General Updates

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Hello all! I am personally on Day #25 of social distancing/mostly-quarantining. In the last 25 days, I have gone into work once because it simply needed to be done (and in between have been a little work from home), gone to the grocery store twice, and three times left the house just long enough to pick up a food order from my favorite local/family-owned restaurant. And that’s pretty much it. I will have to go into work for a least a couple days around April 20th, but other than that I suspect I will continue on as I have been for the last almost-month.

For the most part, I continue to do ok with the isolation (my brother, no so much). However, last week proved less-than-stellar and particularly non-productive. I spent most of April 1-4th feeling pathetic and self-pitying and I got almost no work done, barely any reading, etc. But the thing is, it had very little (perhaps nothing) to do with the current pandemic situation. It was more just my usual personal brand of brain chemistry bullshit rearing its ugly head at a most inopportune time.

I’m hoping (fingers crossed) that this week will be a bit better. At the very least I have more fun books waiting for me. And on that note, I wanted to share my recent acquisitions:

Docile by K.M. Sparza

Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

The Empress of Salt and Sorrow by Nghi Vo

Sword in the Stars by Cori McCarthy and Amy Rose Capetta

When Gods Die and Why Mermaids Sing by C.S. Harris

I am looking forward to reading all of these! But I’m currently kind of stuck because I’m still reading both Artemis Fowl Book #6 AND The Queens of Animation, and I really shouldn’t be starting yet another book until I finish at least ONE of those. And I don’t even know which of my new ones I want to read first – I mean, I want to read them ALL first. So… (shrug)

In other news, I have managed to stay on schedule with Camp Nano so far. I gave myself a goal of 20,000 words (the official Nano goal is usually 50,000), which means aiming to write approximately 666 words per day. So far I have managed an average of about 700 words per day, so at least that’s going well for the moment. I am not looking for miraculous levels of writing, but I am hoping I can develop more of a consistent habit again.

As we all continue with this quarantine situation, one of the small things that makes me a little sad is birthdays. I mean, I realize that in the grand scheme of things this is a very minor issue, and its definitely up there in terms of “first world problems” but it still makes me a little sad for all of us who have birthdays during this situation. A couple friends of mine had birthdays in mid-to-late March, my brother’s fiance’s birthday is tomorrow, I have another friend whose birthday is in late April, and my birthday is exactly a month away. None of us have been, or will be, able to celebrate. I haven’t even been able to buy my brother’s fiance a gift: even ordering on Amazon doesn’t really work right now since they have mostly suspended non-essential shipping.

Admittedly, I haven’t done anything much for my birthday in YEARS. Since I started college, it has always landed right in the middle of Spring Semester finals – first as a student, and then as a professor. Besides which, I don’t really have any local friends I’ve been able to celebrate WITH in over fifteen years. Usually, the most I can hope for is a nice dinner with my mother and my brother – barely on my actual birthday but usually a few days or a week later, after finals are over and I can breathe again. This year, I won’t even get that much. None of us will.

Again, I know this is a very silly minor problem in the face of pandemic and death and people losing their jobs and economic collapse, but I’m still allowed to be a little bummed about it, right?

Anyway, how are you all doing? Everyone keeping it together ok? Anyone found themselves learning some random new hobby or doing anything particularly strange in the face of their isolation and boredom? I’m curious to hear!

One Favorite Movie: The Court Jester

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I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you about one of my favorite movies. The Court Jester, released in 1956, starring Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Angela Lansbury, and Basil Rathbone. This movie is a musical comedy, like most of Danny Kaye’s movies, and it is probably his best one (though that is difficult to say since he was always excellent). I love this movie with all my heart.

Thanks to my mother’s excellent taste, I grew up with this movie and others like it. We had an old vhs copy of this movie when I was kid and for some reason we developed a funny little routine/tradition when we watched this movie (and a couple others). If we were watching The Court Jester as a family that night, we ordered takeout Chinese (and vice versa). Similarly, when we watched Ladyhawke (another of my favorites) we always made ramen (the cheap freeze-dried kind that is famous among college students and poor people and which my little brother and I ate on the regular – and still do).

I hadn’t been able to watch this movie in quite a long time. The vhs tape had deteriorated, and I hadn’t been able to find a copy on dvd in ages (there is one available on Amazon now but I haven’t bought it). However, I discovered a few days ago that it has recently been added to the Amazon Prime streaming videos which made me very excited, and I sat down to watch it immediately. (I did not, sadly, have takeout Chinese…)

The Court Jester, as I said, is a musical comedy: it features Danny Kaye as Hawkins: a hapless bumbling performer who has joined a group of rebels led by a Robin Hood-esque hero called The Black Fox. The rebels work to dethrone a king who has usurped the throne by murdering the previous royal family. An infant child of the royal family survived, and is being protected by The Black Fox’s group until they can find a way to place him back on the throne. Hawkins and a member of the rebel group, Maid Jean (played by the ever-glorious Glynis Johns) are charged with taking the baby into hiding, when a series of increasingly ridiculous incidents lead to: a) Hawkins going to the king’s castle disguised as the newly-hired court jester and b) Jean being taken to the castle as part of a round-up of women to be picked over by the king.

