Becca Stareyes

Best Novels 2013

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:36:09 GMT

So, once again I'm voting for the Hugo Awards, Science Fiction and Fantasy's major awards. Sure, it costs money, but I get all kinds of free ebooks and magazines and comic PDFs (sadly not free movies and TV shows).

So I figure I'd blog about what I read. Especially since this year I'd actually read four of five novels up for best novel before they were nominated.

In order of my (probable) voting preference (voting is done by ranking the nominees, then run-off style counting, a la the Australian election system).

1. Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas, John Scalzi Redshirts starts as a parody of Star Trek -- four crewmen get assigned to the fleet flagship, where they discover that things are weird. People (but not any of the senior officers) keep dying on away missions, there's a magic box in one of the science labs that will give you a solution to any problem with an impossible deadline slightly before the deadline, and the poor Russian lieutenant keeps getting the shit knocked out of him. And the only one who claims to know what's going on is a hermit who lives in the maintenance tunnels. Where it goes is a meditation on the nature of free will and what makes good and bad fiction, as well as explaining why the Intrepid is so damn weird. Plus, Scalzi is a funny guy.

2. Blackout, Mira Grant My only problem with this one is that it's the last book of a trilogy. Thankfully, both other books in the trilogy have been up for Hugos. And, you know, I'm a fan of Mira Grant's writing. The Newsflesh trilogy is a thriller/near-SF series set several decades after some idiots break into a lab and release an experimental virus that is the final piece needed to create a zombie plague. The book is and isn't about zombies: there are plenty of action sequences and it's obvious that 'the dead rise if you don't take steps' shapes the world, but the plot is about information control and secrecy (and government conspiracies). I like the characters, the dialogue is witty, and -- for a series where science did an 'oops' -- scientists are portrayed as human beings, with the range of moralities that entails. (The same goes for journalists, which the protagonists are, and politicians.)

3. Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed This is the type of solid book that I definitely want more of. It's nice to see different places and times being used as inspiration for fantasy -- Throne obviously takes its inspiration from the Islamic Golden Age -- and to let older characters take the protagonist horns. While two of three narrators are young people, the third is a grizzled old ghul hunter wondering if he should just retire before his job kills him, and we also see his friends, a married couple. It's a pretty solid adventure story and I hope Ahmed writes more in this world.

4. Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold Another series book, this one in the ongoing Vorkosigan Saga, and one of the few books in that series where Miles Vorkosigan is reduced to a cameo role, probably because the only way to keep Miles from taking over is to make sure he's not on the same planet as the plot (even then, that's no guarantee). Instead, Miles's cousin, Ivan -- a fan favorite -- gets protagonist duty as he gets pulled into an offworld power struggle and discovers his step-father really needs a (less dangerous) hobby. Ivan gets dragged into rescuing a charming young lady who happens to be part of a Major Family on Jackson's Whole (the designated Scary Cutthroat Corporation Planet), so gets to deal with her relatives, the people who want her and her relatives dead, and Ivan's family (some of whom are Important People who pay attention to Interplanetary Politics). There's also a lot of standard romantic comedy tropes, though thankfully none/not many of the stupid ones. It's a solid Vorkosigan Saga book, but I don't know how well it reads to non-fans.

5. 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson. So, first off, one thing I like about a lot of Robinson's books is that he does worldbuilding quite well. Half of this book was an excuse to send the protagonists all over the early 24th century's solar system, where giant cities travel across Mercury on rails, always keeping just ahead of the dawn, and people body surf in spacesuits in Saturn's F Ring. The problem was the plot was a bit all over the place: the first half of the book focused on the divide between the spacers and those left on Earth, and we're expected to believe that one grand gesture (done without Earth's permission) fixed that. That and one of the protagonists was (intentionally) grating: a woman a century old who could live to twice that who still acted like she was a rich and bit spoiled 20 year old.

I read the strangest things sometimes...

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 22:00:31 GMT

So, someone on Plurk linked me to a post on Tumblr on Homestuck!troll* linguistics by a biologist (xenobiologistforhire) who wished her fandom aliens were a bit more alien (basically 'why do semi-aquatic insect aliens handle English so well when their breathing apparatuses evolved under potentially way different conditions?'). Ended up reading the entire blog, because while all I know about Homestuck is from RP and my friendslist, I am a sucker for xenobiology. And the author did cool things with parasites, which I always like. (See also: why I love reading seanan_mcguire's writing.)

A lot of the thinking paralleled some stuff I was working on in some of my writing (not the insect-y bits but how species that evolved from aquatic critters might gain vocal cords, and also why terrestrial vertebrates evolved with our food and breathing tubes attached and how that's not necessarily an obvious choice for aliens.

I really ought to write more about fictional species biology, especially if folks can comment on it.

* I'm kind of fascinated by the Homestuck fandom, despite being unable to get into the canon. Mostly because the bits I find interesting (weird imperialistic aliens who are forced to interact with humans or possibly just decided to invade) don't occur until well into the story (about kids in a world-creating/destroying video game with time shenanigans) and the story itself seems like an exercise in 'what the hell is going on now?'. And given how finicky I can be about fan shipping wank** and crotchety I can be about Tumblr, I don't really want to get involved in it directly. But I find it interesting from a meta point of view because it seems like there's extensive gardens of fanon and convention that may or may not exist in the canon. But that's just my outsider POV.

** See: the Avatar fandom. Any of it.

So, Star Trek

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Mon, 20 May 2013 00:09:25 GMT

I did enjoy the movie; it was entertaining, the action sequences were well done and Uhura got a couple of Nice Moments, making up for the last movie. (Still a bit in the 'most of her character development is as 'Spock's girlfriend' though.)

Well, a few things, but most of those could have been cleared up with a bit of extra dialogue. Like instead of having a volcano that could destroy a planet, you could go with one that would cause a mass extinction and get the same effect. "Destroy the biosphere' if you want something that sounds really scary and takes up the same amount of space.

Or beaming down Uhura after Spock during the final confrontation. Her tactics are good (distract Khan by shooting him repeatedly until Spock can hit him over the head with something heavy), but why send the comm specialist instead of a security person? (Besides that we don't have one on the main cast.) Given the Enterprise is in shit shape and it's a minor miracle the transporters are working, you could have the comms down so it has to be bridge crew and Sulu or Uhura point out that she's probably the least needed to 'make sure nothing breaks before we can evacuate and/or make better repairs than 'have Kirk kick Important Things until they line up again''. Or say she cross-trained as a security specialist or something.

(Side note, can we get the female crew some leggings? Something about both Uhura and Carol Marcus (granted, hers was 'try not to die in three-way fight') doing action scenes in the tunic dress makes me want to give them both some pants.)

