Reading Thursday, actually

[dhampyresa]

(I swear I posted this yesterday evening, but since the post only appeared when I clicked the link in the "Croopost successful" Dreamwidth email, I've deleted that entry and reposted. Idk what's going on.)

What did you finish reading

Blood of Olympus, by Rick Riordan: It was really good and a fitting ending to the series(es), I thought. My favourite parts were the Nico+Reyna roadtrip. And my favourite bit from that was

‘My dad gave me a present once,’ Nico said. ‘It was a zombie.’
Reyna stared at him. ‘What?’
‘His name is Jules-Albert. He’s French.’
‘A … French zombie?’
‘Hades isn’t the greatest dad, but occasionally he has these want to know my son moments. I guess he thought the zombie was a peace offering. He said Jules-Albert could be my chauffeur.’
The corner of Reyna’s mouth twitched. ‘A French zombie chauffeur.’
Nico realized how ridiculous it sounded. He’d never told anyone about Jules-Albert – not even Hazel. But he kept talking.
‘Hades had this idea that I should, you know, try to act like a modern teenager. Make friends. Get to know the twenty-first century. He vaguely understood that mortal parents drive their kids around a lot. He couldn’t do that. So his solution was a zombie.’
‘To take you to the mall,’ Reyna said. ‘Or the drive-through at In-N-Out Burger.’
‘I suppose.’ Nico’s nerves began to settle. ‘Because nothing helps you make friends faster than a rotting corpse with a French accent.’

Because Jules-Albert. Fucking Jules-Albert, y'all. I was laughing so hard, both because the dialogue's hilarious and because "oh, Riordan, you really have no idea, do you?". Because a chauffeur named Jules-Albert, lmao what. (This isn't to say there's no one named Jules-Albert -- I don't know any, but I did go to summer camp with a François-Guillaume once --, but come on. They wouldn't be chauffeurs. This kind of compound name, especially uncommon as compounds or compound of uncommons, is a pretty specific class marker for BCBG/petite bourgeoisie.) /tangent!

We have a reference to "Leo's feels", so I'm just going to assume that Leo's on Tumblr. That, combined with him referring to Percy as "Aquaman" makes me think Leo and Jason get into intense Marvel vs DC comics fights/wankery. 5i've talked before about my headcanon of Jason Grace being a GIANT COMICS NERD, right?)

Also, they met Asclepius! I have such a soft spot for Asclepius. Shame we didn't (really) get to see Hygieia, though (second favourite goddess, after Athena).

Okay, no, but seriously, Nico and Reyna were my favourites and I want all the fic about their future adventures together as BFFs. Look at Nico!

[Nico] hated working with other people. They were always cramping his style, making him uncomfortable.

Isn't he adorable?

Look at Reyna!

Accept my aegis, Reyna Ramìrez-Arellano, said [Athena]. For today, you have proven yourself a hero of Olympus.

ISN'T SHE AWESOME? (Seriously, she is the best. Also, I ship her with Thalia.)

Look at Nico and Reyna!

[Reyna] gave Nico a big hug and the crowd roared with approval. For once, Nico didn't feel like pulling away. He buried his face in Reyna's shoulder and blinked the tears out of his eyes.

Aww.

And this point I could do the whole rest of this by going "Look at...!" and providing quotes (Look at Percy being a dork! "'Greeks!' Percy yelled. 'Let's, um, fight stuff!'") so I'll just skip over that and say it's great book and I vastly enjoyed reading it.

I loved Annabeth's reaction to Nico telling her and her boyfriend that he had had a crush on said boyfriend: "She raised her hand for a high five". (Annabeth was amazing in this book. She is my favourite.)

I loved the little glimpses of/references to various minor characters we had (Luke! Clarisse! Rachel! Omg, RACHEL!) although I wished we had more, especially Rachel, because argle bargle, that thing with Apollo? Yeah, what's up with that? (Rachel and Hazel should totally bond over art stuff.)

And Thalia Getting Shit Done while Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter are at each other's throats.

The whole Will Solace/Nico thing felt a bit rushed, but the fact that they don't get together in the book makes it better, like Will isn't the ~love of Nico's life~ but just the first cute guy Nico's noticed since he got over his crush on Percy. Wich reminds me! I greatly appreciated that Reyna ended the series single. No offense to anyone, but the whole "everyone is together with their (heterosexual) soulmate/lifepartner at sixteen (except for the gay kid, who is sad and angry)" thing was really bothering me, so this is better. (Tangent: I like Piper, but her powerset creeps me out. There. I've finally said it. Tbh, it creeps me out even more that it isn't adressed in text. Then again, that sort of thing never is.)

