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Spoiler-free Serenity natter, and books
Sigh. I have a really, really good reason that I probably won't get to see Serenity in theaters in September, and the DC advance showing on May 26 is already sold out. Damn you, fellow obsessed fans! (If anyone knows where I might snag a ticket, let me know -- I'm willing to travel pretty much anywhere within a 5-hour radius of DC.)
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harriet_spy made me realize I haven't actually said here that my visit in DC has turned into a non-visiting, tenure-track job, which is great. I miss NY for the friends (and the chocolates), but it turns out I go back on a regular basis and get to see the fabulous folks pretty often. Also, Mariebelle sells via the Internet, so the chocolate part is under control. A guy is coming to put built-in bookshelves in the Riv-cave tomorrow, so I guess we're here to stay.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Buried Deep: Another novel in the Retrieval Artist universe, set on the Moon and Mars, the latter of which belongs to the Disty, whose harsh customs include some serious death rituals. When a thirty-year-old human corpse is found under a Disty building, it sets off a chain reaction of contamination that threatens to destroy human-Disty relations systemwide. Noelle DiRicci and Miles Flint, cop and Retrieval Artist, have to figure out what happened so long ago – and, more important, what can be done to fix it from the Disty's perspective. The story moves quickly and I barely noticed the cardboard bad-guy reporter. Rusch is creating an interesting portrait a human culture struggling to deal with other races who frankly don't care whether humans understand their laws as long as humans are punished according to those laws, so law enforcement among humans often involves distasteful choices.
Laurell K. Hamilton, A Stroke of Midnight: On the upside, I saw only a few typos (but I might have missed some in the sex scenes I skimmed). God, woman, if you're going to write a scene that features double penetration, (1) be clear enough that I know which orifices are involved, and (2) get over "hardness" and get comfortable with "cock," "dick," or even "penis," because this isn't funny anymore. Not much happens in this 366-page book – new powers, new sex scenes, some treachery but not even much of that. I'm done with Merry Gentry, because this kind of porn doesn't interest me, though I admit I will probably still read the Anita Blake books. Hey, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, right? Oh, wait, that's foolish consistency.
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Years of Rice and Salt: What if the Black Death had wiped out European civilization entirely? Robinson explores this question by following reincarnated souls through the Islamic and Chinese worlds, with a detour to the New World (which once again is taken over by newcomers from across the ocean, though this time it's Dar el-Islam and China fighting for the spoils). The characters were often given to pontificating about history, and some of the lives were definitely less exciting than others. If you loved the rest of Robinson's books, go ahead with this one, but it didn't leave me rethinking history.
Kage Baker, The Life of the World to Come: The Company is a trans-time entity that moves in the dark corners of history, using its time-traveling abilities to loot lost treasures, from gold to vanished species, and exploit them in a later period. Mendoza, one of their immortal operatives, is stranded in deep prehistoric time as punishment for past rebellions. And then the human man she's twice loved and lost to death in two separate time periods shows up in a stolen time shuttle – and he's Alec Checkerfield, a man from a period shortly before the Company's knowledge of time breaks down. Alec is a supergenius (and a hit with all the chicks), and when he finds out what the Company's been up to, he gets mad. Baker seems to be picking up steam with these Company novels; I have every hope that the cycle will actually finish in a few more books. Competent storytelling, and if Alec is a little too good to be true and his future society a little too obviously set up as a critique of "political correctness," Mendoza's honest pain and desperation makes up for it.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, The White Mists of Power: This (slashy, if you notice that kind of thing) fantasy focuses on a magician of extremely limited powers, haunted by the memory of his father's greatness, and the bard he rescues from cruel death at the hands of a minor noble. When the bard turns out to be more than he seems – those white mists, you see – the magician is swept up in events. The palace intrigue is reasonable, but the real distinguishing mark of the book is that the magician really is limited in his powers; he's not just waiting for the right words/person to heal him, and I liked that.
Octavia E. Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories: This slender volume includes afterwords on all the stories, which is quite nice, as well as two short essays on writing – specifically, on the importance of writing day after day regardless of inspiration and regardless of short-term success. Butler had no reason to think that anyone would ever want to read sf by an African-American woman, and plenty of reasons not to think so, but she kept on, and she's bluntly eloquent about that process. Along with award-winners "Bloodchild" (not an MPREG, no matter what other people say) and "Speech Sounds" (about a world in which various aphasias and similar disabilities have destroyed human civilization), there are three other stories, all about surviving in a savage world one way or another. I like Butler's longer works better, but if you haven't read "Bloodchild," you're really missing a great story about bargains, and how the fact that different people choose different ways to survive can tear them apart even when they have common interests.
