tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59361457437096764092024-03-13T14:16:29.896-05:00In The Forest Of StoriesFiction, food, and whatever else strikes my fancyMemoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.comBlogger435125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-74994035402353527242017-06-20T05:00:00.000-05:002017-06-20T10:42:49.019-05:00Review: Danced Close by Annabeth Albert<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T5l1MUufKt4/WUQSu-0PEdI/AAAAAAAAEdc/42svWPVrvsU4SGrqJA8sFg-IfYXgGvI2wCLcBGAs/s1600/dancedclose.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T5l1MUufKt4/WUQSu-0PEdI/AAAAAAAAEdc/42svWPVrvsU4SGrqJA8sFg-IfYXgGvI2wCLcBGAs/s320/dancedclose.png" width="213" height="320" data-original-width="255" data-original-height="383" alt= "Cover of Danced Close, featuring two white people in suits dancing together. One suit is very pale grey; the other is dark blue. Both people wear bow ties. In true romance novel fashion, the top of the cover cuts off their heads, while the lower bodies are obscured by the title."/></a></div><b>Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.</b><p>
Kendall, a genderqueer wedding planner, is in a bind. He’s committed to participating in a swing dance benefit in a few weeks, but his best friend has had to bow out of the event--and the dance lessons leading up to it--to deal with a family emergency. Kendall <i>can’t</i> give the benefit a miss or show up without a partner; not with his ex ready and waiting to sneer at him.<p>
Enter Todd, a former competitive dancer and current assistant at one of the bakeries Kendall deals with. Todd agrees to help Kendall out, and the more they dance together the deeper their connection runs.<p>
DANCED CLOSE [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2rzj92z" target=new>Amazon</a>] is the sixth book in Albert’s Portland Heat series. The novellas all focus on small business owners and employees, and as with most romance series you do <i>not</i> need to read them in publication order. Newcomers can easily leap in here, though longtime readers will recognize Todd from his small role in BAKED FRESH and be glad to see cameos from a few other series couples.<p>
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This latest installment has tons to recommend it, starting with its genderqueer co-protagonist! I’d like to see more genderqueer (and agender, and nonbinary, and genderfluid) characters in fiction, please. Kendall’s secure in his identity as a genderqueer gay man, and Albert demonstrates his comfort with himself without downplaying the challenges he faces from some elements of society. Kendall’s used to people sneering at him, treating him as a performer rather than a person, or ignoring him outright because he makes them feel uncomfortable. He’s determined to live the way he wants to despite this.<p>
Todd hasn’t known any genderqueer people besides Kendall, but his lack of familiarity with his new friend’s gender doesn’t translate into a lack of respect. He makes an effort to ask about pronouns and to avoid making insensitive remarks, keen to support the person who quickly comes to mean so much to him. When he fails--a hallmark of Albert’s protagonists, who are always willing but imperfect--he owns his mistakes and learns from them. It’s always a matter of Todd adjusting his own perceptions without demanding Kendall be anyone other than who he is.<p>
Even though Kendall is the first genderqueer person Todd’s met, he’s not the only genderqueer person in the narrative. Another of the couples in their dance class is genderqueer, and since it’s a small business romance Kendall ends up planning their wedding. Entrepreneurs always gotta hussle, you know?<p>
Identities remain front and centre throughout the story. Kendall knows who he is, but Todd, who’s a few years younger, is still in the process of figuring himself out. He’s a recovering drug addict who’s fairly new to having a settled living situation and a secure job, and who feels like his life is on hold while he processes how his time on the streets changed him. Consequently, he’s reluctant to trust the opportunities that come his way because he’s sure he’ll mess up, whether he’s dealing with his boss’s offer to teach him cake decoration or his friendship (and eventual romance) with Kendall. The new relationship gives him a framework to explore the passions that form his personality, including his love for dance and his newfound focus on the sorts of foods and fashions he gravitates towards (and shies away from).<p>
Albert plays up the contrast between Kendall’s confidence and Todd’s uncertainty, allowing each of them to push the other in new directions while acknowledging change can be hard and scary, especially when you’re coming out of a dark period.<p>
DANCED CLOSE is also notable as Albert’s first dual first person POV offering. She cuts between Todd and Kendall on a chapter-by-chapter basis and does a good job of giving each character a distinct voice and narrative outlook. It’s always easy to tell whose head you’re in.<p>
This approach allows us to see the characters through each others’ eyes, too; a fun element missing from the earlier Portland Heat books (but very much on display in Albert’s third person #gaymers and Perfect Harmony series). I love first person because I love hearing characters’ stories in their own words, but I also love the way third person romances play up the lovers’ reactions to one another. DANCED CLOSE delivers the best of both worlds.<p>
The POV shifts also generate much of the novella’s tension. It’s obvious to the reader that Kendall and Todd are great together and more than capable of supporting one another through any number of pitfalls, but their various hangups have them each convinced the other is looking for something completely different in the long term. It’s a tearjerker, as this sort of Albert narrative always is, but I did feel like there were a few emotional cues missing here and there. I knew what was going on, but I didn’t feel it as strongly as I normally do with Albert’s work because the groundwork wasn’t as solid as usual.<p>
Despite that hiccup, this is another lovely entry in the series. It made me tear up, and it left me eager for whatever Albert comes out with next. I hope she’s got more Portland Heat novellas in the works!<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-11368992972940369662017-06-16T05:00:00.000-05:002017-06-16T05:00:03.213-05:00Review: Geek Actually, Episodes One and Two<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YiDKpPvQ2Ck/WUMRKX1h5UI/AAAAAAAAEc8/lrp9zAoouHou6kVtIxmtFs1NuE9jYBv7wCLcBGAs/s1600/geekactuallyep1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YiDKpPvQ2Ck/WUMRKX1h5UI/AAAAAAAAEc8/lrp9zAoouHou6kVtIxmtFs1NuE9jYBv7wCLcBGAs/s320/geekactuallyep1.png" width="201" height="320" data-original-width="385" data-original-height="614" alt= "Cover of Geek Actually Episode One, featuring a stylized image of a Filipina woman with long, dark hair. She wears large yellow sunglasses and sits at a desk in a pink-walled office, her computer in front of her and a phone pressed to her ear."/></a></div> <b>Review copies provided by the publisher</b>.<p>
GEEK ACTUALLY is the first general fiction offering from <a href= "https://www.serialbox.com/" target=new>Serial Box</a>, my favourite purveyor of episodic fiction. Pitched as “SEX AND THE CITY for the modern geek girl,” it follows five diverse women as they navigate life in general and geekdom in specific.<p>
Michelle is an editor at a prestigious SFF publisher. Aditi is a fantasy writer with the potential to become a superstar. Taneesha’s a badass developer at a game company. Christina’s a production assistant on a post-apocalyptic TV show. And Elli is an uber-talented cosplayer with zero interested in life beyond fandom.<p>
Writers Cathy Yardley, Melissa Blue, Rachel Stuhler, and Cecelia Tan launched the serial last week with its premiere episode, “WTF.” The second episode, “The Invisible Woman,” dropped this past Wednesday.<p>
Serial Box kindly gave me the first four episodes to preview, and it was all I could do not to tear through them in one go. I had an especially hard time pausing after “The Invisible Woman” so I could write this intro-to-the-series post without letting my thoughts on the subsequent episodes creep in.<p>
Because this is great stuff, people. I’m <i>excited</i>.<p>
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With “WTF” (which <a href= "https://www.serialbox.com/serials/58c04e5aff49f0000135a85d" target=new>you can read for free on the Serial Box website</a>), Cathy Yardley introduces the characters and establishes the conflicts that’ll follow them through this first season. Michelle, editor extraordinaire, serves as our door into their world. She’s convinced her publisher to shell out six figures for Aditi’s book--but as much as Michelle believes in the story, she’s having a hell of a time actually working with her friend. Aditi’s got zero interest in doing the promo work that’ll give her a legit shot at stardom, and nothing less than multiple bestseller lists and mountains of buzz will justify the publisher’s investment in her.<p>
Aditi’s ignoring her phone, so Michelle finds her on the #RebelScum Slack channel their friend group uses to keep in touch. The women’s subsequent chat gives the reader an effective glimpse of each character in their own words <i>and</i> through the filter of Michelle’s affection for (and occasional frustration with) them. It’s a great narrative conceit that shows us everything we need to know about how these people operate.<p>
The chat focuses on the Michelle-Aditi professional conflict that anchors the premiere, but and also introduces what looks to be Taneesha’s major storyline. Taneesha’s a black woman in a male-dominated field, and the small game company at which she’s built a good reputation for herself has just been bought up by a bigger fish. All she wants to do is run her project and write some awesome code, but her new bosses bombard her with a bunch of claptrap that diminishes her contributions. I can tell this is gonna create some amazing, all too real narrative tension going forward.<p>
These two storylines (and the characters' fondness for profanity) imbue GEEK ACTUALLY with a much darker tone than I was expecting from something marketed as women’s fiction, but once I adjusted my expectations I was <i>in</i>. It’s clear the writers are out to celebrate how much these women enjoy the geeky things they’ve embraced, be they books or games or costumes, but they don’t shy away from the less joyous parts of being a female fan.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NMmNx3vFLr4/WUMRvyPVyGI/AAAAAAAAEdA/CgBkvyzrlwcq0xnJvsSLiwOpGGBNZVMKgCLcBGAs/s1600/geekactuallyep2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NMmNx3vFLr4/WUMRvyPVyGI/AAAAAAAAEdA/CgBkvyzrlwcq0xnJvsSLiwOpGGBNZVMKgCLcBGAs/s320/geekactuallyep2.png" width="200" height="320" data-original-width="403" data-original-height="644" alt= "Cover of Geek Actually Episode Two, featuring a stylized illustration of a Filipina woman with short dark hair and grey sunglasses. She stands against a dessert backdrop in a beam of light emitted by an old fashioned video camera, a walkie talkie held to one side of her mouth. A strip of film and a couple of alcohol bottles appear around the episode’s title."/></a></div>Or being a person, full stop; there’s plenty of professional and romantic drama on the horizon, as writer Rachel Stuhler hammers home in “The Invisible Woman.”<p>
Perhaps because Christina, the Hollywood PA, gets her chance to shine in the opening pages, I soon realized the serial reminds me as much of Jackie Collins as of SATC. There’s a harder edge to to it all. These women don't pull their when they think about their problems, and they're often out and out <i>angry</i>, in true Collinsesque fashion--because, most importantly, their professional lives generate at least as much drama as their various relationships, romantic and otherwise.<p>
In Christina’s case, she works in a tough industry packed with egos, and her latest assignment isn’t the drug-fuelled, sex-drenched cakewalk it first appears. Taneesha’s professional woes also take centre stage this ep as she navigates the politics of her new company and tries to carve out a place where she can do the kind of work she’s most passionate about.<p>
Both storylines are rife with the kind of readerly frustration I eat straight from the jar as each woman finds herself in a situation that should give her the opportunity to live her best life but which soon takes a dire turn. I felt for Taneesha, in particular, and I’m hoping the rest of the season gives her a million chances to shine. I want to see everyone around her recognize her talent and drive.<p>
Meanwhile, Michelle’s business intersects with her personal life at a literary agency’s anniversary party and Elli draws flack from her family due to her utter lack of a professional life. Their storylines are a bit less compelling this episode, but that’s only in comparison to Christina and Taneesha’s meaty doings. I’m excited to see what’s up next for them.<p>
Aditi still has a presence in everyone else’s adventures, but for the most part she gets the second week off; a gloriously cruel way of building tension, given how the reader’s now <i>dying</i> to know what sort of arrangement governs her marriage.<p>
The first ep drew me in, but the second full on hooked me. There’s so much potential for these women’s lives to overflow with all the best kinds of drama; a terrible thing in the real world, but the stuff Collinsesque serials are made of. I’ve got this mental image of myself screaming, “IS IT NEXT WEEK YET?” at the end of every episode.<p>
Speaking of which, I’m gonna dive into episode three now I know it won’t affect how I write about episodes one and two. We'll talk about it soon.<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-87114606674593953932017-06-13T05:00:00.000-05:002017-06-13T05:00:35.767-05:00#warehousewatch: Giant-Size Superhero Special<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E62TuGhRs9g/WT7O1MjZJNI/AAAAAAAAEcs/5qCT4aaNiU4RKYHpATb9yiPKKdxZ8g7LgCLcB/s1600/theflash-musicalep2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E62TuGhRs9g/WT7O1MjZJNI/AAAAAAAAEcs/5qCT4aaNiU4RKYHpATb9yiPKKdxZ8g7LgCLcB/s640/theflash-musicalep2.jpg" width="640" height="426" data-original-width="1013" data-original-height="675" alt= "A screencap of Barry Allen and Kara Danvers sitting on a pile of flour sacks in a warehouse. They both wear 1920s clothing: Barry, a dark three-piece suit, and Kara, a black full length evening gown with a glittery bodice and elbow-length gloves."/></a></div>
<center><font size=1>Where better to set your musical episode than a series of warehouses?</font></center><p>
Welcome to #warehousewatch, in which we track the most integral thing on the CW Network: the warehouses! This giant-size super-special installment takes us from the start of March through to the season finale of the CW’s three biggest superhero shows: THE FLASH, SUPERGIRL, and ARROW. A second mega post will cover JANE THE VIRGIN, LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, and THE VAMPIRE DIARIES through to their finales, with a look at the first few episodes of iZOMBIE. And since I’m waaaaaaaay behind on both THE 100 and THE ORIGINALS (those pesky The series), they’ll each receive a separate, full-season report at an unspecified point in the future.<p>
If you missed the previous posts in this series, you can find them under my <a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/search/label/cw%20scholarship" target=new>CW Scholarship</a> tag.<p>
As always, I’ve organized this vitally important scientific data by show and by episode, and I’ve counted warehouse appearances rather than individual warehouses. There are also <i>lots</i> of spoilers in the mix. You may wish to skip the episodes you haven’t seen yet and/or go straight to the stats section at the bottom of this massive, unwieldy post.<p>
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<b><h2>The Flash, Season Three</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Fifteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Joe brings a milkshake to Iris’s warehouse apartment and gives her a pep talk about loooooooove.</li>
<li>Iris asks Barry to meet her at their warehouse apartment so they can talk about his proposal, which she’s recognized was totally just a way for him to change the future. Dammit, Barry.</li>
<li>Wally confronts Savitar at a warehouse/factory complex that <i>might</i> be the mill we’ve seen before. It goes about as well as you’d expect (ie, Savitar throws him into the speed force).</li>
<li>Barry rushes to the warehouse/factory complex. He’s too late to save Wally, but he and Savitar do get to crash through one of the warehouses together. Awwww.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Sixteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Barry and Iris talk about their relationship in their warehouse apartment. Barry decides they should go on a break, since he’s seen a lot of TV and he knows how well that generally works out.</li>
<li>Non-warehouse-related sidebar: does anyone maintain a master list of superheroes who date and/or marry their adoptive sisters, or is there no need for such a thing because it’s just, “Nightcrawler and TV’s Barry Allen”? Because I’ve gotta say, this trope skeeves me out and it’s kept me from investing in Barry and Iris’s relationship. It <i>might</i> be different if Barry didn’t actively call Joe his father and Wally his brother, but since he does… yeah. It’s skeevy.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Seventeen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Barry mopes around Cisco’s warehouse apartment, watching musicals and thinking about his dead mother. Classic superhero move, and also <i>foreshadowing</i>. Is Barry about to get sucked into a musical dream world that’ll help him clarify his feelings for Iris?</li>
<li>Barry and Kara find themselves in a nightclub located in a refurbished warehouse. They’ve been sucked into a musical dream world and must now <i>sing</i> and also <i>dance</i>, with help from those among their shows’ cast members who’ve got musical theatre backgrounds.</li>
<li>Gangster Stein kidnaps Barry and Kara and takes them to--you guessed it--<i>the warehouse lair he shares with Gangster Joe</i>. The two of them want Kara and Barry to find their missing daughter, Fake Iris. Because who else would you hire for this gig besides a couple of nightclub singers? None of your goons could do it, that’s for damned sure.</li>
<li>Fake Iris finds Gangster Joe and Gangster Stein in their warehouse lair. She wants to tell them she’s in love with Fake Mon-El, because Barry ain’t the only one who’s got some romantical woes to work through via the power of song.</li>
<li>A huge fight goes down outside the warehouse nightclub. Death! Woe! Forgiveness! The power of love! Look how many musical tropes are also superhero tropes!</li>
<li>Barry finds Iris in their warehouse apartment and sings a second, more sincere, proposal to her. It’d be real sweet if it weren’t for the whole raised-as-siblings thing.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Eighteen:</b></br>
<ul>
<li>Abra Kedabra, our techno-magical villain of the week, murders some security guards in a tech company’s warehouse after they interrupt him mid-heist.</li>
<li>Barry and Joe investigate the warehouse crime scene.</li>
<li>Turns out, Abra Kedabra’s building a time machine <i>in a warehouse</i>. If this season of superheroic TV has taught us anything, it’s that warehouses are the absolute best places to do anything related to your time machine.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Nineteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Barry and Iris talk things over in their warehouse apartment. He’s determined to plan his well-advised trip to the future while she’s worried about how Joe will cope with her impending death. She asks Barry to make a lot of promises that he’ll soon learn he’s gonna break, because this season has also driven home how Barry Allen ain’t the most reliable guy on the block.</li>
<li>Barry visits his warehouse apartment in 2024 and finds it both abandoned and trashed; the fate of every warehouse. Beardy Future Cisco finds him there and fills him in one all the awful stuff that’s happened since they failed to prevent Iris’s death.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Twenty:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Killer Frost and Savitar confer in an abandoned warehouse they’ve clearly taken as their lair. Gotta respect the rules of supervillainy, yes?</li>
<li>Killer Frost abducts Cecile and takes her to what I <i>think</i> is a different abandoned warehouse. (You probably don’t want to lead your enemies straight to your lair at this point in the game.) The team tracks them there. Fisticuffs ensue.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Twenty-One:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Killer Frost finds Amensiac Savitar huddled in a corner of their warehouse lair. Remember, kids, it ain’t a proper superhero drama unless somebody gets amnesia. Bonus points if they have amnesia and an evil twin <i>at the same time</i>, as is in fact the case from Barry’s point of view.</li>
<li>Iris takes Amnesiac Barry back to their warehouse apartment so they can recharge and discuss his scientifically induced memory loss.</li>
<li>Savitar regains his memory in his warehouse lair. He’s pretty triumphant about it, as one expects of a guy who runs around in glowing metal armour.</i>
</ul> </li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Twenty-Two:</b></br>
<ul>
<li>Iris and Barry lie awake in their warehouse apartment, worrying about the future. When Barry rushes off to get something for her, Iris takes the opportunity to record a secret message on his phone.</li>
<li>Savitar and Killer Frost hang around their warehouse lair, being villainous and discussing their dual identities.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Twenty-Three:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>In a flashback, HR tracks Iris to Savitar and Killer Frost’s warehouse lair. When their escape attempt goes south, he uses his image inducer (or whatever DC calls it) to switch places with her.</li>
<li>Barry confronts Savitar in a warehouse filled with both cars and shelves, as so many warehouses-cum-garages are. He offers to help Savitar find a way to keep on living now the team has erased the future Savitar comes from.</li>
<li>Savitar returns to his dedicated warehouse lair and shares his plans with Killer Frost, who’s still his willing minion, and Cisco, who he’s kidnapped.</li>
<li>Gypsy vibes Cisco out of Savitar’s warehouse lair and straight into Barry and Iris’s warehouse apartment. It’s a two-for-one warehouse scene!</li>
<li>Barry and Iris plan their wedding in their warehouse apartment, until a sky quake hits and Barry has to go to time prison to stabilize the Speed Force. That’s gonna put a major kink in their plans.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<b><h2>Supergirl, Season Two</b></h2><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Fifteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Alex and Maggie play pool in one part of the warehouse bar while Winn introduces James to Lyra over at the bar itself. Of course, Cadmus’s goons disrupt everything when they leap in and kidnap Lyra. Frickin’ Cadmus, man.</li>
<li>The fight spills into the alley outside the warehouse bar. Alex and Maggie take a prisoner with James-as-Guardian’s help.</li>
<li>Jeremiah and Lillian work on Project Exodus in yet another of Cadmus’s warehouses. This one’s attached to an old LuthorCorp naval company, which you know Lena’s gonna be happy about.</li>
<li>Later, Lillian schemes against Lena from the comfort of her naval warehouse. Crime Lord Mothers. Sigh.</li>
<li>In her own warehouse (apartment), Kara decides to publish her Cadmus expose on her own blog even though her editor refuses to touch it.</li>
<li>Alex breaks into Cadmus’s Warehouse of the Week in search of Jeremiah, who she’s sure isn’t as evil as he looks.</li>
<li>Jeremiah fills Alex in on Cadmus’s big plan. You’ll be shocked to learn he did it to protect her. (Next season, I’m gonna track all the “I did it to protect you” scenes on the CW.) (No, I lie, that’s too much work.)</li>
<li>Secure in her warehouse lair, Lillian prepares to launch Exodus in response to Kara’s article (which I guess got really good traffic even though it’s on a brand new blog), but Alex moves to blow up the warehouse before the ship can launch. All warehouses that don’t eventually become abandoned and trashed <i>must</i> be blown up. It’s in the official rules.</li>
<li>Jeremiah fights Hank Henshaw while the warehouse tries to blow up around them. DRAMA.</li>
<li>Winn and Lyra enjoy an emotional reunion in the warehouse bar (which I still think should get a name that’s a clear reference to the Bronze. Get on that, SUPERGIRL writers).</li>
<li>Kara and Mon-El have a heartfelt talk in her warehouse apartment.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Sixteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Kara and Mon-El watch GAME OF THRONES and have a cutesy moment in her warehouse apartment, but his parents ruin it when they hijack the airwaves with a nasty message demanding his immediate return. <i>Dammit</i>, Space Tyrant Parents.</li>
<li>Alex, James, and Winn shake some people down at the warehouse bar as part of their search for Lyra, who’s done a runner after framing Winn for art theft. <i>Dammit</i>, Lyra.</li>
<li>Winn talks Lyra into letting him come along when she confronts the art theft ring in their obligatory warehouse lair. It all goes wrong and James swoops in to fight the head of the cartel.</li>
<li>Kara returns to her warehouse apartment to find Mon-El in a confessional mood. She breaks up with him on account of how he’s secretly the prince of a loathsome empire and that’s something you should <i>really</i> tell your partner before your Space Tyrant Parents come along and do it for you. <i>Dammit</i>, Mon-El.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Seventeen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Kara zips out of her warehouse apartment to fight an alien menace that’s trying to take her down because <i>somebody</i> put a bounty on her. Who might that’ve been?</li>
<li>Mon-El invites his parents to the warehouse bar so he can ask them to remove the bounty on Kara (who took him back during the death-woe-forgiveness part of THE FLASH’s musical episode). They deny placing it and try to guilt him into coming home with them, in the manner of Space Tyrant Parents everywhere.</li>
<li>Kara, James, and Winn try to revive game night at her warehouse apartment, but it all falls apart when Mon-El comes in and is promptly mind controlled to kill Kara. Psychic bounty hunters are <i>such</i> a pain. Their fight spills out of the apartment.</li>
<li>James and Winn watch the fight from the warehouse apartment and use a technological doohickey to discover the psychic bounty hunter’s whereabouts so they can take him down.</li>
<li>Kara and Mon-El clean up her warehouse apartment in the wake of the fight. Mon-El thinks they should run away together like Romeo & Juliet, because he hasn’t reached the play’s tragic ending. Kara thinks they’d better just have a talk with his Space Tyrant Mother (who, by the way, I’m totally counting on my Crime Lord Mothers of the CW list). (Did you ever doubt there was a list?)</li>
<li>After the Space Tyrant Mother talk goes <i>super</i> well, Kara and Mon-El debrief in her warehouse apartment and talk about ethics and suchlike. It’s important to discuss these matters with your Former Space Tyrant Boyfriend.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Eighteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Kara tries and fails to bake things in her warehouse apartment. Luckily, Lena interrupts her before she can do any further damage. Lena’s ex, Jack, is holding a tech announcement event related to a project they worked on together, and she wants Kara to come along for emotional support. Because the CW understands that actor overlap is the best thing, Jack is played by Ravi from iZOMBIE.</li>
<li>James fights a villain in an alley near a warehouse before he returns to his van to debrief with Winn and Lyra (who’s sorta joined their crimefighting team, much to James’s dismay).</li>
<li>Kara meets a source at the docks, and there’s a warehouse across the water in the background which <i>totally</i> counts. Unfortunately for the source, the car they’re meeting in blows up.</li>
<li>Kara enters her warehouse apartment, furious with herself for failing to save some more sources who were eaten by nanites. She talks about it with Mon-El, who’s finished R&J and moved along to Harry Potter.</li>
<li>Winn and Lyra meet up at the warehouse bar (which I think might’ve got a redesign?) so he can tell her James wants her off the Guardian team. Awkward.</li>
<li>Jack has a lab in part of his company’s personal fancy warehouse! Lena goes there to confront him about how he faked the human trials for his product, but he has no idea what she’s talking about. Turns out, he’s being mind controlled by his villainous CFO. Poor dude.</li>
<li>The CFO delivers a villain speech detailing her master plan. She tries to infect Lena with the nanites, but luckily Kara shows up to fight the swarm while Lena tangles with the CFO.</li>
<li>James and Winn have a <i>moment</i> in their team van, which is parked outside a warehouse.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Nineteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Alex, having been recently kidnapped, wakes up in a plexiglass cell in a warehouse basement.</li>
<li>Alex manages to hack her warehouse cell’s security camera so she can send a message to the DEO.</li>
<li>In a separate abandoned warehouse basement, Kara finds a countdown clock that tells her how long it’ll be until Alex’s warehouse cell fills with water.</li>
<li>Alex tries to break out of her warehouse cell, but she’s mostly underwater so she has zero luck.</li>
<li>Kara and Maggie show up just in time to break Alex free.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Twenty:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>James disrupts an alien drug deal outside a warehouse.</li>
<li>Young Marcus, an alien kid James befriends, tracks his fugitive mother to a warehouse where she’s hiding with many others of their species.</li>
<li>In their warehouse hideaway, the aliens feel the effects of the portal device Rhea, Mon-El’s Space Tyrant Mother, has conned Lena into helping her build.</li>
<li>The scene cuts back and forth between James’s attempts to keep the aliens safe in <i>their</i> warehouse and a larger superhero battle at Lena’s lab.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Twenty-One:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The DEO sets up at the warehouse bar after their office tower is compromised.</li>
<li>Kara brings Cat and the President to the warehouse bar after Rhea shoots their plane down.</li>
<li>Kara finds Cat in the warehouse bar’s alley and talks to her about how she doesn’t want to execute the President’s orders without trying to save Lena and Mon-El, both of whom Rhea has abducted. She seems to think this confessional period will leave her secret identity intact, which would be more of an issue if Cat didn’t obviously already know she’s Supergirl. Cat is the smartest, after all.</li>
<li>Kara brings Lillian and Hank Henshaw to the warehouse bar so they can talk strategy.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Twenty-Two:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Kara dreams she’s in her warehouse apartment, sharing memories of her mother with Mon-El.</li>
<li>Kara and Rhea’s fight sends them crashing into a warehouse (or maybe an office building with a warehousey aesthetic.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<b><h2>Arrow, Season Five</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Fifteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Oliver and Anatoly fight some gangsters in a hospital’s obligatory warehouse.</li>
<li>Vigilante assembles a gun in an abandoned warehouse while he watches the news.</li>
<li>Diggle, Curtis, and Rene track Vigilante to what appears to be a different abandoned warehouse, located <i>right across from City Hall</i>. Star City is serious about its abandoned warehouses, y’all.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Sixteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Felicity’s Helix contact, Elena, gives her an introductory tour of their warehouse lair.</li>
<li>Oliver confronts Adrian in a parking garage that’s clearly also a warehouse. The CW used a lot of those this season. Or make it was the same warehouse parking garage over and over and over again, because the rent was cheap.</li>
<li>Felicity returns to the Helix warehouse lair and learns she’s expected to scratch their back before Elena will help her anymore. These underground organizations are so <i>demanding</i>.</li>
<li>Felicity returns once again to the Helix Warehouse to ask them to help her search for Oliver.</li>
<li>Who, to no one’s surprise, Adrian and Talia are holding captive IN AN ABANDONED WAREHOUSE fitted out with some prison-like areas.</li>
<li>There’s also a monastery full of white pillar candles at one point during the episode. Been a while since ARROW featured one of those. Likewise, we haven’t visited any of the ancient temples beneath Star City this season.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Seventeen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Adrian tortures Oliver in the warehouse prison.</li>
<li>In a flashback, Oliver and Anatoly talk Bratva politics while they stroll through the organization’s warehouse complex.</li>
<li>In the warehouse prison, Adrian makes Oliver look at pictures of people Oliver’s killed before Adrian fires arrows at him. ARROW is such a bad show to be on if you don’t want people to fire arrows at you and/or force you to confront your past sins.</li>
<li>New scene; new warehouse torment session. Adrian really, really wants Oliver to confess to something.</li>
<li>In a flashback, Oliver tortures a gangster in what looks an awful lot like a warehouse basement, except it’s got a stained glass window so maybe it’s not? Do Russian warehouses use a lot of stained glass?</li>
<li>In the present, Adrian throws Evelyn into the warehouse cell with Oliver and demands Oliver kill her.</li>
<li>After some time elsewhere, we cut back to the Oliver/Evelyn fight. Neither one of them wants to kill the other. Adrian’s less than pleased about this, so he enters and seemingly kills Evelyn himself.</li>
<li>For a while, we cut between non-warehouse flashbacks and snippets of Adrian tormenting Oliver until Oliver eventually confesses he killed all those people because he wanted to, not because he had to. Adrian gloats over the revelation, while Evelyn reveals she faked her own death to pile the guilt on Oliver. Been a while since anyone did <i>that</i>, too. It’s like ARROW’s aiming for all its Greatest Hits in the lead-up to the finale.</li>
<li>Later, Oliver wakes up in the warehouse prison, free to walk through the open cell door.</li>
<li>Since apparently I’m noting white pillar candles, too, there’re a lot of them at the Bratva funeral Oliver attends during one of the flashbacks. I think we’re at another of those points where the CW higher-ups decided to remind the ARROW props department they’re contractually obligated to use a certain number of WPCs per season.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Eighteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Felicity consults with Elena in Helix’s warehouse lair and determines Adrian wears a digital image scrambler that prevents him from being photographed while he’s in his Prometheus guise.</li>
<li>Felicity uses the Helix warehouse to further investigate the scrambler tech. She’s sure she can find a way to break it, but she needs an example of the scrambler to work with.</li>
<li>The team interrupts the Bratva stealing diabetes drugs from a medical laboratory’s warehouse.</li>
<li>Felicity strategizes in the Helix warehouse until Curtis, who’s tracked her via nanobots he slipped into her muffin, shows up with the scrambler device for her to work from.</li>
<li>In a flashback, Oliver helps Anatoly rob a Russian warehouse.</li>
<li>The team breaks into a warehouse they suspect Anatoly will hit to steal more components for this über-drug he’s building. A fight ensues, as we all knew it would.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Nineteen:</b></br>
<ul>
<li>Felicity does some work for Helix in their warehouse lair. In exchange, Elena helps her discover a possible lead on Prometheus.</li>
<li>Felicity returns to the Helix warehouse to confront Elena about how she straight up murdered a dude in an elevator. You just can’t trust your friends not to murder people in elevators. Not when you’re a character on ARROW.</li>
<li>At the Helix warehouse, Felicity tries to convince Elena not to attack Argus.</li>
<li>Helix preps for their Argus raid in a warehouse staging area that <i>appears</i> to be separate from their regular lair.</li>
<li>Felicity, Elena, and the rest of Helix hit a SECRET ARGUS WAREHOUSE filled with shipping containers in which Argus illegally detains prisoners. The people of Star City find <i>so many</i> ghastly uses for warehouses, y’all.</li>
<li>Felicity returns to the Helix warehouse and finds it empty of everything except a screen on which she receives a Skype call from Elena. Helix is cutting all ties with her now she’s helped them achieve their objective.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Twenty:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses. What is this what’s happening what does it <i>mean</i></li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Twenty-One:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Curtis and Dinah stake out some gangsters who were released because all Adrian’s convictions have been overturned on account of how he’s a supervillain. They’re working out of a warehouse, as all respectable Star City gangsters do.</li>
<li>The gangsters pull away from their warehouse, but Curtis and Dinah can’t tail them as planned because they need to rush off to rescue Oliver and Diggle. Bummer.</li>
<li>The gangsters attempt to rob a warehouse full of chemicals, but the team interrupts them. Fisticuffs ensue.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Twenty-Two:</b></br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses. GASP.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<ul>
<li>Episode Twenty-Three:</b>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses, but the set designers compensate by delivering an ancient temple full of white pillar candles <i>and</i> a hell island. It’s a three-for-one of important ARROW tropes!</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<h2><b>Some Conclusions:</b></h2><p>
During this period, these three shows alone delivered 104 warehouse scenes across 26 episodes. ARROW aired three warehouse-free episodes, but everyone else utilized the CW’s favourite setting in spades.<p>
Holy warehouses, Batman! Except it appears nobody’s allowed to <i>say</i> “Batman” on any of these shows, no matter how often they allude to him.<p>
THE FLASH did the least to bolster the warehouse cause. It aired a mere 28 warehouse scenes across the back 9, resulting in an average of 3.1 warehouse scenes per episode. A respectable total in the realm of TV as a whole, but a relatively laclustre performance for a superhero show.<p>
ARROW came in second. Despite its three warehouse-free episodes, it aired a total of 32 warehouse scenes across its back 9, for an average of 3.5 warehouses per episode. This is a remarkably poor showing for the one-time King of the Warehouses.<p>
Good thing SUPERGIRL was on hand to take up the mantle. SUPERGIRL aired only 8 episodes after the hiatus, but it packed a whopping <b>44 warehouse scenes</b> into them for an average of 5.5 warehouse scenes per episode. Excellent work, SUPERGIRL! You’ve officially replaced ARROW as Queen of the Warehouses thanks to your hero’s warehouse apartment, the warehouse bar everyone hangs out in, and a slew of baddies who respect the number one rule of supervillainy: You Gotta Have A Warehouse Lair.<p>
Or a couple dozen warehouse lairs, in Cadmus’s case.<p>
All together, the three shows featured an average of 4 warehouse scenes per episode thanks to SUPERGIRL’s generosity. Team-ups always have been a staple of the genre.<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-34431905000012388982017-04-29T07:00:00.000-05:002017-04-30T02:58:51.415-05:00Readathon: April 2017 Edition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7hbiIz4u5YY/V8nFR-2JebI/AAAAAAAAD1E/nBDdxHtsrssFRlTezP_Bu04EUR6qhWoXgCPcB/s1600/mpb-songofbloodandstone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7hbiIz4u5YY/V8nFR-2JebI/AAAAAAAAD1E/nBDdxHtsrssFRlTezP_Bu04EUR6qhWoXgCPcB/s640/mpb-songofbloodandstone.jpg" width="450" height="450" alt= "Square image of a fuzzy grey poodle standing on some very green grass. A short distance away from him is a trade paperback copy of Song of Blood and Stone. Its cover features a young black woman awash in pink tones. The shot is taken from above." /></a></div>
<center><font size=1>This is my first Readathon without Murchie. I'll think of him often today.</font></center><p>
Hello, friends and fellow Readathonners! The best day of the spring is upon us, and I for one am ready to dive straight in and read my heart out.<p>
My BIG PLANS for today include a couple (or a few) dozen issues of various X-Men series, interspersed with print comics, my current audiobook, and some prose whenever I need to recharge my device. I'll also be helping out on the official Instagram feed during the later half of the 'thon, alongside the lovely Kelly of <a href= "http://myreadingbooks.blogspot.ca/" target=new>The Written World</a>, and I'm going to try to maintain a presence on Litsy. You can find me there as xicanti.<p>
I'll also edit this post with periodic updates about what I'm reading, what I'm eating, and what else I'm doing with my time. (Because as much as I love reading, I <i>always</i> do a couple other things with my time.) The most recent update will always appear at the top.<p>
<h1>Hour Twenty-Two-ish</h1><p>
My last session involved lots of Instagramming, some TV in Korean so I had to read it, and far less non-TV reading than I would've liked. In the piddly forty-five minutes I actually read, though, I did start FOOL'S QUEST by Robin Hobb for the second time and creep a little bit further through X-FACTOR.<p>
I'd like to get a bit more read before the Readathon ends, so this'll be my last blog update. I'll still be awake and active on social media, though! With any luck, I can make this my second (?) full Readathon.<p>
To aid in that, I'm currently drinking my beloved Jumpy Monkey tea, and I'm considering having second supper. There're enough leftovers to make up a good-sized taco bowl, if I cut my remaining tortilla up and fry it into chips. Alas, I'll have to pass on more of my buffalo & bleu cheese chips as I hurt my tongue eating caramel corn and I don't think I can take anything with that particular texture.<p>
I may watch another shorter TV episode, too. Depends how sleepy I am.<p>
<b>Total Time Read:</b>
<ul>
<li>Seven hours, fifty-nine minutes</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Books/Series Explored:</b>
<ul>
<li>X-MEN (2010)</li>
<li>FAITH: HOLLYWOOD AND VINE</li>
<li>GENEXT UNITED</li>
<li>MY BRILLIANT FRIEND</li>
<li>X-MEN/ALPHA FLIGHT</li>
<li>EXCALIBUR: MOJO MAYHEM</li>
<li>X-FACTOR (1986)</li>
<li>FOOL'S QUEST</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Food & Drink Consumed:</b>
<ul>
<li>two cups coffee</li>
<li>many glasses of water (I always lose track)</li>
<li>one bowl Krave cereal, sans milk</li>
<li>three bowls chocolate caramel corn, plus a bunch of individual pieces I nabbed out of the big bowl as the mood took me.
