#Cris Reads Ancillary Justice

[rocicrew]

3? ^^

end-of-year book ask

3. What were your top five books of the year?

it is embarrassing that five books are more than half of what i read in the year but hey, the end of a degree and starting a full-time job will do that to you. thus this will not be the most accurate)

left hand of darkness, ursula k le guin

annihilation, jeff vandermeer

tiamat's wrath, james sa corey (this goes here for how much i cried, actually i might have cried more during lf but jsac i am still mad at you)

ancillary justice, ann leckie

ίσως #1, various authors (for being something different than usual while still in the genre)

[crisontumblr]

I am definitely glad I have a paperback copy of AJ at home (two, in fact, because I thought I'd lost the first one), because there are so many passages and lines I want to highlight--and also questions/notes I want to write in the margins.

I think right now the biggest thing for me is how there are just these wonderfully funny moments that are certainly a direct result of Breq's manner of speech, both as narrator and character in relation to other characters (and maybe some of that is the delivery from the narrator of the audiobook). Like when she's talking about her feelings regarding Seivarden's reassignment to the Sword of Naftas (and I'm sorry in advance if I misspell names; the one downside of listening to a book rather than traditionally reading it) by ending it with something to the effect of, "I didn't hate Seivarden. I just didn't much like her."

There are better examples, but that's the one that sticks out the most for some reason.

Also, I like how the book manages to jump between what's happening on Nilt--Breq's quest to get the gun that could kill the Lord of Radch--and the events that clearly sparked the motivation--but without feeling jarring. It's really hard to pull off that kind of thing in storytelling. Not only are you basically telling two stories at once; you have to make sure the reader doesn't suddenly feel confused when the timeline switches. I have more Writerly Feels on this, but my brain is jumping from thought to thought much too quickly.

Ngl, I thought the hardest part to follow would be the gender pronoun issue, because Breq (as do other Radchi characters) uses what we would consider feminine pronouns for everyone. It is, however, remarkably and wonderfully handled without feeling the least bit hand-wavey or forced. Again, more Writerly Feels about this, but better saved for when I'm not on mobile or falsely triggering an ICU's O2 monitor from how fast I'm typing.

Annexation. I want to know more about the process but I also don't think I want to know. It sounds terrifying just from all the vague references alone.

Also, I can't be the only person who felt a little bit satisfied when Breq punched Seivarden, right? Like, I also felt bad for her because it's clear she's been through a lot, but...

[fairweatherwayfarer]

you should do multiples of ten for the book ask!

a book that got you through something

I would say that Dreadnought by April Daniels got me through the early parts of my transition. It was nice to read about a character going through similar body changes and it resonated with me a lot.

a book that got you out of a reading slump

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It was a daunting book that was on my shelf for a while and I really wanted to tackle it!

your favourite middle grade book 

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

a book with a black cover 

The Universe in Bite-Sized Chunks by Colin Stuart

a book that made you cry a LOT 

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. Hands down, I’ve never cried harder from reading a book

a book that you think about at 3am

Hamlet by Willy Shakes. I don’t care that it’s technically a play and not a “book,” I’m always up late thinking about that dumb goth little twink.

your favourite poetry collection

Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón. She’s definitely one of my favorite contemporary poets.

a book that reminds you of a loved one

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie reminds me of my dear friend @kingkana because the main character identifies as a giant military starship who wants revenge and everyone is gay by default because gender isn’t relevant.

the longest book you've read 

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. 1,252 pages.

your favourite gothic novel 

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. One of my favorite lines is “he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.” Like Ms. Shelley....

your favourite psychological thriller 

I don’t really read thrillers and I wouldn’t call it a favorite but apparently the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins counts, so we��ll go with that.

a book about childhood friends 

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life by Wendy Mass

a book featuring flashbacks and/or intersecting storylines 

Count Zero by William Gibson does this really well but honorable mention goes to Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

[stillwinterair]

I did it! I read 33 books in 2020!

