Limyaael

01:16 pm: Another new InsaneJournal community
originalslash

This is for writers of original fiction about homosexual/bisexual/transgendered/queer characters who want to discuss, bitch, moan, and ask questions about such fiction. It specifically excludes fanfic and NaNoWriMo/NaNoWriYe updates.

(And yes, slash may be a problematic term to apply to original fiction, but it's one that many writers of this kind of fiction are used to using, and it will make it easier to find the comm).

Idea for the community and the user info are credited to the_willow, who first came up with the idea.

08:42 pm: More answers to poll questions.
( Read more... )

10:25 pm: First round of poll answers:

( Here they are )

Ask me more questions!

08:00 pm: I did this once, a long time ago, and it was fun.
And going back and editing old entries in this journal made me want to do it again, partially to commemorate the move to IJ. So:

Poll #263 I has a poll
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Ask me any question you like.

I'll put the answers up in another post when I have enough of them. Any question's fair game, though I might not answer if it gets too personal.

04:04 pm: To anyone who has me friended on GreatestJournal:
You may wish to remove me from your f-list for the duration of the afternoon, as I'll be backing up my limyaael livejournal there and otherwise there will be a flood of entries on your f-list.

05:44 pm: Moar Book Reviews
Once again, only three paragraphs on each, or I would be here forever.

( Octavia Butler, Kindred )

( John Crowley, Little, Big )

( Joanna Russ, The Female Man )

( Joanna Russ, The Two of Them )

I am now wondering if I should start The Virtu by Sarah Monette, the sequel to Melusine, or not. Melusine is unfortunately one of those books I was very enthusiastic about at the time I read it but which I’ve lost the favorable impression of since. Monette having a fundamental misunderstanding about the term slash doesn’t help.

Tags: book reviews

08:16 pm: I'm trying to read more science fiction.
However, a few months of jumping in headlong has proven to me that a) hard science fiction is not my thing, and b) a lot of "classic" authors like Heinlein and Asimov are not my thing either. My favorites have been feminist works (examples: LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness, Joanna Russ's The Female Man and The Two of Them, some of Tiptree's short stories) and funny novels, or at least novels that do not take themselves so dreadfully seriously (examples: Bujold's Vorkosigan series, Walter Jon Williams's Drake Maijstral novels, Douglas Adams).

So please recommend me science fiction (not fantasy) authors you think are feminist, or funny, or both. I've decided to stop treating my SF reading like a graduate literature course's grueling attempt to know "the classics," and I think both it and I will be better for it.

Poll #248 Science Fiction Recommendations
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

So, what science fiction authors would you recommend?

(If you don't have an account, you can leave a comment).

04:41 pm: I has written Silmarillion fic!
It was for femgenficathon on LJ, in which, as you can probably guess from the name of the comm, all stories had to be gen and focused on female characters. The ficathon was Harry Potter the first year it ran, but it's now spread pan-fandom, so I chose to write about Idril, the daughter of Turgon and Elenwë, during the time period when the Noldor were in flight from Valinor to Middle-earth, mainly because it seemed like a good idea and I haven't seen very many Idril stories. However, Aredhel and Galadriel (under a slightly different name) are in there, too.

Link to fic.

06:25 pm: Measurements and units rant
And heeere's the new rant!

( Length, weight, distance, and time )

Tags: fantasy rants summer 2007, worldbuilding: culture

10:02 pm: Book reviews!
Recently, I’ve read a lot of books but haven’t posted anything about them to any journaling service because the thought of writing up everything I wanted to say about all of them intimidated the hell out of me. Then I decided to limit myself to three paragraphs per book, which is the genesis of this post.

( Elizabeth Bear, New Amsterdam )

( Elizabeth Bear, Whiskey and Water )

( Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind )

( Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora )

( Elizabeth Bear, Carnival )

( Ellen Kushner, The Privilege of the Sword )

And this isn’t even everything I read! Except it’s still getting long, so there will have to be another post. Later.

