Books I haven't yet read

I'm making this list primarily to remind myself not to buy anymore books before I finished the ones I still have lying around. There are so many books on my "to read" list, fascinating stories and worlds I can't wait to explore, these will have to be read first though. And I'll tell you all about them.

• Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling 
• This is a German novel but I have included it and not the other German novels I also haven't read yet because people tell me there's a good English translation out as well. And Marc-Uwe Kling is just very funny. He's best known for episodic tales about co-habitating with a talking communist kangaroo (yes, it is exactly as absurd and political as it sounds). Qualityland is a completely unrelated novel about a capitalist dystopia and I'm looking forward to finding out how his writing style and one of my favorite genres interact with each other.

• Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
• I bought this novel to read on vacation but alas I never did and it is still sitting on my bedside table today. Why this novel? Netflix recommended the movie to me and it looked so visually interesting and atmospheric that I was immediately intrigued. Now that I have the novel I feel I need to read that one first before I can watch the movie, so I have done neither at this point. I only know that a group of scientists enter a strange zone that no one ever came back from and that no one knows much of anything about. I'm looking forward to reading the descriptions of the world the characters encounter.

•  The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 edited by Carmen Maria Machado and John Joseph Adams
• As I've told you before I love these short story collections. I have absolutely no idea what tales await me but in this case that is exactly what I want. I'm looking forward to discovering new favorites and authors I have never heard of before.

• Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
• I love Becky Chambers' other novels taking place in this world (The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit), so it is no surprise that I'd buy the third one. She has created a beautifully creative and fascinating science fiction universe that I love to live in for the duration of her novels. This one tells the stories of a couple of humans and their lives aboard the fleet of ships that carried humans away from their dying homeplace and into the stars and I'm looking forward to falling in love with these new characters and to explore this novel's themes. 

• Wool by Hugh Howey
• I read the sequel to Wool, Shift, on vacation once while believing it was a stand-alone. Somehow I missed the two in Roman numerals on its cover. I had no problem following the plot and in fact suspect I discovered the backstory of the world that you are not yet meant to know when reading book number one. I liked Shift enough to want to read Wool but since it's a pretty dark post-apocalypse, where humanity lives in underground silos, I haven't been in the mood since and it just sits on my shelf. I'm looking forward to finding out what the first expression of that world should have been.

• The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera
• I love the movie. I was a child when I first watched it and too young to understand why my parents were crying. In university the movie was on a watchlist for a lecture and this time I understood. Rewatching the movie made me want to read the novel it is based on, the story about a Maori girl who grows up wanting to prove herself to her grand-father, the chief of her tribe. I'm looking forward to experiencing the beautifully moving story in its  original form.

• The Silent Stars Go By by Dan Abnett
• Every fall I see this novel sitting on my shelf and tell myself, "this Christmas, I'll finally read it". But I never do. It's a Doctor Who novel about 11, Amy and Rory turning up to help a colony in trouble. It is very clearly winter and Christmas-themed, which is why it would feel weird to read at any other time of the year and which is why I haven't read it yet. I'm looking forward to a fun, heart-warming seasonal story. Hopefully this Christmas.

 Maybe one of these books interests you as well. Or not. I might talk a bit more about one of these books (if I ever get around to reading them that is).

Satori over and out

Thoughts about things I saw: The Magicians

moviepilot.de

I like The Magicians. At its best it’s a wonderful mix of fantastical and wacky and serious and dramatic. At worst its tone shifts are abrupt and jarring. I enjoy the characters and the magic and the incorporation of the fairytale not-Narnia that is both deconstructed and played completely straight.

One of my favorite, if not my absolute favorite, scenes of the show is the coronation of season 2 episode 1. As it happens, one of the ragtag group of magic college students is destined to be the high king of this fairytale land. For him to be recognized, however, he needs a crown, as do the three co-rulers he gets to pick. The crowning isn’t supposed to be an opulent affair, instead they travel to an old man by the ocean who guards the crowns.

Quentin, who is arguably the protagonist and who lives with depression, is the one to earnestly believe in the magical world and insists that they don’t just put the crowns on but crown each other. And it’s… it’s so very good. All these people are fucked-up and broken in their own ways and they made mistakes and treated each other badly. The coronation scene is so emotional because it is so genuine and earnest, full of true emotion and honest intentions.

Alas, the show never really delivers and the four of them never rule together. (Two of them do and it’s very good, but not what was promised by that scene.) The show makes a bit of a habit on not delivering on wonderful concepts and premises and it makes me sad because, damn, the potential is there, you just have to follow through.