It’s been a shitty year, but boy, I completely blew past my goal. Previously, the most I’d ever read in a year was 16, in 2019. And before that, probably uhhh... probably in 2014ish, and probably only like 5, maybe 6. I never really considered myself a big reader, I have pretty severe ADHD and dyslexia, so this... this feels really big, for me, personally.

So, without further ado the full list:

Season of Storms by Andrzej Sapkowski (The Witcher mid-quel) -- finished January 4th, 2/5 stars

Star Wars: Hard Merchandise by K.W. Jeter (The Bounty Hunter Wars Trilogy #3) -- finished January 17th, 2/5 stars

Star Wars: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn (The Thrawn Trilogy #1) -- finished February 2nd, 3/5 stars

Migration by Julie E. Czerneda (Species Imperative #2) -- finished February 18th, 4/5 stars

Mass Effect: Revelation by Drew Karpyshyn -- finished February 25th, 2/5 stars

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) -- finished March 12th, 4/5 stars

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch #1) -- finished March 29th, 3/5 stars [this is the book I was in the middle of when the pandemic hit, so, that was fun, I read most of this book in a state of panic]

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (Goblin Emperor #1) -- finished April 16th, 4/5 stars [this was the first book I read while quarantined, so I didn’t have a reading regimen ironed out the way I did at work, so this one took me forever to finish]

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #1) -- finished May 3rd, 5/5 stars

Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks (Culture #1) -- finished May 21st, 3/5 stars

Caliban’s War by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #2) -- finished May 30th, 5/5 stars

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut -- finished June 1st, 4/5 stars

The Strong Shall Live by Louis L’Amour -- finished June 2nd, 3/5 stars

Larissa by Emily Davenport -- finished June 4th, 3/5 stars [see how close together the last several have been? I was really feeling it here but was also amidst a depression spiral.]

Abaddon’s Gate by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #3) -- finished June 13th, 4/5 stars

Regeneration by Julie E. Czerneda (Species Imperative #3) -- finished June 25th, 4/5 stars

Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #4) -- finished July 4th, 5/5 stars

Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #5) -- finished July 16th, 5/5 stars [began a different book July 5th -- The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold, but hated it so deeply I gave up on the 9th and immediately jumped to this book, objectively the right choice because this is easily one of the best books I’ve ever read]

The Assassin’s Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke (Magic of Blood and Sea #1) -- finished July 21st, 2/5 stars

Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #6) -- finished August 5th, 4/5 stars

Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente -- finished August 13th, 5/5 stars [read this book in one sitting, I loved it so much]

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb #1) -- finished September 9th, 3/5 stars

Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #7) -- finished September 19th, 5/5 stars

All Systems Red by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries #1) -- finished September 21st, 2/5 stars

Strange Dogs by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #6.5) -- finished October 1st, 5/5 stars

Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights by various -- finished October 12th, 4/5 stars [there were some truly 5/5 stories in here imo, but being a short story collection, the stinkers dragged it down]

Tiamat’s Wrath by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #8) -- finished October 19th, 5/5 stars

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse (The Sixth World #1) -- finished October 26th, 4/5 stars

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch #2) -- finished November 8th, 4/5 stars

Dragon Age: Asunder by David Gaider -- finished re-read November 18th, 4/5 stars [first read in 2014]

The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (Culture #2) -- finished November 28th, 4/5 stars

Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon -- finished December 14th, 5/5 stars

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch #3) -- finished December 28th, 2/5 stars

And that’s all she wrote! I had a blast! Didn’t read nearly as much fantasy as I planned to, the sci-fi clearly really drew me in this year. I’d also been putting off The Expanse for soooo long, but boy, it sucked me in like absolutely nothing else.

Standouts:

Caliban’s War, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, and mother fucking Tiamat’s Wrath absolutely blew me the hell away. Really, nothing quite compared to The Expanse, and these four in particular were just...... perfect.

Six-Gun Snow White was a goddamn weird one, but I couldn’t help reading it in one sitting. It really hit all the right notes for me. I could stand for some more wild west retellings of fairytales, you know?

