I’ve honestly wanted to start participating in this weekly meme in 2014, however, I would always seem to get distracted during the hours leading up to Thursdays OR completely forget to compose my thoughts for this meme until into the weekend; at which point, the time had come and gone. I like the fact we can exchange thoughts percolating in our minds that run the gambit of the bookish world, creative outlets, or thoughts we want to share that might show a bit more about who we are behind the bookish blog we maintain. I am going to attempt to thread the journal of my 10 Bookish / Not Bookish Thoughts by order of the entries arrival into my life rather than a preference of 1-10.
A list of 10 Thoughts on exploring Astronautics & Space Science | Hostess List
Image Credit: Photo by Tithi Luadthong from 123RF.com. Quote Credit: QUOTE from Seven Devils by Elizabeth May & Laura Lam
*waves!* to my fellow Sci Fi Geeks who are embarking on their own literary and cross-media journey this Sci Fi November! I decided to break the mould of how I am announcing my #SciFiMonth adventures here on Jorie Loves A Story by creating my second #SciFiMonth book tag as I truly enjoyed doing this last year and I feel its become a NEW tradition for me during the event!
Ever since I was a Young Astronaut as a kid you could say I’ve had this long seeded appreciation for the Cosmos, Astrophysics, Astronomy, Cosmology and Astronautics. When it comes to sorting out which stories I want to endeavour to read during #SciFiMonth every year, I get wicked giddy about seeking out Space Opera stories and all the lovely sub-genres which pull us into the further reaches of space and the explorations we can seek out the universe.
This was more aptly seen when I was reading through the 3x trilogies of #TheClanChronicles which to this day is one of my favourite series I’ve read, blogged and ruminated over as a book blogger. It was such a transformative experience for a girl who loves the stars and a Spacer lifestyle. Do visit those reviews if you’ve ever wanted to seek out a Hard SciFi series which grips you from the first story and holds you glued into its heart until the very last page is read. It is both epic and dramatically emotional to read because of how Czerneda writes such a smashingly realistic series which feels as if you’ve lived those lives by the time you’ve reached the conclusion. The only part of the series I haven’t yet read are the “Stories of Plexis” which is a fan-based anthology of shorts set on Plexis and involve the characters and/or other aspects of life on Plexis which is set in the Clan Chronicles universe.
This year, I had an opportunity to read two different works of Space Opera featuring Astronautic storylines which were the following: The Lady Astronaunt series (courtesy of the publisher) and Kate Elliott’s new release “Unconquerable Sun” which made my Most Anticipated Reads List for 2020. I was meant to host the RAL for SUN during #SciFiMonth this year but I had such an unrelenting bout of migraines from May-October, I opted out of hosting rather than to set myself up for failure if my migraines were to return this November. I did unfortunately have one for over a week as I get these massive supernova migraines which can last upwards of 5+ days and take nearly a full week longer to recover after they’ve left me. Thus, my entrance into Sci Fi Month this year was a bit delayed to say the least but I am not letting that dis-sway me from what I’m reading, what I am reviewing and what I’m sharing this year for the event.
I decided to take Imyril and Lisa’s advice and push Unconquerable Sun’s RAL into early 2021 whilst keeping myself focused on the Lady Astronaut series instead as I can approach that without the added issues of sorting chapter breaks, discussion points and coordinating the Twitter chats & blog schedules for readers to upload their reviews, thoughts or reading takeaways if not offering fuller reviews.
