Was this an involving book? Well it's past three in the morning, and here I am just finishing it, so I guess it was.

Was it as involving as previous books in the series?

Hmmm. ( Read more... ) I was left with a feeling of made-of-middle, of something that is necessary to get where we're going without being ... well, particularly interesting in itself.

Maybe I'm just grumpy with what seems to be turning into a cold, but it just felt like one big indrawn breath, and I want to know what the shout will be.

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It's all very well having titles with a unified theme, but every book has 'Fury' in it and there's another C and I tend to get muddled. But I checked. This one is where Tavi is a Captain at the start, so, Captain's it is.

I like this series. Roman style military plus a style of magic which is versatile within themes, so innovative uses combine with old reliables. You know enough of what they can do to be excited when a new application turns up. Plus of course plain old engineering still works.

The way the main character levels up in every book reminds me of Sharpe, or the Vorkosigan saga, and as I understand it is a standard feature of military series. It's great, because you're rooting for him by now, but you still can't see how he'll survive getting there from here. It's a tense ride even when you've already got the next book in the series in your hand.

The only nagging problem in this particular book was persistent use of the word 'insane', in a sloppy and never defined way. There's a female killer, and she's 'insane'. You can tell, on account of the look in her eyes and the thing where she kills people a lot. :eyeroll: (skip)She's eventually defeated by Our Hero telling her her daddy never loved her.
... no, I'm not kidding. That was it. He told her he never loved her and he never would and she got real angry and forgot to be the deadliest sword that ever lived.
Tavi made a wild guess that it would be her ouch spot, primarily because that's his issue, so it weaves in with the themes... but it still twinges the sexism thing some. Not badly though.
There's a lot of female characters, and while some are motivated by Their Man, some are merely using a man for camouflate, or simply supported by him. Strong characters in lots of different ways. So I think it's doing fine at feminism... though come to think I'd need to double check for Bechdel. There's a memorable two woman conversation but it might be about the man they both know. Hmmm.
The ablism inherent in just using the label 'insane' and figuring That Explains It though is... *sigh*
Mentally ill people are more likely to be victims of violence than neurotypical people. Does that get in the books? Not so much.
But insane-killer almost seems like it goes without saying.
ick.

That said, I'll shrug it off and read the next book in the series. I'm looking forward to the next book. Any fail twinges don't bother me enough not to enjoy the books. So I guess that works out.

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Space Marines again :-)
Women in space with guns, being competent and professional, and getting things done. Fun!
Even more sorts of aliens this time. And a prison break. And Grand Galactic Consequences.

The only part I had a problem with was the Consequences.
(skip)
When the Confederation setup was explained, with the really long war and the very busy universe full of many many many species with convergent yet conflicting biological imperatives, I thought that fully explained the persistence of the conflict. They fight, they keep fighting. Too many people, not enough in common, not enough real estate cause space is big but really populous.
Therefore the grand reveal that Secretly the Goo Made Them Do It was less than convincing. I mean, since when does it take secret puppetmasters to start a fight? I'd be more convinced if the puppetmasters were only ending one.

The characters were vivid and interesting and the story kept charging along and both playing fair with the clues and having a bunch of surprises. It's a good read.

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I like this one. Not only a 'women with guns in space' story, which is of late my favourite sort, but a 'competent women' story. Win!

It had a whole lot of fighting without making it seem boring. Instead of just boom boom boom it makes combat a series of logic puzzles. Plus explosions. So your brain is there for the interesting puzzles, which are played fairly so you can try and figure but not easy so you aren't ahead of the characters, and you know the characters and are in the pov of someone who cares professionally but intensely if they live, so that keeps you involved emotionally, and also, KABOOM! ... I like kabooms. So now I want to watch it with FX and surround sound.

... re-reading that, the 'interesting fights' thing seems a pretty basic necessity of the genre, but, you know, I've read some that really didn't have the hang of it.

I like the alien races and the way the alien thought patterns interlock to make problems and solutions. Okay, so there's one that's all about eating and one that's all about sex, which doesn't seem very much like a fully realised alien race, but the stories add twists and shades, and you can grasp the basics right quick.

