Sarcasm is an adjusted stress reaction.

But first: I've been lurking around DW and LJ less than usual, because my trusty early-2011 MacBook Pro died, and doing anything on an iPad is a pain, even with a Bluetooth keyboard.

(I was casting about re how to replace it -- buy a cheap Windows laptop to tide me over while I save for a new MacBook? That was the plan, but then I actually looked at cheap Windows laptops. Yikes.

So, no, I'm just going to (a) pay off my vacuum cleaner faster than planned -- said vacuum having been purchased on an interest-free card, because it was a VACUUM EMERGENCY -- and save enough of a lump sum that I can pay off the future MacBook within its interest-free period. I've saved $100 so far! AND I have a jar that's full of coins, there might be another $20 in there.

But rest assured that I'll be whinging about my iPad in the meantime, especially because it's unreasonably hard to borrow and read ebooks from the library via the app, and my TV and movie watching is limited to Australian streaming services and the DVDs I already own.)

Now, I actually haven't been reading a whole lot lately, because ... I dunno, I start things and have trouble getting into them, maybe I'm in a slump.

( Click here for books. )

On No Award, about 5000 words of discussion of Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword. All those words, and we didn't even get around to complaining about the Ghost Gate, and foolish persons who DON'T GO THROUGH THE GHOST GATE WHEN IT'S RIGHT THERE, I MEAN, COME ON, PEOPLE.

Companion Piece is now available for pre-order from Amazon and BookDepository.  These are for the hardcopy editions; ebook pre-orders will be available in the near future.

Kirstein, like Megan Whalen Turner, likes to leave her reader to join the dots. Only there's science here, so I'm even more in the dark than on my first read-through of A Conspiracy of Kings. Setting out for my own benefit what I think we know.

( Spoilers up to 'The Language of Power' )

I like this meme a lot, I just don't do it very much because I have enough trouble making time for my monthly round up of books!

What are you reading now?

Re-reading The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner.  violetisblue mentioned buying a copy, and I was overcome with the desire to read the whole series again.

I appreciate how Gen is, as Ambiades puts it, "not exactly stalwart".  He's a great big whinger, and as much as I cringe a bit, I also like that he has no intention of being the Stoic, Brooding Hero. 

I missed the actual get-together, but I put The Thief in my RL book club's hat, and no one liked it.  *shakes head*

What did you just finish reading?

1.  Avatar: the Last Airbender - The Search (part 1) -- actually, I cracked and read a scan last week, but I finally managed to buy the last copy in Melbourne last night, and it turned out the scan had missed a bunch of pages, so there was stuff I hadn't read yet!  IT WAS VERY EXCITING.

Basically, after I read the scan last week, I had feels-related insomnia, and then I had FEELS all the way from Tokyo to Melbourne.  Feels, not feelings, because they weren't articulate enough for that ings.  Mostly they are Ursa feels, but also Zuko and Azula feels, and my usual vague desire to set Ozai on fire.  Although I really like the way Gene Luen Yang writes Ozai and fleshes him out without softening him, like the secret chamber that's full of artifacts from other cultures.  If it was Iroh, you'd think he was interested and wanted to learn, but because it's Ozai, it's more like a serial killer's souvenirs, only his victims are entire cultures. 

I haven't sought out the general fannish reaction, because unjapanologist said it was stupid, and I have enough problems with Doctor Who fandom at the moment.  Remind me to make a post about how not liking a writer's tropes doesn't mean it's okay to decide he's a paedophile. 

2.  Doctor Who/Star Trek: The Next Generation - Assimilation2 -- I accidentally bought volume 2 instead of volume 1, 'cos I'm an idiot.  But I read half of volume 1, so I knew that the Borg and the Cybermen had formed an alliance, and the TARDIS had turned up on the Enterprise-D for wacky crossover shenanigans. 

I found the writing pretty clunky and exposition-heavy -- I strongly feel that if the heart of the TARDIS inhabits Data, that should be a crowning moment of awesome, not an afterthought -- and there was this weird thing where Starfleet officers addressed Amy as "Miss Pond" if she was on her own, but Amy-and-Rory were "Mr and Mrs Williams".  Which mostly takes me back to the time in 2000 when I caused great offence on a mailing list by suggesting that women would have stopped automatically taking their husband's names by the 24th century. 

