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Reading Wednesday meme, reporting for duty. Sounding off --
Finished:
Under One Banner, Commonweal #4, Graydon Saunders -- Not the place to start with this series, which is the beginning, for as usual Saunders holds no reader's hand (with, say, explanations of prior events, even ones between books) plus this one is even more introspective (which in Sauders's style reifies as philosophical monologues disguised as debates). I am entirely geeked out that the main protagonist* is a technical writer -- a former apprentice sorcerer whose magical ability (but not knowledge) was burned out in an accident, so they become an “arcane documentation specialist” recording spells so other magic workers can cast them. Plus policies and procedures, of course. (There are always policies and procedures to document.) In the end not as satisfying as earlier volumes, but I did read it straight through.
The Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Pieces in the English Language ed. Francis Palgrave & Alfred the Tennyson (uncredited: they planned it together while on holiday and Palgrave consistently followed his beta comments) -- A reread picked up because, while its scope is indeed aggravatingly narrow,** within that scope the selections generally*** are Good Stuff and I wanted to read old favorites I haven't been favoring lately. I am amused that while it has “Prothalamion” instead of “Epithalamion”, an endnote acknowledges the latter is more beautiful and was omitted only because Victorian prudery. Technically I'm not finished, but another evening or two will do it so I'm marking it done.
In progress:
Chongfei Manual (宠妃使用手册, literally “pampered consort user guide”), Feng He You Yue (风荷游月, which I read as “the wind bears the floating moon” and I hope I'm right as that's an awesome romance writer 'nym) -- Another pseudo-historical webnovel**** with a protagonist transmigrated into her younger self for a life do-over, in this case restarting at six years old on the day before her stepmother strangled and left her for dead in the countryside. It's not easy to do aristocratic family politics as a child -- though at least creepily mature reads better at that age than in just-barely-toddler -- which makes the initial challenge of family infighting nicely engaging. Eventually there's a timeskip, thank goodness, as given the title a romance had to develop. I appreciate that even while the protagonist is per trope a preeminent beauty, she does have glaring weaknesses and not always the best plotter in the capital. Am up to chapter 66 out of 171, and the translation is complete.
I should probably also mention that I've been keeping up with releases of It's Not Easy to Be a Man After Travelling to the Future and Phoenix Destiny -- am up to chapters 330 and 146 respectively.
On hold:
Rise of Humanity, Zhai Zhu -- Caught up with the translation at chapter 437. An illustrative pull-quote: on discovering that his home planet is a lot smaller than it once was because powerful cultivators have made pocket-dimension worlds out of chunks of its space, the protagonist exclaims, “These robbers! When I ascend as a god in the future, I will recover all that stolen land!” As I was hoping, details that link the setting to mythic Chinese history have begun appearing, starting in the later 300s chapters.
Squad dismissed!
* A secondary one starts developing halfway through by pulling forward a thread from earlier books. That this took so long to become apparent is a major structural wobble.
** The anthology is a sustained argument in privileging the styles and modes of poetry that Tennyson preferred.
*** The main caveat being Too Much Wordsworth.
**** Ming-dynasty template AFAIK -- tho' the Empress is a former field general, which would be unusual in any era. Also, no foot binding.
---L.
Subject quote from Love will find out the way, anonymous 17th century balladeer.
Finished:
Under One Banner, Commonweal #4, Graydon Saunders -- Not the place to start with this series, which is the beginning, for as usual Saunders holds no reader's hand (with, say, explanations of prior events, even ones between books) plus this one is even more introspective (which in Sauders's style reifies as philosophical monologues disguised as debates). I am entirely geeked out that the main protagonist* is a technical writer -- a former apprentice sorcerer whose magical ability (but not knowledge) was burned out in an accident, so they become an “arcane documentation specialist” recording spells so other magic workers can cast them. Plus policies and procedures, of course. (There are always policies and procedures to document.) In the end not as satisfying as earlier volumes, but I did read it straight through.
The Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Pieces in the English Language ed. Francis Palgrave & Alfred the Tennyson (uncredited: they planned it together while on holiday and Palgrave consistently followed his beta comments) -- A reread picked up because, while its scope is indeed aggravatingly narrow,** within that scope the selections generally*** are Good Stuff and I wanted to read old favorites I haven't been favoring lately. I am amused that while it has “Prothalamion” instead of “Epithalamion”, an endnote acknowledges the latter is more beautiful and was omitted only because Victorian prudery. Technically I'm not finished, but another evening or two will do it so I'm marking it done.
In progress:
Chongfei Manual (宠妃使用手册, literally “pampered consort user guide”), Feng He You Yue (风荷游月, which I read as “the wind bears the floating moon” and I hope I'm right as that's an awesome romance writer 'nym) -- Another pseudo-historical webnovel**** with a protagonist transmigrated into her younger self for a life do-over, in this case restarting at six years old on the day before her stepmother strangled and left her for dead in the countryside. It's not easy to do aristocratic family politics as a child -- though at least creepily mature reads better at that age than in just-barely-toddler -- which makes the initial challenge of family infighting nicely engaging. Eventually there's a timeskip, thank goodness, as given the title a romance had to develop. I appreciate that even while the protagonist is per trope a preeminent beauty, she does have glaring weaknesses and not always the best plotter in the capital. Am up to chapter 66 out of 171, and the translation is complete.
I should probably also mention that I've been keeping up with releases of It's Not Easy to Be a Man After Travelling to the Future and Phoenix Destiny -- am up to chapters 330 and 146 respectively.
On hold:
Rise of Humanity, Zhai Zhu -- Caught up with the translation at chapter 437. An illustrative pull-quote: on discovering that his home planet is a lot smaller than it once was because powerful cultivators have made pocket-dimension worlds out of chunks of its space, the protagonist exclaims, “These robbers! When I ascend as a god in the future, I will recover all that stolen land!” As I was hoping, details that link the setting to mythic Chinese history have begun appearing, starting in the later 300s chapters.
Squad dismissed!
* A secondary one starts developing halfway through by pulling forward a thread from earlier books. That this took so long to become apparent is a major structural wobble.
** The anthology is a sustained argument in privileging the styles and modes of poetry that Tennyson preferred.
*** The main caveat being Too Much Wordsworth.
**** Ming-dynasty template AFAIK -- tho' the Empress is a former field general, which would be unusual in any era. Also, no foot binding.
---L.
Subject quote from Love will find out the way, anonymous 17th century balladeer.