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What I Read
According to my records, the last book I finished was a reread of Fledgling by Octavia Butler for my Yuletide letter. (Someone else nominated it and I knew I'd request it, but I couldn't remember enough details to actually prompt.)
Reading this book as an adult is interesting. In particular a lot of the consent and sexual details that were, I believe, meant to be disturbing jumped out at me in a way they didn't when I was I think fourteen reading it for the first time. I'm still fascinated by Ina society (the vampires) and the lives of the symbionts. The legal details of the conclusion also interest me in a way they didn't before, particularly the details of how Ina justice works.
I particularly love the way people keep assuring Shori that Ina don't have racism or prejudice like those inferior humans, a la every fantasy book with a Higher Race ever, and then being proved wrong. Because of course they'd pretend to be perfect, every culture does, and of course they'd be wrong.
I really appreciate, as an adult, the fact that the conclusion was a trial and not some kind of revenge fantasy; science fiction and fantasy really leans towards militarism in a way that I find increasingly kind of unpleasant, and even if the Ina punishments they're gunning for are violent, I like that Shori aims for vengeance for her family through legal means.
Other, non-book stuff: I really have not been reading much fanfic at all lately. I read this article about supported employment in Vermont and the way it's replaced segregated workshops, which was interesting in that it's something I hadn't heard about before and also hugely relieving – I had no idea anywhere in the US had gotten so far with community inclusion. There were occasional notes that I fet were patronizing in the article but overall it does make an effort to quote the disabled people written about and talks quite openly about the horrors of sheltered workshops and the benefits of community inclusion for everyone, so I'm fairly happy.
What I'm Reading
Hah. Basically nothing, between NaNoWriMo and schoolwork.
But going a little further back, I've been steadily chipping my way through a second attempt at The Horse, The Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World by David W. Anthony for about two months now. It's a big, recent work on Proto-Indo-European that combines the linguistic and archaeological evidence to make a good argument for where it was spoken and by who, and it's very useful to me, it's just that a lot of the book is going over archaeological cultures one by one in torturous detail and that is not really my field. Very dense, interesting to me, probably not interesting to you unless you have a special interest/professional or academic reasons to be interested in Proto-Indo-European.
According to my records, the last book I finished was a reread of Fledgling by Octavia Butler for my Yuletide letter. (Someone else nominated it and I knew I'd request it, but I couldn't remember enough details to actually prompt.)
Reading this book as an adult is interesting. In particular a lot of the consent and sexual details that were, I believe, meant to be disturbing jumped out at me in a way they didn't when I was I think fourteen reading it for the first time. I'm still fascinated by Ina society (the vampires) and the lives of the symbionts. The legal details of the conclusion also interest me in a way they didn't before, particularly the details of how Ina justice works.
I particularly love the way people keep assuring Shori that Ina don't have racism or prejudice like those inferior humans, a la every fantasy book with a Higher Race ever, and then being proved wrong. Because of course they'd pretend to be perfect, every culture does, and of course they'd be wrong.
I really appreciate, as an adult, the fact that the conclusion was a trial and not some kind of revenge fantasy; science fiction and fantasy really leans towards militarism in a way that I find increasingly kind of unpleasant, and even if the Ina punishments they're gunning for are violent, I like that Shori aims for vengeance for her family through legal means.
Other, non-book stuff: I really have not been reading much fanfic at all lately. I read this article about supported employment in Vermont and the way it's replaced segregated workshops, which was interesting in that it's something I hadn't heard about before and also hugely relieving – I had no idea anywhere in the US had gotten so far with community inclusion. There were occasional notes that I fet were patronizing in the article but overall it does make an effort to quote the disabled people written about and talks quite openly about the horrors of sheltered workshops and the benefits of community inclusion for everyone, so I'm fairly happy.
What I'm Reading
Hah. Basically nothing, between NaNoWriMo and schoolwork.
But going a little further back, I've been steadily chipping my way through a second attempt at The Horse, The Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World by David W. Anthony for about two months now. It's a big, recent work on Proto-Indo-European that combines the linguistic and archaeological evidence to make a good argument for where it was spoken and by who, and it's very useful to me, it's just that a lot of the book is going over archaeological cultures one by one in torturous detail and that is not really my field. Very dense, interesting to me, probably not interesting to you unless you have a special interest/professional or academic reasons to be interested in Proto-Indo-European.
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