Peak Sloth

Fatigue
     noun
: weariness or exhaustion from labor, exertion, or stress

Is it the effects of the chemo med I’m on or is fatigue just my natural state?

Last week I only exercised on three out of seven days. Usually I manage five to six out of seven. Seriously, this is peak torpidity. Hells bells, if this goes on any longer my state of being will be indistinguishable from a comatose or hibernating body. Okay, okay, last week was a holiday and all about food. For Ten and I it was a peaceful day at home with a GREAT meal. I can use that as my excuse for slothdom but…ya know…as excuses go it's up there with "the dog ate my homework." Possibly this all just comes down to Newton's First Law of Motion.

An object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force. (source)

How to get back into motion? I could go full metal Nike and just do it. Yeah, that’s probably what’s gonna happen but, in order to support that effort, I need to have some things in place.

Like, knowing there’s a good book waiting for me at home after my walk in the cold and wind. It's my reward for having don e the hard work of getting back into motion, building strength, balance and coordination. And doing just that in 30º goddamn weather.

I finished my second reading of Richard Osman’s fourth Thursday Murder Club book (it was brilliant, by the by). I thought I was all set for another good tale with Martha Wells’ Witch King. I’m absolutely wild about her Murderbot series—great wit, totally relatable characters, fab twists and turns, arch humor. I figured all that would, to some degree, carry over into a different story series.

Ah…nope. It’s as though Witch King was written by a completely different person. An author who’s deep into complicated, ancient world building hyper-fantasies, where all the characters names are 20 letters long and look like they’re in a language that’s a mix of Gaelic, Icelandic and Greek. These are names I’ll stumble over and struggle to pronounce even as I get to the last page. And that’s if I can ever sort out how the name might sound.

In just the first few pages, I  could see that Witch King was gonna make Lord Of The Rings look like a light frolic, a great beach read. Yup—pass.  Martha Wells is a tremendous writer. If you’re into high fantasy, I bet this is just the thing. Me? Right now? Not so much.

So, if I need a solid, ripping yarn to get me off my ass, exercising again, what do I do?

I’m not interested in nonfiction (reading the news is way more than enough reality for me). Cozy, cute, rom-com mysteries are a snoozer and there’s now a finite amount of silly Terry Pratchett books. John Scalzi’s next won’t be out for another year and all my can’t-wait-to-reads are backed up for weeks and months in my Libby queue.

I’m looking for quirky, witty romps.

By the way, did I mention I read A is for Aunties? It’s by Jesse Q. Sutanto whose Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers I absolutely loved. A is for Aunties? Nope. It’s just too over the top implausibly WACKY for me (this is possible? shocking!). Plus all the characters fall into simple two-dimensional behaviors. The Aunties each have a particular, narrow set of personality quirks which get activated by all too predictable prompts. It’s funny but only the first time, not the 500th. As I slogged through (the storyline hooked me enough to see it through) I got the definite sense that this was written specifically to be the next big summer movie blockbuster. And, waddya know, Netflix is on it.

Described as Crazy Rich Asians meets Weekend at Bernie’s, the story centers on a young wedding photographer who, along with her mother and aunts, tries to hide the body of her blind date while working the wedding day of a wealthy client. (source)

The book (which, with a good editor, could’ve easily been a short story) was, ultimately, too disappointing for me to pick up another by Sutanto.

So, what’s a fatigue riddled broad, who desperately needs a great quirky read to get her in motion again, to do? For starters, I’ll watch John Scalzi’s site, Whatever, for the upcoming holiday book suggestions post. That and I’ll google the fuck out of quirky science fiction and mystery books.