(Also, obligatory wondering why they cast a white-looking British guy to play a character with a name that sounds like he's from the Indian subcontinent and who was played by a Mexican actor in the original.)

(Also obligatory realizing that Khan's plan didn't hold together all that well in the early bits before he realized things like 'the captain is moral enough to not bomb a criminal from a 'safe distance''... if Kirk had obeyed orders, Khan would be dead, and Admiral Marcus would not.)

The main thing was... okay, so the Enterprise comes out of warp in Earth space, at about the distance to the Moon. Marcus's ship does so as well, and starts shooting. Unless Marcus's allies in Section 31 have a lot of pull, why isn't whatever early warning system the Federation has screaming bloody murder and starships scrambling to figure out what the hell is going on. (Regardless if Marcus's ship is marked or unmarked as Starfleet... anyone firing phasers and torpedos that close to Earth should be checked out.) Especially since the Federation just lost a planet to 'guy with spaceship and desire to cause trouble' in the recent past and ya know, the Klingons. If a fricken fleet of Klingon ships warped in and started shooting anything that moved, that would be good to know about. (And I'm pretty sure Klingon honor permits showing up with a fleet on a species that is too stupid to defend its homeworld and informing them that you are taking over. Actually, Klingon honor probably mandates that is a cadet training exercise, because it's not worthy of real warriors.)

(Maybe because Khan shot up the command staff of the ships in Sector 001, but that implies that there are ships and crew, just a lack of captains and first officers. You can't even say that 'the Federation lost all those ships to Nero, so is shorthanded on starships', because earlier in the movie you say that you got ships in the area.)

Now I wonder how do you defend planets in the Star Trek universe where space is big and ships are maneuverable. It implies starships (and lots of sensors looking everywhere) are the best choice, rather than static phaser arrays -- even low Earth orbit is a lot of space, and a ship could stand back and fire torpedos (or rocks). I suppose it depends on the range of phasers and how effective anti-torpedo fire is...

One Thing I Dislike about My Apartment...

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:15:48 GMT

The heating/AC system is switched over manually twice a year, so we can't have heat and AC on successive days. Given New York has mild enough summers there are only a few times I actually use AC (mostly at night, because it helps me sleep), this normally isn't a problem...

... except there always seems to be a couple of days that get unseasonably cold right after or right before the changeover. Like today. It's currently 8° C/46° F outside at 11 AM. Which would be a nice day... in January. (My apartment is 66° F; it might have been warmer except I forgot to switch the thermostat over to 'cool', so it was trying to warm the apartment without the heat being on... which doesn't work.)

Thankfully I have plenty of blankets. On the other hand, the urge to just build a nest in them and not come out until the temperature cracks the double digits in Celsius is pretty strong.

Circumstances...

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Tue, 07 May 2013 01:38:04 GMT

Between

+ The rough draft of the last bit of research I'm doing being with my adviser who is...
+ ... in Brazil for the week with half our research group (so no group meeting) and
+ ... no classes so no normal events at the office,

I'm tempted to just take this week and spring clean the hell out of my apartment. There are a few work-related things I can do, and a job or two I can apply for (though two of three recommendation letter writers are out of the country), but really telling myself I can procrastinate by cleaning is kind of nice. Maybe it'll motivate me to clean my storage closet or bring some of my used books and clothing to places that are not my apartment and can use them.

Life Update

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:15:56 GMT

I feel like I should say something clever, but I don't got any of that.

My allergies, even with pills, are in the stage where I feel like there is something caught in the back of my throat. I've been reading a lot, so I should do a book review or two, but a lot of the books were re-reading the ones on the Hugo List. I'm done with the novels, and I could probably read the two novellas I own. It's kind of nice to know what I'll be voting for now, though I suspect that my top choice will not win the Hugo.

Writing and drawing is slow right now. I need to kick my muse in the butt. Maybe this weekend.

Also, I need to clear out all the books and clothing I own that I'm not going to use. More and more it sinks in that I expect to move in less than six months, which means clearing out years worth of... well, crap... I've accumulated. (maybe I shouldn't have skipped the clothing swap a couple of weeks ago, even if I mostly gave things rather than picking anything up.)

Also, i really should learn how to drive this summer.

I am cleaning today

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 20:39:44 GMT

So, have a few fanfiction things, since I am too busy or tired to be coherent.

Fan_flashworks is a themed challenge community for all fanworks and fandoms on Dreamwidth and Livejournal. Come and check us out!

Basically, you get a theme every 10 days, and can do anything for it. If you say I sent you on your first entry, I get a toaster badge.

Not Prime Time (AO3 collection)
npt_admin on LJ | npt_admin on DW | Not Prime Time tumblr
Frequently Asked Questions | Not Prime Time 2013 Tag Set
Not Ready For Prime Time (Fandoms), or otherwise known as Not Prime Time, is a gen, het, femslash, and slash multifandom secret fiction exchange for medium sized fandoms. This is for the fandoms that are no longer eligible for Yuletide but are not megafandoms.

I nominated a few things, like Slayers and Vision of Escaflowne and Legend of Zelda and Legend of Korra. (ATLA qualifies as a megafandom.)

And now for something completely different.

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 02:23:17 GMT

I'm stealing a meme from swan_tower. Basically, post the opening lines of the last 21 fics you wrote.

Because I did at least 20 drabbles in January, I'm going to do this twice, once for all fics (which should all be at invoking_urania, but I have a backlog of things to post there), and once for all my longer fics (which I usually archive over at beccastareyes). You can play guess the fandom, but I name canon characters or use fandom-specific terms in nearly all of these lines, so it'll be the least exciting game ever.

Warning: I spoil a very long list of fandoms in this, because apparently I like to write drabbles that are reactions to Shit Has Happened. The non-drabble list is moderately safer, but I still mention at least one 'this character dies in canon'.