On the other hand, the art -- hand-painted, although some of the photo references were a bit too identifiable -- was amazing, and completely justified the purchase.  And I would happily buy some of the covers as posters.

What do you expect to read next?

The next three Queen's Thief books, and then I have some more Japanese crime fiction to read.  I didn't love The Devotion of Suspect X, but I'm optimistic!

Losers in Space by John Barnes: YA SF.  In the interests of having more content on my blog, I posted my fairly substantial response there.

The Carrie Diaries: CW TV series.  I was originally planning to skip all the bits that didn't have Freema Agyeman, but I got sucked into the story and wound up being unexpectedly charmed.  I've never watched more than a few minutes of Sex in the City, but this has the makings of a clever little show that stands on its own.  At the pilot stage it has some terrible lines (although Carrie's tedious voiceovers are more forgivable coming from a 16 year old than a grown woman), but also a lot of heart, and a solid cast.  (I was amused to see that Carrie's 14 year old sister, whom I'd dismissed as too mature and tall for the role, is in fact played by a 15 year old actress.)  Apparently the CW is hoping it will fill the void left by Gossip Girl, but so far it's way too nice for that.  And, I note, has a more diverse cast than Sex in the City and Girls combined.

And yes, Freema was lovely.  I don't think she's ever played a character as flighty and flirty as this before, but she does it well.  Although there are a few shots where her faint crows feet are visible, which made me cheer a little, because it's not often you get to see that kind of thing at all, but it seemed a bit odd in a character who declares that people are old when they turn 25.  But hey, it's set in 1984, a generation before Botox, and I can easily see Larissa as a person who latches onto very young, impressionable people and uses them to distract the world from her age. 

Elementary: I can't believe how this show has crept up on me.  It's gone from "Is Elementary on this week?" to "WHEN IS IT ON?  I NEED TO KNOW.  I CAN'T WAIT TWO WEEKS FOR THE NEXT EPISODE, CBS!"  So that's nice.  Unexpected for a procedural, but then, the emotional story of Sherlock and Joan coming to respect and like each other is serialised, and now that we have the characters established, the plots are getting a little bit meatier.  Sometimes they even verge on making sense!  Well done, team!

I have to say, though, with Watson established as a baseball fan, and all the soccer stuff last week, I really hope there's an episode where all investigations come to a halt because Holmes has to watch The Ashes.

VIII - H M Castor
Empress of Rome: The Life of Livia - Matthew Dennison
The Poisoner's Handbook - Deborah Blum
Alchemy and Meggy Swann - Karen Cushman
The Colour of Earth - Kim Dong Hwa
I Want My MTV - Craig Marks
The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King
A Monstrous Regiment of Women - Laurie R. King
A Letter of Mary - Laurie R. King
The Moor - Laurie R. King
O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King
Am I Black Enough For You? - Anita Heiss

The round-up:

VIII is a YA novel covering the life of Henry VIII. As such it breaks a bunch of sometimes-written rules of YA, in that the main character ages well past the target audience's age bracket and does things they might not have direct experience with, like marriage, divorce, spousal murder, ruling England, declaring war on France and Spain, etc. I don't think breaking that rule guideline was the reason why the book sort of floundered after Anne Boleyn died, though -- it's more that (as happens so often), the first two wives got all the characterisation, so after the beheading it felt more like a series of sketches about an increasingly unpleasant character. The first half, though, was really good.

I wanted to read Empress of Rome: The Life of Livia since I found it in Hill of Content back in 2010, but couldn't bring myself to pay $50 for the hardback. LIBRARIES, MAN. It was a good, clear biography with an increasingly hilarious hate-on for Robert Graves and I, Claudius and the general historiographical hatchet job on Livia. It could have done with some closer editorial attention, though, with unintentionally hilarious sentences like, "Augustus himself had given birth only to Julia." There's also an irritating trend through the book of praising Livia by putting other prominent Roman women of her era down.

