Books Completed March 2023

 Comically late for some reason. Wait, the reason is I worked too much this month. Whoops!

 

 

A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne - Another little free library find. I think I was expecting more of a classic "young man's adventure story", but this was written while that pattern was still being figured out. Heck, this might have set the pattern: You had your genius, eccentric know-it-all; your taciturn, inexhaustible strong man; and your somewhat clueless youngster along as a cipher, off to some mysterious destination. I did not expect the first several chapters to be dedicated to solving some random cryptogram. Also, spoilers for a 100+ year old book, just because the journey is to doesn't mean they actually make it there, which... weird to a modern reader. I liked the mushroom forest and its inhabitants, and the sea monster fights, which for some reason played out in my mind like Harryhausen scenes.

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir - This is the first book I think I've read with multiple Achewood references. I struggle with books with large casts or shifting narratives, which is basically the point of this series, but I keep coming back to it and just going limp for some parts. It's probably deserving of a more focused reading (or reader), but I'm having fun. Getting some gaps from the previous two books filled in by a long series of flashbacks was appreciated and well-told.

 

I don't like that it's continuing an apparent trend in modern sci-fi authors of "whoops, Earth got too bad, better build a lot of spaceships and move everyone to another planet". I hope we can start realizing that fixing what we've got is so much less complicated than this trope. I realize it's a story hook, but I worry it's being popularized this way.

Irish Fairy & Folk Tales by W. B. Yeats - Coincidentally finished this on St. Patrick's Day, which was neat. This collection from 1892 grabbed me for how grounded in places it was. A lot of fairy tale collections have been polished or aggregated to be "long ago and far away". These were "two hundred and eight years ago, there". Like, the history of specific rocks. Many of the tales were written in dialect and ostensibly collected directly from cunning folk who had direct contact with the faeries, or just one degree of separation. The quality of this actual edition was really bad unfortunately, with offset pages and tons of scanlation errors.

Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire - I wonder if knowing this was part six of a series before I read this Christmas present would have influenced my read at all. It's a standalone story, but maybe there were established patterns I could have grabbed on to. I felt adrift in this one. There were maybe five acts, and the connections between them felt weak, with characters just kind of drifting out of the story. It lost a point for "and then someone knocked her unconscious" at least once. I probably just wasn't the audience for this one. I did like the attention that was paid to how the main, human character having feet would interact with a world where all the inhabitants had hooves, at least.

Work (The Nib #13) - Another nice and pointed collection from The Nib. Always glad when one of these show up. The bumps about obsolete jobs of yore were great. I'd read the entry about the Pinkerton Agency online before, but it was good to get a refresher on these bastards. "Not Working" was a hopeful piece, and I'm wondering what I can do to help that along.

Bea Wolf by Zack Weinersmith, illustrated by Boulet - I preordered three copies of this and then forgot about them. Nothing like a present you get for yourself (and each of your siblings' kids). What a fun approach to this classic. I should go back and read some more bits aloud, the language really feels both ancient and modern at once. The illustrations are a pleasure as always, particularly the villains, and I liked their attention to having a diverse cast of kids. The afterward was interesting too, and has led me to order a copy of Headley's new translation that I'm looking forward to.

Books Completed February 2023

 

 

 

A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow - A Christmas present from my wife. I read this novella in one evening. It's an adaptation of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale rooted in the present day, peppered with allusions to the many versions of the story through cultures and time, and flecked with adaptations of Arthur Rackham's classic illustrations of the same, so, yeah. A lovely little tongue-twister of a book whose Superman-tattoo-sporting supporting character's description made my wife go "oooh". I read another book by Harrow in my first book post, and this one touched on a lot of the same themes.

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers - Another Christmas present! From my wife! It's been a few years since I read the first book of this series, but I got about a third of the way through before I started doubting my memory. After checking a summary online, I was back in, assured I wasn't spoiling anything and we were off on another branch of the story with some different characters. This is has some deep, relatable considerations of what non-human consciousnesses interacting with humans might experience. I have the next two on my shelf and am looking forward to them.

