Boys Don't Cry and Wyrmeweald: Returners Wealth

A couple of books I have read recently.

Boys Don't Cry by Malorie Blackman
This was a good story about a 17 year old suddenly having fatherhood thrust upon him.  There were some inaccuracies about baby feeding which annoyed me. Fair enough to have them in the book but please please include a footnote giving correct information.

There was a coming out subplot which I take umbrage at. The character concerned gets beaten nearly to death by his closeted boyfriend. Coming out stories are important and they do have a place, but I am sick of reading ones that portray being queer as danferous, depressing, miserable, full of struggles and fighting the system/your parents/your peers. I would like to read ones written as a coming of age story like straight people get. Being queer isn't always horrible, and it won't get less horrible if people only read stories that paint queerness as difficult.

I think Blackman is straight and I imagine she thought she was being really sensitive and writing a thoughtful book. It's just that as a queer teen in the 90s all we bloody had were painful coming out stories. That's all anyone ever knew. I'd hope we had moved on by now.

Wrymeweald by Stewart and Riddle
This was better.  It's frontier fantasy woth dragons but the dragons come in all shapes and sizes and comprise most of the fauna in the area where the story is based.  They are hunted for pelts and meat and only one type bonds with humans. It was a different sort of fantasy read and I'm glad i read it but I'm not too fussed about reading anymore.

I am currently in the middle of reading Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu. An American high school girl gets really pissed off with the sexist shit at her school and anonymously starts a zine called Moxie. She is inspired by the Riot Grrl movement. It's pretty good so far.

Riots not Diets folks. 

Hekla's children

I read another book. In just over 24 hours. I am full of the joy of reading again, it's just ace.

The book was Hekla's Children by James Brogdan. Started off as a thriller, seguing into a supernatural book. It contained mythology, or created it's own, whichever way you want to see it and had a very satisfying end. The women were real and central to the plot.  I very very much enjoyed it.

To follow this I am reading War for the Oaks by Emma Bull. It's urban fantasy. A rock n roll musician gets drafted into a war between the Seelie and Unseelie courts. I find books about music uncomfortable and beguiling. As a teenager my obsession was music and I knew a lot about the punk/metal/indie scene of the 90s.  But books about music can be embarassing. I feel like the two creative mediums shouldn't crossover. This book however is alright. The music bits work and don't make me cringe. At least with fairies there is a historical association with music which is explored here. I'm enjoying the fantasy aspects and our key fairy character too. 

Books and comics

Recently I have read a few more books - the Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and two Tiffany Aching Discworld books (spoilers for the final Discworld book - A Shepherd's Crown).  I have also read a few comics.

Further adventures in reading (or reading about adventures)

I had a think about what comics I'm buying and what I'm getting from them and I decided to cancel Bombshells.  The last 6 or 8 issues have been truly hard work. Typically, I cancel it, then get home and read #29 where Supergirl and Lois meet and it's love at first sight, and Superman is introduced in a 1930s strong man suit:

What a fabulous design!  However I must remind myself that queering Kara and Lois and redesigning Supes is not enough to keep me reading, and spending money.  I think I have 4 issues left to pick up and then I'm done with this.

My pull list is now

Supergirl
Superwoman
Wonder Woman
Bitch Planet
Black Magick
Princeless

The DC titles aren't doing much for me so are likely to get cancelled.  Bitch Planet, Black Magick and Princeless come out sporadically.  I think I'd like to read standalone mini series, or non superhero stuff.  I think I'd also like to read more independent stuff.  I know I want to catch up on Clockwork Watch, Jennie Gyllblad's other work and Magic of Myths.  I think the Cinebook titles would be good to revisit too.  I know I am not interested in reading Saga or any Image stuff that was hyped up and popular about 4 years ago.  Right now I can't remember any other publishing houses.

Please give me your recommendations.  I think superheros are off the menu for now, I've read far too many superhero stories and it's the same things over and over and over.  I need a break from them.

I have been reading more books recently.  The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Society was great fun. Whimiscal and humourous with a good insight into Nazi occupied Guernsey.  I didn't know the Germans took over Guernsey.  It was awful.  The protagonist was immensely likeable and the book felt filled with affection and love.  I liked that.

I also read Beauty Queens by Libba Bray,  It's a female Lord of the Flies.  Where Lord of the Flies is an examination of toxic masculinity, and therefore a book for and about boys as women really do not need to be told about how shit masculinity is, Beauty Queens is about femininity and the patriarchy and how women are constrained in society.  It turns out very differently to Lord of the Flies, because women and men are different and society shapes them differently.  There are different pressures and expectations and when men are taken out from the rest of society they continue to live by the rules that benefit them, but when women are taken out from society they break free of the rules that constrain them and can grow in themselves.  It's bloody brilliant.  And it examines the kyriarchy and it's intersectional.  If Lord of the Flies is still a required text in schools then Beauty Queens should be too.  I had no interest in Lord of the Flies when I was meant to read it, because it was obviously so unrelated to me and my daily life.  Beauty Queens would have been perfect for me to read.

