Most important news: a household ban on the use of 'girthy' to describe bananas

[st_aurafina]

It's been a minute. I'm okay. Just trucking along day by day in this weird post-COVID world. There has been some major depression. I'm still living in Pelican Town pretty much full time. (Where would we all be without Stardew Valley?)

Every day at work is incredibly frantic and I don't really understand why? It's numerically not much busier, but everything is more difficult. It's like someone turned the gravity up, and all tasks are effortful. Not just for me, but for everyone at work. We're all getting mystery illnesses that I can only put down to stress. Kidney stones and cellulitis and shingles. I've cracked two teeth this year.

In better news, the cats are getting friendlier and friendlier, though they're still acquaintances rather than friends. As of today, though, they're acquaintances who sniff each other's butts. Huge strides in cat society.





This is technically a reading post. Reading is a thing I can do while working out or crafting or just staring at the wall, so I've actually read a fair bit!

The Just City by Jo Walton, narrated by Noah Michael Levine (Book 1 of the Thessaly Series)
- amazing premise: Athene creates a planned community based on Plato's Republic, then grabs idealists from all parts of the timestream to govern and raise orphan children in perfect platonic conditions.
- did not stick the landing, and the closer I got to the end, the more I felt the whole story start to collapse.
- was still a worthy read, because wow, what a concept.

- Apollo chooses to be born a human and raised in the city
- he's a fantastic and oblivious asshole.
- right to the end of the book.
- Maia aka Ethel who died in the Victorian era, was born to be a lesbrarian, and I'm mad this didn't happen.
- there were some very unpleasant rape scenes
- and the rapist became something of a hero?
- I really hated this
- Socrates appears! He uses epic trollery. It's super effective.
- Sentient robots for the win!!
- Athene gets them from the far future to assist with building and planting and so on
- I pictured them as high-vis backhoes
- Crocus the democratic leader of the backhoes! The true hero of this story.


This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron, narrated by Jordan Cobb
- AAAdorable
- a perfect gift for queer nerdy teenagers
- protagonist is a queer nerdy POC teenager
- who happens to have magic plant abilities
- and a weird affinity for poisonous plants
- really creative ideas in this
- tone pitches at the younger end of YA
- without being patronising or saccharine
- kind of a cross between X-Men stuff and magic
- don't usually see mutant/magic kids coming from happy homes

- did not see mythology aspect coming
- but it all fit together well
- warning for one dead gay parent at the end
- this is clearly indicated as a temporary situation
- thanks for that massive cliffhanger, Kalynn Bayron.
- cannot wait for next book


Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe, narrated by Joe Jameson
- Soldier is kidnapped by a grief-mad ship
- Yes, this is a plot in Radchaai dramas
- I think it was probably done better in the Radch
- They would certainly say so, anyway.

- This was just a really stodgy read
- there were good bits
- like currants in a bland pudding
- needed more fruity-characterisation and less suet-exposition.
- I'm sad because I really wanted to like this.


Circe by Madeline Miller, narrated by Perdita Weeks
- gorgeous, dreamy writing
- Real Housewives of Mythology but in a good way
- Circe is compelling, empathetic, a great character voice
- Narration is intimate, enfolding, beautifully done
- Scylla will be in my nightmares forever
- Wtaf happened to Madeline Miller that she thought of this?
- I bet she met something very nasty in the garden, with too many legs and possibly mucous
- Old gods are great and terrible and make the worst relatives
- And new gods are that newly rich family with the big big house and a swimming pool
- while you're stuck in your cave with all your cousins who are also your sisters somehow
- You can tell I devoured this book like it was a big messy delicious peach

- the last mouthful is half a worm
- I cannot cannot cannot
- why would Circe give up immortality to go off with a dude
- when Penelope is right there learning to be a witch and being all hot and done with men?
- Why.


