Patience and Sarah is a historical novel about two women on neighboring farms who find each other and start making plans to move out "West". And I have to put that in quotes, because if upstate New York is out West, then why didn't anyone teach me how to lasso a dogie when I was growing up?

What struck me when I first started reading it was the rhythm. It put my head in a calm sort of place and after my first session or two of reading, the book hung around in my head as I was doing other things. I don't know if that's the sign of a good book, the sign of a book that's something new and different for me, or maybe the sign of a book that I'm reading at the right place and time for the universe to align. I won't say it rarely happens, but it doesn't usually happen when I'm reading a book, that the world and characters stick with me and I'm eager to go back to reading.

Patience is an old maid of 20-something (and if I hadn't forgotten, I could tell you the exact number) living with her brother and his wife and their children. She's got a pretty sweet setup, as her father cared enough about her to provide in his will for her. She's guaranteed a room of her own and two cows and whatnot. Her only real problem is she doesn't get along with her sister-in-law and feels obligated to help out with the chores rather than spend time painting as she'd like to. I started being interested in her at this point. She's got an unusual setup and doesn't seem to be all 'woe is me, I'll never get a man'. Breath of fresh air, that.

Then we, and Patience, meet Sarah. Sarah's from a farming family that only managed to produce girls. So her father chose her as the biggest and strongest of the girls to turn into a boy. Their family doesn't go to church or seem to interact much with their neighbors, so mostly being a boy means she helps out with the boy chores, and dresses in a practical boy fashion for doing so. Her hair's long though.

They meet, they fall in love, they talk about moving to York State together, Sarah blabs about it, families get in an uproar. Sarah sets off on her own instead. And here's the most annoying part of the book for me. I wanted them both to set off together and build a life together. I wanted the book to be about that. Instead we get Sarah going off as a man to make her way in the world and buy some land and set up a life for herself. But she's rubbish at it. No one believes she's 21. They all think she's an escaped apprentice. So, rather than lie and say she's 15 or a more reasonable age for a boy with no stubble, and make up a nice non-apprenticey story to go with it, she just keeps telling the truth and getting into trouble. But she meets up with someone who doesn't care and her world is broadened. And then she goes home.

And Patience and Sarah clear up some misunderstanding or something stupid and angsty. And they start meeting regularly for makeout sessions on Patience's bed. And here's another annoying part of the book. Because I was never clear on how far they went. First base was obvious, second base is touched upon, but then it's all vagueness. Grr. I don't care if it's all implied. Just make sure you're implying in a way that's clear to me.

More trouble ensues, but I'll leave the rest in non-spoilery territory.

One very awesome thing in this book is the point of view. I think Miller actually taught me something here, as I came to realize what she was doing, rather than just noticing it. At first, the story is told by Patience in first person. She's even the one to relate Sarah's point of view, in a way that makes it clear Sarah must have told her about those parts at some point in the future. But she also slips in little comments about what Sarah must have been thinking or feeling, or how other characters must've been thinking or feeling, that contradict what Sarah told her about the situation.

When Sarah goes off on her own, we finally get her point of view straight from the horse's mouth, and we see what we knew all along. That she's not as ignorant and naive as Patience seems to think she is. Though she is a bit. It's not a radical change.

Then when they meet up again, we get more of Patience's little comments. So you come to really get a sense for Patience's personality just from how Miller used point of view. Patience thinks she's better than Sarah in a lot of ways; more well-bred, more sophisticated, older, smarter, wiser. You get the sense she'd like to think she's in control of the relationship. While Sarah's on the other side striving for equality and the give-and-take the relationship's going to need if it's going to last.

So, cool book. It's one I'd read again. Even while wishing they'd gone out West to set up their little homestead in chapter 3. Maybe I'll have to be the one to write that book.

For those who don't know, yet somehow manage to be cool anyway, Wil Wheaton was the kid version of the narrator in the movie "Stand By Me", he was Wesley Crusher in what most people consider the second best Star Trek series, he's a geek, he's a blogger, he's a poker player, he's an author. He's like one of the top people being followed on twitter. How do you not know who he is?!

