superborb

Mirror Visitor Quartet (A Winter's Promise, The Missing of Clairdelune, The Memory of Babel, The Storm of Echoes) by Christelle Dabos, translated by Hildegarde Serle: The world has been broken up into 21 arks, each presided over by a family spirit whose descendants have related powers; our protag is about to marry into a different ark with an unknown and dangerous culture. Recced by skygiants. I found all four to be fun, zippy reads, with the second book being the most compelling -- the characters felt more natural, and you had more time with the setting and characters from book 1, as books 1+2 are largely set in one ark with the same characters. I also found those characters the most interesting, though there were many places where I had to tell myself it's book logic, the characters are magic. Some of the text, especially the dialog is tonally inconsistent, which I guess might be the translation, but also generally there were some infelicities, like repeating oriental doll as the only feature of one side character. I really liked some of the reveals in the last book as the hints earlier came together, but I don't know that that needed so many words...  Also parts of the worldbuilding logic are a bit, dwelling on it too long is probably best avoided, lest it fall apart. After contemplating it more, I think I overall enjoyed the ending as satisfying on a worldbuilding level, but what it did to the family spirits was not a satisfying resolution.

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee (DNF): A history of cancer. Very easy to read, but not much new -- snippets of the discoveries on the way without much depth, so I stopped midway through.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis: Letters from a demon tempter to his nephew on how to tempt humans. I feel like I've learned a lot about what C.S. Lewis valued in a person and in society... But relatively few universal truths -- the multiple ways in which man tricks himself with a sense of superiority notable among them. Less fun than the premise made it seem.

Ghost Music by An Yu: Former concert pianist with depression finds a connection to a mysterious disappeared pianist and mushrooms. I really enjoyed this and read it in one gulp. Atmospheric meditation on loss and searching for meaning, with compelling characters.

Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa: First book in a series set in a fantasy Africa based world, heavily about power and caste. Do not love the way the world building has to be spelled out, it felt a bit YA? Felt often that people were making decisions / things were happening that drove plot instead of made sense. Didn't continue to the next book.

Nü Er Hong (2023): One of those mini GL cdramas. Pretty cute, super fast paced. I guess the twist was technically foreshadowed from the beginning, but it was so surprising I didn't expect it hahaha. I do enjoy these kinds of tropes (even though 'suck the poison out' really shouldn't work that much time afterwards...), but I don't think the mini dramas are for me...

Home Is Not Here, by Wang Gungwu: a memoir about growing up in Ipoh around the time of WW2. From qian's rec! It was interesting to read about his experiences and the people he met. I found it especially interesting that the Chinese-in-China were more likely to have been learning English for cultural value, as opposed to the overseas Chinese learning it primarily for its usefulness. However, could have used editing to avoid repetition and inconsistencies and also generally needed copyediting. Enjoyable if you're curious about the time period, but I didn't find it insightful enough to be a blanket rec.

In Other Words, by Jhumpa Lahiri, translated by Ann Goldstein: Memoir of the author's reasons for, after a series of successful English works, making the decision to learn and then write exclusively in Italian. Quote "I believe that reading in a foreign language is the most intimate way of reading" perhaps sums up her approach to Italian. Some interesting thoughts on language -- the chapter on how people would not understand her Italian because they perceive her to be a foreigner really hit. Though, I found it interesting that she had the experience of people in the US perceiving her English as requiring justification (portrayed as emotionally to the same degree as in Italy), when I've heard often from the younger generation of immigrants in my circles that this is much less common in the US compared to Europe. Anyway, I found the experience of reading moderately excruciating: she's just so pretentious and I found it repetitive (I simply do not care about wallowing around in language to this extent). On a more serious note, her extreme, for lack of better word, foreignization of language felt strange. Perhaps related to her much more extreme experience growing up bilingual? Because she's a writer? A register of discussion that I do not usually engage in? I would be curious what people thought about this, but I also cannot recommend it generally.

Hui-Lan Koo, Madame Wellington Koo: An Autobiography, as Told to Mary Van Rensselaer Thayer: Madame Koo grew up fabulously wealthy in Java, the spoiled child of the "Rockefeller of Asia", and the book covers her childhood in the 1890s through China during the warlord period and finally as the wife of the Ambassador of the Republic of China during WWII. From qian's rec! Could use an editor. I found it really weird that she doesn't mention her first marriage/son to the point that she refers to her children with her remarriage as if they were her first/second. She's so wildly rich and out of touch that I found it easy to sympathize with the people who looked and chafed at this wealth disparity. Her preoccupations are just so consumerist? You can tell she really cared about what other fancy people thought of her and those are the feelings that lasted the decades until she told this story. I guess she is obligated to care about the glamorous diplomatic life, but it's so glittering... What a waste of money, food, and time. Fascinating to read about though, and the little tidbits about people are interesting; wish it was more of the tidbits and less of her preoccupations. Her beautiful pink palace in Beijing sure is memorably described!

