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Eor does such good reading posts. Yes, it's true I couldn't get more than about a page into Norman Spinrad's story "Up and Out," the first story in the "Asimov's Science Fiction January/February 2023". It doesn't take me long to recognize wank, and there was nothing interesting about the style of writing whatsoever. I still have not finished that edition of "Asimov's," but it's on my bedside table. I, like Eor, started reading this magazine when I was in high school, and it feels disloyal to think about giving it up, but... *sigh* I dunno. Really it's been so spotty for a while now.
#18) "A Civil Campaign" by Lois McMaster Bujold, read by Grover Gardner: I actually like his voice for Byerly Vorrutyer, he does a good Oscar-Wildeian-double-agent. :) It is sort of painful the whole "Barrayarans are ridiculously homophobic and transphobic" business, but amusing to watch them be stupid and get their comeupance as the trans man wins his fight to become a Count, and walks off with a lovely lady on his arm when women are so hard to come by for that generation. Nearly everyone gets paired up in this book, mostly with the Koudelka sisters, who are Valkyries.
#19) "Great Northern?" by Arthur Ransom: Pre-WWII eco-warrior kids! Although these days we cringe when they sink their drink bottles in a bog, but that was apparently considered the same as pack-in/pack-out in those days.
#20) "Equal Rites" by Terry Pratchett: This Granny Weatherwax feels like she's from an alternate universe than how she later becomes, and the end seems to indicate so many things are going to happen that never do. The Unseen University is going to allow girls to enroll, and they're going to send students to learn from Granny as well. It never happens. I kind of wish it had.
#21) "Guns of the Dawn" by Adrian Tchaikovsky: He's a little uneven and simplistic, and people often say things that advance the plot or express feelings more fluidly and freely than I feel comfortable with, and the parallels to Viet Nam and WWII are heavy handed,but I love the exploration of 'what if the people the main character is with are not really exactly the good guys?'
Currently reading: "The Man In The Brown Suit" by Agatha Christie. I do hope this is one of her early stories. It is really a romance, where people just happen to feel antsy in the middle of the night and take a paddle in a canoe and then walk through the pitch dark woods without a light and just accidentally stumble upon their true love who fell down a cliff. What the actual f-ing f? This would play better if there were a supernatural influence here, like in Bujold's "Realm of the Five Gods" stories. You can really have anything ridiculous happen if you pawn that shit off on gods, but stringing a tale together with happenstance just doesn't work otherwise. And why does the main character read a headline that says a woman was stabbed and then immediately afterward in the newspaper article the woman was actually strangled? No editor ever looked at this manuscript? Hey, at least we got it free of Gutenberg.
Currently listening to: "White Cat Black Dog" by Kelly Link. I actually REALLY like all the readers so far, and the stories are well done. They're retellings of fairy tales, either modern-day, or the current one I'm on seems post-apocalyptic.
#18) "A Civil Campaign" by Lois McMaster Bujold, read by Grover Gardner: I actually like his voice for Byerly Vorrutyer, he does a good Oscar-Wildeian-double-agent. :) It is sort of painful the whole "Barrayarans are ridiculously homophobic and transphobic" business, but amusing to watch them be stupid and get their comeupance as the trans man wins his fight to become a Count, and walks off with a lovely lady on his arm when women are so hard to come by for that generation. Nearly everyone gets paired up in this book, mostly with the Koudelka sisters, who are Valkyries.
#19) "Great Northern?" by Arthur Ransom: Pre-WWII eco-warrior kids! Although these days we cringe when they sink their drink bottles in a bog, but that was apparently considered the same as pack-in/pack-out in those days.
#20) "Equal Rites" by Terry Pratchett: This Granny Weatherwax feels like she's from an alternate universe than how she later becomes, and the end seems to indicate so many things are going to happen that never do. The Unseen University is going to allow girls to enroll, and they're going to send students to learn from Granny as well. It never happens. I kind of wish it had.
#21) "Guns of the Dawn" by Adrian Tchaikovsky: He's a little uneven and simplistic, and people often say things that advance the plot or express feelings more fluidly and freely than I feel comfortable with, and the parallels to Viet Nam and WWII are heavy handed,but I love the exploration of 'what if the people the main character is with are not really exactly the good guys?'
Currently reading: "The Man In The Brown Suit" by Agatha Christie. I do hope this is one of her early stories. It is really a romance, where people just happen to feel antsy in the middle of the night and take a paddle in a canoe and then walk through the pitch dark woods without a light and just accidentally stumble upon their true love who fell down a cliff. What the actual f-ing f? This would play better if there were a supernatural influence here, like in Bujold's "Realm of the Five Gods" stories. You can really have anything ridiculous happen if you pawn that shit off on gods, but stringing a tale together with happenstance just doesn't work otherwise. And why does the main character read a headline that says a woman was stabbed and then immediately afterward in the newspaper article the woman was actually strangled? No editor ever looked at this manuscript? Hey, at least we got it free of Gutenberg.
Currently listening to: "White Cat Black Dog" by Kelly Link. I actually REALLY like all the readers so far, and the stories are well done. They're retellings of fairy tales, either modern-day, or the current one I'm on seems post-apocalyptic.
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