And of course I continued to enjoy the characterisation of the Romans as being a bunch of failboats ("'The Romans aren’t big on navies. They had, like, one rowboat. Which I sank.'"). Idk, I derive great joy out of people taking the piss out of the Roman Empire.

TL;DR: IT WAS GREAT. Fitting end to the series. And nobody died! (Permanently.)


Crimson Angel, by Barbara Hambly: This was AMAZING! (I'm reading so many great books lately, it's awesome.) It was absolutely terrific and very OT3-y, but I still need time to process it. I expected many things reading this book, but "actually, it's about ethics in video game medicine journalism" was not one of them.

The issue that's brought up is one I've given a lot of thought to, because... Okay, I don't know if I've ever told y'all this, but I spent some time in (French) medschool, because I'd wanted to be a doctor ever since I stopped wanting to be a dinosaur. I am no longer in medschool, but everything that's got to with medicine still impacts me more than other stuff. And this issue? It's one I don't have an answer to and I don't know that I agree with the conclusion that's presented in the text. I don't know that I disagree either and I wish I could talk about the book without getting bogged down with this shit, but I can't. I can't. I realise on some level that making us think about this was probably part of Hambly's intent, but gdit, I don't read these books to be reminded of medschool and how fucking miserable I was there. (Ben being a doctor (the best doctor!) is all good, though. ILU, Ben.)

Hopefully I'll be able to manage a more coherent review later on, but in the mean time: it's a really, really, genuinely good book. It's amazing and one of the most powerful books I've read recently.


Canon review for my yuletide assignment: I LOVE THESE CHARACTERS SO MUCH (Still don't have the physical copy, though /sadface) I am so happy to be writing them.


What are you reading now

It's time to play "dhampyres is tired, so all the books are getting read" again!

StoryKiller, by Kelly Thompson: Am enjoying it so far, but LEARN TO USE A FUCKING COMMA! Yeah, Thompson's completely disregard for the use of commas (inclusing the vocative comma, which, come on, that one's not hard) continues. I'm not sure why it bother me more her than it did in The Girl Who Would Be King, maybe because the story hasn't gripped me as much or maybe it's because it's the second book of hers I've read. Look. I have nothing against self-published books, but if you expect me to pay money for your book, it better have had at the very fucking least been copy-edited/proof-read. Seriously.

The Art of War, by Sun Tzu:I've decided to stop reading the translator's fucking stupid translation notes. (Again, dude, if another word would work better, use that, don't talk about how much better it is for half a page instead.) So now I read about 5 lines per page, lmao.

Darshan, by Jade Baudain: It's still weird reading in french (and slow-going), but I am still enjoying this.I do think that having the officers of your spy network be recognisable from the way the dress is kind of missing the point, though. Pretty sure Morquendi's not dead. Still think whoever left the Darshan shrine to the other country on the island is an idiot and should be fired. Also, calling it now, the king is not Lliane's father (it was pretty obvious since the beginning, but it's REALLY obvious now, to the point where if we don't get cnfirmation soon, I will assume I missed it).

La véritable histoire de Carthage et de Hannibal, de Jean Malye: Still super interesting! (Did you know that Hannibal probably had people from India to deal with his elephants? And did you know that that species of elephants was hunted to extinction by the Romans? Fucking Romans, man.) Still, also, a very massive book.

Gustav Adolf Mossa: L'oeuvre symboliste: 1903-1918 (exposition catalogue for a 1992 exposition at the Pavillon des Arts): This is a loan from a friend, mostly so I can look at the art and see what other people have done with watercolours. It's pretty interesting, although, WOW dude had problems, like, for real. There's commentary on one of the piantings that goes "the artist's mysogyny..." so yeah. (It's kind of funny how obvious it is that several people have written the commentary, because one them talks about "the castrating power of Woman" (yes, with a capital) as though this is not only a thing, but a perfectly acknowledged, normal and obvious thing.)The art can be very striking, though.


(Also, despite the dude's art pretty much ending in 1918, he didn't die in WW1. I feel like I should specify that.)

The Kick-Ass Writer, by Chuck Wendig: I'm not giving the whole title, because shit is long. I'm a couple of pages in. It's okay and in line with the rest of Wendig's stuff I've read. idk, sometimes I like to read someone shouting at me to "ART HARDER, MOTHERFUCKER!"?


What are you reading next

Darkness Over Cannae, by Jenny Dolfen: I would be reading this now, except I keep staring at the pretty (so pretty!) pictures and not paying any attention to the text. this is kind of a problem, because there are pictures on every pages. (They're so pretty, though!)

