February 2011

Here’s the lineup for this month: as much science fiction and fantasy as it was possible to stuff into twenty-seven days. If I read another book this month, it will be Black No More by George Schuyler, for my science fiction class. But since I’m not sure whether I’ll finish it before the end of February, I’m posting the list early and as-is.

Since I wrote about most of these in previous posts, I will leave you with the list itself.

Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith
Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Mort by Terry Pratchett
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume I by Diana Wynne Jones
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Last Colony by John Scalzi
Aurorarama by Jean-Christophe Valtat
Women and Economics by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (50%)
Impossible Things by Connie Willis
Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh (35%)
Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

Ramblings

1. Apparently I don’t care much for space opera; I abandoned C. J. Cherryh’s award-winning Downbelow Station on page 189 of 526 because I still couldn’t figure out who the main character was. The entire first chapter was a historical summary of what happened in the three hundred years of Earth’s history to set up the war between the Earth Corporation and the Union (its former colonies), and while the political situation and setting is over-explained, important things like who all these people are and why we care about them are under-explained. I couldn’t find even one storyline to invest in, so I stopped trying.

2. C. S. Lewis is right: only people who like certain types of books should review them. People who don’t like space operas, for instance, should keep their mouths shut about them and leave the critiquing to someone who would actually know a good space opera when she sees it.

3. Baked sweet potatoes are awesome. How did I forget how much I loved them?

4. My thesis advisor thinks my thesis is in decent shape, which makes me happy since I was concerned I would have to rewrite the whole thing. Now that I don’t, I can say confidently that I’m 90% done. I plan to reward myself by reading a book, which should be pleasant and relaxing, except for the difficult and sometimes even strenuous task of choosing which book to read. Inda by Sherwood Smith? Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett? The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon? Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler? So many possibilities! I can’t decide!

My Thesis

It’s called “The Mind’s Eye” and Other Stories, and it clocks in at 107 pages, including the title page and table of contents. It’s a collection of five short stories written by yours truly, with a preface discussing matters of science fiction and narration.

In the fifteen-page preface, I write about why I write science fiction, I discuss two novels I would someday like my work to be compared to (The Left Hand of Darkness and The Sparrow), and I offer a description of the origins of each of the following stories.

“The Mind’s Eye,” the title story, was written last December and January in a rush after my first semester of graduate school was over and I had a brief six weeks to write for fun. It’s about a photojournalist who fails to follow social mores and finds herself in prison.

“Waking” is the most recently written story, or I should say rewritten, since it’s the agglomeration of more than two previous stories and multiple scraps of ideas. Set in the same general location as “The Mind’s Eye,” this one is about a woman who finds a project to give her life meaning.

“The Conquest of the World” is my quintessential fiction-workshop story, in which a college girl beats a bunch of guys at Risk. Of course, she learns something about herself, too.

“Persephone” is my oldest story, written for my graduate school application and revised several times since then. A woman who is snowed in deals with empty nest. A lot of this story is supposed to allude to the myth of Persephone.

And lastly, “Extradition” is about censorship and the way that even brief relationships can change a person. It’s also a tragedy, because I like those.

I’ve decided not to write an acknowledgements page, since “The diction and contents of any acknowledgements must be restrained and appropriate to scholarly work. Dedications are not permitted.” Which is completely boring, and I would rather write no acknowledgements than dull ones.

I’m about 90% done. I’m meeting with my advisor tomorrow. I’ll be defending said thesis on March 22. All is going according to plan, and I will graduate without a hitch in May.

*crosses fingers*

The Month of SFF

It started out by accident. Finding myself with much more reading autonomy this semester, since I’m taking one class and thesis hours rather than three classes, I naturally gravitated toward books that I thought would be fun, funny, entertaining, or enjoyable. Since my reading for class is science fiction as well, I noticed a distinctive pattern in my taste recently.

