“Tell me me how it changed, what it felt like.“
“Okay,“ I said, “but I won't do it directly. Let me make a fairy tale out of it.“
This is what Pollack is doing here, centering (her own) transness in the metaphor of the short stories. Really good work so far.
pickI am recommending it, because it is flawlessly well written by Una McCormack, who knows Spock as well as I do. It was not a book for me, but it is likely a must for most Trekkers. Una also wrote The Autobiography of Katheryn Janeway, and a lot of other tie-in novels, as well as some very good scholarly work. (Image is the lovely Japanese cover)
At almost 70%, in part III, and I'm trying so hard. I do not enjoy autobiographies (or biographies for that matter); non-fictional ones are only good as source material for research IMO. I will finish this because Una deserves it. Out of respect for her.
Happy new year! With a picture of my son's transitional object Timmy (right) and his family.
Half way and I remember why I had put it aside almost 2 years ago. While Una writes wonderfully (so proud to have worked with her) and I love Spock as much as she does, it's written as an autobiography. A genre which I really do not like. The result is me being fascinated and annoyed at the same time, page after page. She gets Spock's voice so well, but there's not plot. It's Spock's life. We know what happens. I'll finish it, somehow.
Picked this one up again after a long bit. The database still tags the wrong author. Una McCormack writes Spock perfectly, you can hear Leonard Nimoy speak. Spock tells his life story to Jean-Luc Picard on the eve of his mission to prevent the Romulan star going nova, one he will fail, as the 2009 movie shows. So good.
so-soKirk saves the day, the Romulan Praetor's honour is saved, the female love interest dies as a motivation for the war hero (because 1990s), the agrarian planet gets a new market for their “gran“ and the deluded admiral just gives up on his evil plans because the plot requires it. Not the best Star Trek novel by any means. Too many POVs changing in a jarring manner. Diane Duane this is not. A solid Meh.
Christmas books. Only a few this year, one I wanted (the Galaxie season 2 scripts), one I already have (Passés composés anthology) and one I could not care less about (volume 3 of the graphic novel adaptation of tagged, a not that great popular history book about human evolution that is already out of date). I guess I'll have to buy my own books this year!
About halfway and it's far from the better Star Trek novels. It takes place after the episode Tomorrow is Yesterday with the computer's female personality developping an obsession for Kirk. The Romulan plot could be interesting if it made sense but does not yet. I'll finish it though.
Starting this one because I am officially off (except not, but close enough). It promises to be good-bad.
pickDone! And I am delighted! Such a smart story with lovely characters and the best unrealiable narrator I have read in a long time. Clarke is a master. The faun statue on the cover is a red herring and knowing this is not a spoiler. If you like oneiric worlds, impossible possible worlds and deceptively simple narratives about the nature of being and living, told is the best most precise prose, this is for you!
(fan art by sennetrip on tumblr)
70%! The plot has thickened and revelations are next! Lovely read, folks. I'm having a ball!
This one is a decade old by now but it takes place in a steampunk antarctic and is a pretty fun read!
@thebookhipie @chrissyreadit
#winterbooks #midwintersolace #fridayshare
I was asked to review this for a journal and it's good academically, but completely uninteresting in every other aspect. There is one important point it's making about Francophone communities outside Québec and that's it. I have to finish writing the critique and I just don't wanna.
*throws an entirely inner tantrum and might just go bake something*
My second favourite Christmas album of all time is so terrible it's good! Le merveilleux petit monde de Mireille Mathieu chante Noël is a 1968 album where the then new French superstar sang 12 tracks with her father and 14 siblings, including her youngest brother with more breath than voice. It's amazing. Listened to it all afternoon. #TuesdayTunes
Now that I'm mostly back, I have to admit I was expecting to see a lot more Game Changer and Heated Rivalry on here and I see none. Is it because everyone's read the series already and it's old news?
Neither the books nor the show are for me, so it's not a complaint. I'm just wondering.
In other news, my friend Jean-Louis Trudel, one of the most important figure in French-language science fiction, passed away suddenly two weeks ago while in Lithuania. His body hasn't even been repatriated yet. It's very hard on all of us. I learned he passed when I got a text right when I was writing a footnote *about* him.
He is dearly missed.
I've been on here for 10 years today! I have been mostly lurking and I miss being active on here. We all know how things have been so I won't bother to explain why, though I have to say that the Android app having been deprecated makes it harder to follow on here daily.
Now that my other book is done, I do hope to be here a but more. 🤞
Love you!
The secret (and very illegal in my town) little free library around the corner had a book to my taste for the first time! I leave books there from time to time, but it's my first take!
Right on time for my birthday, I just received the fifth volume of this long term art/book project “reproducing“ the notebooks of future Martian ecologist Imago Sékoya as he studies what is left on flooded earth and terraformed Mars in the 2450s. The notebooks were found in the archeological dig of the wreak of his dirigible whale. I got the 1994 first volume back when I lived in France. I've bought all the volumes since.
Whatdoyouknow I'm reading for fun again. Only took five years since the pandemic. This is a horror/suspense danmei Chinese webnovel, that is over 1200 pages long, and so far it's mostly horror. I'm only 3% in, but I like it. There's a censored cdrama that came out last year, that has 78 episodes and I've promised myself that I can go watch it only when I'm done with the book.
I'm in this! 🎉 More stuff for the CV!
I finished this chapter in 2020. There's only one chapter from pandemic times that's not published yet. And I,ve moved on from this topic so much, I find myself completely detached from it.
