Recent Life

Sep. 8th, 2025 11:18 pm
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I intended to read the Hugo novella nominees, even after I realized I'd missed the voting deadline, but the "read novellas" brain was sidetracked by other stuff until after Worldcon had come and gone. So that didn't happen.

Instead, I reread Murderbot, as one does, and ran through a Victoria Goddard reread of her Greenwing and Dart novels, and also picked up a couple of the related 2024 shorter stories I hadn't gotten to. I think Goddard's revised her intentions about the series a lot since the first novel, or she's learned some things about writing, or both. I also wonder if it's a characteristic of Goddard's writing, or of cozy fantasies, to recap events a lot; it makes for a repetitive experience when rereading, especially if doing a marathon reread.

I also picked up an insufferably cute, extremely entry level cross-stitch kit in August, completed it before the labor day weekend, and now I'm making good on three year old threats to Get Into Cross Stitch. I spent late last week and the weekend splitting my attention between organizing a generous embroidery floss gift / hand me down, and actually doing the project of the week(s), a bookmark kit. Some of the gifted threads have wraps that look like a pre-2000 style, so I've inherited not just E.'s foray into needlework, but possibly E.'s mother's or grandmother's. Or a successful goodwill trip; the mysteries are many.

The Goddard marathon and adventures in fiber arts ate the vacation time I had put in for last week, but at least thread organization was compatible with rewatching chunks of The Expanse. "Oh, I'll put on something for background," I said. "I can stitch and watch." Ha, not quickly or consistently, not without getting much better at cross stitch. But I can watch a screen while sorting and cataloging thread - success!

I also pushed the first episode of B5 on a friend who also enjoys The Expanse, and she liked "Midnight on the Firing Line" enough go on to "Soul Mates". (I offered a highlights watch, she said she wanted the full experience. Will report back if/when she makes it through "Infection".) I cannot imagine why I thought someone who liked a 21st century SF/F epic with lots of geopolitical tensions and protomolecule shenangians flipping over the table would enjoy Babylon 5, a late 20th century SF/F with lots of geopolitical tensions and the Shadows actively wedging a hydraulic jack under a table leg. Yes, that's sarcasm, I am quite happy I have talked another person into watching B5.
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Novellas were the next-shortest choice, so novella nominees I read.

“Loneliness Universe”, Eugenia Triantafyllou, podcast reading by Matt Peters: epistolary sequence. A woman slips out of consensus reality, then everyone slips out of consensus reality. Look everyone, accidental horror story! Or perhaps deliberate horror story.

I get caught up in how that would even work, since humans are highly interdependent. Is this a response to the pandemic? Maybe. A response to atomized modern life? Also maybe. And yet. If we're all drifting apart, how do the lights stay on?

“Signs of Life”, Sarah Pinsker, podcast reading by Erika Ensign: First person past tense, sisters reconnect after a long, long separation.

I was wildly distracted by the Maryland vibes. I remain happily committed to California, but I did grow up in Maryland, and I do have thoughts on how much the entire experience of Veronica and Violet's summer reunion would feel, at a sweaty, dusty, sticky level.

Also, Violet has sometimes wished people into existence, and has a request for her sister related to that.

I wasn't close paying attention during the intro, so missed this was a Pinsker story. I think I enjoyed it more because of that. The pacing is on the slower side, but I liked that, too; it worked for the reunion component of the story.

“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”, Thomas Ha: First person past tense. The protagonist, while settling his mother's estate, finds a "dead" library book and becomes drawn into a conflict around the book.

There's vibes? Post-cyberpunk vibes? There's a girlfriend who isn't all that committed to a shared emotional life, and the Brotherhood of physical stuff, and Caliper John, who wants the book so he can either control it or destroy it, jury's out on that question.

It's a story, but it's very "yep, that happened, I wonder if there's some Dark Tower in the DNA of the novel-within-a-story."

“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”, Premee Mohamed: Third person past tense. Firion the wizard has an apprentice, Cane, and a secret: she's lost her magic. The story covers Cane's apprenticeship under Firion, and his final test: repelling the monstrous raiding Bouldus.

A perfectly acceptable story, very workmanlike. Points for lack of twee.

“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”, Naomi Kritzer: First person past tense. Lightning has struck and someone wrote a selkie story I didn't hate. Probably because there was less pining and more active mayhem.

