#ANN LECKIE FUCK IT UP!!!!!!!!!!

[bambles]

just finished the raven tower and holy SHIT what the FUCK what THE SHIT

[cat-dragron]

I'm still so mad that August Kitko was such a mid book and like I would go do far as to say maybe it was bad but it's likely it just wasn't for me.

And then I read Hell Followed With Us and realize hey now... there's a lot of similarities between these two books and wow i am enjoying this other book way more. I almost want to dig into that and figure out why. Can you ever dislike something so much you want to take a scalpel to it and dissect it to find the bloody heart? Yeah that's what I'm feeling with August Kitko... it kinda sucks but I need to know why it makes me so mad.

[phagodyke]

IN OTHER NEWS I FINISHED TRANSLATION STATE LAST NIGHT the ending had me sobbing not bc it's sad at all but WAAAAA

[official-linguistics-post]

Oh! I want to write books at the intersection of sci-fi and fantasy! What are the ones you're reading right now, or one of your favorites?

one of my favorites (which i need to reread) is ann leckie's the raven tower. on the fantasy side, i'm hoarding the goblin emperor and jonathan strange & mr. norrell for an upcoming trip, and on the sci-fi side i recently read becky chambers' wayfarers series!

i love a book that will fuck me up in indefinable ways.

[dragongirl-casca]

One of my fav parts about Ann Leckie's Provenance is you get to see how people outside the Radch see Radchaai, and one of their key cultural differences is "they are fucking awful at understanding gender markers." To the point that the Radchaai ambassador frequently corrects herself from a correct pronoun to an incorrect pronoun.

It's extra-funny to me because in the Imperial Radch trilogy, we see this happen from the inside of the Radch and we are led to assume that it is inevitable in any conversation between two different human cultures.

But Provenance shows off the interstellar politics between Hwae and Tyr and Omkem, and no other characters (including the Actual Aliens) have any trouble navigating male/female/neman/etc. It's Just The Radchaai. It cracks me up thinking about it.

[baejax-the-great]

Top five books this year? :3

I'm going to group series/authors together or else the list would be like 4 books by the same person.

Ancillary Justice series by Ann Leckie + Translation Slate. These books were really such a fun and satisfying read. I've read a few series recently that didn't/couldn't stick the landing, but I thought this one wrapped up really nicely.

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung. I'd been meaning to read this memoir for over ten years now (since I visited Cambodia), and I finally bought it for myself. The author was a young child when the events of this book happened, so it's a fairly easy read with the kind of descriptions you would expect from a child. It is a heart-wrenching story, and I spent a weekend just reading and crying.

Fitz and the Fool trilogy by Robin Hobb. I think everyone on tumblr has seen my reaction to these books 😭😭💕💕. This trilogy fucked me UP oh my god. Hobb is a freak, I'll never get over it, everyone should read these books, especially if you want to watch one character suffer constantly always for ever and ever and to think "I have no idea what the FUCK these two characters have going on but I'm obsessed with it."

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. This was my first finished book of the year! It's not perfect, but I really enjoyed the fairytale of it all and the mix of characters introduced. Publishing has such a hardon for series these days, and I appreciate a self-contained stand alone story.

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine. Another book I've been meaning to read for ten years and finally got around to. For a science book, it's very accessible to laypeople, and it addressed a lot of things that irritated me with my own education in neuroscience (imaging studies are stupid, and that one study where they gave monkeys various toys and the female monkeys liked playing with pots and pans showing that kitchen supplies are inherently and naturally feminine...???? Monkeys don't cook.... they don't know what they were for... what the fuck WAS that study and how did a professor tell it to me with a straight face...). It is over ten years old now so somewhat outdated, and I saw criticisms that there are some very similar studies done with regards to race that she doesn't cover, but I kind of think there is value in a researcher staying in one lane. I don't know, I flip flop back and forth on this, but the take downs of the shoddy studies remains valid and it was a satisfying read.

[wetcatspellcaster]

Writer Interview Game

thank you so much for tagging me @eraserspiral !!!!

When did you start writing?