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, by John le Carré: A classic (/the/ classic?) cold war spy novel! skygiants recced this here. I was a bit surprised at how... serviceable the prose read? Not that I expected it to be High Lit or anything, just the distance between 1963 and 2024 seemed very narrow! I felt a bit like le Carré couldn't imagine why someone would be attracted to the communist ideology and so Liz came off as-- not childish, but unexplainable in motivation. Still, a classic for a reason, a fast moving and exciting read.

She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat (Season 1): cute f/f jdrama (total runtime 2.5 h) basically summed up by the title -- a woman who would really love to cook larger meals discovers her neighbor has a big appetite. The social commentary is definitely a major part of the show, but never felt too heavy handed (e.g. severe period pain means you should go to the gyn) -- the realization of the protag that she's lesbian takes a few eps, but it always felt natural along the way. I like that the food is home cooking food and not super fancy! Though Japanese home cooking uses so much plastic wrap lol. (I knew this, but still!) The main leads both felt like normal people and so did all the side charas; no OTT obnoxious coworkers here, just normally obnoxious ones! If the summary sounds appealing, it is well executed and I would recommend!

What Did You Eat Yesterday? (2019 drama and the 2020 special): Cute adaptation from a manga following the life of a middle aged gay couple and centered around the food they cook for each other. (Though despite their age and living together, you later realize they aren't that serious yet -- part of the arc is their relationship developing!) Lots of fun moments -- loved the subtle humor of the supermarket lady and the bargain grocery shopping, and there were several scenes that were genuinely laugh out loud -- but sometimes the drama was just so prolonged. I know this is very jdrama style, esp when adapting from a manga, but I do feel like this is presented more as a slice of life (realistic) drama instead of leaning into that type of humor as a comedy drama, so it felt out of place when it got so extended. The emotional arc as the main chara's parents and the main chara himself come to terms with him being gay was so satisfying ("ARE YOU HALF-ASSING YOUR HOMOSEXUAL LIFESTYLE" iconic), though the main chara's stress over being closeted and his internalized homophobia was extremely extended and painful to watch. The real down factor in this show is the secondary pairing, who are SO ANNOYING; they do catalyze some interesting discussion over gay culture, but is it worth the ridiculously OTT childishness... (Another adaptation issue where because the slice of life vibe is trying to play it as normal when it needs to be played as OTT.) Anyway, cute and satisfying, and I enjoyed that there were lots of extended cooking scenes! Except when they did ketchup pasta.

Context: we always have a Big Party (~30 people attending) for NYE, and this year I unilaterally decided to be the main chef. I wrote up reflections on each dish for next year's reference, so I thought I might post them here. I'd add pictures, but then my chances of actually posting this would decrease, so perhaps not.

( This is a lot of words )

I'm wondering if anyone uses an external RSS reader for reading their DW pages?

I currently use inoreader, and I find it much easier to use as an interface (and the mobile is great too). I see that DW supports ?auth=digest that would allow flocked entries to be pulled to RSS readers, but inoreader is expensive enough that I wanted to check out the field first. Also, I think there isn't a feed for your reading list, so you'd have to add each subscription as a separate feed...

Additional features I want:
- Hotkey navigation for next articles (j/k for preference)
- "Read" marking (the feature that DW lacks that I find hugely important)

Cuckoo Song, by Frances Hardinge: Hardinge is excellent as always, LOVED all the little details of the world in this one. Was totally surprised at some of the twists, but in a way where they were very natural; a 'how come I didn't call this?!' situation. I felt like once the action was about to hit its peak, it got a bit weaker in the sometimes shoving Lessons Learned into characters' mouths, but it is MG after all. Probably the strongest overall of the three Hardinges I've read so far (the others were Deeplight and The Lie Tree), but I feel like I have to ration the rest q_q there's only nine total.

