Aurora's Sundry Notes

The world is being scary in lots of ways, and I'm not the right person or in the right state of mind to talk about it, I'm just going to talk about the recent culture I've consumed/enjoyed/whatever is the right word. Look, I'm actually managing this on a Reading Wednesday! I don't manage that often.

Books

I am reading, even if not as much as I used to, back in the old days. But since my last post like this, I've finished the Finnish space book I was reading, and I read the first book of K.J. Charles's A Charm of Magpies series, The Magpie Lord. I found it mostly a delightful gay historical fantasy romp with interesting characters and lots of sex in various English settings; though at times a touch too violent for my liking, and the relationship & sex dynamics in this one aren't the kind I often go for. But it was good and interesting, and a light enough read to manage with my quarantine brain in a reasonable amount of time, and I do want to continue reading the series.

I also finished a volume of translated Chinese poetry from more than a millennium ago, which I much loved, and which I've been reading for a long time.

I continue to read and enjoy The Priory of the Orange Tree; I'm nearly 90 % through it, so it shouldn't take terribly long, it's just the quarantine brain that makes it slow. I'm also rereading This is How You Lose the Time War, because I want to, and rereads of a favourite and hopeful and beautiful f/f book are probably one of the best things for quarantine brain and anxiety brain.

I'm planning to DNF and return to library a bunch of books that, let's face it, I don't want to read enough to actually finish them. I don't know why I've had weird guilt about not-finishing books lately, I'm usually pretty merciless at that - life is too short to waste on books you don't like. Seriously this is not a time to feel obligated to read anything that isn't working for me, regardless of how many prizes it won or how much I liked the author's previous book or how many months I've already had it from the library or even how I really should read more from non-English-speaking parts of the world. Also, a lot of these books were started/borrowed/placed on hold before the pandemic, and we all know that was about 72 years ago at least, so ugh, who cares. I've got books around I actually want to read.

(I do wish people from my country were slightly better at writing books I want to finish, though. Non-fiction still seems to go all right, though, and sometimes poetry works.)

Podcasts

I've somehow calmed down in my "only consume podcasts" frenzy of the early isolation days. But I finished my re-listen of The Strange Case of the Starship Iris, and aaah I love it so much, even more the second time around, and I have so many feelings and thoughts about the characters, and especially this time around I was hit by Massive McCabe Feels. And generally Agent Feels but especially McCabe feels. I want to write fanfic about this show. (Let me know if you're a native English speaker who'd like to beta such fanfic, if I get it written. Though I generally need to do a beta call for "hey who can help me with all these tiny fandoms I seem to have picked up".)

In other podcast-listening news, on the Penumbra Podcast I finished Juno Steel and the Monster's Reflection, which was not an easy story, but damn it was significant and damn it was good. I also cried my eyes out after finishing it because just so many feelings, how dare they, it was good.

I finished re-listening to Midnight Radio, and I've continued re-listening to S2 of The Far Meridian. It's got a few recent bonus minisodes released, but I figure I'll finish my re-listen first and then listen to them so it goes in sequence. Mind you, it's trying my patience a bit to keep seeing them on my podcast feed!

I've been trying to slowly check out some new shows, but it's really hard to focus on anything new, anything that isn't either continuing an existing favourite or re-listening to something I've already heard. I also might need to stop my subscriptions to short-story podcasts because I can't seem to listen to any of those. Except for Toasted Cake, it's apparently short enough (it's delightful SFF flash fiction, for those who don't know it).

Other

Hmm, I really shouldn't subscribe to streaming TV because I'm still making my way through Gentleman Jack though I really like it. I'm, uh, almost halfway through (for reference, it's 8 episodes long), but then it turned out I wasn't in the right mindset for working conditions of 19th century English coal mines. Hmm, I also managed to somewhat make use of all the free arts and entertainment online, by watching the first act of Swan Lake by English National Ballet, but then I failed to continue to the rest of the ballet before it went offline. Still, it was beautiful! Maybe I'll manage to catch some other ballet and actually watch all of it. It could be relaxing!

Some things are opening up in my country, so there exists a chance I might go to visit an actual physical museum at some point.

Okay, I've been meaning to manage these "culture consumed" posts for a while. Seriously, I'm probably just going to have to go back to trying to do a Reading Wednesday and then pick other days for doing other forms of culture because I apparently find it too much work to list them all at once. And then I delay for weeks and then it especially is too much work. But I just want to chatter about culture things so now I'm doing it.