I wrote a lot of 'original fiction' as a teen, including a couple of TERRIBLE novels, that were essentially just a grab bag of all the books i was reading at the time. School (and in hindsight, grief) stopped this around 16-18, and then a very high pressure degree at a high profile university seemingly killed off my love of writing entirely.

I got back into writing at 26... weirdly?? just before the panini?? (january 2020, did past-me feel something in the water and know i'd need to hold onto any crumb of serotonin for dear life??) I had just finished my PhD applications, and after sinking so many hours and so many words into the most joy sucking series of forms I've ever encountered, I decided I wanted to write something fun for a change!

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

I don't write smut. I read a LOT of smut.

But in terms of themes, I tend to write in worlds/fantasy settings where we can all pretend that capitalism doesn't exist, or that if it does exist, the protagonist is winning at it. I really like speculative fiction (sf and fantasy) that tackles capitalistic themes/poverty well - this has been on my mind recently bc of an arc in a D&D game I've been playing, where my wonderful DM has essentially gone 'capitalism bad' but then let us do something about it <3

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

I find it hard to know what my writing 'is like'... not bc it's wildly unique or anything, but just bc I don't think I can see my own influences that clearly (if anyone wants to drop me some comparisons in the askbox, go for it, I'm curious!)

But in terms of writers I want to emulate, at the chatty/colloquial end it's T Kingfisher and Sarah Rees Brennan, who have a good handle on when to hit emotionally or on high fantasy register, and then when to have really grounded/human moments that make their characters incredibly relatable (and often very funny). At the high fantasy end, it's Shannon Chakraborty, Ann Leckie, Nghi Vo, Silvia Moreno Garcia. They write haunting and engaging narratives!

And, of course, I'm always trying to muster an ounce of whatever the fuck Howl/Sophie had going on.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

I use my desk for work/thesis and want to exclusively keep it that way, so my writing space is actually just on the corner of the sofa in my living room, with my legs crossed, a blanket, and a cup of tea. No music, pure autistic silence (but also bc my laptop speaker is broken). Scotland gets dark for a long time in the winter, so it's usually pretty cosy vibes. It's probably not good for me, as I get a LOT of leg cramp.

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Honestly, not to be tsundere about it... but maybe ignore the muse a little? If you've burned out or you're trying to brute force a scene, all you're doing is guilting yourself into being productive. With fic writing, especially, you should be doing it to have fun, not bc you feel like you have to. So if the words aren't coming, do other things for a bit. Go on a day trip, hang out with friends, do chores or read something. In my experience, my brain doesn't stay quiet for long, and ideas for my current project will come to me when i'm not trying to squeeze them out of myself like toothpaste.

Sometimes the well runs dry! Rather than feel terrible about it, be kind to yourself, and wait for rain x

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

Hahahahaha, let's not talk about how I keep placing people into the worst versions of themselves and then have them improve and earn love anyway, regardless of if they deserve it. Or how I'm interested in characters who feel a wealth of emotion they hide from everyone behind a mask of either performed indifference, wilful charm, or simply bc they can't articulate it in the socially correct way. Or women who think 'if I cannot be beautiful or loveable, I will be competent', and the men who-

Anyway, introvert x extrovert pairings, amirite? Everything else is shown to me in a vision (my therapist reaches a dead end in my session as I insist nothing is wrong, asks me about my fanfic, and then delivers me a laundry list of the stuff I'm currently coping with. Lowest point: being told im IDing through the fucking DARKLING, on one project. That man is a war criminal, and I dont look like Ben Barnes).

What is your reason for writing?

In the beginning, I think it was pure comfort. I'd just come out of a period of extreme depression, and wanted to hallucinate some characters in love.

