HSU IT Department

I have read and reviewed every entry in mini_fest -- woo hoo!!! I always try to do that for every fest I participate in; I love getting comments on the things I write, so I try to return the favor.

Sadly, I have not managed to do so yet for minerva_fest or sshg_giftfest, but the year is young :) Of course severus_snape is coming right up and that will no doubt keep me busy for a bit. Still, it's good to have goals, yes?

I've also been busy reading/posting on a group read of one of my very favorite books: Stephen King's The Stand, over on GoodReads. A lot of the participants have never read it before, and since I've read it probably ten or twelve times it's a lot of fun to see how people see it with fresh eyes. The hardest part for me is remembering where things happen in the book, so I know where to use spoiler tags.

I did manage to get quite a bit of reading done over break:

Another excellent collection from master storyteller Neil Gaiman. Some are horrifying, some heartwrenching, some made me laugh out loud, almost all gave me something I didn't expect. I particularly liked "The Thing About Cassandra," "Adventure Story" (one of the lol ones), "Calendar Tales," and "The Return of the Thin White Duke." As a bonus, for those who like that sort of thing, there is a nice meaty introduction, where Gaiman talks about how and when and where each of the stories was written. He also gives some background for his choice of title:

What we read as adults should be read, I think, with no warnings or alerts beyond, perhaps: enter at your own risk. We need to find out what fiction is, what it means to us, an experience that is going to be unlike anyone else's experience of the story.

...I wonder, Are fictions safe places? And then I ask myself, Should they be safe places? There are stories I read as a child that I wished, once I had read them, that I had never encountered, because I was not ready for them...They troubled and haunted my nightmares and daydreams, worried and upset me on profound levels, but they also taught me that, if I was going to read fiction, sometimes I would only know what my comfort zone was by leaving it; and now, as an adult, I would not erase the experience of having read them if I could.

There are still things that profoundly upset me when I encounter them, whether it's on the Web or in the word or the world...But they teach me things, and they open my eyes, and if they hurt, they hurt in ways that make me think and grow and change.

I wondered, reading about the college discussions, whether one day people would put a trigger warning on my fiction. I wondered whether or not they would be justified in doing it. And then I decided to do it first.

I'd been trying to track down a copy of Lammas Night for ages; it was out of print and super expensive last time I checked. But I got a copy for Christmas from Mr Psmith and ripped through it in about two days. Loved it, though I have two minor quibbles, one related to style and one related to substance. My stylistic quibble is that the book seems to lean more towards tell than show. The tell is done skillfully, and it's hard to see how one might get around it when so much of it turns on historical episodes, but there are parts where it does feel a little slow. I cried at the end; I saw one part coming, hard as it was, but not Richard and Geoffrey volunteering to crew the Prince's final flight My substantive quibble is that I am somewhat bothered by the fact that the sacrifice of the prince is accomplished via a sabotaged aircraft. After all of the emphasis on the importance of the personal connection between slayer and slain, both ritualistically and historically, it felt impersonal to have it happen at such a distance. It met the letter of the requirements -- it was Gray's hand that did the deed -- but it doesn't feel like it quite met the spirit of them. Perhaps if Gray had been piloting the plane and taken it down with both of them aboard? . Those two things aside, I really enjoyed this book. The historical references, some of which are borne out by documented fact (e.g., the popular contemporary belief that Sir Francis Drake rebuffed the Spanish Armada with the help of Britain's witches) are fascinating and make me want to hunt up more information. Whether they were effective or not, I have no doubt that witches of all persuasions across Britain were actively attempting to thwart the Nazis, and Hitler's failure to execute Operation Sea Lion is still something of a miracle.

Augh, poor Gerard!! Seriously creepy and entangled, I totally did not see the end coming. I knew it would be something twisty and weird, but did not suss out the specifics. I got a bit lost here and there in amongst all the names, and at times it was hard to tell what was real (i.e., part of the main narrative) and what wasn't (i.e., part of one of the stories-within-a-story), but overall it was really well done. The stories-within-a-story were intriguing, sort of High Gothic, and made me wish Viola had been a real person and written lots more. A great read for a gloomy snowy New Year's Day.



