In Which Our Heroine Thrillingly Awaits the Plumber

20 July 2004

I finally finished "Docile Bodies" last night. It was not at all docile, as stories go. Maybe I should have something with "rebellious" in the title so that it will be well-behaved.

I also finished all the short fiction on the Hugo ballot. I'm happy with at least my first two choices in each category. In some categories more. Also, I've gotten a bit further into Dan Simmons's Ilium, and I like it a good bit more than I would have expected from the plot summary. It's a pleasure to be reading it, not a chore. Not as big a pleasure as Paladin of Souls, but I am deeply impressed with that book, so it's probably not a fair comparison. (And yet it's exactly the comparison the award people are asking me to make. So I'll go ahead and be unfair.)

The thing about Ilium is that it features Greek gods who are nanotechnology-enabled. Can you see why I wasn't perhaps as excited about this book as I am about some other books on my pile? Nanotech Greek gods. And righty then. But it's much better than it has any business being with that premise.

And speaking of premises, I'm all bouncy and happy because I have another Kalevala tie-in for part of my Finnish series. Of course, it's a late part, part I don't have any word count on at all, part that would not be considered a component of this trilogy I'm starting with. But no matter: it's got Kalevala stuff in it, and it can make a short story thing for now, and I'm glad. And it is not a new book. It's a new character/element in a book I already planned to write. Which is, you know, efficient and stuff. Virtuous. Almost like removing something from a list. A step towards it, anyway.

Yoon was talking about the inspirational power of lists, and I have to agree with her: a list can focus me in ways a vague mental set can't. Even if the things I accomplish aren't on the list, having the list is both useful and comforting.

I've been waiting for the plumber for hours, and it sounds like I'm going to be waiting a bit longer, but at least he's on his way. Who knew that "late morning" meant 2:30 p.m.?

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