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Rowyn
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| Book 17 of the Aubrey-Maturin series. The boys actually make it home to England! For the first time in about four books and, from the sounds of it, at least as many years.
I had quite a good time with this one. Some of the Maturin/Aubrey quips back and forth were especially good:
Aubrey: "I have always prided myself on a perfect freedom from jealousy."
Maturin [well-established as a short, balding, ill-kept little man]: "For a great while I prided myself on my transcendent beauty, on much the same grounds; or even better."
I suspect they lack something without the full context of the series, though. Like most of the books, it's made up of one anecdote after another, more a series of little stories that sometimes turn back to events from longer ago and sometimes do not. It is more like life than a novel. I liked this one very well, though. | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment   |
| 1. I repainted my nails, in a starscape kind of pattern. I followed  aminita's advice of using acrylic paints and covering the design with clear nail polish. The one problem: my clear nail polish has thickened too much over the years and needs to be replaced. So the design is probably not going to last the day. Still, learning experience and it was fun to do.
2. I type a great deal on my phone, which means a lot of time spent looking at my thumbs. Having a pretty design on them is nice.
3. ZOMG flying to Seattle tonight going to see terrycloth yay! It's been ages. I need to see if any of my other Seattle-area friends want to see me while I'm out there.
4. I have finally figured out how to play Puerto Rico without losing horribly. Not that I am great at the game, but I am no longer actively incompetent. :) | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Justin resumed his story. "As I was saying, myself and my landbound mount were doing our best to follow in their wake, getting smacked in the face by branches that they soared over, picking our way along the narrow ledges of cliffs that they flew up, and falling further and further behind. At length, Lord Nikola and Fel Fireholt reach a cliff -- a gigantic, sheer cliff -- so high that Fel Fireholt says to Lord Nikola, 'I don't think my wings can carry us up this one. We'll have to run the path like mere mortals.' And Lord Nikola says, 'That's fine, they must be a mile behind us by now, take your time.' So they mosey up to the top, have a little nap by the target, stick some arrows in it, and glide down to the bottom."
Nik covered his face with his hands. "Lord Comfrey. Please."
Justin ignored him. "While they're flying down, Feli Southing and I have finally reached the cliff base. Evidence the second: I tell Feli Southing, 'Don't take the path on this cliff! This is our chance to finally gain some ground on them.'
"She replies: '... how?'
"'Go straight up! The way Fel Fireholt does! Only, you know, without the wings. You can jump from rock to bush and to trail,' I tell her, and I gesture to a series of points along the cliff face that a madman might conclude could be used as footholds.
"Feli Southing, demonstrating her comparative sanity, says, 'I don't think that's such a good idea.'
"'Oh, why not? What's the worst that can happen?'
"'We could fall off and die?'
"'Don't be ridiculous! Neither of us has ever died before, no reason to think we'd start now.'" Justin waited for the ensuing laughter to quiet before continuing, "Convinced by this illogic or perhaps by my threats regarding her continued employment, Feli Southing makes the attempt, leaping vertically from one toehold to the next, sinking her claws into solid rock to scale the cliff.
"At the foot, Lord Nikola tells his mount, 'That looks exceptionally brave and/or stupid. We'd better wait here for when they fall off.' So they wait and watch as we near the top, until only an overhang stands between us and the summit. Feli Southing lunges for it, grabs the underside, falls, catches herself on a tree which starts to crack under her weight -- " By now, the rest of the table had fallen silent to listen to Justin's yarn. Nik closed his eyes against the memory of the next few moments, amazed that Justin could speak so easily of it. "-- Feli Southing shoves off again, tree tumbling down the cliff with the force of the launch, seizes the outcrop with all eighteen claws, and clambers upside down until she's over it and safe at the top!"
"Oh, thank goodness," the Lady Striker said from the other side of the table, holding one hand to her portly bosom.
"She actually made it?" Daphne asked.
"She did indeed!" Justin punctuated this statement with a triumphant upraised fist. "Unfortunately, I did not. Not being even a tenth part sphynx, I fell from the seat and plummeted towards the ground hundreds of feet below." A collective gasp rose from the assembly. "Fortunately, Fel Fireholt and my good friend Lord Nikola, anticipating this contingency, were already flying to my rescue. They intercept me halfway down, where Lord Nikola plucks me from the air like an eagle saving an exceptionally clumsy chick. An exceptionally heavy, unwieldy chick, who would have pulled a mortal man from the seat and sent both of us to our deaths, but fortunately Lord Nikola remained part of the chimerical beast he and Fel Fireholt comprised. All three of us touch down at the cliff base again, quite unharmed."
"Nik! You never told us any of this," Daphne said.
Nik had a hand over his eyes, so he couldn't see her expression or anyone else's. "Lord Comfrey exaggerates. Wildly," he said in strangled tones.
"Bah! I haven't even gotten to the best part yet. Feli Southing catches up to us at the base, and as evidence the third that I am not in my right mind, I have concluded that -- since falling from an upside-down greatcat, after commanding her to the action, cannot possibly be my fault, it must be an attempted assassination! I launch into a scathing tirade against my hapless employee, demanding to know the identity of my enemy, threatening her livelihood, and generally posturing like an insufferable pompous buffoon."
Miss Rubane laughed. "Oh, you never did," she said, disbelieving.
"He wasn't nearly that bad," Nik objected, with more loyalty than accuracy.
"Oh no, no, I was much worse." Justin's expression sobered briefly, before lightening again as he continued, "As I am frothing at the mouth through this baseless diatribe, Feli Southing is giving Lord Nikola and Fel Fireholt this look as if to say 'So, did he hit his head on the way down after all?' And Fel Fireholt says to Lord Nikola, 'I've changed my mind about this rescuing thing, I'll just carry him back up there and drop him off again shall I?' For reasons unclear to me now, Lord Nikola does not support this plan. Feli Southing sensibly quits my service and departs, and Fel Fireholt goes to console her while Lord Nikola patiently attempts to explain to me that my reaction may have been something less than completely reasonable.
"'Am I crazy?' I ask him, when at last I am persuaded of my folly. 'Is that my problem?'" As Justin spoke, Nik had to bite his tongue to keep himself from making another angry outburst. You did no such thing! "And on reflection, if he had been a true friend, he would have said 'Absolutely! You were briefly possessed of a demon, which I will now remove thus and nothing that just happened is your fault.' But no, he stubbornly maintains that I am sane and, accordingly, to blame for being an utter cretin." Justin is only joking, Nik told himself, feeling his face flush, furious and mortified, knowing he was taking this too seriously. Everyone else knows he's only joking. No one is taking him at his word. But his memory flashed back to that argument, to noticing the interwined shapes of fear and anger in Justin's mind. Was there something wrong in that? Should I have said something?
Justin was continuing the tale, oblivious to Nik's internal reaction. "I have no recourse but to throw myself off the cliff again. Or apologize. After considerable internal debate, I am forced to conclude that getting back up the cliff under my own power would be too hard and I humble myself before Feli Southing in apology instead. So, in answer to your original question, Mrs. Adonse: I lost the race, my dignity, my temper and my pride -- nothing of any great value, I promise -- but do you know the worst of it?"
Daphne shook her head, eyes bright with mirth.
"I never did thank either Fel Fireholt ot Lord Nikola properly for saving my life. I believe I must repay them -- how does that part of the Code go? 'A gift for a gift'? 'Half my kingdom' is the usual rate for princesses, isn't it? I cannot split an entailed viscountcy, but for a mere viscount perhaps half my unimpaired wealth might suffice?"
Nik found his voice before anyone else in the ensuing silence, the listeners uncertain whether to laugh at a jest or be shocked by Justin's earnestness. It was a struggle to keep his voice level, to sound reasonable and not irrational, angry, offended, embarrassed. "First, nine-tenths of that was pure embroidery and the danger was by no means as great as you make it sound. Second, that part of the Code applies to Blessings, Lord Comfrey, which were not involved here. You owe me nothing."
"I must disagree, my lord." Justin smiled, his tone still light, but there was a hardness in his eyes as he met Nik's. "Perhaps I value my life more highly than you."
Given the evidence of your actions, I very much doubt that, Justin. "Your continued friendship is worth more to me than any sum you could name," Nik said, with a quiet but honest conviction. "It is all the thanks I desire or require. To your health, Lord Comfrey." He raised his glass and the rest of the table joined him in the toast, putting an end to the topic. | | comments: 15 comments or Leave a comment |
| Posted here to rescue it from eventual Twitter Oblivion.
LeDiva: Dear news organizations: There are infinitely many things that are "outrageous, if true". Maybe try seeing if they're true before reporting?
Rowyn: The CIA is funding efforts to reenact The Hobbit's "Battle of Five Armies" using Central American nations. #OutrageousIfTrue
Rowyn: Writer @BardBloom planning to feed its followers tomatoe(sic) and lightning bolt sandwiches. #OutrageousIfTrue
Bard Bloom: @LadyRowyn Both "tomato" and "tomatoe" are options -- http://sythyry.livejournal.com/516532.html
Rowyn: Red Cross diverts funds from disaster-relief programs to secret disaster-creation programs. #OutrageousIfTrue
Bard Bloom: Obama orders caryatids removed from all federal buildings! #OutrageousIfTrue
Rowyn: Apple patents process of "waiting in order to receive a good or service", sues entire country. #OutrageousIfTrue
Lediva: This is why I refuse to wait for any reason.