Anyway. Protagonist Morgan, husband Stuart, and daughter Cordie (short for Cordelia) move to Finstowne, MA, for Stuart's sabbatical year. The plot builds up to the fairly predictable revelation that Stuart stole and hid Morgan's field research raw materials, which prevented her from finishing her doctorate. This comes out when he and Morgan are on a beach in a town alleged to have been founded by four selkie sisters, so that's it for Stuart, end story, Morgan and Cordie last seen settling comfortably into the local social fabric.

None of the novelette is earth-shattering, even the Wrath of Ocean instead of Moping For Ocean, but I liked it a lot.

“Lake of Souls”, Ann Leckie: Alien coming of age road trip, in third person past, and a little exobiology plus murder plot involving a human anthropologist, in first person past, as a treat. Interesting alien biology articulated by the human; the lived experience from the coming-of-age PoV is also interesting; definitely cleared the "not actively annoying me" bar, and also, the "I liked read this" bar.

Off the cuff ranking: Leckie, Kritzer, Mohamed, Pinsker, Ha, Triantafyllou. Most of these could shuffle quickly; there's a lot of solid work in this year's novelette category, but not too many instant standouts to my mind.
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Picked this category to tackle next because short stories are short.

“Five Views of the Planet Tartarus”, Rachael K. Jones, narrated by Justine Eyre: Omniscient third PoV describes prison planet and punishment. This isn't "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird ," or a Five Things, this is a story with "one", "two," "three," inserted at the paragraph breaks.

“Marginalia” by Mary Robinette Kowal, narrated by Erika Ensign: Third person past PoV. Deadly giant snail acid! Random woman figures out how to kill snails with salt and honey! This is apparently an unknown snail-killing tactic in a cod medieval setting. I have questions about this worldbuilding, some of which are answered by comments elsewhere that this is basically Snails Doodled On Medieval Manuscripts fanfic. With that in mind, the woman's mother's looks-likes-Parkinson's conveniently death in the closing action, right after the woman and her brother are offered a place in the manor, is still an example of infuriating twee sentimentality, but now it's deeply irritating twee sentimentality with context. Oh look, it's a medieval morality parable about courage being rewarded by a rise in station, how cloyingly sweet.

Kowal's writing and my reading continue to be complete mismatches. Celebrate diversity! Celebrate the field is large enough someone like's Kowal's writing and I can have things I like too!

“Stitched to Skin Like Family Is”, Nghi Vo: First person past tense. Protagonist looks for her brother, or his passing, during the American Depression, and finds out his fate. Also she has clothes magic. The clothes magic leads to vengeance. Huh.

“Three Faces of a Beheading”, Arkady Martine: Second person present tense PoV. MMORPGs and resistance, with academic excerpts about history as (shape-able) narrative. The Byzantine Empire references give away this is a Martine story. The inclusion of an author interview in the Hugo packet is... it helps explain some of the story? We're all coping with Current Events in our own ways.

“We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read”, Caroline M. Yoachim: stunt storytelling format. Read the PDF, not the ebook; or listen the podcast. Huge points for the format, this is what short stories are for. Not sure there's much content past the format, but it's fun to see someone do something a little weird.

“Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole”, Isabel J. Kim: Third person omniscient. Omelas 21st century update, thesis: what if Omelas were just another first world city?

I feel like Omelas gets a lot of play because it's a big part of the SF/F canon, which is both a plus and a minus in craft. It's a plus because Omelas becomes a handy shorthand, and also chunks of the characters and/pr worldbuilding is already done for you, fanfic style; but you're stuck, not only with the canon, but also with everyone else's responses to the canon. I'm not sure that entirely serves the story intent here, but I also start with a baseline of "Omelas again, really," which isn't a helpful mindset to whatever point of cultural complicity the author is (or isn't) trying to make.

I'm tempted to give the Yoachim first place on stunt storytelling points alone. I enjoyed the experience of reading! This was not true of a lot of the short story nominees! Using "meets craft benchmarks" and "how much did this actively irritate me" gives: Read, Stitched, Three Faces, Omelas, Marginalia, Tartarus; and I might swap the last two because I think Tartarus's format doesn't serve its title, but Marginalia really annoys me.
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The Tainted Cup (Robert Jackson Bennett) (2024): murder mystery in a secondary world empire where biological husbandry seems to have beat out chemical synthesis, also there are kaiju leviathans. It's likely the leviathans are linked to the bio-engineering in ways that are glossed over in this novel, from the shape of the this novel and what I know of the sequel. (Only one sequel so far.) The detective-apprentice duo namechecks Holmes and Watson, which is a crime-solving template whose use I'm neutral to dubious about seeing, but Ana and Din mostly stand on their own.