A to-read list that is properly formatted, so I don't forget about books I wanted to read!

Books that I have already: City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett, Prisoner (Echo's Wolf, Book 1) (Werewolf Marines 2) by Lia Silver (so apparently my phone doesn't recognise this as a real book, which is why I completely forgot I had it. fuck you, phone. It is too a real book.)

Books that are out and that I haven't got: Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen, by Garth Nix, Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie (I told _profiterole_ i would and also several other folks have said it's good)

Books that aren't out yet (and when they're out): The Sword of Summer, by Rick Riordan (Autumn 2015), Benjamin January #14, by Barbara Hambly (no idea), Empire Ascendant, by Kameron Hurley (Summer 2015? Maybe? IDK if I'm even going to read it, tbh, her behaviour during the whole WF/RH/BS thing is leaving a bad taste in my mouth and honestly, I've vastly cooled on the book since I've finished it.)

Comments

[schneefink]

Nico and Reyna are SO GREAT together!

Who says Jules-Albert used to be a chauffeur when he was alive? Imagine you're some sort of aristocrat and then the god of the dead tells you to play chauffeur to his son *g*

No offense to anyone, but the whole "everyone is together with their (heterosexual) soulmate/lifepartner at sixteen (except for the gay kid, who is sad and angry)" thing was really bothering me, so this is better. Yes! I'm not at all convinced by Will/Nico, but it's nice for Nico to have a crush and hopefully it'll end well.

Ever since the "someone will die!!!" prophecy I was wondering how long they'd stay dead. There's such a thing as CPR... Shouldn't Nico know how that feels, sort of? And he should've notified his friends asap that he's no longer dead. Oh well.

I enjoyed it a lot :)

[dhampyresa]

I know, right? THEY ARE THE BEST. (You know how crack!friendships are my thing and I so rarely get it in canon? Well I got it this time and it was awesome. I want more!)

There as a comment in-text about him being a race-car driver, which would make sense. But idk, I feel like Hades would ask someone whose job it was. Only the best for bonding with Nico!

I don't know if Will/Nico will work out and that's amazing. I don't know. I've nevr not known how the romances would end up in this series before!

As soon as they mentionned Asclepius, I knew no one was gonna die permanently. Which was ALRIGHT BY ME. (I was afraid it would all turn into a Greek tragedy at the end there.)

I don't know, because CPR doesn't involve people coming back from brain death so if that's the determinant of death in this series, it would make sense for Nico not to realsie what's going on.

It was a great book! I await the enxt one eagerly.

[schneefink]

I'm pretty sure Will/Nico will work out because I don't think anyone ever broke up in the series before, but I'd almost prefer not just to show that you can still have healthy relationships.

You're right, I didn't think of that, that makes sense.

There'll be a next one? Nice!

[dhampyresa]

Well, I don't know if any of the PJO/HOO folks are gonna be in it (pretty Annabeth is, though), but Riordan's next book is called "The Sword of Summer" and is the first one in the "Magnus Chase and the gods of Asgard" series.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

CRIMSON ANGEL OMG. But yeah, I also did not see the medical ethics issue coming. I actually really liked the way it was presented; I felt like the narrative didn't come down for one side or the other (I mean, yes, Ben made his choice, but I felt like it wasn't portrayed as the 'right' choice. Or the wrong one! It was just his, based on his personality and background, and someone could have made the opposite choice just as well). There were actually a lot of difficult, maybe unanswerable moral questions in the book, and the way they played out was really interesting.

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

I actually saw it coming fairly early in the book, but idk, I feel that we're so far into Ben's head it's hard to separate what Ben thinks of as right from what the narrative thinks of as right. It was certainly very interesting! But I don't like unanswerable questions. It's all food for thought, at any rate.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_profiterole_/]

Super, le tableau de la sirène ! Elle a justement l'air d'avoir mangé un misogyne quelques minutes plus tôt.

Et je vois que tu as ajouté Ancillary Justice à la liste. :-)

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

Son visage (surtout les yeux) est hypermarquant.

Vi. J'ai pas oublié!

[minutia-r.livejournal.com]

In defense of Jules-Albert, this is a series where you have Joe Bob the Lastrygonian giant, Bob the Titan, Muffy the Maenad and Lulu the Amazon. So even if I'm not necessarily going to give RR credit for making J-A's name incongruous on purpose, it does fit in fine with the aesthetic of the books. And after all, he wasn't necessarily a chauffeur when he was alive.

