helen-louise's journal

So my friend kshandra and her husband gridlore want to go on holiday for their 25th wedding anniversary. But it's going to be difficult because Doug has worst health than me. I mean, seriously, the poor guy has had cancer twice (plus another malignant growth that was small enough to be removed by a dermatologist) and has suffered horrible side-effects from the anti-cancer drugs which saved his life. Like his jawbone started rotting away and his teeth fell out so he couldn't eat, and then he got a potassium deficiency and almost died, and he has no spleen so he can't fight infection... And it really says something when you're talking about your friend's husband's bad health to your other friends, and the list of problems is so long that you actually forgot that he'd had a stroke.

Anyway, they are great people, if perpetually short of money, and they deserve the chance to have something fun happen to them for once. So they want to go to Istanbul. It won't be cheap - the travel insurance alone will be a small fortune - but they have friends and friends of friends who can help. Even US $5 will help. If you're able to give then here's the link, if you can't then would you consider boosting the signal? I've known Kirsten for something like 13 or 14 years, I can personally vouch for the situation being genuine.

Also, some of my friends have written a book. Purple Prose is all about Bisexuality in Britain. I'm sure a lot of it will be relevant to bisexuals outside of Britain, too. It's only £5 for an e-book or £15 for an e-book and paperback, so please buy one if you can! The closing date for the funding is 11th November.

Lately I have been mostly failing at posting about the books I've been reading. In fact, sad though this might be, the last time I renewed my library books it was solely because I hadn't yet written reviews of them!

What am I reading now?
The Hunted by L.A. Banks. I am two chapters from the end, and dragging it out because none of the books I've ordered have come in yet.

firecat, The Awakening and The Hunted (the first and second sequels to Minion) are both awesome. Oddly, The Awakening is half the size of The Hunted, only 300 pages to the latter's 576. But it doesn't leave you feeling short-changed.

So far, I really recommend this series - about a black female vampire hunter, her multi-racial team, and her Hispanic vampire lover - to anyone who's looking for modern urban fantasy featuring kick-ass women. Its basic premise is that God and the Devil are both real, and that our world is locked in a literal struggle between Heaven and Hell. Vampires rule in Hell second only to "the Boss", and they visit the "topside" to corrupt humans. Every thousand years, a Neteru is born, and this person will either become the strongest vampire hunter of their era, or the most powerful vampire lover whose children will be vampires who can walk in daylight.

Its over-the-top fantastical elements are played tongue-in-cheek, while it layers on details of different cultures and religions to feel inclusive without being tokenistic. In The Hunted, they go to Brazil to hunt demons, and Brazilian history and culture is explained clearly and lovingly for the book's predominantly American audience. I've ordered the next four books in the series. Honestly, the thing I'm most sad about is that the author died a few years ago, so there won't be any more.

Also, BABIES!!!!11! have not yet featured in the plot, and I don't think they're likely to until several books further on. Phew.


What have I read recently?
Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs. If I said it's another one of the Mercedes Thompson series and it's pretty much the same as all the others, that would sound dismissive. What I mean is that if you're a fan of this sort of modern urban fantasy, you'll love it - if you're not, I don't know that this book would be the one to convince you. Personally, I absolutely love the series - Mercy is what Anita Blake used to be like, before she became a raving sex maniac. The characters are sweet and funny and very human even though they're werewolves and vampires and faeries.

A whole load of books of short stories:
Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner. Okay. The first thing I want to say about this is that you should only read it if (a) you're a person who really likes Christmas or (b) it is almost Christmas, so you're in the mood. I read it in September and it was just Wrong. The second thing is that a lot of the stories are written in strange styles ("zany" is the word that springs to mind), and enough of the authors have made links between Santa Claus and werewolves that I'm actually wondering whether this is A Thing that I just didn't know about before. None of the stories are terrible, but there were a few that frustrated the hell out of me because they could have been perfect and then just... weren't. The best story of the collection is Fresh Meat by Alan Gordon, which has precisely the right mixture of sweetness and horror.

