May 10, 2019 at 9:22 am (Links, Surprises, television)
Tags: adaptations, complaints, disappointment, fantasy, Game of Thrones, horror
So Arya killed the Night King, stabbing him in the exact same place he was stabbed by the Children of the Forest.
The Children of the Forest haven’t appeared much in the series (hopefully they’ll be in the prequel) but the image of a blade plunging into the chest of a captive man is, you have to admit, super-arresting and chilling.
And here is an image from an article in Den of Geek, which asks: Could the Night King actually have been a Stark?
Which again makes self super-despondent because it reminds her that in the last two episodes EVER of Game of Thrones, the bad guys will be played by the tag team of Cersei/Euron, even though, to self’s mind, the Lannisters are pretty much done (except for Tyrion, who’s turned into such a sad sack)
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 26, 2019 at 7:34 am (Recommended, television)
Tags: adaptations, Arya, fantasy, favorites, Fridays, Game of Thrones, Gendry, Gendrya, humor, indulgences, reviews
Season 8, Episode 2: A Sort-of Review
Those nasty nasty showrunners knew from Season 2 that we would end up here. The minute Season 8 Gendry stuck his sword into that vat of whatever-sends-up-steam-like-a-veritable-fog-machine, it was Gendrya, all the way. This scene has happened before, only back then Arya was 11 or 12 and Gendry had never been with a woman. Now, Arya is 17 or 18, and post-Melisandre Gendry has apparently not been traumatized for life because he admitted to Lady Arya that he’s been with three women. THREE! (Self loves the moment when Arya oh-so-casually drops the “Was that the first time you’ve been with a woman” and Gendry’s astonished “What???!!!!” Gendry, and all the viewers who’d seen 12-year-old Arya making heart eyes at Gendry’s abs, were STUNNED! STUNNED! But surely we wouldn’t have wanted another unrequited love — like self’s other favorite ship, Brienne and Jaime! — for our Dear Little Murder Child!)
Looking forward to this Sunday. For these specific reasons:
- More of Arya’s raised eyebrows. When Arya’s eyebrow goes up, it means she’s ready for business.
- More of Gendry, in any shape or form, though preferably hot and sweaty in the forge, with exposed clavicles.
- Crypt turning into a foodfest for White Walkers — what can self say, she really likes The Walking Dead! Since no less than six different characters (Gendry, Jon, Dany, Sam, Gilly and Ser Jorah) were made to state out loud (in Episode 2) that the crypts were “the safest place,” the feeding frenzy will probably be worse than an American high school cafeteria at lunch!
Season 8, Episode 2 joins self’s favorite Game of Thrones episodes of all time:
the one where Brienne is about to get eaten by a bear, otherwise known as The Bear and the Maiden Fair
the one where the Kingslayer goes au naturel in a pool with Brienne and then very conveniently faints in Brienne’s arms (Unfortunately this episode marked the high point in their relationship, for Jaime subsequently returned to his sister’s loving arms, and self lost all respect for the character and wished he’d crawl off somewhere and die)
Self knows not why Season 7’s Gendry was so wimpy. In Season 8, he is decidedly NOT wimpy. He’s back at the forge, where he can be observed (by Arya. And the viewers) in the best possible light (steamy, with sparks of metal upon metal: self could go on).
Stay tuned.
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February 12, 2019 at 1:47 am (Artists and Writers, Books, Links, Recommended)
Tags: Cambridge, Cee Neuner, England, English writers, fantasy, favorites, His Dark Materials, Lyra Belacqua, Mondays, Oxford, Philip Pullman, reading lists, Will Parry
You have to look hard in a few of these, but they definitely all DO have Orange and Pink.
Thanks again to Cee Neuner for the Fun Foto Challenge!
Redwood City, California: January 2019
London: 3 December 2018
Heffers, Trinity Street, Cambridge: 23 November 2018
Can you tell how much self loves Philip Pullman? She read all the books on this table in the first few months of 2018. She knew that when she got to Oxford, she would look for as many Philip Pullman-related sites as she could.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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January 5, 2019 at 4:48 am (Artists and Writers, Explorers, Filipino Writers, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: fantasy, Fridays, horror, novellas, work-in-progress
- They tested the salinity in the top layers of ocean water left behind by the ice melt. The data was extracted from brine droplets trapped in pockets of glacier ice. The average was 35 kilograms ppt: 35 kilogram parts per thousand. Suddenly, after a month, salinity in parts per thousand had dropped drastically, to just above 20 kilograms ppt.
Would you believe self wrote this?
Reading it over, now, it all sounds like gobbledygook.
She started this particular story in Annaghmakerrig, Ireland (All her best science fiction were written at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig). That was really bold, since she’s never been to either of the Poles, North or South.
In addition, she’s the furthest thing from a scientist you can imagine. Put numbers and other hard data in front of her, and her mind will cease to function. She’ll go into shock.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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December 31, 2018 at 6:11 pm (Books, destinations, Links, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Traveling, Weather)
Tags: England, fantasy, inspiration, London, Mondays, Oxford, Philip Pullman, pilgrimage
Much thanks to sonofabeach96 for the prompt, which sent self back to her archive of photographs, taken during her most recent trip:
London Alley, 20 November 2018
Rainy Night, London, 20 November 2018
Wolvercote, the Ruins of Godstow Abbey in the distance, 16 November 2018: Philip Pullman’s LA BELLE SAUVAGE led self here. (When’s Book 2, The Secret Commonwealth, coming out? Been waiting a long, long time!)
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December 22, 2018 at 1:56 am (Books, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: book lists, England, English writers, fantasy, favorites, Fridays, His Dark Materials, mysteries, novel, Oxford, Philip Pullman, reading lists, science fiction, Will Parry
How did self end up selecting these three?
