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My favourite reads from 2017

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2017 could easily be nicknamed the year of Tansy Rayner Roberts, because I read a bunch of her books and they all ended up on my ‘best of the year’ shelf on Goodreads. Compared with previous years, my favourites list is a lot shorter. Though that does make writing this post easier! I was finishing my degree in Midwifery in 2017 and because that was so demanding, mostly I read an immense amount of fluff. I regret nothing, it was what I needed. So understanding that what appealed to me was largely fluff, in no particular order here’s my best of list for last year:

Musketeer Space and the prequel novella Joyeux by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Three dapper figures, two women and a man with blue military jackets and rapiers leap in friendship in heroism, behind a darker skinned female protagonist with a space gun.I loved both of these books, they were filled with adventure, plotty political intrigue, friendship and found family and involved consistently strong character development so of course I fell in love with the characters right from the start. This gender-flipped retelling of The Three Musketeers is an excellent tribute, and space opera is a brilliant setting to do so. I can’t tell you much about this that sounds intelligent and well thought out because I’m just head over heels for it all. I loved it so much I think it will likely become one of my regular rereads (as in both of them, because why wouldn’t I? They’re both excellent)! A tree shaped by star lights with a black background and the title plus author textWhat Joyeux does slightly differently is introduce us to the original trio of musketeers, take liberties with festivals and the mayhem that can be caused around them, and set you up for the events that happen in Musketeer Space itself.  For all of you with goals of reading more space opera, reading more creatively gender flipped stories, more ladies in space who are awesome and diverse, this is an excellent choice.

 

Trade Me (Cyclone #1) by Courtney Milan

A burly muscled white man in a black shirt and jeans gently embraces a shorter Asian woman with long hair in a white tank top and jeans.

I’ve appreciated Courtney Milan‘s historical romances before, but this book is what got me interested in considering reading contemporary romance again. It was excellently written (of course), and the characters and their falling in love story won me over completely. Although the plot seems to be a simple ‘swap lives’ tale, the execution is masterful and the story is a lot of fun, and has some lovely depth in surrounding relationships as well. The characters live and breath, including the supporting characters which can be rare.

Binti and Home (Binti #1 and #2)  by Nnedi Okorafor

A dark covered book with a dark skinned woman painting her face with mudThese novellas are ones that I haven’t actually reviewed yet, (oops) but they were definitely among my favourite reads of 2017. Also it’s worth noting that Nnedi Okorafor is a favourite author, as so far I’ve loved everything of hers that she’s written. The first novella tells the story of Binti, the first from her family and from her people to go offworld to university. Tragedy befalls the trip and it changes Binti forever. A blue background, Binti a dark skinned woman stands centrally wearing blue with swirls/tentacles in dark blue in the background. The second novella tells of Binti’s return home after being at the university for some time, where Binti further uncovers the truth about herself, her family’s history and starts to confront ideas about her future. I have a pre-order for the third novella in this series and am counting down to it’s release (and will likely review all three at once properly then).

Beauty in Thorns by Kate Forsyth

A white pre-raphaelite style painting of a woman's face, from the nose down with sad lips pictured with a sepia sketch imprint of historical London behind the text.

I have been a fan of Kate Forsyth’s writing for many years, which meant that when she shifted to writing historical fiction and less fantasy I kept up with her work. Her historical fiction is lush, well researched and brings to light unexpected figures from history – often women featured in fairytales or art. Beauty in Thorns looks at a group of Pre-Raphaelite artists and their muses, telling the story of their romances and gives life to famous paintings that many of us admire today. Beauty in Thorns is not a typical retelling of Sleeping Beauty instead it is focused on how the characters in the story are taken with the fairytale and their inspiration from the story for creating art. It’s a beautiful novel that is thoughtfully written, the characters come to life and it’s easy to fall into the prose. If you enjoy historical fiction this is well worth your time, as are Forsyth’s other historical fiction novels.

The female protagonist with a hat, purple hair and glasses poses with her phone with the shadow of her famous reporter mother in the background.Girl Reporter by Tansy Rayner Roberts

This was one of my December reads and it’s getting a lot of attention – richly deserved! This novella is fantastic, bringing the reader back to the universe of Cookie Cutter Superhero (one of the excellent stories from the anthology Kaleidoscope a few years back). I love the Australian backdrop to the stories from this universe, it makes so much sense to me that it almost seems like a near-future alt-universe. I know that sounds like an oxymoron but I’m sure someone else who’s read these will agree with the sentiment – there’s so much about this universe that is true to life. I adore Friday’s character, she reminds me of my favourite Booktubers and her fannish delight over the superheroes is endearing. I love that she admires her mother but also struggles to feel taken seriously, I love the friendships and romance and the various interplay in this novella. It’s filled with snark, optimism, and is an awesome tribute to various fictional journalists such from Lois Lane of Superman to Lynda Day from Press Gang.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

The figure of a faceless robot stands in the foreground, the shadow of other robots of the same design in the background, everything is in shades of grey save the red title text.

