![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I returned A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms to the library today, unread. In its way, this is a real recommendation for the book. I returned it because all the system's copies were checked out and mine was recalled for someone else who wanted to read it. I'll try again when I no longer have quite so many other books competing for my immediate attention.
One of those other books was one of my recently gift-given cookbooks, Mangoes and Curry Leaves, from which I have learned that Nepal is the size of Iowa, and that Sri Lanka rises to 7000 feet. I really like Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's cookbooks. They have given us so many of our staple dishes over the years. From the newest, I cooked dal tonight for the first time, a Bangladeshi recipe. It used red dal, tamarind, onions, and turmeric, among its other ingredients. The results were vivid and alluring, an addictive but not overwhelming intensity to it. The Toronto-based authors say it's one of their staple dishes; on first taste, it's likely to become one of mine too.
All of you who recommended Feed: you're right. It really is good. The pacing started out unevenly, but it gained momentum, although it still occasionally stumbled over sudden longer periods of time. Even the things about it which annoyed me slightly - the constant excessive detail of world-building - turned out to be in there for a good reason. I've been somewhat wondering if it annoyed me quite as it did because it's a little too close to the way I track the items in my world. I wonder: in how many books can one trace the story of a single bottle or can of drink over many mentions? There must be a fair many out there.
One of those other books was one of my recently gift-given cookbooks, Mangoes and Curry Leaves, from which I have learned that Nepal is the size of Iowa, and that Sri Lanka rises to 7000 feet. I really like Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's cookbooks. They have given us so many of our staple dishes over the years. From the newest, I cooked dal tonight for the first time, a Bangladeshi recipe. It used red dal, tamarind, onions, and turmeric, among its other ingredients. The results were vivid and alluring, an addictive but not overwhelming intensity to it. The Toronto-based authors say it's one of their staple dishes; on first taste, it's likely to become one of mine too.
All of you who recommended Feed: you're right. It really is good. The pacing started out unevenly, but it gained momentum, although it still occasionally stumbled over sudden longer periods of time. Even the things about it which annoyed me slightly - the constant excessive detail of world-building - turned out to be in there for a good reason. I've been somewhat wondering if it annoyed me quite as it did because it's a little too close to the way I track the items in my world. I wonder: in how many books can one trace the story of a single bottle or can of drink over many mentions? There must be a fair many out there.
(no subject)
Anyway, I didn't come up with a satisfactory answer, but I did think, "That's a question for
(no subject)
Coffee is endemic in science fiction novels, tea less so, in my casual observation. Other people have tackled the topic of coffee-a-likes in passing, but it warrants further study - possibly by me!
My initial hypothesis is that, in our developed western world experience, we have a lot of gadgets for coffee: electric grinders, cafetières, espresso machines. Households with no coffee-gadgets will often buy instant coffee instead - a modern processed food whose constituents are opaque to the user. Tea, in contrast, is, to most end-users, leaves in boiling water. Even habitual users of electric kettles are usually aware they can boil water pretty easily with fire and a pot if they absolutely had to. Those coffee gadgets aren't usually seen to be *used* in SF - but that association probably informs the default environments authors construct in their heads around types of fantastical literature. (Even when they aren't actually necessary to the preparation of coffee - but I don't know I even know anyone who uses a mechanical grinder, say, to prepare their coffee. if I do, I don't know many of them, I'm sure.)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
I gather that mechanical grinders are almost all of the burr type, which are preferred by afficionadoes as they give a more even grind and don't over-heat the grounds due to friction. My mum has had the same mechanical grinder for about 20 years, and it's still going strong - it might be a bit of a pain if you were running a coffee shop, but it only takes a minute or two to grind enough beans for a couple of cups.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
I know that this is not the mainstream view but, on the other hand, I know I am not alone.
(no subject)
(no subject)
Structurally it's very deft, very accomplished: by first novel standards, it's a jaw-dropper. But I got an uneasy feeling that the backdrop behind the principal actors is paper-thin; non-trivial stuff Just Happens without any fuss because it needs to, and bothering to make it plausible would distract from the thrust of the central narrative (which is a dissection of a couple of dysfunctional abusive families that mirror each other's flaws, using the alienated protagonist in search of someone to blame -- who has been recalled to fill a role in a rite of succession -- as a cursor).
There are similar flaws in the setting of "The Broken Kingdoms" that I shall not trouble you with. Suffice to say, the story is to some extent undermined by the world-building (which, while not dire, is certainly not up to the high standard of the rest of the book).
(no subject)
(no subject)
re:
(no subject)
(no subject)