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MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE: if it helps I don't think there are a lot of sad pet emotions in the rest of the book, I think you've hit the worst of it! the robots are not really sad pets
ME, WITH AN EMOTIONAL HANGOVER AFTER FINISHING SYLVIA PARK'S LUMINOUS: well, broadly speaking, you were right about the robots, but you were absolutely wrong about hitting the end of the sad pet emotions --
So Luminous, as you may have gathered, is a book that made me feel emotions; also a literary science fiction novel about humanoid robots; also a near-future cyberpunk noir; also a bittersweet children's adventure; also, or perhaps most of all, a family saga about three estranged siblings in post-unification Korea:
Jun, the middle child, a transmasc army veteran turned robot crimes cop whose war injuries have resulted in a VR addiction, an unsurmountable amount of debt, and a messy combination of gender euphoria and dysphoria about his new mostly-cyborg body
Morgan, the baby of the family, a successful MIT graduate with a well-paying tech job in robot design and a secret illegal off-the-books robot housekeeper-slash-personal-assistant-slash-boyfriend designed to help her get over her miserable insecurities, a task at which they are both Unfortunately Aware that he is Not Succeeding
and Yoyo, oldest and forever youngest, the advanced prototype child robot designed by their brilliant roboticist father who entered Jun and Morgan's lives as children and played the role of big brother for a few critical years, leaving them both haunted by his absence and his ghost
Where is their brilliant father now, aside from living rent-free inside his children's brains? Great question. For mysterious reasons he's decided he no longer wants to work on humanoid robots and has bounced offscreen to Boston to work on designing robot whales and tigers and so on, a project that museums love but which most serious roboticists think is rather silly.
Where is Yoyo now, aside from living rent-free inside his siblings' brains? Also great question! Two of the book's plotlines (cyberpunk noir) follow Jun investigating the increasingly troubling case of a missing child robot, and Morgan working on the launch of a new next-gen child robot, Boy X. (Crimes against robots are not illegal broadly except as theft, but crimes against child robots are illegal in the same sort of way that child porn is illegal.) In the third major plotline (bittersweet children's adventure), classmates Ruijie and Taewon -- a bright girl from a wealthy family with doting parents and the best high-tech leg braces for her advancing neurodegenerative disorder, and a bitter North Korean refugee boy more-or-less under the care of his criminal uncle, respectively -- find a strangely advanced child robot abandoned in a junkyard ...
(In this near-future Korea, btw, reunification was brought about by an event that propaganda cheerfully characterizes as "the Bloodless War" because it was mostly fought by robots. The experiences of several of the characters beg to differ with this characterization.)
There's a massive amount going on in this book, and all of it is complicated and none of it maps onto simple metaphors. For all the POVs that we get in the book, for all the fact that unexpected robot actions are frequently driving the plot, we're never in the heads of any of the robots themselves: all we can really know is what the various characters project onto them, an endless sea of human emotions about gender and disability and parenthood and childhood and societal expectations and trauma and grief.
On a plot level, I'm not at all sure it fully comes together at the end -- there's so much going on that 'coming together' seems almost impossible, tbh -- or that I actually understood all of what had, technically, happened, per se. On an emotional level, I will reiterate that the book made me feel feelings!! laudatory!!!
In the interest of accountability: yes, I have worked on Eldest's quilt. Previously I was at the point of needing some more blanks drawn (done), and then 20 blocks needed sewing and then assembling. The goal was to do 2 per weekend and then assemble over a few weeks.
However! After two weekends, I have 5 blocks sewn, and one nearly done, being thus a block (and a half) ahead). I have also assembled the first four into a two by two block thus having got ahead on the assembling. Thus, I am feeling tentatively confident about minimum goal: finish top by the end of the year.
I've also attempted to progress Youngest's. Sadly, while I know I had an image that they wanted to have converted, I have not found where I filed it. That is not a this week problem though. I have only progressed Middlest's by dint of sending them another reminder that they need to actually decide on a pattern.
Other than that my craft has near stalled. I have started back on the playing the Hanon's, but only a few pieces every few days, and only the first set of 20, on loop. It does help my hands when I do, but also, I'm struggling to find the motivation.