Home Improvement: Undead Edition, edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner. This book is supposed to be short stories about D.I.Y. with a paranormal twist, but the theme is stretched rather - one of the stories is about a restaurant, another is a detective story, while another is about a monk, a mountain, a museum, and a statue of Buddha. That last story, The Path by S.J. Rozan, is by far the best in the book, and has never failed to make me cry on the five occasions I've read it. I love it enough to consider buying the whole book just to own that one story, unless it happens to be published elsewhere.

Other stand-out stories are Gray by Patricia Briggs, The Strength Inside by Melissa Marr, Through This House by Seanan McGuire, It's All In the Rendering by Simon R. Green, and In Brightest Day by Toni L.P. Kelner. Although all of the stories are good and none are frustrating.

Strange Brew edited by P.N. Elrod. The theme of this collection is "powerful witches and dark magic". Again, all of the stories are good, though I think Signatures of the Dead by Faith Hunter is the best. I also very much like Seeing Eye by Patricia Briggs (which introduces Moira and Tom, characters in the Alpha and Omega series), Death Warmed Over by Rachel Caine (which is an unashamed paranormal romance), and Vegas Odds by Karen Chance.

Naked City edited by Ellen Datlow. I can't pick out a favourite story. Curses by Jim Butcher is about faeries and baseball (and should be read by all my baseball-loving friends), The Duke of Riverside by Ellen Kushner is a love story between two men, Priced to Sell by Naomi Novik is about estate agents who sell flats in New York City to non-human people, Noble Rot by Holly Black is about a dying rock star.


What am I going to read next?
Not sure. Given that none of my reservations have arrived, it'll be whatever I randomly pick up from the library. Although looking at my bookshelves tonight, my eyes were drawn to The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold, and it's been a while since I last read that series, so it's tempting. Oh, I just love Cazaril, and the five gods of their religion! Especially as I have a character in my head who would be a priest of the Bastard if he lived in that universe :)

Because it's still Wednesday somewhere.

What am I reading now?
Aralorn: Masques and Wolfsbane by Patricia Briggs. This is slightly cheating because I have in fact finished it once already, and am reading it again because I don't want it to end. Masques is an old novel of hers which has been dug out and polished up, and published in an omnibus edition with a sequel. I love it when authors do that, taking an old story which they wrote mainly on instinct, and revise it with everything they've learned since.

I don't love it when an author's old story is simply republished without revision. I tried to read The Flood by Ian Rankin a few months ago, and gave up because I realised that I had absolutely no interest in any of the characters or what was going to happen to them. Just as well, the ending was entirely unsatisfactory.

What have I read recently?
Minion by L.A. Banks. I picked this up from the library for the sole reason that it was a modern urban fantasy with a black girl on the cover, rather than the usual mixed-race-but-passes-for-white, and I thought that sort of thing should be encouraged. I've had it out for months but not had the concentration span to read it. Anyway, it's set in modern-day America and features a team of vampire hunters, so far so good, but then it turns a load of clichés on their head.

The first couple of pages of dialogue annoyed me, because I thought they were trying too hard, but then my brain adjusted to the lower-class African-American speech patterns. And I found part of myself deriding the rest of myself for being such a classist or racist as to have been uncomfortable with it at the beginning. Why should everyone in books be incredibly middle-class? Young people in particular should have the opportunity to read books with heroes who speak the same way that they do. How can you expect people to get interested in reading when no one in the story is like themselves?

I ended up reading the entire book in one go, didn't even skip to the end to find out what happened, which is very unusual for me. Turns out it's the sort of book where you have to read the sequel. So I need to find it on the library database and order it.

What am I going to read next?
I've had Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett out of the library for a while now, so probably that.

For those who don't already know, the eARC of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance is online. And the blasted free preview ends with the most frustrating cliffhanger ever, so I'm going to have to buy it. Now!

Also this bit (from Chapter 5) is possibly the best metaphor ever: ( Some people will consider this a spoiler (even though it isn't a spoiler for the story) )

I haven't posted anything in ages, mostly because I'm tired and have no motivation. I am feeling pretty blah right now, but it's boredom and the kind of situational depression that is "sick of being sick" rather than "proper" depression. My life at the moment consists of sleeping a lot, then lying in bed playing video games - it really isn't very exciting, and I rather want my ability to DO THINGS back. I am playing The Sims 3 and Pokemon White. So badly need to get out to a library. Any library. Reading web forums and fanfic and even eBooks (though I hate the format), but I want more books that I haven't read.

