Reading

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A book worth reviewing

Today I woke with much more energy, whic was nice. Thus I did a 40 minutes pilates workout. I like the longer sessions in the morning, as the app gives a longer warm up period, meaning a gentler wake up for my muscles. I am just plain loving the way using the app daily solves the aching hips problem. They haven't hurt in days, and it takes hours of sitting in the car to trigger the problem at all.

The book I bought last night was Skinsinger: Tales of the Kaltaoven, by Heather Rose Jones. The oldest of these tales she'd published 30 years ago, the youngest was written recently, and had not previously been published. All of the older ones have been edited and revised for this book to ensure proper consistency across the full story.

I enjoyed it so much I didn't want to put it down to go to work today, and wound up taking reading breaks, to get in "just a few more pages". Yah, right, I finished it.

The very first story in the book starts a bit abruptly in the middle of an action scene for my taste. I would rather learn to care for the characters snd understand something of their workd before seeing them flee for their lives. However, as it was originally published as a stand alone short story, I understand why it had that structure. That said, that is the only flaw I found with the book. That first story manages to pack in enough world building before the end of the story to understand the context, and

The rest of the stories each contribute more world building details as needed, so that by the end of the book I felt like I have a good understanding of how the skin singing magic works, as well as the various cultures we encounter on the way.

I have loved all of Heather's books that I have read, and this one is just as delightful.

Strong female characters overcoming difficult situations, forming alliances, and, sometimes, falling in love with one another. Interesting magic, plausible range of cultures in a vaugly medieval fantasy setting, and characters with a tendancy to think their way out of tricky situations. 100% recommended will read again. In fact, I have already started reading it outloud to Keldor.

It is good that I finished the book before my work day was done, as that meant I was willing to head to the large grocery store, 20 minutes away, after work, so now we have food for the next few days.

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Troubled Waters, by Sharon Shinn

Zoe Ardelay and her father have lived in exile in a small village since he, a former courtier, had an argument with the king. At the opening of the book, her father has just died of natural causes. Then Darien, the king's advisor, shows up and announces that Zoe has been chosen as the king's fifth wife. Zoe, immersed in the drifting, passive phase of grief, sets out with him for the capital city she hasn't seen since she was a child. The story does not go in any of the expected directions after that, starting with the conveyance they use to get there: a new invention, a gas-powered automobile.

This small-scale fantasy is the first of five "Elemental Blessings" books, but stands alone. It does end up involving the politics and rulership of a country, but it's mostly the story of one woman, how her life changes after her father dies, and the relationships she has with the people she meets. It's got great characters and relationships, focuses on small but meaningful moments in a very pleasing manner, and has outstandingly original worldbuilding. Most of it is not set in court, and involves ordinary poor and middle-class people and settings. The vibe is reminiscent of early Robin McKinley.

Welce, the country it's set in, has two aspects which are crucial to both plot and character, and are interestingly intertwined. They may seem complicated when I explain them, but they're extremely easy to follow and remember in the actual book.

The first aspect is a system of elemental beliefs and magic, similar to a zodiac. The elements are water, air, fire, earth, and wood. Every person in the country is associated with one of those elements, which is linked with personality characteristics, aptitudes, aspects of the human body, and, occasionally, magic. This is all very detailed and cool - for instance, water is associated with blood, wood with bone, and so forth. We've all seen elemental systems before, but Shinn's is exceptionally well-done. The way the elemental system is entwined with everyday life is outstanding.

How do people know which element is theirs? Here's where we get to the second system, which I have never come across before. Temples, which are not dedicated to Gods but to the five elements, have barrels of blessings - coins marked with symbols representing blessings like intelligence, change, courage, joy, and so forth. Each blessing is associated with an element. People randomly pull coins for both very important and small occasions, to get a hint of what way they should take or, upon the birth of a child, to get three blessings that the child will keep for life. The blessings a child gets may or may not show their element - if they don't, it becomes clear over time based on personality.