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki - Same origin story as the two above. The story here centers heavily on violinists and makers of violins, furiously passionate about their crafts each. I enjoyed reading it and Aoki makes it relatable, but it's a thing I've never been able to connect to that deeply. The idea of giving up your life for a single perfect performance. This all intertwines with an intergalactic war (again, possibly resolved through music?), the difficulties of owning a donut shop, and the challenges of transsexual existence in modern America. A ride and a parable I wish I was better equipped to comment on.

Token by Gabriel Robinson - Hey, another Christmas present, but from my brother this time. This is so cool because I was part of getting him into RPGs a few years ago and now he's recommending them back. This is a two-person, GM-less, one shot game about a human exile and a humanistic beast circling each other in a threatening wilderness. It's heavy on evocative tables and suggestive illustrations. I don't know if I could ever play this, but I love the craft of it and the potential of the tables and sample scenarios.

Soul Food Love by Alice Randall and Caroline Randall Williams - This was my selection for Black History Month. It's a cookbook focused on a Black family's history through four generations of kitchens. Some of the recipes are really function as anchors for stories, like the tequila ice: Pour an ounce of tequila over a couple ice cubes isn't much of a recipe, but at the end of a tale of a mother did this to regain control over some threads of her life, it hits differently. The recipes I would most like to try are the sweet potato broth and the Chocolate Communion, which is a brilliant way to serve dessert for a crowd.

Odious Uplands by Jason Sholtis - The sequel to Operation Unfathomable, whose reading a few years back had me backing this Kickstarter. A strange and lethal RPG sandbox. For me the most believable aspect was also the part I couldn't imagine working at my table: The land is swarming with imperial agents thirsty for bribes and officially charged to confiscate any magical items or relics they encounter. I love an RPG book where the author is also the artist, it gives such a clarity of vision. Could have used another proofread, though.

Books Completed January 2023

Apparently I'm going to keep doing these posts in 2023.

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan - Got this one for Christmas from my wife. This was pretty out of my regular fiction comfort zone. I tend to get lost in large casts, and this book had dozens of characters coming and going and running all over the map (there's a map in the front cover, it's that kind of book). There's a main character, but I'd be hard pressed to call her a hero, and all the antagonists are acting out of understandable motives. It ends being set up for a sequel, which would explain some inclusions along the way that didn't make a lot of sense to me while I was reading them, like the one-page scene where someone's trying to invent firearms that's never referenced again. I think this might have been a case of "that was beautiful, but I didn't like it".

The Book of Gaub by Lost Pages - I Kickstartered this back in 2021, but pulled it off the shelf at random as a quick read. It's a book of system-agnostic horror magic that I don't think I'd ever use at the table, which opens with a lengthy content warning and discussion of the X-Card and Lines & Veils. The physical book is really nice, heavy paper with a weird blue/purple iridescent cover featuring an embossed monstrous hand. Actually, I do think I could use this minor magic item at the table: "Grimy bucket. When lowered down into a well on a property, it will fish up a single bone of one of the deceased previous owners, regardless of where they are buried."

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor - A Christmas gift from my sister. This one was creepy! I used to listen to Night Vale a lot but kind of fell off and the catalog is so huge now trying to come back as a listener is kind of intimidating, so it was cool to be able to check in through another medium. My favorite terrible faceless old woman "prank" was leaving a Honey-Nut Cheerios box full of tarantulas in someone's pantry. Well done.

Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut - Another Christmas gift from my sister. I have read a fair amount of Vonnegut, but hardly anything in this short collection, so that was a nice surprise. An impactful selection of stories about war and its aftermaths, plus the text of the last speech he was to give but was never able to deliver. I like his approach to science fiction where the miraculous is there to allow him to explore how people would react to a strange situation, and not as the focus of the story itself.

Color (The Nib #14) - One of my favorite collections since I subscribed. The short history of orange, both as a color and a fruit, was extremely interesting, as was the longer piece about the history and science of gendered colors. Blurbs throughout about poisonous sources of pigments from around the world through history tied it all together.

