This week I've been working a bunch and desperately trying not to catch the nasty cold that's cutting a swath through my coworkers. On the more positive side, I've been writing and playing music and spending time with people I like, but those things also take a toll physically and emotionally. What I'm trying to say, here, is that I really wanted to just watch The Magicians tonight and enjoy it, without worrying about cranking out a coherent 500-1000 word recap.
Instead, I decided to live tweet the show. It's not as comprehensive as my usual, but it was still fun. The official show account teased me for criticizing the writing, but I stand by what I said. Here's a storify of my tweets from the hour.
Like I said, not as much detail as we're used to, but if there are things I missed that you want to discuss, hit me up in the comments!
Itās only the third episode of the season, but we are getting into some season-finale levels of drama. Storylines are converging. Characters are in real danger.
Thereās so much going on, and Iām sure I missed things. This might not be the most coherent analysis, but I promised a blog post, and a blog post you shall have.
Warning for language, mention of violence against humans and animals.
The Beastās Curse on Castle Whitespire
Who knew sitting on a Fillorian throne would bring about the urge to murder the other monarchs? Martin apparently. I really enjoyed Penny as the last non-cursed man, cooperating with Fen to keep their only-recently-reconciled friends/lovers/found family from killing each other.
Iām not saying it wasnāt fun to watch, but it felt a little out of place compared to the emotional intensity of the rest of the episode.
Julia, Marina, and Martin in New York
The plan to summon Reynard works, although not exactly as Julia and Marina planned. Martin teleports Julia out of the room before Marina can finish the summoning, and then takes his sweet time unpicking the wards on her apartment (hmmm). Meanwhile, Reynard is inside horrifically torturing Marina. I appreciate the brave face that Marina puts on as Reynard turns her cat inside out and talks about eating her alive. This is some horror movie shit, you guys.
Julia and Martin drop back in just in time, prepared to kill Reynard with the knife. This is all taking place at the exact same second that Alice is powering up her battle magic in Fillory. Pennyās job is to travel to Earth, grab The Beast and bring him back so Alice can do her thing. But Pennyās lost one of the bindings that Sunderland put on his wrist and Julia is too close to The Beast. She ends up getting dragged into the fray as well, leaving Marina to grapple with Reynard.
The Aftermath
Alice manages to wound but not kill The Beast, perhaps because she was pulling her punches to not hurt Julia? I definitely need to watch this bit again. Martin disappears, one of his arms rendered useless. Everyone else blames each other or themselves for a few seconds, as is customary. Then Penny grabs Julia and transports her back to Earth, sans Martin, and she is pissed so she tears off his other bracelet, leaving him with no control over his magic.
The last shot we see of Julia is her kneeling by Marinaās bloodied body, quite likely blaming herself for another death and for letting Reynard get away. This is framed as a wound Julia wonāt recover from easily. I suspect when Martin resurfaces, she might be vulnerable enough to ask him to remove her shade, as heās been offering. I also have suspicions about how and when the knife is going to show up again, but those are influenced a bit by some things that happen in the books so Iāll keep my mouth shut for now to avoid spoilers.
Final Confrontation
Meanwhile, the kings and queens of Fillory regroup. Eliot and Margo go to petition Ember for help, but heās not immediately available because heās pooping in the well so Martin canāt use the water to heal himself. Totally fits with what we saw of Ember last seasonāheās disgusting most of the time, but occasionally in useful ways. Is the rest of the season going to be about how the universe is out of balance because a god took a dump in the source of all magic? Tune in next time to find out.
Alice and Quentin travel by carriage to confront The Beast. Emboldened by the fact that heās probably going to be dead soon, Quentin initiates a frank discussion about his feelings for Alice. She lets him get away with exactly zero bullshit and they kiss.
When they finally face The Beast, heās wounded but still powerful. Quentin jumps in front of an attack and is wounded. Aliceās god powers desert her. Se resorts to the patchwork spell she invented in āConsequences of Advanced Spellcastingā to save Charlie. Thatās a respectable foreshadowing game, man. The spell burns through Alice, turning her into a niffin, a being of heightened magical power and malice. She tears The Beast apart with her bare hands.
Newly absent a moral compass, Alice turns on Quentin. He probably would have tried to talk sense into her right up until she murdered him if Margo and Eliot werenāt there to draw her fire. Unable to watch his friends suffer, Quentin releases his cacodemon and watches it kill Alice. Quentin tries to move towards her body, in denial. Eliot and Margo know exactly what happened and do their best to keep him away.
So here is where we leave our intrepid heroes at the end of the episode:
Penny: MIA, not in control of any of his powers
Julia: Emotionally wrecked, allies gone
Marina: Dead
Cupcake the Cat: Dead
The Beast/Martin: Dead
Alice: Dead
Quentin: Physically wounded and responsible for the death of the woman he loves
Eliot: Alive, probably going to try to pick up the broken pieces of Quentin
Margo: Also alive, probably going to try to have sex with a talking horse
Fen: ???
Fogg: Didnāt miss him tbh
Kady: Absent from the credits, present in my heart
I could literally ramble for 1000 more words, but I need to sleep. Do come discuss the finer points of Aliceās ice cream toppings or Margoās love of Conan the Barbarian in the comments with me, though.