The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, narrated by Kyle McCarley
- First up, I liked this book a lot, jsyk
- but it's not a good one for audio
- not because of the narrator, he was fine. He was great.
- The problem was the abundance of Elvish words
- It took me 2/3 of the book to figure out what was terminology or titles of address, and not actual names
- SO MANY DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE COURT all with different elvish names
- ALL THE SEXY YOUNG THINGS ARE CALLED MIN WHY
- (Min is a pretty sexy name, much sexier than Miss)
- It seems obvious when I write it down
- but at the time I was very confused
- I did enjoy it very much once I realised
- Maia is a true cinnamon roll
- Might go back and relisten now I have a better idea of the language


Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, narrated by Yetta Gottesman
- Ohhhhh lovely
- Okay. I think I found a new author to follow
- (Oooh, she has so much to read!)
- This is set in Jazz-age Mexico
- starring a clever maid on a quest
- alongside an ancient Mayan god of death fighting to regain his throne
- and a supporting cast that will dazzle and delight you
- and yet retain historical context
- it's honestly so fucking good
- cannot endorse more highly
- where are my five seasons and a movie???


The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, narrated by Kevin R Free
- caught myself all the way up
- but read the last two out of order, I think?
- didn't matter, I figured it out
- I like Kevin R Free's narration, it reminds me that I have a tendency to slide into a head voice for Murderbot that is distinctly feminine, and kind of pulls me back into an ungendered POV
- Huh, I didn't read them out of order, now that I look on Audible
- Network Effect (the novel) is fantastic, omg, how far our little murderbot has come!
- It still seems to me like Fugitive Telemetry (the novella Audible calls #6 in the series), is set before the novel. There's none of the consequences we see in Network Effect. It's weird.
- I love the series but I am confuse.

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, narrated by Shiromi Arserio
- *screams in happy lesbian*
- this is very beautiful and very gay
- it has all the fairytale tropes, and an Indian-inspired world
- only gay
- gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous magic system
- I love everyone in this bar novel
- cannot wait for the sequel

- warning for a character who is really, really into immolation
- not self-immolation, unfortunately
- I still love this book
- but I know some people for whom this would be a specific squick



The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison, narrated by Imogen Church
- First comes the moment when you realise you're reading Sherlock Holmes wingfic
- Then comes the moment when you say 'fuck it, I'm enjoying it'
- Confused as to why names had to be changed
- and frankly, calling Watson 'Doyle' is a little on the nose
- This is not a Jam Watson though
- He will certainly fuck you up a lot if you cross him
- The good thing about Holmes AUs is picking up on which canon stories are being used
- This was well done in the book! Comfy and familiar, but with interesting twists
- Angel society was beautiful and layered and weird
- It was very clear that this came from the hand that wrote The Goblin Emperor
- Narration was a bit odd, with heavy emphasis on the LAST. WORDS. OF. EACH. SENTENCE.
- It took a while to get used to, but fortunately the drama of the book rose to a point that NEEDED. EMPHASIS.

- gender fuckery galore!
- super super gay in that way that criminal society can be sometimes
- Moriarty was a super smexy Irish vampire
- It really really worked??
- "I have to mark you as mine, to protect you from other vampires"
- Hello kink I didn't know I had, so pleased to meet you
- will happily read ten more of these, thanks


Stories of the Raksura Book 1 by Martha Wells, narrated by Christopher Kipiniak
- Short stories
- These books are always fun
- I love these poly matriarchal dragon folk
- not much else to say? These books are a known quantity to me
- but if you're into found family, non-human dynamics, magic
- you're probably going to like this series
- and there's a bunch of them yay


Welp, this post has taken me a week to write. I'm going to cut it short here and keep going on a new post that will probably take me a whole week again.

It's still nice to post, I have to say. *waves*

Comments

[dine]

*waves back*
nice to see you! look forward to your next post in a week or whenever *g*

your gravity analogy is terrific! that's exactly what it's like. covid has dragged on so long without really easing, and that sort of long-term stress does take its toll on people, physically and emotionally. so it's possibly not surprising that folks are having assorted issues

[st_aurafina]

*hugs*

It's really strange to realise that the whole world has become this stressed population of people, isn't it? We all need a holiday. <3

[walgesang]

poly matriarchal dragon folk? Sign me up! *hugs* and ♥ for the hard times, it's wonderful to see you (and your adorable cats).