I started seeking out the books Ms Kowal mentioned as being of particular interest to readers of the series to better understand her own route of research as a writer who created the series and that led me into fetching quite a few by interlibrary loan as much as finding quite the collection of her research books within my local library’s catalogue which was surprisingly lovely. The first book which emerged as a favourite of mine was “The Moon-Doogle” writ in the ’60s and published in ’64 which surprisingly stands the tests of time of remaining both relevant to our concerns for space & Astronautics today as much as it had back in the 1960s. I only wish I could have taken more notes as I had to sort of plough through it last minute as I had run out of hours to read it as it was decidedly overdue by the time I gave it back to the library. Not something I want to have happen but with migraines and health afflictions, sometimes it is unavoidable. It is also a book I would LOVE to have in y personal library one day even if it is a rather rare book to both find and to have a price tag not set at some astronomical price point! lol
Through Kowal’s Author’s Notes and the notations about her research for the Lady Astronaut’s series I’ve come to realise her fascination with the stars and with space exploration as much as the science behind how we launch ourselves to Space is equal to my own curiosities and fascinations into the same topics and subjects in which she rooted her series round. It has become a refreshing pursuit of chasing after her research whilst endeavouring to expound on my own knowledge of those topics and subjects which equally give me a heap of joy to be reading.
Thereby as I continue to seek out Hard Sci Fi over Soft and as I find myself more compelled to be listening and reading to stories set in Space moreso than elsewhere, I am embarking once again into Sci Fi Month with a heart full of awe and joy by what I am finding in those stories as I adventure through Science Fiction on a path only my own heart can curate a route.
I am so happy Imyril puts together our Mission Logs (Week One & Week Two as well as Week Three & Week Four) as I use those as my map to seek out my fellow Sci Fi Month participants and to see what everyone is discussing about a genre I’ve loved the longest as both a reader and as a watcher of Science Fiction.
Throughout my journeys into Sci Fi November (personal favourite alt. name for Sci-Fi Month), I’ve been wanting to write more posts outside of book reviews and it has taken me on a winding road of sorting out ideas and actually producing that kind of content on Jorie Loves A Story. More or less, you could say most of those are still drafted ideas rather than actual published posts. Perhaps, if I start early enough 2021 will have a fuller rounding of posts, reviews, memes and other lovelies during #SciFiMonth! And, by extension #WyrdAndWonder, too. For now, I was just thankful I could give myself an extension to this year’s event during this first week of December.
However the point I was trying to make is the only time I’ve come closer to talking about my Sci-Fi geeky past and present is when I wrote the essay I entitled: Seventeen to Seven: One Girl’s Quest for Sci-Fi which in of itself was my own version of a ‘get to know the Sci Fi Reader’. Consider this an updated version seven years later! And who says numerology isn’t in our lives?
I’ve honestly wanted to start participating in this weekly meme in 2014, however, I would always seem to get distracted during the hours leading up to Thursdays OR completely forget to compose my thoughts for this meme until into the weekend; at which point, the time had come and gone. I like the fact we can exchange thoughts percolating in our minds that run the gambit of the bookish world, creative outlets, or thoughts we want to share that might show a bit more about who we are behind the bookish blog we maintain. I am going to attempt to thread the journal of my 10 Bookish / Not Bookish Thoughts by order of the entries arrival into my life rather than a preference of 1-10.
I admit I have far more Drafts of #BookishNotBookish awaiting me to finish than I have shared posts for this meme. I am hoping to regenerate my participation throughout 2020 and hopefully erase some of the older drafts in the process!
A list of 10 Thoughts on a reader who turnt to tv for inspiration | Hostess List
Sometimes in your reading life you simply need a break from reading – this happens to me every so often and I must say, it is a wicked good thing there are a variety of series out right now (or were released in the recent past) which can happily re-inspire your readerly life!
No. 1 | Hallmark Movies & Mysteries & Hallmark Christmas Movies
First and foremost, if you’ve visited with me on Twitter you’ll take stock of the fact I like to tweet off/on throughout the year(s) about my LOVE and appreciation for Hallmark Channel & Hallmark Movies & Mysteries – when we became #cablecutters we inadvertly lost our chances to see some of the current mysteries we loved watching such as the Aurora Teagarden Mysteries with Candace Cameron Bure and the Gourmet Detective Mysteries – uniquely enough, by cutting cable we were introduced to the wonders of having Roku – which is a device you can add-on to your tv in order to allow it to have apps for streaming tv & movies.
