fred_mouse

only slightly lost in the drafts folder

The Viy by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, Translated by Claud Field. Described as a horror novella from 1836. Uneven, didn't really get it.

Within the Wall - Patrick Kuklinski, January, 2024. This is entirely from the point of view of a rat living in a colony in the wall, but it has some interesting things to say about aspects of human society as well. 4/5

Regarding the Childhood of Morrigan, Who Was Chosen to Open the Way - by Benjamin Rosenbaum, Nov 19, 2025 - This story is doing some interesting things. I absolutely did not give a damn, and noped out, mostly because I didn’t have the brain space to track what was going on. But also because child neglect.

The person who reminds the other person to cast a spell - by Bogi Takács, December 2024 - short poem, does very interesting things with language. 4/5

The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For by Cameron Reed, April 2025 - before reading: this is dystopia, so I may not make it through, but the title has me intrigued (I'm a bit hmmm about the one sentence summary though). After reading: It's clever, but at no point did I warm to the characters, and I think it would have been necessary to do so to really appreciate this. 3/5

The Specialist’s Hat by Kelly Link (undated) - this is a very clever ghost story, where exactly what happens is never made clear. 4/5

The Starlight on Idaho by Denis Johnson, 'winter' 2011 - odd epistolary fic from a person in drug and alcohol rehab; quite a lot of unreality, beautifully written. 4/5

[001: JAVELIN] - Derin Edala - this is a web serial; I'm not sure if it is finished. Far future science fiction. ... technically not short fiction, and I haven't finished it because the tab it is in keeps getting lost in the sea of open tabs

aiii, I have gone back through my posts, and the most recent of these that I've found is from last august. I am not going to attempt to work out what I have started or progressed; I will start with 'what I've finished' and if I still have any oomph (and it is not bed time) I'll go poke at what I've abandoned. In reverse chronological order. I'm putting the list in, and then maaaaybe I'll have the cope to put a commentary. (finished today but not yet reviewed: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie)... oh, and if I notice that it is a short story, I've left it out, because I think I captured that before.

1. Bound by the Blood - Cecilia Tan. 4.5 stars. review - BDSM speculative erotica that is just so clever, but also very emotionally hard going.
2. The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography - A.J.A. Symons. 4 stars. review - presented as a biography, but it reads as a story of an obsession, and the biographical details are highlights.
3. The Siege of Burning Grass - Premee Mohamed. 3 stars. review - despite being well written, fantastic world building, good characterisation, passable plot I felt like I just missed the point.
4. The House that Horror Built - Christina Henry. 2.5 stars review - I usually love Henry's work, and yet this one just never quite gelled for me. (content note: pandemic) 5.Nest - Inga Simpson. 5 stars. review - recommended for those who like slow moving slice of life stories; each chapter is a tiny lightly sketched moment that adds to a nuanced and complicated story of getting old, making mistakes, and reconciling with your past.
5. Building a second brain: a proven method to organise your digital life and unlock your creative potential - Tiago Forte. 4. stars. review - some really good ideas, but dry and easy to put down and forget about it. I feel that 'less annoying than the majority of self-help books' is a low bar, but it cleared it.
6. Digital Sociology - Deborah Lupton. 4 stars. review - There is a lot going on with this book, looking both at how sociology as a process / research field is changed by using digital tools, and how sociology of the digital world works.
7. Angel of the Overpass - Seanan McGuire. 4 stars. review - very satisfying set of conclusions; well worth reading if you liked the previous ones. Possibly slightly darker horror than the last one.
8. The Viy - Nikolai Gogol. 3.5 stars. review - This was well written, and individual scenes are great, but I don't think I understand how the story fits together.
9. The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting - KJ Charles. 4.5 stars. review - I really enjoyed this, and finished it in an afternoon.
10. Vertigo - Karen Herbert. 3 stars. review - I noted this as "a little thriller in a literary public service story"; I found it really hard to engage with
11. The Invisible Library - Genevieve Cogman. 3.5 stars. review - excessively contrived plot, adversarial workplace relationships verging on farce, well written, complex full of interesting characters.
12. The Coffee House Witch and the Grumpy Cat - Ariana Jade. 2 stars. review - The writing is good, but the entire thing is set up and no payoff. And for something marketed as a romance, it really isn't.
13. A Sorceress Comes to Call - T. Kingfisher. 4 stars. review - solidly written fantasy / horror / regency romance with a heavy emphasis on body horror and loss of control, and I don't recommend it to people who have trauma over dangerous and controlling parents
14. Bad Actors - Mick Herron. 2 stars. review - I listened to an interview by the author, this was the Slough House book I found in the library. Author loves their characters, but I found them so badly written.
15. The Sea Mystery - Freeman Wills Crofts. 4 stars. review - perfectly readable murder mystery, more thinky and less personality driven in comparison to Agatha Christie.
16. Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller - Oliver Darkshire. 3.5 stars. review - lots of short, self-contained anecdotes. Dry and gets a bit same-old and repetitive.

