1) Armitage III. Sounded promising on Wikipedia, which did not prepare me for a character who rivals Major Kusanagi in "inappropriate clothing for a law enforcement officer". Perhaps it's meant to distract criminals? Was interesting, but the robot science got rubbery, and the ending skipped a lot of details or explanation.

2) Voices of a Distant Star. Poignant. Poignancy ruined when I realized that FTL travel means FTL courier mail, ruining a key premise. Though you can rationalize it with the right assumptions, kind of. Someone printed out a summary of the last 50 pages of the novel, which has a happier ending but doesn't make sense unless the aliens blew up the last-used jump point... in the manga, the ship seems just too damaged to move, though the news of that seemed to go back and forth via FTL.

3) The Place Promised in Our Early Days. Might be good? But another heart-wringing relationship with rubbery science (Now with Extra Quantum!) tonight was too much for me, especially tired, so I bailed out halfway through.

In Manga news, I bought and read Ghost in the Shell. Major's a lot different, with emotions and facial expressions and boyfriends. Still lots of fanservice. Got a lot more mystical at the end, at least compared to the series, don't recall the movie that well. With mention of ESP and a psychic.

James introduced me to Girlfriends, light yuri-ish shoujo. I liked it, though I don't claim there's anything deep there. I didn't find a better way of going between chapter than editing the URL. Not manga, but I also re-read the As If webcomic archive, something I'd forgotten about.

Astro City: the Dark Age was pretty good. Dark Phoenix Saga was decent. I hadn't known it introduced Kitty Pryde and Dazzler! That was cute.

I just checked out and read the first two volumes of Earthlight, a manga-format comic by Stuart Moore. I liked it... one reviewer called it a mix of teen drama and space action SF, which seems right, and thought it was too fast and heavy on the action, which I can see. The year is 2068, the place is the Earthlight colony on the Moon, whose main function is supporting (and presumably building) power satellites. Panels on the Moon collect power, beam it to satellites, which focus it for beaming to Earth -- which needs 25 terawatts of electricity (today: 1.5 TW) but still has lots of social divisions: "7 billion in poverty", England decaying, Russia and China not places to be. Launch costs aren't mentioned, hopefully much lower. Politics are big: the colony is supported by a 54-country coalition, with many countries being happy to sneak out of paying. "Enburton Corporation" gets mentioned briefly, as a source of new funding. I got a faint whiff of libertarianism early on but it seems to have dispersed; right now I'd call the politics on the grim side of realistic, with no perceivable authorial bias. Well, maybe liberal, given Enburton and what it'll do.

Fridge logic: I just wondered why solar panels would be on the Moon, where they'd get 14-day nights.

There's a mass driver, presumably for launching stuff for satellites.

The characterization seems good, esp. most of the teens. Oh, right! The protagonist, male, has a black father -- who is administrator of the colony, and not a "bull Negro" aesthetic and a white mother. Though come to think of it, the 15 year old protag himself has a shaved head.

So, imperfect but intriguing, and I know some people (James) are desperate for near-future space SF that doesn't totally suck. Lack of libertarianism and He3 should be a plus.

Positive review.
Mixed review.
TOKYOPOP page for the book, with Flash-delivered preview pages. Illegible as is, but you can zoom in.

Interview, which tells me that it's a 3 volume thing but the 3rd hasn't been in print and will be online free in January. Also claims there are mecha, though there haven't been so far, just utility bots. Huh, the artist is involved with Barack the Barbarian.

The Hugo Award ballot for this year is out. There's a new provisional category for graphic novels. I would like to draw lyceum_arabica's attention to it, in anticipation of her tearing itself apart in indecision. Though maybe she'd just jump at Y or Schlock.

Me, I like Y and Fables less, didn't think Serenity was that good (well, should re-read it) and am innocent of Dresden stuff (besides, it's a spinoff, odds are poor). Girl Genius vs. Schlock Mercenary, though -- both are top tier comics for me. In terms of overall quality, I'd have trouble deciding. GG certainly wins on art, and probably characters. Story is hard to tell; both are good, Schlock has gotten a lot more done, as Foglio like Hodgell is going practically minute by minute. Schlock wins as science fiction, I think.

