calicokittycat

At least I should make one post this year...  I'll see about more book reviews soon.  Anybody reading this?

I guess there is one advantage to getting sick; I do get more time to read. (Go to bed. When eyes open, read. When eyes closed, sleep. Repeat macro.) Read a bit of fanfic before giving up on it (note to writers - I don't care what you're crossing with Narnia, please try to at least keep Aslan in character.) Went on to better things.

Ok, this isn't one of the freebies, this is the sequel to one of the freebies, which I have now read courtesy the LASFS library. Warning - this WILL have spoilers for Through Wolf's Eyes. There is also a reference to Rosemary Edgehill's The Cup of Morning Shadows though not really all that spoilery.

( mostly Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart )

ConChord is over, and though I have to make up another Kazoo award for the category where there were two (and take the opportunity to decoupage the labels onto the bases of the awards whose winners weren't present and thus will have to have them mailed)... I still have time to do some reading.

So I just finished The Outstretched Shadow by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory.

( The usual spoiler warning )

Next I'm reading book two of Jane Lindskold's Wolf's Eyes series, courtesy of the LASFS library.

I give up - The Yiddish Policemen's Union is going back to the library half read tomorrow.  Interesting, if ose, background, the old "determined detective bulls through to the TRUTH" plot... and I find myself putting the thing down every chapter to find something, anything more cheerful.  Today I hit the last straw, as Our Hero did something so mindblowingly dumb that I found myself considering the Eight Deadly Words*.  Someone with more tolerance for gritty street-level realism in an alternate universe may well enjoy it - in fact a number of someones must've or it'd hardly have won the Hugo... but I think I'm getting on with the rest of the stack.


*"I Don't Care What Happens To These People."

OK, I started The Yiddish Policemen's Union and by the time I got halfway through things got so ose (after all, it IS noir) that I needed a break. So I'll review it after I finish it. In the interim I went on a reading jag in the AJ Hall does the Harry Potterverse (occasionally mixing in some other places) series of fanfics, aka the LOPverse which can be found here. There's a link to a recommended reading order; actually I'd recommend starting with the two novels which are, I believe, the first two actually written, and also strike me as the best of the lot. These are well, written, well plotted novels, the first (Lust over Pendel) being a comedy of manners crossed with an adventure, the second (Dissipation and Despair) a "cozy" style murder mystery in the tradition of Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey series. The rest are a mixed bag of short stories, and include items historical to the main novels, crossovers with Lois Bujold's Vorkosigan series, and "The Perilous Point" which ties up most of the loose knots in the relationships established in the novels. A brief warning about one of them,"The Kindly Ones" which is one of those annoying short stories that make you feel like you just read the first two or three chapters and lost the book - while it's pretty obvious what happens next, there's really room for development. Still I can understand the author deciding to quit while ahead, and anybody familiar with Greek mythology can probably figure out why from the title.

And speaking of titles, don't let those of the novels throw you off - the author's being playful. Now these ARE technically slash, involving Draco Malfoy and Neville Longbottom of all people... but actually it works, and the author avoids both porn and overwhelming angstfests (I can think of a few well known authors who could learn a lot from her handling of this theme). Go enjoy!

Theoretically there will be a poll in this post, about how  anybody came to read it.  If they do, anyway.  :)Poll #28 Just out of Curiosity (I AM a cat after all)
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

How did you find this journal?

Just bought a permanent Inksome membership, with a certain amount of trepidation considering what used to happen every time someone revived "Shangri L'affaires" and I locced it.  Then again, last time I did NOT send a letter of comment and it still folded so maybe to quote another Kay, it's not MY fault.  :)

Anyway, it's $120, and means with any luck  I should be around here for awhile.

NOW - any friends of mine reading this who don't have Inksome accounts of any variety, want an invite?  I've plenty.

Candide (see previous post) finished up in what I can only call an appropriate fashion. If you haven't read it, I recommend looking it up.

( In the Garden of Iden, The Sharing Knife: Legacy, and Mistborn )

Next up, this year's Hugo best novel winner, The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. Who, interestingly enough won the Pulitzer literary prize in 2001. Must go look up The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay after I finish this one. Then back to Tor again.

Comments on Through Wolf's Eyes, by Jane Lindskold, The Disunited States of America by Harry Turtledove, All Seated On The Ground by Connie Willis, The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang, Tideline by Elizabeth Bear and even a few on Candide by Voltaire follow. No spoilers far as I can see, but I'll insert a cut anyway.

( Here for comments )

I think this is general enough not to need a cut.

Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder is one of those annoying books where there are all sorts of things to fascinate - an air balloon the size of the Earth containing breathable atmosphere, an artificial sun in the middle and smaller ones here and there, colonies drifting about with the air circulation currents or tethered to orbital bodies, pirates, empires, a general steampunk feel (and a certain amount of physics blandly ignored to be sure), war, love, revenge, murder, deadly plots and secrets, all that stuff...  but though I cannot point the finger at any one thing, it just never quite gelled for me.   A rather bland interest in seeing how it all came out did allow me to finish the book, and I'm glad that the author had the sense to actually provide a decent ending though with plenty of room for the next book in the pipeline, but while I wish the surviving characters no ill, I don't really care what happens to them next either.  Sigh...

On to Through Wolf's Eyes by Jane Lindskold.

Currently paging my way through a batch of ebooks Tor was giving away recently, of which I downloaded the lot. Interspersed with other stuff, to be sure.

