(no subject)
May. 29th, 2018 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnHey, I actually read something!
No one will be surprised that my media consumption lately has been 75% opera, 10% oratorio, 10% Old Testament (for teaching my Sunday School class -- one year is Not Enough for the OT, I am totally behind), and 5% works that were made into operas. (Schiller! I have Feelings about Schiller.) But I did actually read a couple of novellas last weekend while on a trip!
All Systems Red (Wells) - 4/5 - everyone has been saying nice things about this, and I will too. Somehow from osmosis I had gotten the idea that the entire idea of the novella was a robot who really liked to watch serial dramas -- well, that's certainly a nontrivial part, but there's also a whole plot tacked on to it, of which I was unaware, that does not particularly involve serial dramas. (I had seriously thought that the plot involved a lot of watching TV -- I guess I'd pegged it as a sort of YA emo sort of book? Wrong.) The protagonist has a very human voice, and says it has organic parts, including an organic head, so in my conception it's more like a cyborg? Anyway, I liked it a lot, though a large component of that was (as I am sure it is for a lot of people) identifying really hard with a protagonist who really just wants to be left alone to watch itsopera dramas.
Flowers of Vashnoi (Bujold) - 3+/5 - I read it and liked it? I... remember very little about it, a week later, except that "See what other people have highlighted" keeps getting turned on my Kindle and apparently there are three people out there (at the time of my reading) who are really interested in when Miles is gonna die, based on their highlighting of every line where anyone mentions Miles' poor actuarial prospects. No, I'm sure there's more I remember. Enrique was a much more sympathetic character in this one, which I enjoyed a lot (I have a total soft spot for Enrique). Everything ended happily, despite a good deal of angst in the middle, none of which really would have had an impact on Our Heroes, which I think may have precluded my total engagement with the book. It was quite nice to spend more time with Ekaterin and I would definitely not mind more of that!
No one will be surprised that my media consumption lately has been 75% opera, 10% oratorio, 10% Old Testament (for teaching my Sunday School class -- one year is Not Enough for the OT, I am totally behind), and 5% works that were made into operas. (Schiller! I have Feelings about Schiller.) But I did actually read a couple of novellas last weekend while on a trip!
All Systems Red (Wells) - 4/5 - everyone has been saying nice things about this, and I will too. Somehow from osmosis I had gotten the idea that the entire idea of the novella was a robot who really liked to watch serial dramas -- well, that's certainly a nontrivial part, but there's also a whole plot tacked on to it, of which I was unaware, that does not particularly involve serial dramas. (I had seriously thought that the plot involved a lot of watching TV -- I guess I'd pegged it as a sort of YA emo sort of book? Wrong.) The protagonist has a very human voice, and says it has organic parts, including an organic head, so in my conception it's more like a cyborg? Anyway, I liked it a lot, though a large component of that was (as I am sure it is for a lot of people) identifying really hard with a protagonist who really just wants to be left alone to watch its
Flowers of Vashnoi (Bujold) - 3+/5 - I read it and liked it? I... remember very little about it, a week later, except that "See what other people have highlighted" keeps getting turned on my Kindle and apparently there are three people out there (at the time of my reading) who are really interested in when Miles is gonna die, based on their highlighting of every line where anyone mentions Miles' poor actuarial prospects. No, I'm sure there's more I remember. Enrique was a much more sympathetic character in this one, which I enjoyed a lot (I have a total soft spot for Enrique). Everything ended happily, despite a good deal of angst in the middle, none of which really would have had an impact on Our Heroes, which I think may have precluded my total engagement with the book. It was quite nice to spend more time with Ekaterin and I would definitely not mind more of that!
no subject
Date: 2018-05-29 06:26 pm (UTC)There's a second Murderbot novella that's just been released. I didn't think it was quite as good as the first, because half the fun of that book is learning all about Murderbot, and this time we know a lot more about it, but Murderbot makes some bot friends, and it's lovely too.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-30 03:32 pm (UTC)Oh, I'll have to check out the new Murderbot! (You can see I'm really behind on reading... :) )