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We got to the hospital on time and all that and everything went according to plan.... until Shawn's surgery kept going on and on. Mason and I struggled not to be worried. Finally, the monitor switched from "Procedure" to "Closing" and I could finally breathe. When the doctor came he said, "She's fine," but then had us go into a private room which had me nearly hyperventilating with worry. Turns out, half way through the procedure they had to switch from robot-assisted to laparoscopic.
The surgeon was clearly HORRIFIED by the state of Shawn's gallbladder. He could not believe, I think, that she could even walk around give the state of it. He said, "There were several large stones, but the whole organ was... filled with a gritty sludge." He kept saying, "I guess people experience pain differently." I said, yes, Shawn is an exception because of her migraines. She really doesn't know what pain-free is like, so probably this felt minor in comparison. He kept shaking his head. "She's the definition of stoic."
Yep.
For myself, I deal with panic by reading so I read the entirety of ELYSIUM, OR, THE WORLD AFTER by Jennifer Marie Brissett. Turns out, if I *were* doing Tempest's challenge this book would have counted in more than one criteria. The bio at the back of the book tells me that Jennifer Marie Brissett identifies as "Jamaican-British American" (born in London, now living here). The book itself was... very complex. The writing was smooth and beautiful, but you had to pay attention and think through the whole thing. I can very much understand why it might be that Aqueduct Press published it, as opposed to a traditional New York publisher. I explained it to a friend as the kind of book where you spend a lot of time thinking WTF, but you keep turning pages. It's 100% science fiction. It might not qualify to some as "hard science fiction" but there are (eventually) space ships and aliens and artificial intelligences. So, that's skiffy enough for me, thank you very much.
Now, I'm going to finish THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE by Meg Elison. I set it aside because I had to use Inter-Library Loan to get a hold of Brissett's book and so I knew I couldn't renew it, if I didn't read it fast enough. Elison's book will disappear soon too, but I got that one from a new Kindle loan feature which gives me much more time.
Also in my possession is the first of the Nebula Award nominees that I'll be reading a book called THE GOBLIN EMPEROR by Katherine Addison (who is actually Sarah Monette). All of the books up for the Nebula this year are available through Ramsey County Library, so I signed myself up on the waiting lists for the rest of those. I'm only going to try to read all the books up this year, so if you're curious what's going to be on my TBR list it will be:
Trial by Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu ( ), translated by Ken Liu (Tor)
Coming Home, Jack McDevitt (Ace)
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals; Fourth Estate; HarperCollins Canada)
So, you can see, if you were at all concerned, I will be reading plenty of (presumed) straight, white, (presumed) cis, men.
The surgeon was clearly HORRIFIED by the state of Shawn's gallbladder. He could not believe, I think, that she could even walk around give the state of it. He said, "There were several large stones, but the whole organ was... filled with a gritty sludge." He kept saying, "I guess people experience pain differently." I said, yes, Shawn is an exception because of her migraines. She really doesn't know what pain-free is like, so probably this felt minor in comparison. He kept shaking his head. "She's the definition of stoic."
Yep.
For myself, I deal with panic by reading so I read the entirety of ELYSIUM, OR, THE WORLD AFTER by Jennifer Marie Brissett. Turns out, if I *were* doing Tempest's challenge this book would have counted in more than one criteria. The bio at the back of the book tells me that Jennifer Marie Brissett identifies as "Jamaican-British American" (born in London, now living here). The book itself was... very complex. The writing was smooth and beautiful, but you had to pay attention and think through the whole thing. I can very much understand why it might be that Aqueduct Press published it, as opposed to a traditional New York publisher. I explained it to a friend as the kind of book where you spend a lot of time thinking WTF, but you keep turning pages. It's 100% science fiction. It might not qualify to some as "hard science fiction" but there are (eventually) space ships and aliens and artificial intelligences. So, that's skiffy enough for me, thank you very much.
Now, I'm going to finish THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE by Meg Elison. I set it aside because I had to use Inter-Library Loan to get a hold of Brissett's book and so I knew I couldn't renew it, if I didn't read it fast enough. Elison's book will disappear soon too, but I got that one from a new Kindle loan feature which gives me much more time.
Also in my possession is the first of the Nebula Award nominees that I'll be reading a book called THE GOBLIN EMPEROR by Katherine Addison (who is actually Sarah Monette). All of the books up for the Nebula this year are available through Ramsey County Library, so I signed myself up on the waiting lists for the rest of those. I'm only going to try to read all the books up this year, so if you're curious what's going to be on my TBR list it will be:
Trial by Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu ( ), translated by Ken Liu (Tor)
Coming Home, Jack McDevitt (Ace)
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals; Fourth Estate; HarperCollins Canada)
So, you can see, if you were at all concerned, I will be reading plenty of (presumed) straight, white, (presumed) cis, men.