All Fiction
1. "Shaun didn't remember much about Georgia's funeral." -- "Lillies"

2. "Zoe was conveniently missing." -- "Laundry Day"

3. "Picking through Burmecia with Zindane, Vivi and Quina is the hardest thing Freya has done." -- "Homecoming"

4. "Hanani remembered when, on her first trip to the desert, the agony she felt trading in her and Mni-inh's collars to Nefri with Charris." -- "Uncollared"

5. "They were going undercover, and Rosette was cooing over the fancy dress she would be wearing, holding it up." -- "Vitality"

6. "As a courtier, Shoukei was entitled to clothing and jewelry befitting her rank." -- "Earning Privilege"

7. "Ekaterin stared at the copy of her engagement announcement; the real one, not the transcript published as part of the official record of government business." -- "Closure"

8. "Some days after he returned from his pilgrimage to Deathgate to bring his friends' bodies to the Paths of the Dead, Khaavren bade Piro to bring Ibronka to dinner with himself and Daro." -- "Past and Future"

9. "Toby wasn't surprised when Raj offered to help Bridget and Chelsea move into Shadow Hills: he and Quentin were often found together, and Toby had corralled Quentin into helping." -- "Changing"

10. "Link stood in Eldin Spring, looking at the surroundings in daylight for the first time, rather than the twilight Zant's forces brought." -- "Daybreak"

11. "Link started by playing Saria's song, then shifted into the one Malon had taught him to call Epona -- she perked up her ears in response before returning to grazing -- then segued into other melodies, songs that had no magic to them, but were ones he'd composed for other friends: Darunia, Ruto, Impa, Nabooru, Navi and the Great Deku Tree." -- "Jam Session"

12. "After the Gods' War, Intempas called his surviving children away from the mortal realms, back home where they belonged -- all except those who stood with Nahadoth, of course. " -- "Changeless"

13. "Caeda could have flown home after she saw Marth to the mainland." -- "Quiet Days' End"

14. "Riza left telegraphs of weather conditions in western Amestris on Roy's door, since, as she put it, leaving them on his desk would get them buried by paperwork." -- "Leading Edge"

15. "When he was growing up, Sokka had expected to be the tribe's leader after his father retired." -- "Bendless"

16. "Why Irwins?" -- "On Irwins"

17. "'You know, I'm sure Master Pakku would be willing to let you visit the Spirit Oasis,' Katara said." -- "Wartime's Scars"

18. "Jajuka didn't know what sort of experiments the sorcerers performed on the little girl put in his care years ago, but when he'd seen the wreck she'd become, he knew he had to do whatever he could to restore some measure of sanity to Celena. " -- "No Regrets"

19. "In the days after what would be called Adron's Disaster, Sethra Lavode was too busy to spend much time in contemplation." -- "Frozen Over"

20. "Julian glanced behind him and listened for hoofbeats." -- "First Sign"

21. "As Jinto entered the lounge where he and Lafiel had planned ongoing over the refit and refueling status, he noticed she was staring at something through the window, the system's binary stars lighting half her body with golden light, the other half with cool blue." -- "Beauty"

Excluding Drabbles
1. "It was a comfortable cell -- the Equalists knew she had given birth recently, after all -- but it was still a cell. " -- "Rebuilding Lives"

2. "Perhaps it was the nature of his death, but Aerich found the loss of consciousness not particularly frightening" -- "The Trailhead at the Base of the Falls"

3. "Mail was not as it was when the Emperor reigned." -- "The Matter of Inheritances"

4. "It was, perhaps, a bit more complicated than Aerich imagined to restore Tazendra's titles, but not much." -- "The Duties of Adults"

5. "It was not normally Tazendra's custom to spend her evenings alone, but both Aerich and Pel excused themselves on business -- though she suspected Pel's business was of a more intimate nature than Aerich's -- and Khaavren apologized as he had made an appointment to peruse some rare manuscripts in one of the Imperial Libraries." -- "An Conversation Regarding Intimates"

6. "It had been the custom when Temma's father was Duke to call the barons and counts that looked to him to Arylle for the New Year." -- "A Chance Childhood Encounter"

7. "'You really should move back to village, Houmi,' Sai said as Houmi finished up her work for the day, and was on her way outside of the village's gates." -- "Left the Nest"

8. "One of the laws of physics of this universeis that the Arameri remove all the fun out of everything, just by being involved." -- "Childhood's Last Dance"

9. "Long Feng wanted a good night's sleep, but he had to settle for a cup of tea gone cold and a few soggy dumplings that he had left at his desk when the latest crisis meant his lunch was cut short. " -- "The Real Enemy"

10. "There was something about books, Zelgadis mused, as he tried to get his trunk closed." -- The Sun, Half Covered

11. "As the bandits moved around in the underbrush outside her campsite, Kino sighed. " -- "Five Times Kino Met Zelgadis Graywords While Traveling (Four Times by Accident, and Once by Design)"

12. "Lucca woke up to the sound of something hitting her window." -- "Soft and Small Comfort"

13. "Nabooru could never sit still. " -- "The Desert Woman and Duty"

14. "Daphne snagged the toxicology reports from Hafida's printer, and set them on the table, next to the boxes of take-out from a nearby Thai place. " -- "Quicksilver"

15. "Angels did not usually dream; dreaming implied sleep, and einherjar and waelcyrgie only slept when they were injured enough to need it." -- "Repercussions"

16. "Being a mercenary accountant is a lot like my university career: long bits of busy-work followed by someone above me demanding a full report, due yesterday." -- "Adding It Up"

17. "'You're kidding.'" -- "Welcome Complications"

18. "He can't look Katara in the eyes, so Zuko curls his fists around handfuls of Appa's fur, focusing on a texture he never expected to feel." -- "The Price of Miracles"

19. "'Penguins?'" -- "Penguin Diplomacy"

20. "Amelia had been mildly surprised when Mister Zelgadis had returned to Saillune City without anyone prompting him." -- "A Reason for Hope"

21. "Deanna Troi had assumed Data had invited her by for tea and a social call." -- "Spot's Socks"

Random musing.

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 01:32:58 GMT

One thing I really appreciate about my mother is that she seems to understand that not everyone is made happy by the same things. Which is really good, because she and I are very different in terms of likes and dislikes: for instance, Mom hates living alone, while I am really picky about the people I can live with* and need my own space or at least people who can give me my own bubble (I do fine during Christmases with Mom and my brother, even if I'm sharing a room with my brother and generally camp out either in the recliner or at the kitchen table to do things). (My sister takes after Mom; Jenn has never lived alone in her life, actually. Nor has my brother, but he also hasn't moved away from home yet.)

It also comes up with matters of money. During the job hunt, Mom reminded me to ask about salaries because, while I'm happy living on my grad student stipend, she wanted to make sure I had enough money to do things I like doing (traveling to visit friends and family, having a place I wanted to live, buying a car which I admit I'll eventually need) and suggested things like 'if you have the money, why not look into a weekly cleaning service, since we both know how you feel about housework?**'. I don't know if that's something Mom would spend her money on -- she might if she had more income, given she works long hours and not having to spend her days off cleaning would be pretty nice, but right now it would probably mean fewer trips to see her family -- but it's something she thinks I'd like, so I should totally look into it and see if it fits a budget. (This is also why Mom got laser eye surgery: the improvement in her vision was totally worth the money and pain of surgery, so she saved for it.)

