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What Are You Reading (Not On A) Wednesday
Jul. 14th, 2019 11:50 amPlaying catch-up here, because I suspect I won't get time or brainspace to do this on Wednesday.
Currently Reading:
Fiction: Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman
Non-Fiction: Laura Kipnis, Against Love. Because *that's* totally gonna improve my mood right now.
Academic: William Germano, From PhD To Book
Lit Mag: Still wading through Meanjin Summer 2018.
Recently Finished: Five Kris Ripper books, and a bunch of other stuff, of which, here are four reviews:
Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I think this might be the weakest of the series - certainly, in order to write the review I had to look up plot spoilers online, having forgotten the key points. The introduction of a new datapoint (not the Preservation gang, and not Murderbot's past assignment) and a whole new location and context weakened the tight links just a little bit. I liked what the character lines added for Murderbot - the encounter with the robot whose people actually *liked* her, particularly. And the choosing of a (another) name, that was good too.
Exit Strategy by Martha Wells
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A very satisfying conclusion, complete with character reunions, complicated robotic feats of programming, and a good compromise on the 'people want to give Murderbot a home but Murderbot doesn't know what it would do with a home if it had one' situation.
Easton and Hardie, The Ethical Slut: I guess this book can only be life-changing once over.
A Hand of Knaves by Leife Shallcross
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was pretty great, and I don't just say that because I've got a story in it. I really enjoyed more than half of the stories in here, and none of them did I dislike.
Of particular note:
Tom Dullemond, 'The Killblaine Legacy' (gotta love a scheming assassins story)
Robert Porteous, 'Fair Wind off Baracoa' (not least because I appreciated someone else straight up retelling a extant story - Porteous' source is a historical one, also turned into a space pirate yarn)
CH Pearce, 'The Last Magicians of Sad Hill' (I don't know *what* to say about this one, but I would love to teach it)
Simon Petrie & Edwina Harvey, 'On the Consequences of Clinically-Inhibited Maturation in the Common Sydney Octopus', which is both very amusing as a narrative and stylistically clever
I also *know* I loved 'A Question of Identity' by Grace Maslin, but now (and my copy is no longer in my possession) the only thing I can remember about it is the moment when I recognised part of the style and went 'oh, i KNOW this author'.
I got my copy of AHOK caught in a monsoon rain, so it's now bloated and also has transferred kanji all down it from a language worksheet I had shoved inside. It's been posted back to Australia in this Interesting condition, and lbr I will probably keep it like that (rather than replace it), because the historian in me loves Evidence of Use.
Online Fiction:
Justine Hyde (Meanjin Summer 2018), How the Stars Travelled to Earth and Abandoned the Moon.
Laurie Steed (Meanjin Summer 2018), The Lottery. As you can probably tell I am (as I often am) meh about the fiction in Meanjin but this I really enjoyed. It's a wry story about a marriage, structured around intertext with the short story The Lottery.
Up next: Uh, well. I'm down to four hard copy books: Against Love; my still unread copy of Montaigne's essay On Friendship; a book on romance genre; and the first volume of Banana Fish. It's certainly... a selection.
Music: Hmm. Well. Spotify has lifted my listening cap so I'm streaming Washington again. I really love both Dirty Churches and Claws, but I don't wanna buy them until an album comes out.
Currently Reading:
Fiction: Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman
Non-Fiction: Laura Kipnis, Against Love. Because *that's* totally gonna improve my mood right now.
Academic: William Germano, From PhD To Book
Lit Mag: Still wading through Meanjin Summer 2018.
Recently Finished: Five Kris Ripper books, and a bunch of other stuff, of which, here are four reviews:
Rogue Protocol by Martha WellsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I think this might be the weakest of the series - certainly, in order to write the review I had to look up plot spoilers online, having forgotten the key points. The introduction of a new datapoint (not the Preservation gang, and not Murderbot's past assignment) and a whole new location and context weakened the tight links just a little bit. I liked what the character lines added for Murderbot - the encounter with the robot whose people actually *liked* her, particularly. And the choosing of a (another) name, that was good too.
Exit Strategy by Martha WellsMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
A very satisfying conclusion, complete with character reunions, complicated robotic feats of programming, and a good compromise on the 'people want to give Murderbot a home but Murderbot doesn't know what it would do with a home if it had one' situation.
Easton and Hardie, The Ethical Slut: I guess this book can only be life-changing once over.
A Hand of Knaves by Leife ShallcrossMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was pretty great, and I don't just say that because I've got a story in it. I really enjoyed more than half of the stories in here, and none of them did I dislike.
Of particular note:
Tom Dullemond, 'The Killblaine Legacy' (gotta love a scheming assassins story)
Robert Porteous, 'Fair Wind off Baracoa' (not least because I appreciated someone else straight up retelling a extant story - Porteous' source is a historical one, also turned into a space pirate yarn)
CH Pearce, 'The Last Magicians of Sad Hill' (I don't know *what* to say about this one, but I would love to teach it)
Simon Petrie & Edwina Harvey, 'On the Consequences of Clinically-Inhibited Maturation in the Common Sydney Octopus', which is both very amusing as a narrative and stylistically clever
I also *know* I loved 'A Question of Identity' by Grace Maslin, but now (and my copy is no longer in my possession) the only thing I can remember about it is the moment when I recognised part of the style and went 'oh, i KNOW this author'.
I got my copy of AHOK caught in a monsoon rain, so it's now bloated and also has transferred kanji all down it from a language worksheet I had shoved inside. It's been posted back to Australia in this Interesting condition, and lbr I will probably keep it like that (rather than replace it), because the historian in me loves Evidence of Use.
Online Fiction:
Up next: Uh, well. I'm down to four hard copy books: Against Love; my still unread copy of Montaigne's essay On Friendship; a book on romance genre; and the first volume of Banana Fish. It's certainly... a selection.
Music: Hmm. Well. Spotify has lifted my listening cap so I'm streaming Washington again. I really love both Dirty Churches and Claws, but I don't wanna buy them until an album comes out.