Alchemy and Meggy Swann: decent middle-grade fiction about a disabled girl who comes to live with her father, an alchemist, in Elizabethan London. I was really impressed with Cushman's use of the slang and songs of the era, and the portrayal of Meggy's physical limitations.

The Colour of Earth is the first part in a manhwa trilogy. (That's the Korean graphic novel and comic form, I discovered when I went straight from Amazon to Wikipedia.) I was pretty mixed -- the art is gorgeous, but I kind of finished it going, "And this is three whole books about a mother and daughter who have no existence beyond their romantic dreams?" And then there was an afterword explaining that it's notable for its unusually feminist and layered portrayal of women. How to scare Liz off an entire genre in one easy move! (I did like the relationship between mother and daughter, I just kept waiting for them to have a conversation that wasn't about men or romance or sex.)

I Want My MTV is an oral history of the network, with various employees and celebrities sharing their memories and experiences. Parts of it were quite interesting, lots of it made me want to throw things, and the repeated complaints that it's all terrible now made me want to go and watch Pimp My Ride. Boomers v Gen X: no one wins, least of all Gen Y.

THEN, because I had a cold and was feeling sorry for myself, and also because the book I wanted to read is unavailable in Australia, I started re-reading the Mary Russell novels. Which are only intermittently objectively good, but I love them. And I also love the way Sherlock fans on Tumblr express OUTRAGE that any character could be written as a match for Sherlock Holmes, LET ALONE A WOMAN. The misogyny wasn't cute when it was coming from neckbeards; it's downright ugly coming from women.

Finally, the month's winner for book I liked most is Am I Black Enough For You? by Anita Heiss, which is part-memoir and part exploration of Aboriginal identity, expectations, stereotypes and more. (I especially enjoyed the chapter on Indigenous cultural expressions, copyright and cultural appropriation.) Heiss is an academic, writer, poet, activist and author of commercial women's fiction. You know, chick-lit. In this case, chick-lit about educated young Koori women with jetsetting lifestyles and complex romantic lives. (I've been circling her novels for a while, torn between, "But I don't really like chick-lit!" and "But if it had a different label you'd snap that up in an instant!")

Heiss was also an applicant in the Andrew Bolt racial discrimination case last year, for which I was part of the transcription team. (In fact, nearly a whole page of Am I Black Enough For You? is a quotation from transcript I did myself! SHUT UP, I WAS VERY PROUD OF OUR WORK THERE! There were fair amounts of research involved, and also it was 90% rage-typing!) I don't think I've ever before had a chance to read about a case I worked on from a party's point of view, and it was informative and interesting.

I was also interested that Heiss discusses race and racism in terms that the internet (okay, Tumblr) claims is unacceptable, which was a handy reminder that fandom's attitude towards discussing race is strongly US-centric and not universal. (Not that I discuss race much, online or elsewhere, but I read a lot.) One of the problems Heiss discusses is identity policing from people, black and white, who say she is too educated, urban, middle-class, etc, to be "really" Koori. Given that a few months ago, fandom was being told Korra, a brown-skinned fictional character, is "really" white because she has ... well, any privilege at all -- that rang pretty strongly. That identity-erasure was at the heart of the entire lawsuit last year, so I was kind of fascinated and horrified to see the Andrew Bolt Approach being taken up by people who are ostensibly anti-racist.

[ETA: One thing I meant to say in this post, and forgot, that if you're writing, or thinking of writing, anything involving Aboriginal people, cultural works, characters, etc, Am I Black Enough For You? also contains a wealth of information about authors, reports and guidelines to check out. I mention this because a major supporting character in Le Novel, who will have the POV if I ever get to the sequel, is a twelve year old Koori girl, and I'm really glad to have all these resources for the avoidance of offence and stereotypes.]

From politics to cartoons, and I still managed to get one nail painted! Saturday morning accomplishment: ACHIEVED!