I'm gonna cut myself off for the rest of the night.</li>
<li>one packet seaweed snacks</li>
<li>some Buffalo wing & bleu cheese chips</li>
<li>two crumbled tofu tacos with zucchini, corn, black beans, edamame, cabbage, radishes, and cilantro lime crema</li>
<li>one cup iced Southern Butter Pecan coffee</li>
<li>one bowl coconut yogurt</li>
<li>one piece fancy Easter bread whose name I can't remember</li>
<li>two cups Jumpy Monkey tea</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Music Listened To:</b>
<ul>
<li>SPEED OF DARKNESS - Flogging Molly</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Other Activities:</b>
<ul>
<li>ablutions</li>
<li>social media</li>
<li>dishes</li>
<li>generalized universe contemplation</li>
<li>long-ass walk</li>
<li>supper preparation and consumption</li>
<li>Instagrammery</li>
<li>Korean drama consumption</li>
</ul>
<a name='more'></a>
<hr>
<h1>Hour Seventeen, Maybe?</h1><p>
I'm bad at time on an average day. The Readathon basically destroys my ability to count hours.<p>
But yes! I <i>read things</i> during my last session! Namely, I finished up the X-MEN AND ALPHA FLIGHT miniseries (if you can call two jumbo comics a miniseries), then turned my attention to MOJO MAYHEM, the second EXCALIBUR jumbo special. MOJO MAYHEM was especially fun, even though I'm still bummed Mojo greenlit the X-Babies instead of the team where Rogue was an adorable badger (or maybe an adorable skunk. She was a small, fuzzy, fat animal with a white strip down her nose, is what I'm saying, and I'd have gushed over her even if Rogue weren't my favourite because <i>awwwwwwww</i>).<p>
I also got through three more issues of the original X-FACTOR before I started my shift on the official Readathon Instagram feed. Y'all can come find me there until I fall asleep, after which point Kelly will leap back into the fray.<p>
I might read some prose before I return to comics. Or maybe I'll watch a TV show based on a book, which totally counts. Or a Korean drama, which also counts because I don't speak Korean and will have to READ subtitles!<p>
<b>Total Time Read:</b>
<ul>
<li>Seven hours, fifteen minutes</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Books/Series Explored:</b>
<ul>
<li>X-MEN (2010)</li>
<li>FAITH: HOLLYWOOD AND VINE</li>
<li>GENEXT UNITED</li>
<li>MY BRILLIANT FRIEND</li>
<li>X-MEN/ALPHA FLIGHT</li>
<li>EXCALIBUR: MOJO MAYHEM</li>
<li>X-FACTOR (1986)</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Food & Drink Consumed:</b>
<ul>
<li>two cups coffee</li>
<li>many glasses of water (I always lose track)</li>
<li>one bowl Krave cereal, sans milk</li>
<li>three bowls chocolate caramel corn, plus a bunch of individual pieces I nabbed out of the big bowl as the mood took me.
I'm gonna cut myself off for the rest of the night.</li>
<li>one packet seaweed snacks</li>
<li>some Buffalo wing & bleu cheese chips</li>
<li>two crumbled tofu tacos with zucchini, corn, black beans, edamame, cabbage, radishes, and cilantro lime crema</li>
<li>one cup iced Southern Butter Pecan coffee</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Music Listened To:</b>
<ul>
<li>SPEED OF DARKNESS - Flogging Molly</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Other Activities:</b>
<ul>
<li>ablutions</li>
<li>social media</li>
<li>dishes</li>
<li>generalized universe contemplation</li>
<li>long-ass walk</li>
<li>supper preparation and consumption</li>
<li>Instagrammery</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h1>Hour Eleven or Twelve or Thirteen or Something</h1><p>
(I thought it was Hour Twelve, but the official Readathon site says Hour Eleven, but I know they were having some problems earlier so maybe there's a glitch? And when I count on my fingers, it's <i>possible</i> this is Hour Thirteen, but I'm at the part of the Readathon where I'm kind of loopy so I dunno if I can trust that.)<p>
Well, friends, I didn't have the mostly readerly four hours in the world, but I sure did have a good time. It was briefly and gloriously warm this afternoon, so I grabbed my iPod and went for a walk with MY BRILLIANT FRIEND by Elena Ferrante.<p>
Since I'm me, I also loaded X-MEN/ALPHA FLIGHT #1 on my phone so's I could read comics while I sat on a bench near a fountain, as one does. It felt mighty good to wallow in some mid-80s Chris Claremont in the great outdoors.<p>
Hey! Here's a weird thing! When I started my massive X-Men reading project, I googled Chris Claremont in anticipation of his epic run and somehow got the impression he wrote X-Men material right up until the day he died--in 1998. I believed this for months and months into the project and was puzzled to discover post-1998 Claremont-authored stuff in my reading list.<p>
Because Claremont? Is still very much alive and hard at work. In fact, <i>this very day</i> I saw tweets from a fan who just met him and got him to sign some major Kitty Pryde issues while a butterfly swooped around his head.<p>
Maybe someone changed his Wikipedia page as a tasteless joke and I happened to look at it at exactly the wrong time? Maybe I got someone else mixed up with Chris Claremont? Perhaps we'll never know.<p>
(Unless one of y'all can point me towards a comics creator who died in 1998 and whom I might conceivably have confused with Claremont.)<p>
Anyways, I read comics on a bench and ran out of audiobook during the latter part of my walk, right after I found eight four-, five-, and six-leaf clovers. (This was only my third six-leaf, so I'm pretty excited about it.) Once the book ended, I paused my stopwatch and switched to <a href= "http://www.xplainthexmen.com/" target=new>Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men</a>, which is my current FAVOURITE THING EVER OMG.<p>
I kept at it while I made tacos for supper. Now I'm gonna dive back into some comics until such time as I need to recharge my battery and/or my eyes hurt.<p>
<b>Total Time Read:</b>
<ul>
<li>Five hours, two minutes</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Books/Series Explored:</b>
<ul>
<li>X-MEN (2010)</li>
<li>FAITH: HOLLYWOOD AND VINE</li>
<li>GENEXT UNITED</li>
<li>MY BRILLIANT FRIEND</li>
<li>X-MEN/ALPHA FLIGHT</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Food & Drink Consumed:</b>
<ul>
<li>two cups coffee</li>
<li>many glasses of water (I always lose track)</li>
<li>one bowl Krave cereal, sans milk</li>
<li>two bowls chocolate caramel corn, plus a bunch of individual pieces I nabbed out of the big bowl as the mood took me</li>
<li>one packet seaweed snacks</li>
<li>some Buffalo wing & bleu cheese chips</li>
<li>two crumbled tofu tacos with zucchini, corn, black beans, edamame, cabbage, radishes, and cilantro lime crema</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Music Listened To:</b>
<ul>
<li>SPEED OF DARKNESS - Flogging Molly</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Other Activities:</b>
<ul>
<li>ablutions</li>
<li>social media</li>
<li>dishes</li>
<li>generalized universe contemplation</li>
<li>long-ass walk</li>
<li>supper preparation and consumption</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h1>Hour Eight</h1><p>
Last session, I finished my first Valiant comic, knocked a miniseries off my X-Men reading list, and spent a little time with my audiobook. Whee!<p>
Speaking of that Valiant comic, y'all ought to check out FAITH: HOLLYWOOD AND VINE. It's an awesome intro to Faith as a character and to the wider universe. I can't wait for the next volume!<p>
So far as snacks go, I had another bowl of chocolate caramel corn, a packet of seaweed snacks (THE BEST THING), and a couple of buffalo & bleu cheese chips. In the next couple of hours, I expect to eat a granola bar or two, then make some tacos and maybe have a proper go at the chips. We'll see where my tastebuds lead me.<p>
<b>Total Time Read:</b>
<ul>
<li>Three hours, thirty-five minutes</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Books/Series Explored:</b>
<ul>
<li>X-MEN (2010)</li>
<li>FAITH: HOLLYWOOD AND VINE</li>
<li>GENEXT UNITED</li>
<li>MY BRILLIANT FRIEND</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Food & Drink Consumed:</b>
<ul>
<li>two cups coffee</li>
<li>many glasses of water (I always lose track)</li>
<li>one bowl Krave cereal, sans milk</li>
<li>two bowls chocolate caramel corn</li>
<li>one packet seaweed snacks</li>
<li>
</ul><p>
<b>Music Listened To:</b>
<ul>
<li>SPEED OF DARKNESS - Flogging Molly</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Other Activities:</b>
<ul>
<li>ablutions</li>
<li>social media</li>
<li>dishes</li>
<li>generalized universe contemplation</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h1>Hour Four</h1><p>
Well, I woke up on time and decided to read in bed for a while instead of rushing to eat breakfast and update my blog. It was an excellent decision and one I think I'm gonna stick to for all future Readathons.<p>
So far I've read for an hour and eighteen minutes (thanks, stopwatch app!) and finished ten issues of X-MEN (2010). That brought me to the end of the series and the dregs of my battery, so I'll be reading paper books for the next hour or two.<p>
My brain's still mushy (I never can manage to sleep well before a Readathon; it's like Christmas), so here's the opening event survey instead of anything more [insert apt word I can't think of because of mushy-brain]:<p>
<b>1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?</b> Manitoba, right in the middle of North America.<p>
<b>2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?</b> X-MEN BINGE, BABY! I want to finish the original X-FACTOR and a couple more miniseries.<p>
<b>3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?</b> I made some amazing chocolate caramel corn last night and I'm gonna be digging into it throughout the day. I'm also excited to make my favourite crumbled tofu tacos with zucchini and cilantro lime crema.<p>
<b>4) Tell us a little something about yourself!</b> I'm not a morning person. Like, at all.<p>
<b>5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?</b> This is my eighteenth Readathon, unless I counted wrong (see: mushy brain), and I think I've got a pretty good system in place. Except, as previously stated, I'm <i>totally</i> gonna spend the first hour reading in bed from now on. BEST WAY TO GO.<p>
And now, my personal tracking meme thing for Hours One through Three:<p>
<b>Time Read:</b>
<ul>
<li>One hour, eighteen minutes</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Books/Series Explored:</b>
<ul>
<li>X-MEN (2010)</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Food & Drink Consumed:</b>
<ul>
<li>two cups coffee</li>
<li>one glass water</li>
<li>one bowl Krave cereal, sans milk</li>
<li>one bowl chocolate caramel corn</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Music Listened To:</b>
<ul>
<li>None so far.</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Other Activities:</b>
<ul>
<li>ablutions</li>
<li>social media</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h1>Hour One</h1><p>
A confession: I'm not awake yet. Or I'm awake but I'm still stumbling around, feeding myself and being too lazy to update this accordingly.<p>
But hey, <i>you're</i> awake! Good for you!<p>
Here's the little survey thing I'll be using to track my progress today:<p>
<b>Time Read:</b>
<ul>
<li>None so far</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Books/Series Explored:</b>
<ul>
<li>None so far</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Food & Drink Consumed:</b>
<ul>
<li>None so far (unless I'm having breakfast <i>as we speak</i>)</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Music Listened To:</b>
<ul>
<li>None so far. (Do you sense a pattern?)</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Other Activities:</b>
<ul>
<li>None so far.</li>
</ul><p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-86073174712994713762017-03-08T03:30:00.000-06:002017-03-08T03:30:13.329-06:00#warehousewatch: January and February 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mL-Wf-jzqks/WL8qrykddaI/AAAAAAAAEbo/d8G6tifKyy8c4TK7pFBtfEqXelnA8XCCACLcB/s1600/supergirl_warehouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mL-Wf-jzqks/WL8qrykddaI/AAAAAAAAEbo/d8G6tifKyy8c4TK7pFBtfEqXelnA8XCCACLcB/s640/supergirl_warehouse.jpg" width="640" height="356" alt= "A screenshot of Supergirl, a young, blonde white woman in a dress with a blue bodice, short red skirt, and red cape, standing in her apartment. The place is a converted warehouse with red brick walls and floor to ceiling windows made up of many smaller leaded panes and covered by gauzy white drapes."/></a></div>
<center><font size=1>Supergirl, like so many CW characters, lives in a converted warehouse.</font></center><p>
I’m forever amused by how very many of the CW Network's shows feature warehouses, abandoned or otherwise, so I’ve set out to track every warehouse on every CW show I watch throughout the 2016/2017 season.<p>
For science.<p>
We're now nearing the end of the project, so if you missed the first two instalments I’ll direct you to the <a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/11/television-warehousewatch-october-2016.html" target=new>October report</a> (which also contains more information about the genesis of #warehousewatch) and the <a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/12/warehousewatch-november-and-december.html" target=new>November/early December report</a>.<p>
And now, without further ado, here’s a complete<sup>1</sup> list of warehouses that appeared on the CW in late December, January, and February:<p>
<a name='more'></a>
<b><h2>THE FLASH, Season Three</h2></b><p>
Full disclosure: I somehow missed taking notes on an episode of THE FLASH during my previous warehouse recaps, and I have no idea which one it was so my episode numbers are all messed up. I <i>think</i> I’ve got them squared away as of what you’re about to read below, though.<p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Ten:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Barry teaches Wally how to rescue people from burning warehouses. Super important skill, that.</li>
<li>I feel like Barry and Iris’s new apartment is in a converted warehouse of the downtown sort, much like Kara’s place on SUPERGIRL. You know the type: a whole passel of floors to accommodate some office space alongside the storage areas. (Most of the converted warehouses in my own city fit this mould.) Whether or not it’s actually a former warehouse--and y’all know we’re counting it as such--it’s crammed full of white pillar candles as per the CW's presumed arrangement with the Vancouver white pillar candle suppliers lobby.</li>
<li>Wally confronts Plunder in Central City Museum’s inevitable private warehouse.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Eleven:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Barry and Wally train in one of the Star Labs warehouses. One assumes Star Labs built a higher than usual number of personal warehouses to offset the few buildings in the wider CW universe that don't possess their own personal warehouses. Or maybe it's because a supervillain founded the place. Take your pick.</li>
<li>Iris and Wally track an arms dealer to a warehouse, where Iris gets <i>super</i> cocky because she doesn’t believe she can die right now on account of Barry’s vision of the future. I always appreciate this kind of reaction to news of one's prophesied death. You live that dangerous life, Iris. You live it hard.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Twelve:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>It looks like I missed taking notes on this episode, too, but according to the recaps I found online and my own memories of the show there’s one scene where the villain attacks Iris in her warehouse apartment and comes <i>this close</i> to killing her, despite the prophesied death thing. Eep.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Thirteen:</b></br>
<ul>
<li>Barry and Iris hang out in their warehouse apartment.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li>Episode Fourteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Barry and Iris hang around their warehouse apartment.</li>
<li>Much later in the episode, Barry dramatically increases the number of white pillar candles (and votive candles, and tapers, and floating candles) in their warehouse apartment. It’s pretty clear the Vancouver candle-suppliers lobby convinced the CW’s many prop departments to quit being so stingy with the candles during the back half of each show’s seasons. They’ve gotta ensure their best customer keeps on buying after TVD leaves the airways, you know.</li>
</ul></li><p>
</ul>
<b><h2>SUPERGIRL, Season Two</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Nine:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Kara and James both track their current villains to the warehouse district, where James battles them between two warehouses.</li>
<li>Mon-El now works at the warehouse bar, where Kara chats with him before she meets up with Maggie to talk missing persons in a joint journalistic and superheroic capacity.</li>
<li>A group of scientists in league with Roulette zap people to a distant planet via a machine they keep in--wait for it--a warehouse.</li>
<li>Kara and Mon-El discover the evil science warehouse and tell very poor lies to the scientists so they can get a closer look. NB: one of these lies involves Mon-El talking about Paris City, which made me laugh because a) of <i>course</i> someone who’s new to Earth in the DC universe is gonna think every single place name has City in it and b) one time my friend Jenny told me I had failed literally all the cities, but <i>especially</i> Paris City. (Thanks, Jenny.)</li>
<li>Kara goes about her business in her warehouse apartment.</li>
<li>We finally see where Alex lives, and her apartment's in the loft style one so often sees in converted warehouses. Still, I don’t wanna make a definitive ID until we’ve seen the place from the outside.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Ten:</b></br>
<ul>
<li>An evil science dude holds Livewire captive in an abandoned warehouse with lots of dangling lightbulbs, which is something we've seen surprisingly little of on the abandoned warehouse front. Kara, of course, charges in to rescue her.</li>
<li>Kara’s warehouse apartment makes another appearance.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Eleven:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Kara goes to the warehouse bar to tell Mon-El she doesn’t <i>like</i>-like him. It’s awkward, and she chases it with another super-duper awkward encounter with Alex, who has to miss Kara’s Earth Birthday because she’s going to a concert with Maggie and Kara doesn't understand why Alex wants to hang out with her girlfriend at an event that can't be postponed instead of doing something easily reschedulable with her little sister.</li>
<li>In the alley behind the warehouse bar, M’gann and J’onn fight a white Martian called Armek.</li>
<li>Later, Armek returns to the warehouse bar to confront M’gann. Turns out, he’s her ex-husband. Everyone's got so many awkward relationship things going on this episode.</li>
<li>Later still, M’gann and J’onn talk outside the warehouse bar.</li>
<li>There’s Kara’s warehouse apartment again.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Twelve:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Alex invites the whole gang to the warehouse bar so she can come out to them.</li>
<li>Lillian reveals her son turned an <i>entire mountain</i> into a secret warehouse, proving anything can be a warehouse if you just believe.</li>
<li>Kara invites Mon-El to her warehouse apartment so she can tell him she really does <i>like</i>-like him.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Thirteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Mxyzptlk (whose name I've been pronouncing wrong my whole damned life) accosts Kara at her warehouse apartment. This involves a lot of white pillar candles, which I’m gonna take as further proof the lobbyists made a compelling case to the CW props departments.</li>
<li>Winn drinks alone at the warehouse bar and antagonizes some aliens who're spoiling for a fight before Lyra, a hot alien lady, steps in to rescue him. They hit it off. Awwwww.</li>
<li>Alex comes to Kara’s warehouse apartment to ask her for Valentine’s Day advice. They’re interrupted by a monster attack in the street outside, from which we may gather that Kara’s place, like Barry’s, is one of those central downtown warehouses.</li>
<li>Winn meets up with Lyra at the warehouse bar before their date.</li>
<li>Mon-El challenges Mxyzptlk to a duel out back of the warehouse bar.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Fourteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Kara and Mon-El make out in her warehouse apartment.</li>
<li>Some Cadmus lackeys drive a couple of big trucks out of one of their warehouse lairs.</li>
<li>Lillian and Hank assemble a device in another of Cadmus’s warehouse lairs.</li>
<li>All the Danverses and their significant others converge on Kara’s warehouse apartment for family supper. It gets tense when Mon-El questions whether Jeremiah is on the level or secretly a Cadmus plant. Everyone else takes umbrage at this, which proves they’ve either never watched TV in their entire lives <i>or</i> they’re stuck in the midst of one of those episodes that depends on everybody suddenly being stupider than they ought to be.</li>
<li>At the warehouse bar (which really needs a name, a la the Bronze), Mon-El shares his suspicions with Winn, who agrees to help him investigate Jeremiah because Winn <i>has</i> watched TV.</li>
<li>Later, Winn and Lyra play darts at the warehouse bar until Mon-El interrupts them to ask for relationship advice.</li>
<li>Kara and Alex (and their heavily armed team) descend upon a Cadmus warehouse in search of a bomb Jeremiah told them about, but the place is empty. It’s a diversion! What a huge surprise!</li>
<li>Kara and Mon-El work on their relationship in Kara’s warehouse apartment.</li>
<li>Lilian and Jeremiah plot in yet another Cadmus warehouse. Hey, I wonder if so many of the warehouses in this corner of the DC universe are "abandoned" because Cadmus bought ‘em all up and hasn’t gotten around to using too many of them yet?</li>
</ul></li><p>
</ul>
<b><h2>NO TOMORROW, Season One</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Ten:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The warehouse where the majority of the characters work plays a prominent role, as we all knew it would. This time, there’s a big fire inspection going down! Tense!</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Eleven:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>In this episode, the warehouse hosts a pillow fight and a wedding. Just for a little variety.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Twelve:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Cybermart's head honcho swoops into the warehouse to inform everyone their branch is closing! Oh no!</li>
<li>Evie and her friends travel to a nearby warehouse where they hope to get jobs. Everything is very strange. Like, the place has <i>two microwaves</i> and some peculiar things going on with the vending machines.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Thirteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The team moves into the new warehouse, minus Evie, and Karima promptly starts selling soft drinks as a lucrative sideline. Because everybody likes a warehouse bar, y'all.</li>
</ul></li><p>
</ul>
<b><h2>FREQUENCY, Season One</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Ten:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses, but lots of creepy woods.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Eleven:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses, but lots of creepy woods.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Twelve:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Frank and Megan track Robbie to his place of employment, which is a <i>warehouse</i>! Finally!</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Thirteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses. Also, fewer creepy woods.</li>
</ul></li><p>
</ul>
<b><h2>ARROW, Season Five</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Ten:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Bratva have a setup in a warehouse basement. Nobody saw that one coming.</li>
<li>Laurel’s evil twin flees to a warehouse. Another shocker.</li>
</ul></li>
<li><b>Episode Eleven:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Some villains hold a bunch of cops captive in a warehouse. Super original move, villains.</li>
<li>Oliver and Talia attack a Bratva warehouse.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Twelve:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Oliver and Talia attack some drug dealers outside a warehouse.</li>
<li>Oliver and Dinah throw a gangster through the window of a warehouse. Since “you can leap through plate glass windows without incurring the slightest injury” is one of the tenets upon which the CW’s superhero division was founded, we can assume this didn’t actually hurt him.</li>
<li>Oh, look, a nuclear weapons deal goes down in a warehouse!</li>
<li>Felicity and Rory track the actual nuclear bomb to a separate warehouse/aircraft hangar, where they thwart it.</li>
<li>Felicity comes to check on Rory in his warehouse/art studio/home, where he's ready to do a runner so he can figure out why the nuclear blast damaged his rags.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Thirteen:</b><p>
<ul>
<li>Oliver dangles a gangster upside down in a location that’s either just outside a warehouse <i>or</i> just inside a warehouse with one wall missing. There’s a fire in a barrel nearby, as is so often the case in Star City's many abandoned warehouses.</li>
<li>Dinah appears to be living in a warehouse. Again, I wonder what percentage of CW characters are current or former warehouse residents. Bet it's decent if we count only major characters and spectacular if we add in all the villains of the week, what with warehouse lairs being so popular.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Fourteen:</b><p>
<ul>
<li>Curtis and Rene shake a guy down outside a warehouse.</li>
<li>Oliver and Quentin confront Cupid, Liza Warner, and China White in an abandoned warehouse, but their capture and contain plan goes awry when a SWAT team crashes in to arrest Oliver (and ignore the three escaped convicts, because it's not like they present a danger to society or anything).</li>
<li>Oliver and Anatoly hide in a suspiciously warehouse-like hospital basement. I’ve gotta assume it counts as the hospital’s obligatory private warehouse.</li>
<li>The villainous trio shakes down a gang member outside a warehouse.</li>
</ul></li><p>
</ul>
<b><h2>JANE THE VIRGIN, Season Three</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Eight:</b><p>
<ul>
<li>Finally, some warehouse action! Petra, in disguise as Anezka, asks Scott to meet her outside a warehouse so she can get the skinny on whether or not Rafael is making a move against her.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Nine:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>There’s a brief flashback to the Petra/Scott warehouse meeting.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Ten:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>And now there’s a flashback to Rafael’s dad’s storage locker, which we’re counting as a warehouse.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Eleven:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Twelve:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Still no warehouses, with little prospect of any more on the horizon given the situation with Michael. Sadness, on many levels.</li>
</ul></li><p>
</ul>
<b><h2>LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, Season Two</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Nine:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Various cast members sport the CW’s trademark aggressively terrible wigs on a movie set that’s both located inside a warehouse and made up to look like the exterior of a warehouse. So meta.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Ten:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Legion of Doom has a glowing blue warehouse for a lair, as we all knew they would.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Eleven:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>This episode’s heavy on both woods of the slightly creepy variety and white pillar candles, but its only warehouse scene involves a showdown between Rip and Jax in the <i>Waverider</i>’s secret weapons warehouse. Which I guess isn’t a secret anymore?</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Twelve:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The team finds heaps of white (and red) pillar candles in Camelot, but no warehouses.</li>
</ul></li><p>
</ul>
<b><h2>THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, Season Eight</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode Eight:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>I feel compelled to note there are quite a few white pillar candles at the support group where Damon and Stefan search for souls to give Cade.</li>
<li>Caroline has a personal warehouse. Don’t @ me to say that’s just her garage. She’s clearly using it in a warehousey capacity.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Nine:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Mystic Grill continues to embrace the warehouse aesthetic without actually being a warehouse; a favourite approach of CW locations.</li>
<li>Matt tracks the hell-summoning bell stolen from Caroline’s personal warehouse to the sheriff’s warehouse/evidence locker.</li>
<li>Damon has a few warehouse flashbacks.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Ten:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Heaps of white pillar candles! But no warehouses.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Eleven:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Lots of people mention the warehouse where Tyler stashed Elena’s body, but nobody actually visits said warehouse. Sadness.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Twelve:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses, unless the cave below the Armory counts, but there’re some white pillar candles. Gotta keep the show on brand, especially given the disappointing lack of white pillar candles in the first half of the season.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Thirteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>And now we see a dramatic increase in white pillar candles, but no definite warehouses. Damon and Kai do kill a guy outside a loading bay that might conceivably belong to a warehouse, but since it’s in a small town downtown area I’m inclined to think it belongs to a diner or something instead.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Fourteen:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Again with the white pillar candles. Nobody visits a warehouse, but various characters do lurk around some creepy woods. To be honest, TVD did start out as more of a creepy woods show than a warehouse show, though it’s grown to straddle both milieus as it’s barrelled along.</li>
</ul></li><p>
</ul>
<b><h2>RIVERDALE, Season One</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode One:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses, but lots of creepy woods. Also a big measure of asexual and aromantic erasure in Jughead’s case, plus a romance storyline between a presumed fifteen-year-old and a teacher. Not a good start for the show, and an especial disappointment given the things they <i>are</i> doing well, like the POC rep and Veronica’s arc. (I love a character who used to be awful and is actively working to change their approach.)</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><B>Episode Two:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Still no warehouses, unless the morgue counts. No creepy woods either.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Three:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>No actual warehouses, but there’re some locker rooms. I guess those are like warehouses for athletic equipment? Sort of?</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Four:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses. One drive-in, which is like an outdoor warehouse for cars and people and yeah I don’t buy it either.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Five:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Still no warehouses, but lots of white pillar candles. I guess the CW’s higher-ups reminded RIVERDALE’s prop department they’re legally obligated to include at least one white pillar candle-heavy episode per season.</li>
</ul></li><p>
</ul>
<b><h2>THE 100, Season Four</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li><b>Episode One:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Maybe Ice Nation’s Polis palace used to be a warehouse? Yeah, we’re gonna count it as such.</li>
<li>The whole city’s adorned with white and red pillar candles, too, as per the official rules.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Two:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Raven’s workshop is basically in a space station warehouse, so we’re gonna count it.</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li><b>Episode Three:</b><br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses, alas, but there’s a bunker full of dead people. Just to keep everyone's spirits up as they prepare for the end of the world.</li>
</ul></li><p>
</ul>
<h1>A Few Conclusions</h1><p>
