Posted February 15, 2015 by in General / 23 Comments
I think this would be a nice one to go viral: a post in which we celebrate the tropes we love instead of griping about the ones we don’t (which are, no doubt, someone else’s favourites). So thanks to Kaja from Of Dragons and Hearts, here is a post about tropes which are, so to speak, my cup of tea.*
- The loveable rogue. Locke Lamora, I am looking at you right now, but also looking further back into my reading past: Jimmy the Hand, Crowley from Good Omens, Gaiman’s Marquis de Carabas… And perhaps best of all, though not from books: Captain Malcolm Reynolds.
- The paladin. Joscelin Verreuil. Captain America.
- The second son. Faramir. Arutha. Verity Farseer. Josua from The Dragonbone Chair. I don’t know what it is, but I tend to prefer the younger brother.
- Heists. You have a really clever plan, you say? Morally dubious, you say? As long as it’s fiction, I’m along for the ride.
- Superheroes. Uh. I’m not sure this even needed to be said. But not just guys like Steve Rogers, who have been altered for it, but the people who make themselves into heroes, too, like Hawkeye.
- Moral ambiguity. Nobody’s perfect, and while a character who is a total bastard just isn’t fun for me, it’s nice when a character isn’t a total angel.
- Guilty conscience. Perhaps especially when it’s not really that person’s fault. Like, say Steve Rogers blames himself for Bucky’s death — it’s not really his fault, he’s in no way a bad guy, but the fact that he can believe this makes him that bit more human and believable.
- Dragons/elves/aliens are nothing like humans. Capricious, commanding, nothing like the regal/wise/enlightened creatures we expect? Interesting!
- Friends like brothers. “I’m with you till the end of the line.” Gaaah. Gaaaaaah. Or Marcus and Esca, Locke and Jean, Fitz and Nighteyes, Dean and Castiel…
- Secretly in love. Shut up, I am not a ginormous softie. I’m not!
*I may be British, but I don’t actually like tea. Chamomile tea or fruit teas, maybe. Mostly not.
Tags: books, comics, Jacqueline Carey, Marvel, Robin Hobb, Rosemary Sutcliff, Scott Lynch, Tad Williams
Posted February 14, 2015 by in General / 16 Comments
How’s everybody now? I really need to post an update on the #ShelfLove challenge — I’ll probably schedule that for Wednesday, since Sunday is going to be about celebrating the things I love in fiction, a la Kaja’s ‘Totally My Cup of Tea‘ post. In short: I’m still doing well. No books bought by me this week, though my Valentine’s gift from my partner was one (one!) book which I’ve been wanting for a while… Tahdah!
I’ve also had quite a few review copies this week, which was cause for plenty of squee:
And if anyone is mouthing off about the lack of female superheroes, they should just take a look at my pull list — this is stuff that came out just this week.
Which reminds me that I should post about my pull list sometime. And see if I can get hold of some more comics featuring Anya Corazon/Spider-girl. Not long till the first issue of Spider-Gwen!
Lest we forget, I’ve also been to the library. I worked out how many library books I had last week and went on the attack this week, but somehow I always seem to find another book I want.
The Mary Stewarts and Michael Moorcock I’ve read before, but I’m trying to take in all of Elric so I’m starting from the beginning, and Mary Stewart is just comfort reading for me. The Galaxy Game I received a while ago as a review copy and didn’t get round to, so I’m making sure to show my interest now. And Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is a book I’ve meant to read for a while, and even own — somewhere.
How’s everyone doing? Still sticking to your resolutions and behaving yourselves now 2015’s in its second month?
Tags: books, comics, Marvel
Posted February 10, 2015 by in General / 12 Comments
This week’s theme from The Broke and the Bookish is ‘Top Ten Things I Like/Dislike When It Comes To Romances In Books’.
Top Five I Like:
- Intensity. I like to see some give and take. The ability to say ‘you’re wrong’, yell at someone, and still have them respect you.
- Communication. Talk. To. Them. (The flipside, miscommunication, tends to really embarrass me — I’m easy to embarrass.)