But recently, and going forward, I think it is a genuine exercise in proficiency. I thought my writing was so terrible that I said 'I couldn't write', for so fucking long. I now genuinely think this is something I'm good at, and that is something it has taken me so very long to believe, and even longer to say. I am a very self-deprecating person. I have so few things I feel good at, or that I think bring something worthwhile to the table. As academia delivers me blow after blow and the world leaves me feeling worthless, I am going to cling to this until my hands bleed.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

focusing on the 'motivation' part of this question... I think the comments that happen to land on the one specific thing that matters to me, those are the ones that hit hardest. It happens rarer than you'd think. part of the joy of fanfiction comments is the wealth of different reader interpretations, with people seeing things in your own work that you've never noticed. All interpretations are amazing, especially the ones that show you a blindspot you never considered. But when a reader hits the nail fucking on the head (gets a 'gold star in reading comprehension'), that's the most motivating, and makes me want to open my document and write the next chapter. Because I know then that at least one person out there 'gets it', and is fully on board with the story I want to tell.

But that is a very selfish, specific feeling. All comments are motivation, and all reader interpretations have value!

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Idk if this seems weird or a disingenuous answer but... as a person?? Writing a story for fun? Pieces was a very cool and special experience, but it was very unexpected. I wasn't and never considered myself to be a 'big name fan'. I never want to enter any kind of popularity contest, and I never want to be beholden to people who are reading a story I am writing for fun. Very funny to have a story blow up when you have weird feelings about attention lmfao. Like don't get me wrong, absolutely amazing to ride such a huge tide of support, but this was meant to be my silly introvert hobby :')

I also hope they think my writing is good!! obviously!! i know it can't be everything everyone wants all the time, but you know!! i think it's neat!! I hope y'all think it's neat!! plz and thank!!!

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

lmao eraserspiral's reply to this question was a fucking mood. (just deleted it in my template to make space).

I guess... I know how to flesh out a character, and a character voice. I think I can establish a character's personality, their strengths and their flaws, and have them consistently become the vehicle for both progression and some very real, understandable mistakes. I think chapters from different perspectives feel distinct, and that when development in either direction (bad or good) happens, it feels earned.

idk man, this is a hard one to answer when depressed :')

How do you feel about your own writing?

At the end of the day, it's a lifeline. Sometimes I keep very much to myself and I protect it fiercely, because it's one of the only things that kept me going at certain points in the last few years. At my lowest, I've often wondered for what, if anything, I'll be remembered for or what I'll leave behind... and now I actually have things! 12 whole stories, where once there was nothing! Sure, it's fanfic! But some people's favourite fanfic. None of it is perfect, but it all matters to me, and we're now at the point (4 years in) where I am starting to slowly realise how it has changed me as a person, and will continue to change me going forward.

I want to start on some original ideas once my thesis is over, vivaed and done, but I don't currently see my writing as anything something I can make into a career, bc I need to keep the joy in it as the joy literally keeps me alive :')

tagging: @imscissorbladez, @pricemarshfield, @blarfshnorgull, @violacae, @dededrabbles, @brabblesblog - no pressure, just trying to share this tag game to more groups/social circles! :) x

[bropunzeling]

☕️ fav fantasy books/series and what makes them so good and so For Jess. bonus for thoughts on what makes a less good fantasy fall flat

oh Boy okay alright!!!!

fantasy series i love/are excellent/peak For Jess: radiant emperor duology by shelley parker-chan (point: is it fantasy or just historical-ish fiction with some supernatural elements? counterpoint: i fucking love it and this is my list). the lumatere chronicles by melina marchetta. the daevabad trilogy by s. a. chakraborty. queen's thief my beloved!!!!! piranesi aka one of the best novels i read in 2020. tortall series by tamora pierce (but protector of the small quartet is the best of them).

honorable mentions: the raven tower by ann leckie; sharon shinn's elemental blessings series isn't like, as sharp as the top tier, but i really enjoy every reread; earthsea (but mostly the ones about tenar); it feels like cheating to say discworld but again: my list; the divine cities by robert jackson bennett; the stravaganza books were not quote unquote good but they did change my brain chemistry when i was 13; goblin emperor books (but more witness for the dead bc u kno me, i love a murder mystery). lotr would be here except i read them all once as a 6th grader and have yet to return. i still need to read the oleander sword but the jasmine throne kicked ass.