Rowyn: Apple patents process of "receiving a good, service, or any tangible or intangible thing, without waiting", sues @LeDiva #OutrageousIfTrue
Bard Bloom: Nasoya tofu contains polypeptides, polysaccharides, and mongoose extracts! #OutrageousIfTrue
Bard Bloom: Yugoslavian coffee beans are actually colorized lima beans! #OutrageousIfTrue
Bard Bloom: So-called "polio vaccine" actually immunizes against *polo*. #OutrageousIfTrue
Rowyn: NY Times fires all investigative reporters, replaces with ex-Weekly World News writers. #OutrageousIfTrue
Bard Bloom: NASA reveals that moon landings faked — they are records of landing on Jupiter's moon Io. #OutrageousIfTrue
Krud #OutrageousIfTrue Pterodactyls and hummingbirds share 99.6% of the same DNA.
Bard Bloom: Delta Air Lines is run by secret consortium of pterodactyls, for their dining convenience. #OutrageousIfTrue
LeDiva Jem & Jerrica are actually the same person with different makeup & jewelry. #OutrageousIfTrue #TrulyTrulyTrulyOutrageous
Rowyn: Congressmembers all replaced by evil clones from alternate universe Dr. Doom. Public approval rating rises 15 points. #OutrageousIfTrue
Bard Bloom: Putin uses the Б-word, the й-word, *and* the д-word when talking about Kim Jung Eun! #OutrageousIfTrue
Rowyn: Unicode integral part of MI6's secret Babylon Project, designed to obfuscate and prevent all human interąčťïœn. #OutrageousIfTrue
Bard Bloom: I guess that "Less than 50% of my fans want to kill me by lightning" will do as a measure of success for the day.
LeDiva: @BardBloom #OutrageousIfTrue
Bard Bloom: @LeDiva No, it's just … true ...
Rowyn: @BardBloom @LeDiva I am outraged! So yes. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| aminita has been painting intricate designs on her fingernails lately, and talking to her about it this weekend made me decide on Sunday, "I'll just get out my fingernail-buffer and make my own nails smooth and shiny with it." Then after I did that, I thought, "Well, I could put polish on them too. I still have some."
And afterwards Aminita linked me to a video of someone doing an intricate design. I thought, "Well, that looks really hard to do left-handed using fingernail polish, but I do have some white polish that will contrast well with the black-glitter polish I already put on ... "
So basically, scope creep all the way. The right hand (which I had to do left-handed) is the same basic design but perceptibly sloppier, and it's not particularly well-done on either. But hey! Fingernail polish! I haven't painted my nails in many years, and never tried to put a design on them before. Kinda fun. :)
 | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| 1. Boggle the Owl, advice for depressed people from an adorable cartoon owl.
2. Writing, because it is pretty much the best thing ever. I don't mean "that I write", I mean that text in general exists as a medium of communication and information storage. It is awesome.
3. 14 mile bike ride after work wooooo!
4. It's Friday so I can just go to bed an sleep after my bike ride. z_z | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Back in March, IIRC, Barnes and Noble had a dispute with Simon & Schuster that resulted in B&N punishing Tor by cutting way back on their orders of Tor books. Bestsellers still got ordered, but midlist authors were chopped. One of my Twitter friends linked me to a post by Burgis, wherein she spoke of the release of her newest book, the third in a trilogy, in hardcover. B&N ordered no copies. For the entire chain.
This is sort of devastating for anyone in traditional publishing, because B&N accounts for a sizable fraction of brick-and-mortar sales. If you are an author with a traditional publisher, "getting books placed on shelves B&N" is about half of what they can do for you that you cannot feasibly do for yourself/hire someone to do. Furthermore, traditional publishers tend to base their decision on whether or not to buy your next book on how well your last book did. My impression is that factors like 'It didn't sell because the publisher's biggest partner was having a wholly unrelated spat and didn't pick it up' will generally be disregarded. I could be wrong! But that seems to be the gist of it: it doesn't matter if it didn't sell because it was bad or because the publisher dropped the ball, the author is still out of a career.
Anyway, I had not read any of Burgis's work, but she writes middle-grade Regency England fantasy, which is the sort of thing I often like, so I checked the first book of her trilogy out of the library.
The climax was my favorite part of the story, being quite well-done -- a splendid example where the characters appear to be trapped in a hopeless situation, much of it their own fault, but where the resolution is both clever and consistent with the narrative and available information. I approve! Points for overall plot arc. Also some interesting character development near the end.
The cast is large and a weak point, unfortunately: many of even the important characters are dominated by a single character trait. This would bother me less if they were likable traits, but often they just annoy me, much like they annoy the narrator/protagonist. The main character is more rounded and entertaining, although at time I found her plucky snarkiness to be grating. I did like the way she tends to think her way out of her problems -- the author grants the protagonist some useful powers, but the protagonist has to figure out how to implement them to help herself, and they're not always the solution.
Also, this is a middle-grade novel so I am not exactly the target market, which explains the one-note characters to a degree.
I'd rate it as a 6 or 7 for overall enjoyment, with enough upswing at the end that I will probably give the sequel a try at some point. I will note that the conclusion is quite satisfying and the book stands alone well, so the sequel is by no means required.
Edit: The publisher involved here is Simon & Schuster, not Tor -- edited to correct. | | comments: 15 comments or Leave a comment |
| 1. Prog metal.
2. Having an income that exceeds my outgo.
3. Plushies. Many years ago, I bought a six-legged smiling plush crab, while out shopping with aminita. Despite being a crab missing two legs, it is a very cheerful plushie. For a long time, I had him at work, as my "If I don't have to be crabby, neither do you" reminder. Then one of Toddler Bank's directors exiled all personal items from our cubicals and offices (seriously? Seriously) and he went home. Recently I realized that this was another of the stupid rules I was following even though it no longer applied. So now Happy Crab is back on my desk at work. Smiling at me.
*smiles back* | | comments: 17 comments or Leave a comment |
| This is #16 of the Aubrey-Maturin series. I liked this one, in fine O'Brian style with lots of ups and downs and sea action and naturalism. It also finally sees the end of the mission Aubrey and Maturin set out on five books ago, so that was cool. I am wondering if they'll make it home in the next book sometime? I am quite anxious to see how their families are. There is an annoying allusion to events off-camera at one point: a character notes he saw 'poor X's widow' and I am like wait what X is dead what happened to him? No one else asks. COME ON. I know this is a minor character from a prior book but STILL.
Anyway, looking forward to reading #17, though I'm gonna take a break and read something else first. For variety. And also I am running out of Aubrey-Maturin books now anyway. c.c | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| This afternoon, I went back through my blog so I could to update my activity log to include the journal entries I've been making here as well as the fiction (which I've been more prompt about tracking, since I've done a lot more of it.)
I've been thinking "Wow, I've been doing a great job at my goals this year, because my goals is 50 points a day and my average is now at almost 70. For four full months!"
Then today I looked at my actual 2013 goals instead of what I thought they were.
Oh. Right. I changed them from 2012. Instead of a daily 50 points, I have an annual 30,000.
...
That would be 82 points per day. Oops.
Now, this isn't the "ZOMG so far behind!" that it looks like, because the whole "points" system for this year is heavily dependent on finishing things. I am well on-course to finish A Rational Arrangement this year, and assuming I actually do so, that'll put me easily over 30,000 for the year. But it does remind me that if I lose steam on this project before finishing it, I am going to need to do some serious finishing-stories work or I am not going to make goal.
The vast majority of my writing for the year so far has been A Rational Arrangement or the prequel short story that goes with it, "His Angel". (Oh hey, I could finish the prequel short for a completion bonus too. It is much closer to being done. Huh.) The novel is about 55k words as of this writing (and looking likely to come in at over 100k, sigh, though I am still hoping for under 120k.) The prequel is at 9200 words.
For my blog, I've written about 21k in various entries and posted, um, a bunch. 54 entries or so, I think. Many of them being book reviews or the short "Good Things" entries.
Anyway, there were four parts to this year's goal, so in order:
Keep score Been doing this! I have been measuring by words written rather than time spent almost exclusively this year, because the time-spent measure requires my time to be focused and while I have been getting stuff done, I have been doing it in dribs and drabs amidst various distractions. That is explicitly okay. The goal is to get things done and be reasonably happy while doing so. Process is not that important as long as those criteria are met.
Score 30,000 Points: I am at 8,665 as of today. I am anticipating I will get another 4k+ points in writing on RA and then around 21k in completion bonuses for finishing it. So I am considering myself provisionally "on track", although this does require the all-important "finishing it" step actually happening.
Write more fiction: The target was 2/3rds points from fiction. I am actually at a hair over 3/4ths. Even without yet qualifying for any of the big completion bonuses. Well hey. Cool.
Post the occasional update: I forgot about this. I was aiming for 4 total, and this is the first one. Still. Status updated now! Goals actually looked at so I remember what they are instead of what I thought they were.
The 2013 goal sheet has a provision for revising it, but I'm happy with it for now. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| 1. Gaming Saturday! With Lut, Fred and Sev. Fred even started us out with Seven Wonders, which Sev and I love way more than anyone else in the group. Sev won the first game playing a new board for Belgium (which is her native country) so that was very cool. I came in dead last the first game and won the second, which makes me happy.
2. alinsa learned to play Puerto Rico so we could play it at Board Game Arena, which we did Friday and Saturday night. Now she too can know the frustration of not understanding how to win the game! (... okay, perhaps this was not the nicest thing to share with someone. c_c )
3. Lut and I went to see the early showing of "Iron Man 3", which was pretty fun. Better than the second, not as good as the first. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| 1. FRIDAY. I am sure I have used this one before. It is still a good thing.
2. This has been an unusually good week for writing -- I am actually up on buffer since Monday, and I still have the weekend to write in (and I've been doing more writing on weekends than during the week, in general).
3. I've been making extra half-size portions of the mug-cake recipe, pouring them into microwave-safe plastic containers, and then taking them to work to nuke there. So I can have fresh hot cake at work. :9
4. To offset 3, I actually exercised in my basement tonight, doing both the 8-minute routine (which I have been neglecting for weeks) and using my exercise bike (also neglected, though I've been biking outside when the weather is nice. Which it is not tonight. Cold and rainy.)
