a journal of the plague year² [no end near]

Read the beginning of The Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu, who also translated Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem, and Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide. But I just could not find enough interest in the one-dimensional and cardboardesque characters or the shallow plot to finish his book. In a sense, it reminded me of Jin Yong’s Legends of the Condor Heroes, which I also could not finish.

Kept harvesting large amounts of raspberries, with a second round coming sound. And monitored the tomato patch rise, thanks to a very wet month. But compared with earlier years, the tomatoes are still far from being ready to eat. Hopefully they will resist our vacation break (if COVID permits!). We also harvested the first rhubarb stems in three years (that made for a marmalade) and our very first gherkins/cornichons.

Watched Possessed a fairly dark Korean TV series that seems to merge most of the tropes in the series I have watched so far, from the grumpy cop to the joker role, from evil spirits to slow-paced action, from numerous scenes in cars with tachometers reving up to hint at high speeds to even more scenes in a police station, &tc. Plus the characters giving in to horrible blackmail to “save” loved ones In short, in a sort of cheap trolley dilemna… Not a series I would recommend! And had a second look at The Witcher series, after painfully completing the books: it did not sound so great upon reflection, especially the threadbare battle scenes, even though some parts and characters made more sense after reading the whole series. But Dandelion (not connection with Ken Liu’s trilogy) is even more unbearable on a second run!

a journal of the plague year² [away!!!]

Read the last two volumes in The Witcher series, The Tower of Swallows and The Lady of the Lake, with some difficulty as I found them [again] overly stretched. Plus recycling a whole lot of older myths, like the Arthurian tale of The Lady of the Lake to start with. But the major battle scene in the final volume is worth reading and very cinéma-esque… And the slugguish construction of the characters’ arcs eventually make sense. If a bit too much of a happy ending imho. And I also read [much faster, mostly while in Marseille] the third book of the Eastern Bloc series by Olen Steinhauer, 36 Yalta Boulevard (the local equivalent of Lybyanka), a bit less exciting, if covering another aspect of the Eastern block countries at the time of the Czechoslovakian uprising in 1968. Less interesting because of the convoluted guilty-non-guilty scenario. Quite interesting for impersonating this time Sev,  the most ideological of the members of the detective team, for taking place in Vienna part of the time. Less realistic because by rendering Sev so realistically human and compelling, his blind adhesion to the Party line does not make sense, the more when exposing the corruption and double game of some of his superiors.

Did not cook much in the past weeks, first for being at CIRM (with an escape to Cassis for a nice if not fabulous dinner by the harbour) and then for going through the fruit and veggies crates we bought in Aveyron on our way back home (after carrying South-East wine South-East!). Would have enjoyed tasting some boar meat at CIRM, given how prevalent the animals are on the campus (with apparently no warning for guests).

Watched Strangers 2, the second season of the Korean TV series. Which I enjoyed even more than the first one. With the central characters being the same but (appearing) older and a stronger and less broken scenario, centering on the power struggle between police and public prosecution. And less of the chaebol‘s power struggle and recurring corruption. Plus a more central and less caricaturesque role of women. It is still unclear if and when the Season 3 will happen.

Locus awards 2021

After the Hugos, the Locus(es)! Here are the winners for different categories

• Science fiction novel: Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tordotcom Publishing)
• Fantasy novel: The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US & UK)
• Horror novel: Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey; Jo Fletcher)
• YA novel: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, T. Kingfisher (Argyll)
• First novel: Elatsoe, Darcie Little Badger (Levine Querido)
• Novella: Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom Publishing)

the liberation [book review]

The third volume of Ian Tregillis’ The Alchemy Wars arrived in the mail, and I could not resist bing-read it, induced by a heat wave that made anything close to serious work near impossible in the late afternoons… The characters are essentially the same, with two central (human) female characters whose trajectories once again converge to the critical point. Plus, two female robots playing a contrapunt. And the biblical Daniel, reborn from slavery into a free willed, tolerant and pacific being.

“The Clockmakers had been playing a losing game of catch-up (…) They were too soft, too coddled, too accustomed to standing atop the pile. They weren’t well suited to life as underdogs. They were not French.”

The core of the action takes place in Amsterdam, occupied by liberated robots, prone to pogroms as well as re-enslaving other robots. The weakness in the plot is that there is no strong reason these robots do not completely take over the formerly ruling Guild of Alchemists, and lengthy plot-resolving discussions between fighting characters always irk me no end, but the conclusion still feels proper, with the author not at all reluctant to hack at bits and pieces of his character to raise the body-count. À ls George Martin! And the mild philosophical musing about the reversal of dominant-dominated positions in this society are overall enjoyable if not particularly deep. Overall, a striking trilogy.

a journal of the plague year² [or the unbearable lightness of staying]

Read Haruki Murakami’s First Person Singular, a collection of short stories, some already published in The New Yorker, and quite diverse. Even with those I did not like much, I appreciated the enormous skill in making an uninteresting event or line of thought into something worth reading, while still keeping the thing utterly mundane. A super version of i-novel as well as a pastiche. Short stories like With the Beatles or Carnival are quite powerful. And The Stone Pillow even more. The cover of the book, with its  Shinagawa monkey reaching out for something adds to its appeal, even though the corresponding story did not really need the monkey [as a monkey].

Spent a whole Sunday morning preparing vegetables from the farmers’ market for the week, with mixed results as some turned sour before we could eat them! (No one got sick though!) And has a taste of our first strawberries [plentiful after a wet cool Spring], cherries [tasty, but which did not resist the onslaught of magpies, pigeons, and slaty-headed parakeets], rubharb, and potatoes [which grew on their own from discarded peel].

Watched Strangers, a 2017 Korean TV series. To quote the New York Times, “the murder mystery “Stranger” has less of the usual awkwardness and obviousness of many South Korean dramas as well as another big advantage: It stars the immensely likable Bae Doo-na as a fearless cop.” Indeed! Besides this central figure of Bae Doo-na, who also plays in Kingdom, the show is faster paced than others and steers away from both supernatural elements and romantic side-stories (if barely). The only annoying part is the constant upheaval of characters’ morals, who at one point or another are suspected of one crime or another. And the rushed final episode.