Reading record 18

 I decided to go ahead and finish up reading that ebook short story collection off Project Gutenberg.  There were only a couple stories left, so....

The collection is called The Golden Slipper, and Other Problems for Violet Strange by Anna Katherine Green.

The ebook itself doesn't say when it was written, and I've forgotten (and don't feel like bothering to look it up at the moment) but I'm wanting to say in the neighborhood of 1900-1910.  There isn't electricity, only gas lighting, and there's no mention of WWI, but there do seem to be automobiles, so...my detailed knowledge of the early years of the 20th century is too sparse to be helpful.  Or rather, too absent.  I have some general knowledge of that period, but very few details, because my interest in history has always been further away from the present than that.

Trying to pin down when it was written is also compounded by the difficulty that despite being set in New York, the author seems to have been English:  British spellings are used, and one man on surrendering himself for a murder asked if the procedure was to take him directly before the magistrate.  (Or something like that.  Key detail being that he said "magistrate" rather than "judge.")

Anyway.

Much better than the earlier ebook of mystery stories from about the same time period.  The mysteries themselves were not always particularly good or mysterious (one problem with a short story mystery is that when one extraneous character is introduced partway through the story, then you know that they're the culprit!), but despite the heroine's wealthy status, they were at least not particularly classist.  Racism had little to no opportunity to arise (though that in itself is actually rather racist), but there was still some internalized misogyny, though at least it wasn't too bad.

Honestly, my biggest problem with it was something also shared by the other one, by Baroness Orczy, which is that an "explanation" for the female detective was provided at the end.  An explanation and an end to her detecting:  she had a purpose, and having fulfilled it, she no longer needed to take on cases.  Frustrating, to say the least.  Male detectives in this period were surely never given an explicit reason to be taking cases (aside from it literally being their job, as I'm sure there were plenty of stories written about police detectives) nor a reason to stop taking those cases.  When a reason was provided, it would surely have been to serve justice or to prevent injustice, or similar aphorisms along those lines.  Not to seek the chance to prove her beloved's innocence (Baroness Orczy's Lady Molly) or to earn money to pay for something very expensive that was necessary for her disowned sister to regain a comfortable life (Violet Strange).  Maybe that was a necessity for writing about a female detective at the time.  I don't know.  But I do know that as a modern reader I found it frustrating.

Still, at least in this case the stories were okay and I don't regret having read them.

Original language:  English

[Hmm.  Been a lot of that lately.  I wonder if there's anything on my to-read shelf (other than 3/4 of a danmei novel that won't get its final volume until September) that isn't originally written in English?  I'm starting to feel weird about bothering to list that at this point, it's been so long since the last one that was originally in any other language...]

Reading record 17

 Finished reading another book today:  Bromantasy by Máire Roche.

The text on the back (and the tagline on the front) pushed this a bit too hard as comedy (when in fact comedy was merely one element, and not even the largest of them), and definitely spelled out too much of the plot, so I went in expecting something a bit different than it actually was.

However, it was still quite delightful.  Sweet and charming, for the most part.  Though some of the "fantasy versions of modern stuff" like talking about reading news scrolls as "scrolling" felt like some degree of forced or exceptionally dating or both.  But maybe that's just me.  🤷🏻‍♀️

Not sure which book off the to-read shelf I want to read next.

Or rather, what I most wanted to read next on my to-read shelf was a fantasy alternate history that promised (among other things) Napoleon leading an army of the dead, only it turned out to be book two in a series so I really need to get myself to a bookstore and find part one first.  😅  I really need to pay more attention to things like that in the future...

Original language:  English

Reading Record 16

     And I've finished reading Life, The Universe and Everything (still by Douglas Adams, obv) now.

    So.

    Thoughts are...hmm.

    This one is a little bit of a jolt to read now, because I've read the other version of the main story now.

    See, the tale of the Krikkit robots started out as a script for a Doctor Who movie starring the fourth Doctor (Tom Baker), but the BBC rejected it, and so Adams reworked it into the Hitchhiker's Guide universe instead.  But a few years back, one of the modern Doctor Who screenwriters adapted that script into a novel with Adamsian prose.  So my brain is sort of jumbling them together awkwardly.  😅  In most ways, it's more fitting as part of the Hitchhiker's universe, since it's inherently pretty goofy, and yet it's also sort of an awkward fit, since the story is much more adventurous and "dealing with a terrifying enemy" than the usual tale from the lives of Arthur Dent and co.  Not to mention the oddity of slotting Slartibartfast of all people into the role of someone traveling about and trying to correct problems caused by time-travel.  (I kind of wonder if maybe the BBC was actually deeply offended by the Krikkitmen story, and that's why the fifth Doctor (Peter Davison, who actually had a cameo in one of the episodes of the Hitchhker's Guide TV show) is dressed in what is essentially a cricket uniform.)