At the castle, Hawkins is supposed to get into contact with an agent of the rebellion who has infiltrated the staff. Unfortunately, he doesn’t realize that the court jester he is impersonating was actually hired by the King’s adviser Ravenhurst (played to scene-stealing perfection by Basil Rathbone) to secretly carry out several assassinations. On top of all of that, the king’s daughter, portrayed by a very young, heart-breakingly gorgeous Angela Lansbury (in a series of absolutely stunning gowns!), has been ordered to marry the brutish Griswold – but she doesn’t want to marry Griswold, and instead sets her sights on the new court jester. The witch who works for the princess therefore hypnotizes Hawkins to go off and woo the princess.

And folks, IT JUST GOES DOWNHILL FROM THERE.

This movie is, in my opinion, PERFECT. It cannot be improved upon. The songs are wonderful, the costumes are amazing, the script is hilarious, and the acting is pitch-perfect. Danny Kaye is at his finest in this movie – working through sharp, rapid-fire dialogue and high-energy slapstick with equal finesse. And the rest of the cast is just as great. Especially Basil Rathbone, who is always amazing. The scenarios of the movie get increasingly silly and ridiculous in the best way possible. And this movie contains some of the greatest comedic scenes ever put to film.

It features the now-famous exchange: “Get it?” “Got it.” “Good.”

And the oft-quoted “pellet with the poison” sequence.

And this scene, which I believe to be one of the funniest things ever done in the history of cinema.

And it wraps up with a fencing scene between Danny Kaye and Basil Rathbone that simply cannot be beat. It features both amazing fencing skills and hilarity in equal measure. A popular story goes that during this fight scene, Danny Kaye – who had just learned to fence for this film – was so much faster than Basil Rathbone – who had been fencing in films for decades – that the sword fight choreographer had to stand-in for Rathbone for parts of the scene. It’s an urban legend kind of story – my mother told it to me, and she had heard it from someone and so forth – so I don’t know how true it is. It could be completely made-up, but it’s such a fun story and I love it. (If you know this story to be untrue, please don’t tell me. I like my fantasy.)

This movie was the most expensive comedy made at the time (for about $4 million) but bombed at the box office. Yet Danny Kaye was nominated for a Golden Globe for this performance, and it has since become a beloved film. AFI ranked it #98 on its list of greatest comedies of all time (out of about 500 that were nominated). And in 2004 the National Film Registry elected to preserve The Court Jester for its cultural and historical significance.

In any case, it is one of my favorite movies of all time and I believe that everyone should see it at least once. Especially right now, with the world kind of falling apart around us, a good laugh can be very therapeutic and necessary. And since The Court Jester is finally streaming online for the first time I’ve ever noticed, it is easier than ever to do so! So get on it!

Camp NaNo April 2020

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This is my public announcement that I am participating in the April Camp NaNoWriMo event this year.

Can I assume that everyone knows what NaNoWriMo is? Is that a safe assumption? Probably, but just in case: NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It is a nonprofit event and website that started… oh gosh… a long time ago, to encourage amateur writers (and everyone really) to put aside excuses, fear, hesitations, etc. and just sit down to write the first draft of a novel over the course of a single month. The official NaNoWriMo event takes place in November, and the goal is to write 50,000 words between Nov 1st and 31st (50,000 words being chosen ages ago, slightly at random, as the average length of a novel).

However, because some people simply cannot participate in November for any number of reasons – as a former professor, I can state that it is particularly difficult for teachers to participate in November – and because other people simply wanted more opportunities to write under the gamified conditions and community-building structure of the NaNoWriMo website, the organizers created two “Camp Nano” events: one in April and one in July.

Camp Nano is a little lower stakes than the official November event. The goal is not to write a novel, or 50,000. Instead you are given the opportunity to create your own writing goal: choose your own word-count goal, make an editing goal, work on short stories or whatever else you want. And you create writing groups (they used to be called “cabins” but that appears to be gone from their new revamped website now) to work with friends or any people you meet on the website.

I have participated in the official November event 4 times and have only “won” (ie, finished at least 50,000 words) ONCE. I have also participated in Camp Nano a couple times. But its been awhile.

I hadn’t initially planned on participating this year, but a friend of mine invited me to work in a cabin with her, and I figured “why not?” So I made a very last minute decision and just updated my profile on the Nano website yesterday – just in time to start officially writing tomorrow.

