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Not New Year anymore, but still quite amusing. And, well, I DID hope to save some money this year... :-)
In 2009, 
katjak resolves to...
katjak resolves to...Put fifty victorians a month into my savings account.
Be nicer tonickgraves.
Go to the novels every month.
Takevitna drawing.
Eat more comics.
Give some curiosities to charity.
Be nicer to
nickgraves.Go to the novels every month.
Take
vitna drawing.Eat more comics.
Give some curiosities to charity.
Some marigolds and a sunflower from the balcony.
I just noticed there were a couple of dead lice in the middle of this sunflower :-D Very loverly.
( More pictures )
I just noticed there were a couple of dead lice in the middle of this sunflower :-D Very loverly.
( More pictures )
Some photographs from my now rather cramped little garden. So far there have been blessedly few bugs, because of the cool and rainy weather.
Here's Utu doing what she does best in the shadow of some sweet peas.
( More pictures )
Here's Utu doing what she does best in the shadow of some sweet peas.
( More pictures )
Reserved flights for my summer vacation trip to Oulu.
That's 29.7 - 5.8 for you Finnish impaired.
The flights were ridiculously cheap, 98€ from Blue1, plus an optional 10€ fee for money back from late cancellation. Train would cost something like 160€, so... (I'd honestly much rather save the world from destruction by kerosine, but the Finnish Railway Company has for several years done its darnedest to make trains a non-option for long-distance travellers.)
Seven and a half days! That's the longest I've spent in Oulu for years and years. It's all thanks to Petri who magnanimously agreed to take care of Savu and Utu for such a long time.
Lähtevä lento: Helsinki - Oulu, 29. heinäkuuta 2008 KF201 29. heinäkuuta 2008 7:00, Helsinki, Finland (Helsinki-Vantaa, Terminaali 1) 29. heinäkuuta 2008 8:05, Oulu, Finland (Oulu, Oulunsalon) Paluulento: Oulu - Helsinki, 5. elokuuta 2008 KF208 5. elokuuta 2008 18:55, Oulu, Finland (Oulu, Oulunsalon) 5. elokuuta 2008 19:55, Helsinki, Finland (Helsinki-Vantaa, Terminaali 1)
That's 29.7 - 5.8 for you Finnish impaired.
The flights were ridiculously cheap, 98€ from Blue1, plus an optional 10€ fee for money back from late cancellation. Train would cost something like 160€, so... (I'd honestly much rather save the world from destruction by kerosine, but the Finnish Railway Company has for several years done its darnedest to make trains a non-option for long-distance travellers.)
Seven and a half days! That's the longest I've spent in Oulu for years and years. It's all thanks to Petri who magnanimously agreed to take care of Savu and Utu for such a long time.
Alex Beecroft, Captain's Surrender
During the last couple of years, I've bought quite a lot of m/m ebooks and almost invariably been indifferent or disappointed. So, it is with great joy that I can actually recommend Captain's Surrender, a historical m/m erotic romance which you can buy both in ebook and print format.
Captain's Surrender is well researched and well written and the main characters are exceptionally multi-faceted for either ebook or romance. I can honestly say that the first 80 or 90 pages were simply heaven for me. I loved the main characters, I loved the setting, I loved everything that the author was putting before me and how it was done. When the scene in the hull arrived, I was ecstatic. I read it three times. Too bad it was not longer.
The sex scenes are (unfortunately) not many, but boy, are they intense. They have a sense of urgency that I personally find very appealing. The same goes for the relationship between the main characters, Josh and Peter. It's complicated, bitter, hopeful, desperate, sexy. The way Josh responds to Peter is something I often envision in my own characters. I applaud Beecroft for having the rare talent to capture that elusive state of mind and body, and do it so gracefully.
The historical context is nicely presented and you can see that Beecroft has a good sense for authenticity, both of detail and mindset. I'm not familiar enough with naval history to say anything about the plausibility of details, the main thing is that Beecroft seems to know her way around so well that I could just trust her to do a good job. Practically the only time I went 'hmm' was when Josh was promoted from lieutenant to master and commander -- it seemed to happen rather fast, after all this man was described to be very young in the beginning, a boy even. Would someone with only a few months of lieutenancy really have been given the command of their own ship? Again, I know little about the military in general, and even less about the navy. And in entertainment, you are free to straighten some curves when necessary. If I had been as happy with the latter half of the book as I was with the beginning, this promotion wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest.
So. Yeah. There it was. I wasn't as happy with the last 100 pages as with what preceded. Remember that I still really, really like Captain's Surrender. But unfortunately the book didn't quite live up to the expectations it created. The end was all right, but it was not phenomenal like the beginning.
Basically most of the book's problems stem from the fact that it was simply far too short. This should have been a big whopper of a novel, now it only took a couple of hours to read and at the end, I couldn't help feeling a bit frustrated. It's like for the first 80 pages, Beecroft was writing a much longer book. Past the middle, the story suddenly becomes very hurried -- places and events go by too fast to really take in or digest. Transitions are far too frequent and sudden. At some point I simply started to lose the main characters in a way. I no longer felt for them like during the first half of the book, instead I found myself going 'what' and 'why' several times, and trying to recall things that would have needed a chapter or a page instead of a paragraph or a sentence.
I simply needed more. The relationship between Josh and Peter was not developed enough for the ending to resonate. We are given to understand that they had a very physical and intense relationship, but the author only gives us a couple of scenes with them together before they are separated again. I'm not saying that the book needs more sex (although I would have loved that), rather than just more flesh around the bones. The other characters left in the air even more -- in the beginning we get to know them and care about them, but their story is not carried through with the same devotion, rather than just concluded in the background.
