SEPTEMBER
The Wild Shore (Kim Stanley Robinson): ..meh. Postapocalyptic "what is America" bildungsroman where the protagonist learns that sometimes people lie to you and don't have your best interests at heart. This has some of the elements I like about KSR's other novels - attention to detail, location as almost a character in its own right - but ( Read more... )

This is a placeholder for a Cryoburn post. If this were a real post, there would be links, spoiler-cuts and possibly capslock.

Mirror Dance, Memory (Lois McMaster Bujold): Ah yes, the classic signs of a bad day: you are in complete sympathy with Howl, in a "let's go to Macy's and buy several hundred dollars of makeup and professional clothes I don't need" way. (I didn't go to Macy's. I may have browsed the website, though. Ironing gets really old ( Read more... )

This is why I need a job.

The Cherryh Odyssey (Edward Carmien, ed): Nonfiction collection discussing Cherryh's novels and her career as a speculative fiction writer. The essays are arranged in a rough trajectory from personal recollections to more academic work. There's a fair amount of overlap in the recollections, so I was most interested in the ( Read more... )

Thunderstruck (Erik Larson): The invention of radio and the killer caught because of it. The story of Marconi's OCD approach to wireless communication and his extravagant lifestyle might is interesting, and the story of the investigation of Belle Elmore / Cora Crippen's murder by her husband is also interesting, but somehow, Larson uses the two ( Read more... )

I have been waiting all month to make a post with that title. I'm tempted to make a poll questioning my break from the norm vs. the subject's wish to appear rebellious without actually breaking from socially acceptable roles, but that's taking the joke too far.

I'm pushing to get this out tonight because I am upset about the failboat disrespect ( Read more... )

Technically, I finished the Sharing Knife: Passage (Lois McMaster Bujold) on May 2nd, so it should go in the May log, but it was remarkably not-obnoxious so I want to give it a shoutout ( Read more... )

Tonight I'm thinking about the current "Open-Source Boob Project" drama on LJ, and am torn between "gee, this is a big reaction to a small group of consenting adults at a con" and kneejerk rage because the context changed when people brought this out of the con and online. There's a post to be written about context and behavior. Meanwhile, have ( Read more... )

First, icons:

1.
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My Deep and Meaningful post was derailed by norabombay and I trying to write science fiction epics on the phone again, so I will instead offer this thought: my second, scattershot dip into The Sharing Knife: Legacy is not reconciling me to the romance or Fawn; it's making me gesture emphatically at The Steerswoman's Road instead. I am not supposed to be ( Read more... )