The blessings are clearly genuinely magical and real, but often in subtle ways. I loved the blessings and the way they work into the story is incredibly cool. Same with the elements. Zoe's element is water, and her entire plot has a meandering quality which actually does feel like a water-plot, based on the qualities ascribed to water in the book.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes small-scale, character-based fantasy AND to anyone who likes cool magic systems or worldbuilding. It's not quite a cozy fantasy but it has a lot of cozy aspects. I can see myself re-reading this often.

There are five books, one for each element. I've since read the second book, Royal Airs. It's charming and enjoyable (and involves primitive airplanes, always a bonus) but doesn't quite have the same lightning in a bottle quality of Troubled Waters.

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Things which are gratifying

People reading one's work.

People citing one's work.

People buying one's books.

People writing articles (or really, any research thing) based on a small part of an archive one catalogued back in the day (somebody should have had a word about archival citation practices, though).

Finding that one has after some moaning, groaning, and struggle, got a paper with something that is a bit of a counter-intuitive discovery, based on just going back to the notes made during that research trip.

More mostly useless advice!

DEAR HARRIETTE: As parents, I'm sure most of us have experienced a squabble or disagreement between our kids. I definitely have, but they're usually short-lived. Currently, two of my girls aren't speaking and haven't been for a few months. This all started because my older daughter made a joke about me owing her back pay because my younger daughter's college tuition was more expensive than hers. My younger daughter, who is usually quite docile, blew up at the comment. She called her older sister ungrateful, rude and spoiled. They argued like I've never seen before, and they haven't spoken since. I tried talking to my younger daughter about it, but she won't apologize. I don't think her sentiments were wrong; the joke was in poor taste. I think as a family we should never be so hostile toward each other. How do I get my girls back on track? -- Family Disagreement

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Just on a Roll, so Bear with Me (or Bee with Me, as it Happens)

Bee at the Minnesota Historical Society's pollenator garden, yesterday

My whole household was up this morning at 3:30 am to see Jas off to the airport. Even my notorious late-sleeper, Mason, got up to come along on the ride to the airport.

We are all going to miss Jas. Jas won my heart over not only because Mason is so clearly in love with them, but also because they cooked at least two evening meals for us! And, convinced Mason to do the dishes afterwards! Independent of each other both Shawn and I very much implied to Jas that not only were they welcome back any time, they were welcome to STAY!!

We did manage to pack them back with some gifts so hopefully we aren't failing this whole gift-giving ritual thing.

They will be missed! But, Mason is already making plans to go to them next (Oklahoma City in Oklahoma--a place he's been once already, but about which I know almost nothing.) We joked that we'd have to try to host Jas in the winter, so they could see Minnesota at its worst.

The news continues to be horrific. I guess I knew that the National Guard being called out on citizens for being Black was probably not that far behind the concentration camps for Brown folks, but JFC. I'm supposed to be traveling to the DC area in mid-September for Capclave and I have no idea what will be waiting for me there. Like, WTF. To be crystal clear--not that I fear for myself, because the last time I was in DC I walked through the area that the tour guide book suggested was unsafe with my then twelve year old son and we had a great time, the only thing I exposed him to was some poverty not unlike the neighborhood we live in back here in the Twin Cities. People were super friendly and helpful when we were lost. DC is very Black? This is, last time I checked, not a crime or indicative of criminal behavior. Maybe a person might feel safer in DC if, I dunno, they weren't racist.

So, yeah, here's a cool picture of a grasshopper (under the cut for the bugphobic)...

( WARNING: Bugs! )

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The Four Wishes (Cheon of Weltanland, volume 1) By Charlotte Stone

War crime survivor turned expert swordswoman and student sorcerer Cheon resolves to obliterate the nation responsible, make herself queen, and find a like-minded woman to court.