This was a very solid follow-up to last week's premiere. We have a lot of different storylines already, so "Hotel Spa Potions" felt a little rushed to me. Still, it's all good stuff, as I've broken down below:
The Brakebills at Brakebills
Through the fountain and to Earth we go. Quentin and co. need to learn battle magic that can kill The Beast. They go on a scavenger hunt through the library in order to track down Bigby, a former Brakebills professor and old flame of Dean Foggās. Itās all fun to watch, if a tad drawn out.
Alice blames herself for not killing The Beast, and her guilt combined with her waning god powers drive her to get this done. Her insistence to Quentin that ānot everything that hurts is badā is worrying.
Penny gets an assist with his out-of-control magic from Professor Sunderland. Honestly this is my favorite thing from this ep, itās such a good companion to the scene in āThe Strangled Heart.ā Sunderland performs a ritual that involves tying Pennyās hands, because light bondage is the real source of magic. Penny starts trying to seduce her again, but heās less aggressive this time, almost clumsy. By stepping in as his teacher to help him, and by turning him down in no uncertain terms, sheās re-established boundaries. Good for her.
Then we got to see the cacodemon scene and I died of happiness. In a direct shout-out to the first book, Dean Fogg give Quentin, Margo, Penny, and Alice tattoos. The tattoo serves as a portable prison for a powerful demon that the wearer can release with a word. The plan in this case is to have the demons distract The Beast, giving Alice time to deploy her battle magic.
Eliot in Fillory
In the absence of his friends, Eliot faces his first challenges as High King. Thanks to the Beastās magical drain, the crops arenāt growing. Luckily for the starving populace, Eliot grew up on a farm. Heās well-equipped to learn them a thing or two about agriculture, mostly by hand-delivering manure to skeptical citizens who have only ever fertilized with magic. Itās funny and a little poignant to see Eliot embracing his least favorite parts of himself for the greater good.
Fen gets to have a bit more personality in this one. As Eliot said last week, I think I like her. Sheās devoted to Fillory and to helping her husband succeed as a ruler. They clash, albeit politely, over sex. Eliot proposes inviting other partners into their bedroom as a sort of compromise, and Fen isnāt interested. She also points out the inherent consent issuesāno one feels comfortable saying ānoā to their king. I didnāt love that the last season ended with Eliot in this marriage, and Iām glad this season is tackling that problem head on. I feel for both of them here, and I hope the show continues to explore their dynamic.
Thereās also the little matter of the curse that The Beast put on Castle Whitespire, but Eliot doesnāt know about that and itās not clear if his struggles so far are curse-related or not.
Julia and Martin in New York
Julia is working on a way to summon Reynard. Sheās willing to offer herself up as bait, but Martin claims Reynard wonāt be tricked. They need someone new. I was expecting this to be Kady, but Martin shows up with Marina, the leader of the safe house where Julia cut her hedgewitch teeth. Julia isnāt up for holding Marina against her will, which Martin sees as a sign of weakness. He reiterates his offer to remove her shade/emotions, she makes a counter offer to remove some of his body parts.
Back on the street, Marina recognizes the threat posed by the Julia-Martin partnership and tries to team up with her West Coast counterpart to take them down. But Reynard gets there first, killing the other hedgewitch. This is the first time weāve seen Marina truly scared, I think. She goes to Brakebills to ask for help and gets rebuffed by Dean Fogg before returning to New York. Marina has never been a favorite character for me, but Iām kind of enjoying her and Julia and their āso done with your shitā faces back together again.
Quentin and Julia have a brief reunion in New York, unbeknownst to any of their co-conspirators. They both want some of the same things, in the big picture senseāto go back to Fillory, to have magic in both worlds remain intactābut their short-term goals are at odds. Watching them admit that theyāre on opposite sides again is tough, but that just seems to be the way it goes with these two.
Let me know what you think in the comments, and see you next week!
Warning: This post contains discussion of rape, murder, and torture.
Iāve been vibrating with excitement over The Magicians premiere for like a week now, and āKnight of Crownsā did not disappoint. Lots of stuff happened in this episode, and you all know how I feel about stuff when it happens.
Julia and Martin on Earth
Julia is holding the only weapon that can kill Martin/The Beast, so she offers him a deal. She wonāt kill him as long as he helps her get her revenge on Reynard, the trickster god who took over her mentor/friend/lover Richardās body, raped her, and killed her friends. Once Reynard is dead, provided Martin hasnāt harmed Julia, Quentin, or any of Quentinās friends, sheāll hand over the knife. They seal the agreement with a magical sigil that will automatically kill Martin if he breaks it. Iām unclear on what the consequences for Julia will be if she doesnāt hold up her part of the bargain, but letās assume theyāre also dire.
Both Julia and Martin are magically talented, both were denied their desires (Brakebills and Fillory, respectively), and both were victims of sexual assault. Martin, despite his stated desire to find a loophole in Juliaās deal, takes a bit of a shine to her. While she struggles with the aftermath of the rape, he offers her a way out of her paināa spell that will remove her deepest self, her āshade.ā Julia is clearly tempted by the offer, but she sees that Martin, cut off from his own emotions, has become a predator in his own right and refuses. For now, anyways.
These sections of this episode felt slow to me, even if they did pack an emotional punch. It was so satisfying to see Julia and Quentinās storylines converge last season, and Iām sorry to see them separated again. New York has grown even grayer and grittier to contrast with the lush fantasyland that is Fillory.
