Alanna #2: In the Hand of the Goddess
A while back, I read Alanna: the First Adventure. I said at that time that I would read the rest of the quartet at some point, but I wasn’t in a screaming hurry. Then the other day on Galactic Suburbia, Tansy announced that she was commencing a re-read. Well, I couldn’t let her re-read beat my initial read, could I? What if she said spoilery things?? So, I went out and borrowed the next three. And read them…
SPOILERS
So. The second book. First off, let’s talk about this cover. It’s from the 2011 re-release, and it is less than awesome. Her horse’s name is Moonlight, fercryinoutloud. At least she’s got a sword and is dressed in squire-ish clothes. Secondly, let’s talk about where I found it: in the junior section of the library. Not the YA section; the junior section. I can maybe see the first book fitting there, but not the entire series. I found that weird before I read them, and then as I read the casual attitude towards sex – the sex isn’t explicit, in the slightest, but it is very clearly present – I was even more astonished. Also, the killing of people with swords, which again isn’t the most graphic violence but still, not sure you’d want a ten year old reading it. Thirdly, the title… well, it makes sense in some ways, but it doesn’t inspire me and in fact makes me roll my eyes. I would not pick this up based on the title. (Of course I would already have been put off by the cover of this particular edition.)
Anyway. The story picks up with Alanna now being squire to Jonathan, the prince, who knows that she’s actually a girl. The story essentially covers her progression towards becoming a knight. It covers three or four years in 240 pages. Sometimes you blink and it’s a year later. Some writers carry that off with aplomb – mostly I’m thinking of Ursula le Guin here I think – but I’m not entirely convinced of it by Pierce. Over that time, Alanna acquires a cat, Faithful (many of the names that appear in this series I am entirely unimpressed by); a lover, in Jonathan; and of course becomes a knight. And, in a very rapid turn of events, she kills her nemesis, Duke Roger. That particular bit happened so fast my head was spinning.
Alanna grows up, as she needs to, and generally that’s well done. She frets about things fairly convincingly. It was good to see that Pierce allowed Alanna’s friends to accept her being a girl relatively easily; that she had proved herself enough that it was straightforward for them to still see her as a knight.
Battle scenes aren’t dwelt on, which I appreciated. The aftermath, though, is not ignored; Alanna throws up after her first real skirmish, the patching up of soldiers is shown in as detail as the battle itself – which isn’t glorified – and when Alanna isn’t able to fight, she goes off and helps the healers. I like how practical Alanna is; I like that the reality is shown, although of course Alanna is Super Gifted in every area necessary (which sometimes does get a bit wearing).
Jonathan is a bit boring. I was surprised when he and Alanna fell into bed together relatively easily; later, there is a suggestion that this diminishes Alanna’s virtue in some eyes, but she doesn’t worry about it at this stage. I can’t help wondering about the power issues of a prince sleeping with a vassal – although of course this has always happened in history – but also the rather weird situation of a knight sleeping with his squire… although of course this may well have happened in history….
As a rogue, George of course is more interesting. I’m a bit impatient with love triangles though.
Really, this book gets through things extraordinarily fast.
You can get In the Hand of the Goddess from Fishpond.
Galactic Suburbia 85
In which we talk about gender stuff in publishing and gaming, Alex votes in the Hugos and Alisa’s thesis starts coming together. A good week! You can get us from iTunes or over at Galactic Suburbia.
Caught Our Eye
Sexism in genre publishing: A Publisher’s Perspective
JK Rowling and Robert Galbraith – An Open Letter to Writers & Would Be Writers
The Mary Sue & gaming culture: What we aren’t talking about when we talk about inclusion and representation, and what we are
Culture Consumed:
Alex: Hugo reading (novellas and novelettes)
Alisa: Publishing and Reading as Dissent: Resistance, Literary Tourism and Arsenal Press, Casey Stepaniuk (The Word Hoard Vol 1, Issue 1)
Tansy: Alanna the First Adventure by Tamora Pierce, All-New X-Men: Yesterday’s X-Men, Brian Michael Bendis & Stuart Immonen; Red Sonja #1 by Gail Simone; Much Ado About Nothing!
The Galactic Suburbia Road Trip – we have fun over at the SF Signal Mind Meld!
Tansy’s review of The Other Half of the Sky is up at the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
Kaaron Warren won a Shirley Jackson for “Sky”!