I resisted this early on because ‘murderbot’ does not immediately sell a book to me (although it does sell to most of my various friends on that basis). But once I was reassured of the relative fluffiness of the story I picked it up and am so glad I did! Wow! I love stories about AIs where they’re not ‘the bad guys’ and where they explore the notions of personhood in ways that make me think and also give me some kind of hope that AI sentience doesn’t immediately spell certain doom. Murderbot was adorable and I love that their focus was wanting to do their job efficiently enough so that they could go back to fannishly watching their favourite tv show. Martha Wells does an amazing job in storytelling because the plot in this novella really grabbed me, in addition to the light hearted moments, the significance of what happens in the novella (and I can’t say much because spoilers) was really well executed.  I can’t wait for further murderbot novellas, but I also want to read more of Wells’ work.

Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation, edited by Phoebe Wagner

Abstract art cover of a city surrounded by awater, also appearing to be growing with plant life underneath a sun.

This is another of the books I really need to review properly, and it deserves the time and effort involved because this was a stand out collection of short fiction. That will be one of my tasks in the coming weeks. I am much more interested in the eco-punk style of fiction than dystopias because generally there’s more optimism involved with a combination of building, fighting, growing and with a focus on change and transformation generally. That’s definitely true of this collection, and it also makes me think about various things in current society and directions we’re going, turning points we’re approaching, and ones that have passed as well. This is a book not just of stories, but of art and poetry, it’s beautifully curated and this tiny summary does not do the book justice – I highly recommend it.

A Tyranny of Queens (Manifold Worlds #2) by Foz Meadows

Two small figures in the foreground face a ruined building, with a castle in the distant background.This book is a follow up to An Accident of Stars which I enjoyed immensely last year, and I think overall it is a better book. It picks up not long after where the first book leaves off and it does something that few other portal fantasies tackle, namely the difficulty in coming home, the where have you been, why are you so changed, what’s wrong with you, etc. This is pretty traumatic for Saffron and I’m not surprised that she quickly wants to return to  Kena. Meadows writing in this novel is much more solid, everything flows more smoothly in the narrative. Once again I really enjoyed the insight into the characters and how they grew and changed. I also enjoyed the direction of the plot and how intricate it was. I am happy where this novel left things, but if there were to be more novels in this universe I’d love to read them.

Novellas from Sheep Might Fly by Tansy Rayner Roberts

A black and white image of a flying sheep with lots of textured detail in the wool and wings, the sheep looks peaceful.Last but not least on my list of favourites, includes the novellas that I listened to through Tansy’s podcast. These included Dance Princes Dance, which is one of the novels from the Castle Charming universe. Twelve Dancing Princesses was never so snarky or queer and filled with banter as this novella is, there’s so much to love and the underlying mystery that Tansy keeps tantalising the reader with continues to unfold. The Bromancers is the third novella in the Belladonna University universe and I swear I keep loving these characters more with every book! This novella features the band members running off to a music festival in the middle of a magical deadzone on the same weekend when a massively popular television show being followed by some of the band members airs their season finale. There’s also a body-swapping mystery, competitive hearth magic and the kind of friendship and relationship interaction that puts hearts in my eyes. There was also Did We Break the End of the World, a short story that was originally published in the anthology Defying Doomsday (also on my reading list, I’m so behind but I’ve heard that it is excellent) . This novella was so thoughtful and really considered survival post dystopia uniquely – scavenging and what is valuable and why, and to who. Also the gradual unfolding of the whole reason behind the end of the world – I don’t want to say too much, I’d be spoiling it and it’s way too good a story for that – go read it in Defying Doomsday or listen to it on the podcast, you won’t be sorry.

Recent Listening

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I work in an agency doing content things, it’s a dynamic place to work and is busy and quite open – very collaborative and has lots of informal space usage encouraged. I *love* this about it. I also love that most of us use headphones for when we want to get stuck into something and not engage outwardly (also useful for when the music playing is not to your taste).  That means that aside from my Pandora stations, I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts. I’ve been loving this so much! So I thought I’d share what I’d happened upon recently. Feel free to tell me if you find something new you love, or if you already love these things squee with me about how amazing and wonderful they are!