    Uh.

    Anyhow.

    A few thoughts on the trilogy on the whole:

    Firstly, these novels are actually quite short!  I'd forgotten that.  These days, he'd probably have trouble publishing them at that length.

    Second, I found myself noticing various places throughout where the standard grammar rules we're told to observe at all costs were relaxed or outright ignored.  (There was even a place where there were lines of dialog from two people were in the same paragraph!  Thankfully, only the one, and it was very clear about the switch in speakers, but still, I was stunned.)

    Third, he uses a lot of single-line paragraphs.  Also ending a paragraph in the middle of someone's line of dialogue so that they're still speaking in the next line.  Or lines plural.  Things like this:

"Words of dialogue," Arthur said.

"Um, I mean," he added.

"Uh, that is," he continued.

Like that.  Only not as dumb and pointless.  And with a lot more spluttering nonsense noises.  I found that quite surprising.  (But again, it was always very clear who was speaking.  Which is the truly important part!)

    Anyway.  Classic of sci-fi comedy, as always.

    Not much else to say, since this is just me making a note about what I finished reading and when.

    Now the question is "do I tackle one of the ever-multiplying books on my to-read shelf next, or do I finish off that ebook of short stories?"

    Original language:  English, of course

Reading Record 15

 And this morning I finished (re)reading The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams.

Not a lot to say, because what is there to say?

Well, except that, being more familiar with the TV version, seeing the concluding conversation (since this book and the TV show end at the same place in the story) expanded to add a couple of the Golgafrinchan girls was...disquieting.  The conversation being between the two of them was appropriate to the focus throughout the story on their friendship (let us not forget that it was Arthur and Arthur alone who Ford took the risk of saving from the doomed Earth!) and the simplicity of the exchange gave a nice tone to the ending.

For that matter, the entire notion that Ford and Arthur would decide to hook up with Golgafrinchan girls despite their disgust with the entire Golgafrinchan race is troubling.  It implies that having zero regard for their partners is their standard position.  I'm sure that wasn't the intent, but that's how it comes off, regardless of intent.

But it was written in the 1980s.  What can ya do?  😭😭

(This is, of course, one of the reasons I don't plan to reread So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, because a hetero romance is a fairly big part of that one.  Though as I recall Arthur does at least treat her as more or less an equal, a proper partner, not just a...)

Anyway.

Onwards!

Original language:  English

Reading Record 14

 So, got through the book I borrowed from my dad on the 4th.

Well.

I got through most of the first novel in that book and then I bought my own new copy of the entire series (in a single hardback that actually cost less than the one I borrowed from my dad did originally) because my dad's copy was super-musty as it dates to like 1986 and I was afraid it would make me sick.

Uh.

Anyway.

The book was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, which I chose to reread at this moment because it's our book club book for June.  (Epicly, I got to choose the one for July!  Though my first thought had been to go Victorian so people could download a free ebook from Project Gutenberg, only it turns out The Pickwick Papers is over 800 pages long, and the book club put a 400 page limit on selections.  😰  Even if it hadn't, I'd never ask other people to read 800 pages...)

I've read the book before, but one thing that really struck me was just how much better I know the TV and radio versions.  It kept throwing me when the dialog was just slightly different!  But it's always fun getting to hear the dialog in lots of other voices in my head.  😁

Anyway, I will obviously be going straight into The Restaurant at the End of Universe, 'cause even if the trilogy didn't feel like "it's not a full story if you stop without all three" that ending was actually very...not an ending.  😅

I wonder if anyone in the book club will have actually stopped there, or if they'll all have finished the whole trilogy?  (Hopefully they'll stop after the trilogy.  So Long and Thanks for All the Fish is kinda uneven, and I actually have never read Mostly Harmless because I was warned about how it ended.)

