jinian

• What are you currently reading?

Moby-Dick still, in bits and pieces.

Protector, C.J. Cherryh. Newest one is out! Probably I should've timed my mass reread better (which could have meant doing it a month later than I did or moving it entirely to before the release date of the last one in a trilogy). I am pretty sure someone's name is being spelled differently than it used to be, but I can't quite recall.

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau, in which there is Team Summer A. Why yes, you should read 7 Seeds so that you understand what I mean. (Also because it's way better, though this is not bad.)

• What did you recently finish reading?

ALL the mass market comfort paperbacks:

- Sharon Shinn's Twelve Houses books.

- the three most recent of Carrie Vaughn's Kitty books, which, oops, I had read the third-to-last already, only I forgot because she somehow made Monkey kinda boring.

- Stranger at the Wedding by Barbara Hambly, which I had forgotten the entire last third of, so maybe it's not about book quality because this one rules.

- A Brother's Price by Wen Spencer, still my favorite of hers and purely adorable.

• What do you think you'll read next?

Tam Lin and War for the Oaks are on deck for bedtimes, and I have Svetlana Chmakova comics coming in at the library.

Weird day. Up at 4am, went to work for a few hours to find failing experiment, let it go longer and came home to crash; after a four-hour nap, went to acupuncture to try to fix ongoing digestive doom, and hit the central library on the way; saw Sakura-con cosplayers including obligatory Sephiroth with giant tinfoil sword, very cheering; back to lab to find experiment going okay (the seedlings were just slow starters for some reason); home to make teriyaki with sherry instead of mirin (pretty good, actually). And there was a gender theme all day, which I will now share:

1. Whitehouse.gov petition to recognize non-binary genders

2. Email from my department:

It has been called to our attention that in trying to relabel the restrooms in HCK so that people weren’t inadvertently entering the wrong one (they are in opposite locations on alternating floors), we were sending the wrong message to transgender populations. This was unintended.

We encourage transgender employees and students to use the restroom or locker room corresponding to their expressed gender but most importantly, transgender employees and students should use the restroom that they are most comfortable with for their individual situation, irrespective of expressed gender.

Additional signs will be posted on the restroom doors.

The decals she's talking about went up a couple of weeks ago, leading to mockery and grumpiness from many of us. They're giant and PINK or BLUE with the zodiac symbol around a silhouette or silhouette-with-skirt, really about the most gender-essentialist thing you could possibly imagine. This mail doesn't quite get it right, but they're doing their best to be aware and I wasn't expecting them to do so well.

3. And when I was at the library I had a major Yomiko Readman moment on finding three giant volumes of the beautiful translated edition of Hourou Musuko. I have read them, but I don't care, I am going to read THESE ONES.

• What are you currently reading?

Maureen Johnson's The Name of the Star, which seems to be modern-day YA about an American girl in boarding school in London, plus supernatural Jack the Ripper recurrence. Okay. So far, so good: cute adjustment to different culture, none of the gross thriller-mystery tricks of killer POV or "let's make you care about the victim for five pages."

• What did you recently finish reading?

Patricia Wrede's The Thirteenth Child trilogy. It was done, so I wanted to see how it turned out. It is wall-to-wall magic-geeking and natural (magical) history of plants and animals (and even mentions magical fungi!), which means that in a world where its foundational premise didn't link directly to the actual genocide of Native Americans and the erasure of their names for much of the continent around me, I would have loved these books. There are other flaws, mostly the unreasonable-seeming alternate history, but I could have gotten past all that if I hadn't been wincing every single time she called the Mississippi the Mammoth River. The magic and naturalism are pretty great if you can bring yourself to read it, but those are my biggest narrative kinks (plus there were lesbians in the last book) and I still had a hard time.

Leia Weathington's The Legend of Bold Riley is pretty comics about a lesbian adventurer from a heavily Hinduism-inspired culture. The blue, goat-herding god has a different name, though, so clearly there was no need to worry about cultural appropriation. Coming so soon on the heels of Quvenzhané Wallis' name issues around the Oscars, the thoughtless and dubiously consensual (teacher-child power dynamic) nicknaming of Rilavashana to Riley was interesting. I liked her travels, in which she was sometimes wise and sometimes foolish, and the women that she met.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

Something I don't have any problems with? This seems unlikely. Scalzi's Redshirts?

• What are you currently reading?

Between books while finishing thesis draft. Azumanga Daioh at bedtime.

I am NOT reading The Seedbearers by Peter Valentine Timlett, which I had as an Office Shelf Book due to the title and misguidedly decided to attempt on the bus home tonight. On the first page, a 13-year-old girl who has been gang-raped is murdered. On the second, they debate what to do with her body and decide to give it to the black guys to eat. YEAH NO NOT READING THIS. ... I did get curious whether the young girl had been Aryan-pure since the murdering rapists were Toltec (all this happened in Atlantis, obvsly), and skimmed while waiting for the bus -- surprisingly, a later misogynist caricature from the same race is described as having golden-brown skin. So I guess there's that? Not sure I can keep this on my shelf, though. Nasty stuff.