The trouble with writing anything resembling a review is telling anything about the book without committing spoilers, so if you're really concerned with knowing anything about Farthing (Jo Walton), Starfish (Peter Watt), and Four and Twenty Blackbirds (Cherie Priest), (and to a lesser degree The Sword of Maiden's Tears by Rosemary Edghill. There are also some other references that don't give anything away requiring a warning) just skip the cut.

( A few books )

Whoops - been three weeks since I posted, hasn't it.    I don't know how to add a generally available marker to Google Earth, nor am I sure this merits such anyway, but to see something real pretty, get onto Google Earth and go to:

66^o 11'22.21"N
150^o 24'06.16"E

All those meanders and oxbows and whatnot remind me of ruffles in a painting .

BLITEOTW

OK, so I suppose it shouldn't have been a complete surprise.  After all, there was the LASFS election last night, which always draws a crowd including members who don't show up all that often otherwise.   And of course when you think about it having him as a member makes a certain amount of sense in a club where Death Will Not Release You, after all...  He even brought three friends with him.  It's not often we see a first time visitor actually eager to be involved in club offices - the redhead actually offered to challenge the new president elect for the position until The Emperor explained the duties thereof.  The skinny guy ate most of the munchies and threatened to start in on the table - this was impressive considering the number of bribes the candidates had placed there.  And the other guy - the one with the greenish complexion kept bragging about the scope of his plans for tomorrow.. without ever quite telling us what they were.

So when I look out the window and discover the mailman staggering down the street muttering "braaaaiiinnnsss" I suppose I shouldn't have been that surprised.  Just another sunny day in Paradise with zombies.  I've checked with Niall - Boeing's been running the zombie filter all day, so unless someone's managed to sneak in while infected they should be ok.     Vicky says she's taken refuge in the King's Head, they'll admit anybody but certain things simply aren't DONE in the pub, so she should be all right too.

So I'm hiding up in the attic with the possums for a spell.  Just hope they're  not infected.....

Now to see if I read the instructions right - I've used Semagic to post to LJ for quite awhile, but have just tried to set it up for Inksome. Live Journal Archive works, I'm pleased to note.

And just to avoid having no content at all, here's a link to an article on the Time Travel Mart in Echo Park...

Dug out my backups from the Scribblit phase, and everything has either moldered away (commentary on the writer's strike) or is easily available  elsewhere (Booty a short story published in the CaliFur program book the year the theme was pirates), so  I'm not going to be posting any of that.  Instead, a bit of commentary on something that's always bugged me a bit.

Just finished my occasional reread of the Chronicles of Narnia, then came across the neverending “What about Susan” discussion as incarnated on someone’s LJ. Now there’s a lot of discussion one can have over CS Lewis and his attitudes, or why he chose Susan to be odd man out (and not just at the end – she tended to be from the beginning), but in the context of the books themselves, this whole thing stems from a few of paragraphs in The Last Battle – so few that fair use allows me to quote them all:

“My sister Susan,” answered Peter shortly and gravely, “is no longer a friend of Narnia.”

“Yes,” said Eustace, “and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says ‘What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.’”

“Oh Susan!” said Jill, “she’s interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up.”

“Grown-up, indeed,” said the Lady Polly. “I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea of life is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.”

“Well, don’t talk about that now,”said Peter. “Look! Here are lovely fruit trees. Let us taste them.

Now we can easily see that her brother (and possibly other siblings) found her perhaps boring and no fun anymore, while Polly found her overly frivolous, but one thing is immediately clear, and that is that she has not been excluded from the Friends of Narnia because she won’t go adventuring, or because she’s too shallow or anything else along those lines. She’s not been excluded at all – she opted out of her own free will. Susan is no longer a Friend of Narnia because Susan herself has decided to not be one.

OK, this means there is a perfectly good reason she was not at the party – the same reason I don’t go to Elks meetings – I’m not a member. She did not know anything about the call for help, or the various actions spawned by same, and did not have any reason to be on that train, present at the Last Battle, or in Real Narnia either.

But you’ll note that the adult Pevenseys, not being Friends of Narnia also did not come in via Narnia OR Real Narnia – they came in through Real England, and still made it to Aslan’s Country. And there’s no reason to believe Aslan has called time on England; they’re here because they came to the station to meet the others and got caught in the wreck. (If I was going to pick a bone with CS Lewis, this might be the place for it – seems an awfully sloppy way to get a handful of people out of England for someone capable of summoning people out of one universe into another with such ease as he used to bring in Queen Helen in The Magician’s Nephew, or send the Telmarines back at the end of Prince Caspian… but I digress.) Susan, presumably is still alive since she’s not with her parents. Most likely due to having not happened to come to the station.

What happens next? We don’t know! All we know is that she didn’t come along with either part of the family before we reached the end of the book. The only people to speak of her at all were Peter, Polly and Jill and Eustace. Not a word from Aslan, the party whose opinion most counts. That’s Susan’s story, and the minute she separates from the story of the Friends of Narnia it’s no longer part of the Narnian story, which is the one we’re reading about. She may turn up five minutes after the end of the book; she may live a long life and have many experiences and then come in via Real England or wherever when she does die. She may HAVE separated herself from Aslan’s Country entirely. But we have no particular reason to assume so from what we see in the book.

OK, it would appear I've got my journal up again - my thanks to all who helped.  I'll put such posts from my old one as haven't completely moldered away up later - right now I should've been asleep an hour ago.  Prrrrrrp!