Kim Stanley Robinson, Antarctica: Another seriously landscape-y near-future story from Robinson, full of challenges from the elements and lots of well-meaning people debating how best to deal with our changing environment. And that includes an act of ecotage that threatens everybody down in Antarctica, from trekkers trying to recreate an historic journey to research scientists to ordinary folks looking for oil. As I read more Robinson, I see that his characters are often talky, but instead of talking heads they're at least heads with feet – they travel the world, observing as they talk. I'm an indoor gal myself, but Robinson's love for nature really comes through, as does his concern about what we've already done to disrupt it.
Kim Stanley Robinson, Forty Signs of Rain: Now this was the Robinson novel I've been waiting for. Characters from Antarctica reappear, but the focus is on Washington, DC – finally, a climate I know and love, and that probably helped me appreciate his writing about the outside world, as muggy and swampy as DC is, more than I have in the other books. His protagonists are scientists and policymakers, so their talkiness is perfectly appropriate, and if he erects a lot of soapboxes over the course of the story it's hard to blame him, since he's writing about climate change, including disasters in the US and in countries far less well equipped to survive. I'm really looking forward to the next book in the series, though I fear he may have to introduce a technological deus ex machina to let the human race go on in even marginal comfort.
Walter Mosley, Futureland: Nine Stories of an Imminent Future: These are linked stories set in a world a fair amount worse than ours today, divided much more obviously by class (and about as obviously by race). I enjoyed the stories tremendously – the one about the greatest female boxer ever didn't do much for me, but the prison rebellion, the private eye taking on the tycoon, and the ex-con literally giving himself to protect his genius toddler nephew were engaging and, in the end, hopeful.
Matt Ruff, Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy: There's a certain kind of ridiculous that can only be done with a straight face, and Ruff – who you might know as the author of the intriguing Set This House in Order -- does that kind of ridiculous very well. This novel starts with a giant shark in the giant New York sewers of 2023, only the authorities don't call it a shark because that might lead to bad publicity, but they send out their sewer boats anyway – and it gets weirder from there, as tycoon Harry Gant tries to build a new Tower of Babel with money he made from selling Electric Negroes (after everybody of recent African descent was wiped out in a plague, everybody except those with green eyes, that is, the name just caught on) and saboteurs in a stolen submarine harass his company with cream pies and other tricks. By the time Ayn Rand shows up in a lamp, you'll either have thrown the book aside in disgust or – my recommendation – just given up to go with the flow. Ruff is not as funny as Pratchett, but then, who is? And he is nicely sympathetic to the ridiculousness of the human condition. Also, anyone who can describe Donald Trump's death with, "'T-MINUS TRUMP!' the New York Post obituated," deserves attention.
Jennifer Crusie, Bet Me: Another breezy contemporary romance, this one between a staid accountant whose extravagant shoes are the only real sign of the passionate woman within and a more relaxed businessman with serious parental issues who (she thinks) accepts a bet that he can bed her inside a month. As with the other Crusie I read, each of the principals has two best friends whose romantic issues contrast with the protagonists'. The writing is clean and occasionally funny and, though the situation keeping the lovers apart could easily have come off as contrived, their willingness to act like adults redeems them – unlike the stars of so many, many romances (fan-written and non) I've read, they actually talk to each other about what they think is going on, which solves some problems and doesn't solve others, exactly as you'd hope.
Talking to
harriet_spy made me realize I haven't actually said here that my visit in DC has turned into a non-visiting, tenure-track job, which is great. I miss NY for the friends (and the chocolates), but it turns out I go back on a regular basis and get to see the fabulous folks pretty often. Also, Mariebelle sells via the Internet, so the chocolate part is under control. A guy is coming to put built-in bookshelves in the Riv-cave tomorrow, so I guess we're here to stay.Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Buried Deep: Another novel in the Retrieval Artist universe, set on the Moon and Mars, the latter of which belongs to the Disty, whose harsh customs include some serious death rituals. When a thirty-year-old human corpse is found under a Disty building, it sets off a chain reaction of contamination that threatens to destroy human-Disty relations systemwide. Noelle DiRicci and Miles Flint, cop and Retrieval Artist, have to figure out what happened so long ago – and, more important, what can be done to fix it from the Disty's perspective. The story moves quickly and I barely noticed the cardboard bad-guy reporter. Rusch is creating an interesting portrait a human culture struggling to deal with other races who frankly don't care whether humans understand their laws as long as humans are punished according to those laws, so law enforcement among humans often involves distasteful choices.