The Wheeler Centre Podcasts

Walking the Walk: Next Steps Against Family Violence: Such amazing women speakers, speaking candidly and critically,  in detail about family violence and how it is so very gendered.  There was also a great question at the end about family violence that happens in non hetero- or gender- normative situations and that was well asked, and well acknowledged by the speakers I thought. The whole issue is layered and complex, it’s not as simple as any of the slogans would have us believe. At the root of it is entitlement, and that invariably almost always leads back to sociocultural norms that are taught, learned and reinforced at every turn.

The F Word: Aboriginality: I loved this podcast, it was so interesting to listen to the speakers and it is glad to see Aboriginal speakers prioritised here and having the chance to speak from their experiences about what is important to them. It’s hard to describe how this was different from what is generally a very white feminism in Australia, I don’t quite have the words, but it was there and it was awesome – more feminism like this. More everything that includes and celebrates Indigenous Australian perspectives and expertise.

Galactic Suburbia

I love this podcast and it’s the first one I ever fell in love with. I devoured three episodes recently, not quite in order as I’m saving the Tiptree Spoilerifics for when I’ve read the books (I know it’s not necessary, but it’s helpful incentive to read the books and I want to do it this way). Speculative fiction and feminism, discussed by three brilliant, articulate women. So fucking awesome. Galactic Suburbia has a Patreon campaign, maybe you’d be interested in supporting it?

126: Hugos!: All the Hugos Ceremony aftermath! I watched the twitterstream live, but not the actual livestream (I am edging my way back into awards gently). It was awesome to be on twitter and experiencing all the interaction and brilliant commentary by so many people! I loved that part of it. Also, I am really pleased about the results, and it’s gone a reasonably long way to restoring my faith in fandom for awards, which has been (a lot) lacking for a few years.

128: 2 September 2015: Interesting data thanks to work by Nicola Griffiths crunching numbers relating to awards shortlists and winners, discussions about diversity panels and how after a certain point they’re not the conversation you need to be having and putting those ‘diverse’ labelled people on – they’re the people you should be including on all the OTHER discussions, because actually, that’s what diversity genuinely looks like. Lots of smart discussion, as usual. I love it.

129: 16 September 2015: Discussion of Australian politics and the recent Spill which has given us Malcolm Turnbull as our new Prime Minister. It’s a great discussion of our political system at present and how, it’s a bit of a joke. I’m sure there was some great commentary about the ability to win elections is not an indication of competency to govern – but I’m seeing a bunch of similar commentary around in relation to our government at present so it’s all a bit blurred together. In particular listening to the politics discussion, I love that sense of knowing that I was far from alone being glued to the coverage that night. Also acknowledgement of that thing where, nothing has really changed with the change of who’s in the top job – but so many of us have *hated* Abbott for so long and so much, that seeing him gone couldn’t be anything other than a pleasant relief. Even if you wake up to something of an ongoing hangover the next day.

Fangirl Happy Hour

It’s all thanks to Galactic Suburbia that I came across Fangirl Happy Hour, but I’m so glad I did! I love Ana and Renay! They’re so great to listen to! I love their enthusiasm! I love that they have such different and similar tastes and that they support this for each other so delightfully! It’s so charming! Speculative fiction in all it’s genre awesomeness from a perspective that brings things to my attention that I am actually interested in, with recommendations that I can trust in whether I’ll like something or not. I just can’t get enough, I inhaled four episodes:

14: ALL the Recommendations: Wow! So many recommendations! It is still one of the things on my to-do list to go through the show notes and add a bunch of the things to my reading/watching list! Not the least of which is their list of 81 cool podcasts… apparently I’ve plunged deeply back into podcast listening without even trying!

15: Three Out of Five Space Bees: This was a great episode, I almost wanted to read the ‘Hawkeye’ comic (I am not a comics person at this point in time). I really enjoyed the discussion of ‘Uprooted’ which is Naomi Novik’s new book and sounds fantastic.

16: Kate Elliott: Panel Rebel: This was such a fun podcast to listen to! Kate Elliott was a marvellous guest and I am now wondering how I never read any of her stuff before – she writes right within the genre spaces that I love. So, pretty much all her books are on my to-read list now.