I have also read the Uglies series by Scott Westerfield.  It's a future dystopia where all citizens undergo extensive surgery at age 16 to become pretty, so that no one suffers from being less attractive than anyone else and life becomes fairer and more pleasurable for anyone.  There's 4 books in the series.  Uglies deals with the teenagers pre-surgery and those who reject the surgery and choose to run away from the city.  Pretties is about the recently turned pretty teens and their fight to break through the programming to make them docile and compliant.  Specials is about the secret police force with enhanced skills and the final book, Extras, is post the revolution when the the government systems have broken down and no one need undergo the surgery anymore.  The series looks at environmentalism, the destruction of the planet that we are doing now, the need to connect with nature and what how nature gives us healthy minds, social media and our dependence on it, self esteem, free will, and of course the morality around aspiring to beauty.  I think this should be recommended reading for teenagers too.

Reading books and loving them.

This week I started and finished! reading Naomi Novik's Uprooted.  It's really really good.  It's so good I stayed up till ten past midnight finishing it.  I haven't stayed up late reading in literally years. I'd guess at in over 3 years.  I had been told Uprooted is a YA novel.  Not from my reading it's not.  It's got a 17 year old protagonist/heroine, but that's because it's a fantasy book and certain types of fantasy books follow strict structures, it doesn't make it a YA book.  This book does follow fantasy tropes, but it doesn't come across as repeating a hundred other stories.

It is wonderfully written, the prose isn't clever or complex, or basic, but it flows and it engages and it got it's hooks into me and I just wanted to keep on and keep on reading it.  I'm aware this is a pretty terrible review and I'm uttering blithe praise, but that's because it's been ages since I wrote about something, and tbh, I enjoyed it too much to sit and analyse it.

I hear it's being turned into a film.  Reading it, I realised why I won't like film adaptations.  They cannot replicate the prose and the pleasure of reading.  The story is great, sure, it will probably look very epic and magical on screen, but they will lose the sense of character and homeliness and everydayness that the book gives you, through the writing.  Books give you so much more a film ever can.  I won't see it, but I will press the book on everyone I think might enjoy it.

Ash by Malinda Lo

I accidentally found this really good book 2 weeks ago.  I like it when that happens.  It is called Ash, by Malinda Lo. It's a young adult book and I picked it because it had an LGBT sticker on the spine, and it said it was about fairies (the magical sort, not the gay sort).

It turns out to be a fairy tale, about fairy tales, a version of Cinderalla, about love and what it can do for us, and about the fairy world and human world interwtining.  It's a young adult book, which when I'm feeling run down is my favourite sort of book.  It was really really enjoyable.  It's been months and months since I last read, enjoyed and had the patience to read a book and it feels good.

Next up is Dhalgreen by Samuel R Delany.  Also chosen for it's LGBT sticker.  Let's hope it's as easy a read.  if it's not, I just won't finish it.

They had stickers on because they are library books. Support your local libraries people.

Get to know me questions

I'm bored and found this on tumblr so thought I'd do it here.  Cross channel memes, yeah.

1. If someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

Read - the Discworld books, particularly the witch and watch ones.  Supergirl: Many Happy Returns.  Elizabeth McCracken's An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination.  Alternatively, they could read this blog and New readers...start here!.

Watch - the Buffy telly show.  Listen to - 90s britpop, metal and punk albums, with a dash of Shampoo, 5ive and Steps.

2. Have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you?  if so, who?

No, but some of Terry Pratchett's creations make total utter sense to me - Granny Weatherwax and Vimes in particular.

3. List your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with.

Discworld - Granny Weatherwax

DC comics - Linda Danvers Supergirl

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Tara

4. Do you like your name?  is there another name you think would fit you better?

I like my online name, I think it suits me just right.

5. Do you think of yourself as a human being or a human doing? do you identify yourself by the things you do?

Wanky question.  Human being.  I identify myself by the things I am.

6. Are you religious/spiritual?

Not any more.

7. Do you care about your ethnicity?

I'm white.  No I don't care about it, I don;t need to care about it, I live in the UK and being white affords me the privilege to not have to care about it.

8.   What musical artists have you felt most connected to over your lifetime? 

Manic Street Preachers and the Wildhearts.

9. Are you artist?

I can do some origami and some crafty stuff.  I can put together costumes, following tutorials, but I don't think that makes me an artist.

10. Do you have a creed?

No

11. Describe your ideal day.

12. Dog person or cat person?

Kitties all the way.

13. inside or outdoors?

Both.  The home comforts of indoors with the freedom to go outdoors whenever I like.

14. Are you a musician?

Hell no.

15.  Five most influential books over your lifetime.

The Discworld series.  All 30 plus of them.

16. If  you’d grown up in a different environment, do you think you’d have turned out the same?

Nope.

17. Would you say your tumblr is a fair representation of the “real you”?

Nope, my tumblr is just comic stuff that makes me happy.  My blog isn't all me either, it's what I choose to write about and put on here, but that's not all I am.

18. What's your patronus?

I found this definition of a patronus: The Patronus Charm is difficult, and many witches and wizards are unable to produce a full, corporeal Patronus, a guardian which generally takes the shape of the animal with whom they share the deepest affinity.

I have no idea what my patronus would be.  Something that likes pretty things but doesn't really exist, I guess.

