A tale of two stories

I bought two books at the Borders closing sale. --That's misleading. I bought dozens of books at the Borders closing sale. But I'm thinking about just two of them. I finished reading one last night: Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, by Genevieve Valentine. It's about...hmm. It's about a circus made of people who are part machine in a postapocalyptic world. Part machine in a steampunk sort of way, not a Terminator sort of way. I don't read for style, but the style of this one caught me. And then the people, the world...if you look at the plot itself it's a fairly simple, fairly small plot, but you can't really do that because the characters' motivations and creation (within the story, that is) and the world itself are all so connected. It's a gorgeous book. All angles, no curves, but it circles back on itself and opens up little surprise doors and illuminates this grim life these grim people lead until it's beautiful. I generally don't write letters to authors, but I'm considering writing to this one to demand to know when her next is coming out.

So I finished it last night. I really should have just ended the night on that, but I like to have a book with me when I'm going through my end-of-the-night rituals (i.e., showering, brushing teeth, packing lunch). So I went to our recent-purchase stack and picked out Timecaster, by Joe Kimball. I'd picked this one out because the premise is similar to, though flashier than (and a near copy of Minority Report, as I understand it, though I've never seen or read it), a story idea I've been carrying around, and I thought it would be a fast, light read. It was in its way. Nine pages later I laid it on the post where we put things that need to go downstairs so that I could put it in the Goodwill pile.

It probably doesn't help that it came right after Mechanique, but I read some parts aloud to Eric and he was unimpressed too. There was immediate "as you know Bob." There was the self-described alpha male character being a jerk when he thought he was being assertive and alpha-male, though it only served to amuse me that he was simultaneously being kept by his wife. It may be the description of his wife that got me. One of the last real redheads? Gorgeous and svelte, with emerald green eyes? Oh, and she's a (legal) prostitute, too? The argument between the main character and his wife reminded me of the arguments between Mal and Inara in Firefly, but that's not actually the recommendation it sounds like because Mal is being a jerk in those arguments, too. Also, the "I only married you because it was cheaper than continuing to hire you" line was not as funny or endearing as the author probably intended it. And I got no sense that the character was intended to be a jerk. He seemed intended to be a wish-fulfillment sort of character. My sense is that I wasn't the intended audience. So, it can go to someone else who is part of that audience, and I'm sure he will enjoy it.

Reviews

I read Theodore Sturgeon's The Dreaming Jewels over the weekend. It's one of the books I didn't realize Eric (well, we) had but noticed when we moved books out of the nursery last week. I keep hearing that Sturgeon is a fantastic and phenomenal writer, and I've read two of his books now and I'm disappointed. It was a nice book, as was the other one (More Than Human), but they're not mind-bending and illuminating and everything that people say they are. Apparently he goes with Heinlein in my mind as a class of over-hyped writers. I wonder if this is because I'm so used to contemporary writing, or because I have a different viewpoint from the people who admire their work, or what.

We saw Star Trek on Friday (I think Eric was disappointed there was no line or anything to get in, but the theater did fill up respectably) and it's a decent movie as a movie, but not as part of Star Trek canon, according to Eric. The things that bugged him were things I didn't know (ages were off, Kirk wasn't born on a starship, etc.), but there were definitely flaws in it as a movie; there were some logical inconsistencies and not much character development except a little in Spock, and it felt like it was stuck between trying to appeal to the older Star Trek fans (especially bringing in all the main characters, who are all ridiculously young and all geniuses at their jobs despite being ridiculously young, to the ship at the same time) and to newer, young fans (too much flash and fun without logic to back it up). Also, it technically passed the Bechdel-Wallace test, but only technically, and I really didn't like that the only major female character was reduced to a love interest and nothing else, despite also being ridiculously young and a genius at her job. I did think the actor who played McCoy was fantastic, though.

I also made the sourdough onion rye bread and it's pretty good, but it needs work.

Family concerns

I'm currently reading Anne Lamott's Blue Shoe. I picked this up at a thrift store in Ann Arbor while shopping for dyeing equipment. I've been meaning to read Anne Lamott's fiction since I read Bird by Bird, but hadn't until now. I'm not normally much of a mainstream fiction reader...or at least that's not what I gravitate towards, though I do have a few mainstream novels that are some of my favorites to reread. I realized this evening that I rarely read new stuff anymore. Generally I just reread what I have. I wonder if this is why when I do read something new, I tend to gulp it down.