The Brakebills in Fillory
This part of the episode was everything I could have asked for and more. The plot is basicāThe Beast is still at large, and without the knife the gang needs a new weapon. Quentin, still our foremost Fillory expert, suggests the armory, a stockpile of books in Castle Whitespire that holds texts on powerful battle magic (Side note: magic that Rupert Chatwin may have used to win World War II. Iām actually very curious about Rupert. He was the only Chatwin to enter Fillory for the first time as an adult, and heās also possibly buried there. Since the book-to-show adaptation had no problem ditching two Chatwin sisters, I imagine they must have needed Rupert around for something).
Before they can get to the castle, Eliot needs to be crowned high king, and crown his three co-rulers. This scene, with the titular knight, is both absurd and touching. The Magicians flirts with being a little too self-aware at times, and I tend to cringe at pop-culture references shoehorned into my fantasy. That said, I would not trade Eliot reciting the final speech from Dirty Dancing for anything in the world.
The whole impromptu crowning ceremony gives the group a chance to start patching up their somewhat tattered relationships. There are apologies and affirmations all around, but I particularly like Eliotās face when Quentin asks him to kneel. Itās the perfect mix of I want to make a dirty joke right now and Iām still not totally over that time we had sex and Thank you for believing in me when I donāt believe in myself.
Penny, with his hands newly re-attached, stays in character and well out of all this sappy nonsense. Which like, okay, heās not actually getting a crown, but maybe he has some issues he needs to talk about? Or possibly he would just like a hug and/or a forehead kiss? Anyways, Iām glad to see that heās physically intact (letās be honest, this show has better things to do with its budget than CGI Arjun Guptaās hands off), but Iām also glad he doesnāt get off too easily. The least genre-savvy character, he breaks one of the cardinal rules of traveling in a magical land: always, always be polite to strangers you meet in the woods. Now Penny, who went to such lengths last season to learn control, has more unpredictable quirks to his magic.
āKnight of Crownsā puts down some groundwork for the rest of season. Here are some dangling plot threads that I sincerely hope will be picked up again:
-The vial of Quentinās blood has to come up again. Otherwise, why the whole sequence in the woods with the healer/witch?
-The time-sensitivity on Aliceās godlike powers intrigues me, but mostly because itās been implied that Julia has similar abilities. Not to be gross, but does the manner in which god-semen enters the body affect the endurance of its effects? Ā
-I loved the tree growing scene, and that Alice initiates the kiss. An arc where Alice discovers her own strength would be fantastic, and if Quentin can be helpful and supportive without asking for anything in return, so much the better.
-The time difference between Fillory and Earthāwhatās Eliot going to get up to while Quentin and co. are back at Brakebills? He might have years to rule Fillory by himself. I appreciate the poignancy of the scene between him and Quentin, but like, why not just leave Margo there too?
-Whatās up with Eliotās wife? She could be a valuable source of information, but she is mostly being ignored right now. I hope she doesnāt wind up dead just so Eliot can have feelings. Enough bad things have happened to him, guys, letās just chill for a minute
-Okay this is digging back into season one stuff, but whatever happened to the Margolem? Is she in a closet somewhere? Is she attending classes at Brakebills, pretending to be Margo? There were some problematic elements of that subplot but I still want to know
-Not really a plot thing, but I miss Kady.
Iām predicting that from this point on, the series will continue to diverge from book canon, like Game of Thrones or True Blood did. The showrunners are doing their own thing here, and I canāt wait to see where they take it.
Hello lovelies! January is flying by, I think in part because Iām not used to winter in North Carolina. Shouldnāt I be hip deep in snow and miserable right now? But anyways, I did promise you an update about what to expect from me in the coming months, so here goesā¦
Ā Working
Ā As of about a week ago, Iām working full time again! My schedule is still settling in, but right now Iām teaching instrument lessons 1-2 days a week and working at a bookstore the rest of the days. I promise this blog wonāt turn into āAndieās Adventures in Working Retail,ā but my employee discount is pretty sweet and should keep me sufficiently inspired to write
Ā Reading
Ā I want to keep discovering new books, series, and authors, but I also want to read deeply, to really engage with the texts. Iām going to start by re-reading some books I consider influences, but maybe havenāt visited in a while. On top of the pile right now are Stephen Kingās On Writing, Mary Doria Russelās The Sparrow, and Cate Tiernanās Speak series. Iāll let you know how thatās going periodically.
Ā Writing
Ā ā¦is a thing that I do, still. Draft six of the novel is underway, currently. More tidbits about that process on my Twitter, as always.
Ā Watching
Ā If you follow me on Twitter or Tumblr, you know that Iām super excited for the second season of The Magicians, which starts next week. The show has moved to Wednesday nights, so Iāll be posting recaps here every Thursday. Looking forward to yelling about that with all of you.
Ā So thatās whatās coming up for me in 2017! Whatās new with you?
