(SFF Bingo): Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson
July 28th, 2025 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
primeidealThis was a rec that was a creative twist on the "High Fashion" bingo square, which I was grateful for because I didn't expect to run across much for that in the wild. It's set in 2002; Cayce Pollard is a freelance fashion consultant/marketer. She has an innate sense for judging "cool" versus "uncool" logos/aesthetics, and can give companies feedback accordingly. The flip side of this ability is that she's "allergic" to lots of trademarks and logos, and so she can really only function in extremely generic monochrome clothing with no identifying labels.
Bingo: High Fashion, like I said.
The national symbols of her homeland don't trigger her, or so far haven't. And over the past year, in New York, she's been deeply grateful for this. An allergy to flags or eagles would have reduced her to shut-in status: a species of semiotic agoraphobia.
Her hobby is participating in a web forum discussing/obsessing over a series of mysterious video clips that have been emerging in the pre-Youtube era without identifying information. Are they clips from a finished project that the auteur is deliberately releasing in a seemingly random order? Is it a work in progress? It's a mystery.
Cayce gets hired by an exorbitantly rich firm to consult on their branding, then to track down the creator of the footage. So she basically has all the resources she could want, but has to cut deals with shady characters from the corporate world and the internet, and also she might be being stalked by bad guys.
I didn't feel like we really got into Cayce's head much, and so it was hard to get invested in her or anybody else. The writing style is often fragmentary and distant.
Cayce feels herself make a decision, though she couldn't say what exactly it is, pulls out the chair at the end of the table, and sits, but without putting her legs under the table.
*
And managing to speak, wakes, awash with grief and terror and some sense of a decision made, though she knows not what, nor yet by whom, nor if indeed she ever will.
*
And that in the address window, as though she would actually send it.
Touchpadding down menu to Send.
And of course she doesn't.
And watch it as it sends.
After reading "The Difference Engine," maybe I was cynical about women being objectified. Here, Cayce and her forum friends work on catfishing a nerdy Japanese guy with digitally-manipulated photos of a sexy lady. She's sort of revulsed by this, but not revulsed enough not to do it; it feels like a kind of "have your cake and eat it too" attempt at the narrative. Similarly for "eh I don't know how I feel about working for big business but I might as well spend all their money."
A lot of it is kind of thriller-y; the speculative aspects are slight, mostly Cayce's weird abilities/sensitivies. There's also a plotline about steganography. It is true that you can use technology to hide secret data messages in (say) image files, or watermarking to prove "this was authenticated by the same source." But to the best of my knowledge, you can't use this kind of embedded data to track the spread of a file around the world. So maybe that was just SFnal artistic license, but when it happens to overlap with something I sort of understand, it's like...I can't tell if most readers are supposeed to understand this as taking creative liberties or not. (Similarly, retired NSA cryptographers should not be calling in favors with their friends who are still active to trace e-mails. [Even if you pay them in black-market pocket calculators.] But this is the post-9/11 security state, so no one's at their best.) I guess the idea of a functional reverse image search was science fiction in 2003.
I like the aspect of "obsessive web forum friends coming through for each other and being just as cool in person as they are online." But beyond that, this one didn't really do it for me.
Bingo: High Fashion, like I said.
Excursions
July 28th, 2025 03:02 pmlivThis week P'tite Soeur organized a family trip to London. All four siblings and Dad, which is quite a feat of logistics even if we didn't manage to also include partners.
( London )
Another thing I was able to do due to not being in Israel was to visit the community I'll be spending Yom Kippur with, the amazing Kehillat Kernow, a peripatetic community covering most of the Cornwall peninsula. (Yes, that's me in the news article at the top of their website, they are very prompt at reporting!) The long train journey was not as wonderful as I had hoped, because the trains were very very overcrowded in peak season, but at least I had a seat and got to enjoy the lovely views. And read a bunch of novels, which is definitely making my brain happier.
They invited me to dinner Friday evening, and had a very Liv conversation about dealing with racism in education and medicine, with the other guests having direct professional expertise, not just setting the world to rights. And put me up in a super nice hotel in a neo-gothic pile that used to be a convent, and were gracious enough to invite me to stay Saturday night as well so I even got a little bit of time in Truro, which is where they held this particular service. I walked along the river a bit, I found a teeny-tiny Pride festival in the town centre, but it was packing up by the time I had finished dinner at 7 pm, so I wasn't able to get dessert from one of the sparkly rainbow doughnut stands.
In between I lead a Shabbat service, with very enthusiastic participation from the community, and they even appreciated my somewhat political sermon about whether we can still be Zionists in this moment. Because it was the new moon of Av, I got to read from their super-exciting Historic scroll. Well, actually I chanted the verses about the creation of the sun and moon; it's still a big deal for me to do that in public. I'm pretty pleased with how all that went.
And now I'm back and I have another month of relatively uncrowded schedule. It's very nice.
( London )
Another thing I was able to do due to not being in Israel was to visit the community I'll be spending Yom Kippur with, the amazing Kehillat Kernow, a peripatetic community covering most of the Cornwall peninsula. (Yes, that's me in the news article at the top of their website, they are very prompt at reporting!) The long train journey was not as wonderful as I had hoped, because the trains were very very overcrowded in peak season, but at least I had a seat and got to enjoy the lovely views. And read a bunch of novels, which is definitely making my brain happier.
They invited me to dinner Friday evening, and had a very Liv conversation about dealing with racism in education and medicine, with the other guests having direct professional expertise, not just setting the world to rights. And put me up in a super nice hotel in a neo-gothic pile that used to be a convent, and were gracious enough to invite me to stay Saturday night as well so I even got a little bit of time in Truro, which is where they held this particular service. I walked along the river a bit, I found a teeny-tiny Pride festival in the town centre, but it was packing up by the time I had finished dinner at 7 pm, so I wasn't able to get dessert from one of the sparkly rainbow doughnut stands.
In between I lead a Shabbat service, with very enthusiastic participation from the community, and they even appreciated my somewhat political sermon about whether we can still be Zionists in this moment. Because it was the new moon of Av, I got to read from their super-exciting Historic scroll. Well, actually I chanted the verses about the creation of the sun and moon; it's still a big deal for me to do that in public. I'm pretty pleased with how all that went.
