Sakura of DOOM

What I've just finished: Yotsuba 11! It is as cute and cheerful as all previous volumes in the series, and it encompasses dramatic events like Yotsuba's first experience with pizza, Duralumin getting slobbered on by a dog, Yanda bringing over bubble blowers, and bugs.

I also read Aliette de Bodard's On a Red Station, Drifting, which I enjoyed. I didn't really see the Dream of the Red Chamber connections until I read the author's notes, with the exception of a spaceship named after one of the characters. There's a comforting familiarity to the importance of magistrates and government officials and civil service that reminds me a lot of Chinese literature—I know the world is Vietnam-based, not China-based, but Wiki notes that the civil service examination system was modeled on China's. I also love the mention of fish sauce brewing as a fine art, and that one of the key conflicts happens while a character is writing poetry at a banquet. I didn't entirely understand all the shifts in the two main characters' attitudes, but overall, I prefer this to de Bodard's "Immersion," which won the Nebula. "Immersion" strikes me as being a little too on the nose, and while it makes a good point, I prefer how On a Red Station, Drifting incorporates more Vietnamese themes and background.

What I'm currently reading: I started book one of Alis A. Rasmussen's (aka Kate Elliott) Highroad Trilogy, but I haven't been able to track what's going on very well. I got a bit annoyed right off bat when I realized the martial-arts-practicing heroine is the lightest person in her brown family (I think she is POC? But she is described as pale so I am confused?), as well as when she rescues a robot early on and it devotes itself entirely to her. Still reading, and hopefully I will figure out what's happening soon.

I also started Jeffrey Brantley's Calming Your Anxious Mind, which is about using mindfulness to help with anxiety and fear. So far it's mostly been explanation of what mindfulness is and how it's effective as opposed to actual instruction, so I have no idea if it works or not.

I also started 7 Seeds volume 2 but am not very far into it.

What I'll read next: If I manage to finish book one of the Highroad Trilogy, probably book 2. Also, I keep meaning to read the latest Skip Beat chapter, so maybe that.

What I've read: Finished my reread of Dawn for Wiscon \o/! I have various quotes highlighted for things like heteronormativity, consent issues, gender essentialism, slavery analogues, and etc., but I still need to mull over things and synthesize before I have anything particularly good to say. Aside from issues about gender and sexuality, which hopefully will get discussed in depth at the Wiscon panel, I'm really interested in how Butler deals with violence. And I'd like to compare Dawn to other post-apocalyptic books about rebuilding society, since I think many of them fall prey to the "The strongest will survive and this is just and right!" mindset that Butler doesn't necessarily avoid, but does try to complicate. Lilith's relationships with other women aren't explored as much, possibly due to the emphasis on pair bonding and reproduction. Some thoughts on how OSC's Worthing Saga has a section very much like Lilith Awakening various people and having to train them for life on Earth, though possibly I only see similarities because I don't read that much SF and therefore don't know other works with this general theme. Lilith vs. Jason Worthing and how the people they awaken and train react to them is especially informed by the characters' and authors' race and gender, imo.

What I'm reading: Partway through Adulthood Rites! Dawn ended much more abruptly than I had remembered, and there's a big shift between it and Adulthood Rites. So far: more notes on heteronormativity, gender essentialism, and violence, as well as a continuation of Humans as Other. I really want to poke at the idea of the specialness and risk of a Human-born male child.

What I'm reading next: For once, I am fairly certain! If all goes well, I will proceed to Imago.

What I've read: Finally finished review copy of Tokyo Demons and reviewed it! And because last week, I was craving fantasy + romance, I naturally blazed through Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo's Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art. It's a fun book about how con man John Drewe got artist John Myatt to forge hundreds of paintings. The difference in this con, though, isn't the techniques used to make the canvases pass scrutiny, but rather how Drewe created the provenance of each painting—the record of ownership, sales, location, and etc. of a painting. Since it can be difficult to tell a forgery via art style, dealers and auctioneers and buyers rely on a dependable provenance, and Drewe took advantage of this to sell off some paintings that would otherwise never have passed as real.

Drewe isn't a con man that I'm secretly rooting for; instead, even if Salisbury and Sujo's description of his compulsive lying and his terrible treatment of his common-law wife hadn't been there, I would have hated him just for sneaking into all those archives and doctoring so many documents. My morals, somewhat subjective...

And of course, now I want to read fast-paced non-fiction about cons or robberies or other elaborate schemes, which I am sure I will take recs for and them promptly be in a different mood in about two days. (I like the recs! Please keep it up! I might not get to them soon, but I do take note.)