19. Which Harry Potter house would you be in? or are you a muggle?
Hufflepuff - values hard work, patience, loyalty and fair play.

20. Would you rather be in Middle Earth, Narnia, Hogwarts, or somewhere else?
Of the list, Narnia.  Elsewhere, the Discworld.  I would like a world with narrativium.

21. Do you love easily?
No.

22. List the top five things you spend the most time doing, in order.
Checking for movements.
Thinking about my babies.
Thinking about my partner.
Thinking about my next set of appointments.
Thinking about my physical state.

23. How often would you want to see your family every year?
Discounting my partner and kids, I can happily see family just every few months, with a bit of contact over phone, email or skype between that.

24.  Have you ever felt like you had a “mind-meld” with someone?
Don't be ridiculous.

25. Could you live as a hermit?
With adequate maternity care, yes.  So perhaps I mean no.

26.  How would you describe your gender/sexuality?
Gender - female, but had my life gone a different way I can see how I would have become more masculine identified, but never male identified.
Sexuality - bisexual.

27. Do you feel like your outside appearance is a fair representation of the “real you”?
Well, I'm very visibly pregnant now so I look like a mother, so yeah, I guess?

28. On a scale from 1 to 10, how hard is it for someone to get under your skin?
Very, very easily.  I'm a moody bastard.

29. Three songs that you connect with right now.
I am not connecting with any songs right now.

30. Pick one of your favourite quotes.

"...And that's what your holy men discuss, is it?" [asked Granny Weatherwax.]"Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin. for example." [answered Mightily Oats.]"And what do they think? Against it, are they?""It's not as simple as that. It's not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.""Nope.""Pardon?""There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.""It's a lot more complicated than that--""No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts.""Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes--""But they starts with thinking about people as things..."--from Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett.

Ten characters from literature

My old podcast mate, @feemcbee for you twitterers, put up a tumblr post listing ten characters from literature she's in love with.  So I decided to do the same.  I came up with six and then got stumped:

Superman
Black Canary
Green Arrow
Susan Sto Helit
Young Granny Weatherwax
Wonder Woman

I don't know who else I'd put on there.  Granny and Green Arrow are there because I like cocky bastards. Canary, Susan and Wondy I'm in awe of.  And Supes is, well he's Supes.  Who isn't a little in love in with him?  My first thought on seeing this list, was yeesh, I'm so gay.  Except I'm obviously not and then a little while later I thought ooh this could be seen as bi erasure by the self and then I started snoring because conversations like that bore me senseless nowadays.

Fee and I decided that comics totally count as literature.

Who would be on your list?

A few pages from Carpe Juggulum

The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon

I just finished reading books 2 and 3 of the Deed of Paksenarrion.  I found the first book (Sheepfarmer's Daughter) several years ago and really enjoyed it, as it's a female led military fantasy story.  The magic is few and far between and most of the book is about Paksennarion's military career, which consists of her joining a company of soldiers and getting trained up to private level.

Paks isn't a supremely talented soldier, she's good because she trains hard.  She's not the most popular in the company.  She's ordinary.  I liked this.  She's not the only woman there either.  If I remember correctly there is one scene where she's nearly raped, but the important thing is that it's not gratiutious and it's told from Paks' point of view. It's about her.  She's also in a relationship with another woman, without any fuss being made of it.  I like that too.

In the second book (Divided Allegiance), Pak's leaves the company because she's uncomfortable with the work they are hired to do, there's too much cruelty for her taste.  She agonises over what to do, because her life is with the company and she respects their leader, the Duke.  She gets permission to leave, and sets out on her own, encounters some elves, nearly gets killed, and ends up training to be a Girdsman.  Things go wrong, she gets tortured (but it's not sexual) she loses her courage, and leaves the safety of the Girdsman's Grange in search of work.  She remains her ordinary self and slowly recovers.

I like the ordinariness of her.  I like that these books are so focused on the military life, they feel grounded.  It's a good change from fluffy fantasy stories where the hero is a man and is destined to become the greatest in the land.  That's boring to me now.

The third book (Oath of Gold) falls down a bit for me, because by this time Paks has become a Paladin, an instrument of the Gods with special powers, and she is no longer ordinary, she even speaks differently.  So the appeal (for me) is lost a bit.  Nonetheless I finished it and enjoyed it, mostly.

I've just found out there are more books in Paks' world but gods almighty that is no an easy website to understand.  The wikipedia page is much more useful.  Interestingly, the wiki page includes the following information provided by Moon on the development and basic ideas for the series:

"Source material, as well as inspiration, for the Paksenarrion books might be of interest to some.  The various legal systems are taken from the following:

F. S. Lear's Treason in Roman and Germanic Law (specifically for the dwarf and gnome races), K. F. Drew's The Lombard Laws and The Burgundian Code, and other sources on medieval law, including a difficult-to-find translation of the Visigothic Code by A. Wilhelmsen.

The development of the Code of Gird derives from the development of "barbarian" legal codes adapting Roman Law, shifts in English law during and after the Norman Conquest, and the development of "human rights-based" changes in law in and following the Enlightenment.