Leviathan Wakes - James S A Corey
Last Call: The rise and fall of Prohibition - Daniel Okrent
A Clash of Kings - George R R Martin
Swift - R J Anderson
A Storm of Swords part 1: Steel and Snow - George R R Martin
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance - Lois McMaster Bujold

Yes, this is a paltry lot and I am ashamed.  On the other hand, the GRRMs contain, like, the textual equivalent of five YA novels (and about as much rape, if the YA novels are Issue Books).  And Last Call took forever.  It was an okay read, not very well written, but it just never seemed to end!  Which, I guess, could also have been said for Prohibition at the time. 

Leviathan Wakes is another Hugo nominee.  It was the first I actually enjoyed reading, being a straight-up action-adventure with a heavy dash of mystery and some slightly self-conscious noir.  And also spaceships, which I approve of in general.  Unfortunately, I feel like I can't actually give it my first preference in voting, because it just doesn't deserve it.  No new ideas, plot-wise, and a few diversions into hinkiness that made me side-eye the author(s) a bit, and wonder how the issues would have been dealt with in the hands of writers who weren't white men.  Which is sad, because they obviously put a lot of effort into writing a diverse range of stereotype-avoiding characters, and in general did quite a good job.  (Actually, now I think of it, possibly [female character] winding up in a refrigerator had more to do with the conventions of noir than anything else.  But it still sat ill.)

Things I wholeheartedly loved: Swift, which took rj_anderson's faery series away from its previous settings and characters.  Apparently this has earned her some hate mail, which is stupid, since the new characters and places are fascinating.  And the only familiar character is Martin, who would be the leather pants faery woobified by fandom if she had that kind of fandom, but he's not suddenly forgiven for his past sins etc.

Woobies I'm less in love with: nothing will ever convince me that Byerly Vorrutyer is remotely interesting, but luckily he doesn't overstay his welcome in Captain Vorpatril's Alliance.  I'm not sure if Ivan Vorpatril is a particularly interesting character either, but he's entertaining, which is just as good.  (I've realised that my dream Barrayar novel these days involves Gregor and Duv FIGHTING CRIME, with Alys as their long-suffering boss.)

(Because I was looking for it, I feel compelled to note that we STILL don't know what Alys's Vormaidenname was.  I think Bujold must be taunting me personally.)

Having recovered somewhat from the overwhelming badness of Among Others, I moved onto attempting Mira Grant's Deadline. I say "attempting", because it's the second book in a trilogy I had otherwise decided not to read, and while I had to give it a go, I promised myself I could stop if I really hated it.

I MADE IT FIVE CHAPTERS, GUYS, YOU SHOULD BE PROUD OF ME.

To sum up: the Newsflesh trilogy is set in a sci-fi zombie apocalypse dominated by pop culture references that are already outdated now. (Strike one.) The protagonist in the second book has his dead twin sister living in his head, but that doesn't save him from being deeply annoying. (Strike two.) And then someone (thankfully) warned me that the trilogy's OTP are siblings. (Strike three.)

It wasn't HOLY SHIT, THIS IS BAD! on the scale of Among Others, but the little bit I read killed any desire to read any of Grant's other work ever.

( Quick, potentially triggery rant about fannish attitudes to incest and also RL abuse. )

I'm now trying to read Ray of Light by Brad R. Torgersen, one of the nominated novelettes. I say "trying" because, while it's technically good and all, so far it suffers from All The Female Characters Are Symbols And Archetypes Syndrome, and also a bad case of PrecociousInnocentChildItis. I'm beginning to wonder if this year's nominations are actually an elaborate attempt at trolling.

Something I did like! I'm on a couple of YA panels at Continuum -- I also came third in the short story competition! -- so I've been catching up on some YA sci-fi. (I have to say, the contrast with the adult-oriented Hugo nominated novels is striking. And I'm still convinced that the really interesting stuff is being written for teens.) Really enjoyed Feed by M T Anderson, even though it is full of things I usually avoid -- cyberpunk, douchebag male protagonist who learns an important lesson from a borderline manic pixie dream girl, etc. Mostly because it is so well written that it turns the cliches inside out and into interesting origami shapes, and is also short enough that it doesn't overstay its welcome. I'm not saying that I was crying on the train as I finished it, but ... yeah, I was totally crying on the train.

