HSU IT Department

I got this from ladyoneill and it's...a little creepy how good it is. Is it harvesting my LJ tags? No, because some of the words aren't my tags. Is it sucking in the text of all my entries and digesting them? Trolling my goodreads shelves? Reading my mind? Number 5 in particular kind of weirds me out. But yeah, this is all TOTALLY me :)

Except for the fact that it mentions only FOUR BOOKS. That's just wrong.

I've been AWOL lately due to being occupied co-writing a fic with someone. This is something I've never done before, and I found it peculiarly satisfying. Partly that was because the other person mapped out the plot and all I had to do was write scenes for it (o lazy me!) but also partly because it was so much fun to see the pieces coming together, to craft the transitions so it read seamlessly (or at least so we hope), and to get immediate feedback on chunks of writing before it was anywhere near finished. I'm quite proud of the end product, which turned out to be by far the longest fic I've ever worked on, and look forward to eventually being able to cop to my role in it when the fest reveals go up.

Refinery29 has compiled a millennials' reading list entitled The Book Bucket List: Books to Tackle Before You're Thirty. I've read fourteen of them, which I guess makes me 28% of a millennial? I'm not sure what criteria they used, since Harry Potter is the first one the list, which is nice but I'm not sure what's particularly millennial about it. Quite a few more are on my ever-growing to-read list, though, so perhaps I'll get to them eventually. Maybe before I turn sixty.

In more book-related news, I recently finished Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, which I absolutely adored. (Is it a coincidence that her name is the same as my favorite sushi item?) Not only are the characters three-dimensional and interesting, they're dealing with serious issues (bipolar disorder, binge drinking, etc.) yet in the end its a heart-warming story about family and friendship, and remembering what really matters in our lives. And its treatment of fandom and fanfic is a delight -- what joy to read a story that treats fic writing with the respect it deserves, and recognized the important place it fills in so many of our hearts!

Finally, I have to share this: Ursula Le Guin's acceptance speech at the recent National Book Awards. I have no words for how very cool this is. Not only is Le Guin an amazing writer, she's also thoughtful and passionate about our craft.


"...the moment that turned attendees' heads...belonged to Ursula K. Le Guin. In
accepting an award for distinguished contribution to American letters, Le Guin
delivered an impassioned defense of science fiction — and of writers in general..."
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(transcript available here)

H/D fans, Western Michigan University alum Adam Pasen has written a play that may just be for you. In Badfic Love, fan author Michelle has written a fic about Harry and Draco, parts of which get acted out as part of the play. But she's not a very good writer. Kyle, who belongs to a club whose goal is to protect the public from bad fan fiction (ha, if only there were such a thing!), is so entertained by the story's awfulness that he doesn't want to report her to the other club members. Hijinks ensue.

While the relationship between Michelle and Kyle is flawed, Harry and Draco played by Nick Petrelli and Joey Urreta are very much in love.

Daniel Radcliffe appeared on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me podcast, where he revealed that he apparently has a sizable collection of homemade Harry Potter dolls (now that we've seen talesofsnape's latest Lucuis Big Bang entry, I have my suspicions as to where they might have come from...)

Finally, in another amusing note, the upcoming 200th episode of Supernatural will be a musical -- and the title is "Fan Fiction." I'm giggling already.

I'm badly behind on posting book reviews, but here's one I really want to pass on because it was so good:

You have known all along that something in this story wasn't right...Perhaps, even now, you will feign ignorance, attempt to deny your complicity in the construction of this lie...

Indeed. Well played, Buehlman. Well played. ::cries a little::

When I was a kid, maybe ten or eleven, I saw one of the old black-and-white Dracula movies, probably a Hammer Films production. I have no idea which one it was, but the last scene was of Dracula, alone in this Victorian library or parlor, his head slumped over the shaft of the spear through his chest that's pinned him to the wall, the early morning sun streaming in through these huge double-height windows. That scene haunts me to this day, its sense of desolation and melancholy and sadness and, yes, horror (though perhaps not the kind the filmmakers intended).

Something similar washed over me when I closed The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman this morning. This is so much more than a vampire book that it's hard to know how to talk about it.

Here is one thing I can say: Normally I'm one of those rabid page-turners (what's next what's next WHAT'S NEXT WHAT'S NEXT!!) but I found myself consciously drawing out the reading of this book because although I very much wanted to know what happened next, I could sense that something bad was coming. Something I didn't want to see, or know. I was right -- but not at all in the way I expected. Whatever happened next was going to happen by the platform in Union Station, out in the open, under the lights. With an audience...