Happy Cruelty Day! by Bob Powers - My laptop died in January, and in the process of setting up a new one I found myself going through reams of old bookmarks. One was for http://www.girlsarepretty.com/ which I used to follow via RSS before it stopped updating, and it turns out they put out a book. You're... probably not supposed to read these in a go like I did. Microfictions of despair and abuse and absurdity and horror and hope, with no fear of dropping you in the middle of thing and letting you figure out the vignette, or not, presented like something like the inverse of daily affirmations. Powerful stuff, I think That's The Black Sludge Part Of You Day! is one of my favorite examples.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers - The first book I read in 2023 was this short novel my wife gave me for Christmas. I really enjoyed this, it was hopeful without being maudlin, and I haven't read a decent "person versus nature and self" story in a while. If I was still seeing my game group on the regular I would have brought this along and made someone take it and pretend they were going to read it.

Books Completed December 2022

 Well, that's a whole year of doing this. It wasn't a New Year's resolution, just an impulse I had at the end of January after realizing I'd chonked through a lot of my Christmas stack. Still it feels cool to have stuck with it for a year. I'll probably keep doing it.

The Goon Library vol. 3 by Eric Powell - Halfway through the Library collection here. A lot of tension wound up in the first two volumes starts to release here, to the general misery of all involved. It's a story of greed and loss and pining, which isn't something I'm usually into, but it's so expertly constructed here that it's worth it.

I do have to call out that there's no favorable reading you can give to the encounter with the monstrous "tranny", though. Also when the characters are handed over to other artists/writers for filler content they're never nearly as strong - without the grounding of the City and Lonely Street, the "lol random baboons with razor boomerangs" just falls flat.

Powell can present some serious monsters though, both in behavior and appearance. Even with my huge Christmas stack of books, I'll probably read vol. 4 in January.

Bob the Angry Flower by Stephen Notley - I've been reading this strip online since college, and it recently celebrated its 30 anniversary, so I decided to pick up some print copies. Actually I decided to pick up one, but it's print on demand and flat shipping, so... I got four: "Pamplemousse", "X", "How to Operate a Chair", and "The Unthinkable".

Even the old ones still hold up. I have to admit I didn't read every annotation, but the ones I did were interesting additions and helped ground the comics in the time they were written. Which, we're revisiting the rogues' gallery of Bush II here a lot.

Two church community cookbooks - Specifically "St. Mary's Wrentham 75th Anniversary" and "Tasty Trinity Tidbits Wrentham, MA". I have stacks of these things, and two more got added at Christmas. I enjoy the similarities they all seem to share (you're always going to get at least one recipe for Impossible Cheeseburger Pie straight off the Bisquick box) while hunting for the one "wait, what" each one almost always has. In the former books' case, that was a curried banana desert, and in the latter, a reuben casserole which honestly sounds amazing.

Sometimes you get old-school diet recipes, too, which are always... intriguing. Finding penned-in stars or stained pages are hints the recipes there are worth trying. Always buy the most damaged second-hand cookbooks possible, I say. Throw in some outsider art and some folksy "recipe for a happy marriage" nonsense and what's a better way to blow 20 minutes and 25 cents.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum - This is such a weird book. I've read it before but every time I'm struck by how bizarre it is, and that, given its age and the fame of its author, basically none of the entire Santa mythology it created has made it into the modern Christmas zeitgeist. I got enough of a bee in my bonnet about how weird it was that I had to write up a little RPG bestiary for the Awgwas, Knooks, Goozle-Goblins, and what-have-you.

I watched the 1985 Rankin & Bass animated special of this last year. Somehow that manages to be even weirder than the source material. There's apparently also an animated one from 2000 I haven't touched yet - maybe next year.

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett - Not sure how many years I've read this for Christmas now, or how many copies I've given away. Ten maybe? This is such a fantastic book on so many levels, and something I look forward to as part of the holiday season now. Every year I think I find a new joke (this year it was "All cisterns go!"), but the old ones still slide in there skillfully. Mr. Teatime is one of the few fictional characters I'm genuinely afraid of. The way all the incredibly disparate threads are woven together by the end is a mastercraft of storytelling. We'll see how long I manage to hold onto this copy, which I finished on Christmas Day this year, in the twilight glow of the tree.