I like how it turns out to be a mystery and it is giving you clues and plays through fair but isn't obvious until it happens.

I like this book. A lot.

And the best bit is I have the next one right here already :-)
... oh, unless I want to ration it. Once I read it I'm all caught up. Quandry.

I want to write good stories like this one, except I don't know the pieces well enough. I want to RPG scenarios like this, but I think I'd screw up and die a lot. If I want to do military type stuff I need a whole lot of studying first.

... well, duh.

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I've been trying to decide if this book is merely a bit rubbish or actually actively dangerous.
I think it's dangerous.

Not because it's advocating black magic or any of that rubbish. Go magic, use magic, whatever, do it responsibly and it's all cool.

It's because mentally ill people are not magic, yet somehow media continues with massive fail in noticing that.

Also, psychiatric and care staff are not evil and, importantly, your diagnosis is not a conspiracy.

Honestly, it's shit like this, accumulated and layered in with discrimination and bad information about mental illness, that stops people getting treated. Just layers and layers of message that say the treatment is worse and as long as you don't think about the label it doesn't apply and lalala Look, Real Magic, and people can die of this stuff.

Don't tell me it's only fiction. The message gets out there pervasively, the fear of treatment, and it's harmful in the real world.

This book starts with a young woman ( Read more... )

So basically it's a handbook on how to ignore mental illness and start an abusive relationship.

Actively dangerous.



I realise that it's written in a 'verse that does have real magic ( Read more... ). What this book is about is how teenagers are Right and pshrinks and carers and hospitals and parents are all Wrong, even when the teenagers have done violence. And that's as unhelpful as can possibly be.



It did give me some ideas for writing though. One problem with these magical worlds, and the big appeal of them for me, is having a set of perceptions that don't match those around you, yet are high stakes if correct. It's a useful metaphor for living with domestic violence or being the only one who takes smoke alarms seriously or seeing racism or a lot of other things on a lot of other scales, but when applied to mental illness, it gets dangerous if it encourages believing in what everyone else calls hallucinations. Plus if someone is wandering around seeing ghosts and unsure of what is physically real they are hallucinating, in the sense of not being able to distinguish between real dangers or taped ones. The only way to be sure would be having two different people who could compare notes. Preferably with a third who could be a bit objective about it, instead of having an interest in searching out which bits matched. So you'd get teams working in threes, two perceivers and a mundane who could read their notes. The mundane would also be the one with the science suggestions. Two Mulders and a Scully really, but it makes a lot of a difference to have two. And then you'd have a wider society based around these units. Maybe getting 4 teams together with a mundane to coordinate them all, for larger tasks, with different specialities. Instead of a lone hero you get a network, precisely because their perceptions don't match the commonly accepted norm. Support groups for the mystical. Including doctors and pshrinks who could try the medical explanations. And, importantly, Scully being right sometimes. Plus sometimes someone getting mentally ill in a way that wasn't just a misperception of their powers but was only about how 1 in 4 people do get ill.

The other way is irresponsible writing with only a negative impact on the world. Sometimes you're the first to notice something, but if you stay the only one, carrying on anyway isn't actually heroic. Especially when everyone else reckons you're ill.

... it's a horribly embarrassing moment when you look back and realise why they've been telling you that for years, but it is one that makes it a lot more likely you'll be able to start making your life work. Charging on regardless just digs a deeper hole, and makes the eventual day that much worse.

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It has been so long since I ordered something from Amazon I forgot my password and my debit card expired last March!
I think my entire entertainment budget has been going to Big Finish directly. Possibly a bit at the Television and Movie Store. A very little at Borders.
This time I know what Borders has (none of the sequels I now want) and I vaguely plan to stay indoors until January (since going to the supermarket yesterday. Many! Loud! Busy! Vicious! ... they won't let you out of an aisle even when it is totally packed and logic says if you get out there's room for them to get in. *shudders*)
So I ordered things from Amazon.

The problem with Amazon is always that thing where you can happily click click click more than you could ever carry. I mean if you've got an arm load of books you can think 'huh, this is maybe a lot of books', but if you just click things you wait until they send you the list and, oh, look, oops.
... which is also the bonus with Amazon.

