Suburb of Heaven

Just read through the new Rivers of London novella, featuring a new protagonist. I enjoyed it, but rushed through it too quickly and want to go back and reread. It's nice having an alternate view of the Folly and the timeline of magic history in general, and I wonder if he's going to set a story in France as well. (I know one of the shorts had a French character.)

I don't think it's fair to compare Tobias to Peter yet, as Peter's had multiple full novels to flesh out his character and Tobias has only had the one novella, so I'll say I'm interested in getting to know him a bit more. (And I like the fact that he asked his team to bring him snacks while he was waiting around at a job.) I do really like Vanessa, and I'm interested in the rivers that appear in the story.

I just started The Five, by Hallie Rubenhall, about the women who were previously known to history only as the prostitutes that Jack the Ripper killed. Rubenhall explores their lives and how they got to Whitechapel, the fact that many of the women were likely not prostitutes, and in short shows them to be the people that they were and not merely bodies to serve as evidence in an exciting mystery.

Next up is the second book in the Raven Boys series.

I've read some of McGuire's October Daye books, and enjoyed them, although I wasn't hooked to the point of "omg must grab next book immediately." And I'm not in general a horror reader, so I won't be picking up those books of hers. But what I heard about Every Heart a Doorway sounded right up my alley, so I finally got it and read it last night.

The concept is lovely. What happens to all those portal fantasy children who find themselves stranded back in this world, where time may or may not have passed, where they come back with strange skills or weird hair or new proclivities? Well, perhaps a boarding school, run by a woman who knows exactly what they've been through because she has as well. I loved the idea of all these kids bumping against each other, trying to figure out what to do now that they don't live in a candyland or a magical fairyland where they were the King's Champion. There's a lot of nuance about the characters that's done in concise little bites.

I liked Nancy, the main character, and her particular portal world was interesting, with a focus on stillness and silence.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize the book was actually a novella, which means that I bumped up against what I experienced as really weird pacing and the book ended unexpectedly quickly. The main character arrives, the plot rockets off immediately, and before I knew it things were wrapping up. I'm a little uncertain about whether I'm interested in the other books, which seem to be both sequels and prequels. I don't know if I want to read an entire book about a character after I know how she got to be the way she was, and that she's already died an ignominious death.

So, I'm not sure. I will probably reread it with better expectations about the length. But I'm not sure if I'll be picking up the other books in the series.

I finished the book the other night. I did end up enjoying it, although possibly in ways I didn't expect. I also need a reread, as I'm pretty sure I missed some details.

For example, I was having trouble figuring out why Breq was supporting one of the two split leaders of the empire. I knew she was on a course of revenge but I was having trouble figuring out which of the two positions of Anaander Minaai she had decided to side with. Apparently at some point she deciphered which of the sides was responsible for the death of her Lieutenant, but I had trouble following all of it.

I also had come to know the book as one that did some subversive things with gender (subversive isn't the right word...unusual? Pointed?), which actually didn't really seem to be a particularly big part of the book for me. I didn't spend much time trying to parse out genders in the characters, and although I think at one point Seivarden Vendaai was indicated as male by another character, I promptly forgot it. It seemed like an interesting but ultimately minor piece of worldbuilding that I found interesting, but it didn't say anything much bigger than that to me, if it was supposed to.

I also have some problems with how opaque characters are - it's natural, because you're reading through the lens of an AI who has been suddenly cut off from her nearly omnipotent understanding when she's a ship full of her officers. (Locally omnipotent, I guess.) So watching Breq keep protecting Vendaai kind of remained a mystery to me. Was it simply because she had once been one of Breq's lieutenants? (Although as Breq keeps pointing out, never a favorite.)

For me the book is strongest in it's look at a totalitarian regime from both the inside and the outside (ancillary vs corpse soldier). You're experiencing it all from someone who is utterly inside the culture like a goldfish is in water, but sometimes she does run up against the hard edges of it and has to figure out how she feels about it. I wonder if the later two books are some sort of AI to fully individualized person kind of story, but it was interesting how much of a relief I felt when Breq gets taken aboard what will be her new ship, back into something closer to her old life. (Except her old life is killing people really well, and her new life is now going to be responsible for keeping half of a mad despot in check?)