Remnant Population just reeeally touched me. This is such a gorgeous little first contact story. Sometimes I think I hate slow-paced books, but then I find something like Remnant Population and I realize that slow pacing can be incredible. Oh, how I cried at the end of this one.

The City of Brass was just as good as I’d hoped! I can’t wait to read the sequel in 2021; it’s been sitting on my shelf since September!

The Player of Games just hit me right in my strike zone. I’d almost given up on the Culture series after Consider Phlebas, which I’d found really mediocre, but the character writing, pacing, world building, tension... everything just gelled so well in this book, I’m excited to read more Banks content.

Trail of Lightning was so good! Another book whose sequel is sitting on my shelf as we speak; the post-apocalyptic Navajo Witcher vibe was everything I ever wanted it. The cheese and melodrama were a little too much, but hey, I fell in love with Maggie Hoskie and everything about the Sixth World.

Tevinter Nights was exactly the Dragon Age 4 tease I’d been hoping for. There’s so much fun to be had here. I wrote reviews of each and every short story in the book here, if you’re interested!

[phosphini]

book asks: 6, 18, and optionally, 2

Book Asks

6. Okay. Okay so, you gotta understand. I don't have a job and have a lot of free time on my hands. And listen to a lot of audiobooks while multitasking. So. With that understanding. The books I've read so far this month;

Two books I started reading before this month but finished this month: -Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer -Dracula by Bram Stoker (yes i was Dracula Dailying) Warrior Cats: (Look, some people watch The Bachelor or Say Yes to the Dress. I read Warrior Cats. Sometimes you just have to.) -Shattered Sky -Darkest Night -River of Fire -The Raging Storm Graphic Novels -Clementine: Book 1 by Tillie Walden -Other Ever Afters: New Queer Fairy Tales by Melanie Gillman -Delicious in Dungeon World Guide: The Adventurer's Bible by Ryoko Kui Fiction -Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir -Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin -Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie -Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie -Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie (found out theres a new book set in the world coming out and reread to brush up!) Nonfiction -The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland -Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back by Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Gilblin Started but Haven't Finished Yet: -Mason Bee Revolution: How the Hardest Working Bee can Save the World one Backyard at a Time by Dave Hunter and Jill Lightner -How am I Doing?: 40 Conversations to Have with Yourself by Cory Yeager -The Found and the Lost by Ursula K. Le Guin (This is a collection of novellas so technically, that's uh, several more books sdgfh)

18. Historical novels... hmmm, I do read them but I don't think that I tend to favor any particular time period. Looking through books I've read a lot of them are WWII era but I think that's largely due to there being a whole fucking lot of books set in that time period, and they were really popular at the library I worked at so I read a lot of them so I could give recommendations. 2. Top 5 books of all time... This is fucking hard. 1. All Systems Red by Martha Wells. Goes without saying. This book is everything. 2. Tales From the Inner City by Shaun Tan. I cried at the dog poem. (I had to think hard to choose between this one and The Arrival tho, ...now I'm second-guessing myself, The Arrival is fucking mindblowing) 3. Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, but SPECIFICALLY the graphic novel adaption by Ryan North and Albert Monteys. The best adaption of a book to a graphic novel I've ever read. It's art. 4. A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers. All the books in this series are great but you know me I love an AI protag. 5. I Want My Hat Back by John Klassen. This is a children's picture book. And it's so fucking funny. I love it.

[3pblueberry]

some book recommendations

dai dark: it’s dai dark. it’s the shit. 9/10

artemis, andy weir: im dumb so i tuned out for a lot of the science paragraphs but on the whole fuckin hilarious and a great read. couldn’t put it down. 8/10

the neverending story: rereading for nostalgia purposes, mostly. spoilers, but there’s a part with this massive rainbow lion, and he’s like the personification of a burning death? basically no-one except the main lad can go near him or they’ll by incinerated instantly, so he’s horrifically alone. anyway he dies every night, and the main lad bastian cries over him cos his rainbow lion buddy is dead, and when this massively lonely lion comes back to life in the morning and finds tears on his paws... he’s quietly just like... “you grieved for me, the many-coloured death?” agh anyway it’s a good scene and it stuck with me. yes/10

chainsaw man: chainsaw man. 9/10

ancillary justice, ann leckie: go read this. just read it. do it. go. holy shit. i think about it still. basically, this AI with a thousand bodies loses all of them but one. (also she used to sing in choir with herself, and the last body is tone deaf lmao). genius sci-fi. couldn’t put it down. 9/10

project hail mary, andy weir: lol. equal parts stressful agony and absolute hilarity. excellent scifi. easy plot to follow. here’s a quick summary:

you’re welcome. low effort reading with a fun payoff. 8/10

[lesbian-brainrot]

