July 2011

So.  July.  Not my favorite month ever, considering all the moving and new job stress, plus the unpleasant news that my job is far more seasonal that I thought, and that in the fall there will be far fewer hours available.  Between working some eleven-hour days and two weeks of living out of boxes, I’ve still managed to read a few books.

Because if I ever go a month without reading anything, aliens have taken over my body.

1. Making Money by Terry Pratchett.  This is the second half of the story of Moist von Lipwig, begun in Going Postal.  What is a former con artist to do when the Patrician offers him the run of the Royal Mint?  Make some money, of course.
2. Going Bovine by Libba Bray (30%).  The seventeen-year-old protagonist, diagnosed with Mad Cow disease, has a few weeks before the end of his life.  What follows is a romp through hallucination, drug, desire, and despair in an all-t00-authentic male teenage voice.  I read the beginning and the end, and was glad I skipped the four hundred pages in between.
3. Devices and Desires by K. J. Parker.  The Engineer Trilogy #1, in which I adore several gloriously pessimistic main characters at once.  See previous post for my thoughts at the time.
4. The Golden Crab by C. A. Cole.  My friend‘s third Pooka novel was a delight to read.  I eagerly await the next book.
5. Evil for Evil by K. J. Parker.  The Engineer Trilogy #2, in which I am amazed that the death toll must be in something like the millions.
6. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.  I liked this book less than I thought I would: an existential sci-fi/crime noir hash, plus androids.
7. The Escapement by K. J. Parker.  The Engineer Trilogy #3, in which all the wheels within wheels are exposed.
8. A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George.  This is the first Lynley/Havers mystery, and while the mystery was told with solid writing, I didn’t much care for the detectives themselves.
9. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (20%).  Thomas Cromwell in present tense turned out not to be quite to my liking.
10. Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell.  This is the first Kurt Wallander mystery and was, if possible, even more pessimistic than the BBC TV series starring Kenneth Branagh.  As it was pessimistic not in a glorious but in a depressing way, I may not read on.
11. The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley.  After a month of reading books I largely turned out not to like (Parker and Cole excepting), I finished things up with a book I was sure to enjoy: a Newbery winner about a princess, a horse, dragons, magic, and destiny.

July 10

1. Am I Still Here?  Yes.  And by “here,” I mean not in our new apartment, but still in our old one for another week.  You thought I was going to do something silly like apologize for not blogging for a few days.  (Sorry.)

2. What Have I Been Doing?  Mostly reading the Engineer Trilogy by K. J. Parker.  I read the first book, Devices and Desires, all 672 pages of it.  And then I read the second book, Evil for Evil, and never were 704 pages more aptly named.  I’m surfacing for air before diving in to the third book, The Escapement, for which I have tremendously high hopes, though I’m apprehensive that at 432 pages, it’s something like a third shorter than the other two.  Why?  What does it mean?

3. What Will I Be Doing?  This week, mostly working.  When not working, driving to and from work.  When not driving, reading K. J. Parker.  When not reading, writing Chapter Eleven.

4.  When Will I Finish That Novel Already?  I’m getting there, I’m getting there.  After the feverish pace of JuNoWriMo ended, I took a couple of days off and then resumed at a much more leisurely thousand-words-a-day rate.  I expect to be done before the end of July: in a week if I write quickly, in two weeks if I write steadily, and in three weeks if I write intermittently.  So, two to three weeks.

5. How’s Anastasia?  She’s fine.  Her recent pastimes include shredding the inside of a bubble packing envelope (therapeutic) and knocking a glass of water off of the coffee table (ornery).

Woe Is Moving

1. On Moving and Writing.  They do not mix.  Since July 1, when we got the keys to our new apartment, we’ve painted three rooms in two days.  And we’ll be officially moving on Thursday.  Since the first, I have written 0 words.  Why?

2. I Crave Routine.  That about explains it.

3. Additional Woes.  Though we are moving on Thursday, we will not be able to get our internet set up until the following Monday.  I have my iPhone, of course, so I’ll never be truly out of touch, but going four days without in-home internet is a frustration I would rather forego.

4. On the Other Hand.  We painted our apartment a very smart-looking pearl gray.  This is because it was originally a flesh/ham/peach-toned “neutral.”  Electing not to puke every time we walked through the doorway, we made the right choice and beautified our new home.