I have made a smaller goal for myself – just 20,000 words instead of 50,000 – and I will be working on a fanfiction piece instead of an original work. It has been a very very VERY long time since I have been able to write anything productively or coherently, and I am hoping that allowing myself to work on fanfiction, with a predetermined world and characters, will help shake my brain loose again so I might eventually move back into original work.

*fingers crossed*

I’d love to hear from others who are participating in Camp Nano this month! Or who have participated in any of the Nano events in the past! Why did you work on? How did you fare? Have you ever “won” in November? Do you win every year (my best friend often does and I am jealous of her…)? Sound off in the comments!

Book Review: What Angels Fear

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Book: What Angels Fear (Sebastian St. Cyr Mysteries Book 1)
Author: C.S. Harris
Release Date: October 2006
Source: Bought
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

After reading The Body in the Garden by Katharine Schellman last week, I still had both Regency England and mysteries on the brain, and I needed desperately to scratch that itch. I thought about re-reading Mairelon the Magician for the millionth time, but then I remembered that I had bought this book, What Angels Fear, a year ago (at local mystery bookstore Murder by the Book, on Indie Bookstore Day in fact!) and never got around to reading it. It is a murder mystery novel that is set in Regency England, and its the first in the series, so if I liked it, I had plenty more where that came from!

my baby boy Sebastian

I will fully admit that when I first saw this book at the bookstore, my main impetus for picking it up was because of the main character’s name: Sebastian. Sebastian was the name of my cat, my baby boy, who died at the age of 18 a few years ago. (I had him since he was 6 weeks old, when I was in 7th grade. I named him after Bastian from The Neverending Story and St. Sebastian – I was a a very devout Catholic obsessed with hagiography at the time… and just because I love the name). Anyway… I picked up the book because of the name. But the description quickly grabbed me too: Regency England, murder mystery, brilliant dashing troubled hero? This is my jam!

I’m embarrassed it took me so long to get around to actually reading it, but boy did I enjoy it!

Here’s the basic plot synopsis: Sebastian St. Cyr, Lord Devlin, has returned to London from the wars against Napoleon in France, where he worked as an intelligence operative because of his particular skills. He has been getting into trouble for dueling (outlawed quite awhile ago) and is generally considered by his father, his sister, and most of society to be a libertine and a layabout. He’s actually an honorable man – his duels have mostly been in defense of innocent people, and he doesn’t sleep around nearly as much as people assume he does. The real problem comes in when a beautiful young actress is brutally raped and murdered late at night in a church, and the evidence points to Sebastian St. Cyr, despite his insistence he is innocent. Bad luck and a general disdain for the Bow Street Runners leads to a series of incidents that make Sebastian look even more guilty, and he is forced to go on the run, avoiding capture so that he may have a chance to clear his name. Along the way he gains the help of a young street waif, an old friend from the war, and Kat Boleyn – an actress and acquaintance of the murdered actress, who broke Sebastian’s heart six years ago, and who has plenty of secrets of her own. As Sebastian investigates the murder, he discovers that the truths he may found could have profound consequences not just for him, but for the entire country.

This novel was a tightly-plotted twisty exciting ride of a mystery. I was following along carefully, trying to solve the murder with (or ahead of) Sebastian, but I did NOT see the ending coming until it was just about right in front of my face. There are quite a few characters to keep track of, and as the novel is told in omniscient third-person, you get the chance to be right in the heads of quite a few of those characters. Even so, I did not guess the culprit until Sebastian had. And then I was like: “oooooh! I get it!”

Sebastian is in some ways your typical Regency hero (mystery novel or otherwise): he’s brilliant, handsome, honorable, much more forward-thinking than most of the other men around him, and of course an excellent lover. He has the added benefit of better-than-usual eyesight, hearing, and reflexes. Is he a little TOO perfect? Yeah, probably. But I honestly don’t mind that when I’m reading this kind of book. Despite that, C.S. Harris does a good job of fleshing the character out, giving him some depth and nuance. I think it is safe to assume that will continue in the next books.

The other characters all vary in dimension and depth, of course. Kat Boleyn, the heart-breaking actress, is fairly well-written. She is, to an extent, also a typical Regency heroine – beautiful, intelligent, willful, etc. The secret to her motives are a little too obvious and stereotypical. But she has a secondary secret that gives her more interest and keeps her from being too one-dimensional. And I liked her even if she was a tad cliche at times. I also assume she will get more fleshing out in later books, and I look forward to seeing how that turns out.

I felt that the historical elements of the novel were well-considered and deeply researched. Some Regency novels just kind of toss in an archaic word or place name here or there and then don’t worry about it much. This narrative felt nicely grounded in its time and place, with characters drawn from real historical reference, and a great use of the language of the time. The prose is also wonderful: descriptive and intriguing without being too florid.

Overall, I really really enjoyed this book. So much so that I got online and ordered books 2 and 3 before I had even quite finished it. I imagine they should arrive sometime next week and I look forward to seeing how Sebastian gets into trouble next time.