Cup has a pretty speech about "when the Empire is weak, it is often because a powerful few have denied us the abundance of our people," which is a nice summing-up of one of the major themes. (I am all for compelled offering of that abundance, but later.)

Worldbuilding, plot, and characterization very much in a Hugo tradition from the '90s or '00s. I'd put money on Cup getting high marks in some circles.

Someone You Can Build A Nest In (John Wiswell) (2024): "cozy horror", which is a new to me subgenre, where human-eating monster Shesheshen falls in love with a human. And also eats people.

I forgot about the bonkers body count until I tried to fill [personal profile] cahn in on the ending. So let's start there.

Major plot spoilers. Also major theme spoilers. )

Since this won a Nebula, clearly I am missing something. Maybe I'm getting hung up on the baroque Wulfyre murder-hookup chart and how the precocial biology works when I'm supposed to be getting "they're all monsters, we're all monsters, monstrous is as monstrous does" as the message and moving on. Am I just supposed to assume "Bloodchild" is in the DNA and move on? I am so baffled.

Service Model (Adrian Tchaikovsky) (2024): DNF. I started the audiobook, I stopped one sentence in. I tried the ebook, I stopped two sentences in. I did not have a good time slogging through Alien Clay and a survey of reviews tells me I'm not doing that to myself again.

The recurring theme of the 2025 Hugos (so far) seems to be people using other human beings as depersonalized tools. Literal robots (Service Model); totalitarians ship people off to labor camps (Adrian Tchaikovsky's Alien Clay); mother uses daughter as abused pawn in her avaricious plots (T. Kingfisher's A Sorceress Comes To Call); ditto Someone To Build A Nest In; The Ministry of Time going full spy-thriller tropes; to a lesser extent Din's apprenticeship with Ana in The Tainted Cup, but since there's a big empire, a murder investigation, elective (or "elective"?) biological modification of imperial subjects, and city-destroying toxic monsters periodically attacking, I am willing to read on in the suspicion someone is using someone horribly as their tool.

Quick ETA: Cup audiobook narrated by Andrew Fallaize, Nest audiobook narrated by Carmen Rose. When googling "someone you can build a nest in audiobook", the second hit is libro.fm, visible content An adorable romance of people falling in love for the first time set in a wonderful fantasy world, this book is perfect for you! ...wow.
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Alien Clay (Adrian Tchaikovsky) (2024): Hugo nominee, audiobook read by Ben Allen. Ex-biology professor is shipped off to an extrasolar labor camp for crimes against the totalitarian Mandate, where he is first drafted as a (silently) grumbling lab assistant, then demoted to the Expeditions team that clears alien ruins for the "real" scentists to study. This would be great fun for a biologist, except for the part where the planet's flora think humans look interesting to colonize, ultimately a death sentence. Well, a faster death sentence than being sent to an extrasolar labor camp, anyway.

First person present tense. I forget how tense this makes the read until the story opens, and my reaction is "oh this again" with a little active untensing of the shoulders. Which probably didn't contribute to me taking the novel for what it is, rather than what I wanted it to be.

Revolution as narrow obsession. )

From this, I think I can conclude I'm not the target audience for Alien Clay.

A Sorceress Comes To Call (T. Kingfisher) (2024): More Hugo reading, again in audiobook, narrated this time by Eliza Foss and Jennifer Pickens. Dual first person PoVs from Cordelia, the daughter of the titular sorceress Evangeline, and Hester, whose brother is ensnared in Evangeline's plot to a.) marry into a little money, b.) marry off Cordelia into real money, c.) arrange the early deaths of both men to gain control of everyone's money.

The novel blurb online invokes the "Goose Girl" fairytale. It felt to me that Kingfisher used the fairytale as a springboard. )

...it's fine. If you are up for a spot-on depiction of child abuse, with magic, this is a novel that hits the marks it sets for itself. I'm not that interested in that much uncomplicated abusive parent energy.

The Ministry of Time (Kaliane Bradley) (2024): The Hugo audiobook run continued, now narrated by Katie Leung and George Weightman. The shortest summary would be "RPF, 21st C progatonist / Graham Gore from the Franklin expedition, because time travel," which is about the least helpful explanation of the combination of romantic tropes and 21st century anxieties.