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Katherine Swynford
This isn’t a real review, but I wanted to register how much, overall, I enjoyed this biography of Katherine Swynford that I read recently.
I have read a lot of Alison Weir’s work. I know she sometimes gets accused of writing populist history; personally I find her a really intriguing mix between populist and academic. On the one hand – what’s wrong with being populist if you’ve done your research?? Making intriguing women like Swynford accessible to a general public is something to be lauded very, very highly. On the other hand, there were bits that I absolutely skimmed over because they were so dense; I’m sorry, I just don’t find descriptions of household objects and suchlike that riveting. Maybe that makes me a bad historian… or just not a good domestic historian. Anyway – this was largely very readable and enjoyable, and I think would be found so by reasonably educated people with little detailed knowledge of medieval England.
And then there’s the subject. Katherine Swynford! Attendant to Philippa of Hainault when she marries the English Edward III; governess of some sort to John of Gaunt’s (third some of Edward III) children; then (after his beloved first wife dies, and her possibly lamented but not so much husband also) John of Gaunt’s mistress and mother of at least four of his children; then repudiated for some time when he gets a bit thing about maybe becoming king of Castile, plus pious; then, finally, John of Gaunt’s third wife. Which also wrangles the legitimacy of her children by him. All of which doesn’t include the building works she manages in various places, the bringing up of a number of children, possibly being involved in politics at different stages, oh and her sister married Geoffrey Chaucer.
She’s a major reason the Tudors had a connection to royalty, before forcibly taking the crown (they’re descended from the Beauforts, who are the legitimised children mentioned above). She’s also the progenitrix of six American presidents.
Katherine Swynford was clearly a remarkable woman. She was on good terms with a large proportion of the English nobility – admittedly, partly because she was widely known as John’s mistress and thus had access (heh) to his ear, but nonetheless she was clearly highly regarded. She was also on good terms with most of the clergy with whom she came into contact, for example in Lincoln where she appears to have lived right next to the cathedral for many years. She must have been a remarkable housekeeper – in the very broadest and most impressive sense, since it appears that the place she first lived in with her first husband was a bit crap, frankly, and she was largely responsible over many years for making it a good place to live. Plus, she lived through remarkable times: this is the Hundred Years’ War, and also the time of Wat Tyler’s mob rampaging through London and burning the Savoy Palace… which would be the palace belonging to John of Gaunt. Fortunately, not while he – or she – was in it.
It’s brilliant to see such a woman getting a biography. I love Weir’s introduction to this which confesses that pretty much this is the biography she’s been working towards for years – she just had to have the clout to manage to get her publisher to agree to it. Way to go to get what you wanted!
The Odd Angry Shot
This film is an example of why, and how, Australian cinema is so awesome.
It’s also quite the who’s who of male actors of A Certain Age in Australian film and TV; there’s even a cameo from Frankie J Holden (for whom I have quite the soft spot).
This is not a film I would tend to watch off my own bat, for a whole bunch of reasons. But I did, and I’m glad I did.
The story focusses on Bill, a fresh young man (John Jarratt!) off to the Vietnam War as part of the SAS. When there he falls in with some likely lads (Graham Kennedy! Bryan Brown!!) with whom he drinks, jokes, and gets into trouble – and goes on patrol with too. Some of them get wounded. Some of them die.
The film has some remarkable character moments. At one point, Harry is explaining why he’s sketching – he was an artist before he joined up. He then goes on to explain that he joined the army after he got a divorce, and why he got a divorce. It’s a sad story – as such stories ought to be – but it is neither pathetic nor overwrought; it is as pragmatic as your classic Aussie bloke would make it. This is not to say that Harry is unfeeling; quite the contrary. He feels it deeply. But he does not make a song and dance about it.
I think the pragmatism, and the understatement, is the big difference between this film and an American one. I’ve seen Born on the Fourth of July, which is a remarkable piece of cinema. But this captures another, equally true (?for given values of…) version of the experience of war. And it is realistic. There’s tinea, porn, fear, death, the random nature of events; there’s camaraderie, and making the best of a dreadful situation. Like having a cage fight between a spider and a scorpion. As you do.
As with many such films, it’s based on a book. Apparently the author was concerned that the film would turn his anti-Vietnam-but-pro-army story into a buddy war movie. I hope that, when he saw it, he saw a film that did capture some of the essence of his book. Because this is definitely not a pro-war film.