At any rate, this kind of mainstream fiction is definitely not what I would think of as my sort of thing. It's very senses-oriented, descriptive, symbolic, where the events don't matter in and of themselves so much as in their effects on the main character. I have to slow down to read this properly. I remember doing that with the one Charles de Lint book I read, too. Unlike that book, this one is more direct in its message: acceptance, family, duty, love, that flaws are okay and the point is to be a good person, not a perfect one. I feel like I've been very close in my own mind lately, that I need to expand and breathe and relax into my own life a bit. It's an interesting phenomenon. I'm glad I'm reading this book right now.

Dad called me today to discuss James's genetic testing results. James called Monday to tell me about it, disrupting the night's plan of work. I've just now caught up to what I was planning to do then. If I understand him correctly (and he understood the doctor correctly), he's a cystic fibrosis carrier. The doctor says this may or may not be the cause of his pancreatitis; some mutations in the CF gene are codominant (most are recessive, meaning that one mutated gene is okay, but codominant means that one mutated gene will produce some effects, though not as many as having two mutated genes) and CF does involve the pancreas but he almost certainly got the gene from Dad, and Dad's family, and nobody has had James's sort of internal troubles that we know of.

"I don't really know what CF is," he said, so I told him a little about it--bodily defects, lung problems, diabetes, malnutrition, sterility, and constant pneumonia and bronchitis symptoms are what it amounts to, though I didn't go into all that--and that I planned to get myself tested. "James said his doctor said it was mostly passed down on the male side," he said, which is contrary to what I know--cystic fibrosis is an autosomal disease--so I said either he was mistaken or I had misunderstood what the results actually were.

"When is CF diagnosed?" he said, and I said usually at infancy. "Then Abby (James's daughter) probably doesn't have it," he said, in relief. Two of my cousins were already tested when a cousin on their dad's side died of CF, so it's just the last two cousins who need to know--based on current information they have a 25% chance of being carriers. James didn't specifically say to disseminate the information, but he didn't say not to, and it's a family concern.

He's going to tell Mom about it when he's there to explain it--he's on a business trip currently--and I'm going to call when he's home to tell Mom about my test results, that I have a blocked oviduct and I'll be taking medication, so that he can help explain that. I'm not that bad at explaining things but she does seem to understand quickest when Dad tells her things; the habit of thirty years of listening to him, I expect.

I was feeling very anxious and cranky about all this yesterday, which is why I didn't catch up on any work. I'm still out of sorts today, in an odd way I haven't experienced before. It's not quite like PMS (though I'm due for it), and it's not quite like the depression I had in 2004. It's more ephemeral, more trivial, more flat-affect than bad-affect, but it's still been preventing me from doing things. However, I'm hoping that's at an end starting tomorrow.

The next subgenre: geek romance

Eric and I talked about whether there would ever be a market for geek romance novels. Our verdict was no, but only once we got past some prejudices about what the term "romance novel" really means, beyond "trashy cover, awful words for sex, plot revolving around fake misunderstandings and sex scenes," and what "book with strong focus on non-romantic relationship" would be called (mainstream, we suppose). The market would probably be mainly geek women, which is sadly too small a slice of the population to be commercially feasible. Eric says it might also garner a following in teen fiction, but I thought it would make more sense in adult, since more people will admit to geekery in adulthood than teendom.

But we decided the subgenre could spawn some awesome book covers. Picture a man in a labcoat, baring his white chest, hints of a calculator peeking from behind the edge of the coat, and Star Trek boxers.

Books books books

My Amazon order came! I got a gift certificate for participating in a blog-related market research interview, you see. Then Eric wanted to use up most of it for his Edition Four D&D books, and I said if he got to spend that much money I was spending an equal amount, and he said okay. So I got Local Breads and Seed to Seed and an Ingrid Michaelson CD recommended by a coworker. Local Breads is looking awesome. It concentrates on local specialties in Europe, mainly sourdoughs and whole-grain recipes, and has two and a half chapters on rye; all of which are completely awesome and exactly what I would like to work on with the baking. (Well, aside from making a decent sandwich bread. I made up a recipe I like except I can't get any oven spring so the loaf is too dense and small. I'm still working on it.) And Seed to Seed promises to be very useful. Haven't listened to the CD yet, but I will. I think it's interesting I didn't get any fiction. Granting that I have plenty unread in the library, it's still a change of reading taste for me.