A Short Bestiary of "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus"

"The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus" by L. Frank Baum is an adventure I read every year these days, and I was struck by how well some of the descriptions of immortals and their foes would translate to an old-school RPG. So here they are. It's public domain, so read it yourself and write your own monster stats if you disagree, Merry Christmas.

As always, images from the original 1920's book when available, and Rankin & Bass when not. 

Not included, though interesting, are the Water Sprites, Sleep Fays, Sound Imps, Wind Demons, and Light Elves.

Ryls

 

HD 1 AC none Thorns 1
Move Normal Int Low Morale Normal
Wants protect plants, destroy ravagers

Little first cousins to the nymphs, who watch over flowers and plants. They are merry and light-hearted, loving laughter. Their king lives in a distant meadow of gay flowers and luscious fruits.

Each attends a particular type of flower and takes its color for its name and simple garb. (The Yellow Ryl tends the buttercups, for example.)

Gifts: Can bring food, and paint the color of their plant.

Fairies

HD 2 AC as chain (flitting) Golden Wand deflect
Move Fast, flight Int High Morale High
Wants protect mankind, destroy tempters

Dressed in white gauze with rainbow-hued wings and golden wands. They are usually invisible and unknown to mortals. They honor a great queen who protects a magical pool which grants beauty to those who bathe in it.

Golden Wand: Each turn, a fairy can reduce the damage from one attack by 2d4. The attacker takes the same amount as the damage flows back to them (but no more than the attack could have caused). Multiple fairies working together can turn back dragon breath. 

Gifts: Can bring cloth and tools. 

Knooks

 

HD 3+1 AC as leather (gnarled) Spear 1d6
Move Normal Int Normal Morale Brave
Wants protect beasts, destroy monstrosities

Old and worn and crooked, anxious and rough, gray beards and scowling brows. They love courage, and are gruff but friendly. Knooks are known by names like "Will" and "Peter". Their great king lives in a distant jungle.

Each band are particular to one woods, but they share a secret language of whistles by which friendship is known. They can teleport creatures between their woods if all parties are willing and friendly.

Stinging Gnats: Once per day a knook can set a swarm of stinging gnats against a foe or recalcitrant beast. The target is blinded and slowed and cannot concentrate. Any area damage destroys the gnats, but damages the target as well. Submersion or strong winds may help.

Gifts: Gather and work (dead) wood and leather from animals that died of old age.

Nymphs

HD 4 AC as chain (wooden flesh) Ash Switch transmute
Move Normal Int Normal Morale High
Wants protect trees, destroy defiers

Tree colored, slender, dressed in oak-leaf green and sandals. They are curious and proud.

Cause Fear: In defense of forests and trees, a nymph can cause 2d4 HD of creatures that can see her to save or flee in fear.

Ash Switch: A creature struck by a nymph's ash switch has its speed reduced by a category. Anything rendered immobile by this effect is transmuted into a clod of dirt.

Gifts: A nymph can seal a dwelling against unwanted incursions.

Awgwas

 

HD 6 AC as chain (huge, tough) Stone d10
Move Slow Int Average Morale Proud
Wants tempt mortals to mischief, become king

They were of gigantic stature and had coarse, scowling countenances which showed plainly their hatred of all mankind. They possessed no consciences whatever and delighted only in evil deeds.

Their homes were in rocky, mountainous places, from whence they sallied forth to accomplish their wicked purposes.

The one of their number that could think of the most horrible deed for them to do was always elected the King Awgwa, and all the race obeyed his orders.

Limited Invisibility: Invisible to mortals, but not immortals.

Tempt Mortals: Whisper in a mortal's ear to give them advantage on their next check or attack to a petty, cruel, or quarrelsome action.

Bat-Winged Demons from Patalonia

HD 3 AC as leather (flapping) Immiserate d6 morale
Move Normal flight Int Average Morale High
Wants flap through the air spreading misery

Three-Eyed Giants of Tatary

HD 8 AC as plate (gigantic, thick walls of flesh) Slam x3 d8
Move Slow Int Average Morale Brave
Wants fight!

Goozzle-Goblins

HD 1 AC none Sword-Talons d6
Move Normal Int Average Morale High
Wants flay flesh from bones

Wherever a goozle-goblin dies, a thistle will grow.

