The Witching Well

I just finished reading Elizabeth Bear’s Blood and Iron.

It’s been a while since I’ve read a book where I could identify with and sympathise with every POV character. And most of the major secondary characters. And the couple that I couldn’t get into the skins of? I at least understood where they were coming from. They were still real. I just couldn’t stretch myself far enough to crawl inside them.

And the worldbuilding? Layered, rich, visceral. When I was growing up, I read all the mythology books I could lay my hands on, so much of this world is familiar to me. And yet, it’s not. It’s completely not.

Then there’s the Kelpie. Holy shit, the Kelpie. He’s worth a book all by his onesies.

Gods, this woman can write.

I’m glad the second book in the series is coming out next week, because I think I’m addicted.

Mood: impressed

I have been acquisitive these last few days, which is always fun.

On the road during our little mini-vaca last weekend, Andy and I stopped at the Traveler Restaurant in Union, CT. A favorite place en route from here to his folks’ in the lower Hudson Valley, not only because the food is hearty and no-frillsy and reasonably priced, but because you get a free book every time you eat there. And additional books, should you find it impossible to choose just one, are half a buck. I picked up six of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels and two books from an old TimeLife series about seafarers.

And yesterday, we found ourselves walking past a bookstore… Well, no. We don’t walk past bookstores. We go into them. And then I buy Patricia Briggs’ second Mercy Thompson book and the first Vampire Hunter D novel. Because, you know, it’s what I do.

Mood: pleased

The Vatican has its head up its ass again.

And people wonder why I don’t go in for organized religion.

Via Non Fluffy Wicca.

Mood: aggravated

My mother is spoiling the cat rotten. My inlaws are doing the same for the dog. And here we are, my husband and I, in the City of Brotherly Love.

We came in late yesterday morning, and hung out at Wizard World for the day. Andy won some cool swag in Are You Smarter Than a Comic Book Expert, in which he needed absolutely no help from any of the experts (several Wizard staff members and Tom Brevoort from Marvel) up there until he got tossed a Moon Knight question that no one knew the answer to — including the expert he was currently teamed with, Ricky Purdis, Wizard’s price guide editor. For the record, I think Ricky had been cursed: he failed miserably to help anyone who relied on him throughout the entire contest.

I have acquired another Nightcrawler statue. The pirate one. It’s yummy.

And the highlight of the day was when Andy got to talk to Jim Steranko for a few minutes. The words that come to mind are “gracious, personable, and dapper.” I think he may be the first person I’ve met in real life whom that last one truly fits. He’s also amazingly modest. He was telling Andy about when he first started in comics, and how amazing it had felt to meet all the people whose work he’d grown up admiring, and he actually blinked in shock and was speechless for a couple of seconds when Andy said, “I know exactly how you feel.”

Definitely a good day.

Today, we play tourist. Tomorrow, it’s off to the Franklin Institute for the King Tut Exhibit. If we’re really lucky, we may hook up with friends for dinner in between.

Mood: bouncy

Legislators vote to defeat same-sex marriage ban.

Mood: happy

Elizabeth Bear is on a writers’ retreat. It seemed to have started off pretty well, but if you follow the entries along…

Well, I think there’s something seriously wrong in North Carolina, and I think it may have taken out a good number of talented writers. At least a couple of whom I like as people as well.

Or Bear could be playing with us. Maybe.

Mood: surprised

I got a Friend request over on my MySpace page recently from a group whose whole purpose is to be pedantic about grammar. They even have a cute t-shirt that says “I judge you when you use bad grammar.”

I turned them down.

It’s not that I don’t think grammar is important. I proof-read form letters and web pages as part of my job. When I do that, yes, I am in fact the biggest “grammar nazi” on campus. That’s because the language that we put out in those publications needs to be in an educated, formal register. That’s the face the university needs to present to the public.

And, yes, there are some things that pop up in informal speech that make my hair stand on end. Like saying “I could care less” when what you really mean is exactly the opposite. And there are alternate pronunciations of certain words (such as “nuke-yu-ler”) that make me cringe. The first is an idiom, the second a feature of cetain dialects. Knowing that doesn’t make either any less of a peeve for me.

But none of that means that I disapprove of TXT abbreviations, or slang, or sentence fragments, or the use of “they” as a singular pronoun outside of formal context. Text messages are different from dissertations. Talking to your friends is not the same as talking to a potential employer. Most of us switch gears and use the register and the dialect that’s appropriate to the situation at hand.

And, really, it’s just as rude to insist that people use the academic dialect of English all the time as it is to force them to wear a tuxedo to the county fair. Unless necessity dictates it, people should be allowed to use the language they feel most comfortable with. More than that: they should be allowed to play with it. Language is not just a communication tool, after all. It’s how we express ourselves.

Mood: bitchy
Music: the birds in the tree outside

This book would make a very cool Masterpiece Theatre drama. It has all the stuff their audience eats up: inheritance swindles, questions of honor, pushy mothers, unfair class distinctions, social ambition, and orphaned daughters with dowry problems.

I don’t think MP will go for the fact that all the characters are dragons, though.

It’s a very, very fun read.

Um. Is it possible for a human to fall in love with a dragon? ‘Cause the Exalted Sher Benandi is a serious hottie.

Mood: amused
Music: Genesis: Follow You Follow Me