bitch Barclay (author's words, not mine), and she's barely subsisting in the real world, she has a miscarriage. Which is bad enough on its own, but THEN it's a plot point for everybody to act completely out of character. The father, her love interest, has a dead wife and kids in his backstory, and Max doesn't tell him about the miscarriage so Evil IT Lady Barclay does, and he completely GOES OFF on Max about how she must have been SLEEPING AROUND LIKE A SLUT and HOW DID HE EVEN KNOW IT WAS HIS which comes COMPLETELY OUT OF LEFT FIELD for the characters. AND YET SHE GETS BACK WITH HIM LATER WHEN HE APOLOGIZES. Like, man, I don't know. I realize I don't forgive easily and I have some trust issues, but being accused of that kind of betrayal - knowing the person I love could turn on me so quickly - that would bother me a lot.
But that's not enough! No, then we get a character who had been previously noted as creepy about women (so, points for foreshadowing at least?) ATTEMPTING TO RAPE Max because she's apparently A DIRTY SLUT so why shouldn't he get in on the action?
Just. WHAT THE FUCK, JODI TAYLOR. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?
Anyway, if you can't tell, all that really soured me on the book. Thinking about it now, I wouldn't even say I mostly liked it, though there were definitely things I liked a lot, like the premise and the time travel stuff. It's all that character stuff that left me unwilling to subject myself to more. I wish goodreads allowed half or quarter stars so I could rate it properly there.
I also read The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu, which is an aliens-are-secretly-responsible-for-everything (and I do mean everything) in human history thriller. It's fun, and even though it too has lady character issues (there are only three with any major roles and one of them is as a love interest who isn't in on the secret, and another one dies, though at least she doesn't die to motivate the main character - she's actually one of his trainers and mentors), at least nobody in it is threatened with rape.
It's the story of Roen Tan, an unhappy, overweight IT guy who comes into contact with Tao, an alien who reveals that the whole of human history has been the cover for a war between two alien factions, and now Roen has been drafted into that war, so he's going to have to get in shape and learn to fight. I actually thought Roen's IT background would somehow be important to the plot, but to my surprise, it was not. At least not in this book.
The author, Wesley Chu, is a martial artist and a gymnast, so his action scenes are kinetic and you can tell he knows what he's talking about, even if I skimmed a lot of fight description towards the end. The book has a fun comic-book feel to it, and I have hopes that the lady problem I mentioned earlier might be redressed in the next book.
What I'm reading now
Technically nothing, as I finished The Lives of Tao last night and was going to start The Deaths of Tao on my commute this morning, but see above. I did not have a chance to read on my commute this morning.
What I'm reading next
So I can actually answer this for once, based on a technicality! I am reading The Deaths of Tao next!
***
In other cool news, Tom McRae has a new album coming out in May! Yay! Thanks to
umadoshi for the link.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/731488.html.
people have commented there.
And then the printer jammed the first time I tried to print something, and it still is not working.
At least my period didn't arrive during that epic commute, which I was kind of braced for, since it's a couple days late (last month, it was exactly on time, just before we boarded the cruise ship, because of course it was).
But I am so done with today. So done! And apparently tomorrow is going to be worse, since instead of 36°F and raining, it's going to be back below freezing and snowing. After raining all day today. So disgusting. I am so sick of winter. Fuck winter. I hate it so much. Give me all your 95°F days and your heatwaves. I'll even take the stifling, stinking subway over this. I mean, I prefer summer to winter anyway, but this is fucking ridiculous and I'd like to lodge a complaint.
Enough of that. On to bookish things! What I'm reading Wednesday:
What I've just finished
Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor, which is the first in a series of time travel novels, but I don't think I'm going to be reading the rest. The story itself is interesting (though I get the feeling this totally originated as Oxford Time Travel series AU fanfic, whether the author is actually in fandom or not), but there were some things in it that I did not like at all, which dropped it down from "I definitely liked this" to "I mostly liked this with huge caveats that make me side-eye the author a little."
