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hawkwing_lbOkay. That week-and-a-half was a complete wash. No energy, no exercise, no writing: only books, DVDs, and really bad eating habits.
Some months I hate being female.
Also? Hate this weather. Hate it with a very great hatred. Rain is nice. Warmth is nice. Humidity? Man, this is not a freaking rainforest around here. Let up a little. I'd really like to see the sun again sometime soon.
So, we begin again. Starting Monday July 16, I aim to write between 1200 and 1500 words per day for the subsequent 70 days, gym three days in seven, and karate twice a week. Plan?
Plan.
I can do ten weeks. Then I go back to college, anyway, and I get a whole new set of requirements to wreck my head over.
No foreign holidays for me this year. And no domestic ones, either. Next summer, though? Next summer, I'm going to Greece if I have to kill someone to get there.
So, books.
There were, ah. Rather a lot of them.
Books 101-108, Fiction 96-103.
96. Elizabeth Bear, Whiskey and Water.
I could say a lot about this book. I could talk about themes and painful, dense emotion, and fraught inevitability; I could wax lyrical over the depth of characterisation and prose dense and clear and refracted like heavy Waterford crystal. I could talk about Whiskey and the Devil and the Dragon Prince, and the way Matthew comes across to me as the flawed yet somehow perfect gentle knight, and how the weight of all the things left unsaid adds richness to the rest. I could talk about Lucifer and the nameless poet and the archangel, and the way this book seems to be about living with the worst results of one's best intentions, pride and brokenness and making the best of bad bargains.
But I won't.
It's a dense book. And marvellous with it.
97. Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies.
Another dense book, though not nearly as dense as W&W. Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen are running a caper in the city of Tal Verrar when complications ensue. There follow deceptions, feats of derring-do, and piracy upon the high seas. Also interesting new characters, twists, turns and did I mention the deceptions and the derring-do?
Great fun.
98. Chaz Brenchley, Bridge of Dreams.
It is my month, it seems, for dense books. I recall reading![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
desperance's Tower of the King's Daughter when I was - twelve? I think, maybe thirteen - in all likelihood too young to enjoyed a dense, measured book as it deserves. The prose is fluid, the pace, as I said, measured, and if it seems to me that the book ended where another author might have chosen to begin it, well, it makes for a pleasant change of pace.
It's more than pleasant to see a little Near Eastern cultural influence in the worldbuilding, too.
99. John M. Ford, The Dragon Waiting.
My month, as I said, for dense books. And I will freely confess I hardly understood everything that was going on here, but I enjoyed the ride, nonetheless.
If I knew a little more about the period in question, I might have understood it better. But very interesting and enjoyable, despite some of my confusion.
100. Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Justice.
I arrive with some relief at a less complex and dense book, though this is still both dense and complex. (In case anyone's wondering, I like dense and complex.) It follows on from the events of Kushiel's Scion. Imriel, the son of Terre d'Ange's most infamous traitor, starts an impossible love affair with the Dauphine Sidonie, gets married to an Alban princess, mixed up in foreign magics and then, eventually, comes to understand Kushiel's justice. Or something like that.
Carey's work has something of the air of travelogue, but it's romance in the old sense of the word. And really, amazingly good.
101. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Legacy.
Not a dense book, and not, perhaps, Bujold's best. But it has her characteristic grace and excellence, and even Bujold on an off day is still more than well worth the read.
102. Kelley Armstrong, Exit Strategy.
Armstrong veers sideways from her usual fare of werewolves, witches and ghosts in this one. It's a thriller-cum-murder-mystery involving Mafia hitmen (and women) who have to track down a former hitman turned serial killer before he puts all their livelihoods in jeopardy. It's fast-paced, entertaining, and well-done. I think it might even be a halfway original twist on the well-trodden serial-killer path.
Fun.
103. Julie Fortune, Stargate SG-1: Sacrifice Moon.
After all the lovely dense books, I needed a little bit of fluff. And, well. Sacrifice Moon doesn't have many bad points, if one's even halfway fond of the Stargate franchise. Well-written, characteristic characterisation, and generally good stuff.
#
Well, that's that in the way of books. I've also watched most of Stargate SG-1 seasons 5 and 6, and come to the conclusion that they did their best work in seasons 2 and 3. There is so much I'd do differently, given that basis to work on.
I'm also near the end of Farscape season 4. Farscape, unlike Stargate, is being doled out in carefully metered doses. Because it's good, that's why. And when it's gone, it's gone.
I have four episodes left. And the miniseries, but I was impatient and watched that long before Amazon shipped me season 4.
Rygel is still the most hilarious and yet three-dimensional character I've ever seen.
Some months I hate being female.
