sesana

I just recently got caught up on the Fallout: New Vegas DLC. Life is fun once you've topped level 30 and you have a Holorifle, several thousand microfusion cells, the Desert Ranger combat armor, an awesome cowboy hat, and more caps than you could ever spend.

The DLC for NV is, btw, somewhat mixed. Dead Money had a great story, but seemed to have been designed by people trying to make it as difficult to complete as possible. And a bug that killed my game. Honest Hearts was much better, but had a bittersweet ending no matter what you did. Old World Blues is mostly a fun homage to bad science fiction movies, but had an uncomfortably bizarre tendency towards weirdly vulgar humor. And Lonesome Road won't be out for weeks. But the really important thing is that I got a great gun, incredible armor, and the ability to wipe out Deathclaw nests while barely breaking a sweat.

So I ran out of things to do in the Mojave, and felt inspired to go back to DC. Playing the two back to back, I was surprised at how much more I'd enjoyed FNV. I still love 3, of course. I'm having a great time in my run, and I'm making good progress. (I had started up an evil run, but then realized that I didn't actually want to play evil so started all over again after blowing up Megaton.) But I will try to remember, if ever I play it again, that starting out with energy weapons is for suckers. I was hours into the game before I could stop carrying around a pistol, because of low ammo for my energy weapons. That shouldn't be an issue at this point.

But probably what I miss most about NV is the hats. The pre-war hat just isn't the same, and I miss my extensive collection of cowboy hats.

I have a shiny new toy: a bright blue Toshiba netbook. I'm loving it. I've been wanting one for over a year, and I finally found one at a good price when I had the money to pay for it. We already had wifi in the house, for the consoles, so it's been very easy to just sit down in the living room and get online for a few minutes here and a few minutes there.

I've also started a Goodreads account. This was... maybe a bad idea. Remember how a couple of weeks ago, I had a list of about 530 books to read? Now it's a list of about 770. What can I say? It's easy to add stuff. The fact that I'm now following about half a dozen or so YA book blogs is also not at all helping. But YA books are so shiny! And it's my professional duty to read them, right? Of course right!

46. The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman

A few years ago, I watched a special on either Discovery or the History Channel (I can't remember which) called Life After People. It seems that special was sort-of-but-not-quite-in-a-way-that-we-can-avoid-lawsuits based off this book. But it was better. Both were using a hypothetical scenario where humans simply vanished, no wars, nuclear winter, or geography-changing catastrophes. The difference is that Life After People was primarily about life after people. It was fascinating, to see how cities would slowly crumble over time. The World Without Us, on the other hand, is much more about exactly how humans have changed the world, and how those changes would last. Which was interesting, in a way, and something that Life After People would have been even more interesting with. Like the discussion about how long it would take for the oceans to completely rid themselves of plastics. (A really, really long time, for the records) But it was unfocused, and rambling, and repeated itself, and sometimes forgot to get into that whole world without us thing that was the draw of the book. The cover is gorgeous, though.

42. Black: The History of a Color, by Michel Pastoureau

A few years back, I read Blue: The History of a Color, by the same author. This is the sort of history that's right up my alley, microscopic almost to the point of absurdity. It's very interesting, and beautifully illustrated. The meaning of the color black hasn't changed that terribly much, but it's still interesting to see all of the different meanings, in art and fashion and everything else, gone through all in one place.

43. Gunnerkrigg Court, Vol. 1: Orientation, by Thomas Siddell

This is a collection of the first 14 chapters of the online comic Gunnerkrigg Court. I love online comics, they're about the only ones I read anymore. I don't remember now what brought the collected book to my attention, and what made me read the book instead of just going online and reading the comic itself, but I'm glad I did. It's a good presentation. As for the comic itself... Well, I'm working on catching up on it from chapter 15 onwards now. I really like the art style, which has always been important for me in a comic. Ugly and generic art is one of the reasons I've drifted away from comics in the first place. I also like the characters, and the story is shaping up nicely. It was a bit of a hodgepodge of stuff at the start, but it always seemed to work, and it seems like the author has settled in to a story (but still with a lot of nice side stuff).