20 questions tag

Rules: Answer any 20 questions about yourself and then add 20 followers that you wanna get to know better!

lol who has 20 followers? :’) thanx @diionysxs for tagging me in this xox

1. Name: Grace

2. Nickname: 

3. Age: 22

4. Gender: female

5. Orientation: bi bi bi 

6. Height: 5′7

7. Favorite colour: a nice royal blue

8. Book recommendation: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (pls.... pls everyone read this book.... pls)

9. Movie recommendation: The Handmaiden (2017)

10. Anime recommendation: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood ofc

11. Music recommendation: Ta-ku // Kan Walker

12. Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate? TEA AND HOT CHOCOLATE 4 LYF!!!!

13. Cats or dogs? MOSTLY CATS

14. Favourite meme: too many to decide uhhh but probably this rn

15. I want to live long enough to witness: the inevitable heat death of the universe

16. Weird obsessions: i’m a scientist so everything I’m into is weird but uh the mothefucking wnt signalling pathway

17. Tumblr birthday: this is my second account on tumblr, my first one was born Nov 2012 and  this one was born July 2016

18. How many side blogs? none on this account 

19. Random fact about me: i once cried over spaghetti

20. Goals for 2018: be more creative, improve fitness, stop procrastinating work until it explodes, continue growing!

I don’t actually have 20 followers to tag so i’m just gonna tag some of yall and u can fill it out if u want or if u don’t want @frostborn @satanneato @indecisivegeek @hauntback @hauntedlibraryscribbles @shallowhottie @nxpoleonsxlo 

[allanamayer]

My year in fiction.

As with last year, this post was brought to you by Bibliocommons’ Completed Shelf. Fuck yeah opt-in datasets. Anything listed here you can take as a recommendation; I’ve skipped over everything I didn’t finish or found underwhelming.

Another year, another list of awesome things I’ve read. I had a twinge around mid-year that I should start doing these more often because everything I’m reading is so wonderful. Buuuuuut let’s try this once more for now.

I delved more deeply into young-adult and kidlit this year, finishing off the Anne of Green Gables series, reading the last four books. After that I jumped right into Laura Ingalls Wilder, racism and all, and read the eight official series books. At some point later in the year I indulged in some personal nostalgia and reread two of the Louis Sachar Wayside School books that I cherished so much as a kid. I started digging around in how Canadian history is represented in kids’ reading, and discovered not just Afua Cooper’s My Name Is Henry Bibb, but also the Dear Canada books on a recommendation. I flipped through a number of kids’ biographies that aren’t technically fiction, but I’ll mention Stand There! She Shouted, a biography of Julia Cameron Mitchell that was really well done and a good mix of archival reproductions and new illustrations.

I also followed up on an adult author I love, Edward Carey, and discovered he had started writing some kids’ books about a mysterious and evil English industrial town called Foulsham. I read the first of these but haven’t gone back for more yet.

In adult books, I started with Fauna by Alissa York, an urban and modern setting unlike the books of hers I read last year. It did, however, flow nicely from 2016’s “books set in Toronto kinda” theme. I also read Behave by Andromeda Romano-Lax, which is a terrifyingly effective look at what women sacrifice when their male partners have careers in the same field as them. Wait, let me put that another way. What women sacrifice when they meet their partners in grad school and realize they’ll never be taken as seriously as them. No! What sucks about gender. There, that’ll do.

