Amanda > Recent Status Updates

Right, NONE of this is how any of this works. Any of it. Diabetic, academic, or otherwise. The spice better be worth this ridiculousness.

Okay, so the reason this book (and the first in the series) annoys me is I am theoretically at odds with it. It argues books exist as their own entities, some sort of holy, ideal state, which cannot and should not change.

For me, all stories - visual, literary, oral - only come into existence through an author-reader dialogue. All readers change stories.

Read some R/R theory, FFS. And some John Barth.

The fact this is calling an archive ‘the arcane wing’ and an archivist an ‘arcanist’ is making my eye twitch.

The words exist. You don’t need to *add* the witchy vibes. Talk to any archivist - the vibes are already there.

I feel like I’d be enjoying this more if I hadn’t *just* watched Saltburn.

How many times are you going to say ‘the mage’ or ‘the woman’? This isn’t the author’s fault - TOR needs better editors and I’ve been saying this for years.

I am 100% sure I’ve read something identical to this before. Especially the ‘any door is every door’ quote. Feels very old fashioned.

Oh it reminds me of Pern but without the wince factor…

Somehow this book is both compulsively readable AND boring at the same time. How?

Calling it now: Victorian Jurassic Park with a soupçon of mycophilia.

There is something about this book that irritates me and I can’t put my finger on it.

If nothing else, this is making want Chinese food *really* badly.

I’ll be brutally honest: this is not a conception of either postmodernism or historiography that I remotely recognise. Skeptical.

Getting the distinct feeling I’ve read pretty much this book before at some point. Not bad - just overly familiar.

That is not how academic publishing works. And a minor detail like that is not going to make you famous.

Yeah, you need a card to get into the reading room...

I’m being petty now, but: outside of Christmas, it’s really hard to find turkey sandwiches in Britain. Weird detail to get wrong; editor should have caught it.

Also St Pancras (which these days we’d more likely call Kings Cross) is NOT across the road from the BL. It’s a 5-10 min walk down Euston road.

Author’s clearly never been. Which is fine. But the details are really, really wrong - and a map and a website would tell you all of this.

Okay, I promised myself I wouldn’t let the inaccuracies annoy me but:

1. History study most certainly IS about documents and common people and not just names and dates and wars.
2. You can’t just go up to the maps room in the BL.
3. You also can’t just phone a friend to let you look at manuscripts.
4. BL reading room access and membership is highly restricted.

So this is basically just Lisa Tuttle’s The Silver Bough with a soupçon of The Silent Companions thrown in...

Reminds me of all of Robin Hobb with an injection of Anne McCaffrey and a tiny bit of Joanne Bertin. This is not bad, but it feels oddly derivative thus far.

Reminding me way too much of Charlie N. Holmberg’s The Fifth Doll to feel remotely new and creative. Holmberg’s book also had pace, which is sadly lacking here...

I could genuinely do without the fatphobia.

I could genuinely do without the fatphobia.

Life is too short for boring books, but sadly it is relevant to my research interests. Interminably dull.

So the chapter on eating disorders is downright offensive...

I freaking love this. I am low-key in love with Nathaniel, too.