The books may have been far from perfect — self thinks, in particular, of the first two — but they were the books she found herself re-reading, despite their flaws:
- Dead Letters, by Caite Dolan-Leach: Bravo, Dolan-Leach. Self has not been able to dislodge the dysfunctional Antipova twins and their yummy boy toy, Wyatt Darling, from her thoughts since she read this, Dolan-Leach’s first novel, mid-November.
- Autonomous, by Annalee Newitz: Beat out a host of other science fiction self read this year, including All Systems Red, Book 1 of The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells; and Jade City, by Fonda Lee. The book lived because of a character named Threezed.
- The Subtle Knife, by Philip Pullman: Vol. 2 of His Dark Materials killed self in every way. If not exactly perfect, it was close. Will Parry forever. The book did such a number on her that she went to Oxford to see Will and Lyra’s bench, in the Oxford Botanical Garden.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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November 23, 2018 at 2:48 pm (Books, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Surprises, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: Cambridge, England, fantasy, Fridays, His Dark Materials, Mendocino, mysteries, Philip Pullman, reading lists, The Odyssey, translation
- The more you don’t make contact, the more impossible contact becomes, as if silence can enlarge like a seep of blood.
The writing in Missing, Presumed got stronger, the voice more confident, after about the halfway mark.
Today, self was in Heffers and found yet more books she wishes she could have purchased. But — no, it’s too much. She’s hauling luggage to Durham next.
She had to content herself with taking pictures.
Heffers, Trinity Street, Cambridge: Friday, 23 November 2018
When, oh when, is The Secret Commonwealth, Book 2 of the Book of Dust, coming out? Philip Pullman keeping very mum.
Waterstones, Sidney Street, Cambridge: Friday, 23 November 2018
Can you imagine, Emily Wilson, whose translation of The Odyssey self bought in hardcover from Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino, earlier this year, is reading tonight in Cambridge?
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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November 13, 2018 at 9:19 pm (Books, destinations, Lists, Places, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: fantasy, Garden, His Dark Materials, inspiration, novel, Oxford, Philip Pullman
All locations in Oxford (or adjoining):
His Dark Materials locations:
- Exeter College (Jordan College in the books)
- The Bodleian Library
- Oxford Botanical Garden (Lyra and Will’s Bench is here)
- The Pitt-Rivers Museum
- The Covered Market
- Christ Church
- Story Museum (to see Philip Pullman’s head-of-chapter drawings from His Dark Materials)
The Book of Dust locations:
- Walk Paths Along the Isis
- Port Meadow
- Wolvercote (a 1-hour walk from Port Meadow): The Trout and the nearby priory
- Jericho area: Juxon Street and The Butterfly Tattoo
- The Ashmolean
- The White Horse Pub next to Blackwell’s
It was a spectacularly beautiful day. Self started out from Oxford City Centre and made it all the way to the Oxford Botanic Garden:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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November 6, 2018 at 1:56 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Links, Lists, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: fantasy, literary awards, mysteries, novel, reading lists, science fiction
Self finished All Systems Red two days ago, which marked the end of her science fiction cycle and the beginning of a mysteries/thrillers cycle. She’s currently reading Dead Letters, by Caite Dolan-Leach, which is full-on family angst, involving twins. Talk about upping the ante.
She likes clustering her reading — sometimes by genre, sometimes by author.
For a few years, she read only books by women.
Another few years, she read only memoirs.
Another few years, she read only travel books.
Another few years, she read only books by African American writers.
One summer, she read only Henning Mankell.
There was a period of reading just history books.
And so forth.
For 2018, she read mostly novels. But these ranged from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials to science fiction. She adored reading science fiction, which she hadn’t done in a while. She read The Hunger Games, sure — but they don’t really count as science fiction, do they?
Anyhoo, she is sorry to let the science fiction genre go. It’s probably the most rapidly expanding literary genre at present. And, because in August she attended a talk by George R. R. Martin in Redwood City’s Fox, and picked up a few copies of Oakland-based Locus Magazine, her attention was immediately captured by an announcement of the World Fantasy Awards. One of her newly discovered favorite authors, Fonda Lee, whose Jade City self just finished reading, was a co-winner with Victor LaValle for Best Novel (Yay, Fonda Lee!)
They even had a category for Best Short Story, for which Fonda Lee was a finalist.
And there was also a category for Best Artist (Winner: Gregory Manchess). She really enjoyed looking up the finalists art.
Now, back to her reading/writing.
Stay tuned.
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October 27, 2018 at 12:40 pm (Books, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: discoveries, fantasy, favorites, novel, reading lists, Saturday, thrillers
The Year-Eights graduate. Anden, self’s second-favorite character. Well, probably her first now since . . . WAH!! Don’t make her say it.
Anyhoo, Anden is a Year-Eight. He passes all his graduation pre-trials, one by one, handily.
Now comes the test called the Massacre of the Mice (Self keeps thinking of that Dave Sedaris story about how hard it is to kill a mouse), p. 348:
At Pre-Trials the Year-Eights stood behind a table in the packed Gathering Hall and each was given a cage of five white lab mice. They were not allowed to touch the mice with anything but one finger, and the judges disqualified anyone trying to cheat by using Strength or Deflection on the small creatures. Various attempts had been made over the years to try to upgrade the popular event to be more exciting — who didn’t want to see a man try to Channel into a bull? For practical and budgetary reasons, the proposals were always overruled . . . When the bell went off, he didn’t bother to try to touch the mice with his fingers. They were too nimble for that. He hovered both hands over the cage, quickly Perceiving all five tiny throbbing lives burning like tea lights.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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