No houses, some books and much moaning
Sep. 5th, 2004 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_schrapnellHey, before I start the moaning, I have a happy thing to say - yay! It is that my wonderful cherry green tea arrived from the wonderful ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
generalblossom on Friday morning! Saved the early morning, as I was sitting here dreading the upcoming ordeal at the dentist. And saved the afternoon, as I made a couple of cups for myself as I was recovering, and it's just delicious! Thank you again!
I'll spare you details of the appointment itself, except that it was seriously not fun. And much as I kept feeling that it should all be put in perspective by the on-going news in my left ear about the ending of the school seige, all that did was make me weepy as well as scared and in pain. But the lowest point might have come when they switched over to other news and I heard: 'Well, that's it wrapped up - George Bush will be re-elected.' Just an opinion, of course, but it was all too plausible, and what it said about the mentality of the voters in America even if he isn't re-elected was almost as depressing as thoughts of the future if he is. Oh, it wasn't a good morning (aside from the tea)!
I finished my reread of Falcon on Friday, which was pretty interesting. I guess I can see a little better why some people don't like it - I think the two parts of the book not fitting together very well is one objection - and I might even be forced to say that it's conceivably just a tiny bit over-written in parts, but I still loved it. Maybe you have to be a little too much in love with Niki for rationality to appreciate it so much (as I am, and as I suspected Emma Bull might possibly be too)? ;)
What was very odd was being very aware of the weird mix of futuristic SF stuff and just normal everyday computing stuff - which hadn't struck me as much last time. So I was reading along going from 'yes, he found that on his computer' and 'oh, of course, everyone didn't have internet access at home back in '89!' and then 'wow, hope they can fix totally smashed spines and bones that way soon!' Slightly disorienting somehow. Does the science or anything else put you off it, generalblossom? And myntti and pikapolonica (you back yet?), have you read?
When I finished that I read Jenny Nimmo's Milo's Wolves (which I haven't registered yet, but probably will, in order to dump it). My younger daughter bought it, and thought it wasn't great but sort of wanted a second opinion. As usual, her critical ability seemed spot on to me! Some cool ideas, but a very unconvincing 11-year-old first person narrator and (as daughter said) really hammered home the 'the wolves are a metaphor' message far too hard. Would have been much better with a lighter touch. Don't know how typical of Jenny Nimmo this is, but it didn't inspire me to try more. Now reading the third in Catherine Fisher's - um - quartet (this one is Flain's Coronet). Don't know what the name of the series is! But I was very pleased to find the book in town discounted (to €2.50 - cheaper than most second-hand copies would be around here), as I liked the first two. It's not amazing literature, but she's doing an interesting thing with the setting - a world which has 'magic' or whatever you'd want to call it, but the 'relics' of the Order which uses it, are clearly technology from human settlers who lived on the world long ago. Also pretty good characters, though not her best, I think.
Oh, and a question: does anyone here know how to edit pdf files? I really want to take the 'read and release' off the BC bookmarks I put in books to give to the fair, but haven't a clue how to do this, and got no suggestions from a query on the Forum.
My tooth still hurts, which seems unfair after I went through all that to kill the nerve! Just to top off the moaning level before closing...
generalblossom on Friday morning! Saved the early morning, as I was sitting here dreading the upcoming ordeal at the dentist. And saved the afternoon, as I made a couple of cups for myself as I was recovering, and it's just delicious! Thank you again!I'll spare you details of the appointment itself, except that it was seriously not fun. And much as I kept feeling that it should all be put in perspective by the on-going news in my left ear about the ending of the school seige, all that did was make me weepy as well as scared and in pain. But the lowest point might have come when they switched over to other news and I heard: 'Well, that's it wrapped up - George Bush will be re-elected.' Just an opinion, of course, but it was all too plausible, and what it said about the mentality of the voters in America even if he isn't re-elected was almost as depressing as thoughts of the future if he is. Oh, it wasn't a good morning (aside from the tea)!
I finished my reread of Falcon on Friday, which was pretty interesting. I guess I can see a little better why some people don't like it - I think the two parts of the book not fitting together very well is one objection - and I might even be forced to say that it's conceivably just a tiny bit over-written in parts, but I still loved it. Maybe you have to be a little too much in love with Niki for rationality to appreciate it so much (as I am, and as I suspected Emma Bull might possibly be too)? ;)
What was very odd was being very aware of the weird mix of futuristic SF stuff and just normal everyday computing stuff - which hadn't struck me as much last time. So I was reading along going from 'yes, he found that on his computer' and 'oh, of course, everyone didn't have internet access at home back in '89!' and then 'wow, hope they can fix totally smashed spines and bones that way soon!' Slightly disorienting somehow. Does the science or anything else put you off it, generalblossom? And myntti and pikapolonica (you back yet?), have you read?