Mind you, there seems to be something of an epidemic of chronic fatigue among my friends at the moment - no idea why, except that lots of people are ill - and I seem to be the least ill of the lot of them. One person I know can't even walk to the bathroom or lift her head up most days, so I'm grateful that it's not *that* bad. My mental tiredness is improving slowly, so I'm hoping to get back to College work soon.

I'm getting out at the weekend, at least. Most days I can walk a bit, so we can go out for dinner locally, or if Richard's here he can dump me in the wheelchair and push me. I'm grateful that he doesn't see this as a chore. We see meeping and gerwinium most Sundays. Last Wednesday we went out with hatter, and yesterday was alexmc's birthday party, which was a lot of fun. It was in Leytonstone, which is almost as far away from Kingston as it's possible to get while still being in London, so it took 1hr 45 min to get there and something like 3 hours to get back (due to night buses), but once we realised we weren't going to catch the last train, we stopped off in central London and got food and watched people. I also acquired a huge pile of books that Alex didn't want for various reasons, though they're mostly Laurell K. Hamilton's attempt at pr0n. (Though I read Skin Trade on the way home yesterday, and the ratio of bad sex to plot is much, much lower than most of her recent books, so I'm pleased with it).

I have two separate instantations of Firefox, each full of links that I've been meaning to share - must acquire some spoons and actually DO THAT.

Also, in a moment of sheer idiocy which could probably be applied to any discipline, including fiction: I saw a reference to a book which I thought was interesting, went to the library website, saw they had one copy which is currently out, considered ordering it, looked up at my bookshelf and... oh.

Apparently, I already have it.

Please tell me you've done this too, so I feel less stupid.

I am reading the electronic ARC of Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold. It's the new Vorkosigan book, and not officially out until November.

I don't quite understand what an ARC is - the modern version of the old galley proofs that authors used to receive, made available electronically by the publisher because fans want to read books as early as possible and can live with typos - but it is official and the author will be getting royalties, which is all I care about. 5 chapters are available for free and the rest of the book costs US $15.

Anyway, I know most people are far more bothered about spoilers than I am, so all I'm going to say is that the middle of Chapter 11 has me crying my eyes out. Damn, but I wasn't expecting that!

May post a few random snippets - single sentences that are totally unspoilery. So far, my favourite of those has to be Jin wondered who Gregor was. Miles-san’s insurance boss? Which will make no sense whatsoever until you read the book, so I feel thoroughly justified in posting it! I'm also quite amused by Ptah-hotep is a louse!

I need to go to bed. I was resisting buying this electronic version of the book until I'd got some more work done, but who am I kidding? New Vorkosigan book (ok, with typos, formatting issues and a few corrections needed), and I am like putty. Sod sorting out my sleep pattern, that'll have to wait another day.

Today I have been mostly dead. Have had the kind of period pain where I'm being held together by three different painkillers, one of which is prescription-only. The good news is that, being period pain, it'll be mostly gone by tomorrow and completely gone by Tuesday. Yay.

I have also been working on the carbohydrate coursework from hell. You know, the one that was due in on 15th January? I finally have enough brain to tackle it! Despite being in pain! It's amazing. Go sunshine, smite that SAD!

What kind of moron underlines sentences in a library book using ballpoint pen without a ruler? The lines have random thickness and in some places cross right through the words. The person pressed so hard that the pen has scored the page to the extent you can see bobbled lines on the reverse side. I tend to get annoyed when people underline stuff in library books in pencil - I think that if you want to go round underlining things then either buy the book yourself, or photocopy the important pages. (It's true that pencil rubs out, but sometimes people press too hard with their pencil. And sometimes when you rub out the pencil you also rub out some of the book's ink). But ballpoint pen? That's just... vandalism!

I had to pay some cheques into the bank today, so I went to the bank in the basement of the Bentall Centre and then into WH Smith to get a hot chocolate from the Costa inside (as opposed to going to the one on the top floor, or the one in the market place). While I was waiting for my drink to be made, I looked across at the bookselling part of the shop, and was horrified to discover that there is now a whole section labelled "Tragic Life Stories"!

