falling on my head like a new emotion

[freckles_and_doubt]

This city nearly washed away on Sunday. The new parking garage behind the Pick'n'Pay has clearly been designed by incompetent desert-dwellers who don't grok this weird Cape Town "rain" business, because it was about a foot under water when I tried to park there on Sunday afternoon. Either that, or aliens stole all their drains. I believe that Camps Bay and river-adjacent denizens had a really bad time of it, but even Main Road was interestingly ankle deep:



I loved it. I know floods are hell on the Cape Flats shanty towns, and I'm sorry for them, but excessive, exuberant rain makes me deeply happy.

Next up in Random Ginormous Fantasy Epic month is Sharon Shinn. I found her Twelve Houses series in the Evil Landlord's bookshelves, source of all that is self-indulgently pulpy, although these aren't, strictly. They're not stunningly original but are immensely readable: their fairly standard political fantasy setting has enough quirks to be arresting, and in fact serves as the giant disguise for a whole series of romances. The recent success of the paranormal romance category suggests that I am in fact not alone in having no objection at all to fantasy with a hefty dose of emotional and romantic angst leading to eventual happy endings, so it's all good. I also rather like the way she's handled the magic: I don't usually enjoy the Spanish-Inquisition-style persecution of magical practitioners, but the interweaving of that with feudal politics is nicely done and the magic itself is interesting.

In a nutshell: politics, romance, highly specific magical powers only partially understood, resulting in a lovely sense of exploration. Kick-butt riders, kick-butt mystics, spies, assassins, nasty bigoted moon-worshippers, giant evil-minded feline killing machines. Romance in the categories Giddy, Soppy, Forbidden, Cute, Sexy and Doomed. Rather endearing close-knit friendships and warrior bonds between practically everyone. Back rubs. Lots of aristocratic parties. More good names. Marlords and serramaras. Emotionally damaged underdogs. Neat, unrealistic and reasonably satisfying Happy Endings. Mostly.

Comments

[dancing-crow.livejournal.com]

Do you have access to the Steerswoman books? They are epic, and ginormous, and have a hidden sekrit too, which makes me very happy. Unfortunately they aren't quite done yet. The existing ones take you on a pretty good journey though.

The Steerswoman's Road, The Lost Steersman, The Language of Power, by Rosemary Kirstein

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Oooh, never heard of her! love hearing about authors I've never heard of. I'll dig around for copies, the setting sounds interesting and thoughtful.

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

Now you've got Here Comes the Rain Again firmly lodged in my brain.

I quite enjoy the fact that we've both posted flood pics recently. London: "OMG summer rain!1" >FLUD< Cape Town: "OMG winter rain!1" >FLUD< I'm just waiting for the autumn leaves to clog up the drains here.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

There are worse ear-worms :>. I toyed with the idea of using "the rain came down and the floods came up" as a subject line, upon which you would have been haunted by that silly Sunday School song instead of Eurythmics - definitely a let-down! Fortunately I've used it before so you escaped.

It's still raining here. From my office window the city is dark, damp and grey and cars drive past with that lovely watery "swish".