I'm having busy days--another week of crazy clients (four weeks after the last one, and the same week as the full moon--hmm) while people are gone, and lots to do yard-wise. Eric's final project is finished, which relieves us both mightily. Now he's just got PRAXIS this weekend. He starts studying tomorrow. We bought him a book, and looking through the practice tests I think I could do well on the multiple-choice without having looked through the review sections, though probably not on the constructed-answer questions.

I've been working on a nonfiction thing, and I find it's been way too long since I worked on Shoelace. I shall rectify that tomorrow if possible. Also Eric mentioned the other day that he still has to read PV and get me comments and query letter help. I found it charming that he remembered; it's been a while since I asked and he's been very busy since. In the meantime, though, I'm happy letting it lie and working on other things.

Eric took his car to AAA on Friday to get the tire fixed and the heating system looked at--his car has stopped heating up in the mornings. I picked him up, we went shopping (potting soil, apple cider, and canvas for me for a couche), we went home, I mixed up some sourdough no-knead bread and some garlic-rosemary bread. The next morning, I went to the bank and to the farmer's market. I did very well: apples, lettuce, tomato, turnips, a huge loaf of bread (sadly Eric didn't like it--he doesn't like sesame seeds, apparently--but that just means more for me), more apple cider (cheaper!), canned chicken and noodles. As I was attempting to pay for the apples and cider, Eric called.

"There's good news and bad news," he said. "Here's the bad news. AAA called, and my water pump is completely busted. That's why I wasn't getting any heat. And they can't get the part until Monday so we'll have to carpool. The good news is, they replaced that pump last May and it's under warranty, so all we have to pay is $15 for the leaky tire."

"Sounds good to me," I said, and hung up and paid for the apples and cider.

I baked both breads (plus some chocolate chip cookies), and I’m happy with the garlic-rosemary bread now at 10 cloves (roasted and chopped) for one loaf. Now I've got to figure out what sourdough recipe I want to try next. I didn't taste the no-knead bread, because I won't be baking this weekend because I'll be at Confusion and I'm saving it to bring along for snacking there (since we normally don't get a lot in the way of real food anyway). I noticed that 80% hydration was too much; it sagged and ran all over when I baked it, though it did rise about as much as a ciabatta does, I believe--about three inches. (I'm still not sure what a ciabatta is exactly.) I've also got to work on some sandwich breads--there are two in The Bread Bible that I want to try, flax seed bread and cracked wheat bread (only I'd probably use wheat germ instead of bulgur wheat).

I'm feeling very un-well-read lately, which is a signal that I need to catch up on some of the nonfiction downstairs that I haven't read. It does not mean I need to go the bookstore. Really, it doesn't. We're paying for a bunch of stuff this month and one of our usual bookstore trips will set us back more than we need. That doesn't mean we're not going--or that we won't buy books at ConFusion--but that's what I'll tell myself as long as I can.

Harry Potter, and no, no spoilers

Eric and I went to the Borders Harry Potter party last night, where we witnessed some excellent costumes, overheard a girl sell her number to a boy for $23, and waited two hours to get a book because we had not picked up a color-coded bracelet. The manager shouted "Want to know the ending?" and got a round of "No!" back, and Eric and I discussed whether the manager would leave the store alive if he went through with this threat while reading the other books we were picking up while waiting. ($80 at the bookstore. It's a good thing it's not closer.)

This morning we read it, together, lying on the spare bed mostly. I read faster than he does. It was a lot of fun being able to react to text with someone, even if I had to hold my reactions a few seconds until he caught up to the place I wanted to gasp or laugh or exclaim at. It was a very good book, and satisfying in its tying up of loose ends. We consulted previous books four or five times about things that had been mentioned coming back. My head hurts now, but it was worth it. And now I can go and read the Internet and other media without fear.