Abandoned

1. Fly with Me by Andie Burke reason - not for me
2. Doing research: A new researcher's guide by Jinfa Cai, Stephen Hwang, James Hiebert, Charles Hohensee, reason - out of scope
3. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness Jonathan Haidt reason - came across as disingenuous
4. The Pleasure of Drowning by Jean Bürlesk reason - do not share the author's sense of humour.
5. Unmasked: The Ultimate Guide to ADHD, Autism and Neurodivergence by Ellie Middleton reason - I kept finding myself contrasting it with Matilda Boseley's The Year I Met My Brain and finding it lacking.

I've done my approximately-annual tidy up of dreamwidth subscriptions. I've stopped following a set of blogs that haven't updated in ~2 years, left roughly half the communities I was in, and changed a few other details. The main exceptions on keeping people who don't post are people who comment often enough that I remember; at least one of those I've left their access but unsubscribed. The other exception is people who I'm very much hoping will turn up again one day (and one who, sadly, will never be back, but whose name makes me smile to see it in the list).

If, as happens with this, I've managed to remove your access and you are someone who does actually want to see the occasional locked post, please comment on this post. I'll put a locked post up shortly; it will read 'test' or some equally inane thing.

hopefully this storygraph link goes to the public option, not the for me specifically option.

I'm choosing to not look at what was planned; I've already posted about my 5 star reads and some other thinking. This is me just reading through and having feelings.

• The first (We Were Dreamers, Simu Liu, biography) and last (The House That Horror Built, Christina Henry, horror) sure are an interesting juxtaposition
• The 'mood' graph seems weird and I wish it wasn't there
• Going back to study had a noticeable effect on how much I was reading, which is not a surprise
• I hate the way that storygraph does 'genre' because my top five are fantasy, science fiction, short stories, LGBTQIA+, and horror, only three of which I consider to be genres.
• 15 days per book as an average just shows how much my reading is an overlapping thing.
• 'top authors' - Katherine MacLean was 4 (that can't be right, there were 8 short stories, I must not have tracked them all), Premee Mohammed (3 stories, hmm, something odd there as well), and Dave Warner (3 books, that's a trilogy)
• average rating 3.75 - probably because the DNF/0 don't get counted; I gave 11 2 star ratings, which seems more than I would have expected. Most frequent rating of 4 is also higher than I would have expected.
• somehow there were 52 'new to me' authors, which is interesting because I felt like I was sticking to comfortable stuff.
• DNF - 22 books; not sure if that feels high
• read 24 of my books - I bet that this is an undercount, because I don't always mark books as owned, particularly if I only have them as ebook.
• it is weird that my highest rated reads tend to be non-fiction, because I read so little of it

I clicked through to the more detail

• most commonly applied tag is 'borrowed', applied to 21 books. 21 borrowed + 24 owned =/= the number read
• I need to update the tags on some, because they don't have the -read suffix added

I stalled out last year on the drawing practice, because I tidied up my sketchbook and pencils, and it was so frustrating not to be able to find them that I abandoned the project. But I was in OfficeWorks the other day, and bought myself a $5 pack of 12 sketching pencils and a $2 tiny shitty sketchbook.