5. I walked to and from work today for the first time since I injured my leg last Tuesday. My calf is still swollen and bruised but it hardly hurts when I walk any more, so that went fine. Yay! | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| 1. 9.5 mile bike ride after work, in lovely weather. Ahhhh.
2. I seem to have finally figured out why writer-brain insisted that I write several scenes that weren't on my outline for the current project, and how they fit into the overall narrative. So that's good.
3. Lut went to the store so we have food in the house again! I can make more mug cakes if I want. Mmmm, mug cakes. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Day 0 (Weds): Hit calf with bike pedal. Calf: "I hate you. Also, screw walking forever."
Day 1 (Thurs): Calf: "I still hate you. And walking. A lot." Lut drives me to and from work. My leg mainly hurts when my foot flexes upwards, especially while straight. So I limp around the workplace, sometimes taking half-steps so my injured leg is never behind the good one, and sometimes swinging my injured leg with the foot sideways so it doesn't have to bend when behind me. Also, when it's inactive for a while it hurts more to move it, so I jiggle my leg at my desk to keep it from going stiff. No real bruising, to my surprise.
Day 2 (Fri): Calf: "Still hate." I (mostly) joke about biking to work. Lut drives me again. Limp is improved significantly.
Day 3 (Sat): Calf: "I haven't forgotten. Or forgiven." Limp down to 'minor inconvenience', but I am still walking slowly. When we go to gaming, I opt to have Trask drive us the few hundred yards to get fast food instead of walking like I normally would.
Day 4 (Sun): Calf: "Okay, I might forgive you yet. MIGHT." Limp still minor inconvenience, but I figure on biking to work tomorrow.
Day 5 (Mon): Calf: "You know what? Changed my mind. SO MUCH HATE." I wake up with my foot able to flex normally and I can walk almost normally, but my shin aches. What? Bike to work anyway. By noon, the rear of my calf, inside of leg, and shin are all bruised and swollen. The front of my leg is chartreuse. The side of my foot, which has not so much has twinged at any point previous or even now, is livid purple. Left leg looks visibly and significantly larger than right from swelling.
Coworker: "Maybe you should keep that elevated. Do you want an ice pack?"
Coworker #2: "Maybe you should have someone look at that."
Keep leg elevated. It is uncomfortable and vaguely achy a lot of the time now, instead of just when I am walking. Supports weight fine, doesn't hurt -more- to walk, just ... annoying. Leave work a little earlier than usual. Bike home. Calf: "I actually feel better on the bike than I have at any other time today." Me: "You know what? I HATE YOU TOO."
Lut: "Have you thought about having someone look at that?"
Me: "ARRRGHH YES I HAVE I DON'T WANT TO SPEND THREE HOURS AND $500 IN AN ER SO THEY CAN TELL ME I HAVE A BRUISE."
Lut: "... maybe you could call your doctor?"
Me: "HAH IT TAKES SIX WEEKS TO GET AN APPOINTMENT WITH A PCP IN AMERICA ARE YOU CRAZY?"
Lut: "... um ... howabout you just call your doctor's office and ask anyway? Meanwhile I am going to be hiding in the office with the cat."
Call doctor's office. It's 4:58. Leave message on machine.
Me: "Dammit, I really want to whinge about this on LJ but I am just going to get 83 comments on how it might be broken or a blood clot or a ripped tendon or cancer and I need to go see a doctor RIGHT NOW."
Day 6 (Tues): Calf: "Hahahaha I am not done with you YET!" About the same as previous day. Drive to work (I have an hour of off-site training today so would be driving anyway). Keep leg elevated.
Coworker #3: "Maybe you should have someone look at that." Me: SNAP GROWL. 10:30AM: doctor's office calls me back. "Would you like an appointment today?" Me:"... yes?" "You can see the nurse practitioner at 1:10." Me: "Okay thanks wow I owe Lut even more of an apology."
Nurse-practitioner: "You have a bruise."
Me: "HAH I KNEW IT."
Nurse-practitioner explains that deep-tissue bruises take a long time to show up and the bruising pattern is normal and nothing indicates a blood clot or a fracture. "You can have it x-rayed if you really want." Me: "I don't. Can I start biking again? Do I need to baby it if it's just a bruise?" NP: "You can resume all normal activities for as long as your leg can tolerate it." Me: "WOOHOO YES BIKING TONIGHT!"
Calf: "Hey, I'm still all swollen and bruised here."
Me: "TOUGH LUCK YOU BIG BABY. Time to quit whining and leg up!"
Bike a slow 9 miles. Ahhhhh. Calf not giving me any trouble to speak of.
Day 7 (Weds): Calf: "oh poor me I'm all stiff and -- " Me: "Yeah whatever no one cares. I am done listening to you." Bike to work. | | comments: 8 comments or Leave a comment |
| 1. It's Friday! And a short day for me, too, so I'm heading home in just 5 hours.
2. My leg is doing better today -- still sore and I'm still limping, but I can walk much closer to normally now. I'm hoping to be fit to walk to work again by Monday.
3. I finished one of the scenes I'd been malingering over in my book and am closing in on ones that I've really been looking forward to writing. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| the_gneech started doing these again, reminding me that I'd stopped. Like a good sheeple, I will start again now until I get bored and/or forget.
1. I went to Washington DC the weekend before last, to visit telnar, and totally forgot to write about it, but had a lovely trip. Left Friday evening and returned Sunday night so that I wouldn't have to schedule time off, which simplifies the process. This was the first plane trip I'd manage to take since October; we'd scheduled it six months ago to put inertia on our side for a change (we'd been saying 'we should get together' for a while now, but it'd be 'the next couple of months don't look good', over and over.) Go inertia!
2. Lut experimented with mug cupcakes while I was gone, and tonight I made my favorite of the recipes (so far) for both of us. :9
3. I worked about 14 hours on Tuesday (drove to and back from Tulsa for training) so the rest of this week I get to go home early. Whee! | | comments: 11 comments or Leave a comment |
| I biked over to the library this afternoon, about 3 miles away, to return The Truelove Clarissa Oakes. After dropping off the book, I headed back. A couple of blocks from the library, as I was pedaling across a busy street during a break in traffic, I was thinking "I need to get across quickly because this break in traffic isn't quite as good as I thought". Of course, this meant that my left foot immediately fell off the pedal, which proceeded to thwack hard against the back of my lower leg. Fortunately, the oncoming car started to slow at the same time I came almost to a halt, and I managed to get my feet back in position and get out of the street without further incident.
My calf: "That hurt."
Me: "It was a bike pedal and I wasn't going that fast. Get over it."
My calf: "Really, that hurt. A LOT."
Me: "Yeah yeah whatever."
I biked two miles uphill towards home, with my left leg generally bemoaning its fate, and then took the three-mile detour that I'd planned, because six miles is pretty 'eh' as a work out.
Calf: "Can we stop yet?"
Me: "No. It's not like you're going to stop hurting because I'm sitting down anyway. You hurt even when I'm stopped at a light."
Calf: "I hate you."
Six miles total later I finished my workout. LIKE A BOSS. An injured boss.
I dismounted the bike and walked into the garage.
Calf: "ZOMG WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME NOW?"
Me: "... walking?"
Calf: "I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR THIS."
My leg had not been thrilled about biking but it was miserable walking. I limped back into the house, looking so pathetic that Lut volunteered to make dinner for me. I took a couple of ibuprofen, but it wasn't thrilled even with sitting down. After fifteen minutes at my computer, I went to the bedroom to read. Lying on my stomach or side worked best, by allowing my leg to stay mostly-but-not-entirely straight with no pressure on the injured side. After napping for an hour, I got up again and it's not bothering me as much, but at this rate I will not be walking to work tomorrow.
Biking, maybe. | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| I've finished another two Aubrey-Maturin books. I liked them reasonably well and remain profoundly addicted to the series. Last night, I was thinking "I could read this YA book I checked out three weeks ago, or any of the several unread e-books languishing on my phone. Or I could start the next Aubrey-Maturin book." Guess what book is underneath my hands even as I type this up on my phone?
Nutmeg felt more like a bridge than a book in its own right. Aubrey & Maturin were sent en route to a mission in South America back in The Letter of Marque, and they still haven't made it there four books later. I still liked it: there's a particularly stirring fight between Aubrey's Surprise and a French ship where Aubrey knows (and likes) one of the lieutenants, giving an additional personal note to a very tricky and compelling battle.
Clarissa Oakes was named "The Truelove" in USbeditions, persumably because US publishers think readers are too sexist and/or stupid to buy a naval-historical book named for a woman. 9_9. It's all aout Clarissa, though. I don't know how I feel about the book. Clarissa is a deeply problematic character in terms of background and situation, and I don't know hat P'OB was competent to write this kind of person: female characters are not his strong suit. It works, more or less, and I enjoyed the read overall. I do feel kind of conflicted about it, though.
Still, on with the series! Gosh, I only have 5 full books left in it now. D: | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| Lut and I saw this movie in the theater when it first came out in 2003. At the time, our take was "It was okay." I recall having some trouble tracking what was happening during the movie. By the time I started reading the Aubrey-Maturin books last year, I had forgotten almost everything about the film -- I think there were a total of three scenes I still remembered, and I'd forgotten the central conflict entirely.
I've read fourteen of the Aubey-Maturin novels now. A month or two ago, I was talking to one of my co-workers about them and mentioned that I'd been thinking of watching the movie again. "Oh," she said, "I own that movie. I got it in a clearance sale two years ago but I've never actually seen it."