And now I'm back and I have another month of relatively uncrowded schedule. It's very nice.
Booklog: Alien Clay, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
July 28th, 2025 01:27 amgenartiI’ve been meaning to read more Adrian Tchaikovsky for a while now, first because a number of my friends really like his stuff, and then also because I read his book The Doors of Eden and really enjoyed it. (The character work in that one was hit or miss, but the speculative biology was enormous fun in directions you rarely see done well that also aimed directly at my interests, so I had a great time with it.)
The joy of finding a very prolific author is that there’s a ton of stuff to read, but the difficulty of finding a very prolific author is figuring out where to start. Handily for me, this one was on the short list for the Hugos this year! And it was my top pick – I really loved it.
( More details -- no spoilers beyond the first few chapters )
The joy of finding a very prolific author is that there’s a ton of stuff to read, but the difficulty of finding a very prolific author is figuring out where to start. Handily for me, this one was on the short list for the Hugos this year! And it was my top pick – I really loved it.
( More details -- no spoilers beyond the first few chapters )
(no subject)
July 27th, 2025 11:17 pmskygiantsI was sitting outside at work two weeks ago reading Zen Cho's Behind Frenemy Lines when our regular volunteer suddenly popped up next to me. "What are you reading?!" she demanded, and I blinked at her, and she said "I can't remember the last time I smiled as much reading a book as you were right now! Please tell me the title, I have to read it!"
So now you all know two things, which is that I have no poker face when reading in public and also that Behind Frenemy Lines is a delight. It's a particular delight to me because this book is a really fantastic, affectionately grounded example of bring-your-work-to-the-rom-com; my brother works in the same kind of big law firm as the protagonists and every word of it rang true. As soon as I was done I texted my long-suffering sister-in-law to tell her that she should read it immediately. (My brother should read it even more, but he will never have the time to do so, because, again, he works in big law.)
So, the plot: our heroine Kriya Rajasekar has just broken up with her long-term boyfriend and followed her boss to a new firm, which has unfortunately resulted in her sharing an office with the competent but deeply awkward lawyer whose presence throughout her career has coincidentally but unfortunately coincided with all the most screwball catastrophes in Kriya's career.
Charles Goh does not know that he is Kriya's bad-luck charm. Charles actually has kind of a crush. This is regrettable for Charles given that life has provided them with a couple of perfect reasons to fake date (Charles needs a date to his cousin's wedding and Kriya needs to fend off the increasingly inappropriate attentions of her recently-divorced boss) and also a good reason they should not real date (Kriya is busy fending off the increasingly inappropriate attentions of her recently-divorced boss and does not need romantic complications from her office-mate/fake boyfriend.)
As a sidenote, the cousin's wedding is a Fandom Wedding, the details of which I will not spoil but which are the other half of why I was laughing visibly out front of my office building (and which I did not explain to the volunteer.) I would not trust a lot of authors to write a Fandom Wedding, but this book carries it off with charm and ease. It really helps that the leads do not understand what is happening and do not really care except inasmuch as it's nice to see a person you like get married.
Of course everybody catches feelings, but also everybody also catches more serious ethical dilemmas, as the corruption case from The Friend Zone Experiment rebounds back into the plot and forces both Charles and Kriya to figure out where their professional lines actually are. I love where the characters make their respective stands, and where they end up; the stakes feel exactly right for the book, deeply grounded and deeply personal to the characters. It's so nice to pick up a Zen book, and know I can trust her to always be very funny but also to always make her books about something real.
So now you all know two things, which is that I have no poker face when reading in public and also that Behind Frenemy Lines is a delight. It's a particular delight to me because this book is a really fantastic, affectionately grounded example of bring-your-work-to-the-rom-com; my brother works in the same kind of big law firm as the protagonists and every word of it rang true. As soon as I was done I texted my long-suffering sister-in-law to tell her that she should read it immediately. (My brother should read it even more, but he will never have the time to do so, because, again, he works in big law.)
So, the plot: our heroine Kriya Rajasekar has just broken up with her long-term boyfriend and followed her boss to a new firm, which has unfortunately resulted in her sharing an office with the competent but deeply awkward lawyer whose presence throughout her career has coincidentally but unfortunately coincided with all the most screwball catastrophes in Kriya's career.
Charles Goh does not know that he is Kriya's bad-luck charm. Charles actually has kind of a crush. This is regrettable for Charles given that life has provided them with a couple of perfect reasons to fake date (Charles needs a date to his cousin's wedding and Kriya needs to fend off the increasingly inappropriate attentions of her recently-divorced boss) and also a good reason they should not real date (Kriya is busy fending off the increasingly inappropriate attentions of her recently-divorced boss and does not need romantic complications from her office-mate/fake boyfriend.)
As a sidenote, the cousin's wedding is a Fandom Wedding, the details of which I will not spoil but which are the other half of why I was laughing visibly out front of my office building (and which I did not explain to the volunteer.) I would not trust a lot of authors to write a Fandom Wedding, but this book carries it off with charm and ease. It really helps that the leads do not understand what is happening and do not really care except inasmuch as it's nice to see a person you like get married.
Of course everybody catches feelings, but also everybody also catches more serious ethical dilemmas, as the corruption case from The Friend Zone Experiment rebounds back into the plot and forces both Charles and Kriya to figure out where their professional lines actually are. I love where the characters make their respective stands, and where they end up; the stakes feel exactly right for the book, deeply grounded and deeply personal to the characters. It's so nice to pick up a Zen book, and know I can trust her to always be very funny but also to always make her books about something real.
