Reading Wednesday

[sabotabby]

So tired and stressed but Wednesday is Wednesday.

Just finished: Magic For Liars by Sarah Gailey. I loved this one. It's a fun detective noir/magic boarding school mashup, with a nice Chosen One subversion, and a wry sense of humour. I correctly guessed the killer but not the motive, but that's never the point, is it? The ending felt like it just kind of petered out, in a way that might suggest a sequel. This is something I'm finding with a lot of books I read these days. But overall just great.

All Systems Red and Artificial Condition by Martha Wells. It's only three years late but I've finally started reading the Murderbot Diaries novellas. If you've been living under a rock, this is a series about a security cyborg that hacks the governor module that allows it to be controlled by humans. Rather than go on a killing spree, it basically just wants to watch soap operas and be left alone, but the humans around it keep getting themselves in danger and it feels compelled to help.

I'm liking these a lot but I haven't experienced the intense bonding that the rest of the internet seems to feel. I think it's maybe because my experience of anxiety and depression is not the kind experienced by Murderbot, and also I'm not aro/ace, which seems to be the other thing that appeals. But they're highly entertaining and contain some good takes on what it means to be human/sentient, and excellent critiques of corporations and austerity, and I'll likely read the other ones in the series.

Currently reading: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskill. @morderbot described this as "what if Jane Austen but with more labour politics," which is the kind of thing you say to me if you want me to read a book. I'm not very far in but it's definitely got some of that humour and social critique that Austen did, plus the protagonist is an actual Disney princess, which is hilarious to me. I'm into it so far.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Oh man North and South! I read that on one of my Summers At Home. I'm surprised I didnt read any more Gaskill that I can recall, considering how I enjoyed it.

[sabotabby]

It's really good so far. I haven't done the deep dive into Victorian lit that I feel like I should have, but the pandemic is a good opportunity.

[kore]

North and South is really good! You might like Mary Barton too. Charlotte Bronte liked Harriet Martineau's Deerbrook -- she was a Unitarian/Whig.

[sabotabby]

Mary Barton looked good. I've never heard of Deerbrook!

[kore]

I didn't either until I read Bronte biographies! Apparently Martineau wrote WILDLY popular fictional tutorials about economic theory. No rly. "Illustrations of Political Economy" was competing with Dickens at one point or something. (Probably nobody would ever read it now except a very hapless Ph.D. candidate.)

[sabotabby]

NGL that sounds legit great and I would read it.

[dagibbs]

Yeah, I read _All Systems Red_, and feel similarly. Good, but not the wow so many other reported. Maybe I over-expected because others loved them so much?

[sabotabby]

It's good; I'm just not feeling the intense evangelical squee that most of my friends seem to be getting. It could also could be overly high expectations, but I think a big part of it is that Murderbot really resonates with some people's experiences but not with mine.