Which leads me to another thing I can say: This is an excellent piece of storytelling. It's difficult to end a story in a way that is both utterly unexpected and yet still fits all the events that have preceded it, but that's what happens here. Even more challenging is to pull off an ending that makes the reader go back and re-assess everything they just read. That also happens here. Finally, there's a certain level of "meta" as well, since the ideas of narrator, of story, of reader expectations -- not to mention the relationship between narrator and reader -- are played with and questioned in interesting ways.

So...yeah, go read this. Then think about it. Then maybe read it again, knowing what's coming.

(P.S. Stats for the animal lovers in the audience: dogs that die=0, cats that die=1, bird that doesn't die and is well taken care of=1, derogatory mention of insects=many.)

The reveals are up at minerva_fest so I can now admit to being the author of "Memento Vitae," which I very much enjoyed writing and which a lot of people apparently enjoyed reading -- yay! As always, this was an excellent fest with many top-notch stories; if you haven't yet checked them out, take time to do so. You will not be disappointed!

Title: Memento Vitae (on LJ) (on AO3)
Prompt #70: Retirement approaches, and Minerva clears out her office at Hogwarts. There are a few objects ('five' is such a traditional fanfic number, but have less or more if you prefer) that hold very, very special memories. While she packs, she remembers those times.
Rating: G
Word Count: 3700
Characters and/or Pairings: Minerva, with memories of many others
Summary: There are things we carry in our hearts that no one else can fully understand. On her last afternoon as Headmistress, Minerva remembers some of hers.
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: I very much enjoyed this stroll down Minerva's memory lane; I hope you do too.

"Spock, I have breasts."
"Captain...so do I."
Heeeeeee.


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So, you know how when you do an LJ entry there's that field off to the right labeled "location"? And you know how it becomes a clickable link to Google Earth once you post your entry? Check out what happens when you put "Hogwarts" in as your location :)

An evocative and beautiful blog post today from photographer Mark Deeble: Raindrops in the dust, about the first storm in months coming to Tsavo in Kenya. His description of how things come to life in the aftermath (the baby leopard tortoises!) is amazing -- right up there with the best of the nature writers.

I started following Mark's blog after I saw some of his photographs and read his piece on Satao, last of the big tuskers. My grandparents loved Africa; they went on safari to Kenya several times, and one of my treasured possessions is a photocopied set of my grandmother's letters home to her daughters (my mom and two younger sisters) during a trip in the 1950s.

So I have a soft spot in my heart for the wildlife there, not just because they're beautiful and so, so precariously balanced on the edge of extinction, but also because they make me think of my grandparents. Mark's blog is a wonderful way to feel like I'm really there.

So, the book meme! It's been such fun to read everyone's lists -- some of them overlap considerably with mine, while others consist mostly of books I've never heard of. It amazes me what readers you all are, and it's such an education to be exposed to new and different authors. I do love books. Books books books. We might have had a contractor in two weeks ago to talk about putting built-in bookshelves in my room (and maybe if there's room, a window-seat under the window for Drinking Tea and Reading In/On. anemonen tagged me with it, so here we go!

Rules: In a text post, list ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you. Tag ten friends, including me, so I’ll see your list. Make sure you let your friends know you’ve tagged them!

1) Atlas Shrugged (Rand)
2) Lord of the Rings (what, like I need to tell you who it's by?)1
3) The Velveteen Rabbit (Williams)
4) The Fionavar Tapestry (Kay)2
5) Little Women (Alcott)
6) A Wizard of Earthsea (LeGuin)
7) The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (Shirer)
8) God Is Not Great (Hitchens)
9) Stories of Your Life and Others (Chiang)
10) On Writing (Stephen King) and Turn Not Pale, Beloved Snail (Jackson)3

1. OK, technically this is a trilogy -- but that wasn't Tolkien's idea, it was his editor's, so I'm only counting it as one
2. OK, this one's a trilogy too, but hey, who's counting?
3. They're both about writing, so I figured I'd squish two in one

I in turn shall tag nursedarry, ennyousai, madeleone, perverse_idyll, ladyoneill, mundungus42, chthonya, amorette, irishredlass, teddyradiator and a_boleyn.

(If you've already done it, which I know a lot of people have, just put a link to your post in the comments so I can go look at it!)

Be still, my heart!!!