(no subject)

[adiva_calandia]

.__. Took my car to the auto shop this morning because the MAINT REQUIRED light was on and they have a 50% off deal on oil changes. I expected the estimate to be in the $100-150 range when I lay down for a nap; woke up to a text saying the estimate is $600 because the read brake pads need to be replaced now and the rear tires need to be replaced soon. WHEE. I asked them to do the brake and the oil change and we'll kick the tires down the road because, you know, unemployed.

(Manager: "I shouldn't say congratulations, but take advantage of the summer!" Me: "No, absolutely correct, so with that in mind please replace the brakes.")

The world outside is uhhhhh pretty bad! I'm largely ignoring it, ngl. Things in here are pretty okay, all told -- yesterday I had a great conversation with an old coworker about some narrative design/consulting/writing I'm going to do for him for a very cool personal project that's right up my street. (What if Ace Attorney, but in hell?) And last week my sister and I went camping and I solidified that yes, by god, I'm going to take her RV and solo the Alaska Highway to Anchorage this August. I spent this morning planning out my itinerary and I think I can do it in 9 easy-driving days, though I'm blocking out two weeks to allow for, say, "actually I want to go hike around

After several weeks of the Seattle Public Library's entire system being down due to a ransomware attack (??? I'M STILL MAD AT THESE FUCKERS), access to Libby and most other services have been restored, I've been chewing through the NY Times Crosswords archives like someone with an undiagnosed neurodivergency and also listening to BOOKS, IT'S BOOKS TIME. Since last we spoke:

Much less spicy stuff this time around --

1. Schrader's Chord, by Scott Leeds
   
   Log line: A collection of Seattle music nerds play a set of cursed records and accidentally open a path to the world of the dead. The Sixth Sense by way of Deadwax.
   
   Discovered by: I think this was a Libby rec when I finished Mister Magic
   
   Observations: REALLY enjoyed this and definitely intend to follow Leeds' future work. It's so clear he's Seattle-based and that he loves the city, though I think if you aren't familiar with Seattle it'll still feel nicely drawn. There's a big weird showdown with ghosts and creepy trees at the end that felt to me like it spun its wheels a little, but that's a quibble -- I really liked the characters, and I liked that a lot of the horror rode this line of "wow this is gross" but also "this is incredibly tragic, not just scary."
   
   Other quibble I have is that one character is in a drugstore and worries that "the men in white coats will come take her away" because she's talking on the phone about seeing dead people, which made me laugh out loud. Anybody in central Seattle who would notice you saying something crazy -- already unlikely given how much we hate acknowledging other peoples' presence -- is absolutely not going to shift themselves to call anyone on you unless you are actively having a mental health crisis that's getting in their way. And it will be cops, not mental health services, where do you think you live???



2. The Viscount Who Loved Me, by Julia Quinn
   
   Log line: Regency-era enemies to lovers. A rake falls in love with a "spinster."
   
   Discovered by: Figured I may as well check out the whole Bridgerton phenomenon despite not having watched the show.
   
   Observations: This sure was a romance novel! Perfectly fine except for how utterly ridiculous the bee scene was. I liked the interplay between the Bridgerton family best, but don't currently feel strongly like I need to go back to the series. Somewhat spicy, in, you know, a Regency romance way -- frankly from what I'd heard about the Netflix show I expected it to be a lot steamier!



3. The Henchmen of Zenda, by KJ Charles
   
   Log line: GAY PRISONER OF ZENDA FANFIC
   
   Discovered by: walksbyherself 's general recommendation of KJ Charles!
   
   Observations: I loved this one so much I'm thinking about relistening to it. Just fantastically fun swashbuckling in the vein of the original but with more amoral villain scheming. I would love a whole book about Antoinette, tbh, but Rupert's whole demon twink schtick is also worth the price of admission. Reasonably high spice level!



4. Dolores Claiborne, by Stephen King
   
   Log line: Stephen King's classic abused woman explains how and why she killed her husband in a single five-hour-long monologue.
   
   Discovered by: Browsing Spotify's audiobooks while SPL's Libby was down.
   
   Observations: Good ol' Sai King! All your classics: shitty husband, Maine accents, feces, sexual menace towards adolescent girls. However, I was unable to finish it because Spotify has an INSANELY LIMITED number of free audiobook hours per month. Fuck you guys!!