Ninjas donāt wear black. They used to disguise themselves as civilians. Unlike ninjas in movies, the real guys were smart enough to know that wearing a black outfit with a face mask wasnāt the best strategy for blending in. Source
But this leaves out the really neat part! The reason we equate the above image with a ninja comes from Kabuki theatre. Within Kabuki theatre thereās a convention of having Kuroko (stage hands) dress in all black (with a full face covering) and move around among the costumed actors in full view, moving scenery, props and costumes. In a similar way, Bunraku puppeteers dress in all black, and only the lead puppeteerās face would be uncovered.Ā The audience knew to ignore these people and focus on the actors, and to only see that the scene was āmagicallyā changing. So when a play called for a ninja assassin to jump out of nowhere and kill someone, the easiest way to create the surprise reveal was to disguise the ninja in the all black garb of the Kuroko and to remove the face covering and start acting at the last second. This would shock the audience, who were conditioned toĀ not focus on them. Pretty cool, yeah?
About a year ago, I posted a run-down of the books I read in 2015, as well as three separate posts detailing my reading plans for 2016. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it is not the soul of this blog.
That was early January, but since it feels unlikely that I'm going to finish anything tomorrow, I thought I'd get a jump on the reflecting. This year, I made myself a spreadsheet to track my reading (my engineer husband is so proud). I finished 87 books. Of those, 42 were written by people of color, which is a drastic improvement from my mostly-white 2015 reading list. The breakdown of author gender was pretty similar, with about 2/3 female authors and only one non-binary author.
Wiser people write about the issue of diversity in publishing every day, but hereās my two cents: I had a harder time finding new fiction by people with backgrounds different from my own. These books were not always on library or bookstore shelves. Many of the ones I did find were indie or self-published, rather than from a major publishing house. The discrepancy has certainly made me more conscious about where I spend my book-buying dollars.
I read more nonfiction this year- thirteen books total. A good percentage of those were writing books that I read in an effort to improve my own craft, or maybe figure out what genre the book Iām writing is (With some help from friends and books, I've settled on calling it paranormal suspense). Reading with a goal in mind helps decrease the feeling that Iām doing pointless homework.
There was less fantasy this year, or maybe it just looks that way because I stopped lumping āparanormalā in with āfantasy." There were a lot more romances this yearāI was craving happy endings, for sure. According to my lovely spreadsheet I read somewhere in the neighborhood of 24,600 pages total, which is a basically meaningless number because of font sizes and different editions and illustrations and such, but still fun to look at.
Iāll be back sometime next week to let you know what to expect from this blog in 2017 (hint: it is mostly books and yelling about The Magicians). In the meantime, here are my favorites from the past twelve months:
Favorite New Series: Gail Carrigerās Parasol Protectorate. I picked up Soulless back when it first came out in 2009. I canāt remember if I was having paranormal burnout or het romance burnout or what, but I didnāt finish it then. Iām so pleased I got it out of the library again. Iāve never purchased a box set that fast.
Favorite Continuing Series: The Obelisk Gate is the second book in the Broken Earth Trilogy. N.K. Jemisin continues to break my heart in new and creative ways.
Favorite Re-Imagined Story: The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. I love a good fairy tale retelling. Even though Iāve never read Hale before, this felt like coming home.
Favorite Classic That I Finally Got Around To: Kindred by Octavia Butler. Newer, as āclassicsā go, but wrenching and still so necessary.
Favorite Comic: I am a little sad to be coming to the end of Alan Mooreās run on Swamp Thing, which gets better and better as it goes.
Favorite Surprise Discovery/Debut Author: Iāve already written about how much I found Mishell Bakerās Borderline thanks to a bookstore staff recommendation. Itās a stunning paranormal mystery full of complex characters, fairies, and modern Hollywood intrigue, and Iām so so happy I picked it up.
Favorite Overall: Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen is the 16th book in Lois McMaster Bujoldās Vorkosigan Saga. Bujold has incredible range as a writer, but this is how I like her bestāsci-fi with a twist of family drama, romance, and comedy.
What other excellent and life-changing literature did you experience this year? Tell me in the comments, and have a safe and happy new year.
Hi there! Itās been a while. This started off as a lighthearted piece about when it's good to come back to something you had previously given up on- a book, a television series, a story idea. Something more personal was lurking under the desire to write about those things, apparently. Be warned, feelings ahead:
My husband and I moved to Charlotte about two months ago. Weāre about as settled as we can get considering the place weāre renting now is intentionally temporary, somewhere to stay while we look for a house to buy. There are lots of boxes that it doesnāt quite feel worthwhile to unpack, pictures that donāt go on the wall because theyāll just be coming down again so soon. Iām trying to make myself comfortable with the transience.
The first time I visited Charlotte was in 2012. I was with my then-boyfriend-now-husband. He was in town for a business related conference, which weāve since realized are not good things for me to tag along on. There wasnāt anything objectively bad about the city. We had friends already living here, and we could have moved then, too. At the end of the week, though, we looked at each other and decided we would stay in Connecticut. It wasnāt until this past spring, three apartments, three jobs, one wedding, and almost four years later, that we really reconsidered.
The view from our porch
It wasnāt love at first sight. Maybe itās not even love at all yet. When my family and friends ask how Iām doing, I want to be enthusiastic. I want to tell them that everything is perfect, but I canāt yet. Iām tired of the traffic, the job search, the way I canāt walk or run in my neighborhood. I miss the people Iām far away from.
But there are good things, too. A new coffee shop, a band to play in, a part-time job. The weather is glorious. Weāve been hiking, an activity I resisted for years but found myself enjoying in practice. Iām finding my footing, one step at a time. There is enough here to convince me that Charlotte will be worth the second try.
