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lydamorehouseI finished MEMORY GARDEN by Mary Rickert a few hours ago, and I really came to enjoy it. I didn't think I would, since I've been reading so much science fiction and this book is a contemporary fantasy. The tone of it, though, was also very... quiet, yet suspenseful, not unlike my experience with MEMORY OF WATER by Emmi Itaranta.
Locus Magazine tells me I have a new crop of award nominees to attempt to find--the Aurealis Award (for best Australian SF):
Aurora: Meridian, Amanda Bridgeman (Momentum)
The White List, Nina D’Aleo (Momentum)
Peacemaker, Marianne de Pierres (Angry Robot)
This Shattered World, Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner (Allen & Unwin)
Nil By Mouth, LynC (Satalyte)
Foresight, Graham Storrs (Momentum)
Again, you will see that out of the 6 books up for best science fiction, 5 are written by women (one is written by TWO women!) So, I will be accidentally doing Tempest's challenge by only agreeing to read people up for awards. These might be more difficult for me to do, as NONE of them have shown up in my libraries' e-book collections yet. But I haven't checked the paper holdings. I would be surprised if Marianne de Pierres wouldn't be there, not only because she's published by Angry Robot, but also because I remember reading a book by her some time ago (like the 1990s? Anyway, she's very much established on this side of the world.)
In other news, Shawn continues do well. I'm forbidden from giving away too many details, but suffice to say that she's made real progress and I think that many things have shifted, including her sense of impending doom. She's actually sound asleep right now, sleeping well and deeply for the first time in days.
For myself, all this reading has produced only a small amount of writing from me. I've been working on something that I think will eventually be a long, short story, but, being the first attempt at something quite like this in a long time, it's meandering its way out of me very slowly. I'm hoping actually to have enough of it written to read at my MarsCON reading on Friday. I've got a fair amount--about 3,000 words, but with luck I'll get more out this evening. I'm having one of those moments in writing, though, where I suddenly wonder if this story should have been written in a different p.o.v. Currently it's first person, but it may have to shift to third. I think I'm going to finish a draft of it and see. I only worry because it seems, from all my reading, to be shifting into something that's kind of about gender to some extent and without the pronouns in early it might not be evident what the main character's gender is, and that's not the focus (not _his_ gender, anyway).... anyway, it's good to be wrestling with all of this stuff again.
Locus Magazine tells me I have a new crop of award nominees to attempt to find--the Aurealis Award (for best Australian SF):
Aurora: Meridian, Amanda Bridgeman (Momentum)
The White List, Nina D’Aleo (Momentum)
Peacemaker, Marianne de Pierres (Angry Robot)
This Shattered World, Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner (Allen & Unwin)
Nil By Mouth, LynC (Satalyte)
Foresight, Graham Storrs (Momentum)
Again, you will see that out of the 6 books up for best science fiction, 5 are written by women (one is written by TWO women!) So, I will be accidentally doing Tempest's challenge by only agreeing to read people up for awards. These might be more difficult for me to do, as NONE of them have shown up in my libraries' e-book collections yet. But I haven't checked the paper holdings. I would be surprised if Marianne de Pierres wouldn't be there, not only because she's published by Angry Robot, but also because I remember reading a book by her some time ago (like the 1990s? Anyway, she's very much established on this side of the world.)
In other news, Shawn continues do well. I'm forbidden from giving away too many details, but suffice to say that she's made real progress and I think that many things have shifted, including her sense of impending doom. She's actually sound asleep right now, sleeping well and deeply for the first time in days.
For myself, all this reading has produced only a small amount of writing from me. I've been working on something that I think will eventually be a long, short story, but, being the first attempt at something quite like this in a long time, it's meandering its way out of me very slowly. I'm hoping actually to have enough of it written to read at my MarsCON reading on Friday. I've got a fair amount--about 3,000 words, but with luck I'll get more out this evening. I'm having one of those moments in writing, though, where I suddenly wonder if this story should have been written in a different p.o.v. Currently it's first person, but it may have to shift to third. I think I'm going to finish a draft of it and see. I only worry because it seems, from all my reading, to be shifting into something that's kind of about gender to some extent and without the pronouns in early it might not be evident what the main character's gender is, and that's not the focus (not _his_ gender, anyway).... anyway, it's good to be wrestling with all of this stuff again.