Weekend reading
July 27th, 2025 09:33 pmtroisoiseauxRead Still Life With Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains by Alexa Hagerty, nonfiction about the work of forensic anthropologists exhuming mass graves to identify victims of state violence and armed conflict in Guatemala and Argentina. Thoughtful, thought-provoking, and frequently difficult to read due to the sheer scale of the horrors that led to this work being necessary. In a way, I think Hagerty (a social anthropologist who did forensic fieldwork in both countries, but didn't make it her career) successfully pulls off the style/structure that wasn't working for me in Caroline Fraser's Murderland, weaving together snippets of different "plot" (for lack of a better word, as both books are non-fiction) threads to build up to a larger point— ping-ponging between then and now, in Hagerty's case, and meditations on grief, memory, mourning rituals, the balance of science and emotion in forensic human rights work, the cultural perception/hierarchy of senses (how touch is viewed as "base" compared to, say, sight vs. the vital role of touch in forensic practice - articulating skeletons, "tactile inspection"), myths and folklore, etc.
Currently reading The Book of Love by Kelly Link, and if I loved this less, I could talk about it more, but the gist of the plot (so far) is that three (four?) teens return from the dead to find that, as part of the magic, they are the only ones who remember that they were gone and the world has shifted to scar-tissue over the gap of their almost-a-year's absence. Reminds me, in more or less abstract ways, of Genevieve Hudson's Boys of Alabama and Katherine Arden's The Warm Hands of Ghosts.
Currently reading The Book of Love by Kelly Link, and if I loved this less, I could talk about it more, but the gist of the plot (so far) is that three (four?) teens return from the dead to find that, as part of the magic, they are the only ones who remember that they were gone and the world has shifted to scar-tissue over the gap of their almost-a-year's absence. Reminds me, in more or less abstract ways, of Genevieve Hudson's Boys of Alabama and Katherine Arden's The Warm Hands of Ghosts.
Weekly proof of life: media intake and summer deliciousness
July 27th, 2025 05:00 pmumadoshiReading: I finished both of the non-fiction titles I was reading in last week's roundup. I'd somehow thought Burn It Down would shine a spotlight more strongly on more specific shows than it did, but it was an interesting read nonetheless, if mostly grimly unsurprising.
scruloose and I are now maybe two-thirds through the All Systems Red audiobook.
Other than that, I read Antonia Hodgson's The Raven Scholar, which went on sale in ebook right after I heard it mentioned by a couple of different people. (It may still be on sale! Worth checking!) It was a really good read that surprised me quite a few times via some great redirects. The main downside is that it's very recent and is the first of a...trilogy, I think? Hope I'll be able to remember what happened in this book, because it was a LOT. (Also, I assume this was a deliberate style choice, but it's rather a cascade of comma splices.)
I've just barely started Sky on Fire, E.K. Johnston's second book of the summer. In the leadup to its release I repeatedly forgot and was reminded that it's a sequel to Aetherbound, which I read when it came out in 2021. In this case my memory is a bit fuzzy on what came before, but this book is set a fair bit later and (I think) recapped the major plot outcomes from Aetherbound, so here's hoping I do okay! ^_^ (A definite downside to ebooks--if I had a hard copy I could pretty easily flip through it, but I find that a huge pain with ebooks, and between that and how infrequently I reread anything, sequels can be tricky for me. >.<)
Watching: Minimal.scruloose and I watched episode 1 of the The Summer Hikaru Died anime, which is only a few episodes along so far. I know almost nothing about the manga (and don't know how long [this season of?] the anime is expected to be or how faithful it is so far), but ep. 1 seemed like a good start.
Cooking/Baking: Berries continue to be gloriously available, and I hear the first early peaches have been glimpsed in at least one of the local-produce stores. (It's so lovely to have several of those!) We once again made it to the corner market and came home with raspberries, blueberries, and cherries; strawberries are still around, and I enjoy them, but I don't love them the way I love raspberries and I find them harder than blueberries to eat quickly enough.
Mid-week we made Smitten Kitchen's Strawberry Summer Sheet Cake to use up a whole heap of strawberries and froze most of the cake (*ritual but intensely heartfelt grumble about needing to eke it out in the name of sugar intake etc.*); the slices we took out to thaw this afternoon are the first previously-frozen ones, so we'll see how it does with this treatment.
Planning: It's been a good chunk of time since the last time we both took the day off to run errands on a weekday, so we're planning to do that in a couple of days. Apparently the day we've chosen is going to be a scorcher (which is a bit awkward since, while we've booked a car for the erranding, AC in vehicles usually nauseates me pretty badly but will be necessary so we don't completely melt. Here's hoping proactive gravol does the trick). (Could we do it another day? Well...yes. But the core inspiration for doing it at all is that there's a local ice creamery that does weekly feature flavors and has legendary lineups, and I've never actually had their ice cream and this week's flavor is lemon. Hopefully going midday on a weekday will mean the line isn't too horrendous when we go on lemon's final day in rotation.)
scruloose and I are now maybe two-thirds through the All Systems Red audiobook.Other than that, I read Antonia Hodgson's The Raven Scholar, which went on sale in ebook right after I heard it mentioned by a couple of different people. (It may still be on sale! Worth checking!) It was a really good read that surprised me quite a few times via some great redirects. The main downside is that it's very recent and is the first of a...trilogy, I think? Hope I'll be able to remember what happened in this book, because it was a LOT. (Also, I assume this was a deliberate style choice, but it's rather a cascade of comma splices.)
I've just barely started Sky on Fire, E.K. Johnston's second book of the summer. In the leadup to its release I repeatedly forgot and was reminded that it's a sequel to Aetherbound, which I read when it came out in 2021. In this case my memory is a bit fuzzy on what came before, but this book is set a fair bit later and (I think) recapped the major plot outcomes from Aetherbound, so here's hoping I do okay! ^_^ (A definite downside to ebooks--if I had a hard copy I could pretty easily flip through it, but I find that a huge pain with ebooks, and between that and how infrequently I reread anything, sequels can be tricky for me. >.<)
Watching: Minimal.
scruloose and I watched episode 1 of the The Summer Hikaru Died anime, which is only a few episodes along so far. I know almost nothing about the manga (and don't know how long [this season of?] the anime is expected to be or how faithful it is so far), but ep. 1 seemed like a good start.Cooking/Baking: Berries continue to be gloriously available, and I hear the first early peaches have been glimpsed in at least one of the local-produce stores. (It's so lovely to have several of those!) We once again made it to the corner market and came home with raspberries, blueberries, and cherries; strawberries are still around, and I enjoy them, but I don't love them the way I love raspberries and I find them harder than blueberries to eat quickly enough.