In February I went to Mexico for a short work-cation, and took Anna Freeman’s completely badass Fair Fight as well as some non-fiction, which didn’t last me very long. Luckily the hostel bookshelves contained Julia Alvarez’s fantastic and touching How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, as well as a relatively new copy of Wuthering Heights, which I had never read. It was so miserable I was actually pretty happy to get back to Villette as part of a long overdue group read - which of course ended up being both awesome and frustrating. After this I landed on Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, I think as part of that group’s discussions. Definitely less frustrating and vastly funnier. Oh yeah and I read North & South entirely on my phone from Project Gutenberg, staying up late and giggling into the covers - admittedly after I watched the adaptation on Netflix.

I would've watched North & South a long time ago if someone had told me it was about union organizing

— ҩȴȴҩηҩ (@allanaaaaaaa) August 16, 2017

Two books left me completely heartbroken and sobbing this year: Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and Katherena Vermette’s The Break. Between the two of them you have American and Canadian injustice pretty well cornered. Can I admit that while reading Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad I spent a lot of time thinking about going back and reading Homegoing again? I’m not trying to pit them against each other or anything, just, if you liked the former you should definitely definitely read the latter.

I was telling my boss about something I was reading, although now I can’t remember what it was, and she recommended to me Susan Orleans’ Orchid Thief, which I know, I know, and I had never actually made it through Adaptation before either, but the book of course was totally great.

In sci-fi, I read the followup to The Girl With All The Gifts, The Boy On The Bridge and maybe cried a little. I thoroughly enjoyed the series by Ann Leckie - Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Mercy, Ancillary Sword. At the end of the year I dipped back in for Provenance. I’ll mention Ted Chiang’s Arrival, too, although only some of the stories were interesting to me.

In post-apocalypse, there was Good Morning, Midnight, which was recommended to me as “Station Eleven-ish” and I mean it kinda was, but a little slower-paced and meditative and left just the right amount of information out. I read The Leftovers by Tom Perotta and found it fantastic. I also read Jean Hegland’s Into The Forest after finding out it was going to be a movie (this is admittedly a trend for me) and holy hell I did not at all expect the way the last few chapters panned out. Not even a little bit.

In fantasy, we found a copy of Patrick Rothfuss’s Wise Man’s Fear in a neighbourhood book exchange so I got Name Of The Wind from the library and read both of them in a very quick flash. Really wonderful world.

In art writing, I probably most enjoyed Barbara Shapiro’s Art Forger, although I most identified with Sara Baume’s Line Made By Walking. Like, a bit too much. I also really liked Andrew O’Hagan’s The Illuminations after I became short-term obsessed with Margaret Watkins, although it was hard to get into.

Also it occurs to me upon reflection that I never actually finished Anthony Doerr’s All The Light We Cannot See, even though it is a lovely book. I think I maxed out my tolerance for WWII depictions this year, for some strange unknowable reason.

I am way too lazy to do a non-fiction list, again, but that’s okay because this year I mostly just read trashy art-crime books:

Priceless by Robert Wittman

The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser

Provenance by Laney Salisbury

The Forger's Spell by Edward Dolnick

Seduced by Modernity: The Photography of Margaret Watkins, by Mary Elizabeth O'Connor

The Lost Painting by Johnathan Harr

… as well as Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, and the Josephine Baker graphic novel, the two most worth mentioning.

[jordannwitt]

Books I Read and Games I Played in 2017

In 2017 I made a list for books and a list for video games that I read/played during the year. Both lists are in the order I read/played them.

BOOKS - 17

Usually the only time I have to read is during lunch at work, but I split this time with comics as well, although I didn’t keep a list of those.

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin (I didn’t know the third book wasn’t out yet when I started this series T_T )

Black Powder War by Naomi Novik (I started this in 2016 but took a break halfway through for a reason I no longer remember)

Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Dark Tower III: The Wastelands by Stephen King

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

The Passage by Justin Cronin

The Twelve by Justin Cronin 

The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin (finally got to read the third book god bless)

Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen

Conspiracy of Ravens by Lila Bowen

Malice of Crows by Lila Bowen (I definitely cried at the end)

I finished that last book in September and have been reading the comic Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye ever since. It is Very Good and I never cared about Transformers before.