[st_aurafina]

Ohhh, yes, I can heartily rec the series, it's lots of fun, lots of... queens taking consorts and lovingly manhandling them, lots of really clever, weird adventures (there's one where they're trapped on a city on a whale's back.)

Also hi!! *wavewavewave*

[kore]

Aww KITTIES

[st_aurafina]

The true heroes of the pandemic! <3

[likeadeuce]

It's funny about Murderbot because I can't NOT read it as male, even when I try to convince myself it's gender neutral. I tried switching to print to see if that helped but not really. . .something in my in my internal defaults that I can't manage to turn off. I even tried reading aloud to see if hearing the story in my own voice would help and. . .well, the cat seemed to like it.

Sorry everything is so stressful right now. . .

[st_aurafina]

I even tried reading aloud to see if hearing the story in my own voice would help and. . .well, the cat seemed to like it.

Impressing a cat is quite the feat, at least?

<3

[muccamukk]

Fugitive Telemetry is set before Network Effect, but was published after it, so gets listed as #6, even though it's #5 in internal chronology.

Reading Goblin Emperor did not make all the Elvish more comprehensible to me, and I ended up annoyed at the whole thing.

[st_aurafina]

so gets listed as #6, even though it's #5 in internal chronology.

Arrgh, well, at least I know why now. It was so obvious in the reading.

[yuuago]

Nice to hear from you. <3

Gods of Jade and Shadow sounds really good, I'll have to see if I can get my hands on it. '3'

[st_aurafina]

<3 <3 <3

It was so good! It was questy, but also thinky. And really lovely writing. Even the cover was beautiful.

[china_shop]

*hugs*

Aww, kitties! I enjoyed your book reviews. <3

[st_aurafina]

<3 <3 <3 All the hugs for you!

Gotta love those kitties. <3

[kindkit]

*waves back*

It's great to see a post from you!

This last time--almost two years now--has been so hard and scary and yet tedious and in fin ite ly loooooooooong and tiring. Like gravity, yes. Like struggling every single minute just to move around and function.

*lots of hugs if you would like them*

[st_aurafina]

<3 <3 <3 *all the hugs*

as been so hard and scary and yet tedious and in fin ite ly loooooooooong and tiring.

It has! Just talking to someone else becomes a massive effort because you're both wearing masks, and every second thing you say is "Pardon?" And everyone is tetchy all the time. I bet it's been the same for you.

We're all so tired.

<3

[snickfic]

I'm still living in Pelican Town pretty much full time. (Where would we all be without Stardew Valley?)

God I have done nothing else in the past week, and especially not today. D:

I enjoyed your bullet-pointed reviews! I've only read The Just City, and yeah, those were cool ideas (I was SO !!!!! over the robot revolution) with a lot of icky. I think I've given up on Walton; her stories are all soooo far into the genre of ideas that there's almost nothing for me to hold onto, and what I do manage to get a grip on is always unpleasant on the fingers.

[st_aurafina]

It's been so good to come home from work and settle into my other career as a digital farmer. Mayor Lewis - what a jerk, hey?

Jo Walton seems to have great ideas and no follow-through, it's a shame. I want to go to her and say, "Hey, how's about you plan this great idea all the way to the end before you start writing?"

Not that I can talk. I never finish any of my original stuff. At least she gets an ending up there.

[alessandriana]

Murderbot, Raksura and the Goblin Emperor are some of my favorites. <3

[st_aurafina]

I want to reread Goblin Emperor! Maybe actually in paper this time, hmm.

[vass]

*waves*

It's like someone turned the gravity up, and all tasks are effortful.

Yes, that's how I feel too, and I don't even have a job. I imagine that at your work (and, fuck, everybody's workplace) there's a compounding factor because it's all of you, so the normal thing where if somebody's having an off day then everyone else picks up some of the slack, doesn't apply? Which would be hard work just for one day, even if you weren't the person having the bad day; but in this case it's not just one day, and it's everyone. So it's exponentially hard. No wonder you're exhausted.

