One last christmas money purchase, since I had a ton of store credit from buying fancy books with birthday money on a double points day.
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Uh oh I don’t think I like heavenly tyrant that much folks. Gonna finish it but I’m worried it might not have been worth the wait lol we’ll see
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They were posting on their IG about how it’s a drastic departure from Iron Widow, I’m a little trepidatious myself
Uh Oh. Waiting with bated breath I suppose. Might have to be a library request from me instead then.
Started my copy of Original Plumbing, and I am once again experiencing the downsides of reading short format 2009-era trans writing. Which is to say, some of it feels shallow or old. I am being Seinfelded and I dislike that, because some of this stuff is pretty damn important to be saying in 2009. But having the magazine photos is pretty phenomenal (there are so many guys!!!) and some of those photos come with really great captions from the subject. Issue no.2 is the Hair Issue (and the cover is a gorgeous long-haired guy), and has a photo and interview with a black butch barber. He talks about how he is a man, but he’s also a butch, and when barbering, he uses she/her because of how male-dominated the field is, and it matters to him to be a “female barber” holding all the accolades and awards he has.
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“Seinfeld isn’t funny” is simultaneously really interesting from a psychological perspective and SUPER annoying from a “I’m just trying to engage with the classics here but I’m so BORED” perspective. queers have to reckon so often with forgetting our history too!
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It legit just got worse with time
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I read Arisa, a late 00s early 10s shoujo manga by Andou Natsumi. I’ve read some of her other work, she was just the artist half of Kitchen Princess but that’s one of my favorite manga ever, and her more recent josei Something’s Wrong With Us was a really solid entertaining drama. Arisa is actually a batshit comic and it was a great ride, when I flipped it open I did not expect it to have Battle Royale/Danganronpa vibes and it just kept escalating in ridiculous and fun ways. It’s ultimately about troubled middle school children even if in a heightened ridiculous fashion so it does have some CWs for multiple characters attempting or having attempted suicide, along with general bullying and some violence. But I had a blast reading it. So funny that it was serialized in Nakayoshi too like it’s not completely out of left field vibes-wise even if Nakayoshi’s brand is more on the Saint Tail side they also ran Ghost Hunt and Hell Girl but it’s still very funny.
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I am very nearly done with Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and I again have to take a bit of break cause the last section was good, but intense (this has happened a few times) but also, happened to glance at the next page and see the return of my least favorite character return in what I assume will be the worst, if most realistic, fashion.
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his reintroduction was actually not that bad. I finished the book and loved it. Now filled with the “well now what?” of finishing a thing lol
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devastated about this because i rarely read -ologies while theyre still being written/released and i was HYPED for this one but ill just take a lil pausie
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finished Such A Pretty Smile but the last half (except for the ending) was a little tough for me to get through and reminds me why i dont usually go for Adult Fiction.
Summary
i was definitely in the HURRY UP AND GET TO THE VIOLENCE part of this horror story and it wasnt as…much as i expected which was kind of disappointing / there is a part where it feels Distinctly For White Women despite the author’s attempt to be inclusive (its a good attempt tbh it just didn’t land hard for me)
but glad im done with it cause i won’t keep wondering if it had a hidden twist id never come across
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Finally wrapped up my Traveler’s Gate reread last night. Once again, it honestly really surprised for being just… fun, and having a lot of really nice moments sprinkled throughout that I had forgotten about (One of Will Wight’s specialties is showing characters acting on secret knowledge or using abilities, especially in fights, that others don’t know they have from outside povs, and this has way more of it than I remembered). There’s also a collection of short stories in the same setting that shows off a bit more of the magic, which I hadn’t read before, and that was also a lot of fun, got to see some corners of the world that weren’t explored at all in the main trilogy
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Wasn’t initially sold on Gwen and Art are not in love, but Gwen being a useless lesbian is perfect.
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The opening two paragraphs to Hangsman are like… really really good. I always forget how well Shirley Jackson can write. I should reread Haunting of Hill House one of these days, look at Nel’s road trip a bit closer (its SUCH a good sequence, its got this extended inner dialogue about how she feels like her life might finally be turning around, and how this haunted house experiment is gonna be such a good opportunity for her, and she gets lost in thought just fantasizing about getting to be happy for the first time in as long as she can remember, and its all threaded with this creeping dread at it very clearly isn’t going to be good for her or happy at all)
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Blasted through volume one of O Human Star by Blue Delliquanti today. Extremely good read and some shit hits way differently in spreads than it does in the single page webcomic form. I’ll come back with a better pitch and more thoughts once the field day is over
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Okay, following up on this
O Human Star is a scifi comic about Alistair Sterling, a brilliant but harsh roboticist from the 2000s. After dying suddenly from illness, he wakes up again 16 years later in a future shaped by his work, where robots are commonplace and have rights as people. He reunites with his old lover and business partner, and finds out said partner has a robot daughter - an android created from an old copy of Alistair’s mind, who grew into a trans woman.
It’s a very trans and disability centered story. Some of the ways it talks about AI hit differently in a post LLM-hype world. But it’s extremely concerned with questions of identity and autonomy around machines & people - one of those speculative genre works that is equally invested in the literal premise and the metaphorical. All the characters are really endearing and compelling, and the central love story is incredibly human - they’re compelling as partners and also the way their flaws and shortcomings explode against each other. Also Sulla, the daughter, is. So good. What a good teen character. The chapter (i think in vol 3?) where you finally see her backstory is like. I cry like a baby every time she experiences her girl body for the first time.
You can still read the webcomic for free; I’ll be acquiring vols 2 and 3 Eventually later this year.
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I read Tower Dungeon by Tsutomu Nihei (of Blame!). Only 14 chapters out so far and I’m curious to see where it goes but it’s monthly so I’ll wait until it’s complete. He seems to be in his zone with detailed, large scale architecture and weird creatures. Has some interesting “dragons”.
Reading Gibson’s Burning Chrome along with the Shelved by Genre podcast. 1st reading of Gibson, I wasn’t expecting him to read like he is. I was expecting something more utilitarian, clear, precise and perhaps dry techo-talk. He’s very stylish, sometimes he’ll enter his noir mode or ask of you to put in a bit more work to unpack what’s being said. It’s been fun, I’m looking forward to starting Neuromancer.
That was a lot of fun and a much faster read than I was expecting. The stories focused on the supporting cast from the original series were, imo, a lot better than the ones focusing on the main characters, but even those were super interesting. Its also got my new favorite no-context spoiler for the series, with a character named Zeth Baker who’s specialty in magic is that he’s really really good at convincing reality that he has hidden knives in unexpected places. So good, in fact, that he can end some fights as soon as they start by retroactively deciding that he took the time to sneak some into his opponent’s armor, making them stab themselves to death as soon as they start moving
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: Uprooted by Naomi Novik is so fucking gay, it’s a crime it isn’t
I wouldnt necessarily call it queerbaiting, i dont think there’s malice behind it (and Temeraire as a series was also pretty gay in some places) its just frustrating to see the fucking
Two childhood best friends who love and trust each other to the ends of the earth and are CLEARLY into each other not get together
Like come ON at least make it poly they spend the entire book all but confessing to eachother at ever turn
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