Different city-states and nation-states were given different "balances" of the source material. Military history sources for both military science and military psychology included Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, Caesar, and other classical sources, Conan Doyle's novel The White Company, Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, Sherman's Memoirs, and many others.

Village life and crafts, in outline and detail, are taken from multiple sources on medieval/early Renaissance crafts and life, including the Surtees Society's collection of historical sources for that period.

Further influences on the social and political aspects came from cultural anthropology sources. Historical sources suggesting the development of a paladin character ranged from Xenophon and Caesar (on the military side) and Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch (for both military and general character consideration) to the "Chanson de Roland" and the Grail legends, with side journeys into other cultures (Scandinavian, Amerindian, Islamic).

The history of Christianity and especially the incorporation of local heroes into "saint" roles (Joan of Arc in France, others in many other Catholic countries) provided historical background for development of Paksenarrion, Gird, and other hero-saints in that fictional universe.

The inspiration for "doing a paladin right" was the definition of paladin outlined in the D&D game; the specific character of Paksenarrion derived from historical figures (including Joan of Arc) and a mix of individuals known to the author.

The specific character of Gird-farmer had roots in historical and fictional accounts of peasant/slave/worker uprisings; Gird-legend shared characteristics of several legendary (mythical and fictional) folk and religious heroes.

Questions explored in the books include the nature of the military mind, the character of the good soldier and the good commander, the essential characteristics of a hero and a paladin, the potential conflicts between what it takes to be a good soldier and what it takes to be a great hero, relationship between a paladin and his/her co-religionists (clergy, laity) and between a paladin and those not of the same belief, the source of a paladin's "commission" (e.g., who decides that someone is a paladin? how is that marked?), the essential characteristics of a hero-saint, the internal characteristics and outward influences that shape a hero-saint's actions and effects, the ways that subsequent generations redefine the meaning of earlier events and how that interpretation influences their actions."

I like that Moon has been so thorough in her research.  I think I might try and pick up some of the other books in Paks world.

Is it worth reading any of Moon's sci-fi stories?

Fearsome journeys

I finished another thing on my to do list.  Yes, I know it's horribly anal of me to have a to-do list for things that should be fun but I need some order in my life right now.

This thing that I finished is the book Fearsome Journeys: The new Solaris book of fantasy.  It's full of short stories (novellas?) by a range of fantasy writers. Some were great, some were OK, some were bloody awful.  The good ones were:

• The Dragonslayer of Merebarton by KJ Parker - this an irreverent dragon killing story, by someone who seems to consider it an inconvenience.
• Leaf and branch and grass and vine by Kate Elliott - this has a very serious, quiet tone to it. It's about a woman in a war torn country, living in a rural area terrorised by the King's defenders. She finds a good man, General Ollivar and takes him to safety,  I think one of the characters is trans, but gender identity isn't an important plot point. 
• Spirits of Salt - a take of the Coral heart by Jeffrey Ford - this got interesting towards the end, when the coral aspect got clearer,  I think I liked it more for the idea than the actual story though.
• Forever People by Robert V S Redick - I love this one.  It's about motherhood and what you'll do for your sons, and grief, and lust and duty and responsibility.
• Sponda the suet girl and the secret of the French pearl by Ellen Kages - A guy goes to steal a treasure and gets it royally wrong.  This is cheeky and mischievous (and I probably don't need to use both those adjectives here, but I like them, so nyaah) and while told from the point of the view of the guy thief it shows up his greed and naivety.  Delightful.

5 good stories out of 12 is not bad I think.  I'd like to read more by Kate Elliot, Robert V S Redick and Ellen Klages.  The authors in the anthology that I didn't take to are Scott Lynch, Saladin Ahmed, Trudi Canavan, Glen Cook, Elizabeth Bear, Ellen Jushner & Ysabeau S. Wilce (writing together) and Daniel Abraham.

Hufftacular

As per my Entertainment to-do post I just finished Tanya Huff's Enchantment Emporium books.  They are delightful.

I picked them up because they were described as urban fantasy, but more importantly the first one was dirt cheap on the kindle.  I thought they'd be throwaway trash, poorly written but a good enough distraction.  I was wrong.  Spoilers ahead.

One of my problems with fantasy books is the very staid, traditional way in which authors write about 'magick'.  You know, they treat it as some serious force where you must understand the power and the responsibilities you wield, lest some horrific thing happen that will doom us all.  Urban fantasy books tend to reference old mystical power, held in the land and start waffling in a self indulgent manner about any old bollocks, where so long as it's traditional it's somehow more important.  The emphasis goes on the magic system rather than the story.

These books, also known as the Gale girls books, I think, aren't like that.  They are very domestic, the magic is used in an everyday manner and the plots and the characters are more important.  The Gales are a massive family of mostly women whose ancestor once shagged a horned God which gave all the descendents power of a sort.  This power is usually expressed in the form of charms - charms to open locks, to wish good health on someone, to eavesdrop on other's conversations, to make good pie, to have a plentiful supply of nappies.  That sort of stuff.  It's also said that the world accommodates the Gales, so if they need a last minute flight there is always room on the plane for a discounted ticket.  If they need to drive somewhere in a rush the lights are never on red.  At set intervals throughout the year the family takes part in ritual, of which there are 4 parts.