That photo looks like a Baby-Sitters Club cover for a book called Chewie and the New Girls.

The Just City by Jo Walton

Yeah, I didn't like it either. I wanted to. I loved the concept, and I know it's an idea she'd been wanting to write for a long time. But it was just Too Fucking Rapey for me. I remember saying when I blogged about it that I lost count after the first five rapes.

- and the rapist became something of a hero?

My take on it, at the time when I read it, was that the book's secondary theme was "can my friend be both a sexual assailant and a good person?" and that it was almost immaterial whether she handled that theme well or not compared to how much I didn't want to read that. (Side note: The Just City came out in 2015. The René Walling thing at Readercon (cn: sexual harassment) happened in 2012, and it's my understanding that they were good friends. I don't know Walton personally and she hasn't written anywhere I've seen it about there being a thematic connection, this is just me speculating, but... yeah.)

[dolorosa_12]

I've also wondered for a while if the redeemed rapist theme in The Just City was about Walling, although I don't think Walton will ever come out and provide an answer. However, this trope is present in at least one other series of her books (the Tir Tanagiri Arthurian series, which was her first published work), so either she knew about Walling much earlier than 2012, she knew about other sexual predators in her social cirlces and was grappling with this question in relation to them from very early on, or she just has a recurring interest in this concept.

But like you, the Walling connection was my immediate thought when I first read The Just City, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone else make the same connection, so I'm interested to see that it did occur to at least one other person.

[talkingtothesky]

*waves*

Thanks for this post! Lovely to hear the cats are getting along better.

I have some things to add to my Goodreads now (not that it needs any more) XD

[st_aurafina]

I have some things to add to my Goodreads now (not that it needs any more) XD

We all labour under those giant TBR lists! <3

[torachan]

This Poison Heart sounds interesting and I hadn't heard of it before, so thanks for the rec!

[st_aurafina]

It was fun! Definitely tips towards the younger end of YA, but I still found it a good, solid read.

[glinda]

Hello! It’s lovely to see you about again, I hope the stress eases off somewhat soonish. (I too have cracked a couple of teeth over the pandemic. :( )

I really enjoyed your book reports - bullet points for the win - and now really want to read Gods of Jade and Shadow which I’d heard about before but your review has bumped up the list! Books! I’ve been reading really slowly but listening to lots of radio programmes and podcasts and until I read this post it didn’t occur to me that I could maybe do audiobooks instead? I have some, I shall try that and see if it helps!

(Also the robots are clearly the best bit about The Just City. I found it fascinating that clearly the Republic required a servant/serf class to function, so Athena gave them robots to avoid moral conflict about that. Except that all the adults - and a bunch of the kids - immediately recognise what they are and are okay with that or not based on their own - or previously learned - moralities. And then they learn to communicate with the robots and quickly both book and characters are increasingly all ‘oh the robots are people too’ which to me is much more fascinating than the rest of the book’s ideas. I suspect the author got a bit distracted by that idea too and the rest of the book suffers by comparison as she tries to keep it about what she’d originally intended the book to be about? Maybe. Apparently I still have a lot of OPINIONS about this book years after I read it?!)

[st_aurafina]

The teeth are just crumbling away in the face of the pandemic - it's that Monty Python ad for Crelm toothpaste/the threat of communism all over again.

Gods of Jade and Shadow was honestly everything I wanted in American Gods but did not get. Cassiopeia is a fantastic character. I'm really excited about Sylvia Moreno Garcia because she seems to write across genres and really well. I've got a bunch on my TBR now.

I would have read an entire series on Crocus and his buddies, dealing with humans, growing their consciousnesses and philosophies. If this did split Jo Walton's vision, I wish she'd followed along the path that worked for me! They were the absolute highlight.

<3

[dolorosa_12]

I'm glad to see you back and posting! Many of the books you've listed are things I've enjoyed, or are things I'm intending to read at some point in the future.

