Category Archives: as a reader

Roundup of interesting and cranky things

as a reader

This podcast episode (part one of two) about Thomas Kinkade was a hell of a listen this week. Like a lot of middle-class(ish) Americans who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, this art was omnipresent in the atmosphere for a large chunk of my life. And as an enthusiast of jigsaw puzzles and embroidery, let me tell you, this aesthetic is still inescapable in certain quarters.

But inadvertently, these episodes also illuminated (ha) for me how I feel about other forms of art built to be technically skilled, hearken to a mythical small-town past, and avoid any hint of complexity lest it make anyone uncomfortable for a split second.

That kind of art makes a lot of people feel warm and fuzzy and uplifted, and that’s great for them. I hope they enjoy it. They don’t have that effect on me, though. Maybe I’m just a broken human being; I don’t deny that. But it was gratifying to me to hear that someone else out there is left cold by the sort of thing that’s supposedly universally appealing.

I’m not going to be a snob about it — if you love that kind of art, in any medium, I love that for you. But they don’t hit me the way they’re intended to hit their target audience. So I guess I’m just not in their target audience.

Some threads with interesting book recs:

Books with ace/allo romance : r/LGBTBooks (reddit.com)
It must be Yell About How Great At the Feet of the Sun Is o’clock again, how time flies.

Looking for ace/aro protagonist : r/LGBTBooks (reddit.com)
A shorter list, but one with some good references.

(Am I dealing with guilt over having an aspec antagonist in my next story? Obviously, yes. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.)

Book Catch-up: I Don’t Know What Cozy Is, plus chainsaws

as a reader

As of this morning, I’ve finally finished all the books I bought during the first Cozy the Day Away Sale in April. Yeah, four months ago. I bought about 30 books, I’m a slow reader, and I jumped in and out of the list as well as other unrelated books. But now we’re done!

And I have even less idea of what “cozy” is than I did when I started. Well, that’s useful information in itself. I’d hoped to learn, and I did; just not what I expected to learn.

More books: I am apparently simultaneously a 14 year old boy and a 45 year old woman with two kids

Behold: paper!

as a reader

Just got back from the local science fiction / fantasy / horror literary conference, Confluence — as a fan / reader, obviously, and as an aspiring something-or-other, I suppose. The event continues — it’s a 3-day conference — but since I didn’t know what to expect or whether I’d be wildly out of my depth, I just went for most of one day.

And I had a great time. Attended some panels, watched some concerts, shopped in the dealers’ room:

More print books than I’ve bought in the last two, maybe three years combined. Feminist SF anthologies, solarpunk short stories, Things I’ve Heard About A Lot But Haven’t Gotten Around To, a nonfiction book my spouse handed me with a comment like “this looks like it would be up your alley” (it’s the plague one), another nonfiction book, and a writing prompt workbook from a local literary organization. Oh, and a cute little resin dragon figurine, one of two we picked up there. (Chibiterasu already lives here. The other dragon went on our Nerd Wall in the dining room.)

A quick jaunt, all things considered, but thought-provoking and interesting. For as long as I’ve been writing and as much as I love it, talking about it has almost always been an online-only phenomenon for me. Social anxiety is a huge part of the reason, of course. But that’s one of the things I wanted to test today: observing and soaking in some atmosphere without having to talk much with anyone. And because books and/or writing are things I could listen to people talk about literally all day, the fascination outweighs the fear.

We’ll see what the next steps are and how those feel. I’m glad I tried it out. My TBR pile will feel it, but hey. Worth it.

We’re doing this: The Book Catch-up

as a reader

I’m in the middle of a book that I’m dying to talk about — no suspense here, it’s Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle — but then I thought it would be weird to ramble about that, I only really talk about books at the year-end round-up when I dump out all the graphics from Goodreads and talk about all the books I read that year at once.

And then I thought, why in the world do I do that, anyway?