Mid-week we made Smitten Kitchen's Strawberry Summer Sheet Cake to use up a whole heap of strawberries and froze most of the cake (*ritual but intensely heartfelt grumble about needing to eke it out in the name of sugar intake etc.*); the slices we took out to thaw this afternoon are the first previously-frozen ones, so we'll see how it does with this treatment.
Planning: It's been a good chunk of time since the last time we both took the day off to run errands on a weekday, so we're planning to do that in a couple of days. Apparently the day we've chosen is going to be a scorcher (which is a bit awkward since, while we've booked a car for the erranding, AC in vehicles usually nauseates me pretty badly but will be necessary so we don't completely melt. Here's hoping proactive gravol does the trick). (Could we do it another day? Well...yes. But the core inspiration for doing it at all is that there's a local ice creamery that does weekly feature flavors and has legendary lineups, and I've never actually had their ice cream and this week's flavor is lemon. Hopefully going midday on a weekday will mean the line isn't too horrendous when we go on lemon's final day in rotation.)
(no subject)
July 26th, 2025 08:00 amskygiantsThere are some books that I can't read until I've achieved a pleasing balance of people whose taste I trust who think the book is good, and people whose taste I trust who think the book is bad. This allows me to cleanse my heart and form my own opinion in perfect neutrality.
As it happened I hit this balance for The Ministry of Time some time ago, but then I still needed to take a while longer to read it because, unfortunately, I was cursed with the knowledge that a.) it was Terror fanfiction and b.) it was on Obama's 2024 summer reading list and c.) I had chanced across the phrase "Obama says RPF is fine" on Tumblr and could not look at the front cover of Ministry of Time without bursting into laughter. And I wanted to come to this book with a clear heart! an open mind! so I waited!
.... and then all of that waiting was in fact completely fruitless, I was never going to be able to come to this book with a clear heart and an open mind, because, Terror fanfiction aside, I'm like 99% sure that it's either a direct response to Kage Baker's Company series or Kaliane Bradley is possessed by Kage Baker's ghost. Welcome back, Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax! The mere fact that you're so much less annoying this time around means I'm grading on a huge curve!
Okay, so the central two figures of The Ministry of Time are our narrator -- a second-gen Cambodian-English government translator whose mother fled the Khmer Rouge, and who has gotten shuffled into a top-secret government project working with 'unusual refugees' -- and Polar Explorer Graham Gore Of The Doomed Franklin Expedition, who has been rescued from his miserable death on the ice and brought forward into the future by the aforementioned top-secret government project.
The project also includes a small handful of other time rescuees -- Graham Gore is the only actual factual historical figure, and frankly I think the book would be better if he wasn't, but that's a sidenote. Each time refugee gets a 'bridge' to live with them and help them acclimate; in Gore's case, that's our narrator. The first seventy to eighty percent of the book consists mostly of loving, detailed, funny descriptions of the narrator hanging out with the time refugees as they adapt to The Near Future, interspersed with a.) dark hints about the sinister nature of the project and the narrator's increasing isolation within it that she repeatedly apologizes to us for ignoring, b.) dark hints about the oncoming climate apocalypse, c.) reflections the narrator's relationship to her family history, and d.) intermittent bits of Terror fanfiction about Gore's Time On the Ice.
I do not think this part of the book is necessarily well-structured or paced, but I did have a great time with it. Does it feel fanfictional? Oh, yes. The infrastructure that surrounds this hypothetical government project is almost entirely nonexistent in order to conveniently allow the narrator long, uninterrupted stretches to attempt to introduce Graham Gore to various forms of pop music;genarti described it cruelly but perhaps accurately as "Avengers tower fanfic". But I like the thematic link between time travelers and refugees, and I like the jokes, and I like the thing Bradley is doing -- the thing Kage Baker does, that I am extremely weak to -- where just when you're lulled into enjoying the humor of anachronism and the sense of humanity's universal connection you run smack into an unexpected, uncrossable cultural gap and bruise your nose.
Now, this only ever happens with Gore, because Gore is the only one of the refugees who is a real person in several ways. Margaret (the seventeenth-century lesbian) and Arthur (the gay WWI officer) are likeable gay sidekicks, and then there's a seventeenth-century asshole whose name I've forgotten. At one point Arthur tosses off a mention to his commanding officer 'Owen who wrote poetry' and I nearly threw the book across the room. Have the courage of your convictions, Kaliane Bradley! None of these coy little hints, either do the work to kidnap Wilfred Owen and Margery Kempe from history or don't! But Gore is obsessively drawn and theorized and researched, because, of course, the whole book is largely about Being Obsessed With Gore, about interrogating why the narrator, a not-quite-white-passing brown woman from an immigrant family, has built her whole life around this sexy British naval officer turned time refugee, symbolic of the crimes and failures of empire in six or seven different directions. A bit navel-gazey, perhaps, but as a person who spent five books begging Kage Baker to think at all critically about the horrible British naval officer turned time refugee she'd built, I'm just like, 'well, thank God!'
And, again, for the five people who care, I cannot emphasize enough just how similar Gore is to Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax and yet miraculously how much less annoying. They both have a code of ethics formed by the loyal and genuine belief in the good work done by the British Imperial project (thematically and historically reasonable); a shocking level of natural charisma combined with various secret agent skills at weaponry, deception, strategy and theft (extremely funny, extra funny with Gore because as far as I can tell what we know about him From History is 'normal officer! popular guy!'); and -- such a specific detail to have in common! -- Big Sexy Nose That The Man In Question Is Really Self-Conscious About.
And both of them, of course, end up struggling to navigate their positionality in the Imperial machine, between government operative-with-agency and experimental-subject-with-none.
So that's the first seventy to eighty percent of the book, and then, in the last twenty to thirty percent of the book, the dark hints finally resolve into the actual plot, ( which is IMO successful in theme but completely goofy in actual detail )
As it happened I hit this balance for The Ministry of Time some time ago, but then I still needed to take a while longer to read it because, unfortunately, I was cursed with the knowledge that a.) it was Terror fanfiction and b.) it was on Obama's 2024 summer reading list and c.) I had chanced across the phrase "Obama says RPF is fine" on Tumblr and could not look at the front cover of Ministry of Time without bursting into laughter. And I wanted to come to this book with a clear heart! an open mind! so I waited!
