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lauraanne_gilmanWoke this morning to overcast skies. By the time I went out to fetch the bagels, it was snowing, lightly, but with a certain tone to it. Just as there are different types of snow, there are different types of snowfall. This one was saying, calmly and quietly, "I'm not friendly. I'm not playing around. There will be accumulation." We'll see it it backs up its claim. Welcome to March.
Keeping to my new year's goal, I finished two books this month, although not the ones I'd planned to read:
King Solomon's Mines - H. Rider Haggard. Yeah, I finally read this. Slowly, because there's only so much of the rather dated POV this meerkat can handle, but when it's not making me want to slap the Great White Hunter upside his khakis for period-appropriate but still annoying bigotry and cultural assumptionism, it's quite entertaining, and occasionally beautifully written.
Thirteenth Child -- Patricia Wrede. A new YA novel from Patricia that I got my hands on in galley form, and promptly lost an entire day's worth of work to, because I had to keep reading. Magical Frontier Americana, following the life of a young girl whose twin brother is the 7th son of a 7th son -- but she is the 13th child of her generation, and therefore as unlucky as he is lucky.
There were a few 'this is not our world' details that annoyed me because they seemed to serve no other purpose that to hammer the point home, but as this is YA and sometimes historical hammering is needed at that age, I didn't mark down too much, because the rest of the worldbuilding was brilliant, and the day after I finished the book I wanted to go back to that world, and find out what was happening. It's out in April, and if this is your cuppa, you'll want a copy for yourself.
(note: if you like this sort of thing, you will also love Kathi Kimbriel's "Alfreda" stories, which are similar but published for the adult audience)
EtA: and bonus Amusing Photo from NYC:
Keeping to my new year's goal, I finished two books this month, although not the ones I'd planned to read:
King Solomon's Mines - H. Rider Haggard. Yeah, I finally read this. Slowly, because there's only so much of the rather dated POV this meerkat can handle, but when it's not making me want to slap the Great White Hunter upside his khakis for period-appropriate but still annoying bigotry and cultural assumptionism, it's quite entertaining, and occasionally beautifully written.
Thirteenth Child -- Patricia Wrede. A new YA novel from Patricia that I got my hands on in galley form, and promptly lost an entire day's worth of work to, because I had to keep reading. Magical Frontier Americana, following the life of a young girl whose twin brother is the 7th son of a 7th son -- but she is the 13th child of her generation, and therefore as unlucky as he is lucky.
There were a few 'this is not our world' details that annoyed me because they seemed to serve no other purpose that to hammer the point home, but as this is YA and sometimes historical hammering is needed at that age, I didn't mark down too much, because the rest of the worldbuilding was brilliant, and the day after I finished the book I wanted to go back to that world, and find out what was happening. It's out in April, and if this is your cuppa, you'll want a copy for yourself.
(note: if you like this sort of thing, you will also love Kathi Kimbriel's "Alfreda" stories, which are similar but published for the adult audience)
EtA: and bonus Amusing Photo from NYC:
