2018/77: Black Opera -- Mary Gentle

2018/77: Black Opera -- Mary Gentle

"...I don't deny that, by the singing of Mass, the sick are healed, daily, and ghosts are laid to rest, and the walking dead appeased. I've seen this... I do deny that this has anything to do with a Deity! Nothing about it demands a god in explanation." [p. 41]

Black Opera might as well have been written for me: alternate history, bel canto opera, atheists amid miracles, strong female characters (some of them passing as men), complex emotional and sexual relationships, heretics, friendships between members of different social classes ... Yet it has taken me five years to finish reading this book. I read half of it on a rather unhappy holiday, then set it aside. Before I restarted it, I thought this was because I had simply been distracted, or had wanted to forget the context in which I'd read it. Now I've finally finished it, I think it's in part a problem with the space between my hopes and reality.
( no more spoilery than the blurb )

2018: Year in Review (going out)

copied and pasted from last year's apart from the numbers / faves

A quick review of my cultural outings in 2018. Everything is reviewed! (Sometimes rather cursorily.) Check out my monthlyculture tag.

Bracketed figures show range over the last 15 years [see year-in-summary tag for my Cultural History since 2004].

Film: 15 (4-20). Best three = Infinity War, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Shape of Water.

Theatre: 26 (1-26). Best three = Amadeus, Bacchantes, Midsummer

Concerts (classical): 7 (2-22). Best three = Brahms Piano Concerto #1; Voices New Zealand; Rachmaninoff Vespers

Opera: 10 (0-10). Best three = Cenerentola, Maria Stuarda, Violetta

Gigs: 9 (0-9) Best three = Breeders, Psychedelic Furs, Decemberists

Books: 85. Separate post coming eventually: reviews here (ongoing: am behind on reviewing).

Also in 2018: Ozymandias died, arrival of Marlowe; visited Czech Republic, France, Spain; two conventions.

Read in 2018

* 85 books, all fiction
* 67 by women, 19 by men, 1 by a non-binary writer. (Some collaborations, hence the numbers not quite adding up)
* 14 rereads
* 36 fantasy, 9 SF, 20 historical (1 11th century, 2 17th century, 5 18th century, 11 19th century, 1 20th century though I read quite a few other novels set in the 20th century and didn't tag those as historical. 4 of these are also alternate history ...)
* 15 romances, 8 of them M/M.

Best five, excluding rereads:
* Elegy / Swansong -- Vale Aida (I'm counting these as a single book)
* Band Sinister -- KJ Charles
* Behind the Scenes at the Museum -- Kate Atkinson
* Hag-Seed -- Margaret Atwood
* Exit Strategy -- Martha Wells