We Want It! - August 2012

[helloladies]

Because we haven't quite managed to work out a way for us to consume ALL the entertainment yet: to keep us from emerging haggard and zombie like after regular all night box set marathons, book splurges and music overload we've set up this monthly space where we can express our pure fannish glee at the fact that so many projects of awesome potential are continually being made. All of our past wants and desires can be found in the We Want It! tag.

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Books

Y: The Last Man is a dystopian science fiction comic book series by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra published by Vertigo beginning in 2002. The series is about the only man to survive the apparent simultaneous death of every male mammal (barring the same man's pet monkey) on Earth. [source]

Y: The Last Man: I forget where I first heard of this series, but it sounded interesting and a few years ago I bought the first volume. It was good, but I was lacking in funds at the time and when I finally discovered my library had them I had fallen into another non-reading slump. This year when we went to Memphis for my birthday, I found a deluxe volume of the third and fourth volumes combined (deluxe volume two). It was gorgeous and I immediately wanted it. Now all of these are out and I am pining like mad for them, because I really love the concept and the art.

For the first time in nearly forty years, an uneasy truce has been called between two neighbouring kingdoms. The war has been long and brutal, fought over the usual things: resources, land, money...

Now, there is a chance for peace. Diplomatic talks have begun and with them, the games. Two teams of fencers represent their nations at this pivotal moment.

When the future of the world lies balanced on the point of a rapier, one misstep could mean ruin for all. Human nature being what it is, does peace really have a chance? [source]

Sharps: I have seen K.J. Parker crop up over and over. I became familiar with them after our Coverage of Women on SF/F Blogs project, which I started compiling in 2011. K.J. Parker's identity has been hotly contested and speculated about everywhere and I did a lot of research trying to figure it out (and also discovered truly horrific opinions from men about how K.J. Parker "owed" readers their gender identity, ugh). None of the books have sounded interesting to me yet (although it's a matter of time for most stories), but this novel keeps grabbing me for some reason. I have no interest in fencing, so I don't know! I'm curious.

Gideon Long is dying. He bankrupted the family business and was terrified his father would find him out. One risky scheme to put everything right, restore his fortunes and win over the woman who owns his heart. Where did such efforts get him? Shot through the belly and wandering a savage desert populated by Indians and strange dogs and mocking visions. Dying from the heat. From loss of blood. Dying for a last drink of water.

Gideon is willing to strike any bargain to survive. Even if he does not understand the terms. [source]

Liminal States: I forget where I first heard about this book, but it sounds like part western, part sparkly magical pool of awesomeness that's actually a bagful of hissing snakes and genres alternately fighting and/or making out? I'm in!

Mahala: a city built in the dark depths of a valley. A city built up in layers, not across - where streets are built upon streets, buildings balance precariously upon buildings. A city that the Ministry rules from its lofty perch at the sunlit summit & where the forsaken lurk in the shadowy depths of the Pit. Rojan is a bounty hunter trying to make his way in the city. Everyone knows he's a womaniser, a shirker of all responsibility, but they don't know he's also a pain-mage: able to draw magic from his own & other people's pain. He's not keen on using it (not least because it's outlawed), but when his niece is abducted and taken to the dark depths of the Pit, he may just be forced to unleash his power … [source]

Fade to Black: I learned about this title from Fantasy & SciFi Lovin' News & Reviews (there's a second blurb there, as well). The blurbs seem very focused on the setting, almost as if it's a character in its own right, which reminds me a little bit of Shadowbridge by Gregory Frost. I like stories where infrastructure and cities are features. See also: The Lies of Locke Lamora. The premise of pain magic is also reminding me a bit of The Daughter of Smoke and Bone. The cover sold me and then the revised cover made me want to buy a dozen more just like it. The second really captures that sense of vertigo. I wonder why they revised, or if the first cover was ever meant to be official in the first place?

I also have a thing for loner main characters with questionable jobs and skills. Intrigued. :)



The Mad Scientist's Daughter: Isn't this a pretty cover? I thought so, too, when Angry Robot posted about it. It sounds interesting enough, so I added it to my bookmarks. Then I proceeded to see this cover in google reader about 13 times throughout the rest of the day. It was like the SF/F community suddenly morphed into tumblr and started reblogging Angry Robot to see who could be first to yammer about the awesome! new! cover! I can handle tumblr when it's tumblr. I was sick of this book's face and yet I still want to read it. Maybe by the time it comes out I will no longer be maxed of that artfully designed experiment in perspective.

