emma_in_dream

So, books in 2019....

111 books, of which 39 were non-fiction.

The vast majority of what I read was printed since 2000. There were 37 from the 2010s and 20 from the 2000s. After that, the most common decades were the 1990s and 1980s. I would attribute this to a lot of Bujold and Jilly Cooper this year rather than Georgette Heyer or Dorothy Sayers.

I read the first few chapters with a sense of yawning disappointment, but ended it with joy.


At first I thought it was a rehash of better fanfic I have read. Yep, polyamory. Yep, negotiations. Yep, it’s all told in the safest, least challenging way it could possibly be, all in the past and off stage.


I remember at a recent Swancon how there was a panel on women in sf and the people on stage, all authors, were about a million miles behind the audience. At one point someone on stage confused sex and gender and about five people from the audience corrected them. I don’t say this to slam the authors – or LMB – but to say that it feels like fandom has been having really robust discussions about these issues and is now more informed than many of the source creators.


But then there was a twist in *Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen* that totally engrossed me. The revelation was…

Apparently Lois herself commented favourably on this Pinterest site - not surprising as it is outstanding. http://pinterest.com/merriank/barrayar-dreaming/

I especially like Young Emperor Gregor dressed for a visit to the Imperial Space Cruiser Kanzian. This is pretty much exactly as I imagined him. (It is really Tsarevich Alexei wearing his "Standart" hat. Standart is written in cyrillic on the band of the hat. It was the name of the Russian Royal yacht.)

This reminds me of going to the St Petersberg 1900 exhibition where several of my friends spontaneously pointed out the similarities between this picture and the Dendari Mountains.

The real title is Autumn Quagmire by Arkhip Kuindzhi.

I continue to be depressed but still...

1, I have had a small victory at work.


2, I have made more delicious dried apples. I also experimented with dried carrot.


3, A new Lois McMaster Bujold exists in the world, though not, as yet, in a form I can read.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of *Shards of Honor*, the LMB mailing list compiled a reader's companion to *A Civil Campaign*.

It is really, really worth reading: http://dendarii.com/ACC-Companion.pdf

There were some points I had already noted and others that had passed me by.

Cut for spoilers.

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