ok what is the unifying factor here lol. strong world building is very important i think; a real sense of a distinct place and culture/mix of cultures rather than Generic Medieval European City. there was a really good post going around that was like, where does the food come from (aka have you thought about how all of this actually works?), and a lot of these series think about Where Does The Food Come From. differences in cultural norms among different groups within the world AND from the audience. plots strongly rooted in politics/the inherent people-ness of people rather than everything relying on magic (not to say i don't love me some magic/divine plaything stories!!!! but they hit so much harder when the conflict comes from a place of innate human foibles). a dash of wonder and the inexplicable. if an answer is needed, it fits in the schema of everything else, but you don't feel the author trying to answer literally everything (when an author is sweating to show their work u can tell imo). most of these have at least one set of people where i want to see them kiss on the mouth, but most of the time that is not the Point; the best fantasy for me treats romance as a subplot/b-plot where it informs the stakes but is not the stakes itself. and ur basics of a good book in general: good writing, good pacing, et cet er a!

what makes them fall flat? world building inconsistency; new magic springing up because well, the author NEEDED it (aka those moments when you can see the seams lol); when the romance is the a plot (sorry but romantasy = not for jesses!!!!!); i think also authors get tripped up both by not planning ahead enough AND planning ahead too much when doing series (if you get a deal for one than one book you should have more than one book's worth of material; however if you can’t change and move then you can be stifled! see ursula le guin revisiting the gendered magic of earthsea in tehanu years later, or tamora pierce going oh shit there are normies in tortall in protector of the small). also this is a ME thing but i fuckin hate purple or twee prose. fantasy does not mean break out the thesaurus.

sorry for the novel. im gonna think of like six more books as soon as i post this

[chen-chen-chen-again-chen]

Hi, hello, hola, it's me! This is not a WIP Wednesday post (well, the WIP is always me), but it's something.

First off, thank you thank you thank you to all the beautiful people who messaged me, or commented, or tagged me in things, or even just thought kind warm thoughts at me while I've been away and not writing. Brain not working good enough to sort through the things and tag properly but you know the drill - I love you all.

Here are things I did while I wasn't writing AKA while I have Big Sad Brain:

I visited London, and had a great time - eating delicious food, flat-sitting, visiting old haunts, picking up new ones, spending time with friends, and watching too much Shakespeare. The salted beef bagels in Brick Lane are still unparalleled, there were daffodils everywhere, and I brought home too much tea but not enough biscuits.

I buzzed my hair short again, and as EarlobeGreyTea said, "it really moved your energy from bisexual to lesbian," and then followed up with, "I'm glad that I, a man, could explain your sexuality to you"

I read a lot. I read The Locked Tomb series (I'm obsessed) and fell down a danmei pit (I have consumed SVSSS and MDZS but not yet TGCF) and I have spicy hot takes on why I did not enjoy The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo or The Starless Sea. I re-read all of Ann Leckie's books. I read The Future is Disabled in a Socialist bookshop in London, and I cried so fucking hard that the gentleman in the shop asked me if I was okay. I read The Song of Achilles and Circe and wandered down the labyrinth of getting really, really into Greek myth.

Speaking of: I bought an ROG Ally (horrible name, hate it, but the console itself is fine, it's like a more versatile Steam Deck) and I played Hades. So much Hades. So. Much. Hades. And every time I met Patroclus in Elysium, I bawled, "He's so SAD! He's such a SAD MAN! I need to make him UN-SAD!"

I finally finished the godforsaken Totoro cross-stitch pictured above. As soon as I framed it, I held it up to my spouse and said, "Could a depressed person make THIS?" and he said, "Yes" and then "Good job," because he's a lamb.

When I had energy, I cooked. I learned how to make carrot ginger dressing and shogayaki, and how to velvet pork. I made some of my standbys, like applesauce pancakes and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and felt very Smug and Very Adult for putting frozen cookie dough into my freezer so Future Me could have cookies. I introduced my family to Uncle Roger and I've never heard my mother (1) get so angry and (2) laugh so hard. When I couldn't cook, I ate food that someone else made, and it was enough to celebrate: I ate a meal! I ate food! I fed a me! Hooray!