The Iron Children, by Rebecca Fraimow: Told from the PoV of three characters: the not-yet-fully trained commander (by which one means has not yet put her soul in a robot and is still a squishy human) who must bring a group of cyborg soldiers to meet the main forces over treacherous terrain, the sergeant of the cyborg soldiers who is the only really seasoned soldier among them, and a spy. Like much of DW, I know the author and therefore cannot be fully objective! I really liked the confidence of the worldbuilding: that there was a sense of a larger world and there was no need to explain concepts that would be obvious to the characters. Also, the ~reveal~ of who the spy is was not the climax or even an especially emotional moment (to the reader anyway, the commander sure finds it emotional), subverting expectations! I found the ending extremely satisfying: in a world where the protagonists are soldiers on the being-conquered-but-also-doing-unethical-stuff side, the ending must also be complex, but each character reaches a point where it feels like an emotional arc has finished and the next step is coming.

Geometries of Belonging, by R.B. Lemberg (short story, not the collection): Part of a larger secondary world fantasy, this one centers on a mindhealer suffering after the loss of family and the aftermath of a war. From silveredeye's rec. I found it very compelling to read! It verges on issuefic re: gender in the sense that it's a bit heavy handed, but ymmv. I enjoyed the sense that there was a broader world out there, always something I'm picky about.

Nimona (2023): In a medieval-futurist city, the first commoner is about to be knighted, only to framed for murder of the queen. On the one hand, this was intended for kids, so the simplistic setup and straightforward morals are par for the course, but I still found this really didactic and unsubtle. I also don't think the message of "you should just trust me [refuses to explain anything]" really works when the love interest never does just believe in the main character, they never address this, and their future relationship is shown as all roses and kittens. Nimona, the shapeshifting "monster", was quite affecting though.

The One Percent (2006): I watch a lot of youtube-y documentaries, and this was actually really interesting. It's a documentary by one of the J&J heirs about the growing wealth gap, and as a member of that elite class, he is able to interview people who are more frank than they may otherwise be. I wouldn't consider this a must watch, but if this is a topic of interest, it's more unique than a lot of the dross on youtube.

1. I had been reading my DW on a comfortable once a week schedule, which has been thrown into disarray by the introduction of my JE friends back onto DW, via a 30 day music meme. Will people actually do all 30 days of the meme? Who knows, but day 3 x a half dozen folks is an extra ?skip=20 already ahaha.

2. I was going back and reading my diary from college (which I apparently kept up until the beginning of grad school! I kind of thought I'd stopped midway through college...); it's not very interesting as it mostly contains who I talked to every day. At the end of college though, I already knew I'd miss the casual chats in dining halls and hallways and never be able to replicate that again; the diary really reinforced that. Even if I include fannish discord chats as casual chats, it's really... not the same... But it did bring to mind a few people I want to reach out to, which was nice! 

3. Awh, I looked over my twitter list and DID lose complete contact with a few people who left before I got a forwarding address / didn't bother with a forwarding address. Though I think most are still in my extended someone-on-DW-still-talks-to-them circle. (But at the same time, how much good does a discord 1:1 PM do in terms of keeping in contact? Not much. I'm generally terrible at keeping 1:1 messages going. Maybe I should make more concerted effort to form group chats...)

4. I think my Tumblr foray is probably a failure. Useful for occasionally checking in on people, but even filtering out the 'so many gifs', it's difficult to sort between 'things interesting to me personally' and 'discourse, not expanding my knowledge' without way too much effort expended ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(I have a Bluesky now, but unless there's vastly more uptake, my primary fannish socmed will remain Mastodon.)

5. Have been losing steam on the DCU fic reading, but now I feel completionist about an arbitrary level of surveying, which seems counterproductive. It's arbitrary to begin with! It'd never have been anywhere near a full survey! Self, this is silly. 

Post apocalypse, a mushroom mutates and takes on human form in order to go to the human base and search for his stolen spore.

The translation does have quite a few basic mistakes that change meanings (e.g. missing 'not', 'without' instead of 'while'), but is largely readable. I read this (mostly) in Chinese for book club, and it really was not good enough to stand up to the three chapters a week discussion level of scrutiny hahaha. I don't think I liked this, but I also think that's at least partially because of the close analysis process.

Though, IDK, I do usually need my soft scifi to be a little more-- engaged with the metaphor? It makes gestures in that direction, but e.g. I never was convinced the mushroom had a different perspective than a human would. Also, felt weird to have a story about mutation that wasn't a metaphor for marginalized people at any level, though that may be because it's an English-only literature trope. 

Who knows if I'll have enough for a roundup at the end of July, but there's enough here!

( Books: Burning Roses, Ocean's Echo, A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching, Counterfeit )

( Other: TWICE Ready To Be concert, Old Fashion Cupcake, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse )