potentialities

Wednesday reading — awards and honors

Thu, 06 Feb 2014 01:06:34 GMT

What I've been reading

I read Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, one of the Stonewall Award winners. It was basically what I expected when I picked it up and realized that it had been published by Flux, the same imprint that put out Sparks, which was a Stonewall Honor book last year. It's written adequately enough, I guess, with some clunky plot contrivances and papery tertiary characters and a generally not-ready-for-primetime feel about it. Which is not to say there was nothing likeable about it, and I'm all in favor of there being mediocre books with solid depictions of trans characters, but preferably as part of a whole range of books with solid depictions of trans characters.

I read Fat Angie, the other Stonewall winner. Actually, I listened to the audiobook, because my library had that, but no paper copies in the catalog—I'm assuming that they actually have ordered paper copies which are sitting on a shelf somewhere but haven't been put into the system yet. This was kind of unfortunate, because the book is written in a very wry, detatched, third-person narrative voice that irritated me even more when I was forced to absorb it at the speed of sound instead of my usual speed of light. The titular protagonist, for example, really is referred to throughout the book as "Fat Angie", when there isn't an outbreak of epithetism. It's trying something more ambitious than the more typical first or close third, I grant you, even though it didn't work for me, in this particular instance.

I read Mister Orange, which won the Batchelder Award for best translated children's fiction, and and is lovely.

I read How to Build Your Own Spaceship: The Science of Personal Space Travel, which, in addition to rocket science, also discusses what your business plan might look like. Sadly, all of them start with Step 0: Have stupid amounts of money. (Or, alternately, Step 0: Radically redefine "personal space travel" to include significantly more modest goals, like sending something the size of a Lego brick into near space, or improving a piece of technology that will go into space with people who are richer than you.)

I read Scowler, which was a life choice I questioned all the way through the book. It actually won the Odyssey Award for best audiobook but I ended up reading the paper version, because I a.) wasn't willing to put it down, but b.) definitely wasn't willing to listen to eleven hours of evil, gore, and also an entire page of menacing clicking noises. I'm sure that the audiobook version did deserve some kind of award for coping with that, especially the page of clicking noises. I did think the book did a pretty good job of telling a tropey horror story with naturalistic explanations for its horror tropes, at least until the climax where the escalation strains even a generous suspension of disbelief.

I read Sex & Violence, which was a finalist for the Morris Award for debut authors. It was okay, if a little. well, debut-ish. I am pretty sure this is the first YA book I've ever read that has teenagers attempting to pursue open relationships (or, as the football player boyfriend persists in terming it, 'non-monogramy' [sic]).

I read Lexicon, one of the ten Alex Award winners for best books published for adults with crossover appeal to teens. It's fun and page-turny, with a premise that's similar to Snow Crash, only done differently (of course, because only Neal Stephenson writes like Neal Stephenson).

I read The Universe Versus Alex Woods, which was also an Alex Award winner, although I think it could have very easily have been published the other way around, for teens with crossover appeal to adults, but presumably they thought it would sell better this way. Either way, I absolutely adored it: it is far and away the best book I have read from the 2014 youth media award winners so far.

I read Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, which is twee as balls. In fact, I can point to the exact moment at which this book crossed over to unacceptably twee for me, which was the introduction of the lady from the fake country with the overly-long name who makes oracular statements. No. That is a bridge too far. Stick to exploring your original premise about the cynical girl who reads comic books and the squirrel who gets sucked into a vacuum and gains the ability to fly and also to type poetry (the Newbery judges are suckers for free verse), and don't throw in fake countries with twee names.

I read Charm & Strange, which won the Morris Award for a debut author. I thought it was a really good example of a good ( trope that is inherently spoilery )

I reread The House of the Scorpion, which I hadn't read since it first came out, sitting on the floor at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble, which didn't have chairs, and has since been replaced by a Walgreens, which is wrong in so many ways, such as 1.) the Astor Place Barnes & Noble being gone at all, 2) there being any Walgreens in New York, and 3.) me not walking past it every day anymore. Anyway, in the intervening time I had forgotten quite how clearly the end of the book cries out for a sequel until I saw that there was one; hence the reread.

I read The Lord of Opium. It's nowhere near as strong a book as its predecessor, but it does answer some of the burning questions of the what-happens-next variety.

I read Another Country, the original play that was adapted into the film. I was surprised by how much they changed in the film, actually, adding quite a lot of scenes that can take place in locations other than the Fourth Year Library and the framing scenes which never seemed necessary to me anyway, trimming away scads of pages worth of conversation. I would say that I prefer the stage version, except that a.) I have no way of watching it be performed, and b.) it lacks Harcourt entirely, much less Harcourt being played by adorable wee Cary Elwes, so there's that.

What I'm reading next

I'm not sure. I am, as ever, surrounded by stacks of books, real and virtual.

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awards season

Mon, 27 Jan 2014 20:30:03 GMT

It's ALA Youth Media Awards announcement day! I celebrated as I traditionally do, by rushing to put holds on a bunch of winning and honor books before everyone else does the same thing. This year I'm no deeper than five on the waitlist for anything, which is not bad. I look forward to receiving and perusing these items.