5. One Final Positive to Offset the Three Complaints.  I’m quite enjoying the book I’m reading, a 600-page first-in-a-trilogy monster called Devices and Desires by K. J. Parker.  Everyone is spying on everyone else so far; it’s enormously entertaining.  I’ll review the first volume once I’ve finished reading it.

Steampunk List

A Steampunk List; or, Is There A Zeppelin?

What is steampunk?  I don’t really know.  Stuff powered by steam, I guess, particularly automata, and possibly also including secret societies or zombies or drug cultures.  There always seems to be at least one zeppelin as well.  Steampunk is what calls itself steampunk.

Here’s some steampunk I’ve recently read, ranked roughly in order of preference, though Millhauser is always a bit of a wild card.

1. Boneshaker by Cherie Priest.  Zeppelin and zombies.
2. The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer.  Zeppelin and The Tempest.
3. Aurorarama by Jean-Christophe Valtat.  Zeppelin and the North Pole.
4. The King in the Tree by Steven Millhauser.  No zeppelin, but lots of creepy automata.
5. The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar.  Zeppelin and Victorian London.

The Thrilling Tales collection edited by Michael Chabon contains a mystery in an alternate WWII-era featuring travel by zeppelin, and Iron Council by China Mieville lacks a zeppelin but has lots of steam power.  Science fiction also notable for its engineering includes Inverted World by Christopher Priest, and further short fiction by Steven Millhauser.

What other novels with zeppelins should I put on my list?

June 2011

This June, I didn’t read as much as I did in June 2010 (16 books) or June 2009 (13 books).  I blame this on the 54,000 words of novel I’ve written and my new job finally picking up in the last couple of weeks.

Here’s what I’ve been reading:

1. The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin.  This marked the end of my Earthsea-reread; while I still and undyingly love Ged, this book isn’t really about him, making it my least favorite of the five books.
2. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett.  Marina Singh travels to Brazil to figure out what happened to her coworker and check up on the progress of the development of a secret drug.  This almost doesn’t count as literary fiction because so many things keep happening.
3. McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales edited by Michael Chabon.  Here is a delightful collection of clever, bizarre genre fiction that pays homage to the magazine “slicks” and penny-dreadfuls from whence they came.  Some excellent authors contribute.
4. The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer.  Steampunk.  Metafiction.  The Tempest.  This is the story of how Harold came to be trapped inside a zeppelin with the voice of his childhood sweetheart and the frozen corpse of the world’s greatest inventor.
5. The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht.  Winner of the Orange Prize, this book is Natalia’s contemplative self-investigation of the character of her grandfather, who has died, by means of two stories that he occasionally told: the deathless man, and the tiger’s wife.
6. The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville.  I have read few novels set in Australia or written by Australians, but Kate Grenville is definitely on my radar.  During the settlement of Australia, an astronomer becomes acquainted with a native girl, but it doesn’t turn out how you might think.
7. A College of Magics by Caroline Stevermer.  Faris goes to college to study magic because her uncle wants to keep her from inheriting, but she learns far more than magic in this charming Edwardian fantasy romance.
8. The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks.  I needed a reread.  Banks was there for me.
9. A Scholar of Magics by Caroline Stevermer.  Samuel is an American sharpshooter, called in by a magic college to help with research, but when trespass turns to kidnapping, he and Jane must get to the bottom of the secret research to rescue his friend.
10. Psychology: A Very Short Introduction by Gillian Butler and Freda McManus.  The chapters on cognition, perception, and emotion were engrossing, but the second half of the book was too cursory even for a VSI.

Wisdom from Psychology: “People frequently make assumptions about what psychologists are able to do – for example, that they can tell what you are thinking from your body language, or read your mind. While such assumptions are understandable, they are not correct. … Nevertheless they cannot read people’s minds, or manipulate people against their will, and they have not yet drawn up a blueprint for happiness.”

Really?  People assume psychologists can read their minds?  And this assumption is understandable, because of – let me guess – the power and mystique of the psychologist?  At least I know that the blueprint for happiness is on the map, even if they haven’t perfected it yet.  Oy.