Fandom: What I'm Reading Wednesday

[escritoireazul]

The rest of upper management are in the office next door looking into concert tickets, so I'm popping on to blow the last bit of the work day here. (I already gave my input into the concert tickets. Also, I love my job.) (Not just because I can do stuff like this at work, but also, yes, because I can do stuff like this at work.)

(Random work story from the other day: I was very grumpy and so doing things with more force than necessary. I reached up to knock some hair out of my face and punched myself in the nose. I am awesome like that. I then promptly told everyone because it was so hilarious. What, you expect upper management to have poise and [I can't think of the word I want here, thanks a lot, med brain, so I'll say esteemed behavior and hope someone knows what word I actually mean]? Not around here!)

I just updated my book list last night, so it's a good time to do a What I'm Reading Wednesday post.

Last Three Things I Read

+ Sparrow Hill Road and Girl in the Green Silk Gown by Seanan McGuire

Reread of Sparrow Hill Road in preparation to read the sequel. I've loved Rose Marshall through a couple of iterations now, and I really enjoyed Girl in the Green Silk Gown. I thought the pacing dragged a little in a couple places, but not enough to knock me out of the story, and I loved what the story itself.

+ Spellbound by Christopher Pike

A reread for a project. It's not my favorite Christopher Pike (that is Monster), but it's one of my favorites and it continues to be a lot of fun. (Racist as hell in places, though. Pike struggles with that and with sexism a lot.)

I have no idea what I'll read next. (Well, no, I'll read Scavenger Hunt by Christopher Pike in the near future for that same project, but other than that, I don't know.) I need to knock out some non-fiction. My goals this year were to read 100+ books (I'm at 113), 50 from my to read list (I'm at 17 ... oops), and 12 non-fiction (I'm at 5). I'm probably not going to hit the to read list set (which is actually failing anyway because I keep adding new books -- it's a list of books I own but haven't read, and the goal was to work my way through it. That is not what's happening), but I can do some non-fiction reading. (In fact, I just bought a Humble Bundle about management and happiness and things like that, so I'll try to knock some of them out.)

(Though mostly, I need to be writing Yuletide. BEARS. I'M AT BEARS.)

Comments

[glorious_spoon]

Ooh, I really loved the Rose Marshall books! IA with you about book 2; I think to some degree the nature of the worldbuilding kind of lends it to the looser format of the first book, bit I enjoyed both of them quite a bit. Have you read her writing as Mira Grant?

[escritoireazul]

That's a good point about the nature of the world building and the structure of the first book. I really liked the feel of it calling back to ghost stories, which isn't there in book two.

I've read the first two books in the Newsflesh trilogy, the entire Parasitology trilogy, and Into the Drowning Deep (and the prequel short story). Of those, the killer mermaids are by far my favorite. I love creepy ocean stories and killer mermaids and now I need to reread them. Again.

[amaresu]

Have you heard of the podcast Teen Creeps? It started as a Christopher Pike reread podcast, but has expanded to other 90s teen horror. It's pretty good.

[escritoireazul]

I love that podcast! Though I'm very far behind; my listening kind of trailed off once they started expanding because I started marathoning the NoSleep podcast. I should really catch up. I support their Patreon and think both hosts are delightful.

[amaresu]

They are lovely.

My listening tends to go based on what book their reading. I'm not much for the VC Andrews stuff, but got super excited to see them doing LJ Smith.

It's fun.

[author_by_night]

A reread for a project. It's not my favorite Christopher Pike (that is Monster), but it's one of my favorites and it continues to be a lot of fun. (Racist as hell in places, though. Pike struggles with that and with sexism a lot.)


When were the books written? I remember them being a thing in the 90's. Then again, things in the 90's were still... different.

I've accidentally punched myself before.

[escritoireazul]

A huge chunk of his books were in the 90s, including most of The Last Vampire series, though the last couple books came out more recently. Spellbound is definitely a product of its time period, but from what I've seen in the newer TLV books, he still has some of the same struggles in his writing. Love the books, though, in all their ridiculousness.

[havocthecat]

Maybe that's why I always struggled with Christopher Pike as a YA reader, but couldn't articulate why? Oh, who was the other big pulp-like YA horror writer for teens that wasn't Christopher Pike? Not RL Stine, he came onto the scene when I was too old for Goosebumps, and also it was a woman, but not LJ Smith. She was Vampire Diaries, which I also read, but she wasn't quite so prolific as whomever I'm thinking of, but can't name. Argh.

[escritoireazul]

Pike has some interesting things that pop up throughout his books. There's a lot of male gaze that made me uncomfortable back when I first read them, but I couldn't really put my finger on why back then. And his Whisper of Death book has some really damn weird things around abortion that infuriated me back then and still to this day.

So, Diane Hoh was big in that YA horror genre. Her main series was Nightmare Hall, but she also wrote some standalone Point Horror books. Another one is Richie Tankersley Cusick. Carol Ellis did some standalone books, including one of my favorites, Camp Fear. Caroline B. Cooney had some Point Horror, though I think she's best known for her contemporary YA, like The Face On the Milk Carton.

None of them are as prolific as LJ Smith, though, who had the Night World series, The Secret Circle series, The Forbidden Game series, the Dark Visions series, the Wildworld series, and some standalones in addition to the Vampire Diaries.

Those are all the ones I can think of off the top of my head, but can you tell me a little more about her books?

[starlitshore]

Your workplace sounds pretty positive!

Thanks for the book reviews. I always like hearing what people are reading and what they think of the books.

Bears? Like 'Exit, pursued by a bear'?

[escritoireazul]

I generally like it!

I do feel like I'm being pursued by a bear. When Yuletide panic sets in, writers are struggling with their stories, many of the participants call it bears.

[starlitshore]

Huh. I've been around forever and yet I'm still learning new lingo! Did you get past the bears okay?