We’ve sampled a lot of different tv streaming services from HuLu during a World Series with the Red Sox where they messed up my feeds and I went from the 4th inning to the 9th (oyy) and otherwise drove me batty with a difficult interface to find *anything!* remotely plausible to be seen via their line-ups. Whilst SlingTV was a lovely package deal it offered too many channels we never watched which is why we found Philo and Frndly to be better budget options for getting the selections you personally can enjoy. The larger line-ups are on Philo but Frndly gives you the Weather Channel and 3x Hallmark Channels – so its wicked brill for those who want to binge their Hallmark with an unlimited dvr and a cloud storage of 30 days!
In the past we’ve also had CBS All Access, Hallmark Movies Now (a light version of the Channels themselves), NetFlix, BritBox and a few others! We also take advantage of the free options like Crackle, Roku Channel, QVC/HSN and Weather Nation – which interestingly enough covers all major storms & weather issues for the country! There are also regional news channels you can watch for free though I’ve found streaming CBS News is the best compact way of getting all the news all at once whilst I also like Sky News from the UK and the now defunct Reuters which used to give you news in 5, 10 or 30 minutes. One thing not to overlook is YouTube as you can get caught up with shorter versions of both late night and daytime tv; such as Ellen and the Kelly Clarkson Show. I mostly binge #booktube, knit world, recipes/chefs and other things which interest me like knitty podcasts which I still consider to be #vlogs! (ie. Cocktail Hour at the Coop is one of my top favourites!)Read More
I’ve honestly wanted to start participating in this weekly meme in 2014, however, I would always seem to get distracted during the hours leading up to Thursdays OR completely forget to compose my thoughts for this meme until into the weekend; at which point, the time had come and gone. I like the fact we can exchange thoughts percolating in our minds that run the gambit of the bookish world, creative outlets, or thoughts we want to share that might show a bit more about who we are behind the bookish blog we maintain. I am going to attempt to thread the journal of my 10 Bookish / Not Bookish Thoughts by order of the entries arrival into my life rather than a preference of 1-10.
*waves!* to my fellow Sci Fi Geeks who are embarking on their own literary and cross-media journey this Sci Fi November! I decided to break the mould of how I am announcing my #SciFiMonth adventures here on Jorie Loves A Story by creating my *first!* book tag!
I have a slew of these saved in a folder somewhere to pull out at some point in the life of this blog and actually participate in the lovelies I’ve spied on fellow blogger’s blogs – however, the hosts of both Sci Fi November (Lisa & Imyril) are also my co-hosts for #WyrdAndWonder; each event they bring us new inspirations to create these tags and this is the first time I’ve had the moment to sit and compose an entry!
This also grants me the chance to revive a meme I’ve been struggling to become active inside again since *cough* more years than there are light-years to explain my absence! Let’s just say it was a technical malfunction and its been resolved.
Let’s dive straight into it, shall we?
If you’ve noticed a time shift within this post,
your eyes are NOT deceiving you!
It should go without saying – this list was provided by #SciFiMonth!
No. 1 | A glimpse into Jorie’s Sci Fi Month TBR stack of loveliness
During this week’s #WWWeds, if you looked hard enough, you would have spied out some beautiful lovely Science Fiction novels amongst my #currentreads! This was a cheeky clever way to announce to my followers I’ve transitioned through the wreck of my afflictions in October and have set my sights on #SciFiMonth properly now that I am well enough to re-focus my readerly efforts on the stories which are calling to me to be READ. Thereby, each week I’ll be releasing more of my TBR than the prior week whilst doing my own mini-Mission Status updates about which stories resonated with me, which ones I’ve reviewed outright and which ones sadly were simply not my cuppa (whilst explaining the whys and hows).
