Trip to Chicago

Instead of being sane and practical and spending the weekend trying to catch up on sleep and Things That Need To Be Done, I headed up to the song circle at alymid's place Friday night, where I got to enjoy a few pleasant hours of music and companionship.  Then I drove from Waukeegan to the West Side, arriving at almeda's at something like 1 AM, where I met two beagles who were cute and friendly and one canine visitor who took such a strong dislike to me that she had to be kenneled while I was around.  I'm usually quite good with animals, but every now and then I meet one who just doesn't want anything to do with me.  I did actually manage to sleep Friday night, though morning came a little too soon.  Then we had more beagles, a trip to the Oak Park farmer's market, a trip to the book sale (where I bought a few paperbacks), and a bit of food at the barbecue.  I shared my photos with the other guests, who said nice things, and got in the car only an hour later than I needed to.  It was 10:30 by the time I could get home and fall into bed, and I was feeling ghastly by then; I ended up giving myself an extra hour of sleep before going to EFRC (which I'll cover separately).

I'm very tired and behinder than ever.  But my soul is fed and life feels worth living -- exactly the way it wasn't feeling after just a shortened 3 days back at work.

Book review: Kitty and the Midnight Hour

Today's book review is Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn.

This is another book in that suddenly huge genre of books that start from the premise that creatures like werewolves and vampires really exist and try to figure out how they would fit into 21st century society.  Unfortunately, the way Vaughn uncritically uses most of the standard definitions of how werewolves work as the starting point makes it very hard to look at this as any serious sort of speculation -- silver bullets and involuntarily changing with the full moon are just too silly.  There's a fairly good adventure story, some interesting threads about werewolf and vampire psychology, and even some hint that we're supposed to see the troubles of a werewolf fitting into society as a metaphor for real life.  A reasonable allotment of story for one volume, though there's clearly a wider story arc that continues in the next book.

All in all, while I don't find the psychology of the werewolves and vampires quite matching my own personal ideas of those creatures, it is fairly believable, and (at least in the first book) I didn't fall into the uncomfortable hole that I fell into with the Charlene Harris and Laurell Hamilton books I've read, where I come away with the impression that while the vampires, etc., are people, they're by and large bad people I wouldn't want to share my existence with.  I really wish that rather than taking the standard mythical elements as gospel, she'd thought about how to give it at least a veneer of believability (shall we say, some hooks to suspend my disbelief from), the way Tanya Huff did with vampires in the Blood series.  It would make it easier to get into the interesting issues of society (including the ones that reflect on society here in the mundane world) if I didn't have to damp my critical thinking down all the way to comic book levels.

Still, it was fun, and pretty quick.  Worth reading if these books are your cup of tea; if the modern urban vampire genre leaves you cold, not so much.  7 out of 10.

( plot summary )