pedanther

Fiction books
Vivien Alcock. The Haunting of Cassie Palmer
Sophie Aldred, Mike Tucker, Steve Cole. At Childhood's End
Jane Austen. Persuasion (e) (re-read)
Lois McMaster Bujold. Penric's Labors (e)
Esther M Friesner. Yesterday We Saw Mermaids
Zenna Henderson. Ingathering: The Complete People Stories (e)
Bram Stoker. Dracula (e) (re-read)
Timberlake Wertenbaker. Our Country's Good

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)

Non-fiction books in progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book

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

Top of the to-read pile
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. From Every Storm (e)

What else?

* The Rep Club's Christmas show will be Nuncrackers, the Christmas-themed edition of the Nunsense series. The club did a production of the original Nunsense a few years ago, and most of the cast will be reprising their roles. In the circumstances, there were only a couple of male actors needed, which made it easy for me to decide that after being in everything else this year it was time to take a break and sit this one out.

* I'm back on track with the monthly reading challenge, having backfilled the months I missed; for June (a book with "All" in the title), I read That's All Folks!, a history of Warner Bros. Animation, and for July (a book with a book-related word in the title), I read Batman/Superman: The Archive of Worlds by Gene Luen Yang. I always find Gene Luen Yang's work rewards the time taken to read it, but I was also reminded of some of the reasons why superhero comics aren't my thing any more. For September (a word associated with light or darkness), I read the novel that Ladies in Black was adapted from, which was a good time in itself and also an interesting study in an episodic narrative being adapted into a more traditional theatrical plot arc. The prompt for October is "an animal or creature in the title", and I am reading Avram Davidson's The Phoenix and the Mirror.

* Back at the beginning of the year, before I got sidetracked into deciding to re/read all of the Philip Marlowe novels, I'd been meaning to try out a different detective novel: A Few Right-Thinking Men, the first of a series by Sulari Gentill. Having disposed of Marlowe, I finally got around to reading it, and unfortunately didn't find it worth the wait. (One of the problems was that it had a significant dose of first-book-itis, so I read the second book as well, and found it significantly better written but still not what I'd been hoping for.) The description of the series that caught my attention is that it's an interbellum setting with a younger-son-of-the-upper-class amateur detective and his eccentric friends, but written by an Australian author and set in Australia, and tied in to the actual historical events of the 1930s. It was nice having a series like this set in my own country for a change (memo to self: really should try out Kerry Greenwood one of these days), but the historical aspect wasn't what I'd hoped: it's mainly used as a backdrop and a source of colourful supporting characters. The way it uses real people as supporting acts rubbed me the wrong way, and so did the way it threw in bits of history without, it seemed to me, ever really engaging with them. Cozy mysteries have their place, to be sure, but to my mind that place is not "in front of a backdrop depicting the rise of fascism".

* Mumblety years ago, I acquired all of the TV series The Pretender on DVD and set out to watch the whole thing from beginning to end, having originally seen parts of it out of order and missed some key episodes including the series finale. I got through the first two seasons at a good rate, started flagging during the third season, and eventually reached a point where I knew two of my least favourite episodes were coming up, and decided to put it aside for a while. I was inspired to give it another crack this week, and as a reward for pushing through those two episodes I got to go on and watch "PTB", which I missed when it aired and turns out to be a pretty good episode, with a not-yet-famous Bryan Cranston in the main guest role and some important arc stuff including an answer to something I'd been wondering about for years. But now, recalling that the quality of the show continues to trend downward, I need to decide whether I actually want to watch the rest of the series, or if I would be better off setting an October point and moving on to something else.

* Dracula Daily is drawing towards its close. I've learned a lot of interesting things doing it, but keeping up with the conversation has been quite demanding of time and attention at times, and although I don't think I regret it, I also don't think I want to do anything quite like it again in a hurry. Soon I will have a decision to make: when I decided to do Dracula Daily, it was partly with the intention of slingshotting off it to read through Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series (another series I originally experienced somewhat out of order and with bits missing). Now I'm not sure if that's still a good idea; having spent so much time with people analysing the characters in Dracula and discussing issues like the representations of race and mental illness, I think it's likely I'll be sensitive to the places where, if memory serves, Kim Newman doesn't give them as much careful attention.

