Book backlog
New podfic of my SPN fic Entanglement (Sam/Dean), by liannabob.
The Floppy Disk and other icons that don’t make sense any more: Though I find this article plenty funny, I also think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a signifier with no present relation to the signified; we do it all the time!
Mira Grant, Countdown: A Newsflesh Novella: Nothing we didn’t really know from the trilogy, with bonus “people concerned with health care for all are idiot terrorists,” even though it’s not clear whether their acts just sped up the inevitable. Hardcore fans of the trilogy may enjoy, as witness its Hugo nomination.
Nancy Kress, Fountain of Age: Stories: Humans seek biological solutions to their psychological problems, or encounter alien races unable to see them outside human frames; Kress’s strength is as always portraying all too human frailty in the context of huge sf-ional happenings. Her sympathy is rarely empathy, though I detected some traces.
Naomi Novik, Crucible of Gold: A lot happens, from shipwreck and marooning to betrayal, one of Laurence’s party discovering the joy of coca leaves, and competition with Napoleon for the allegiance of the Inca Empire, whose feathered dragons prize humans more than their vast reserves of gold and jewelry. Reinstated to the service, Laurence is sent to deal with a Napoleon-aided attack on Brazil by the Tswana, who want to retrieve their enslaved families (or at least their descendants). Geopolitical reversals abound, with some terrible losses of old friends along with the emergence of new ones. All in all, an exciting read-I went through it in less than a day despite needing to grade.
Claudia Gray, Afterlife: Bianca and Lucas, now even more Juliet and Romeo than before (she’s a ghost, he’s a vampire, they’re immortal enemies), return to Evernight Academy in order to get Lucas help with his newfound bloodlust, and find out more about the whole ghost-vampire enmity thing. After a lot of setup, the plot moves swiftly to the climax and the major elements are resolved. I’m too jaded to take Bianca and Lucas’s ‘I will love you to the end of time’ thing entirely seriously, but I did enjoy Bianca’s reaction to the new, human girl who shows up looking beautiful and in need of Lucas’s rescue. She wouldn’t be (post)human if she didn’t have a moment of potential jealousy, but she actually has faith in her boyfriend, so yay for avoiding pointless misunderstandings!
Claudia Gray, Balthazar: New human girl sees ghosts, needs protection from nasty vampires, falls for Balthazar (the romantic rival from Bianca and Lucas’s story)-another high drama YA romance. I liked that there were non-villains who made bad decisions, including our hero and heroine at times. There’s also a cameo from at least one Glee character travelling incognito; I don’t know the show well enough to identify any others, if present.
Claudia Gray, Fateful: It’s a cross-class werewolf romance set on the Titanic! I had little use for the James Cameron film, but I thought it worked a lot better to have a key confrontation interrupted by the icy water rushing into the venue. Plucky servant girl saves mysterious wealthy stranger with the power of her love, and some well-placed silver; lots of historical detail, including everyone acknowledging just how unlikely the wealthy man was to wed the servant girl. But that’s one dream of America, right?
Jean Lorrah, Sime/Gen: To Kiss or Kill: Nostalgia led me back to this recent Sime/Gen book, though the romance set just after Unity made me feel about equally squicked and nostalgic. Squick: Jonmair, a newly established Gen, thinks she’s been bought as a Choice Kill for Baird, but that first he’s going to fuck her (note that puberty and Establishment roughly coincide), and she already feels tender towards him so she only hopes that the sex is good. Nostalgic: okay, I admit it, I do like the aspirational living in harmony stuff. Layering stereotypes across a new set of axes, with occasional recognition from some characters that they’re stereotypes, produced a whiplash effect for me. Baird was the traditional asshole hero who doesn’t want to be controlled by the heroine’s mysterious power over him and whose journey consisted of learning to accept it-but in this case he has a biological explanation for that power that isn’t her sex. At the same time, I read the book, perhaps against authorial intent, as Baird making excuses for himself that were enabled by his culture; there was plenty of ‘oh, well you can’t expect rational behavior from someone who’s post/junct/in turnover/in Need.’ (One occasionally wonders how Simes get anything done.) Anyway, it’s a variation on love taming the savage beast, with the background of huge-okay, I can’t help it-Tectonic changes in the underlying society. Best if you like power differentials and have good Sime/Gen memories.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.