It's nice to know that whatever I do with my life, I know Mom is proud of me and will help in any way she can, even though it is so far from what she wants for herself. (Mom once told the head of the UNL physics department at a job interview that, if she could have any job, it was the one she used to do as a nurse's aide at a retirement home; our chair joked that at least the physics department had its share of old people.)

* Thankfully, all of my biological family make this cut, or I've learned to adapt to them and they to me.

** I don't think many people like housework, but I guess there's a point of 'do I hate it enough to justify the expense of paying to have someone else handle it'.

And the moral of the story...

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 23:34:10 GMT

... is that my sinuses decide that two days on planes in a row is not something I should ever do again, even on medication. Forgetting my water bottle (I fill it after going through security) doesn't help. Seriously, I'm just glad one day of travel didn't stress my sinuses out too badly, so I didn't feel like crap at my interview. (And of course, just now I remember the prescription nasal spray I have that is supposed to enlarge my nasal passages to improve drainage.)

As for the interview, it went well. Everyone seemed really friendly and collegial, so most of my questions about the job are the existential 'what do I want to do with my life' ones: basically I'm nearly 30 years old and still don't feel like an adult. Maybe taking time off between college and grad school would have helped, but grad school classes were hard enough with just a summer between them and physics classes. Being an authority in my job -- whether it be 'you are in charge of XYZ course' or 'do you have any ideas for research projects?' -- scares me.

Maybe that's one reason I wasn't in a hurry to finish grad school: being a grad student is a pretty comfortable life for me.

So I think I mentioned this...

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 14:48:45 GMT

But it deserves a top level post.

I have a second interview down in Georgia, this one in person. The position is tenure-track at a state college near the Tennessee border (and on what I presume is bean_bunny's annual DragonCon Pilgrimage route, which is a minor intangible benefit). It would be full-time teaching -- and I mean full time, since I'd be teaching as many credit hours as I normally took as an undergrad* -- and the students would mostly be first and second year engineering undergrads getting a start at a smaller school before going on to take specialized courses elsewhere, and the standard 'non-majors taking Astronomy for science credit' students that everyone who is in astronomy expects to teach if they teach.

That and the Helsinki interview went well: I think I and the professor hit it off. Both jobs probably have about the same ratio of 'candidates remaining' to 'positions', so I feel pretty good about getting one of these. Mom asked me what I'd do if I got both; both have their pluses and minuses, but both are so different and would indicate different directions of 'what I want out of life'. Unless Dalton rubs me the wrong way in the day I'll be in town, or the darkness/cloudiness of Finnish winters scares me off ( I get really moody when I can't see the Sun, even in NY), it would come down to what I want, and not 'one is objectively better'.

Or the small number statistic gods will decide for me, since getting one job is more likely than two. Or one of my other applications would pan out.

* Professors at more research-focused universities usually teach about half as much, but are expected to be mentoring undergrad/graduate student researchers as well, so the time commitment for teaching isn't as extreme as it seems by 'hours spent in front of a class'.

Fear of Falling

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:51:23 GMT

I had a single lesson of ice skating when I was a kid. One of the only things I remember was that the first lesson was how to fall. Which is a great joke, when you don't explain what it means.

'How to fall' is not just the obvious. It's a bit of 'keep your breakable bones away from heavy masses like your torso', but mostly it's 'how to recover from a fall'. Because everyone falls. Especially people learning new things. So the first lesson is to accept that you will fall and need to get back on your feet/skates.

I've been thinking about it, because in some ways, it's a general life lesson. A friend linked a blog post about the recent Supreme Court case about a woman publicly claiming that Affirmative Action at the University of Texas was why she didn't get in -- I think the legal argument is a bit more subtle than that. Most of the articles on this case note that the woman wasn't exceptional for UT admissions; in fact, she was below average, and that her grades and SAT scores meant that she was unlikely to have been admitted, regardless of non-academic factors.

The blog post noted other examples of students who felt that somehow they had been slighted by Prestigious Universities and, while not having gone the full route of 'lawsuit that goes to the Supreme Court', there was talk of petitions and complaints. And here I can see folks rolling their eyes at the entitlement.

But I see kids who don't know how to fall and get up. It never occurred to them that they could fall, so they're kind of sitting stunned on the ice instead of picking themselves up and telling their second or third choice university that they will be attending. And here I get personal.

I never learned how to fall in high school classes. High school classes were easy for me, so as long as I wasn't sloppy, I could pull As and B+s. I did learn that I could fall in math and science competitions. Oh, I was good -- I have medals and trophies, and was part of the Nebraska team for the ARML math competition three years in a row (though for two of those, I was an alternate). But the thing about competing on a state or national level is that you learn that being one of the Big Academic Fish in your high school means that you are just a fish when you gather all the Big Fish together. So, I did learn that if I pushed myself to try difficult things, I'd sometimes fall.

I assumed college would be different, but mostly it wasn't. I was still the smart one who had a high B+/A- average and who had to look outside of my university to be challenged. Maybe because, for non-academic reasons*, I went to a state school, which meant that most of my classmates were other locals. There was one exception: a upperclassman math class I took my sophomore year. It was probably my first abstract math class: the other two had abstract components, but were required or suggested for physicists and engineers. I don't know if it was my lack of experience with falling or an actual possibility, but I honestly thought I would fail the class.

(This is where I got hints that I had an anxiety disorder that came out with stress: it went away until grad school after that semester.)

Thankfully, I did have a support network. Most of my peers thought the class was hard, and I started to learn how to do things like 'do homework in groups' and 'go to office hours'. I also relied a lot on my mother, who noted that, if worst came to worst, I could drop my double major and not have to take another math class if I didn't want to.

As I mentioned, this was a prelude to grad school, where finally I was just a fish all the time, not the Big Fish that sometimes swam to the ocean, but could go back to its pond when it was feeling a bit like it was going to be eaten. And that scared me. I'd wanted to be a scientist all my life, and suddenly there was only a bit of the path left, but it was so narrow that I thought one wrong step would make me fall, and I'd never learned how to catch myself. It took a lot of therapy before I could admit a few things:

1. A lot of my identity was tied up in being 'the smart one'. And 'the smart one' isn't allowed to fail or not know the answers. Heck, 'the smart one' shouldn't need to work her ass off. Around a bunch of really smart people, I was realizing I was not going to be 'the smart one', and was scrambling for a new identity.

2. If I fell, I would not be living in a box. The academic job market is not quite that bad, and I had a physics degree (and now a MS). I didn't have to be a Top NASA Scientist doing Important NASA Things. I could be a professor at a smaller college, or even a junior college. I could get a job in industry. I could even go back to school and get a second masters in education and be a high school science teacher. I had a lot of skills and a good support network.

