spryng | (no subject)

Hello lovelies!

It's been a little while, mostly because I've been in a funk about it being halfway through June and I am so thoroughly behind on my goals for this month. The beauty of it, is that my funk has pursued me until the end of June - July is right around the corner (hullo July!) - and so I transitioned neatly into being in a funk about wasting the whole of June. Ah. Life. It is so... funky.

But I'm doing my best to get out of it. I'm rewriting my query letter (two form rejections, huzzah!), I'm failing to work on the zombies, I'm reading all of Query Shark (for realz this time), I'm throwing myself into painting and redecorating, I'm walking and fancy-dinnering and d&ding and interneting and somehow still failing to de-funkify. Maybe it's just the summer. Or maybe I have chronic funkiness. Or maybe -

Wait.

No.

"Chronic funkiness."

Yes.

I'm just going to go with that. 'Cause that sounds funky.

Now that I have an inexplicable urge to disco, I'm going to leave you with rest of my books read up to this point.

Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi - A modernization of the classic Little Fuzzy by Piper: a cocky and greedy prospector and ex-lawyer is already on precipitous ground with his employer, the galaxy-spanning and planet-exploiting Zaracorp, when a seemingly sentient, catlike creature calls his pad home and brings assassins and the legal might of the corporation down on his head. Scalzi's works are always fun and entertaining to read, partially because they're so easy and fluffy, and partially because Scalzi is excellent at dialogue and uses it more often than not to convey plot and action in lieu of paragraphs of prose. That said, I was a bit disappointed in just how fluffy Fuzzy Nation turned out to be (pun oh-so-wholly intended). It felt more like a list of tropes (which I would go and list a handful from TVtropes, but then I will never finish this post), which was especially disappointing after Scalzi's amazingly dark and delightful God Engines.

Embassytown by China Mieville - What happens on the edge of the universe when a species learns to lie. Which is in no way, shape or form a proper description, but I cannot otherwise condense the immensity and complexity of the plot into a single sentence. I am an avid fan of Mieville's (go read City and the City NOW) and loved this immensely. It is a step up and away from his previous books, heading distinctly into a more hardcore sci-fi direction, but without losing that fantastical, bleeding edge. Plus, this book is all about Language and Metaphors and Similes and it's a linguaphile's wet dream. I had a hard time getting into it and getting situated in such a bizarre world, but it was so worth the effort.

Deadline by Mira Grant - The sequel to Feed, we've graduated from a presidential campaign to a full-on national CDC conspiracy, complete with clones, mad scientists, and, of course, zombies. This is the second book in the trilogy - the middle child, if you will - but the story is self-contained and the action constant and, well, it just doesn't disappoint as middle ~~children~~ books are wont to do. If you took my advice and read Feed, then you damn well better read Deadline and Blackout when that comes out next May. Then, in the meantime, you and I can think on all the ways we'd like to throttle Mira for that ending in Blackout.

The Beginning Place by Ursula Le Guin - A grocery clerk stumbles upon a quiet glade in the middle of his boring, yet stressful, life which leads him to an idyllic town, where he learns he is the only one who can vanquish the monster stifling the town. Wow. I liked some of Le Guin's other works, but this. This is crap. And it's painful crap, because you can see where she is trying to take this story, you can see all the potential, and a few times it almost looks like it'll redeem itself, always before falling horribly flat. It's awkward and stilted and badly in need of a good editor to stitch it back together. I suppose it's telling that Lady made me read this because she hated it so very much.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin - Yeine never knew her grandfather before she was called and appointed as one of his heirs to the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. But the throne is the least of her troubles when she has to contend with murderous cousins and half-crazed gods. I liked this. I wanted to love it - it's nominated for a Hugo Award, after all - but there were a number of cliched moments which turned it off for me, all of which would be spoilers. But it was good and different enough to recommend - the gods imprisoned in humans, the culture, the city itself, the layers of world building that are only hinted at. All the little things add up to shift that comfortable fantasy world into something new. And I did appreciate the twist right before the end.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yay post!

Sorry you're suffering from "chronic funkiness"--it's probably the weather, which is what I blame for my "STUCK-ness".

But yes--July is just around the corner, which means a whole shiny new month to get shit done. Better yet, you can designate July as: "get nothing done month", or "enjoy having chronic funkiness month". If you can't beat it--embrace it.

<3