I think I've recommended goodforharpies (http://goodforharpies.tumblr.com/) (tumblr) / books4belle (http://archiveofourown.org/users/books4belle/pseuds/books4belle) (AO3) to you before, but if you like Thalia/Reyna you should definitely check out her stuff if you haven't already. Also in non-Thalia/Reyna news, her The New Rule (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1412080) is possibly my favorite PJO/HOO fic ever, even if it does feature a fairly fluffy treatment of Piper and her creepy mind-control powers. :P

Also, it is nice to hear squeeing about BoO, because most of the reactions I saw on tumblr were super grumpy.

(I am still upset about Kinzie, though. But she died offscreen and we never saw the body, so it totally doesn't count.)

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

No, I agree, it does fit into the aesthetic of the books. I guess I'm just to used to US media misusing French names/social cues all over the place to be a bit touchy about the subject. Plus, I like going on weird tangents when I talk about books.

I can't read PJO/HOO fic right now because the guilt of owing you a comment on Useful Crafts. But it's so good and I've read it twice already and keep finding new things. Thanks for the rec!

Really? Why are people grumpy? ...It's a ship war thing, isn't it?

(We must have different copies of the book. Kinzie never died in mine. /shifty eyes)

edit for html.

[minutia-r.livejournal.com]

Well, mostly it was that Leo is apparently the worst person ever because he didn't tell his friends that he was alive before going to rescue Calypso? Which, I guess RR could have made it clearer that that wasn't an option, but I really got the impression that it wasn't an option, that for whatever reason it was a now or never sort of thing. And in that case I really do think making it a priority to give the person who has been imprisoned for thousands of years a chance to leave rather than immediately comforting your grieving friends is . . . obviously the right choice?

I also saw complaints about the pacing, and specifically the whole "Frank makes a choice that Percy couldn't" being, "wait, that's seriously what all the foreshadowing was about?" Some people were upset about the general massacre of the Hunters and Amazons, and specifically about Phoebe, and to be fair so far all the named Hunters except for Thalia have died which is not such a great track record. There were also complaints about the whole Bryce and Octavian thing (someone on tumblr said it was essentially advocating the death penalty for mentally ill people which . . . okay?) And then there was the contingent who were mad about no Percy or Annabeth POVs, and the somewhat smaller contingent who were upset about no Frank or Hazel POVs.

. . . Anyway.

I'm glad you liked Useful Crafts! And now that you have told me you liked it, you can go forth and read other fic? I mean, I'm not saying I wouldn't be thrilled to get a more detailed comment, but honestly that's more than I usually manage on the fics I read. So, uh, I absolve you of any guilt if that helps.

(Also on your fanmix, the Jason song that plays for me is not the one you intended. I understand this is a known issue with 8tracks? Not that I have figured out how to use 8tracks or anything.)

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

I got the same impression you did: that if Leo didn't go now, then he'd never be able to, so yes saving Calypso took precedence. Besides, I get the feeling Leo will be letting everyone know he's alive soon enough.

Hum, I've mixed feelings on the foreshadowing: it's a bit heavy-handed compared to what was delivered, but it IS a choice Percy never would have made and we've known this since the first book.

I've quietly erased the deaths of the Hunters and the Amazons from my brain/retconned them away. It looked way worse than it appeared! A couple of months in the hospital and they were all fine!

I wasn't a huge fan of the Octavian thing, mostly because I felt having Octavian die the way he did was the easy way out: if he'd survived or if one of our heroes had killed him, that would have worked better. Seriously, I really want to know what they would have done with him had he survived.

I can understand wanting more Annabeth, Hazel and Frank PoVs, but come on! We had five books that were entirely in Percy's PoV!

HAHAHA JOKE'S ON YOU! I COMMENTED!

(I had no idea 8tracks did that. Wow, what a shitty and useless thing to do. It should be fixed now.)

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Yay, more about HOO!

"makes me think Leo and Jason get into intense Marvel vs DC comics fights/wankery."

I need this story.

I was really happy that Nico had Will without getting together yet. I was worried that he would end up alone which kind of undoes all the awesome stuff before it...it's okay to be gay but not to be in an actual relationship. This way, we know Nico has moved on and is healing and ready to actually let himself be vulnerable to others which is really freaking amazing from where he used to be...as the quote attests.

As a series finale, it was just about perfect.

So, did I miss the culmination of the secret project or is that still on hold?

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

If I get a couple more ideas, I might turn this into a 5 times fic ("Five Times the Heroes of Olympus were a Bunch of Giants Nerds" or something).

Your Nico thoughts are my Nico thoughts and yeah, it's a pretty perfect series finale.

Yeah, you missed the post I made about The Secret Project.