Books

This is going to be fast, because I'm not managing to read much now. Pretty much ever since the whole global-pandemic-with-lockdowns-and-social-distancing thing started, my concentration has been really bad for reading. I don't know why. Normally reading is my way of escaping from bad stuff, of comforting myself when things are hard, but now I mostly can't. It's not like I can't focus on anything at all, either, but somehow reading isn't working, or only works for small amounts of time. When I try to read for a long time, or when I'm too anxious, I can't focus, or I just get so tense it's awful. I'm really envious of everyone who can keep reading through this because I miss that.

This is to say that since I last posted about books, the only books I've managed to finish are T. Kingfisher's The Raven and the Reindeer and a re-read of Martha Wells's second Murderbot novella, the latter because I figured rereads might work better. The evidence about that is inconclusive, because it's a 150-page novella, and I took at least a week to read it. Pretty sure that the first time around I read through it in a day, and I had high fever then. But I did generally enjoy it, in the small bits I managed to read it in. However, there was maybe a bit too much, uh, murdering going on for my current state of mind. Maybe the next reread should be a Becky Chambers or Red, White, and Royal Blue. But now I've started reading a Finnish YA fantasy novel by one of the only current Finnish authors that I love just as much as my favourite foreign ones (Siiri Enoranta). I really like it, and it's in my own language, so I'm hoping that makes it easier to read.

To go back to The Raven and the Reindeer for a bit, it's a feminist f/f retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, and I enjoyed a lot. I mean, it's a feminist f/f retelling of The Snow Queen, so we're doing pretty well already, and it had awesome animals, like a proper smart-ass raven and reindeer some magical flying otters. But I got inordinately distracted by the fact that there were a lot of hints she was setting it in the Finnish culture, or a Finnish-based one - references to uniquely Finnish folklore and myths, especially - but wasn't aware that in Finnish, we don't have gendered third-person pronouns. Whether someone is "he" or "she" is not a conversation you can have in Finnish. (Of course you can otherwise have conversations about whether someone or something is male or female, but they wouldn't rise out of conversations that the he-or-she question would rise out of. Also, it seems weird, if we assume they're speaking/thinking in Finnish, that a raven would not like being called "it" because "it" is a totally proper pronoun to use of animals even if we think of them as intelligent and personable, for example with pets, and it wouldn't feel particularly demeaning/objectifying. In fact, in colloquial speech we use that pronoun for humans as well, because, huh, I don't know, we just do. I tend to always feel I'm being particularly official or excessively "proper" if I even use our word for he/she about a person in conversation. But I don't know if this was the case in the sort of time the story seems set in.)

Sorry, that's a long aside, and probably would literally only bother Finnish readers like me, but it just made me really confused about where I was supposed to locate this mentally, because every now and then it was telling me to locate it in my country, but then it also was clear Gerda was thinking in a language that doesn't match with the culture. Also Gerda isn't a Finnish name, but we do have plenty of Swedish names in use so that's not as much of a problem. As for Kay, though, that's not how we spell that name. But the names probably just come from the English renditions of the original tale.

Uh, I've been waiting to get that off my chest for a couple of weeks, thank you for reading this chapter and we'll move on now.

Podcasts

While I can't focus on books, you know what I can focus on? Podcasts! So many podcasts! In a time when I can't really meet anyone in person other than the occasional grocery store worker or a neighbour I pass by at the yard from a proper distance, it feels comforting to have some voices accompanying me, I guess. I've especially dived maybe even deeper into my podcast drama obsession, so I seriously need to trim this to just the main things. So I'll do those.

So, uh, maybe a month ago I started listening to Wolf 359. ( Rambling for a few paragraphs, mostly not spoilery but a bit. I've listened until the mid-season Three. )

So anyway, I've got a new fannish obsession there and it's... quite something.

Out of my pre-existing podcast obsessions, I've been slowly going through Season Two of The Penumbra Podcast, and it seems like I finally got through one really rough phase of the Juno Steel storyline (I'm sure there are still other rough things to come, but at least one arc arrived to a conclusion) and I was rewarded by a more hopeful, and truly excellent tale in Juno Steel and the Time Gone By. While there still was dark stuff in it, too, there also were some lovely things, and let's just say that I've now got a new f/f ship that I adore madly already. I might have to really write a separate entry about this, because I have lots of feelings and maybe even thinky thoughts. We'll see if I managed that!