Related exchange:

renay: I found a book I would probably love
renay: and you would definitely hate >.>
alasen: what is it?
renay:

Set in a collapsing future America, the novel tells of Cat. When she is a young girl, her father brings an experimental android to their isolated home to serve as her tutor. Finn stays with her, becoming her constant companion and friend as she grows to adulthood. But then they take the relationship much further than anyone intended – which ultimately threatens to force them apart forever.

alasen: ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh robots
alasen: i mean, ultimately it's sad because robots are immortal, right
alasen: and people aren't
renay: yes
renay: unless they're not
renay: I read a TSN story like that once
alasen: i hope it wasn't surprise robot
alasen: those are the worst
alasen: i need warnings >.>
renay: No, no surprise robots
renay: what if the robot is not human
renay: is it okay then?
renay: ...I just realized without context it looks like if I'm asking if you're okay with human/robot animal bestiality
alasen: hahaha

Jodie needs to be around to lecture me not to grow idea for theme weeks about robots when we still need to finish our Zombies vs Unicorns and Princess theme weeks. O Canada!



I first heard of this book via SF Signal and added it because the stories looked interesting. Then suddenly, Ana reviewed it! Ana, I do not know how this happened, since I am pretty sure you didn't tell me about this collection, but I find it hilarious and brainshare-ish, anyway. I might have read it eventually based on seeing it on SF Signal, but I'll definitely pick it up on my nxt book buying excursion (unless my library comes through...and they could!).

Television

Revolution: I have such mixed feelings about J.J Abrams. I still haven't finished Lost because I got lost (ha ha ha) somewhere in season two or three and just couldn't handle the cliffhangers and how he was handling women and people of color, have never seen Alias or Fringe (although I am probably going to catch the latter once it has finished its run). Movie-wise I find him semi-interesting; Cloverfield was all right, but Super 8 was great — I loved all the parts where the monster bits weren't shoehorned in. Star Trek was awesome, but again, ugh, gender/race issues. The last show in this vein I got excited about was FlashForward and...well...maybe this one will be better. :) I'll probably try this show for a few episodes, if I can keep up. Hulu/show websites are great, but woe if you get behind. Come on, TV companies, it's time for a ala carte package, seriously. TAKE MY DOLLARS, I KNOW YOU WANT THEM.

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Books

Blueprints for Building Better Girls by Elissa Schappell is a collection of interconnected short stories (I love those) that Renay brought to my attention the other day. From Goodreads:

Weaving in and out of one another’s lives, whether connected by blood, or friendship, or necessity, these women create deep and lasting impressions. In revealing all their vulnerabilities and twisting our preconceived notions of who they are, Elissa Schappell, with dazzling wit and poignant prose, has forever altered how we think about the nature of female identity and how it evolves.

As Renay said when she first told me about it, it could be either awesome and subversive or essentialist and terrible. Hopefully it's the former.



The Grass King’s Concubine by Kari Sperring caught my eye at Scalzi's The Big Idea, where the author says the following::

My thinking about banned books and their authors took me to some very strange places. It was important to me, throughout, that I stayed positive about that core idea about shared knowledge, and the positive effects of books. And yet my reading showed me that books could have some very strange effects on societies, as new knowledge emerged. We could all name books that have been revolutionary, from the Principia Mathematica to Das Kapital. But not every revolutionary book has a positive effect in every circumstance. Marcellan’s political works influence Aude into thinking critically about the assumptions she makes about class and power and money. But his knowledge of water clocks has negative effects on WorldBelow. Sometimes things are used inappropriately.

It sounds awesome and nuanced and politically complicated - in sum, everything that I love. I've been meaning to read Sperring for almost a year, ever since I saw her as part of a panel on SFF at The British Library and she came across as super smart and thoughtful. This sounds like it would be a great starting place.



Scalzi is also to blame for Jim C. Hines' Libromancer (and okay, the premise and the fact that Hines' blog is awesome both help):

I made that love of stories the key to Isaac’s magic. It’s what allows him to do what so many of us have dreamed of, to reach into the pages and create the things described within. To use the daydreams and the fantasies of other readers, all layered together and bound to those books. Libriomancy can create anything from magical flaming spiders to disruptor pistols (perfect for use against vampires) to winged sandals to a laser sword from a galaxy far, far away whose official name we won’t use because I tried very hard not to get sued while writing the book.

Could this book perhaps be everything Inkheart failed to be for me? Fingers crossed.



Laura Miller's review of Privacy by Garret Keizer reminded me of all the best bits of library school. From the publisher's description:

Body scans at the airport, candid pics on Facebook, a Twitter account for your stray thoughts, and a surveillance camera on every street corner -- today we have an audience for all of the extraordinary and banal events of our lives. The threshold between privacy and exposure becomes more permeable by the minute. But what happens to our private selves when we cannot escape scrutiny, and to our public personas when they pass from our control?

In this wide-ranging, penetrating addition to the Big Ideas//Small Books series, and in his own unmistakable voice, Garret Keizer considers the moral dimensions of privacy in relation to issues of social justice, economic inequality, and the increasing commoditization of the global marketplace. Though acutely aware of the digital threat to privacy rights, Keizer refuses to see privacy in purely technological terms or as an essentially legalistic value. Instead, he locates privacy in the human capacity for resistance and in the sustainable society "with liberty and justice for all."

The Aviary by Kathleen O'Dell: an awesome Gothic cover, a focus on female friendships, plus Ana tempting me with it? I'm powerless to resist.



