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Recent culture roundup
Jul. 5th, 2020 09:43 pmHey, let's have a recent culture & media round-up since I've actually got stuff to report for, and I feel like posting something! It's also very rainy here, which feels like the appropriate mood for some cultural posting. I think I'll start calling these recent culture round-ups rather than "culture consumed" which stuck to me from some fannish podcast but doesn't really work for me.
Books
Very promisingly, it seems that my reading block might be lifting! Since I last posted about books, I finished The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, which I enjoyed quite a bit. I also read two novellas: Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather, which is nuns in space and living spaceships and other cool space biology stuff, as well as an f/f subplot, and it was good; and Snowspelled by Stephanie Burgis, which is the first of her alternate historical fantasy of an England where men are mages and women rule politics, because that whole thing with Boudicca and the Romans went rather differently than it did in our universe. It was really enjoyable, a sweet bit of feel-good escapism that still wasn't too fluffy or insubstantial. I really look forward to reading the rest of the series, and the third novella is going to be an f/f romance. This one was m/f romance, but for once it was an m/f pair I totally adored and enjoyed! Yay!
Currently I'm reading Yoon Ha Lee's Dragon Pearl, which is middle-grade space opera science fantasy and it's totally, totally awesome. I'm not even finding it as easy as before to read middle-grade or YA books, but here it all totally works for me, while I'm sure it also works for younger readers and damn would I have liked to have something like this to read when I was a kid. If someone's curious to try Yoon Ha Lee's work but is scared to dip into the Machineries of Empire series for whatever reason, this could be a good one to try!
I've also started reading Justina Ireland's Dread Nation, which is alternate history steampunk-ish historical-fantasy-horror with black girls being badass at killing zombies. I'm not great at reading about zombies without getting squeamish, so this is progressing more slowly than it deserves - the writing is great and the story super engaging. Anyway, this means I'm currently reading about two Very Bad Teenage Girls who it would be a horror to be in any way responsible for. I'm finding this very empowering.
Podcasts
In non-fiction podcasts, I continue to enjoy Exolore's exploration of fictional alien planets and the life that could develop on them. I have listened to other shows as well, but my mind's a bit of a sieve.
In fiction podcasts:
In The Penumbra Podcast, I finished Juno Steel and the Long Way Home (very exciting ending, and I cried a bit at a certain point, and I look forward to the next story but need to be in the right mindset for it) and I also listened to the Second Citadel Story The Spiral Sage, which was awesome. I in particular enjoyed Rilla's speech in the courtroom, hee. *squees a bit* Not saying more here because of spoilers - at some point I should do a proper spoiler-cut post just about the Penumbra. Anyway. This means I've only got two stories of each left before the end of S2 - it's actually in sight! Two Juno stories, each of them two episodes, and two Second Citadel stories, one of them two episodes and the other five (!) episodes, plus a one-episode special for the Second Citadel. Very exciting!
I've started listening to S4 of Wolf 359. Extremely exciting! I've listened the first three full episodes plus the minisode after the first episode. All very intense stuff. I was amused / surprised by Zach Valenti's intro to the season, though, because it turns out there's absolutely no difference between hyper-excited Eiffel and hyper-excited Zach Valenti, at least in how they speak. Heh.
I finished listening to the Far Meridian minisodes, and am now waiting for S3 with queer longing.
Other stuff
I've actually watched some things! I watched the recording of the Globe Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream that was available on YouTube for about a week after Midsummer. Then I also watched the National Theatre / Bridge Theatre version of the same. I of course had to watch both just before the time to watch them ran out because I'm like that. But anyway, I enjoyed them both, but found the NT/Bridge Theatre one particularly great, it really did something unique with the play and the characters, and I felt the changes they did worked, and made sense in the context of the production, which is more than you can say for many other reworked productions of classics, and they dealt really well with some aspects of the play that are... rather uncomfortable if you think about them. I was so excited by this experience I might actually get around to watching more of these theatre recordings online as they're available. We'll see! It would be nice. I used to be such a theatre nut, and it's been bothering me that I haven't been able to take advantage of all that's been offered online for free in the past months. Though I do wish I could afford to donate. Maybe later.
I'm wondering if I need to start including a section for gaming... Not that I've got a wide range of games I play, but this year I've started playing a few mobile phone games, mostly for distraction and comfort during stress and bad times. I've been playing too much Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp since I started it a couple of months ago, but it does make me feel good. Anyway, this week I learned about a game called June's Journey, where you play a 1920s lady who ends up having to investigate the suspicious deaths of her sister and brother-in-law. You alternate between solving mystery scenes by finding clues etc. and restoring and building up the fancy estate she's now in charge of. It's extremely pretty and atmospheric, the gameplay is really good and the balance between the different aspects works for me, and the main character looks very Miss Fisher-like, which makes me want to watch some Miss Fisher. I might do some of that next. I'm also mostly managing not to call her Juno instead of June, which I think is very good of me.