I spent time with my beautiful friends. I spent time with my beautiful family. They are so good and they have been with me through so many tough things and depressive episodes, through bullshit and drama and tears, like that time I screaming-yelled at someone over the phone (they deserved it) during an engagement party at the cabin and then I had to walk out and pretend to be Normal and got drunk on a lot of Old Fashioneds.

I grew things. Flowers and vegetables and herbs and I accidentally made a great home for some very invasive weeds. The squirrels left only one sunflower alone (they ate the rest), but even now in mid-October, there are still bright coral-red flares of peppery nasturtium, and feathery pale pink zinnias from my caretaker at work (who is an angel), and gigantic, blue-tipped borage. My best friend moved in down the street from me, so she's only a five-minute walk away, and now I can pick flowers and stick them in a vase and walk them over to her, and I love it. I grew too many tomatoes (they got..... scary. My favourite were the heirloom tomatoes, as big as my fist, that remind me of my Lolo) and forgot about the cucumbers (they got lewd) and let myself get coaxed into growing three different kinds of mint: chocolate, grapefruit, and berries & cream (because I'm a little lad who loves berries and cream).

I bullied my spouse into watching Practical Magic with me the other evening and every time That Fucking Cop came on screen, he said, "That Fucking Cop! This movie would be good but there's too much of That Fucking Cop in it" and I felt so v i n d i c a t e d

I tried to write. I tried to write. I tried to write. I tried to write, and then let go of trying to write and just let myself do all the other things that make up living, try to amend the soil so that something good can grow there again. I tried to talk myself out of unhappiness but it's funny how that doesn't work, how only hard-fought kindness has helped me trudge out of the swamp, again and again and again.

I had one of those moments recently that felt like it could have been in one of my stories. At Thanksgiving dinner, I was sitting next to my little half-sister-in-law (a mouthful, I know). She is seven and she lost her dad two years ago and she said, "I wish my dad was here." And I said, "I know, honey. I think we all do." And she said, "I miss his piano playing," because her dad used to play piano the other way someone else might doodle on a napkin - absentmindedly, brilliantly, while wearing a faded green apron and with a dishtowel thrown over his shoulder, in between checking if the roast was up to temp and pouring someone a glass of wine. Always red wine, from the Piedmont region, which is where my spouse's Nonna is from. I asked my little half-sister-in-law, "Do you think you'll learn how to play piano?" and she said, "I don't know," and I said, "It's okay not to know." And then she asked, "Do you have a Gothita?" and we went back to talking about Pokemon, which we had been talking about for a conservative 90% of the dinner.

I wrote this. I wrote this and it felt good to feel my fingers moving, it felt good to have words spilling from me, it felt good to have faith in words again, that the words could be something good, could do something good, that the worlds could just be and it could be good, and that I could just be, and that could be good. Just being could be good. Even if I never wrote another word ever again, just being would be good. As I said to one of my friends many years ago during some deep dark down shitty times, "It's hard work, being human. Thank you for doing the work."

Take care. I love you all. ❤️❤️❤️

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Coming Out Swinging; or, It's So Early In The Year To Be Over-Buying Books But Here We Are.

Okay, so: I know I set one of my bookish goals this year to be "buy fewer books," BUT! First off, preorders don't count, and second off, the Two Lines Press haul was logged under last year's book purchases, and it's not my fault they arrived a week later. RAVEN TOWER I have no excuses for.

I have really enjoyed everything of Two Lines Press that I've read so far--their Calico series are perfect bite-sized anthologies in translation, vaguely themed (and THIS IS US LOSING COUNT has the English and Russian version of the poems presented side by side! I can read both of those!!). I'm ride or die for Wayward Children installments (this is why I love January), and a friend spoke very highly of RAVEN TOWER so I picked up a used copy from HPB. I'm very pleased with my piecemeal haul to start the year! I swear I'll buy fewer books once I work through all my coupons/gift cards! I love books!!

[thesporkidentity]

another year, another plea from my father for book ideas for my mother's gifts. so far I have

- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie - The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers - Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire - The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss - This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone - An Inheritance of Magic by Benedict Jacka - The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar

Any of you read some absolutely stellar books to recommend that you've read this year?