The Four Wishes (Cheon of Weltanland, volume 1) by Charlotte Stone

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Interesting Links for 12-08-2025

1. Oh god, Edinburgh Council has a section on Freeman on the Land and Sovereign Citizens conspiracy nonsense: (tags:law Scotland Edinburgh conspiracy )
2. Apparently AOL are still running a dial-up service! For another month, anyway.: (tags:aol internet EpicWTF )
3. Why you shouldn't recommend Classic science fiction to kids: (tags:children recommendation scifi )

(no subject)

Happy birthday,

cynthia1960!

Harriette's advice here isn't bad, per se, it's just aggressively useless

DEAR HARRIETTE: Over the years, my mom and I have struggled to forge the ideal smooth-sailing mother-daughter bond that other people have. We used to bump heads a lot. Now that we no longer bump heads, we just have a hard time connecting and enjoying each other. I want things to get better, but she often compares my relationship with her to the one I have with my dad. My dad and I are pretty playful together, and he's easy to talk to. I think my mom constantly mocking the dynamic I have with my dad is her version of banter or "breaking the ice," but I wish she would stop comparing so that she and I could find our own groove. How do I get her on the same page as me? -- Mommy Issues

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At last, an advice column we can all get behind!

Ask the Algorithm!

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( Links )

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links,
politics

Links: Good to know!

Weird Things You Learn About Food When You Garden at Last Word On Nothing by Laura Helmuth. Great gardening tips, and a satisfying turn at the end.

Ratfactor's Illustrated Guide to Folding Fitted Sheets by Dave Gauer. What it says on the tin, with charming illustrations.

What do we know about the Covid-19 virus five years on? by Rachel Hall. A brief summary of basic facts, reassuringly honest.

It’s been five years since the start of the Covid pandemic. Although most of the government mandates, from social distancing to face masks, have been consigned to the past, the virus is still prevalent – and capable of causing real harm.

Although it was initially forecast to become a seasonal illness, the virus is on the rise in the US – making it far from the common-cold-style winter illness that was expected.

Machine Learning—good and bad arguments against by Sandra. From a gut-level hatred of machine learning to an analysis of the arguments against it.

Wingfield Pines in Allegheny County, PA, is a restored wetlands. Good to hear about an environmental success!

It was formerly a site plagued by Abandoned Mine Drainage (AMD); we were able to hire environmental engineer Bob Hedin to implement an aesthetically pleasing passive treatment system that visitors can walk through to watch the water transition from murky orange to natural, clean clear water flowing into Chartiers Creek.

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bookses precious

The Other Shore, by Rebecca Campbell

Review copy provided by the publisher.

This collection featured stories I'd read--and very much liked--before as well as stories that were new to me. I read extensively in short SFF, so that's not unexpected for any collection these days. What's less typical is how consistently high-quality these stories are, across different tone and topic.

There is a rootedness to these stories that I love to see in short speculative fiction, a sense of place and culture. It doesn't hurt that Campbell's sense of place and culture is a northern one--not one of my parts of the north but north all the same. And forest, oh, this is a very arboreal book. There's death and transformation here--these stories are like an examination of the forest ecosystem from nurse log to blossom, on a metaphorical level. I'm so glad this is here so that these stories are preserved in one place.

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The day after festival, and everyone was tired

Stayed up too late posting a blog post, so it was 00:45 before heading to bed. Oops. Keldor slept pretty directly, but I didn't fall asleep, so I got up to do some yoga. In the process of reaching for my glssses case I bumped my index finger against the wall, the pad of which that (I forgot to mention in yesterday's post) had come briefly in contact with the edge of Keldor’s very sharp axe yesterday, and so has a band-aid on it. Luckily, the damage is minor, and the blade sharp enough it didn't hurt at all when it happened. But it didn't like colliding with the wall in the dark.

So I took an Alvadon for the discomfort (I really do have pretty much zero pain tolerance, it is good that I am normally pain-free), did my yoga and tried again to sleep. This time it worked, and I got nearly 7.5 hours of very dream-filled sleep, most of which I don't recall, but the plots were mostly complicated and weird. I do remember driving a white car I couldn't get to go forward at an intersection, and then it slid backwards down a hill, curved off the road, and settled into a snowy ditch, so I got out grabbed it by the slightly open hood, and pulled it back up out of the ditch onto the road. I remember being surprised it worked, and got in and started driving again, trying to make the left turn I had been trying for tje first time, but a big semi came up, got in front of/to the side of me and started turning right instead, pushing me the other direction.

