belfry

(The first of which I read in May, but it wasn't Hugo homework, so we're putting it here.)

Maybe this is a Story about Water by Jessica Wiebe Schafer
I posted one of these poems. Lovely collection reflecting on God, womanhood, family connections and connections to nature, and how they might all be the same. Local author I stumbled on in the library, which suggests I should randomly grab books from the library's poetry section more often. (Have I since done so? No, I have not!)


A Default World by Naomi Kanakia
Read this for queer book club, which I've been very bad at actually attending. Contemporary satire, I guess would be the easiest genre description.

A South-Asian trans woman ends up joining a San Francisco share house, which is full of bright young things, tech money, and hedonism. Our heroine is trying to figure out how to get someone to pay for the gender-affirming surgeries she desperately wants, but keeps getting sucked into whatever bullshit her housemates are on, namely planning a big kink party that's somehow for great justice.

Most of the book is about skewering the hypocrisies and double think embedded in the mostly white, mostly straight, mostly upper class twenty-somethings who want to think that their sex parties are going to bring about the liberation, but aren't really that interested in the day to day lives of actual real marginalised people. I would say this discordance is played up for effect, and that the space I've seen aren't quite that bad, but also SF is kind of its own beast, so I'd also believe it's not exaggerating reality. The core points certainly hit, though maybe got a little repetitive.

I had complicated feelings about the heroine, who loathes almost every other character almost as much as she loathes herself. It was admittedly difficult to spend that many pages with someone who's that crushed by dysphoria that much of the time. I did like how the book handled her getting sucked into the social scene, and how the tension kept ratcheting up in regards to whether she would make the moral choice or the self-interested one. I was very much rooting for her by the end, even if everyone in the book was kind of terrible.

Will keep an eye on this author.


The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin by Alison Goodman
Grabbed this off the library's seven-day read shelf, not realising it was the second book in a series. I would, if possible, read them in order, as this is very much a serial adventure situation, with the action of the second book directly following on the first. However, it did explain the events of the first well enough to follow along with what was happening, and it was fun on its own.

A pair of spinster sisters in Regency London deal with a variety of crises events, including someone trying to kidnap their house guest, a gentleman's society maybe murdering women, one of their would-be lovers being a highwayman while the other's a Bow Street Runner, and various knock on effects of the previous book. It was fun! I wouldn't say there's a lot more to it than hijinks, though it seemed to be trying to take on serious topics, but I enjoyed the hijinks. There's a scene later on in the book where five or six groups with competing interests are chasing each other around the countryside in the dark, which I always love.

It ends on a slight cliffhanger setting up the next book, which I'm not that invested in, but might read on a rainy day.


Red Boar's Baby by Lauren Esker
This stands alone, more or less, but if you enjoyed the lore from the previous books, you'll see it again here! We get the return of the highly-motivated koala, which made me very happy.

This outing, we get a road runner who's a SAR pilot for the National Parks Service fake dating a wild boar who's running the local shifter police department. (If you're new to this genre, they're shape shifters who can turn into animals, but primarily have human forms. This is not Zootopia.) Together, they have to deal with a probably-kidnapped baby, the probable kidnappers, mad science, and there only being one bed. This series pretty much always hits for me, and as usual it balances the action adventure/mystery plot with the romantic tension, and doesn't base either on silly misunderstandings or anyone carrying the idiot ball. I really liked the backstory to how the fake dating started out, and the barriers to the main couple getting together felt real. They were very sweet together, which helped. Also, there's a fantastic action scene towards the end of the book, that really played with most of the characters involved being shape shifters, and we got a bunch of new lore.

Really enjoyed this, looking forward to the next one.

JUSTICE FOR MATEO! (Who was not mentioned in this book, which is why he needs justice.)

I'd been kind of waiting to post about this to see if there was word if he was alright or not, which it sounds like he at least has support, which is good. The whole thing is very upsetting, and people have also been having some very bad takes.

Basically, the rapper Lil Nas X seems to have been having a mental health thing, got the cops called on him, and is now arrested on truly B.S. felony charges. I hate everything about this, especially the person who filmed him at a vulnerable moment and (probably) sold that film to TMZ. Fuck that person. Fuck TMZ, also.

Some takes from Black youtubers about homophobia in the Black community, especially in hip hop (which is not saying that the Black community is uniquely homophobic!)

ForeignFridays: The Gay Double Standard.

OlayandFriends: The Gay Agenda Isn't Real but Homophobia is.

A couple takes from white queer voices on how fucking racist the whole conversation has been, and also the cops dealing with mental health calls is B.S.:

Teen Vogue: Why Lil Nas X's Arrest Is More Proof Police Have No Business Treating the Mentally Ill.

Ophie-Dokie: Lil Nas X Situation Is Disturbing.

I read these back in May, and my memories are not 100%. Here's my best stab at the three noms for best novel, one for novella, and one tangential to the Lodestar.

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher, narrated by Eliza Foss & Jennifer Pickens ( Read more... )

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley ( Read more... )

Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky ( Read more... )

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed ( Read more... )

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, narrated by Kinsale Drake ( Read more... )

This live show is great, also. Low-key looking at tickets for when they're on the coast next month.