- Forbidden love. Actually, this has to be done right, but I spent most of my academic study on Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Isolde. Rosalind Miles’ take on both failed for me, but Steinbeck did Lancelot and Guinevere in a lovely way, and I’ve played with both stories in my own writing.
- “I see who you really are.” The classic is, of course, Beauty and the Beast.
- Equal partnership. Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle might not be the most popular couple in the Arthurian canon, but they’re my favourite by far. Challenged to tell another knight what women want most or be killed, Arthur flounders. A really ugly woman comes to court and says she will give the answer — if Sir Gawain marries her. He says yes, of course, and she gives the answer that saves Arthur’s life: “sovereignty”, the power to choose for oneself, is what women most want. So the wedding goes ahead, but on their wedding night, Ragnelle turns out to be a beautiful young maiden. She asks Gawain whether he would rather she be a beautiful woman in the daytime, when everyone can see her, or at night, when only he can. He lets her choose — which breaks the whole spell she’s under, because he has given her “sovereynté”. It’s maybe the most equal partnership in Arthurian literature, because it’s not from courtly literature where a knight is supposed to worship his lady, and yet it still gives power to the female partner, and shows him respecting her.
Top Five I Dislike:
- “You are a precious little flower and I will protect you.” Enough said.
- Stalking = love. Just say no.
- Keeping secrets. I guess that’s often related to #1, but yeesh, come on, be honest. (Circumvented if this has consequences, though. Like in The Forgotten Beasts of Eld.)
- Insta-love. Still needs saying, apparently. Which is actually where people fall down for me even if the things I mentioned above are alright!
- “I’m too low/high in station to marry you.” This can be played well (come on, I like Jane Eyre), but after a certain era, the class implications become too awful.
And if you’re really curious, you can read ‘The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle’ for yourselves here; someday I will both translate the original into modern English, and write my own novel based on it, if I get all my dreams.
Tags: Arthurian, books, Patricia A. McKillip, Top Ten Tuesday
Posted February 7, 2015 by in General / 37 Comments
And another week gone! This year is flying by already… which in a way is fortunate, because I was excited for the two books I picked up this week, both out on 03/02 (coincidentally, my mother’s birthday). Now it’s just A Darker Shade of Magic to go and then I’ll have the books I’m most eagerly coveting…
Bought
The cover of Karen Memory is just perfect. I’m already partway through — might even have finished it by the time this goes live — and enjoying it very much. I’ve already finished Trigger Warning…
Library
Guess who’s onto the chemistry section of their Open University textbook? And Stonehenge, well, who can resist archaeology about Stonehenge?
For review
I still haven’t read a single book by Ian Tregillis. I have them. I just need to, you know, read them. Oops.
Comics
Peggyyyyy. I really need to watch Agent Carter, too. Mind you, I still really need to watch Agents of SHIELD and, uh, Norton’s Hulk (though really Mark Ruffalo is the only Bruce Banner for me, sorry).
Anyway, this was quite a big haul for me, but I’m still keeping to my resolutions! For now, at least. I do need to hurry up and get reading my review copies, though. How’s everyone else been doing? Any massive hauls?
Tags: books, comics, Neil Gaiman, non-fiction, Stacking the Shelves
Posted February 5, 2015 by in General / 14 Comments
This week’s Tough Travels theme is “lairs”:
The evil lair is where a great fantasy villain will spend the plurality of his or her time.
Now of course, there are some really iconic ones — Saruman’s Isengard, Sauron’s Mordor, even Shelob’s Cirith Ungol and Smaug’s Lonely Mountain — but I’ve been racking my brains to think of something a little off the beaten path. So I remembered a quote I read somewhere quite recently, about the people who ultimately do the most evil being the people who are unshakeably sure they’re right.