But I'm just amused that almost all the nominees are things I've read and she's read too.

My big list is here, but we can filter that better.

( Wow, that was longer than expected. Let me cut it for y'all. )

The cast lists have been updated, and has information not yet revealed in story. Dr. Sun in particular, and mention of the Geisters' connection to Lucrezia. Also Faustus and the Castle, yet another spelling variation on "Mekkhan", and in the big list clarification of various student statuses -- actually, that bit might be 'old'.

At last!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Today's Girl Genius page? Made of win and awesome.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/opinion/21planck.html
Opinion piece on veganism, particularly as relates to child-raising. The recent infant death and parental conviction was the third such in the past four years.

In the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic, did you think Mina Harker had acquired any powers from her time with Dracula, like slow aging or physical toughness or a mental domination ability explaining her ability to stare down Hyde?  I always thought all she acquired were scars and experience, and that her "powers" were simply being smart, willful, and Victorian.  But some rasfw posters disagreed, at least speculatively.

Separately, I got Order of the Stick books -- not just a compilation, but a character prequel never online.  Whee!

Gingrich had an affair during the impeachment talks. This on top of divorcing his first wife while she was in the hospital.

brett_dunbar pointed me to Gillick competence, a recent English common law decision that minors can consent to medical care on their own. No parental notifications for abortion there!

( F-list mercy cut: )

A list of Miko's appearances, so you can judge her character development

A compilation of translations of Haley's cryptograms

And I'd like to say I've never seen a search function guarded by CAPTCHA before.  Nor such a hostile one; I had 50% of my searches rejected for not entering the right text.

Yes! Villain-slapping satisfaction! Or as one commenter put it, "Insult Nale, and whoever responds IS Nale. Elegantly simple."

Now if only Girl Genius would deliver, in a non-accidental form.

Webcomics: I started looking at The Midlands, some weird alt-dim urban-fantasy with elves comic I've been seeing people recommend. Interesting, though I'm still not sure what's going on. At the same time I read Casey and Andy, kind of like another Sluggy Freelance -- a couple of mad scientists and supporting cast; lots of gag strips, some story arcs, some cheesecake. Fun stuff. The same author has moved on to Cheshire Crossing, an Alice Wendy Dorothy Mary Poppins comic, updated as he finishes each issue. Interesting start.

I re-read The Scar. It held up.

My kanji study linked up with shogi, the Japanese version of chess. I've never gotten to play the game, but it looks, um, interesting. Using that word a lot. A 9x9 board, so more space then chess, and most of the pieces are puny -- knights can only go forward, generals move like kings but with fewer options, there's one rook and one bishop. OTOH captured pieces can be dropped in on your own side, so the game's actually a lot more complex. A silver general on the board has 5 moves; in the hand, it has 40. Even a unblocked queen in the middle of a chessboard has 27 options, I think. And it doesn't matter how many moves queens have if they self-destruct, but that doesn't happen in shogi.

But that's not the point. The point is that you "should" (though it took me years) be wondering why a Japanese piece is called a bishop. Japan doesn't have bishops, except for the <1% who have wandered into Catholic religions. So why call it a bishop? Well, it moves like one, unlimited diagonal movement -- that's a good reason. Still, I started wondering what they actually call the thing, and fortunately the Web quickly provided. Apparently they call it an angle goer, and it, along with the Western bishop, descend separately from the Indian "elephant" piece, which probably moved by jumping two squares diagonally. All the old pieces sucked -- except for the 'rook' (Persian rukh, chariot), aka chariot, which always had its unlimited horizontal movement. And in shogi is called the flying chariot.

That site also shows the two-character form of the various pieces, which I got to look up, or reverse lookup, on JDIC. Yay for some of the characters making sense. Though the lance looks like "incense chariot" and the "honorable horse" (aka knight) looks like "cinnamon tree horse". And the "king" is called the jade general -- but the characters for king and jade are the same, and the Chinese Heavenly King is the Jade Emperor. There's a connection there!