As long as I'm kicking lots of popular genre works, here are four more unpopular opinions:

- The actress who played Sif in Thor was really embarrassingly bad...
- ...and Darcy is kind of not that interesting to me
- Korra/Asami is possibly the most boring f/f pairing on the entire planet, and I'm sure I have good reasons for believing this that aren't just "They get in the way of Korra/Lin"
- it kind of skeeves me out that so much of the Korra/Tahno fan art on my dash puts Korra in a stereotypically feminine nurturing role

OH YEAH, and I'm also on a Continuum panel about vidding! So I should probably maybe go watch some vids? Said panel is at 11pm Friday night, btw, so if you come -- it's gold coin entry on Friday! -- maybe bring me some Red Bull, because I turn into a pumpkin at 9.30.

So I bought a supporting membership for Chicon this year, for reasons that I'm sure seemed good at the time -- OH, RIGHT! I decided that I felt very strongly about "Remedial Chaos Therapy" deserving a first preference over "The Doctor's Wife" purely because people were being OUTRAGED that a MERE SITCOM was getting MAINSTREAM COOTIES all over their precious nerd awards. And also I wanted the option of nominating Legend of Korra Book 1 for Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) next year. Because I really want to see my show getting crushed by The Avengers and Game of Thrones, I guess.

Anyway, with membership comes the voting pack, electronic copies of all nominated novels, novelettes, novellas and short stories. And this was pretty great, because I was really keen to read Jo Walton's Among Others, which has been universally praised by fannish reviewers, and now I can do so for free!

The problem is that I ... kind of hated it. A lot.

The plot is this: Mori (Morwenna, or Mor) is 15, Welsh and it's 1979. Following an accident that left her with a crippling injury and a dead twin, she runs away from her mother, who an evil witch, spends two months in a Children's Home, and winds up being sent to live in England with her father, who abandoned his family when she was a baby.

The novel is written in the form of Mori's diary, and much of it deals with the science fiction she's reading. I've read about 80% of the books mentioned, and I have to say, other than giving fellow fans a warm glow, I don't really see what the book talk adds to the novel. Mori could have been obsessed with romance, or thrillers, or 18th century gothic literature, or Sherlock Holmes, and very little would be different.

Mori also sees fairies. Which is nice for her, I guess. She's sent off to boarding school, where she discovers the class system, and eventually becomes part of a local SF book club, while getting a boyfriend and fending off her mother's magical attacks.

The good bits: the depiction of chronic pain is AMAZING, and I had to take Panadol because I was having sympathetic pain. The boarding school bits are okay. The scenes with Mori's paternal grandfather, a Polish Jew, are interesting, and could have formed the backbone of an entire (better) book.

The bad bits: the narrative voice. Maybe I was just spoiled by Michelle Cooper's Montmaray books, a YA trilogy which is also narrated through the diary of a teenage girl, but this reads more like a 40-something's LJ than a teenage girl's diary. There are flashes of the "real" voice, but they're few and far between. She doesn't sound like a teenager, even a very precocious teenager.

(Said my friend yiduiqie when I asked her to have a read and tell me if I'm being unfair, "I thought you were joking about the LJ thing, but then it opens with a quote from a LiveJournal comment!")

( The rest is spoilery, and also includes incest! )

Especially disappointing is that I loved every one of Jo Walton's novels, so I know she can do better. And worse, not counting A Dance With Dragons, this is one of only two Hugo-nominated novels with female protagonists.

From there I went on and read Fields of Gold by Rachel Swirsky, one of the nominated novelettes, in which an Average Joe dies and finds out that (a) the afterlife is just ... the dead, still hanging out; and (b) his wife killed him.

What was most notable for me, after Among Others, was how vivid the characters' voices were, and how quickly they came to life. So even though I didn't really like them, I totally believed in them, and that was enough to carry me through the 40 pages.

(Fields of Gold also contained incest. I can only assume this year's Hugos are sponsored by the Game of Thrones kinkmeme.)