44. Giraffe, by Edgar Williams

Just another Animal book. Not much to say. But this is the book that sort of did it for the Animal series for me. Rather, it was the next one I'd checked out, Pigeon. I just realized that I don't want to read about all of these animals. Yes, I'll read Fox, happily, but Fly? Cockroach? I'm happy somebody wrote them, and I'm sure many people will read and enjoy them, but I won't be one of them. So now there's only a few more Animal books left for me to read. Yay!

I've been doing my reading list a "favor" lately and binging on YA book blogs. What a horribly, terribly bad idea. My list has now topped 530 books to be read. I currenly have a 22 month turnaround time from when I add a book to the list and when I read it. I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, look at all those books! On the other hand, look at all those books!

34. Faberge's Eggs: The Extraordinary Story of the Masterpieces That Outlived an Empire, by Toby Faber

I've been fascinated in the Imperial Faberge eggs since I first played Shadow Hearts: Covenant. One of the party members is Anastasia Romanov (yes, really) and her weapons are Faberge eggs (yes, really!). I was surprised at how many of them were (however loosely) based on real Imperial eggs. I really enjoyed this book, getting to learn the backstory behind all of these eggs. Most of them are beautiful, some of them are a little gaudy, but all of them are masterfully crafted. The story of the eggs after Revolution is every bit as interesting as their Imperial history.

35. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

I like Bradbury, but from reading this book, I decided that I'm much more of a fan of his short stories. I read There Will Come Soft Rains almost fifteen years ago, and it still sticks with me. Bradbury's style, that works so well in short stories, tends to drag a bit in full length novels. I felt the same about Fahrenheit 451 when I read that years ago. That said, there's still much that's brilliant about it, and it's prodded me to (someday) make a much greater effort to read more of his short fiction.

36. Beating Heart, by A. M. Jenkins

An interesting not-love story between a live boy and a dead girl. Evan's just moved into an old house with his family and starts having dreams about a beautiful girl, the ghost. The book alternates between his perspective, in prose, and the perspective of the ghost, Cora, in verse. It actually works. Cora's sections give just the right sense of being insubstantial, and Evan does sound like a real teenage boy. Not that many of those in paranormal YA anymore. They all sparkle and stuff.

37. Cow, by Hannah Velten
38. Duck, by Victoria Rijke

Not much new to say about this series at this point. Cow felt a little sparse, but of course the topic is so big. Duck was a little disjointed. Not a favorite of mine. And any book about ducks in relation to human culture is incomplete without a mention of Scrooge McDuck anyways.

22. Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan

I loved the Percy Jackson books, and I liked the first book in the new Half-Bloods series. This one just didn't do it for me. It's written well enough, but I just don't think this series is for me. I'll probably read the rest, but I'll really be hoping for the next book with the demigods. It's probably partly because I've never cared all that much for Egyptian mythology, and partly because I just don't like Carter and Sadie as much as I have his other protagonists. Nothing against Carter, but he's no Percy or Jason, and Sadie is no Annabeth or Piper. The baboon probably wasn't helping matters any.

23. Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol, by Iain Gately

The entire history of alcohol in 500 pages? It's very thin in spots, of course, but that's because it's just trying to fit in way too much. An enjoyable read, but I probably would have liked it even more if I hadn't already read full-length books on whiskey, rum, gin, wine and absinthe already. I certainly read a lot of books on booze for somebody who doesn't drink.

24. Moose, by Kevin Jackson
25. Horse, by Elaine Walker
26. Penguin, by Stephen Martin

A good set of the Animal books. Horse could use a little more space to fully develop, but I've got a longer book lined up for that.

Think I'll ever get around to posting these at shorter intervals? Me either.