Also? Hate this weather. Hate it with a very great hatred. Rain is nice. Warmth is nice. Humidity? Man, this is not a freaking rainforest around here. Let up a little. I'd really like to see the sun again sometime soon.
So, we begin again. Starting Monday July 16, I aim to write between 1200 and 1500 words per day for the subsequent 70 days, gym three days in seven, and karate twice a week. Plan?
Plan.
I can do ten weeks. Then I go back to college, anyway, and I get a whole new set of requirements to wreck my head over.
No foreign holidays for me this year. And no domestic ones, either. Next summer, though? Next summer, I'm going to Greece if I have to kill someone to get there.
So, books.
There were, ah. Rather a lot of them.
Books 101-108, Fiction 96-103.
96. Elizabeth Bear, Whiskey and Water.
I could say a lot about this book. I could talk about themes and painful, dense emotion, and fraught inevitability; I could wax lyrical over the depth of characterisation and prose dense and clear and refracted like heavy Waterford crystal. I could talk about Whiskey and the Devil and the Dragon Prince, and the way Matthew comes across to me as the flawed yet somehow perfect gentle knight, and how the weight of all the things left unsaid adds richness to the rest. I could talk about Lucifer and the nameless poet and the archangel, and the way this book seems to be about living with the worst results of one's best intentions, pride and brokenness and making the best of bad bargains.
But I won't.
It's a dense book. And marvellous with it.
97. Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies.
Another dense book, though not nearly as dense as W&W. Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen are running a caper in the city of Tal Verrar when complications ensue. There follow deceptions, feats of derring-do, and piracy upon the high seas. Also interesting new characters, twists, turns and did I mention the deceptions and the derring-do?
Great fun.
98. Chaz Brenchley, Bridge of Dreams.
It is my month, it seems, for dense books. I recall reading
desperance's Tower of the King's Daughter when I was - twelve? I think, maybe thirteen - in all likelihood too young to enjoyed a dense, measured book as it deserves. The prose is fluid, the pace, as I said, measured, and if it seems to me that the book ended where another author might have chosen to begin it, well, it makes for a pleasant change of pace.It's more than pleasant to see a little Near Eastern cultural influence in the worldbuilding, too.
99. John M. Ford, The Dragon Waiting.
My month, as I said, for dense books. And I will freely confess I hardly understood everything that was going on here, but I enjoyed the ride, nonetheless.
If I knew a little more about the period in question, I might have understood it better. But very interesting and enjoyable, despite some of my confusion.
100. Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Justice.
I arrive with some relief at a less complex and dense book, though this is still both dense and complex. (In case anyone's wondering, I like dense and complex.) It follows on from the events of Kushiel's Scion. Imriel, the son of Terre d'Ange's most infamous traitor, starts an impossible love affair with the Dauphine Sidonie, gets married to an Alban princess, mixed up in foreign magics and then, eventually, comes to understand Kushiel's justice. Or something like that.
Carey's work has something of the air of travelogue, but it's romance in the old sense of the word. And really, amazingly good.
101. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Legacy.
Not a dense book, and not, perhaps, Bujold's best. But it has her characteristic grace and excellence, and even Bujold on an off day is still more than well worth the read.
102. Kelley Armstrong, Exit Strategy.
Armstrong veers sideways from her usual fare of werewolves, witches and ghosts in this one. It's a thriller-cum-murder-mystery involving Mafia hitmen (and women) who have to track down a former hitman turned serial killer before he puts all their livelihoods in jeopardy. It's fast-paced, entertaining, and well-done. I think it might even be a halfway original twist on the well-trodden serial-killer path.
Fun.
103. Julie Fortune, Stargate SG-1: Sacrifice Moon.
After all the lovely dense books, I needed a little bit of fluff. And, well. Sacrifice Moon doesn't have many bad points, if one's even halfway fond of the Stargate franchise. Well-written, characteristic characterisation, and generally good stuff.
#
Well, that's that in the way of books. I've also watched most of Stargate SG-1 seasons 5 and 6, and come to the conclusion that they did their best work in seasons 2 and 3. There is so much I'd do differently, given that basis to work on.
I'm also near the end of Farscape season 4. Farscape, unlike Stargate, is being doled out in carefully metered doses. Because it's good, that's why. And when it's gone, it's gone.
I have four episodes left. And the miniseries, but I was impatient and watched that long before Amazon shipped me season 4.
Rygel is still the most hilarious and yet three-dimensional character I've ever seen.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 01:07 am (UTC)Whoa whoa, hold it right there! It's out?
Or is it ARC?
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 08:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 08:17 am (UTC)Not only to you:
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 11:12 am (UTC)