Gillian > Recent Status Updates

So far I'm a fan.

Let's hear it for people-who-like-to-sleep-a-lot rep.

Almost at the end, babeeeey! Only 16 minutes left. I'm more and more lost but I'm determined to finish it.

(Goodreads gives such a tiny character limit for these ☹️)
I am interested enough in what happens to push through to the end, but I'm only listening with 85% of my attention so I'm getting more and more lost. However I'm also fine with only getting the gist of the events.
The narrator is good, but I may have liked this more reading it, and being able to skim the boring parts.

In the homestretch, finally!
I've really tried to get into this but now I've admitted to myself I find it kinda boring. It has lots of elements I'm intrigued by, but somehow the way MW mixes them together it just ends up... kinda dull. More of a focus on the details of action than I prefer, and less on characters and emotions. Lots of world building but somehow many of my questions still haven't been answered.

Ahhh! This is so much fun to re-read (re-listen to) and notice all the moments where MWT is subtly being super clever.

After The Buried Giant, I wanted a palate cleanser audiobook I could listen to while cross-stitching that was a) a straightforward story w/ easy prose, b) a book I'd read before so I wouldn't get lost if momentarily distracted, c) read by a narrator I liked, and d) available now at my library. After a long search I am happy with this! Bonus of getting to experience the story again, knowing the ending.

I have GOT to get in the habit of noticing dates/times/places given at the top of the chapter. Multiple decades as a reader and my eyes still skip over them. Then I end up lost and confused about chronologies.
Re this book specifically, I like it! Some great characters, really engaging prose, and what an opening. RR also does a great job with conveying the world of the book.

Listening and cleaning, yay!

Re-listening to this is great, b/c I have only the vaguest memory of the plot but every time something happens I'm like "oh yeah." Don't remember what's next though. Fitting for a book that centers around memory/loss.

Many of KI's books are difficult to summarize, and therefore to remember. Though this is one of his most "plotty" books in terms of events happening one after the other.

Yes, I really am in the middle of EIGHT books right now. And want to finish all of them. Well, probably not Cherryh's Foreigner any time soon, but all of the rest I'm very interested in. I just have zero attention span or focus these days. And to think I used to binge whole long series in a couple days! This is actually a reread, or rather re-listen. KI is so good at revealing info. And writing. Narrator is perfect.

Also, I never think of characters as my "blorbos" but something about Dorothea made me immediately go Blorbo! She's so weird and passionate and trying so hard to live a meaningful life while circumscribed by Regency England provincialism and misogyny, and only having Christianity to look to for inspiration. So humanly petty and judgmental, while genuinely being loving and wanting to do good. Aro and/or Ace? I <3 her.

1 hour in, only 31 left to go!
I picked this somewhat randomly because I heard Kate Reading narrating something else I wasn't interested in, but liked her voice. She's great for this! And I can see why it has stood the test of time to become a classic. GE is incisive, subtly hilarious, but kind and understanding underneath it all. The story so far is rambling scenes, but feels like it's going somewhere with it.

I'm trying to become an audiobook listener so I can do other things while I listen, but the problem is that if I do anything but the simplest of tasks I get distracted and don't pay attention to the words, and then I have to rewind. This is not the fault of THIS book; it happens to me with anything. But I'm intrigued by the story so far, and I like the narrator's reading. Plus I've made progress in my cross-stitch!

"This is a shockingly understaffed clinic. I don’t understand why the syndics don’t request some more postings from the Medical Federation, or else cut down the number of admissions; some of these aides and doctors are working eight hours a day! Of course, there are people in the medical arts who actually want that: the self-sacrifice impulse. Unfortunately it doesn’t lead to maximum efficiency. . . ." 😘ULG

Le Guin is brilliant of course. But it's fascinating to see what in 1974 were her limits of imagination on "society with total gender equality." As well as the *almost* total invisibility of queerness.
(This is a reread but my memory of details is fuzzy.)

Giving up and turning to Octavia Butler, who knows how to write *alien* aliens.

Maybe I'll come back when I'm more in the mood for political intrigue with a vague sci-fi flavor.

I'm still hung up on how un-alien these aliens are in both biology history and culture. Which is fine! It's Star Trek/Wars aliens! A common sci-fi setting for exploring relatively minor cultural differences! I just was for some reason expecting something grander. I'll get over it eventually (or I'll give up on the book). It all feels subtly but distinctly dated. 1994 was another era in SFF. I'll try to love Bren.

The other thing is that all the early focus on people doing science led me to believe this would be a more interested in scientific plausibility than it is. So I'm struggling to get over the aliens being very humanoid, and basically another culture only mildly unintelligible to humans. Not an evolutionary distinct planet.
Again, if I'd only looked at the cover lol.
This story about cultures instead. I'll get there.

It's interesting, it's just not where I thought it was going when I started. That's what I get for not only not reading the synopsis, but not even looking at the cover illustration very closely.
It just that I kept getting invested in characters and then CJC would whisk me forward in time several hundred years. So I still miss Taylor. And don't feel ready for Bren. Though evidence suggests I'll be with him awhile.

I'm confused about this book's approach to science, but I'm enjoying this alien encounter.

Maybe my adhd addled brain will be able concentrate on THIS one.

Outer space! Capitalism! Dune-esque pilots? I know very little about this book other than that I've seen Cherryh recommended by people whose taste I'm inclined to trust.

Reading this makes me feel like I'm on drugs. Something about the way it bounces around. There's an almost manic tone over everything that wasn't present in book 1. If I had a better memory for made up words it might be easier.
This may be brilliant or it may be terrible, I can't tell yet. Possibly both? It may out-clever itself. Or maybe it will end up giving profound insight into the human condition.

You know what it is? She (Christine Marshall) sounds exactly like the woman on (TikTok?) who makes those baby name parody videos—fish names, bird names, anatomy names etc. Just some very goofy inflections and overemphasis on odd words.

Miranda Mars is her name. It works great for her comedy videos! Baru is not that sort of comedy.

I wanted to listen to the audiobook instead because I want to close my eyes, but my goodness the narrator makes some strange choices! She sounds like the wife on The Truman Show. I do not think of Baru as someone with a chipper cloying voice 😂

Oh well. I can keep my eyes open I guess

Maybe I'm just not getting into the proper spirit, but this often feels more like the outline for a book than a fully fleshed out book. A lot of interesting elements are there but they don't gel for me into anything moving or special.

I also don't read much gothic literature so perhaps this is what it's like, but I'd expected more insanity. It's all somehow very tidy.