I totally agree with you about The Just City — interesting premise, didn't quite follow through. And your mention of the irritating redeemed rapist in the book reminded me that this seems to be a recurring trope with Walton — she keeps writing these situations where it's plot-necessary for reasons that rapists do something heroic and the other characters have to set aside their antipathy.

[st_aurafina]

Hi hi! It's good to post after a long time.

she keeps writing these situations where it's plot-necessary for reasons that rapists do something heroic and the other characters have to set aside their antipathy.

Oof, yes, that's the thing. I don't like it. I will be more wary picking up her books because of it.

[earthspirits]

Awww...kitties!

And thanks for all the interesting book rec's!

[st_aurafina]

Kitties will save us all!

You're welcome!

[umadoshi]

*waves* *hugs*

Good job, beasties!

[st_aurafina]

*wavewavewave* The beasties are doing so great!

[singe]

Cracked teeth, yep, just call me Gollum. Someone recommended enamel-building toothpaste and fluoride mouthwash and they're actually helping a LOT. My tooth sensitivity is almost gone, too.

Granted, valium would have had a happy effect, too, but I'll take what I can get.

[st_aurafina]

Ooh, yes, I got a great result from the toothpaste too - it's a big relief not to have that hot/cold thing happening as much, at least.

[pauraque]

*waves*

[st_aurafina]

*wavewavewave*

[corvidology]

*waves back*

I'm sorry to hear that work is so stressful. ♥

[st_aurafina]

Thanks - I know doctors and nurses have it so much worse? But I reason I'm allowed to have a whinge in my journal.

[spikedluv]

Hi! Glad to hear you're doing well! Thanks for mentioning some of these books! I'm adding them to my list. I love The Goblin Emperor. I've read it at least three times.

[st_aurafina]

Yeah, once I'd figured out the nomenclature, I loved the book so much. I am a total convert.

[sewn]

Hello!

I really like your book review style. :) I loved The Goblin Emperor but even in writing, it took a bit of effort to get the hang of the titles. (I did not realize there was a vocabulary in the end!)

[st_aurafina]

Thank you! Dot points help me get through them all.

I found the vocabulary online later, and I wish I'd seen it at the start.

[lurkingcat]

Social progress for kitties! Huzzah!

Your gravity analogy is pretty much how battlehamster describes getting out of bed in the morning with his fibro. Pretty sure it was pandemic stress that triggered the shingles that it turned triggered the full blown fibro too. I'd say take it easy but... not-yet-over-pandemic plus job doesn't leave much time and space for things like breathing and resting.

I really appreciate the book recs. I've read The Goblin Emperor but none of the others. My brain is juuust sliding back into being able to read again and some of these sound like things that might nudge it along nicely.

[st_aurafina]

Pretty sure it was pandemic stress that triggered the shingles that it turned triggered the full blown fibro too.

Oh, poor battlehamster - yeah, I think it would be. That, and the vaccine kicked up a lot of chronic conditions like that. (Not a reason not to be vaccinated, but still worth noting.) I hope things settle down soon.

y brain is juuust sliding back into being able to read again
Saaaaaame, a few months back. It just came online again, and with audiobooks being okay for me, I've been ploughing through book after book.

[adafrog]

Good to hear from you.
Things are kind of crazy here, too. Things that shouldn't be stressful are sometimes very much so. Weird.
{{{hugs}}}

[st_aurafina]

Hi hi hi!! How're you holding up? However much I complain, I know you guys have it so much worse. And yeah, the weirdest things are trouble, and the things you dread sometimes are not, it's totally unpredictable.

*hugs back*

[mergatrude]

Hi! Wow! That was a looooong lockdown that doesn't really feel like it's done, somehow.

Re: Circe. I have the same reaction as you. I can't get the taste of worm out of my mouth. Ugh!

Cats are ridiculous and adorable. <3

[st_aurafina]

Cats are life!!! They have kept me going and going.

Circe was so fucking good until that last bite. I was so disappointed.

Looking at Europe, I'm very worried we'll all be sliding back into lockdown again too soon. I really hope not? But it's this looming dread I have.