trip back

Turns out it doesn't help that much to barely catch the train if I then miss the bus from downtown to my house by ten minutes AND the second-chance bus from Fremont to my house by ten minutes. Walking home was not what I had in mind. I waved at a cab partway through, but he didn't stop.

Also, I read all four of the books I got at Room today, plus two ebooks. I was down to Crazy Beautiful by the end.

But now I am home with cats.

Wednesday reading, of sorts

Here are the six novels I read yesterday.

Paranormalcy, Kiersten White. Successful YA version of modern urban fantasy. Balance of the protagonist being powerful and responsible with wanting to shop and attend school like a normal sixteen-year-old, important relationships between women, appealing love interest, some magic-geeking. Note that the creepy faerie guy is seriously creepy; this was fine in the actual book but the blurbs calling it a love triangle upset me greatly: no, that is A STALKER with HORRIFYING MAGICAL POWERS who SPOILER SPOILER. There is no sexy here! That is called menace! Unlike most books at the moment, it concludes satisfactorily, though I'm sure sequel(s) will happen.

Dragon Flight, Jessica Day George. Civilized dragons and civilized humans coexist, but the dragons are getting used as weapons of war an awful lot due to coercive magic, so derring-do and politics by the seamstress protagonist are both necessary. I am reading these in reverse order and enjoying them. Middle-grade to YA level, I guess, fairly fluffy.

A Coalition of Lions, Elizabeh E. Wein. I heard about this series yet again at the bar on Monday night, and this one was on the shelf used at A Room of One's Own. Probably more emotional resonance if one reads them in order, but I appreciated the political aspects and liked the women a lot.

Marianne, the Magus, and the Manticore and Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods, Sheri S. Tepper. THESE WERE JUST SITTING ON THE SHELF FOR FOUR BUCKS I DON'T EVEN. Someone called Tara Ayres had gotten rid of a whole lot of old Tepper, all the Jinian and Mavin books were there too (also a perfect Necromancer Nine, what is with that book always being in great condition?), and the third one wasn't there BUT THESE WERE.

I didn't even remember what these were like, but basically Marianne is persecuted and thrown into made worlds a lot because she's an heiress to money and magical power as well as a romantic interest of someone important. It's Tepper, so there's a lot of weird shit going on, in this case more metaphorical than usual. The second one includes some stuff on the ethics of rewriting your own life that I found very interesting. I am not sure why the third book is necessary, and as it's $30 minimum I doubt I will find out very soon. (If anyone in the UK wanted to buy me the much cheaper epub I would go for that though!)

Watchstar, Pamela Sargent. A girl coming up on her coming-of-age ordeal in a society of complete psychic sharing on postapocalyptic Earth meets a foreign person, causing everything to go horribly wrong for her. I felt that this could have made the case for validity of the harsh, spiritual telepath society better than it did, but on the whole it's pretty good: the protagonist gets meta on her societal ideals in a way that I liked a lot. It is also almost completely science fiction rather than fantasy, as it turns out.

leapalotl

About half an hour ago I thought to myself, "why is Hex invisible right now?"

Well, that is because HE JUMPED OUT OF HIS TANK. This is also why the cover was askew and I SHOULD PAY ATTENTION TO THAT NEXT TIME. Supposedly they mostly do this when they're startled. It didn't help that I had very wimpy covers on the tank, though, since I don't have one yet that fits the 20G tank. So I found my Hexy on the floor a good three feet away from his tank, looking all plasticky and wrong. He moved when I picked him up, and I put him back in his tank immediately. He was really sticky but not dry.

YIKES SO SCARY. I just read a lot of stories on Caudata, and generally they do survive this sort of thing. He doesn't have any obvious limb damage, though his tail is a bit shredded -- could be from striking on the lid on the way out, as it doesn't look much like cat bites. So glad he was not eaten! I was worried that he hurt himself internally, but there's no way to find that out.

He was very still for a while, but he is moving around now, so I think he'll be okay. He just breathed noisily at the surface, and now he's hanging out around the filter outflow, which he doesn't normally like much, so I think his gills are somewhat damaged (though the filaments look okay). His slime coat is coming off in curtains, really kind of impressive.

Poor damn fool axolotl! I have weighted your covers down much more thoroughly now! :(