I'm kind of underwhelmed by the prospect of another Newbery win for Kate DiCamillo, but Flora & Ulysses looks like it might be kind of cute, so maybe I will be pleasantly surprised. I'm utterly baffled by the presence of Navigating Early, the sophomore effort of Newbery winner Clare Vanderpool, on the Prinz honor list, because a.) I hated, hated, HATED this book, and b.) there is nothing YA about it. It is a very young book. That I hated. A lot.

Other award and honor books that I'd already read include Doll Bones (Newbury Honor, liked it a lot), Eleanor & Park (Prinz Honor, liked it), Rose Under Fire (Schnieder Family Award (teen category), loved it), and Two Boys Kissing (Stonewall Honor, disappointed by it). Incidentally, I really appreciate the existence of the Stonewall Book Award for GLBT books, even though I feel like sometimes their selections are a little mediocre and disappointing, but their logo is terrible. It looks like someone made it in Microsoft Word in five minutes. The actual seal version is a little bit better, but not much, like, Photoshop and ten minutes. This needs work. Literally all the other awards look more appealing.

The most exciting news I received from the YMAs, however, is that there is a new audiobook of Matilda read by Kate Winslet, which received an Odyssey Honor and which I can't wait to listen to. ♥

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Yuletide fic: Happily Ever Aftering (My Heartbeat, Ellen & Link McConnell, Link McConnell/OMC)

Thu, 02 Jan 2014 03:29:25 GMT

It's Yuletide Reveals Day, which some people celebrate as New Year's Day, and thus I can reveal that I wrote fic for My Heartbeat, which is a Prinz Honor YA novel with a rather unusual premise—in a way, it's kind of a love triangle among Ellen, her older brother Link, and Link's inseparable best friend James, and how her relationship with the two of them plays out over the course of their senior year in high school, starting when Ellen asks her brother a question that he very much does not want to talk about.

Happily Ever Aftering (3419 words) by mayhap
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: My Heartbeat - Garret Freymann-Weyr
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ellen McConnell & Link McConnell, Link McConnell/Original Male Character
Characters: Ellen McConnell, Link McConnell
Additional Tags: Christmas, Coming Out, Sibling Bonding
Summary:

Ellen is still learning how to know her brother.

The thing I had never written before, incidentally, was a canon character/original character pairing, but as I was thinking about what kind of future story I might write about Ellen and Link, I kept coming back to the idea of Link bringing his boyfriend home for Christmas, which meant that I was going to have to invent a boyfriend for him. (I'd also never written Christmas fic for Yuletide either, but again, it seemed right.)

Also I love it when my Yuletide source is available as an audiobook. Especially when that audiobook is actually just a little over three hours, and you can listen to that audiobook repeatedly when you still haven't quite decided what to write yet. My writing soundtrack was the music from Camelot, as ended up being reflected in the title, because happily ever aftering is an ongoing process.

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coughsGIPcoughs

Mon, 07 Oct 2013 22:36:47 GMT

You know how you read about heroin being invented for use as a cough suppressant and you think whoa, that sounds like some crazy overkill? And then you get a serious business cough and you think, no, actually, some heroin sounds great right about now?¹

So yeah, I've been coughing my damn head off for nearly a week now and it's really starting to get to me. Combined with the full-body ache and the quasi-feverish inability to concentrate on anything, I've been gravitating towards undemanding tasks like rereading old Trixie Belden books and rewatching old episodes of That Mitchell and Webb Look, because even non-sketch television shows require too much sustained attention. I did make this icon, though, because the illustration was too cute and I couldn't resist (and now I wish all my Trixies were the so-called deluxe editions, because the interior illustrations are gorgeous. I have three of them, along with a mix of oval paperbacks and "ugly" hardcovers, plus two cameos, which also have nice interior illustrations).

For the curious, in this scene Honey is equipping Trixie with a fake diamond ring to wear in place of her real one, which she has gotten her parents to remove from their safety deposit box, ostensibly to impress Honey's visiting cousin Ben but in fact as a deposit on a used car her brother wants to buy.²

[Honey] linked her arm through Trixie's and she strolled down the stairs. "Jim and I think you're just wonderful, Trixie. Practically perfect. So don't pay any attention to Ben when he makes stupid remarks. I mean, don't stay away from here all week on account of him. The house party is all set. Di has accepted. I invited her for the whole vacation when I asked her to come out today because I suddenly remembered that she and Ben are both music-lovers. They'll probably spend the whole time listening to records, so we won't ever see them, except at meals." She stopped to catch her breath.

Trixie hugged her arm. "You're the one who's wonderful, Honey," she said softly. "Practically perfect."

Sharp-eyed BSC fans will notice that I used Kristy's handwriting font. It's pretty similar to the handwriting used for Trixie's "signature" on the book's endpapers,³ it was already on my computer, and it makes a cute kidlit girlslash Easter egg.

¹Don't do heroin.

²This scheme is in fact every bit as harebrained as it sounds and in fact in many respects this book does not hold up so well, alas.

³The previous owner of my copy of The Mystery Off Glen Road, one Janelle Johnson, taught herself to forge both Trixie and Honey's signatures. I did likewise, although since I didn't actually write on the book's endpapers I don't know where my own efforts are.

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potentialities

Wednesday reading — awards and honors

awards season

Yuletide fic: Happily Ever Aftering (My Heartbeat, Ellen & Link McConnell, Link McConnell/OMC)

*coughs*GIP*coughs*

coughsGIPcoughs