Video Games - 11

Honestly I would have played a lot more but once I got Overwatch I didn’t want to play much else.

Dishonored 2 (second playthough, this time as Corvo)

Thief (didn’t play very long; unfinished)

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided DLC - A Criminal Past (sorry for the long name but if you’ve played the full game, this is an excellent DLC) 

Night in the Woods

The Witness (unfinished)

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (possibly the perfect game?)

MarioKart

Overwatch (this is my life now)

Prey (currently unfinished but I’m still playing; it’s very scary) 

Destiny 2

Mario Odyssey

Metroid: Samus Returns (currently playing)

Games that I bought but have not had time to play because I was playing Overwatch instead: Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Horizon Zero Dawn.

Starting over for 2018 so if you have recommendations I’d love to hear them!

[howlsmovinglibrary]

Questions Tag

Rules: always post the rules, answer the questions given to you, write 11 questions of your own, tag 11 people

I was tagged by @the-bookler Much obliged!! ^^

1. What film or TV show do you wish there was a book for?

I really, really like Sense8 and I would love to read more stories about different clusters across the globe (and it would make up for the show having been cancelled *cries*)

 2. What was your favorite book as a child?

Other than Harry Potter, it was definitely The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce (the third book in particular.) I also loved Varjak Paw (cat ninjas!)

3. What’s the coolest book you own?

Ooh, this is a really cool question. Probably my copy of the new cover Deathly Hallows, which I received as a book prize from my university for doing well in an exam, so it has my shiny awesome college seal on the cover (pictured below).

4. If you could bring 1 character from any book to life to be your friend/partner/whatever, who would it be and why?

Temeraire from the Temeraire series because I WANT AN OVERPROTECTIVE PET DRAGON.

5. What bookish world would you like to live in?

Eh, I’m gonna say Harry Potter. There are a lot of fantasy worlds I would love to live in, but most of them are shit towards women so…

6. Worst book you’ve ever read?

*once more considers burning the copy of Ulysses I had to read in the first year of university*

 7. How do you treat your books- do you highlight, dog-ear, annotate, keep pristine, etc?

The more I love a book, the more likely I am to mistreat it because I know I’m never giving it away xD Annotating only tends to happen on the third read through – by then I know the story enough to want to add my thoughts to it. 

8. If you were to write a book, what genre would it be?

Fantasy Fantasy FANTASY 

9. Least favorite character ever?

Pamela from Pamela. That book is second only to Ulysses on ‘worst books I’ve ever read’. The only reason I pick Pamela as ‘least favourite character’ is because Leopold Bloom doesn’t have enough of a character for me to actively hate, whereas Pamela has enough ‘holier than thou’ personality traits for me to find her annoying. 

10. What book do you think everybody should read?

I don’t really have one, to be honest, because I’m not a fan of prescribing fiction to people. If you want a fun heartwarming book, The Girl Who Leapt Through Fairyland is definitely soul comfort food. 

11. If you could have your memories of one book wiped to read it again fresh, which would it be?

Ancillary Justice – I think when I read it I had such high expectations because of what everyone else had been saying about it. If I had been wiped clean of all that hype and come to it as a blank slate, I would definitely have enjoyed it more (it’s also still one of my favourite series so…)

  I’d like to tag: @thelibraryofmars, @nerdishfeels, @books-are-portals, @heretherebebooks, @logarithmicpanda, @mlledevoltaire, @magic-in-every-book, @theinkstainsblog, @aimeereadsalot, @bookcub and @thevajunglebook

I want to know a mixture of bookish and non-bookish stuff about people, so here’s my 11 questions: 

1. What is your favourite TV show/film?

2. Do you prefer science fiction or fantasy? (Neither?)

3. What is your ‘comfort food’ book, for whenever you’re ill/sad/tired etc?

4. If you could have any magical power, what would it be?

5. If you could rewrite any book, how would you change it and why?

6. Tea or coffee?

7. If you had the chance to become the ‘chosen one’/hero of an epic story, would you take it? (PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER vs. weight of the world on your shoulders/potential for extreme trauma).

