New Books, New Books! [Daily Photo #1099]

my unread books: excuse us, we'd like to…

me: ohhhhh time to buy new books! look how pretty???

Yeah...

So, here are the books I recently acquired! :D

The Other Me by Suzanne van Rooyen

“Fifteen-year-old Treasa Prescott thinks she's an alien. She doesn't fit in with the preppy South African private school crowd and feels claustrophobic in her own skin. Treasa is worried she might spend life as a social pariah when she meets Gabriel du Preez. Gabriel plays the piano better than Beethoven, has a black belt in karate, and would look good wearing a garbage bag. Treasa thinks he's perfect. It might even be love, as long as Gabriel doesn't find out she's a freak.

Maggie and Nyx [Daily Photo #902]

I took Maggie and Nyx for a walk in the Finnish woods! =D

I think they are best friends now.

My April Reading: Stars, Minds and Robbers

My April reading is introduced to you by Valkopentu The Smol.

• Estanislao Bachrach “The Agile Mind: How Your Brain Makes Creativity Happen” [Argentina]
• Takako Shimura “Wandering Son Vol. 7” [Japan]
• Karuho Shiina “Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You, Vol. 1-5” [Japan]
• Kameron Hurley “The Stars Are Legion” [USA]
• Nalo Hopkinson “Midnight Robber” [Jamaica, Canada]

My March Reading: Fire, Letters and Girls

My March reading is introduced to you by Little Wooden Mouse! (By the way, we bought her in Tallinn.)

• Jenny Han “To All the Boys I've Loved Before” [USA]
• Stephen King “Firestarter” [USA]
• Takako Shimura “Wandering Son” vol. 6 [Japan]
• Nell Brinkley, Trina Robbins “The Brinkley Girls” [USA]

Short stories available online:

• Kameron Hurley “Our Faces, Radiant Sisters, Our Faces Full of Light!” [USA]
• Nghi Vo “Lotus Face and the Fox”
• Ada Hoffmann “The Scrape of Tooth and Bone” [Canada]

Fanart: Das Muni from The Stars Are Legion

I find it very hard to focus on podcasts without doing something else at the same time, so when I was listening to Kameron Hurley's very cool podcast the other day I felt the need to do something nonverbal. I chose drawing. First I drew three random women who look like they could be from a Hurley novel (I think the podcast filled me with badassery – it's a Kameron Hurley thing, go read her books).

And then I drew Das Muni from her organically-grown space opera The Stars Are Legion. Das Muni is my favourite character in that book! Melted my heart right away. I need more Das Muni in my life! *sobs*

Click to enlarge!

Das Muni: “I brought a snack. It's oozy, yum!”

Space Opera [Daily Photo #333]

Finally they have arrived! ^u^ Forgotten Suns by Judith Tarr and The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley. 

Now I just need to quickly finish the bazillion of books I'm currently reading…

July Reading: Llamas, Theater, Icebergs and Sheep

My July reading is introduced to you by Smol Bear!

Books:

Rajaa Alsanea  “Girls of Riyadh” (بنات الرياض) [Saudi Arabia] 

Kaoru Mori “A Bride's Story” Vol. 1-3 (乙嫁語り) [Japan] 

Brian K. Vaughan “Saga. Vol.1” [USA] 

Sarah Waters “Tipping the Velvet” [UK] 

Tadashi Ozawa “How to Draw Anime & Game Characters. Vol. 2 : Expressing Emotions” [Japan]

Kameron Hurley “The Geek Feminist Revolution” [USA] 

Anu Holopainen “Sisarpuut” (Syysmaa #2) [Finland] 

Short stories:

Swans and Llamas [Daily Photo #110]

Today we went to a lake and met this swan.

Daily Photo #78: New Books! (Again)

Yay, my new books arrived! Allow me to introduce...

The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley [non-fiction]

Unicorn Tracks by Julia Ember [YA fantasy, debut!]

The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey [science fiction]

Fanart: Nyx and Llama Warrior

“Are you ready to join my revolution, Nyx?”

Fanart: Nyx and a Bug

I drew Nyx from Bel Dame Apocrypha books by Kameron Hurley!

Not an actual scene from the books. ;p

Bloody awesome books!

Cheerful bedtime reading in our family!

I'm reading Maplecroft by Cherie Priest:

“Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks; and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one....

The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny.

But it is not far enough from the affliction that possessed my parents. Their characters, their very souls, were consumed from within by something that left malevolent entities in their place. It originates from the ocean’s depths, plaguing the populace with tides of nightmares and madness.