The first circle is comprised of Aunties - women who have gone through menopause and becomes more powerful, and one of the males in the family who is the anchor to the land and takes the form of a horned stag.  The second circle is one Gale girl and her partner.  The third circle is the rest of the Gale adults.  The fourth circle is whoevers left and they keep the general public away.

The ritual involves shagging.  It's not explained why it involves shagging, but the Gales do like sex, a lot, and everyone of any age (once they hit adulthood at 15) has a lot of (always consenual) sex. Even the 60 or 70 year old aunties.  They age well.  The books aren't graphic about the sex, the sex details are barely described at all.  Those keeping up will notice that the Gale adults taking part in ritual will be related.  Steps are taken to ensure that no one is shagging someone too genetically close to them, so it's basically a lot of cousins shagging.

Anyway, the books are more about the personalities than the magic, although the magic stuff is fun.  The Aunties are a force of nature and it's unclear whether they are powerful because of the magic or because of their sheer bloody belligerence.  No one gets treated as unique, or special, or the one holder of the powerful magic. They bitch and swipe at each other (and love and care for each other) and it's all remarkably straightforward and family-like, in a good way.

The first book is about Alysha Gale taking over an Aunt's junk shop and working out where the Aunt has gone.  The shop comes with a Leprechaun who promptly gets together with an Auntie.  There's dragons in town and a sorceror who's a bit too jumped up for his own good.  Book 2 sees one of Alysha's cousins, Charlie, helping a group of Selkies stop a gas drill being built.  Book 3 sees the Gales try to stop a massive asteroid hitting Earth.  The solutions in books 2 and 3 and remarkably straightforward and kind of glossed over, but not in a blink and you miss it way.  It's done in a way that makes sense given the style of the books (that don't lend themselves to histrionics, much, unless it's about pie).  It's all rather no-nonsense.

These are great fun and one of the better urban fantasy books I've read.

Photo-an-hour day

Every so often on twitter I see photographic challenges.  I suspect these are designed around the idea of getting nice shots, showing off your photographer, and I suppose improving your photography.  However I just like taking pictures of things, and recording my life, and jumping on bandwagons so when I decided to do it the pictures were obviously pretty bad, but since I did decide to do it I'm going to do a blog about them.  Lucky you!

I did this last Saturday.  I think I was spurred on by the idea that I'd be in all day and so would have my camera to hand.  I got up late, about 11am, and realised this meant I'd have less hours to forget to take the photos, which seemed like a good idea.

So. My first photo. Breakfast at 11.40am:

Or rather half a breakfast. I have no idea what was on the plate.  Possibly a cookie.  More likely toast with jam.  In the bowl is thick porridge with sultanas.  Getting up late means I'm much hungrier than when I get up at 7 or 8am for work, which is why I had the porridge and unidentifiable but eaten plate of stuff.  Usually I just have porridge.  The pills are a combination of vitamin pills and an antihistamine for a shitty dust mite allergy I developed about 8 years ago.

Second photo.  Our fully stocked fridge, 12.40pm:

We do 90% of our weekly food shop at the market and we get our vegetables from the organic veg stall.  It's more expensive than non organic stuff, but it's better for you.  I like shopping from the same people each week and I like now knowing what you can get.  We just buy whatever they've got and then I think about what to make with it.  This sometimes means we have a mix of assorted veg which don't really go, but we usually manage to use it all up.
The brussell sprouts got turned into bubble and squeak (brussells, cabbage, garlic, onion, butter to fry, bacon and potatoes, it was delicious).
The mushrooms eventually got used in a vegetarian bean chili.
The fennel, cucumber and celery get turned into a salad for my lunch (add balsamic vinegar and pepper, have with cheese and crackers or add to brown rice).
The red peppers can get put into a tomato and pepper sauce for pasta (always add sun dried tomatoes) or can go into the chili mentioned above.

Third photo.  Tea, 1.54 pm:

I had to work on Saturday and I think this tea was me reconciling myself to it and gearing up to make it happen.  My mug is wonderful.  You could almost say super.  Boom tish.  Sorry.

Fourth photo.  The en-warmening. 14.42pm:

I'm not very good at remembering to take photos on the hour. Oops.
OK, so this photo is all about the stuff that makes me warm.  I loathe winter.  I hate the cold and I'm too tight to turn our house into a sauna, so I wrap up from October to March.  In this picture is:

• My amazing fire coloured fleece/knitted jumper
• My ombre/dark fire fleece/knitted mittens, which are perfect for winter and keep me going.
• My slippers, a couple of years old now but warm and fluffy.
• The blanket we bought in Derbyshire over Christmas which quite often goes across my legs.

Fifth photo. Leisure activities, 15.58pm:

I'd been working for a couple of hours by this point but my boyfriend was having a much better Saturday.  He was making marmalade - that orange mess in the pan - and watching the birds.  You can probably just see the bird feeder through the windows.  1 minute before I took this photo the feeder was covered in blue tits, great tits, blackbirds and long tailed tits.
The blackbirds have worked out how to sit on the seed holder and get the food out, and they can eat 70% of the food in a day.