Laurell K. Hamilton, A Stroke of Midnight: On the upside, I saw only a few typos (but I might have missed some in the sex scenes I skimmed). God, woman, if you're going to write a scene that features double penetration, (1) be clear enough that I know which orifices are involved, and (2) get over "hardness" and get comfortable with "cock," "dick," or even "penis," because this isn't funny anymore. Not much happens in this 366-page book – new powers, new sex scenes, some treachery but not even much of that. I'm done with Merry Gentry, because this kind of porn doesn't interest me, though I admit I will probably still read the Anita Blake books. Hey, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, right? Oh, wait, that's foolish consistency.
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Years of Rice and Salt: What if the Black Death had wiped out European civilization entirely? Robinson explores this question by following reincarnated souls through the Islamic and Chinese worlds, with a detour to the New World (which once again is taken over by newcomers from across the ocean, though this time it's Dar el-Islam and China fighting for the spoils). The characters were often given to pontificating about history, and some of the lives were definitely less exciting than others. If you loved the rest of Robinson's books, go ahead with this one, but it didn't leave me rethinking history.
Kage Baker, The Life of the World to Come: The Company is a trans-time entity that moves in the dark corners of history, using its time-traveling abilities to loot lost treasures, from gold to vanished species, and exploit them in a later period. Mendoza, one of their immortal operatives, is stranded in deep prehistoric time as punishment for past rebellions. And then the human man she's twice loved and lost to death in two separate time periods shows up in a stolen time shuttle – and he's Alec Checkerfield, a man from a period shortly before the Company's knowledge of time breaks down. Alec is a supergenius (and a hit with all the chicks), and when he finds out what the Company's been up to, he gets mad. Baker seems to be picking up steam with these Company novels; I have every hope that the cycle will actually finish in a few more books. Competent storytelling, and if Alec is a little too good to be true and his future society a little too obviously set up as a critique of "political correctness," Mendoza's honest pain and desperation makes up for it.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, The White Mists of Power: This (slashy, if you notice that kind of thing) fantasy focuses on a magician of extremely limited powers, haunted by the memory of his father's greatness, and the bard he rescues from cruel death at the hands of a minor noble. When the bard turns out to be more than he seems – those white mists, you see – the magician is swept up in events. The palace intrigue is reasonable, but the real distinguishing mark of the book is that the magician really is limited in his powers; he's not just waiting for the right words/person to heal him, and I liked that.
Octavia E. Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories: This slender volume includes afterwords on all the stories, which is quite nice, as well as two short essays on writing – specifically, on the importance of writing day after day regardless of inspiration and regardless of short-term success. Butler had no reason to think that anyone would ever want to read sf by an African-American woman, and plenty of reasons not to think so, but she kept on, and she's bluntly eloquent about that process. Along with award-winners "Bloodchild" (not an MPREG, no matter what other people say) and "Speech Sounds" (about a world in which various aphasias and similar disabilities have destroyed human civilization), there are three other stories, all about surviving in a savage world one way or another. I like Butler's longer works better, but if you haven't read "Bloodchild," you're really missing a great story about bargains, and how the fact that different people choose different ways to survive can tear them apart even when they have common interests.
Kim Stanley Robinson, Antarctica: Another seriously landscape-y near-future story from Robinson, full of challenges from the elements and lots of well-meaning people debating how best to deal with our changing environment. And that includes an act of ecotage that threatens everybody down in Antarctica, from trekkers trying to recreate an historic journey to research scientists to ordinary folks looking for oil. As I read more Robinson, I see that his characters are often talky, but instead of talking heads they're at least heads with feet – they travel the world, observing as they talk. I'm an indoor gal myself, but Robinson's love for nature really comes through, as does his concern about what we've already done to disrupt it.
Kim Stanley Robinson, Forty Signs of Rain: Now this was the Robinson novel I've been waiting for. Characters from Antarctica reappear, but the focus is on Washington, DC – finally, a climate I know and love, and that probably helped me appreciate his writing about the outside world, as muggy and swampy as DC is, more than I have in the other books. His protagonists are scientists and policymakers, so their talkiness is perfectly appropriate, and if he erects a lot of soapboxes over the course of the story it's hard to blame him, since he's writing about climate change, including disasters in the US and in countries far less well equipped to survive. I'm really looking forward to the next book in the series, though I fear he may have to introduce a technological deus ex machina to let the human race go on in even marginal comfort.