Hope everyone is settling in right where they need to be this week- talk to you soon.
I get scared easily. You could call me a wimp, and you wouldnāt be wrong. I approach horror movies with extreme caution. If Iām going to watch one, Iāll do it at home, where I can cover my eyes and keep a light on if I need to.
Still, sometimes itās fun to be a little scared. Iāve never had the same aversion to horror books that I do to horror movies. Itās easier for me to get past spooky stuff on a page than it is on a screen. Besides, when I read a book over the course of several days, it gives me time to get invested in the world and characters in a way I canāt with a two-hour movie. The thrills, when they come, donāt seem so cheap.
When I was a pre-teen, I loved authors who wrote about ghosts and hauntings, like Mary Downing Hahn and Betty Ren Wright. John Bellairs was my #1 favorite for years, although I have to admit I shamefully preferred some of his posthumously published, co-written books to the ones that were all Bellairs. (*whispers* sorry John I still love you if youāre a ghost and youāre reading this letās hang out).
As I got older and started to read more adult fiction, horror often blended with fantasy. I preferred the paranormal to straight-up thrillers. Still true. Thatās partly my general āwizards, aliens, or get outā attitude about fiction and partly self-defense. I can get a satisfying shiver from zombies or vampires, but Iām too much of a skeptic to worry about them after I close the book. Actual human monsters have been known to exist, though, and the feelings those stories inspire arenāt as easy to shake.
I remember being fifteen and reading House of Leaves while I lay in the grass outside my high school, waiting for my mom to pick me up. The sun was shining, but I was completely absorbed in this dark, twisty book about a book about a documentary about a house with hidden secrets and a family coming apart. File this one under āthings I am afraid to reread because adult perspectives might crush my happy memories.ā
I discovered H.P. Lovecraft, like many horror fans do. I also discovered that I prefer other authorsā pastiches of Lovecraft to the real thing. Neil Gaiman and CaitlĆn R. Keirnan come to mind. I read enough of the genuine article to understand what the fuss was about, though.
I came to Stephen King relatively recently. I canāt explain my reluctance on this front, except I have a giant hipster mental block that makes me assume I will dislike anything that lots of other people like. Iāve read Pet Semetary, The Shining, and āSalemās Lot all within the last year. Theyāre all really good, good enough to shut up my hipster brain for a bit.
Being a lightweight horror fan is good in the way being a lightweight drinker isāit takes way less effort to get my fear-buzz on. If you have any good books to recommend, Iāll be over here, with the lights on.
These days I do most of my reading on my Kindle. Itās portable and easy to support when Iām lying on my side in bed (which is where I do a lot of my reading). The only downside is that for convenienceās sake, I wind up giving a lot of my book budget money to Amazon. So, in the name of supporting local businesses, I do try to buy something whenever I find myself in an actual bookstore.
Even big box stores like Barnes & Noble wonāt always have exactly what Iām looking for, so I feel like itās best to go in without specific goals. Almost anywhere will order a book for me if itās not on the shelves, of course, but I find joy in aimless browsing.
I love it when stores have displays that highlight the employeeās favorites. Who better to recommend a book that the people who work in the bookstores? A couple weeks ago a placard caught my eye at the Savoy Bookshop. I donāt recall the name of the staff member, but the novel was Borderline by Mishell Baker. The description seemed to be full of things that I likeāurban fantasy, adventure, fairiesāso I bought it.
I was and still am immensely pleased with my decision. Borderline isnāt a short book (around 400 pages) but I tore through it in less than two days. I havenāt been able to stop thinking about it since.
The story centers on Millie, a former film student and double amputee with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) living in Los Angeles. A year after the suicide attempt that cost Millie her legs, she gets offered a job with the mysterious Arcadia Project. Enticed by the prospect of re-entering the world and possibly the film industry, she accepts.
The Arcadia Project is a pseudo-governmental agency that regulates traffic between the human and fairy worlds. A gate hidden in Los Angeles allows fey creatures to travel to the human world, but there are strict rules about what they can do while theyāre here. The fairies in Borderline play to a lot of the same tropes that weāve come to expect. Theyāre sensitive to iron, they canāt lie, theyāre functionally immortal and can change their appearance at will. Still, most of them move effortlessly in the modern world, moonlighting as movie stars or bartenders without humans catching on.
The plot is twisty, fast-paced, and fun. Millie and her new coworkers are assigned to track down a missing member of the fey nobility, which leads them to a deeper conspiracy involving both fairies and humans. Millieās narrating voice really shines. Sheās self-depreciating but smart, capable in many ways but vulnerable in others. Her disabilities arenāt just set dressing, nor are they treated as blessings in disguise. Theyāre indelible parts of her life, and they create challenges that need to be considered just as seriously as any supernatural threats.
One of my favorite things was the interaction between Millie and the other members of the Arcadia Projectāher enigmatic boss Caryl, her cranky idealistic partner Teo, and her delightfully catty rival Gloria, among others. They come this close to being a heartwarming found family, but the book doesnāt give them quite enough time to get past their own emotional baggage. The opportunity to learn more about the whole cast is one of the reasons Iām glad to hear thereās a sequel scheduled for 2017.
That was my discovery this month. Whatās been your best bookstore find recently? Let me know in the comments, and have a great week!
