mmegaera | another mandala

Surprise, surprise [g].

This one's called Painted Lady, because the colors are based on a photo of a wildly-painted Victorian mansion (I don't have the photo any more, alas).

And I've finally decided what I'm going to do with all of these mandalas. I'm going to make a mini quiltlet out of each one, with quilted fabric borders, then I'm going to hang them in my stairwell (the last place in my condo with blank wall space [g]).

Crossposts: http://mmegaera.livejournal.com/509507.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mmegaera

ROFL I certainly hope not!

From:

thnidu

(That's a Douglas Adams reference.)

From:

mmegaera

Ah. I tried reading the first in that series a number of years ago and couldn't get into it.

People who know me from the Bujold list always seem to assume I'm an SF fan in general, when I'm really just a Bujold fan in specific (I've never found another SF writer who writes characters as well as she does -- and when I say that I always get people trying to foist Liaden on me, when I've already read a couple of them and was *not* impressed [wry g]).

From:

thnidu

That's not from the Hitchhiker's Guide series. Quoting from the page:

From:

thnidu

That's not from the Hitchhiker's Guide series. Quoting from the page:

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a humorous detective novel by Douglas Adams, first published in 1987. It is described by the author on its cover as a "thumping good detective-ghost-horror-who dunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic".

The book was followed by a sequel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. The only recurring major characters are the eponymous Gently, his secretary Janice Pearce and Sergeant Gilks. Adams also began work on another novel, The Salmon of Doubt with the intention of publishing it as the third book in the series, but died before completing it.

And for the allusion:

A number of elements in the novel were inspired by Adams' time at university. For example, one plot thread involves moving a sofa which is irreversibly stuck on the staircase to Richard's apartment; according to his simulations, not only is it impossible to remove it, but there is no way for it to have got into that position in the first place. In a similar incident that occurred while Douglas Adams attended St John's College, Cambridge, furniture was placed in the rooms overlooking the river in Third Court while the staircases were being refurbished. When the staircases were completed, it was discovered that the sofas could no longer be removed from the rooms, and the sofas remained in those rooms for several decades.

From:

mmegaera

Hee. I once lived in a third-floor apartment with stairs in series of six steps, turn 180 degrees, six more, etc., for a total of five times to get to the third floor (the first floor was a half-basement).

I had an eight-foot-long couch at the time. The movers had to stand it on end to get it up those five flights of stairs. It *barely* cleared the railings without hitting the ceiling several times.

From:

archangelbeth

In the spirit of Oh It's A Challenge, I'm trying to think of SF that a Bujold-only fan would like, and this is harder than one might think. (Liaden rarely holds a candle to Bujold, I think, though it is sometimes exactly the thing I want it to be. But that's usually "OH HAI SPACE OPERA" mood.)

You might like http://www.amazon.com/Earthrise-Her-Instruments-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00CLMGIZQ , though it's closer to Liaden than Bujold. (If you have a Kindle, I can Loan you that one. If you are ever tempted to sample, that is.)

Likewise, you might like http://www.amazon.com/Ancillary-Justice-Imperial-Radch-Leckie-ebook/dp/B00BAXFDLM/ , though I admit that I am a sucker for AI viewpoint characters. They are my catnip. I am totally biased on this topic and cannot be trusted. (...I am, in fact, a sucker for all kinds of non-human viewpoints, and thus my judgment is suspect.)

Hmmm. C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series, perhaps? Though that has deep Politics in it, and later books move ohmygods-slow in some ways. But if you get hooked by the viewpoint character(s), the opportunity to wallow around in the books means you don't care so much if it's going slowly. But if the deep Politics drive you off, fleeeeeee!

And, of course, while I'm not in Bujold's league, I do tend to have very character-driven plot stuff, so I should foist my free SF short story off on you sometime! O-:> (Halo Onna Stick.)

(You can, of course, also ignore me. I'm trying to figure out what exactly about Bujold's characters makes me jump up and down, and if there are any other authors who manage it, and it's hard! So I may be thinking out loud.)