In hind sight, I think that portion of the dream was influenced by road noises outside the house. I have often had dreams about not being able to control a vehicle I am in when in a house right next to a road that has intermittent loud, and kinda fast traffic, as the doppler effect sounds get incorporated in the dream. This usually, as today, leaves me feeling not as rested as I would like to feel upon waking. Of course that yesterday was an intense/fun day is also a contributor to my feeling tired today.

But I managed to get myself out of bed, did my morning pilates (ok, only 15 minutes, when it has more often been 30 minutes since we arrived in Lofoten), and we made it to work on time, where I didn't make as much progress on the pot as normal, due to lower energy than normal. It felt good to come home and curl up with a book after work. And when I finished that one, I bought another, and got sucked into conversation on the Alpennia Discord server.

I should do yoga and go to sleep soon, it would be nice to have more energy tomorrow.

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Well, they did make a slight change

I recently went slightly spare at the blurb for the reprint of an obscure (if interesting for non-literary reasons) dystopian work of the 1920s (on which I have writ myself in chapter of volume of which I have lately received my advance copy) as describing someone in a rather misleading fashion -

- and looking at it this evening I see that they have very slightly tweaked it.

But on reflection, why, in the first place, are they mentioning the HUSBAND of the author and their ideological position (which I will still contend was a whole lot MOAR COMPLIK8ED than they want to make it)?

(Possibly, over here, just a slight touch of the miffs that, if they are doing a line of dystopian works of the period in question, Y U NO ask meeeeeee to do critical intro to any of them?)

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bundle of holding

Bundle of Holding: Ironsworn-Starforged

Ironsworn, Starforged, and Sundered Isles, tabletop roleplaying games of perilous fantasy, space opera, and seafaring adventure by Tomkin Press.

Bundle of Holding: Ironsworn-Starforged

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Bee-cause I Can

A bumblebee in the center of a bright yellow flower, a classic shot.

So, what's news, you ask? Or maybe you don't, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Just because I can.

A lot of my writer-type and fan friends are headed off to Worldcon in Seattle. As I have noted before, I am not on any programming this year, though I am attending viturally. At some point here, I'll probably host a virtual hangout or two, just because I can and it is probably the only way that I'm going to feel at all involved in this convention. The only good news is that Naomi Kritizer tends to win the Hugo at the cons I'm in "attendence" at, even when that attendence is only virtual. So, (knocking on wood for her) that will happen.

My day started out kind of supidly. I got a response from one of the attendees about programming interest from this year's Gaylaxicon and so I went into the document to make sure to add names, etc., etc. My keyboard, which is wireless (and battery operated,) started flaking out. It erased entire lines from the programming descriptions (thank all the gods for control-z!) and added rows of llllllllllllllllllllllll or whatever other letter I was attempting to type. I had already been having the thought, "I wonder how I'll know when my keyboard needs a new battery?" so I sussed out pretty quickly that the problem was, in fact, dying keyboard batteries. What followed was a lot of stupid, mostly of the variety of what IT folks used to cal ID10T or Problem Exists Between Computer and Chair.

I tried a number of AAA batteries that we had around the house and none of them seem to work. To be fair to me, it was clear that in our usual battery bag (in that one drawer, you know the one--every house has that one drawer, I swear,) one of the batteries had exploded. So, when I tried them in my keyboard and they didn't work, it wasn't necessarily that stupid of me to assume that the problem might be the batteries rather than my ability to follow illustrated directions. It was just mildly stupid. Luckily, we already had a real need to get some Draino from Menards since our bathroom tub has been draining very slowly, so I made it a twofer and picked up some always-useful dishsoap while I was at it.

