Month: August 2015

reading

Hugo Awards 2015

Sonia Lal2 Comments

The Hugo Awards are over for another year. Most of the puppy categories won No  Award.

I didn’t vote and I didn’t watch the live tweeting. I suppose that means I am not invested or not invested enough. (The last. I am not really invested enough in fandom, not enough to spend hours and hours of my life submerged in it). This is also the only year I seriously considered getting a supporting membership. I never thought it might be necessary before.

But I am not truly displeased with the results of the voting. In the years I have been watching the Hugo Awards, I never have been really displeased with the results. Disappointed, usually, with a category or two, but never truly displeased overall.

I expect the drama will start over again next year and that’s not something I am looking forward to. Maybe I will vote next year. Maybe Martha Wells will finally be nominated for a Hugo. (If I do nominate anything for next year, Martha Well’s short stories and novellas will be on my list).

reading · Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesday: Of Noble Family

Sonia Lal12 Comments

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! 

My Teaser:

In short order, the assembled ladies worked through the ordinary pleasantries, establishing that it was uncommonly hot for this time of year, that they were thankful that they had coldmongers on staff who could use glamour to make the air cooler, and then moving on to admiration of the newly arrived chest of tea. Nothing was so cooling, was the general consensus, as a cup of strong tea on a hot day.

– Of Noble Family by Mary Robinette Kowal

fantasy · reading

Coffin Not Broken When Zombie Rises

Sonia LalLeave a comment

I was reading an Anita Blake book. She’s raised a zombie, put it back and now they are digging up the grave, to see if there are problems with the zombie.

So the characters dug and talked. If this was a modern grave, they would have to open the coffin. Even if something had gone wrong with putting the zombie back, they were perfectly safe because it would be in the coffin. Modern coffins are steel.

I am thinking: The zombie would have broken the coffin, steel or not, to get out in the first place. When you put it back, the coffin would still be broken.

It is so weird. So very, very weird.

General · reading · Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesday: The Curse of Chalion

Sonia Lal16 Comments

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser:

“I, ah,” Cazaril pointed back up the track. “I’d stepped off the road a moment, to take shelter in that mill up there”—no need to go into details of what he’d been sheltering from—”and I found a dead man.”

– The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

fantasy · reading · Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesday: Ink and Bone

Sonia LalQuote28 Comments

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I just started Ink and Bone and so far it sounds pretty good!

His divine wisdom can kiss my common arse. We blind and hobble half of the world through such ignorance, and I will not have it. Women shall study at the Serapeum as they might be inclined. Let him execute me if he wishes, but I have seen enough of minds wasted in this world. I have a daughter.

My daughter will learn.

– Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine

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Non-Fiction

Ancient City Near St. Louis

Sonia LalLeave a comment

Today’s random Googling landed me some info about an ancient city close to where St. Louis is today.

Who knew there were ancient, mysterious cities right here in this country?

According to this National Geographic article, the city lasted 300 years. It is  called Cahokia today, though who knows what the inhabitants called it? There were enough houses for thousands of people. It may have died because of weather changes – it became drier, the land less fertile.

The idea is positively fascinating. I mean, the idea of an ancient city right in this country whose origins and end is a mystery.

I am thinking knowing more could prove inspiring, for some future story. There are even books on the topic. So, yeah, I think this will be next non-fictional read.