A Lightkeeper's Log

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. Came into Ozeki though My Year of Meats, which had a lot of similar cultural themes, but didn't really hit on the zen, meaning of life and ethics stuff that this book was more or less about.

I liked the sections set on the North West coast, they really grabbed small island life (though I agree with everyone in story who said that there's NO WAY IN HELL tsunami debris has made it to Desolation Sound yet). The play between Ruth reading the story, and Nao writing it was really well done, better played then many Finding Historical Documents stories. Needing things translated and poor Internet connections seemed like a plausible way to spin out the drama.

It's interesting that the last two Japanese stories I've read have had kamikaze pilots as major elements. That story and Nao's about being a Japanese outsider in Japan were pretty brutal, in the "I hesitate to rec this because it has lots of explicit torture and sexual assault" kind of way. I liked a lot of the ethics discussion, and how different family members handled similar problems over the generations.

I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. I know it's meant less as a Left Turn at Albuquerque, and more as a culmination of everything the book had been leading too but... I don't care about quantum physics? It kind of just felt out of tune with the rest of the book. I was also sad we never did get much of Jiko's backstory, though that may have been the point as well.


The Doomsday Vault (Clockwork Empire, #1) by Steven Harper [please note that it's with a V and not a PH]. I really liked the gender dynamics here. Gavin was basically a manic pixy dream boy (He only wants to fly, he's from an exotic country (the US), the colour of his hair is described more often than any other physical feature in the book, he sings and plays the fiddle astoundingly beautifully, he spends a good deal of time getting rescued, and more or less exists to convince the heroine to break convention and follow her dreams). Alice is a genius mechanic who fixes giant robots as a hobby. She also gets stuck with a traditional marriage plot, which was one the weaker areas of the book, but mostly it was about her fixing robots and rescuing Gavin. The two chessmaster characters moving the plot forward were both middle-aged women, and that's not even counting in Queen Victoria. It felt great to read a Victorian set novel that was so deliberately breaking out of period gender roles.

Speaking of, this book also had feelings about colonialism and empire. It wasn't preachy, but it looks like the series is going to run in that direction. While the mandatory queer character was pretty secondary, and didn't get a lot of characterisation, he was there. Always nice to see.

None of it felt lick a diversity checklist! The writing was light and often funny, and though I saw a few plot twists a mile off, the ending surprised me. Always nice to read. I will say that it's very, very much the first book in a series. It had self-contained story and character arcs, but I've got to say, if when I catch up to where the series is now, if they're still doing these cliffhanger endings, I shall feel cross.

Saw Iron Man 3, liked basically everything about it immensely and have no real comment. Except there needs to be Rhodey/Pepper/Tony fic, and plenty of it.

Picked up Ruse: The Victorian Guide to Murder by Mark Waid with lines by Mirco Pierfederici and Mink Oosterveer, and was kind of meh on it. I haven't read any of the old Crossgen stuff, but I like Waid, so I gave it a go. It was fine, I guess. The art was nice, and the plot was moderately good, but in the end I didn't really care much about the characters. There's nothing in this that makes the Male Victorian Detective and his Female Partner/Assistant/Handler plot feel at all fresh. It just kind of plodded along, hitting all the notes, I guess, but not really moving me.

I really liked, however, Here If You Need Me: A True Story by Kate Braestrup, which was the memoirs of a chaplain to the Maine State Parks Service. I think above all else the style dragged me in. It's funny because the reliance on metaphor and non-linear storytelling drove me buggy in my last book (Lighthousekeeping), but I felt it really worked here. It reflected how we don't live linear lives because of all the memories and connections and stories we tell, and for the memoirs of a chaplain, who exists by connections and stories, it was perfect, plus the author is REALLY funny.

I also really liked the author's call to service in a very practical way, I loved the bit where she was studying Iranaus' writing on Christ divinity and saying, "Yes, fine, but what do I do?" I the conclusions that she came to about where God is in times of tragedy (in the hands of the humans holding you up, much like that Mr. Rogers quote that was going around recently).

A lot of the story is about transition, and about mourning, and that was beautifully and unflinchingly written. How unbearable that is, and how others carry us through. I loved her relationship with her kids, and the rest of her family, the hypothetical and sceptical e-mails from her agnostic brother.