This week, I came to work and found it lying on my desk. "I haven't watched it in the two years since I got it, so don't worry about rushing to get it back to me," she told me.
Last night, Lut suggested watching a movie, and I asked, "Are you willing to watch "Master and Commander" with me again?" He good-naturedly agreed.
And omigosh, I had so much fun watching it.
It's a pastiche of Aubrey-Maturin novels, with a number of events that never took place in the books or were significantly altered from them. Probably the scenes that struck me most were the ones that were not merely invented for the film, but which would never have taken place in the books -- were, in fact, completely out of character. Some examples behind the spoiler tag:
- In a couple of scenes in the film, Maturin is shown telling Aubrey to reconsider his actions as captain -- for instance, saying that it is foolhardy for them to be chasing the Acheron, and later questioning his decision to flog a seaman for insubordination. This is absolutely out of character for Maturin. First, Maturin has tremendous respect for Aubrey's judgment in naval affairs and rarely even considers the possibility that (a) Aubrey might be making a mistake much less (b) that Maturin might notice if he was. Questioning the wisdom of pursuing a larger and more dangerous vessel? Never happens. Second, even when Maturin does disagree with an action Aubrey takes as captain, Maturin will not say anything about it. This is not a matter of deference to his captain, or fear of disagreeing; it's mostly a strong sense of not my place to say. Just as Aubrey is not going to second-guess Maturin in a surgical operation, Maturin is not going to second-guess Aubrey in command. They don't do the armchair-quarterback thing.
- On a related note, Aubrey asks Maturin at one point his opinion on the crew's reaction to recent events. They have a little back-and-forth about naval vs personal roles and informers ("Now you're sounding like an Irishman" "That's because I am Irish") and then Maturin answers the question. Again, this is something that would never happen: not only will Maturin not say anything that smacks of informing but there's almost no occasions where Aubrey even asks him to (because Aubrey knows he can't answer and wouldn't want him to.) There is a tremendous social stigma against informing -- particularly for Maturin, a former agitator for Irish independence, but even Aubrey, who as captain gets a lot of secrets withheld from him that it would be extremely useful for him to know, has an extreme distaste for the idea. Basically, Aubrey feels that informers are terrible for a crew's morale and trust in one another, and so it's ultimately better to be left in the dark than it would be to encourage a culture of informing.
- In the film, Aubrey gets the idea to disguise the Surprise from an insect camouflaged as a stick that Maturin and Blakely found in the Galapagos. Disguising a vessel -- as something more dangerous, or less dangerous, or as belonging to a different nation* -- was an established part of naval warfare in this period and Aubrey does it all the time in the books. It's clever, but it's not innovative.
* One of my very favorite tricks along these lines: Merchant vessels would paint sailcloth with fake ports for cannons on them and hang them along the sides of the ship, to make it look like they were military vessels carrying cannons. In a double ruse, you get military vessels hanging the same kinds of panels over their actual gun ports, so that they look like merchants trying to look like warships. XD I found these choices of particular interest because I can see why the filmmakers made them. In the first, they want to show that Aubrey is taking a sizable risk based on his personal judgment, and while in a book O'Brian can do this by showing Aubrey's internal narrative, in a film it's far more powerful to have two characters arguing instead. And of all the available characters to have argue with Aubrey, Maturin -- who is outside the chain of command and Aubrey's particular friend -- is the only one remotely plausible. In the second, they're trying to show the way that the captain is out of the loop, and the distinction between Maturin's relationship with his friend as opposed to his captain. So these two cases are sacrificing allegiance to the books in favor of making the situation more understandable to the viewers, which is a not-unreasonable choice. In the third, they're making the story fit traditional narrative structure better, by tying together the 'naturalist' and 'naval warfare' sections of the story and by giving a source for inspiration within the confines of the story. I don't really like the ahistorical nature of the last (because it misleads the audience about the nature of naval combat in the period), but I can still see why they did it.
One small discrepancy that nonetheless amuses me: Tom Pullings is described in the books as, at one point, receiving a disfiguring facial scar that makes him 'hideous'. In the movie, Pullings has a facial scar but is portrayed by the very handsome James D'Arcy who is not in the slightest less handsome for it. I don't know why that entertains me so, but it does.
I loved seeing all the characters from the books: "Omigosh Killick!" (who is just exactly like Killick from the books) "And there's Pullings! Mowett! Bonden!" ♥ And seeing the Surprise and hearing the drum as they beat to quarters and watching them clear the ship for action. Even watching a film doesn't quite make me feel like I have the whole picture, like I really understand what's actually happening, but it does give a very different perspective. Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany did very well as Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Crowe quite looks the part (he makes a fine blond!). Bettany looks nothing at all like Maturin but nonetheless manages to evoke the feel of the character. (The scene where he asks Aubrey to let him walk across the island and meet them on the other side! ♥)
I find this a rather interesting situation to be in: having read the books, I know all the ways in which the narrative and the characters have been altered and in some cases mangled. But even so, my familiarity with the source material made me enjoy the film so much more than I did when I saw it with no background. It kind of reminds me of the way I loved even bad Star Trek movies, because it was so much fun just seeing all those familiar faces again. Apparently sometimes it's better to have read the book first even if the film isn't as good as it. | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| Every time I sit down to write something about this, I am either overwhelmed by the multitude of things I have to say and give up on trying to organize my thoughts, or I chicken out, or both. But it's Saturday morning and I have -- well, a dozen other things to do, but all I was doing was play Puzzle Pirates, so why not, I'll give it another shot.
I end up reading a fair bit about feminism. I am fascinated by the subject, by the myriad of little ways that gender differences continue to reverberate through my culture.
I am a feminist. To me, being a feminist means "men and women should have equal rights, opportunities, and choices". It means that gender should not be deterministic, should not be used as a stick to beat people into one role or away from another. This is not an especially controversial position any more.
But the topic of feminism remains touchy, because we don't really know how to get there from here any more, and to some it's not clear that there's a "there" to get to. Men can be stay-at-home dads, women can be CEOs, and pretty much no one over the age of twelve says "you can't do that because you're a GIRL" any more. So we're done, right? Gender roles are totally last century.
... Yeah, not so much.
One term that comes out of feminist theory that I dislike is "patriarchy". I have a strong distaste for most of the "privileged men vs oppressed women" rhetoric. For one, it makes it sound like gender roles are something perpetrated by men against women, for the explicit purpose of preserving male dominance and harming women. Like there is this vast conspiracy of men out there trying to keep the women down.
This is a beguiling notion, because human beings love nothing so much as a group to demonize, and it is entirely wrong-headed. Gender roles are perpetuated by our culture upon the members of our culture. It is all-pervasive. Women are not immune to enforcing stereotypes by virtue of being female. Men are not immune to being victimized by stereotypes by virtue of being male. It is not that simple.
In something of the same vein, I get very weary of articles talking about all the ways in which men are "privileged" and women are "victimized" and discounting the idea that there are any ways at all in which gender roles harm men. Yes, I get that men make more money and make up a much larger proportion at the top of the political and business class. Yes, this is a problem. But by portraying women as always victimized, always oppressed, they are saying "anyone who isn't at the top of this political/economic heap doesn't matter". They are saying that child-rearing, nurturing personal relationships, pursuing work-life balance, being a good follower, or seeking personal fulfillment are all trivial and irrelevant, because those things are not about ruling the world. The whole business is utterly galling. It buys into the very same notions of status and value that it's pretending to tear down. This isn't about equality: it's about deciding that A is good and B is bad and therefore if you do A you are good and if you don't you suck. That already the status quo, and it's mind-numbingly stupid. The problem with the world is not just that women don't get to be at the top of the heap: it's that we are all trained to think being at the top of the heap is so damn awesome. And it's not. Being at the top of the heap does not make people happier, smarter, or better human beings. I am not saying it's a crappy place to be, but pretending that achieving it should be the goal for every human being is just dumb. It is the way in which my culture has been making men miserable for hundreds of years. Making it the way to make women miserable is not, in point of fact, progress.
Now, if people want to ride this merry-go-round, that's cool. I am all for people of all genders becoming senators and CEOs and presidents and whatnot. But it is at least as important to recognize that this is not the highest and best use for every human being. That men need to be allowed out of the expectation that this is what they should want and strive for. Heaven knows it is not what I want for myself. | | comments: 23 comments or Leave a comment |
| Someday I will learn where the good break points in reading the Aubrey/Maturin books are, because the end of a book is never one. Wait, that's not true, because the end of the the previous book, The Letter of Marque was a good stopping point.
So this book took me nearly three weeks to finish, and I read four other books in the meantime. It took me a while to get into it, but once I was halfway through it rolled along smoothly. The book is a parallel of HMS Surprise, in a way, because it is once again about sending an envoy to Malay (the title is a reference to the salute due to a royal envoy). There's a wonderful if brief section where Maturin -- a naturalist by inclination -- visits a Buddhist temple located in a crater in Kumai, quite arduous to get to and almost magical on arrival: the Buddhists don't allow animals to be killed there, and there are few predators, so the local animals are all quite unafraid. I will give the book an 8 overall, and now I'm going to discuss a bunch of spoilers because I want to write about the content.
( SPOILERY!Collapse ) | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| [ This was from Twitter a few days ago, and I decided I wanted to rescue it before it disappeared into the Twitter-abyss forever. ]
rowyn: Book, I've been writing you for a couple of months now, and I think it's time I stopped being the one doing all the work here.
rowyn: I want you to start writing yourself.
rowyn: I mean, I don't expect you to finish yourself -- I'm still here for you, book. But you could carry some of the load. Write the next scene.
rowyn: I don't think that's too much to ask. I'm sure you can do it. Thanks.
the_gneech: Book: "I'm in the middle of something. Get me a beer?"
rowyn: Dammit, Book! I am not your servant! You -- you need to --
...