This evil cannot hide from me. No matter what guise it assumes, I will be waiting for it. With an axe.”

I'm halfway through and enjoying Maplecroft quite a lot! A queer lady with an axe? Yes please!

My husband is reading God's War by Kameron Hurley:

We clearly don't have enough books

In the end of 2015 we got a few new books. I'd like to share them with you! : )

Lovely manga souvenirs from Japan!

The final volume of the improved edition of Sailor Moon.

Fanart: Kage from Rapture by Kameron Hurley

“When Kage dreamed, it was of cool, dark spaces. Soft voices. Walls that hemmed her in, close enough for her to reach out and touch. Comforting. Her perfect world was a smooth crevice at the back of a cave. She knew her way around the dark. For her, the nightmare was the desert. Wide-open, unobstructed views. Big, bold sky.”

A Little Something For Kameron Hurley!

Featuring:

November Reading: Bugs, Mars and Marvel

My November reading is brought to you by Blue Sparrow! ^^

Kameron Hurley “Rapture” [USA]

Maura Manninen “Trespasses. Volume 1: Initiation” [Finland] 

Maura Manninen “Trespasses. Sidestory 1: A Pause in the Night” [Finland] 

G. Willow Wilson “Ms. Marvel, Vol. 2: Generation Why” [USA] 

Fuyumi Soryo “Mars. Vol.1” [Japan] 

Fuyumi Soryo “Mars. Vol.2” [Japan] 

Suzanne van Rooyen “Dragon's Teeth” [South Africa, Sweden] 

Fuyumi Soryo “Mars. Vol.3” [Japan] 

Short stories (science fiction and fantasy)

Marie Brennan “Mad Maudlin” [USA]  – gave me psychology/psychiatry classes flashbacks ^^

Isabel Yap “A Cup of Salt Tears” [Philippines, USA] – has a kappa!

N.K. Jemisin “Not the End” [USA] – set in the Inheritance Trilogy world

Aliette de Bodard “The Waiting Stars (The Universe of Xuya)” [France] – spaaaaaaace!

Rahul Kanakia “Here is My Thinking on a Situation That Affects Us All” [USA] – about a living space ship, yisss

Zen Cho “Unterminator” [Malaysia, UK] – a flash piece!

Kameron Hurley “The Light Brigade” [USA] – a short military science fiction story 

May reading: Central Asia, poetry and short stories

My May reading is introduced to you by Green Cone! I read fewer books than usual for some reason...

• Kat Howard “The Universe, Sung in Stars” (a beautiful science fiction short story)
• Yoon Ha Lee “The Contemporary Foxwife” [USA, South Korea]  (Author's note: “A music student on a space station befriends a lost foxwife. I may have spilled a lot of hazy memories of Korea all over this one.” It was so *adorable* :3)
• Соловей в клетке: антология женщин-писателей Центральной Азии - Nightingale in Cage: The anthology of Central-Asian women writers, In Russian and English [Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan] 
• Kameron Hurley “The Corpse Archives” [USA] (a body horror / science fiction short story)
• JY Yang “Tiger Baby” [Singapore] (another wonderful short story about a woman who... might be a tiger)
• Santōka Taneda “Стихи и проза” [Japan] 

Cool books with LGBTQIA characters

June is LGBT Pride Month, so last year's June I read only books with LGBT+ characters. I'm planning to do the same this year as well. (I do read such stories throughout the year as well, but it's nice to have this kind of special month. ^^)

At first, I'd like to recommend a few really cool books with LGBTQIA characters that I liked a lot. For the most part, characters here just happen to be queer, but there are some stories that specifically deal with queer issues. Some of the authors are LGBT+ too.

Because of my personal preferences most of these books are speculative fiction written by women.

Kameron Hurley Is The Best

When your favourite writers reply to your tweets or even retweet you, it's amazing. But when they send you lots of cool goodies for free because you're a fan? It's FREAKING AWESOME.

So, a few days ago my swag arrived! It got from USA to Finland pretty fast. The Blood & Brutal Women Swag Bag from Kameron Hurley included:

- 8.5” x 11” glossy colour copy of the Mirror Empire map

- signed God's War, Infidel, and Rapture book plates

- exclusive unpublished SF body horror chapbook, "The Corpse Archive"

- eternal fan happiness

How Amateur Writers Read

This is how amateur writers read books by the professionals. ^^

So much to learn!

Books featured:

N.K. Jemisin “The Killing Moon”
Kameron Hurley “Infidel”
Nnedi Okorafor “Lagoon”
Ann Leckie “Ancillary Justice”
Wu Ming-Yi “The Man with the Compound Eyes”