pedanther

. I spent most of the week getting through Herland, a feminist utopian novel by Charlotte Perkins Gilman of Yellow Wall-Paper fame. Unlike the last utopian novel I read, the reason I found it slow going wasn't that I found it flat and didactic but because the characters had enough personality that I was genuinely dreading the prospect of one of the visitors to the utopia transgressing a local norm and actual drama ensuing.


. I've also started reading Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic for the 'longest book on the TBR' challenge. It's a lot of pages, but I'm getting through them quickly, so I'm confident of getting it done by the end of the month.


. The club's production of Seussical is finishing this weekend. I went to see a performance a few weeks into the run, and was impressed. The first production of the new year is to be Guys and Dolls, which has been discussed as a prospect on and off for the last few years; this time it's definitely happening, they've secured the rights and everything, though I'm still not entirely sure they're going to be able to round up enough male cast members.


. I started playing a new casual mobile game to fill in spare moments of the day like waiting for a reply to an email, and I enjoyed it at first, but it became increasingly wearing just how many different gimmicks it had to try and encourage the player to keep playing and spend money and so on. I was already on the fence when, a few days after I started with it, it decided I was invested enough that it was time to unleash a whole new wave of ways to try and get me to spend money. At that point, I decided I'd had enough and uninstalled it.

I went back to playing Alto's Adventure instead, and then decided that it might be time to try out the sequel, Alto's Odyssey, which has been sitting on my tablet since it came out but I never got into because I was still happy playing the original. Odyssey has some fun variations on the format, which go some way toward making up for the dearth of llamas, but there are two things about it that bug me. One is that the balance of the game has been tilted slightly more toward including the kind of player manipulation tricks that the casual game I mentioned earlier was rife with. A particular annoyance is that, where Adventure would always give you a free chance to continue your run the first time you messed up, Odyssey instead has a "free" chance to continue that you have to watch advertising to claim; since I don't want to watch advertising, this effectively means that the run is over the first time I make a mistake, which makes every run more stressful and is especially frustrating when I'm trying to master a new technique or when the run ended due to the procedural level generation throwing an impossible obstacle in my path. The second thing that bugs me is that the game regularly crashes, usually at the end of the run, and often when I've just reached a progress milestone that I then have to redo (sometimes more than once) because the crash meant it wasn't recorded.


. There's a new round starting of the Obscure Favourite Characters Tournament on Tumblr. I've recognised a few of the characters who have come up so far (including some who I really don't think count as obscure), but the one that really struck me was Alice, from BBV's Audio Adventures in Time and Space. Part of why, I think, is that I'm not in the habit of thinking of her as a distinct character: this was the series that cast Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred in the leads and hewed so close to the Doctor Who formula that it was the subject of legal action from the BBC, and you can see their point because I do usually think of McCoy's and Aldred's characters as the Doctor and Ace when I think about them at all. It doesn't look as if Alice is going to make it into the next round of the tournament, anyway; she's up against someone even more obscure.

. Our season of Mamma Mia has come to a successful conclusion, and I have been, with some relief, to get a hair cut. (I'd grown my hair out a bit to suit the character I was playing, and I didn't mind the look, but it was getting long enough to be annoying to deal with.) The club's next production will be The Regina Monologues, a retelling of the stories of the wives of King Henry VIII; it's an all-female cast, so I get to have a bit of a break without worrying about whether there's a part I should have gone for.


. The random book selection for June was taken from the subset of the to-read pile consisting of books which had been tagged "adventurous" and "challenging" by StoryGraph users. My randomly-selected book was The Workers' Paradise, a small-press science fiction anthology which I'd bought to support the publisher and then left languishing because I suspected it wasn't really my kind of thing. This turned out to be an accurate suspicion; I struggled through about half of it before deciding that I just couldn't take any more, and that I'd seen enough of the editor's choices to be confident there wouldn't be a story in the back half that made the whole thing worthwhile. I went back to the random selection, and (after vetoing a couple more short story anthologies) got a replacement pick of Spinneret, an adventure novel by Timothy Zahn. I had a much better time with that, although I was dubious about some of the politics and I thought the characters were rather flat; each character started out with a clear role in the plot (the Leader, the Scientist, and so on) and never really developed beyond it.


. For the June theme reading challenge, the theme was "a book about the ocean, maritime life, coasts, or something sea-related". I thought this might be my cue to finally read Shelby Van Pelt's Remarkably Bright Creatures, which I keep being recommended and have had a rolling hold on for a while – but then the ebook reader broke and I missed the deadline for rolling over my hold, so I've been bumped back to the bottom of the hold queue, which means that even if the replacement ebook reader does show up soon it's going to be a while (the library website is currently estimating a couple of months) before a copy becomes available. So I'm going to have to come up with something closer to hand that fits the theme.


