Reading Wednesday
Jul. 17th, 2019 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhRevenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee. The third book in The Machineries of Empire trilogy, a brilliant anti-imperialist space opera. Like the previous two books, Revenant Gun is very much concerned with questions of identity. Here we have two Jedaos: one is the Jedao we've met before, sharing the body of Cheris and roaming around the galaxy while attempting to destroy the Hexarchate. The second Jedao is a new and younger version, rebooted with memories that only go up to about seventeen years old (though he exists in a fortyish body, for an extra level of cognitive dissonance), when he was still a student. This baby Jedao, who is the main POV character of Revenant Gun (as much as there is a singular main character; it's an ensemble-heavy book), knows nothing about Nirai Kujen, the man who rebooted him and who claims they were once lovers; knows nothing about the current political situation, which is several centuries forward from the life he does remember; and knows nothing about the older, supposedly traitorous and mass-murdering, version of himself. Who should he trust? Given his deliberately limited information, how can he make any safe choice? And even if he figures out what he wants to do, what will he be allowed to do?
Meanwhile, the leaders of the Hexarchate attempt to make themselves immortal, others attempt to assassinate them, the robots in the background of the previous two books begin their own rebellion, space ships come to life, and rebel territories work on establishing functional governments.
Revenant Gun didn't work for me quite as well as Ninefox Gambit did, alas. A lot of that comes down to the role of Kujen, who is revealed to be the main villain (I thought about warning for spoilers, but eh, it's pretty obvious from Kujen's first appearance that he's not a good guy). On the one hand, he is an excellent villain, and spending more time with him really fleshed him out in wonderfully haunting ways – learning his backstory in particular was just... gah. Good but also terrible. On the other hand, I felt like a lot of the problems with the Hexarchate ended up coming down to Kujen's influence, and turning structural oppression into the doings of one mean man feels so simplistic after all of the wonderfully complex worldbuilding early on. But on the third hand, bringing in the robots and spaceships opens up the series in a direction that I absolutely did not see coming, and which is just fantastic. Mainly, this is such a rich series that I feel like I need to reread it before I can even decide what I think of it. At least rereading books like these is far from a punishment!
And I didn't even mention the humor! For all of the grand battles and bleak ethics, there are some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments in Revenant Gun. The robot POV is particularly adorable. I'll absolutely be following Lee's future work.
Amazing Loom Knits by Nicole F Cox. I recently got into loom knitting – which is more or less the same thing as regular old knitting, at least in terms of the finished products, but uses a solid frame to make the process of looping and tying and twisting the yarn simpler. It's fun! And since I'm very much the type of person who is always fiddling with things, it gives me something to do with my hands when I'm watching TV. However, I hit a wall fairly early on. There is a lot of 101-level, Intro-to-Loom-Knitting content out there, whether you're looking for books or websites or YouTube videos. There is much less 201-level or above content, which means that once you've made a basic scarf or hat, what you find is just... more basic scarves and hats.
But then I came across Amazing Loom Knits! A book that is very much not meant for the beginning loom knitter, and I love it for that. (By the way, if you are looking for beginner material, Round Loom Knitting in 10 Easy Lessons by the same author is one of the best books on the topic I've found.) Cox uses the patterns in this book to teach all sorts of advanced techniques: eyelet lace, Japanese lace, cables, brioche knitting, Gansey stitch, Fair Isle, etc. I immediately jumped in with the "Gansey Beanie"... which I have since abandoned, after unravelling it for the third time after making yet another mistake. But that only proves my point about Amazing Loom Knits being exactly the book I wanted: it's actually challenging! It gives me techniques that I can look forward to eventually mastering, instead of everything being so mindlessly simple that I quickly get bored. It's a book that you can spend a lot of time with, as you learn and progress to the more advanced patterns.
(By the way, I instead made what Cox calls an "Autumn Welted Toque", which has a cute and easier-to-master design of alternating raised and recessed stitches.)
