#A Conspiracy of Truths

[thesebooksaremytherapy]

Now having read some of the older books of Alexandra Rowland I have concluded that they started slowly slipping in more and more feral, wild, goofy comedy bits until finally we got “Running Close to the Wind” and “Yield Under Great Persuasion” and honestly what a hero. Those are so fun and absolutely unparalleled in published fiction.

[ariaste]

I want you to know that the chant-inspired character that I played at a recent dungeons and dragons table managed to escape certain death and completely derail the entire adventure 4 times in three sessions. I gave him a heart attack because I was bored. He exclusively cast the spell minor illusion in combat. The only time in the whole adventure that he actually took damage he was dropped to zero immediately and then complained about it for weeks. Thank you so much for giving me the “shitty old guy who lies” content I crave

absolutely fucking radical. I love this. You truly understood the assignment here :D Thank you!!!

[angrybubbles]

I never knew I need to read a book about a Grumpy old Man in a ridiculous situation until I started A Conspiracy of Truths, but dang am I happy to be here.

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[brazenskald]

In my first year of university, I was going through a very tumultuous time. There was all the many new things that come from leaving home, some good, some bad. There were the difficulties of a demanding if rewarding job, and I first became acquainted with the not-so-fondly-remembered and not yet fully un-internalized “student lifestyle.” Terrible food, awful sleep schedule, and this omnipresent sense of impending doom that was, at least in my case in Fall 2019, surprisingly prescient. Throughout all of this, I was not prepared to be struck by the warmth and depth and resonant Truth that cut through the noise and spoke to me with a certain book I picked up, by happenstance, because of its pretty cover. That book was A Conspiracy of Truths by @ariaste. You may have heard of them. https://www.alexandrarowland.net/a-conspiracy-of-truths

Now, needless to say I devoured aCoT, and subsequently its excellent sequel A Choir of Lies. I was sorrowfully disappointed to find out after finishing the absolute rollercoaster of Choir that there was in fact, no further reading yet to do. And so, profoundly affected as I was by this (for now) duology, which I will doubtless craft a dedicated and appropriately lengthy treatise at some point in the future, I set the books in a prime place upon my shelf and turned to face the rest of the year buoyed in my hopes for the brightness of Spring and the long lusty laughter of Summer. Alas, they were all of them deceived for another global epidemic was to begin. One (or two) life-altering years in a pandemic later… I returned to university, fully prepared to enjoy the hell out of an actual honest-to-gods academic institution that didn’t begin and end with a computer screen. It hit like a truck. Same awful student lifestyle, more bad habits piling up, and a rapidly growing sense of my own undiagnosed issue rearing its ugly head. I made one decision that saved me, probably. I kept buying and reading phenomenal books. I kept looking for stories to motivate, enervate, and inspire. Somewhere deep in my subconscious, I remembered that fateful message spoken by a Chant on a page three years past. To loosely paraphrase, “Stories [are] people, and the way people are.” I chose to focus on resilience, made it my motto, and sure I still had lots of work to do, but it helped. It gave me the push I needed to keep going.

That last long Winter that seemed so dark that the sun was never going to come back? I went a-wandering, and lo, a new instalment from @ariaste ‘s Mithalgeard universe! Not a Chant sequel as such, but I couldn’t get my hands on it fast enough. It was an oasis. A respite from the grind and dreary routines. It was also gay as… well as gay as a rainbow covered in gold, let’s say. And I cannot recommend A Taste of Gold and Iron fiercely enough, because although in many ways I managed to end my degree on a high note, that book drew me out of the darkness of the coldest part of the year. It gave me the sense to smell the flowers, to bask in the green and golden glow of a soon-to-be-attained victory, long overdue.

Alex had by this point also published several shorter works, (and a whole library’s worth of content on AO3, naturally) which I leapt to read whenever they crossed my radar. It helped that I joined their discord community which was leaps and bounds more reliable in terms of getting updates and also just having the chance to share in mutual fandom gushing. If you’re even remotely interested in learning more about what I’ve talked about here, you should join in! https://discord.gg/XHJ9Uy5gef Everybody there is absolutely lovely. So why do I bring all this up? To summarize a preamble that is, to put it mildly, not short, Alex’s writing sings to my soul. I love it more deeply than my non-existent children, and their body of work continues to evolve and grow and deliver on the themes and core messages that hooked me with that first book.

