Weekly Wednesday-ish Reading Meme - October 3, 2013

[chomiji]

What have you just finished reading?

Tiger Eye by Marjorie Liu (the first of her Dirk & Steele series), which I enjoyed fairly well. The protagonist is more than a little Mary Sue-ish, the male-female interactions a little more breathless and self-conscious than I would like, and stupid things happen for Deep Plot Reasons (the traitor, for example, was set up by Liu in a way I particularly dislike). On the plus side, the heroine is moderately tough, and we get family-of-choice where the family members are all basically Adventurers. I didn't like that this was in many ways set up as a Reverse Harem (I could have used a tough Mama Wolf character in the group as well, for example), but Our Girl Dela does have a couple of female friends, and I think they actually do talk about Dela's artwork and the friend's concert gigs. The plot twists that have to do with the gorgeous, enslaved male lead actually twisted in ways I did not expect.

Magazines. We got the latest Washingtonian, which is their every-few-years "Top Hospitals" issue, with lots of health-related articles. We also got the new Smithsonian and the National Geographic, which was a photography retrospective. That's less interesting to me than the usual range of science/culture articles The photos are gorgeous, but I can't immerse myself in them as I can with the prose. Finally, there was a new Consumer Reports, but that's not exactly an immersive reading experience.

It would be nicer if the magazines didn't all tend to cluster together with regard to delivery dates!

What are you currently reading?

Old Man's War by John Scalzi. I'm enjoying it so far: it's been lots of character interaction, some technology porn, and some People Bonding in Tough Situations. But I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. The characters are being prepped for a bad military situation ("75% of you will be dead in 10 years"), and I'm pretty sure that something appalling is going to happen. I'm also morosely expecting that the lead's gay male sidekick is going to be one of the casualties, but maybe Scalzi will surprise me.

Also, a blog series on Deconstructing Narnia. This is still ongoing (she's gotten about halfway through The Voyage of the Dawn Treader), and I'm reading it rather chaotically: all the existing Dawn Treader posts first, and now I'm most of the way through the posts about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

The Wouldbegoods by E. Nesbit. *sigh*

What do you think you'll read next?

I've downloaded another Liu "Dirk and Steele" novel: Shadow Touch (one of oyceter's recs). Also, ann_leckie's SF novel Ancillary Justice is out, and I should get hold of it. The question is, dead tree or epub? I may get the actual book: it's her first, and maybe I will want to get it autographed sometime.

Anyone care to recommend classics that might be available free or cheap? My background in reading these things is surprisingly spotty. (I didn't read the Jane Austen classics until just a few years ago, for example, and ditto the Peter Whimsey/Harriet Vane mysteries.) I am kind of impatient with a lot of literary stuff, though. Misunderstandings that drag on and on and on because everyone is too polite to address the issues, for example, drive me batty.

 

Comments

[espresso_addict]

Thanks for the link to Deconstructing Narnia -- I've just mainlined her LWW critique -- some fascinating points I'd forgotten.

[chomiji]

Yeah, she's interesting! I'm fascinated to see such a critique by a self-professed Christian too. (Jewish here, myself.)