Book post

Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin. I have a soft spot for the Tales of the City. Maupin started serializing them just before I moved to San Francisco, so I read his columns for years. When I saw there were some continued Tales, I couldn't resist. It was like catching up with old friends.

Drawing Conclusions by Donna Leon. Battered women, missing art,and more of the systemic corruption than she usually includes in the books. Not enough family scenes for my taste.

Troubled Bones by Jeri Westerson. I can't remember who recommended this author. It's blurbed as a medieval noir. Those are two genres that really don't mix. I knew the killer as soon as the crime was committed. The author tried to mix in Geoffrey Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales, not terribly successfully.

Better living through science fiction

My roommate was away for the weekend. It poured rain off and on, so I stayed home and got a fair amount done domestically. I cleaned many of the things, did some hand laundry. I did some cooking too, including a tasty batch of summer vegetable pasta sauce. I even roasted my own red peppers, which is way too labor-intensive. The best was making waffle brownies. I forget whose LJ I nicked the recipe from, but they turned out pretty well. My waffle iron makes heart-shaped ones, so they were cute.

I don't know how many of you have been following Martin Firrell's MetaSciFi project. He interviewed scifi TV stars like Joe Flanigan, Nathan Fillion, Kate Mulgrew, Claudia Black, and others about being a hero. He did a long podcast about the project and talks a lot about the contributions from Joe, Tori Higgenson, and Nathan as well as Eddie McClintock (Warehouse 13). Science fiction isn't culturally respected when it first comes out but it's a great device for exploring issues. The podcast is available free on iTunes from Handsewn Audio. Or from their website http://sendingawave.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/august-bonus-show-the-one-about-meta-scifi/