Current reading and listening (book + fic + podfic)

Red Plenty, by Francis Spufford

This is a novel about the Soviet dream in the 1950's-70's that a planned economy would lead to material plenty, and the ways in which it didn't work out. In fannish terms, it's historical RPF with lots of original characters. I enjoyed it: it takes both the dream and the failure seriously, and it's a geeky book, especially in the bits about the mathematical economists who seriously tried to make it work. It also feels like a very human book--you feel for the characters, and the language is enjoyable, too. I don't quite understand why some people see it as SF? Although to be fair, it did improve the book to read it as potentially SF, in that it introduced an element of uncertainty in whether it was going to turn out to be alternative history. I also recommend these essays on it (link has downloadable pdf, epub, or mobi) by various people, with a response from the author--they were almost as interesting as the book itself.

Okay, I feel weird only writing about my published reading, but I couldn't possibly write about every fic I read, either. So I'll pick one: In a Strange Land by novembersmith is a 20,000-word Nate Fick/Ray Person story (Generation Kill). I'll be honest: before reading the fic, I kind of scratched my head at the idea of Nate/Ray. Like, what would you do with it? But this story totally made me squee over the pairing! It's also a delightful Old West AU.

I am gleefully listening to podfic again, which I haven't had the opportunity to do for more than a month. I have all the podbang stuff to download! \o/ Currently I am almost done with An Avalanche of Detour Signs, read by magicranberries and written by gyzym. It's a five-hour Molly Hooper-centric Sherlock podfic, and I am enjoying it very much, both the reading and the story. I only listen to a small fraction of the Sherlock podfic out there--it's not really a fandom I'm in--and I do enjoy listening to something where Sherlock is in the periphery. *g* There was a moment of melodrama in the fic that didn't work for me, but then it made up for it with some great sibling interaction and a Mrs. Hudson moment that made me squee out loud. And I enjoyed the results of the melodrama, if that makes sense? It was kind of like the last-minute-interruption-at-the-altar in Jane Eyre that results in Jane learning to live on her own.