ANYWAY. I really enjoyed it but I want to get the other two books under my belt and then do a reread and see if stuff I found nebulous clears up.

I'm doing a short talk on two Hogarth prints later on this semester, so I've just started reading two books on the subject of the prints, Gin: The much-lamented Death of Madam Geneva and Ale, beer and Brewsters in England: women's work in a changing world, 1300-1600. If you're interested in the topic, there are also two podcasts that relate directly, one from the BBC's In Our Time on the gin craze (the image they use is a detail from the print I'm talking about) and an episode of Tides of History where the host interviews the author on the topic of women and beer brewing.

Kiki has had her two shots and is now on her two month stretch of enforced inactivity. She can go for short walks but I predict in a few days she'll be feeling better and the short walks are just going to frustrate her. She's going to end up staring at me with pleading eyes and trying to squish herself into my lap so I know how much she is suffering.


jesse_the_k asked about three of my icons, my main one, my eclipses one, and my zen one.

My nom-de-internet is pretty old by now and comes from Saint Catherine of Siena, a mystic saint that I did my thesis on. The image is of Saint Catherine holding a lily, and is from a fresco in the basilica of San Domenico and was painted by Andrea Vanni. If you go visit, say hi to her head for me.

I didn't make my eclipses icon and sadly I don't have a note down anywhere about who made it. I know very little about astronomy, but I'm fascinated by old astronomical charts and texts and images. I adopted this icon because I just find it deeply beautiful.

My zen one is Damian Lewis from the tv show Life. I loved the show so much, and besides the great acting and fun stories it had great music too. Sadly it was crippled by the writers strike and when the two seasons finally made it to DVD they had replaced a lot of the music with lesser choices. I was not happy. Anyway, Damian Lewis's character Charlie Crews is a police officer sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit, and while he's there he studies Zen. When he's freed, he brings his slightly eccentric Zen sensibilities out into the world with him, much to the frustration of those around him. (He also has a thing for fresh fruit.)

Just finished my reread through the Rivers of London books by finishing up Lie's Sleeping. The Fanfare post of the first book on Metafilter got a lot of fun discussion that I hope continues along for the rest of the books.

I decided on The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle for my next read.

The forecast is for snow and bitter cold. They've postponed the local women's march because of it, which is disappointing, but highs of negative whatever don't lend themselves to being out long. Marching, maybe, listening to speeches, not so much.

My poor Kiki-dog has been diagnosed with heartworm. She's a rescue from a place where it's not uncommon, but we've gone back and forth with a couple of tests that were positive and then negative and then positive, rechecked, still positive, so next week she'll have to start the treatment protocol. It's uncomfortable and she'll have to stay relatively quiet for two months. Walks, yes, but no wonderful galloping through the big dog park. She will be very disappointed in our cruelty. I thought the whole situation was behind us, but thankfully she's in good health otherwise so she should get through things ok.

The newest Rivers of London book, Lies Sleeping, just came out and I promptly read it in about five minutes and then decided to go back and reread the whole series. For those of you who haven't heard of it, they're urban fantasy set in London and featuring one Peter Grant, constable, who inadvertently takes a witness statement from a ghost and ends up being the next apprentice to Thomas Nightingale, police officer and one of the last remaining British magicians.

The stories are very much from the view of the police procedural, and there's a lot of chatter about acronyms and processy stuff along with Peter's training in more magical matters. Peter is snarky and nerdy about a range of things, and it's his viewpoint voice that carries the books along in a rush of jokes and interior observations. His world is emphatically multicultural and seeing how the city and its thrum of people slide in and out of the (sometimes only barely hidden) world of magic is so much wonderful fun. The books are filled with characters from all walks of life, whether it's Dr. Walid the Scottish pathologist or Sahra Guleed, fellow police officer who may or may not be in training to be the World's Greatest Swordswoman. Meanwhile, Peter's journey and his relationships move and grow and change. (Peter probably needs to get a therapist and stop stuffing his feelings down under jokes because some really epic stuff has happened to him.)

Start with Midnight Riot (American title) and if you like it, be happy because there are many more books, plus novelettes, the occasional short story posted to the author's blog, and a series of graphic novels you can keep going with.