Before the 4th, I got about 2/3ish through that short story collection, so I'll probably finish it up after Life, The Universe and Everything.  Probably.  Who really knows, though?  That'll be, like, next week.  Anything could happen.

Hmm.  Wait.  Will it be next week?  Or will it be, like, Friday?  I have to wait at the service station tomorrow while they work on my car, so I'll probably get a lot more reading done than usual (and a lot less writing 😭😭 even though I've been doing pretty well on that new fic!) so I might get through a lot quicker than usual....

Enh, what will be will have weasels on its face.

Original language:  English

Reading Record 13

 Yup, finally cleared away the decimal points!

Hilariously, the "two graphic novels" I said would do the job actually turned out to be three!  (One was so short it wasn't really noticeable in the clear plastic sleeve with the others...)

Anyway!  Yesterday and the day before (didn't post about it yesterday because I didn't want to muddle an IWSG post day 😅) I read the following three works by Mira Ong Chua:

My Lover is a Merperson (I Think) - this is the super-short one which is probably only about 20 pages (they're not numbered and I don't think it's worth counting them manually) at most.  It is what it says in the title:  a young man suspects his non-binary lover might secretly be a merperson, and he acts on his suspicions in a sweet but goofy way.  Pleasant and fluffy.  🥰

24/7 Magical Maiden Mimi - this one is short, but much more substantial than the previous one.  In a world where being a magical girl is an annual gig, an unpopular teenage boy has his turn at the role, and after he accidentally transforms back into himself in public, he finds himself pressured by his classmates to attend school as Magical Maiden Mimi.  With results not all as he expects, obviously.

The Cosmic Ballad of Layla + Airy - much longer, almost (but not quite) twice the length of an average volume of manga.  This is the one the Kickstarter was actually for; the other two were just add-ons.  This is a sci-fi-with-magic romp wherein the galaxy's cutest adventurer phrases a wish badly and accidentally ends up transformed into an almost exact duplicate of the galaxy's hottest rock star.  Hijinks (and romance) naturally ensue.   It kind of feels like a love letter to early '90s anime/manga (especially Airy's hair, which is very Gourry to me) but with modern LGTBQIA+ sensibilities.  So, like, all the best things.  😁

I've backed some previous Kickstarters of Mira Ong Chua's in the past--the first was Road Queens, I'm pretty sure--and while they're often not quite what I was expecting them to be (Road Queens being an excellent example of that), they're always been quite good, and these three continue that trend.  Though of course I had forgotten about the add-ons entirely by the time they arrived, so I didn't even have any expectations for them! 🤣

Anyway, I've started reading an ebook of public domain mystery short stories to fill in the gap until I can borrow the next book club book from my dad (since I can leave off a short story collection partway through without feeling like it's a DNF), and if it keeps going as it started, it should be light years better than the last one!  (Not that that is a high bar to clear!)

Also, I have to brag this somewhere, and no one cares so it might as well be here:  yesterday I needed to distract myself from reality by getting lost in writing.  I ended up starting work on a fanfic that I had wanted to plan more fully first...and ended up writing 12.5k words!  It feels a bit abbreviated, like there ought to be twice as many scenes setting up events and everything, but...🤷🏻‍♀️  That's what second drafts are for, right?

Oops, almost forgot!  Original language:  English

IWSG July '26

 

    Someday, I will learn how to title posts effectively.  Unfortunately, today is not that day.

I'm not at my best right now; I've had a (fairly mild) headache for almost two weeks at this point.  I need to go to like the Urgent Care center or something, but in the middle of a heat wave on a sunny day is...well, I have serious heat issue, so I can't go unless someone drives me, and my ride is busy today, so...tomorrow, hopefully.  (Which will be "today" when this post actually posts.)

Uh.

Anyway.

I think the suggested topic was about changes we would want to make to the publishing industry.

As I am determinedly an amateur writer, I don't have any contact with the publishing industry as a writer, but there is something I'd like to change as a reader!

I'm not sure when--just in the last few years, I think--someone decided that colons should be followed by capital letters, and it is driving me up the freaking wall.  It's so wrong--no, so stupid!  It's the same sentence, so why would it be capitalized?

I know that's pointless and shallow, but...

...I don't have much to say about my own writing, as my game jam VN script has turned into a slow slog through a not-jam VN script (because the concept didn't actually fit the jam) and other than that I've only been working on proofreading past works and planning future ones, so...there just isn't much to say.