"you and the barber make a handsome pair"

[jazzfish]

The last two weeks have seen my largest book-acquiring binge since the Tysons Corner Borders closed. Unsurprisingly, we're now entirely out of credit at the two used bookstores in Bellingham.

BOOKS ACQUIRED:

• Two gifts (one Chihuly book for Mrs F, one [REDACTED])
  
• One Stoppard play (Night and Day)
  
• One paperback with Roger Zelazny's name slapped on the cover (Chronomancer by Jane Lindskold, the novelisation of a decent mid-nineties point-and-click adventure game with worldbuilding by Roger)
  
• Two first-two-of-a-trilogy (Martha Wells's Books of the Raksura on repeated plugs by thanate plus a vague recollection that City of Bones was pretty good; and Ken MacLeod's Engines of Light because we had spare credit at one bookstore and his name sounds familiar)
  
• One last-three-of-a-tetrology (the previously mentioned Long Price Quartet, because I seem to have become interested in closed series books again)
  
• One second-of-a-trilogy (eBear's Shattered Pillars)
  
• One third-of-a-trilogy (WJW's Conventions of War, and seriously, Chapters, would it have been so hard to ship the second one at the same time?)

BOOKS STILL REQUIRED:

• Martha Wells, The Siren Depths (dependent of course on liking the first two)
  
• Ken MacLeod, Engine City (ditto)
  
• Hal Duncan, Ink (unless Vellum goes entirely off the rails in the next few hundred pages, but I'm liking it so far)
  
• Daniel Abraham, A Shadow in Summer
  
• WJW, The Sundering (on order from Chapters)
  
• And as always, various not-yet-published / -written, to include the third Eternal Sky book, Aspects: A Novel With Sorcery (ha), and while we're dreaming however many more books it'll take WJW to finish the Metropolitan sequence

---

And a meme! Via firecat.

How this works:

You comment, I give you an age (please tell me how old you are, or risk having to time-travel to find out the answers) and you respond to the meme questions with what applied to you back then, and what's true now.

firecat gave me 19. Eep. That would be December of 1995 and most of 1996.

I lived in:
A dorm room in Newman Hall at Virgina Tech, with James Matthew Roberts. I think that was the summer I took a couple of classes, so I stayed in Newman until July (Matt left in May). I stayed with my parents for a couple of months, and then Apartment Six in Blacksburg, with Mandy, Kym, and, um, I don't remember if Justin was there that semester or if he was off co-oping and had left us with Random Rob the subleaser.

Now I live in a condo in Vancouver, with uilos and two geriatric cats.

I drove:
Nothing at all, except for visits home when I borrowed Dad's dark green pickup.

Now I drive ... nothing at all, except for the occasional Car2Go or rental.

I was in a relationship with:
I'd started dating Shaye B-- right before I left for college; that lasted until a week after Valentine's. (Stupid February.) I got together with Steph D-- sometime in July.

Now I'm in a long-term relationship with uilos, who I met that August.

I feared:
In winter and spring I was scared of losing Shaye, and of getting bad grades. I don't think I was specifically afraid of anything in the fall. Other than being a failure and being alone.

Those last two are pretty much the only things I fear now, but now I'm willing to call them by name.

I worked at:
I was a full-time student at Tech, living off student loans.

Now I'm a tech writer for a medium-sized software company.

I wanted to be:
An engineer, a writer, a graduate, independent, surrounded by friends, loved, recognised.

Now I'd just like to be more confident in myself; everything else follows from that. If I could only get my record clean, I'd be a genius.

Comments

[rbandrews]

Sure, this sounds interesting. I'm thirty now.

[jazzfish]

Hm. How about twenty-two?

[rbandrews]

Hey, at least you didn't pick twenty-one.

[shanaqui]

I remember liking Ken MacLeod. Fairly hard-SF, if I'm thinking of the right guy.

[jazzfish]

That looks right. When I picked up the books my first thought was "Oh, I've been meaning to read something by this guy," followed immediately by not being sure whether I was thinking of Ken MacLeod or Ian McDonald, or for that matter Jack McDevitt. I'm pretty sure MacLeod is the Scottish socialist I was looking for.

[shanaqui]

I seem to have passed on my copies, but I remember I had quite a lot of his work so I assume I thought he was the bee's knees at one time. *grin*

[firecat]

Lots of churn in living places and relationships. I didn't much like that part of being 19.

[jazzfish]

O yes, I am so over the whole "living in three different places in a year" thing. At least I hope I am.

[blairmacg.livejournal.com]

I think you'll really enjoy the Raksura books. There is much there to love.

I'll meme with you. I'm 42. :)

Looking back on one's fears is... often enlightening, sometimes jarring, always gutsy. Fearing aloneness ebbs and flows, I think, over the years.

[jazzfish]

I'm rather looking forward to them; they sound absolutely brilliant based on the jacket copy.

Hm... how about twenty-four, then?

The fear of being left alone is a central agon of my existence. It's more complicated than that, of course, and in ways I'm not quite up to talking about in public.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Oh meme me please! I am 23, but don't much mind time travel.

[jazzfish]

*grin* Let's go with nineteen anyway.

[rainbowk.livejournal.com]

How 'bout me?

[jazzfish]

Twenty-eight?

[rainbowk.livejournal.com]

Done. Interesting choice.

http://rainbowk.livejournal.com/699311.html