And still with The Penumbra, today I listened to the Second Citadel story The Moonlit Hermit, both parts, because it was just so good and I couldn't stop. I love Rilla so damn much. I could honestly just listen to Rilla's research logs for ten hours, I wouldn't even need a plot, though I also enjoyed the plot and the character interactions immensely. But Rilla is brilliant.

You know, I'd rather love for all these scientist ladies from different podcasts to get together and solve some sort of a problem. I could just imagine Rilla, Violet Liu from The Strange Case of the Starship Iris, Dr. Eurys from Tides and Nora from The 12:37 getting together and being really amazing at sciencing at a problem. (Though Nora would probably be pretty unsettled since she doesn't do so great without her normal circumstances. But Rilla's good at dealing with Damien's anxiety, so she'd probably be help there, too.)

In terms of re-listening to old favorites, I've recently listened to S1 of We Fix Space Junk for the second time, and had even more fun than the first time. I've moved to re-listening to S2 of The Far Meridian, though I'm still in the early episodes - this part is a bit heavy listening, so it isn't the best time in the world for it, and I'm taking it slowly. And... I finally started re-listening to The Strange Case of the Starship Iris, and oh my goodness it's so good it's so good. I'm loving it even more this time around, maybe because now I already know everyone and I know what's generally going on and can just get more into it. I remember the first time I took a while to warm up to Arkady, but well, now I know how much I adore her, so I don't mind her being, oh, well, her general Arkady-ness. *waves* I've already listened to the first two episodes today, and I have a feeling I'll be going through it pretty fast this time around.

As I said, I've listened to plenty more podcasts, but I guess this covers the main things that I'm the most obsessed with.

TV Shows

Recently I got an HBO subscription for a bit - I'm still in the free trial period, but since I'm not a very fast watcher, it probably won't be enough. I'd been wanting to watch His Dark Materials and Gentleman Jack, and I've now watched the first episodes of both.

His Dark Materials is really excellently made and exciting and beautiful and seems to be superbly cast so far. But I remember the books pretty well, especially the first one because I read it many times while waiting for the sequels as a wee geeky girl-child, and well, now I'm watching it with this dreadful sense of foreboding because I know what's coming up, and it's especially bad with all the child characters because I know some bad things are coming and... I'm not sure if I can actually watch something like this at this time period. But at the same time it's so beautiful and well-made and it has beautiful music.

Gentleman Jack, though, is a delight, and doesn't give me the same difficult feelings. I have a feeling it won't take me long to watch it, the first episode was already so, so good. Of course there's complicated stuff that doesn't feel good, because history is history and the English class system is the English class system and yeah, that would be a whole essay. But it's more usual stuff that is easier to deal with than more epic danger. I'm going to have to write more about it when I've watched more of it. But it's really, really good.

And now I really have to stop and get on with other stuff before it's midnight in my time zone again.

I hope you all are okay and so are all that you know. To keep myself distracted from the news, and to possibly get some interaction in this time of isolation, here is a Reading Wednesday update! I meant to do the whole culture consumed thing, but since I've let this pile up, I've got way too much to put in one post, so I'll just post about podcasts and Other Things later, I hope.

Recently Read

Since the last time I posted, I've read at least:
- Pocket Apocalypse (Incryptid, #4) by Seanan McGuire. Alas, I didn't like this one anywhere near as much as the other books in the series so far. Doesn't help I'm not a fan of werewolves and it was too gory for my liking. But also the story wasn't particularly engaging, and besides Alex and Shelby all the other characters were flat caricatures. I also don't find it such a great aesthetic that in the one book where they go abroad (to Australia) pretty much all the local characters are horrible bigots and their motives and behaviour don't make any sense, and the American and his expat girlfriend are the enlightened ones, and I honestly would have expected better of Seanan McGuire. And seriously, what kind of a father is like that about his adult daughters? Is it normal enough in the US that it's presumed to be possible to happen without everyone thinking the man is certifiably insane? (In that case, I'm once again so glad to be Finnish.) Or was it just another assumption that countries that aren't the US are backwards like that? Oh well, at least the next book in the series will go back to Verity, she's fun. (Though I enjoyed Alex well enough when he was surrounded by his family members and we didn't have any "let's go to see the backward and bigoted foreigners" thing going on. He's not my favourite, but I didn't dislike him the way many readers seem to.)

