(no subject)

So hey! As most of you have probably seen, we're thinking about whether or not to run fma_ladyfest again, and we're currently running a poll to gauge interest.

Our plan is to take a look at the results and make our decision a week from the day it went up, which will be . . . on Wednesday. So this is just a heads-up that if you have an interest in the outcome, now is the time to express it!

(no subject)

I really, really enjoyed Glen David Gold's Carter Beats the Devil, and it's hard for me to explain exactly why.

I mean, at its heart, it turns out Carter Beats the Devil is a Man Full of Manpain About Dead Wife Learns to Live Again kind of book, which is usually the kind of book I vehemently avoid. It helps that in this case the depressed man is a 1920s stage magician, and the process of Learning to Live Again features EPIC STAGE MAGICIAN RIVALRIES! and DEATH-DEFYING STUNTS! and BURNED-OUT FBI AGENTS! and MYSTERIOUS PRESIDENTIAL DEATHS! and an ADORABLE PET LION! and the INVENTION OF TELEVISION! (which is especially hilarious to me, because here I am bopping along, happily immersed in this 1920's novel, and all of a sudden Philo Farnsworth and the cathode ray tube technology that I am supposed to be learning about for at least two of my classes next year rear up and bites me in the face.)

And I love 1920s California, and twisty stage magicians, and gloriously melodramatic plots -- of which this was certainly one -- so all this was more than enough to keep me occupied, but also to my surprise I found myself really liking Carter, which I did not as much expect. It is a rare instance in which epic manpain does not accompany epic jerkitude! So even though I would have traded Carter for his awesome dead wife in a heartbeat (she is SO GREAT in flashbacks! She's an ex-pianist who decided she would rather PUNCH PEOPLE IN THE FACE. I loved her and hated that she was dead by backstory) and even though I am really pretty unhappy about the novel's repeated motif of "your wife died/was injured for YOUR dreams! DON'T YOU FEEL BAD NOW," I found that I was having enough fun that I was totally willing to suspend any and all judgyfaces until the end of the book.

(I also like that as far as the supporting characters go, it's not a world that defaults to able cis straight white male. And that shouldn't be a thing worth noting, but in historical novels, it often really is is. So I appreciate that, too.)

And, man, I don't know, guys. It's one of those books where the plot doesn't actually make that much sense if you squint at it, but it's all strung together with really, really good set pieces, and somewhere in between the random extraneous pirates and the bootlegger posing as a rabbi to sell sacramental wine and Carter accidentally escaping from rogue FBI agents due to his utter glee about his new motorcycle, I found myself sold.