Reading Wednesdays

[lydamorehouse]

Even though it's been two weeks since I reported on my reading, I don't actually have a WHOLE lot new in that regard. Because my podcast is doing a Ghost in the Shell episode next time, I watched the 1995 anime film of the same name and read the 1989 manga, also known as Koukaku Kidoutai by Shirow Masamune. The later was a trip and a half. But, I don't want to talk too much about either of those here, since hopefully y'all will tune into my show when it drops next week.

I did finish listening to the audio book of Rule 34 by Charlie Stross. I ended up liking it, but I'm not entirely sure if that would remain true if I'd READ the thing, rather than having it read to me. As I noted in earlier posts, it's written in second person, which means all the action is told as "you" rather and he/she or I. So, you walk in to the room. I wonder if this would have ever smoothed out for me if I'd been reading it inside my own head. It worked out fine when someone read it to me, because it felt slightly more natural? The story itself was fine. I guess it's part of a series which I might eventually read all of, but I'm currently not in a special hurry to do so.

I also started reading 36 Streets by T. R. Napper because it had made someone's list of queer cyberpunk and my library had it. I was really enjoying it until the most recent scene... which got a little dark and gruesome for me. I will probably push on, but that's the real trouble with cyberpunk, isn't it? Sometimes the gritty streets get a little too hardcore. I will say that I'm enjoying the Hanoi setting and all the Vietnamese mafia culture. I've been waiting for the gay to kick in, but, turns out, the heroine has a girlfriend. 

I ended up returning a couple of books unread this week because I just wasn't getting into them this time. I don't know about the rest of you, but there are books that have narrative styles that I just have to be in the mood for? (Or, sometimes, in extreme cases, I never get into?) That was the case with Aubrey Wood's Bang Bang Bodhisattva. I may try it again, if only because I met her once at WisCON and really liked her as a human being. I also had out an audiobook of Broken Angels by Richard Morgan that felt more milSF than I was in the mood for, so that also got returned unfinished.

I just checked out a bunch more cyberpunk-ish audio books, which include:

• Warcross by Marie Lu
• Feed by M. T. Anderson
• The Electric Church by Jeff Somers

Hopefully one of these will fit the bill. What about y'all? Reading anything fun or noteworthy or... terrible?

Comments

[oracne]

I enjoyed your new book!

[eagle]

I just finished The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa and quite enjoyed it. The author was pulling strings for the protagonist to a degree that was maybe a bit too obvious, but the book had a whole lot to say about colonialism and cultural tourism and I thought said those things rather well. Also, the basic structure is a lone determined protagonist against the arrayed forces of a hostile empire, and that sort of thing is my catnip.

I just started The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence and so far it's every bit as good as I'd heard it was. I am only 10% in, but there's already a mysterious library with strong Piranesi vibes and a plucky protagonist driven by stubborn rage who keeps being underestimated. Lots of fun.

[carbonel]

I read and enjoyed Rule 34 when it came out but haven't reread it since.