First of all, I'm sure everyone on the planet already knows about these books, but if anyone's been living under a rock like me please check out Kim Stanley Robinson's
Red Mars. What an amazing look at humans living on Mars. I love the in-depth discussions on terraforming, how to bring more heat to a cold planet, adding oxygen to the atmosphere, growing things in soil that doesn't have enough nitrogen, the politics, it's all great! It does get a bit wordy, but that just makes it even more worthwhile, in my opinion. Every section is from the point of view of a different protagonist, much like George R.R. Martin's books, and for the Mars trilogy it works quite well! Also, as a trilogy it doesn't run into the problem of most longer series where the quality goes down and you only end up sticking it out due to loyalty/trainwreck syndrome. Case in point? Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series.
Now, I'm not passing judgment yet. I'm taking my time going through the final book,
The Land of Painted Caves, but so far I'm not impressed. 150 pages in and it hasn't really covered any new ground. Lots of review with little pay-off. Yes, Marona is jealous of Ayla. We've gotten three different conversations about that, but Marona has yet to do anything. Yes, Brukeval has issues, he loves Ayla and hates her, part Neanderthal, angst, yadda yadda yadda. Lots of talking, but very little action as of yet. Previous books had exciting, dramatic discoveries such as the spear thrower or using flint to start fires. So far Ayla and Jondelar built a seat so that the overweight Zelandoni could ride in relative comfort behind the tamed horses? Well, that's a bit of anticlimactic.
On the other hand, there are still hundreds of pages to go so hopefully this picks up. I still enjoy the long, detailed descriptions of the caves, clothing, tools, and so on. It's fairly well-written, and the dialogue is believable. All in all, a bit of repetitiveness is to be expected in a long-running series, so I'm keeping my mind open. Hopefully things will begin to pick up.
The other news of the day is my latest sewing project! It's a present for my favorite JTE. She took the last year off to have a baby, but she's back at school and I am thrilled. She is one of the most effective teachers I have had the pleasure of working with. Her lessons are beautifully balanced. Her lesson plans focus on learning as opposed to regurgitation, so they have multiple activities which focus on learning, then writing, listening, speaking, and reading as opposed to writing the five target sentences ten times each (I'm looking at you, Westside). She constantly engages the class, and doesn't hesitate to review things. She teaches by constantly referring back to the foundation of English, reinforcing pronouns, third person, past tense, and all of the other little fiddly bits that make English so difficult to learn. I love her to death, and I always leave classes with her having learned something. Right now there are only two teachers on the island who do this (this being teaching instead of just reciting drills and taking notes), so I value them very much. The obvious thing to do, especially since she took me to her house to meet her baby, is make a present! So here is the in-progress Pineapple Baby pillow.
The red R is for my teacher's name, the smaller yellow R is for her son, and the blue T is her husband's name. Her favorite colors are red, and green, so I've got the holly in the corner. Her son's letter is yellow with soon to be green accents because when he was a newborn everyone called him the Pineapple Baby because he had a mohawk. The monograms are all satin stitched, and you can see the progression on the T where it has been outlined and the padding is in progress before the final satin stitch cover. The holly stems are Portuguese Knotted Stem Stitch, and the leaves are normal stem stitch. The berries will also be satin stitched. I'll keep you guys updated!