Songs That Remind Me of Books, Science Fiction Edition
My post on songs that remind me of fantasy novels is here. Like I said, these book-to-song associations have more to do with the workings of my own brain than with actual plot or lyrical content. I know there are dozens of rock songs that directly quote or name drop 1984, but youāve probably heard of those already. Here are some tunes that remind me of my favorite dystopias and space operas:
Song:Ā āPompeiiā by Bastille
Book: Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee
Biting the Sun, originally published as the two novellas Donāt Bite the Sun and Drinking Sapphire Wine, is one of my all-time favorite dystopias. In this vision of the future, there are no evil overlords intent on oppressing the human race. Instead, there are just super-helpful robots who are intent on doing everything for us. Bored and disaffected by all the state-sanctioned hedonism, the heroine goes to great lengths to find authenticity in her own life. There is a volcano, actually, but thatās only a warm-up act to the disasters that take place later on, leaving the characters wondering what life after is going to look like.
Song: āTeamā by Lorde
Books: Uglies Series by Scott Westerfield
Thereās something a little dystopian about a lot of Lordeās songsāit seemed really fitting that she has a song on the soundtrack to the Mockingjay movie. āTeamā in particular seems to speak to a life lived off the grid, breaking rules and living by your own code. Uglies, like Biting the Sun, imagines a world where humans are provided with every possible luxury and the chance to be inhumanly beautiful. Over the course of the trilogy, the main characters find out that thereās a hidden cost for all of it, and they have to decide if the compromise is worth it.
Song: āThe Gamblerā by Fun
Books: The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold
I spent the summer of 2012 working at summer school, drinking at bars, playing in bands, reading every book in the Vorkosigan Saga, and listening to the albums Aim and Ignite and Some Nights on a constant loop. It makes some sense, then, that I relate the music of the band Fun with the works of author Lois McMaster Bujold. āThe Gamblerā is one of my favorite tracks for a lot of reasonsāthe lyrical melody, the surprise French horn solo, and the way a 4-minute song manages to tell the whole history of a family. Bujoldās series is like that, too. Each book stands alone, but the saga taken together tells the story of Miles Vorkosigan and the people caught up in his orbit. The most recent entry, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, is my favorite book of 2016 so far.
Song:Ā āHands Cleanā by Alanis Morissette
Book: Crystal Line by Anne McCaffrey
Iāve written before about my love for the audiobook of McCaffreyās Crystal Singer trilogy. The last book, Crystal Line, is the only one I read in print before listening to. It was the winter of 2002, and Alanis Morissetteās āHands Cleanā was all over VH1, my preferred method for experiencing new music, at the time. The lyrics are about a young woman having a secret affair with an older man, rumored to be based on actual events in Morissetteās past. I was thirteen and I hadnāt had a job or a boyfriend yet, let alone a romance with my boss. But Killashandra Ree has exactly that in Crystal Singer. By the third book, that relationship gets swept under the rug thanks to circumstances that I find more chilling as I get older.
Thatās my science fiction playlist. Enjoy your week, everyone!
Recently a friend emailed me saying she wanted to try reading something by Neil Gaiman and asked if I had any recommendations. My first reaction was to be gratified that someone had recognized me for a Gaiman superfan and wanted my expert opinion as such. When the glow of flattery wore off, though, I was overwhelmed. Thereās so much to choose from. Where to begin?
After a little dithering, I did manage to send a reasonably coherent email back. Iāve adapted it here for Gaiman virgins and veterans alike. Heās written and contributed to works for all ages and across many different genres, so you can stick with what you know or try something completely new.
All Time Favorite: Good Omens (co-authored by Terry Pratchett)
My first encounter with Gaimanās work was his collaboration with another favorite author of mine, Terry Pratchett. Good Omens is a novel about the Apocalypse, as predicted in The Book of Revelation. Except itās funny. Iāve given this as a gift many times. I also find opportunities to quote Good Omens in my daily life, thanks in no small part to all the music jokes (If Iāve ever confused you by attributing āFat Bottomed Girlsā to Ralph Vaughn Williams, this is why).
Short Stories: Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
I resent 90% of all short stories, but I love the ones by Neil Gaiman. They are bizarre and haunting, full of familiar characters from fairy tales and classic literature reimagined and made strange. Fragile Things is my personal favorite collection of his but Smoke and Mirrors has many gems as well. If you like those, the novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane maintains the folkloric, dreamy feel of his best stories while being a bit longer.
Comic: The Sandman (illustrated by various artists)
This series was what got me into American comics, and I'm very pleased it did. The central plot concerns Morpheus, the King of Dreams. But in a universe where everything you dream exists in a parallel reality, anything is possible, and Gaiman thoroughly explores those possibilities. If youāve been thinking about getting into comics but are daunted by the sheer volume of complex worlds and stories out there, Sandman is a good place to start. Also it's available at any library with even a small graphic novel selection. I own the 7 1/2 pound hardcover editions and reread at least once a year.
Adult Novel: Anansi Boys
I recommend this to first-time Gaiman readers since itās fun and stands alone. The main character, Fat Charlie, discovers that his father is the West African trickster god Anansi. It takes place in the same universe as American Gods, which is obviously a masterpiece but it's very sad and dense and I need to be in the right mood for it. Anansi Boys is, by comparison, a romp.