Is anyone still reading Laurell K. Hamilton ? Well, anyone here, the sales figures say there's quite a lot of anyone. Did the porn to plot ratio go back to having some plot in it? I can't remember when I gave up on Anita Blake but it was when she never bothered to finish the detective parts and just had a lot of sex. I got really bored.

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I hadn't got around to reading any Temeraire books before because, really, dragon. I've read dragons. Lots and lots and lots. Very shiny, yes, but still, basically, dragons. Someone sitting on the back of a big flappy fire breather. All done.

Now I have read this book that seems like a general failure of imagination. Dragons with crew! Dragons kind of like naval battles only more awesome!

This rocks.

It helps that I'm familiar enough with the period setting to understand the manners and the social layers and stuff but not so familiar it's the same old same old. I mean I mostly know it from Sharpe, which isn't exactly extensive knowing there. So add dragons and it is new and shiny.

It is shiny enough I happily read the whole book before applying my usual tests. Women? Exist. But the point of view means we never see two have a conversation. People of color? Well there's a bit from the next book in the series in the back, but other than that, not so much. I'm slightly concerned it'll pick up the same Issues as the texts it's riffing on. I mean by the end of this one the point of view character has noticed women are equals, after a rocky start, so that's fun, fixing the era, but new texts are always a bit worrying. Until one has read something one does not know if the things valued in the source text and the things the writer wants to tweak are what the reader values and wants changed. If it's the opposite way around the reading experience can get a bit sandpaper.

At the moment I'm pretty much on 'Dragons! More awesome!'
so that's just fun.

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and wishing I had a working light other than the ceiling one.

Peacekeeper, but Laura E Reeve.
It was in the science fiction section with a picture of a woman with a big gun on the front cover. So I bought it.
Surprise, the picture is inaccurate. There was not in fact much shooting, or indeed a bit I can remember where she had a big gun. Also, the cover lady is blonde, and I think the book lady is dark. Why they always do that?
... because then I bought the book. Oh well.

What it does have is fun and interesting world building. It's all familiar bits, but nicely arranged. There's interesting had with electronic monitoring, privacy, remote bots, and every surface being a display surface. The technical constraints of starships in this 'verse are well sketched in, the FTL constraints shape the worlds, and the weapons are central. But rather than being a book about shooting things, it's a book about getting rid of weapons too terrible to use. Cool.

Central female character still isn't quite what I was looking for. She's someone things happen to. ( Read more... )
At the moment the world building is interesting me more than the character building. But I'll read the next one in the series if I find it.


Possibly I could find a whole bunch more women-with-guns-and-spaceships if I read ones written by men. I just want to avoid some of the more common problems. I mean, there was a book series recommended to me by a guy at the NSFG that he said had lots of strong women characters and I'd like it. They're all sex maniacs, but it's because of the plot! So clearly that's okay! :eyeroll: *facepalm*


On the plus side I have a women-with-guns-and-spaceships book by an author I know I'll like all waiting for me to read next. But I can't read it yet. Because, despite the poorly set out list on the inside cover, it's not the next one in the series after the ones I read already, there's a whole other book I don't got yet. Yaay! More good books! Now I just have to hunt them down.

Is good. Bounces along. New characters + old character cameos + old characters. It might have been better had I ever ... actually watched a football game that I can remember... but then again it did achieve the great feat of making me feel like I understood the appeal. Of crowds even. Which would usually seem to me a small slice of hell. Well, still did, but ... with... something. Um, go read, it makes sense while you're reading.

I remembered to eat today cause I cleverly bought small food that needed no preparation. But I did not stop when SJA got recorded, or any of the other things the recorder box can deal with. So is good book.

The cover on Amazon has Ianto, the cover on the actual book has Jack. I sulks. But it's more accurate this way. This story things Jack Is The Greatest, and everyone else just wanders into trouble and needs rescuing. And the more I read, the more I really miss Owen and Tosh, or at least a medic and a tech. Because without them we don't have a SF solution to the SF story, we just have Jack, who puts bullets in things. A lot. And hits them. And shoots things some more. And I've got to tell you, that gets old, especially in writing.
( Read more... )

So I think it ended up kind of bad.