3. All falls were not the same. Sometimes you'd have a few skinned knees as you learn something; that's not the same thing as a broken leg. Learning the difference was important, even as you learn that a broken leg will not kill you. Feeling like you studied your ass off for a test and got a B is not the same thing as getting an F.

I'm thankful I learned this now, because it's generally assumed that every PhD who goes looking for a job will get a pile of rejection letters. For every position, there are at least three or four applications that would be perfect, and a bunch more that would be decent enough. The only way to get a job is to basically appeal to statistics; if you apply to enough jobs, someone will think you are the best candidate. I've had two interviews out of over two dozen applications sent out, and I'll be sending out more next week (and/or until I have a job offer, and maybe after if I see a job I would be awesome at). This is not an unusual thing.

Also, I'm worried that one of my interviews -- which I'm getting a second one in person, BTW, yay! -- would have been seen as a failure. It's at a junior college, where I'd be teaching engineers and pre-meds Physics 101/201** and everyone else Astronomy 101. It's respectable work, but it would be choosing to be a teacher who does research over the summers, rather than the teacher-researchers that taught me. Thankfully, meeting other students who chose those paths AND thinking that that might be what I actually want, is making me not see that as falling, just deciding that maybe that mountain peak to my right might have a more interesting view than the one to my left.

* It was cheap, I had a ton of scholarships that made it practically free, and it was close to home when I wasn't quite ready to leave my family.
** The main difference is in the math; engineers start physics with calculus, and pre-meds usually only do the 'algebra and trig' version.

(not) Sweet Dreams

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 17:57:06 GMT

I don't know what it says about me that I was dreaming about video games last night. Specifically the part of Skyward Sword where you have to collect the ~~plot coupons~~ goddess's tears while avoiding the invincible enemies. Which... well, I've played the last two DS games which basically involve the same premise every time you need to advance the plot, but for some reason the damn thing stressed me out. Enough that I dreamed that I'm helping my sister play Skyward Sword*, and the damn game randomized the location of the tears so I couldn't help her.

I don't even know what this means in terms of anxiety dreams, but it's better than having to repeat high school classes for some reason, usually with a side of 'can't get into my locker' and 'I don't even remember my schedule', which are my normal class of anxiety dreams. Why I have these now when I never got them (or remembered them) in high school is a mystery. Or why they are high school dreams, and not set at UNL or Cornell and involving college coursework/teaching things...

Then again, my dream the night before that involved a singalong of Jonathan Coulton's "Redshirt" with dolphinacorn and a chorus of Miscellaneous Friends while I was picking up groceries, so maybe I should just go with it.

* When we were in middle school, Jenn or Ben would be the one playing and I'd watch, usually with a map from the strategy guide to help. Even if technically Ocarina of Time was my game, I could never get past the fire boss on my own.

Storytime: Stareyes vs. the Computer

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 21:15:17 GMT

I haven't been sleeping so well, so I stayed home from work to try to fix that. I'm hoping that a weekend will have me back on my feet on Monday. Instead, I decided to find a new source of stress in my life, which is messing with my computer.

So, for those of you who don't know, I have a Mac. Mostly because that's what I had growing up, but also because I don't know how to do a lot of my work on a Windows machine. (I could buy a non-Mac PC and set it up with Linux, but any cost savings in 'cheaper hardware' would be lost in 'replacing all the software I own'. Plus I probably could play even fewer games on it.)

Years ago, Apple decided to swap out the processor they put in their Macs for an Intel one, which is why now you can install Windows on a Mac with far less pain. Problem is, that broke all the previously-released (PowerPC) Mac applications, so Apple had to write some code in their operating system to basically tell the Intel chip how to run PowerPC applications.

Flash-forward to either this recent operating system update or the last one (look, they're all named after cats, and I can't keep them straight), and Apple was all 'look, it's been years since we did this Intel thing, by this time everyone would have updated their software or they have a pokey machine that can't run the newer versions of the OS', so they stopped including the bit of code that tells the computer what to do with a PowerPC application.

Which I didn't think about until I decided I wanted to play one of my old games last week. Whoops. (I had the same thing happen when I bought a Wii that was new enough that it doesn't seem to play GameCube games. Good thing I checked first before I sold back my GameCube.)

A quick google told me that the only thing to be done was to partition the hard drive and install OS 10.6 on one half, then reboot the computer any time I wanted to play this single game, or buy a program that makes a virtual Mac that can emulate 10.6 on top of 10.8. Either way, I have to find my old discs.

Since I was considering doing this with Windows, anyway for other games, I had an idea. My game was one of those 'Mac and Windows on the same disc!' deals, and Windows still supports Windows XP.

After reading a few articles, I decided to try a simpler thing first before buying Windows 7 (yes, I know they're up to 8 now, but the Mac doesn't know what to do with 8). There are programs that will tell a Mac or Linux machine how to run Windows programs, which have the benefits of not requiring me to pay for a second OS and being something I could download as soon as I had the idea, rather than buy Windows or find my old Mac discs. (Never underestimate the power of laziness.) They don't work as well as running the full Windows experience, but again, free and downloadable.

So I download things, start things up, and put in my game Install disc. The program promptly informs me that this is a Mac disc and that there are no .exe files to run here. So, after more googling, I have to enter the dreaded Command Line to get the Windows side of the disc to show up.

Another aside. Mac OS 10 is built on top of Unix, in such a way that normal users never have to think about what the computer is actually doing, or get into a place where they can seriously mess things up. However, you can still get into the Unix and tell the computer to do all sorts of things it doesn't normally let you do. I do a bit of this at work, since one of the things the computer doesn't normally want to do is 'talk to this Linux server downstairs and send it these files, then run this program'. On the other hand, I know enough to know that this both turns off a lot of the warnings designed to keep people from deleting important things AND un-hides a lot of files that the computer uses for things, but that the average user can just ignore.

So, anyway, I have to tell the computer to 'unmount the disc, but don't eject it, then remount it in this way' to basically open the part of the CD that holds the Windows files instead of the (outdated) Mac ones. And I get the installer program and everything goes exactly right... until the computer asks me to insert disc 2, because this is a CD from God only knows when, and you can't fit everything on it.

Ejecting the CD from the program doesn't work. Ejecting the CD from the desktop doesn't work. Ejecting the CD from the command line doesn't work. For whatever reason, my iMac lacks the 'stick paperclip in this to manually eject CD' button. I finally unmount and remount it as a Mac CD and get it to eject, load disc 2, and bring up the Windows part of disc 2...