I’m glad I watched it. It’s pretty raw – there are definitely some cringeworthy moments, made all the more cringey because they almost certainly reflect actual attitudes of the 70s, if not the 60s; but as a short, sharp suggestion of an Australian experience in Vietnam, it works.
Rasputin’s daughter
A little history lesson: Gregory Rasputin was a Siberian peasant who, after being introduced to the Tsar and Tsarina of Russia in the early part of the twentieth century, somehow appears to have had a positive impact on the haemophilia of their son and heir. There were all sorts of rumours going around about him and his relationship to the Romanovs and the way he behaved in St Petersburg, and he was eventually assassinated. This book is more than a hundred pages of his daughter reminiscing about her father, and about 30 – which I didn’t read – of Rasputin’s own reflections on holy places he’s visited.
I recently helped my sister to move house, and one of my jobs was unpacking her books. In doing so I discovered that she had appropriated a number of books that belonged to me but that I’d left at home… anyway. I also discovered this book on her shelf, and I was astounded for a few reasons: that the book exists at all; that she had bothered to nab it (I was reminded that she had studied the Russian Revolution at school)… and that it had belonged to our paternal grandfather. This is somewhat surprising because although not a Communist, our Grandpa was definitely an old-school union man, voted Labor all this life, detested the Vietnam War (wasn’t it awkward when Dad enlisted and went over?)…
etc. So why he had a book aimed at salvaging Gregory Rasputin’s reputation is beyond my ken.
This book is part vindication of Rasputin as a largely good man, part protest at his treatment while alive and his reputation after death, and part somewhat dubious insight into life in Petersburg in the lead up to, and early part of, World War 1. Did I learn anything that I am willing to treat with little scepticism? Yes: Maria Rasputin’s explanation of the fact that her father was not a monk, but was rather a Starets has no need to be distorted and was genuinely helpful in my thinking about him. So too is the fact that Maria and her sister lived with Rasputin for most of the time he was in Petersburg! – this is not something that I have ever seen discussed, and although obviously a father is perfectly capable of being evil and not showing it to his daughters, it’s still an interesting addition to his character. Like I said, Maria (and I’ll keep referring to her by her first name because ‘Rasputin’ would be just too confusing) is clearly aiming to redeem her father’s name, so she stresses that their living room/reception area door was very rarely closed – thus clearly refuting the idea that, at home at least, Rasputin was up to no good and holding orgies (one of the big accusations against him). She doesn’t pretend he was a saint – in fact, she protests against that idea vigorously – and admits that he took up drinking… but blames that on the experience of Petersburg itself, and bad influences, and the need to get just a little bit of downtime.
There’s a whole lot that is pure propaganda. And I can understand that; it can’t have been a comfortable position to be in, as the daughter of such a notorious man. Especially if he had been a loving father, and all the calumny just felt so alien and unlike the man you knew. I was fascinated to read that Maria accepted – or at least wrote that she accepted – the supernatural elements of Rasputin’s story: that he was clairvoyant, enabled by a special connection to God that also enabled him to have special healing powers… I hadn’t expected that aspect.
One problem, for me: I couldn’t help but here Tom Baker’s voice every time Rasputin spoke. That was distracting.
Some Hugo thoughts
I’ve been doing reading towards voting in the Hugo Awards, so these are some thoughts on what I’ve read recently – all in the shorter fiction categories:
Novelettes
“Fade to White,” Catherynne M Valente (Clarkesworld, August 2012) – DAMN, man. This novelette is astonishing. Non-linear structure, with advertising copy complete with snarky editorial commentary interspersed throughout the stories of two adolescents living in a post-WW2 alternative America: alternative because things have clearly gone from defeating Germany straight to Hot War with Russia, and that war has come to American soil. Not only is this a fascinating and chilling look at the repercussions for adolescents growing up in such a world, it’s also a frightening and perceptive look at how gender and race issues might play out, too, in an America so threatened. A bit like Handmaid’s Tale in that respect. I should have talked about this one last because much as I liked Pat Cadigan’s “The Girl-Thing who Went out for Sushi” (Edge of Infinity), I think this gets my vote.
