pedanther

. This week marked the tenth anniversary of my first entry on 750 Words. That sounds more impressive if you don't know how many long gaps there have been along the way: my current streak, which has lasted most of the past year, is the longest time I've stuck at it before giving up for a few years, and in that time I've written more entries than in the other nine years put together.


. At board game club this week, the main game was Russian Railroads, a worker-placement game themed around building railways, with several different tracks, each of which offers different kinds of rewards for building on it. ( Read more... )


. I finished A Choice of Catastrophes, a non-fiction book by Isaac Asimov that I've been reading here and there since April. The hook is describing the ways that the world, or at least humanity, might come to an end, but along the way there are lessons in a wide variety of other scientific and historical subjects: to understand how the world might stop working, one first needs to understand how it works.
( It's good, but shows its age )


. I've had mixed experiences with the works of Tanith Lee: I loved her first novel, thought a couple of others were okay, and bounced off everything else of hers that I tried. ( And I've spent the last 25 years actively not reading The Silver Metal Lover ) I've made a good start, but I don't know how long it's going to take to finish, because I have a limited amount of cope for emotionally stressful fiction and when it comes down to it I'd rather be using it on catching up on the shows I've got behind on than dealing with a hapless teenage protagonist who, if I'm being honest, reminds me a bit too much of my own younger self.


. I happened upon an online listing recently for Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward: 2000-1887 that had a blurb describing it as a "dystopian classic", which would be a surprise to Bellamy. I don't know if the blurb writer was expressing an opinion about Bellamy's vision of utopia, or if it's just that "dystopian" has become such a marketable label lately that the online booksellers are slapping it on anything even remotely related.

Fiction books
Padraic Colum. The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles (e)
Tanith Lee. The Dragon Hoard (re-read)
John Masefield. The Midnight Folk (re-read)
Tamora Pierce. In the Hand of the Goddess (re-read)
Gene Luen Yang. American Born Chinese
Roger Zelazny. A Night in the Lonesome October (re-read)

In progress
(anthology). Liavek
Bram Stoker. The Jewel of Seven Stars

Non-fiction books in progress
Alain de Botton. The Consolations of Philosophy

In hiatus
Barbara Sher, Barbara Smith. I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was

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

Top of the to-read pile
John Masefield. Odtaa

1. I have achieved one of my occasional victories against clutter, boldly slaying the mess on the desk in my study. It started with just sorting out the Pile of DVDs To Be Watched (no small task in itself), but that left one small tidy corner of the desk that nagged at me until I tidied the rest of it too.

The Pile of DVDs To Be Watched was bidding fair to be taller than me, and had become completely useless because I'd lost track of what was and wasn't in it. It's been replaced by a proper DVD rack next to the desk, where I can see everything it contains, with positions of prominence given to the remaining discs of the six TV series I've started and not finished.

My next job might ought to be the back corner of the study that's been eaten by the Pile of Things That Might Come In Handy Some Day (which is not quite as tall as me, but makes up for it by taking up more floorspace than me-lying-down). That would make room for another bookshelf, and also proper shelves for my CDs and the rest of my DVDs.


2. When I call work to let them know I'm off sick, I always feel slightly awkward if whoever-it-is uses "How are you doing?" or something like it as a greeting. Taken at face value, it's an obvious opening to explain that actually I'm not doing at all well, and that's why I'm calling; but greetings aren't always meant to be taken at face value, and I've know people to get confused if their polite question receives an actual answer.

(I'm much better now, thank you for asking.)


3. The Rep Club's final production each year is traditionally a bit of knockabout dinner theatre in a pantomime vein. I usually beg off on the grounds of having too much to do at this time of year; I still have too much to do (if anything, I have more to do this year than usual) but I've somehow ended up roped into this year's show anyway. This year's show is a version of Snow White; I've been cast as the heroine's father, who in the usual way for fairy tale fathers if they're not actually dead is well-meaning but basically useless. It's been a while since I've done any acting in a broad comic mode; hopefully it'll come back to me.


4. I've finished reading The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles, and immediately began re-reading The Dragon Hoard, Tanith Lee's comic fantasy novel featuring a protracted spoof of the Quest for the Golden Fleece (with the eponymous Dragon Hoard in place of the Fleece). It's one of my favourite books since childhood, and it's still just as good as I remember.


5. Further field notes from Starship UK:

- The character model for Liz X has arm articulation that none of the other characters have, specifically so that she's capable of doing the "Basically, I rule" pose.

- Characters who speak entirely in cryptic verse: rarely a good idea. (I'll give 'em this, though: A valiant effort on fitting the obligatory technobabble into the verse scheme. There can't be very many rhymes for "quantum entanglement".)

- Other characters in Starship UK include women named Sladen and Tamm. And also Tamm's friend Caroline, who I assume is part of the set despite not fitting the pattern, because if she did she'd be named John, which you can see why that might have been confusing.

Fiction books
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener. Atomic Robo and the Dogs of War
Neil Gaiman. Absolute Sandman volume 3
Tanith Lee. The Dragon Hoard (re-read)
Alan Moore, Zander Cannon. Smax
Adam Rex. The True Meaning of Smekday

In progress
Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace

Non-fiction books
(none)

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

Top of the to-read pile
S M Stirling. The Sky People