Two days ago, I attempted to draw something from my screen, and was too sore/tired/grumpy, and gave up after about three lines. Today, I realised that the worst part of drawing is working out where to start. So! I have a simplified goal. Attempt to draw my hand at least once a week. Today's effort was about 5 minutes worth, I got the thumb, some of the palm, and two of the fingers before running out of oomph. I've worked out that I'd rather do a stack of detail in one place than try and sketch the whole shape before getting started. And it wasn't fun, but it wasn't awful.

Medical details ahead.

( possibly TMI )

I said to myself earlier today 'last year's goal setting wasn't fabulous, let's not do that this year. ... I haven't quite managed to make myself believe that zero goals is the right number. Unlike last year where I allowed multiple goals for many topics, and separated them out, I'm going to allow myself 10 minutes (and yes, I've set a timer) to put 10-12 believable goals

1. Read >25 non-uni books. This one is going to be tricky to track because I put all the books I read into Storygraph; I'm going to have to manually count. (book: published physically as a single; short stories don't count)
2. Do my milestone 2 - this is a university requirement at about the 18 month mark; because of the way my school does things my choices are October (early) or February 2027 (late). Thus, I am aiming for the October one with the understanding that it is a large ask.
3. Eldest's quilt - at this point I would be happy with the quilt top being done
4. Continue playing with at least one of the community orchestras
5. Go to at least one of the Sunday morning sessions I have been invited to.
6. Spend time with friends and family. Reach out to friends I haven't seen in a while. Spend time with K&D, given they are going to be in the state and this will be the first opportunity I've had to actually explore what it means to be siblings.

... my time is not up, but I'm finding I don't want to put more. There is a reading, there is a uni, there is a music. There is a craft, and it is very specific, but I'm going to have to stop with the being obsessive. Do I think I'll stay on track with this? No. But also, I'm not going to attempt to track it through the year; it is a snapshot of what I thought I wanted.

I'm half-arsing this. I'm finishing the year sore, fatigued, and not nearly as grumpy as I could be (given that this was going to be a study day, and I've declared that nope, it is a annual leave day, and now I'm working through a set of tiny low priority tasks).

At the beginning of the year, I set some goals. With going back to study, I didn't make as many of them as I'd like, and I stopped tracking them mid year.