*gets Book another beer*
the_gneech: *nods sympathetically* My comics are the same way.
rowyn: I understand, being inanimate objects and all, they've got limitations. But do we have to do EVERYTHING for them? | | comments: 18 comments or Leave a comment |
| The poly-romance story I've been writing lately includes a prominent male/male relationship. As it happens, this is a genre I've never actually read*, although I've written scenes in it before. I am not really determined to find a poly-romance -- I am sure they exist, but it's so niche that I don't know that I would enjoy anything I found. But I figured I could at least read some m/m romance.
I remembered that haikujaguar had recommended some Age-of-Sail m/m romance a while back, and the magic of LJ tags let me find the review entry again, so I decided last night to pick up this one.
I was a little hesitant to start it, because let me just begin with what a horrible, horrible time-and-place the British Navy in the late 18th century was for two men to fall in love. This is a time period when sodomy was a hanging offense, and ships offered zero privacy. Welcome to Crapsack Universe, please do not enjoy your stay. But I was in the mood for reading a romance and annoyed trying to craft the one I've been writing, so I started it this morning anyway.
And omigosh it has some wonderful romance. Chapter eleven! ♥ Incredibly sweet.
After twelve Aubrey/Maturin books, the naval scenes in Captain's Surrender felt plausible but lightweight by comparison. Beecroft does convey the sense of the time and period well -- I never got the feeling she glossed over things because she didn't know them. More a sense that the book was written for romance readers rather than to appeal to Age-of-Sail buffs, and accordingly Beecroft explained more when she did put in details, and left out a lot. Some things felt a little off, history-wise: for instance, when the characters in Captain's Surrender talk about prizes, they invariably mean pirates and arms-smugglers. In the Aubrey/Maturin books, the vast majority of prizes are the merchant ships of enemy nations. This struck me as an effort to make the characters appeal more to modern sensibilities, and rubbed me the wrong way. Other things are horrifyingly right -- the impact a tyrannical captain can have on a ship, for example.
At points, events felt seriously contrived in the name of creating dramatic tension, which also annoyed me. And as haikujaguar pointed out in her review, the typical romance-novel happy ending (which the book does provide) does not feel convincing in the setting. I don't know if it "needs a sequel" so much as I am still worried for these poor characters trapped in their crapsack universe.
But overall, I found the story compelling, the protagonists likable if occasionally bastards, and the romantic sequences heart-melting. I had a great time with this book, and if there'd been fewer contrivances in the events leading up to the ending, I would give it a 9. As it is, more of an 8. If you like romance (and do not object to it being m/m), a delightful read. If you want historical Age of Sail fiction -- well, you really should read the Aubrey/Maturin books -- but this was surprisingly good on the historical fiction count too. Far better than the typical Regency romance in terms of grounding the characters in a realistic depiction of the period. There is some semi-explicit erotica (generally in the romance-novel tradition of avoiding explicit language) and swearing, but not a great deal.
* I lie! I lie like a rug. How could I forget The Heritage of Hastur and chapter twenty-three, which I read approximately two thousand times as a kid? Not technically a romance, I suppose, but I loved it for the romance. But I actually had forgotten about it until I started writing this review. There may've been some other m/m romance subplots in books I read a a kid. | | comments: 26 comments or Leave a comment |
| One of the people I've been doing tabletop gaming with for the last few months, Tyson, likes to run RPGs and wants to start a superhero game, using the Marvel Superhero system and the background from a different game, which I think might be "Necessary Evil". The premise for the background is "Aliens invade Earth. Earth's superheroes band together to try to stop the alien invaders. A second group of aliens shows up to help. After the first group of aliens is defeated, the friendly aliens host a victory celebration for the surviving superheroes -- at which point the 'friendly' aliens betray the Earth and kill all the superheroes. All that Earth has left for defense against a takeover by their erstwhile allies are supervillians, and second-string supers who were not, for reasons of cowardice or unsuitability or whatever, part of the original defense."
Anyway, I wrote up a backstory for my character in this setting, and since I liked the concept I figured I'd stick it on LJ too:
Before the aliens invaded, Gabriel Damon Sullivan was a rather geeky, dumpy, unmarried registered nurse with a good job at a local hospital. He was kind-hearted, deeply religious, painfully shy, and something of a coward. After the hospital where he worked was destroyed in the invasion, Gabriel signed up for an experimental 'super-soldier' process because he wanted to be of more direct help in the war.
The process was successful in some respects. Gabriel emerged transformed: tall, strong, handsome, and able to channel a kind of energy that he could use to heal himself or others, create protective force-fields, and fashion into wings and/or a force-blade, or channel into his own body to make himself supernaturally agile, tough and strong.
Gabriel did not, however, adjust well to his own powers. He did more-or-less all right with healing and making force-fields, but he felt a certain alienation from his own appearance -- he liked the new look well enough, but he didn't look like himself any more, and it's weird. He was also conflicted about his more direct combat-oriented abilities, a problem that worsened in actual combat. Eventually, he experienced a psychotic break and split into two different personalities. The "Gabriel" personality has the healing/forcefield powers, and is pretty similar to his original personality -- devout Christian, nurturing, likes helping people, considerate of others, shy, a virgin who believes in the ideal of traditional marriage, etc. The "Damon" personality has the direct combat powers (tough, strong, agile, can summon a force-sword) and is in many ways the opposite of Gabriel: irreverent, capable of cruelty, flamboyant, flirtatious, actively bisexual, careless of rules, etc. Damon is not evil*: he'll still support a team, and he regards hurting innocents as wrong and wants to fight to stop bad guys and fight off the alien invaders and such like. But Damon's not especially scrupulous about what methods he uses to stop what-he-considers bad guys.
* There is honestly no point in me making up an evil PC. I am lucky if I can make a convincing NPC villain when I'm GMing. I do not like bad guys and am not good at villains. Even if I planned for Damon to be evil, he would end up as "just misunderstood" and never do anything very bad on camera.
The two personalities share the same body, but they don't look the same: Gabriel has a clean-cut, square-jawed look, with short blond hair and blue eyes. Damon has a similar facial structure -- they look like brothers if not twins -- but with an androgynous pretty-boy slant: lean and powerful, with long dark hair and dark eyes. Gabriel has no memory of what Damon does while Damon is in control of their body. Gabriel thinks of Damon as a monster created by the super-soldier process, perhaps even a demon that possesses him, and definitely not a part of him. Damon remembers everything that Gabriel does, and thinks of Gabriel as 'my wimp-ass alterego'. Damon knows he suffers from a psychological disorder, but doesn't care: he assumes any 'treatment' would consist of suppressing his personality in favor of the Gabriel persona. Either personality can handoff to the other voluntarily, in theory: in practice they can't stand each other and won't if they can help it. Shifts also happen involuntarily: Damon tends to seize control if Gabriel is under imminent physical threat. Gabriel tends to seize control if someone is badly hurt and needs healing.
Shortly after their multiple-personality disorder developed, Damon got them kicked out of the military for (a) being insane and (b) violating a slew of rules and a few laws in a mess-hall brawl with some gay-bashers. He was being held in a asylum for the criminally insane (ironically, Gabriel's healing powers are useful for treating some mental illnesses, but not his own, which is one of his arguments for 'I am not crazy, I am possessed'). After the 'helpful' aliens betrayed the Earth during the victory celebration, Damon escaped the asylum in the ensuing chaos.
"Guardian Angel" was Gabriel's original codename from when he first got his powers. Damon uses the same codename himself because doing so annoys Gabriel.
*
Some side notes about this character:
* I have no idea if I can pull of this concept in a live game, but I love the idea. Enough that maybe I'll try to find an excuse to use it in a story, if the game doesn't last or if I don't like how I end up playing it.
* The concept sets the two personalities in direct conflict with each other: "nonviolent vs violent", "healer vs warrior", "'traditional sexual morality' vs 'if it feels good do it'", etc. There's an obvious and intentional "Gabriel as 'angel'/Damon as 'devil'" parallel, but what I actually want to do is neither promote nor invert that. I don't feel like one of the personas is clearly wrong and the other is clearly right about pretty much any of the things they so strongly disagree about. I don't want to reduce Gabriel to a stereotype of sexual repression or Damon to a vicious killing machine, or anything like that. I want them both to have worthy and legitimate ideals that they find irreconcilable. I do not actually know what the 'happy ending' looks like for this character, but I dislike the idea of it being one persona or the other taking permanent control, or even a simple blending of the two ("some character traits from column A, some from column B ..."). These questions resonate with me because I don't believe they have easy answers
* When I was first thinking of the character, I was planning to play a woman. And then I thought " ... nurturing healing madonna vs violent seductive succubus .... yeeeaah, this feels like well-trodden territory". Changing the PC's gender oddly made the tropes involved more interesting for me. The "virginal nurturing man" is less common than his female counterpart; similarly, mainstream culture doesn't connect male promiscuity with wickedness to nearly the degree that female promiscuity is. And I've seen a lot more bisexual female characters than bisexual male ones. I found that aspect of it interesting; I think most good character ideas will work with either gender, but sometimes they're more interesting as one or the other. | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| I read a rather mediocre opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, on the subject of gay marriage. The author favored the Supreme Court staying quiet on the question and letting states decide one-by-one instead. The one interesting argument in the essay was 'legislation resolves issues: judicial rulings bury them'.
The main thing that makes this interesting is Roe vs Wade, which protected the right to abortion forty years ago -- but the country remains split even now, and a surprisingly even split at that, over whether or not abortion should be forbidden/restricted.