So, these two months gave us a total of 69 warehouse scenes across 48 episodes on 10 individual shows. The overall warehouse percentage holds steady from last time at a hair over 81%, with 39 out of 48 episodes containing at least one scene in a warehouse.<p>
Obviously, some shows employ far more warehouses than others. ARROW maintains its lower but still respectable average of 3 warehouse scenes per episode, while SUPERGIRL has leaped in to cover the slack with an astonishing average of 5 warehouse scenes per episode. It ain't quite up to ARROW's early S5 average of 5.5 warehouse scenes per episode, but between Kara's warehouse apartment, the warehouse bar that's become everyone's favourite hangout, and Cadmus's monopoly on the abandoned warehouses in and around National City, I feel like SUPERGIRL is on track to become the network's new Queen of the Warehouses.<p>
Sorry, ARROW. You had a good run.<p>
JANE THE VIRGIN upped its warehouse game over the last couple of months with one genuine warehouse scene and two warehouse flashbacks. Meanwhile, FREQUENCY continued to evince a strong preference for creepy woods over warehouses, while RIVERDALE looks set to fill that gap now FREQUENCY is off the air. THE 100, meanwhile, has delivered two warehouses to date, with the potential for far more as its characters search the wreckage of a fallen civilization for the key to their survival.<p>
If the CW has taught me nothing else, it's that warehouses are filled with expensive equipment you can salvage to make your post-apocalyptic existence a little bit easier.<p>
That's it for this month. Join me again in early April for a look at all the warehouses these shows treated us to during the lead in to their season (or series) finales.<p>
<hr>
<ol>
<li>I no longer watch SUPERNATURAL, I'm behind on REIGN, and I'm still waiting for my library to deliver the first season of CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND unto me, so I've left those shows off the list. You may recall I considered abandoning ARROW and LEGENDS OF TOMORROW earlier this season, too, but I've enjoyed the former more in recent weeks and the latter has zipped right back around to my brand of silly, so I'll at least finish out each show's current season.</li>
</ol>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-49471245897565418812017-02-15T03:00:00.000-06:002017-02-15T03:00:32.150-06:00Review: Truth In the Dark by Amy Lane<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C_dZKChsAP0/WKNkEEIxTHI/AAAAAAAAEbE/EHFlIc2l2QE0DH3Ft9dM5ee5P5QXs50IwCLcB/s1600/truthinthedark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C_dZKChsAP0/WKNkEEIxTHI/AAAAAAAAEbE/EHFlIc2l2QE0DH3Ft9dM5ee5P5QXs50IwCLcB/s320/truthinthedark.jpg" width="213" height="320" alt= "Cover of Truth In the Dark. Burgundy bands with the publisher's name and the book's title on them frame a picture of a dark-haired, shirtless white man lying on his side to face the viewer, a red silk blanket draped over his lower half. A man with a lion's head holds a lantern over him."/></a></div>Ooh, friends, I’m <i>so</i> in love with Amy Lane’s work. Not only does she write fabulous stories, but she’s got a hell of a narrative range. To date, I’ve read two of her sweet contemporary romances, one dark-as-hell SF offering, and TRUTH IN THE DARK [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2kno0Ak" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/301572601/Truth-in-the-Dark" target=new>Scribd</a>], a fairy tale that straddles the line between these two extremes.<p>
Naef, a young woodworker, has been tormented all his life because of his appearance, and he’s raised a prickly set of defenses against future hurt. The only people he’ll allow close to him are his sister and his mother. When said sister hesitates to marry her true love because it would mean leaving Naef on his own, her suitor proposes a solution to settle her fears. Naef will spend a year as companion to the suitor’s cousin, freeing his sister from worry while introducing Naef to an unusual community where he can start fresh.<p>
The cousin in question turns out to be a man cursed with the shape of an anthropomorphic lion and saddled with the improbable name Aerie-Smith. Aerie-Smith’s got an island full of subjects whose animal forms are more confining than his own, and he promises Naef a home for a year if he’ll end his stint as companion by performing one regrettable act will not only secure Naef’s family’s future but also free everyone from their curse.<p>
The resulting story is part “Beauty and the Beast,” part “East of the Sun, West of the Moon.” And I cried <i>so damned hard.</i><p>
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Amy Lane’s got a direct line on my emotions. Naef’s first person narration is raw and heartfelt, and I latched onto him immediately because he falls into one of my favourite character types: the defensive asshole. Naef, like so many examples of the form, is an essentially good person who does his best to convince everyone he comes into contact with that he’s the nastiest guy they’ll ever meet. He’s certain if he confirms their worst suspicions right off the bat, they’ll shun him instead of mocking him or hurting him; two things he’s had far too much experience with.<p>
In true romantic hero fashion, Aerie-Smith sees right through the smokescreen and refuses to treat Naef as the subhuman Naef would have everyone believe he is; that he suspects he may be, deep down, after more than two decades of abuse. Aerie-Smith is friendly and kind and capable of volleying back as much shit as Naef tries to throw at him. Their relationship unfolds and deepens as they spend more time together and Naef realizes it’s all right to let his guard down around this man. It’s all right to love someone so beautiful, and to let Aerie-Smith love him in return.<p>
Their love does include a physical component, but you needn’t worry about bestiality. In line with the EotSWotM influence, Naef can feel any cursed person’s original form as long as he keeps his eyes closed.<p>
Fluid transformations of both body and soul form the story’s backbone. Aerie-Smith may look a lot like a lion, but he’s mostly kept hold of his human soul. In contrast, many of his subjects struggle to reconcile the people they are in their souls with the animal bodies the curse has given them. A big part of Naef’s transition from defensive asshole to outwardly caring person hinges on the strategies he employs to remind them of their humanity so they don’t lose themselves before the mysterious ritual restores everyone to their original forms. There’s a not so subtle metaphor in there for seeing people as they really are instead of judging by appearances and/or dismissing people because they’re not attractive.<p>
Which Naef is, on the island. The place transforms everyone in some way, and as his ship docks, his body becomes that of a conventionally handsome, able-bodied young man; something that makes his life easier in some ways, but that he hates. Naef is well aware that this is a temporary shift that’ll fade when the curse breaks, and that he, like everyone else, may find his soul altered in ways he isn’t all right with. He doesn’t want to become someone other than himself, and he’s reluctant to embrace his current freedom of movement, let alone his conventional beauty, when he knows he’ll someday return to normal.<p>
I was nervous as to how Lane would handle this, given that physical disability plays a role in Naef’s pre-island life, but if you’ll allow me a representation-centred spoiler I’ll tell you I’m pleased with the outcome. Naef is disabled at the start of the novel and his disability returns at the end, coupled with a new perspective. Among other changes, post-curse Naef starts using accessibility tools he shunned in his younger years out of learned self-loathing and fear of censure. Like all the best characters, he transforms into a version of himself capable of embracing the changes he’s gone through, and of seeking out new ones beyond the story’s conclusion.<p>
The whole thing is beautifully done, my friends. I cried and cried as Naef and Aerie-Smith worked through their issues, separately and together, and made their sacrifices for the good of their people and out of love for one another. TRUTH IN THE DARK is a beautiful and powerful story that entranced me straight through, and I’m beyond glad I read it. It's my second 5-star book of 2017.<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-68987579529965142252017-02-08T03:00:00.000-06:002017-02-08T03:00:13.504-06:00Review: Under the Rushes by Amy Lane<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_lrcUQsZt1o/WJn-xKg8uqI/AAAAAAAAEas/olSDlf6BSM0dWh6LFEctVVWIAegvYRwZQCLcB/s1600/undertherushes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_lrcUQsZt1o/WJn-xKg8uqI/AAAAAAAAEas/olSDlf6BSM0dWh6LFEctVVWIAegvYRwZQCLcB/s320/undertherushes.jpg" width="213" height="320" alt= "Cover of Under the Rushes. A white man wearing a top hat, a dark coat, and a poofy cravat glares at the reader against a sepia-toned backdrop that superimposes bricks and clockwork over a cityscape rife with smoke stacks."/></a></div>Going by the cover, I expected Amy Lane’s UNDER THE RUSHES [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2kJzcqd" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/303325490/Under-the-Rushes" target=new>Scribd</a>] to be historical fantasy. Much to my surprise and delight, it's actually science fiction set on a distant world where the colonists have lost some of their founders’ technological prowess and redeveloped what remains into a system with a vaguely steampunk aesthetic. It has a lot in common with the baroque SF I always hope to stumble across, in which science fictional elements operate within an elaborate, highly stratified society.<p>
A lot, but not everything. Because this isn’t just far-future SF: <i>it’s a superhero novel</i>!<p>
Dorjan's been in martial disgrace ever since he took a civilian’s tip to heart and tried to prevent his province from starting a pointless war. Ten years on, he spends his days carefully steering the provincial leadership in his guise as Doltish and Disinterested Forum Master and his nights protecting the capital city as the Nyx, an armoured warrior who champions the most vulnerable elements of society. He's alone in this endeavour save for his genius inventor friend, Areau, who was tortured after his own disgrace and now demands soul-crushing things from Dorjan following each mission. Just as the pressure of dealing with Areau’s addictions becomes too much for Dorjan, he finds a solution in the form of two grateful rescuees--one of whom is the very boy who first alerted him to the corruption in his government, all grown up and determined to take an active role in the Nyx's endeavours.<p>
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The range on Amy Lane, y'all! To date, I’ve read two of her lighter contemporary romances, a fairy tale that straddled the line between sweet and dark, and this unrepentantly dark offering. And when I say “unrepentantly dark,” I mean UNDER THE RUSHES requires a pretty hefty trigger warning for… hell, I don’t even know what to call it. Dubcon, maybe? Emotional manipulation, definitely. The situation is, over the decade between the first chapter and the bulk of the story, Dorjan and Areau’s relationship shifts from that of near-brothers to mutual tormentors. Areau emerges from captivity with an addiction to pain which he presses Dorjan to help him with. Which is a <i>problem</i>, because Dorjan isn’t the slightest bit inclined towards BDSM, and Areau is mad enough from his ordeal that he’s determined to twist the knife on an emotional level.<p>
This setup is further complicated because Areau designs the armour and weaponry that turn Dorjan into a one-man army, and because as far as anyone in power knows Areau is dead and Dorjan’s an idiot. That makes it really, really tough for them to get a break from one another.<p>
So, proceed with caution if that’s the sort of thing that’s tough for you to read.<p>
But of course, it wouldn’t be much of a book if there were no reason whatsoever for either character to hope. Lane breaks the cycle of pain by introducing Taern, the boy who helped Dorjan back in the day, and Krissa, one of Taern’s colleagues at the brothel where he works. Krissa becomes Areau’s Domme, while Taern exploits his earlier connection to Dorjan to assert he should become both lover and sidekick. Because it’s as obvious to Taern as it is to the reader that, talented or no, it’s only a matter of time before Dorjan comes up against a threat he can’t fight alone.<p>
Shit’s still dark after Taern and Krissa come on the scene, but for the first time in a long time both Dorjan and Areau have something to focus on besides their endless, frustrating mission. That goes a long way toward relieving the emotional tension.<p>
Lane’s too good to let the tension fall away completely, though. With everyone in place, she explores the tensions that naturally arise and endure within these four peoples’ relationships. Dorjan and Areau’s friendship is currently twisted and unhealthy, but the text is studded with glimmers of what they meant to one another when they were young. Each of the men forms a different sort of relationship with both Krissa and Taern, with whom they jive or clash according to their personalities, and Lane teases out all the small details that make these connections feel <i>real</i>. It’s a great big smorgasboard of delicious charactery goodness, is what it is, and I loved watching each relationship evolve as the characters deepened their bonds and helped each other work through their various traumas.<p>
Taern and Krissa’s arrival also also gives Lane an excuse to explore the ins and outs of Dorjan’s mission without infodumping. She gives the reader a fascinating look at his parkour-laden training regimen, the patrols that allow him to take the city’s pulse and determine where the Nyx can do the most good, and the careful way he manipulates the rest of the Forum without tipping his hand. It’s beautifully done.<p>
Lane’s prose is good and chewy throughout without being too dense to digest; a perfect fit for this far-future world that often feels fantastical because of its lack of certain technologies. Animal-aspected propulsion conveyances are well accounted for, as are innovations like electric lights, but nobody uses anything along the lines of a phone or a computer. Dorjan has some novels about space flight, but it doesn’t seem like anyone’s actually gone to the stars in generations. The social structure is pseudo-feudal in a way that feels like a plausible extension of what might develop on a generation ship. And while we hear little about the planet itself, what we do get is intriguing in the extreme. The place has tempermental gravity affected by the asteroids Dorjan’s Keep controls; which, for their part, are tethered to the earth by organic umbilical cords and beloved of the planet’s fairy-like indigenous species, who jealously guard them against anyone they deem unworthy.<p>
It’s fabulous. I couldn’t even mind that it turned out to be 170 pages longer than both Scribd’s book info page and the initial sample I read said it was, because that allowed me to spend even more time with these characters and their world. I charged into my next Amy Lane novel the moment I’d finished and will have a review of it for you next week.<p>
One rep-related criticism: Taern’s former madame (and good friend) is trans, and while I get the sense Lane tried hard with Dorjan’s behaviour toward her, the language isn’t always up to snuff. That said, Taern never stumbles over his friend’s gender since in his view she’s obviously whoever she says she is, so these problems don’t extend into his POV segments. It’s <i>possible</i> Lane is trying to use Dorjan to model how a cis person might proceed if they really do want to be a good ally but they’re still figuring out how to doing the work.<p>
Even if that’s the case, I’m also disappointed Lane went in a cliched and troubling direction with this character’s ultimate fate. Let’s give trans characters happy endings, please.<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-24353228606536359062017-02-05T03:00:00.000-06:002017-02-05T03:00:17.368-06:00Murchie Plus Books: The End<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LWkT4l90RKY/WJYqQAeFRWI/AAAAAAAAEaU/y43stFpsVvM_4_VUCSTLmVcESKo43rQ7ACLcB/s1600/lastday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LWkT4l90RKY/WJYqQAeFRWI/AAAAAAAAEaU/y43stFpsVvM_4_VUCSTLmVcESKo43rQ7ACLcB/s640/lastday.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "A square photo of a fluffy, scruffy grey poodle held in a red-haired white person's arms. The dog has bright eyes and a very black nose, both of which stand out against his silver hair. His fluffy cheeks are a bit dirty."/></a></div><p>
Every Sunday for the last two and a half years, I’ve shared pictures of my beloved dog, Murchie, posed with everything I read that week.<p>
Last Sunday night, Murchie didn’t sleep. He couldn’t stay still, he didn’t want anything I offered him, and he was obviously confused. Over the last couple of years this had become a frequent nighttime routine on account of a bowel issue and something that looked an awful lot like doggie dementia.<p>
All through January, he had two or three bad days for every one where he was his usual spunky self.<p>
My parents and I took him to the vet at lunch on Monday. She gave him a checkup, listened to everything he’s been through recently, and told us that while she could perform some more tests she couldn’t guarantee any further treatment would help him. It’d been a while since his medicines eased his suffering in any appreciable way.<p>
None of us wanted to say goodbye to him, but we didn’t want him to suffer anymore, either.<p>
I’m grateful I got to hold him while the sedative took effect. I felt him relax in my arms, the way he used to before sleep became so difficult for him. I laid him on the exam table and stroked his head while the vet administered the final injection. It was awful, but he had loved ones with him the whole time and that made a terrible day a little easier to bear.<p>
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Those of you who know Murchie through his recent photos probably saw him as a quiet dog who loved a good blanket cave, appreciated cuddles from anyone who offered them, and slept as much as any cat. He <i>was</i> a cuddle-loving cat-dog from the first, but in his youth he was also a tiny firebrand. He only liked specific people and was inclined to ignore anyone who didn’t meet his standards. It was weeks before he’d voluntarily go near my father. My best friend scared him the first time they ever met, and he held that grudge straight through to last December, when he decided he could let her in the house with a disdainful sniff instead of all-out warfare. In the months before he swore off walks, he was universally stand-offish with the people who stopped us to ask if they could pet this adorable little fluffball.<p>
“He’s shy,” I told them, but the truth is, Murchie was kind of an asshole.<p>
We were well matched and I loved the hell out of him.<p>
I’ve got a thousand stories and anecdotes I want to share with you. There was his reverse struggle with house training, where it took him ages to accept it was okay to pee outside instead of waiting until he was on his puppy pad indoors. Or the time I took him to Minnesota to visit his Auntie Kristina and he finally finally <i>finally</i> started drinking water in front of people. (Before that, I only knew he <i>was</i> drinking because he hadn’t died of dehydration.) One Easter, every single member of my family hand fed him ham, and he drained his bowl dry for the first time on account of all the salt in it.<p>
He also peed up a storm for the next forty-eight hours.<p>
He loved to chew toes when he was a puppy; a habit he thankfully abandoned in short order. For the first few weeks he lived with me, he woke up at two o’clock every morning when the night train rumbled past and scared him. He’d roust me early not because he wanted to start his day but so he could use me as a chair while he napped a little longer. He made it clear my lap should be at his disposal while I was on the computer, too, so I wrote many a university paper hunched awkwardly so I could reach the keyboard without bumping his head into the desk. He wedged himself into small spaces every chance he got, and loved being held but hated to have anything over his head, be it the roof of a kennel or the seat of a dining room chair.<p>
He was the David Beckham of dogs, but I had to impose a soccer ban because he rolled his tennis balls under the furniture and screamed until someone got them out for him. Playtimes were few and far between even before that because he never wanted to fetch (or bat a ball around) for more than two minutes at a stretch. Anything longer that was pushing it.<p>
He was three pounds for most of his life, and I judged hardcover books by whether or not they weighed more than him. He loved wearing clothes and threw a small fit whenever I removed one of his shirts. He refused to let anyone brush him and so always looked pretty damned scruffy. He had a dog bed for every room, courtesy of my parents. He practically lived outside in the summer, always keen to stand on the grass or retreat to his dedicated outdoor lounger. He once chased a skunk and got a muzzle full of stink for his trouble, but he never bothered the local rabbits or ducks.<p>
Despite my best efforts, he never warmed to early Led Zeppelin and would abandon a snuggle session rather than listen to them with me. He loved it when I watched TV because it ensured him some lap time. It was tough to knit around him because he’d bat at the balls of yarn, just like a cat. Before his legs got bad, he also loved to perch atop the couch back, as cat-like as could be.<p>
When I introduced him to Duffy, one of my occasional petsitting charges, Murchie out and out pretended he was alone in Duffy’s house. Duffy danced around him, convinced they should be BFFs, while Murchie sniffed things and looked at me as if to say, “I thought there’d be another dog but I don’t see <i>squat</i>.” I’m pretty sure he was jealous of this genial young upstart who smelled like his particular human.<p>
I’ll never manage to say enough about him. He was the dog of my heart.<p>
I miss him so, so much. <p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-57310372683224447422017-01-29T03:00:00.000-06:002017-01-29T03:00:16.795-06:00Murchie Plus Books: January 22nd to 28thI make my dog pose beside everything I read, barring single issue comics. Some weeks he’s a star and some weeks he refuses to keep his head still.<p>
The photos go live <a href= "https://www.instagram.com/xicanti/" target=new>on Instagram</a> as I edit them and appear here in digest form every Sunday, with descriptive alt tags and additional commentary.<p>
Last week’s Not Pictured selections included the usual number of X-Men comics. They feel horribly relevant right now.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ws9Qtxs8WAg/WIzyrLD_lEI/AAAAAAAAEZs/aVsPkIEZkIszUK14II-FR6v2rhJrcs4RgCLcB/s1600/mpb-deceptive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ws9Qtxs8WAg/WIzyrLD_lEI/AAAAAAAAEZs/aVsPkIEZkIszUK14II-FR6v2rhJrcs4RgCLcB/s640/mpb-deceptive.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "A fuzzy grey poodle, Murchie, sits on a burgundy carpet beside a hardcover copy of Deceptive. He’s only a little taller than the book. His head is turned away from it. The book’s orange and blue cover features a blonde white girl standing atop the title, which hovers diagonally above a cityscape."/></a></div><p>
I love it when I ask the library to buy a book and they order a bunch of copies that a bunch of other patrons check out as soon as they're available. Guess I wasn't the only one eager to see how Ciere's story continued.<p>
Emily Lloyd-Jones's DECEPTIVE [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2kF0b2u" target=new>Amazon</a>] is the sequel to ILLUSIVE, a book I sought out because I saw it recced on Twitter as X-Men meets Oceans 11 and I love both those things. It was an accurate comp, and it fits this book, too, with the caveat that DECEPTIVE's got a lot more stuff on the fed side of the equation. While it took me a little bit to readjust to this the world after my time away, I was hard into the book by the end and was sorry to say goodbye to all the characters.<p>
So sorry, in fact, that I popped right onto Lloyd-Jones's website to see if there was any chance of a third book somewhere down the line. Alas, she's got ILLUSIVE and DECEPTIVE tagged as a duology. While it's easy to read Ciere's storyline as concluded (with enough dangly bits that she <i>could</i> enjoy more adventures down the line), I feel like both Devon and Daniel have a middle book thing going on. Shit gets dark for them, and the ending puts them in position for the traditional third book Lightening Of Burdens. It's not the worst possible conclusion to their storylines, but I'm still sad we'll never get to see where they go from here.<p>
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Sometimes my phone flat out refuses to focus on Murchie's fuzzy face, and I get fed up and quit trying.<p>
As I’m sure is the case with many people, I learned about Margot Lee Shetterly’s HIDDEN FIGURES [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2keCeTg" target=new>Amazon</a>] from the recent film adaptation. I spent a Hoopla credit on it and dove in as soon as I’d finished Yaa Gyasi’s HOMEGOING, and it’s been wonderful so far. Shetterly blends scientific facts with personal stories about the black women who were integral first to war-era aviation research and later to the space race. The result is an affecting examination of what life was like for them, personally and professionally, with plenty of science history for them what wants it.<p>
Now I’m even more excited to see the movie. Too bad I suck at actually making it to the cinema.<p>
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I tried and tried and tried to settle in with serious fare last week, but I couldn’t concentrate well enough to enjoy any of it. Rather than go entirely without books and/or end up abandoning something I’d normally get a lot out of, I figured I’d finally read Sarah J. Maas’s second Throne of Glass novel, CROWN OF MIDNIGHT [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jBGcEh" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/250030084/Crown-of-Midnight" target=new>Scribd</a>]. As previously stated, I expect this series to be something mildly fun at best, without the sort of nuance and diversity I look for in my best-beloved books, so the enjoyment stakes were much lower than with anything else on my library stack.<p>
As I write this, I’ve been reading it for three days and I’m less than 20% in. It was probably a good pick for my current mood, which I hope will have faded by the time I finish it and start something else.<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-357952074149067272017-01-27T03:00:00.000-06:002017-01-27T03:00:17.468-06:00Review: Freckles by Amy Lane<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6KM7U0gNleU/WIp4OS6Q1UI/AAAAAAAAEZQ/nexz-4rl9xQIKefF5qpmOGRlex3JEibWgCLcB/s1600/freckles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6KM7U0gNleU/WIp4OS6Q1UI/AAAAAAAAEZQ/nexz-4rl9xQIKefF5qpmOGRlex3JEibWgCLcB/s320/freckles.jpg" width="210" height="320" alt= "Cover of Freckles, featuring a brown and white Shih Tzu puppy standing in a cardboard box. Her ears and perked and her tail is up. Stylized snowflakes fall down the pale blue and purple backdrop behind her."/></a></div>Warning: FRECKLES [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2j9u12X" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/328434510/Freckles" target=new>Scribd</a>] is quite possibly the cutest book ever. You will <i>squee</i>.<p>
Carter's boyfriend just dumped him and the head of his law firm has got him working on a case that’s legally sound but morally reprehensible. He needs something positive in his life, and he gets it in the form of a tiny, fluffy puppy a kid hoists on him in a parking lot. Carter has no idea what to do with a puppy (if Freckles even <i>is</i> a dog and not a hamster, as her size suggests), so he rushes straight to the nearest pet store with a veterinarian attached and has the good fortune to meet Sandy, a vet tech who's willing to give the occasional cute, dog-loving lawyer some after hours help with the whole pet ownership thing.<p>
Their relationship is sweet and mutually supportive, but it's the dog angle that sold me on this nominally holiday romance. (The Thanksgiving and Christmas bits are light enough that you can read this any time of year, as I did.) Freckles is a tiny Shih Tzu/Chihuahua cross, and I recognized so much of what Carter goes through as he adjusts to dog ownership and strives to be a good caregiver for her. I've had dogs all my life, barring an eighteen-month dogless stint when I was very young, but my wee Murchie is the first dog who's really been <i>mine</i>. He decided I was his person mere hours after we met, despite family plans to the contrary, and I spent a certain amount of time freaking out about how I was now responsible for this 2.5-pound fluffball who was brand new to the world and correspondingly lacking in common sense. I wanted to do right by him, and I was terrified he'd get sat on or stepped on or otherwise injured during one of his exploratory forays into the great unknown<sup>1</sup>.<p>
I <i>still</i> worry he'll get sat on or stepped on, especially since he's a bit too inclined to trust people will notice he's there and work around him. That's a dangerous attitude to adopt when you're still only 3.5 pounds and you're the same colour as the kitchen floor, y'know?<p>
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So, yes. Carter's dog ownership arc felt <i>very</i> real to me, not just for the anxieties but also for the joy he takes in Freckles. She brightens his whole life with the cute stuff she does and the new experiences she pushes him towards. His adjustment period reads like a sweet, fluffy adventure as he learns the ins and outs of his new charge’s personality, gauges her limits, works out a care schedule, and breaks the news about her to everyone in his life.<p>
He also gets used to being a living chair for a tiny dog who’s rather cuddle up in his lap than lay in her basket alone. Awwwww.<p>
To be honest, I’d probably be gushing to the heavens even if the whole book had been nothing but Carter bonding with Freckles. Their connection is <i>that cute</i>, and that easy to latch on to if you’ve ever adopted a new puppy of your own. Freckles isn’t the only important thing in Carter’s life, though, and I adore how she acts as a catalyst that brings about so many positive changes to his world.<p>
His relationship with Sandy is the main one, of course, and Sandy’s willingness to reach out helps Carter do the same as his new dog owner status widens his social circle. Sandy introduces Carter to his niece Alexis, who’s a dog-walker, and I got a huge kick out of how immediately Carter decides he likes her. (Friendship-at-first-sight always makes me grin.) The two of them bond over Alexis’s obvious love for Freckles and her enthusiasm for helping people out; something Carter would very much like to do, and feels barred from doing on account of his oppresive job. When he gives Alexis advice on setting up her new business, he starts to feel like the helping people racket isn’t so far beyond his grasp as it seems. It comes to feel even more possible when Alexis introduces him to other pet-owners who could use some legal advice, which Carter is well positioned to give alongside a nice paralegal he’s always been a bit scared to become actual friends with.<p>
The many different relationships Carter pursues because of Freckles are the best thing about the book. At its heart FRECKLES is about how bonding with a dog helps Carter realize he can click with people and aim for a better life. Not the sort of better life he’s always been told he should want, with a fancy house and a flash car, but the kind of life that’ll let him use his skills to help others, and accept their help in return when they’re positioned to give it.<p>
It warmed the cockles of my heart, it did. FRECKLES is my first 5-star read of 2017.<p>
<hr>
<ol>
<li>Puppy!Murchie routinely smashed into things, ran under peoples’ feet, tore tendons in his legs, leaped out of shopping carts onto concrete floors, and on one horrible occasion got loose and raced into the path of an oncoming car. He also ate a giant piece of another dog’s fur on his first trip to the vet, rolled in another dog’s poop when my father took him for a walk, and tried to pick a fight with every dog we met whenever <i>I</i> walked him. Until he decided walks were the worst and he wasn’t gonna put up with them anymore, no sir.<p>
His childhood stressed me the hell out.</li>
</ol>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-23492200089786087072017-01-24T03:00:00.000-06:002017-01-24T03:00:14.740-06:00Murchie Plus Books: January 15th to 21stI make my dog pose with everything I read, barring single issue comics. When he isn't up to this challenge, I call upon stand-ins.<p>
The photos go live <a href= "https://www.instagram.com/xicanti/" target=new>on Instagram</a> as I edit them and usually appear here in digest form every Sunday, with descriptive alt tags and additional commentary. Sometimes life intervenes and they go up on Tuesday instead.<p>