Mostly though, I loved reading about how people carry each other along, and find compassion and grace in the worst times. The author tells a story about how she comforted a man whose sister had killed herself, and her words to him moved me to tears. That is the kind of God I want to see working in the world.

(On a side note, there's a casual side-swipe at Islam that I didn't really appreciate. It's only about a page long, and it's more ill-informed than anything, but it really didn't fit the tone of the rest of the book).

S.E.C.R.E.T. by L. Marie Adeline, which is more or less billed as "Like Fifty Shades of Gray, but the author is Canadian." I'm kind of wavering between three and four stars. 3.5, say.

I sat down and read this pretty much straight through, and honestly enjoyed every page of it. I'm not even really sure why. The sex is pretty damn conventional; the characters aren't that original; there isn't much of a plot, and a couple points annoyed me (mostly how the background romance plot was handled. I can't stand bitchy girlfriend/rival characters). It was just so much FUN. I loved the adventures, and the no shame, no pain, no guilt part. The writing itself was light and funny, without a boat load of angst.

In the end, I came away feeling that while this book could have been a lot more, I enjoyed the hell out of what it was. Hell, it get the extra star because patriotism!


Emilie and the Hollow World by Martha Wells is a pulp YA adventure, with a similar setting to The Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy, though it's clearly set in a different world. Classic Wells in both gorgeous world building and in it's interior, practical point of view character. Our teen runaway, Emilie, reminds me a bit of Kade or Wells' other pre-Raksura protagonists.

I thought a couple writing choices were interesting here. First is that Emilie spends most of her time either on her own or helped and mentored by another woman. The leading women are both quite different from each other, being different cultures (and species!), and she learns different things from them. It was nice to read, and I enjoyed how Emilie grew with them.

Secondly, though it was very much Emilie's story, it wasn't her adventure. Most of the story was spent in an effort to rescue various people of whom she'd never heard and had no real investment other than people she liked liked them (I want to find my mentor's father, I want to find my friend's wife). The rest was spent escaping immediate danger, but there wasn't a lot of personal investment in terms of whether the quest would succeed or not. She also didn't drive the story a lot of the time, though she did save everyone's butts and generally help out a lot. It's very much not a Chosen One story, which was a nice change, I thought.

The writing is very evocative, especially describing feelings of a variety of repressed people, and painting incredible landscapes. I also laughed a lot, though the humour runs between dry and sarcastic, particularly in Emilie's reflections on events.

Liked the ending, and look forward to the next one.

I ended up with two copies of Emilie. If anyone wants one, comment here, and I'll trade you for another book.

Just finished Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America by Jeff Chu. I have a lot of thoughts about this book, and not all of them are completely coherent.

1. I felt that this book was aimed more at queers or allies trying to grapple with the church than for churched Christians trying to figure out what's up with The Gays. However, as a lesbian Christian, I might have a skewed look at that.

2. I think this book has taught me more about compassion than anything I've ever read. I really love how he travelled and talked to every one and listened to them. I know it's his job as a journalist, but it must have been difficult for a gay man to go up to Fred Phelps and hear him out. I think that he really did this, and not only heard people out, but had empathy for them and did his best to tell everyone's story as best he could. I love that he also kept his voice and his story throughout.

3. (Related to 2). I really appreciated the cry for if not unity than understanding, the cry for dialogue. I know that I, as a member of a left-coast liberal church, have often dismissed the voices of more conservative denominations. They failed to pass my litmus test (usually they think I'm going to hell for loving my girlfriend, and I think if I go to hell, it'll probably be for something else), so I don't want to deal with them. At all. I think from now own, I'll try to listen, to find the light in every soul, as I want others to see the light in mine. There's value in self-protection, but I also think that I'm privileged to not come from a spiritually abusive background. My faith is strong. I can and should reach out.

4. I really appreciated how he highlighted the doubt and discussion within more conservative denominations. We queers tend to look at say the Southern Baptist Convention or the Church of Christ and see a monolith of hate. The in-depth discussion of Harding University's response to queer students really helped me appreciate the variety of opinion, and how even seemingly unsympathetic denominations really struggle with faith.