“The Boy Who Cast No Shadow”, Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Postscripts: Unfit For Eden, PS Publications) – a really lovely story. One of those stories that uses a fantastical idea but makes it normal (well, ish) in the society: in this case, a boy made of glass. The eponymous character is regarded as a freak for having no shadow; the two form a friendship based on their bizarreness. This is poignant and lovely; I’m very happy I got to read it
“In Sea-Salt Tears”, Seanan McGuire (Self-published) – I read the first October Daye book and was completely unimpressed. I had no idea that this was connected to that series until I saw someone mention it on Goodreads. So, with no background at all, I actually really liked this story. Selkie stories are so hot right now (and it’s pretty funny reading this after recently reading Sofia Samatar’s “Selkie Stories are for Losers,” which I adored) – this one felt like it did something a bit new with the mythology, which I enjoyed.
“Rat-Catcher”, Seanan McGuire ( A Fantasy Medley 2, Subterranean). Meh. Cat-fae in 1660s London.
Novellas
After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress (Tachyon Publications) – totally my pick. Again with the non-linear structure, as the title suggests. Bits of the story happen in a world recognisably our own where one of the main characters is trying to figure out a series of kidnappings. Bits of it happen in a very weird future world where some cataclysm has occurred and a small remnant population is trying to get on with. And there’s a bit during the fall as well, of course… and by that stage everything has started to come together, and both of the main characters really make sense and are utterly captivating. Very, very nice.
The Emperor’s Soul, Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon Publications) – haven’t managed to finish it yet. Possibly shouldn’t therefore comment.
On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press) – I don’t know anything about this universe of de Bodard’s, so I have no idea whether I’ve missed important character references or whatever. Nonetheless the story was highly engaging, and made basic sense – war isn’t hard to understand, and the repercussions for refugees are of course familiar. The intricacies of family entanglements are taking to an extreme and fine degree, but again the basic notion isn’t hard to grasp. It’s beautifully written and very absorbing.
San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats, Mira Grant (Orbit) – have not read, won’t bother because I haven’t read the Newsflesh series (and don’t like zombies).
“The Stars Do Not Lie”, Jay Lake (Asimov’s, Oct-Nov 2012) – interesting idea. Would have been a whole lot better if it wasn’t transparently a Galileo/scientists in general vs Catholic Church story, with little effort to develop an interesting take on the religion.
So, for what it’s worth – those are some of my thoughts!
The Eternal Flame
The following will include spoilers for The Clockwork Rocket, which I discussed over here.
A universe where parts of the spectrum of light travel at different speeds. A race where mothers cannot exist. Vector diagrams. They’re overused, but I’ll use them anyway: Egan is nothing if not ambitious and audacious.
A warning: the same issues that pertained to Clockwork crop up here. It is most definitely not a book that will work for everyone. You have to fall within a fairly specific range of readers: either someone who really enjoys thinking about physics and won’t be weirded out by the bizarre physics Egan is working through here; OR someone who is willing to skim over the vector diagrams and other physics-lecture bits, and just enjoy the story. Personally, I’m the latter. And the only reason I was willing and able to push through the physics was because I trust Egan to give me a really worthwhile story between, or around, it. I kind of imagined that I was listening to a really, really interesting person who occasionally meandered into talking about stuff I didn’t get, but was bound to get back to the good stuff eventually. And I was right.
The point of the Orthogonal series is to explore two central ideas: how the universe might be different if the speed of light isn’t constant; and how society might be different if mothers didn’t exist – or rather, they cease to exist at the point of childbirth. The story revolves around these two issues, and does so in occasionally remarkable ways. The physics aspect is very much an intellectual exercise; if there is commentary on modern science, aside from the obvious bureaucracy-getting-in-the-way, I missed it through not understanding enough of it. The biological/social aspect, though, includes a huge amount of commentary on modern Western gender relations, and it’s confronting, frightening, and sometimes scathing. I loved it.