Last week’s Not Pictured selections included lots and lots and <i>lots</i> of X-Men comics. I hit UNCANNY #475, then zipped back in time to tackle some one-shots, Annual issues, and miniseries I’d missed. I also reread DEADLY GENESIS, which made a lot more sense with hundreds of issues of X-Men under my belt. It reaffirmed my belief that Professor X is the worst, too. Seriously, the dude may talk about building a happy world for everyone, but he’s <i>way</i> too quick to mess with peoples’ heads when it suits his purposes.<p>
Mindwiping people is not appropriate behavior, Professor X. Not now, not ever.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JnVtVeuAvcY/WIZjI0reYAI/AAAAAAAAEYE/i4ZUbqA6NDYZBjsTtOINda-OREDsjQWSwCLcB/s1600/mpb-foodforthought.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JnVtVeuAvcY/WIZjI0reYAI/AAAAAAAAEYE/i4ZUbqA6NDYZBjsTtOINda-OREDsjQWSwCLcB/s640/mpb-foodforthought.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "A large-headed Funko Pop bobblehead of Baby Groot stands next to a white Kobo, propped upright in its grey case. The screen holds the cover of Food For Thought, which features a small black cat against a slurry of handwritten, sepia-toned pages." /></a></div><p>
I loved TRUTH IN THE DARK so much that I decided to squeeze in one last Amy Lane book before my Scribd membership ended. I combed through the catalogue in search of novellas and finally settled on FOOD FOR THOUGHT [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jLAhKD" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/303586604/Food-for-Thought" target=new>Scribd</a>], in which Emmett, a closeted gay guy who longs for a family, learns families are a lot more variable than his life to date has led him to believe. When his sorta-adoptive mom gives him an old family cookbook, he gains some clarity by preparing one of the recipes with his neighbour/best friend/uber-crush.<p>
The resulting novella is mostly very sweet, with moments of remembered sadness and one deeply upsetting incident involving Emmett's girlfriend, with whom he does not part ways before he embarks on his quest for clarity. I teared up.<p>
A word of warning: the novella is much shorter than its presentation leads one to believe. The last 28% of it is ads for Lane's other books.<p>
<a name='more'></a>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qXCrVQX_dEM/WIZjr0qfu0I/AAAAAAAAEYI/oqlQrgrLFUoIuP3OxxAefGe9ICAkWdiUgCLcB/s1600/mpb-beneathceaselessskiesyear6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qXCrVQX_dEM/WIZjr0qfu0I/AAAAAAAAEYI/oqlQrgrLFUoIuP3OxxAefGe9ICAkWdiUgCLcB/s640/mpb-beneathceaselessskiesyear6.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "A fuzzy grey poodle, Murchie, burries his face behind a white Kobo with the cover of The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Year Six on it. The cover features a cloaked figure staring at a massive, silver spaceship with clawed legs and its front broken off."/></a></div><p>
I thought my Scribd membership ended at midnight on the 14th, but it turned out I still had access to my account on the 15th as well. I took advantage of the opportunity to finish THE BEST OF BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES YEAR SIX [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2k0PkQ0" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/277784064/The-Best-of-Beneath-Ceaseless-Skies-Online-Magazine-Year-Six" target=new>Scribd</a>], which I'd been picking away at for a few weeks and thought I'd have to finish online (the individual stories being available for free through the magazine's website).<p>
On the whole, I connected with fewer of these stories than I have with any other BCS anthology, but the good ones were <i>very</i> good. My favourites include:<p>
<ul>
<li><a href= "http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/rappaccinis-crow/" target=new>Rappaccini's Crow</a> by Cat Rambo</li>
<li><a href= "http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-unborn-god/" target=new>The Unborn God</a> by Stephen Case</li>
<li><a href= "http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-breath-of-war/" target=new>The Breath of War</a> by Aliette de Bodard</li>
<li><a href= "http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-bonedrakes-penance/" target=new>The Bonedrake's Penance</a> by Yoon Ha Lee</li>
</ul><p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W5lyrMmnm7Y/WIZkVQLo6BI/AAAAAAAAEYQ/zLuiNZoH8DsYLGeih_-cH6-eHi24BJ6DACLcB/s1600/mpb-tommydouglas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W5lyrMmnm7Y/WIZkVQLo6BI/AAAAAAAAEYQ/zLuiNZoH8DsYLGeih_-cH6-eHi24BJ6DACLcB/s640/mpb-tommydouglas.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "Murchie lies on a cow-shaped pillow. He wears an orange t-shirt and has his head raised and one paw extends before him. Propped upright behind him is a hardcover copy of Tommy Douglas. Its cover features a slightly abstracted drawing of a brown-haired white man wearing glasses."/></a></div><p>
One of my goals for 2017 is to read two volumes of Canadian nonfiction per month. I used THE PROMISE OF CANADA by Charlotte Gray as a jumping-off point to compile a library list that’s since expanded to include titles I discovered during random searches or via my local paper. My plan is to bounce around between parties and issues so I get a balanced view of where my country's been and where it's headed.<p>
I started off with Vincent Lam's TOMMY DOUGLAS [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jzLznW" target=new>Amazon</a>], one of the biographies in the Extraordinary Canadians series. Douglas championed our healthcare system and many other social programs that Canadians now consider integral parts of our country, helped found the New Democratic Party, and was voted the Greatest Canadian during a 2004 poll. He struck me as an excellent and interesting place to begin, and I was right.<p>
I've added Lam's other books to my list, too.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SXBXl6wK7lI/WIZk0VwZ0MI/AAAAAAAAEYU/u9uusWSJ-yUhiMT90XT7qvGIGvZmWDUOwCLcB/s1600/mpb-multiplechoice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SXBXl6wK7lI/WIZk0VwZ0MI/AAAAAAAAEYU/u9uusWSJ-yUhiMT90XT7qvGIGvZmWDUOwCLcB/s640/mpb-multiplechoice.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "Murchie, dressed in a pink hoodie with white trim, peers at the view from behind a paperback copy of Multiple Choice. The book's cover is pale blue and modeled after a student notebook, with the options Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, All of the Above, and None of the Above in a white box in the centre."/></a></div><p>
Jenny pointed me towards Alejandro Zambra's MULTIPLE CHOICE [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2iJNXnH" target=new>Amazon</a>] when I went in search of more Chilean fiction. As the cover suggests, the book is a little bit fiction, a little bit poetry, and a little bit nonfiction. It takes the form of a Chilean standardized test, and for the most par it's impossible to complete. The questions become more complex as the book rolls along, shifting from word associations to sentence constructions to story constructions to reading comprehension tests. The format forces the reader to reflect on the circumstances under which we construct meaning and the outside forces that compel us to view information in a certain light. And as the test progresses, the questions become fully realized stories that challenge the format, making it increasingly difficult for the reader to reform them according to personal preference.<p>
It's masterfully done. I'm gonna have to seek out more of Zambra's work.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j1jcssb4-xM/WIZlsp_Wv7I/AAAAAAAAEYc/91eHxp5SF4UgcleXcUphcFLcDddSPXwOwCLcB/s1600/mpb-chillingadventuresofsabrina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j1jcssb4-xM/WIZlsp_Wv7I/AAAAAAAAEYc/91eHxp5SF4UgcleXcUphcFLcDddSPXwOwCLcB/s640/mpb-chillingadventuresofsabrina.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "Murchie pokes his head out of a red blanket cave, his nose lowered to touch his extended front paws. Propped up in front of him is a trade paperback copy of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Its cover features a white-haired girl silhouetted against a red sky, a bare tree arching above her."/></a></div><p>
I’m pleased to report THE CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2k9XUwX" target=new>Amazon</a>] is as wonderful as AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE. Writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and artist Robert Hack lean into the creepy factor in all the best ways. This ain’t the Sabrina I watched on TV when I was a kid. Everything’s dark and complicated and devilish, and I’ll look forward to the next volume.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nS7DixUnDmM/WIZm7qiqIKI/AAAAAAAAEYk/kX_IQtYi9zMrGoOpsl2Oe_xsY-VRGczbwCLcB/s1600/mpb-homegoing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nS7DixUnDmM/WIZm7qiqIKI/AAAAAAAAEYk/kX_IQtYi9zMrGoOpsl2Oe_xsY-VRGczbwCLcB/s640/mpb-homegoing.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "A white iPod lies atop a partially-done puzzle of an anthropomorphic white rabbit wearing a crown of grapes. Its screen holds the cover of Homegoing, which features red bushes and blue waves stretching across a solid yellow background. "/></a></div><p>
Yaa Gyasi’s HOMEGOING [<a href= "https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/315017054/Homegoing-A-novel" target=new>Scribd Audio</a>] has gotten a ton of buzz lately, and I’ll add my voice to those who've loved it. It’s a novel in extended vignettes, each of which highlights a different member of the same family. Gyasi begins in the eighteenth century with two half-sisters on the Ivory Coast, one of them married to a British slaver and one of them enslaved, then follows their descendants through the centuries. It’s powerful, affecting stuff, though in the early hours I <i>was</i> disappointed to spend so little time with each character. That became less of an issue as I adjusted to the book’s structure.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-S1A7OcukGV8/WIZnx5FQTXI/AAAAAAAAEYo/0C7BfLQKtf8G-icEQQGCFE6xWEQS3QfoACLcB/s1600/mpb-shadesinshadow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-S1A7OcukGV8/WIZnx5FQTXI/AAAAAAAAEYo/0C7BfLQKtf8G-icEQQGCFE6xWEQS3QfoACLcB/s640/mpb-shadesinshadow.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "A very blurry Murchie sits behind a white Kobo with the cover of Shades In Shadow on it. Murchie wears his orange t-shirt. The cover features a heavy, circular piece of ironwork."/></a></div><p>
Orbit raised their Canadian prices a couple months back, which unfortunately made their ebook-only short fiction less accessible to me. Luckily, my library recently licensed a bunch of Orbit’s short stories and novellas for their e-reserve, so I was finally able to read N.K. Jemisin’s SHADES IN SHADOW [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2j6FHPb" target=new>Amazon</a>] last week. The book collects three short stories: one about Nahadoth, one about Ahad, and one about Glee. It felt great to be back in the Inheritance world again, if only for a tiny stretch of time.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SZoUXBp8g_I/WIZoNQhVTJI/AAAAAAAAEYs/0w7fbioFaVAJ6QR-wvY9MeP1eFAplV_1QCLcB/s1600/mpb-bluecastle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SZoUXBp8g_I/WIZoNQhVTJI/AAAAAAAAEYs/0w7fbioFaVAJ6QR-wvY9MeP1eFAplV_1QCLcB/s640/mpb-bluecastle.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "Murchie curls up behind a white Kobo with the cover of The Blue Castle on it. The blue cover features a roundel of a stern-faced white woman wearing a white bonnet and a blue dress with a white fichu."/></a></div><p>
Then I decided I <i>had</i> to reread THE BLUE CASTLE by L.M. Montgomery [<a href= "http://www.feedbooks.com/book/6444/the-blue-castle" target=new>Feedbooks</a>], restraint be damned.<p>
You know about THE BLUE CASTLE, right? Because it’s everyone’s favourite LMM novel? Valancy’s a twenty-nine-year-old lady who’s spent her whole life in thrall to her ghastly relatives, so it’s almost a relief when a heart specialist tells her she’s got maybe a year to live. Eager to make the most of the time she’s got left, she cranks the snark into high gear, takes a job as a housekeeper-slash-companion to the friendly town drunk and his consumptive daughter, and asks the local reprobate with a Mysterious Past to marry her for no better reason than that she loves him.<p>
It’s great, but I always forget how long it takes Valancy to actually break free of her awful family. (I once heard it said Jane Austen must’ve known a large number of disagreeable people, and characters like the Stirlings make me think the same is true of Montgomery.) I found those early chapters pretty slow this time through, but the latter chapters totally make up for it. Valancy has <i>fun</i>. She hangs out with people she actually likes, she spends a lot of time exploring the Ontario wilderness, she reads great books that nourish her soul, and she makes friends with two cats.<p>
Plus she falls in love, and Barney Snaith is the best of Montgomery’s heroes because he also likes wandering around in the woods and petting cats and ignoring the awful things people say about him. Montgomery never totally loses interest in him, either, like she obviously did with Gilbert Blythe after he and Anne got engaged.<p>
(Seriously, later-books Gilbert Blythe is Duncan Kane levels of boring. The hell, Montgomery?)<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w_N2eN8yeO0/WIZqHiLQ95I/AAAAAAAAEY0/E4AMu-ycnAoT1myKbK1AZXh9D-eKkSuOACLcB/s1600/mpb-bigtentpolitics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w_N2eN8yeO0/WIZqHiLQ95I/AAAAAAAAEY0/E4AMu-ycnAoT1myKbK1AZXh9D-eKkSuOACLcB/s640/mpb-bigtentpolitics.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "A pale hand holds a hardcover copy of Big Tent Politics up against a red bookshelf stuffed with books and topped with a plush red dragon. The book's cover features the flaps of a red tent drifting open to reveal a pure black space."/></a></div><p>
I heard about R. Kenneth Carty’s BIG TENT POLITICS [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2iXgY4E" target=new>Amazon</a>] in my local paper, requested it under the impression I’d have to wait a while because it was clear everyone else had also read the article that mentioned it, and ended up receiving it in no time flat. And so it became Canadian Nonfiction Pick #2.<p>
BIG TENT POLITICS began as a series of lectures on the Liberal party, initially delivered in 2008 and later revised to reflect the party’s major defeats in 2008 and 2011. Despite the Liberal focus, the book reads like an examination of how democracy works in Canada. Carty delves into brokerage parties here and abroad, the electoral mechanisms in play, the different levels of party membership and engagement, reinvention in the face of a changing electorate, and more. It’s fascinating stuff, and it’s far more readable than I expected--which is probably why it landed on my holds shelf so quickly. I probably finished it on Monday night.<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-41970473483008592112017-01-17T03:00:00.000-06:002017-01-17T03:00:02.415-06:00Marginalized Genders Reading List: 2016 Edition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5q9bNEjeSnA/WH0944aHulI/AAAAAAAAEXs/3UQWWgpHuVgRLvULfM6oonhke2O0MgZhwCLcB/s1600/You%2527realwayswith%2Bme.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5q9bNEjeSnA/WH0944aHulI/AAAAAAAAEXs/3UQWWgpHuVgRLvULfM6oonhke2O0MgZhwCLcB/s320/You%2527realwayswith%2Bme.png" width="400" height="400" alt= "Square header featuring two images above a central white strip that reads 136 Authors From Marginalized Genders. The upper image is of a young black woman looking at a notebook as she sits on set of wooden stairs in a brick-lined room. The lower image shows a woman's pale hands holding a champagne phone and a mustard-coloured zippered pouch."/></a></div><p>
At the start of 2016, Renay of <a href= "http://ladybusiness.dreamwidth.org/" target=new>Lady Business</a> issued herself a challenge to read work by 100 different women authors and artists over the course of the year. I liked this challenge so much that I took it up myself, with a slight adjustment to include nonbinary, genderfluid, and agender authors as well.<p>
I counted everyone whose work was at least novelette-length for prose or issue-length for comics, and my year-end reading list looks like this, in alphabetical order:<p>
<a name='more'></a>
<b>Abirached, Zeina</b><br>
<ul>
<li>A Game For Swallows</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Adams, Liz Duffy</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Whitehall, Season One</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Alcalá, Kathleen</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Mrs Vargas and the Dead Naturalist</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Albert, Annabeth</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Treble Maker</li>
<li>Beta Test</li>
<li>Connection Error</li>
<li>Wrapped Together</li>
<li>Served Hot</li>
<li>Delivered Fast</li>
<li>Knit Tight</li>
<li>Love Me Tenor</li>
<li>All Note Long</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Allende, Isabel</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Ines Of My Soul</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Andrews, Ilona</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Clean Sweep</li>
<li>Sweep In Peace</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Bardugo, Leigh</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Shadow and Bone</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Baszile, Natalie</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Queen Sugar</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Bear, Elizabeth</b><br>
<ul>
<li>New Amsterdam</li>
<li>Seven For A Secret</li>
<li>The White City</li>
<li>Ad Eternum</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Bechko, Corinna</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Invisible Republic Vol 1</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Bennett, Marguerite</b><br>
<ul>
<li>DC Comics Bombshells Vol 1</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Blake, Kendare</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Anna Dressed In Blood</li>
<li>Girl of Nightmares</li>
<li>Three Dark Crowns</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Block, Francesca Lia</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Weetzie Bat</li>
<li>Witch Baby</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Brennan, Sarah Rees</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Tell the Wind and Fire</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Brown, Emily</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Fairy Tales For Modern Queers</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Bujold, Lois McMaster</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Diplomatic Immunity</li>
<li>Winterfair Gifts</li>
<li>Cryoburn</li>
<li>Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance</li>
<li>Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen</li>
<li>Beguilement</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Bustos, Natatcha</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Vol 1</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Campbell, Sophie</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Jem and the Holograms Vol 1</li>
<li>Jem and the Holograms Vol 3</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Cass, Kiera</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Heir</li>
<li>The Siren</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Charles, KJ</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Rag and Bone</li>
</ul><p>
<b>CLAMP</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Cardcaptor Sakura Vol 1 to Vol 6</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Clarke, Cassandra Rose</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Witch Who Came In From the Cold, Season One</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Cloonan, Becky</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Southern Cross</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Croix, Callie</b><br>
<ul>
<li>No Holds Barred</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Dawson, Delilah S.</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Wicked As They Come</li>
<li>Wicked As She Wants</li>
</ul><p>
<b>del Duca, Leila</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Shutter Vol 1</li>
<li>Shutter Vol 2</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Dev, Sonali</b><br>
<ul>
<li>A Bollywood Affair</li>
<li>The Bollywood Bride</li>
<li>A Change of Heart</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Dolamore, Jaclyn</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Vengeful Half</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Dunlap, Margaret</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Bookburners, Season One</li>
<li>Bookburners, Season Two</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Edugyan, Esi</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Half-Blood Blues</li>
</ul><p>
<b>El-Mohtar, Amal</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Bookburners, Season Two</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Fish, Veronica</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Archie Vol 1</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Franklin, Alis</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Liesmith</li>
<li>Stormbringer</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Glass, Seressia</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Shadow Blade</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Goodwin, Mia</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Princeless</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Grant, Mira (aka McGuire, Seanan)</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Deadline</li>
<li>Blackout</li>
<li>Rise</li>
<li>Every Heart A Doorway</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Gratton, Tessa</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Tremontaine, Season Two</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Gray, Charlotte</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Promise of Canada</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Gray, Claudia</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Star Wars: Bloodline</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Green, Sally</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Half Truths</li>
<li>Half Bad</li>
<li>Half Wild</li>
<li>Half Lost</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Griswold, Amy</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Death By Silver</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Han, Jenny</b><br>
<ul>
<li>To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Hardinge, Frances</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Lie Tree</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Heilig, Heidi</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Girl From Everywhere</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Higashimura, Akiko</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Princess Jellyfish Vol 1</li>
<li>Princess Jellyfish Vol 2</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Higgins, Rosy</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Raven, Pirate Princess Vol 1</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Hopkinson, Nalo</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Sister Mine</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Jemisin, N.K.</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms</li>
<li>The Broken Kingdoms</li>
<li>The Kingdom of Gods</li>
<li>The Awakened Kingdom</li>
<li>The Fifth Season</li>
<li>The Obelisk Gate</li>
<li>The Killing Moon</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Jennings, Jazz</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Being Jazz</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Johnson, Alaya Dawn</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Tremontaine, Season One</li>
<li>Tremontaine, Season Two</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Jones, Diana Wynne</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Reflections: On the Magic of Writing</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Kaufman, Amie</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Illuminae</li>
<li>Gemina</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Khanani, Intisar</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Sunbolt</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Kirino, Natsuo</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Goddess Chronicle</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Knisley, Lucy</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Something New</li>
<li>French Milk</li>
<li>An Age of License</li>
<li>Displacement</li>
<li>Relish</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Kondo, Marie</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Kornher-Stace, Nicole</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Archivist Wasp</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Kowal, Mary Robinette</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Whitehall, Season One</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Kushner, Ellen</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Tremontaine, Season One</li>
<li>Tremontaine, Season Two</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Lafferty, Mur</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Bookburners, Season Two</li>
<li>Bookburners, Season One</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Lahiri, Jhumpa</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Interpreter of Maladies</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Lavey-Heaton, Megan</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Namesake, Volume One</li>
<li>Namesake, Volume Two</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Lee, Fonda</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Zeroboxer</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Lee, Stacy</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Silk Vol 0: The Life and Times of Cindy Moon</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Leth, Kate</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Patsy Walker, AKA Hellcat Vol 1: Hooked On A Feline</li>
</ul><p>
<b>leupagus</b><br>
<ul>
<li>to the sky without wings</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Liu, Marjorie</b>
<ul>
<li>Monstress Vol 1: Awakening</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Lo, Malinda</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Tremontaine, Season One</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Locke, Attica</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Cutting Season</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Maas, Sarah J.</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Assassin’s Blade</li>
<li>Throne of Glass</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Maltese, Racheline</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Tremontaine, Season One</li>
<li>Tremontaine, Season Two</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Mariano, Chris</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Cover (Story) Girl</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Martinez, Alitha</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Batgirl Vol 2: Knightfall Descends</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Mason, Rhonda</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Empress Game</li>
</ul><p>
<b>McGuire, Seanan (aka Grant, Mira)</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Deadline</li>
<li>Blackout</li>
<li>Rise</li>
<li>Every Heart A Doorway</li>
</ul><p>
<b>McMillan, Rachel</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Bachelor Girl’s Guide to Murder</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Melançon, Isabelle</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Namesake, Volume One</li>
<li>Namesake, Volume Two</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Meyer, Marissa</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Cinder</li>
<li>Scarlet</li>
<li>Cress</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Mock, Janet</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Redefining Realness</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Mohanraj, Mary Anne</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Tremontaine, Season Two</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Morgan, Kass</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The 100</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Moriarty, Jaclyn</b><br>
<ul>
<li>A Corner of White</li>
<li>Cracks in the Kingdom</li>
<li>A Tangle of Gold</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Moyes, Jojo</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Me Before You</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Nakamura, Yoshiki</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Skip Beat! Volumes 1 through 37</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Oima, Yoshitoki</b><br>
<ul>
<li>A Silent Voice Volumes 1 through 7</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Pacat, C.S.</b>
<ul>
<li>Kings Rising</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Penelope, L.</b>
<ul>
<li>Song of Blood & Stone</li>
<li>Angelborn</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Peria, Chrissie</b><br>
<ul>
<li>All’s Fair In Blog and War</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Phillips, Andrea</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Bookburners, Season Two</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Pon, Cindy</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Serpentine</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Rai, Alisha</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Falling For Him</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Reed, Emily</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Fairy Tales For Modern Queers</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Reeder, Amy</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Moon Girl and Devil Dinosar Vol 1: BFF</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Reeves, Dia</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Slice of Cherry</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Reisz, Tiffany</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Bourbon Thief</li>
<li>Her Halloween Treat</li>
<li>Her Naughty Holiday</li>
<li>One Hot December</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Rhimes, Shonda</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Year of Yes</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Rivera, Gabby</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Juliet Takes A Breath</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Robins, Madeline E.</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Whitehall, Season One</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Rorick, Kate</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Rowell, Rainbow</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Carry On</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Rowling, J.K.</b>
<ul>
<li>Harry Potter and the Cursed Child</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Ryan, Pam Muñoz</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Echo</li>
<li>Esperanza Rising</li>
<li>The Dreamer</li>
<li>Paint the Wind</li>
<li>Riding Freedom</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Samuel, Barbara</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Whitehall, Season One</li>
</ul><p>
<b>San Diego, Jayen</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Just A Little Rain</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Saulter, Stephanie</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Gemsigns</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Scarlett, Willow</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Integrity</li>
<li>Coin Tricks</li>
<li>Knockout Andrew</li>
<li>Hot Blood Punk</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Schwab, V.E.</b><br>
<ul>
<li>A Darker Shade of Magic</li>
<li>A Gathering of Shadows</li>
<li>This Savage Song</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Scott, Melissa</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Death By Silver</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Semple, Maria</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Where’d You Go, Bernadette?</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Sexton, Marie</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Winter Oranges</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Sherman, Delia</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Whitehall, Season One</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Simone, Gail</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Batgirl Vol 1: The Darkest Reflection</li>
<li>Batgirl Vol 2: Knightfall Descends</li>
<li>Batgirl Vol 3: Death of the Family</li>
<li>Batgirl Vol 4: Wanted</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Simonson, Louise</b><br>
<ul>