5. I feel like the author somewhat lacked patience for queer people who just wanted to be insular. He criticises the Metropolitan Community Church and online communities who don't want dialogue. I know from his interviews else where, that he respects that some people are cautious of the church, but that didn't seem to show up as much here, maybe because the emphasis of the book was opening dialogue.

6. I didn't really feel like my story, as some one who is a non-self-loathing queer, and who never has been, and who is happy in her church and always has been was reflected. I don't know if that was an intentional gap, or if he just didn't meet anyone like that or what. Other gaps were black churches (which he mentions having difficulty accessing), Latin@ churches, and Catholics. Mostly this book was about white or mixed-race Protestantism.

7. There's not a lot of theology here. If you're looking for 100 level Queer responses to the Bible, look elsewhere. He mentions at the beginning that he wrote this book because those books already existed in plenty.

8. There is a lot of storytelling in friendly, accessible and often humorous ways. I loved how light and expressive Chu's writing was.

9. I'm sure there's a nine, and I'll be kicking myself later for leaving something out, but mostly, I REALLY LOVED THIS BOOK. I have thoughts. You should read it too and have thoughts with me.


Anyway, now I'm taking a break from everything serious and reading the Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice series, which features a thirteen-year-old Obi-Wan Kenobi tearing around the universe getting in trouble, a somewhat bemused Qui-Gon Jinn worrying after him, quite a few female OCs, and rather a lot of h/c. Whoever wrote this, had my id in mind.

Next I plan to read Emilie and the Hollow World by Martha Wells, which I just got my hot little hands on yesterday. I have also been talked into reading The Lost Prince, and should finish my gloomy theology book about how being a Good Friday People is Bad.

Finished Fullmetal Alchemist a couple of days ago. Overall, I really enjoyed the series. It hasn't moved me to throes of fannish delight, but it was a fantastic read, and I'll probably run through it again or watch Brotherhood at some point.

Got volume two of Sailor Moon from the library, but haven't looked at it yet.

Just finished The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation by Barbara R. Rossing, which I got a church book sale. If you feel frustrated with Dispensationalism and The Left Behind series' take on the Revelation of John, and want to see it taken apart brick by brick, this is the book for you. The author clearly and passionately pokes holes in more or less everything Hal Lidsey, Tim LaHaye and company have every written, with special emphasis on ethics and internal inconsistencies. On that level, I found it satisfying, if slightly laden with WRONG ON THE INTERNET (though notes say she was commissioned to pick apart LaHaye, so I guess she did what she was hired to do).

If you've vaguely heard about the Rapture and controversies surrounding the Book of Revelation, and want to know more, this is probably a decent place to start. It lays out what the Rapture is supposed to be, why people believe in it, and where the idea came from. It also takes great pains to explain why it's wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong, and not in the Bible at all. Maybe don't pick up if you don't want to talk into the middle of a pretty heated theological debate. I was already pretty familiar with most of this, but found some compelling new ideas as well.

If you're looking for the author's own interpretation of the Book of Revelation, well, it's there and it's interesting, but it's very much in the NOT THIS, but this tone. Again, that's what she was hired to do, but I went in looking for more of her take on Revelation, and found mostly what she did not agree with. I also think that she was perhaps a little Augustinian in her interpretation (if she couldn't read a text so that it advocated charity, she bent it until it did). I'm not entirely sure that's with respect to the intention of the original author, but it's an interesting take.

I would recommend this book, possibly in combination with Marcus Borg's Reading The Bible Again for the First Time for people looking for a liberal theology take on Revelation, or for people sick of Dispensationalists.

Review c/ped from esteven's DW
I keep forgetting to mention that I'd seen Les Mis.

For context, I haven't read the book, or seen/heard the musical before, but have seen the 1998 movie a bunch of times.

I found the sung dialogue disconcerting at first. I'm used to musicals where everyone talks normally, then there's songs, not singing all the time. I got used to it pretty quickly though. The pacing suffered in the same way that the Neeson version did, where they had to really rush a couple sections, with show piece bits stuck in the middle. The story didn't really get started until Fontine's first scene, then rush rush rush after she died up to Paris and the students.

