Reading Wednesday

[sabotabby]

Just Finished: Notes From an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back by Mark O'Connell. I loved this one. It was funny and poignant and relevant to my interests. As I probably said last week, I found it a surreal read, as it was published this year but before our Actual Apocalypse, and it's mainly about reactions to climate change. Which is, of course, still the looming Big One—even more so this week, with the "you have six months" warning—but reading about people preparing for the Wrong Apocalypse is weird. O'Connell is a great writer, weaving in exposés of mostly terrible people with his own reflections on bringing children into this doomed world. 

Currently reading: The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss. This is a Victorian public domain horror mashup about the daughters of various literary characters. Mary Jekyll is destitute after the deaths of her parents, but going through her mother's accounting, she discovers Diana Hyde, her maybe-sister, in a Magdalene home. They're drawn into a murder investigation alongside Holmes and Watson. None of this is particularly novel except that it's really well written, in a po-mo framework that has interjections by the characters and author. and also it seems to be along the lines of "badass women getting their lives back from the shitty fathers who ruined them," which is quite relevant to my interests. Very fun so far.

Finally, on a personal note tangentially related to books: I have assembled all of mine into a Google Drive folder in some semblance of order. I would like some people to read it. If you have any interest in reading a 350-page messy sprawl about dysfunctional wizards, Canadian politics, and the apocalypse (but not the one we're living through right now—it has magic and more tentacles), drop me a PM or comment with your email address and I'll send you a link. But, like, be gentle because also I'm really scared to have people look at it.

Comments

[lapinlunaire]

This reminds me that I need to go back to reading your novel! It's still the same link, right? I'm really bad at reading stuff on my computer screen.

Funny story, The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter actually got me to scrap a whole thing I was writing, which was in similar in concept but very, very gay.

[sabotabby]

This reminds me that I need to go back to reading your novel! It's still the same link, right? I'm really bad at reading stuff on my computer screen.

That one is still there, but I've done a bunch of structural edits since and it is littered with ridiculous comment threads. I sent you a link to the clean version.

(Not clean as in lacking in sex, violence, and swearing. Clean as in relatively organized.)

Funny story, The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter actually got me to scrap a whole thing I was writing, which was in similar in concept but very, very gay.


What? You should not have scrapped it. I have an unlimited appetite for Victorian public domain mashups where I don't need to worry about Alan Moore digressing into sex scenes with an aged-up Alice Liddell or whatever.

[lapinlunaire]

Thank you! And I wouldn't expect something you wrote to be clean in THAT sense. :P

To be fair, my story was probably going to include sex scenes. Lesbian sex scenes.

Alan Moore digressing into sex scenes with an aged-up Alice Liddell

WHAT

I never read the entirety of LXG and now I'm so, so glad

[sabotabby]

Thank you! And I wouldn't expect something you wrote to be clean in THAT sense. :P

There is shockingly little sex in Part 1 because the only two sex scenes are between the straight married couple and they're not explicit because I didn't really want to think in detail about them having sex.

Part 2 will be a different story.

I never read the entirety of LXG and now I'm so, so glad

Hah it's Lost Girls but I'm sure something equally bad happens in LXG.

[sara]

I would read that. But probably not this week. You know where to find me.

[sabotabby]

It's gargantuan. No one's gonna read it in a week. :) But I sent you an invite so if you want, you can read it when/if you get a chance!

[frandroid]

I will beg off from reading your book for now because I have SO MANY books to read on my list, and I read SO LITTLE. But I made one new year's resolution this year, which was to read 6 books about Kurdish stuff. I have finished my first one a week ago, and am reading two others right now, including one which is stupidly easy reading. So when I reach #6, I'll ping you...

And you know, you can also put up a blurb or two around here. :)

[sabotabby]

Hah thanks. Seriously no pressure; it's a big time-suck.

And you know, you can also put up a blurb or two around here. :)

As in excerpts? I did that with my last two novel attempts and I just got sad 'cause no one commented.

Let me know if any of the Kurdish books are good! I should read more about the struggle.