Awake in the Floating City

Awake in the Floating City, Susanna Kwan, 2025 novel. Near-future science fiction about life in the skyscrapers of a drowned San Francisco, an artist who has lost touch with art, and a supercentenarian in need of an aide and caregiver. This is quiet, small, slow, literary SF - the setting is reminiscent of KSR's New York 2140 but the actual story and feel are much more like Rebecca Campbell's Arboreality. I liked it a lot; I thought the interweaving of real history (especially re the Chinese-American experience, which both main characters are) and possible future history was done well, and while "art about art" can be hit or miss for me, I thought Kwan did a good job of making the art in the book engaging, and I liked seeing a "retreat to the North" scenario only from the distant edges, thinking about who might stay behind or be left behind and why.

I have a couple of spoilery content notes I think some people might want to know: ( Read more... )

Disepiphany

A nice big finish for Disepiphany: yesterday I tested every pen in our annoying corner cabinet and pen and pencil rack and found a whole bag's worth of dried-up pens and broken-in-half pencils and such to get rid of (does Staples still have pen and marker recycling? we'll see) and then reorganized everything. We still have a ridiculous amount of everything - every year the kids have new marker and pen and pencil sets on their school supply lists, and then they come home in June with half of it barely touched - but fingers crossed that I can now get the things I actually use in and out of the cabinet without a bunch of other things diving out with them.

And then also, awhile ago J (big J) gave me a very exciting gift of exotic sausages (like some from game meat), not knowing that I have a pretty serious phobia of prion disease and don't eat game meat any more. I wrestled with it for awhile but finally acknowledged that even if I could make myself eat the sausages I couldn't make myself enjoy them, and while I felt bad Rejecting A Gift and Wasting Food, those are exactly the kind of rules you get to break in the Disadvent season. (I don't even believe the first one is a good rule but it was in my family growing up - like, oh, you hate that new clothing item? you'll be wearing it anyways - which I suppose was only supposed to apply when I was a kid, but my guilt did not get the message.) J, who is awesome, and kind about my anxiety, did not give me shit about it and is pleased to get the freezer space back.

And tomorrow I get the rest of the ornaments off the tree and the tree goes out to the yard to hang out until townwide tree collection. Happy Disepiphany!