17: Sigourney Weavering: I felt so much for Ana in this episode – I would have been equally upset by the treatment by the staffer at the con when she was trying to find out about the photo shoot stuff. How fucking rude. I really loved the discussion in this episode about the weight of history in the fandom/umbrella genre – and how sometimes it can be nice to try and read that, but it should never be imperative. Also, sometimes you have to make your own historical touchstones, and share them – hopefully others will also appreciate them, but saying something IS like this and that X book IS quintessential and you’re not a ‘real’ fan without it, is crap. I’m not buying. I’ve still never read Asimov or Heinlein, or Clark, or a bunch of others and honestly… I probably won’t. It’s not relevant history for me – it doesn’t enhance my experience of reading in this fandom/genre umbrella.

Feminist Frequency

Today I got around to listening to the latest in Anita Sarkeesian’s Feminist Frequency series about Tropes in Video Games. The most recent topic of discussion is women as reward, how that works and what it looks like, what it means in the context of gaming, designer/developer respect for women, and perpetuating and reinforcing through creating incentives out of women as objects/rewards, the sense of male entitlement that is prevalent in our patriarchal society. It’s a brilliant critique, I really loved the way she ties it all into that entitlement and how it differs in effect in gaming rather than movies, television, books or comics – the nature is the challenge, achievement and reward – interactivity and making women rewards. Not people. Rewards. Which is to say, the games make a massive assumption that gamers are pretty much cis, male, straight, and not for example women, or non-binary gendered, or queer. Anita says it much better than I do, go watch her awesome videos:

 

The Misandry Hour:

First episode just dropped of Clementine Ford’s new project and IT’S AWESOME. It’s so awesome. In case you weren’t sure, the title is a tongue in cheek poke at the whole idea and myth surrounding misandry. There is a reasonable portion of the episode devoted to addressing this idea of misandry and what it comes down to is that any cultural level hatred that any group of women could level against men, cannot bring to bear the same influence, power and social inequality experienced by women. It’s not the same playing field, and to suggest that it is, frankly is part of the problem. The guests that Clementine invites along this episode are awesome, they’re interesting to listen to and the whole conversation is in depth crunchy feminism – it’s confronting and uncomfortable in places about our individual thinking processes, our own conditioning and how we engage and why. I didn’t know that I was desperate for this until I listened to it, but wow, it was so very much what I needed. This podcast is the product of a Patreon campaign for the express purpose of valuing women’s work and time, so maybe consider supporting it if you’d like?

One income between three

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So I live in a poly household in Melbourne, myself and my partners – who are the ‘on paper’ relationship. I’m the ‘single’ person who lives with them. And unsurprisingly Centrelink have been awful, one of my partners earns too much, so his partner can’t get the Austudy he’s entitled to. I can’t get Austudy because even though I haven’t claimed it before, the fact that I have an undergraduate already precludes me from support when I need it. Because I of course planned the massive career change and letting go of 10 years I spent pursuing another career all for nothing…

So we subsist on one income between the three of us, and it kind of works. It kind of works because one of our parents is in a position to help us with rent. It kind of works because we all genuinely work together and try hard to be good about money and all the messy emotions it brings up together. And we recognise that at this point in our lives and relationships, we’re intertwined financially.

We all contribute to the house, in various ways, and so we’re all entitled to the income. There’s not much to go around but it (mostly) pays the bills, the rent and groceries. I’m better than I ever have been about making groceries last, making food last and making it delicious and so we don’t often *feel* poor. Even though we rarely can have a night out, or dinner out, or go to the movies or any of those things we could  manage occasionally when we at least had some welfare support.

I’m writing about this because I am looking at the meal plan I made on the fly yesterday for the next two weeks to get us through a fortnight where anything we can avoid spending on food, can pay bills. We’re not late on anything, but we’re working hard to keep it that way. In any case, I thought I’d share what my meal plan was and how I decided on it for this particular fortnight. Namely, what stuff has past!me done that makes this next two weeks earlier. Let’s do that bit first:

Past!me has:

  • Made oodles of stock, so I have vegetable stock, beef stock, and chicken stock in my freezer. I also have plenty of frozen veggie scraps to make more (and we are running low on veggie stock).
  • Stocked up on some dry goods that are good for stretching things, accompanying things, part of the regular stuff we would use and works for a bunch of the ‘go-to’ meals we might make.
  • Looked at what is in the fridge and freezer that can be used for the fortnight easily: some beef mince, a lamb roast, 1/2 a cabbage, 4 small zucchinis (I still don’t have a plan for them yet).
  • I also have a well stocked pantry for spices, vinegars and other similar ingredients that you often need for various recipes and are good to have on hand to make awesome stuff from very little.
  • Made a beef and barley stew before the meal plan but that meant it was there and could be part of the planning process straight away! One meal and a fair few lunches down!