- The True Queen by Zen Cho, the second book in her Sorcerer Royal series, which takes place in alternate history Regency England with magic, dragons, and people of colour. Though this one also takes partly in Malaysia and the Fairy (the series' spelling of what I usually see referred to as the Faerie in fantasy novels). Anyway, it was delightful and just what I needed at that point. The main character is Muna, a Malay girl who is not magical but her sister is, and neither of them remember their past. They're staying with Mak Gengang, an awesome powerhouse witch we already met in the previous book, but they end up travelling to England via Fairy to figure out what's happened to them, and shenanigans happen. We meet lots of characters from the first book, a lovely f/f romance develops, sisterhood is explored, magic is made, stuffy old Englishmen do not get their way, Prunella bosses people around as expected, and Rollo of Threllfall is as adorable as before. We also spend time with Rollo's formidable aunt Georgiana Without Ruth, powerhouse dragon ladies for the win. (How can you not love books that include a dragon aunt called Georgiana Without Ruth? It's impossible, I say.)

- Dead Djinn in Cairo and The Haunting of Tram Car 015, both by P. Djéli Clark, in this alternate history early 20th century Egypt where the Djinns and other magical beings are in our world and making fantastical inventions and changed the course of history so that Egypt was never colonized, and all kinds of awesome stuff. Dead Djinn in Cairo (a novelette, I think? probably not long enough to count as a novella?) has an awesome lady detective who dresses in exotic English men's garb and investigates the mystery of a dead djinn and flirts with a gorgeous woman along the side. She's sadly not the main character of The Haunting of Tram Car 015 but she does appear there, and the duo of male detectives in this novella are also very entertaining to follow. I love the world that Clark has created, the writing is delightful to read, and I love how it centres on a variety of non-Western cultures. I'd love to read entire books about this universe! The Haunting of Tram Car 015 totally went on my Hugo nominations list for Best Novella.

- Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen, a YA novel from the world of The Bright Sessions. It's a queer love story between two high school boys, one of whom is a powerful empath ie. he can feel other people's emotions (and gets therapy to help him deal with this from Dr. Bright, a therapist who specializes in individuals with special powers), the other having no special powers but he's super-smart and depressed. Caleb and Adam are definitely among the most popular characters of the show, and I love their story, and was excited to learn there would be a novel about them. I really enjoyed it! I'm not a big fan of first-person present tense, which seems to be near-ubiquitous in YA these days, but it worked fairly well here, I soon stopped noticing it. Probably it helps that the characters are constantly so confused about what's going on, so it makes sense they're not narrating from some vague point in the future. Anyway, I loved getting to know more about their story, including many parts the podcast can't tell us about at least directly. I'm pretty sure it works also for readers who don't know the podcast. Though it does end before the end of the podcast, so it's probably noticeable all threads haven't been followed to the end.

Although this is a part of a series, the other two books are not going to focus on Caleb and Adam's further story, but will feature other protagonists. I'm very curious about both of them as well; the second book will be Damien's origin story, and I'm really curious as to how she's going to pull that off, especially given that it can't really have a wholesome happy ending in a typical sense, and that you are not supposed to end up sympathizing overly much with the protagonist. Anyway, the third book will be about Rose, who I really wanted more time with during the show, so I'm happy the book will explore her story - especially as it means another YA book with a lesbian main character.

Currently reading

I've got too many books as usual that are technically being read, but most actively, I'm reading the sixth Flavia de Luce book by Alan Bradley, and Mythic Dream, a collection of short stories based on myths around the world, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe. Authors like Ann Leckie, T. Kingfisher, JY Yang, Arkady Martine, Naomi Novik, and Amal El-Mohtar. I admit, I already sneaked ahead to read Amal El-Mohtar's feminist and f/f Blodeauwedd retelling, Florilegia, or, Some Lies About Flowers because I was so curious about it and wanted to see if I'd want to nominate it for the Hugos before the nominations closed. (I did.) Besides that, I've so far enjoyed T. Kingfisher's story (The Labours of Hercules from the point of view of a bird!) and JY Yang's stories best, but I've still got several to go.

Not trying to make guesses about what I'll read next, because I just stress myself unnecessarily if I do say that I'm going to read this or that. I'm such a creature of mood and whimsy when it comes to reading, I'll read what I want to read at the time. I do want to read more in my own language again, though. Well, now that I'm mostly expected to stay at home with my overflowing bookshelf, there should be plenty of time for reading.

Feel free to chime in, about these books or others, or anything else related!