From:

mmegaera

Hee. I really should re-direct you to a post I once made on the subject. If I can find it... There. I *did* put it in memories. How clever of me [g].

http://mmegaera.livejournal.com/86042.html

That might clarify what I'm *really* looking for [eg]. Not that that's the *only* thing I'm looking for or anything. But it does explain why Bujold does it for me, and why genre's so unimportant to me when it comes to a good book.

BTW, link to your SF story?

From:

archangelbeth

Fluffy, first-written, and free! https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/60566

...though https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/65189 might do better -- it's longer, and the character interactions are more complex. (If the sample intrigues, I'll make a code for you!) They're more in the "young aliens" theme, for various reasons, so the "romance" aspect probably wouldn't quite be there.

From reading the other post... Maybe sample Hogarth's Earthrise? It's not quite the same dynamics in "family," going more for the Crew, but miiiiight work? The other two are definitely more in "Beth likes non-human viewpoints and/or alien cultures" categories.

...If you haven't yet tried the Herb-Witch/Herb-Wife duology of mine, um, well, Smashwords has 50% sample. >_> (I don't know what the Likes-Bujold/Likes-HW1&2 overlap is, but it at least includes the author. *very shifty eyes*)

Dang, this *is* hard!

Where does Georgette Heyer tend to fit in all this, for you?

From:

mmegaera

I've read both the Herb Witch books and liked them quite a bit. They don't fall into the "same as Bujold and Peters" category, but that doesn't mean they aren't good, just not in that category [g]. Partly because there's only two books in the series so far, but partly because the family dynamics in those books are very different.

I'm not a big fan of aliens, alas. That's one of the things I really like about Bujold, given that she writes SF. No aliens (which is something that bounces me off of a lot of SF).

And I've never been able to get far enough past the "I hate this writer's style" issue to tell you where Heyer fits in. People keep recommending Heyer to me. Until I realized what the issue was, I kept trying her and bouncing off of her, hard enough to hit the wall.

Yeah, it is hard. I take it you read the comments in the post I linked to, none of which had any suggestions that worked out? [wry g]

From:

archangelbeth

No aliens! *beth gasps and reels around, falling in a dead faint to the floor*

Right, mental note: finish the Yaoi SF sometime. >_> (Does have severely gengineered human-stock "races," AIs, and cyborgs in the universe.)

Re: HW1&2: Yeah, very different family. And I can't really match up the kids' sequels, though there is some of that in my head (does it reach the page? no clue! O:p), since about the first thing I do is kick them out of the immediate vicinity of Home and Family.

Okay, Heyer's out! (I like Heyer... when I'm in the mood for Heyer, if that makes sense. I can't binge-read her stuff.)

Yup, read the comments! Finding Readalikes on those bits is definitely a stumper, since even More Bujold doesn't necessarily fall into the category, unless it's More Miles. (Or, one wonders, Miles' Kids (inc. Nikki)? Hmm.) ...I should actually read some of the things on my to-read list, that might count. *facepalm*

Hmmmmmmm. There might be some echoes in the Ben January series (historical mysteries) by Barbara Hambly. Doesn't really have the same family dynamic, though; rich characters, I think? The romance parts crop up a few books in, though. Goes very slowly.

I think I should go and read some of the books that I've been to-read-listing for a while.

(Oh, on a totally different slant, not Bujold-really-at-all, have you seen T. Kingfisher's Toad Words? Have I raved about it to you yet? ...I suppose there's a chance of style-bounce, though it's not Heyer-esque, but. >_> )

From:

mmegaera

I love Ursula Vernon, no matter what she's calling herself.

TBRs are kind of low on my priority list all of a sudden, though -- got a call last night from the sister who lives down the street from my mother, and my mother (who at 90 is going downhill fast) is in the hospital after another fall. No broken bones, no stroke, if banged up a bit, but she's almost completely unable to get around on her own now, so it looks like she's finally being persuaded to go into assisted living when she gets out of rehab, and my sisters are already starting to squabble over the logistics.

So if I'm incognito for periods, or, OTOH, far more chatty than normal, that's why.