12. Peacock, by Christine Jackson
13. Elephant, by Dan Wylie
14. Whale, by Joe Roman
15. Lion, by Deidre Jackson

Now that I've read five books in the Animal series, I think I can give a general impression of them. They usually start out with a chapter or two dealing with the animal on an evolutionary and biological level. For me, the most boring part. Then they move on to the animal in relation with humans: folklore, mythology, customs, fine arts, and historical interactions with. The proportions aren't constant, and seem to make sense with the focus animal. There's a lot more focus on peacocks in fine art than lions, for example, and a lot less about peacock hunting. I like them for what I guess you'd call the social history aspect. So far, Peacock is my favorite book in the series.

16. The Three Musketeers, by Alexander Dumas (Not the edition I read, but close enough.)

I expected to like this, and I did. I was pleasantly surprised by how much more nuanced the book is than the many movie versions: the cardinal is not unmitigated evil and the four protagonists are not always noble. I'd never read anything by Dumas before, and I'm sure I will again. (I have read Lady of the Camellias by Dumas fils, and it was excellent.)

Well, I'm doing good so far on the reading, not so much on the journaling. I'll work on that!

1. The Lost Hero, by Rick Riordan
So, this is the first book in the companion series to Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Which I loved. A lot. Just like I loved this one. Still great characters, mostly new. Piper especially. One thing I really liked about the Percy Jackson books is that Riordan knows his mythology, and he plays fair. If you know Greek myths, you'll understand a lot more a lot faster. (My circulation of books on Greek mythology has spiked since my students started reading them. Yay!) The same holds true in this book, but you need Roman mythology, too. And I'm terrible with Roman myths, so I need to brush up before the next book comes out in the fall.

2. Whiskey: A Global History, by Kevin R. Kosar
3. Cake: A Global History, by Nicola Humble
4. Sandwich: A Global History, by Bee Wilson
5. Chocolate: A Global History, by Sarah Moss and Alexander Badenoch
Not too much special to say about these. All good examples of the series, of course. I especially liked Sandwich. These books really work best when they're unique. I don't know of any other history of the sandwich, for example, and I really enjoyed that one. If you've read a more in-depth history of a food substance (like chocolate) it starts to feel a little thin. Still, very enjoyable reads, the lot of them.

6. The Looking Glass Wars, by Frank Beddor
I regret this one. The basic premise is that the story of Alice in Wonderland is based on the true story of Alice Liddell, who is really Alyss Heart, princess and rightful heir to the throne of Wonderland. And that's about all that deserves to be said about the plot of the book. Everything about this book is so cookie cutter that it smells faintly of gingerbread. The plot is standard and unremarkable. The villain, Redd, is a boring collection of cliches. It shamelessly steals the concept of the Force and turns it into White and Black Imagination, which effectively makes the only two characters who can use it properly, Redd and Alyss, nearly invincible. I have the very distinct impression that it was originally written as a vanilla fantasy, with one Wonderland inspired character (Hatter Madigan, the only one who's even remotely interesting) and the other Wonderland references were added in later. They, too, are so thin that you need to be told outright that they're meant to be allusions. Take Bibwit Harte, for example. He's meant to be an allusion to the White Rabbit. The only commonality is that his name is an anagram for White Rabbit. He's not even actually a rabbit! Or General Doppelganger, who can split into Generals Doppel and Ganger. Tweedledee and Tweedledum, of course. Even the author knows that the parallels between them are almost nonexistent, because he patiently explains them, at length. Of course, he had to eventually cut his explanation of Tweedledee and Tweedledum, because he didn't do his research and didn't know that they're from Through the Looking Glass, not Alice in Wonderland. There's another thing. I love the Alice books, but I get the impression that Beddor doesn't like them much. He doesn't seem to know that much about them, for one, and his tone is always hostile when he refers to them. The prologue has Alice calling them "stupid nonsense". Not the best way to introduce to your book to someone who thinks that the Alice books are quite clever nonsense. The writing can be surprisingly juvenile. Outside of comics, there's no reason to write "ARRRRRRRGGGGHHHH" instead of using your words to describe what it sounded like. Sure, it's a scream, but is it a scream of rage, of frustration, terror, what? And then (last thing!) there's how he treats the real Liddell family. He alters their family history to suit his purposes (making Alice adopted, for example, and nearly marrying her off to Prince Leopold). And then, the kicker. Once Alice has returned to Wonderland, she thinks about the entirely loving family in England that she's spent thirteen years with and says to herself that she's come to love them, as one might come to love kindly captors. Charming. The Liddells were real people, and the only reason that we know their name today is because of the family connection to the Alice books. They deserve better, all of them. The cover is nice, but those robots sure do look familiar...