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He wrote a book. Several, in fact. Collections of blog entries, loosely themed. If you haven't visited his blog, it's over here. Called Wil Wheaton Dot Net, though it's not longer at dot net, or WWdN if you're in the know. And now you've read this, you're in the know.

The Happiest Days of Our Lives is one of the books he wrote. Or, if you prefer, collected. It's a collection of some of his favorite blog entries, about being a big old geek, and about growing up in the 70's and 80's, and a bit about Star Trek. I gather more of the Star Trek and lots of other geeky stuff is in the other two books, which I had fully intended to buy, and to read. I cite lack of money at the time they came out and plethora of too many other interesting books coming to my attention since as to why I haven't bought or read them.

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Summer, York Beach, Maine, near that cheesy animal park. In a camp right next to the cheesy animal park, so you could hear the lions and things at night. Which, okay, maybe made the camping experience a little more surreal and I shouldn't call the park cheesy. It wouldn't be, really, if it's wasn't the biggest amusement park in all of Maine. And that's just pathetic. (I grew up near Great Escape; I am, perhaps, jaded.)

I had recently gotten into watching TOS and reading science fiction. I had and/or bought a copy of the novel Enterprise I was reading on that trip. But also, a Starlog. (Okay, I'm not entirely certain it was Starlog, but odds are pretty good it was Starlog and I just heard Starlog published its last issue this month, which totally bums me out, so.. if it wasn't Starlog, it is now.) This Starlog had a whole big article on a NEW STAR TREK. Totally awesome. Totally confusing. Because I'm reading along, and it's saying how the doctor has a son. And I'm like.. chyea, dudes, McCoy has a daughter okay. Get it right.

Somehow I totally didn't spot the cast pictures going along with the article until I'd read more of it. So eventually it dawns on me that this is a whole new Trek. Android. Awesome. Kid. Awesome.

(Totally unrelated, but the other thing I remember when I think about this campsite is War and Peace. So I must have read that along about this time. Or, started to, all the names eventually bogged me down and bored me to tears, so I stopped.)

I'm not sure if I realized it then, but TNG was about to become my Star Trek.

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Back at school. Junior high cafeteria. Sitting at a table with some girls (with the girls may be pushing it) and they're looking at Teen Beat. And there's a picture. A full page picture of Wil "Stand By Me" Wheaton. My friend must've noticed me wanting it. I demurred. Much giggling. I didn't want them to think I had a crush on him or anything, because I really didn't. Not even on Wesley. But regardless of what they thought, I did want that picture. (Even though it shocked me that she'd even offer to tear a page out of bound, written material for any purpose!) It hung on my wall, with an accumulation of Star Trek posters, for a good long time.

I totally did not have a crush on him.

****

Wesley was treated badly by the adults. Especially Picard. How can you hate kids?! How can you treat him like a kid? He's my age! Probably even a bit older. He's totally not in the same category as the little kids you made him run around with in a couple episodes. You suck, Picard.

But at least Wesley didn't die and make me cry in the first season.

Stupid mumblegrumblegrr writers.

****

I started going to Star Trek conventions with Dad. Mostly Creation run. This is probably about the time I started hearing rumors that people didn't like Wesley. (Pre-Internet, at least pre-WWW) That kinda hurt. Because he was one of my favorite characters. And everyone seemed to hate him just because he was a kid. And/or smart.

You'd think Star Trek geeks would have more sympathy for the smart kid. But what do I know?

****

Wil Wheaton, at a con. TNG is over by this point, I think. Wheaton's only about a year older than me, but at this con, he seemed so far beyond my comprehension. He was dressed in what then I would've called a dangerous kind of punk style. I was afraid he'd turned into, or always was, one of those kids into drinking, smoking, music. I'm not sure if I thought him unChristian or unCool at this point, possibly both.

But he was involved with Video Toaster, which was used in seaQuest. And seaQuest, of course, is totally cool. And he was funny on stage. So I left that con not quite sure what to make of him.

I realize now that he was just being a teenage geek. I just couldn't recognize it at the time.

****

College - alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die and strek-l, and well, it's college. I had moved on to DS9 and Pern MUSHing and occasional attendance of classes.