I can't say I was a huge fan of Jackman's singing, though he emoted well. It just sounded sharp or something? I didn't hate it, but his songs weren't my favourites. I thought Hathaway was spectacular, and I really liked the Tenardiers, especially Eponine. The parents were also a fun (if super cynical) break from all the doom and gloom. I still don't care about Marius (or Cosette, especially), but the rest of the students were well done. I really liked the "I Have Heard the People Sing" number, both at the funeral and in the final scene; it made me cry both times.

I loved Crowe. I thought his singing was great, and I don't know why people didn't like it. Some people commented that he seemed to be focusing more on hitting his notes than acting, but I thought a less emotive style suited the character. I had a difficult time rooting against Javert, because CAPTAIN JACK!!!!!! But I also thought that he was played tragically and sympathetically. I really liked the competing versions of Christianity between Javert and Valjean. That wasn't in the 1998 movie as much, and it really helped here, I think.

Overall, I probably prefer the Neeson version, but thought this was very good.

cruisedirector has been writing fun bits of J/V, notably Five Times Javert Failed To Commit Suicide and Ten Times It Was Not Javert's Fault, crack certainly but also lovely and really showing off what one can do with drabble form.

February is the wasteland of cinema. I really don't think there's anything else running that I want to see.

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I also finished a couple books, that I've forgotten to mention.

The Hammer And The Cross: A New History Of The Vikings by Robert Ferguson
Going into this, I knew next to nothing about the Vikings, other than what most people do (793 And All That). For the most part, it was a fascinating read. I'd say I learned a lot, and the massive amount of information, names and dates was presented well enough for me to follow what was going on with one or two exceptions.

I liked how he broke down the history by region then by period, so you could follow one set of characters for a while without bringing 40 other people (inevitably named Herald or Olaf) into the picture. The chapters on the causes of the Viking Age, the Volga Vikings, the Settlement of Iceland, and the raids on Muslim Spain were especially interesting. I also liked the stories about individual Vikings and bits of poetry. There's a lot of quoted text here, often from sagas or chronicles.

I did find the chapters on Danelaw in England somewhat confusing. With so many related characters going back and forth over the same ground so many times, it really didn't hold my interest. Also, all his citations were in Norwegian (?), so it makes tracking down further reading difficult for an English speaker.

Would recommend to anyone who wants to learn Viking basics. It certainly made me interested to read some of the sagas quoted in the book.


Wilful Impropriety: 13 Tales of Society, Scandal and Romance edited by Ekaterina Sedia
Excellent collection of reasonably diverse stories. As with all themed collections, a couple of the stories didn't do much for me, but mostly I found the highly enjoyable and interesting. It had a nice mix of steampunk, Victorian-era stories, and historical urban fantasy.

I was pleased at how many queer characters, men and women, were in this collection. Probably an over-abundance of white characters but not entirely, and a mix of social classes though it did tend to upper class. It also tended to "getting married at 17 will solve everything," which was one way to go at the time, I guess, and the romances were often unconventional, but I found the book a little romance heavy.

Having said all that makes me sound like I did not like it, and I really did. There were cross-dressing adventures, and women solving things by being the smartest person in the room, and adorable gay girls falling in love, and friendship between women, sisters getting along, and strong feelings about loyalty, and The Secret Garden fan fiction (and I'm preeeetty sure Doctor Who fic with the serial numbers rubbed off).

I would recommend this collection if you like YA romance, steampunk or girl adventurers.


Beacon of Love by Ann Roberts
I have yet to finish this one, though I do kind of want to out of morbid curiosity. One of the other lightkeepers lent it to me, and I was all, a lighthouse-themed lesbian romance novel, what more could I want? Erm, yeah. So here's the thing, I don't know how old Ann Roberts is, but I strongly suspect she's of my parent's generation, which would be fine, if she were setting the book in 1983, but she's writing about a hip young lesbian in Seattle in 2009. She "twitters" to her followers. As of about half way through the book, no one had suggested that the woman who had left her husband, and had both male and female affairs might be bisexual, she had to be straight or gay. This is the same character who had really liberal and understanding parents, grew up in coastal Oregon in the '90s, and still insisted on having a heterosexual freakout ever three pages. Also there was a plot wherein one character had to become straight to inherit from her mother, which is... probably not legally binding? It just felt super dated and clunky. I do want to lay hands on that book again, just to see what happens.