... and the installer doesn't recognize it, for reasons that have gone beyond my comprehension of computers. I have reached the threshold where investing in actual Windows seems like a better idea than fighting with the computer over a decade-old game.

Which I might buy once I play down the backlog of Other Games. In the meantime, I'm going to go kill some evil flowers in Zelda.

100 SF/Fantasy Stories 025: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 22:28:22 GMT

I find Nnedi Okorafor an interesting author. She writes these amazing, creative children's/YA stories like Zarah the Windseeker and Akata Witch, and also writes amazing adult books that are in no way for children. (Seriously, while I loved Who Fears Death, it got dark enough at times that I doubt I'd be able to reread it.)

Anyway, so I finally got a copy of Akata Witch, which has been described as the Nigerian Harry Potter. Probably because it was a story about a young person from the modern world discovering that not only was there a hidden world of magic users and creatures, but that she was part of it, despite her mundane upbringing. Really, though, HP has such a strong 'boarding school' element to it that the comparison is pretty superficial.

The story is about Sunny, whose parents were from Nigeria, but she was born in New York and spent years there before her parents returned to Nigeria. The book takes place far enough after the move that Sunny has mostly adapted to a new country. However, Sunny has a bit of a problem: she's albino, so the tropical sun is not her friend. She's also a target for one of the bullies at her school.

I don't remember what twinges one of Sunny's classmates, Orlu, to think she has magic, but he and his childhood friend, Chichi, basically drag her along to check this, without being able to explain much until they are sure. Unlike Harry Potter, people who can use magic but don't have a known family member who could -- called 'free agents' to emphasize they don't have an allegiance to any of the existing power structures -- aren't very common. Sunny is given a book to help her when Chichi and Orlu take her to meet their teacher, for instance. The next time she meets the teacher, and he's all 'how are you liking your book', she hesitates until he adds, 'yes, I know it's biased and condescending and pretty much tells you to shut up and keep your head down, but the author was the only one to think to write a book that explains things that your friends don't even think about because they grew up here, so read it but read other things and talk to people and decide for yourself'.

Actually, come to think about it, the book deals a lot with being cross-cultural. Sunny has a bit of it herself, having lived in two countries as well as being an 'immigrant' to the 'Leopard People' (the regional name for mages). The fourth of Sunny's little group, Sasha, is a visiting boy from Chicago, sent to Nigeria because he was using magic on his mundane (Lamb) community in fights, so we also get another character who is a 'fish out of water'. Sunny is even told that her Leopard powers -- the elements of magic that come most naturally to her -- are based on the belief that an albino person stands between the physical and spirit worlds. So she has an affinity for things like invisibility and movement magic, and for spirits.

Really, I enjoyed the book, not just because it was a good story about coming of age and magic and stuff, but because it's nice to see parts of the world (and legends and beliefs from there) that are not Europe or America get attention in stories.

(Placeholder)

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:54:15 GMT

I'm doing the rarewomen exchange, and will be putting a Dear Recipient letter here.

(PS, signups are until the end of the month -- go check out who we nominated. The theme of the challenge are 'female characters with few fics about them, either because it's a tiny fandom or they just aren't popular characters'.)

Medical stuff

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 03:10:55 GMT

So, I've been feeling icky lately. It seems like a mix of gummed up sinuses and medication side effects, but it means I have been sitting at home feeling headachy and nauseous and just well enough to feel guilty about being at home and not at work. I'm hoping that a mix of pseudoephedrine* and a diet change will help. Maybe see if I can find some candied ginger, since that's supposed to help with stomach nonsense.

* Aka 'look, I'm not going to be making meth with this, I just want to clear all the annoying tiny passages in my skull'.

100 SF/Fantasy Stories 024: Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 23:18:14 GMT

So, I think I reviewed the previous book, Shades of Milk and Honey and I picked up this one and (IIRC) liked it much better. Basically, Kowal's world is set in the Regency period (when George III (the King George of the American Revolution) was considered too mentally ill to run a country, so his son (also named George) was Prince Regent) -- but illusion magic (glamour) is a thing. Kowal talks a lot about the perils of writing 'history with magic' for this series: that the more magic you introduce into our world, the more questions arise about why history remains roughly the same. Kowal limits glamour both through physical rules (it's effects of light and sound, and has to be anchored by the ground, and the glamourist usually has to be right there to manipulate it; they can leave a work and even run it on a loop, but complex patterns are usually done by tricks, and it takes a lot of energy and concentration), but also by social rules: glamour is considered a 'feminine' art: while there are male glamourists who make a living by taking commissions from the rich, a well-taught woman is expected to manage her home's glamours as part of the decor. Even uses in war (which are mentioned in this novel) are more akin to an engineering corps than 'sorcerers throwing fireballs'.

So, SoMaH is patterned after an Austen novel, in that protagonist Jane and her sister, Melody are eligible young ladies who are being leaned on to marry. Jane manages to meet a man, Vincent, who shares her passion and talent for glamour. Hooray! GiG picks up with Jane and Vincent wed and dealing with being a husband and wife partnership. While a lot of this book is driven by 'for the love of god, talk to one another', it's nice to see a romance that doesn't end with 'and they got married'.

The book also has an external plot, and a sort of mixed one. Jane and Vincent honeymoon in Belgium, and happen to pick a time right when Napoleon tries a comeback tour and the locals are mixed about whether they want to be part of his empire or go with this new thing of 'The United Kingdom of the Netherlands'. Moreover, in the previous novel, Vincent figured out a way to make an 'invisibility' glamour by bending light around a person (and doing so one-way), and it doesn't occur to either Jane or Vincent that there might be military applications to their work. In this the actiony bits worked better for me in this book than in the previous, because Kowal does a good job of providing this escalating undertone of worry about Napoleon well before we even find out he's left Elba and is on the march.

The mixed plot is about Jane and Vincent's status as newlyweds and Jane's unusual role (for the 1810s) as a married woman with a career. There's a lot of micro-agressions she gets, from her parents egging her to give up magic so she can give them grandkids, to programs advertising her and Vincent's work only mentioning his name, to a dinner with the Prince Regent where, after dinner, the only woman comfortable enough to talk to her was the Prince's mistress*. Things get worse when Jane gets pregnant and her body basically goes 'nope, you do not have the energy for magic': a lot of Jane's self image as a person (and her ideas of why her husband loves her) is based on her talents. Plus, in a real sense, this reminds her that she may not have a choice of 'career or no career', since she doesn't have the options of modern family planning.