Sixth photo.  The work station.  16.48pm:

The book isn't part of the work.  That's the boyfriend's.  It's a collection of Edgar Allen Poe stories, non fiction and poetry and is apparently quite dire.  I appear to have switched mugs by this point, to a British Sea Power (a band) bee gone mug.  The pepper mill was there since my mid afternoon lunch, which started off as heinz chicken noodle soup.  I soon realised that was pretty rank, threw it out, and had noodles, frozen beans and cheese instead.  With pepper.

Seventh photo. Computing data, 17.31pm:

Twitter is what I would have liked to have been doing.  Looking up synonyms for combat is what I was actually doing.  For work.  Yes, I was still working at 5.30pm on Saturday.  It's a good thing I quite like my job.

Eighth photo.  Casual cosplay, 18.23pm:

I'd by this point finished work (hooray!) and had changed to go out for dinner. The blue top is a dress that I added the blue lantern patch to a few years ago for a Blue Lantern outfit for LSCC.  I put the green light cardigan because a) it's winter and the dress is sleeveless and I get chilly, and b) blue needs to be combined with green for hope to work.  Only DC Lantern fans are going to get that.

Ninth photo.  Starter.  7.30pm ish:

From now on times are approximate because I was too busy with dinner to tweet the photos at the time I took them.

We went to an vegetarian Indian restaurant called Namaste, which I hadn't been to for a couple of years,  It's really good.  This started is called Special Chat and it's a mixture of puri bread, potato, chick peas, bombay mix, onions, yogurt, tamarind sauce, pomegranetes and chat masala (I don't know what that is).  It's served at room temperature, which in February in England means cold.  It's nice, but I found it a bit much towards the end of the bowl.  I suspect it would be better when the weather is hot.

Tenth photo.  The main course, 8pm ish:

  

I'd been determined to get this since we'd decided on the restaurant.  It's called a dosa.  It's a massive pancake stuffed with spicy potatoes and peas, served with a runny dahl soup and a coconut chutney and it's delicious.
The thing in the background that looks like a pizza is an uttapam.  It has chillis and onions on it so really wasn't the sort of thing I liked.  It also had a dahl with it.
My boyfriend got the pav bhaji which is a vegetable curry served with rotis and was also delicious.
This restaurant is so damn good,

Eleventh photo.  The remnants of dessert.  9.30pm ish:

I forgot to take a picture of it before I ate it so here's a photo of the dessert's empty bowl.  It was ice cream with a gulab jamun (little doughnut in cardamom syrup).  I preferred the ice cream and syrup to the doughnut but it was all pretty good, and small, so you weren't overpowered by it.  There were also some nuts in it, I think.  My friend got the dish named Vegan Paradise, which is chopped up banana, cashew nuts, almonds and mango pulp.  That looked amazing.

Bonus photo: picture of the artwork on the walls.

One of the reasons this restaurant is so good is because they don't serve alcohol.  They allow you to bring your own wine and beer but you have to pay a corkage charge, which means people don't turn up and get wrecked.  The emphasis is on the food and creating dishes which suit the vegetables.

Twelfth photo.  Bedtime.  10.30pm ish:

I've been reading this book for a few weeks and it's not bad.  Some stories are fun and surprising, others are more dull.  I like reading fantasy anthologies, I find them a great way to get to know new writers.  So much of fantasy is turgid by the numbers crap I am dissuaded from just picking up a new title.  But this one is alright.

So that was my day.  I told you the photos would be terrible quality!  Did you notice what was missing from this day?  Comics, that's what.  Because I was working I didn't get to the shop.  I intended to go in today, but had to work late, so I determined to go in tomorrow.  I think I've got 2 or 3 weeks worth of stuff to pick up.

A little trip to Lille

I went to Lille with work a few weeks ago and I took photos.

Lille is a strange little city. It's grey and concrete and a little bit grotty, but nonetheless has a certain charm to it that makes me rather quite like it.  I didn't get to see much of it because I was there at a work conference.  We stayed int he world's shittest hotel - it smelt of smoke, it was noisy, the temperature control was just bizzare and the sliding door to the bathroom broke so I had to really struggle with pushing it open and closed.  The shower was a tray with a curtain and at the end of each shower the floor was sodden with pools of water.  When I arrived I found this delightful towel on the bed:

It doesn't make up for the shitty hotel.  We went out to a cafe for the breakfast each morning - croissants and coffee - which was alright.  The second morning I got some street harassment - it was 7.30 am and a bloke in his 20s/30s starts walking beside me and asking me questions.  Fuck off.  I thought he was going to follow us into the cafe at one point, but thankfully he didn't.

The conference had some good stuff:

Mmmm delicious French pastries.

Artisan lemonade.  They also had pink and yellow stuff.  It was tasty.

Being so close to Belgium there was good beer:

And food baked in beer:

This was the sweetest stewed beef I had ever tasted.

We also briefly visited the Christmas market before we left:

It sold tat.  Made up gifts that only exist to fill the consumerist clamouring in our capitalist souls.  I didn't buy anything.

