Of a Sunday

[ksmith]

Nice ride this morning, a shade over 11 miles. Went to the stretch of road, did 6-7 circuits, explored some nearby bike trails, then to home before the heat set in.

At the risk of committing a sharing violation, a question--does one's butt ever get used to biking, or do you just deal with the numbness? I also have to keep shifting my hands around since the pressure points that contact the handlebars tend to numb after a while.

In other news, writing committed today. This is not a good book for Jani, being much more CODE-like than any of the others. In CODE, she was alone, forced to trust people before she felt ready to do so. What alliances she formed were tenuous, forced upon her by need and circumstance. In RULES, LAW, and CI, she manages to build some semblance of a support group, friends and lovers who will back her up, provide her refuge, provide some anchorage. By the middle of J5, that's all gone pretty much by the boards, and the scenes that show this gradual (or not so gradual) cleaving are, frankly, not a lot of fun to write. The hits just keep on coming, and the Jani that remains after the smoke clears is...not quite herself. She has no time to adjust or assimilate, and being one of those people who tends to react outward...

Maintaining some semblance of control over all this should prove an interesting exercise.

As I was pondering all this, I thought back to Lois Bujold's one-line synopsis for MEMORY--"Miles hits thirty--thirty hits back." It's an illustration of the sieve that my mind has become that while I recalled the line, I forgot the title of the book and had to look it up on Amazon. Since this is one of my favorite Miles books--I'll take the angsty one over the funny ones any day--I was a little annoyed with myself for doing that.

I was able to direct that annoyance outward when I read one of the MEMORY reader reviews. This person made the comment that they consider MEMORY fantasy rather than SF because of the depth of character exploration and the importance of social and political interactions and details to the story. What tech is there is seen as unremarkable by the people in the story, and never adequately explained to the reader. Therefore, it may as well be magic.

Yeah, like the whole Illyan thing--never explained a whit and anyway, you know, bio and med ain't real science. And as we all know, when we drive a car, we like ponder and discuss the process of internal combustion because it's like soooo freakin' remarkable that we've yet to adjust to the sensawunda.

When it's your book being assessed in such a manner, you gripe and bitch, but in most cases there is some restraint exercised because you're the author and are therefore supposed to rise above the petty urge to track the reviewer down, break into their home, grab them by the scruff of the neck and...explain things to them in a level tone of voice. But one is liberated somewhat when it's another author's work one is defending. In cases such as this, you are allowed to track down the idiot and commit explanation by cranial immersion in a common porcelain device. Repeatedly, if necessary.

Sunday. Day job on the morrow. *blech*

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I also lack a lycra body -- at age closer to sixty than fifty, most rational jurisdictions would ban skin-tight clothing on aesthetic grounds. However, I have found that loose-fitting cycle shorts are available, at least in the male genre.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I've been able to find decent shorts through Athleta--light, wicking knit, a little longer than mid-thigh, loose-ish without being baggy, with a liner.