****

At some point I started hearing about this blogging thing, which was somehow different from a website, but not. And I'm sure someone, possibly K, must have pointed me to Wil Wheaton's blog. And I discovered all over again that he's a geek. I started reading his blog pretty regularly.

But then he got into playing poker. And blogging about poker. Incessantly. I have little to no interest in poker. Though I did watch him in a game on TV. I stopped reading the blog. I haven't actually gone back. Relying on other people to tell me he's going to be in an upcoming episode of something. Or that his book is going to a new publisher, so it's the last chance to get this version.

****

There are two entries in this book that I read on his blog. And they're very, very good ones, that I remember reading. How many blog entries do you remember years later?

The one is about being a stepfather to teenage and near-teenage boys, music, and the generation gap, and being a geek.

The other is about a beloved cat.

Yea, those freaking cats are everywhere around writers and bloggers. But it had me tearing up when I reread it in this book anyway.

****

Reading these, you feel like Wheaton is a fellow geek. A fellow child of the 70's and 80's. And I get a glimpse of what it's like to be a father, and an actor, and even a boring old poker player.

I don't know if it's from growing up being an actor, how he was raised, his genes, or what, but he's really, really good at telling an honest, emotional story.

All of the entries in this book are worth reading. All in one gulp, or one by one when you have a spare five minutes.

My least favorite is probably the last one, because it's about poker. But it's also about being a minor celebrity in the land of television. It's a good wrapup to the book. And well, he did need to end it with something more light-hearted than the cat entry before it.

****

Buy his book. Read his blog. Enjoy being a geek with him.

Having reached the bottom of the river, Dag and Fawn go off to see if he can get some training from a Lakewalker healer. Wherein we learn a new term 'groundsetter', which I never did quite figure out. It seems to be a specialty, somewhat like a surgeon. This guy, Arkady, takes on the unconventional Dag as his apprentice. But when Dag goes off to heal a farmer kid with lockjaw, this Lakewalker camp isn't too keen on the idea. So Dag leaves, but he acquires Arkady and a patroller chick. And they all head up The Trace, which is basically a land path up the river back north. Naturally, along the way, they acquire more people, Lakewalker and farmer both.

So other than Dag being a little more educated, this is basically the plot of the last book. Heading on up the river instead of down, acquiring people as they go. I was enjoying the trip, but after awhile, I started wondering when the big, bad conflict would come along. So every time they encountered a new person or group or weird thing, I wondered if this was going to be it. Only, mostly it turned out not to be it.

When the big bad does show up, it's pretty interesting. And everyone gets something to do. And people get hurt. And people do clever things.

Around about this time, I was having real trouble telling people apart. There were so many of them and they all had similar, one or two-syllable names, mostly nature-based. There's Ash and Owlet and Sage and Berry and on and on. And just from the name, you couldn't guess at gender. And just from the name, you couldn't guess if they were Lakewalker or farmer. So I'd be staring at a name, trying to remember... Lakewalker or farmer? Male or female? Whose husband was that again?

The last chapter was an epilogue. An entire chapter of infodump to tell us what people had been up to and where they'll go now that the story is over. Granted it's not 'As you know, Bob..' because the Bob in this situation doesn't know. They're filling each other in on what they've missed while being apart. So while it's effective enough, it's a little inelegant.

One theme in this book is halfbloods. Some of the people they pick up along the way are half-Lakewalker, half-farmer, and of course Dag and Fawn are concerned how any of their children are going to get along in the world. And the final chapter really draws this out.

Which is kind of a shame, because I'm actually far more interested in the halfbloods.

All in all, a decent end to a decent story. Though nothing about the series really wowed me. If Bujold writes more in this world, I'll definitely read it. But I won't be going back to reread these anytime soon. Unlike the Vorkosigan books, which I really do need to go back and reread soon.

The Nebula Awards - To include the new one.
The Tiptree Awards - To include the new ones.
The Hugo Short Stories List - I've read a bunch.

There's a lot to like in this book. The female characters are good, and take roles you don't normally expect to see. They're in the military, just like the men and boys are, and one of them is even referred to as, I believe, 'The Butcher'... or well, it was something bloody and unpleasant. Also, two thumbs up for them being called 'sir'. I always liked that in Star Trek and was quite mad at Voyager and Janeway for insisting otherwise.

