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Mostly the Hugos
Jun. 18th, 2020 11:49 amI haven't really got anything too important to say. I'm doing fine and my employers are doing what they can to keep us safe. I have all my basic needs met and my one buddy continues to hang out once a week or so, which makes sure I don't feel too absolutely isolated. We've had a couple small adventures, but not much because, you know, social distancing even if much of the state is done with that. It's been nice to see some articles come out about the disconnect for people who are still distancing vs. the slew of people who have taken the lessening strictures as a sign everything is done with. It lets me know I'm not the only one. (well, I also have very sensible coworkers who also live in the area so they see the same things I do)
Several of my shows have been postponed until next year and, of course, many things have been canceled. I'm keeping some of my next year's tickets, but getting refunds for others. It just feels too far in the future to know if I'm available that day and, of course, refund deadlines are pretty immediate so goodbye Lindsey Stirling, but I'm keeping Cirque du Soleil! I've decided I want to do at least one big genre book convention next year. WorldCon with the Hugos would be amazing and that's in DC! And then I found out StokerCon will be in Denver, so that's a must, particularly as Silvia Moreno-Garcia is one of the main guests!
My committee work this month is in one of its especially busy times as I'm reviewing the nominations in the four genres I was assigned. That ended up being 38 books this time around, but luckily I'd already read a decent number of them. I'm down to 7 and a half books to go and my genres this time were Fantasy, Horror, Historical, and Relationship Fiction. I'm still having a hard time with a lot of the overly chipper stuff, so definitely glad I don't have to do Romance until the next round. I fear our Horror offerings are not going to be great. I'm the closest to a horror fan in the group, but I have very particular tastes. Some of the others are so anti-horror that they've nominated things no regular reader of the genre would think is horror. (pro-tip: just because there is one mean ghost in the book does not make a novel horror. Particularly if it just slams the occasional door while a mystery plot is happening)
Once again I seem to be the odd one out on one... The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Its premise is that there is a woman who can't be remembered once she is out of sight. That is a very cool premise. The problem is that it's the exact same premise as The Sudden Appearance of Hope -- except that one is a much more interesting book so I couldn't care less about Addie freaking LaRue. There are differences. Hope is otherwise a normal person in a bit of a thriller plot, Addie was given this curse by an old god and so is also basically immortal until she decides she can't take it any more and gives him her soul... which could be a fun plot. But 28% in and she basically just wanders around and mopes. And yes, she has reason to. But I'm reading a book, so at least she could mope interestingly...? And it's not a short book, so 28% is like 130 pages or so. A new character just showed up and he... also mopes. For unclear reasons. And glitter may be involved? I can't figure out if he is actually a bit more interesting or if it's just that he's a break between Addie wandering around. Moping amidst relatively lovely, distant language. I can't even hate read the book. I have zero passion for it any direction. It's just there. And mopey.
There have been some excellent reads, though. The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune is a particular delight as a queer fantasy novel published by Tor. It's got a bit of a Harry Potter feel in that there is a secret magic house with children. It has a little romance. It's got a lot of humor, even if the initial setting is painted in dreariness -- by design, not by boringness. It reads just fine. Think of the film Dark City where all is cloaked in, well, darkness, until you find the beach.
I'm taking a bit of a break with a book my friend Erin recommended -- Jo Walton's An Informal History of the Hugos. It's just her -- very informal -- discussion of Hugo winners and nominees from the first on up to 2000 (she didn't want to go further as her writing career began around there), as well as other existent possibilities. Apparently those Hugo people didn't love John Wyndham near as much as I did (do?). Also, I'm pretty sure Walton and I have pretty diverging tastes, so I don't know that I am going to add as much to my TBR pile as my friend did. For instance, Walton definitely loves Heinlein (who I loved as a kid, but definitely don't seem to as an adult), Clarke (I haven't loved any of the two or three books I read by him), and Dune (I liked the movies, but I was not at all a fan of spending so many pages with all those awful people). She doesn't like Phillip K. Dick -- intensely doesn't. But we'll see. One of the most fun things about the book for me is that it does bring back some really pleasant emotions as I encounter books I loved in the past. Like, I may hardly remember anything about A Canticle for Leibowitz other than that the saint was an engineer and they hid scientific knowledge in the monastery, but I remember how much I loved the book and how it felt reading in the dorms that early college year and what the college bookstore was like...
It's also shown me that while I've read a lot of the classic science fiction authors, I've also missed a ton. So much of what I had access to depended on the collections of little libraries in one town or another. So there is a part of me that wants to delve back into some of the authors I've missed... But there are also so many new books coming out and many of those won't have problematic elements of the time... For instance, Erin and I had this fun discussion of Isaac Asimov and his female characters vs. some of his contemporaries. (we think he did well for his time... but typically had a long way to go.... plus we both love Susan Calvin even though she has problematic aspects as well)
At any rate, I made it to the 70s in the book. I imagine the 80s and 90s will have a much higher percentage of authors I've read... But who knows. Like I said, a lot depended on what was available wherever we were stationed...