.... and then all of that waiting was in fact completely fruitless, I was never going to be able to come to this book with a clear heart and an open mind, because, Terror fanfiction aside, I'm like 99% sure that it's either a direct response to Kage Baker's Company series or Kaliane Bradley is possessed by Kage Baker's ghost. Welcome back, Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax! The mere fact that you're so much less annoying this time around means I'm grading on a huge curve!
Okay, so the central two figures of The Ministry of Time are our narrator -- a second-gen Cambodian-English government translator whose mother fled the Khmer Rouge, and who has gotten shuffled into a top-secret government project working with 'unusual refugees' -- and Polar Explorer Graham Gore Of The Doomed Franklin Expedition, who has been rescued from his miserable death on the ice and brought forward into the future by the aforementioned top-secret government project.
The project also includes a small handful of other time rescuees -- Graham Gore is the only actual factual historical figure, and frankly I think the book would be better if he wasn't, but that's a sidenote. Each time refugee gets a 'bridge' to live with them and help them acclimate; in Gore's case, that's our narrator. The first seventy to eighty percent of the book consists mostly of loving, detailed, funny descriptions of the narrator hanging out with the time refugees as they adapt to The Near Future, interspersed with a.) dark hints about the sinister nature of the project and the narrator's increasing isolation within it that she repeatedly apologizes to us for ignoring, b.) dark hints about the oncoming climate apocalypse, c.) reflections the narrator's relationship to her family history, and d.) intermittent bits of Terror fanfiction about Gore's Time On the Ice.
I do not think this part of the book is necessarily well-structured or paced, but I did have a great time with it. Does it feel fanfictional? Oh, yes. The infrastructure that surrounds this hypothetical government project is almost entirely nonexistent in order to conveniently allow the narrator long, uninterrupted stretches to attempt to introduce Graham Gore to various forms of pop music;
genarti described it cruelly but perhaps accurately as "Avengers tower fanfic". But I like the thematic link between time travelers and refugees, and I like the jokes, and I like the thing Bradley is doing -- the thing Kage Baker does, that I am extremely weak to -- where just when you're lulled into enjoying the humor of anachronism and the sense of humanity's universal connection you run smack into an unexpected, uncrossable cultural gap and bruise your nose. Now, this only ever happens with Gore, because Gore is the only one of the refugees who is a real person in several ways. Margaret (the seventeenth-century lesbian) and Arthur (the gay WWI officer) are likeable gay sidekicks, and then there's a seventeenth-century asshole whose name I've forgotten. At one point Arthur tosses off a mention to his commanding officer 'Owen who wrote poetry' and I nearly threw the book across the room. Have the courage of your convictions, Kaliane Bradley! None of these coy little hints, either do the work to kidnap Wilfred Owen and Margery Kempe from history or don't! But Gore is obsessively drawn and theorized and researched, because, of course, the whole book is largely about Being Obsessed With Gore, about interrogating why the narrator, a not-quite-white-passing brown woman from an immigrant family, has built her whole life around this sexy British naval officer turned time refugee, symbolic of the crimes and failures of empire in six or seven different directions. A bit navel-gazey, perhaps, but as a person who spent five books begging Kage Baker to think at all critically about the horrible British naval officer turned time refugee she'd built, I'm just like, 'well, thank God!'
And, again, for the five people who care, I cannot emphasize enough just how similar Gore is to Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax and yet miraculously how much less annoying. They both have a code of ethics formed by the loyal and genuine belief in the good work done by the British Imperial project (thematically and historically reasonable); a shocking level of natural charisma combined with various secret agent skills at weaponry, deception, strategy and theft (extremely funny, extra funny with Gore because as far as I can tell what we know about him From History is 'normal officer! popular guy!'); and -- such a specific detail to have in common! -- Big Sexy Nose That The Man In Question Is Really Self-Conscious About.
And both of them, of course, end up struggling to navigate their positionality in the Imperial machine, between government operative-with-agency and experimental-subject-with-none.
So that's the first seventy to eighty percent of the book, and then, in the last twenty to thirty percent of the book, the dark hints finally resolve into the actual plot, ( which is IMO successful in theme but completely goofy in actual detail )
This looks amazing
July 26th, 2025 12:50 pmmaggie33And by this I mean another uncensored Chinese wuxia BL drama. Here is the trailer with English subs:
And here is MyDramaList page.
Swordfights and beautiful princes, protectiveness and obsessive love. And a possessive lover shouting: “I don’t care about anything! I only want one person!” Looks like my kind of messy, toxic and complicated OTT historical romance that China is so good at. Gimme. Apparently filming is already finished, but no news yet when and where it will air.
And here is MyDramaList page.
Swordfights and beautiful princes, protectiveness and obsessive love. And a possessive lover shouting: “I don’t care about anything! I only want one person!” Looks like my kind of messy, toxic and complicated OTT historical romance that China is so good at. Gimme. Apparently filming is already finished, but no news yet when and where it will air.
Robert Silverberg, "Dying Inside" (1972)
July 26th, 2025 09:44 amnarahtPicked this up because I kept seeing it being described as literary SF – with that classic complaint, "no plot, hated the protagonist," that often signals a novel that may interest me. It's the tale of a depressed, isolated telepath in New York City in the early 70s who's gradually losing his powers as he enters his forties.
A reviewer on Reddit dismissed the novel as a clumsy metaphor for impotence. Having read it, and read a little about Silverberg's career – he had been churning out multiple novels per year before temporarily deciding to retire from writing in 1975 – I'm now 95% convinced that it's in fact a slightly less clumsy metaphor for the retreat of literary inspiration. Which makes it somewhat more interesting. Isn't fiction really, in some ways, based on the ability to see into other people's minds?
Not a great novel, but it has its moments. Very much of its period and setting, in both the good ways and the bad ways.