Also, apparently book #15 (!!) of this series is coming out on April 7th, so I have a lot of catching up to do!

For links to this book, What Angels Fear: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound
***Under the current circumstances, please try to buy from an indie bookstore if at all possible. Indiebound is a great way to find one near you that delivers. Or, if you want, you can order from MY favorite local indie bookstore: Murder by the Book

And here is the Goodreads page with a list of all the books in the series

Quarantine Check-In!

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Hello everyone! How are we all doing with the quarantine situation? I’d love to hear from you folks! Feel free to sound-off/share/commiserate in the comments!

Hibiscus in my front garden

I have spent the last two weeks vacillating between deep anxiety and surprising calm. I am enormously worried for friends and family and from the general population at large. I feel so much concern and gratitude for all the people who are still going into work because they are essential services: this, of course, includes doctors and nurses and pharmacists and techs and janitors and cooks and other hospital support staff; it is also includes EMTs and grocery store workers and postal workers and truck drivers and food delivery drivers and fieldhands who are keeping farms (and thus our food supply) moving.

On a personal level, I have a cousin who is an EMT in Austin, TX and a very close friend who is a pharmacy tech at a hospital in Ohio, and I am very worried about both of them. They are the frontlines of this situation. They face the possibility of contamination every day and its terrifying.

I am also very worried about the financial fallout of this situation. I do not care about big corporations or the stock market or whatever else the death cult that calls itself the GOP is concerned about. I’m worried about normal people who are losing their jobs, or if not losing them outright, are at least losing income for weeks or months. I am worried about small businesses like family-owned restaurants and little boutiques and mom-and-pop grocery stores and indie bookshops who have lost business or been shut down completely. I am worried about artists who live commission to commission at the best of times. And debut authors whose first books are coming out right now and who may never get another book contract if sales are bad enough during this slowed down market.

Mr. Erasmus Flattery helping me read…

And yet… personally, I’m doing ok. Pretty well, actually, all things considered. And I feel a bit guilty about that. My job is already part-time and inconsistent so I’m not doing any worse than I already was, and the job will still be there when things settle down. My mother, who is my financial support system, is working from home and her employer is working at reduced capacity, but otherwise she’s ok. We’re all staying home as much as humanly possible. No one I know personal has gotten sick (yet, fingers crossed). And I am, for the most part, enjoying all this sudden downtime. For which, again, I feel guilty.

I have read 2 novels, a novella, a graphic novel, and an audiobook. I have written quite a few blog posts/book reviews. I have sat comfortably in my front garden with the flowers. I have cuddled with my various cats. I have taken advantage of the Met Opera’s free streaming previews and have now seen Carmen, La Boheme, Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, and Siegfried for the first time ever! (And loved them!) And I have taught myself to cross-stitch. All while keeping up with laundry, and dishes, and dusting/sweeping, and cooking dinner.

My very first cross-stitch!

I have always been an introvert who enjoys staying at home. As long as I have the internet and books, I’m good. The only things I really miss so far are: walking around at the park (which my mother and I usually do quite often), going to the movie theatre, and window-shopping at the mall or some such place.

And again, I feel guilty about mostly enjoying my self-isolation. Even though it in no way negates my anxiety, fear, and anger over the state of things: the people who are suffering physically or mentally or financially because of this; the people who have or are going to die because of this. I am absolutely blindingly-furious about the callous, evil, and incompetent responses from the federal government writ large. I have several rants about all of that, which I have shared with friends and on my facebook, but which I am (for the moment) going to avoid sharing here. I will try to avoid letting this blog devolve into moral and political ranting. But if this situation continues much longer in the directions that certain political figures have allowed it to, I may reverse that decision. We’ll see…

Anyway, please tell me how you all are doing? Good, bad, in between! No judgement here! Only empathy, understanding, and commiseration. I’m sending virtual (safe-distance!) hugs to you all! Be safe and smart!

Book Review: The Daughters of Ys

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Photo by me

Book: The Daughters of Ys
Author: M.T. Anderson (writer)/Jo Rioux (artist)
Release Date: May 2020
Source: ARC provided by publisher (obtained through my work)
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

The Daughters of Ys is a graphic novel written by M.T. Anderson, with art by Jo Rioux, that is based on an old Breton folktale. “Breton” refers to the area of France called Brittany, which actually originally had a Briton/Celtic population, before it was colonized by the Roman Empire, and then was eventually subsumed into France. So the folktales of the area are a very fascinating mix of cultures.

This graphic novel contains beautiful full-color art with a soft color palette and a sweeping style, that tells a sad, foreboding far-reaching story in a surprisingly small, tightly-narrated package. 