She reads very widely in genre, though her favorites are science fiction and fantasy (and recently really loving urban fantasy).

She has a very tender heart and overactive empathy, so I would avoid especially dark books (e.g. doctrine of labyrinths), or books that focus a lot on the gory parts of murder (e.g. she read the detective work of dresden files, but CSI type of stuff is out. I'm trying to get her to read Rivers of London, and that one I think is riding the edge of her tolerance). She does not like horror. She watched The Walking Dead for my aunt, but only barely and NOT EVER when it was dark outside.

She will read romance, but it's not her favorite, she prefers it blended with another genre so the plot isn't just love/sex. She'd love KJ Charles if it weren't for the extremely explicit sex that I'm not comfortable asking if she's comfortable with, and I also don't know if her comfort level is different for straight vs queer sex which I'm also not asking. She's really stepped up her game in allyship recently, but supporting someone's human rights and wanting to read about them fucking are two different categories lol

[transfemmbeatrice]

hello! I loved reading your interpretation of much ado's beatrice... I think it makes a lot of sense. on another note, as someone who enjoys shakespeare, do you have any adjacent media like literature classics to recommend? I need to find a classic work of fiction to analyze I think... no pressure though, answer if you want.

i have been giving this ask some thought and i have a number of answers for you! though i don't know if they're exactly what you're looking for, it's what came to mind.

Les Mis. my favorite book of all time!! there is SO much there to chew on, Victor Hugo is an incredible (if incredibly unsubtle) writer. the unabridged version takes some real work to get through, but it's worth it imo. even a good abridged version is still really excellent! i have some opinions on english translations you're free to inquire about if you're interested. whatever you do, don't read Denny. and the brick also still has a great, active fanbase on tumblr!

2. Twelfth Night (2017) dir. Simon Godwin. idk if you're already a twelfth night fan, but this production puts a little twist on it in a way that i am still thinking about years later. it works best if you're already familiar with the play so you can understand how its being subverted; if you're interested, hmu and i can hook you up with any number of productions to watch (which is true of any shakespeare, really. i collect them.)

3. The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie. not classic lit, but the best contemporary scifi i've read. leckie is an incredible writer; there is nothing she's done i haven't loved and i would recommend all of her work, but this trilogy is my favorite. (if you want to try a sample of her writing, she released a short story collection this year called Lake of Souls.) the radch trilogy deals with empire and resistance and colonialism and language and gender and bodies and technology and identity and personhood and so much more!! they're one of my favorite books of all time.

4. other well-written scifi that really gets into it and has given me a lot to think about: the unraveling by ben rosenbaum (which does such a good job, imo, of feeling really alien) and a memory called empire by arkady martine (which has a great sequel as well).

5. crush by richard siken. not to be a cliche, but his poetry is fucking amazing. reading crush was the first time i understood poetry. i went my entire school career never clicking with it--i was a prose girlie and it felt like my brain just shut off every time i tried to engage with poetry, but crush fucking rewired my brain and i've read it so many times. if you haven't checked it out, i can't recommend it highly enough; the language and themes are so intricate and well done and it feels like a coherent whole in a really compelling way.

6. the count of monte cristo by alexandre dumas. it's been over a decade since i read it, but i know i loved it and so do many other people so i trust my own past assessment. i remember drawing a character map about how everyone was connected because it was so complicated (i may still have that somewhere, actually) and it certainly has some strong similarities to les mis but is focused on being a revenge story. i watched V for Vendetta recently and it comes up in that movie a bit and it made me really miss it.

7. Be Good and Rewatch It: Pride and Prejudice. Waypoint (rest in peace<3) did some media rewatch podcasts on this feed, and the star of the show is their series on the 95 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. altogether, their podcasting is more than twice the length of the show itself, but it is so incredibly worth listening to all of it. the adaptation adheres pretty closely to the book so a lot of what they get into relates to the original work as well. there is some fantastic insightful analysis like the difference between english and french relationships with nature and how its reflected in their gardening trends and what it says about lady catherine that her estate is done in the french style--and also there's darcy/peter b. parker fanfiction. extremely well done and also very, very funny, i cannot recommend this more highly!