Which gave me…
- Roke, from The Earthsea Quartet and The Other Wind. It’s a stagnant world, not willing to bend with the times and let in new people (particularly, women). It’s the Establishment, really. With the best of intentions, they make a total mess of things. I think that goes for a lot of magic regulating bodies in fantasy…
- Malthus and Aracus’ strongholds/camps/etc from Jacqueline Carey’s The Sundering. I could’ve picked Satoris for this without twisting it even slightly, since most people view him as the bad guy — essentially this world’s Sauron. And yet, his side are more accepting of grey areas and outcasts, while Malthus and Aracus’ forces are completely self-righteously convinced that they’re on the side of right. That’s more dangerous, to me.
- Sky, in N.K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. There are some good people trapped in the system there, mostly kept turning by Itempas’ injustice…
- 10 Downing Street, circa Tony Blair’s stint as prime minister. Oops. That’s not fantasy.
Looking forward to seeing what other people came up with, here; hoping it won’t make me want any new books, because I don’t have a debit card to buy them with at the moment!
Tags: books, Jacqueline Carey, N.K. Jemisin, Tough Travels, Ursula Le Guin
Posted February 3, 2015 by in General / 8 Comments
This week’s theme is ‘Top Ten Books I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Read From X Genre’. I’m going to go for a bit of a twist and give you the top ten books my mother can’t believe I haven’t read from the classics, particularly because I’ve got English lit degrees… It’s also my mother’s birthday today! (She does read this blog, so stick your head in and say hi.)
- As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, Laurie Lee.
- Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad.
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain.
- A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens.
- Tess of the D’Ubervilles, Thomas Hardy.
- The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde.
- The History of the Decline Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon.
- A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill.
- Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift.
- Ulysses, James Joyce.
So if you’re feeling bad about not reading the classics, neither have I… (I’m also missing out on The Count of Monte Cristo and other such classics!)
Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday
Posted February 1, 2015 by in General / 8 Comments
Since Kaja from Of Dragons and Hearts tagged me!
Four names that people call me:
- Nikki — obviously! This is what most people call me, these days.
- Nicole — my family tend to still call me this. My real name!
- Nicci — shut up, it’s totally different somehow. But only my childhood friend is allowed to call me this.
- Squeak — well, actually, Dad’s stopped calling me this because I’m an adult now. But I have a very high soprano voice, and my dad has tinnitis, so, voila. It was “Croak” when I had a cold, “Squeakley” when he was being affectionate, “Princess Squeakerella” when I was being a brat…
Four jobs that I have had:
- Medical secretary. This mostly involved a lot of filing, some pestering people for money, and a lot of typing.
- Transcriptionist. People send me audio recordings of their meetings, interviews, etc, and I type out everything they say. Or sometimes most of what they say, only more grammatically. I’ve transcribed all sorts of stuff: David Cameron’s speeches, Nick Clegg’s excuses, conferences, financial results, NHS board meetings, court cases… It can be kind of interesting.
- Copy writer. You need someone to advertise coffee they’ve never tasted? Someone who doesn’t even like coffee? Sure! I’ll do it! And various other things, like providing content for blogs, writing web pages, etc, etc.
- Volunteer. Yeah, kind of cheating, but I haven’t had any other paying job. But my volunteer roles could populate this list again and then some…
Four movies that I have watched more than once:
- Apollo 13. Shut up it doesn’t make me cry.
- Howl’s Moving Castle. <33
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Steve Rogers is my bb.
- Sherlock Holmes. With Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr.
Four books I’d recommend:
- The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. I don’t think this needs saying, does it?
- Bloodshot, by Cherie Priest. I have a craving to reread this, so here it goes in the list. I love the vampire law here, love Raylene’s OCD tendencies and how she’s kickass anyway, and the found family that grows through Bloodshot and Hellbent.
- The Fifth Head of Cerberus, by Gene Wolfe. Want your brain twisted round and round? Yep. Gene Wolfe.
- Strong Poison, by Dorothy L. Sayers. Because Lord Peter is the best detective. Shut up. Yes. The best.
Wait, there isn’t room for Seaward? The Dark is Rising? Among Others?
Four places I have lived:
- Yorkshire. I grew up there.
- Gordon Hall, Cardiff. I was in a hall of residence in my first year of university, naturally; this was my first home away from my parents.