A reviewer on Reddit dismissed the novel as a clumsy metaphor for impotence. Having read it, and read a little about Silverberg's career – he had been churning out multiple novels per year before temporarily deciding to retire from writing in 1975 – I'm now 95% convinced that it's in fact a slightly less clumsy metaphor for the retreat of literary inspiration. Which makes it somewhat more interesting. Isn't fiction really, in some ways, based on the ability to see into other people's minds?
Not a great novel, but it has its moments. Very much of its period and setting, in both the good ways and the bad ways.
A handful of recent books
July 26th, 2025 02:00 amgenartiI've read various books recently that I have a lot of thoughts about, and want to write up as they deserve. (A Letter to the Luminous Deep, Alien Clay, and The Ministry of Time are currently clamoring loudest.) In the meantime, though, here are some recent reads that I managed to be less longwinded about!
( 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff )
( The Twelve Chairs, by Ilf and Petrov, translated by Anne O. Fisher )
( The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington )
( Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn )
( 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff )
( The Twelve Chairs, by Ilf and Petrov, translated by Anne O. Fisher )
( The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington )
( Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn )
Dramas, movies, and bad weather
July 24th, 2025 03:40 pmmaggie33Weather here is so annoying. Either it is so windy that it almost tears your head off. Or it’s too hot and humid. Or there are storms. Can we just have a normal gentle summer with none of these things, pretty please.
On account of this stupid weather and impossibility of being outside for too long I lately went to the movies twice. It’s not Warsaw and there’s not a lot of choice here when it comes to watching movies at the theatre, so I saw two latest summer blockbusters.
I like Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali a lot, so I expected to like Jurassic World: Rebirth at least a little bit. Surprisingly I enjoyed it a lot. I liked that there was no romance between Scarlett Johansson’s character and Jonathan Bailey’s character. I liked that a tough, disillusioned mercenary was a woman and a sensitive scientist was a man, because even 10-15 years ago characters’ genders for these two parts would be reversed. I liked ( this spoiler ) a lot, too.
In contrast I was expecting to love Superman, since I read many positive opinions about this movie, and it was just meh for me.
I watch one more movie lately, this one at home. A few weeks agoaurumcalendula mentioned Korean movie available on VIKI called Phantom. She wrote that “it's one of the many adaptations of The Message and the most actiony and texually queer of them.” It piqued my interest, so I checked MyDramaList page, read the summary, saw Honey Lee’s name, and thought ‘ok, now I have to see it.’ 😊 The movie is set in 1933, during the Japanese colonization of Korea, and Honey Lee’s character is a spy for the anti-Japanese resistance.
But first I found out that of course the movie is not available in my region on VIKI, so I had to look for another source. But I’m so glad I did it, because this movie is very good, and I liked it a lot. It’s also dark and violent, so I had to watch it in two parts. But it was worth it. Honey Lee was amazing, Park So Dam was so amazing, too.
And now let’s talk about dramas.
Love Is for the Dogs
It’s a new Japanese drama about a talented lawyer Hanamura Aiko, who lost faith in romance and love and enjoys her single life with her recently adopted dog Sakura, and about the director of a 24-hour animal hospital Shirosaki Kai, who lives with his adorable dog Shogun – a stray dog he rescued after it was brought to his hospital a year ago. The third main character is a young Korean man from a very rich family, who came to Japan with a secret mission relating to Shogun.
After watching three available episodes (it’s on VIKI) my main reaction was like that: cute doggies! And potential M/M/F OT3! YAY!!! That second thing rather certainly not in canon, just in subtext, but I’ll take it. 😊
But look at these two four-legged cuties:
The white fluffy one is Shogun, the small black one is Sakura.
Memoir of Rati
I’m happy, because it’s very good. I’m trying to prime myself for eventual unhappy ending, but for now I’m enjoying all the longing and pining, and sweetness so much.
And I love Thee and Rati, they are adorable together. And Great and Inn are both wonderful. But Aou and Boom as Mek and Dech own my heart.
“What good could that do for me, sir? You are kind enough to not get me into trouble for hitting you, and now you’re going to teach me French. You are a literal angel to me, sir.”
And you can see Dech just melting, his angry, frowny pout changing into awe and pleasure. And he gets all shy smiles and a dropped gaze. It’s adorable. And Mek saying: “You love being praised, don’t you?” gets me good, too. I was never that much into praise kink. But I might be a little bit into it here. 😊
Also I love that during that scene Mek is on the bench, and Dech is sitting on the mat, so he has to look up at Mek. It’s like a complete reversal of their status, since in this era in Siam servants always sit on the floor when serving their masters.
And then we have another adorable scene with Dech demanding that Mek uses his name instead of a title, since they’re friends now. He tells Mek to call him Ai'Dech, and when Mek almost instantly does just that, this tiny soft and pleased smile spreads on Dech’s face. Aww, these two… ❤️ I love them to pieces. And I’m trying not to think about there being a very slim possibility of the happy ending for them. I can maybe see the happy ending for Rati and Thee. Like they could go to France and live there for instance. But what can Mek and Dech do?
Doctor’s Mine
It’s a new Thai BL drama with Mon and Pak. And I don’t know, I found the first episode pretty meh. Mon and Pak are hot together, so, so hot, they are burning up the screen. But I need something more than just good chemistry and NC scenes (even if these NC scenes are scorching hot) to continue watching a drama.
Apparently the creators said something about “going back to basics” with this BL drama. And it seems they meant it. Because wow, it felt like I time traveled 6 or 7 years back, and was watching a cliched university BL in 2019 with all those annoying outdated tropes - with constant ‘wife’ language, and with cheating on one’s girlfriend, but it’s totally fine, you see, because the girlfriend is an awful person and a cheater, too.
Add to that the English subtitles being quite bad (I saw many opinions that Gaga and IQIYI’s subtitles are worse and worse lately, and at least for Gaga that is unfortunately true), and me not caring for the other main couple at all, and eh, I probably won’t watch more. Or I might just watch only Mon and Pak’s scenes and fast-forward through all the rest. Because I really love Mon and Pak, and I so wanted to see them as the main couple after Two Worlds. Ok, they had Mission to the Moon recently, and I did watch it all just for them, but it certainly wasn’t very good. And I want to watch them as the main couple in a good drama. Doctor’s Mine probably won’t be that drama, but who knows, I might be pleasantly surprised. 😊
On account of this stupid weather and impossibility of being outside for too long I lately went to the movies twice. It’s not Warsaw and there’s not a lot of choice here when it comes to watching movies at the theatre, so I saw two latest summer blockbusters.