8. In a similar vein, Shelved By Genre is an excellent podcast if you like sinking your teeth into literary analysis! they focus on genre literature, and have done Book of the New Sun, the Earthsea books, works by Junji Ito, a series by Mercedes Lackey, and I think next are doing Neuromancer? I'm very behind, but they do really excellent work. it's a touch more serious than the last one i mentioned, but it's still a LOT of fun. all three come from academia and i always feel like i'm learning so much when i listen to them.

9. Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot. it's a shortish memoir that i really enjoyed, and there was an interview at the end that i can't stop thinking about because of how she talked about her craft and her story's place in a larger context. i recommend at least reading the interview (which i posted here). i'll also throw Alan Davies' memoir "Just Ignore Him" in here, because i loved it so much and also have a lot of thoughts about how it is written and structured which that interview made me think about again. i'm very biased on this one because i'm a huge fan of his, but i think it's still pretty good if you're not familiar with him. it should be noted that both these books deal with some dark stuff, so feel free to reach out to me for content warnings if you like. alan's audiobook is excellent; heart berries' audiobook is horrendous.

10. this list could not be complete unless i recommended Friends at the Table, an actual play podcast focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends. genuinely the work they do is some of the best stories i have ever encountered, in my entire life, in any medium. there's a shit ton of it and i'm always happy to give recommendations on where to start, whether you're ready to dive in totally or just try a sample. i could never even begin to put into words how good this show is or how much it means to me. it makes me laugh, it makes me cry, it makes me laugh until i cry, it haunts me (positive), it has led me to meeting so many cool people and introduced me to lots of other great and compelling media and philosophy and political ideology. and that's not even getting into my fascination with how game mechanics shape a story, and the sheer joy of things coming together based on chance rather than convenience--it's such an interesting way to tell a story! i'll shut up now but as i will continue to say up to and including when i'm on my deathbed--please listen to friends at the table.

[eruditetyro]

long post abt dancing

the caller last night btw used zie zir pronouns and called complicated dances all fucking night. they weren’t even that complicated they just fell outside the usual dance patterns, zie had us doing right hand circles and left side chains. and zie used completely positional calling with no role names. so it was one of those situations where you realize how much that shorthand pervades your brain. like when reading ann leckie books and you realize that the same adjectives you would read differently when they’re assigned to different genders and you have to go now hang on. ok now i’m aware i was doing that. anyway the left side chains were fun because i’m typically a right side dancer (i do dance both ways, just typically) and most of the men are typically left side dancers (in traditional roles left side is gents side, or leads side; in our typical contemporary language left side is larks to right side ravens or robins) and i got to courtesy turn every neighbor and because i love twirling i twirled every single one on the courtesy turn except the one old guy who did not want to (did not easily allow his hand to be moved above his head). and that was good fun. i think more dances should slip in moves like that that flip the anticipated move allocation between positions. and i like when people are forgiving when we switch roles. i can get nervous about switching and i don’t do nearly as many flourishes when i lead and that’s embarrassing in some ways but it’s because i need more practice but it takes a specific mood for me to want to do it and if i’m just a bit too tired or caught up sometimes i’ll switch myself back into the right hand side coming out of a swing by pure force of habit. and that can be fun actually. i did do a switch dance that felt very good last night. no teasing about it or anything and we switched at least four times if not more. it was easier to switch with a positional caller i think because if newbies don’t learn ladies/gents they don’t get as convinced they’re fucking something up when the person coming at them isn’t who they expect. and the experienced dancers all know that i’m probably doing it on purpose and will sort myself out if i’m not. anyway it was fun.