- Flat 3, Cardiff. Second year of university. There were mice. Let’s not go there.
- Hardy Place, Cardiff. Maybe my favourite of my homes so far, lived here with some of my university friends.
Four places I have been:
- Brittany, France. I’ve blanked out most of it because it was awful — it was a school trip, and my classmates wanted me to be unhappy. I was.
- Various parts of Belgium. My partner lives in Belgium!
- Rome, Italy. Went to Rome with my mother after finishing my degree. Favourite place: Pompeii. Definitely.
- Cornwall, UK. We went for the total solar eclipse. It turned out to be cloudy there; there was a better view back home. But Dad did teach us to swim.
Four places I’d rather be right now:
- Belgium. I want my bunnyyyyy.
- Yorkshire. I love Wales, but right now I’d rather not be here.
- Venice. I’ll settle for turning my PS3 on and running around Rome on Assassin’s Creed, though.
- Bed.
Four things I don’t eat:
- Spaghetti bolognese. My mother once forcefed me some because she didn’t believe I felt sick. There was projectile vomiting.
- Haggis. Whyyy.
- Turkish delight. Ughughugh.
- Christmas pudding. Gaaah.
Four of my favourite foods:
- The sausage thing with onions that my partner gets from the chip shop down the road. Oh god I could eat it right now.
- Cauliflower cheese. I like cheese. Nommy cheese.
- Crispy duck in pancakes. Mmmmm.
- Dad’s chilli. Or other chilli, if necessary, but Dad does it best.
Four TV shows that I’ve watched:
- Firefly. I’ve watched this far too many times, really. I can quote most of it. “I swear by my pretty floral bonnet, I will end you.”
- Pushing Daisies. I need to rewatch this! So cute.
- Due South. I’m not kidding you when I say Fraser was my first squish.
- NCIS. Okay, so I can’t watch it without crying still because I used to watch it with my grandad and I can still ‘hear’ his commentary on it. But I do love it.
Four things I’m looking forward to this year:
- Going to Canada!
- Visits to Belgium.
- The Wales vs England game on Friday.
- Visit from my ex-housemate.
Four things I’m always saying:
- “Daaaaaaadddyyyyyyy…” Yes, 25 and I still call him ‘Daddy’. Especially when I want something.
- “How much is my library fine now?” Wince.
- “Books books books!” The hunting cry of the wild Nikki.
- “I hate math…” This science course involves far too much math and not enough DNA.
Runners up: “ugh David Cameron, you [expletive]!”; “Muuuuuuuuuuuuum”; “EZIO STOP FALLING OFF BUILDINGS YOU’RE MEANT TO BE AN ASSASSIN”.
Four people I tag:
- You.
- The other you.
- Yes, you.
- My imaginary friend.
Tags: about me
Posted January 31, 2015 by in General / 18 Comments
Once again, a quiet week! Which is good, since that’s what I’m aiming for. I did get two new books — rewards for finishing books two and three of my Open University course!
Bought
I’ve read (and reviewed) Prickle Moon already; it’s lovely. And I’d been wanting Dreamer’s Pool for a while!
Library
Just one, a bit of self indulgence — I’ve read all of Mary Stewart’s romances, but this was the first one I read, and I’m looking forward to going back to it. Frothy comfort reading for the win! Though right now, I’m digging into Soulless (Gail Carriger) for that!
Oh, and the latest issue of Thor came out, too.
Comics
How’s everyone else doing? Broken your resolutions yet?
Tags: Juliet Marillier, Mary Stewart, Stacking the Shelves
Posted January 29, 2015 by in General / 8 Comments
The prompt this week for Tough Travels is this:
Seems odd to think that in fantasy cities in which entire economies revolve around crime there is room for the men in blue (or crimson, or whatever). But the law does the best it can, even when faced with magic, mystical creatures, or rogue deities.