I like Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali a lot, so I expected to like Jurassic World: Rebirth at least a little bit. Surprisingly I enjoyed it a lot. I liked that there was no romance between Scarlett Johansson’s character and Jonathan Bailey’s character. I liked that a tough, disillusioned mercenary was a woman and a sensitive scientist was a man, because even 10-15 years ago characters’ genders for these two parts would be reversed. I liked ( this spoiler ) a lot, too.
In contrast I was expecting to love Superman, since I read many positive opinions about this movie, and it was just meh for me.
I watch one more movie lately, this one at home. A few weeks ago
aurumcalendula mentioned Korean movie available on VIKI called Phantom. She wrote that “it's one of the many adaptations of The Message and the most actiony and texually queer of them.” It piqued my interest, so I checked MyDramaList page, read the summary, saw Honey Lee’s name, and thought ‘ok, now I have to see it.’ 😊 The movie is set in 1933, during the Japanese colonization of Korea, and Honey Lee’s character is a spy for the anti-Japanese resistance.But first I found out that of course the movie is not available in my region on VIKI, so I had to look for another source. But I’m so glad I did it, because this movie is very good, and I liked it a lot. It’s also dark and violent, so I had to watch it in two parts. But it was worth it. Honey Lee was amazing, Park So Dam was so amazing, too.
These spoilers are also amazing.
Honey Lee’s character is a lesbian, who loses her lover, after her lover is killed during an unsuccessful attempt on the life of a new Japanese governor. Park So Dam plays a secretary of a powerful man, with a secret of her own. She and Honey Lee have great chemistry. And their characters both survive the movie and continue fighting together for Korea’s independence. You can very easily headcanon them becoming more than friends, too. At least I absolutely did. 😊And now let’s talk about dramas.
Love Is for the Dogs
It’s a new Japanese drama about a talented lawyer Hanamura Aiko, who lost faith in romance and love and enjoys her single life with her recently adopted dog Sakura, and about the director of a 24-hour animal hospital Shirosaki Kai, who lives with his adorable dog Shogun – a stray dog he rescued after it was brought to his hospital a year ago. The third main character is a young Korean man from a very rich family, who came to Japan with a secret mission relating to Shogun.
After watching three available episodes (it’s on VIKI) my main reaction was like that: cute doggies! And potential M/M/F OT3! YAY!!! That second thing rather certainly not in canon, just in subtext, but I’ll take it. 😊
But look at these two four-legged cuties:
The white fluffy one is Shogun, the small black one is Sakura.
Memoir of Rati
I’m happy, because it’s very good. I’m trying to prime myself for eventual unhappy ending, but for now I’m enjoying all the longing and pining, and sweetness so much.
And I love Thee and Rati, they are adorable together. And Great and Inn are both wonderful. But Aou and Boom as Mek and Dech own my heart.
Spoilers for episode 5 here.
Ahhh, that scene when Mek teaches Dech Muay, and Dech is so disgruntled because Mek knocked him on his ass so quickly. He accuses Mek of playing a prank on him, and Mek says sincerely:“What good could that do for me, sir? You are kind enough to not get me into trouble for hitting you, and now you’re going to teach me French. You are a literal angel to me, sir.”
And you can see Dech just melting, his angry, frowny pout changing into awe and pleasure. And he gets all shy smiles and a dropped gaze. It’s adorable. And Mek saying: “You love being praised, don’t you?” gets me good, too. I was never that much into praise kink. But I might be a little bit into it here. 😊
Also I love that during that scene Mek is on the bench, and Dech is sitting on the mat, so he has to look up at Mek. It’s like a complete reversal of their status, since in this era in Siam servants always sit on the floor when serving their masters.
And then we have another adorable scene with Dech demanding that Mek uses his name instead of a title, since they’re friends now. He tells Mek to call him Ai'Dech, and when Mek almost instantly does just that, this tiny soft and pleased smile spreads on Dech’s face. Aww, these two… ❤️ I love them to pieces. And I’m trying not to think about there being a very slim possibility of the happy ending for them. I can maybe see the happy ending for Rati and Thee. Like they could go to France and live there for instance. But what can Mek and Dech do?
Doctor’s Mine
It’s a new Thai BL drama with Mon and Pak. And I don’t know, I found the first episode pretty meh. Mon and Pak are hot together, so, so hot, they are burning up the screen. But I need something more than just good chemistry and NC scenes (even if these NC scenes are scorching hot) to continue watching a drama.
Apparently the creators said something about “going back to basics” with this BL drama. And it seems they meant it. Because wow, it felt like I time traveled 6 or 7 years back, and was watching a cliched university BL in 2019 with all those annoying outdated tropes - with constant ‘wife’ language, and with cheating on one’s girlfriend, but it’s totally fine, you see, because the girlfriend is an awful person and a cheater, too.
Add to that the English subtitles being quite bad (I saw many opinions that Gaga and IQIYI’s subtitles are worse and worse lately, and at least for Gaga that is unfortunately true), and me not caring for the other main couple at all, and eh, I probably won’t watch more. Or I might just watch only Mon and Pak’s scenes and fast-forward through all the rest. Because I really love Mon and Pak, and I so wanted to see them as the main couple after Two Worlds. Ok, they had Mission to the Moon recently, and I did watch it all just for them, but it certainly wasn’t very good. And I want to watch them as the main couple in a good drama. Doctor’s Mine probably won’t be that drama, but who knows, I might be pleasantly surprised. 😊
Meme
July 24th, 2025 07:42 amused_songsMeme stolen from dine
Last song I listened to: B-Boys Makin with the Freak - Beastie Boys (When I started this. Now, as I finish it, it's Hank Williams and the Drifting Cowboys' I Saw the Light)
Favorite color: Purple. Then dark green and black.
Currently watching: The last thing I watched was about 5 minutes of Astrid on the PBS app this morning.