For those of you whom would prefer I disclose my current week’s literary curiosities, I shall re-visit the selections and explain a bit about why they are the first reads for Sci Fi November!
Week of Thursday, 26st of September through 1st of October, 2015 | Hostess List
I’ve honestly wanted to start participating in this weekly meme in 2014, however, I would always seem to get distracted during the hours leading up to Thursdays OR completely forget to compose my thoughts for this meme until into the weekend; at which point, the time had come and gone. I like the fact we can exchange thoughts percolating in our minds that run the gambit of the bookish world, creative outlets, or thoughts we want to share that might show a bit more about who we are behind the bookish blog we maintain. I am going to attempt to thread the journal of my 10 Bookish / Not Bookish Thoughts by order of the entries arrival into my life rather than a preference of 1-10.
No, your eyes did not lie to you, this is No. 6, No. 2-5 will be released this Autumn.
No. 1 | Corvidae + Scarecrow | Anthologies by World Weaver Press
As you might have recalled I happily devoured the stories in Rhonda Parrish’s first anthological series debut FAE, wherein I found myself quite delighted to find stories of the fae represented in such a uniquely clever collection of inspiration and craft of story-telling. After concluding my review on behalf of FAE, I wasn’t quite sure what I should request next via World Weaver Press, when happily their publicist Ms Wagner suggested I follow FAE with the next two anthologies in sequence:
What is so wicked awesome about these two anthologies is there is a serial short between them, which outside of pulp fiction and the classical serials found in zines decades inside the early 20th Century, I haven’t come across serial shorts inside anthologies! I’m quite a newbie to anthologies of the 21st Century, and thereby, each time I make a discovery I am wicked excited by the possibilities of what I am about to read!
I am now piqued with keen interest to read Sanctuary and Judge & Jury! I had agreed knowingly with the reviewer – sometimes you come across a short so profoundly moving, if you never found another you loved dearly as much, the collection was worth it’s weight in gold! This happened to me once in another anthology where I found a writer so tapped into the human condition and the emphatic heart we all have within us, I was forever moved! Shorts despite their length are powerful in what they convey! The four I focused on myself from FAE are still with me, even now.
I must confess, this fellow book blogger out here in the book blogosphere is as keenly passionate about these anthologies as I am, as it’s his reviews on behalf of these two anthologies that encouraged me to take the plunge into reading them myself!
I must admit – reading the reviews on Tangent in combination with reading the Press Kits helped make my decision because Tangent has bloggers who knit out the heart of each story and give me ‘just enough’ to whet a thirst of interest.
Do visit his reviews, ahead of my own which will be arriving in October!
And, dear hearts guess what!? Parrish isn’t yet done with her Magical Menagerie! She’s putting together a new collection entitled: SIRENS! Eek. Can you just imagine!? Watery stories of EPIC MYTHOLOGICAL loveliness?! I’m not sure about you, but World Weaver Press has bewitched me!
No. 2 | Being a part of DAW’s blog tour for This Gulf of Time and Stars by Julie E. Czerneda
I initially thought my path had crossed with Ms Czerneda during Sci Fi November 2014, until I ran a search for our tweet convos and realised it was a bit earlier in 2014 during the Sci Fi Writer’s chat! Who knew!? I used to duck inside the #sffwrtcht on a regular basis, as I have a healthy appetite for SFF whilst getting the opportunity to talk to writers who are enveloping us in worlds that are a jolt outside our own realities to the brink of epic intraspace proportions! As we do not just jettison ourselves off of Earth or into the orbit surrounding Earth, we sometimes traverse the divides of time itself whilst visiting territorial systems beyond our line of sight. Then, there is the hidden joy of writers who write an arbitrage of stories contained on Earth herself but within the light years of time ahead of our own living futures, taking us both on land and sea to explore new frontiers and the plausiblilties of life therein. Read More
Week of Thursday, 30th of April thru 7th 14th of May, 2015 | Hostess List
I’ve honestly wanted to start participating in this weekly meme in 2014, however, I would always seem to get distracted during the hours leading up to Thursdays OR completely forget to compose my thoughts for this meme until into the weekend; at which point, the time had come and gone. I like the fact we can exchange thoughts percolating in our minds that run the gambit of the bookish world, creative outlets, or thoughts we want to share that might show a bit more about who we are behind the bookish blog we maintain. I am going to attempt to thread the journal of my 10 Bookish / Not Bookish Thoughts by order of the entries arrival into my life rather than a preference of 1-10.