Several of my shows have been postponed until next year and, of course, many things have been canceled. I'm keeping some of my next year's tickets, but getting refunds for others. It just feels too far in the future to know if I'm available that day and, of course, refund deadlines are pretty immediate so goodbye Lindsey Stirling, but I'm keeping Cirque du Soleil! I've decided I want to do at least one big genre book convention next year. WorldCon with the Hugos would be amazing and that's in DC! And then I found out StokerCon will be in Denver, so that's a must, particularly as Silvia Moreno-Garcia is one of the main guests!
My committee work this month is in one of its especially busy times as I'm reviewing the nominations in the four genres I was assigned. That ended up being 38 books this time around, but luckily I'd already read a decent number of them. I'm down to 7 and a half books to go and my genres this time were Fantasy, Horror, Historical, and Relationship Fiction. I'm still having a hard time with a lot of the overly chipper stuff, so definitely glad I don't have to do Romance until the next round. I fear our Horror offerings are not going to be great. I'm the closest to a horror fan in the group, but I have very particular tastes. Some of the others are so anti-horror that they've nominated things no regular reader of the genre would think is horror. (pro-tip: just because there is one mean ghost in the book does not make a novel horror. Particularly if it just slams the occasional door while a mystery plot is happening)
Once again I seem to be the odd one out on one... The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Its premise is that there is a woman who can't be remembered once she is out of sight. That is a very cool premise. The problem is that it's the exact same premise as The Sudden Appearance of Hope -- except that one is a much more interesting book so I couldn't care less about Addie freaking LaRue. There are differences. Hope is otherwise a normal person in a bit of a thriller plot, Addie was given this curse by an old god and so is also basically immortal until she decides she can't take it any more and gives him her soul... which could be a fun plot. But 28% in and she basically just wanders around and mopes. And yes, she has reason to. But I'm reading a book, so at least she could mope interestingly...? And it's not a short book, so 28% is like 130 pages or so. A new character just showed up and he... also mopes. For unclear reasons. And glitter may be involved? I can't figure out if he is actually a bit more interesting or if it's just that he's a break between Addie wandering around. Moping amidst relatively lovely, distant language. I can't even hate read the book. I have zero passion for it any direction. It's just there. And mopey.
There have been some excellent reads, though. The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune is a particular delight as a queer fantasy novel published by Tor. It's got a bit of a Harry Potter feel in that there is a secret magic house with children. It has a little romance. It's got a lot of humor, even if the initial setting is painted in dreariness -- by design, not by boringness. It reads just fine. Think of the film Dark City where all is cloaked in, well, darkness, until you find the beach.
I'm taking a bit of a break with a book my friend Erin recommended -- Jo Walton's An Informal History of the Hugos. It's just her -- very informal -- discussion of Hugo winners and nominees from the first on up to 2000 (she didn't want to go further as her writing career began around there), as well as other existent possibilities. Apparently those Hugo people didn't love John Wyndham near as much as I did (do?). Also, I'm pretty sure Walton and I have pretty diverging tastes, so I don't know that I am going to add as much to my TBR pile as my friend did. For instance, Walton definitely loves Heinlein (who I loved as a kid, but definitely don't seem to as an adult), Clarke (I haven't loved any of the two or three books I read by him), and Dune (I liked the movies, but I was not at all a fan of spending so many pages with all those awful people). She doesn't like Phillip K. Dick -- intensely doesn't. But we'll see. One of the most fun things about the book for me is that it does bring back some really pleasant emotions as I encounter books I loved in the past. Like, I may hardly remember anything about A Canticle for Leibowitz other than that the saint was an engineer and they hid scientific knowledge in the monastery, but I remember how much I loved the book and how it felt reading in the dorms that early college year and what the college bookstore was like...
It's also shown me that while I've read a lot of the classic science fiction authors, I've also missed a ton. So much of what I had access to depended on the collections of little libraries in one town or another. So there is a part of me that wants to delve back into some of the authors I've missed... But there are also so many new books coming out and many of those won't have problematic elements of the time... For instance, Erin and I had this fun discussion of Isaac Asimov and his female characters vs. some of his contemporaries. (we think he did well for his time... but typically had a long way to go.... plus we both love Susan Calvin even though she has problematic aspects as well)
At any rate, I made it to the 70s in the book. I imagine the 80s and 90s will have a much higher percentage of authors I've read... But who knows. Like I said, a lot depended on what was available wherever we were stationed...