So I thought about this and for some reason my mind was totally blank. I mean, there’s various forces of law and order in fantasy, of course, but I couldn’t think of specific ones. In a lot of what I read, they’re just in the background — the king’s guardsmen, the city watch, whatever. Anyway, I’ve done my best to think of some of the forces of law and order that we don’t normally associate with the men in blue, as such. Like…
- The Avengers (Marvel comics). You’ve never met a more law-abiding, law-enforcing person than Steve Rogers! And, admittedly, he does wear a mostly blue uniform.
- The wizards on Roke (A Wizard of Earthsea). They’re pretty insular a lot of the time, granted, but if there’s a problem out there in the world, they’re probably the only ones who can solve it. And Ged is very aware of that fact. There’s the short story in Tales from Earthsea where he goes after a disgraced wizard, and then there’s the whole plot of The Furthest Shore…
- Valek (Poison Study). The Commander might be the centre of power, but he wouldn’t be that way without Valek keeping people in line.
And for a guy who does represent the boys in blue, though this is not strictly fantasy (it’s alternate history)…
- Peter Carmichael (Small Change trilogy). Because he tries to do his job even when it’s hard. Because despite all the risks to himself and those he loves, he subverts the regime he’s in, and supports real justice.
Tags: books, comics, Jo Walton, Maria V. Snyder, Marvel, Tough Travels, Ursula Le Guin
Posted January 28, 2015 by in General / 13 Comments
Since Paper Fury posted 21 things you probably don’t know about her, I ended up doing a response. With 25 items because I’m 25.
- I’m Welsh. It actively pains me when people go “oh cool, you’re English!” when they find out I live in the UK. No.
- I have a sister. She’s a brat.
- I have five library cards. Two from the same library. I’m sneaky, me.
- I’m on a library committee. I’m in charge of book acquisitions!
- I haven’t read all the Harry Potter books. Sorry?
- My favourite animals are hedgehogs, hippos and giraffes. Don’t make me choose.
- I barely speak any of my partner’s native language. I can say thank you in a shop. That’s about it.
- I didn’t learn to read until I was nearly seven. Everyone assumes otherwise, but nope. I just wasn’t interested.
- I love King Arthur. See also #1. I wrote three of four of my MA essays on Arthurian texts, plus my dissertation.
- I have a BA and MA in English Literature… And I did very well in them, thank you.
- …But now I’m doing a course in Natural Sciences to prepare for medschool. Neurology, maybe? Genetics?
- I can sleep on a motorbike. Not as the rider, obviously; as the pillion passenger. I have a rally medal, and all I did was hold onto my dad and snooze for 36 hours.
- I’m a transcriptionist and copy writer. Neither of these things pay very well.
- I’m a volunteer at an eye clinic, a library, a forum, Lightspeed’s slush pile, and an occasional volunteer for Cancer Research UK and Tenovus. None of these things pay at all.
- I like chicken on my pizza. My partner thinks this makes me practically heathen.
- I like cold pizza the next morning. My sister is positive this makes me a heathen.
- I read in the bath. And I’ve only ever dropped one book in.
- I don’t get the ereaders vs. dead tree books debate. Both! Why not both?
- I know the stock at my local bookshops better than they do. And yet they won’t employ me. Sigh.
- When I really love a character, it sometimes means I can never consume more of their canon because I get too anxious. Castiel, bb. Why. And I worry this is going to happen with Steve Rogers/Captain America, because his next film is Civil War. Gaaah.
- I have no gallbladder. Had it out two years ago because it was full of stones.
- I once read The Lord of the Rings in 24 hours. That included sleep.
- I averaged buying more than a book a day in 2013. And I wasn’t far off in 2014. Oops.
- I had to pry open the back of my ereader to swap in a bigger SD card. I wrote a guide about it. Then they promptly stopped selling that type of ereader. Huff.
- I can’t back down from a dare. Like, my dad dared me to read War and Peace in a week. So I did it in five days. Or my sister said I wouldn’t dare suck spilt vodka out of the carpet. So I did. But I blame that on the previously imbibed vodka, too. Regardless, no one ever lets me forget it, so I’m trying to be proud of it. Or something.
You probably know most of these things about me, actually.
Tags: about me, books