<li>X-Factor (read as single issues)</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Singh, Nalini</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Angels’ Blood</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Siskind, Kelly</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Chasing Crazy</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Smith, A.F.E</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Goldenfire</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Smith, Lindsay</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Witch Who Came In From the Cold, Season One</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Smith, Sarah</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Whitehall, Season One</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Snow, K.Z.</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Mongrel</li>
<li>Merman</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Staples, Fiona</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Archie Vol 1</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Stiefvater, Maggie</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Raven Boys</li>
<li>The Dream Thieves</li>
<li>Blue Lily, Lily Blue</li>
<li>The Raven King</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Tahir, Sabaa</b><br>
<ul>
<li>A Torch Against the Night</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Takada, Sana</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Monstress Vol 1: Awakening</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Takako, Shimura</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Wandering Son Volumes 1 through 5</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Tanglao, Kesh</b><br>
<ul>
<li>The Real Score</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Tarr, Babs</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Batgirl Vol 1: The Batgirl of Burnside</li>
<li>Batgirl Vol 2: Family Business</li>
<li>Batgirl Vol 3: Minefields</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Taylor, Logan</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Where Loyalties Lie</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Thompson, Kelly</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Jem and the Holograms Vol 1: Showtime</li>
<li>Jem and the Holograms Vol 3: Dark Jem</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Wagers, K.B.</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Behind the Throne</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Walker, Alice</b><br>
<ul>
<li>In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens</li>
<li>Living By the Word</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Walton, Jo</b><br>
<ul>
<li>What Makes This Book So Great (Vorkosigan essays only)</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Weatherspoon, Rebekah</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Fit</li>
<li>Tamed</li>
<li>Sated</li>
<li>So Sweet</li>
<li>Treasure</li>
<li>So Right</li>
<li>So For Real</li>
<li>Better Off Red</li>
</ul><p>
<b>West, Michelle</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Sea of Sorrows</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Williams, Brittney L.</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat Vol 1: Hooked On A Feline</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Womack, Ytasha L.</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Wu, Annie</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Black Canary Vol 1: Kicking and Screaming</li>
</ul><p>
<b>Yazawa, Ai</b><br>
<ul>
<li>Paradise Kiss Volumes 1 through 5</li>
</ul><p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-45187610112632698022017-01-15T03:00:00.000-06:002017-01-15T03:00:09.082-06:00Murchie Plus Books: January 1st to 14thI make my tiny dog pose with everything I read, barring single issue comics. Lately, it's been easiest to corner him in bed first thing in the morning. Little dude loves a blanket cave.<p>
The photos go live <a href= "https://www.instagram.com/xicanti/" target=new>on Instagram</a> as I edit them and usually appear here in digest form every Sunday, with descriptive alt tags and additional commentary. I missed last Sunday because 2017 started off on a low note: Murchie got sick right after New Years, then my grandma had a bad fall, then <i>I</i> got a nasty (and long-lasting) flu mutation mere days later. Neither Murchito nor I was good for much last weekend, so I'll cover two weeks' reading today.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5TxM12hokKk/WHj-VNmod_I/AAAAAAAAEVM/g0hYIkuvpOgEqPW_7B414rEP44nT4cebQCLcB/s1600/mpb-findingx.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5TxM12hokKk/WHj-VNmod_I/AAAAAAAAEVM/g0hYIkuvpOgEqPW_7B414rEP44nT4cebQCLcB/s640/mpb-findingx.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "A fuzzy grey poodle, Murchie, curls up beside a white Kobo so only the top of his silver head and a flash of his darker muzzle are visible. The Kobo's screen holds the cover of Finding X, which features the title in fuscia over drawn swirls of blue hair."/></a></div><p>
FINDING X by Miles Tan [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jrUxB8" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/202714568/Finding-X" target=new>Scribd</a>] had the potential to be adorable. Carlisle (pronounced car-lees-lee, not car-lyle) has been wary of romance ever since her seven-year relationship ended, but she's almost more intrigued than taken aback when she meets blue-haired Matteo, a charming scientist. Their evolving relationship is mostly very sweet and friendly, with both parties making an effort to overcoming their reservations and connect.<p>
Trouble is, Matteo treats Carlisle as an experiment to be solved rather than a person who makes her own choices. He keeps a notebook in which he tracks the results of his quest to discover the best ways to make her happy, some of which involve charting her daily routine and lying in wait for her so he can try his next gambit. At one point, he gushes about how he schedules a date on a rainy day so she'll <i>have</i> to accept a ride from him. Tan's aiming for "sweet but bumbling scientist doesn't quite know how to conduct a romance," but it comes across as "stalker targets lady and proceeds to worm his way into her life in unwelcome ways."<p>
Scientific approaches to romance <i>can</i> work on the page, with Nicola Yoon's THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR being a recent example, but Matteo's experiments are a dealbreaker for me because he never cuts Carlisle in on them. Their relationship becomes something he's doing to her, not something they're working on together. I dearly wish Tan had reworked this aspect of it all, or nixed it entirely.<p>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q-aqXMSjL7o/WHkBaUHMrUI/AAAAAAAAEVY/wn2DRSorAf4a2W9HNxl_jBoqIB2De-l3QCLcB/s1600/mpb-losnefilim.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q-aqXMSjL7o/WHkBaUHMrUI/AAAAAAAAEVY/wn2DRSorAf4a2W9HNxl_jBoqIB2De-l3QCLcB/s640/mpb-losnefilim.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "Murchie, head raised and paws stretched out before him, lies next to a white Kobo with the cover of In Midnight's Shadow on its screen. The cover features a red-tinged photo of a twisting subway tunnel with the title superimposed over it in white."/></a></div><p>
I've been curious about T. Frohock's LOS NEFILIM novellas [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jEWMA2" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/267513545/In-Midnight-s-Silence-Los-Nefilim-Part-One" target=new>Scribd</a>] for a while now, so I figured I'd give 'em a peek before my Scribd subscription expired. (They're currently part of the uncredited selection.) Excellent choice. The three novellas--IN MIDNIGHT'S SHADOW, WITHOUT LIGHT OR GUIDE, and THE SECOND DEATH--take place in early 1930s Barcelona and focus on a group of angel-born beings who prosecute their angelic forbears interests on earth. Diago, who's part angel and part demon rather than part angel and part human, has always held himself aloof from the politics of Los Nefilim, but he has no choice but to get involved when an angel kidnaps his husband, Miquel, and demands Diago sacrifice a child to a demon in order to get him back.<p>
I gulped down all three novellas as quick as ever I could. I wanted to know <i>everything</i> about these characters and their world, and I had a fabulous time sorting out how their systems work. Frohock doesn't give many answers. Instead, she lets the reader parse it all out for themselves, planting little clues to each relationship and social structure just when a body's most liable to want them. My favourite.<p>
THE SECOND DEATH does work as an end point, but I feel like Frohock's left enough dangly bits to justify at least one more cycle as Los Nefilim move towards the Spanish Civil War and World War II. I dearly hope there'll be more stories about these characters.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y1n9Ql7RInA/WHki3cmo65I/AAAAAAAAEWA/sGVBeqrWE8AqQzTRvyVO9yrgTT2gsrRaQCLcB/s1600/mpb-catalyst.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y1n9Ql7RInA/WHki3cmo65I/AAAAAAAAEWA/sGVBeqrWE8AqQzTRvyVO9yrgTT2gsrRaQCLcB/s640/mpb-catalyst.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "A white iPod lies on a puzzle of brightly coloured hot air balloons in flight. It has the cover of Catalyst on its screen, featuring a dark image of the Death Star. A bluetooth speaker shaped like a Star Destroyer hovers over the iPod."/></a></div><p>
Alas, it didn't work out between me and THE KILLING MOON by N.K. Jemisin. I made it about 240 pages in (going by my print copy) before I admitted I didn't care about it the way I wanted to. It was a tough call to make, given how much I've loved all Jemisin's other novels, but I decided to put it aside.<p>
I chose CATALYST by James Luceno [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jFlxwl" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/331122010/Catalyst-Star-Wars-A-Rogue-One-Novel" target=new>Scribd Audio</a>] as its replacement, since I wanted to explore more Star Wars audios while I could. The production values were just as high here as with the previous books I've listened to, and I enjoyed the chance to meet some of the characters from ROGUE ONE before I see the movie (yes, I <i>know</i>, I'm <i>behind</i>), but it often feels like more of a fill-in-the-blanks offering than a story arc and the pacing suffers for it. I enjoyed it very much but I didn't love it the way I've loved the others.<p>
One surprise: I dunno why, but it never occurred to me that Tarkin might have a first name. He does! Like a regular person! It's Wilhuff, which I had to google because apparently knowing Tarkin's got a first name and remembering what that first name is don't always go hand in hand.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xm0ReDYRvI4/WHkEd2AhevI/AAAAAAAAEVk/2ZmABLZSU-E-qD9foiZvhO-zzNpaOfJdwCLcB/s1600/mpb-daughterofmystery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xm0ReDYRvI4/WHkEd2AhevI/AAAAAAAAEVk/2ZmABLZSU-E-qD9foiZvhO-zzNpaOfJdwCLcB/s640/mpb-daughterofmystery.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "Murchie curls up in a red blanket cave beside a white Kobo with the cover of Daughter of Mystery on its screen. The cover features a red velvet drape across the bottom left hand corner, partway framing a pile of books, a rose, and a candle."/></a></div><p>
I spent a Scribd credit on DAUGHTER OF MYSTERY by Heather Rose Jones [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jEUhxX" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/319486390/Daughter-of-Mystery-A-Novel-of-Alpennia" target=new>Scribd</a>] months ago because the bit I sampled reminded me of Ellen Kushner wrapped up with Elizabeth Willey; a toothsome combination indeed. Jones's Alpennia novels take place in a fictional European country sometime in the early to mid 19th century. This first one focuses on Barbara, a young woman who's been trained as a duelist and bodyguard, and Margerit, a would-be scholar who's recently inherited an unexpected fortune and must now figure out how to outmaneuver the guardians who believe she should marry instead of attending university.<p>
I fear I pushed it into my reading queue at the wrong time. I tackled it now rather than later because, as previously stated, my Scribd membership ends this weekend and I've decided not to renew it right now. (Scribd is wonderful and I've loved having it these last few years, but I often feel pressured to choose books from there instead of reading from my library or my own shelves.) So I settled in with it, and enjoyed what I read very much, and had made it less than halfway through after several days of reading.<p>
I took a small break to see if I'd feel a pressing need to continue before my membership ended, and alas I did not. DAUGHTER OF MYSTERY is pleasant and beautifully executed, but it's not the sort of must-read-more-oh-god-oh-god fiction I've hankered after so far in 2017.<p>
The sad thing is, I know I <i>will</i> want to return to it someday, and I'll be out of luck. Sigh. I wonder if my library would add it to their e-reserve if I asked very nicely? Or if I'll still have access to it when I reactivate Scribd down the line?<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vLmei5vtkCc/WHkHbVUnTxI/AAAAAAAAEVw/aeb24fOCa3wirQNSH6Ft1CGFUbCmYiF_wCLcB/s1600/mpb-freckles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vLmei5vtkCc/WHkHbVUnTxI/AAAAAAAAEVw/aeb24fOCa3wirQNSH6Ft1CGFUbCmYiF_wCLcB/s640/mpb-freckles.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "Murchie sprawls "/></a></div><p>
Then I sampled a few things to see what <i>did</i> fit my mood, and finally lit upon FRECKLES by Amy Lane [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jfBpJ8" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/328434510/Freckles" target=new>Scribd</a>]. The opening chapters were so adorable that I didn't hesitate to shell out a credit and spend a solid couple of hours with it on the first day of my most inconvenient illness.<p>
Because it's the CUTEST BOOK EVER OMG.<p>
As is so often the case with the really awesome books, I started to write a mini review for y'all and soon realized I was edging towards 500 words. FRECKLES will have a post of its own in the near future, but for now I need you to know it's my first 5-star book of 2017. I'll be reccing it far and wide.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3YtUQ-7DNL0/WHkq45BJWfI/AAAAAAAAEWQ/rMhlKuqYzXQqEft-3bevKQi5pRbb5Tj4QCLcB/s1600/mpb-poisonkiss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3YtUQ-7DNL0/WHkq45BJWfI/AAAAAAAAEWQ/rMhlKuqYzXQqEft-3bevKQi5pRbb5Tj4QCLcB/s640/mpb-poisonkiss.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "Murchie pokes his head out of his red blanket cave. At an angle in front of him is a white Kobo with Poison Kiss's cover on it. The cover features a dark-haired young woman with bright green eyes and a pink streak in her hair. She looks to be either white or Indigenous."/></a></div><p>
I've seen quite a few people rave about Ana Mardoll's books on Twitter, so I sampled POISON KISS [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jgukHZ" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/300529846/Poison-Kiss-Earthside-1" target=new>Scribd</a>] next. At first brush, I thought Mardoll's prose was too ornate for my current mood, but by the end of the opening chapter I was hooked. Rose has been pressed into service as a Nightshade in a faerie court, forced to kill her mistress's enemies with poisoned kisses. When she and a fellow servant escape, they find themselves in modern day Texas and must adjust to life in the real world--a tough task that gets a whole lot harder when a silver boy bursts through a portal in their parking lot.<p>
The resulting book is thoughtful, exciting, and inclusive. There are tons of queer characters, a clear effort to represent people of many different backgrounds, lots of How Stuff Works, meditations on mythology and folklore, and enough action to keep everything rolling along at a decent clip. I'll definitely be checking out more of Mardoll's work.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-S1cUVHDmxnQ/WHks4SVFmeI/AAAAAAAAEWc/ttyFBUDhdcEAlyVGXh75HwfXEj5JHdzhQCLcB/s1600/mpb-adeathatthedionysusclub.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-S1cUVHDmxnQ/WHks4SVFmeI/AAAAAAAAEWc/ttyFBUDhdcEAlyVGXh75HwfXEj5JHdzhQCLcB/s640/mpb-adeathatthedionysusclub.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "Murchie, dressed in a red t-shirt with green trim, curls up on a red tapestry comforter. At an angle beside him is a white Kobo with the cover of A Death at the Dionysus Club on it. The cover features two dark-haired men in evening dress, one seated and one standing. Swirls of green mist surround them."/></a></div><p>
A DEATH AT THE DIONYSUS CLUB by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jgMA4b" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/321189779/A-Death-at-the-Dionysus-Club" target=new>Scribd</a>] was the book I most wanted to read before my Scribd membership ended, so I quit denying myself and dove in. It's the second installment in the authors' Julian Lynes and Ned Mathey series, in which a private investigator and a metaphysician solve crimes in a magic-drenched alternate London. I got off to a slow start because I first cracked it open on the day my flu kicked into high gear (and kicked my ass for a solid twenty-four hours), but once I was in I couldn't put it down. It's wallowsome and exciting, with lots of great magic and fascinating character dynamics. I hope the authors write another mystery with these characters somewhere down the line.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h7djNxFkP88/WHqfdOEFNkI/AAAAAAAAEXU/i8bQ7F55d0gh1j3NRhTnLG6IOamAuGgnwCLcB/s1600/mpb-singersgun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h7djNxFkP88/WHqfdOEFNkI/AAAAAAAAEXU/i8bQ7F55d0gh1j3NRhTnLG6IOamAuGgnwCLcB/s640/mpb-singersgun.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "Murchie lies on a cow-shaped pillow, his head raised and his ears perked. He wears his red shirt. On the pillow beside him is a white iPod with the cover of The Singer's Gun on it. The cover features a domed island silhouetted against a grey sky." /></a></div><p>
THE SINGER'S GUN [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jJRnYG" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/301371379/The-Singer-s-Gun" target=new>Scribd</a>] has renewed my determination to read everything Emily St John Mandel publishes. She's frightfully good at imbuing seemingly everyday scenes with so many layers that they hit the reader right in the solar plexus; maybe not right away, but definitely down the line, when it becomes obvious what all that <i>meant</i>. This particular offering is general fiction, rather than science fiction like STATION ELEVEN, and it delves deep into personal expectations, the politics of crime, and the moments of genuine connection that can make or break relationships.<p>
Yep. Definitely gonna read some more Mandel in the near future. I only wish I had access to the rest of her work on audio.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-awbbpDW7i5A/WHqXz9U0oSI/AAAAAAAAEXA/hrwQk_c9NIwQnvj2m49pBoiFzMiTyFWOwCLcB/s1600/mpb-machine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-awbbpDW7i5A/WHqXz9U0oSI/AAAAAAAAEXA/hrwQk_c9NIwQnvj2m49pBoiFzMiTyFWOwCLcB/s640/mpb-machine.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "Murchie lies tucked up in bed. Behind him is a white Kobo with Machine's pale yellow cover on it. It features a pale man with long, grey-streaked hair and pointed ears. He wears a black vaguely Victorian suit with a high-collared shirt and a black necktie." /></a></div><p>
K.Z. Snow's MACHINE [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jNxFiY" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/310129917/Mongrel-Trilogy" target=new>Scribd</a>] was next on my list of things I spent credits on months ago and really ought to read. It's the final volume of her Mongrel Trilogy, and it serves as a sort of a capstone for the characters' journey. I enjoyed getting to see them all one last time, but despite the dire conundrums they face here the book felt a bit slight for reasons I can't quite articulate. The first installment, MONGREL, is still my clear favourite.<p>
I want to mention, again, that these books are notable in that one of the main characters is bipolar, and his medicine is explicitly framed as a good thing that helps him lead the life he wants. That's not something I've seen much of in fiction of any genre, let alone in secondary world fantasy.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vRsiRqDiRpk/WHkxUJxbWHI/AAAAAAAAEWo/XP5M1g7UXjYhb_PRiqjul7WD4v8hhWFNACLcB/s1600/mpb-undertherushes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vRsiRqDiRpk/WHkxUJxbWHI/AAAAAAAAEWo/XP5M1g7UXjYhb_PRiqjul7WD4v8hhWFNACLcB/s640/mpb-undertherushes.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "Murchie peeks out from behind a white Kobo with the cover of Under the Rushes on it. The sepia cover features a white man wearing a bowler hat and a dark suit with an elaboratly fluffled white cravat. Smoke stacks rise into the sky above his shoulder, while the title appears against faded yellow bricks below him."/></a></div><p>
Okay, so, I also started to tell you about Amy Lane's UNDER THE RUSHES [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jksplE" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/303325490/Under-the-Rushes" target=new>Scribd</a>] in brief, but <i>once again</i> I churned out 450 words without even trying, and with plenty more to say.<p>
Guess it's getting its own post, too.<p>
What you need to know right now is, it's totally amazing and <i>completely</i> different from FRECKLES. FRECKLES was the cutest book ever; UNDER THE RUSHES needs trigger warnings for, like, everything because it's dark, dark, dark.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-r25U1DDH3yg/WHqYbrWcOcI/AAAAAAAAEXE/yvEN_fv1iJUf4pBwF8iVIveNiAO8IUnvQCLcB/s1600/mpb-truthinthedark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-r25U1DDH3yg/WHqYbrWcOcI/AAAAAAAAEXE/yvEN_fv1iJUf4pBwF8iVIveNiAO8IUnvQCLcB/s640/mpb-truthinthedark.jpg" width="550" height="550" alt= "Murchie sprawls on his side with his front paws extended. He wears his red t-shirt. In front of him at an angle is a white Kobo with the cover of Truth in the Dark on its screen. A shirtless young white man lies on his side facing the viewer while a shadowy figure holds a glowing lantern above him." /></a></div><p>
I wanted to squeeze in one last Amy Lane title while I still had Scribd, so I combed through all her novella offerings and sampled TRUTH IN THE DARK [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2jJUqAf" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/301572601/Truth-in-the-Dark" target=new>Scribd</a>]. And it BLEW MY MIND. It's a fairy tale that straddles the line between sweet and dark, and I've learned my lesson: I won't even try to write about it in brief. I'm working on a full (albeit short) review that I hope to share with you in the near future.<p>
It's my second 5-star read of 2017 (UNDER THE RUSHES having been a 4.5-er).<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-81437832767047136822017-01-03T03:00:00.000-06:002017-01-03T11:01:19.174-06:00Best of 20162016 was a crap year in many respects, but I did read a hell of a lot of good books. Here’re my top picks in the order I read them, with some stats and commentary tacked onto the end for good measure.<p>
<h1>2016 Top 16</h1><p>
Sixteen, people! That’s the most ever! I tried and tried and tried to narrow it down, but the books refused to let me ignore them.<p>
Thanks, books.<p>
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<center><b>to the sky without wings by leupagus</b></center><p>
Never in my life did I imagine I’d read a novel-length piece of fanfic, and never ever <i>ever</i> did I think said fanfic would end up on my yearly Top 10 list (or Top 16 list, as the case may be). But here we are.<p>
This Star Wars fic (which <a href= "http://archiveofourown.org/works/5609887" target=new>you can read in its entirely here</a>) gripped me so hard that I dropped everything whenever another chapter came out. It convinced me fic can have a place in my life, and that sometimes my least favourite tropes can win me over.<p>
<a name='more'></a>
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<center><b>Carry On by Rainbow Rowell - <a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/03/review-carry-on-by-rainbow-rowell.html" target=new>review</a></b></center><p>
CARRY ON is an awesome story <i>and</i> a commentary on the YA fantasy landscape. I geek the hell out whenever I think of it, especially when I remember how the magic is powered by cliche. Rainbow Rowell <i>went there</i>, y'all, and I love her for it.<p>
Plus Baz is mine, and always will be.<p>
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<center><b>A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab</b></center><p>
This one hit me so hard I didn’t even want to talk about it at first. It’s got sailing and queer folks and siblings and magical sports and a character who’ll do <i>anything</i>; ie, it’s kinda my ideal book. I'm beyond excited for the finale, A CONJURING OF LIGHT.<p>
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<center><b>The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater - <a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/05/review-raven-king-by-maggie-stiefvater.html" target=new>review</a></b></center><p>
A comprehensive list of things THE RAVEN KING meant to me:<p>
<ul>
<li>everything</li>
</ul><p>
It also helped me find my uber-specific subgenre of choice, which is queer assholes doing dream magic while ghosts lurk around.<p>
I'd like to welcome Blue Sargent to my (Highly Exclusive) List of Favourite Literary Characters, too. She has the distinction of being one of only two list members I've never wanted to punch. Ronan Lynch, a list member of longer standing, does not belong to this tiny subset.<p>
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<center><b>The Kingdom of Gods by N.K. Jemisin</b></center><p>
I waffled over whether I wanted to talk about this one, too, and ultimately ended up writing <a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/05/murchie-plus-books-may-22nd-to-28th.html" target=new>a thing about how I didn’t want to review it</a>. I couldn't tear myself away from it until I'd finished, and I bought my own copy right away; something I almost never do.<p>
I love how this final volume of the Inheritance Trilogy makes it absolutely impossible for anyone to ignore the series' queer backbone, too. You can <i>maybe</i> do it with the first two if you want to be ghastly and deny peoples' genders and sexualities, but there's no out here.<p>
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<center><b>Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan - <a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/06/review-echo-by-pam-munoz-ryan.html" target=new>review</a></b></center><p>
ECHO is and shall remain my number one pick for the modern era. It’s anti-Nazi, anti-racist, and pro-understanding. And it’s the best children’s novel I’ve read in years.<p>
Get the audio if you possibly can. The musical component is phenomenal.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L7cZK6y4qak/WGqS37Dl2JI/AAAAAAAAEUQ/TG0-Yut0YMcfnmGcvxDeZvATkyQVH3jsgCLcB/s1600/mpb-childrenofearthandsky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L7cZK6y4qak/WGqS37Dl2JI/AAAAAAAAEUQ/TG0-Yut0YMcfnmGcvxDeZvATkyQVH3jsgCLcB/s640/mpb-childrenofearthandsky.jpg" width="450" height="450" alt= "Fuzzy Murchie stands next to a recycle bin, staring upwards. A pale hand holds a white Kobo with the cover of Children of Earth and Sky so it peeks into the shot. The book's cover features a wrought iron sun that's golden near the top and fades to deep blue near the bottom." /></a></div><br>
<center><b>Children of Earth and Sky by Guy Gavriel Kay - <a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/06/review-children-of-earth-and-sky-by-guy.html" target=new>review</a></b></center><p>
Every year, there’s one book I <i>cannot</i> imagine leaving off the list, no matter how hard I try to wrap my mind around it. This year, it's CHILDREN OF EARTH AND SKY, which is also one of those books that sneaks up on you. One moment, you think you’re regular-strength invested in it; the next, you’re sobbing your heart out because you’re <i>so overcome</i> on the characters’ behalf.<p>
It also works beautifully in conversation with the two-volume Sarantine Mosaic, which is my favourite of Kay’s offerings.<p>
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<center><b>Yotsuba&! Vols 1-13 by Kiyohiko Azuma - <a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/08/review-yotsuba-volumes-1-12-by-kiyohiko.html" target=new>review</a></b></center><p>
ZOMG NEW FAVOURITE COMIC. It’s about sweet, supportive people who genuinely like one another, and my face hurt after every single volume because I’d spent the whole time grinning my arse off at the lot of them.<p>
Volume 9 is my favourite, but the whole series to date is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.<p>
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<center><b>Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan</b></center><p>
HALF-BLOOD BLUES is great right from the get-go, but there’s this <i>moment</i> a short ways in that transforms it from really good to OMG WHAT IS THIS BRILLIANCE AND WHERE WILL IT TAKE ME. I’m grateful to my <a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/05/books-on-nightstand-bingo.html" target=new>bookish bingo card</a> for giving me the push I needed to finally read it.<p>
Edugyan is the Canadian author I most look forward to reading more from in 2017.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DSqxhhqUXBk/WGqQD8LSPhI/AAAAAAAAET0/FFjb65vKhIgRzRP2p7wuV1BeGN5ictGQgCLcB/s1600/mpb-winteroranges_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DSqxhhqUXBk/WGqQD8LSPhI/AAAAAAAAET0/FFjb65vKhIgRzRP2p7wuV1BeGN5ictGQgCLcB/s640/mpb-winteroranges_large.jpg" width="450" height="450" alt= "Fuzzy-cheeked Murchie lies beside a white Kobo with the cover of Winter Oranges on its screen. The cover features a dark-haired white man in vaguely historical dress. He's encased in a glass globe held by a pale hand." /></a></div>
<center><b>Winter Oranges by Marie Sexton - <a href= "https://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/09/review-winter-oranges-by-marie-sexton.html" target=new>review</a></b></center><p>
Hello, new favourite romance! This one sounds sooooooo out there, given how one of the heroes is <i>trapped in a snow globe</i>, but it works so fucking well. I’ve been reccing it to everyone since the moment I finished it.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FV7jlxdkaJg/WGqRRw4KD9I/AAAAAAAAET8/lVcYvqaniXUb0tlFQisqR5lL5VSsm0aKgCLcB/s1600/mpb-tellyouwhat_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FV7jlxdkaJg/WGqRRw4KD9I/AAAAAAAAET8/lVcYvqaniXUb0tlFQisqR5lL5VSsm0aKgCLcB/s640/mpb-tellyouwhat_large.jpg" width="450" height="450" alt= "Short-haired Murchie stares away from the camera. In front of him, taking up most of the shot, is a white Kobo with the cover of Tell You What Great New Zealand Nonfiction 2016 on it. The title appears in large yellow letters against a photograph of a river shot from above."/></a></div>
<center><b>Tell You What: Great New Zealand Nonfiction 2016, ed. by Susanna Andrew and Jolisa Gracewood</b></center><p>
Here’s another huge surprise: an essay collection! I stumbled across the 2016 edition of TELL YOU WHAT while I was checking Scribd for Tina Makareti’s WHERE THE RĒKOHU BONE SINGS. The novel was a no-go, but I discovered she’d contributed to this, sampled it on a whim, and discovered the editors’ tastes are an exact match for my own. The writing’s fabulous, the contributors are diverse, and I welcomed the chance to revisit my beloved country through a literary lens.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wOca-ToPvs8/WGqPPfXW37I/AAAAAAAAETo/dQjYhXqnyNAUm2X5cAALbTQWR8GiI0A1ACLcB/s1600/mpb-mrsvargas_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wOca-ToPvs8/WGqPPfXW37I/AAAAAAAAETo/dQjYhXqnyNAUm2X5cAALbTQWR8GiI0A1ACLcB/s640/mpb-mrsvargas_large.jpg" width="450" height="450" alt= "Short-haired Murchie lies beside a white Kobo with the cover of Mrs Vargas and the Dead Naturalist on it. The cover has a turquoise border and features a painting of a Mexican woman wearing a dress with a blue bodice and a patterned white skirt. She stands in a jungle, monkeys behind her and a small wildcat in front of her." /></a></div>
<center><b>Mrs Vargas and the Dead Naturalist by Kathleen Alcalá</b></center><p>
Sometimes there’s one book I can’t possibly leave off the list. Sometimes there’s two. Alcalá’s short fiction is fucking transcendent and I wish I had access to more of her work.<p>
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<center><b>Nevernight by Jay Kristoff - <a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/10/review-nevernight-by-jay-kristoff.html" target=new>review</a></b></center><p>
I hesitated over whether to include this one, because as much as I loved it I’m ashamed to say I missed many problematic things about it. (You can read about these issues in greater detail on <a href= "http://anjuliewritesstuff.weebly.com/blog/racism-author-accountability-and-nevernight" target=new>Anjulie Te Pohe’s post about NEVERNIGHT, racism, and author accountability</a>. I’ve also edited my review to include a link to the post.) I did adore it as a love letter to modern fantasy, though, so I’m putting it on my Top 16 with the caveat that I won’t be reccing it as unreservedly as I’d intended to right after I finished it and I'll be thinking about it more critically when I reread it.<p>
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<center><b>Coin Tricks by Willow Scarlett</b></center><p>