One thing I like is that there's some good discussions on pregnancy and motherhood that include ideas like a main character who is pretty damn miserable about an unplanned pregnancy, even though she's a socially-acceptable (and even socially-expected) place to have children, and a side character (Vincent's colleague's wife) who pretty much tells Jane 'it is okay to feel that way, even if society tells you you shouldn't'. So I'd say it's not only a book focused on women, but it's even feminist.

* And here I got a bit wary, since I don't care for the Exceptional Woman trope: that Jane is better than Those Other Women because she has a career. Especially since the last chapter has another banquet where, this time, Jane is invited to join the men. OTOH, it could be that Kowal wanted to show that the 'separate spheres' thing was stupid and put women in boxes since Jane had plenty of scenes with being friendly with other, more 'traditional' women on the continent, and noted that it was pleasant to not segregate by sexes after the dinner parties there.

Or I could be missing a class cue: Jane and Vincent were not part of the nobility (well, sort of: Vincent was the son of an Earl but his father had threatened disownment if he did 'womanly things' under his own name, so most people at the party assumed he was just a talented professional that the Prince liked as a fan of the arts).

I never know who to ask about this, but...

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 01:17:23 GMT

Anyone want to beta-read a 50,000 word Slayers fanfiction? (Mostly featuring Zel and Amelia, though Lina and Gourry have a sideplot. It's a sequel to "The Sun, Half Covered" if it helps...)

Valentine's Day

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 18:51:45 GMT

Hat tip to matociquala for reminding me of Vienna Teng's City Hall, a song about Valentine's Day. (Specifically, Valentine's Day 2004 in San Francisco.)

video

To all my friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances, you are all awesome and I'm taking today to celebrate having you all.

100 SF/Fantasy Stories 023: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 20:48:25 GMT

So, I picked this one up from anke who was getting rid of some books. The Eyre Affair takes place in an alternate late 20th century England where, among other things, people are obsessed with classics of literature and art. Most people have an opinion on things like who authored Shakespeare's plays, and it's enough that people can break into fist fights or political movements. The main character's hometown has a long-running community production of Richard III structured more like the showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show than any play I've seen. It's actually a bit like... well, a lot of Japanese action series where everyone knows a certain card game, or incorporates martial arts into their normal job, or has a job involving cute and trainable pet monsters.

There's also things like low-grade magic: the main character, Thursday's, father used to work for a secret government agency that took care of time problems and is now on the run trying to fix history (which he swears is broken) or just do useful things. Thursday also runs into a vampire/werewolf hunter, nicknamed Spike, though half of what he does seems to be reminding people to take their meds during 'that time of the month'. So it's more than just 'our world plus books'.

The plot is a book-based one: an arch-criminal has stolen a machine that lets people enter books and experience the setting first hand -- and their actions can alter the text. So, for instance, if I were to enter The Eyre Affair and butt into one of Thursday's conversations with her 'its complicated' ex-boyfriend, suddenly my copy would have the scene interrupted by a nosy American with opinions on Shakespeare. And, if I did something more drastic -- say, go into a shooting spree and kill half the characters -- then my book would probably suddenly end around then in a very unsatisfying way.

Now, Our Villain, having this machine, discovers that if he can get an original manuscript of a book, any changes he makes will affect all existing copies. So, for instance, when he drags a minor character from a Dickens work out of his book and kills him, suddenly every copy of that book lacks the paragraph describing that character, since he 'disappeared' before his brief appearance on the page. Of course, no one notices but some lit professors, which forces Our Villain to up the ante: if he doesn't get his demands met, he's going to destroy English literature by killing actual major characters. And, yes, that's where Jane Eyre comes in. (There's also some sequel baiting in that Thursday discovers some people -- including herself -- can enter books naturally: in fact, a Japanese woman makes a living taking other fans into Jane Eyre</e> for tours.)

The plot was entertaining enough and I liked Thursday as a character, but the subplot between her and It's Complicated Ex bothered me. See, they got involved while both of them were serving in the military, but a fiasco of a battle ended up with Thursday as a hero, and ICX saying that Thursday's brother, also serving, basically fucked up and contributed to the fiasco, which Thursday took personally. As part of the plot, Thursday returns home and ICX is involved with another woman but is kind of feeling Thursday out for 'I still carry a torch for you, what about you?'. Thursday doesn't figure all this out and forgive him until after she tells him no and he plans on marrying the other woman -- mostly for stability and having kids. So, of course, Thursday's friends disrupt the wedding (by taking a page (and a character) from Jane Eyre and saying that the other woman was already married -- a lie, but that would give ICX a chance to break it off and get with Thursday.

This rubbed me the wrong way, mostly because it treated the other woman as a convenient plot roadblock. We get one scene with here in which the author tries to convince us she's not a nice woman, but it still bothers me in a way that, say, the Shrek or Princess Bride wedding-interruption scenes don't -- probably because at those points, the wedding being interrupted is to a villain who means harm to his spouse. (The Spaceballs one also doesn't bother me, but Spaceballs is also a farce.)

I guess it felt poorly done to force Thursday to deal with things and make a decision, and to show some parallels with Jane Eyre, who also meets a very nice guy, but turns him down to go check on the guy she fell for earlier (who had a crazy wife in the attic) and try to work the whole 'bigamy' thing out. But it didn't work for me (and maybe Bertha Mason wouldn't work for me if I read Jane Eyre; or if I had read it before The Eyre Affair as it turns out the events surrounding her death were instrumental to Thursday being able to stop the villain.

In which I am peculiarly grateful to Robert Heinlein

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 14:39:32 GMT

An article on polyandry came across my feed today. Basically it mentions a paper that came out re-evaluating how common polyandry (one wife, multiple husbands) was in modern and historical societies: mostly showing that, contrary to 'the common wisdom' it happened in more places than just 'a part of Tibet where land is scarse, so often brothers marry the same woman so the family doesn't have to split the land'. (Also, it looks like one of the co-authors was a University of Nebraska anthropology prof -- go big red!)

The article notes that polyandry in societies are one alternative when for some reason the sex ratio becomes skewed towards more adult men, and in societies with little class structure (because I gather patrilineal inheritance matters less). And it made me nostalgic.

When I was in high school, I read a lot of 'classic SF' and that included Robert Heinlein. One of my favorites was The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Now Heinlein can be Problematic with a capital P, but he was the first one to introduce me to the idea that human culture is really, really fluid: that things like, say, family structure change depending on what families need to do in an environment. Heinlein, through his mouthpiece character*, pointed out that polyandry was common on the Moon due to... well, the fact it started as a prison colony with skewed sex ratios even allowing for the children born there, and that having multiple spouses in general helped make up for the fact few first-generation loonies had kin on the Moon and the Moon had little in the way of formal institutions like a social safety net. So, because you couldn't rely on your biological family or the government, marriage became not only a symbolic bond and a method to protect children (if you wanted them), but provided a great deal of economic security by having a number of working spouses, who might hold large property (like a farm or business) in common.