Fiction books
Ben Aaronovitch. What Abigail Did That Summer (e)

Non-fiction books
Andrew Cartmel. Script Doctor: The Inside Story of Doctor Who 1986-1989

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

Top of the to-read pile
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Bad Actors

Fiction books
Alan Jay Lerner. My Fair Lady
Terry Pratchett. Wintersmith (e) (re-read)

In progress
Terry Pratchett. Making Money (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books
Steve Lindstrom. CSS Refactoring (e)

Non-fiction books in hiatus
Stephen Curtis. Staging Ideas

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

Top of the to-read pile
V Anton Spraul. Think Like a Programmer

Fiction books
David McGillivray, Walter Zerlin Jr. The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society Murder Mystery
David McGillivray, Walter Zerlin Jr. The Haunted Through Lounge and Recessed Dining Nook at Farndale Castle
Terry Pratchett. Going Postal (e) (re-read)

In progress
Terry Pratchett. Thud (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books in progress
Stephen Curtis. Staging Ideas

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

Top of the to-read pile
Ben Aaronovitch. Lies Sleeping

Fiction books
James Goss. Now We Are Six Hundred

In progress
Terry Pratchett. Night Watch (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books in progress
Grant Morrison. Supergods
Jack Plotnick. New Thoughts for Actors (e)

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

Top of the to-read pile
Tim Powers. The Stress of Her Regard

1. At the gaming group this week, we played Carcassonne and Splendor. First we played a two-player game of Carcassonne, which I won convincingly, then another person arrived and we played a three-player game, which I lost even more convincingly. Then we played two three-player games of Splendor, and I lost both times.

At the end of the evening, everybody happened to finish up early except the role-playing group, who were in the middle of battling a kraken that was trying to sink their ship. I hung around to see how that turned out; how it turned out was that the kraken destroyed the ship, but the adventuring party did manage to rescue most of the people on board by stuffing them inside some kind of hammerspace pocket their wizard conjured up. On the one hand: Lots of survivors, yay! On the other hand: Lots of survivors stuck in a hammerspace pocket hovering in midair over open ocean with no chance of anybody happening along to rescue them... The wizard explained that he had a theoretically sound plan for getting everyone back to dry land in one piece, but the venue was closing up so we didn't get to find out yet how well that was going to go in practice.


2. The local music school runs a small choral group for adults that I've been vaguely aware for a while, but hadn't got around to checking out due to having other things on and general shyness about putting myself into new situations. Recently I've had some more free time due to not being in any shows at present, which happened to coincide with the beginning of a new school term, so it seemed like a good time to check it out. I am enjoying it so far.


3. In a rare burst of decluttering enthusiasm, I've done something about the pile of Things I Put Down For a Moment Intending to Deal With Them Later that was gradually engulfing my study. It's now sorted into three boxes: things to be put away when I figure out where they go, likewise but with a good chance I'll be wanting them again before then, and things that actually need dealing with. Next step: dealing with the things in the third box.

In a bit of carry-over, I also did a thing with the box that's been sitting in the kitchen since I moved in, which nominally contained things that needed to be unpacked in the kitchen. It's now been separated into a small box of things that really do need to be unpacked, and a larger box of things I never actually used in the old kitchen and don't see myself using in this one either. Next step: Figure out how to usefully get rid of the second and larger box.


4. The new online community platform Imzy recently moved from closed to open beta, in case anyone's interested in checking it out. (Can't have communities without people in, after all...) My impression is that so far the more broadly-drawn communities, like Fantasy, are making more of a go of it than the communities based on more specific topics, but that may change as more people get involved.