Original: cheerful alien xenobotanist/grumpy electrokinetic librarian
Original: Winter Scene
Elementary AU: Joan/Carrie
My Little Pony: FIM: Twilight Sparkle/Rarity
Discworld: Polly Perks & Maladicta

Okay, I'm going to stop procrastinating this instant, I'm not even going to write out the long and impressive list of things I've been doing as means of procrastination (see above as an example), and write.

Eyeing rarewomen, which has sign ups middle of next month. I'm planning to nominate all the Sinbad women; Misty, Colleen, Carol, Monica and Faiza for Marvel 616, and probably Charissa Sosa, just because.

I'm also trying to get at least one more thing done for porn battle, though that's only got three days left on it. Preferably not something based on my own prompts. May just make icons instead.

Oh, for those of you who care about Sinbad I posted rewatch notes over at sinbadthesailor. They are somewhat spoilery, though, man, I tell you, not a show that one ought to worry about spoilers. Or plot generally.

Just finished Glamour in Glass (Glamourist Histories, #2) by Mary Robinette Kowal, the sequel to Shades of Milk and Honey. I enjoyed this even more than the first one (which I liked a lot). I felt that getting away from the Jane Austen aspect and dashing off to have adventures on the Continent was a good choice, and the voice seemed to work better for that.

It was nice to see what happened to the couple after the HEA in the first book, especially since the relationship in Shades didn't get as much development as I would have liked. The conflict and affection between the newly weds felt genuine and sympathetic. I liked how Jane tried to communicate her problems, and how they built on their relationship via actual honest to god talking to each other. AMAZING.

The adventure plot held no surprises, but was pretty enjoyable, and I liked the culture shock aspects of the Belgian setting. Though I do think that Jane needs to meet some of the more interesting women that were knocking about England at the time, instead of writing them off entirely in favour of men.

Very much looking forward to the next book, and hopefully some adventures with Melody and Miss Dunkirk, too. I missed them here.

Dad keeps stealing my library books, so I guess it's The Garden of Evening Mist next because he's got When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World. Mum still has my e-reader. She's reading a self-help book on it, which means my "Similar to books you're reading" list on Kobo is as follows:
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love... by Brene Brown
The Dance of Connection by Harriet Lerner
The Happiness Project: (Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Mo... by Gretchen Rubin
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times by Pema Chodron

So I've got to wonder either about Kobo's sorting code or Mum's self-help book.

Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally by Marcus J. Borg, from the library. I think mom got it, actually, but I'd been meaning to read Borg. If this had been the first historical-metaphorical interpretation of the Bible I'd ever run into, it would have been amazing as about the sixth, it felt somewhat perfunctory.

While trying to say at least something about the major divisions of the Bible, the author often doesn't have enough room to work, and tends to miss depth. This was especially evident with the Pentateuch and Gospels. Both sections felt extremely rushed.

Creation and Revelation, where the author had more time to talk about less material were more interesting and informative. I enjoyed those sections, as well as the one on Paul, who is apparently the author's area of research. I may try reading some of the author's more specialised work, as I think he has interesting things to say, when given the room to write.

This isn't a failing, so much as it wasn't what I was looking for, but I found there wasn't a lot of time spent on finding the Divine in the Bible. He spent so much time on historical criticism (which I'm interested in), that he didn't seem to spend a lot on God (which I'm rather more interested in). I get the impression that he's a very devote man, but he put all his effort into an academic approach, especially in opposition to literal readings of the Bible (which I'm not interested in). Which is why I say if I'd never run into historical criticism before, I'd have been amazed, but I've more or less incorporated it into my reading, and am looking for other things now.

I did very much appreciate his emphasis on social justice and opposition to empire, especially in the sections on the Prophets, Wisdom Literature and Revelation.

Finally, I couldn't help but notice that out of 91 modern authors that he cites, only eleven of them are women (for the record: Karen Armstrong, Adela Yarbro Collins, Verna Dozier, Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, H.A. Frankfort, Elizabeth Huwiler, Sallie McFague, Kathleen M. O'Connor, Tina Pippin, Barbara Brown Taylor, and Virginia Wiles). Not saying that's Borg's fault, but 12% female scholarship is pretty emblematic of what a sausage fest theology is, even in the 21st century.


