What Are You Reading Wednesday
Sep. 10th, 2014 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperx"
Reading Meme:
What Have You Just Finished Reading:
Well...um...huh. Haven't read all that much (did finally see Capt. America: Winter Soldier last night OnDemand). I suppose the most recent thing I've completely read was a sweet little novella by Courtney Milan titled Talk Sweetly To Me
Set in the late Victorian era it's a romance between a brilliant young black woman who works as a 'computer' for an astronomer at the Royal Navy Academy (apparently in her research Milan found that in that era 'computers' were literally people who computed calculations for scientists. These were frequently women and almost wholly unacknowledged in scientific papers as ever having existed... even though they may have done a great deal of the yoeman's work). Anyway, she falls in love with an Irish (lapsed)Catholic suffragist publisher (or rather suffragist pamphlet publisher who also writes newpaper columns and satirical novels). In late Victorian England either of these two would have faced social obstacles, together they would face challenges. But, as Milan points out, there were more black women in Victorian England than there were Dukes, so any cries of "not historically accurate" can speak to the hand. Romance novels are full of dukes, why not a brilliant black woman and an Irish Catholic author?
Very brief read. It's a novella after all.
What Are You Reading Next:
Dunno.
I have John Scalzi's new futuristic murder mystery Lock In on my Amazon/Audible 'wish list', which sounds intriguing.
It takes place after an epidemic eventually named Haden's Syndrome which killed loads of people and those who survived frequently remained "locked in" their own bodies -- awake but unable to move or communicate. The size of the epidemic took so many people that society as a whole had to adjust. After 25 years they developed social avatars (android-like bodies) that their minds can link to and walk around/function, a virtual reality they can 'visit', and -- if rich enough - people (called 'integrators') who have had their neural synapses altered such that they can allow a Haden's victims to "borrow" their bodies for a bit. When an 'integrator' is murdered, FBI agents Chris Shane and Leslie Shane (one of whom is a Haden's sufferer) are sent to investivate the crime...
Reading Meme:
What Have You Just Finished Reading:
Well...um...huh. Haven't read all that much (did finally see Capt. America: Winter Soldier last night OnDemand). I suppose the most recent thing I've completely read was a sweet little novella by Courtney Milan titled Talk Sweetly To Me
Set in the late Victorian era it's a romance between a brilliant young black woman who works as a 'computer' for an astronomer at the Royal Navy Academy (apparently in her research Milan found that in that era 'computers' were literally people who computed calculations for scientists. These were frequently women and almost wholly unacknowledged in scientific papers as ever having existed... even though they may have done a great deal of the yoeman's work). Anyway, she falls in love with an Irish (lapsed)Catholic suffragist publisher (or rather suffragist pamphlet publisher who also writes newpaper columns and satirical novels). In late Victorian England either of these two would have faced social obstacles, together they would face challenges. But, as Milan points out, there were more black women in Victorian England than there were Dukes, so any cries of "not historically accurate" can speak to the hand. Romance novels are full of dukes, why not a brilliant black woman and an Irish Catholic author?
Very brief read. It's a novella after all.
What Are You Reading Next:
Dunno.
I have John Scalzi's new futuristic murder mystery Lock In on my Amazon/Audible 'wish list', which sounds intriguing.
It takes place after an epidemic eventually named Haden's Syndrome which killed loads of people and those who survived frequently remained "locked in" their own bodies -- awake but unable to move or communicate. The size of the epidemic took so many people that society as a whole had to adjust. After 25 years they developed social avatars (android-like bodies) that their minds can link to and walk around/function, a virtual reality they can 'visit', and -- if rich enough - people (called 'integrators') who have had their neural synapses altered such that they can allow a Haden's victims to "borrow" their bodies for a bit. When an 'integrator' is murdered, FBI agents Chris Shane and Leslie Shane (one of whom is a Haden's sufferer) are sent to investivate the crime...
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no subject
Date: 2014-09-11 01:09 am (UTC)The film's main concept centres around the mysterious murder of a college student linked to the man who helped create a high-tech surrogate phenomenon that allows people to purchase remote controlled humanoid robots through which they interact with society. These fit, attractive, remotely controlled robots ultimately assume their life roles, enabling people to experience life vicariously from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Surrogates was released on September 25, 2009 in the United States and Canada.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-11 03:24 pm (UTC)What intrigued me was a review I had read of the audible books saying that they had two different narrator's for the book -- BtVS's Amber Bensen and Will Wheaton. You can listen to either as the protagonist and because of the gender non-specific name, it's possible to have a female lead or a male lead and that this has something to do with theme of the story in the non-gendered robots or the elective gender of the virtual reality. The reviewer said he'd listened to the book twice with each narrator and was intrigued by the way his perceptions changed.
This is one where I'm actually then more intrigued to listen to the audible book, then.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/audio-books/article/63811-audible-releases-two-editions-of-scalzi-novel.html
... One edition features actor Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation) as narrator Chris Shane, and the other features actor Amber Benson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Shane. {...}Both actors entered fully into the spirit of the experience and waxed philosophical about it during a videotaped interview. "It's very much about identity. What does a body mean? Does that define who we are as human beings or is it our consciousness?" Benson asked, while Wheaton pointed out that he and Benson “each bring certain choices to [the narration] that are informed by our lives and our genders.” And, he noted, “I’m sure we made different choices for how the other characters sounded.”