When I finished that I read Jenny Nimmo's Milo's Wolves (which I haven't registered yet, but probably will, in order to dump it). My younger daughter bought it, and thought it wasn't great but sort of wanted a second opinion. As usual, her critical ability seemed spot on to me! Some cool ideas, but a very unconvincing 11-year-old first person narrator and (as daughter said) really hammered home the 'the wolves are a metaphor' message far too hard. Would have been much better with a lighter touch. Don't know how typical of Jenny Nimmo this is, but it didn't inspire me to try more. Now reading the third in Catherine Fisher's - um - quartet (this one is Flain's Coronet). Don't know what the name of the series is! But I was very pleased to find the book in town discounted (to €2.50 - cheaper than most second-hand copies would be around here), as I liked the first two. It's not amazing literature, but she's doing an interesting thing with the setting - a world which has 'magic' or whatever you'd want to call it, but the 'relics' of the Order which uses it, are clearly technology from human settlers who lived on the world long ago. Also pretty good characters, though not her best, I think.
Oh, and a question: does anyone here know how to edit pdf files? I really want to take the 'read and release' off the BC bookmarks I put in books to give to the fair, but haven't a clue how to do this, and got no suggestions from a query on the Forum.
My tooth still hurts, which seems unfair after I went through all that to kill the nerve! Just to top off the moaning level before closing...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Yay, it arrived!
Date: 2004-09-05 10:39 am (UTC)About editing PDF files, nope, I think it can only be done if you got the Pro ( not free) version of adoble. Or perhaps there are other programs out there for free I am not aware of, I can check and let you know.
About George Bush, well, not sure the american electorate is gonna get that impressed by something happening abroad and unrelated to americans, even something that horrific. I hope that is wrong - I used to have a office mate which came from the Caucus, and I know some of the "antiterrorist" measures taken in Russia on the last 5 years or so, and yeah they were tough and unfair, and ironically, I really doubt they were a deterrent.
About Falcon, I think I know what you mean, though to me it was not too noticeable in Falcon - but for example, in a recent read Eva by Peter Dickinson, the society being so 70 or 80s like ( to me) while set in a far overpopulated future put me off. About computers and information, I think no sf writer ever got it really right at all ( maybe A C Clarke came closest) so I just give it a discount ;) But science which bothers me is, of course, physics, I do not like to read stuff with too much physics because often I do not believe it or it annoys me or just that jargon does not at all fit my idea of equations underneath. Mary Gentle insist in doing Quantum Mechanics in ways that I think lame, Catherine Asaro is a physicist and before going into soppy sf family romance sagas blabed for pages about a faster than light device to my great botherment and trying to fit that into which chapters of my GR textbooks - I take Asaro for being far more than an expert than me about that, but it was jsut that her take was much too explained and not believable to me.
Re: Yay, it arrived!
Date: 2004-09-06 12:55 am (UTC)Sorry I was confusing about the Bush news - it was actually the Republican Convention this commentator said was so effective it'd have won him re-election, not the seige in Russia.
Glad you weren't put off Falcon at all - certainly the weird mix didn't make me dislike it, just one of those things that makes you suddenly think how much the world has changed in some ways so quickly. But what about The Wrong Reflection? I certainly haven't enough Physics left in my head from 1st Year Uni. to know if it was in any way believable, but meant to ask you what you think of that. I'll be sending it to PDB11, so it'll be interesting to see how he feels about it too. Only tried one Catherine Asaro and - yeah, 'soppy' was my reaction too.
Re: Yay, it arrived!
Date: 2004-09-06 04:34 am (UTC)PDF Files
Date: 2004-09-06 02:50 am (UTC)Btw, I think you don't know me, but I'm also a BCer, friend of
Re: PDF Files
Date: 2004-09-06 03:03 am (UTC)And I knew you were a friend of generalblossom's, but also you've been on one of my rings, I think. (Trust her on Kilmeny - though interesting as a truly awful book, if you're ever in the mood! ;) )
Re: PDF Files
Date: 2004-09-06 06:44 am (UTC)Yes, I've "infiltrated" (does this word exist in English?) in one of your rings: Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones ;) And I'll give it a try on Kilmeny (but not so soon...). I am a masochist and would like to see the "dark side" of Lucy M. Montgomery.
Re: PDF Files
Date: 2004-09-06 11:36 am (UTC)Talking of Howl, the movie adaptation is was shown at Venice film festival yesterday, and I am so looking forward to it.