arkessian: (sheep)

Questions from 
[personal profile] oursin 

(Ask me if you want some questions of your own)

 1. What's cooking?

Tonight: sea bass baked with lemon, served with patatas bravas (going to try nduja in the sauce rather than chorizo this time for a bit more spice), charred peppers and spinach.  Followed by a baked Bramley apple (stuffed with pecans and maple syrup) and custard (of the Waitrose variety).

2. How does your garden grow?

It hasn't had a good summer, like most UK gardens this year, I think. But I have a couple of hundred tulip and spring bulbs to plant so next spring should be lovely.  I'm still mulling over where to put another flower bed -- I want to plant a rose in memory of my heart donor, and also to make more room to indulge my plant obsession.

3. Read any good books lately?

Some re-reads, yes -- lots of Antony Price, whose craft never ceases to impress me.  But everything new I've tried recently has foundered on a preference I
 had never recognised before.  I require a book's protagonist to demonstrate a certain level of competence and a basic ability to communicate when communications would um, you know, kinda significantly improve matters. Two books recently -- one highly recommended by people I trust, and one I had been looking forward to for a couple of months have disappointed. The first has a plot that only works if the two protagonists never talk to each other; and the second has two protagonists who seem to spend their time running away from every problem they encounter -- even little ones.  Perhaps the books improve as they go on, but I DNF.  My tbr pile is (digitally) high enough that I am getting ruthless these days.

4. If you could be anywhere else, where would it be?

I'm wildly jealous of a good friend who flies out to Antarctica tomorrow (well to Madrid, then South America for a couple of weeks, and then a boat to Antarctica. I don't envy the travel but would love the destination.

5. What do you wish they would make a movie/TV series of?*

This is a hard one... I rarely watch TV or movies these days and am not convinced they can ever improve on a book. Rivers of London (Ben Aaronovitch) might be fun. Or perhaps a series based on The Witness for the Dead (Katherine Addison) or Imperial Mars (Chaz Brenchley).  Plenty of quiet competence in all of those.

arkessian: (writing)
Lifted from all over:

Bold the women by whom you own books
Italicize those by whom you've read something of (short stories count)(I've also counted non-fiction, or works edited by the individual))
Star those of whom you've never heard

Andre Norton
C. L. Moore
Evangeline Walton
Leigh Brackett
Judith Merril
Joanna Russ
Margaret St. Clair*
Katherine MacLean
Carol Emshwiller
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Zenna Henderson
Madeline L’Engle
Angela Carter
Ursula LeGuin
Anne McCaffrey
Diana Wynne Jones
Kit Reed
James Tiptree, Jr.
Rachel Pollack
Jane Yolen
Marta Randall
Eleanor Arnason
Ellen Asher*
Patricia A. McKillip
Suzy McKee Charnas
Lisa Tuttle
Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Tanith Lee
Pamela Sargeant
Jayge Carr
Vonda McIntyre
Octavia E. Butler
Kate Wilhelm
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Sheila Finch
Mary Gentle
Jessia Amanda Salmonson
C. J. Cherryh
Joan D. Vinge
Teresa Nielsen Hayden
Ellen Kushner
Ellen Datlow
Nancy Kress
Pat Murphy
Lisa Goldstein
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Mary Turzillo*
Connie Willis
Barbara Hambly
Nancy Holder*
Sheri S. Tepper
Melissa Scott
Margaret Atwood
Lois McMaster Bujold
Jeanne Cavelos
Karen Joy Fowler
Leigh Kennedy
Judith Moffett

Rebecca Ore
Emma Bull
Pat Cadigan
Kathyrn Cramer
Laura Mixon
Eileen Gunn
Elizabeth Hand
Kij Johnson
Delia Sherman
Elizabeth Moon
Michaela Roessner
Terri Windling

Sharon Lee
Sherwood Smith

Katherine Kurtz
Margo Lanagan
Laura Resnick
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Sheila Williams
Farah Mendlesohn
Gwyneth Jones
Ardath Mayhar
Esther Friesner
Debra Doyle
Nicola Griffith
Amy Thomson
Martha Wells
Catherine Asaro
Kate Elliott

Kathleen Ann Goonan
Shawna McCarthy
Caitlin Kiernan
Maureen McHugh
Cheryl Morgan
Nisi Shawl
Mary Doria Russell
Kage Baker
Kelly Link
Nancy Springer
J. K. Rowling
Nalo Hopkinson
Ellen Klages
Tanarive Due
M. Rickert
Theodora Goss
Mary Anne Mohanraj
S. L. Viehl
Jo Walton
Kristine Smith
Deborah Layne*
Cherie Priest
Wen Spencer
K. J. Bishop
Catherynne M. Valente
Elizabeth Bear

Ekaterina Sedia
Naomi Novik
Mary Robinette Kowal
Ann VanderMeer