I also read the latest chapter of Skip Beat, ( minor spoilers )

What I'm reading: I started Sherwood Smith's Once a Princess—good lord, she's published a lot lately! I didn't realize she had so much self-pubbed/small press stuff out; I hope it's going well for her. Lost some interest once it hit the secondary world due to not having enough processing power for worldbuilding. I'm also in the middle of Martha Wells' Wheel of the Infinite, which I am enjoying but cheated on with an art con book. And I started my Con or Bust review book. I got a few chapters in Bruce Schneier's Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive after reading Provenance, but then decided it was too research-y and less narrative than I was looking for.

What I'm reading next: A genre I have not talked about in this post? Hopefully I will keep going on Con or Bust book, along with starting a reread of Octavia E. Butler's Xenogenesis in preparation for Wiscon.

What I've read: I finished Alison Bechdel's Fun Home after seeing her at a City Arts & Lectures event. The event itself was great; Bechdel herself isn't all too talkative, but there was a short video clip of her creating a comic page and discussion of her process, which I hadn't been expecting and was really interesting. I don't have much to say about Fun Home yet, especially since I'm still in the middle of her next memoir about her mother, but it's definitely worth reading, and I kind of wish I had read her stuff before going to see her. Oh well! At least it was incentive to get some of her books!

I also finished Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, which I like, but possibly not as much as everyone else. As most people have said, the voice is fantastic, as is the sense of place, but every time I was getting into it, more murder mystery details showed up and I would promptly lose track of what was going on. Clearly plot brain has disappeared again.

( A lot of Meljean Brook )

What I'm reading now: I'm still in the middle of Bechdel's Are You My Mother, which is an interesting experience because it has therapy and mothers, but Bechdel's relationship to her mother, problematic as it is, is very different from mine with my mother. (Me: I WISH my mom would not talk to me!) I also started Aaronovitch's Moon over Soho because I wanted to see how a few dangling threads at the end of Rivers of London were resolved, but now the mystery has hit and, predictably and sadly, I have lost interest.

What I'm reading next: Who knows! I feel like a fantasy + romance fun blend but don't like most paranormals and their more dominant than you heroes, but I can't really think of anything. I should also read vol. 2 of Wandering Son before it's due back at the library.

What I've finished reading: As you guys may have noticed, I kind of blazed through twenty volumes of Skip Beat and now want more content and/or more fic. Hi manga! I missed you! Now I'm trying to decide what else I should catch up on! OMG manga is now on my Nook (thank you so much meganbmoore and I feel like all the possibilities are open! I also got and read Ooku 7, though I'm still stuck on posting about the series. Everyone has already said such smart things! I am not sure what to add, and the stuff I can think of is all jumbled in my head and not coming out very coherently.

What I'm reading now: I started the Tokyo Demons light novel, which is... interesting? I'm not really caught up in it yet, but it's my first light novel (I think? Do Twelve Kingdoms books count?), and I am not entirely sure how they work. I am so not used to fictional work that grabs from anime and manga traditions that is in text!

What I'm reading next: Ahaha, I am betting I will reread more bits and pieces of Skip Beat over the next few days. And maybe go on some other giant manga rereading binge! \o/

What I've just read: Finally finished Cecilia Grant's first book and read the second (interesting new author, see review), which lead to a bit of a romance spree. Went through Sherry Thomas' Tempting the Bride, which I liked due to longing and unrequitedness and amnesia, though tbh, didn't really buy the hero's sudden non-taunting of the heroine even though I love it due to aforementioned angst. Read Meredith Duran's That Scandalous Summer (like the heroine, bleh for the hero, got really disinterested toward the middle and end) and her novella, Your Wicked Heart, which has a heroine who reminds me a great deal of Olympia from Laura Kinsale's Seize the Fire. Also, I think it has the hero I've liked best out of her books so far... I love Duran's prose and I love her heroines, but I frequently want to brain the heroes and get really lost during her plots. Then Rose Lerner's A Lily Among Thorns, which has an adorkable tailor hero who asks about clothes and fashion and can cook. Couldn't completely get into it, though, I think because the dialogue sounded too modern for me? (Then again, I know zero about Regency outside of romance novels.)

Finally finished Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, which I had been reading for so long that I forgot to include it on my "currently reading list" for the past few Wednesdays.

Also read Alaya Dawn Johnson's The Summer Prince, which I REALLY liked. The reviews on Goodreads seem to be very love it or hate it, though. Also, I rolled my eyes at the ones that were all "There's so much sex in this! Homosexuality and bisexuality is no big deal?!" and reviews complaining about too many original terms ("waka," "grande," etc.). I suspect I have very different expectations compared to the current YA SF audience?

