{"id":11825,"date":"2016-06-01T21:18:30","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T01:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11825"},"modified":"2016-06-01T21:20:03","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T01:20:03","slug":"may-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11825","title":{"rendered":"May 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/26807601561_cac70aa1c5_k.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/26807601561_cac70aa1c5_k-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"26807601561_cac70aa1c5_k\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-11826\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/26807601561_cac70aa1c5_k-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/26807601561_cac70aa1c5_k-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/26807601561_cac70aa1c5_k.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So what happened in May? Not a whole lot, but you know what? There&#8217;s not a whole lot that&#8217;s wrong with that.<\/p>\n<p>I read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11825#stories\">thirty-five short stories<\/a>, saw <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11825#movies\">eight movies<\/a>, and I somehow managed to read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11825#books\"><i>four<\/i> books<\/a> &#8212; five, actually, if you count a four-issue graphic novel. (And ignore the fact that the others were very short novels.) I even listened to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11825#music\">a little music<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t too bad. Even our team&#8217;s move into the lonely, dark downstairs office at work couldn&#8217;t put a damper on a pretty decent month.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"stories\"><strong>The stories:<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I read thirty-five short stories in May, beyond those I was still reading for <i>Kaleidotrope<\/i>. I figured I needed to make up for the three days I accidentally skipped in April. My personal favorites &#8212; and there were actually quite a lot of them &#8212; were as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;The Men from Narrow Houses&#8221; by A.C. Wise (<a href=\"http:\/\/liminalstoriesmag.com\/issue1\/the-men-from-narrow-houses\/\">Liminal Stories<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;All the Colors You Thought Were Kings&#8221; by Arkady Martine (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.shimmerzine.com\/all-the-colors-you-thought-were-kings-by-arkady-martine\/\">Shimmer<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;You&#8217;ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay&#8221; by Alyssa Wong (<a href=\"http:\/\/uncannymagazine.com\/\">Uncanny<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands&#8221; by Seanan McGuire (<a href=\"http:\/\/uncannymagazine.com\/article\/ye-highlands-ye-lowlands\/\">Uncanny<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Three Points Masculine&#8221; by An Owomoyela (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lightspeedmagazine.com\/fiction\/three-points-masculine\/\">Lightspeed<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;.subroutine:all\/\/\/end&#8221; by Rachael Acks (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.shimmerzine.com\/shimmer-31\/\">Shimmer<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Behemoth Beaches&#8221; by Maggie Slater (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.apex-magazine.com\/the-behemoth-beaches\/\">Apex<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Deathlight&#8221; by Mari Ness (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lightspeedmagazine.com\/fiction\/deathlight\/\">Lightspeed<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Jaws That Bite, The Claws That Catch&#8221; by Seanan McGuire (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lightspeedmagazine.com\/fiction\/jaws-bite-claws-catch\/\">Lightspeed<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Sound of Salt and Sea&#8221; by Kat Howard (<a href=\"http:\/\/uncannymagazine.com\/article\/sound-salt-sea\/\">Uncanny<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Left the Century to Sit Unmoved&#8221; by Sarah Pinsker (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.strangehorizons.com\/2016\/20160516\/pinskercentury-f.shtml\">Strange Horizons<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;You Can&#8217;t See It &#8216;Til It&#8217;s Finished&#8221; by Joseph Allen Hill (<a href=\"http:\/\/liminalstoriesmag.com\/issue1\/you-cant-see-it-til-its-finished\">Liminal Stories<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Right Sort of Monsters&#8221; by Kelly Sandoval (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.strangehorizons.com\/2016\/20160404\/sandovalmonsters-f.shtml\">Strange Horizons<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;When She Was Five&#8221; by Fraser Ronald (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fantasticstoriesoftheimagination.com\/when-she-was-five\/\">Fantastic Stories of the Imagination<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Team Invasion&#8221; by David Tallerma (<a href=\"http:\/\/liminalstoriesmag.com\/issue1\/team-invasion\">Liminal Stories<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Signal Birds&#8221; by Octavia Cade (<a href=\"http:\/\/liminalstoriesmag.com\/issue1\/the-signal-birds\">Liminal Stories<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Suicide Bots&#8221; by Bentley A. Reese (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.shimmerzine.com\/suicide-bots-by-bentley-a-reese\/\">Shimmer<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Once I, Rose&#8221; by A. Merc Rustad (<a href=\"http:\/\/dailysciencefiction.com\/fantasy\/fairy-tales\/a-merc-rustad\/once-i-rose\">Daily Science Fiction<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Furnace&#8221; by Livia Llewellyn (<a href=\"http:\/\/weirdfictionreview.com\/2016\/05\/furnace\/\">Weird Fiction Review<\/a> &#8212; reprinted)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Through Earth and Sky&#8221; by Gwendolyn Kiste (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.brackenmagazine.com\/issue-i\/kiste-through-earth-and-sky\/\">Bracken<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Wednesday&#8217;s Story&#8221; by Wole Talabi (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lightspeedmagazine.com\/fiction\/wednesdays-story\/\">Lightspeed<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Blood That Pulses in the Veins of One&#8221; by JY Yang (<a href=\"http:\/\/uncannymagazine.com\/article\/blood-pulses-veins-one\/\">Uncanny<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Liminal Stories is definitely a new publication to watch, and I really like what they&#8217;re doing so far. But lots of my regular haunts had extremely good issues, Uncanny especially. Honestly, of the thirteen other short stories I read last month, only a couple of them are what I&#8217;d call duds. And we don&#8217;t talk about those.