Books Completed November 2022

I worked too much this month, but still managed to read a bit.

 

 

The Song of Roland, translated by Frederick Goland - Another one pulled from my wife's history master's bookcase, though she has no recollection of owning this or reading it. I would swear it was her copy--there's notes about wanting a dog and getting a power wheelchair and calling out all the whatever might pass for romantic moments in the text, but she'd also sooner put a knife through her hand than write in a book so I guess I have to believe her.

Goland's introduction is a text in itself. An efficient primer of French pre-history with a summary of the song, and then a really gripping few pages of how a modern reader can try to understand the nigh-mythic history among the "religious time" the song lays out. I read The Bright Ages earlier this year and that was an important primer to this concept. Then we whiplash to a lesson on poetic meter that I tried to carry forward into my reading but, hey, sometimes medieval French syllabaries don't carry into modern English perfectly.

 

Now, the song itself. I read it in two minds. As a D&D player, I cast my mind back a bit to the 70s, and earlier, where this might be a place you could get heroic two-handed swords (repeatedly) shearing through shields and skulls and hauberks. You can worry about supply lines! You can be operatic! The oliphant! The linens and silks strewn under the bowers for war councils! Really, if you can divorce yourself from the slaughter, the imagery is lovely.

 

But it's also a propaganda text. It's about the creation of a state and the glory of dying for your lord, who will be so very sad for your sacrifice. But now that you've martyred yourself, he's free (and obligated) to abduct the heathen queen you've liberated. Thousands of people die in "glory", but Charlemagne gets to be great!

 

Horses and swords and shields all get cool names though!

 

The Three Imposters and Other Stories, by Arthur Machen - I started reading this in October, in line with Halloween goals. For whatever reason, though I'd read this a couple times before, this collection really shone this year for whatever reason.

Now, I could write a whole post about each section of this book, and I started to, but there are only so many hours. Here's what stands out: The whiplash of each story's plodding Victorian pacing and the sudden, shearing terror that cuts through the moments of revelation.

Here again we have the impossible drug from a weird chemist formula, btw.

I wish I was a little better tracking characters across stories. "Inspector" Dyson is here several times, and I think the joke is that he's worthless but lucky? Not sure, I'm bad at this.

There's a wordy introduction by Joshi here too but eh, this guy.

That poor man with the spectacles. Should have shaved.

Atlantis and Other Lost Cities, by Rob Shone, illustrated by Jim Eldridge - This is just a kids' book I found in a little free library, but look at this cover. This cover is awesome, if I were 11 when I found this I would be obsessed with lost cities all my life.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/2fEAAOSw0Z1fqKrp/s-l1600.jpg

 

The Goon Library Volume 2, by Eric Powell -  Let's read more The Goon! It's like 80% great and 20% embarrassing!

Books Completed October 2022

 

The October Country by Ray Bradbury - I read this every October. This year, for whatever reason, I was struck by how many of the stories really revolve around bad or damaged relationships, regardless of what weirdness is also going on.

• "The Dwarf" - The two non-titular characters have an abusive relationship. It's not clear if they're friends or dating, but the carnie belittles the woman at every opportunity.
  
• "The Next in Line" - The worst of them all. It's sort of the point of the story, but the husband in this one is just awful.
  
• "The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse" - The marriage is actually pretty okay, and they seem supportive of each other. But then the story is really about a sort of tug-of-war of exploitation between the main character and the hipsters.
  
• "Skeleton" - Guy's doctor hates him, guy's wife is mildly supportive but doesn't really seem to care about her husband starving himself to death and puking in the flowers.
  
• "The Jar" - Another one where it's the terrible relationship driving the plot. There's a veil over it but it's also heavily implied the husband kills his wife for cheating on him which... cool.
  
• "The Lake" - Seems to be going good then the whole marriage turns out to be hollow and perfunctory.
  
• "The Emissary" - Kid's mom is clearly exasperated with him being sick all the time. Half of the good relationship dies on page 3, and that absence drives the rest of the story.
  