More Kiwi lit, and another amazing romance! I want to give it to Alana from SAGA<sup>1</sup> because it’s about these two people who connect in all these gloriously everyday ways and I think she'd be totally into that. Like, they talk about books, and make friendship bracelets, and have family suppers, and it’s really normal but never boring. It’s super-duper awesome and I want more people to have it in their life.<p>
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<center><b>Bloodline by Claudia Gray</b></center><p>
I hadn’t read a Star Wars book since I was fifteen or so and my dear friend was obsessed with the Han Solo Trilogy, but someone (I want to say it was Anton?) told me BLOODLINE was the best Star Wars novel they’d ever read, and I needed to spend a Scribd audio credit, and the next thing I knew I was enthralled. The book gave me a chance to reconnect with beloved characters, meet some amazing new ones, and meditate on the role of government.<p>
I strongly encourage you to get the audiobook, if you possibly can. The recent Star Wars audios are like radio plays with sound effects, scores, and narrators who perform every character with such verve you’ll believe they’re a full cast rather than one super-talented person.<p>
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<center><b>Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli - <a href= "https://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/12/review-simon-vs-homo-sapiens-agenda-by.html" target=new>review</a></b></center><p>
My reading style is “really fucking picky and also deeply suspicious,” so I almost never love books straight from the first line. And yet it took me only twelve words to fall in love with SIMON, which was everything my nineteen-year-old self wanted THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER to be.<p>
<h1>Honourable Mention</h1><p>
The complete works of Annabeth Albert, who became my favourite romance writer this year with her #gaymers, Portland Heat, and Perfect Harmony series. I can't wait to read what she puts out in 2017!<p>
<h1>And Now, Stats</h1><p>
Y’all may recall I got grumpy about stats near the end of 2015. After minimal debate, I decided to track nothing beyond my spreadsheet’s built-in variables (modified slightly for my personal biases) in 2016.<p>
So:<p>
I read <b>385 books</b> and <b>100,189 pages</b> in 2016.<p>
Sort of. Y’see, I also read somewhere between 600 and 700 individual X-Men issues, and I got all *shrug* about counting them since so many of the early issues and story arcs aren’t readily available as trade collections. After an early attempt to count every twenty-five issues as one book<sup>2</sup>, I decided not to bother tabulating the 452 issues of UNCANNY X-MEN and 150+ issues of X-MEN, NEW X-MEN, X-TREME X-MEN, and various miniseries and short-lived series I got through last year.<p>
It ain’t like my reading list needs any padding, y’know?<p>
That 385-book total does include lots of non-mutant trade collections, of course. I don’t count individual issues as books because that’d be cheating. Likewise, I counted my serials by season, not by episode.<p>
<b>267 of those books were by people of marginalized genders</b>. That’s 69% books by women and genderqueer or genderfluid folks.<p>
<b>222 were by POC</b> for a total of 58% non-white writers and artists.<p>
<b>181 were comics</b> for a total of 47%. A bit of a dip from last year, when I read 263 comics. We can probably tie that to my X-Men focus and my decision not to count those books.<p>
<b>210 books were by non-Americans</b> for a total of 55%. <p>
124 books were fantasy.<p>
98 were general fiction.<p>
89 were science fiction.<p>
34 were romance.<p>
24 were nonfiction (a small jump! I’m terrible at reading nonfiction).<p>
11 were pure historical fiction (ie, not historical fantasy).<p>
5 were crime fiction.<p>
I didn’t track any other genres and marketing categories because spreadsheet.<p>
I got 204 books from the library, 77 from Scribd, 33 from new bookstores (including digital venues), 28 from Marvel Unlimited (not including X-titles), 26 from NetGalley, and 17 from used bookstores and charity book sales.<p>
And that’s everything I tracked.<p>
<h1>Commentary and Goals and Stuff</h1><p>
My big reading goal for 2016 was to read whatever the fuck I wanted (profanity 100% necessary). I occasionally strayed from this goal as I felt pressured to get to review copies and spend Scribd credits before they expired, but for the most part I read everything I could within the limits of my reading speed.<p>
I also wanted to read more prose fiction by POC as comics accounted for a huge percentage of my 2015 reading list’s diverse content. I did that, and discovered some amazing new authors in the process. As previously stated, I’m excited to read the rest of Esi Edugyan’s books in 2017, and I look forward to new stuff from Rebekah Weatherspoon, N.K. Jemisin, Sonali Dev, and many others.<p>
I want to keep reading whatever the fuck I want to in 2017, with an especial emphasis on queer stuff and Canadian authors. (I even sacrificed the Comics column of my spreadsheet to make space for a Queer tracking option.) And I want to read <i>all</i> the X-Men comics without worrying about tallying them up.<p>
Because it actually feels pretty good to have one area of my reading life I don’t quantify.<p>
<b>How did <i>your</i> reading go in 2016?</b><p>
<hr>
<ol>
<li>I know those of y’all who’ve known me for a while are wondering where the hell SAGA is this year. It’s my favourite, so I get totally anxious about catching up on it and I didn’t manage to read Volume 6 in 2016. Stay tuned to learn whether it’s one of my top picks for 2017.</li><p>
<li>When a comic hasn’t been officially collected, I usually count every six issues as one book. I initially thought I’d up that to 25 with the X-Men comics because I was writing my commentary posts every twenty-five issues, but I kept forgetting to count page numbers and make note of creators and I almost died of boredom at the very <i>thought</i> of figuring all that out after the fact. So I shrugged and decided to let the stats fly free in the wind.</li><p>
</ol>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-46069279301988090092017-01-01T03:00:00.000-06:002017-01-01T03:00:13.434-06:00Murchie Plus Books: December 25th to 31stI make my dog pose with everything I read, barring single issue comics. He was <i>especially</i> mopey about it last week, but he still managed to keep his head reasonably still.<p>
My Not Pictured selections include lots and lots of X-Men comics, as per usual. I took December off from UNCANNY in the hopes of catching up on a few of the series that lead into Chris Claremont's 2004 run on the book, and I had a lot of fun dipping into older miniseries and more recent short-lived titles like EMMA FROST, MYSTIQUE, and DISTRICT X. I finally finished X-TREME X-MEN, too, so I'm ready to forge onward in January!<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LA8FCZ8ezRQ/WGbGSES04QI/AAAAAAAAESA/vtPQPmqe1641vWBweg3sJ-uLyTgc5WyIwCLcB/s1600/mpb-hotbloodpunk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LA8FCZ8ezRQ/WGbGSES04QI/AAAAAAAAESA/vtPQPmqe1641vWBweg3sJ-uLyTgc5WyIwCLcB/s640/mpb-hotbloodpunk.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "A fuzzy grey poodle, Murchie, lies on a cow-shaped pillow. His chin extends over a white Kobo, placed at an angle in front of him. It's got the red cover of Hot Blood Punk on its screen, featuring the torso of a white boy with a vegan leather jacket over his bare, colourfully tattooed chest." /></a></div><p>
My sorta-kinda plan for the next few weeks is to dig into all the Scribd stuff I've been procrastinating on. To that end, I ponied up a credit for Willow Scarlett's HOT BLOOD PUNK [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2iqplo1" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/194224958/Hot-Blood-Punk" target=new>Scribd</a> | <a href= "https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/226737" target=new>Smashwords</a>] and dove in.<p>
COIN TRICKS is still my favourite, but this 150-page offering was also great. Jordie, a genderqueer sculptor who's had a rough couple of years, connects with a punk named Luke during a life-changing bus ride. Next thing they know, Luke's an integral part of their everyday world and things no longer seem so hopeless.<p>
There are shades of instalove to it all, but Scarlett demonstrates that these two click so quickly because they genuinely like and admire each other. They're opposites who can enjoy spending time together without losing themselves. Consent is a huge part of their relationship from the get-go as confident Luke makes it absolutely clear he respects shy Jordie's boundaries (and pronouns!) and doesn't want to do anything Jordie isn't 100% into. Jordie, too, isn't afraid to stand up to Luke when Luke goes too far in any direction. Their relationship unfolds quickly, but it's sweet and affectionate and grounded in understanding.<p>
It reinforced my love for Scarlett's bibliography.<p>
<a name='more'></a>
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Then I dipped into my stash of books I spent a credit on ages ago and came out with MERMAN by K.Z. Snow [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2iyqSpl" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/303587136/Merman" target=new>Scribd</a>]. It's the same-world-different-focus-characters sequel to MONGREL, which I read and loved <a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/09/murchie-plus-books-september-11th-to.html" target=new>back in September</a>. I enjoyed it very much and had a great time seeing the world expand and checking in with the characters, but I didn't click with it as strongly as I did with MONGREL. We'll see how I feel about the final book in the trilogy, which I hope to get to early in 2017.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L-4DCnOX3eg/WGbN7PVfsYI/AAAAAAAAESY/5BBfwPXMWeIX3nnTwICotyCMhMBvv0B3gCLcB/s1600/mpb-allnotelong.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L-4DCnOX3eg/WGbN7PVfsYI/AAAAAAAAESY/5BBfwPXMWeIX3nnTwICotyCMhMBvv0B3gCLcB/s640/mpb-allnotelong.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie curls himself around a white Kobo propped upright. His paws a crossed demurely in front of him. The Kobo's screen holds the cover of All Note Long, featuring a dark-haired, bearded white man wearing a white t-shirt. He stands against a sideways ombre background that fades from blue on the left to green on the right. Music notes swirl around him." /></a></div><p>
One can only stay away from Annabeth Albert for so long, my dears. Which is gonna be a problem for me, seeing as how ALL NOTE LONG [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2impiHr" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/315712957/All-Note-Long" target=new>Scribd</a>] is the second-to-last book I need to read before I'm <i>totally caught up</i>.<p>
Gasp!<p>
It's a great 'un, too. Michelin's a demisexual country superstar who's spent his whole life in the closet. Lucky's a go-go dancer and show boy in search of the gig that'll make him a star. When someone takes misleading photos of their first meeting, effectively outing Michelin and making it look like he paid Lucky for sex, Michelin's label demands they do the fake boyfriend thing as a form of damage control.<p>
"But <i>Memory</i>," you say, "wasn't LOVE ME TENOR, the previous Perfect Harmony novel, <i>also</i> a fake relationship story?" Yes, friend, it was; and that's the genius of Annabeth Albert. She's all, "Yeah, I know I just did that, but I'm gonna do it again and make it feel completely different and <i>also awesome</i>."<p>
(I might be paraphrasing there.)<p>
It's <i>so</i> awesome, y'all. Albert doesn't shy away from how hard it is for Michelin to be outed, given his fame and his status within a traditionally conservative music genre, but she also finds reasons for him to hope and to move forward despite the difficult realities he faces. She also builds a damned amazing relationship between him and Lucky, who's got enough of his own stuff going on that this isn't quite one of those "famous person hits it off with non-famous person" stories I adore. Lucky's at the start of his career, but he's a great dancer and he's committed to his vocation. His aspirations often clash with Michelin's, meaning they've gotta stretch to accommodate each other without losing themselves; <i>my very favourite setup</i> (and basically Albert's signature move).<p>
And y'all know they talk about lots and lots and lots of things. Demisexuality. Addiction. (Michelin's an alcoholic.) Financial boundaries. Physical boundaries. Past heartbreaks. Families. All that good stuff.<p>
I devoured the last two thirds in one sitting, and now I'm hoping there'll be more Perfect Harmony novels. All the characters from the first book are now paired up (unless I've forgotten about someone), but I'd love love <i>love</i> a book about Ruby and her girlfriend (because <i>how cute is Ruby????</i>).<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QxjShtzdkEA/WGgPLx4Dl9I/AAAAAAAAESw/ogyoxk_KUFsm-CehIEwgSrcR43S1fWTKACLcB/s1600/mpb-betteroffred.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QxjShtzdkEA/WGgPLx4Dl9I/AAAAAAAAESw/ogyoxk_KUFsm-CehIEwgSrcR43S1fWTKACLcB/s640/mpb-betteroffred.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie lies in three quarter profile on a cow-shaped pillow. He wears a blue and white striped t-shirt and has his paws crossed in front of him. Upright beside him is a white Kobo with the cover of Better Off Red on its screen. The black cover features two women seated with their backs to the viewer: a dark-haired Latino lady in the foreground and a red-haired white lady in the background." /></a></div><p>
My final-week reading list was pretty damned white, so I chose BETTER OFF RED by Rebekah Weatherspoon [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2iQoUA5" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/211487306/Better-Off-Red" target=new>Scribd</a>] as my final book of 2016. Weatherspoon's novellas have all wowed me, and I'm pleased to report this full-length novel is equally wonderful.<p>
Ginger's not thrilled with the idea of joining a sorority, but she dutifully keeps her roommate company during rush week and finds an unexpected kinship with the girls of ABO--and with the mysterious woman she sees lurking around their parties. When it comes time to pledge, she discovers ABO is a front for a group of vampires who protect the membership in exchange for blood offerings, and the object of Ginger's desire is their most powerful sister-queen.<p>
I love Weatherspoon because she takes these scenarios where there's high potential for ick factor and makes them <i>work</i>. Her couples confront and discuss power imbalances, putting checks in place to ensure they can meet as equals even if one of them is significantly richer, older, or more socially prominently than the other. They work on boundaries and share their concerns if something skirts too close to the line for either of them. And while their physical encounters are hot, it's the emotional component that keeps the romance so compelling. These people want to connect. They want their relationships to work. It makes all the difference.<p>
As I write this, I'm about halfway through BETTER OFF RED and hope I can finish it by midnight. I've got some other stuff to do this (yesterday) afternoon and evening, though, so it might end up being my first book of 2017 rather than my last book of 2016. Either way, I'm gonna have a great time with it.<p>
<b>Next week:</b> probably some historical fantasy, maybe with some trashy YA fantasy mixed in.<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-44893537944071121212016-12-29T03:00:00.000-06:002019-09-29T12:29:06.940-05:00Review: Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p91j2An301s/WGKy4ZiWtOI/AAAAAAAAERo/TYg1Rjw0bb0DdzYNjm1iAeAjRloCarGcwCLcB/s1600/simonvs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p91j2An301s/WGKy4ZiWtOI/AAAAAAAAERo/TYg1Rjw0bb0DdzYNjm1iAeAjRloCarGcwCLcB/s320/simonvs.jpg" width="212" height="320" alt= "Cover of Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda. A black-clad boy stands against a bright red background, his hands in his pockets. A speech bubble with the title in it hovers where his head should be."/></a></div>I had no choice but to read Becky Albertalli’s debut novel, SIMON VS THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2hkOr3c" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/259124753/Simon-vs-the-Homo-Sapiens-Agenda" target=new>Scribd</a>], in two sittings. (It would’ve been one, but I was too sleepy to keep going.) It won my love right from the first line, and kept on earning it as it took me deep into every facet of Simon’s wonderful, difficult, hopeful, beautiful life.<p>
It <i>will</i> be on my Best of 2016 list. I’ll tell you that for free, spoilers for future posts be damned.<p>
I loved it so much, and on such a visceral level, that I want to rant about it to the rooftops without the limitations of coherence, so we’re gonna take the short, gushy, ungrammatical route:<p>
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OMG this book is the best I loved it right from the first line which has only happened to me nine times ever Simon has such an awesome voice he’s witty and distinctly teenaged without being a cliche and he says fuck a satisfying number of times which is weirdly important to me and also he has these amazing relationships with people like the book starts out with him being blackmailed but then him and the kid sort of become friends which is WEIRD and AWESOME and also he’s got these two established BFFs who he’s totally devoted to and they click so well and he’s also getting to be BFFs with a new girl and they’re in the school play together and it’s OLIVER! I frickin’ love OLIVER! so there’s a theatrical angle and friendship and ALSO HE HAS SISTERS DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVE IT WHEN THERE’S SIBLINGS and then because friends and the theatre and sisters apparently aren’t enough there’s an EPISTOLARY COMPONENT where he’s chatting over email with this other closeted gay guy from his school and their exchanges SPARKLE and they connect in so many BEAUTIFUL WAYS and not everyone is white and Christian and not everyone is instantly wonderful at social stuff they’ve all gotta figure out how to interact with each other and navigate life and be the kind of people they want to be it’s so beautiful omg I can’t get over it and the last line is PERFECT the WHOLE THING IS PERFECT it’s what 19-year-old me wanted THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER to be and what THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER most decidedly was not please read it you’ll love it it’s wonderful.<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-39002496339927099742016-12-27T03:00:00.000-06:002016-12-28T12:55:19.324-06:00Love At First WordA fair few of my readerly friends tell me a book <i>must</i> hook them within a single page or they’re out.<p>
If I read this way, I’d never finish anything.<p>
I like a lot, but I’m picky about what I <i>love</i>--and I usually need to sink into a book before I can tell whether I’m gonna fall hard for it. Hell, in a few extreme cases it's taken me as long as two hundred and fifty pages to go from, “I really like this” to “OMG THIS IS BEST THING IN THE WORLD.”<P>
Because I’m as suspicious as I am picky. Books have to trick me into trusting them, and precious few have ever managed to win my love within the space of two pages.<p>
Even fewer have done it with a single paragraph. In the order I read them, they are:<p>
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<b><font size=3>INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE by Anne Rice</font>; published 1976, first read in 1999:</b><p>
<blockquote> “I see…” said the vampire thoughtfully, and slowly he walked across the room towards the dim light from Divisadero Street and the passing beams of traffic. The boy could see the furnishings of the room more clearly now, the round oak table, the chairs. A wash basin hung on one wall with a mirror. He set his brief case on the table and waited.</blockquote><p>
This opening paragraph breaks tons of rules. It starts with dialogue, there’re adverbs, and it privileges the setting over the characters. And yet, I read it and <i>completely forgot</i> I’d ever had the slightest reservation about this book. (I was still firmly in my “I only read fantasy and everything marketed as something else can suck it” phase.) I was twenty-five pages in before anything else registered.<p>
<b><font size=3>THE BLACK TULIP by Alexandre Dumas</font>; published 1850, first read in 2000:</b><p>
<blockquote>On the 20th of August, 1672, the city of the Hague, always so lively, so neat, and so trim that one might believe every day to be Sunday, with its shady park, with its tall trees, spreading over its Gothic houses, with its canals like large mirrors, in which its steeples and its almost Eastern cupolas are reflected--the city of the Hague, the capital of the Seven United Provinces, was swelling in all its arteries with a black and read stream of hurried, panting, and restless citizens, who, with their knives in their girdles, muskets on their shoulders, or sticks in their hands, were pushing on to the Buytenhof, a terrible prison, the grated windows of which are still shown, where, on the charge of attempted murder preferred against him by the surgeon Tyckelaer, Cornelius de Witt, the brother of the Grand Pensionary of Holland, was confined.</blockquote><p>
I mean, <i>holy hell</i>. That’s a single sentence studded with approximately one million commas and zero fucks to give re: concision. It delighted the hell out of me, as did the rest of the book (which is a <i>terribly</i> exciting tale about tulip breeding.)<p>
<b><font size=3>SWORDSPOINT by Ellen Kushner</font>; published 1987, first read in 2007:</b><p>
<blockquote>Snow was falling on Riverside, great white feather-puffs that veiled the cracks in the facades of its ruined houses; slowly softening the harsh contours of jagged roof and fallen beam. Eaves were rounded with snow, houses all clustered together like a fairy-tale village. Little slopes of snow nestled in the slats of shutters still cozily latched against the night. It dusted the tops of fantastical chimneys that spiraled up from frosted roofs, and it formed white peaks in the ridges of t he old coats of arms carved above the doorways. Only here and there a window, its glass long shattered, gaped like a black mouth with broken teeth, sucking snow into its maw.</blockquote><p>
Yes, I had a seven-year gap between my love-at-first-word titles. I told you, I’m <i>picky</i>. Those seven years were filled with books I fell for after their prologues, or during their second acts, or on account of the whole package.<p>
SWORDSPOINT, though… damn. Apparently I’m a sucker for a setting that draws me straight in. I read this paragraph, and the next one, and the next one, and Riverside was one of my favourite fictional places. I wanted to know everything about this ruined suburb and the people who lived there.<p>
<b><font size=3>FOOL’S ERRAND by Robin Hobb</font>; published 2001, first read in 2007:</b><p>
<blockquote>He came one late, wet spring, and brought the wide world back to my doorstep. I was thirty-five that year. When I was twenty, I would have considered a man of my current age to be teetering on the verge of dotage. These days, it seemed neither young nor old to me, but a suspension between the two. I no longer had the excuse of callow youth, and I could not yet claim the eccentricities of age. In many ways, I was no longer sure what I thought of myself. Sometimes it seemed that my life was slowly disappearing behind me, fading like footprints in the rain, until perhaps I had always been the quiet man living an unremarkable life in a cottage between the forest and the sea.</blockquote><p>
This one differs from the others in that it belongs in the middle of an established series. (Yes, I even distrust new entries in beloved series. What if the quality's slipped?) Fitz, the narrator, is one of my favourite literary characters, and this was exactly the reintroduction to him I would’ve wanted if I’d known to ask for it. It’s so very <i>him</i>, packed with the promise of more <i>him</i>ish storytelling over the next 660 pages.<p>
Plus, Hobb knows damned well that everyone who read this paragraph’s gonna be hoping and praying the “he” it refers to is the Fool (with whom Fitz has my favourite friendship in all of fiction). It’s not, but she wields the possibility as one hell of a hook as she reintroduces us to Fitz, fifteen years older and enshrined in a vastly different sphere than the one he occupied in the previous books.<p>
<b><font size=3>THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA by Scott Lynch</font>; published 2006, first read in 2007:</b><p>
<blockquote>At the height of the long wet summer of the Seventy-Seventh Year of Sendovani, the Thiefmaker of Camorr paid a sudden and unannounced visit to the Eyeless Priest at the Temple of Perelandro, desperately hoping to sell him the Lamora boy.</blockquote><p>
Holy enticements, Batman! This first line has everything I love: twisty prose, a solid peek at a new world, and a sense of real urgency that’s bound to cause further complications for the title character. I revelled in it.<p>
And yes, I added three books to the love-at-first-word list in 2007. It was one of my best reading years ever.<p>
<b><font size=3>THE SECRET COUNTESS (aka A COUNTESS BELOW STAIRS) by Eva Ibbotson</font>; published 1981, first read in 2008:</b><p>
<blockquote>In the fabled, glittering world that was St Petersburg before the First World War there lived, in an ice-blue palace overlooking the river Neva, a family on whom the gods seemed to have lavished their gifts with an almost comical abundance.</blockquote><p>
Again with the vivid settings. This one hooked me particularly hard because anyone who’s glanced at the jacket copy knows the family’s situation will have crumbled by the end of the prologue, and we can’t wait to see what they do with their new circumstances. The strong fairy tale feel extends through the entire book, too, though there isn’t a hint of actual magic behind any of it.<p>
<b><font size=3>SANTA OLIVIA by Jacqueline Carey</font>; published 2009, first read in 2010:</b><p>
<blockquote>They said that the statue of Our Lady of the Sorrows wept tears of blood the day the sickness came to Santa Olivia. The people said that God had turned his face away from humankind. They said that saints remember what God forgets about human suffering.<p>
Of course they said that in a lot of places during those years.<p>
For a long time, there was dying. Dying and fucking. A lot of dying and a lot of fucking, and more dying.</blockquote><p>
It’s brutal, and it’s evocative, and it excited the hell out of me because the tone is completely different from Carey’s previous series (the Kushiel’s Legacy books). I knew I was about to read something that’d punch me in the gut over and over and over before I’d beg it to hit me just one more time.<p>
<b><font size=3>THE RAVEN BOYS by Maggie Stiefvater</font>; published 2012, first read in 2013:</b><p>
<blockquote>Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told that she would kill her true love.</blockquote><p>
In most of these cases, the first line called to me and the rest of the opening paragraph(s) cinched it. This time, I needed nothing more than those seventeen words intoned in audiobook narrator Will Patton’s softly sharp voice. Blue’s got a hell of a prophecy hanging over her head, and I couldn’t tear myself away until Maggie Stiefvater had told me <i>why</i> and <i>how</i> in some of the world’s most gorgeous prose.<p>
<b><font size=3>SIMON VS THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA by Becky Albertalli</font>; published 2015, first read in 2016:</b><p>
<blockquote>It’s a weirdly subtle conversation. I almost don’t notice I’m being blackmailed.</blockquote><p>
Twelve words, this time! I made the Selena Gomez face, I read on, and I never willingly put the book down until I’d watched Simon’s whole life spiral out from this inciting incident.<p>
<b>And those are the nine books I've loved straight from the first word to the last. What are yours?</b><p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-8590159360348991952016-12-25T03:00:00.000-06:002016-12-25T03:00:34.930-06:00Murchie Plus Books: December 18th to 24thMerry Christmas to everyone who's celebrating today, and Happy Hanukkah to everyone who's still got seven nights left in their celebration! Murchie and I had tacos last night and will be digging into turkey and <a href= "https://www.nigella.com/recipes/christmas-cupcakes" target=new>Nigella Lawson's Christmas cupcakes</a> tonight (or I will, at any rate; Murchie can't have chocolate), and we hope you've got similarly wonderful meals in your near future.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ucmgCsDDBfE/WF2V6ztK-CI/AAAAAAAAEQQ/zSKnxluu6X46_l-bXREnl9TVXK5yOFzLQCLcB/s1600/mpb-mortalfire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ucmgCsDDBfE/WF2V6ztK-CI/AAAAAAAAEQQ/zSKnxluu6X46_l-bXREnl9TVXK5yOFzLQCLcB/s640/mpb-mortalfire.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "A fuzzy grey poodle, Murchie, lies in profile in front of a white Kobo with the cover of Mortal Fire on it. The cover features a brown girl lit from below so red light bathes her face. Bees swirl through her long, dark hair."/></a></div><p>
Last week I needed something historical that'd remind me of I CAPTURE THE CASTLE without actually being anything like I CAPTURE THE CASTLE, so naturally I turned to MORTAL FIRE by Elizabeth Knox [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2ioIkvJ" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href=
"https://www.scribd.com/book/182573381/Mortal-Fire" target=new>Scribd</a>]. As per usual, it took me a couple of days to actually sit down and wallow in it, but once I did it was <i>wonderful</i>.<p>
The book takes place in the same world as Knox's Dreamhunter Duet, but it's set more than fifty years later so you don't have to read the early books to enjoy this one. (Be prepared to know how the Dreamhunting industry's going as of the late '50s, though.) Sixteen-year-old Canny is dismayed when her parents send her to spend the summer in a rural valley with her stepbrother, who's gathering firsthand accounts of a mining accident that changed the face of industry thirty years before. Her attitude changes when she discovers the valley's reclusive residents share a magic she's always been aware of but has never managed to properly direct. She throws herself into a full-on study of the form, with help from a mysterious prisoner tucked away in a house no one is supposed to be able to see, and her efforts lead to far more personal revelations than she could ever have imagined.<p>
It hits sooooooo many of my sweet spots. Knox's prose is as gorgeous as always. There's a huge emphasis on How Stuff Works, both where Canny's magical studies are concerned and as her brother, Sholto, talks to the miners. There're a bunch of complicated families and a strong sense of place. The magic is beautiful and organic and difficult in unexpected ways. It reminded me a little of Frances Hardinge (who I always say reminds me of Elizabeth Knox) and a little of Lucy Maud Montgomery, less because of what happens than because of the way the relationships feel.<p>
Now I want to reread the Dreamhunter books in early 2017. I dearly hope there'll be more Southland novels, too. It certainly seems like there's space for them.<p>
One note: I'm not well equipped to recognize autistic characters, or to spot problematic portrayals, but I feel like it's possible to read Canny as neuroatypical. You may wish to read some proper reviews to gauge how well the book's liable to work for you on that level.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IBWFGebWBfo/WF2WhBVgcrI/AAAAAAAAEQU/CTAUSCd8jMsBbn4AiOE-f0AuKfgKzWGmQCLcB/s1600/christmasmurch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IBWFGebWBfo/WF2WhBVgcrI/AAAAAAAAEQU/CTAUSCd8jMsBbn4AiOE-f0AuKfgKzWGmQCLcB/s640/christmasmurch.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie wears a red Santa Hat. The ereader with Mortal Fire on it is barely visible in the background."/></a></div><p>
And here's a bonus photo of Murchie getting his Santa on. A lot of the local kids wear Santa hats instead of toques during the week before Christmas, so I dug his out and tried to get him to wear it in front of the book. It didn't go particularly well because Santa hats are surprisingly tall when they're too small to properly flop over.<p>
Clothing is hard when you're a tiny dog.<p>
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At long last, I've begun creeping my way through my big ol' stack of Kou Yaginuma's TWIN SPICA [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2i0UQ5t" target=new>Amazon</a>]. This series is so lovely, y'all. It's about a teenage girl who's determined to become an astronaut, even though she's got a personal connection to the Japanese space program's most devastating crash. She goes to a competitive space school, and hobnobs with the ghost of an astronaut who died in the crash, and forges lots of quietly intense relationships with everyone around her.<p>
I'm hoping I can keep to my volume-a-day pace over the next week. Yaginuma's interested in the space between emotions and the smaller moments that define peoples' lives, so each book reads up quick but feels like it's lasted for months. It's a great experience.<p>