But wait, there’s more! Life carries on, and with it comes new stories! Specifically, Running Close to the Wind! It’s Our Flag Means Death meets Mithalgeard, which if I haven’t convinced you to go and read those other instalments, well just trust me when I say that is a potent and persuasive pairing! It’s also going to be dropping at an important time for me, what with convocation, another big move in my life, and a whole whack of uncertainty. Much like Avra, Teveri, and Julian though, I’ll just have to brave the rocky waters and hold on to those nearest to me, and that’s what I’d like to focus on at the end of this post. A Conspiracy of Truth taught me that stories are people, A Choir of Lies showed how stories can change people, and A Taste of Gold and Iron drove home that stories we tell ourselves are the hardest to rewrite, but also the most rewarding when we take ownership of them. I anticipate that with Running Close to the Wind, Alex will likely show us (with ample amounts of pomp and queer circumstances) how the story of ourselves can only ever be written by interweaving the tales of those closest to us. Perhaps, we’ll even discover how to navigate the often stormy seas of uncertainty that seem omnipresent these days, whenever we deign to pull our noses out from whichever books we’re currently nestled within. I know that’s certainly something I’ll be looking out for, come this June, and now hopefully you will be too! (This last link does go to the webpage for Running Close to the Wind, Tumblr’s just being weird I guess.)

[boltsj]

[sjaukes]

this is one of the best gags i’ve seen in a book.  i was reading out loud to colin and we had to step outside for a minute.  we were howling. 

[sage-d-scribe]

"[In a world] when everyone lies, telling the truth isn't just rebellion. It's an act of revolution"

[readingrobin]

February really is a hell of a month. In my corner of the Earth, everyone's getting a little tired of the cold, anxiously looking forward to the longer days that are right around the corner. It's also too short, full of too many expectations, like trying to live up to the plans you made for yourself only just last month. Thankfully, that also means it's over quickly and March comes in with the hope of spring. Can't wait for all the green to come back to the grass and the trees.

Total Books Read: 6

Total Pages Read: 2, 144 pages

Total DNFs: 2

Books Read:

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh - (Review) (4/5)

A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland - (Review) (3/5)

Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs - I've been a longtime fan of the Mercy Thompson series and, despite having it for almost a good decade now, I finally picked up the first book in this spinoff series. I will say, I think introducing the main characters in a short story separate from this book wasn't exactly the best decision, as there's a lot of confusion around who these characters are and what the basis of their story is. I'm not a fan of authors introducing important plot or character developments in short stories apart from the main series, as it's a pain to track them down in these obscure anthologies and makes the full length book seem incomplete.

Coming into this new series, I couldn't help but do some comparing to Mercy's. A little unfair, I know, but sometimes it can't be helped. Anna doesn't really come off as an interesting, strong protagonist and, to an extent, neither does Charles, far cries from Mercy, who always gives a good range of personality. From the first page, Anna and Charles are in instalove, so their relationship doesn't go through any worthwhile developments other than "Hey, we're in wolfy love now, guess we don't need to do any more emotional work on our behalf." It's just….how do you make a relationship interesting when they're automatically together? What hurdles do they face? What doubts? What hesitation? Hell, Anna has gone through trauma from sexual assault and being passed around her previous pack like a broodmare and that's not even expanded upon or how it may effect her relationship with Charles. It just ends up feeling so hollow. (3/5)

Young Men in Love edited by Joe Glass and Matt Miner - This is such a cute collection of queer romance comics made by queer creators for a queer audience. It focuses on male/masc couples through a variety of genres, ranging from more domestic stories to those featuring demon hunters, pirates, ghosts, and so much more. While not every story was a hit, it's rare for an anthology to be completely perfect, there is such an honesty to each one of them that you can't help but give them all a slight bit of admiration. Some standout stories include "Second Star to the Right," "Another Name," "Act of Grace," "The Way Home," and "Love Yourself." (4/5)

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers - (Review) (4/5)

The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke - Though I've been a Cornelia Funke fan since I was in middle school, this was one of her books I didn't grow up reading, which may have lessened the impact of it somewhat. The fantastical elements are pushed more to the background compared to her other books, and the magic comes more from the transportive descriptions of Venice. There was an interview in the back of my copy with Funke where she said that she wanted to create a book where children could actually go see the setting for themselves, which is a great way to introduce them to the wonders of their own world. And yet, somehow it felt like it overshadowed the characters a bit, who didn't really grab my attention.