Radio Play: Neverwhere (dramatized by Dirk Maggs)
This has also been a novel and a miniseries, but I think the BBC4 radio adaptation really shines. Starring James McAvoy, Natalie Dormer, and a host of other notable voices, itās a wonderfully creepy portal fantasy about a city beneath a city. Highly recommended if youāre into London and its tube stops.
Middle Grade: Coraline (illustrated by Dave McKean)
Another portal fantasy, on a smaller scale. Coraline is transported to an alternate-universe version of her home, complete with her āOther Motherā and āOther Father.ā At first the new world is wonderful, but soon turns sinister and dangerous. It skips the gross-out factor present in lots YA and adult horror, but itās still delightfully spooky and suspenseful.
Picture Book: Ā The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (illustrated by Dave McKean)
I donāt read a lot of picture books these days, but I delighted and terrified some kindergarteners with this once. The illustrations are quirky and complex, with lots of details that kids love to point out and wonder about. Itās also just scary enough to be fun.
Those are my best ones for Neil Gaiman. What do you recommend to people who are curious about your favorite author?
Iām not that good at keeping up with new releases. So many of the books I want to read are already published. Some of them are on my bookshelf. Even if Iām interested in an upcoming book, thereās very rarely one that I need to start reading as soon as it comes out. Most of them can wait.
There are exceptions, of course, usually by my favorite authors. Here are three that I will need to have on my Kindle as soon as humanly possible:
The Obelisk Gate, N.K. Jemisin, August 16th, 2016
I read my first book by N.K. Jemisin three years ago, and I havenāt shut up about her since. The Obelisk Gate is the second book in the Broken Earth series. The first book, The Fifth Season, was hands-down the best book I read last year. The story takes place on the Stillness, a continent plagued by natural disasters and social unrest. Unlike most of Jemisinās books, which tend to be self-contained, The Fifth Season ended on a pretty spectacular cliff hanger. Iām so excited to find out what happens next in The Obelisk Gate.
Goldenhand, Garth Nix, October 4, 2016
It would be difficult to overstate the influence Garth Nixās Old Kingdom series has had on me. I can trace my love of hyper-competent ladies fighting dead things right back to his books. The Within the borders of the kingdom, the dead donāt always stay dead, and a powerful necromancer called the Abhorsen is on hand to put them back in the ground. If that sounds like your jam, you should check out Sabriel, the first novel in the series, which was published in 1995. If youāve already visited the Old Kingdom, youāre probably also looking forward to catching up with your favorite characters, seeing as itās been more than ten years since The Creature in the Case.
Miranda and Caliban, Jacqueline Carey, February 14th, 2017
Jacqueline Carey has many talents. She moves smoothly between high fantasy and urban fantasy, coming-of-age stories and erotic romance, and everything in between. Her newest project is a re-imagining of The Tempest. Shakespeareās play focuses on Prospero, a wizard plotting revenge on a remote island. The novel will tell the story of Prosperoās daughter Miranda and his slave Caliban. I donāt have a lot of strong feelings about The Tempest (or Shakespeare in general, tbh) but I trust Careyās ability to recognize and tell an amazing story.Ā
Those three are at the top of my pre-order list right now. What new releases are you looking forward to?
Congratulations, everyone, we made it halfway through the year! It hasnāt been easy. The news has not been good. But here you are, six months in, still kicking, still making it work. Nice job. Iām proud of you.
It seems like a good time to check back in with the reading resolutions I set for myself in January. So far Iāve finished 41 books. I have a spreadsheet, you guys.
I have read as few as four or as many as seven nonfiction books. I was aiming for five, so okay, but why the discrepancy? Well, I didnāt really think this one through as well as I should have. I didnāt really have poetry in mind at first, but if you want to get technical, it is shelved in nonfiction. Then thereās the issue of books The Water is Wide, which walk a thin line between memoir and novel.
Of the four incontrovertibly, uncontestably nonfiction books I have read, two were about writing craft and two were about feminism. Make of that what you will.
Authors with Different Gender Identities
I was getting a little weary of goal setting by the time I came to gender. I read about an equal number of male and female authors last year, but to my knowledge no trans or non-binary authors. The very low bar I set for myself was a vague sort of āI can do betterā statement.
And Iāve doneā¦better, I guess, if you count one book. One in Every Crowd by Ivan E. Coyote is another semi-fictionalized memoir, geared towards a young adult audience. It deals with the narrator/authorās own experience growing up as a gender nonconformist in rural Canada, as well as their adult experiences mentoring queer youth.
Look, I donāt cry a lot. If I type āthis made me cryā in a text or a tweet or a blog post, you can read it as āthis made me emotional and maybe my eyes watered a little.ā But while I was reading One in Every Crowd there were big, wet, I-need-to-stop-and-get-a-tissue-before-I-short-out-my-Kindle tears running down my face. Five stars, highly recommend.
Other Observations
Most of the authors Iāve read are American, with a handful from the UK and a very small number from anywhere else. My most-read genre is sci-fi (11 books) closely followed by fantasy (10 books). Overwhelmingly I read ebooks rather than any other format, although I did have a few audiobooks and paperbacks as well.
So thatās where Iām at as of July 1. Iāll check back in around December and let you know how I did.
A few days ago I found a Kickstarter for a film adaptation of Chuck Palahniukās novel Lullaby. Or rather, I got a direct message from whoever runs Palahniukās Twitter (itās not him) pointing it out to me, in case I wanted to contribute any money to getting the movie made.
