Media Diet, mid-June
Jun. 14th, 2022 18:59Am I doing a mid-June Media Diet solely so I can discuss The Color of Distance even though I didn't have quite enough for a dedicated post? ...Yes.
The Color of Distance, by Amy Thomson: A human biologist is stranded on a world where the amphibian-like intelligent life has extremely refined abilities of biological manipulation. From![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skygiants' rec -- DW search was NOT pulling up the rec, but it seemed like it could only have come from a Becca rec. THIS BOOK WAS 1000% MY JAM. So much my jam that I hadn't realized the books I had been reading were not my jam?? Anyway, a list of things that were my jam: weird aliens with development/society that were well thought out, difficult cross-cultural communication, extended academic presentations and associated nerdery, characters who kind of hated each other a bit and had to work through it, complicated disputes that didn't have simple resolutions where the characters' needs were in conflict. The ways that learning about each other impacted/changed how they viewed the world! I did not like the ~alien word~ emphasis at the very beginning, but it stopped afterwards thankfully. Also, stranding her when they know about her being on the planet seems ...kind of evil? And not going after them in the first place when they went missing conflicts with their strict leave-no-microbes-behind policy and evil? The book also has a very 90s sci-fi obsession with overpopulation, and does mostly fall into the one-species-one-culture trap. I am very sad that the sequel is apparently not good, but I loved this book so much!
An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin, by Gad Beck and Frank Heibert, translated by Allison Brown: The first part of the memoirs of Beck, a half-Jewish teenager in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power and the Holocaust. Fromskygiants' rec. Beck so clearly cares about people and understanding people, and the strength of the memoir is (IMO) the description of so many different, complex people from many walks of life. I found especially interesting the descriptions of the daily life of how their underground network operated -- and the many people who needed to be coordinated -- and that two of the non-Jews who contributed were motivated by spite after a perceived betrayal by the Nazi party. A short, complicated read.
CW: underage sex with adults in positions of power and, obviously, Nazi Germany
The Past is Red, by Catherynne M Valente: In a post-apocalyptic world, the survivors live on a giant floating garbage patch. Fromsophia_sol's rec. I thought the worldbuilding and plot was quite shallow. The impression is rather like a series of ideas without thought about how they'd connect and follow-through? Also, I did not enjoy the prose very much. I did like the moral it tried to convey about loving your world as it is and living for the sake of living.
These Violent Delights, by Chloe Gong (DNF): Romeo and Juliet retelling in rival gangs of 1920s Shanghai. The prose is melodramatic and repetitive in a tedious way, and could have used some serious polish. Characters are rather thin, with 'snappy' dialogue and actions prioritized: e.g. breaking things to make a point just reads as if this supposedly mature protag is a total brat. I finally gave up at the line, "Despite the shine, it was brisk out today, chilly in the sort of way that drew the roses in the garden a little straighter, as if they couldn't afford to lose a single second of the warmth filtering through the clouds." Second... of warmth... Maybe I'll come back to this when I'm feeling more patient with superficiality.
Mini Metro: A puzzle game where you build a rail system as a city grows. I needed a new mobile idle game after Two Dots was becoming a bit repetitive, but Mini Metro in the standard mode is a bit too real time for that (one of modes is to create an efficient system, and so you can't lose). However, I got sucked into trying to beat all the city achievements. Each city has an achievement where you have to build your rail lines with a particular restriction and reach a certain number of travelers transported. And now that I've done all of them, I can put it down in my Media Diet hahaha. I liked that the achievements encouraged you to try different techniques! The game does a good job of differentiating each city even though they can only tweak a few things-- notably, the map itself, but also the speed of the trains and some of the power-ups you get. From youtube, it seems that Mini Motorways, the sequel game, improves upon the base idea, but it's not available for mobile (yet?).
Gorogoro Kitchen: A youtube channel, mostly vlogs of daily life / flea markets in France by a Japanese couple. I find the rhythm of these vlogs very soothing, and also love looking at flea markets.
The Color of Distance, by Amy Thomson: A human biologist is stranded on a world where the amphibian-like intelligent life has extremely refined abilities of biological manipulation. From
skygiants' rec -- DW search was NOT pulling up the rec, but it seemed like it could only have come from a Becca rec. THIS BOOK WAS 1000% MY JAM. So much my jam that I hadn't realized the books I had been reading were not my jam?? Anyway, a list of things that were my jam: weird aliens with development/society that were well thought out, difficult cross-cultural communication, extended academic presentations and associated nerdery, characters who kind of hated each other a bit and had to work through it, complicated disputes that didn't have simple resolutions where the characters' needs were in conflict. The ways that learning about each other impacted/changed how they viewed the world! I did not like the ~alien word~ emphasis at the very beginning, but it stopped afterwards thankfully. Also, stranding her when they know about her being on the planet seems ...kind of evil? And not going after them in the first place when they went missing conflicts with their strict leave-no-microbes-behind policy and evil? The book also has a very 90s sci-fi obsession with overpopulation, and does mostly fall into the one-species-one-culture trap. I am very sad that the sequel is apparently not good, but I loved this book so much!An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin, by Gad Beck and Frank Heibert, translated by Allison Brown: The first part of the memoirs of Beck, a half-Jewish teenager in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power and the Holocaust. From
skygiants' rec. Beck so clearly cares about people and understanding people, and the strength of the memoir is (IMO) the description of so many different, complex people from many walks of life. I found especially interesting the descriptions of the daily life of how their underground network operated -- and the many people who needed to be coordinated -- and that two of the non-Jews who contributed were motivated by spite after a perceived betrayal by the Nazi party. A short, complicated read. CW: underage sex with adults in positions of power and, obviously, Nazi Germany
The Past is Red, by Catherynne M Valente: In a post-apocalyptic world, the survivors live on a giant floating garbage patch. From
sophia_sol's rec. I thought the worldbuilding and plot was quite shallow. The impression is rather like a series of ideas without thought about how they'd connect and follow-through? Also, I did not enjoy the prose very much. I did like the moral it tried to convey about loving your world as it is and living for the sake of living. These Violent Delights, by Chloe Gong (DNF): Romeo and Juliet retelling in rival gangs of 1920s Shanghai. The prose is melodramatic and repetitive in a tedious way, and could have used some serious polish. Characters are rather thin, with 'snappy' dialogue and actions prioritized: e.g. breaking things to make a point just reads as if this supposedly mature protag is a total brat. I finally gave up at the line, "Despite the shine, it was brisk out today, chilly in the sort of way that drew the roses in the garden a little straighter, as if they couldn't afford to lose a single second of the warmth filtering through the clouds." Second... of warmth... Maybe I'll come back to this when I'm feeling more patient with superficiality.
Mini Metro: A puzzle game where you build a rail system as a city grows. I needed a new mobile idle game after Two Dots was becoming a bit repetitive, but Mini Metro in the standard mode is a bit too real time for that (one of modes is to create an efficient system, and so you can't lose). However, I got sucked into trying to beat all the city achievements. Each city has an achievement where you have to build your rail lines with a particular restriction and reach a certain number of travelers transported. And now that I've done all of them, I can put it down in my Media Diet hahaha. I liked that the achievements encouraged you to try different techniques! The game does a good job of differentiating each city even though they can only tweak a few things-- notably, the map itself, but also the speed of the trains and some of the power-ups you get. From youtube, it seems that Mini Motorways, the sequel game, improves upon the base idea, but it's not available for mobile (yet?).
Gorogoro Kitchen: A youtube channel, mostly vlogs of daily life / flea markets in France by a Japanese couple. I find the rhythm of these vlogs very soothing, and also love looking at flea markets.
