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Recent culture roundup
Aug. 12th, 2020 09:52 pmOkay, folks, time for one of these again! Basically just books and podcasts, I haven't engaged with any other culture recently, other than the occasional music.
Books
Since the last, I finished the utterly delightful Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee, which I was reading at the time. I absolutely loved it, and the ending surprised me and was very different from what I was hoping for but utterly wonderful. Much recommended! After that I read Spellswept, a prequel novelette to the Harwood Spellbook series by Stephanie Burgis, a very delightful historical fantasy romance with a black female lead, and younger versions of some characters from Snowspelled that I read first. And now very recently I've been reading The Edge of Worlds, the fourth book in Martha Wells' Raksura series, which is epic fantasy about this really awesome shapeshifter race. (If I were to say they're kind of like human/reptilian person/dragon shapeshifters, with complicated social structures and matriarchy, you'd have something like the right idea.) It's been so brilliant, and I finished it today. I hadn't realised/remembered this book is actually the first of a duology so it basically leaves off at a very tense point! I might have to borrow the next book immediately.
The Raksura books have awesome and fascinating worldbuilding, with one of the most interesting fantasy races I've ever come across, they're written excellently, and very importantly they have fabulous characters! And I just need to give a special shoutout to Chime, I love Chime so much. I love all the central characters, but the smart snarky sensitive best friend (( slight spoiler - relationships, not plot )) is so much my thing. And I could basically read endlessly about Moon, Jade and Chime being awesome. This book also occasionally went into the point of view of characters other than Moon, to show things going on in places where he wasn't, that was also very cool after seeing the world only through his POV for three books.
Anyway, that's my fannish book gushing of the week! Probably.
I've also read and finished some space non-fiction books, and I'm currently reading Randall Munroe's How To: Absurd Scientific Answers to Common Real-World Problems, which is just as delightful as expected (this is the creator of the xkcd webcomic), and a hilarious way to learn some science.
I had to return Dread Nation by Justina Ireland to the library without finishing it, but I've placed a new hold on it, so I'll be able to finish it when I get it again, I hope. It's amazing, but it's also a touch more violent than I'm comfortable with, so I didn't manage to progress very fast... For lighter reading, I've started A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole. It's a romance novel with Black characters, and the leading lady is a scientist, which is brilliant. But I'm not great at reading het romance, and entitled dudes who need a good woman's love to learn to not be entitled is so not a favourite trope of mine, so I haven't been progressing lately. Maybe I just need to skip straight to the f/f novella later in the series.
I don't yet know what I'll read next if it isn't the fifth Raksura book. It's probably that. Unless someone else borrows it before I get around to it.
Podcasts
Quite a bit in this realm! I mentioned earlier that I finished the Juno Steel Season 2 stories in the Penumbra Podcast, and it was amazing. Juno Steel Season Two: a long, often arduous journey, but so, so worth it. I'm currently listening to The Battle at World's End, the Second Citadel finale, which is as many as six episodes, and I'm really enjoying it and wanting to squishhug many of the characters, especially that certain human-lizard-human trio.
With Wolf 359, I'm far enough in Season 4 to have entered the Shit-Hits-the-Fan phase, and am kind of scared to go on. The last episode I listened to was episode 55, and I both want to know what happens next and don't want to know, so I've been stuck here for a while. I'm so worried about so many characters.
So I've been listening to a lot of other stuff as well. I've talked about This Planet Needs a Name before, I think - it's a thoughtful, hopeful story about a small crew settling a new planet, meaning to prepare it for a larger group of humans who are in cryo-sleep until the planet is ready with them. It deals with some difficult topics like colonization and ethics of space settlement and ecology, as well as mental health and trauma, but it's also very sweet and lovely and hopeful. All the characters are queer in one way or another, it's very strong on found family, the characters are representative of many backgrounds and nationalities, the characters have been created in collaboration with their actors which is also so cool. It also has the loveliest, friendliest Discord server, which I recently joined, maintained by the creators. It currently has four full episodes out, plus a bunch of minisodes like the characters' job interviews, songs, stories, and even recipes. I've been listening to the new episodes as they aired pretty much since the show started, and I really love it. After listening to the recently released fourth episode, I started re-listening to the whole thing, and I've now re-listened up to the third episode.
I've recently found a whole lot of new shows I love. Directly via This Planet Needs a Name, because some of the same creators are involved, I found:
- Light Hearts, a super cute queer comedy show about a queer café/bar that has ghosts. It's very new and they've only got three full episodes out, but they're absolutely adorable episodes. The recent one even had a song! A totally adorable one, too.
- Hughes and Mincks, Ghost Detectives. A cute, silly comedy about two ghost detectives. The ghosts so far have been adorable.
- Also I've started on Seen and Not Heard, which is a podcast "about hearing loss and deaf gain" as it's described. It's only got a few short prologues out so far, and I haven't listened to all of them yet, but so far it's really good.
Shows I've found otherwise through recommendations:
- The Beacon, which I just binged in less than three weeks (it has two seasons and a bunch of minisodes). It's an urban fantasy podcast about college students who discover they've suddenly acquired magical powers, and try to navigate these powers and each other and, well, themselves. They've all got code names based on animals, and the main character, Bee, is an adorable queer ace anxious mess of a girl who tries to bring everyone together despite, and all the other characters are fabulous and adorable as well, and it's very queer.
- Phantomwise, which has just started and only has a few short episodes out, but I loooooove it. Basically when it was mentioned and I looked it up, I saw that it was based on Alice in Wonderland and the cast included Beth Crane (of We Fix Space Junk), and I didn't have to ask anything else, I went to look it up. It's got delightful dialogue and monologue and lots of alliteration, and it's basically about everything else except Alice's adventures (so far we've been hanging out with Alice's sister when Alice disappears, and Mary Ann a.k.a. Mock Alice who comes from Wonderland and ends up in Alice's place).
- Hit the Bricks, which was promoted in the outros of Phantomwise. The summary said "a musical radio play starring Michelle Agresti" and I basically didn't need to know anything else to check it out. Though also they're based on the Oz books. (Michelle Agresti appears in parts of Wolf 359 and, like several other members of the cast there, is one of the people I'd genuinely listen to recite a phone book.) It's really lovely and feel-good and the music is great, and though I'd probably get more out of it if it hadn't been almost 30 years since I read the Oz books, it's still really enjoyable.
- Solutions to Problems, a sci-fi comedy which is basically an advice radio show but in space, with aliens. One of the hosts is human and one is alien, and callers are from all over the galaxy, and it's hilarious and the host characters and their actors are so great. Really good if you need cheering up and enjoy sci-fi comedy.
One final note, We Fix Space Junk started it's Season Three recently, and it's been so much fun already! Definitely recommend checking out the new episodes.
I'm probably forgetting a few I've checked out recently, but it's so late I need to stop. (I got distracted playing Animal Crossing Pocket Camp for a bit. Which has happened a lot, to be honest.)
Uh, I'll try to soon post content of other kinds, too!
Books
Since the last, I finished the utterly delightful Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee, which I was reading at the time. I absolutely loved it, and the ending surprised me and was very different from what I was hoping for but utterly wonderful. Much recommended! After that I read Spellswept, a prequel novelette to the Harwood Spellbook series by Stephanie Burgis, a very delightful historical fantasy romance with a black female lead, and younger versions of some characters from Snowspelled that I read first. And now very recently I've been reading The Edge of Worlds, the fourth book in Martha Wells' Raksura series, which is epic fantasy about this really awesome shapeshifter race. (If I were to say they're kind of like human/reptilian person/dragon shapeshifters, with complicated social structures and matriarchy, you'd have something like the right idea.) It's been so brilliant, and I finished it today. I hadn't realised/remembered this book is actually the first of a duology so it basically leaves off at a very tense point! I might have to borrow the next book immediately.
The Raksura books have awesome and fascinating worldbuilding, with one of the most interesting fantasy races I've ever come across, they're written excellently, and very importantly they have fabulous characters! And I just need to give a special shoutout to Chime, I love Chime so much. I love all the central characters, but the smart snarky sensitive best friend (( slight spoiler - relationships, not plot )) is so much my thing. And I could basically read endlessly about Moon, Jade and Chime being awesome. This book also occasionally went into the point of view of characters other than Moon, to show things going on in places where he wasn't, that was also very cool after seeing the world only through his POV for three books.
Anyway, that's my fannish book gushing of the week! Probably.
I've also read and finished some space non-fiction books, and I'm currently reading Randall Munroe's How To: Absurd Scientific Answers to Common Real-World Problems, which is just as delightful as expected (this is the creator of the xkcd webcomic), and a hilarious way to learn some science.
I had to return Dread Nation by Justina Ireland to the library without finishing it, but I've placed a new hold on it, so I'll be able to finish it when I get it again, I hope. It's amazing, but it's also a touch more violent than I'm comfortable with, so I didn't manage to progress very fast... For lighter reading, I've started A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole. It's a romance novel with Black characters, and the leading lady is a scientist, which is brilliant. But I'm not great at reading het romance, and entitled dudes who need a good woman's love to learn to not be entitled is so not a favourite trope of mine, so I haven't been progressing lately. Maybe I just need to skip straight to the f/f novella later in the series.