If I namecheck HP with respect to The Incandescent, I have to invoke Kage Baker's Company novels when discussing The Ministry of Time. The unnamed protagonist is hired into a top secret British Ministry which has pulled five individuals out of what the Company series would call event shadows: points in history where the "expats" died, or were believed to have died. The protagonist and her fellow "bridges" are full-tme companions and acclimitization assistants to people pulled out of England and France from the 16th through early 20th centuries, who bring their experiences and expectations with them. The Company series vibes are probably a case of convergent evolution, but there is the protagonist's ill-advised romance with a Victorian adventurer to consider.

The execution of the premise is absolutely bonkers, and I will talk about it with massive spoilers. )

I don't know that this is a good novel, but it's the Hugo nominee that I was enjoyed enough to switch from audiobook to ebook, so I could stay up late reading it. (It always feels like I should be in motion - cleaning, or driving, or getting excercise - when I'm listening to an audiobook. Training from listening to audiobooks while in motion, probably.) It's also the novel that I want to turn over in my head, and make my friends read so we can talk about it. So props to Kailene Bradley for hugely entertaining me.

The Hugo nominees so far share the exploration of people treated as things, or ends to means. Cordelia as an extention of Evangeline, or as her tool; the Mandate's literal "work them until they die" labor camp; the Ministry's plans for their time travel expats. That might be one reason I was dragging my feet on Hugo reading this year.
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All thirteen entries (so far) in Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric and Desdemona series, either first reads or rereads (2015 - 2024).

There are excellent "sick on the couch" reading. The stakes are "how will Penric and Des get out of this one?" (spoilers: mix of hiding and chaos), sometimes with added "should we give people second chances?" (spoilers: yes) though occasionally it's "has this person burned up their second, third, etc chances and needs a smiting?" (spoilers: often enough yes, occasionally with Des setting things on fire, sometimes with many witnesses to the smiting). The stories are pretty indulgent, especially once the reader gets to some of Desdemona's meddling (I say vaguely, avoiding spoilers) in "Demon Daughter" and "Penric and the Bandit".

The Incandescent, Emily Tesh (2025): Insta-reaction: WOO MORE TESH. In audiobook, read by Zara Ramm. I was surprised how fast it went, and blame certain big fat space operas who clock in at, let's see, 19 to 21 hours per novel for making me think a 12 hour audiobook is short.

Summary: Saffie Walden, Director of Magic at posh Chetwood Academy, juggles her decidedly unromantic responsibilities as a teacher and administrator, until a magical incursion shakes up the school and Saffie's committment to the persona of Dr. Walden, Teacher, she inhabits with deliberation.

Thoughts cut for spoilers. )
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All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire (Jonathan Abrams) (2018): In audiobook, narrated by... well, everyone they could pull in from The Wire. Nerd heaven. Either you're here for "people who worked on The Wire talk about making The Wire, very few bodies are unearthed," or you have no idea what The Wire is, in which case let me find someone into long form series TV who can explain it.

Fablehaven (Brandon Mull) (2006): Children's fantasy novel, from a coworker during a holiday gift swap. Siblings Kendra and Seth Sorenson are dropped off with their socially-distant grandparents for a multiweek stay, discovering the secret of their large property, a secret preserve for magical creatures, and the forces of evil that move against Fablehaven.

The tropes are all played straight in Fablehaven. Kendra and Seth fall into the archetypes of Responsible Older Sister and Reckless But Plucky Younger Brother. Their grandparents' secret responsibilities explain their absence from the lives of their grandkids, with no emotional repercussions (not in this novel, at least). The parents are thoroughly written out of sight and mind.

Minor plot spoilers about the one thing that proves I hold grudges. )

My coworker and I have a solid working relationship founded on neither of us ever talking politics or religion. If my coworker likes Fablehaven as much as he said he did, I am very tempted to hand him Diane Duane's first three Young Wizard novels and see what he thinks. And whether Duane's wokeness is going to be a dealbreaker or the start of a good discussion.

Heavenly Tyrant (Xiran Jay Zhao) (2024): In audiobook, narrated by Rong Fu. DNF. Sequel to Iron Widow.

Iron Widow spoilers / ending recap. )

Heavenly Tyrant spoilers / recap until I DNF'd. )

I noped out when three corrupt officials were paraded into a stadium filled to the nosebleed seats so their working class victims could be encouraged to participate in a beat-down of their chained and hobbled oppressors as "justice".

It wasn't just the what, but also the how: I hadn't been enjoying HT and I really didn't enjoy how Zhao wrote Wu Zeitan's PoV during the PR spectacle of violence. Revenge fantasies are not doing it for me these days, radical, reactionary, conservative, or liberal.

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