A very meh version of the town with a dark secret trope. There were no surprises and the story moved at a snail's pace for much of the book.

The fact that I found the bad guys MUCH more interesting than the good guys should tell you something, too.





Short story. Gorgeously lush beginning with the description of the decaying mansion. Screamingly horrifying ending. Brrrrr.

What's funny is that not an hour before reading this, I had read a story with a very similar plot: "Black Dog," in Neil Gaiman's Trigger Warnings (see above).

Antonio Gramsci did not like New Year's Day:

I want every morning to be a new year’s for me. Every day I want to reckon with myself, and every day I want to renew myself. No day set aside for rest. I choose my pauses myself, when I feel drunk with the intensity of life and I want to plunge into animality to draw from it new vigor...No spiritual time-serving. I would like every hour of my life to be new, though connected to the ones that have passed. No day of celebration with its mandatory collective rhythms, to share with all the strangers I don’t care about. Because our grandfathers’ grandfathers, and so on, celebrated, we too should feel the urge to celebrate.

And there is something to be said for that. But I still love New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, with its feeling of freshness and potential. I think there is something good about choosing a specific time to reflect on what has passed and what is to come, and to think seriously about how one hopes to shape the next twelve months of one's life.

We had a lovely, mellow New Year's Eve finishing up our Firefly marathon and then watching the first Star Wars movie. Both made us rather melancholy, Firefly because it was cancelled so early and so abruptly, with so many stories left untold, and Star Wars because they all look so damn young. Still, it was great fun to watch the young and dashing Han Solo swash his buckles across the galaxy, and cheer for Captain Reynolds and crew as they fight their way through Reavers to get the truth out about Miranda. It occurred to us both that Captain Reynolds bears more than a passing resemblance to Captain Solo, even down to the stripes on his trousers. And of course the aforementioned dashingness. Big damn heroes, both of them.

The last eighteen months have been a real roller-coaster for me and mine, and I am devoutly hoping that 2016 will be a more serene period. I also hope to do more writing -- yes, I say this every year, and so far have failed, but that doesn't mean I give up on it as a goal. I also plan to take a page from teddyradiator's book: "to keep my zen, to play more, and to cherish my friends."

Many hugs and warm wishes to all for the new year!

Reveals are up over at sshg_giftfest, so I can now admit to having written "The Price of a Memory" (on the fest community or on AO3) for reynardo! Her prompt was positively inspiring, and I had a wonderful time writing this for her.

I would also like to profusely and enthusiastically applaud and thank dragoon811, who wrote for ME a splendid story containing so many of my favorite elements: entangled souls and seventh year, too-clever-by-half Hermione and sarcastic biting Severus, all beautifully interwoven with canon events and a perfect, heart-tugging ending. Go and read Warmth and see for yourself!

Check out all the other artses and fics while you're there, too, because every single one is top-notch. The amount of talent in this particular 'ship continues to amaze and delight me...

I have never actually had a hot buttered rum. Perhaps I should try one.

...when I subject all my friends to Picard and the rest of the gang ("SHUT UP, WESLEY!") doing their holiday song. This still makes me giggle like crazy every single time I watch it XD



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Since I've been Old Unreliable lately as far as appearing online (because real life = new house + dog with pewmonia + hosting Thanksgiving + work craziness + friend worries), I'm taking the easy way out and posting reviews of three books I recently read. If anyone else has read these, I'd love to hear what you think. I also recently read JK Rowling's Cuckoo's Calling which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I haven't written a review of it yet. Maybe tomorrow?