• work - I set one goal - find work. I'm calling what I'm doing 'work', success
• craft - I set seven goals. I completed two of the 'finish this'. I attempted to start Middlest's quilt. There are no incomplete projects on the green couch because we cleared the couch. I am not looking at the red couch. Eldest's quilt is not done. I started a deal with UFOs project, but abandoned. Excellent progress, considering.
• reading - I set four goals. I bailed on the Hugo reading, and my but that was the right choice. I have met my books but not my pages goals; mostly because I started tracking online short fiction. I wanted to progress the various reading challenges on Storygraph; I'm intending to do a separate post on that. Good progress.
• house - I set 6 goals. The ramp and pergola required me to contact people; this did not happen. I made progress on the towel rail for the kids bathroom. The library is more useable, as is the craft room. Acceptable progress.
• music - I set 7 goals. I kept playing with Fledge. The rest fell by the wayside. I've certainly played some of the grade 5 descant pieces, but I've really struggled with the energy to play anything for more than five minutes. Bad match between goals and reality
• learning - I set three goals; I attempted nothing. Oops.
• family - I set no goals. Youngest moved home. Middlest moved out. Middlest got married. Middlest's partners bought a house that they will all be moving in with. I made an effort to spend time with all the local family. maharetr and I now have a very low key text based weekly catchup that provides us both with executive function; I have made attempts at having coffee with people Just Because (most recently, ariaflame, chaosmanor, maharetr). Despite no goals, I'm happy with the achievement.
• social - I set a half arsed goal about catching up with friends. I have been attempting to say yes to social things, although often falling in a heap. I have, however, caught up with a number of people I don't see often enough, not all of that at funerals.
• physical exercise and health - I set four goals. I achieved none. Park runs were doing fine right up to the point that something went wrong and then I couldn't deal. My sleep worsened, got better, worsened, and now I'm back to trying to pull it back before midnight again. Oh! I kind of did the walks in Perth - I didn't do one of the book, but we did find a wheelchair accessible one to do a couple of months back, which wa chaosmanor, maharetr, artisanat, and I.
• organisation - I have five goals, but the first one is ???, so I suspect a typo. All four real ones have been progressed but are all a long way from done. This is a disappointment, but I forgot I'd set them.
• decluttering - I set four goals. I achieved (mostly) one, successfully rehoming a significant portion of the yarn and fabric I wanted to.
• writing - I set 6 goals. I have mostly kept up the offline journal/morning pages; I wrote fewer blog posts here and none at anna_reads_science and not as many as I wanted at Tumblr. My two coding projects languished. I am disappointed, but unsurprised.
• garden - I set five goals and one stretch. The bird netting came off the grapes, but I can't claim that one. Some of the extra pot plants found homes. The rest required energy, motivation, and remembering, and these did not happen.

Overall - I achieved some things, and having a list was useful, at least while I remembered it was there. I started writing a new list mid-year, and never quite got off the ground. I struggle to work out how to track these things. I continue to not put energy into skills I value, not least because they take energy and focus, and it has been a difficult year for that.

(I was going to write about what I'm hoping for 2026, but that will be later, as Out Of Oomph)

A fortnight or so ago, james_davis_nicoll posted 200 Significant Science Fiction Books by Women, 1984–2001, by David G. Hartwell. I had an interesting time skimming it, and then decided that I own a lot of those books and either haven't read them, or read them long enough ago that I don't remember enough of them.

So! I decided to try and read as many of them as possible. And because I like to make life easier for Future Me, I turned it into a StoryGraph Challenge. This challenge has no time limits, and welcomes all comers. I'd dearly like to have other people join the challenge, and read a stack of fascinating books, some by authors who should be better remembered than they are (Bujold, for one, is actually well remembered. Tess Williams, on the other hand, isn't).

The damn things continue to overlap

• surgeon appointment: nothing new, but the margins on what was removed aren't big enough, back in surgery - that's my Friday.
• the next step in the candidacy paperwork was in fact not my responsibility, and I now have an email to say I've passed that hurdle (here it is called 'Milestone 1').
• Last Monday rehearsal of the year was this week; I tried bowing for one line of very long/slow notes and ow, nope, not yet. Was, however, good support for the other viola player, including singing some of the bits where the viola has the melody. We had a new violin player! I hope they come back, they seemed to be having fun.
• Today was my last day on campus for the year. I will be working some over the shutdown, because I'm supposed to have my ethics drafted by mid January, and I still don't know what I don't know. Treated myself to curry and a fizzy drink for lunch.
• Finished Building a second brain (Tiago Forte), which I've gained some useful ideas from. Recommended if you are needing a way to organise the information that is coming in to your life; not elsewise.
• Youngest went bouldering with co-workers on Monday, and is learning yet again about not relying on hyperextended elbows to do the work (their grip strength isn't, and their forearms hurt "weirdly")
• have woken up twice this week having done Something Stupid in my sleep. Monday it was the right hip not quite in the right place (went back in during rehearsal, I staggered in looking awful, I gather) and today it is something with the muscles of the right shoulder and halfway down the back -- I could barely move the shoulder this morning, and it has settled down to 'about half the time one or more muscles are spasming'.