Re: SEAL Book Club
Posted: Sat 11 Dec, 2021, 4:53 pm
The kids woke me up way before J today and I got this draft saved ahead of time so I'll go first today.
I Was a Teenage Space Jockey
I was expecting something completely different from the title and spent most of my first read-through being confused about where the story was going to go. I think this one goes in the category of "a good story which I can appreciate but it isn't really my kind of thing". There's a lot to unpack in it which I don't really have the... skills? qualifications? to talk about so *gestures vaguely*. The bit in particular where Marten decides to cut off his other braid to keep his dad from going to jail was like, ow, but also, like, a relatable choice.
One lighthearted takeaway: the focus on being in an arcade as a historical time period made me feel old lol
This makes for a second "normal life in the past but with One Weird Reality-Bending Trick" story, which I find interesting. Is this more common than I thought or is it a coincidence?
Space Pirate Queen of the Ten Billion Utopias
This one was a lot of fun! Incredibly standard message about environmentalism and social activism and kind of an abrupt conclusion, but the bulk of the story was a lot of fun.
Do you think it was intended as a reimagining of Night on the Galactic Railroad or just inspired by the flying trans-galactic train imagery?
Stowaways
I got like 1/3 of the way through this one and went "oh, it's a skip" and yeah. It's basically a skip lol. From that angle it was a really fun clever little piece.
Buuuuuut.
The ending super annoyed me??? The entire write-up says that the work is behind a curtain, one that the card and you are in front of. It talks about ethics and consent. And then the ending is like "surprise! it's behind you! you've already been infected!" What the fuck was that??
To Reach the Gate, She Must Leave Everything Behind
I got to the word "quiver" in the first paragraph and I knew exactly what this story was going to be and I made myself read it anyway in case I was wrong.
I was not wrong.
I'm really, really tired of the whole "Aslan is Bad, Actually" genre of Narnia fanfiction and I regret not quitting at the second sentence.
I'll spare you all the rant.
The Poetry
Nothing much to say about them this week. The first poem was very contemporaneous. The second poem had some great referential imagery but I couldn't figure out whether it was about the ex-heroes or about the children of the ex-heroes, which changes the tone of the piece pretty dramatically.
What about y'all? You two usually have better reads on the poems than I do.
I Was a Teenage Space Jockey
I was expecting something completely different from the title and spent most of my first read-through being confused about where the story was going to go. I think this one goes in the category of "a good story which I can appreciate but it isn't really my kind of thing". There's a lot to unpack in it which I don't really have the... skills? qualifications? to talk about so *gestures vaguely*. The bit in particular where Marten decides to cut off his other braid to keep his dad from going to jail was like, ow, but also, like, a relatable choice.
One lighthearted takeaway: the focus on being in an arcade as a historical time period made me feel old lol
This makes for a second "normal life in the past but with One Weird Reality-Bending Trick" story, which I find interesting. Is this more common than I thought or is it a coincidence?
Space Pirate Queen of the Ten Billion Utopias
This one was a lot of fun! Incredibly standard message about environmentalism and social activism and kind of an abrupt conclusion, but the bulk of the story was a lot of fun.
Do you think it was intended as a reimagining of Night on the Galactic Railroad or just inspired by the flying trans-galactic train imagery?
Stowaways
I got like 1/3 of the way through this one and went "oh, it's a skip" and yeah. It's basically a skip lol. From that angle it was a really fun clever little piece.
Buuuuuut.
The ending super annoyed me??? The entire write-up says that the work is behind a curtain, one that the card and you are in front of. It talks about ethics and consent. And then the ending is like "surprise! it's behind you! you've already been infected!" What the fuck was that??
To Reach the Gate, She Must Leave Everything Behind
I got to the word "quiver" in the first paragraph and I knew exactly what this story was going to be and I made myself read it anyway in case I was wrong.
I was not wrong.
I'm really, really tired of the whole "Aslan is Bad, Actually" genre of Narnia fanfiction and I regret not quitting at the second sentence.
I'll spare you all the rant.
The Poetry
Nothing much to say about them this week. The first poem was very contemporaneous. The second poem had some great referential imagery but I couldn't figure out whether it was about the ex-heroes or about the children of the ex-heroes, which changes the tone of the piece pretty dramatically.
What about y'all? You two usually have better reads on the poems than I do.