• "Touched With Fire" - This one does not hold up well. The concept is relatable, with temperatures rising these days, but holy hell Ray poured every vile stereotype about women he could dredge up into the woman on floor 3.
  
• "The Small Assassin" - Almost! The husband actually seems to be taking his wife's concerns and stress seriously. Not quite enough to save her, though. And the doctor is in this one is, again, a twit.
  
• "The Crowd" - The only real relationship in this one is between two friends, and it's pretty believable actually.
  
• "Jack-in-the-Box" - Just 20 pages of screwed up mother issues.
  
• "The Scythe" - Pretty believable and supportive marriage, particularly when you consider what people will do to feed their kids.
  
• "Uncle Einar" - A straight-up happy marriage, with passages that dwell on how they bring out better things in each other. Nice! (For some reason I always picture Einar as Gilbert from The Sandman, but with wings.)
  
• "The Wind" - Two friends, one with a problem, and the other trying to support him. The latter's wife though berates him constantly for being concerned about his friend, and doesn't believe anything he says about the troubles. Nice trust setup there.
  
• "The Man Upstairs" - This is probably my favorite story in this book, it's extremely Bradburyish. There's the relationship between the main boy and his grandparents, which is loving in that kind of bemused way.
  
• "There Was an Old Woman" - It's the absence of relationships here at all that feels weird.
  
• "The Cistern" - Jesus.
  
• "Homecoming" - Probably my second favorite, and Einar's here again. The story centers around a normal boy's relationship with his monstrous family, and it's... sweet and sad at the same time. About as healthy as you can imagine.
  
• "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone" - And they all lived happily ever after.

I found The Ray Bradbury Theater on streaming and watched a few episodes based on stories in this collection (The Crowd, Skeleton, and The Man Upstairs). The show does not hold up too well, to be honest.

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury - Another one I read every October. It's a young adult book so it's not that much of an investment, but it's a fun little tradition. I don't know how well the history of Halloween presented here would hold up to modern theory and research, but I don't particularly care, it's a romp, and I love the illustrations by Mugnaini.

This has one of my favorite Bradbury lines, set off in a paragraph by itself: "The scythe fell and lay in the grass like a lost smile." However, I did notice on this reading that Ray could never pass up the opportunity to make a smile simile when describing scythes, I think there were four in this book alone, and he does it in "The Scythe" in the collection above, as well.

I looked up the animated movie after reading this, too. I didn't watch it because I remembered doing so a year or two ago and thinking it was pretty bad. I was surprised to read that Bradbury considered it one of the better adaptations of any of his work.

Hokushai, a Graphic Biography by Giuseppe Lantazi & Francesco Matteuzzi - This is a graphic biography of a man I admit I knew very little about at all. It was a birthday gift for my wife from a friend, so it was out on the table. It's also a brief history lesson on the Edo period. Nice art, well-told story, interesting framing. It did bust out the "samurai didn't use guns because they weren't honorable" chestnut though which makes me wonder how accurate the rest of the facts were. I did no additional research to find out.

The Goon Library Volume 1 by Eric Powell - I picked up 5 volumes of this on sale years ago, and pulled this one on a whim. I hadn't read any The Goon in a long time and was surprised how well it holds up. There's a lot of early-2000's "lolrandom" going on but if you get past that there's genuine pathos here, and fear sometimes and the art's great, and the core story is still just spot on. Plus you get "Release the giant zombie chimp!" Will probably dust off the other volumes soon.

The Willows and Other Nightmares by Algernon Blackwood - This is the very fancy Beehive Books edition, illustrated by Paul Pope. "The Willows" really is an eerie little tale and a good one to revisit around Halloween. It never sits quite right with me, though, how The Swede conveniently knows all this arcane knowledge.

 

This volume also contains "Accessory Before the Fact", "Smith: An Episode in a Lodging-House", "An Egyptian Hornet", and "The Man Who Found Out." I don't think I'd read those last two before - "The Man Who Found Out" is bleak.

A lot of care went into the production of this edition - it won some design awards when it came out. It very much feels like you are Reading A Book when you're reading this book. The illustrations are evocative, particularly given the vague and otherworldly nature of the subject matter, and are placed through the stories really well to not break the flow or spoil anything.