But then, when the brandnew batteries didn't work, I knew the problem was NOT the batteries. Did I not have the little toggle pushed in all the way? Did I need to reboot?

Please note what I have not yet considered: could it be that I have put the batteries in the wrong direction?

It took far too long for me to figure out that, indeed, perhaps the most obvious thing to do was to flip the batteries and see if that solved the problem. Now, again to be fair to me, I think that I was really convinced I knew which way the positive terminal had been facing when I pulled the batteries out, but it took me FAR TOO long to finally get a pair of reading glasses and a flashlight and shine it into the battery compartment to read the damn "positive goes here" pictogram.

JFC.

Monday? Do you have to be so damn Monday?!

Monday: "I am this way just because I can!" *evil cackle!!*

In other news, today is Jas's last day with us. They are leaving tomorrow at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am. I mean, it is true that 5:30 am, is normally when our alarm goes off, but it feels ungodly to have to be leaving the house by that time. The kids have gone off to Como Conservatory today for their last day out on the town, which prompted me to remember to buy tickets for this year's Obon ceremony. As discussed before, Obon is celebrated very differently in America (and throughout the Japanese diaspora) than it is in Japan, where it is more like the Mexican Day of the Dead. Here (and in Britian and Brazil, which, is home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan,) Obon tends to be celebrated as a cultural festival. Not that I'm complaining! I have enjoyed the heck out of Como Conservatory's Obon every year that I've remembered to go!

It's been weird, however, to not have the car? It's been great for Mason and Jas to be able to take off and do whatever they like for however long they like, but, inevitably, I'll be at home and I think, "Ah, yes! I could do that one errand while everyone is out!" and yeah, no, I can't--because whatever it is, isn't really the "just take the bus" kind of errand, like groceries. People obviously do do grocery runs by bus, but hauling a bunch of bags that far isn't fun for anyone. So, yeah.

I think that's everything I know for now. How's by you?

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clarke award

Clarke Award Finalists 2009

2009: The Horrible Histories TV show debuts, Britons are treated to a Giles-worthy winter, and police decline to investigate the cash for influence incident so that they might better focus on the custard-tossing scandal rocking the nation.

Poll #33480 Clarke Award Finalists 2009

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 31

View Respondents

Which 2009 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Song of Time by Ian R. MacLeod
1 (3.2%)

Anathem by Neal Stephenson
26 (83.9%)

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
9 (29.0%)

Martin Martin's on the Other Side by Mark Wernham
0 (0.0%)

The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper
6 (19.4%)

The Quiet War by Paul J. McAuley
7 (22.6%)

Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2009 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Song of Time by Ian R. MacLeod
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
Martin Martin's on the Other Side by Mark Wernham
The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper
The Quiet War by Paul J. McAuley

With an * on the McAuley because it was too grim and I didn't finish it.

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micropost

Life with two kids: movements in the night

I went to the toilet at 4am a few days ago, and bumped into Gideon coming back from a toilet trip. Apparently he just takes himself if he wakes up in the night. No idea how long this has been going on for!

(Sophia comes and gets me, for company.)

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A few unrelated questions

(Some of which I may have asked before, in which case, forgive me.)

1. People often do say that the English subjunctive is in decline. However, literally nobody I've ever heard say this has provided any sort of evidence. Is there any data on this other than "yeah, feels that way to me"?

1a. I've also heard that the subjunctive, or at least some forms of the subjunctive, is more common in USA English than UK English, from somewhat more authoritative sources but with roughly the same amount of evidence.

2. I got into it with somebody on the subject of "flammable/inflammable". I am aware that there are signs that warn about inflammable materials, and also signs warning about flammable materials. Is it actually the case that anybody has ever been confused and thought they were being warned that something could not catch on fire? Or is that just an urban legend / just-so story to explain why the two words mean the same thing and can be found on the same sorts of signs?

3. Not a language question! I've recently found one of the Myth Adventures books in my house. Gosh, I haven't re-read these in 20 years. Worth a re-read, or oh god no, save it for the recycle bin?

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