It feels to me like, one way or another, gay marriage is going to be accepted and legal in most if not all of the US within the next 10-20 years. Despite some early legislative opposition, the tide seems to have turned now, and I think that turn is permanent, just like the turn in favor of mixed-race marriages in an earlier era. This is the right side of history, however people may feel about it now. I am very happy about it, myself.
That Roe vs Wade analogy does make me wonder if the method by which it becomes legal will make a difference in the long run. Probably not -- I don't think it made a difference with anti-miscegenation laws, which were also overturned by courts. But it's an odd idea to contemplate, that letting a question be settled at the ballot box might promote a more lasting transformation in civil society. Or that judicial rulings might prevent the same. It has a certain resonance as an idea, a feeling of truth, though I don't know that there's any evidence it is. | | comments: 11 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | book review, books, review | | Security: | | | Subject: | Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, by Lois McMasters Bujold | | Time: | 02:59 pm |
|
| I really enjoyed this one -- I'm giving it a 9, in fact -- for a variety of reasons.
Lut's complaint about this book, back before I started my re-read of the series, was that the Captain Ivan Vorpatril of the title is nicknamed "Ivan the Idiot" by not only Miles, but many of his relations and acquaintences. Lut felt that, accordingly, Ivan came across as inconsistent in this book by being too clever. My own feeling was that Ivan's intelligence was unfairly maligned in by the moniker -- that Ivan had never been an idiot.
So I was paying close attention to Ivan's appearances in earlier books, and my sense on this front was only strengthened. In the first book, Ivan does show a very high level of cluelessness -- but not so much 'idiocy' as a lack of savvy and perception. Even so, it's he and not Miles that twigs to the key problem back home with Miles current behavior in the depths of space.
In general, Ivan is often annoying: he'll dodge out of obligations if he can, he whines about the ones he can't, and one of his frequent laments is "It's not my fault." But in fairness, it hardly ever is his fault. He is the designated damsel-in-distress: at least twice (not counting this book, he's kidnapped, mainly because some plot of Miles's has gone wrong. Not because Ivan himself did anything stupid. In fact, generally the most foolish and crazy things Ivan ever does are because someone else roped him into it. You get the sense that Ivan's evasion of his relations is 90% self-defense. Talking to them is dangerous. Literally!
And I got the very strong sense that Miles was not a reliable narrator when it came to Ivan. Ivan and Miles are same-age cousins who grew up together, but Ivan is tall, strong, fit, handsome -- everything Miles isn't, physically. But Miles is brilliant, persuasive, and focused, while Ivan is indolent and easily browbeaten. Miles, moreover, has a lot invested in being smarter than Ivan. It's the one area he can top his good-looking, popular cousin, and Miles is relentless in insisting that he does. Ivan's own comparative lack of ambition and strong desire to avoid politics gives Ivan himself incentive to play down his intelligence. Ivan doesn't want to get a lot of credit. The reward for a job well done is more jobs. But if you look at his actual actions and not what Ivan says, Ivan's shown to be bright-but-not-brilliant, loyal to a fault, and actually makes a concerted effort to follow rules and stay out of trouble, when people aren't coercing him to do otherwise.
This makes Ivan an unusual and charming protagonist, from my perspective. The typical modern protagonist is someone dedicated to their work, whatever that work is. You don't get too many protagonists who are unambitious and lazy. In CVA, you get two of them. It's delightful.
CVA is one part action/adventure and one part romance: the romance angle is no doubt part of why I enjoyed it so much. There's a fair bit of screwball antics reminiscent of early Miles books, except that it's all perpetrated by people around the protagonists while the protagonists are sucked along, doing their best at damage control along the way. The change of view and priorities there also amused me.
This is not a good entry point for the series -- about half the book is occupied by appearances of old characters and catching up on them, which is great when you know and love them but would lose its charm if this is the first time you met them. Well worth the read if you know the series, though. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| 1. Caffeine-free Diet Coke. I don't care what anyone else says about your phosphoric acid content, baby, you're still the beverage for me.
2. Snail mail from sandratayler. ♥
3. Long emails from alinsa
4. Going to visit telnar next month, because we got plane tickets five months ago so inertia would be on our side for a change.
5. Lut and I watched "Breakfast at Tiffany's" on Tuesday night, which was fun and light-hearted and well-performed, if marred by some of the worse aspects of the time during which it was filmed. (ZOMG hideous stereotype of a Japanese man played by a white actor in yellowface AAAH D: )
6. I wrote up a character concept that I like for a tabletop RPG the Sunday gaming group wants to start.
7. Got to posting one of the scenes in my story that I've been looking forward to sharing for a while.
8. Matthew Ebel's music.
9. bard_bloom | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| Diplomatic Immunity is the last of the re-reads; I'd never read Cryoburn before. I enjoyed DI; one of the advantages to forgetting almost everything about a book is that the twists still take you by surprise. The climax of DI has some very well-executed twists in it.
Cryoburn is pretty good, although like too many Vorkosigan novels it relies heavily on coincidence, which kind of bugs me. I didn't like it as well as DI overall, though it has its moments. It has two children as significant characters, and one of the nice things is that they are believably children, with childlike interests and without the precocious brilliance of too many kids in fiction. Both books are primarily investigation-mystery sf, with some action thrown in. I do like the way Miles now generally has the authority to do the stuff that he does and isn't constantly doing an end run around his own command. I'll give Diplomatic Immunity an 8 and Cryoburn a 7.
I only have Captain Vorpatril's Alliance left to read after this. I may look for a romance of some kind next after that. And of course the eight more Aubrey/Maturin books. | | comments: 14 comments or Leave a comment |
| 1. Lut and I played "Clash of Cultures" on Saturday, about which I said, "This is a decent board game, but it really makes me want to go home and play CivV again. On Sunday, at Lut's suggestion, the two of us did just that. He defaulted to "Prince" without realizing that's a level or two easier than our usual, but I didn't care. It's been a lovely relaxing game where Lut and I are mostly cooperating (not technically a team game, but we try to warn each other about the wonders we're working on and keeping up research agreements and suchlike.) I am looking forward to finishing the game! Regardless of who wins.
2. After being uncertain for two days about the scene I was working on in "A Rational Arrangement", I decided to skip past it instead and now I am back to writing away merrily on the subsequent scenes.
3. Alinsa sent me not just a letter in reply to one of mine, but PRESENTS! ♥
4.Another couple of friends told me they'd enjoyed my letters. I feel like the Month of Letters is still paying dividends. :)
5. Daylight Savings Time means I don't have to worry about it being too dark to exercise after work. ("Too cold" is still a potential issue, though).
6. The eclairs we got from Perkins are messily delicious. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Security: | | | Subject: | Miles in Love, by Lois McMasters Bujold | | Time: | 11:44 am |
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| This is an omnibus collecting two books and a novella: Komarr, A Civil Campaign, and "Winterfair Gifts".
The female protagonist of Komarr and A Civil Campaign, Ekaterin Vorsoisson, reminds me strongly of sandratayler. Not, happily, in specific life circumstances (particularly not in her choice of first husband), but reading scenes from Ekaterin's perspective was eerily like reading Sandra's journal. Ekaterin has the same kind of focus on childcare and the same concern for the well-being of those around her, a similar struggle acknowledging that her own needs matter, similar aversion to conflict, the same desire to be recognized for her own achievement and not as an adjunct to someone else. Even the same fondness for gardening. From a review standpoint, this isn't significant except insofar as it made Ekaterin extremely believable as a character.
Bujold typically writes in the third-person with a limited array of viewpoint characters. In most of the early Miles Vorkosigan books, Miles is the primary and sometimes sole viewpoint character. Komarr is pretty evenly split between Miles and Ekaterin.
A Civil Campaign is a big departure from this, with a large array of viewpoint characters: Ivan Vorpatril, Kareen Voudelka, and Mark Vorkosigan as well as Miles and Ekaterin, and maybe one or two others that I'm forgetting. A Civil Campaign is a departure in tone, too: previous Vorkosigan books have been action-adventure/mystery sf, with some humor, political overtones, and occasional romantic subplots. A Civil Campaign is roughly one part romance, one part political drama, and one part farce. It's very different. It had been my favorite in the series, but on re-reading I'm not so sure. Some of the comic moments are wonderful (Nikki playing his trump card! Cordelia seating Kou and Drou on the couch!) but others are painful. It's a bad place to start the series, because so much of it is dependent on the reader's existing knowledge of the characters. They are old familiar friends by now, and the book would lose much of its charm if you'd never met them before.
"Winterfair Gifts" was told from the viewpoint of Vorkosigan's most junior Armsmen, and was quite endearing: a little mystery and a lot of character development and some romance. Probably my favorite part of the three components of this book, actually. I think I'd give Komarr and A Civil Campaign 8s and "Winterfair Gifts" a 9. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| 1. Lut came with me to Tabletop last night, so we could borrow Fred's copy of Trajan and play with a couple of people from Tabletop instead of making Fred play. (Lut and I like Trajan more than Fred does, and Fred prefers to keep playing new games anyway.)
2. It is delightfully easy to snag people willing to learn new boardgames at the Tabletop boardgame nights. I grabbed two people to join us as they walked in the door (Steve and Josh) and they were as happy to be invited as we were to have them.
3. It's Friday!
4. Lut made dinner last night with yummy steamed veggies and rice, so I had a healthy dinner and have a healthy lunch for today.
5.[Company name redacted] is not my problem at work any more. They haven't been for 9 months, mind, but I was reminded this morning of how glad I am to have them be somebody else's problem.
6. It should be warm enough to exercise outside at least once this weekend. yay! | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| I haven't done this for a while so I'm just going to do an arbitrary number of them.
1. I got the most adorable card from LadyPeregrine in the mail. ♥
2. Terry and I went back to Alderaan in SW:tOR to do the bonus series, and I'm glad because Alderaan is the prettiest planet. At one point I stopped on one of the bridges and just looked out at the snow-capped mountains and the fir trees and the river for a few moments. Pity Darth Vader blows it all up, really.