Reading wise, I have simplified my life down to seven currently reading, mostly because Storygraph added the 'pause' option, which adequately reflects how I feel about a lot of books. One of my thoughts about the last week of the year is to set myself a goal of finishing or abandoning one book per day. Which won't be that hard, as there are several I had put somewhere sensible I found today which are all past half read. In terms of reading goals, the number of works is past the goal, because I started tracking online short fiction (if it were already there) which I kind of wish I could separate out. I'm not anywhere near the number of pages goal, but I also haven't been tracking where I'm up to, so it might be that when I sit down and capture where I'm up to I'll be much further. Whether I get there or not isn't an issue -- I've been doing a lot of academic reading and really haven't had the time/energy for fun reading.
I had another thought when I started the last paragraph, that was more than just the 'where are the two reading goals' but eh, I've forgotten (possibly: tidy the library. or do the next pass through of the library check, given that Librarything has a better way of doing it than I've previously found).
How goes the decluttering? Have you shifted anything out of the house? Found something to sort through? Had thoughts on things you can let go of?
Comments open to locals, lurkers, drive by sticky beaks, and anyone I've forgotten to mention.
2. I finally put the Billy bookshelf together today. We got one in blue, so it matches the other blue Ikea cabinet and bedside table in Carla's room (I don't remember the name of that series, something not as easy to remember as Billy, that's for sure). I was dreading putting the doors on because I hate hinges, but the hinges on this are the easiest Ikea hinges I've done. (Rather than having to hold up the doors to screw them on, these hook on first so they can kind of help hold themselves up.)
3. Speaking of furniture, we've been wanting to get a coffee table for the garage and just not gotten around to it, but I have some Lego Christmas sets that I want to display on a coffee table, so now is the time. I poked around online a bit this evening looking for something and we settled on this one from Target, which lifts up like the one we have in the house, to make it easier to work on stuff while sitting on the sofa.
4. We had another baked potato with a Trader Joe's frozen topping tonight, this time it was chicken mole. WOW. This was even better than the birria. Would definitely get this again for baked potatoes.
5. Ollie's soaking in the sun.
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genarti and I took advantage of Skirball Theater's remote Halloween production, a virtual Phantom of the Opera broadcast live every night for the next two weeks from a tiny apartment in New York City with a handful of actors, a variety of very small sets and very large cardboard props, and a lot of neat visual/camera tricks. As a bonus feature, you can see exactly how most of the visual/camera tricks work because there's a second camera set up from the front of the apartment that shows the broader view of the cast and crew rushing around to cram themselves into the tiny sets and lurk in front of walls to cast dramatic shadows and so on. As a viewer, you always have the option to toggle between the main, intended view and the backstage view to see how they're doing whatever they're doing -- tbh this in itself made it worth the price of admission for me, as a person who loves practical effects. See Carlotta's entry evoked by a giant high-heeled foot and then toggle over to the crew member carefully dangling the foot into the frame! Superb!
The production itself evokes the aesthetics of German expressionist film, with an operatic organ soundtrack and most of the dialogue conveyed by classic silent film inter-, sub- or supertitles. It's a shock when the Phantom speaks out loud to Christine, and she speaks back to him. When Raoul says he heard someone in her dressing room, Christine looks understandably baffled by the way this breaks the rules: how could a silent film man hear an angel speak?
Christine can also break the silent film framework to sing, as trained, and, eventually, talk out loud about the Phantom as well as to him, but not about anything else. I love this conceit and I think it's probably the coolest thing the show does thematically.
genarti remarked while watching that she'd also never seen a Phantom with this much actual opera in it. The production is definitely interested in Opera qua opera -- trying to say something about Art and the temporality of all artistic media and the fact that opera itself is a dying form, and tbh I'm not sure that it fully landed for me. However this may have been because these Themes were mostly conveyed in a big speech by the Phantom actor at the beginning as he puts on his makeup, and the biggest technical problem with the show (at least on the night that we saw it) was that the Phantom actor's mic was way out of balance with the background music and he was always kind of hard to hear. Which perhaps is thematic in and of itself! Anyway, I really enjoyed the experience, worth my $20 to sit on my couch with the lights out and toggle between a Spooky Silent Phantom and a tiny apartment full of theater professionals moving tiny sets back and forth to make Spooky Silent Phantom happen, would recommend.