Clockwork ended with a crew aboard the Peerless – a mountain launched into space – setting out with the objective of experimenting and thus hoping to find a solution to the probable destruction of their home world by an oncoming storm of meteors. This is only possible because of the different way light and time work in their universe; by moving away and then retuning home, much more time will have passed for them than on the planet. Because of the discoveries and attitudes, I’ve seen this book described as mirroring the Newtonian/seventeenth century European scientific revolution, which I think makes some sense but I wouldn’t push it too far. Along with the very pressing problem of saving the world, the crew carry in their bodies another issue – an issue that was only just being recognised as an issue: the fact that a mother’s flesh splits into her (usually four) children at ‘birth’. Mixing up the historical periods, this might be seen as somewhat comparable to the long period between Mary Wollstonecraft (late eighteenth century) and the suffrage movement of the early twentieth century (…. would that make Yalda both Ada Lovelace and Millicent Fawcett?? I 
am loving this idea, daft as it is). Women are starting to think that there might be alternatives to simply living with their co and eventually becoming their children.*
To continue this intriguing historical comparison, Eternal Flame is scientifically moving into an Einstein/Hubble frame of thinking, and socially (I can’t believe the gall of this sentence) into the second-wave feminism of the 1970s (I wish there was an author in the story that I could tag as Joanna Russ, but there’s not). In physics, in particular, there are astounding discoveries being made about the properties of light and heat which are beginning to have profound ramifications for how they think about solving their problem (problems actually, since they also left their planet with no way of getting back with the solution…). Socially, the crew has pretty much always accepted women as being just as worthy in science and other jobs as their male counterparts – not least because many of the crew, especially in the sciences, were women. However, biology is still an issue. The original women used a drug, holin, in order to delay the onset of fission (birth). By this stage – three generations later – still use holin but are also basically starving themselves, for two reasons: both to delay birth, and in the hope that their fission will result in two, rather than four, children. Because the Peerless has experienced a population explosion, and they cannot support every pair becoming five. So (to get back to my comparison), the right of a woman to decide when to have children is one of the big issues – as it was with the introduction of the pill and the controversy over abortion (which I know is still ongoing).**
There are three narrative strands going on here, which frequently intersect but deal with different issues for the ship. I assume they’re meant to be of equal importance, but I’ll be honest and say the one that dealt the most with pretty full-on physics definitely took a bit of a backseat for me, even though I could see how vital it was to the story’s point. Carlo is investigating biology and fertility; both the fact that animals appear to exchange information somehow via infrared… something… and the fact that some animals seem to have adapted to biparous fission very easily. Tamara is an astronomer who observes a massive object outside in the void, and develops an audacious plan to use it somehow. Carla, a physicist, is investigating the properties of light and energy and challenging a lot of preconceived notions in the process.
The novel as a whole does involve a lot of physics-lecture stuff. There really are a lot of vector diagrams, and graphs demonstrating energy levels, and… other things. The biology doesn’t get quite the same treatment, perhaps because it’s not quite so radically different from our world. However, the science is not the be-all of the novel – if it had been I probably wouldn’t have persevered. There’s a bit of action, with an excursion out to the Object Tamara observed and some other dangerous moments for characters I had grown fond of. There’s some great character development, in particular as different people consider the biology issues for themselves and reflect on what it means for them individually and as a society; a few make very surprising decisions that are nonetheless entirely consistent. Being set on a spaceship, large as it is, means that the story is necessarily constrained; keeping the focus on three main protagonists helps with it not feeling claustrophobic but rather focussed, which is also aided by making them active in such different spheres. The physics and biology dominate, as discussed; there are also undercurrents of the frustrations of bureaucracy and the impact of history – after all, this is a generation of people working towards solving a problem for a world they have never known.
If you want to be read a science fiction series that will really challenge you scientifically while also (largely) being very readable, coming complete with a compelling storyline, this is it.
You can get The Eternal Flame at Fishpond.
*I’m well aware that this is grossly unfair and generalising to the women before Wollstonecraft, and in fact Egan does not make it nearly so clear-cut; as with real European history, there have always been women who bucked the trend in this world, too.
**I have no idea where Egan could go with this historical comparison for the next book. Still, it was fun while it lasted.***
***I’m not suggesting Egan did this deliberately. I’m quite sure he didn’t.
Galactic Suburbia 84!
In which we ask the all-important question, what do David Bowie, Tolkien, Judith Merril, H.R. Giger and Joanna Russ have in common? Also harassment in SF, and the many shades of awesome that was Captain Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager
SF Hall of Fame includes some familiar names.
Elise Matthesen reports sexual harassment at Wiscon, kicking off a long conversation across various spots on the internet about harassment, procedures, and gender issues.
