A book on Thursday, and some other things
Sep. 7th, 2017 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaznettia. I stopped reading The Power for a little, and started to read Neil Stephenson's SevenEves, which proceeded to keep me up at night because it was so completely depressing and horrible, but in the compelling Neil Stephenson way. I read it very quickly because I just skimmed through all the stuff about physics and spaceflight, and have finally reached part 3; A suggested that I would really like the last 200 pages or so of the book, so I am somewhat hopeful. I am also perpetually interested in Stephenson's ongoing attempt to write female characters who are more than their cup sizes (see earlier comments on Cryptonomicon, Anathem, and Reamde; I bounced off the Baroque cycle). I guess I find it interesting because on the one hand I admire Stephenson for trying, and think he should be given credit for doing so. He doesn't have to: there's a perfectly good market for books in which the female characters are basically walking brassieres. But also because I think his failures are interesting. As A put it here, he is trying really hard here to prove that he can write lots of different female characters, and mostly succeeds until he suddenly reduces them all to archetypes. And I find the limits of what he thinks possible interesting, too -- as with pure theory in Anathem, for example -- because here is a guy who is actually very imaginative, but htere are still really clear limits on what he is capable of imagining. And there are things here about women and power that I don't like, but again, I find it interesting that Stephenson can't escape from certain ideas about women and femininity.
It will be good to get back to The Power after this, because of the ways that book does understand gender as a social construction, and power as ungendered.
b. I am 2000 words into my crossovering story and... the main characters have met, at least? I can see that this will be a story where I have to get that very rough first draft written before I can go back and add in the emotional stuff that will make the whole thing work. I hope!
c. I have thoughts about the last season of Game of Thrones, mostly to do with pacing and plot logic. Here is one thing about the Winterfell plotline: apparently there was a cut scene where Sansa went to Bran to accuse Sansa of plotting against her, only to get filled in by him on what Littlefinger had been up to? But when? After their confrontation about the letter? But that means that everything Arya said there, she actually meant, which I find really distressing; even though I recognize that show!Arya is much harder in some ways than book!Arya, they aren't that different. And in the show Arya is actually good at trying to see things from the other person's perspective. It would have to be before Sansa sends Brienne south, since that has to be in response to Petyrs suggestion that she use Brienne against Arya. Now I can't even remember which scene happens first!
I don't know -- the whole plotline makes very little sense, although there are the outlines of something that does make sense hanging around there. Because Sansa does need to persuade the knights of the Vale to back her against Petyr if she's going to get rid of him, and to do that she will need to convince them of all his crimes. But in the scene we got they don't really provide any proof. So I can sort of imagine some kind of "sting" operation where they get Petyr to incriminate himself going on, even though we didn't get anything like that, and instead got this weird manufactured rivalry between Sansa and Arya which made no sense AT ALL, and where even was Bran for most of that time? I just have ot pretend that something totally different happened there, which is really irritating.
4. On a completely different note, my Florida cousins, whose usual hurricane preparedness involves vodka and junk food, are clearly a little worried about this one. So I am too, on their behalf.
It will be good to get back to The Power after this, because of the ways that book does understand gender as a social construction, and power as ungendered.
b. I am 2000 words into my crossovering story and... the main characters have met, at least? I can see that this will be a story where I have to get that very rough first draft written before I can go back and add in the emotional stuff that will make the whole thing work. I hope!
c. I have thoughts about the last season of Game of Thrones, mostly to do with pacing and plot logic. Here is one thing about the Winterfell plotline: apparently there was a cut scene where Sansa went to Bran to accuse Sansa of plotting against her, only to get filled in by him on what Littlefinger had been up to? But when? After their confrontation about the letter? But that means that everything Arya said there, she actually meant, which I find really distressing; even though I recognize that show!Arya is much harder in some ways than book!Arya, they aren't that different. And in the show Arya is actually good at trying to see things from the other person's perspective. It would have to be before Sansa sends Brienne south, since that has to be in response to Petyrs suggestion that she use Brienne against Arya. Now I can't even remember which scene happens first!
I don't know -- the whole plotline makes very little sense, although there are the outlines of something that does make sense hanging around there. Because Sansa does need to persuade the knights of the Vale to back her against Petyr if she's going to get rid of him, and to do that she will need to convince them of all his crimes. But in the scene we got they don't really provide any proof. So I can sort of imagine some kind of "sting" operation where they get Petyr to incriminate himself going on, even though we didn't get anything like that, and instead got this weird manufactured rivalry between Sansa and Arya which made no sense AT ALL, and where even was Bran for most of that time? I just have ot pretend that something totally different happened there, which is really irritating.
4. On a completely different note, my Florida cousins, whose usual hurricane preparedness involves vodka and junk food, are clearly a little worried about this one. So I am too, on their behalf.