Amazing Loom Knits includes thirty patterns, from the standard hats, scarves, gloves, and earwarmers, to slightly more unusual bags, socks, legwarmers, and shawls, and even a unique vest-cowl-combo-thingy. (I'm not entirely sure it's a vest-cowl-combo-thingy that I personally would want to wear, but I still applaud Cox for thinking outside the box). However, if there is an organizational structure to the book, I missed it. It's certainly not organized by type of product (putting all the hats together, for example), and it's not organized by difficulty level (Cox does label every pattern from "Beginner" to "Confident Beginner" to "Intermediate" to "Advanced", but the order they come in seems to be random). Which made choosing a pattern to work on very complicated, with much jumping back and forth from one page to another as I attempted to work out which ones I was currently capable of.
Despite that minor complaint, if you're looking for a book for advanced loom knitting, this is absolutely the one to pick up.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the Hexarchate attempt to make themselves immortal, others attempt to assassinate them, the robots in the background of the previous two books begin their own rebellion, space ships come to life, and rebel territories work on establishing functional governments.
Revenant Gun didn't work for me quite as well as Ninefox Gambit did, alas. A lot of that comes down to the role of Kujen, who is revealed to be the main villain (I thought about warning for spoilers, but eh, it's pretty obvious from Kujen's first appearance that he's not a good guy). On the one hand, he is an excellent villain, and spending more time with him really fleshed him out in wonderfully haunting ways – learning his backstory in particular was just... gah. Good but also terrible. On the other hand, I felt like a lot of the problems with the Hexarchate ended up coming down to Kujen's influence, and turning structural oppression into the doings of one mean man feels so simplistic after all of the wonderfully complex worldbuilding early on. But on the third hand, bringing in the robots and spaceships opens up the series in a direction that I absolutely did not see coming, and which is just fantastic. Mainly, this is such a rich series that I feel like I need to reread it before I can even decide what I think of it. At least rereading books like these is far from a punishment!
And I didn't even mention the humor! For all of the grand battles and bleak ethics, there are some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments in Revenant Gun. The robot POV is particularly adorable. I'll absolutely be following Lee's future work.
Amazing Loom Knits by Nicole F Cox. I recently got into loom knitting – which is more or less the same thing as regular old knitting, at least in terms of the finished products, but uses a solid frame to make the process of looping and tying and twisting the yarn simpler. It's fun! And since I'm very much the type of person who is always fiddling with things, it gives me something to do with my hands when I'm watching TV. However, I hit a wall fairly early on. There is a lot of 101-level, Intro-to-Loom-Knitting content out there, whether you're looking for books or websites or YouTube videos. There is much less 201-level or above content, which means that once you've made a basic scarf or hat, what you find is just... more basic scarves and hats.
But then I came across Amazing Loom Knits! A book that is very much not meant for the beginning loom knitter, and I love it for that. (By the way, if you are looking for beginner material, Round Loom Knitting in 10 Easy Lessons by the same author is one of the best books on the topic I've found.) Cox uses the patterns in this book to teach all sorts of advanced techniques: eyelet lace, Japanese lace, cables, brioche knitting, Gansey stitch, Fair Isle, etc. I immediately jumped in with the "Gansey Beanie"... which I have since abandoned, after unravelling it for the third time after making yet another mistake. But that only proves my point about Amazing Loom Knits being exactly the book I wanted: it's actually challenging! It gives me techniques that I can look forward to eventually mastering, instead of everything being so mindlessly simple that I quickly get bored. It's a book that you can spend a lot of time with, as you learn and progress to the more advanced patterns.
(By the way, I instead made what Cox calls an "Autumn Welted Toque", which has a cute and easier-to-master design of alternating raised and recessed stitches.)
Amazing Loom Knits includes thirty patterns, from the standard hats, scarves, gloves, and earwarmers, to slightly more unusual bags, socks, legwarmers, and shawls, and even a unique vest-cowl-combo-thingy. (I'm not entirely sure it's a vest-cowl-combo-thingy that I personally would want to wear, but I still applaud Cox for thinking outside the box). However, if there is an organizational structure to the book, I missed it. It's certainly not organized by type of product (putting all the hats together, for example), and it's not organized by difficulty level (Cox does label every pattern from "Beginner" to "Confident Beginner" to "Intermediate" to "Advanced", but the order they come in seems to be random). Which made choosing a pattern to work on very complicated, with much jumping back and forth from one page to another as I attempted to work out which ones I was currently capable of.
Despite that minor complaint, if you're looking for a book for advanced loom knitting, this is absolutely the one to pick up.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
