Things to Read

Background:  Went to Wiscon last year (would nom again).  Got my brain filled up and emptied out and filled up again.  Discovered I have a taste for reading/thinking based cons rather than fandom fun based ones.  Going back this year.

Sometime before I moved up to Vancouver, I started having problems finding books that didn't feel like a waste of my time.  I mean, I knew they were out there, but I didn't really know how to find them and I was getting tired of brain candy and never-ending fantasy epics and while I still love non-fiction, there's a certain itch that it doesn't scratch.  After Wiscon, I thought the Tiptree award winners list might be a good place to mine for reading material, so I did.  Fortunately, we already own probably a third or more of the works on the list.  Unfortunately, the library system here is not the greatest and can't get for me most of the rest of the others.  Oh, noes, I will have to buy them, whatever shall I do.

It's been a very fruitful list.  I originally wanted to go down the list in order, but then I hit the library problem, so now I'm just reading what we have and what I can get my hands on and slowly (glacially, actually) working towards getting my hands on the stuff we don't have.  With as far as I've gotten on the list, I can say without a doubt that I want to own these works in person because they're absolutely things I will want to re-read.  I also hadn't meant to get as distracted as I have - when I hit the library problem, I started branching out into other works by authors on the list that are already on the shelf.  That was a good move to make.  

Tonight I finished Candas Jane Dorsey's  A Paradigm of Earth and half an hour later I'm still having the physical reaction of trying to catch my breath.  I was just that good. 

And I have no idea, no language, of how to talk about why.

My homework from my counselor for this fortnight is to try to remember what drew me to reading F&SF back when I first started, what my emotional response was (or, and is) and why it figures so heavily in what I seek out to read.  And I don't know.  I mean, I've been stewing on this question for over a week now and not getting any kind of insight into it and then I go and finish this novel that just blows me away and I can't even begin to try to talk about it because I don't know how.  I know I've had a strong emotional response because I can't get enough breath into my lungs, but I haven't the foggiest idea of how to put words or understanding to that meaningful physiological reaction.  I just run into this brick wall in my introspection that I can't seem to get through or around when I focus on it.

I'm gonna need some space before I start into reading another novel; it just wouldn't be fair to whatever followed, especially not the brain candy I was figuring on.  Time to go raid the shelves for some non-fiction to poke at other parts of my brain.

I finally convinced Picasa to behave and ganked the pictures from my phone onto the web.  Here they are.

Some of my favorites: lots and lots and lots of Lion Dancers.  It seems like every kung-fu club and benevolent association has a team.  Some of them had more fun than others.  The balloon dragon.  The fan dancers.  The shortest, smartest dragon in the parade.  Random white people in blue dragon armor.  A team of dragon dancers made up of small children and their bitty dragon.  And, of course, it's not a parade unless there are bagpipers.  Followed later by the viking band.

(imperatrice , I didn't know if you were ok with having pictures of you up online, so I took them out.  I can email them to you separately.)