I'm pretty sure that Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma first made it onto my radar because I saw John Green mention it somewhere, but now I can no longer find the link to wherever he talked about it (typical). Here's the Goodreads description:

Chloe's older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can't be captured or caged. When a night with Ruby's friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers the dead body of her classmate London Hayes left floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away from town and away from Ruby.

But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns to town two years later, deadly surprises await. As Chloe flirts with the truth that Ruby has hidden deeply away, the fragile line between life and death is redrawn by the complex bonds of sisterhood.

Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron edited by Jonathan Strahan: Margo Lanagan! Frances Hardinge! Neil Gaiman! Peter S. Beagle! Tanith Lee! Jane Yolen! Garth Nix! Stories about witches! This book SO needs to be in my life :D

Movies

Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing, featuring lots of familiar faces from his TV series. It's funny how only a couple of months ago seeing these pictures at Tor would have left me completely indifferent; whereas now I'm sitting here going "OMG! I want to look at them FOREVER!".



I saw the trailer for Laika's ParaNorman when I went to see Brave and it looked really fun. Apparently it's not much good when it comes to the ladies, but... insert the usual disclaimer here about how wishing things were different need not mean we limit our media consumption, otherwise we'd only watch a couple of movies a year, etc etc. Also a big sigh.

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I just bought a boat load of books (I describe it thus because the amount I bought could possibly sink a small boat) I'm going to focus on other things I want this time around.

Television and Film

'Pitch Perfect'

An Ana Kendrick film where she is the lead :D I <3 her.

This looks like a feel good combination of lots of things I love. Teens in a contest — check. Totally ridiculous remixes — check. Ladies hanging out together — yep, that’s there too. Song battles — yippeeeee. *Ahem*. I mean — check. I haven’t seen a film in the cinema in so long and everything about that feels wrong. I’m probably going to miss 'Brave' while I’m on holiday : ( Thank goodness 'Pitch Perfect' will be around when I get back.



'Parade’s End'

Apparently 'Parade's End' is BBC's attempt to out class ITV's third series of 'Downton Abbey' with a new period drama. I love how the press coverage is like ‘It’s smarter than Downton, if you want to pop out and make a cup of tea in the middle you’ll get lost’ when y’know the BBC made the loveable (and at times quite progressive) but often terribly stupid remake of ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ recently. Frankly I am mostly interested in this because it means there will be new pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch around. I didn't think I could get sick of that picture of Cumberbatch (as Sherlock) wearing a scarf and a snarl, but I am, I am sick of it. Bring on the new Cumberbatch drama and get the reminder of manufactured suspense pain the hell away from me.

Music

'Our Version of Events' — Emeli Sande

I first heard Emeli Sande when the chorus of her song ‘Read All About It’ was sampled on a Professor Green song. Yeah, you got me; I’ve got a weakness for rap songs by male artists which feature female vocals. ‘Read All About It’ is still my favourite song, although ‘Next to Me’ (about a faithful boyfriend who doesn’t run around on her) is a close second. She performed in both the opening and the closing ceremonies for the Olympics this year and while I wasn’t keen on seeing ‘Read All About It’ feature at that event (paranoia brain strikes again), I thought her performance of ‘Abide With Me’ was lovely. There’s such a joy and an honesty to her music.

‘Young Love’ — Mat Kearney

Amy posted a clip from Mat Kearney’s iTune sessions the other day on Tumblr and turns out this is the guy who wrote the song ‘Ships in the Night’, which is part of this amazing ‘Revenge’ fan vid that I have literally not stopped thinking about since I saw it. I don’t know why, but I never seem to twig that when songs are on adverts, or vids, or remixes they may have been written by actual artists who have whole albums of work out in the world. This song feels special to me now and I’d like to explore his other work.

’By the Horns’ — Julia Stone

Julia Stone’s voice is magical, end of. I don’t know how she keeps her voice so controlled but still gets so much emotion and truth out of every song. Let’s listen to the Bloodbuzz Ohio cover again, just because we can:

Books

'Fly by Night' — Frances Hardinge

Oh alright then, maybe just one book. Ana tells me that I really need this book and I believe her. Goose attack dog! :D

Comments

[myfriendamy]

oh yay I really like Mat Kearney and thought that itunes session was GORGEOUS.

ugh, I don't know about Revolution. I want to like it, it should be everything I would like, and also Elizabeth Mitchell was added to the cast!!!, but the trailer is just not exciting me. I will probably give it a go, though. Also Eric Kripke is involved and once upon a time I did like Supernatural, so who knows. It would be fun to watch a show Renay watches!

That book Privacy sounds interesting.

[renay]

You know you could always give in and watch Teen Wolf. >.>

[(Anonymous)]

You've no idea how excited I am, Renay, to hear you like Y: The Last Man! I couldn't even tell you why, but I've just been leery of it. Rich really enjoyed the series and has them all...so I suspect it won't be long before I dive in now. Thanks!

Debi

[renay]

Well, I liked the first volume! Who knows where it goes after that. I'd love to know what you think about them, though. :)