5. The Dead Take the A-Train, by Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey
   
   Log line: What if Harry Dresden/John Constantine/your favorite urban fantasy heroine was a coke-addicted bisexual in New York City?
   
   Discovered by: Recommendation from my friend Alice
   
   Observations: GREAT. A++ body horror and gore, propulsive plot, fantastic worldbuilding, wonderful cast of characters. You can practically see the TV show and/or graphic novel this could be. I understand there's a sequel coming which I'm excited about because FUCK TYLER and JUSTICE FOR FALL. She just wanted to be powerful!!!



6. The Salt Grows Heavy, by Cassandra Khaw
   
   Log line: bro I truly don't know how I would pitch this book. A half-butchered mermaid princess and a Frankenstein's monster become embroiled in the vicious affairs of a cult on the steppe.
   
   Discovered by: Recommendation from Alice
   
   Observations: Okay, once again, fantastic worldbuilding, and I fell very much in love with the Plague Doctor. Now, when Khaw is writing on her own, HOOBOY she has never met a fancy word she didn't want to use. Why say "collarbone" when you could say "clavicle," etc. The prose is lushly mauve. Mostly I enjoyed this, but there were definitely points where I was like "ooookay Cassandra."
   
   (I did have a panicky moment where I thought maybe this was a new nom de plume of Winterfox, due to the prose, but evidently not.)
   
   There's something about this that felt very Le Guin to me. The world described is so strange and dreamlike while simultaneously feeling exactly right. There's a lot of cannibalism and vivisection, so be warned!



7. What Feasts at Night, by T. Kingfisher
   
   Log line: How do you solve a problem like a nightmare hag buried in your spring house?
   
   Discovered by: Social media
   
   Observations: The Gallacian worldbuilding is just so dang much fun. I'm not sure if Kingfisher is basing it on Galicia or what, but it definitely feels like my experience of northern Spain (though Avi Roque gives all the villagers extremely eastern European accents, which seems right too). A quick read that didn't scare me as much as What Moves the Dead but delighted me nonetheless. I hope we get more!



8. Callahan's Chronicals, by Spider Robinson
   
   Log line: A collection of the Callahan's Place short stories, in which a bunch of Long Island weirdos prove love at a bar that plays host to aliens, time travelers, and a talking dog.
   
   Discovered by: My sister, back in junior high, when she was a denizen of alt.callahans
   
   Observations: A comforting reread in rough times. It's always interesting to me to revisit these and watch Spider Robinson change over the course of the collection -- in the early stories there are, explicitly, no female regulars at Callahan's Place until Rachel shows up, and over time it becomes established that there are ladies and gentlemen. And of course, as gentle self-indulgence becomes more acceptable with success, everyone gets progressively more indestructible and hippyish as time goes on, and the stories begin to leave more room for "Spider has a monologue he wants to give" a la Heinlein. (Mickey Finn's takedown of bathrooms in "The Mick of Time" is, I think, upon my third or fourth read of the story, manifestly silly. What if I want to be able to have hot AND cold water at different times for different things out of my sink, Finn???) (And also of course there's the bit where Jake Stonebender spends like a page talking about how much he prefers fat women to skinny women and how un-fun it is to fuck skinny women. I think you overcorrected a little, friend.)
   
   "The Guy with the Eyes" remains excellent; I do think it's kind of brilliant that the series starts with the kind of apocalyptic threat that Marvel built up to, because then it feels perfectly okay to come down to silly little tall tales for a good long while. And it makes the eventual need to trigger a mini-nuke to prevent further armageddon actually feel pretty earned.
   
   More than anything, though, "The Time-Traveler" remains one of the best short stories I've ever read, and gosh it's nice to just relax into the humanism and optimism of Callahan's. Limited though Robinson's POV is in many ways, it never feels narrow. Rereading this very much made me want to try writing my own version -- at a hotel? At a theatre bar or greenroom?


I'm also rereading Lords and Ladies in dribs and drabs! I just got The Dark King by Gina L. Maxwell, to return to the steamy book world, and after enjoying Callahan's I kind of want to check out Jack Townsend's Tales from the Gas Station.