I don't yet know what I'll read next if it isn't the fifth Raksura book. It's probably that. Unless someone else borrows it before I get around to it.
Podcasts
Quite a bit in this realm! I mentioned earlier that I finished the Juno Steel Season 2 stories in the Penumbra Podcast, and it was amazing. Juno Steel Season Two: a long, often arduous journey, but so, so worth it. I'm currently listening to The Battle at World's End, the Second Citadel finale, which is as many as six episodes, and I'm really enjoying it and wanting to squishhug many of the characters, especially that certain human-lizard-human trio.
With Wolf 359, I'm far enough in Season 4 to have entered the Shit-Hits-the-Fan phase, and am kind of scared to go on. The last episode I listened to was episode 55, and I both want to know what happens next and don't want to know, so I've been stuck here for a while. I'm so worried about so many characters.
So I've been listening to a lot of other stuff as well. I've talked about This Planet Needs a Name before, I think - it's a thoughtful, hopeful story about a small crew settling a new planet, meaning to prepare it for a larger group of humans who are in cryo-sleep until the planet is ready with them. It deals with some difficult topics like colonization and ethics of space settlement and ecology, as well as mental health and trauma, but it's also very sweet and lovely and hopeful. All the characters are queer in one way or another, it's very strong on found family, the characters are representative of many backgrounds and nationalities, the characters have been created in collaboration with their actors which is also so cool. It also has the loveliest, friendliest Discord server, which I recently joined, maintained by the creators. It currently has four full episodes out, plus a bunch of minisodes like the characters' job interviews, songs, stories, and even recipes. I've been listening to the new episodes as they aired pretty much since the show started, and I really love it. After listening to the recently released fourth episode, I started re-listening to the whole thing, and I've now re-listened up to the third episode.
I've recently found a whole lot of new shows I love. Directly via This Planet Needs a Name, because some of the same creators are involved, I found:
- Light Hearts, a super cute queer comedy show about a queer café/bar that has ghosts. It's very new and they've only got three full episodes out, but they're absolutely adorable episodes. The recent one even had a song! A totally adorable one, too.
- Hughes and Mincks, Ghost Detectives. A cute, silly comedy about two ghost detectives. The ghosts so far have been adorable.
- Also I've started on Seen and Not Heard, which is a podcast "about hearing loss and deaf gain" as it's described. It's only got a few short prologues out so far, and I haven't listened to all of them yet, but so far it's really good.
Shows I've found otherwise through recommendations:
- The Beacon, which I just binged in less than three weeks (it has two seasons and a bunch of minisodes). It's an urban fantasy podcast about college students who discover they've suddenly acquired magical powers, and try to navigate these powers and each other and, well, themselves. They've all got code names based on animals, and the main character, Bee, is an adorable queer ace anxious mess of a girl who tries to bring everyone together despite, and all the other characters are fabulous and adorable as well, and it's very queer.
- Phantomwise, which has just started and only has a few short episodes out, but I loooooove it. Basically when it was mentioned and I looked it up, I saw that it was based on Alice in Wonderland and the cast included Beth Crane (of We Fix Space Junk), and I didn't have to ask anything else, I went to look it up. It's got delightful dialogue and monologue and lots of alliteration, and it's basically about everything else except Alice's adventures (so far we've been hanging out with Alice's sister when Alice disappears, and Mary Ann a.k.a. Mock Alice who comes from Wonderland and ends up in Alice's place).
- Hit the Bricks, which was promoted in the outros of Phantomwise. The summary said "a musical radio play starring Michelle Agresti" and I basically didn't need to know anything else to check it out. Though also they're based on the Oz books. (Michelle Agresti appears in parts of Wolf 359 and, like several other members of the cast there, is one of the people I'd genuinely listen to recite a phone book.) It's really lovely and feel-good and the music is great, and though I'd probably get more out of it if it hadn't been almost 30 years since I read the Oz books, it's still really enjoyable.
- Solutions to Problems, a sci-fi comedy which is basically an advice radio show but in space, with aliens. One of the hosts is human and one is alien, and callers are from all over the galaxy, and it's hilarious and the host characters and their actors are so great. Really good if you need cheering up and enjoy sci-fi comedy.
One final note, We Fix Space Junk started it's Season Three recently, and it's been so much fun already! Definitely recommend checking out the new episodes.
I'm probably forgetting a few I've checked out recently, but it's so late I need to stop. (I got distracted playing Animal Crossing Pocket Camp for a bit. Which has happened a lot, to be honest.)
Uh, I'll try to soon post content of other kinds, too!