As an illustration of why Torchwood really needs a medic and a tech and, you know, a brain, it worked fairly well.

I just don't think it was trying to do that.

Go. Buy it. LOL.

... yeah, that's pretty much my review. If I start typing the funny bits I'll type half the book. And if I type the scary adventure bits I'll type the other half.
Plus the LOL contributes to the plot and the plot is necessary to set up the LOL.
The relationships are front and center and important and everything. And, also, funny.

This is a proper good book.

Following the guidelines acquired at the book shop yesterday - pre 1960 hardbacks with dustcovers - I have found two books listed for £25 and £40 respectively. Actually the price range for one goes from £23 to £60, so it gets complicated, and costly. I think mine aren't in very good condition, dad was a reader not a collector, but that's still quite a bit more than I'd expect.

... mostly I look these things up on Amazon and they're selling for 1p. This collection I have is not a secret stash of richstuff, on the whole.

I kind of love the cover art. It's so very 50s.


The Galaxy Science Fiction Omnibus Edited by H L Gold 1955 First Edition Hardback with dustcover a bit torn on the cover but has all its pages and only a couple of x marks the good stuff on the index page.
Stories by Isaac Asimov, John Wyndham, Fritz Leiber, and a whole bunch of people I've not so much heard of.
( Read more... )

That looks interesting. I'd probably read it, if it didn't make me sneeze and need to wash my hands a lot.
... there's layers of reasons I haven't got around to reading many of the inherited books.


The Best Science Fiction Stories Fourth Series edited by Everett F Bleiler & T E Dikty
Some Fritz Leiber and John Wyndham and lots of other people.
( Read more... )

... yep, sneezing again.

I bet I'll make bus money for the term off these two books.
... which isn't hard, my bus pass pays for most everything except first thing in the morning, but still, that would be cool.


I don't think I have many others that fit the description, most everything was from the SF book club in the 60s. But it's fun to look.


Also useful. I can't find these two on LibraryThing and I thought I'd finished that bookcase. :eyeroll:

Some tasks are never ending. Even without buying new books I find cataloging the ones I already got is one of those.


O.M.G.
The Golden Apples of the Sun, Ray Bradbury, 1953, printed by Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd, with drawings by Joe Mugnaini
quick search gets low end price £60, high end £160

*puts in sale bag very very carefully* ( Read more... )

ETA: I phoned mum and her reaction was "You can't sell that! That was your dad's!"
which is somewhat baffling since she's been encouraging me to sell them on other occasions.
except today she apparently has always resented that I got all the books despite dad leaving them to me and her never showing the slightest bit of interest before and indeed giving me ever more books.
so then it was "That's Ray Bradbury!" but she doesn't want the others or the paperbacks.
so it was just a random.
result being: mum will have that book.

I will never understand mum.

But that's okay.

I have 90 audios on LibraryThing, all of them Doctor Who, Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures.
That's... actually slightly embarrassing... given that I started listening to them Sunday, July 13th, 2008. No, wait, that was the first Big Finish, I started with audio books 2008-05-28 .
So I have just gone past one year of listening to audios. And in that year I have bought 90 on CD and have downloaded 4 more on subscription that haven't arrived in the post yet.
If I buy another 6 on subscription before July 13th I'll be up to a hundred in a year.
That's... sort of intensive consumption, there.

I think my paper book consumption has decreased symmetrically. There's only so many hours in a day.

Have a look here http://www.librarything.com/catalog/beccaelizabeth and see what I've been reading. There were also library books for school, but everything I've bought is in the LT.

The internet simples up soooooo many things.

I think I need to sell a lot of books. Like, a lot of books. Because there are books I'll re-read, often, and there are books I barely finished the first time through, and there are still several hundred books I inherited but have not read. I think I do not strictly speaking need to own books I don't really re-read, or don't actually like. I got sell many, many books.

... my plan to take in a few books every time I went to Norwich didn't exactly happen. It worked twice. I have a stack of books I definitely don't want, and yet, I still have them.