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Here's the thing: I started THE KILLING MOON by N.K. Jemisin [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2ipwVQm" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/237602201/The-Killing-Moon" target=new>Scribd Audio</a>] a couple years back and, um, bounced off it. Not <i>super hard</i> or anything, but hard enough that I wasn't in a hurry to try again.<p>
I had an amazing time revisiting (and finishing) Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy earlier this year, though, and her two most recent books rocked my socks, so I figured I'd go back to THE KILLING MOON on audio. Give it a chance to wow me in a different medium.<p>
And, well, it's too early to say if it will. I <i>can</i> tell you I'm disappointed with the performance so far, but I recognize that's because I'm coming off of two Star Wars novels and one TREMONTAINE episode with performances that went above and beyond. This one feels like a simple reading in comparison; not necessarily a bad thing, but something I'll have to adjust to.<p>
I'll report back next week.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SSJXwqpxsKE/WF7fAJ6JmcI/AAAAAAAAEQ4/FZeRLMx5wMwGjQVo5-MTgN4zHmS8t9jegCLcB/s1600/mpb-confessions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SSJXwqpxsKE/WF7fAJ6JmcI/AAAAAAAAEQ4/FZeRLMx5wMwGjQVo5-MTgN4zHmS8t9jegCLcB/s640/mpb-confessions.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie lies on a cow-shaped pillow. He wears a pink hoodie with white trim. Behind him is a white Kobo with the cover of The Confessions on it. The cover features a blonde white man in profile, one hand raised to his chin." /></a></div><p>
Then I was like, "I wanna read some religious fiction," so I dove into THE CONFESSIONS by Tiffany Reisz [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2ilO1hJ" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/299623489/The-Confessions" target=new>Scribd</a>], which I've been saving for aaaaaaaaages. It collects two shorter works--Søren's confession from right after he met Nora and Nora's confession from near the end of the series--and an interview with Reisz; a perfect gift to longtime readers, but definitely not the best place to start with the Original Sinners series. If you're a newbie, get yourself a copy of THE SIREN and start there.<p>
I had a blast with it. Søren's confessor, Father Stuart Ballard, is <i>awesome</i>, and I very much enjoyed the religious conversations. There's plenty of serious material herein, but Reisz seeds these deep discussions with her trademark humour. I'm still giggling over Nora calling the narthex the lobby (partly because I can never remember the right word for the narthex).<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LqIZE7GSqpw/WF7iyCxDI5I/AAAAAAAAERE/xWbFTEcn0qAi9n2MyH2nnbr7DvdbJsmPgCLcB/s1600/mpb-deathbysilver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LqIZE7GSqpw/WF7iyCxDI5I/AAAAAAAAERE/xWbFTEcn0qAi9n2MyH2nnbr7DvdbJsmPgCLcB/s640/mpb-deathbysilver.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "The world's angriest Christmas ornament stands next to a white Kobo with the cover of Death By Silver on it. The cover features two white men in Victorian dress. The ornament is a fat reindeer with a red bow and two silver bells around his neck. His mouth is severely downturned and his eyebrows arch high onto his forehead above very round eyes. He looks like he's never been impressed with anything in his entire life." /></a></div><p>
I want y'all to meet my new favourite: Angry Deer, the world's best (and angriest) Christmas ornament. I bought him last week during my local thrift store's 50% off sale on holiday merchandise and I wish I'd had him for longer so I could've documented all his December adventures.<p>
Next year, friends. Next year.<p>
Angry Deer appears beside Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold's DEATH BY SILVER [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2hcUs1M" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/195170584/Death-by-Silver" target=new>Scribd</a>], an alternate historical fantasy mystery Anastasia recced to me months ago and I'm just getting to because I'm bad about stuff like that. As I write this, I'm two chapters in and I can't wait to wallow in it because it's <i>delightful</i>. The characters are great! The writing sparkles! The world feels fully realized and lived in! There's a romantic bend to it all, too, but it seems like the focus is gonna rest on the mystery and on the intricacies of this alternate England, where magic is very much a part of everyday life.<p>
I've gotten a particular kick out of the characters' inner responses to societal expectations, which often demand they temper their responses to deeply unpleasant people. How terribly Victorian.<p>
Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-42665232913939581162016-12-22T03:00:00.001-06:002016-12-22T03:00:15.848-06:00#warehousewatch: November and December 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bS3anq4Il60/WFWtqxKavtI/AAAAAAAAEP4/Al9hm-AXBQA7gpdFAnumqTUSzCY8DC2xwCLcB/s1600/superheroteamup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bS3anq4Il60/WFWtqxKavtI/AAAAAAAAEP4/Al9hm-AXBQA7gpdFAnumqTUSzCY8DC2xwCLcB/s640/superheroteamup.jpg" width="640" height="359" alt= "Screenshot of seven superheroes walking through an abandoned warehouse. From left to right, we see Spartan, Speedy, Supergirl, Atom, White Canary, Firestorm, and Heat Wave."/></a></div>
<center><font size=1>Abandoned warehouse: best place for a superhero team-up or what??</font></center><p>
The CW Network loves no setting so much as a warehouse, so I've set out to track every warehouse on every CW show I watch throughout the 2016/2017 TV season. For science.<p>
If you're new to the #warehousewatch project, <a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/11/television-warehousewatch-october-2016.html" target=new>you can catch up on the October stats here</a>. Remember, for our purposes a warehouse is a large space with a concrete or packed dirt floor, suitable for storage and/or industry. That said, when you watch TV through a warehousey lens, there comes a point where <i>everything</i> looks like a warehouse. It's possible I've mislabelled a few spaces, but I ain't too bothered about it.<p>
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<h1>A Comprehensive List of Warehouses On the CW, November 2016 to December 2016:</h1><p>
By series, not in order of appearance.<p>
<b><h2>THE FLASH, Season Three</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li>Episode Four:<br>
<ul>
<li>Cisco lives in a converted warehouse. SCORE!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Five:<br>
<ul>
<li>Turns out, the recurring creepy temple is supposed to be in an abandoned subway, not a warehouse basement; however, it’s got <i>such</i> a warehouse vibe that I figure it’s gonna be the subway station’s private warehouse. Textual evidence supports the assumption that pretty well every largish structure in the CW’s extended universe has its own personal warehouse.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Six:<br>
<ul>
<li>We open in the creepy subway warehouse temple, where Barry’s busy battling (ie, getting his ass kicked by) Savitar. Pro tip: 98% of the time, the villain trounces you during your first warehouse battle, but don’t despair! You’ll do better during the rematch.</li>
<li>Evil!Caitlin takes Julian to a frozen food warehouse.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Seven:<br>
<ul>
<li>Barry finds Oliver & Diggle fighting Vigilante in a warehouse.</li>
<li>Barry & Cisco vibe into Kara's warehouse apartment.</li>
<li>The various superhero teams assemble in a disused Star Labs warehouse, which they set up as their base of operations for the invasion.</li>
<li>THE ALIENS ALSO HAVE A WAREHOUSE BASE, which I suppose proves how closely they’ve been watching humanity.</li>
<li>The government has a warehouse base, too. Groundbreaking.</li>
<li>Oliver fights Thea, Sara, and Diggle in what looks like a warehouse somewhere on the main Star Labs campus as per the “every structure needs its own personal warehouse” rule.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Eight:<br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses. GASP. I do feel compelled to note that Barry and Julian’s lab could easily be mistaken for a warehouse if we didn’t get so many exterior shots of the police headquarters, though. Perhaps it counts as the station’s obligatory personal warehouse?</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<b><h2>SUPERGIRL, Season Two</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li>Episode Five:<br>
<ul>
<li>Alex and Maggie play pool at their favourite alien bar-in-a-warehouse.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Six:<br>
<ul>
<li>I love how the warehouse bar has become everyone's favourite hangout this season. It’s like when the Scoobies used to lurk around and/or start fights in <i>their</i> local warehouse bar, all those years ago.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Seven:<br>
<ul>
<li>The warehouse bar's looking parTICularly warehousey this ep as everyone congregates there for generalized fun.</li>
<li>Cadmus holds Mon-El captive in a warehouse prison. </li>
<li>Guardian battles his rival of the week in said rival’s warehouse lair.</li>
<li>And y'know, I think Kara's apartment is in a converted warehouse. The set designers certain aimed for the converted warehouse aesthetic we all know and love.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Eight:<br>
<ul>
<li>We open with an exterior shot of Kara's apartment building and I'm gonna say yes, it does count as a converted warehouse.</li>
<li>The warehouse bar makes an appearance, as we all knew it would.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<b><h2>NO TOMORROW, Season One</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li>Episode Five:<br>
<ul>
<li>I continue to love how Evie and her friends <i>work in a warehouse</i>. So meta, CW.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Six:<br>
<ul>
<li>Warehooooouse!!!</li>
<li>There’s also a slew of white pillar candles (at Xavier's house, not at the warehouse. Poop). We aren’t strictly tracking those, but I feel compelled to note they’ve been in short supply this season with TVD’s Bonnie magic-free and both THE ORIGINALS and THE 100 off the air until early 2017. Can anyone weigh in as to whether SUPERNATURAL’s been picking up the white pillar candle slack? Because I seriously worry about the white pillar candle industry if this keeps up.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Seven:<br>
<ul>
<li>Ah, warehouse. We meet again.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Eight:<br>
<ul>
<li>The warehouse takes centre stage during a strike, with a couple of zorbs and a cute pet rat for good measure.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Nine:<br>
<ul>
<li>This week, the warehouse hosts a dance practice. Good work, warehouse!</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<b><h2>FREQUENCY, Season One</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li>Episode Five:<br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses. :(</li>
</ul>
<li>Episode Six:<br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses. :(</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Seven:<br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses. :(</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Eight:<br>
<ul>
<li>It initially looks like Meghan lives in a warehouse, but it's a fake-out. She's at a psych facility.</li>
</ul>
<li>Episode Nine:<br>
<ul>
<li>Daniel lives in a converted warehouse, as do so many of his fellow CW characters.</li>
</ul>
</ul><p>
<b><h2>ARROW, Season Five</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li>Episode Five:<br>
<ul>
<li>Oh, look, a warehouse torture chamber. How unexpected.</li>
<li>The team shakes some villains down in a warehouse.</li>
<li>Diggle now lives in the old Hive warehouse.</li>
<li>It doesn't happen in a warehouse, but Oliver fakes his own death this episode. It’s been ages since anyone on this show did that, so I feel compelled to mention it.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Six:<br>
<ul>
<li>Oliver jumps around on top of a warehouse before he enters the place to find a lot of random yet controlled fires. Classic warehouse decor.</li>
<li>The new recruits congregate in Ragman's little welding warehouse (slash house-house? Does he live there? I wonder what percentage of CW characters live in warehouses?).</li>
<li>Oliver perches atop a warehouse while he keeps tabs on someone he expects Prometheus to attack.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Seven:<br>
<ul>
<li>Vigilante interrupts a prostitution ring trying to broker a deal in a warehouse.</li>
<li>There’s Diggle’s warehouse home again.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Eight:<br>
<ul>
<li>There’s a teeny, tiny, two-second flashback to Ollie's old warehouse from S1.</li>
<li>Barry et al investigate a cyborg attack in a place that <i>might</i> be a warehouse. It’s filled with pipes? And there seem to be some shelves in the background in the open spaces? It’s weak, because this is possible the least warehousey episode of ARROW <i>ever</i>. The show goes totally off brand, but I can't mind because this was my favourite episode of ARROW in ages and ages and <i>ages</i>.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Nine:<br>
<ul>
<li>Prometheus holes up in a place that might be a warehouse, but might also be a house-house or a storefront/office. Given this show’s track record, we’re gonna count it as a warehouse.</li>
<li>Oliver et al track Prometheus to an abandoned drug company that’s got a warehouse attached to its lab as per the "every structure needs its own personal warehouse" rule.</li>
<li>We visit the drug company warehouse pre-abandonment in a flashback.</li>
<li>Oliver fights Prometheus in an abandoned office with some warehousey segments.</li>
<li>Occasional flashbacks transport us to the office/warehouse before it was abandoned.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<b><h2>JANE THE VIRGIN, Season Three</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li>Episode Four:<br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses :(</li>
</ul></li><p>
<li>Episode Five:<br>
<ul>
<li>WHERE ARE THE WAREHOUSES?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Six:<br>
<ul>
<li>Still no warehouses. None. Nada. Zip.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Seven:<br>
<ul>
<li>FINALLY! Rafael takes Jane and Michael to his dad’s old storage locker, and storage lockers are usually located in warehouses so <i>we’re gonna count it</i>.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<b><h2>LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, Season Two</h2></b><p>
<ul>
<li>Episode Three:<br>
<ul>
<li>THE WAVERIDER HAS A SECRET WAREHOUSE ON BOARD. Don’t tell me that’s a “weapons locker” or a “storage room.” It’s totally a warehouse.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Four:<br>
<ul>
<li>Jax and Stein hang around in the secret weapons warehouse while they wonder whether they should come clean to the rest of the team. Pro tip: always come clean to the rest of the team. Especially about your Secret Baby, which isn’t the issue <i>here</i> but will, in fact, become an issue <i>very soon</i> because the CW always comes back to the classics.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Five:<br>
<ul>
<li>The JSA’s old training facility is in abandoned warehouse.</li>
<li>The villains meet up in a tiny warehouse <i>inside the White House</i>. Do you think President Obama ever goes there and pretends he’s fighting a ninja?</li>
<li>Reverse Flash stores his time machine in an abandoned warehouse.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Six:<br>
<ul>
<li>Ray finds a cave that’s doing double duty as a warehouse.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Seven:<br>
<ul>
<li>The Legends team up with everyone else at the Star Labs warehouse.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Eight:</br>
<ul>
<li>Damien Dahrk, Eobard Thawne, and Malcolm Merlyn meet with Al Capone outside a warehouse down by the docks.</li>
<li>Capone's thugs throw Elliot Ness off the docks near a warehouse. Maybe it's the same one? I have poor individual warehouse recognition, but I feel like there's less open space around this particular example of the breed.</li>
<li>The villains hold Sara and Stein captive in a warehouse, which gives Stein the perfect opportunity to tell Sara about his secret baby. The rest of the team eventually charges in to rescue them.</li>
<li>The villains try to throw Stein off the docks near what I assume is the same warehouse at which they targeted Elliot Ness.</li>
<li>An actor portraying Rip Hunter gets chased outside a warehouse that proves to be on a soundstage. We're still gonna count it.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<b>THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, Season Eight</b><p>
<ul>
<li>Episode Three:<br>
<ul>
<li>Stefan confronts Damon and Enzo in--are you ready for this?--<i>a little warehouse inside the Mystic Falls high school.</i> Don’t @ me to say it’s a storage room. IT’S A MINI WAREHOUSE. With a stage at one end, for no apparent reason.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Four:<br>
<ul>
<li>Damon threatens Matt’s dad in a little warehouse attached to Matt’s dad’s garage.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Five:<br>
<ul>
<li>Selene and the twins conduct a fish funeral in an abandoned warehouse.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Six:<br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses, but I’m willing to overlook it because there’s a creepy hotel. Creepy hotels are abandoned warehouses’ grown-up cousins.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Episode Seven:<br>
<ul>
<li>No warehouses. Even when Stefan visits Hell. <i>As if Stefan’s personal Hell doesn’t have seventy million warehouses in it</i>.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>
<h1>Some Conclusions</h1><p>
Eight shows. Thirty-nine episodes, twenty-nine of which feature at least one warehouse. Fifty-two warehouses in total, some of which have become beloved, recurring hang-outs for the characters.<p>
That's a lot of warehouses, though the overall percentage has decreased from 81% in October to 73% in November and early December.<p>
We can blame JANE THE VIRGIN and FREQUENCY for dragging the newtwork's numbers down, though I must note that ARROW failed to maintain its October average of 5.5 distinct warehouses per episode. It went down to an average of 3 per ep, though as previously stated this might have worked to the show's benefit. Maybe ARROW has become <i>too dependant</i> on warehouses?<p>
(On a related note, I personally visited a warehouse on Monday and left without fighting a single ninja. It's almost like ARROW isn't a realistic portrayal of everyday life.)<p>
NO TOMORROW continues to bring the warehouses in spades while simultaneously helping counteract the network's current white pillar candle deficiency. Good job, NO TOMORROW. FREQUENCY had a strong warehouse showing during its early episodes but has since backed away from them in preference to such settings as remote woodlands and peoples' dodgy backyards. One can only imagine they're trying to create a distinct visual brand for themselves, much as THE ORIGINALS encourages its characters to hang around in abandoned churches and aboveground tombs at least as often as abandoned warehouses.<p>
SUPERGIRL surprised and delighted me by introducing a warehouse bar in the BTVS mode. Everyone hangs out there now, and it's awesome. Good work, SUPERGIRL writers.<p>
JANE THE VIRGIN continues to avoid warehouses; a surprising choice, since it's otherwise the most aggressively CWish show on the CW. Given Michael's inability to return to police work, I must assume the show will continue on in this vein. Thank goodness it's still chock full of evil twins, Crime Lord Mothers, random half-siblings, and hoteliers.<p>
Most of the CW's shows are now off the air until mid to late January, when they'll premiere such anticipated offerings as RIVERDALE and the fourth season of THE 100, so join me in early March for a full recap of the warehouses our favourite characters visited throughout the first couple months of 2017!<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-23312785456994984062016-12-20T03:00:00.000-06:002017-01-01T12:29:55.859-06:002016 Long List<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a9b9Ujnsuk8/WFRJx1PqzAI/AAAAAAAAEPE/diJMUUzlGOEQ3TIxJ5hPosAn11TY9cCoQCLcB/s1600/hiking.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a9b9Ujnsuk8/WFRJx1PqzAI/AAAAAAAAEPE/diJMUUzlGOEQ3TIxJ5hPosAn11TY9cCoQCLcB/s400/hiking.png" width="400" height="336" alt= "The caption a long list of best books read in 2016, overtop a background of layered black feathers."/></a></div><p>
I never post my Best of the Year list until the year is actually over, but I like to throw a Long List into the ether around this point in December. My Long List includes every new-to-me book I’ve rated 4.5 or 5 stars over the course of the year, listed in the order I read them rather than my order of preference. It’s also prone to expand if anything else blows me away between now and December 31st. :)<p>
The complete list reads as follows, with links to my reviews where they exist:<p>
<a name='more'></a>
<ul>
<li>to the sky without wings by leupagus</li>
<li>Deadline by Mira Grant</li>
<li>Blackout by Mira Grant</li>
<li>ad eternum by Elizabeth Bear</li>
<li><a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/02/review-commercial-suicide-by-kieron.html" target=new>Commercial Suicide</a> by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie</li>
<li><a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/03/review-carry-on-by-rainbow-rowell.html" target=new>Carry On</a> by Rainbow Rowell</li>
<li>Captain Raven and the All-Girl Pirate Crew by Jeremy Whitley, Rosy Higgins, and Ted Brandt</li>
<li>Liesmith by Alis Franklin</li>
<li>Skip Beat! Vol 36 by Yoshiki Nakamura</li>
<li>A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab</li>
<li><a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/05/review-raven-king-by-maggie-stiefvater.html" target=new>The Raven King</a> by Maggie Stiefvater</li>
<li>The Kingdom of Gods by N.K. Jemisin</li>
<li><a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/06/review-echo-by-pam-munoz-ryan.html" target=new>Echo</a> by Pam Muñoz Ryan</li>
<li><a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/06/review-children-of-earth-and-sky-by-guy.html" target=new>Children of Earth and Sky</a> by Guy Gavriel Kay</li>
<li><a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/08/review-yotsuba-volumes-1-12-by-kiyohiko.html" target=new>Yotsuba&! Volumes 1-13</a> by Kiyohiko Azuma</li>
<li>Age of Apocalypse by--are you ready for this list?--Scott Lobdell, Mark Waid, Fabian Nicieza, John Francis Moore, Larry Hama, Warren Ellis, Jeph Loeb, Howard Mackie, Terry Kavanaugh, Roger Cruz, Steve Epting, Joe Madureira, Andy Kubert, Tony Daniel, Salvador Larroca, Chris Bachalo, Adam Kubert, Ken Lashley, Steve Skroce, Terry Dodson, Ian Churchill, Carlos Pacheco, and Joe Bennett</li>
<li>Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan</li>
<li>Necessity by Jo Walton</li>
<li><a href= "https://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/09/review-winter-oranges-by-marie-sexton.html" target=new>Winter Oranges</a> by Marie Sexton</li>
<li>A Silent Voice Volumes 1-7 by Yoshitoki Oima</li>
<li>Tell You What: Great New Zealand Nonfiction 2016, ed. by Susanna Andrew and Jolisa Gracewood</li>
<li>Skip Beat vol 37 by Yoshiki Nakamura</li>
<li>Mrs Vargas and the Dead Naturalist by Kathleen Alcala</li>
<li><a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/10/review-nevernight-by-jay-kristoff.html?showComment=1475802274079" target=new>Nevernight</a> by Jay Kristoff</li>
<li><a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/10/review-her-naughty-holiday-by-tiffany.html" target=new>Her Naughty Holiday</a> by Tiffany Reisz</li>
<li>Coin Tricks by Willow Scarlett</li>
<li><a href= "http://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/10/review-beta-test-by-annabeth-albert.html" target=new>Beta Test</a> by Annabeth Albert</li>
<li>A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev</li>
<li>Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff</li>
<li>Juliet Takes A Breath by Gabby Rivera</li>
<li>Delivered Fast by Annabeth Albert</li>
<li>Knit Tight by Annabeth Albert</li>
<li>March Book Two by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell</li>
<li>Love Me Tenor by Annabeth Albert</li>
<li>Bloodline by Claudia Gray</li>
<li>Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli</li>
<li>Death By Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold</li>
<li>All Note Long by Annabeth Albert</li>
</ul>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-10867009661762310902016-12-18T03:00:00.000-06:002016-12-19T15:43:30.879-06:00Murchie Plus Books: December 11th to 17thI make my dog pose with every book I read, barring single issue comics. The photos go live <a href= "https://www.instagram.com/xicanti/" target=new>on Instagram</a> as I edit them and appear here in digest form every Sunday, with descriptive alt tags and additional commentary.<p>
Last week's comics included lots and lots and lots of Star Wars, with a quick dip into the X-Men's mid-90s miniseries output.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UlZSxvtgIx4/WFQntJC_xuI/AAAAAAAAEOY/aIOYk9cbhOwUGRR9Yo4Q-6Kf8S_-JaVvgCLcB/s1600/mpb-milkandhoney.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UlZSxvtgIx4/WFQntJC_xuI/AAAAAAAAEOY/aIOYk9cbhOwUGRR9Yo4Q-6Kf8S_-JaVvgCLcB/s640/mpb-milkandhoney.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "A fuzzy grey poodle, Murchie, sits on a beige leather chair with a red and white blanket draped over the back. A black trade paperback copy of Milk and Honey is propped upright beside him, against a small pillow with a snowman on it."/></a></div><p>
I began the week with some poetry: Rupi Kaur's much-lauded MILK AND HONEY [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2hGeu68" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/318161868/Milk-and-Honey" target=new>Scribd</a>]. I read little poetry, as longtime readers may have noticed, and I'm still sorting through my response to the collection. In particular, I'm interested in why this volume has gained so much more attention than all the others out there; a question I suspect I'm not equipped to find an answer to, given my piddly consumption of mostly older poetry. (When I feel like poetry, I either seek out poets whose prose I've enjoyed or browse my library's poetry section. Both strategies lead me to pre-2005 stuff more often than not.) Are any of you able to venture a more informed opinion than I can?<p>
<a name='more'></a>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DDY-XeeIRi8/WFQqDgXwoOI/AAAAAAAAEOk/-1uvdUy8jYoQTtRwvdZzro2A17_NopMQACLcB/s1600/mpb-marchtrilogy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DDY-XeeIRi8/WFQqDgXwoOI/AAAAAAAAEOk/-1uvdUy8jYoQTtRwvdZzro2A17_NopMQACLcB/s640/mpb-marchtrilogy.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie lies on a red blanket, all three volumes of the March Trilogy arranged in a fan around him. The book closest to the viewer has a yellow cover with a slew of suited men's feet marching along across the top. The other two books are less visible, but the second one gives the impression of a bus in flames and the furthest volume shows people marching across a bridge with the book's title emblazoned on its ashphalt." /></a></div><p>
My library finally bought and processed the last two volumes of the March Trilogy [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2gJzabE" target=new>Amazon</a>], John Lewis's comics memoir of the Civil Rights Movement co-written with Andrew Aydin and drawn by Nate Powell. I drew the series out over several emotional days, and I urge every sighted person who hasn't already read the books to pick them up. They're often difficult to read, since Lewis and his contributors never shy away from the violence he and his fellow nonviolent protestors faced, but they're also an important record of belief and perseverance. They'll be a staple of my comics recs lists going forward.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eQvcjAC3RU4/WFWhxtAejCI/AAAAAAAAEPc/qC45YekpIs4uDKgE7Oq8UEtGFkHYBu4lQCLcB/s1600/mpb-lovemetenor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eQvcjAC3RU4/WFWhxtAejCI/AAAAAAAAEPc/qC45YekpIs4uDKgE7Oq8UEtGFkHYBu4lQCLcB/s640/mpb-lovemetenor.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie lies on a cow-shaped pillow. Beside him is a white Kobo with Love Me Tenor's cover on it. The illustration features a short-haired white boy in black and white, with a pair of pale purple headphones around his neck and pink lights behind him. Music notes swirl across the background." /></a></div><p>
I rushed through a library novel so I could dive straight back into Annabeth Albert's bibliography. I had a couple of time crunches last week that kept me from sinking into LOVE ME TENOR [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2hX0Qe9" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/293053037/Love-Me-Tenor" target=new>Scribd</a>] the moment I'd downloaded it, but once I removed those obstacles I couldn't tear myself away. Annabeth Albert is the <i>best</i>, y'all. This one's about two guys who get roped into a boy band reality show that wants them to pretend to be boyfriends for ratings, and <i>of course</i> they're actually a perfect match. Albert establishes them as distinct personalities with a million reasons to connect.<p>
I continue to love her commitment to featuring all sorts of different characters, too, with an occasional emphasis on varying family situations. Trevor is a recently-diagnosed diabetic from a very conservative Christian family who cut him off when he came out to them. Jalen is a multiracial adoptee with two moms and a difficult relationship with his biomother. Their backbgrounds are nothing alike, but they're still so able to support one another--and to be true friends to their other band members, once they work past first impressions. It's wonderful.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-O_Api5_eImc/WFQzu63z9mI/AAAAAAAAEO0/HdgMR-I7UQc79z0aJtGJIGRRG71iatbHwCLcB/s1600/mpb-aftermath2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-O_Api5_eImc/WFQzu63z9mI/AAAAAAAAEO0/HdgMR-I7UQc79z0aJtGJIGRRG71iatbHwCLcB/s640/mpb-aftermath2.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "A large-headed Funko Pop bobblehead of Finn from Star Wars stands beside a white iPod with Aftermath's white cover on its screen. The cover features the title and author's name at an angle across an image of the Death Star exploding." /></a></div><p>
I had an amazing time with Claudia Gray's BLOODLINE, so I decided to ride the Star Wars wave straight into Chuck Wendig's AFTERMATH [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2gJJvEE" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/278308568/Aftermath-Star-Wars-Journey-to-Star-Wars-The-Force-Awakens" target=new>Scribd Audio</a>]. Still on audio, of course, because did you know the Star Wars audios have <i>sound effects and scores</i>? Fully integrated ones, at that! If the POV character is on a spaceship, we hear it in the background. If someone's typing something on their comm, it beeps. If a blaster fires, the book <i>pew pew pew</i>s.<p>
It's pretty great.<p>
I've had a much easier time sinking into the book now than I did when I tried it in print, too. I'm sure that's partly because I'm in an appropriately Star Warsy mood at the mo, but the audio format's also helped. Which other recent Star Wars books should I try on audio before my Scribd subscription expires in mid-January? I've got three credits left.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d4o9x7q8H3o/WFWiO40z5xI/AAAAAAAAEPg/Iq1j20yRA7UPOzQgviYjvC8y1coS6D_JACLcB/s1600/mpb-simonvshomosapiensagenda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d4o9x7q8H3o/WFWiO40z5xI/AAAAAAAAEPg/Iq1j20yRA7UPOzQgviYjvC8y1coS6D_JACLcB/s640/mpb-simonvshomosapiensagenda.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie nestles close against a white Kobo with the red cover of Simon Versus the Homo Sapiens Agenda on it. The illustration features a black-clad boy, hands in pockets, a speech bubble with the book's title on it where his head should be."/></a></div><p>
Then I realized my digital loan on Becky Albertalli's SIMON VS THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2gWXwSU" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/259124753/Simon-vs-the-Homo-Sapiens-Agenda" target=new>Scribd</a>] was set to expire on Monday, and I rushed to start it, and I fell in looooooooooooove.<p>
As I write this, I'm 20% in and it's everything 19-year-old me desperately hoped THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER would be (and TPOBAW most decidedly wasn't, from my perspective). It's personal and funny and engaging and Simon says "fuck" a decent number of times. He's got a zillion interesting friendships on the go. His anonymous email exchanges with another closeted gay boy at his school sparkle. I was beyond annoyed with my body for refusing to stay awake on Friday night so I could read it into the wee hours.<p>
I can't wait to gulp down the rest of it. Please don't betray me, book! Be the ninth title I've loved straight from the first word to the last! I believe in you!<p>
ETA: OMG IT WAS PERFECT.<P>