7. Cat, by Katharine M. Rogers
So, the Global History food books I've been reading? This is the same publisher's series on animals. Same basic concept, a concise and readable history of a particular animal. Very focused on social history, which is fine. I'm more interested in that than the biological history anyways. This series is massive, and I'm looking forward to some of the more unique books. (Eel! Giraffe! Cockroach!).

What's the word for really good Pokemon luck? Because I seem to have gotten it. My friend allete got me a used copy of Pearl for Christmas, and got herself a used copy of Diamond. Imagine our surprise when we booted them up today and discovered both had complete Pokedexes.

Ok, so they didn't have all of the Pokemon still. We're not that lucky! But between the two, we have four event Pokemon (Darkrei, Shaymin, Manaphy, and Arceus), a bunch of legendary Pokemon (including three Giratana, Palkia, Dialga, Ho-Oh, Kyogre, Rayquaza, Entei), a few Eevee evolutions (Flareon, Glaceon, Jolteon, Leafeon), and several starters (Torterra, Infernape, Blaziken, Larvitar, Chikorita, Chimchar, Typhlosion) and all of the Regi- series. There's also an unhatched egg in one of the games, and who knows what that could be. Needless to say, there won't be any new games on either for awhile. We're planning on transferring the good ones from Pearl into Diamond, since Diamond has more nice ones, and using that as a Pokemon treasure chest. I think every type is represented by at least one high level Pokemon, with a lot of level 100s thrown in there. This is going to make completing my Pokedex a lot easier.

It's been a bit, but in my defense, I haven't really been on much the last week. Anyways, I've read three books since.

I am Legend, by Richard Matheson: Another of those classics of speculative fiction I'm trying to crack away at. And it was quite good. Foretold pretty much the entire zombie genre, even though it's about vampires. And quite an ending. The copy I read had ten more short stories afterwards, (Hell House was not one of them) which were a mixed bag. It seemed that the shorter the story, the better it was. I skipped the last few entirely.

Soup: A Global History, by Janet Clarkson: This is part of a series I've been reading on: Edibles, published by Reaktion Books. All of the books are very similar: 100-150 pages of pretty solid and very readable history of one particular food item, nicely illustrated and written by somebody knowledgeable. The covers all look about the same, too. The more I've read previously on a specific subject, the more I can see how it's just scratching the surface (Spices, for example, was more than a bit vague in spots.) but it's good for an introduction or for food items for which there is no more comprehensive history. Pancakes, for example. I'm obsessed with food history, so I read a lot of books like this.

Skin, by Adrienne Maria Vrettos: The other books I've seen by the author fall into the realm of the fantastic, so this seems quite a departure to me. The main character is the younger brother (Donnie) of an anorexic girl (Karen) whose death scene is the first chapter. Then we're shuffled back in time to (almost) watch the progress. This is the only YA book I know of that deals with the issue of eating disorders from the perspective of a close family member, not the person dealing with it. Which is a good thing, and a bad thing. A book from this perspective was sorely needed, and when it deals directly with Karen it's very, very good. But Donnie is flat out obnoxious. I don't want his perspective, because I don't want to deal with him. His issues (many of them of his own making) distract away from what I felt should have been the main point of the book: Karen, how it affects his family (this also hamstrung by a breaking-up-the-family plot with a pretty nasty father), and what happens after she's gone. When the book is focused on that, it's excellent, and makes a good counterpart for Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls, which was probably the best YA I read all year.