Aurora's Sundry Notes

I am around! I know I haven't posted anything but my Yuletide letter in the recent months. I'm sorry about that, I haven't forgotten this place and I hope nobody's been worried, given the year we're having. I've been fine, and so have the people close to me. Just cooped up and isolated, as I'm sure we all know. This disappearance of mine wasn't intentional, I've just been swept away by RL stuff, as well as my fannish engagement in the indie podcast Discord communities I've joined, because my brain has mainly focused on podcast dramas all year. Also, in November I was busy writing a new novel manuscript, theoretically as part of NaNoWriMo, though I was nowhere near the 50K-word goal by the end. Fell just shy of 25,000, but I was very pleased with that, and just happy to get that story going.

Personal updates (in locked entries) will hopefully follow soon, but now I'm just making a little update about what I've been reading in the past months. I was going to do a whole set of what culture I've been enjoying, but you know what, I'm just doing books now so that I can actually post this tonight. I'll do podcasts on another day, since there's a lot. I'm not listing all of my read books here either, just some highlights. Just want to get back into the swing of writing about things here.

Books

I read the fifth and last Raksura novel by Martha Wells, The Harbors of the Sun, and loved it at least as much as I loved the fourth book. The whole series is wonderful, but I especially have a lot of love for that final duology. I think it was in September that I read it? Anyway, at some later point I borrowed the first of the Stories of the Raksura short story collections, and only after that realized it actually comes between books three and four, so I could have read it and the other story collection before I started reading books four and five. But it's all right, most of the stories take place before the book series anyway. I've yet to read the other short story collection, I'm saving it a bit since it really will be the last of the Raksura series I haven't read yet. Of course, once that happens I'm just going to have to start buying the books and rereading them!

I haven't had as much trouble focusing on reading as I had in the spring, but I've still been reading less than is normal for me. One reason is that I've started a lot of things I didn't like or care about enough to finish them. But anyway, I've read some science books and some poetry. I reread Tove Jansson's novel Fair Play which is one of my favorites among her fiction for adults, and the probably the queerest one. It's about two female artists sharing their lives together, and it's got that wonderful Tove Jansson quality where she makes stories worth telling about everyday life and they somehow crystallize so much about people, life, and the world in a few sentences or paragraphs.

Currently I'm reading some nonfiction space books, as well as a recent short story SFF collection called The Book of Dragons which has lots of stories about dragons, and it's really good so far. Short story collections are difficult for me because I'll love some stories, not care for others, and really dislike some, but so far I've enjoyed most of these, and only had to skip two or three. I'm not quite 1/3 of the way through, so we'll see how it continues, but it's nice to be able to read a short story collection since my attention span isn't the greatest.

I'm also reading a couple of Finnish novels, and haven't gotten bored of either one yet, it's really quite impressive. (I love my language, but our novelists don't have a good track record of holding my attention and interest for long. I always love it when I find exceptions!) One of them is a YA book that has dragons. Yes, we have a bit of a theme going on.

I'm going to try to get to other forms of culture (mainly podcasts, let's be honest) soon, but let this be it for tonight.

Was away for a couple of days, and yesterday was mainly spent geeking out and drinking copious amounts of tea. I recently got a bunch of science and steampunk things out of the library, and have been happily reading Mark Thompson's Down to Eart Guide to the Cosmos. Once the nights get a little bit darker here, I mean to start being a lot more active in stargazing like I've dreamed of being for some years, and gorging myself full of interesting information about the night sky is my way of preparing. I really want binoculars soon.

And once my brain decided I needed a break from all the fascinating information and the "a few degrees southwest of Star X, you will find the fascinating globular star cluster M-such-and-such, which by the way is not visible in Aurora's location because she's so far up north, but it's one of the most beautiful sights ever" I started to read Sydney Padua's The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. It's an alternate history / steampunk comic where Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage develop a steam-powered computer in the 1800s and use it to fight crime or, at least, geek out. Apparently this is something I've waited all my life to discover, or something. The webcomic is here, should the hypothetical reader be interested, but I'm reading the book format. In addition to comics, it has a wonderful amount of footnotes and endnotes, containing entertainingly written information about the weirdness of history of science, feeling like it's custom-made for a history-and-science geek like me. Read about half of it in one go.

It was lovely to sink myself into reading, because while I'm normally quite a bookworm, I've had a terrible time making myself read anything in the past few weeks. Somehow I just can't focus on anything for more than 10-20 minutes; I've tried so many genres and styles, but nothing appeals to me enough. Except, apparently, interestingly written popular science, and alternate history comics. In the past weeks I did read a lot of fanfic (mainly Doctor/Jack), so maybe I just have trouble of focusing on longer fiction, or fiction with characters I don't know already. I did just get Gail Carriger's newest book, Imprudence, in the mail, so I'm going to give that a try. I already know the characters in that one, and Carriger writes entertainingly and easily enough, while still being quite clever and with awesome female characters, LGBT relationships and such goodness.

Didn't even turn on the computer until the evening, when I watched some Doctor Who. Started on rewatching Season 2, I now watched New Earth and Tooth and Claw. Which means that up next is School Reunion, which was one of my favourites of S2 the first time around. K9, Sarah Jane, Ten as a schoolteacher, Anthony Head's evil schoolmaster - how could I not adore it?

I am trying to be marginally more productive today, though. Seeing as it's almost midday and I haven't yet changed out of my nightgown, I'm not holding out much hope, though. But I do mean to make some pie.

I'm also trying to figure out how to go on about finding some actual friends on this LJ. It was much easier way back when - the first time I had one of these, I started out with a bunch of friends I already knew from elsewhere, and LJ being much more active than it is now, it was easy to get to know people through conversations in friends' journals and communities. How to start from the scratch at this point, I'm not sure. People still at least somewhat active in my fandoms and ships, do not be surprised if you find yourselves friended. Once I find the courage to do so, anyway.