Tags: book reviews

09:23 am: Testing the multiple post function in Semagic
It kept giving me errors, but I think I've finally found the solution to the problem. (If you want to know how to post to multiple accounts all at once, go here.

Now to see if it worked...

02:41 pm: And now, horrible cheese poetry
This is by James McIntyre, a Canadian poet called the "cheese poet" for reasons that are about to become obvious. He was also a really bad poet, which might or might not have had anything to do with his choice of subject matter.

Prophecy of a Ten Ton Cheese

Who hath prophetic vision sees
In future times a ten ton cheese,
Several companies would join
To furnish curd for great combine,
More honor far than making gun
Of mighty size and many a ton.

( Read more... )

03:33 pm: I made a community.
After looking around IJ, I couldn't see anything specifically like this, so I made one:

fantasywriters, for general discussion of fantasy writing and critique of original stories if people feel like posting them.

The rules are pretty damn simple, and I'm hoping that this will be more active than some similar communities I've seen on LiveJournal.

11:08 am: This is mostly a test to see if I can actually use Semagic for this thing.
I don't think the latest deletion is necessarily going to affect me,but it's not a bad thing to have a backup, just in case anything ever does go wrong on, say, LJ's servers.

10:51 am: Science fiction and fantasy hybrids
Once again, I want to define some terms. I’m talking here about books with the “equipment” of both fantasy and science fiction: elves and lasers, for example, or magic and anti-gravity. I wouldn’t consider it a hybrid if there were a few machines that resembled magical artifacts but were fully explainable by any scientific laws and in any case were just named after the magical artifacts to be cute, or if there’s magic that seems like physics in disguise but turns out to be plain supernatural magic after all. And saying that a work can mingle the “attitudes” of fantasy and science fiction will just involve me in endless arguments, because you can always argue about what attitudes a book actually expresses. Equipment is the easiest standard to judge by, so I’m using it.

( So why use them at all? )

The next rant is apparently on “happy things about urban fantasy.” I’ll get to thinking of those right away.

Tags: fantasy rants summer 2007, rants on subgenres

04:49 pm: Turning idealistic characters gray
Before I start, I just want to make it clear that, in this case, I’m not lumping all characters who have strong beliefs into the idealistic set. This rant deals, instead, with protagonists or secondaries who have both strong ideals and a lack of information about how they apply to the pragmatic world, or about their consequences.

( So this rant is about moving them towards seeing those applications, or those consequences )

The next rant will be on fantasy-and-science-fiction hybrids.

Tags: characterization: protagonists, characterization: secondaries, fantasy rants summer 2007

06:08 pm: Showing different cultural viewpoints as not 100% correct
Sorry for the very long delay. On the other hand, my written qualifying exams for my Ph.D. are done.

( Some ideas on culture clashes )

The next rant is slated to be on turning idealistic characters gray, and should be up in a few days.

Tags: fantasy rants summer 2007, worldbuilding: culture

09:12 pm: Book review post for May (part 1)
So this is part one of a post logging the books I’ve read so far in May, because if I did all of them at once, this would be extremely long.

( Julie Phillips, James Tiptree Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon )

( Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light )

( Susanna Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories )

( Meredith Ann Pierce, Birth of the Firebringer )

Tags: book reviews

09:46 pm: On possession, mind control, and hypnosis
This is a broad general topic, admittedly, but each one by itself would probably be too narrow for a rant. Thus, we’re doing it this way.

( Interesting, but not when they’re used as an escape clause )

And I suppose that, for now, that’s all I really have to say, since each point covers a lot of ground.

Tags: fantasy rants spring 2007, idea rants

07:25 pm: On nonhumans living with their nonhuman attributes
Apologies that this is so late; I’ve had spotty Internet access for most of the last week and a half.

( So, on to the subject of nonhuman attributes- whether those be immortality or infinitely flexible stomachs )

More could be done with this, always. A story like James Tiptree Jr.’s ”Love is the Plan The Plan is Death doesn’t work for everyone and has not a human character in sight, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good story.

Tags: fantasy rants spring 2007, idea rants, rants on nonhumans, worldbuilding: culture, worldbuilding: metaphysics