We had sunny weather for the last few days, so I gave the flower beds a good going over before the bulbs start seriously coming up (a few non-blooming crocuses already), so I thought I'd grab Arabian Nights on MP3 from the library, for research purposes. Only the only one they had was The Arabian Nights: Their Best-Known Tales by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith, read by Johanna Ward (mostly based off the old Lang translation, I think). I was clipping along nicely with it, though I can't say I was too impressed by calling Muslims "Muhammadans," but at least they were Muslims, which puts it a step over Sinbad the show. Anyway, the first story with the talking bird wherein the Princess Saves Everyone was pretty cool. Then the next story had an evil black character, who was described in absolutely charming language, repeatedly, at length, and I was going :/ at the book, then we hit Aladdin, which started out with the villain being "The African Magician" and rolled on to the bad guy being a greedy Jew (even worse than most of his people). Then I stopped listening.

I may try find a new translation when I'm in town. I'm not having much luck turning up a non Victorian-Edwardian one in e-book.

I was going to combine this post with links to a story, but it's turning out to be the porn that never ends, so that will probably be tomorrow.

Made it about thirty minutes into the first episode of Labyrinth (The mini series based on the Kate Mosse book, not the idtastic Jennifer Connelly-David Bowie musical), then bailed due to a combination of generalised irritation and lack of caring. It managed to have both Bucky and Draco in it, which should have warned me off from the start. The fact that I pitched the book at the wall ten pages in should also have been a bad sign, probably. I was hoping the film would be less silly. Sadly not. They also managed to make the archaeology even worse. I also find a) feuding sisters, b) highly-sexualised evil women, c) basically anything to do with the holy grail but especially pertaining to d) lost books of secret revelations, extremely tiresome. I should probably just avoid Cathar-related material entirely, which is too bad, because the Cathars seemed cool.

Though seriously, what was up with the "Gnostics" Christians? They're like the Loki of early church history. There's two camps: They were wrong wrong wrongity wrong, and had very bad no good beliefs, and they probably shouldn't have been slaughtered wholesale, but still WRONG! OR (and no middle ground here), they were poor misunderstood woobies who were right and alone knew the true meaning of meaning, but the more powerful forces of greed and evil oppressed, murdered and then misrepresented them. Oh, and they weren't called gnostics, that's just a label the Holy Mother Church slapped on them while they were misrepresenting them. I've pretty much never met or read anyone who wasn't firmly in one camp or the other, and a lot of the discussion seems to descend into flame wars pretty quickly.


On that topic, I finished Growing into God: A Beginner's Guide to Christian Mysticism by John R. Mabry (who really didn't like the gnostic Christians, except the Valentinians, who he says weren't gnostic anyway), which was mostly pretty good, if not quite what I expected. I thought this would be an academic history of mysticism and an outline of the major beliefs. This was more of a self-help books for aspiring mystics.

Given that, I found it pretty useful. The prose was chatty and accessible, with a Q&A appendix for each chapter, clarifying many points I'd wondered about within the chapters. I read it straight through, but I'd recommend reading by topic: the chapter, the Q&A, then the quotes by mystics.

It's definitely a beginner's book, which is where I am on this topic, and it's orientated towards people who are or can be part of a Christian community. I found that last point a little frustrating because I was looking for something an unchurched person can do (in that there is no church in my area).

Still, I did find the book insightful, and will probably read it again.


I tried to read Pegasus by Robin McKinley, but didn't finish. It just sort of meandered about with no declarable plot, and considering I'd been spoiled that there was no proper ending and no sequel in sight, I gave up.

I'm currently reading a Marcus Borg book about reading the Bible, the memoirs of a Palestinian-Canadian war reporter, and several books on diesel engine repair (one of which likes to explain everything through mathematical equations, which I don't find deeply helpful).


I'm trying to decide if I should just go right ahead and rewatch Sinbad immediately or wait a bit. I guess there's no word on a second season? I have ordered a library book entitled When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty By Hugh Kennedy as period research. This is going to be one of those FML fandoms, I can tell. I can't believe I'm doing period research for a show that fails basic geography. (They got from Basra to Malta between one episode and the next, in a boat, in 800 CE, without apparently taking the time to sail around Africa). I just really like the characters, okay?

May rewatch Highlander a bit while I'm deciding.