Last movie: One of the Hunger Games movies was on while I was reading. E was watching it.
Currently reading: The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily Bender
Coffee or tea: COFFEE! I like tea a lot, but I NEED coffee.
Sweet/savory/spicy: Spicy
Relationship status: Married (until they outlaw gay marriage again)
Looking forward to: If I'm honest, it's hard to look forward to anything right now. I guess I'm looking forward to little stuff like DC coming over again Friday, sending some Postcrossing cards, making stuff ... someday I would like to travel again.
Current obsessions: AI, the new job, Ted Lasso (I finished seasons 1-3 and am now hips deep in the subreddit, Stephen Graham Jones (Buffalo Hunter Hunter), and going to bookstores.
Last Googled: 3I/ATLAS - Someone here posted a link to this story and I thought there might be the potential for a fic in it, so I did some googling. It's going in the idea file.
Last thing you ate and really enjoyed: E's vegan stew from last night
Currently working on: Replacing several light fixtures downstairs and looking for an idea that will inspire sriting.
dine Last song I listened to: B-Boys Makin with the Freak - Beastie Boys (When I started this. Now, as I finish it, it's Hank Williams and the Drifting Cowboys' I Saw the Light)
Favorite color: Purple. Then dark green and black.
Currently watching: The last thing I watched was about 5 minutes of Astrid on the PBS app this morning.
Last movie: One of the Hunger Games movies was on while I was reading. E was watching it.
Currently reading: The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily Bender
Coffee or tea: COFFEE! I like tea a lot, but I NEED coffee.
Sweet/savory/spicy: Spicy
Relationship status: Married (until they outlaw gay marriage again)
Looking forward to: If I'm honest, it's hard to look forward to anything right now. I guess I'm looking forward to little stuff like DC coming over again Friday, sending some Postcrossing cards, making stuff ... someday I would like to travel again.
Current obsessions: AI, the new job, Ted Lasso (I finished seasons 1-3 and am now hips deep in the subreddit, Stephen Graham Jones (Buffalo Hunter Hunter), and going to bookstores.
Last Googled: 3I/ATLAS - Someone here posted a link to this story and I thought there might be the potential for a fic in it, so I did some googling. It's going in the idea file.
Last thing you ate and really enjoyed: E's vegan stew from last night
Currently working on: Replacing several light fixtures downstairs and looking for an idea that will inspire sriting.
(no subject)
July 23rd, 2025 12:19 pmtaelleI'm doing the Duolingo Yiddish course - and some German to help me along. It's so fascinating to look at various influences on Yiddish - it looks like German and then you see some recognizably Russian/Slavic things, and I think I already learned to recognize the Hebrew ones.
But mostly I keep thinking about my grandmother whose native language it was. No, she did not teach me any of it, and she would have been surprised to learn that someone still speaks it, and yet... it is a link.
And they have a recognizable song quote as a grammar exercise (bai mir bistu shein).
But mostly I keep thinking about my grandmother whose native language it was. No, she did not teach me any of it, and she would have been surprised to learn that someone still speaks it, and yet... it is a link.
And they have a recognizable song quote as a grammar exercise (bai mir bistu shein).
Reading Wednesday
July 23rd, 2025 12:09 amtroisoiseauxFinished Dune! (At least technically; I listened to the last couple of hours on a late flight and suspect I may have dozed off at points? That, or there are some weird time skips, which I also can't discount because there were previously some weird time skips even when I was paying attention— look, I know I've been referring to Paul as Space Jesus, but I really didn't expect an actual resurrection.) My biggest takeaway is that there are fascinating (in a bewildered-to-derogatory sense) things going on in this book, gender-wise: Frank Herbert has written this all-powerful order of, like, magical female Freemasons, and Paul's whole thing is that he's the one (1) guy who can achieve (and surpass/perfect?) their exclusively "feminine" powers, but also I feel like the narrative just has such contempt for the handful of women in it, except maybe Alia...?
Finished The Angel Experiment - book one of James Patterson's YA series about Maximum "Max" Ride, a teenage avian-human hybrid on the run from mad scientists and also her destiny to Save The World - and ended up reading the equally if not even more batshit sequel, School's Out Forever. The School is the laboratory where Max and the rest of her "flock" were created and spent the first two to ten years of their lives as twisted science experiments (!); Patterson apparently really likes the "school's out" joke because he used it in the first book, too, although this one does also feature an actual school, as they are briefly fostered by an FBI agent and face their greatest challenge yet: being Normal Kids. (This is immediately replaced by other, bigger challenges, such as the whole "running for their lives" thing, but does leave me with two nickels re: YA novels from 2006 which inexplicably spends page time on sending its super-spy/superpowered teenage girl protagonist on a Normal Date with a Normal Boy.)
( Highlights )
Currently (re-)reading The Far Side of the World by Patrick O'Brian, which so far is the second book I've read this year to feature extensive info-dumping about the 19th century whaling industry. Also started reading The Book of Love by Kelly Link; I'm only a few chapters in but it's already breathtakingly good.
Finished The Angel Experiment - book one of James Patterson's YA series about Maximum "Max" Ride, a teenage avian-human hybrid on the run from mad scientists and also her destiny to Save The World - and ended up reading the equally if not even more batshit sequel, School's Out Forever. The School is the laboratory where Max and the rest of her "flock" were created and spent the first two to ten years of their lives as twisted science experiments (!); Patterson apparently really likes the "school's out" joke because he used it in the first book, too, although this one does also feature an actual school, as they are briefly fostered by an FBI agent and face their greatest challenge yet: being Normal Kids. (This is immediately replaced by other, bigger challenges, such as the whole "running for their lives" thing, but does leave me with two nickels re: YA novels from 2006 which inexplicably spends page time on sending its super-spy/superpowered teenage girl protagonist on a Normal Date with a Normal Boy.)
( Highlights )
Currently (re-)reading The Far Side of the World by Patrick O'Brian, which so far is the second book I've read this year to feature extensive info-dumping about the 19th century whaling industry. Also started reading The Book of Love by Kelly Link; I'm only a few chapters in but it's already breathtakingly good.