Reading roundup: Hugos homework :)

[hamsterwoman]

I decided to try to read through some of the Hugo-nominated graphic novels, since that's a thing I can really only read in paper copy, and by browsing the library's GN shelf ended up going down a rabbit hole, kind of:

10. Serenity: Better Days (Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews, art by Will Conrad) -- this was cute! It's set presumably between the

Comments

[jaelle_n_gilla]

I think I'll have to find the serenity graphic novels some time. We just played the board game and it was surprisingly much fun.

[hamsterwoman]

Ooh, I dind't know there was a game! Although, in retrospect, I should've anticipated that, because it would be a fun one!

I'm not sure about the other Serenity comics, or even how many of them there are, but "Better Days" was a lot of fun, really had the feel of an episode, and Shepherd's Tale I enjoyed less on the whole (because it's grimmer), but was definitely interesting, and added a lot to the canon.

[jaelle_n_gilla]

The game is called Firefly... but you probably guessed that. It sounded awfully complicated when our friend first explained it, and it's not cooperative, but I ended up liking it a lot. Once we started playing, it was much easier that I thought.

[cyanshadow]

(I did not miss your TLTL review, FWIW, and was delighted to see that you really liked it, so I can just kick back and ask you about the sequels instead of contemplating hate-reading them :D but responding to it has been very slow going so! responding out of order since I see a lot of fun stuff I can leave brief (haha) comments on here. :D)

Oh, and Hugo note in general -- we should be getting "voter packets" soon, which generally contain e-copies of most of the nominated works. (Though while most publishers include the full novel, IIRC in past years Orbit has only included the first couple chapters of NKJ's work, so Stone Sky might get the same treatment this year.) So if there's anything you're having any trouble finding, you can probably just wait until the packets come out and grab the copy from there. :)

... And skipping over the graphic novels except to say that I'm impressed you read so many of them. :D

Glad to hear you liked Collapsing Empire! It seems to be pretty well-liked overall, by the other friends I have who've

[hamsterwoman]

No worries about the TLTL post -- it was kind of massive, and it seems I'm likely to be talking about it for many weeks to come, so, no rush!

so I can just kick back and ask you about the sequels instead of contemplating hate-reading them :DHahaha, yes, that seems like the better option

[cyanshadow]

I was wondering when Hugo voter packets usually appear

From searching my email for last year's, it looks like voting officially opened ~last week of April, and the voter packet came out ~mid-May. In 2016, it looks like voting opened and the packet came out both in mid-to-late May, so seems there's some variation but probably sometime in May? :'D

And yup, lowered expectations is my plan with River of Teeth. :D

I know, for example, that the female protagonist uses a male nickname version, which I suspect is going to bug me a lot (even though it's apparently justified by book 2 or something). Ahahaha -- Vasya for Vasilia? What would the female nickname pattern(s) be, and are there any overall patterns that tend to be more male or female

[hamsterwoman]

May, OK! Thank you for looking that up for me! It seems like I should definitely stick with my plan to read whatever I can get my hands on by other methods until then, since that's still a while off.

Ahahaha -- Vasya for Vasilia? What would the female nickname pattern(s) beSo, I don't actually know any real person named Vasilisa, partly because it's such a "fairy tale heroine" name, and, unlike other fairy-tale heroine names (like Alena :) or Masha), also very old-fashioned. I'm trying to think of a Western equivalent with similar connotations, and it would have to be something like Guinevere (in terms of immediately bringing up mythological connotations, not necessarily the same ones -- Vasilisa in fairy tales is wise and plucky, not tragicly adulterous :P) Looking it up on Wiki, it is a name that seems to be enjoying a renaissance, at least a bit? But I think still not all that common

[meathiel]

Geez ... when did you manage to read all of these?
I'm like you - graphic novels on in dead tree form ... they just don't work for me on the Kindle.

[hamsterwoman]

Haha, aren't you on, like, book 40 or something yourself? I'm just trying to catch up to my much more modest reading goals!

And, yeah, I find the GN format hard enough to follow as it is, and can only read them electronically on a big screen and even that for no more than a couple of pages.

[spiffikins]

Awwww, I had the hippo book on my list of books to read! I'm sad that it turned out to be so terrible! Thank you for taking the bullet and reporting back :)

I also have been low-key avoiding Scalzi - it's not so much that I hated his books, but that for a while, years ago, I followed his blog - and ended up just being annoyed by a lot of his posts and the smug tone. That, along with the fact that the few books of his that I did read, didn't thrill me - they were...fine? - I just find I don't have any real enthusiasm for the prospect :)

[hamsterwoman]

I followed his blog - and ended up just being annoyed by a lot of his posts and the smug toneI'm pretty sure that was part of it for me, too. I didn't follow his blog, but a number of authors I did follow linked to it fairly regularly, so I read a bunch of posts and found them smug, as you say. And when book recs came up through RL friends or fannish osmosis, I leafed through some at the library, maybe even checked out Redshirts or Old Man's War, but found what I read of them high on smugness and low on actual brilliance, and have basically ignored anything he's published since

[enchanted_jae]

I'm sorry the hippo book was disappointing, but your review of it made me laugh.

:D

[hamsterwoman]

I'm glad! :D (the best thing about bad books is getting to rant about them in the write-ups and hopefully both derive and provide some entertainment from them that way :)