Media Round Up: Grab Bag

Come Drink With Me by Michelle Kan This is marketed as “An Aromantic Chinese Fairytale”. It is about a dragon and phoenix living among mortals and taking part in opera. It's mostly very slice of life, and I loved all the opera details. The ending was a bit of a change in tone and I’m not sure I liked it. Still overall very cute!

“Every Tiny Tooth and Claw (or: Letters from the First Month of the New Directorate)” by Marissa Lingen I have been mostly focusing my short fiction reading on 2019 work I want to read before Hugo nominations close, but this 2020 story snuck in there too. This is an epistolary story about academics and magical rodents with politics that start in the background and slowly creep up on the reader and the characters. I just loved how sweet these letters were and all the little details of daily life.

Outer Wilds by Mobius Digital justira mentioned that they enjoyed this game as a piece of cosy media. I asked R who is more into games than I am about it, and he had also heard good things about it. So we bought it and have been playing it together. So far it's really fun -- I love games with lots to explore and I can see why Ira called it cosy.

Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett So The Tempest is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays so I was intrigued by the concept of this novella about Miranda after she leaves the island. But I found it a bit too dark and suspenseful for my tastes. But it does have queer romance, so if you are into queer fansty and have higher tolerance for darkness than I do, which most people do, you might enjoy this a lot! (content note: physical abuse)

Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama spindizzy was talking about this manga on twitter a couple of weeks ago, and when I went to the library later that day the 1st two volumes were on display so I scooped them up! So far it's a pretty cute magical school type story with hints and a bigger and darker plot.

Star Trek: Voyager We finished season four and are starting season five. I keep being distracted by how many PADDs (those little tablet like things they use) everyone has. It seems that every new piece of information needs its own PADD. I know that it's an artifact of when the show was made, but I keep wondering why they have to hand carry PADDs around instead of sending an email.

The Orphans of Raspay by Lois McMaster Bujold This is the latest in the Penric and Desdemona novellas. This was a perfectly fine adventure story but I feel like Bujold can do much better, after spending the last several novellas getting to know some new characters it was disappointing that they barely make an appearance here. (Content note: Slavery including threatend sexual abuse)

Happy Birthday Trees!

Today is Tu B'shevat the Jewish new year of trees. I've been thinking more about the trees in my life since last month, when I realized that I didn't have lot of current meaningful trees in my life, but this mostly means that I've have been admiring all the live oaks on my walks around the neighborhood. They are some pretty!

Its starting to get springlike here and all the magnolia trees are in bloom, and they are so so lovely. The cherries and plums are starting too. And the days are getting warmer. I do like this time of year.

Oh and I made myself a new tree icon! Its based on the same photo that I use as my twitter icon. I took it on the Highline in NYC years and years ago.