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things I have learned recently
Nov. 2nd, 2010 09:06 am1. Dinosaur kale works better than curly red kale for kale chips (in one trial of each), it's easier to make sure the dinosaur kale isn't folded over itself, and the red kale seems to need longer in the oven.
2. A toddler who will say "twick" when *talking* about trick-or-treating in the context of a Halloween book isn't necessarily anywhere near saying it when actually at someone's door.
3. The last third-ish of _Tongues of Serpents_, the new Temeraire novel, is a lot more interesting than the rather slow start, so, y'know, keep at it. (I could write a longer post about why I think Novik is doing the tour-of-locations thing right in a way that Jacqueline Carey is doing it increasingly wrong - hm, actually this doesn't need a longer post, I think I can sum it up right here: everyone in Novik's fascinating world is constantly *doing stuff* even when our viewpoint characters are nowhere nearby; the "exotic foreign cultures" we meet in the various books keep existing afterwards, and we get to hear snippets of news about various clashes and cooperation *between* them. The most interesting parts of _Tongues of Serpents_ more or less consist of the main characters being interested spectators to some of these developments. In Carey's books, on the other hand, one feels like the other cultures are just sitting there waiting to be visited by the protagonists, and they more or less vanish afterwards except insofar as the protagonists need to reminisce about their time there. You can blame some of this on Novik's 19th century world being smaller and more tightly connected than Carey's late-medieval world, in terms of ease of travel and spread of news, but some of it is just better writing, imo.)
2. A toddler who will say "twick" when *talking* about trick-or-treating in the context of a Halloween book isn't necessarily anywhere near saying it when actually at someone's door.
3. The last third-ish of _Tongues of Serpents_, the new Temeraire novel, is a lot more interesting than the rather slow start, so, y'know, keep at it. (I could write a longer post about why I think Novik is doing the tour-of-locations thing right in a way that Jacqueline Carey is doing it increasingly wrong - hm, actually this doesn't need a longer post, I think I can sum it up right here: everyone in Novik's fascinating world is constantly *doing stuff* even when our viewpoint characters are nowhere nearby; the "exotic foreign cultures" we meet in the various books keep existing afterwards, and we get to hear snippets of news about various clashes and cooperation *between* them. The most interesting parts of _Tongues of Serpents_ more or less consist of the main characters being interested spectators to some of these developments. In Carey's books, on the other hand, one feels like the other cultures are just sitting there waiting to be visited by the protagonists, and they more or less vanish afterwards except insofar as the protagonists need to reminisce about their time there. You can blame some of this on Novik's 19th century world being smaller and more tightly connected than Carey's late-medieval world, in terms of ease of travel and spread of news, but some of it is just better writing, imo.)