So I’m going to catch up on what I’ve read this year so far, more or less (rounded down to an arbitrary point, so I can pick it back up next time). It’s been a more themed year than usual, which has been kind of wearing; I usually jump around genres more than this. But it’s also been interesting in its own way.

Here we go.

Opinions.

Cozy the Day Away haul #1

as a reader

I’m not much of a book stockpiler. I love reading, but I don’t get as much joy from collecting and keeping books, per se. However, I was excited about this sale, and ended up getting quite a few books in the end. Time will tell how long it will take me to read through them all, but I look forward to it. (I’m currently midway through I Ran Away to Evil, so I haven’t even started yet…)

I have to go in some kind of order, so let’s say alphabetical by title. Mind you, there were lots more books on the list that I’ve already read, didn’t get to, etc. Nothing against any of them.

Artura’s Quest by Tagg Vermette
Awakenings by Claudie Arseneault
Buried in Friendship by T.M. Mayfield
Carry On by Celia Lake
The Crone of Midnight Embers by Iris Beaglehole
Curses & Cocktails by S.L. Rowland
Doll Girl Meets Dead Guy by Lidiya Foxglove
Dusted in Snowflakes by T.M. Mayfield
The Fae’s Bride by R.L. Medina
Familiars and Foes by Helen Vivienne Fletcher
Feathers of Dawn by Jess Galaxie
The Good and the Green by Amy Yorke
Guarding Gus by Karryn Nagel [who also organized the sale, applause]
How to Get a Girlfriend (When You’re a Terrifying Monster) by Marie Cardno
Inspirational Wink and the Altogether Extraordinary Notebook by Delaney Evers
Lollipop Monster Shop by Coyote J.M. Edwards
Love and Lab Extractions by Mary Stephenson Su
Love at First Lance by Gryffin Murphy
The Nameless Restaurant by Tao Wong
The Poison Paradox by Hadley Field and Felix A. Green
The Rogue and the Peasant by Amberley Martin
A Second Story by J.A. Collignon
The Tenfold Tenants by E.V. Belknap
Tools of a Thief by D. Hale Rambo
A Touch of Wrath by Arizona Tape
The Urban Underworld Omnibus by Gwyneth Lesley
Vanilla Bean Vampire by Selina J. Eckert
The Winter Feast by Rose Johnson
Working Under the Warlord by Fiona West

[edit: And even after the sale, a few of the books were still on sale, so I got another couple. Edited the list]

Thanks again to everyone who organized the sale! If you happened to get my book (a person can dream) and have any questions or technical issues, the Discord has a section for that (I’m there @SERobertson, very creative), or my contact info is over on the About page.

Happy reading!

A grab bag for February

anime nerd corner, as a reader

Today’s productive(?) procrastination: researching cover trends to decide whether I want to overhaul the Healers covers. The promo didn’t work; therefore, something must be wrong that keeps people from clicking. I honestly still like covers 1 and 3, but I have to face the fact that they don’t look like the other covers out there in the cozy/literary fantasy space. That’s a hindrance.

If I do end up doing this, then all my agita about print editions is out the window; I will, in that case, redesign the interiors too.

I find this all kind of fascinating to research, but wildly out of my wheelhouse (I am not a visual person at all). It’s also exhausting to have to make decisions about it. But hey. That’s the fate of self-publishing.

Listened to another podcast episode that got me to buy a book: Why Do So Many Coffee Shops Look the Same?

Likewise, this kind of analysis is fascinating to me and wildly outside my wheelhouse, as someone who is not visually oriented and has never taken to social media that is visually oriented. Have not read the book yet; I’ll get to it soon.

Recent reads/recommendations include the entirety of Greenwing & Dart (the series feels unfinished, but I loved it up to that point), Wyngraf’s Valentine’s Day 2024 special (adorable) and the first couple of omnibi of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (sad and adorable; will have more to say about this once I read the whole series).