I've been listening to a podcast called Overdue and have discovered a thing that I sort of already knew about myself - I get really protective about the books I love. So my first episode of the podcast was a book I hadn't read, and I enjoyed it and downloaded a bunch of other episodes, including those of books I had read and...that was a mistake. I couldn't get past the fact that some of the episodes were 90% joking about something in the book and 10% actual discussion, and also in one case I was doing the whole "no no no you're interrogating the text from the wrong perspective" thing which just made me crabby. So I'm not sure yet if I'm going to just unsubscribe, or just be careful about not downloading eps which talk about books I have a strong attachment to. But no more expecting more serious discussion about childhood favorites, or anything like that.

Also, I knew I was a bit of an anglophile, but do most people really not know about Richard III and the princes in the tower?

Doing a little traveling for work. I love tiny airports - this one is bigger than the home airport but still quite small and the TSA agents are friendly and it takes you no time at all to get through security and then to your gate. I'm right on the Mississippi and drove past all the Stately Homes of Old Money with the river views and drooled over a bunch of them. After a stop or two I'll be in Toronto. This is my first trip to Canada, and it's not to Prince Edward Island for an Anne pilgrimage, but I will make those plans for another trip. For now I plan to eat tons of awesome food and do a little shopping and sightseeing but I will not be paying the tons of money to go hang out on the glass floor of the CN tower, because holy crap, yikes. I may not even do the CN tower at all, since I like a good view and all but not enough to pay for it. I would rather buy a ton of gel pens at Muji.

Just finished the first Elena Ferrante book My Brilliant Friend and will start the next in the series on the plane. Really enjoying them.

Also, we saw Big Hero 6 on Saturday night and I loved it. The design of the city was lovely, and even though there wasn't a lot of character development with anybody besides the brothers and Baymax, it was a very sweet and I fell in love with everyone. Also, cried. Yup. I'm an easy mark but I'd have cried even if I had a heart of stone.

My two most recent pieces of media consumption are...not much alike.

I've been slowly working through Penny Dreadful, which is wonderful and bloody and crazed over the top gothic and sometimes silly and sometimes I have to just listen to things happen while my phone is under some blankets, and thank goodness I got the warning on some moments before I came to them so I could take the blanket precaution. I've got two more episodes to go - they're downloading now - and am interested to see where season 2 goes. And also, Eva Green commits to things, yo. She does not half-ass one damn thing.

And I've also just read Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl for book club. I didn't realize she was the author of the book Eleanor and Park, which has had a lot of buzz recently, but I knew about this one because I follow the artist who did the cover (and have an Avengers print from that artist that my sister bought me last Christmas). The book was heftier than I thought it would be, and I enjoyed it, but was rather disappointed that the setting, which happens to be my current place of residence, was so lightly sketched out when the author is a native of the state and apparently grew up in the larger city about 50 miles away. But while there were a lot of gestures towards establishing a sense of place, it never happened. It's probably because she was trawling through emotional terrain and had nothing to spare for the physical, which, fair enough, I suppose.

Anyway, I liked the book a lot, even though some of the mental illness stuff was played...well, I don't know. Let's just say that I've read some reviews of the book that are all, "aww, Cath's father is so cuddly and I fell in love with him and he was the best so snarky wonderful" and I wondered if people just don't understand how difficult living with a person prone to manic episodes and doing things like locking themselves in rooms and not eating and writing messages on the mirror. I guess I feel like there was a lot of difficult emotional stuff in the book - one twin acting out in a big way, one twin with a truly severe anxiety disorder that is kinda played off as cute, a father with bipolar and a mother who said "fuck this" and left her eight-year-olds as she adioses out the door...it's there, and it's given some emotional weight, but the hospital scenes are, well, I don't know..,perhaps it's too much to ask for in what is apparently a YA book and I can't decide if I feel that if you bring up these topics you have to attack them a little more or if the lighter touch was actually more appropriate because it just presents it and leaves it for you.

Oh, and I'm not sure I liked the whole "insert chunks of Cath's fanfic in-between the chapters" stuff. It felt a little gratuitous.

On the other hand, a book that made me think about it this much probably means it's well-done enough to evoke the thinking, so that's another point in its favor. You can also add the facts that the book is genuinely charming, covers a lot of interesting stuff about the craft of writing. and kept my attention enough to tear through it.