Walter Mosley, Futureland: Nine Stories of an Imminent Future: These are linked stories set in a world a fair amount worse than ours today, divided much more obviously by class (and about as obviously by race). I enjoyed the stories tremendously – the one about the greatest female boxer ever didn't do much for me, but the prison rebellion, the private eye taking on the tycoon, and the ex-con literally giving himself to protect his genius toddler nephew were engaging and, in the end, hopeful.
Matt Ruff, Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy: There's a certain kind of ridiculous that can only be done with a straight face, and Ruff – who you might know as the author of the intriguing Set This House in Order -- does that kind of ridiculous very well. This novel starts with a giant shark in the giant New York sewers of 2023, only the authorities don't call it a shark because that might lead to bad publicity, but they send out their sewer boats anyway – and it gets weirder from there, as tycoon Harry Gant tries to build a new Tower of Babel with money he made from selling Electric Negroes (after everybody of recent African descent was wiped out in a plague, everybody except those with green eyes, that is, the name just caught on) and saboteurs in a stolen submarine harass his company with cream pies and other tricks. By the time Ayn Rand shows up in a lamp, you'll either have thrown the book aside in disgust or – my recommendation – just given up to go with the flow. Ruff is not as funny as Pratchett, but then, who is? And he is nicely sympathetic to the ridiculousness of the human condition. Also, anyone who can describe Donald Trump's death with, "'T-MINUS TRUMP!' the New York Post obituated," deserves attention.
Jennifer Crusie, Bet Me: Another breezy contemporary romance, this one between a staid accountant whose extravagant shoes are the only real sign of the passionate woman within and a more relaxed businessman with serious parental issues who (she thinks) accepts a bet that he can bed her inside a month. As with the other Crusie I read, each of the principals has two best friends whose romantic issues contrast with the protagonists'. The writing is clean and occasionally funny and, though the situation keeping the lovers apart could easily have come off as contrived, their willingness to act like adults redeems them – unlike the stars of so many, many romances (fan-written and non) I've read, they actually talk to each other about what they think is going on, which solves some problems and doesn't solve others, exactly as you'd hope.
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I've pretty much finished it and I'm wondering where the novel was, and I've read better porn on a.s.s.m
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40 signs of Rain
He already has introduced it. That algae/lichen symbiote that increases lignin production in trees 40-fold (or some such number). It'd turn the trees into super carbon-sponges. It's been mentioned. I don't know if it's ready for full application yet, though. Probably needs some work by those genetic engineers in California. :-)
Re: 40 signs of Rain
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(I'll be in Florida by that time, so I have to wait until September, dammit.)
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http://www.movietickets.com/house_list.asp?SearchZip=19019&SearchRadius=50&exid=AMC
(Sniffle!) Lucky people. I am chartruese with envy.
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Also? I love your default icon.
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A friend made the icon for my birthday. I always loved WW as a child, and I'm coming back around to her now.
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I always loved WW as a child, and I'm coming back around to her now.
Likewise. What with Joss doing the movie. . .*g*
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Jocelyn, olive drab with jealousy and making plans to guilt trip you both until I see it ;-)
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Serenity!
I'm going to send out an e to coordinate travel later today (there are 7 of us going, and one meeting us there); if you email me at (kierajeng at yahoo dot com), I'll add you to the list.
Yay!
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Did you read the California Trilogy? Good stuff there, particularly The Gold Coast, which (now that I think of it) came nearer to the truth than anyone could have expected at the time (if you swapped out designer-drugs for dot-coms)...
I love Sewer Gas and Electric but I retain strong sentimental fondness for Fool on the Hill, which is over the top and self-indulgent, but I don't care, since I went to Cornell at the same time Ruff did. That novel's like old home week for the Cornell of the early 80s. And he has the balls to kill off the coolest character in the novel. Which I liked.
I liked Bet Me well enough, but not as much as Welcome to Temptation and Faking It. Perhaps I'm just not fond enough of chicken marsala. *g*
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I thought the California Trilogy had some good parts, but though I'm a KSR fan I'm actually not a huge fan of landscape writing, so I just sort of waited those parts of the books out. The next book in this new cycle is scheduled to come out in the fall, and I'm anticipating that, but my favorite is still the collection Remaking History.
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Oh, and hi! I was watching your amazing vids (Placebo!) earlier, and found your lj. I just wanted to say I'm adding you on my f-list!
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I have a pathetic love of Placebo. I saw them at the 9:30 Club a number of years back and really hope they come to tour the US soon.