Ultimately, the story didn't do much for me and I had the thought that I had read better versions of these themes in other books, most notably Something Wicked this Way Comes. Personally, I just think I started this book a tad too late. Though points to Funke for giving it a sort of odd, unconventional ending. (3/5)

DNFs:

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion - This book was given to me by a friend about 10 years ago and I only got around to reading it since I wanted to declutter my shelves a bit. I'm not real big on stories where romance is the main element, but I wanted to give it a fair shot.

Ultimately, I decided to put it down because I'm a little tired of the straight white male with thinly veiled misogyny representation of autism, especially when the understanding and conversation around neurodivergence has changed so much since this was written. Autism is a very wide spectrum, but apparently media is focused on only showcasing this particular manifestation, coming from writers that are not autistic, nor do they cite any research done in the autistic community to make their characters more authentic. And, judging from reviews I've seen of later installments of this series, it only gets worse.

Also, very much not interested in male writers that cannot write women to save their life. Got no time for that.

And the Ocean Was Our Sky by Patrick Ness - Beautiful illustrations aside, there's not much that interested me in this book which I could have finished if I gave it another half hour, but didn't really see the point. I haven't read Moby Dick, nor do I think I ever will, so the appeal of seeing that story from the whale's perspective wasn't an incentive. That and there are so many confusing elements that make the story too absurd to take seriously: why do the whales swim upside down, how do they have harpoons tied to their bodies when they're incapable of tying them themselves, how do these whales even know how to speak to humans? I think it's a story where you're not meant to think too hard about the logistics, but I couldn't help questioning it on nearly every page.

Average Rating: (3.5/5)

[kbookblurbs]

A Conspiracy of Truths - Alexandra Rowland (Tales of the Chants #1)

3/5 - funny, there both is and isn't a plot, heavily character focused, story within a story

This book takes the concept of a story within a story to an extreme. The entire tale is being related to an audience (which is, for all intents and purposes, the reader).

Frankly, the book itself is well written. It's funny, the prose is charming, and the characters are likeable despite being the worst at times. That said, I never found myself captivated by the story. What's going on around the main character is interesting but we, the audience, are never involved because the story is always told from the perspective of a character in jail. For the majority of the story, we're hearing events second, third, or fourth hand. This might have been enough for some readers, as the characters are interesting, but it wasn't enough for me. I found myself pushing through more on principle that on interest by the time the end rolled around.

[myjetpack]

Conspiracy Theory Book Club.

(My latest cartoon for Guardian Books).

[blxckluxxury]

What do you think ?

Do you believe our hair is our antennas? Do you believe that is were we generate our energy ?

[ariaste]

I just wanted to let you know that a conspiracy of truths might be the best book I’ve read this year and it lives rent free in my head

Oh thank you so much!!! I'm delighted -- I hardly ever get messages about Conspiracy these days, what a special treat 😁

(If you'd like to come hang out with some other fans, here's a link to the official discord server, btw!)

[angrybubbles]

Finally finished A Consiprace of Truths by Alexandra Rowland!

What a lovely, sarcastic book. It feels like the perfect side table book, and while I was never running to it to sew what was happening next, I was always happy to return to it if I had a spot of free time, and that's a fantastic place for a book to be.

Any Meghan Whalen Turner fans, may I present a glimpse at what I imagine Gen would be like as an old man. Still causing chaos, and still lying at any present opportunity. If Gen had gone off to University in the second book, Chant is absolutely the kind of person he would grow into.

If you liked the Queen's Thief for the myths, you will love love this. There's a plethora, seemingly inspired by myths and tales from all over the world.

This is a very slow read, and the main character is absent from most of the "exciting" events, one's that would normally be in an action adventure story. By no means this book is empty, however. This book has incredible character work and progression, and some impressive world building for about 5 setting pieces.

This book is unapologetically queer, impressively worldly, and has the lovely conflict of a Grumpy old Man in a ridiculous situation. Solid 4 stars 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

[oasisr]

yes i am a prude, and hypersexuality is ruining friendships, relationships and society as a whole.

[dosesofcommonsense]

A perfect combo of reminders for the start of Election Day.

Wake up to the Deep State/New Word Order while there’s still time.

Why? Cause they’re backing Kamala because she’s easy to control.