The CDs are even harder to justify. I reckon I can get up to the big 100 on the shelf they're currently on. After that? Will need a new shelf. And yet the vast majority of them are still pristine and plastic wrapped, because I could download them soon as I bought them. And it would be cheaper not to buy the CDs, just to buy the downloads. But I am still 20th century enough that I don't feel like I've bought anything until I can hold it in my hands. Hence the shelf full. Well, that, and the way I like walking in to the shop in Norwich and just picking up whichever is newest. I can walk into shops in Norwich! And they have things I want! Win!

You know, if I set out to just read stuff I already own, and not to buy any more things until I have read them all, I would probably be at it for several years. I shouldn't need more books.

... yet Borders will not be going out of business any time soon...

ZOMG soooo booooored

I'm on page 129 and seriously considering just not bothering.
Has anyone finished it? Does it get better? Is it just more of the same?
Because it has been a lot of the same so far. And all of it very, very cliche.

Plus there are canon errors.

spoiler cut, quotes within
( Read more... )

Basically this book is more fun to dissect and complain about than it is to read.
And I'm only half way through it.
And I can't think of any reason to finish reading.




... I probably will anyway. But only because I'm that sort of person.

If this was fanfic I'd have backpaged ages ago. As it is I paid for it, so I am going to consume all the words at least once.

ETA 1835: Finished book.
Yep, more of the same. Lots and lots more.
Still bored.

I shall type my notes under the lj-cut in case anyone wants to read them.
more spoilers.
( Read more... )

Final conclusion:
ZOMG so boring.

0.5 stars out of 5

I would have missed nothing if I'd stopped at page 120. Or, indeed, page 1.

I bought the new three Doctor Who books :-)
I bought all three at once, brought them home, then decided to read them one at a time, with gaps in between for Serious Studyings.
... er, yeah, that worked about as well as usual...

Judgement of the Judoon ( Read more... )

The Slitheen Excursion ( Read more... )

Prisoner of the Daleks ( Read more... )
So this was my favourite of the three, and it goes up there with my fav new series books.

ETA: Also, speaking of intertextual references, one of the characters grew up on Gauda Prime [p47]. Apparently it's a rough planet. :-)


Now I have run out of books again.
Why do they release books in threes anyways? If they put them out in ones with longer intervals I wouldn't have to have my own willpower! I never have willpower! I've ate all the biscuits again even though I knew they'd give me a headache! And I sleeped so late today I didn't go out at all cause everywhere was All Done by the time I had breakfast! Willpower is just not my strong point.

Oh well. There's always more audios.
... there's a theoretical possibility I'll actually listen to all the audios too.
But they keep making them so that's okay.

I'm definitely not looking forward to when they've made all the new 10th Doctor stuff there ever will be. Don't like that idea at all.

I started reading a new book by a new author this evening, and I sort of ground to a halt and started, erm, thinking other stuff mostly involving Owen Harper, which isn't particularly relevant.
So I sat down to think why this book wasn't pulling me in. ( Read more... )

So I've got a pretty clear idea of what isn't working for me.

The more I read other people's stuff lately the more I want to write something, because I can't seem to find what I'm after. Differences based on choice, equality and strong women relating to each other about something other than men, and the kind of power differential that lets me play with metaphoric representations of disability but still doesn't erase actual disabled people or their contributions. Team stories!

Why do I keep finding books with one central protagonist? In comics you get single character books *and* team books. Do novels just not do that? I've seen more innovation in fanfic, with sequential point of view shifts that give you something from each of the team. I seem to keep on picking up books where One Special Snowflake has to battle a world where everybody else is too dumb to live. Er, okay, overstating it slightly, story can focus entirely through central character and still be fun. Miles Vorkosigan is all about the quality of his team. But... there's so many layers of but I'm just really frustrated.

Where's the partners stories even? Not the unequal partnership or the will they won't they romance, the equal partners getting the job done?

I think I'm going to go read the Diane Duane wizardry books through again in the near future, because they might be about teenagers or talking cats, but they actually fit my criteria. People working together, differences cause they've studied different things, towering forces opposed by sticking together.

I'm so grumbly.
I'll go sleep.