blue raspberry lemonade

This Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman read by Jeff Hays

Carl, Donut, and the Princess Posse have made it to the ninth floor where they need to battle eight other armies for control of territory, personnel, and access to the capital city. Various phases of combat force them into building and defending trenches, castles, and throne rooms around a varied map. Carl and Donut have more allies than ever (including an influx of previous season's crawlers) but their enemies are fighting for their lives on this floor and won't go down easy. Unfortunately, this book is definitely the worst in the series so far in terms of pacing, flow of action, and balancing the increasingly large cast. Carl and Donut are separated from each other on differing missions for most of the book, which feels like a mistake when their relationship is one of the strongest emotional hearts of the story. There are also sections where Carl is so busy has a general/decision maker that he isn't spending much of his time in hands on action. Multiple dream/vision flashbacks build out backstory, but slow the pacing. However, despite this being the weakest installment of the series so far I still enjoyed my time listening to it and remain deeply invested in these characters and excited for the next book! I also really loved the resolution of Katya's current arc in this book. 

Ocean’s Godori by Elaine U. Cho read by Judy Alice Lee 

Ocean is a spaceship pilot with a stain on her past record, in a future in which humans have colonized our the solar system and where Korea has reunified and become the dominate space power. Ocean's record means she is currently working on a 'class 4' (aka bad) ship under a selfish captain who has made some frankly illegal sounding choices, such as selling all but one of the ship's spacesuits for cash. This space system is also plagued by space raiders, and their attacks provide the only action of the story. I really wanted to like this book, as it has many elements I usually love (space drama, crew as found family, characters with a rough past) but unfortunately this book really never came together for me. Neither Ocean nor any of the other lead characters have strong motivations or bigger goals for their lives beyond just surviving day to day. They are constantly reacting things that happen to them, but never initiating their own plans or actions. This makes characters who are described as dynamic come off as very passive. I kept waiting for the engine of this story to kick in and it just never did- and it's the first book of a series so at the end almost nothing was resolved either. I was frustrated by what felt like the wasted potential of this story!

The Art of Nonfiction Movie Making by Jeffrey Friedman, Robert Epstein, and Sharon Wood

Practical and grounded, this guidebook on documentary film making is full of realistic advice and examples drawn from the careers of film making team Jeffrey Friedman and Robert Epstein. I watched three of their films this year (The Celluloid Closet, Paragraph 175 and Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, all movies about queer history) and having that background in their work made the book even more engaging. I enjoyed hearing the thought process behind their choices, including some projects or directions on projects which they researched and considered but ultimately abandoned due to various reasons: lack of access to material or subjects, interviews that didn't play well on film, limitations of travel or funding, etc. This book is from 2012, but I think much of it's guidance is probably just as valuable today as when it was written!

Peerless vol 5 by Meng Xi Shi translated by Faelicy 

I finished my first wuxia series! Overall I had a really good time with these books, though I do think books 2 and 3 are stronger than the rest of the series. This one has a very dramatic and satisfying action sequence at the end with plots, secret mazes, poison, traps, imposters, and more. Cui Buqu has to face down, and also ally with, the leader of the Thirteen Floors who has been trying to take down the Emperor since before the beginning of book 1. Feng Xiao faces a martial arts opponent who is definitely his equal and might be his superior. The bickering and humor which forms the emotional heart of this story is present, but I did find myself wanting a little more emotional resolution for our two leads. They do kiss! But they don't really verbally acknowledge their mutual feelings or get much of a soft moment or a honeymoon trip or anything like that at the end. I'll have to head to fanfiction for that! 

Countess by Suzan Palumbo read by Chanté McCormick

Virika is a newly made spaceship captain in the Æcerbot Empire, to which her family moved as immigrants in Virika's childhood. She's the first of her people to reach such a high position in the fleet, but she barely has a day to celebrate her promotion before she's accused of murder and treason and dragged off to a sham trial. This novella is a queer retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo with the colonization and imperialism moved to space. It's a well executed retelling but it's also only 4 hours long on audio and so the story feels very compressed, and some parts kind of glossed. It results in quite a lot of telling instead of showing, but I also did like many of the choices the author made. I just wish it was a bit longer, or had some more development of the side characters.  

A Frog In Fall and Later On by Linnea Sterte (re-read) 

Minor frog is less than a year old, and is dismayed when winter begins to steal all of the light and warmth from his world. Instead of bunking down safely with his mentor to wait for spring, he sets out on a journey with two vagabond toads passing by on a quest to make it all the way to the tropics. They tramp through the Japanese countryside, encountering tree spirits, new friends, dangers, and views the likes of which minor frog had never even imagined. This is a gorgeous book; every page worth pouring over, an economy of line and detail building a beautiful and mysterious world of talking animals and miniature packaged foods. Made me want to draw.

Re-read in 2025 and loved it just as much.

Always Raining Here: A Graphic Novel by Hazel and Bell