Look at that, we’re halfway through the Winter 2024 anime season. TIme might be linear after all.

  • Delicious in Dungeon: Love it. Characterization is a breath of fresh air in a world of stale tropes. Opening theme is a banger. Calls on fantasy/RPG nostalgia without mindlessly copy-pasting. Only one notable female character so far (the other one is languishing in a dragon’s colon), but she is great despite being the party’s constant naysayer. We’ve been on the verge of cancelling Netflix among our raft of streaming services, and now I’m kind of mad that this has dragged me back in.
  • Mr. Villain’s Day Off: I think it’s accomplishing the “one joke” better than Too Cute Crisis did, which is why I’m still watching it. Not perfect — I’d like to dig six inches deeper on the characters they’ve established rather than just throwing in more and more new ones — but it’s refreshing to have a show that focuses on achievable work/life balance instead of throwing its hands up and saying “welp, the only way out is to die and get isekai’d, lol.”
  • ‘Tis Time for “Torture,” Princess — this season’s “this is so silly, and yet I’m still watching” pick. Nothing makes sense, but it’s oddly charming. Also not perfect (see the game of pervy chicken they’re playing with the paladin character), but mostly harmless. There is a large cast of adorable demons who take excellent care of each other and their prisoners, and I’m a sucker for that.
  • Have not started Sign of Affection yet; I’ll tackle it in the backlog later.
  • Backlog we’re still working on: Natsume’s Book of Friends, Isekai Izakaya, The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent, Revue Starlight. I had to pause RS for a bit when I didn’t have the stomach for drama, but I’m back in. Hidive, your days are also numbered. Sorry. Akiba Maid War was fucking fantastic and I’m glad I finally got through Penguindrum, but there are only a few more series I want to watch in your lineup.

edit to add: ooh, I forgot one! I started a Zoom guitar class. Having loads of fun. It seems like some of the general concepts I learned with the ukulele are carrying over, which is nice, but the strings are SO much sharper!

Friday the 13th roundup

anime nerd corner, as a reader, games nerd corner, Recs
  • One of the books I beta-read last year is approaching publication, and I want to plug it because I enjoyed it a lot: When We Walked in Memory by Charlotte Kersten. (If you are here from the cozy side of things, take note of content warnings first. Thanks!)
  • Almost done with the first draft of Therapist 5, The One That’s Basically Just a Fantasy Story Because The Isekai’d People Aren’t At the Center for Once. (not its actual title. Its actual title is The Sylvan Dragon’s Herald.)
  • Apparently The Healers’ Road has a vote in r/fantasy’s Top Self-Published Fantasy Novels, which is unexpected and fantastic. That sounds like sarcasm, but I promise it isn’t. As we close in on that book’s 10th anniversary, I am still awed and humbled that people have taken a chance on it.
    • I honestly don’t know what I’d vote, because I … don’t know what’s self-published and isn’t. I’d have to do some research. But I feel like I ought to have my own list, if only for plugging purposes.
  • Gaming: Currently 3 “years” into Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, a game I originally played on PS2 (it was originally on the Gamecube). It holds up fine, and I’m enjoying it – but I’m also reminded of how much Stardew Valley brought to the table in terms of giving the side characters depth. Like any depth. Hey, I know SDV built upon SoS:AWL’s foundation. It’s just interesting to reflect how far this genre has come.
  • Anime: We are watching Undead Unluck (my spouse’s choice) and will eventually watch After School Hanako-kun. I am weirdly tempted to try Crash Course in Naughtiness. (Not what it sounds like) However, I made the ill-timed decision to try to squeeze another previous season’s show in: Endo and Kobayashi Live! I truly don’t have time to explain this show’s premise. It’s entertaining a couple of episodes in, and it’s not very long. I continue to wander the earth looking for more comedy anime that works in translation. We recently burned through O Maidens in Your Savage Season, which… … … I’d recommend the first half? It’s funny. The second half, when it dives into drama, less so.