September Readings and Doings

A long overdue post from yours truly!  I haven't fallen off the face of the earth... just into my dissertation.

Writing

My draft of Revealer of Hidden Things is finally going somewhere again.  I was stuck on that story for months…  It was a classic case of writing myself into a corner.  I got to the point in the story when the heroine was supposed to go rescue the hero and she just refused.  Hazit is very, very introverted—not in the “really shy” sense but the “has serious trouble with empathy” sense.  And also in the “has a hard time recognizing other people as real” sense.  And having written her this way I couldn’t make myself go back and write her as someone more cooperative.

Are you all familiar with the (weird) Boltzmann Brains theory, which suggests that humans are just brains (or one brain) floating in space imagining everything we think is around us?  I’m pretty sure that Boltzmann was an introvert.

So I essentially had to go back and rewrite the first 10,000 words of the story.  I started with the hero this time instead of the heroine, in hopes of building some momentum, and this seems to have worked pretty well.  So I’ve now gotten him captured and locked in a hall full of magic mirrors, which his captors seem to think are going to do something to him so that he will be a good servant for their princess.  And the heroine has just agreed to go look for him, although she isn’t really intending to rescue him as yet.  So that’s progress.

Other writing projects… I have a sort-of urban fantasy series and a sort-of space opera series that are gradually taking shape in my brain.  I write bits and then throw them out, because they aren’t quite right yet.  Not to mention all the other ancient Near Eastern fairy tales that are clamoring to be written.  Sorry, guys--I can't start you until Revealer is finished.

This Month’s Soundtrack

I spent the month listening to a lot of Jonathan Coulton… mostly Skullcrusher Mountain (a mad scientist’s love song) and the end-credits songs from Portal and Portal 2 (a mad AI’s hate song).  Yay geek music!

September Reading

I’ve been doing a lot of re-reading, which is why I haven’t had many reviews to post.  But here are a few books of note.

Eight Cousins – Louisa May Alcott.  If you’ve only read Little Women, you should really give LMA’s other books a try.  This one is definitely instructive-moral-forward, but it’s still enjoyable.  The sequel, Rose in Bloom, is even better.

 

Waterfall – Lisa Bergren.  This is the first in Bergren’s Christian YA fantasy series.  When sisters Gabi and Lia crawl into an Etruscan tomb, they are sent back in time to medieval Italy.  This is a fun exploration of history and sister-loyalty, with a bit of romance.  The writing is good enough to work for both YA and adult readers.  One thing did annoy me…  Gabi’s father taught her to fence (apparently with a foil, by the description), and when she was dropped in medieval Italy she was able to pick up a broadsword and fight effectively.  I’ve fought with both foils and broadswords, and I’m telling you, one thing is not like the other.  She would have died in the first thirty seconds.  On a related note, her sister Lia is able to use archery to fight effectively.  But again, a medieval Italian bow is not much like a modern hunting bow.  Plus, she is shooting people in armor; it should not be that easy to kill or disable them.  Anyhow, it was a fun book and I’ll read the rest of the trilogy.

Dragons Wild – Robert Asprin.  Did not finish.  The plot seemed like it should be interesting, but the combination of “was the copyeditor on vacation?” disease and “no likeable characters” disease were too much for me.  I would keep trying, but the book is due at the library and I don’t want to renew it.

Sylvester – Georgette Heyer.  One of Heyer’s best.  A young woman avoids a clever man’s advances because, unbeknownst to him, she made him the villain of a book she just published.  (Can you guess why I like this one?)

 

Kaguya-sama Love is War – A manga series.  High-school student body president Miyuki Shirogane and vice president Kaguya Shinomiya both like each other… but neither is willing to admit it.  Because whoever confesses their love first loses!  So they spend a lot of time scheming to get the other person to admit it.  This series is very, very funny and usually PG, although some chapters suddenly jump to PG-13 based on topics discussed.  My library had the first seven volumes, and I am waiting for the next one to come out.

The King of Attolia – Megan Whalen Turner.  Yes, I’m reading this series for the second time this year.  I’m constantly amazed by how the author uses different points of view to keep the reader guessing.  In the first book, The Thief, the main character manages to hide almost all the important bits of the plot from you—a very unreliable POV character.  In the second book, he once again hides a critical piece of information which, once you know it, transforms everything in his relationship with the queen.  Then, in the third book, MWT switches to a new POV character who is clueless about what the main characters are up to, even though he is around them constantly.

September Watching

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood – A great story of brotherly loyalty, politics, and magic, with a redemption arc under every bush.  Love it.

 

Emma – The one with Jonny Lee Miller and Romola Garai.  (Otherwise known as “The Best One.”  Sorry, Ms. Paltrow, Ms. Beckinsale.)  The fight at the end of episode 1 is still my favorite part.

Young Justice season 3 – Because we can never have too much PG-rated superhero animation.  And Young Justice season 1 was truly excellent.  I’m not sure season 3 would be comprehensible to anyone who isn’t already a hardcore DC fan, but since it’s only on DC All Access people who aren’t hardcore DC fans will never see it anyway.