The Daughters of Ys are two sisters, Rozenn and Dahut, the daughters of King Gradlon of the kingdom of Kerne, who live in the capital city of Ys. The sisters drift apart after the death of their magical (possibly faerie) mother, and follow divergent paths that bring them into conflict with each other. Rozenn, the eldest and heir to the throne, goes to live in the wilds, to be among the plants and animals and away from the riotous parties and debauchery of the capital city. Dahut, the younger, takes on the task of maintaining the kingdom for her increasingly broken and useless father, the king, and revels in the parties and the young men who come to court her. But Dahut has a dark secret. A secret that makes their kingdom the richest and most powerful of all, but at a steep cost. When Dahut and Rozenn come into conflict, one sister betrays the other, and their choices have the potential to ruin the entire kingdom.

This story is a dark lesson in obligation, desire, and what happens when debts finally come due. It is also about the ways that family can fall apart and even destroy each other in the face of competing needs and motivations.

When I first saw the cover, I didn’t care for the art style, but as I got into the story I decided that the style – somewhat loose and soft with a kind of colored pencil texture to it – actually fit the folktale-nature and tone of the narrative. Also, by the end of the story I was very fascinated by the original folktale, and had to go look it up on Wikipedia later. I’m now wondering if there’s a full collection of Breton folktales somewhere, because that would be cool. AND I went in search to see if anyone had written a full novel adaptation of the story, and lo and behold! There is, in fact, a whole 4 book series based on the folktale written by respected SF/Fantasy writer Poul Anderson and his wife/sometimes-coauthor Karen Anderson! So I’ll be looking for those later…

I gave this graphic novel a 4 out of 5 stars. I’m not going to singing its praises to the rafters for weeks, but I did really enjoy it. And I highly recommend it.

For the curious, here is the Wikipedia page about the legendary city of Ys.

And the Wikipedia page about Brittany, where this folktale originates from.

Finally, here is the goodreads page for Poul & Karen Anderson’s book series: The King of Ys.

Comfort Movies

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Do you have any comfort movies? Movies that you have watched over and over again until you can recite the whole thing word for word at the drop of the hate? Movies that you watch at 2am when you can’t sleep and need something to soothe you into drifting off? Movies that you watch when you are sick or stressed or upset?

I suppose you can guess by now that I do. I have a whole list of standards. Safe stand-bys. The usual suspects, as it were.

The first of these is Disney’s Robin Hood – yes, the animated one with the animals. I have been in love with this movie since I was a very little kid. I believe a lot of people around my age would admit that the fox Robin Hood was one of their earliest crushes (don’t lie! Admit it!). He was certainly one of mine. (And yes, Nick Wilde from Zootopia is on that list now too.) It’s Robin Hood’s VOICE, courtesy of Brian Bedford that really does it for me! It’s such a LIKEABLE voice! but the whole movie is just gold. Wolfgang Reitherman was one of Disney Animation’s greatest directors, and his direction for Robin Hood is no exception. The animation is fun, despite or perhaps even because of the amount of designs and sequences they recycled from previous productions. All the voice cast, not just Brian Bedford are fantastic. Especially Peter Ustinov, who plays Prince John – he is clearly having WAY TOO MUCH fun recording his lines, and he steals every scene he’s in. And the songs are some of the best Disney has done, in my humble opinion. “Oo-de-lally” and “Not in Nottingham,” in particular, are absolutely wonderful songs that have even been covered by contemporary bands.

My second favorite comfort movie is My Neighbor Totoro by Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki. I love all the Ghibli films, and I would agree with the assessment that technically the BEST of these movies are Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. However, because of its gentleness, sweetness, comfort, and pure nostalgia, my favorite will definitely always be My Neighbor Totoro. When I can’t sleep, I like to listen to something soft and familiar to hopefully lull me into drifting off, and this is one of my go-to choices. If you are familiar with Studio Ghibli’s films, you know about the high quality of their animation, the beauty of their stories, the supremacy of strong girl characters, and the absolutely STELLAR scores always written by constant Ghibli collaborator, Joe Hisaishi. Totoro is just a perfect movie to me. I do not think I single line of dialogue or single animation cell could be improved upon. And, unlike some anime dubs, the English voice-over dubbing for this movie is phenomenal as well. Dakota and Elle Fanning play the two sisters and they proved very early on as children that they were both going to be fantastic actresses. And Tim Daly (best known as Joe from the sitcom Wings, and Superman/Clark Kent from Superman the Animated Series) is wonderful as their father. The score might be my favorite part though, and never fails to comfort and calm me.