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"books\"><strong>The books:<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I read five books, but with the possible exception of Marilynne Robinson&#8217;s <i>Gilead<\/i>, which has a lot of lovely things to say about a lot of things, I can&#8217;t claim to have really loved any of them. <\/p>\n<p>Doris Lessing&#8217;s <i>The Fifth Child<\/i> has its moments, as does Siri Hustvedt&#8217;s <i>The Summer Without Men<\/i>, but both are too slight and under-developed to really be satisfying. Hustvedt&#8217;s book maybe has more interesting things to say, ultimately &#8212;<\/p>\n<div class=\"tumblr-post\" data-href=\"https:\/\/embed.tumblr.com\/embed\/post\/wUAeWDtVMDyKo_QYWVyFtQ\/145060196120\" data-did=\"3cc51340881376a7b76062d7da6bec0b4ba2b475\"><a href=\"http:\/\/puppetwrangler.tumblr.com\/post\/145060196120\/in-1559-columbus-discovered-the-clitoris-dulcedo\">http:\/\/puppetwrangler.tumblr.com\/post\/145060196120\/in-1559-columbus-discovered-the-clitoris-dulcedo<\/a><\/div>\n<p>  <script async src=\"https:\/\/secure.assets.tumblr.com\/post.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8212; but that&#8217;s in part because it reads more like a patchwork of essays than a novel.<\/p>\n<p>Aaron Williams and Fiona Staples&#8217; graphic novel &#8212; and that&#8217;s generous, given how sloppily it hangs together, but also given how incomplete it is &#8212; also has its moments. And Staples&#8217; art, which I&#8217;ve enjoyed so much in <i>Saga<\/i>, is often stunning. But yeah, it&#8217;s kind of a malformed story that was obviously cut short after four issues by the publisher.<\/p>\n<p>But even that was better than Benjamin Black&#8217;s <i>The Lemur<\/i>, which was such a disappointing non-starter of a non-story. It&#8217;s less a whodunit than a whocaresit.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"movies\"><strong>The movies:<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Invitation<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;The Invitation&quot; is really good at building tension. But at the end of the day, tension isn&#39;t a house you can live in.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/729152242813685761\">May 8, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/li>\n<li>Captain America: Civil War<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">People tried to tell me Civil War was the greatest movie ever, or secretly the worst, but I think it was just a decent one.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/729466899868876802\">May 9, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/li>\n<li>Hush:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I&#39;m more than a little tired of the masked home invaders movie, but Hush, while not brilliant, has a genuinely clever hook and good tension.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/731664632088252416\">May 15, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/li>\n<li>The Five Deadly Venoms:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Five Deadly Venoms is kind of a deeply silly movie.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/731685993464659969\">May 15, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/li>\n<li>The Witch:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;The Witch&quot; is a deeply upsetting and unsettling film.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/734214774951645184\">May 22, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/li>\n<li>1408:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">1408 starts unpromisingly but gets better when Cusack actually goes into the room. Pity it doesn&#39;t stay better.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/736771423067328516\">May 29, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/li>\n<li>X-Men: Apocalypse:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The more I think and tweet about it, the more I really like X-Men: Apocalypse. Which is weird for a movie that bored and annoyed me so much.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/738128289848565760\">June 1, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/li>\n<li>Marnie:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I don&#39;t know if Marnie is Hitchcock&#39;s worst film but it&#39;s easily the worst of his I&#39;ve ever seen.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/737452952470818816\">May 31, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a name=\"music\"><strong>The music:<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>My monthly playlist was actually quite short in May, for whatever reason. Still, you&#8217;re free to listen to some of the songs I enjoyed listening to last month:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/videoseries?list=PL62qRURJS1HDNA5FtBzDPIfvkGS-tlHSR\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So what happened in May? Not a whole lot, but you know what? There&#8217;s not a whole lot that&#8217;s wrong with that. I read thirty-five short stories, saw eight movies, and I somehow managed to read four books &#8212; five, actually, if you count a four-issue graphic novel. (And ignore the fact that the others &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11825\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16,14,15,28,222,52],"class_list":["post-11825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books","tag-movies","tag-music","tag-personal","tag-stories","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11825"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11825"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11840,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11825\/revisions\/11840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}