Two weeks later...

[delphipsmith]

Yes, I am still alive. Real life has been ver' ver' busy of late, what with freelance editing clients, getting my minerva_fest entry in, trying to get caught up on hp_silencio (which posted a stunning and heartbreaking Minerva-centric entry on Saturday, thanks to teddyradiator for pointing me to it), birthday parties for nieces and nephews, and to top it off my online fantasy/sci fi writing workshop (which I'm now co-modding, and yes we would love to have new members) is running its twice-a-year short story in a week during the month of October.

Whew.

I have managed to cram some reading in here and there: a YA post-apoc novel about seven young children trying to survive alone following a mass epidemic (Fire-Us #1: Kindling), a highly unusual, meditative and thoughtful post-apoc tale of perhaps the last woman on earth (The Hauntings of Playing God), a mediocre suspense/horror story about a missing Karloff/Lugosi film and a few too many other things (Ancient Images), a beach-read Gilded-Age romance (American Heiress), and a somewhat disappointing Angela Carter novel (The Magic Toyshop) about orphans and creepy puppets. (Links go to my reviews, if I've done one.)

And I'm currently a third of the way through Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (HPMOR), which is quite fun: what if Harry Potter were a child prodigy raised by a physicist and tried to apply the scientific method to magic? Very much AU; all the familiar characters are there with essentially the same characteristics (Dumbledore twinkles and is a bit mad, Hermione is brilliant, McGonagall is proper yet with underlying affection) but everything else gets twisted round in new and interesting ways. The author must know quite a lot about the fanfic world because he works in a lot of inside jokes about various fandom habits and oddities (e.g. the Harry/Draco pairing), but it's all done very affectionately.

I intend to follow it up with Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles, mentioned by kellychambliss, a spoof of the series as fundamentalist Christian. Promises to be amusing.

Ah, and last night we saw Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, which was fabulous. I sympathized hugely with Vanya's rant about how we used to lick stamps and have typewriters, and the actress who was Nina (over)played her like a young female William Shatner parody, which made me and Mr Psmith laugh immoderately. A good time was had by all :)

So there you go. What's new with you, flist?

Comments

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

This week i have seconded onto a course which ends on Friday. Then on Saturday i shall be at the Eastbourne Beer festival with my brother.

[delphipsmith]

Any festival involving beer gets my vote!