Robynettely

“The Bloody Chamber” by Angela Carter. Got it for Christmas. As a small, light collection of short stories, this was a perfect thing to carry on the bus. Also, as non-research, I didn’t have to take notes.  LHC #50: “Lovecraft Country” by Matt Ruff. I was attracted by the idea of Lovecraft with the opposite of his horrific racism. The first chapter seemed like just a list of SF authors, but after that the story settled and was really readable.  LHC #51: “The Refrigerator Monologues” by Catherynne M. Valente. About 90 pages into this, I was thinking I had missed something and was going to have to go back and read it again when I finished, just so I understood who was who. But then I realized that wasn’t the point, it didn’t matter who all the stupid superheroes were and who the archvillains were, they were never going to win or be vanquished. Or if they were, it didn’t matter. The girls were already dead.  LHC #52: “Bad Paper: Chasing debt from Wall Street ...

Wind/Water/Salt Chapter 18: Finished and posted. A consistent comment about the chapters I post is there’s not a lot of tension. So I tried to make some forward-moving tension here. Let’s see how it works!  I think in my first draft I did a pretty good job roughing in the plot, but there’s a ton of details that are missing. I sort of feel like I’ve gone about this edit the wrong way. Instead of trying to polish each chapter, I could have done a pass all the way through with background characters, and another with I don’t know what. Okay, that wouldn’t work, I need to just do it the way I am. And in fact, now is the time for me to be introducing all those secondary characters, because Fairfax didn’t know them at the start and only is getting to know them now, and Preston and Abigail weren’t in town until now. The second third of the story really moves the story into town and opens up the characters to their greater inspection, so this is when I needed that realization anyway...

“The Stone Sky” by N.K.Jemisin. I had to wait for this book from the library! That sucked. But I went from 25 of 35 (15 copies) to “in Transit” in a few hours one day, so no complaints about the Toronto Public Library. About 150 pages from the end, I was sorely tempted to stay up all night to finish it, but sensibility prevailed. I haven’t done that in so long! This entire series was a delight. And Ed liked them too.  LHC #47:   “The Glass Town Game” by Catherynne M. Valente. I had three CV books on my library inactive holds list from the same date. This is the first. It’s the fattest, but there aren’t that many words per page, and there are pictures! This is the fifth CV book I’ve read, and I realized I have more of an intellectual relationship with them than an emotional one. I had no trouble setting it aside to read The Stone Sky and no trouble picking it up again, but I wasn’t really attached to any characters. The only one who I really engaged with was Victoria, w...