The Floppy Disk and other icons that don’t make sense any more: Though I find this article plenty funny, I also think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a signifier with no present relation to the signified; we do it all the time!
Mira Grant, Countdown: A Newsflesh Novella: Nothing we didn’t really know from the trilogy, with bonus “people concerned with health care for all are idiot terrorists,” even though it’s not clear whether their acts just sped up the inevitable. Hardcore fans of the trilogy may enjoy, as witness its Hugo nomination.
Nancy Kress, Fountain of Age: Stories: Humans seek biological solutions to their psychological problems, or encounter alien races unable to see them outside human frames; Kress’s strength is as always portraying all too human frailty in the context of huge sf-ional happenings. Her sympathy is rarely empathy, though I detected some traces.
Naomi Novik, Crucible of Gold: A lot happens, from shipwreck and marooning to betrayal, one of Laurence’s party discovering the joy of coca leaves, and competition with Napoleon for the allegiance of the Inca Empire, whose feathered dragons prize humans more than their vast reserves of gold and jewelry. Reinstated to the service, Laurence is sent to deal with a Napoleon-aided attack on Brazil by the Tswana, who want to retrieve their enslaved families (or at least their descendants). Geopolitical reversals abound, with some terrible losses of old friends along with the emergence of new ones. All in all, an exciting read-I went through it in less than a day despite needing to grade.
Claudia Gray, Afterlife: Bianca and Lucas, now even more Juliet and Romeo than before (she’s a ghost, he’s a vampire, they’re immortal enemies), return to Evernight Academy in order to get Lucas help with his newfound bloodlust, and find out more about the whole ghost-vampire enmity thing. After a lot of setup, the plot moves swiftly to the climax and the major elements are resolved. I’m too jaded to take Bianca and Lucas’s ‘I will love you to the end of time’ thing entirely seriously, but I did enjoy Bianca’s reaction to the new, human girl who shows up looking beautiful and in need of Lucas’s rescue. She wouldn’t be (post)human if she didn’t have a moment of potential jealousy, but she actually has faith in her boyfriend, so yay for avoiding pointless misunderstandings!
Claudia Gray, Balthazar: New human girl sees ghosts, needs protection from nasty vampires, falls for Balthazar (the romantic rival from Bianca and Lucas’s story)-another high drama YA romance. I liked that there were non-villains who made bad decisions, including our hero and heroine at times. There’s also a cameo from at least one Glee character travelling incognito; I don’t know the show well enough to identify any others, if present.
Claudia Gray, Fateful: It’s a cross-class werewolf romance set on the Titanic! I had little use for the James Cameron film, but I thought it worked a lot better to have a key confrontation interrupted by the icy water rushing into the venue. Plucky servant girl saves mysterious wealthy stranger with the power of her love, and some well-placed silver; lots of historical detail, including everyone acknowledging just how unlikely the wealthy man was to wed the servant girl. But that’s one dream of America, right?
Jean Lorrah, Sime/Gen: To Kiss or Kill: Nostalgia led me back to this recent Sime/Gen book, though the romance set just after Unity made me feel about equally squicked and nostalgic. Squick: Jonmair, a newly established Gen, thinks she’s been bought as a Choice Kill for Baird, but that first he’s going to fuck her (note that puberty and Establishment roughly coincide), and she already feels tender towards him so she only hopes that the sex is good. Nostalgic: okay, I admit it, I do like the aspirational living in harmony stuff. Layering stereotypes across a new set of axes, with occasional recognition from some characters that they’re stereotypes, produced a whiplash effect for me. Baird was the traditional asshole hero who doesn’t want to be controlled by the heroine’s mysterious power over him and whose journey consisted of learning to accept it-but in this case he has a biological explanation for that power that isn’t her sex. At the same time, I read the book, perhaps against authorial intent, as Baird making excuses for himself that were enabled by his culture; there was plenty of ‘oh, well you can’t expect rational behavior from someone who’s post/junct/in turnover/in Need.’ (One occasionally wonders how Simes get anything done.) Anyway, it’s a variation on love taming the savage beast, with the background of huge-okay, I can’t help it-Tectonic changes in the underlying society. Best if you like power differentials and have good Sime/Gen memories.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.