NOTE: This list was originally meant to publish on the 7th of May, however, due to unforeseen reasons which delayed it’s posting, I had intended to share it on the 14th of May when I came down with a migraine, thus taking me away from finishing the edits as I found out a few things earlier in that second week I had not known originally on the 7th. I am back-posting this on the 14th (today) on the 19th of May, as that is the day it belongs hereafter to be seen. A new list will be generated for this upcoming Thursday, the 21st!
No. 1 | Borrowing the BBC through my local library
One of my favourite joys of being a regular library patron is the access to the BBC through either direct purchases made by my local library OR the ability to ILL serial dvd collections for mini-series, tv serials, or motion pictures! For the past two to three weeks, I’ve had the incredible joy of being able to catch up with one of my favourite BBC serials: Foyle’s War! I have a soft spot for war dramas and for mystery series because I truly grew up on murder mysteries on tv!
Michael Kitchen plays the title lead as Foyle, and it is such a convicting narrative of stories pulled out of research by the series creator and writer Anthony Horowitz. I knew of his works previously through Alex Rider, as I watched the motion picture hoping there would be more installments; however, this was a bit like hoping the latest Nancy Drew film would have sequels starring Emma Roberts. I cannot even express how much I celebrated there is a Series 7 and a Series 8, except to say, it equaled the joy I had in realising there is a Series 3 for Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries!
You’re taking back to the world wars of the early 20th Century going straight through to the start of the Cold War; the transition in Series 6 to 7 is impressive because Horowitz has amazing continuity by giving his audience the pleasure of staying with characters they are attached too and seeing them move forward with their lives. The only characters I regretted not seeing come forward were Foyle’s partner Paul Milner and of course, Foyle’s son Andrew. Andrew was portrayed by singer Julian Ovenden and his exit I believe was nearly predicted by the fact his career took off. I was thankful I could participate in a live chat with him via PBS last year, and he even answered one of my questions! This was not in reference of Foyle’s War but for his guest starring role on Downton Abbey.
To see Honeysuckle Weeks return as Sam and Foyle to be back as the moral backbone of MI5 is such a true delight of authenticity, I can only hope others are seeking out Foyle as much as I am! He has become such a delight to watch, my family hopes like I do that we have much more Foyle yet to come! It is definitely a series where fans are helping guide the series forward, as it was cancelled and revived!
After Foyle, I wanted to keep the joy of selecting to see new BBC serials, (either newly released or past releases still unknown) which is why I selected to watch Last Tango in Halifax. A drama about two families that are on the verge of coming together due to the fact their Mum and Dad have fallen in love with each other after reuniting after living 60 years apart! It’s such a tragic opening to the story, where a lost letter does not get delivered and they each went their separate ways!
They find each other on social media and as they meet-up for the first time after all these decades, learnt that they are still very much as important to each other as they were then. However, the drama of what ensues is both honest and representative of a families in transition and shifting in/out of difficulties that arise whilst life continues to carry on. The last episode of the 1st Series nearly put me under, because of what happens to Alan, but thankfully, we read up a bit about the series finding that as this is based on a real-life couple who found each other and wedded after a 60 year absence, the series is thriving on fans in the UK who love the show! Already in it’s 3rd Series and moving towards it’s 4th, I can say we devourted the 1st and are about to embark on the 2nd! Read More