Books
Very promisingly, it seems that my reading block might be lifting! Since I last posted about books, I finished The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, which I enjoyed quite a bit. I also read two novellas: Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather, which is nuns in space and living spaceships and other cool space biology stuff, as well as an f/f subplot, and it was good; and Snowspelled by Stephanie Burgis, which is the first of her alternate historical fantasy of an England where men are mages and women rule politics, because that whole thing with Boudicca and the Romans went rather differently than it did in our universe. It was really enjoyable, a sweet bit of feel-good escapism that still wasn't too fluffy or insubstantial. I really look forward to reading the rest of the series, and the third novella is going to be an f/f romance. This one was m/f romance, but for once it was an m/f pair I totally adored and enjoyed! Yay!
Currently I'm reading Yoon Ha Lee's Dragon Pearl, which is middle-grade space opera science fantasy and it's totally, totally awesome. I'm not even finding it as easy as before to read middle-grade or YA books, but here it all totally works for me, while I'm sure it also works for younger readers and damn would I have liked to have something like this to read when I was a kid. If someone's curious to try Yoon Ha Lee's work but is scared to dip into the Machineries of Empire series for whatever reason, this could be a good one to try!
I've also started reading Justina Ireland's Dread Nation, which is alternate history steampunk-ish historical-fantasy-horror with black girls being badass at killing zombies. I'm not great at reading about zombies without getting squeamish, so this is progressing more slowly than it deserves - the writing is great and the story super engaging. Anyway, this means I'm currently reading about two Very Bad Teenage Girls who it would be a horror to be in any way responsible for. I'm finding this very empowering.
Podcasts
In non-fiction podcasts, I continue to enjoy Exolore's exploration of fictional alien planets and the life that could develop on them. I have listened to other shows as well, but my mind's a bit of a sieve.
In fiction podcasts:
In The Penumbra Podcast, I finished Juno Steel and the Long Way Home (very exciting ending, and I cried a bit at a certain point, and I look forward to the next story but need to be in the right mindset for it) and I also listened to the Second Citadel Story The Spiral Sage, which was awesome. I in particular enjoyed Rilla's speech in the courtroom, hee. *squees a bit* Not saying more here because of spoilers - at some point I should do a proper spoiler-cut post just about the Penumbra. Anyway. This means I've only got two stories of each left before the end of S2 - it's actually in sight! Two Juno stories, each of them two episodes, and two Second Citadel stories, one of them two episodes and the other five (!) episodes, plus a one-episode special for the Second Citadel. Very exciting!
I've started listening to S4 of Wolf 359. Extremely exciting! I've listened the first three full episodes plus the minisode after the first episode. All very intense stuff. I was amused / surprised by Zach Valenti's intro to the season, though, because it turns out there's absolutely no difference between hyper-excited Eiffel and hyper-excited Zach Valenti, at least in how they speak. Heh.
I finished listening to the Far Meridian minisodes, and am now waiting for S3 with queer longing.
Other stuff
I've actually watched some things! I watched the recording of the Globe Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream that was available on YouTube for about a week after Midsummer. Then I also watched the National Theatre / Bridge Theatre version of the same. I of course had to watch both just before the time to watch them ran out because I'm like that. But anyway, I enjoyed them both, but found the NT/Bridge Theatre one particularly great, it really did something unique with the play and the characters, and I felt the changes they did worked, and made sense in the context of the production, which is more than you can say for many other reworked productions of classics, and they dealt really well with some aspects of the play that are... rather uncomfortable if you think about them. I was so excited by this experience I might actually get around to watching more of these theatre recordings online as they're available. We'll see! It would be nice. I used to be such a theatre nut, and it's been bothering me that I haven't been able to take advantage of all that's been offered online for free in the past months. Though I do wish I could afford to donate. Maybe later.
I'm wondering if I need to start including a section for gaming... Not that I've got a wide range of games I play, but this year I've started playing a few mobile phone games, mostly for distraction and comfort during stress and bad times. I've been playing too much Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp since I started it a couple of months ago, but it does make me feel good. Anyway, this week I learned about a game called June's Journey, where you play a 1920s lady who ends up having to investigate the suspicious deaths of her sister and brother-in-law. You alternate between solving mystery scenes by finding clues etc. and restoring and building up the fancy estate she's now in charge of. It's extremely pretty and atmospheric, the gameplay is really good and the balance between the different aspects works for me, and the main character looks very Miss Fisher-like, which makes me want to watch some Miss Fisher. I might do some of that next. I'm also mostly managing not to call her Juno instead of June, which I think is very good of me.