And now for the meal plan. I reasoned that counting leftovers and the need for lunches for me at home and Ral’s uni lunches for the next two weeks, we needed about 9-10 meals.

So this is what the meal plan looks like:

  • Tunisian Chicken (I had everything except the chicken and the coriander).
  • Marcella Hazan’s Smothered Cabbage Soup (I have everything for this).
  • Chana Masala (I needed the ginger and I bought some cheap dried chickpeas rather than use the canned ones I have).
  • Chicken Adobo (I needed the chicken and spring onions).
  • Alfredo Pasta (I do have some cream but it’s going on chocolate cake for birthday dinner tonight, so that remains the only thing I need).
  • Marcella Hazan’s Tomato, Onion and Butter pasta sauce (I have everything for this – we almost always do).
  • Macaroni Peas (I had just finished the last of the frozen peas and have bought some more).
  • Bukhara (This is where the lamb roast will go, and I had everything else except the ginger, which I bought for at least one other recipe).
  • Spaghetti Bolognaise (I have a great recipe for this and had the mince in the freezer. Plus, it makes a large pot. I had everything for it except red wine and we bought a cheap decent bottle).

So that’s 9 so far and I’ll see how far that gets us before I evaluate further. It’s a whole lot of guesstimation at the moment, so we’ll see how close or far off I am toward the end of things. (Maybe I’ll even remember to blog about it.) There are several options that are cheap that I can rope in at the last minute like Dal Makhani, or this gorgeous Broccoli Frittata which always impresses, or make a risotto or soup – those are always good go-to options.

So, there you have it, my angst, frustration and making the most of it in the form of meal planning. What makes things easier for this fortnight is, I’m home and I have very few commitments so I can do the cooking and make things work and spend extra time eking things out and adding to my stash of freezer meals without extra stress. The reason I’m trying to meal plan, spend as little as possible AND still maintain my freezer stash is because I’ll be away from home in June on prac, and it will make life a lot easier for Ral and Fox dinner wise if half of them are already made. It will also make it cheaper for them, which will be important because I anticipate needing more of our budget while I’m staying away from home and going to the hospital every day.

I have to say that my meal planning and frugal skills are both inspired by, and not nearly as well established or finely tuned as my best friend Sarah’s. She can do amazing things with meal planning and frugality. But all in all, I do well enough for what we need right now, and I pass it on to my partners. One  of whom is an exceptional cook, and also quite accomplished at making do, the other of whom is still learning the very basics of cooking. In my mind, this stuff is part of that basic learning.

Anway, have a picture of last night’s Tunisian Chicken dinner (not the prettiest plate unfortunately). Alas I forgot to take a picture of the cake! But I made this amazingly simple and delicious Chocolate Bundt Cake, which is not expensive to make and is one of the most delicious chocolate cakes I’ve ever made.

Not the prettiest plate, but Tunisian Chicken with couscous for dinner.

Blog rec: The Fluent Self, because Havi is awesome!

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I and several friends have been loving on The Fluent Self blog quite a lot lately, because Havi and her duck Selma are fantastic blog company to keep! They have fun where there is colouring and dancing and figuring out ourselves (and writing a book about it), being creative about working on the stuff in our heads. Havi talks about things like biggification, destuckification and about how useful it can be to have your own instruction manual that is your Book of You.

I love the sense of fun and playfulness that comes with Havi’s approach. I love that where the right words don’t exist, they can be invented at will. I love the tiny useful techniques that make unpleasant things more fun, more doable and highlight whole new ways of doing things that I discover as I play with it all.

I appreciate the candour with which Havi shares going through her stuff, coming to grips with the things in her way and the stuff stopping her. There’s a sense of a reinforced ‘us’ all together working on our stuff, rather than one awesome person leading other trying-to-be-awesome people. We’re all awesome! Things like that make me happy.

I am someone who believes in this idea of being the best you that you can imagine for yourself, believes in that fundamentally everyone is worthy of unconditional love, and that anything is possible.  I’m not sure that Havi would put it the same way, but I feel that her messages are not at odds with this.

I adore Havi’s blog, and it’s pretty much the only major blog where I’m willing to read the comment streams. I thought I’d write this as maybe if you knew about it, you might like Havi’s blog too.