And so it turns out that for the first two and a half weeks of February, I’ve read nothing but science fiction or fantasy (well, and one science book).

I began the month with two comforting rereads–Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith and First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde. Then came the Great Ice Storm of ’11/Icemageddon/Snowpocalypse, and I buried myself in several hundred pages of Iain M. Banks’s Surface Detail. My first book purchase to celebrate getting out of the house became Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett, which I read in a day, and I followed it up with The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, because I wanted to write about it in my thesis preface. During a weekend with friends, Philip and I finished reading Terry Pratchett’s Mort in the car, and I simultaneously read my month’s only nonfiction book, Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, and my most recent (and agonizingly chosen) acquisition, The Chronicles of Chrestomanci by Diana Wynne Jones.

And it’s been a book a day for the last three days: Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, for class; The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, kindly on loan to me; and The Last Colony by John Scalzi, because it fit easily in my bag to campus.

Now I’ve begun reading Aurorarama by Jean-Christophe Valtat, which I acquired courtesy of Amazon textbook trade-in gift card credits, because it’s Arctic steampunk. How awesome is that? Two chapters in: Pretty awesome!

My resolution is to finish out the month in the vein I began it. Up next is Connie Willis and perhaps more Sherwood Smith.

(no subject)

This is what happens when I’m bored.

I discover through the Internet Anagram Server on the “English with obscure words” setting that my first and last names are an anagram for

Redbelly Kettle

(which is much better than my maiden name, which anagrams to Bleakly Burker).

So if I ever need to name a hillbilly or a brewery, I’m set.

On the other hand, anagramming your name is a pretty sad way to kill half an hour. Clearly I need to start reading a new book.

If you want to kill time too, post your new favorite alias as a comment!

Herland

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (yes, of “The Yellow Wall-Paper” fame) wrote a feminist utopia called Herland in 1915. Three American men, hearing a rumor of an all-female society, set out to investigate the truth of the matter. Sure enough, they find the women of Herland, whose geographical seclusion has kept secret the general knowledge of their existence. That they’ve had several centuries to perfect their physical form, education system, and society–plus the fact that they don’t have a proper sense of masculinity or femininity–makes this novel surprisingly funny.

Of course, it’s plenty boring, too, because not much happens in paradise, a problem that has always made the portion of Gulliver’s Travels in which Gulliver visits the Houyhnhnms so dull. At least the last half of the novel is expository dialogue in which the narrator, having come to be ashamed of American society, extols the virtues of the more civilized, logical, and enlightened women. The most interesting character, contrary to Gilman’s intent, I think, is Terry, a “man’s man” who is driven mad by the citizens of Herland and refuses to acclimate to their worldview.

One of the most interesting results of this female society is that while motherhood is naturally the most honored estate, the closest thing the women have to a class system, the rearing and education of children is undertaken by those women most suited to the task–not necessarily the children’s mothers. This apparent lack of maternal sensibility is explained by the knowledge that all the women’s work is for all the children’s benefit, an interesting claim in light of Gilman’s biography (she amicably allowed her daughter to be raised by her ex-husband and his second wife).

All in all, it was an interesting two hours’ read, and I can’t imagine why I had never taken the time before. I’m excited to discuss it in class next week: there is certainly lots to say about it.

Not a Valentine’s Day Post

By reading Mary Roach’s Packing For Mars, I’ve crossed another book off of my Unread Books list and off of my Christmas 2010 list. Plus, it was a nonfiction book that actually merits the phrase “compulsively readable” for being at once so funny and so intelligently written that I hardly realized I was learning anything about living in zero gravity. But I did. I learned that astronaut food used to be made by veterinarians and tasted so bland that most astronauts preferred not to eat. And that you can die all sorts of interesting ways in space but not, probably, by your blood boiling.

It’s a delightful read if you like strange-and-sometimes-gross details and have a keen sense of situational irony. Now I want to read her book, Stiff, about cadavers. It will probably be hilarious.