Some of the related posts we discuss:
Alisa: It’s Not Just Them Over There
Tansy: Sexual Harassment at SF Conventions (links mostly)
Genevieve Valentine on “Dealing with It”
Elise Matthesen’s post at Mary Robinette Kowal’s blog (with commentary, and links to all the other hosts of the post)
Jared Axelrod on “Ruining the Party”
SFFragette: Moving SFF/F into the 21st Century
Culture Consumed
ALISA: Defiance and Voyager rewatch, and Why Voyager Is The Most Feminist (and Best) Star Trek
TANSY: Captain Marvel: Down, Kelly Sue Deconnick, Dexter Soy & Emma Rios (artists); Xena Season 4; Ovid’s Heroines by Clare Pollard, Warehouse 13 Season 1
ALEX: Abaddon’s Gate, James SA Corey; The Lowest Heaven (anthology; ETA: discussed on Last Short Story!)
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Death comes to Pemberley
There’s a bit of hating going down for this book, I’ve noticed. Some people are dismissing it simply as fanfic which… yes, I can see that, especially if you don’t think that fanfic can possibly have any merits. But to suggest that this is fanfic and therefore unworthy of engaging with is just lazy.
Other people have dissed this because of its merits, or lack thereof. That, I am totally fine with.
I have read Pride and Prejudice. I have seen, and adored large chunks of, the BBC adaptation. I am not, however, an Austen fangirl. This is, I think, my very first PD James. So on neither count am I particularly invested. I read my mum’s copy; I read it partly to keep up with her, and partly because I was expecting exactly what I got: a bit of light entertainment, and one person’s suggestions for how life might have turned out for Lizzie and Lydia.
I did not expect the reaction I had against Wickham that was very, very strongly influenced by the Lizzie Bennett Diaries. There may have been metaphorical gnashing of teeth at the mention of his name.
Is this brilliant literature? No. There are huge chunks of info-dump where James appears to want to show off just how much she knows about 18th and 19th century law and policing. There is one hilarious bit where she manages to get in a little “America will grow up to be most awesome” message, which had me choosing between giggling and eye-rolling so hard I was going to fall off the couch.
Is this a fun read? I thought so. I had been misled somehow about who it was that died (spoiler! this is a murder mystery!), so that was a surprise. There were obvious tantalising clues dropped early on that I looked forward to having explained properly; some of them were resolved as I half-expected, others were quite different. There are a few different plot-lines woven throughout, which was nice, and it’s not entirely following Elizabeth – James gets to play a bit with Darcy, in particular, although I thought those sections were often the least interesting.
As an homage to Pride and Prejudice, it’s ok but not awesome. I think James does an all right job of capturing Elizabeth and Darcy as a couple; Lydia has turned into a mini-Mrs Bennett, and Jane is a smiling placeholder, nothing more. There are some reflections on other characters – Georgiana, Fitzwilliam (who has completely changed for me thanks to the Lizzie Bennett Diaries, and this version was consequently very weird), and even Wickham. There was one P&P character that James did a very, very clever thing with that I really didn’t see coming – she gets kudos for that, if nothing else.
Overall, a satisfactory murder mystery. Don’t read it pining for Austen; do read it for what it is, if that’s your thing.
Knitting. Knitting socks
Last year I got adventurous and I decided to try my hand at knitting socks. How hard can it be, right?? Fortunately, unbeknownst to me I had actually been practising the hard bits – some of the monster feet in Rebecca Danger’s patterns have turned heels etc. So the answer was “not quite as hard as I expected,” while still being a serious slog. Nice socks are made from awfully light yarn! Anyway, for my birthday the ever-lovely Alisa sent me a flying saucer. The yarn itself comes as what looks like a flying saucer, and if you knit it right you get flying saucers as part of the pattern! Awesome!
Yeh. That ‘knitting it right’ bit? That’s the hard bit. These socks caused a wee bit of angst, it’s fair to say. I got this far:
when I decided that, because it didn’t look exactly like the pattern, I was clearly doing it wrong. So I ripped it apart, re-rolled the ball of yarn, started again… and got no pattern whatsoever. So… unknit, re-roll again, cast on again, knit. Ignore the fact that I only got a half-saucer
and just deal with it as best I can.
I was pretty happy when, by following the directions (after getting to the heel, cut, re-roll, keep going) I got another half-saucer on the foot, and then another again at the toe.
So, overall I am quite happy with my flying saucer socks. They fit; they have funky patterns. I wish I had made them longer (I’m still learning exactly how long my legs are, and when it says ’20cm from cast on to heel’? that’s not very long on me.
Flying saucer socks!!
Randomly Yours, Alex 