My third favorite comfort movie is not TECHNICALLY a movie. It’s Over the Garden Wall, created by Patrick McHale (creative director for Adventure Time) and released on Cartoon Network. This was actually a mini-series released in November 2014 (I cannot believe it’s been that long!) and was 10 episodes of 12 minutes each. I bought the dvd version of it the second it was available, and when you use the “Play All” option, it runs through the whole series which, without commercials, is approximately 120 mins long. Thus, it works kind of like a movie. Like Totoro, I believe this show is one of the most perfect pieces of animation ever made. I do not believe you could improve on a single element. It is one of my most favorite things in any visual media. It has such a perfect folktale/fairy-tale style and tone. The animation style is wonderfully whimsical. The characters are funny and poignant and real. The voice acting is stellar (Elijah Wood is the main character and he’s fantastic!). Parts of it are delightfully strange and wonderfully creepy. And just like with Totoro, I think the music is my favorite part. The score and songs are composed/written by The Blasting Company and I love every single one of them. There was a period between 2016-2018 when my depression was really really bad (it’s still pretty bad) and I literally watched Over the Garden Wall every single night as I fell asleep. I am not exaggerating. Every single night for two years. It is still my most common late-night-watch, but I have mixed it up a bit in the last year or so. (I am, in fact, watching it as I type this…)

I have a few more comfort movies on my list. Pride and Prejudice (2005), Disney’s Tangled, The Labyrinth, and How to Train Your Dragon are all favorites, but the three above are definitely the ones I turn to most often.

How about you? Do you have any favorite movies you return to again and again?

Book Review: Middlegame

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Book: Middlegame
Author: Seanan McGuire
Release Date: May 2019
Source: ARC provided by publisher, then audiobook bought from Audible
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Seanan McGuire is a very prolific writer. She has written two different urban fantasy series (The October Daye books and the inCryptid books). She has written a bunch of horror novels, including the acclaimed Newsflesh Trilogy under the pen name Mira Grant. And she has gained, probably, her most impressive accolades from her novella Wayward Children series, the first of which – Every Heart a Doorway – was how I came to her in the first place.

Middlegame is a standalone fantasy novel (which I really appreciated! I love a good epic fantasy series but sometimes they get too exhausting and I enjoy a good immersive standalone book). And guys, it is SO GOOD.

I first started reading it in April 2019, when I borrowed an ARC through my work. However, I only got about a third of the way through it before various issues got in the way and I never finished it. And then I returned the ARC to my employer and that was that. So, when I started my “Storm the Castle” 2020 Reading Challenge with my friends, I knew that Middlegame would be on the list of books in the “Books You Started But Never Finished” Category.

A few weeks ago I caved in and just bought the audiobook. Even though I am slowly getting better at reading print books again, I still do the majority of my reading through audiobooks, especially because I can often listen to them while I’m working. It took me quite awhile to finish the audiobook of Middlegame though, for a few reasons: first off, I started it but then decided I really REALLY just wanted to finish the book Lawrence in Arabia first because it had stolen all my attention; second, the plot of Middlegame was stressing me out so much and giving me so much anxiety that I had trouble listening to it for more than half an hour at a time; and third, I didn’t really care for the narrator, Amber Benson.

Amber Beson is the actress who portrayed Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and by and large I really do like her as an actress. But no matter how hard I tried to get used to her, I just did not like her narration – especially her voices for two of the antagonists, Reed and Leigh. Her voices for the two main characters I didn’t LOVE, but I could handle. Her voices for the two villains just set my teeth on edge every single time. So, that didn’t help. But oh well.

The story itself, however, is AMAZING. I’m going to try to explain what is a rather complex premise and plot without giving away anything too spoilery (I know its been out for almost a year but I still would like to avoid spoilers if I can).

Middlegame is set in a version of America where alchemy exists in secret all around us. Asphodel Baker, one of the great alchemists of her age, sets out to lead humanity to a kind of utopic vision called “The Impossible City” by embodying something called the “Doctrine of Ethos” – a kind of philosophical and magical concept that controls (or perhaps more accurately, creates?) reality – into a biddable human form. However, Asphodel Baker can’t do this on her own, and when her greatest alchemical creation – her protege Reed – kills her, he takes over her task with the help of violent, I would say INSANE, golem-woman named Leigh. And together they create a group of children, created in pairs as twins, with rhyming names, who each MIGHT come to embody the doctrine as they grow.

To be clear, all that is just the PROLOGUE. Stay with me!

The MAIN plot of the book follows one set of these pairs, brother and and sister Roger and Dodger. The twins have been separated at birth by Reed and his associates, but discover each other when they realize they can see through each other’s eyes and speak to each other in their minds despite living on opposite coasts. They do not know WHY or HOW they can do this, and decide they must be quantum-entangled somehow but since they are kids they don’t question it much. They grow up on opposite sides of the country as best friends, but as they become teenagers and then adults a variety of incidents keep tearing them apart (I’m trying really hard not to get spoilery here, folks). They keep coming back together again, and then splitting up, over and over. It was very stressful for me!

Finally, as adults, they reunite one last time as they realize that a) they were created beings, not born in the traditional sense, and b) their creator might be trying to kill them.