The setting is California.. at first I thought it was a future California and the references to magic was just technology that had been half-forgotten. But then I wasn't so sure. It may be an alternate, fantastical California. There are Houses, which are not only the families that live in them, but the houses themselves, which have an AI (or a sentient magical demonal being thing) that is also the house and part of the family. Some alien invaders, or maybe they're not alien, but they're bird-like creatures, have come in. And there was a war, but they're sort of in a truce at the moment.

Flora Segunda is the second Flora born into the family, the first one having died. Her father's got PTSD and is generally loopy. Her mother is a General and is off doing General stuff most of the time. Leaving Flora to take care of the big house by herself. Her sister's also off in the military. She's almost 14 and preparing for her Catorcena party where she'll be officially an adult and can go join the military herself. But she doesn't want to. She wants to be a ranger. Which are cooler, sort of like spies, and they can use magic, and they're more independent, I gather.

What's the plot though? That's the hard part. I had trouble following the plot. Flora seems to go off randomly in several directions, so that I can't quite tell what her goal is half the time. She finds the denizen for her house, which has been locked up by her mother. And instead of asking her mother why, she just goes along with the plan of helping him out. Which involves giving him some of her Will. She doesn't even seem to think twice about that.

So part of the time, she's trying to help him get stronger and free himself from her mother's banishment and whatnot. But then part of the time she's gone off to try to save this Dainty Pirate guy that her mother has captured and sentenced to death. And all her attempts to do that fail spectacularly. But not for any particular reason arising from her actions or the actions of an antagonist. It's just sort of.. fate, or coincidence. Or at least certainly seems to be. A maleficial deus ex machina if you will.

And in the middle of the muddle that the plot turns into, at least in my head, Flora's being far too trusting of people. Especially when they're not even people. She and her sidekick, whose name has already escaped me, meet this random mermaid guy and swallow his story whole without questioning it in the least. Or even questioning him in the least.

Now, yea, okay, they're only 13, and maybe their lives and thoughts are a muddle. But it's not enjoyable to try to follow. And I frequently wanted to shake her.

Interesting world and interesting society. And, like I said, some good things in here. I want to know more about these creatures and halfbreeds they're at war with. I wonder if there's more in the short stories that preceded this book. Or if there's more in the sequel. So I'll read more. But I don't know that I'd recommend it to other people. Read it if it interests you, but if you're looking for books to read, I have others I can suggest.

This is book three, so you definitely have to have read the first two. Dag and Fawn have left the Lakewalkers and gone off on their own, with a vague plan to bridge the gap between farmers and Lakewalkers and make the world a better, safer place.

I wasn't quite sure where Bujold would go with their story, and it's quite open-ended at the end of the last book. But I did think one possibility was to have them wander around the world, gathering up followers. And they do do that, though not quite in the way I imagined.

What was surprising to me was that this is a river journey story. There's no clear hint of that from the picture on the cover. You have to look closely to see the river behind them. And I don't normally look at covers too closely before I read.

The first surprising thing they do is go back to Fawn's family. It almost feels like the story is backtracking when they do that. But they don't stay there long. They're just there long enough to pick up Fawn's brother, Whit. He's the first person they acquire. Then they go on to the river and hire a boat. The next surprising turn is that they sit on this boat without going anywhere for a few chapters. Normally you'd think if this is a quest story or a journey story or even any other sort of story, there'd be forward movement in the form of the boat actually going somewhere.

Of course they pick up other people along the way.. most before they even really get started moving the boat. Now, naturally their little band can't be completely made up of farmers, so Dag manages to acquire some Lakewalkers too. Now, yes, this is entirely without them doing anything consciously to get a gaggle of followers. That's the best sort of leader, right? Well.. I don't know about that, but it's a common idea in some books.

This book reminded me most of Mississippi Jack which is also a river story. Some of the minor plots are even similar. And I do like Mississippi Jack, as I like all of the Jacky Faber stories, so it makes me think favorably of this book as well. Which makes it my favorite of the series thus far.