There was this ferris wheel.  If you look closely you can see that the cars are painte dliek Christmas puddings:

I read Raising Steam while I was there.  This page reminded me that the romantic relationships I want in fiction are those where the couple has been together several years and are comfortable with each other and still deeply in love, but also have lives outside of the relationship:

In summary, if you can visit Lille, do it.  Also read Raising Steam.

Book review : The Mortal Instruments book 1 & 2

So the lovely Kariss sent me these 2 books as part of the equally lovely Char's blogger book swap.  I'd said I'd liked adult supernatural stuff so she got my tastes pretty right when she sent me these.

Spoilers ahead.

The front cover has an endorsement by Stephanie Meyer which sets the the tone for this series. If you like Twilight you'll prolly like these. It's about a teenager called Clary who finds herself part of an underground world of magic, werewolves, vampires, demons and demon hunters. Clary thinks she's plain looking, but clearly is very pretty. She's also clumsy and has two other teenage boys lusting after her. The magic boy is snooty, dangerous, unbelievably beautiful and a bit of a rude prick, if I'm honest.  The other boy is a regular mortal and has been her friend since they were toddlers.  Sound familiar? It should do!

This book is riding hard on the coattails of Twilight. Having said that, it is pretty enjoyable, in a trashy way. I like trash, I loved twilight. Both series are good escapist rubbish.

These books are better written than Twilight, the prose is better, but they aren't as engrossing, somehow Twilight plot was more gripping. Clary is also more three dimensional than Bella, as are the rest of the characters.  There are plot twists in here that I genuinely didn't see coming, and there are plot twists I did see coming, a mile off.

The love triangle is a bit odd. The set up doesn't make you particularly support either boy, and then it's revealed that Clary and magic boy are siblings, yet they still clearly want to do each other.  This is odd because the book presents it as forbidden love but in the same way that other books say a fella from the wrong side of town is forbidden. It's weird. The book doesn't seem to acknowledge how creepy an incestuous romantic relationship is.  It's touched on, but it's not really felt throughout the pages.  Part of me suspects that this is because magic boy is clearly not really a blood relation of Clary, but is actually an elf. NB: by the end of book 2 this hasn't been confirmed, but it's fairly obvious it will be a book 3 reveal.

Now, love triangles and love anguish in YA fiction are usually there so readers can empathise with the heroine and the situation.  But why would a teenager want to fantasise about a forbidden love forbidden because the hot boy is your blood brother?? It's weird!  I'd be really interested to know what teen girls thought of this.  Maybe the writer wanted to rival Twilight's creepy love story (the baby and the werewolf imprinting on each other - less creepy than it sounds, but still an odd choice for the plot).

The other odd thing about the book is the introduction of magic boy and his two friends.  Considering we are meant to be rooting for these guys, their first scene paints them as bullying murderers.  We later find out they aren't really murderers as they are killing demons, but the whole bully thing is not really addressed.  I thought of Buffy when I was reading this.  Buffy explicitly tackled the joy-in-killing-demons thing and decided it was Not Good. This series, so far doesn't.

Now, I don't want my texts of choice to be morally 'correct', and I am quite happy being challenged, but I'd like them to tackle  the dodgy stuff, to be aware of it, and not just ignore them (unless that's a major theme of the book).  In this case it just reads like shallow writing.  All surface and no feeling.  Maybe not quite as bad as that.

So, it's a fun couple of books, set in a daft supernatural world, with ridiculous plots and odd choices in relationships.  Nonetheless it's a nice easy way to pass the time.  I shall be passing these on to a friend of mine who I am sure will get some trashy enjoyment out of them.

FWIW, my thoughts on Twilight (and The Hunger Games) are here.

Supercut of all of Game of Thrones sex scenes

Watch it here: http://vimeo.com/66703817

Now, I'm re-reading the books at the moment (I'm a third of the way through Storm of Swords) and haven't seen any of the tellybox series, so I have a couple of questions.

• Why is there significantly more boobs and naked lady bum on show than male chests, bums and stiff bits?
• It appeared that one scene had Dany fucking her handmaid, with the handmaid on top.  As far as I can recall, this doesn't happen in the book. The handmaid goes down on Dany, but that's not rubbing muff bits together or using a strap on.
• Am I seeing man-on-man sex in there?  Again, there is no explicit man-on-man sex in the books.  Male homosexuality is referred to, but we don't see (read) any men fucking other men.

Methinks they have tried to make the tellybox series more salacious than the books. Sacre bleu.

A further Merry Christmas to everybody!

I have two more things for you!

- By Mike Maihack.  Visit his site here and buy the comic here.

Was the Hogfather a God?  Why not?  thought Susan  There were sacrifices, after all.  All that sherry and pork pie.  And he made commandments and rewarded the good and he knew what you were doing.  If you believed, nice things happened to you.  Sometimes you found him in a grotto, and sometimes he was up there in the sky...

- The Hogfather, Terry Pratchett.

The Hunger Games vs Twilight

This might be a bit rambly. It's 10pm and I've JUST finished The Hunger Games (first book, no spoilers for books 2 and 3 please).

In my mind it is linked with Twiligth because they are both very popular young adult books, with female protagonists, loved by teenage women.