The Night Sister by Jennifer McMahon: This book gave me horrific nightmares twice (twice!) the first night I started reading it. That hasn't happened in ages. The ending was surprisingly melancholy, and though not quite what I expected (I really thought ( spoiler )) it was apt, and rather touching. The narrative conveniently skips over the question of why in god's name Rose's mother didn't follow up on Rose's stories about Sylvie, given that ( spoiler ). The answer, of course, is because plot. Nevertheless, this was a fast diverting read, and good enough that I'll try another by her.

Disclaimer by Renée Knight: Intense, gripping, bewildering, startling; this book is like playing with one of those wooden puzzle cubes where it seems like a solid block until you get all the pieces in play in just the right way, and then the whole things falls apart and you see how it all fits together. As with any good suspense novel, the author hides some things from the reader, but she does it so cleverly that you don't notice; she quietly omits a few crucial points or phrases (in one case simply using a pronoun rather than a name), and the reader effortlessly makes certain assumptions without even noticing it and goes merrily on down the completely wrong path. Really beautifully crafted, with unexpected pokes and jabs around every corner that slowly grow into an almighty sucker punch that leaves your mouth hanging open.

Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell: Typical gothic tales, with a lot of family mystery/drama. Some interesting plots, but many of the stories felt too drawn out -- "like butter that has been scraped over too much bread." Wordy isn't bad if the words enhance the story and/or the atmosphere, but overall these stories just felt labored. "Lois the Witch" was genuinely painful to read, since you know pretty much from the third paragraph where it's headed yet it takes something like fifty pages to get there.

Every so often I go on a binge of re-reading my own fics. And almost every time, I end up thinking the same thing: "These are pretty good. But...did I really write these??" In other words, it feels like I'm reading someone else's work. It's a little unnerving. I can't quite figure it out.

So, for those of you who write fanfic, do you go back and re-read your own old stories? How often? Is there a particular concatenation of circumstances that causes you to do so? How does it make you feel when you do? How do you find that you react to them -- do they feel like your own work or someone else's?

Now, for those of you who also write original fic: same questions.

If anyone is wondering what I'd like in my stocking Dec 25th, it's this. Hubba hubba.

I'm supposed to be packing today, because the movers are coming on Thursday and the house is sooooo not ready for them. We have loads of random crap everywhere that has to be dealt with: plastic bags of candle stubs, odd gloves, cracked pots, old shoes, clothes we no longer wear, ancient jars of herbs in the back of the cabinet, mysterious keys that unlock who-knows-what, dessicated magic markers, old cans of paint, and oh, the swarming hordes of dust bunnies...

Le sigh.

I'm also supposed to be writing an article for the next issue of Carpe Nocturne, which is due on Friday, but I can't seem to come up with the hook to make it all fall into place.

Instead of doing ANY of that, I went and signed up for this, because the mods put out a plea for a few more folks to ease their matching, and because nursedarry taunted me into it:


happy_trekmas is open for signups until October 4th!

I just discovered that in December, SyFy will be airing a tv miniseries version of Childhood's End, and I am sorely conflicted.

I love this book. It was one of the first science fiction novels I ever read. My mother introduced me to it when I was about twelve or so; it blew me away and set the bar for future reading very high indeed. I have re-read it many times since, always with great pleasure. It's a classic that turns up on every science fiction "best of" list: thought-provoking, complex, beautifully crafted, joyous and heartbreaking at the same time. The thought of seeing it brought to life fills me with unspeakable excitement.

But it's SyFy. Their record with adaptations fills me with equally unspeakable horror. If I watch the first episode and it's awful, I may never get it out of my head. Back when they were SciFi, they did a shamefully poor adaptatio of Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea books. Fortunately I knew ahead of time that it stunk -- Le Guin herself disclaimed all connection with it -- so was able to avoid it, but it has left me highly distrustful of them. They're fine with Piranhaconda (after all, it isn't really possible to screw THAT up) and things of that ilk, but a Golden Age science fiction classic like this?

As I said, I'm on the horns of a dilemma :P