The plot of this novel is enormously complex. There are several important characters to keep track of, one of whom you don’t realize will be important until much later in the book. Parts of the novel are told out of chronological order: the book is organized into Parts 1-7, but it continues to return to Part 7 THROUGHOUT the novel! In addition, each part is prefaced with a passage from “Over the Woodward Wall” which is a children’s book that exists in-world for the characters (but not for us) written by Asphodel Baker to indoctrinate children to her ideas. (Fun fact: Seanan McGuire is now actually WRITING this not-real book and it is being published by Tor). On top of all this: there’s TIME TRAVEL in the book. Quite a lot of time travel in the second half (I hope that doesn’t give away too much!).

As I said earlier, this book gave me a lot of stress and anxiety. I want to be clear that this is not a mark against it! It just goes to show how REAL the characters were to me, and how tightly, tensely written the plot was! Every time the two main characters, Roger and Dodger, got separated, or were put in danger, I got very stressed!

This book is brutal and cruel. Both to its characters and to its readers. It is almost physically painful to read. On the other hand, Seanan McGuire’s writing always has a beautiful, almost poetic quality to it. It is especially noticeable in her Wayward Children series, but it is also in evidence here. Some of the passages are just SO PRETTY. Here’s just a few examples:

“Words can be whispered bullet-quick when no one’s looking, and words don’t leave blood or bruises behind. Words disappear without a trace. That’s what makes them so powerful. That’s what makes them so important. That’s what makes them hurt so much.”

“Maybe it would be comforting, to her. The math would be true, and that’s all she’s ever asked from the world. He knows the words that apply to this situation—exsanguination, hypovolemia, hemorrhage— but they don’t reassure him the way the numbers reassure her. They never have. Numbers are simple, obedient things, as long as you understand the rules they live by. Words are trickier. They twist and bite and require too much attention. He has to think to change the world. His sister just does it.”

“For a man on a mission, a hundred years can pass in the blinking of an eye. Oh, it helps to have access to the philosopher’s stone, to have the fruits of a thousand years of alchemical progress at one’s fingertips, but really, it was always the mission that mattered. James Reed was born knowing his purpose, left his master in a shallow grave knowing his purpose, and fully intends to ascend to the heights of human knowledge with the fruits of his labors clutched firmly in hand. Damn anyone who dares to get in his way.”

“She looks like peaches and cream, like Saturday afternoons down by the frog pond, innocence and the American dream wrapped up in a single startlingly lovely package. It’s a lie, all of it. He believes in exploiting the world for his own gains, but she’d happily ignite the entire thing, if only to roast marshmallows in its embers.”

There is also something to be said about determination and hope in this book. These characters balance just on the edge of giving up and giving in every other page, and yet somehow manage to keep trying and keep fighting, in the face of failure and death and worse. And it is also about love – familial love, the love for family and friends, rather than romantic love. And that was something else I really appreciated about this book. No knock on romance – I love a good romance – but this was something different. You’re going to think this is a weird comparison – but it is different in the way Lilo & Stitch was different from the usual “princess falls in love” Disney fare. As someone with three siblings, it was something I could really appreciate (even if I don’t get along quite so well with my siblings as Roger and Dodger do).

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. Just as I have enjoyed everything I have read by Seanan McGuire so far (and I have so much more of hers to read!). I highly recommend this book. Just… maybe not the audio version…

And, even though I didn’t intentionally time the finishing of this book and the writing of this review quite so well on purpose, it is actually quite nicely timed because the trade paperback printing of Middlegame is being released on April 7th. So you can pre-order if you like! How apropos is that?!

For links to buy the book: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound

And Tor.com has a couple passages available to read on their website as well: from Part One and Part Four

Addendum: A few more fun things to do while social distancing

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Since I wrote my last post on Tuesday, a few more interesting/fun things have popped up on my feeds and various articles. Apparently a BUNCH more museums have made their collections virtual for online viewing, and so forth. So I thought I would just add an addendum here.

According to Google, approximately 2500 museums and galleries have now made all or part of their collections available for virtual viewing on the

The National Aquarium in Baltimore has now joined the Georgia Aquarium in making livestreams of various habitats available online. Fun fact: I lived in the D.C. area from 1st through 6th grade and the National Aquarium in Baltimore was and remains to this day one of my favorite places in the world.

There is also such a thing on VIRTUAL RIDE-ALONGS for various Disneyland rides. And as a Disney-fanatic (as mentioned in previous posts), I love this more than words can say.

The ebook/audiobook app Scribd is offering 30 days access to their entire library for free, without needing to put in credit card info or anything (so you don’t even have to worry about canceling your promo subscription for fear of being charged their monthly rate later!) Though, honestly, their monthly rate is pretty reasonable!

For more reading options, Humble Bundle has a great collection of Science Fiction/Fantasy ebooks from Tachyon for a minimum donation of $15! (Humble Bundle does, of course, also have enormous collections of video games, etc but I’m not a gamer so I can’t speak to that).