3. I am still all excited about writing my current story, to the point of wanting to get up in the morning so I can go write. To the point of "I don't want to make this list because it's time I could be writing fiction".
4. I caught one of Tod's art streams and now I want to draw adorable cartoon animals.
5. Tuftears and Terrycloth. ♥
6. The Month of Letters is over but I'm still writing letters (not everyday). Because it's fun!
7. Lots or boardgaming with Lut, Fred and Sev on Saturday! Including Seven Wonders (one of my favorite games) and Shipyard and three new games I don't remember because I didn't write their names down at the time. Oops. | | comments: 8 comments or Leave a comment |
| I haven't been reviewing books lately, although really reviewing books as widely-known as these seems redundant anyway.
I enjoyed Memory quite a bit. In some ways it echoed Mirrordance to me, in that both books have a long section of contemplative time in the middle, between action. Memory's worked better for me, because there was less of a sense of looming disaster about it. I particularly liked watching Miles and Simon go fishing. One thing I miss in fantasy and sf is scenes of the characters just enjoying themselves. It gets overridden by an authorial compulsion to make everything super-tense and exciting. As if good things can't be interesting. Anyway, still plenty of tension and excitement in this one. I am giving it a 9.
Books 10-12 in the Aubreyad did a good job of wrapping up most of the dangling threads from book 9. I read 9-12 as part of the omnibus collection, so all printed as one book. Curiously, it felt a lot like one boook. I am kind of jonesing for more Aubreyad already, on the one hand, and on the other the end of book 12 is . So lovely and sweet that I almost want to stop there and imagine it as the conclusion. I suspect the end of the actual series will be less satisfying., given the author's untimely death. :/ I will give these and 8 as a whole. Still having a great time with the series and still not understanding two-thirds of the jargon. ♥ | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| I've been doing the "8 Minutes in the Morning" exercise routine, plus cardio, for seven weeks now. My diet has been mediocre -- I was eating less for about five of those weeks. This last week I've eaten quite a lot of junk food.
My weight, for the entire last five weeks, has held steady at 160.
So, yes. If I actually care about my weight (it is not clear to me that I do -- it's not as if I dislike the way I look or feel now), I need to change my diet. At minimum, eat less of what I'm eating now. I am unenthused about doing so.
I have no good explanation for why my mind thinks regular exercise is reasonable but eating well is too much work. Maybe it's because I see eating foods I enjoy as a positive good that I will get less of, whereas exercising for a little while is not that much inferior to sitting in front of my computer for the same period of time. So it's not so much that eating less junk is too much work as that it's too much sacrifice. I'll make an effort in the coming week anyway and see if I make any progress. | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| I haven't done this lately, but that's no reason not to do it today.
1. I finished out the Month of Letters with my last letter written yesterday! Although I might send some more letters just 'cause. It was a fun project.
2. Evening nap. z.z I may be finally catching up on all that sleep I missed at Conflation.
3. Got another 1100 words written on the polyromance. It's nice to have a project that comes easily again. n_n | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Saturday morning, I woke up way too early and spent an hour lying in bed resting, and then another hour alternating playing with my phone, writing, and resting. Around 10am, I took a bath, dressed in outfit #1 for the day, and Corwyn and I went off to forage for food. We checked out the consuite and decided its offerings were sufficient there for breakfast. The Conflation consuite was pretty good about providing real food and not just sn acks to the attendees, in fact, which was greatt. They pretty much always had PBJ fixings, a veggie tray selection, and rice (and a very tasty rice seasoning made of seawed, sesame seeds, salt and sugar -- gave very much the effect of eating sushi rice. I must buy some for home.) At various times of day, they also had waffles, chili, hotdogs and coldcuts,. If you were not very picky and ate at normal-ish meal times, foraging out of the consuite for the weekend's sustenance was entirely feasible.
The dealers at Conflation vend out of their hotel rooms, so we stopped at Chaos Emporium's room and I bought a mass-market corset and a sheer blouse combo because it looked really cool on the mannequin. I also got a "sexy pirate" costume, because the buccaneer coat it came with was actually pretty cool. After food, I changed into the sheer blouse and wore it with one of my belly-dancer tops over it and a skirt, which was reasonably comfortable.
( Cut for lengthCollapse ) | | comments: 12 comments or Leave a comment |
| I am way too tired to do a proper trip report, but I will make a stab at some of the highlights anyway.
Conflation is the St. Louis relaxicon, very similar in feel to Contra: essentially a large party for sf&f fans. Conflation had a little more programming, but not a lot. I have been vaguely thinking "I should go to that" for the last several years, ever since bradhicks mentioned it; I finally went this year because my local friend Corwyn (who runs Contra) was going. I took Friday off, rented a car (a task massively complicated by the fact that I lost my credit card sometime since last Sunday and failed to notice until I arrived at the rental car place, but this hurdle was eventually surmounted), picked Corwyn up around 1:30, and we headed out.
Weather-wise, we timed this trip perfectly: the roads had been cleared of Thursday's snow by the time we set out, and the next snowfall was not predicted until Sunday night/Monday, by which time we'd be back. Yay!
We arrived at Conflation just in time for opening ceremonies and crashed it because registration had closed for opening ceremonies. Opening ceremonies included not only the conchair but the hotel manager officially not noticing con attendees bringing drinks into the ballroom, which amused me. (As with many hotels, the policy is that the hotel caterers have a monopoly on providing food and drink in the conference rooms, so conference organizers are not technically supposed to supply their own in those areas).
After opening ceremonies, I went back to our room to put on my pirate costume. Conflation, now that I think about it, was not big on photography -- I saw few people taking pictures, and I can only recall one person asking for mine. After that, I went down to their fashion show. The fashion show was not what I'd expected; I'd assumed it would be some sort of masquerade/costuming event. It was actually a clothing auction/fundraiser for the con. Volunteers would model donated clothing (usually not their own), and attendees would bid on it. A common feature was for people to bid on clothing to give it to the model, in cases where the model liked it. Much of the clothing was formal wear. I bought a gorgeous green dress, which is a bit too large for me -- I need to get one of those clip things for it that you use to cinch the back of a dress. Does anyone remember what those things are called? I can't recall. The second half of the fashion show had people bidding not just on the clothing, but also on the right to take it off the model (with a few exceptions as specified by the model). It was amusing. If I'd known what it was going to be like at the start, I'd've volunteered to model.
Conflation's Vaudeville show was on Friday night; apparently they have not always done a Vaudeville show and stole the idea from Contra. Corwyn and I were bemused to learn that they were self-conscious about 'stealing Contra's schtick', whereas we were all like "What? Why wouldn't you? Y'know we came here to loot your ideas, right?" In the event, Conflation's show came across very differently from Contra's. Contra's Vaudeville has always been a kind of 'no-talent' show, encouraging anyone and everyone to perform. Conflation's had a much more polished and professional feel, particularly since it was anchored by the Thunder Kittens, a local burlesque troupe. My favorite act was a burlesque by AJ to "Roll a D6" (link to song, not performance) which is a very catchy electronica tune; AJ's props and performance suited it perfectly: gorgeous, sexy, and humorous.
I think the burlesque strip-tease acts suffered a little from having a lot of them back-to-back -- the performances were all skillful and enjoyable, but it got a little monotonous. More non-strip acts would have helped keep the strip-tease acts fresh, or perhaps more multiple-person acts, like the final one. Corwyn also pointed out that putting the "Roll a D6" act early in the show may have been a tactical error: she was a really tough act to follow. The final act -- six women and one man performing to "The Six Merry Murderesses of the Cook County Jail: Cell Block Tango" (from "Chicago" -- link to song, not performance) was impressive and riveting, however. Some of the other acts that stood out in my mind were a man and woman doing a silent-movie style slapstick act, complete with sound effects from a third party manning a microphone to one side of the stage -- very well-choreographed. And a cabaret-style singer, Siren, who did two songs, both fantastic.
After Vaudeville, I changed outfits again to do the room party circuit. I went to bed relatively early (for a relaxicon) on Friday night, around 2:30 or 3AM.
And hopefully tomorrow I can write up Saturday. For now, I am going back to bed. z_z | | comments: 8 comments or Leave a comment |
| For Wednesday:
1. I am writing A Rational Arrangement faster than I'm sharing it. Like, a lot faster. I waited until I had like 10,000 words written before I started sharing it with my alpha-readers, and I've since written another 9000+ words and shared about 6000. I have serious buffer. I don't know that I really need buffer for this, but it's kind of fun. And also nice to see that I can motivate myself even without the "must have something to share RIGHT NOW" incentive.
2. Watching the Schlock Mercenary Challenge Coins Kickstarter explode in unexpected and overwhelming popularity. (From zero to fully funded in THREE MINUTES, folks. :D ) I am kind of sad that howardtayler and sandratayler are going to be buried in fulfillment work on this one, but it's good to see them prospering.
3. Avenging my losses in Stone Age by beating up on terrycloth in Race for the Galaxy. There is still one game I am better than him at!