...the length of this section correlates inversely with how much sleep I have been getting. orz

What I'm reading now: Still in the middle of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London. Probably something else I started months ago and promptly forgot?

What I'm reading next: Er, hopefully the book I'm reviewing for my Con or Bust offer. More realistically, probably a ton more romance novels.

I am definitely keeping an eye out for this author, because she seems to be doing interesting things with genre tropes, particularly for historicals.

A Lady Awakened

In order to secure her household's maids from her rapey brother-in-law's management, Martha Russell decides to conceive a fake heir to keep the property. Theophilius Mirkwood is the guy she chooses. The pairing is fairly typical for romances: Martha is uptight, very moral, and doesn't think much of sex, while Theo is the rake who's been exiled to the country. Normally, Theo would seduce Martha into enjoying her own sexuality while she imparts a greater sense of responsibility on him. The latter happens, but though Theo has his mind set on the former, Martha has other ideas.

The sex in this book is remarkably unsexy. Martha rolls her eyes at Theo's compliments and his attempts to please her, and... he really never manages to seduce her. Instead, after the chore of trying to conceive is over, they gradually get to know each other by talking about dairies, treatment of tenants, and various agricultural things.

I don't have the best impression of the book, since I basically would read one chapter, put it down for a few weeks, and then read a bit more. That said, I like that Grant lets Martha be unaffectionate and practical and cold and that the sex never really becomes the Most! Best! Thing! Ever!, as it usually does when uptight widows and pleasure-loving rakes are involved. I also enjoyed the prose a lot.

A Gentleman Undone

I can't tell if I liked this more because it pinged my buttons more, or if it's partly due to reading it in a single chunk.

Will Blackshear (brother of the previous book's heroine) has returned home from the Napoleonic Wars with PTSD and a lot of obligations he feels he should meet. Lydia Slaughter is someone else's mistress who is extremely good at counting cards. Together, they decide to go gambling together so Will can meet his obligations and Lydia can set herself up as an independent woman.

The book is actually much darker than the summary sounds; Lydia and Will both have dark things in their pasts. I particularly love Lydia, who detests feelings and tenderness and likes sex very, very much. Throughout most of the book, Lydia remains with her protector while Will deals with the guilt of wanting another man's mistress, and thankfully, the book doesn't do the usual "courtesan finds sex with the hero to be the Best! Sex! Ever!"

The book is paced oddly, and though Lydia's card-counting skills are emphasized a lot in the first few chapters, that thread is dropped for a bit for a drama-filled house party and then taken up on the last page of the book, where it felt atonal and out of place.

Other things I like: Lydia isn't punished for enjoying sex and gets a lot of agency in the sex scenes (though at some points, I was a bit concerned about consent issues in terms of her pressuring Will). No miracle baby + couple being okay with not having kids. Will's family is clearly not evil, but the majority of his siblings disapprove of him and Lydia and there doesn't seem to be an overall reconciliation by the end of the book. (I also like that Martha's marriage from the previous book still isn't completely okay by the family as well.)

Read if you like a lot of angst re: PTSD, honor, and trust.

What I just finished: Heh, so instead of going off anything listed last week, I went on a tear through Meljean Brook's Iron Seas series. (Check tag for write ups.) I am holding off a reread of Demon Marked from her other series until the final book comes out in a few months. Also, I really wish I could just purchase her individual novellas from a collection instead of buying the entire thing in ebook, though that is more because I am lazy and don't want to bother making individual files per novella so it messes up my Calibre categorization less. I am willing to pay $2 for just one novella instead of $2.99 for the whole thing!

ETA: Also, can't believe I forgot, but finally finished Zen Cho's The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo! (I read half when she was publishing snippets on her blog and then decided to wait for the whole thing. Disclaimer: I know and like the author.) It's a romance with a Chinese-Malaysian heroine in the London writing scene in the 1920s, really charming voice. It's one of the best kinds of fluffy reads, in which I can enjoy myself while also watching the author do interesting things with tropes and etc. ( Vaguely spoilery ) I'm really impressed all this was in the space of a novella, particularly when it reads so pleasantly. I hope that isn't damning by faint praise: I actually think doing all that takes a lot of skill, especially when it's not an Issue Book.

What I'm reading now: Just started Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, per several people's enthusiastic comments. I'm only a few pages in, but I like the voice a lot so far.

What I'm reading next: I feel the only certainty is that whatever I put down is will definitely NOT be what I end up reading.

(This covers The Iron Duke, Heart of Steel, Riveted, and two novellas in Burning Up and Wild & Steamy. I was going to put in individual write ups here as well, but the post is already monstrously long as is.)

Since several people praised the Ben Aaronovitch books and I am not in the mood for romance, I went for ...a tear through steampunk romance. My brain, I do not understand it either.

