squee! and other notes.

[aithne]

First:

My camera and lenses have shipped, and are both supposed to be here on the same day! Also ordered another flash card, and am contemplating an additional battery or two.


Second:

If you like to follow my serials but they get lost in everything else I'm posting, and if you use a RSS reader, there's an easy way to make sure you never miss a serial! If you're reading a serial, you'll note that the title of the serial is in a tag at the bottom of the entry. (I also have links to the serials on the right side of my journal, but I think very few of you ever actually see my journal layout.)

Click the tag, and then check the right side of the page--you should be able to see a "Syndicate" section there. Get the URL you need (RSS works for most readers), and tell your RSS reader to subscribe.

And there you go! New serial entries will arrive in your reader as they're posted.

Current serial RSS feeds are:

Shadows and Silk http://silenceleigh.livejournal.com/data/rss?tag=shadows+and+silk
Sleepless Streets http://silenceleigh.livejournal.com/data/rss?tag=sleepless+streets

I'm still working on getting the serials into a Website format, but this might be an aid for folks.


Third:

Just finished Mordred, Bastard Son by Douglas Clegg. I initially didn't like the book much; the characterization of Mordred was exceedingly one-note (he's gay, whee! hitting on monks, whee!) in the first chapter or two. It calmed down a lot as the book went on, and I felt, in the end, like the story and the character had found a comfortable place together, and Mordred had become a much more complex character.

And to be fair, this is a book about Mordred's formative years, so I can forgive a bit of YA-angsty "when will I ever find someone to sleep with?" woe-is-me speechifying. Some of the secondary characters were well-drawn, especially Mordred's mother Morgan and aunt Morgause, and the hermit that Mordred eventually falls in love with.

So my verdict: good, and worth wading through the first couple of chapters to get to the good stuff.

Comments

[ursuscelticus.livejournal.com]

I read Mordred several months ago, and liked it, and I agree with you on the character development. Still, by the end of the book I felt like things had *finally* gotten going, and then it stopped! I hate it when books do that! grrrr

[silenceleigh.livejournal.com]

Also, it's a perennial irritation when writers who are writing ostensibly about societies that are not this one insist on putting any one of this culture's attitudes about gender and sexual orientation on their own culture. Clegg did manage to avoid some of the major pitfalls of this, but I think first and foremost Mordred was gay,and that was his characterization.

It made it a bit less interesting for me than if Mordred's attraction to men had been treated not as the central fact of his life but as just another part of his character. (Though, at the ages that this book covers, you've got all the Raging Hormones and stuff and you're pretty invested in who you want to sleep with.)

It just barely managed to avoid being a Message Book, but I still liked it. :)

[dark-infidel.livejournal.com]

FYI

http://www.tripledoor.com/event.aspx?eid=2116&venue=mainstage

[silenceleigh.livejournal.com]

EEEEEEEEE!

[dark-infidel.livejournal.com]

Don't mention it. I'm just sad she isn't coming here.