• What did you recently finish reading?

Justina Chen's Return to Me wound up being way too cheerful and "everything is for the best" for me to really buy into it. That divorce was supposed to happen, and now everyone is just fine, all the things that have gone wrong for the past twenty years, including other people's relationships, are now fixed. Maybe it's mean, but I feel like the author was trying to convince herself? Also all of the protagonist's matriline was New Agey psychic, ugh, and part of her self-assertion at the end was that people need to respect her woo-woo.

Caught up on 7 Seeds. OMG YAY (SPOILER) IS BACK! *happy dance* People are escaping badness and being emotionally healed left and right, though Arashi is in for sad emo times. The series is reaching the time when I usually think it's time to wrap things up, but there is no reason to do so in this case. It's not every narrative where someone saves the world with menstrual blood.

Deceiver, in which Bren is slightly unbelievable in his hardassery.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

Gemma Files! I still haven't reread the whole trilogy all together.

I also have a video game lined up for after the thesis draft is sent off, Journey.

• What are you currently reading?

Pretender, C.J. Cherryh. Honestly I am not paying that much attention to this book's plot, as I am still hung up on the amazing Jago moment two books ago, in which she says SO IS BARB A COMMON NAME? and Bren has to scramble not to allow the person who is now his brother's girlfriend to be strung up by her heels or something. Also still thrilled by Cajeiri's sudden acquisition of D&D-style followers as if with a level-up -- with legitimately fascinating atevi emotions, I'm not knocking it. In this book, boobytraps mecheiti Tabini Astronomer aeroplane OMG Algini.

Chrysanthe, Yves Meynard. Recommended by rysmiel. So far, severe side-eye for the Evil Therapist and the sexual-abuse (only not! because she's the virginal protagonist! god I hate this trope) setup. We shall see where it goes.

Skip Beat!, Yoshiki Nakamura. (The library copies of v2 and v3 are all in use, which made my mind up as to method.) I do not see why the Beagles are necessary.

But mostly my own previous papers and other people's theses, due to the arrival of Dissertation Time.

• What did you recently finish reading?

The Day Boy and the Night Girl, George MacDonald. Why are there so few perfect stories in the world?

Silhouette of a Sparrow, Molly Beth Griffin. Jazz Age lesbian scientist YA with hot flapper girlfriend and independence for ladies! That is right. Ebooks from the library for the win, and thanks to coffeeandink for the rec.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

This new Melissa Scott, Point of Knives, is in my shopping cart at Smashwords.

• What are you currently reading?

Ashes of Honor by Seanan McGuire, thanks to pameladean's alerting me to its existence. (Next one in 2013 sometime, can't tell if the FAQ really means it's in September or if there's a cut-and-paste error.)

• What did you recently finish reading?

Successful reading of The Magicians of Caprona was accomplished! (Also look at skygiants' lovely Chrestomanci fic if you like that sort of thing.)

Feed, which remains brilliant.

Ellen Forney's Marbles, a graphical memoir of her bipolar diagnosis, which, well, now that I've said that you know exactly what it says. It's charmingly drawn, and I am enough of a fan that I liked seeing her particular experience; also there was one bipolar in-joke that I managed to get and I cracked up. (No, I'm not going to ruin it for you.)

More Yuletide, including a delightful Babylon 5 story, obviously an actual episode which had been mislaid. Ivanova hilarious, Delenn great, everybody is there and being exactly right.

(For next Yuletide, you all need to read/play some Christine Love games so we can have fic for those!)

• What do you think you’ll read next?

Atevi are still in the notional queue. I have had brief periods of mental acuity yesterday and today, so maybe it's time!

Today it occurred to me that this whole experiment of doom could be a Cardcaptor Sakura setup in which I'm deliberately being fucked with to cause me to try my hardest and become more awesome thereby. That would be unacceptable. Admittedly my limits are not where I thought they were, but there is no actual reason for this torture. (And I think it's the butterbur that moved the migraine limits, not some stupid endurance training.) Luckily I think it was merely a passing paranoid notion.

No one has any idea why it's going so poorly. We'll try to move forward with the crummy result from this step, but hell if I know whether it'll work. Damned embarrassing if it doesn't, but not actually the last chance for the paper revision, so we'll cope.

There continue to be good things, but right now the best one is I'M NOT IN LAB and I had a chance to buy groceries and shampoo, and do a little laundry tonight.

Now that it's over and I am tremendously relieved and happy, here are two nifty graphical presentations regarding the recent American election.

The Guardian's "America: Elect!" is a comic that animates as you scroll down. Interesting effect, worked okay in the latest Firefox, but doesn't seem to have much provision for screen size.

NPR presents maps by state scaled with ad spending. Poor shrunken Alaska! I wonder how they scaled the states while still maintaining important features of shape; it seems like there must be some intriguing algorithm behind it. Wonder if I have that in FIJI somewhere.