That's about all they have in common though.

Now, I really really enjoyed Twilight.  I don't think it's anti-women, I don't think it's anti-feminist.  Yet a few chapters into The Hunger Games I couldn't help but comment that Katniss is far better role model than Bella will ever be.

But that's missing the point of Twilight.  Bella isn't meant to be a role model.  She's a cipher.  She doesn't need distinguishing characteristics because the story is not really about her - it's about Edward and his Amazingness.  And it's about Edward  and his Amazingness because it's a romance fantasy.  A teenage romance story.  For readers to identify with Bella they just need to know that she feels as swallowed up by love as they do.  Of course, it's not real love that Bella feels, it's heady infatuation, extended.  Obsessive world conquering infatuation.  It's hormone fulled teenage lust and it's very different to what you feel when you've been in a relationship for several years.  We all know that.  But teenagers don't - they think what they are experiencing is what everyone else feels.  They don't understand how love grows, develops, simmers down and matures.  I'm not criticising teens for this.  It's just how life is.  Teens haven't been alive long enough to experience changes in love that long term relationships experience.

But to denigrate Twilight for not being grown up and for Bella for being wet is to miss the point.  It is not really a book about adventure, the vampire/supernatural thing is just the window dressing.  Bella shouldn't be too developed as a character because then she will alienate too many readers.  Twilight's readers need to identify with her raging hormone lust and her love for Edward, but that's all they need in common.  In that way the focus is on Edward - he also becomes a cipher for the person that Twilight fans adore.  the vampire/werewolf stuff is window dressing to make it more exciting.  To give this obsessive love a framework in which to operate, to have a story.  The details of Edward's and Bella's personalities really aren't that important.  Which is why they aren't role models.  They are ciphers.

They are a bit like teenybopper boy bands (does anyone even use the word teenybopper anymore?  Am I showing my age?).  When I was a teenager (many moons ago..) the girls in my year idolised Take That.  before Take That it was new Kids on the Block.  The guys in the band were ciphers.  Symbols.  One dimensional products that hormonal teenage women (possibly some hormonal teenage men too) could project their ideas and fantasies onto - they could become the perfect boyfriend in their fans heads.  I guess maybe One Direction (?) fulfil that niche now.  Twilight is the fiction equivalent of Take That but with better window dressing.

This isn't a problem.

Whereas Katniss is a hero.  She's someone we are meant to look up to, to emulate.  And as that she's a fab hero.  She's clever, resourceful, fiercely loyal and protective.  The Hunger Games is a proper adventure story and Katniss is a fully developed character.  We suffer alongside her, we understand her family, her background, we grow and develop with her.  She faces very real challenges.

She's a million miles away from Bella, because they are written with very different purposes.  For a different type of story and to fulfil a different type of goal.

There's nowt wrong with that.

Now if you'll excuse me I've got book 2 of The Hunger Games to start reading, and a Twilight film marathon to arrange.

I'm talking at Eastercon :)

Eastercon is the British National Science Fiction Convention, and it's happening over the Easter bank holiday weekend, at the Radisson hotel at Heathrow.

I volunteered to be on a panel discussing 'Comics outside the mainstream'.  There was a twitter conversation about the lack of women on convention panels, and I butted in exclaiming how terrible it was, and then one of the folk involved with the con looked at New readers... and well at that point I felt like I couldn't say no.  I really hope I don't make a twat out of myself or embarrass the the organisers or anyone.

Apparently we shall be discussing these questions:
What good comics are published outside the big two?
What is published on the web and outside mainstream publishing entirely?
Are comic creators increasingly moving to the freedom of publishing outside the major distributors?

George R R Martin and Paul Cornell will be there (not on my panel, well as far as I know they won't be on my panel, I can't imagine why they would be on the panel).

So, this thing is happening on the Sunday (8th April) at midday..

Is anyone in blog land attending?  If you are then come and listen to me gabble on!

Discworld Watch and Witches and Death and a few others

'Tis (some of) the Discworld characters.  From left to right, the top row is:

Sir Terry Pratchett (erstwhiel clever author) , Death, Susan (daughter of Death), Lord Havelock Vetinari (Patrician and tyrannical ruler of Ankh-Morpork), the Luggage and Rincewind (a wizard), the Librarian (an Orangutan), Moist Von Lipwig (Postmaster of the Post office), and One of the posties who I can't remember the name of, because I've only read Going Postal once.

From left to right, the bottom row is:Granny Weatherwax (a crotchety old Witch-supreme), Nanny Ogg (a boozing, crude lovable Witch –nearly-supreme) and Greebo (a vicious wolf baiting cat), Magrat Garlick (a hippy Witch), Sir Samuel Vimes  (Commander of the City Watch, Duke of Ank-Morpork and Blackboard Monitor), Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson (6 ft 6 dwarf-by-adoption, Watchman, not-so-secret heir to the throne of Ank-Morpork),  Angua (werewolf, Watchwoman), Fred Colon (fat, bit stupid, Sergeant of the City Watch), Nooby Nobbs (Corporal of the City Watch, has a certificate to prove he’s a member of the human race).

I'm not sure where I found this piece of art but I loves it.