8. Hogwarts house?

9. Least favourite book trope?

10. If you could dress up as any character from books or other fiction (not taking actual costume making skills into account), who would you choose to dress up as?

11. What is your favourite dessert?

[atherys]

Sometimes you go to do a thing and then anxiety kicks you in the shins and laughs in your face when you fall down. anyways, @annleckie , hi! I met you yesterday at the English Bookshop (girl in blue-white dress & jeans jacket, name of Emelie) and ended up getting my words mixed up in the entirely wrong order and not saying what I’d meant to say at all, so I figured I’d rectify that now, from the relative safety of behind a computer screen. 

What I said: I barely ever read sci fi and it took me 3 tries to get through your book

What I meant: I barely ever read sci fi, but the Imperial Radch trilogy made me want to. Sci fi literature has so long felt like such a boys’ space, and such a technical space, and of course it could just be that I’ve been looking at all the wrong things, but mostly I’ve just felt alienated and not-really-allowed. I found Ancillary Justice through going to my local bookstore and asking them for fantasy or sci fi with HBTQ characters, and after hearing their pitch I was sold pretty much instantly (languages! artificial intelligence! FULL FREEDOM TO PRETEND LITERALLY EVERYONE IS A LESBIAN IF I FEEL LIKE IT!), but it still took me several months (and a sudden influx of several tumblr people I like crying about the trilogy) for me to properly sit down and read it. 

Ancillary Justice was very enjoyable (if you disregard the betrayal i felt concerning the fate of a certain lieutenant.......) . Acillary Sword & Mercy basically physically dragged me out of a months-long no-reading slump, and it was so, so good. Breq is amazing and I love her so much. Tisarwat is amazing, and I love her too. Honestly we can just cut this part short and say that everyone is amazing, and I love all of them. I laughed, I cried, I had to put the book down to process things, and then I laughed and cried some more, and then I got to have the experience of being wayyy late to all the fandom in-jokes, and trying to catch up with all of it in one night. Good times. 

Going to stop now, but basically: sorry for earlier word-mishaps, thank you for a really really good series, and then double thumbs up because I was at the panel discussion about Artificial Intelligence and sentience and it was super interesting. (you may consider this another +1 to please write the evil robot artist story.) 

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Also, I've finally decided that if I'm going to be here a while, I'll finally tackle this like I have long been meaning to, thanks to seeing @oyveyzmir post about it enough to intrigue me.

Currently relistening to chapter 4 because last night I drifted off and woke up halfway through 5 without remembering a thing. (I think I already love Breq.)

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Recent Reads

Aka, books I’ve read recently that I loved and want to tell the world about

Imperial Radch Trilogy (Ancillary Justice/Ancillary Sword/Ancillary Mercy), by Ann Leckie

The best thing I read in 2016. Space opera in which the main character is an AI who goes from multi-faceted station control to being trapped in a single body (and obviously on to save the universe). Also, the AI can’t recognize gender. I loved every page.

The Thousand Names (series), by Django Wexler

Flintlock fantasy – cannons, muskets, and magic – led by a badass lesbian commander who is possessed by a demon, and also posing as a man. Fuck yeah. Downside: the series isn’t yet completed. 

Borderline, by Mishell Baker

I inhaled this. It's not a strenuous read, but it's not every day your relatable protagonist who gets involved in some intense magical parallel-world shit is a double amputee with mental health issues. 

Wayfarers Series (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet/A Closed and Common Orbit), by Becky Chambers

The best thing I’ve read so far in 2017. Multi-species crew on a ship that drills wormholes, gettin' wrapped up in some bad shit. Interspecies relations beautifully explored. Holy shit, you guys. I had to stop partway through the first one to go order the next one online. And then when I got it, I stayed up til 4am reading it. I cried several times and am emotionally committed to pretty much all the characters. I hope she writes more. 