Back up a minute here. It surprises me that there is a market for Tragic Life autobiographies in any case. Why on earth would anyone want to read about children or young adults being abused? It's bad enough knowing that such things happen, without reading all the horrible details. I can think of maybe three good reasons why a person might want to read such a book: to recover from abuse of their own, and put it into some sort of perspective; to try to understand the psychology of abusers, so that you can avoid becoming one yourself; and to realise that your own family, while fucked up, is not as bad as it could be. I can't believe that it would be useful for psychologists to read such books, because of the problems of recovered memories or unreliable narrators, and in any case they're marketed at the general public.

Now, I know perhaps five or six people who have told me about specific incidents of abuse that happened when they were children or teenagers; and things being as they are, I suspect I know another five or six who were abused but haven't told me. But what all of these friends have in common is that they want to move on from the shitty experiences and build the best adult life they possibly can. I can't imagine anyone I know wanting to wallow in their misery to the extent of writing a book about it, although I can see how some people could find the storytelling cathartic. But some of these authors have gone on to write three or four books about their abuse! And while I can see how a person might want to read one of these books for the reasons I mentioned already, the idea of deliberately reading book after book about damaged people seems like car crash TV - slowing down to look at the wreckage to make you feel more alive. And that seems, well, somewhat broken to me.

But then I mentioned this to the guy working in Costa, who I know vaguely through being a regular customer, and he told me how it was particularly awful for him because he lost a friend recently. She was 34 years old, diving with her husband in Malta, and got into difficulties. Apparently she got helium in her blood - I guess this would be the bends or an arterial gas embolism? And what I know about that is very little because I don't dive and will never be allowed to dive (asthma), but even I as a totally lay person know that you have to ascend to the surface slowly when that happens. Apparently her instructor pulled her straight up to the surface (!). One of the people she worked for is a lawyer, and he is investigating the dive company - who apparently have been responsible for 75% of diving deaths in Malta (!! Yes, I wish I knew the name of the company so I could tell my friends who dive to avoid them like the plague!). So he gets to stand there all day, making drinks for people, and seeing the books that peddle gawping at other people's misery. Gods.

So, if you are a praying sort of person, pray for the family and friends of this woman. Pray or hope also that the incompetent people get fined/prosecuted/retrained. And, spoons permitting, I will write a brief letter to the manager of WH Smith saying how utterly inappropriate I find the Tragic Life Stories section, and how upsetting it could be for anyone who's experienced a recent loss.

In an attempt to tidy up my many open tabs prior to rebooting the laptop, have a link dump.

Interesting articles:
Polyamory is not about the sex, except when it is. Very long article which those of you into poly will find interesting. Followup comment by ratatosk, linked by... wispfox, I think.

Pleasure Town Is Invite Only! by mistful. Hilariously funny story about how a feminist-from-babyhood came across a traditional romance book at a young age and was Scarred For Life. Linked by, er, j00j, I think. (Yes, some of these links have been open for weeks).

How 'gay' became children's insult of choice, from the BBC News Magazine. I'm in two minds about whether the use of "gay" as a derogatory term is homophobic. I can see both sides of the argument. Though I tend to side with those who find it offensive, because there's nothing inherently crap or second-class about being gay and I don't like the meanings being linked in that way. But then what do we come back to? Cripple-bashing terms like "lame". Hrm.

World's best-known protest symbol turns 50, from the BBC News Magazine. About the CND logo and how it was coined. I like the idea that it's from the semaphore signs for N & D, meaning Nuclear Disarmament.

When Girls Will Be Boys, from the New York Times. An article about FTM transsexuals/transmen attending women's colleges. Linked in comments on Dykes to Watch Out For.

Video: BBC Micro creators reunite, from BBC News. Interview with Hermann Hauser from Acorn. Talks about how awesome and innovative the Beeb was, and how everything has ARM chips in these days.

See-saw to power African schools. Design student Daniel Sheridan has created a simple see-saw which generates enough electricity to light a classroom. Really great idea!