Basically, it spelled out a lesson for both SF&F reading and in the real world: humans create things like marriages and governments and churches and card-playing clubs to take care of some need (from 'care for me if I fall ill' to 'find a fourth for bridge'). These things can't be static when the culture around them changes.

(I also remember someone (I think it was one of the podcasters on Galactic Suburbia) talking about... I think, Downton Abbey recently. It was a quote about how in the feudal days, the aristocracy served the role of a trained military. Once nations developed standing armies, the aristocracy were the educated class, so could be drafted into government. As the middle class advanced and became just as educated, the aristocracy no longer served a real function and that the podcaster could feel one of the characters in Downton Abbey realizing that his class had been a parasite on society for around a century now...)

* You get used to a character like this in his books.

Still Here!

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 14:13:51 GMT

So, I'm going to try to do a general life update.

Life in Ithaca: I'm at the point of winter when I want it to be over with already. Mostly it's just cold and gray and I want to curl up in my bed and watch TV and play video games. Don't get me wrong, I love life in Ithaca from about March-April to the winter holidays, but the winters drag a bit on me. Maybe I'll get my next job in Arizona. Speaking off...

Job Applications & Grad School: I have something on the order of 20 out, and five more I'm working on (and need to ask my references for letters before they all leave for Cassini stuff). I've been delaying since I really want to be able to send a CV that at least shows my second paper has been submitted. It's almost there: pretty much I have one more thing that my adviser thinks I need to address (plus I found another code error that changes the numbers and graphs without changing the conclusions). Of course, it'll be delayed since adviser and postdoc are doing Cassini stuff and don't have time to read it until next week (I bet).

The final bit of my dissertation research mostly just needs a write-up.

Creative Work: I'm trying to get back to drawing and have a few things in the queue. Sadly, I'm still in the 'I don't know what to draw, so I sign up for things like Big Bangs and contests to get prompts'. I'd like to be a bit more proactive.

Writing is a bit better. I did a lot of drabbles in January, and I mean to go through my idea bucket and at least outline some of that stuff. Also not signing up for any Big Bangs unless I have an outline in the bucket that works. (I think I'll post my outlines here rather than over at invoking_urania, since I tend to keep that as an archive.)

I'm experimenting with a site called Challenge Accepted, which gives you 'exp' and 'skill points' for completing personal goals: sort of a mix of a to-do list combined with a video game. I don't know if it's helping, but I'm level 2 after about a couple weeks.

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 03:05:07 GMT

I can add 'skiing' to the list of activities I've tried once -- I spent an hour with an instructor and the rest of the afternoon feeling sore. I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I think I need to build up my leg muscles.

(Also, I'm pretty sure ski boots shouldn't hurt to walk in. It wasn't a case of small boots, since I could stand in them fine.

100 SF/Fantasy Stories 022: The Constantine Affliction by T Aaron Payton (aka Tim Pratt)

beccastareyes@gmail.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:02:00 GMT

So, who likes steampunk? The Constantine Affliction puts a bit of the 'punk' back in steampunk; while both of the main characters (a gentleman who solves crimes in his free time, and a woman reporter trying to get off the fashion beat and onto more newsworthy items) are somewhat privileged, both are a bit outside of society. But Payton/Pratt does at leasat engage in the fact that Victorian England had fabulous clothing, they also had sweatshops. And adding new things like chemically powered light bulbs and clockwork constructions just means that the lower classes have to work harder in awful conditions.

So, the book starts with our detective, Pimm, being blackmailed into helping solve the mystery of who is murdering prostitutes and dumping them in front of a crime lord's brothels. Which... this is Victorian England, and the police aren't terribly concerned with such crimes, but might get interested if it lets them pin down a crime lord. the blackmail on Pimm's part is mostly to keep him from going to the police; he's quite willing to save women's lives from a killer.

Our other narrator, Elanor Skyler (aka E Skye) is pitching an article for her paper about clockwork courtesans. See, in addition to all the wonderful other STDs one can catch from a sex worker, a new one has appeared: the titular Constantine Affliction. Some people are carriers or immune, some die from the disease... but the ones who get it and survive wake up having physically transformed into the opposite sex. Which worries the upper classes enough because it muddles the succession, so among other things, prostitution is made illegal. Which has made some very clever inventor come up with the idea of making a machine that looks a great deal like a woman and falls under a loophole. And Miss Skye figures a story about such a brothel will be risque enough to sell papers... if she can pass as a man to get into a brothel (this is Victorian England, after all). Of course, then she accidentally notices a Very Important Person tinkering with the mechanical bits of one of the automatons (in a decidedly unsexual way), and gets into Trouble.

So, of course Pimm and Skye's path crosses since the brothel she visited was owned by the crime lord that held Pimm's leash. And neither can turn down the mystery... the killer is found relatively early, but it leads to a deeper mystery of what the VIP Skye saw is doing and what's his involvement.

So, the reason I picked up the book was because of the steampunk, but also the Constantine Affliction itself. Because gender fascinates me. And it does show the silliness of Victorian beliefs about sex and gender: we see all these rules about how Pimm and Skye can conduct themselves around one another in company, because she is an unmarried woman*, but it's sort of assumed that A Man Has Needs and visiting a brothel is not spoken of, but a done thing**. It's mentioned that Parliament declared 'no, you always count as the sex you were born', because the lords didn't want to deal with losing heirs who were transformed, or older sisters of heirs who suddenly were pressing to take over once they grew a penis. Which apparently applies to marriage laws, so you might end up married to someone who is now the same sex (but you shouldn't be having sex like that, you perverts!), but that it is totally illegal to marry someone who is now the opposite sex thanks to the Affliction.

One thing I didn't like was that the last bit of the book suddenly brought in Lovecraftian style monsters, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. The book did make plenty of literary illusions -- Virginia Woolf's Orlando was mentioned as one of the first victims of the Affliction, Frankenstein's Monster made an appearance as a side character, and I believe Professor Moriarty was mentioned offhand as a scholar to watch. And 'monsters in the Thames' was set up early, but it just felt a bit abrupt to go from pulpy science to 'shit from other dimensions that is too alien to understand'.

* Pimm is in a marriage of convenience with a friend who got hit by the Affliction. Pimm gets his family to shut up about marrying someone, and Freddy gets an income without embarrassing his family by publicly declaring that he caught a STD.
** Also Victorian divorce laws apparently accept female adultery as a cause, but not male adultery unless the man is doing something more scandalous than sleeping with other women.