5. Fanfic rec: Working Backwards by Starlightify. In which Clark Kent wakes up in Lois Lane's bed and has to figure out how he got there, and also who Lois thought he was at the time. Normally I find stories with this kind of premise acutely embarrassing, but this is written with a great deal of warmth and empathy and I enjoyed it unreservedly.

Fiction books
Lois McMaster Bujold. Diplomatic Immunity (e) (re-read)
Lois McMaster Bujold. Komarr (e) (re-read)
Kieron Gillen, Salvador Larroca. Darth Vader volume 1
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Alliance of Equals (e)
John Ostrander, Luke McDonnell, et al. Suicide Squad volume 1
Terry Pratchett. Feet of Clay (e) (re-read)
Anthony Price. Sion Crossing (e)
Mark Russell, Ben Caldwell, et al. Prez volume 1
William Shakespeare. Hamlet (re-read)

In progress
Terry Pratchett. Hogfather (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books
Adrian Goldsworthy. Augustus (e)

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

Top of the to-read pile
Eleanor Herman. Sex with Kings

1. Theatre News (subclass Acting in the):

As you may have guessed from the fiction log, the Rep Club's next big production will be the musical Oliver!. I've been in a bunch of musicals for the same director over the last decade or so, so I had what turned out to be the shortest audition I've ever done - didn't need to monologue, didn't need to sing, didn't need to dance, just needed to answer one question. I was a bit disappointed about the singing, since I'd put quite a bit of effort into my audition piece, but in the circumstances I think I'll survive.

The one question was: "Do you feel up to taking on the role of Fagin?"


2. Toastmasters News:

I entered both the Evaluation contest and the International Speech contest this year. The International Speech contest is the feeder contest for the World Championship of Public Speaking, and I've never entered it before. I only entered it this year because I gave a project speech last year which several people spontaneously told me was good enough for the contest, and because being a contestant meant I was exempt from being made to help organise it.

I won both contests at the club level, but at the area level I was beaten by the respective entrants from the college students' club. In a way, that was a relief, because it means I don't have to worry about finding time out of Oliver! rehearsals to attend the division and district contests. Let alone how inconvenient it would have been to qualify for the World Championship - not that I think that would have happened; the speech wasn't that good.


4. Theatre News (subclass Going to the):

I went to Perth to see The Lion King with my sister before it closed, because I've heard so much about how it's staged and who knows if it'll ever come this way again. There were bits that didn't quite work, but it was an impressive experience and on the whole I'm glad I went. Some of the puppets were astonishing. (Also astonishing, in a different way: the antipodean actor playing Timon's attempt at a New Jersey accent, which drifted as far south as Texas at one point.)

One side-note on the trip: It was the first time I'd been on the train since my international jetsetting Christmas holiday. Until I spent all that time on aeroplanes, I'd never really appreciated how much legroom you get on the train.


4. TV News:

The third season of Sherlock has aired here - actually, it aired last year, but then it was on against Foyle's War; this time it wasn't, and I had to decide whether I actually wanted to watch it. After carefully considering everything I'd heard about the third season and the Christmas special, I decided I didn't.

Also, the third season of Agents of SHIELD has started airing here; I watched a few episodes, then realised I wasn't actually all that interested, and stopped.

In happier TV news, the revived Danger Mouse started airing here this week, and I'm enjoying it immensely.


5. Theatre News (subclass Movie):

When I went to see The Force Awakens for the second time, it was preceded by a long trailer for the upcoming Batman/Superman movie. It kind of left me feeling like I'd seen the whole movie, and pretty much confirmed that I have no interest in actually seeing the whole movie.

Which leads me to a second side-note about my recent train trip: At one point, when I wasn't feeling motivated to do anything more brain-intensive, I watched the in-flight (if that's the word) movie, which was The Man From UNCLE. I have no idea how well it serves as an adaptation of the TV series, which I've never seen (yes, it's a shocking lacuna), but at one point I found myself thinking that Henry Cavill would probably do pretty well if he were cast as Superman, before remembering that he had been.