The time travel stuff is fun and I loved the idea of observing the dinosaurs or saving scrolls from the Library of Alexandria, but there were several moments in the middle that made me go "ugh, no, DO NO WANT."
Firstly, the protagonist's adversarial relationship with the IT lady Barclay - I was really hoping Taylor would subvert the obvious interpretation of Barclay - that she was EEEEVVVILLL because Max (the protag) "stole" the man she was interested in. But no, Barclay is exactly that obvious and paper thin, and Max therefore never has to have a moment of empathy for her at all.
Then, not only is Sussman (was that his name? I think that was his name) from the EEEVVVILLL faction of time travelers who only do it to make money (which I thought was nicely foreshadowed), he's also an EEVVVILLL RAPIST who assaults Max in her sleep (and films it!). Just in case you didn't think he was evil enough for not helping out when a hospital was on fire.
THEN, after Max has been kicked out of St. Mary's (the time traveling organization) by that Evil Bitch Barclay (author's words, not mine), and she's barely subsisting in the real world, she has a miscarriage. Which is bad enough on its own, but THEN it's a plot point for everybody to act completely out of character. The father, her love interest, has a dead wife and kids in his backstory, and Max doesn't tell him about the miscarriage so Evil IT Lady Barclay does, and he completely GOES OFF on Max about how she must have been SLEEPING AROUND LIKE A SLUT and HOW DID HE EVEN KNOW IT WAS HIS which comes COMPLETELY OUT OF LEFT FIELD for the characters. AND YET SHE GETS BACK WITH HIM LATER WHEN HE APOLOGIZES. Like, man, I don't know. I realize I don't forgive easily and I have some trust issues, but being accused of that kind of betrayal - knowing the person I love could turn on me so quickly - that would bother me a lot.
But that's not enough! No, then we get a character who had been previously noted as creepy about women (so, points for foreshadowing at least?) ATTEMPTING TO RAPE Max because she's apparently A DIRTY SLUT so why shouldn't he get in on the action?
Just. WHAT THE FUCK, JODI TAYLOR. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?
Anyway, if you can't tell, all that really soured me on the book. Thinking about it now, I wouldn't even say I mostly liked it, though there were definitely things I liked a lot, like the premise and the time travel stuff. It's all that character stuff that left me unwilling to subject myself to more. I wish goodreads allowed half or quarter stars so I could rate it properly there.
I also read The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu, which is an aliens-are-secretly-responsible-for-everything (and I do mean everything) in human history thriller. It's fun, and even though it too has lady character issues (there are only three with any major roles and one of them is as a love interest who isn't in on the secret, and another one dies, though at least she doesn't die to motivate the main character - she's actually one of his trainers and mentors), at least nobody in it is threatened with rape.
It's the story of Roen Tan, an unhappy, overweight IT guy who comes into contact with Tao, an alien who reveals that the whole of human history has been the cover for a war between two alien factions, and now Roen has been drafted into that war, so he's going to have to get in shape and learn to fight. I actually thought Roen's IT background would somehow be important to the plot, but to my surprise, it was not. At least not in this book.
The author, Wesley Chu, is a martial artist and a gymnast, so his action scenes are kinetic and you can tell he knows what he's talking about, even if I skimmed a lot of fight description towards the end. The book has a fun comic-book feel to it, and I have hopes that the lady problem I mentioned earlier might be redressed in the next book.
What I'm reading now
Technically nothing, as I finished The Lives of Tao last night and was going to start The Deaths of Tao on my commute this morning, but see above. I did not have a chance to read on my commute this morning.
What I'm reading next
So I can actually answer this for once, based on a technicality! I am reading The Deaths of Tao next!
***
In other cool news, Tom McRae has a new album coming out in May! Yay! Thanks to
umadoshi for the link.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/731488.html.
people have commented there.