<b>Next week:</b> more Annabeth Albert, because I'm on a role. Probably some N.K. Jemisin, too, and perhaps a few novellas from my library & Scribed stashes. I want to read <i>lots and lots</i> this holiday season.<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-20151794092637942052016-12-11T05:00:00.000-06:002016-12-11T05:00:04.101-06:00Murchie Plus Books: December 4th to 10thI make my tiny dog pose with every book I read, barring single issue comics. The photos go live <a href= "https://www.instagram.com/xicanti/" tarbget=new>on Instagram</a> as I edit them and appear here in digest form every Sunday, with descriptive alt tags and additional commentary.<p>
This week's comics included GROOT (sweet), GALACTA (short and fun) NOMAD: GIRL WITHOUT A WORLD (slightly longer and fun, with some sorrow woven in), MARVEL DIVAS (great), and a bunch of Star Wars comics (awesome).<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AV8E3BbCWak/WEscY5rJ4wI/AAAAAAAAENE/UpIjMiw_FM40yahiMi2IPUe4fDsJzbCcQCPcB/s1600/mpb-knittight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AV8E3BbCWak/WEscY5rJ4wI/AAAAAAAAENE/UpIjMiw_FM40yahiMi2IPUe4fDsJzbCcQCPcB/s640/mpb-knittight.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "A fuzzy grey poodle, Murchie, lies with his chin flat against a grey-clad leg. Behind him is a white Kobo with the cover of Knit Tight on it. The angle casts most of the cover into shadow, but a large turqoise diamond with the title and a pair of knitting needles in it is clearly visible, as is someone's sweater-clad shoulder."/></a></div><p>
Awkward Murchie selfie time! He's been glued to my lap lately and I didn't have the heart to make him move.<p>
I was gonna pace myself with Annabeth Albert's Portland Heat novellas, but this proved impossible. I had to shell out a Scribd credit for KNIT TIGHT [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2hdY5sr" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/305689737/Knit-Tight" target=new>Scribd</a>] the very moment I finished DELIVERED FAST.<p>
SHE'S JUST SO GOOD, Y'ALL. Like, this one's about a barista who's raising his siblings because his parents died in a car crash two years ago, and he meets this knitwear designer who's come back to Portland to help his beloved lesbian aunt while she goes through chemo, and IT'S ALL KINDS OF AFFECTING. THEY BOTH HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO LET PEOPLE HELP THEM. I CRIED SO MUCH.<p>
I'm beyond excited for DANCED CLOSE, the next Portland Heat novella. This has quickly become a favoured series.<p>
I also want to knit something. I've crocheted a few stuffed animals this year, but I don't think I've had a proper knitwear project since I made my red hood two winters ago. I'll have to think about what I might need. Socks sound fun to make, but I only wear athletic socks so I'm not sure they're the right option for me. Hmmm. Maybe I could make doll clothes? Or a sweater for Murchito?<p>
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I fear I did Sonali Dev a disservice by reading A CHANGE OF HEART [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2hfPUt4" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/323211861/A-Change-of-Heart" target=new>Scribd</a>] right after my glorious Annabeth Albert binge. This particular book is filled with drama and grief and people who fully accept they aren't to blame for the terrible things life may do to them, and I feel like I <i>should</i> have loved it but I had a hell of a time sinking into it. It didn't help that I had to take a couple days' break most of the way through to finish a library book I couldn't renew.<p>
I'll handle things differently next time Sonali Dev's got a new release. From the way this one ends, I assume Rahul and Kimi's story will be up next.<p>
Be aware, this book includes a graphic rape scene and multiple brief flashbacks that delve into the heroine's emotional state.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZG1N1_VcqPY/WEshoC41lxI/AAAAAAAAENU/SsZFHOIvX0s2RC0JXbjIBstFcXBDJxI5ACLcB/s1600/mpb-hamiltome.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZG1N1_VcqPY/WEshoC41lxI/AAAAAAAAENU/SsZFHOIvX0s2RC0JXbjIBstFcXBDJxI5ACLcB/s640/mpb-hamiltome.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie curls up beside a black and gold pillow on a red blanket. In front of him is a massive hardcover copy of Hamilton The Revolution. Its beige cover features the black silhouette of a man with his legs splayed and one hand raised like he's dancing. He perches atop a star."/></a></div><p>
The library book in question was the Hamiltome [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2hfQdUG" target=new>Amazon</a>], and it was totally worth putting everything aside for. The Hamiltome (more formally titled HAMILTON: THE REVOLUTION) collects the complete libretto of HAMILTON, with annotations by Lin-Manuel Miranda and essays on the play's genesis by Jeremy McCarter. It's fascinating stuff if you have any interest in how the theatrical sausage gets made.<p>
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Here's the fun thing about CanLit: it's <i>really fucking depressing</i>. Everything's terrible, then shit gets worse, then the book ends. Sometimes there's a teensy bit of hope woven through the story, too, but don't count on hope winning out. Okay?<p>
I kinda forgot this when I declared myself eager to read more CanLit, stat. Ten minutes into André Alexis's FIFTEEN DOGS [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2healJa" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/259391355/Fifteen-Dogs" target=new>Scribd</a>] and I remembered it all too well. The basic premise is, Apollo and Hermes have certain questions about humanity and suffering, so they imbue fifteen dogs with human intelligence and wait to see what happens.<p>
Spoiler: <i>bad shit</i> happens.<p>
I mean, it's <i>excellent</i> bad shit. This is a great book. Maybe don't seek it out when you're in the mood for a feel-good read, though, and be forewarned you'll feel seventeen kinds of awkward if you listen to the audiobook around your dog. I speak from experience.<p>
It's probably a coincidence that Murchie took a funny turn after last week's audiobook-enhanced holiday baking session. Probably.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lDyWfebJF88/WExUPEl8FyI/AAAAAAAAENw/DefEpywgEE4yawM1FMtfnMg5VXUHp14VQCLcB/s1600/mpb-throneofglass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lDyWfebJF88/WExUPEl8FyI/AAAAAAAAENw/DefEpywgEE4yawM1FMtfnMg5VXUHp14VQCLcB/s640/mpb-throneofglass.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie lies on a brown pillow below a glass-topped table. He wears his pink and cream sweater. On the table is a white Kobo with the cover of Throne of Glass on its screen. The cover features a white girl with very long blonde hair. She wears a lot of leather and holds a jagged sword in each hand." /></a></div><p>
Y'all know THRONE OF GLASS [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2gwS5d8" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/250029420/Throne-of-Glass" target=new>Scribd</a>] underwhelmed me the first time through, but I <i>did</i> enjoy THE ASSASSIN'S BLADE so I'm hoping I just need to give the series another shot. As planned, I'll expect something potentially fun that won't necessarily deliver the level of diversity I hope for from my best beloved books.<p>
I've made a small start on it as I write this, and I already like it more than I did the last time. Surely that's a good sign. I hope it keeps up, because I procrastinated I've only got three days before my library copy expires.<p>
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I've been craving science fiction in general and Star Wars in specific, so I nabbed Claudia Gray's BLOODLINE [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2hgWQWF" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/311291082/Bloodline-Star-Wars" target=new>Scribd Audio</a>] off Scribd and made a dent in it while I wrapped presents and cooked <a href= "https://www.nigella.com/recipes/christmas-cupcakes" target=new>Christmas cupcakes</a>. It's my first Star Wars novel in a lot of years, if you exclude the time I borrowed AFTERMATH and promptly realized I wasn't in the right mood for it, and it's both nice and weird to spend some more time in this universe. Nice because Star Wars rocked my world when I was eight and was super important to me throughout my teenage years; weird because I always have to perform mental adjustments when I <i>read</i> about characters I'm used to <i>seeing</i>.<p>
The audio format helps a bit with that, seeing as how I'm actually <i>hearing</i> everyone. The book is also auditorily illuminated with lots of sound effects to mimic things like radio announcements and peoples' coms going off; a fun touch.<p>
I'm enjoying it very much and hope I'll be able to scrounge some more listening time today. <p>
<b>Next week:</b> hopefully an Annabeth Albert novel or two. I've finished Portland Heat, but I still have two books left in her Perfect Harmony series and an ARC of the first title in her forthcoming military series. I also want to hunker down and make some progress through both my Scribd library and my public library stack.<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-67270333546672728882016-12-06T05:00:00.000-06:002016-12-06T05:00:12.362-06:00Review: Wrapped Together by Annabeth Albert<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fdApSp_oe_Y/WEXEzmHaR_I/AAAAAAAAEMY/LKeidtA7u500JnhkthkEc2GyVCO7EaquwCLcB/s1600/Wrapped-Together.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fdApSp_oe_Y/WEXEzmHaR_I/AAAAAAAAEMY/LKeidtA7u500JnhkthkEc2GyVCO7EaquwCLcB/s320/Wrapped-Together.jpg" width="213" height="320" alt= "Cover of Wrapped Together, featuring two white men leaning together and smiling, their eyes mostly closed. "/></a></div><b>Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.</b><p>
Hollis hasn’t had much Christmas spirit since his parents died three years ago. It feels wrong to celebrate without them, no matter how much his sister and her extended family encourage him to join in, so he plans to spend the holidays working in his stationery store, hanging out with his cat, and rewatching SHERLOCK. Hollis's friend Sawyer knows Hollis can never resist a bet, though, and Sawyer is determined to reignite Hollis's holiday cheer with a series of wagers that can't help but make this Christmas extra special for both of them.<p>
Romances where one person's down on Christmas and the other one's all, "Let me introduce you to the magic of the holiday season!" are my <i>favourite</i>. They give both parties plenty of opportunity to do fun things together and explore traditions new and old. In this case, Sawyer draws on his and Hollis's intense family connection (his twin brother is married to Hollis's twin sister) to concoct a slew of holiday enticements. He also convinces Hollis to participate in some Portland events that'll feel familiar even to non-Oregonians readers, like the local small business association's window decorating contest, Portland's official tree lighting ceremony, and a train ride through the Oregon Zoo's animal-shaped holiday lights.<p>
Some holiday romances use the season as a rough framework on which to hang a relationship. It's winterish (or summerish in southern hemisphere romances), there're a few decorations floating around, and life is otherwise fairly normal. In contrast, WRAPPED TOGETHER goes all in with romance and Christmassy feel alike; a sure way to keep my attention glued to my ereader's screen around this time of year.<p>
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The resulting romance is lovely and affecting, but in Annabeth Albert's signature fashion there's also a fair measure of tension due to Sawyer's and Hollis's differing personalities. Sawyer is an outgoing person who's keen to try new things and be in the thick of it all. He's also had what Hollis considers a <i>lot</i> of casual relationships. Hollis is a quieter, reserved introvert who's less than thrilled with crowds <i>and</i> still grieving for his parents. He's got considerably less relationship experience than Sawyer, and he fears he'll become just another notch in his friend's headboard. Both men have to adjust their attitudes, and their ideas about one another, to make the connection they crave.<p>
In addition to all the wonderful holiday stuff and contrasting personalities, Albert seeds the story with her usual telling (and delightful) details. Hollis's stationery store contains a carefully curated collection of products, and I want to go there <i>so bad</i> even though I probably couldn't afford much. The street where both Hollis's store and Sawyer's family business reside sounds equally appealing. The pair's shared history pops up time and again. And there are lots of little nods to the previous Portland Heat novellas.<p>
Which I should tell you, I hadn't read when I picked up WRAPPED TOGETHER. Portland Heat is a series of standalones that you can read in any order, provided you've accepted that every romance must end in an HEA. I'll warn you, though, reading any one of these novellas is liable to make you want all the others <i>right away</i>. I got BUNDLED UP, a collection of the first three books, immediately after I finished WRAPPED TOGETHER, and I had no choice but to snag KNIT TIGHT as soon as I'd finished <i>them</i>. Now I eagerly await DANCED CLOSE, Albert's March release.<p>
So whether or not you're already familiar with Annabeth Albert, those of you on the hunt for a sweet, affecting holiday romance want to get your paws on WRAPPED TOGETHER. I read it in two sittings (which would've been one except I got sucked into the National Dog Show), and the rest of the series proved every bit as enticing.<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-8607801934016385802016-12-04T05:00:00.000-06:002016-12-06T13:30:17.640-06:00Murchie Plus Books: November 27th to December 3rdI make my dog (or one of his stand-ins) pose with everything I read, barring single issue comics. The photos go live <a href= "https://www.instagram.com/xicanti/" target=new>on Instagram</a> as I edit them and appear here in digest form every Sunday, with descriptive alt tags and additional commentary.<p>
This week's Not Pictured selections include some XTREME X-MEN (which I'm reading to bring myself up to speed so I can follow this team into UNCANNY), MOON GIRL AND DEVIL DINOSAUR (cute, but not as mindblowing as I expected), PATSY WALKER, A.K.A. HELLCAT (sooooooooooooo much fun!), THE VISION (recognizably excellent, but not quite <i>my</i> brand of excellent), a goodly chunk of SEA OF SORROWS by Michelle West, the latest episode of TREMONTAINE, and a bunch more of KNOWN AND STRANGE THINGS by Teju Cole.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sYRw686_HNU/WDsbSImLx9I/AAAAAAAAELE/pTM8UVCsx1AKr2ea460rtePzmjKkllirACLcB/s1600/mpb-wrappedtogether.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sYRw686_HNU/WDsbSImLx9I/AAAAAAAAELE/pTM8UVCsx1AKr2ea460rtePzmjKkllirACLcB/s640/mpb-wrappedtogether.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "An ereader lies very close to some red and gold holiday lights in an otherwise darkened room. It has the cover of Wrapped Together on its coloured screen. The cover features a photo of two dark-haired white men leaning together, laughing but not making eye contact, above a banner with the title and author on it." /></a></div><p>
Murchie got a well-deserved break from his posing duties last weekend as I settled in with WRAPPED TOGETHER [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2g7lomF" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/331241978/Wrapped-Together" target=new>Scribd</a>], Annabeth Albert's latest Portland Heat novella. I sat in the near-dark with my Kobo and my lights, basking in the first holiday offering from one of my favourite romance authors.<p>
I devoured the book in two sittings (it would've been one, but I got sucked into the National Dog Show midway through) and promptly spent a Scribd credit on Albert's first Portland Heat bundle so I could keep on wallowing in the series. I also drafted a mini review for you, but it soon edged up on 500 words so I'll give it its own post on Tuesday. Which, hey, is also when WRAPPED TOGETHER comes out! Look at that!<p>
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THE RAVENS OF FALKENAU AND OTHER STORIES [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2gvLdwM" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/318916321/The-Ravens-of-Falkenau-Other-Stories" target=new>Scribd</a>] probably isn't the best entry point to Jo Graham's Numinous World series, but <i>damn</i> is it ever worthwhile if you've already got two or three of the other books under your belt. It's a collection of stories from throughout history, right from the central character's early incarnations to the dawn of the twentieth century. (The Numinous World follows the same characters through a multitude of lifetimes.) The title story is the longest and the most traditionally short-story-formed, while many of the others are vignettes or extended meditations that're pretty durned cool if you already know these people but perhaps less enticing if you don't.<p>
It made me want to charge on and finally finish the series, which I'm reading <i>completely</i> out of order because the setup supports it. I've still got BLACK SHIPS (book one) and THE GENERAL'S MISTRESS (book four) to go.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-02yzZQjS8Ss/WEM-enD9gUI/AAAAAAAAELs/zv6_Au8oKyoVJAgSVnV3_W_znkmHGE5uQCLcB/s1600/mpb-sunisalsoastar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-02yzZQjS8Ss/WEM-enD9gUI/AAAAAAAAELs/zv6_Au8oKyoVJAgSVnV3_W_znkmHGE5uQCLcB/s640/mpb-sunisalsoastar.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie sprawls on a red blanket with his face close to the camera. Beside him is a white iPod with The Sun Is Also A Star on its screen. The book's cover features the title in white, outlined by thousands of criss-crossing strings in shades of blue, purple, pink, and yellow."/></a></div><p>
Future post spoiler: Jenny and I feature THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR by Nicola Yoon [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2ghJ1WT" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/329597756/The-Sun-is-Also-a-Star" target=new>Scribd Audio</a>] in our next Shiny New Books YA Spotlight. This gave me the push I needed to spend a Scribd credit on the audio and dive in.<p>
AND IT'S SO GOOD. The jacket copy led me to believe it was about two sensible teenagers who fall in love in a day even though they both think that sort of thing runs contrary to their nature. It's <i>actually</i> about one sensible teenager and one dreamer, and their opposing viewpoints contrast beautifully. I rooted for them every step of the way, and I teared up at the end.<p>
I love that this isn't just their story, too. Yoon seeds the text with vignettes about the various people Natasha and Daniel encounter on their day of falling in love (and trying to avoid deportation, and attempting to make major life decisions). It's fabulous.<p>
Nicola Yoon is on track to become one of my favourite YA contemporary authors. You can bet I'll pounce on whatever she comes out with next.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k6kAbLFEbuM/WEM_EBCUkiI/AAAAAAAAELw/dLzU5OVAvJ0vDmu47rkyEqQ93TrskS-ogCLcB/s1600/mpb-bundledup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k6kAbLFEbuM/WEM_EBCUkiI/AAAAAAAAELw/dLzU5OVAvJ0vDmu47rkyEqQ93TrskS-ogCLcB/s640/mpb-bundledup.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "A white Kobo lies close to a Christmas tree adorned with multi-coloured lights and an ornament made of a tiny, yellow Beanie Baby dog wearing a Santa hat. On the Kobo's screen is the cover of Bundled Up, featuring two white men from behind. One has his arm across the other's shoulders."/></a></div><p>
Look! More Annabeth Albert! BUNDLED UP [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2gT5VYh" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/292213691/Bundled-Up" target=new>Scribd</a>] collects the first three novellas: SERVED HOT, BAKED FRESH, and DELIVERED FAST, and I wanted to tear through them all soooooooooooooo bad.<p>
So of course, I kept running up against obligations that stole my reading time. Blah.<p>
Still, I enjoyed every moment I spent with these three novellas. Annabeth Albert is so, so good at taking the reader inside her characters' emotional lives while providing them with the sort of fully realized outer lives I eat straight from the jar. Her couples are always well suited, too, and the challenges they face give them the perfect opportunity to deepen their connection and forge true HEAs, rather than optimistic HFNs.<p>
I also get a kick out of how this series focuses on small business owners (or people on the verge of buying into small businesses). There really is a romance series about everything.<p>
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No sooner had I resolved to seek out more fiction from Africa than THE FISHERMEN by Nigerian author Chigozie Obioma [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2fU2Imw" target=new>Amazon</a>] became available to me. Luckily, my obligations kept me from <i>reading</i>, not <i>listening</i>, so I was able to tear through it quick as ever I wished.<p>
Which was pretty durned quick. Obioma tells the story of four brothers whose close bond shatters when the town prophet says one of them will kill the eldest. It's intense and more-ish, and it explores family within a cultural context I'm less familiar with.<p>
I'll have finished it by the time you read this, and I'll look forward to Obioma's next offering.<p>
<b>Next week:</b> probably more romance novels. Hopefully the Hamiltome.<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5936145743709676409.post-81479037250631907782016-11-27T05:00:00.000-06:002016-11-27T05:00:23.545-06:00Murchie Plus Books: November 20th to 26thI make my dog pose with everything I read, barring single issue comics. This week I actually got him to sit up beside a couple of titles, but he's always happiest in bed.<p>
The photos go live <a href= "https://www.instagram.com/xicanti/" target=new>on Instagram</a> as I edit them and appear here in digest form every Sunday, with descriptive alt tags and additional commentary.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jw_n1WG685c/WDn_w1Gh0vI/AAAAAAAAEJ8/GO1BZtrEnvITJhvyJIi_MU6I8fj3NdUwQCLcB/s1600/mpb-gemina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jw_n1WG685c/WDn_w1Gh0vI/AAAAAAAAEJ8/GO1BZtrEnvITJhvyJIi_MU6I8fj3NdUwQCLcB/s640/mpb-gemina.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie, a scruffy grey poodle, sits on a burgundy carpet. A hardcover copy of Gemina stands upright beside him. The book's cover is an oily, reflective blue that catches the pattern of the carpet, turning it into a mottled purple in places."/></a></div><p>
OMG AWESOME EPISTOLARY SCIENCE FICTION!!!!!!!!!<P>
I tore through GEMINA [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2gto2DN" target=new>Amazon</a>] fast as ever I could, which proved to be pretty fast because it's as absorbing as it is lengthy. THERE IS SO MUCH COOL SHIT IN HERE, Y'ALL. SO MUCH. I GEEKED THE HELL OUT OVER IT. NOW I WANT TO GUSH ABOUT IT AD NAUSEUM, BUT ALL THE STUFF I MOST WANT TO ZOMG OVER IS SUPER SPOILERISH SO I'LL RESIST THE URGE.<p>
I <i>will</i> tell you it shifts the action to Heimdall Station and follows different characters than ILLUMINAE did, so don't go expecting a slew of familiar faces right off the bat.<p>
It'll also leave you eager for the grande finale.<p>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LLMOK5zql_w/WDoApMfmZYI/AAAAAAAAEKE/TlIZij1vV5Qd4RRBx22A0uPpBeAj6yHZACLcB/s1600/mpb-juliettakesabreath.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LLMOK5zql_w/WDoApMfmZYI/AAAAAAAAEKE/TlIZij1vV5Qd4RRBx22A0uPpBeAj6yHZACLcB/s640/mpb-juliettakesabreath.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie curls up behind a trade paperback copy of Juliet Takes A Breath, fast asleep. The book's cover features the back of a woman's head styled in an undercut with the title shaved into the stubble."/></a></div><p>
I geeked out just as hard over JULIET TAKES A BREATH by Gabby Rivera [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2fQP4RZ" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/296174737/Juliet-Takes-a-Breath" target=new>Scribd</a>], but in a totally different way. It's such a <i>true</i> book, y'know? Juliet is a young lesbian from the Bronx who comes out to her family mere hours before she hops on a plane to spend the summer interning with her favourite feminist author in Portland. She has this gloriously messy, complicated, intersectional journey as she encounters a passel of new ideas and struggles to figure out how she fits into the world.<p>
Part of me wants to tell you everything about it, but most of me wants to mull it over inside my own head. So I'm gonna urge you to pick it up if you have any interest in contemporary fiction, and leave it at that.<p>
Now I'm even more excited to see what Rivera does with Marvel's AMERICA next year.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XPfx53fuzgw/WDoCg10UNII/AAAAAAAAEKQ/qhuJOty_pVMVnJseaQs9RoCbiYAlQCgPgCLcB/s1600/mpb-livingbytheword.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XPfx53fuzgw/WDoCg10UNII/AAAAAAAAEKQ/qhuJOty_pVMVnJseaQs9RoCbiYAlQCgPgCLcB/s640/mpb-livingbytheword.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie sits in a beige hallway. His ears are perked. Slightly in front of him is a white Kobo in a grey case, propped upright. Its screen shows the yellow cover of Living By the Word, with a grey city right along the bottom of the image."/></a></div><p>
I finished THE PROMISE OF CANADA (which <a href= "https://memoryscarlett.blogspot.ca/2016/11/murchie-plus-books-november-13th-to-19th.html" target=new>I showed y'all last week</a>) and tried to settle in with a book about progressive approaches to disability in Canada. I chose it from the library's New & Noted section because it had disabled contributors, but the introduction made it pretty clear the text was aimed solely at able-bodied people <i>and</i> that the disabled writers only got a slice of the first chapter each.<p>
So I returned it mostly unread and decided to finish Alice Walker's LIVING BY THE WORD [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2fQIr2b" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/book/171085086/Living-by-the-Word-Essays" target=new>Scribd</a>] instead.<p>
I actually started this one so long ago that I didn't even have to shell out a Scribd credit for it. It's a fabulous collection of Walker's essays (following IN SEARCH OF OUR MOTHERS' GARDENS), and I was most happy to devour the last hundred pages on Wednesday evening. <p>
I might sample Walker's poetry next.<p>
Please note how I managed to make Murchie pose nicely with the book but failed to get him anywhere near good light. Dammit, winter.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hayNCuTNX90/WDoGTyxiHTI/AAAAAAAAEKg/SwG93e7LLAILBsFhZFbpujQodf5qHN6mQCLcB/s1600/mpb-afterdark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hayNCuTNX90/WDoGTyxiHTI/AAAAAAAAEKg/SwG93e7LLAILBsFhZFbpujQodf5qHN6mQCLcB/s640/mpb-afterdark.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie lies with his head poking out of a blanket cave and his chin flat against a red blanket. A white iPod is propped up against the cave at an angle, directly beside his head. Its screen features the gold, red, and purple cover of After Dark."/></a></div><p>
My dip into HARDBOILED WONDERLAND AT THE END OF THE WORLD didn't go so well, but I'm enjoying Haruki Murakami's AFTER DARK [<a href= "https://www.amazon.com/After-Dark-Haruki-Murakami-ebook/dp/B003VIWVCS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480197734&sr=1-1&keywords=after+dark" target=new>Amazon</a> | <a href= "https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/237556292/After-Dark" target=new>Scribd Audio</a>]. It blends the everyday with the really fucking weird, and I appreciate that all the women have their own shit to do. I struggled to find audio time last week, but if all goes well I'll have finished it by the time you read this.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-prtD-1IDtqw/WDoDVMxBuOI/AAAAAAAAEKU/lWsw-8Qhe-c_f8ZtoJAEfZS_7YClQ8IsQCLcB/s1600/mpb-otherworldbarbara.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-prtD-1IDtqw/WDoDVMxBuOI/AAAAAAAAEKU/lWsw-8Qhe-c_f8ZtoJAEfZS_7YClQ8IsQCLcB/s640/mpb-otherworldbarbara.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie lies with his head raised and his ears perked. Behind him is a hardcover copy of Otherworld Barbara Volume One. Murchie's head and the edge of the frame block most of the book's cover, but in the gap a pale-haired Japanese girl floats with her head and one hand out of a churning sea of blue-grey water." /></a></div><p>
Moto Hagio's OTHERWORLD BARBARA [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2gxFIMm" target=new>Amazon</a>] made a wonderful stopgap while I decided which title from my prose stack I wanted to read next. This is the first of two large hardcovers from Fantagraphics that collect the complete series, and you can bet I'll be haunting my library's website until they've preordered the second one.<p>
The manga opens with a young girl who lives on a fantastical island called Barbara. People fly, children remain the same age for decades, and nobody ever seems to die, though they're all hyper aware of the war that rages in the outside world. When we zoom out in the second chapter, it turns out Barbara is a narcoleptic girl's dream, visible to observers like the dream pilot who's travelled to her treatment facility to see if he can wake her up.<p>
Except it's not quite so simple as that, and each chapter adds another layer to the mystery. The whole thing is really convoluted and cool, with all sorts of meditations on dreams, families, and the experiences that connect people.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-d1dN0U0S_JI/WDoIJl4ZYmI/AAAAAAAAEKs/2acD8jFqdY8UBOjeu9fqTWAZr3TwSx65gCLcB/s1600/mpb-knownandstrangethings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-d1dN0U0S_JI/WDoIJl4ZYmI/AAAAAAAAEKs/2acD8jFqdY8UBOjeu9fqTWAZr3TwSx65gCLcB/s640/mpb-knownandstrangethings.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie stands on the floor, his head craned up to look over his shoulder at the viewer. Closer to the camera and some distance above Murchie is a trade paperback copy of Known and Strange Things. Its cover features a photograph of a balcony with something covered in a white drop sheet on it."/></a></div><p>
I plucked Teju Cole's KNOWN AND STRANGE THINGS [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2g45E3R" target=new>Amazon</a>] out of the library's New & Noted section more or less at random. I wasn't familiar with Cole, but his bio stated he was born in the United States, raised in Nigeria, and widely featured in international venues for both writing and photography.<p>
IE, he sounded pretty durned interesting.<p>
He is. He's also a posh fellow who writes about a large variety of posh things I've never encountered myself, which is probably why he wasn't on my radar. Even though I lack a lot of reference points, his prose is so gorgeous I can't help but want to wallow in it.<p>
As I write this, I've finished the segment on things he's read (most of which were by men, but many of which were by international writers and/or people of colour) and started the one on things he's seen (or heard, as he includes at least one piece on music alongside the essays on film, theatre, painting, and photography). It's fascinating stuff and I look forward to the rest of the collection.<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qgb9U018SYU/WDoIqxtQO2I/AAAAAAAAEKw/KO9V8iaFYYkvdkn3HTExK82xeYvSGAZuACLcB/s1600/mpb-jugheadvol1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qgb9U018SYU/WDoIqxtQO2I/AAAAAAAAEKw/KO9V8iaFYYkvdkn3HTExK82xeYvSGAZuACLcB/s640/mpb-jugheadvol1.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt= "Murchie peeks his head out of a blanket cave. Propped up on the blankets beside him is a trade paperback copy of Jughead Volume One. Its red cover features a white boy wearing a grey crown hat, a blue t-shirt, and a yellow sweater. He smirks as he clutches a knife and fork." /></a></div><p>
And now for something completely different.<p>
Chip Zdarsky and Erica Henderson's JUGHEAD reboot [<a href= "http://amzn.to/2gtqGt9" target=new>Amazon</a>] is a ton of fun. Juggie's horrified when a new principal takes over Riverdale High and replaces the cafeteria's usual delicious offerings with high-nutrition gruel, and his suspicions rise as further changes come into effect. He hunts for answers, with frequent dream sequences in which his adventures as a knight, a time cop, or a superhero give him the insight he needs to figure out the latest problem he faces in the real world.<p>
There are tons of jokes and clever bits, and Henderson's art is a great fit for these characters. She's especially good at conveying the desperate (yet cartoony) drama that ignites within Jughead's soul when he's gotta eat gruel and/or run obstacle courses.<p>
This volume also contains the issue where Juggie is canonically confirmed as asexual. Hurray for representation!<p>
Also, I think Murchie and Jughead would get along really well since they both like eating beef and sitting on couches without moving.<p>
<b>Next week:</b> Maybe an enormous stack of TWIN SPICA. Probably some historical fantasy and a romance or two.<p>Memoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03922151273874989122noreply@blogger.com4