Five hundred years ago, the Mongolian Horde conquered most of the Eurasian continent via nanotechnology and war machines. When the series begins, the Horde's empire has begun to decline, and England has been freed from Horde rule nine years ago, when the Iron Duke blew up the tower that controlled people via the nanoagents they are all infected with.

Unsurprisingly, I had some serious issues with this premise. That said, I liked how much worldbuilding there was in The Iron Duke, though I didn't necessarily like the worldbuilding itself. The next two books have been exploring much more about the world and expanding it. I still find some of the things in the world nidgy, but there's been enough interesting stuff to balance it out so far.

For one, it is an incredibly thorough alternate timeline. Paranormal romances from around twenty years ago used to read as though the magic was only in there to further along the romance, what's now called urban fantasy has definitely improved on that, but this is a series I would actually give to someone who wanted worldbuilding detail. I particularly like how Brook has extrapolated how different cultures in her world work: the English are much more comfortable with sex and mechanical prosthetics, given that they didn't have much choice with either under Horde rule, whereas the New World, populated by refugees from Europe and Africa, tends to much more closely resemble historical mores. The New World, on the other hand, is extremely multiracial. Brook is also taking a lot of time to explore bits of it; having each book be an individual adventure instead of part of an overall arc means that they can cover a lot more of the world. It is still very Europe-focused though.

I'm still not sure what I think about the treatment of Native peoples. I couldn't tell what had happened to various indigenous communities when European and African refugees flooded in after zombies basically took over Europe and Africa, and so far, the books focus more on New World communities established by the refugees, particularly ones that speak European languages and correspond to European countries. We know that Portugal and Spain and France and England have carved out little portions, but I wanted to know about various African empires and kingdoms as well. I know from her online guide to the world that actually, the vast majority of the Americas is under the control of assorted Native confederacies, but it's not something that has so far showed up in the text itself. (Also, annoyed at "New World" terminology, though I suppose it makes sense given that it's all European people in the books talking about it.)

I wasn't sure how aware Brook was of things like imperialism and colonization and how intertwined they can be with steampunk—the very beginning of The Iron Duke mentions that the people in England almost all refuse to drink tea or eat anything with sugar, because the Horde used tea and sugar to hide the nanoagents used to infect and then conquer England centuries ago. On reading this, I didn't feel sorry at all for the English and more thought, "Ha, serves you guys right!" given real-world history of how tea and sugar trade went hand in hand with colonization (I am also curious how the Horde got all that sugar, given that there aren't sugar plantations in the Americas. SE Asia is my guess?). I think now that Brook was actually aware of this and meant for it to be ironic, but without much context, I gave it a lot of sideeye when I first read about it.

I also find the worldbuilding really interesting because Brook is obviously using it to explore issues around disability (mostly the social model of disability, I think, so far), gay and lesbian rights, women's rights, and race. Sometimes it's been heavy handed, or it doesn't quite feel right to me, or I roll my eyes, but it's substantively more than most paranormal romances and urban fantasies do, and actually more than a fair amount of sf/f does.

That said, I'd advise pretty much everyone to skip The Iron Duke, which is the book I want to throw against a wall (heroine: awesome. hero: HATE HATE I HATE HIM SO MUCH). Heart of Steel features the cutthroat Arabic pirate airship captain and the Indiana Jones-type guy she throws off her ship the second time they meet. Riveted has POC in the roles of hero AND heroine (this may actually be a first for me in non-African-American romance), along with ( minor spoiler that I think will convince people to try this. )

(consists of The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, and The Gate of Gods)

Ile-Rien has been under attack by the Gardier for a while, and they are losing. The Gardier possess magic that can disrupt anything mechanical, and Rienish wizards haven't been able to find anything that can counter the Gardier's magic, at least until they accidentally find a way to jump to different worlds using a sphere made by Tremaine Valiarde's eccentric uncle-figure Arisilde, who has been missing and presumed dead for a while. Ensuing attempts to battle the Gardier eventually encompass rogue wizards, a giant luxury liner, a lot of fighting, airships, and Tremaine's often dubious morals.

I especially enjoyed the trilogy's blend of plot, world building, and fun characters. Tremaine herself would probably admit that she is terrible as a model heroine, but very good at flying by the seat of her pants, being sarcastic, and having a complete lack of sympathy for the Gardier. And the Ilias and Giliead show always cracks me up.

( Cut for length )

( Spoilers, some mention of suicidality )

In conclusion: I have some nitpicks, but the trilogy is really enjoyable, with settings I think you don't get that much in fantasy (I now want to check out the luxury ocean liner the Ravenna is based on) and a fun cadre of characters.