For Thursday:
1. Snow day! Even though snow as an adult is mostly annoying and I never go out and play in it any more, I remain fond of snow. And getting most of the day off is nice. Ahh, home and all wrapped up in my fuzzy comfy blanket. ♥
2. Snuggling with Lut to warm up when I got home from long trek in snow. ♥ ♥
3. Excited about going to St. Louis for Conflation tomorrow! My street's actually been plowed, which I am taking as a good omen that by the time I leave tomorrow (early afternoon) the roads will be reasonably clear. Snow is supposed to stop by tomorrow morning. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| For Tuesday:
1. Lut played a couple of games of Seasons with Terry and me. ♥
2. I read the first couple chapters of HMS Surprise and then went to ![[community profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png) mandc_read to join last weekend's comment threads on chapter 2, and a bunch of people came and replied to me and made me feel all welcome-back. Also ♥
3. I solved the coding problem that had been dumped in my lap on Monday, and which lack-of-chocolate had prevented me solving Monday. It was not an elegant or fool-proof solution, but it got the problem out of my inbox anyway. Also, solving coding problems always makes me feel clever even if my solution is not. Yay! | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| For Monday:
1. Saturday, I went to a local chocolatier's to buy post-Valentine's day sale chocolate. I still have a bunch left. And I successfuly resisted temptation to have more than one piece yesterday! :9
2. I finally got permission to purge a whole bunch of files from the bank's intranet because they are old reports no one cares about as soon as the new one is available. Yay virtual decluttering!
3. I bought a digital copy of HMS Surprise so I can re-join the mandc_read. Which I haven't been doing lately because it's most active on the weekend and my weekends have been full o' social, but I want to squeeze in some time for it anyway. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Weekends SO BUSY. Not even time to write down three things.
So, Saturday:
1. Boardgaming with Lut & Fred and the two Michaels. ♥ I even got to play three games I'd played before! For a change. I won a game of Trajan, and came in second in two games of 7 Wonders and one of Le Havre. Le Havre with five players is actually much nicer than with three, surprisingly. The much lower food requirements in 5 player are more than enough to offset the fewer turns you get to take. I forget who won Through the Ages or where I placed -- it was a pretty tight group.
2. I got to one of the scenes I've been looking forward to writing in my new story. Whee!
3. Sitting next to Michael during 7 Wonders and giving each other Pacifist Hugs because neither of us would ever bother to build military units. Hee!
For Sunday:
1. Caught up on laundry yay!
2. Visiting Corwyn for a while to not-play-boardgames, which we have not done lately. (Corwyn has only recently realized how much of a gaming nut I am even though I Have Always Been One, and it's taken him a little aback.)
3. Going to Corwyn's b-day party at Dave & Busters and playing a bunch of large-group arcade games with friends (5-player race, 4 player competitive pac-man, 4-player air hockey, 4-player trivia, and some other games that were one or two-player.) | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| For Friday:
1. I don't feel like I've been putting a lot of time into A Rational Arrangement, but then I'll check the word count at the end of the day and be all "Hey, another thousand words!" Woohoo plinking away!
2. Leftover veggies and rice from the tasty-yet-healthy dinner Lut made for me on Thursday.
3. Drumming up some more credits in SWtOR so that I can keep my current active character twinked out in style. Well, more so that I can bribe his companions into giving more conversation bits. Whee! | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| For yesterday. I did do this for Wednesday, but didn't post it because my phone has gone from 'crashes on copying text' to 'does not paste', which looks like progress but isn't.
1. Boardgame night! I went to Tabletop with Corwyn, and actually played the games that I'd brought and knew how to play already, for a change. I inexplicably won the second game we played of 7 Wonders. The thing I love about 7 Wonders is that I enjoy it even though I never feel like I am doing particularly well.
2. I finished the last of my February letters that were thank-you notes, by request, or replies! .... Now I have to do repeats or letters to random people whose address I happen to know for the rest of the month. If anyone else wants a letter, feel free to direct-message me your address. :)
3. At work, I replied with the giant list o' random info that one of my co-workers had requested, a day early. Making it look like I work here! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| the_gneech was posting about this -- it's basically a happiness exercise, and I would link to his post and source except that my phone does not feel like copying today. (It probably thinks I need to be more original).
This is the sort of thing I don't do because I am afraid it will be repetitious and boring and I won't keep it up and where would I write it down if not in my LJ? But today it strikes me that these are pretty stupid reasons. If people are bored by it, the scrollbar is right there. And "because I might not continue" is not an awesome reason to never start. So, whatever, three good things about yesterday:
1. I sent my daily letter out! I have actually kept going on the February letter-writing project, much to my surprise. It was a response to a letter I received on Monday, which would totally have made my good-things-about-Monday list if I was going back to Monday, but I'm not.
2. Playing games with ![[profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) terrycloth, which I have done most every evening Mon-Wed for years, but still look forward to. My Star Wars character made level 39!
3. Biking in the evening. I love that it's light enough and warm enough (albeit barely) on some evenings that I can bike outside again. Way more fun than in the dreary Basement of Doom. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| This is book 10 in the Aubrey/Maturin series, which I am continuing to work my way through.
I thought I'd discussed this before, but I couldn't find it when I looked, so I'm going to mention it now. One of the things that I enjoy about the Aubrey/Maturin books is that they're very unpredictable. O'Brian doesn't follow a lot of standard narrative conventions, so the books have less of an episodic feel than a biographical one. The result is that being genre-savvy doesn't help much in anticipating what will happen next. I always know that Aubrey and Maturin will survive, of course, because there's another 10.25 books about them, but other than that pretty much anything could happen at any time. In a battle, the protagonists might win against difficult odds. Or they might flee. Or they might try to flee and get captured. And then escape. Or maybe get ransomed back. Or rescued. There's no predictable shape to the books; the great climactic battle might come at the end, or maybe it was in the middle. The events of the end may not have very much to do with earlier events. Plot threads may get introduced and lie about unresolved for multiple novels. Stuff Happens. When I was reading the first few, I found this disconcerting, but by now I've grown to enjoy it. Tightly-plotted modern novels that gloss over any events not intertwined with their central plot have their own appeal too, but there's something to be said for the sheer randomness of O'Brian's style. Sometimes it reminds me of an RPG in a way: you know how sometimes, the players will spend multiple hours working on a plan or an angle, only to have it prove utterly fruitless as some new thing happens that renders it moot? Or a string of freakish die rolls will hopelessly mess with PC and/or GM plans in a way no one anticipated? That's what Aubrey/Maturin novels are like.
Anyway, I will give this one my usual 8.
I started the 11th, but I may take a break on it and read the next Vorkosigan instead. The end of Aubrey/Maturin books has not been a good break point to stop reading for the last couple, so 'two chapters in' is starting to look like as good a place as any. :D | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| I've been writing away at the fantasy-polyromance I mentioned last week. I am somewhat impatient about it: I keep thinking "this story isn't going to write itself" and "I need to write it before I can read it.". Aggravating, that last. The story has a working title now, "A Rational Arrangement", which is unfortunately too long for a LiveJournal community, so the community is  rationalarrange. I put up the first entry this morning. Future entries will be friends-locked: if you're interested in reading them, leave a comment either here or there.
I am not particularly looking for critical feedback on the story -- at this stage, mostly I just like to have some encouragement to keep writing until it's finished. :) | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| I'm almost three weeks into the "8 Minutes in the Morning" routine, insofar as I am following it. Which is to say: I have been doing all the exercises, and even in the morning 15 of the 18 times (so far). I have basically ignored the diet portion of the book as Way More Work Than I Am Willing to Put into Food.
This said, I have been eating somewhat less overall than I was in Decemeber or November, but I am not particularly dieting even by my own standards. I have also continued to do cardio, mostly my exercise bike, in the evenings. I am determinedly plugging away at my exercise bike as I type this, because my brain is too numb to compose anything interesting.
I am down two pounds since I started. This is not terribly impressive, but I am pretty happy about it anyway. My current exercise/diet strikes me as fully sustainable -- I can easily see doing this for years without feeling unduly put-upon. So as long as the scale trends downwards, I am cool with this. I don't really expect my weight to continue to go down at a pound a week, but I'll wait until I've plateaued for a few weeks before I decide more drastic action is warranted. Like eating vegetables* or something.
I am only 20 minutes into this workout and already I am out of boring stuff to write about. My brain is going to have to come up with something good for the next 10.
* I actually did buy a giant bag of frozen mixed vegetables a week ago, and Lut steamed some for us to have with rice for dinner yesterday/lunch today. I had some salad dressing by way of sauce. This worked surprisingly well for dinner, although it was less inspired reheated. Anyway, I'll have to do this more than once a week before I count it has a dietary change. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| Book 9 of the Aubrey/Maturin novels, and the least 'complete' in feeling of the books I've read so far. Seriously, this book introduced like three major plot threads, none of which are resolved by the end. I was thinking I'd finish one of these and then another Vorkosigan, but with this kind of non-ending I might as well just stop in the middle of the next one. It will be just as satisfying.
This aside, it did have some delightful humorous moments, like Jack's rescue of the dog and the canine's ensuing reaction, or Killick's bold defense of Jack's possessions. The naval actions were unpredictable and gripping. Lots of fun moments, even if there didn't really seem to be a cohesive overall plot to hold them all together. Not my favorite of the series, but a solid 7. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I was just thinking about this rule -- that a work should '(1) have at least two women in it, (2) who talk to each other, (3) about something besides a man' -- and it just struck me that if you invert this rule to "have two men in it who talk to each other about something besides a woman", I am not sure if any of Jane Austen's books would pass.
Huh. | | comments: 15 comments or Leave a comment |
| This is an enormously painful book; unlike most of the Vorkosigan books, I remembered significant sections of it with uncomfortable clarity. It's not so a matter of implausibility or coincidence in the action, but just that a lot of the events are agonizing. Even knowing how it would resolve was not enough to buffer against the rawness of it. It's an important book, but I was tempted to skip it just for it being so full of horror. I read it again anyway, and it does have a nicely satisfying denoument, so there's that. I am only giving this one a 5, though. I don't think I'll be reading it again.
Next up is Memory, which I don't particularly recall. I think I'll finish the ninth Aubrey/Maturin novel first, Treason's Harbour, first -- I'm around halfway through it already. | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
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Rowyn
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