[its-a-hil]

resolutions for 2024:

- move to a fucking city - figure out what's up with the stock accts my parents have set up for me and thus how much money i have available to do things with - every weekend either go biking or to a bar or both - buy/make phases of the moon necklace - see the eclipse - reread every ann leckie book i have - make more origami - continue masking - be kind to myself - start laser to finally kill my fucking face hair - get my hair dyed - get outer wilds tattoo. possibly more if the urge strikes - edit: get fatter (this is very important!)

i know that's a bigger list than people usually have but. a year is plenty of time for all of this. (i also intentionally avoided saying anything about work/school bc. i dont want to push that any further onto myself. more pressure definitely wont help)

[amemoryofwot]

3 books 3 sentences game!

pick 3 books 📚 you have enjoyed recently (define recently however you want) and try to convince your followers why they should read them - but you only get one sentence per book! And then tag some people I guess? 😁

Thank you @tyrantleto for the tag! I'm pretty sure most people here will have read what I have recently read but here goes:

Victory of Eagles - Naomi Novik

The French Army and a disgraced member of the Chinese imperial family hate him and want him dead, but his dragon and government said Traitor! you will live forever.

2. Ancillary Sword - Ann Leckie

What if you were a ship pretending to be a girl surrounded by girls pretending to be a ship and also your 1000 year old employee whom you hate but drag around like a sickly dog because you can never get back what you lost but goddamn your Caring About Your Crew module is still active and firing and you WILL fix this space station.

3. System Collapse - Martha Wells

You've fucked up a perfectly good intelligent bot construct is what you did, look at it, it's got PTSD

Tagging @lordgolden @sixth-light @cozcat and whoever else might want to play!

[veliseraptor]

Top 5 underrated books you love

oh man see this requires me to judge "underrated" though...challenge, that. but here goes let's see what I can come up with

1. Doctrine of Labyrinths by Sarah Monette. This is the obvious one for me. Out of print fantasy series published at the wrong time my beloved. I mean, admittedly if it was published now the discourse would be a nightmare (if...people read it, maybe it would still be underread), but god I love it so much. I recognize it has its "storytelling flaws" or whatever but this was the first series I read where I felt like the author was putting their hands on my shoulders, looking me directly in the eye, and going "okay, Lise, I'm about to come for you where you live." and then did it.

2. Coldfire Trilogy by C.S. Friedman. It's been a while since I read this one so I hesitated a little over including it, because, you know, "how much can I say I recommend something if I haven't read it in ten years" but part of my problem here is that I've met maybe three other people in my life who have also read it. Maybe if more people started reading it I would actually get around to doing my reread. An early "huh this really feels like it should've been gay, are we sure it's not" book. I'm still not sure it isn't.

3. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. And Children of Ruin and Children of Memory is sitting on my shelf eagerly awaiting me, but this was the one that kicked it off and I keep trying to recommend it to people, but for some reason "it's about sentient spiders you guys" isn't as compelling a sell as I feel like it is. But it's about increasingly advanced spiders on an evolution fast track building a civilization you guys and also about conflict with the other and all that but. I'm really here for the incredibly fascinating worldbuilding Tchaikovsky does with the spiders.

4. The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks. I really want to at some point ask Ann Leckie if she's read any of the Culture books because...I just feel like there's something there. Not the same, but some kind of connection, and I felt it particularly reading this book. I remember enjoying Consider Phlebas (clearly, I picked up the "next" one in the chronology of this 80s space opera series), but this is the one where I read it and was like. Oh, fuck, you got me. In general I feel like this is a very interesting series worth revisiting - I wouldn't say it's obscure but I feel like a lot of more recent sci-fi/fantasy readers overlook it because "80s sci-fi" has a lot of connotations, deserved or undeserved. I will just say that I'm picky about my sci-fi and this one got me.

5. I went back and forth for a while about what to put here but I think I have to say A City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandermeer, because I remember when I started seeing Annihilation and its sequels take off going NOW YOU GUYS FIND HIM (pleased and exasperated) and that book was my intro to his work. And I still in some ways like it (and his other earlier work) more. But just in general if you are into New Weird stuff, or enjoyed his more recent work, I recommend going back and looking at his older stuff, too. I happen to know that after being hard to find for a while FSG is now reprinting those books.

BONUS: I can't actually say Lymond Chronicles is "underrated" as such because it has a very devoted following and a whole crop of authors talk about it if you start looking, but still. The devoted following is not actually huge. And I love it very dearly.