Ann Leckie

So it’s coming up on 48 hours since I had electricity at home. I’ve been in sporadic contact with the outside world via my phone (kept charged with my collection of external batteries, all of which are pretty much drained at this point. They would have lasted longer but the 19 yr old discovered Pokemon Go and with the power out all over the place we might as well go out and walk, right?), but today I’ve gone to the library and am availing myself of an outlet and the free wifi so I can catch up with emails that really need more of a reply than is convenient to type on a tiny touchscreen. If you need to get hold of me, I will be difficult to find until the power goes on again.

Which may be a few days yet. The other day a brief storm blew through, mostly no big deal but there were very high winds on the leading edge, and lots of trees and power lines went down all over the place. The electric folks are scrambling to get everyone reconnected, but there are a lot of places unconnected.

I didn’t need the AC anyway! (If I say that often enough I might believe it.) Possibly worse than being without AC or even fans in July is the fact that I had just bought a bunch of food and put it in the basement freezer. I’ve put as much as I can on ice in coolers, and we’re cooking things like raw chicken, or ground meat and icing those cooked, because those are the riskiest to store raw when your refrigeration is unreliable. On the down side, this was stuff meant to last for a few weeks; three hours before the storm rolled through I’d gone to Time For Dinner, a place where you make a bunch of pre-planned main dishes, package them up and take them home and put them in your freezer. Then whenever you just don’t feel like doing anything for dinner but you want something good, you pull one out and throw it in the oven or on the grill or whatever. It was my first visit there. And there’s other stuff in the fridge and freezer that’s definitely a loss. On the up side, dang the TfD stuff tastes good. A+ will visit again. And the basement freezer needed defrosting anyway.

Still, it’s seriously annoying. It’s throwing off my work routine and making me difficult to contact. Sorry about that–there isn’t much to do except try to get to the library when I can.

So, Barnes and Noble is having a sale! Three adult paperbacks for thirty bucks.

Now, it’s likely all of y’all reading this have already read the Ancillary trilogy. But, see, have you read N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season? Because if you haven’t, there is a hole in your life that you probably didn’t know was there.

Nebula-winner Uprooted is part of the same deal. So is Emma Newman’s Planetfall. Have you not read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell yet? Because that one is freaking awesome. The Expanse books are on there, and oooooh look, The City & The City. Seriously, that one is amazing.

Here are the books in the deal sorted by title–there are lots–and you can also grab the little dropdown thingy up there and sort it by author.

And no, really, you should all read The Fifth Season if you haven’t already.

Do you want more information about my visit to Stockholm this month? Check out this link.

If you scroll down, you’ll see this:

Vinn en middagsdejt med Ann Leckie!
 
SF-Bokhandeln bjuder på en middag med Ann Leckie och representant från SF-Bokhandeln efter hennes signering hos oss. Vill du passa på att prata rymden, sf och allt annat med en av sf-världens intressantaste hjärnor?
 
Mejla [davidb at sfbok.se] och bifoga ett exempel på en fråga du vill ställa till Ann!

Which the “translate this” button renders as

Win a dinner date with Ann Leckie!
 
Sf Bookstore to buy me a dinner with Ann Leckie and representative from sf bookstore after her signing with us. Do you want to take the opportunity to talk space, sf and everything else with one of the sf-the world’s most interesting brains?
 
E-mail [davidb at sfbok.se] and attach an example of a question you would like to ask Ann!

I know, probably everyone who would be able to enter the contest could read the Swedish, but.

Anyway, check it out!