Whatever it is, talk to us about it here. Tell us what you liked or didn't like, and if you want to talk about spoilery things, please hide them under either of these codes:
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2. I love this picture of Jasper so much. Those big eyes! The little glimpse of pink tongue!
Murder in Matrimony
The ending of this felt like it was wrapping up the series, which is fine because I'd already decided not to read any more. ( antisemitism )
The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State
Finally finished this! It was actually really interesting, I just kept not reading it in favor of other things. In school Prohibition was passed over as basically like "it happened and then they repealed it", with the main focus of the early 20th century going towards the World Wars and Great Depression. I had no idea that Prohibition was so tied to the revival of the KKK, for example.
Artistic Buildings and Homes of Los Angeles
A very short book that is mainly pictures of buildings and houses in LA in the late 1800s, built by architect Joseph Newsom. The book has a forward and introduction written in 1988, and then the rest is a direct replica of a book put out by the architect to showcase his work, complete with ads that ran alongside the photos. It's very neat. Found it in a Little Free Library in the neighborhood.
Don't Hang Up
An Audible Original by the author of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone. He's done quite a few Audible Originals (the one below being another) and they're all short and free with my subscription, so I gave them a try, but none of them have been great. This one was interesting enough, but the MC was an asshole. He's a radio DJ who's been recently demoted to the midnight shift and one night gets a caller who tells him to stay on the line or a woman gets killed. Had some good twists, but it was just fine, not amazing.
Find Us
I really wish he would stick to writing stories set in Australia. This is the second one of his set in the US and there are always nitpicky things that bug me lol. Also if I'm reading an author from another country, it's because I want to read stories set in that country or at least with characters from that country (especially with an audiobook). But that's just minor stuff. This one felt like it really should have been longer (it's four hours, so about novella length). The MC is a former police detective, now working secretly for the FBI, trying to find school killers before they act by approaching kids who show red flags on social media and forums. One day her own kids go missing and she doesn't wait for the police, convinced she can find them herself. This had some interesting twists but I felt like the aftermath could have used more focus.
( spoilers )
My Home Hero vol. 4
(the anon period is over and so i, with pride and befuddlement, present my first published book!)
Desiccated Empire
Once, there was a vast Empire, capable of controlling nature itself.
Josvarh’s first cargo run goes catastrophically wrong when giant tentacles tear their airship right out of the sky, sending it crashing into the desert. He and Captain are forced aground, where they’re found by a mysterious stranger speaking an unknown language. ‘Chad’ is from no place Jos knows, but inordinately pleased to meet them—even with the language barrier.
Now, there is only sand.
The town at the edge of the desert lies abandoned, with no clues as to its fate. Their ship is lost, dragged into the desert by the mysterious tentacles. And in the night comes another monster: a spear-wielder of great skill and relentless attacks. Driven into the sands, they’re forced to fight for their lives as they seek shelter underground, dogged by unnatural monsters.
And what once was lost shall be found.
- no romance
- 111 page novella
- ebook on amazon/available in kindle unlimited
- part of a multi-author writing/publishing challenge
😍 purchase link 😘 storygraph 🥰 goodreads
(please note that it was automatically attributed to another Devin Moore on goodreads)
Edit: i forgot! i scheduled Desiccated Empire as a kindle countdown deal between nov 1-8 (i think)
fully slipped my mind, i was very sleepy when i did that orz
The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo is set among the avant-garde literary circles of 1920s London, and Jade herself is a sharp young Malaysian writer who accidentally becomes the main character of the day by penning a scathing review of the latest book by Literary Darling Sebastian Hardie. Fortunately or unfortunately, Hardie thinks this is the hottest thing he's ever seen anyone do; moreover, Hardie's very accepting wife thinks Jade is so charming; and as for what Jade's handsome and serious editor Ravi thinks ... well, events unfold from there, carried along by Jade's unique and delightful and irrepressible voice. If every first-person protagonist I met had even a quarter of Jade's verve and personality, I would be content, but the fact that they do not just makes me cherish Jade all the more.
If you've not met Jade Yeo, or if like me you have indeed already met her and would like her to live in your house forever, the book is getting a new print edition through the small press Homeward Books and preorders have just opened!
(The Kickstarter also has NYC and Seattle book rec party tiers which unfortunately I cannot attend as i will not be anywhere near those locations but I very much hope someone else does and tells me about them.)