. Separately from either of the monthly challenges, this month I also read Killing Floor, the first of Lee Child's long-running series of thrillers featuring Jack Reacher, and confirmed that it's not the kind of thing I'm likely to want to read more of. Having the kind of mind I have, I was struck by the boilerplate in the front of the edition I read, which has a little summary of Reacher's backstory that presumably is repeated verbatim in every book in the series. What struck me is that it places the events of Killing Floor in 1997, which is a reasonable assumption on the face of it, given that that's when Killing Floor was published... except that it's a plot point in the actual novel that it's taking place in a presidential election year, which 1997 wasn't.


. I have mixed feelings about the latest season of Doctor Who, but I found enough to like that I'm glad I watched the whole thing and didn't give up when I was feeling disappointed with it partway through.

Fiction books
(anthology). Mists and Magic
Ben Aaronovitch. Remembrance of the Daleks (re-read)
Arthur Conan Doyle. The Sign of the Four (e) (re-read)
Yoon Ha Lee. Ninefox Gambit (e)
Yoon Ha Lee. Raven Stratagem (e)
Robert Louis Stevenson. Catriona (e)

In progress
Anne Brontë. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (e)

Picture books
Chris Ferrie. General Relativity for Babies (e)

Non-fiction books
Thom Hartmann. Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class (e)

In progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book
Gerard Jones. Men of Tomorrow

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
(anthology) The Workers' Paradise

. I didn't agree with everything in the three Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials, but I enjoyed all three, and I'm excited to see what comes next in a way I haven't been for years, so as far as I'm concerned they're a success.


. We did not, in the end, achieve the feat of doing a full run-through more than a week before the show opened, but the show was a success anyway. We even got a reasonable write-up in the local paper, complete with front page photo. Next year, the big focus is going to be on doing a musical, which will be Mamma Mia.


. The reading challenge for December was "a book about somebody who is gifted"; I started reading The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, got bogged down, read the much shorter Rhianna and the Wild Magic by Dave Luckett instead, and then, having removed the pressure to finish, was able to also finish reading The Calculating Stars.


. I first read Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart's novel about the adventures of Number Ten Ox and his friend Li Kao, the scholar with a slight flaw in his character, when I was in university. I re-read it recently, and then finally got around to reading the two sequels, The Story of the Stone and Eight Skilled Gentlemen - and I'm not sure whether I wish I hadn't. It's one of those situations where turning a one-off story into a series involves tweaking the premise to open it out, and in this case I felt like some of the things I'd loved about the original were lost in the process. One of the changes is that there's a subtle but significant shift in genre: Bridge of Birds is a series of whimsical adventures in which Master Li and Ox solve a number of apparently unrelated puzzles and problems which turn out in the end to be interconnected; the sequels are detective stories, in which Master Li is presented at the start with a mystery that takes the whole book to solve. There are still whimsical incidents along the way, but they don't land the same because one feels obliged to interrogate them about how they fit into the main plot instead of just enjoying them and letting it be a bonus if they fit into the plot at all. There's also a change in Ox's personality: in the first book, he's a naive young man going on the adventure of a lifetime to save people he cares deeply about; in the sequel, he's become a seasoned adventurer, a development which happened entirely off the page between books and left me feeling for a while like I wasn't sure I recognised him (and for even longer like, if he doesn't care so much about how the adventure turns out, why should I?).


. I decided about a month ago that it was about time I tried a long-form computer game again, and picked XCOM: Enemy Unknown out of my large pile of unplayed games on Steam. It's already cracked my top 10 most hours played. (Which is, I have to admit, partly due to there having been some stressful days in the past month where it was helpful to be able to submerge myself for a few hours in solving problems with no real-world consequences, but that's not the whole reason.)

Fiction books
Sarah Gailey. River of Teeth (e)
Terry Pratchett. The Fifth Elephant (e) (re-read)
Cat Sebastian. The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (e)

In progress
Alexandre Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo (e) (re-read)
Robert Louis Stevenson. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (e) (re-read)
CN & AM Williamson. The Lightning Conductor (e)

Picture books
Kathryn Otoshi. Zero
Lynne Truss, Bonnie Timmons. Twenty-Odd Ducks

Non-fiction books
Simon Bucher-Jones. The Black Archive: Image of the Fendahl (e)

In progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book
Hallie Rubenhold. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
William Shakespeare, ed. GR Hibbard. The Oxford Shakespeare Hamlet

Fiction books
Avram Davidson. The Phoenix and the Mirror
Madeleine St John. The Women in Black (e)
Gene Luen Yang, et al. Batman/Superman: The Archive of Worlds

In progress
Jane Austen. Persuasion (e) (re-read)
Bram Stoker. Dracula (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books
Alain de Botton. The Consolations of Philosophy (re-read)
Steve Schneider. That's All Folks! The Art of Warner Bros. Animation

In progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Zenna Henderson. Ingathering: The Complete People Stories (e)

. The reading challenge for April was a book with "Little" or "Big" in the title. I had intended to combine it with my Chandler reading and use The Little Sister, but that's the one Chandler novel I don't own a copy of and I put off going to the library too long, so when I did I found that the library's one copy was out and there wasn't enough month left to wait for it.