Dag learns more 'magic' and plays around with it and stuff, which is interesting. We have another battle, which is less interesting. All in all, it's not bad.

Where's the story going in the next book? Well, I picture their band growing a little bigger, and then they'll set about changing the world and saving it from the evil malices. Using Dag's new, special groundsensing skills, and probably beating him up quite a lot in the process. And Fawn will of course be instrumental in it. And some people will die, other than redshirts. And then they'll live happily ever after.

It's a shame the last book is hardcover. I tend to have a different reading experience with books if they're paperback versus hardcover. And hardcover doesn't usually fare as well.

But, at least, only one more book to go!

The first woman to show up on that list, btw? Le Guin in 1974.

The writing right off the bat did not impress me. It started in the middle of a basketball game, but was riddled with backstory and flashbacks and it just was not handled well at all. Fortunately the game, and the majority of the flashbacks, ended and the writing improved from there.

The amount of typoes in the beginning really bugged me too, but fortunately they mostly disappeared at some point as well, though I still saw some here and there.

But then the writing bugged in another way. The main character is on a bus when it gets attacked by some supervillains. He (who is also narrating) says he didn't know who those supervillains were at the time, yet he keeps calling them by their names in the narration. No, no no. Yea, okay, you can do that, but you have to handle it better. Like.. 'I later learned their names were... Blah, Blah, and MegaBlah'. But I still think it's preferably to refer to people by characteristics until you learn their name in the course of the story. Such as the author did do when it came to Dark Hero, who's first known as The Man in Black. (As you wish.)

I liked the main character, and I liked the group of superheroes he got paired with. One guy's superpower is making people sick! And one superhero is an old lady. Moore's definitely broken out of some of the tropes in coming up with characters. But then at the same time, he annoys me by having some of the heroes be far too closely aligned with actual superheroes from comic books. By which I mostly mean the one character who is clearly a takeoff on Superman. Not only is he an alien, but his adopted parents live in freaking Kansas. It couldn't be Ohio or something? I wish he'd changed more details there.

There were also a couple of moments where I couldn't understand the character's motivations.. not necessarily behind their actions, but behind their emotions. Miss Scarlett flips out a couple of times and I don't quite know what prompted it. Yea, you can have all this pent-up rage or whatnot, but it'd be nice to have a trigger before it's unleashed.

So, some good stuff in here, but I do wish he'd been a little better edited. If he writes another novel after this one, I'd hope to see some improvement.

Fortunately there's a bit of magic and plot point in the middle of this sex scene. And also fortunately, once we get it over with, the story seems free to move on from there. Much like how the story got much better in the first book after the first sex scene was over with.

In this book, we're off to meet Dag's family. And we find out more about the sharing knives. Which seemed to me to contradict things in the first book. I thought any bone knife could be primed by any Lakewalker's heart. Both bones and hearts being in short supply, it'd seem to be rather essential. But apparently a knife has to be set up by a maker in advance for a particular person. It can be switched later, but still requires a maker, and still has to be before it gets stabbed into someone's heart. Except later on, they're talking about killing a bunch of people and regretting their lack of knives available for the task.. except none of those knives if they did have them would've been ready for any of the intended dead people.

Dag goes off to fight some more malices and stuff, and Fawn's left back at camp to deal with the in-laws. We get a bunch of domestic stuff and political stuff from her end, and some battle and stuff from his end. In that way, it was reminding me quite a lot of the Vorkosigan books. Domestic stuff, political stuff, tricky dire survival situation stuff.

Dag also reminded me a bit of Miles, mostly in the way Bujold was treating him. He's missing a hand to start with, then she breaks his other arm. Fortunately we have Lakewalker healers who can fix him right up soon enough (when the broken arm thing was getting old plotwise). Then he's free to run off and get himself hurt even worse, in more interesting ways. And, again, the healer magic can do some, but not everything. Likewise with Miles, advanced medical technology can fix him up quite a bit, so then he has to go and get himself beat up in more interesting ways that're harder to fix.

I liked this book better than the first one. And I actually can't really predict where this series is going in the next book. So it'll be interesting to find out.

Highlight of the update? Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.