I was not altogether fond of -- trying to avoid a spoiler here... -- what made Josh solve (or start to solve) his guilt and anxiety about his homosexuality. It was too much of a handy coincidence, and felt clichéd. This was probably my least favorite episode in the book. Also, the little epilogue was completely superfluous. I would have loved to read that scene (and others like it!) within the body of the text, but as a separate fragment it didn't have quite the same impact.
All that being said, the book was a good read and I recommend it. After writing the above, I went to read some other reviews and most of them don't seem to have the misgivings I did about the pacing. This one does however, and addresses some other problems that I also felt to some extent: http://unique.logophilos.net/?p=430
Despite my criticism, I'm probably going to buy whatever Beecroft writes (she has another book out now I believe), and sincerely hope that she continues to write m/m romances. Captain's Surrender was far superior to typical ebook fare and worth reading for the first half alone. Also, it was the first historical ebook I've read which actually worked as a historical novel. Nothing else I recall even compares.
Captain's Surrender is well researched and well written and the main characters are exceptionally multi-faceted for either ebook or romance. I can honestly say that the first 80 or 90 pages were simply heaven for me. I loved the main characters, I loved the setting, I loved everything that the author was putting before me and how it was done. When the scene in the hull arrived, I was ecstatic. I read it three times. Too bad it was not longer.
The sex scenes are (unfortunately) not many, but boy, are they intense. They have a sense of urgency that I personally find very appealing. The same goes for the relationship between the main characters, Josh and Peter. It's complicated, bitter, hopeful, desperate, sexy. The way Josh responds to Peter is something I often envision in my own characters. I applaud Beecroft for having the rare talent to capture that elusive state of mind and body, and do it so gracefully.
The historical context is nicely presented and you can see that Beecroft has a good sense for authenticity, both of detail and mindset. I'm not familiar enough with naval history to say anything about the plausibility of details, the main thing is that Beecroft seems to know her way around so well that I could just trust her to do a good job. Practically the only time I went 'hmm' was when Josh was promoted from lieutenant to master and commander -- it seemed to happen rather fast, after all this man was described to be very young in the beginning, a boy even. Would someone with only a few months of lieutenancy really have been given the command of their own ship? Again, I know little about the military in general, and even less about the navy. And in entertainment, you are free to straighten some curves when necessary. If I had been as happy with the latter half of the book as I was with the beginning, this promotion wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest.
So. Yeah. There it was. I wasn't as happy with the last 100 pages as with what preceded. Remember that I still really, really like Captain's Surrender. But unfortunately the book didn't quite live up to the expectations it created. The end was all right, but it was not phenomenal like the beginning.
Basically most of the book's problems stem from the fact that it was simply far too short. This should have been a big whopper of a novel, now it only took a couple of hours to read and at the end, I couldn't help feeling a bit frustrated. It's like for the first 80 pages, Beecroft was writing a much longer book. Past the middle, the story suddenly becomes very hurried -- places and events go by too fast to really take in or digest. Transitions are far too frequent and sudden. At some point I simply started to lose the main characters in a way. I no longer felt for them like during the first half of the book, instead I found myself going 'what' and 'why' several times, and trying to recall things that would have needed a chapter or a page instead of a paragraph or a sentence.
I simply needed more. The relationship between Josh and Peter was not developed enough for the ending to resonate. We are given to understand that they had a very physical and intense relationship, but the author only gives us a couple of scenes with them together before they are separated again. I'm not saying that the book needs more sex (although I would have loved that), rather than just more flesh around the bones. The other characters left in the air even more -- in the beginning we get to know them and care about them, but their story is not carried through with the same devotion, rather than just concluded in the background.
I was not altogether fond of -- trying to avoid a spoiler here... -- what made Josh solve (or start to solve) his guilt and anxiety about his homosexuality. It was too much of a handy coincidence, and felt clichéd. This was probably my least favorite episode in the book. Also, the little epilogue was completely superfluous. I would have loved to read that scene (and others like it!) within the body of the text, but as a separate fragment it didn't have quite the same impact.
All that being said, the book was a good read and I recommend it. After writing the above, I went to read some other reviews and most of them don't seem to have the misgivings I did about the pacing. This one does however, and addresses some other problems that I also felt to some extent: http://unique.logophilos.net/?p=430
Despite my criticism, I'm probably going to buy whatever Beecroft writes (she has another book out now I believe), and sincerely hope that she continues to write m/m romances. Captain's Surrender was far superior to typical ebook fare and worth reading for the first half alone. Also, it was the first historical ebook I've read which actually worked as a historical novel. Nothing else I recall even compares.
Lately I've been trying some new dishes again. Today I made the most delicious new food in ages! Recipe from this excellent food blog (in Finnish) -- click for a photo if you're interested. I changed the recipe a bit though.
( Shakshuka recipe... )
( Shakshuka recipe... )
A few days ago I finished Standish, the gay Regency romance by Erastes, and I've been meaning to write about it ever since. I'm really tired, so this is going to be horrible, but I need to do this before I start forgetting stuff.
This will contain spoilers.
( Review below cut )
This will contain spoilers.
( Review below cut )
Updated and cleaned up the page I keep on my favorite books and sites for 18th century historical research.
http://melaja.fi/rhia/historical_refere
http://melaja.fi/rhia/historical_refere
Something really really silly to notice after all this time: people communicate to me with their LJ userpics! My custom theme was set to hide user pics for such a long time, that I forgot how people use them... O_O
What lead me to this shuddering realization, was that I changed the theme of my journal, and this one does show userpics. Oh, to think of all the precious nonverbal communication I have lost! *sniff*
What lead me to this shuddering realization, was that I changed the theme of my journal, and this one does show userpics. Oh, to think of all the precious nonverbal communication I have lost! *sniff*
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