So instead I grabbed the first available thing with a suitable title out of my bookmarks on Overdrive, which turned out to be A Little More, a collection of poems and essays by the Tasmanian writer Margaret Scott. I remember her recurring guest appearances on Good News Week (translation for British readers: more or less the Australian version of Have I Got News For You), where she showed a wicked sense of humour hiding within a demure little old lady, but didn't know much about her actual writing. I'm enjoying getting acquainted with it.

The challenge for May is a book with a direction in the title.


. While I was putting off looking for The Little Sister, I read Stolen Skies, the new third novel of Tim Powers's current contemporary fantasy series. I have mixed feelings about it. The premise is intriguing, but three books is the longest he's ever stuck with one setting and set of protagonists, and I'm not convinced it's working; some of the situations are starting to get repetitive, and having generic government agencies as the antagonists is damping down his flair for memorable villains. Part of me wishes that he'd stopped at book two, which ended in a way that would have worked as a satisfying conclusion, and done this premise with a new set of characters. At the same time, since book three does exist, I find myself hoping that he has a fourth book planned; that's partly because the end of book three doesn't work as a satisfying end to the series, and partly because I remember that I wasn't so keen on book one until book two came out and showed where things were going, and I'm hoping he'll repeat the trick with books three and four.


. I also read Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White this month, because I saw it when I was in the library and remembered that I'd been meaning to read it some time. I now understand completely why everyone I know who's read it is so impressed with Marian Halcombe.


. I've been getting back into playing Invisible, Inc lately, and trying to get the hang of the Expert Plus difficulty setting, which is required for three of the four achievements I still hadn't ticked off. Expert Plus difficulty, apart from various incremental tweaks like having more guards in each level, requires some mental rewiring because it takes away one of the key tools available in the lower difficulties. In the lower difficulties, if you can see a part of the room you can see if it's visible to a guard or security camera, but in Expert Plus difficulty you have to be able to see the guard or camera to be able to determine which parts of the room they can see; which is more realistic, but makes entering a new room a much dicier proposition requiring much peering around of corners.


. I mentioned a while back that I've been watching the reaction channel Marie-Clare's World as Marie-Clare works her way through Doctor Who. Back when I last mentioned it, I believe, she was still mostly relying on physical video media, but since then she's switched to streaming it on Britbox. One of the ways this makes a difference is that she's made a habit of avoiding learning the story titles in advance, since now she can just hit the "next episode" button without needing to know what the next episode is called, and also covers her eyes when the title comes up at the beginning of the first episode of each story. That way she gets to watch each story even more spoiler-free than even most of the people who watched it when it first aired. Occasionally this has dramatic results, such as when she recently watched "The Five Doctors" with absolutely no idea of what she was getting into and got increasingly emotional as it became apparent what was happening.

Fiction books
Christopher D'Arienzo. Rock of Ages
Peter Høeg, tr. F David. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow
Michael Leunig. A Common Prayer
Jason Pitre. Sig: City of Blades

In progress
Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White (e)

Picture books
Wilson Gage. My Stars, It's Mrs Gaddy! (re-read)
Shirley Hughes. Over the Moon (re-read)
Diane Redfield Massie. Chameleon Was a Spy (re-read)

Non-fiction books
David Attenborough. Zoo Quest for a Dragon, including the Quest for the Paradise Birds
Matt Parker. Humble Pi (e)
Siân Rees. The Floating Brothel

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Raymond Chandler. The High Window

Fiction books
Raymond Chandler. The Big Sleep (re-read)
Neil Gaiman, Chris Riddell. The Sleeper and the Spindle
Kim Newman. Something More Than Night (e)
Catherynne M Valente. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

In progress
Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist (e)
Peter Høeg, tr. F David. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow
Jason Pitre. Sig: City of Blades

Non-fiction books in progress
David Attenborough. Zoo Quest for a Dragon

Abandoned
Matt Parker. Humble Pi (due back at the library)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Tim Powers. Stolen Skies (e)

Fiction books
(none completed)

In progress
Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist (e)
Peter Høeg, tr. F David. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow

Non-fiction books
JRR Tolkien, ed. Carl F Hofstetter. The Nature of Middle-Earth (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
David Attenborough. Zoo Quest for a Dragon

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Bread Alone