....Side note for anyone who has read the Ancillary Justice books and the Wayfarers books... Does anyone else really really want Breq to make friends with Sidra and Owl? Somebody should write a coffee-shop AU of that. I mean, it practically writes itself...!

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Ohohoho my friend you should have never given me so much power with the get to know me post haha Here it goes (for now) : 2 ; 8 ; 13 ; 30 ; 42 ; 55 ; 56 Now suffer haha

cut bc i like to prattle on about myself

from the “get to know me, pick some numbers” ask meme

oh god what have I gotten myself into

2. what would you name your future kids?NameError: name ‘future kid’ is not defined

In all seriousness though, I’ve never thought about this bc I don’t want kids and I’m ace so if I did suddenly want kids they’d most likely be adopted. I guess in the event that I needed to name kids, I’d probably want to name them after scientists, the way I name all the other things I name in life. So… Marie, Isaac, Albert, Emmy, etc? (after Marie Curie, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Emmy Noether, etc.)

8. have you ever cried because you were so annoyed?I can’t recall ever doing so. For me crying generally happens out of extreme happiness or extreme sadness. I did kick a wall out of annoyance when I was a teenager once. Only once because it was painful as fuck so I never did it again, haha

13. how do you feel right now?tired, and lazy, I just spent several hours skiing. a bit hungry, also a bit thirsty. I should prob get some snacks/water soon

30. favourite tv show(s)Yuri!!! on Ice (obviously), Star Trek, Steven Universe, Rick and Morty, One Punch Man. I don’t generally watch a lot of shows compared to most people I know

42. favourite book(s)The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (haha, funny that this is #42); that series really helped me deal with the absurdity of life when I was hella depressed. I can quote passages of it from memory bc I’ve read it so many times. Also the robot series by Isaac Asimov, consisting of The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and The Robots of Dawn; it’s a buddy-cop-type series with a human cop and a robot forced to work together and the worldbuilding is fantastic; Asimov comes up with a lot of intricate cultures for different cities and planets. Also the (mild spoiler but really it’s predictable if you know the genre) friendship that slowly builds builds between the cop and the robot is pure af (and I totally ship it ahahaha). Other books that I also really like: Redshirts by John Scalzi (a really fun satirical take on Star Trek), and Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (hella good epic sci-fi stuff from the perspective of a sentient spaceship in a human body). 

damn, I need to get back into reading again bc books are lovely

55. tumblr friends

ah everyone on this site is so nice, honestly, it surprises me every time

but anyway oh gosh I’m worried that I’ll forget someone; so, people I’ve talked to with a fair degree of frequency include you, obviously (silotia), katsuki-victor (aka ljoongi), theroarinourstars, inthequeensenglish, and yuudachi

(not tagging bc i’m sneaky like that hahaha)

(oh yeah if anyone reading this wants to be my tumblr friend just say hi! because i never initiate conversations bc that’s scary and i assume that people don’t want to talk to me by default. but i’m always happy to talk, just be warned that i’m terrible at making conversation so you may have to carry a lot of the topics)

56. favourite food(s)

chicken fingers, probably, though they have to be the really good restaurant kind, none of that frozen shit. (i mean, i eat the frozen kind sometimes when i have little energy and i need food, but it’s always a bit saddening when i do.) i also really like katsudon (it’s one of the things i ordered most often from japanese restaurants even before I watched yoi!) cinnamon rolls are a lovely dessert, and guacamole is also fantastic and I’m so glad I can make decent guac myself.

phew okay as usual i put in way too much detail, but yeah. thank you for the ask!

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"Do you remember anything from before?"

[...]

"That person is dead."

👀

Why does this whole scene feel like intense foreshadowing?

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Here is the other thought I keep having: Breq is/was an ancillary, right? And ancillaries are created via annexation, unless there's some other way to make them that I've missed/don't yet know about...

So who was Breq, originally?

Does she have a past life she doesn't know about? Is it even plot-relevant? It bothers me to think about, regardless.

I am definitely glad I have a paperback copy of AJ at home (two, in fact, because I thought I’d lost the first one), because there are so many passages and lines I want to highlight–and also questions/notes I want to write in the margins.

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