I showed it to my husband. Palahniuk was one of our first shared literary interests when we started dating. We still have duplicate copies of several of his books on our shelves, relics of a pre-cohabiting, pre-Kindle era.
Even though weāre arguably fans, we laughed a little over some of the backer rewards for the Lullaby movie. $15 for a PDF of the shooting script is one thing. But for $500, you can have a leather-bound, signed, limited edition copy of one of one of Chuckās books. For a little more, you can get a tattoo of the movieās logo. For two grand, you can be in the movie.
āDidnāt they used to pay people to be in movies?ā I asked. āNot the other way around?ā
Making fun of the Kickstarter was not classy of me, Iāll admit. Movies are expensive. If fans are willing to put that kind of capital into getting a thing made, they should have something to show for it. I should not mock people for spending money on things that bring them joy.
But I personally am not going to fork over $20k so I can own the prop grimoire from the movie.
Palahniukās best-known work is still his 1996 novel Fight Club. By the time I hit puberty, the 1999 film adaptation Ā was on its way to cult classic status. I canāt shake the sad feeling that this, his first published novel, was also the height of Palahniukās fame. Fight Club and itās rules are a part of the cultural lexicon in the way that none of his other books ever were.
When I was in high school, I got into Palahniuk because thatās what all the cool kids were reading. Maybe not the class president, captain-of-the-sports-team cool kids, but the nerdy, witty, acerbic types. These were the people who started bands and wrote poetry and stayed up to see the sunrise. They pushed boundaries and broke rules, or at least it felt that way to me. They were the ones I wanted to be around and be like.
We worshipped these books wholeheartedly. Palahniukās words made their way into our yearbook quotes, and we joined MySpace groups called āChuck Palahniuk for President.ā For my junior year science fair project, two friends and I researched all the anarchic chemistry proposed in Fight Club. We didnāt actually attempt to drill holes in a gun barrel or make napalm out of orange juice, but we did make soap. We used grocery store-bought lard that did not come from humans, as far as we knew, anyways.
Thereās a sense now that Palahniuk was something we were supposed to give up after a while. The bizarre, gross details that pepper his books, the inevitable plot twistsāit could get gimmicky, overly theatrical. Adolescent boy stuff. We were meant to grow out of loving this.
Confession time: I never actually did.
I couldnāt get through Haunted. It wasnāt just the infamous opening story āGuts;ā it was the rumors of auto-cannibalism later, and my fear that something bad was going to happen to the cat in the frame story (no one tell me what happens to the cat, I donāt want to know). I stopped reading his new releases after Pygmy. I probably should have quit after Snuff. The porn industry has its problems, but Iām not sure Palahniuk was meant to tackle them. Pygmy was further out of his experience. It read like a bad episode of South Park, a poorly drawn satire that has transformed into the very thing it meant to skewer.
But everything that came beforeā¦
Lullaby, the book that is being kickstarted into a movie, is heartbreaking. Itās about a mysterious poem thatās really a spell. Saying it aloud or even just thinking it kills people. Lullaby is also about families, both biological and found. Itās about guilt and grief and how easy it is to do harm, even when all you want to do is help. Thereās also a necrophiliac coroner and a real estate agent trying to sell haunted houses. Someone gets gum in their hair, or maybe itās boogers.
Palahniuk has written some of the most memorable things about boogers Iāve ever read. The only other author whoās come close is Charles Dickens. Both the phrase āpendulous excrescenceā and the nose picking in Rant will haunt me to my grave, so thanks for that, Chuck(s).
Invisible Monsters was a personal favorite, reread many times. The events that kick the story off are horrificāthe main character has lost most of her jaw to a gunshot woundābut it somehow manages to evolve into a hopeful, chaotic road trip story. It asks how much we sacrifice when we obediently fill the roles others have chosen for us rather than following our own passions. āFind what youāre afraid of most and go live there,ā the narrator urges.
There were others, too. Diary, with itās creepy parody of both art school and small-town living, is my husbandās favorite. Iām least-fond of the protagonist in Survivor, but itās absolutely worth a read for the counterpoint structure alone. I consider Choke to be the worst-of-the-best, but itās surprisingly charming for a book about an amoral conman whoās addicted to sex.
These books got into me in a very real way and never left again. They colored the way I looked at the world. The stories are full of ordinary things transformed into fateful objects. IKEA catalogues, birth control pills, suicide hotline stickers, Easter eggs. The cap of a restaurant ketchup bottle, a letter opener, an email password. After you finish one of Palahniukās books, itās like youāll never feel the same about these things again.
Maybe this is nostalgia talking. Iāve that most people will like the music they liked at age 13 for the rest of their life. They might not listen to it on a regular basis, but when one of those songs comes on, they wonāt change the radio station. Palahniuk is literary equivalent to that, at least a little bit.
If the amount of money the Kickstarter has raised is any indication, Iām not the only one who feels this way.
I still believe there was something valuable in those books, though. Hidden beneath the shock value exterior was truth and beauty. Many of them have happy endings. Our younger selves might have pretended to be cynics, but it turns out we were romantics all along.
What's the last book you read that had a ghost or ghosts in it? Bonus points if it was in a genre other than horror. Bonus bonus points if the ghosts were a thinly veiled metaphor for a character's quarter-life crisis