Forward and onward.
#bookhaul 15 Star Trek books for 40$. It's a great find!
#day3 Epactase is a person's thrust toward god but also what you call it when someone dies from huh physical pleasure...
#day2 Coniller in French is to flee or hide like a rabbit, much like the verb to rabbit in English.
#sharethislist #octoberartchallenge2024 #octoberartchallenge #octoberdaily #inktober #inktober2024
#artprompts #artchallenge #drawtober #promptlist #prompts #promptlist2024 #obscurewords
#day1 of my October Art challenge.
The word is Gouleyant (like a light, sweet and flavourful wine).
As I am very underprepared for this, I have taken heavy inspiration from the internet for this one. Mea culpa.
#octoberartchallenge2024 #octoberartchallenge #octoberdaily #inktober #inktober2024 #obscurewords
#artprompts #artchallenge #drawtober #promptlist #prompts #promptlist2024
#whatsnewwednesday @alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @read4life @tiedyedude
The tagged book took about as long as mine to come out of the pandemic. I missed the launch: It beat mine by 2 months. Looks like a really good collection of academic essays on the Chinese danmei novel Founder of Diabolism and its many many adaptations, including the 227 scandal. Going to the top of the pile!
(it's an academic book so the price is usurious)
Being back on here means that I am sharing the prompt list for the October Art Challenge formally known as Inktober. The person who made the prompt list I preferred no longer makes one, so here is mine. If you make your way to my insta, you can see the same list in French, if you prefer.
Steal, pilder, share!
(ETA: fixed the typo in the slide; fixed a typo in the text)
Haven't been reading this weekend. I finally finished these two pieces that I'd promised to the two tagged friends a year and a half ago.
Nerds of the world, unite!
#arting #doctorwho #fanart #tardis #notreading
@SilversReviews
I prefer paper books, but with my painful hands I can't really hold them for long anymore. I have a Kobo Libra Color (which is amazing!!!!) and a Kindle. (a cheap one, for DRM crippled academic books).
Thank you @eggs
* not able to see colours
* know when (if I knew how, I'd worry about when)
* see the future (preferably Star Trek 😜)
* passion
* winter
* fly
#wondrouswednesday
Yesterday's second-hand #bookhaul !
The most expensive was the tagged book, which was 7$. The trivia book's battery still works! I'd call that a score! And any Vonda McIntyre is an insta buy in this house. I scored!
On BoingBoing this morning, a reminder that Library Extension will tell you in any of the libraries you have access to has copies of the books you're looking at. Has access to thousands of libraries in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
https://boingboing.net/2024/08/18/download-this-extension-if-you-love-books.html
#FirstLineFridays
I don't know why the database lists this book as being written by that Goodman guy. It was written by Una McCormick, an excellent writter, a even better academic and an all around delight. Restarted it three years after first trying it. Covid ate my brain.
“It has long been my custom, before embarking upon a great voyage, to set my affairs in order.“
“Narration proceeds along postmodern lines, without precise direction, and according to the principle that no tale is impossible, as long as we delude ourselves that Europe or any other continent can be the centre of the world. The same can be said as to the gods.“
I love this so much, folks!
pickThis book written for me!
It's almost certainly not for you. Written by an academic philosopher who's also a Sylvian fan. Packing a lot of deep reflection in 55 tight pages, he mentions Nietzsche as often as the Bhagavad-Gita. I loved every page of it. One caveat, the author is Italian and writes English like an Italian. The text would have been more legible in Italian. It's everything that my previous book should have have been. 🤯
pickFinally (restarted and) finished this one. It's good. I had been worried because as much as The Logogryph is my favourite book of all time, I frankly hated his other novels. This one is very good. An end of the human world narrative, about a different kind of climate change. The narrative is as fractured as the world therein. Poetic and oneiric, the last third of the novel in recounted from the point of view of a bird, which is brilliantly done.
pickA very good introduction to the major issues and characteristics of utopias in the West (centered on French works). It's a quick read. Bellagamba is a specialist on science fiction and utopias, but here offers a easy reading experience with bite sized entries to cover the topic. Were it not for the fact that kobo ate my annotations I'd have used for the book I'm writing.
so-soAs a lifelong fan of David Sylvian and to ease back into book reading for pleasure, I decided to finish the books I had started before the pandemic ate my brain. I didn't learn much. Young is journalist, not a literary critic. This is a well researched but somwhat shallow book that needed a professional editor, He is trying hard at exegesis, but he can't quite pull it off. He did not read Sylvian's main influences, so he misses things (next)
It is in my hands! Out on July 1st (Canada Day) from McFarland. 16 essays on Star Trek novels and their authors. So happy! It's been in the works since 2019!
I'm in this! I am very excited for this book to come out, early Summer 2024. It's been a long road (getting from there to here... *snort*) but publication is in sight. What I like the most about this is that the chapters are written in plain language, even for an academic book.
It can be pre-ordered from the McFarland website already.
I just started this, and I think what I like the most is that his drabbles are real drabbles. 100 words exactly. In fact it's a 100x100, which is fantastically fanfictional. Love it.
pickThomas Wharton was great, read from the epic poem that closes the The Book of Rain (spoiler, but that's ok) and I was able to thank him for The Logogryph. It was a good night.
![[tagged book]](https://image.librarything.com/pics/litsy_webpics/icon_taggedBook@3x.png){kind=icon}