[ETA: Also? Patty Murray fucking rules.]

Thursday afternoon: Very good comic store, where I got a minicomic about Caroline Herschel (yay!) and the Keiko-Takemiya-drawn Andromeda Stories v1. The latter is not at all recommended for anyone who dislikes insects or especially spiders; it creeped me out and I'm generally fine with them. Otherwise it's quite interesting: during a peaceful royal succession and marriage, it transpires (to some) that their planet is being attacked by subtle enemies, and there are more undercover agents of other galactic powers around than one might have thought. A secret prince in the wilderness also features.

Wandered down the street and through a slightly magical plant nursery. Ate paneer mint curry, which was delicious but turned out to have a few tomatoes here and there. Went to a community sing-along, which was both fun and poorly organized enough that I only managed to tolerate it for about an hour -- there was an accordionist as well as the guitarists, and I got to explore inside the (often locked) community garden, so overall a win. Cats were bad in demanding their food until their people got home.

Friday: Cats were sweet in sleeping on me and wanting pets. Had to pick up the car from downtown, went to the Christian Science Mapparium on the way. The Christian Science grounds are soothing and beautiful, and the Eddy library has a light fixture with etched air vehicles as well as lovely mosaic work with mother-of-pearl tiles. The Mapparium is amazing: obviously dated, as globes get, but very skilled glasswork and a good educational tool. The glass colors were surface-applied or intrinsic depending on color, which led to the land seeming to rise out of the ocean, but only in places. The lighting could be changed for dramatic effect, including one level where the land all seemed dark and water glowed, which was somehow really touching. Plus, you can whisper to other people from the ends of it, or to yourself in the middle.

Subway stations suck when it's hot. Ice cream became necessary: raspberry sorbet and saffron orange kulfi is a strange combination (mainly due to cardamom), but good.

Today: Cats were scratching around all night and keeping me awake; next time I will know this likely signals a mess on the floor and will have the option of taking care of it sooner. Moody but still pleased to be here. Napped some already and might do it again later, because VACATION.

Reading: Um. The Death of Speedy, Instead of Three Wishes, Wild Robert, The Little White Horse. Catching up on science blogs, which among other things reminded me that HIV is scary as fuck -- yes I know we have antiretrovirals now, but it mutates far faster than I thought possible, which means resistance evolution. At least I found this out in the context of advances in reactivating latently infected cells so that it could possibly be cured someday. (ETA: Good summary of current AIDS work.)

At approximately 3:30 today I learned of the existence of this book. I dropped everything and went to the bookstore, where I found the book prominently displayed in the kids' section -- I love my bookstore -- and recommended the author to the cashier. Then I went to the Ballard Library, where SPL's copy of Amy Unbounded: Belondweg Blossoming lives, and checked that out so I could read it after. (They have eight copies of Seraphina and sixty people on the waiting list. Not acceptable.)

When I got home, Wim had come back from his bike ride. I came to him and displayed this book, and I talked in ALL CAPS for at least a paragraph about how great Rachel Hartman is and how I found out there was this novel and went to get it immediately and I loved it very much.

If possible, I now love it even more having finished. (I was going to say I had done nothing else but read since getting home; this is not strictly true as I tried to read it and put away the dishes at the same time, which works not well.) Hartman hasn't been making comics for some years, but Amy Unbounded was one of the absolute best comics ever. And I have tried to pay attention to the stuff Hartman has done since, but kind of bounced off the related Girlamatic comic, and oh well, I guess there was never going to be more.

But there IS, and there's going to be MORE after, and it's TEXT, and you need to read it.

Seraphina lives a life of secrets and pushing back against her father. We start with her birth, which is creepy, why is she being called "it" by the people around her, and then bibliomancy gives her a heretic patron saint. Then we skip to the beginning of her career as assistant palace composer, and she'd promised to stay out of sight, but the music she's in charge of will ruin the royal funeral unless she plays it herself.

It takes a long time to find out the extent of everyone's secrets, and we get there by way of murder and courtly intrigue: the royal funeral is for a prince with a mysteriously missing head who was found in a forest, and the dragons' general is coming to town to affirm the human-dragon treaty that he signed with the queen, three human generations ago. There are authentically scary stalkers and militants, but it's not a transparent political allegory or anything. The best part is, we get to everyone-loves-everyone, including the dragons, who seem naturally to be some kind of emotionless, possibly crystalline-brained creatures, but when they transform themselves to interact with humans all bets are off. I can also recommend Seraphina's mental garden construct, which is not exactly a memory palace but rather serves to manage the intrusive visions she has of mysterious people, which cause seizures when they happen unexpectedly.

I have one quibble, which is that she has a phobia that I think was unrealistically easy to overcome. And I would personally have examined the decapitated guy's neck wound, which I think would've partially solved the mystery a bit sooner.

Reading this directly after Crown Duel as I did, I think I can say with confidence that if you like that you'll enjoy Seraphina too. Please go read it! I want the publisher happy so I can get the sequel as soon as possible.