Lastly, for now, BroadwayHD is offering a free trial or their streaming service of Broadway musicals and plays. Now, this one is only a 7-day-free-trial, which under the circumstances is not that much, but its still a chance to maybe watch a few musicals you’d been hoping to catch but hadn’t managed to yet.

If you’ve seen something cool that I have missed here, please feel free to share it in the comments! It’s impossible to catch it all, and I’d love to see what else is out there!

Some Fun Things To Do While Self-Isolating

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There have been a few of these posts and articles floating around the internet, but I thought it would be fun just to compile and share a few of the things I’ve found to keep you entertained, to keep you indoors, to keep your anxiety under control, etc…

Keep in mind that these are just things I’ve managed to find, and things that I personally find fun or cool or whatever (I’m sure you’ve seen many of these and more besides in other places).

First off, I love museums! So, here’s an article about 12 museums that offer virtual tours, including the British Museum in London, the Van Gogh Museum, and the Guggenheim!

And since we’re talking about museums, we can’t forget that these Paris Museums have put 100,000 images online for free unlimited viewing!

Next, I love music. I love going to concerts in genres ranging from classic rock to indie alternative to classical! I regularly attend concerts at the Houston Symphony. I was hoping they might do something online for audiences, but I suppose they didn’t have the setup necessary for it. Instead, the Seattle Symphony has done something very cool and is sharing previously recorded concerts for free streaming on YouTube and Facebook. More information can be found on their website here.

In for more classical music, you have probably heard that the Met Opera is doing free viewings of some of their previous Met Opera in HD programs (which they usually broadcast via Fathom Events in movie theatres and on their Subscription App). You can find more information, including a schedule on their website here. 

Yesterday (Monday, March 16th) they streamed Carmen, which I watched and really enjoyed. Tonight (Tuesday, March 17th) they will be streaming La Boheme. Just fyi: you can stream these performances straight from the website, however due to more site traffic than they were prepared for, the Met Opera recommends streaming from their On Demand App. The App does technically cost money, however you can access the free broadcasts without signing up by going to the “Browse and Preview” option! It’s a tiny bit glitchy (again, due to more traffic than they’re used to) but it worked me just fine!

For more fun, the Georgia Aquarium has live cams in many of their habitats so you can visit with the fish and animals going about their lives without any clue of the turmoil currently going on among us crazy humans.

I recommend watching some Mister Roger’s Neighborhood if your anxiety or restlessness is especially bad. Amazon Prime has quite a few episodes. And the Fred Rogers Productions website releases 5 new episodes twice per month for free.

I always, of course, recommend reading. If your local library has been forced to shutdown due to the social distancing efforts, I recommend looking for their digital collections. You’ll find that most (though not all) libraries have a partnership with one of the two e-catalog apps for ebooks and audiobooks: Overdrive and Libby. Keep in mind that you do need a library card from your local library to access the collections, but many libraries allow you to apply for a digital-only “card” on their websites that will give you a code or number to use the digital collections.

Speaking of books, I also HIGHLY recommend Levar Burton Reads. Obviously this is going to appeal to the millennials who grew up on Reading Rainbow, but really anyone who likes fiction would probably enjoy this. It’s a podcast that Levar Burton started awhile ago where he chooses a short story to read. It’s a delight!

And, of course, there are plenty of tv series and movies to watch on cable and on the myriad streaming services available these days. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think it’s generally safe to assume that most people have at least ONE of the major streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, or DisneyPlus. Just for the fun of it, here are a handful of television series that I really enjoy:

The Good Place (seasons 1-3 on Netflix)
Community (on Hulu)
Lost in Space (the new one on Netflix)
The Umbrella Academy (on Netflix, and the wait for season 2 is killing me!)
Hilda (Netflix, animated and family-friendly)
Futurama (one of my all-time favorites, on Hulu)
Adventure Time (another favorite, also on Hulu)
Amphibia (a really cute new-ish animated series on DisneyPlus)
Gargoyles (if you want to go old-school on DisneyPlus)
Good Omens (on Amazon Prime, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, and possibly the best thing to come out of 2019)

And for the anime fans: Fairy Tail, My Hero Academia, Soul Eater, Tada Never Falls in Love, Golden Time, Inuyasha, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, and Yu Yu Hakusho (to name just a few…)

Also, a friendly reminder that STAR TREK exists and has gifted the universe with seven different series, 13 movies, and more novelizations than you can shake a stick at.

I might also suggest something to help keep you calm and balanced, such as meditation. There are a ton of meditation books, videos, and apps. But I personally use and really like an app called Stop, Breathe, and Think. It has both a free and a paid premium version, and contains quite a lot of guided meditations and some short videos for yoga and such as well.

So that’s what I have! I would love to hear about some of things you have found, either online or elsewhere, to keep you busy, calm, and/or entertained! Please feel free to share in the comments!