#Emily Skrutskie

[skrutskie]

THE SALVATION GAMBIT is now available wherever books are sold!

I commissioned this incredible art of Fitz and Murdock from @anaeolist, whose work I have been a fan of for literally ten years, and they absolutely crushed it. 🥰

[lgbtqreads]

Fave Five: Queer Sci-Fi Thrillers

The Last 8 by Laura Pohl (YA) The Salvation Gambit by Emily Skrutskie The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley Bluebird by Ciel Pierlot The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Book names + authors under the cut

KJ Brandman/Mac Coyle- Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan & Cliff Chiang

Ettian Nassun/Gal Ump Ember- Bonds of Brass/Bloodright Trilogy by Emily Skrutskie

Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus- The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir

Tennal Halkana/Surit Yeni- Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

[pirate-deathmatch]

Round 1 Starboard: Santa Elena (The Abyss Surrounds Us) vs Jack Rackham (Black Sails)

(Santa Elena art by @may12324)

Santa Elena is excellent at scheming and manipulation. Jack is good at convincing his enemies he has more men than he actually does.

[the pirates MAY use any special skills or equipment they possess. They may NOT call on any friends or creatures to assist them. For the sake of this tournament, all pirates CAN be killed and cannot come back to life during the fight. Remember: this isn't about favorites, this is about fighting power. Deathmatch masterpost Here.]

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Bonds of Brass | Author: Emily Skrutskie | Publisher: Del Rey Books (2020)

[magpiesbones]

It does honestly impress me how EXACTLY and PRECISELY Emily Skrutskie constructs the most INCREDIBLE and Appealing premises only to do LITERALLY nothing with them. These books are SO empty!!

like okay. First book of hers I read, a fun little synopsis:

woman who works as a sea monster trainer to train massive genetically engineered Beasts to protect ships from pirate attacks falls in love with a pirate! INSANE right. Should be accompanied by an exploration of THE CREATION OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED WEAPONS and probably also the ECONOMY LEADING TO PIRACY and not to mention the JUSTICE SYSTEM and what it means to have ALL THAT GODDAMN POWER but no. There’s nothing.

weird! Funky little book I’m sure I can just excise from my mind and never think about again—

BUT I CANT. BECAUSE HER PLOT POINTS ARE TOO DAMN INTERESTING. and oh big surprise but all the rest of her books have the EXACT same issues!!

hullmetal girls: two girls fall in love (I think?) in a military academy after being turned into weapons in a completely space-faring society. I believe one of them was a rich officer-track girl and the other was poor and in it for the family pension. But oh that’s so interesting! Will we be exploring THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM? Themes of BODILY AUTONOMY? Themes of perhaps even GENDER relating to bodily autonomy or MEDICAL AUTONOMY or PHYSICAL DEVALUATION? How about a look into WHY THIS SOCIETY IS SO DAMN BIFURCATED? or perhaps WHY THERES A NEED FOR MILITARY AT ALL? We sure fucking won’t!

All of this is Backdrop you see! Because it sounds Cool. A little bit of spice, perhaps, for what is maybe the MOST milquetoast romance I have ever read wherein neither of the characters was even differentiable from any other. Nobody had an arc. Nobody had a theme or god forbid a thematic resolution. Things happened because they were cool and sounded neat.

I’ve read books with bad writing before but usually those books were at least passionate and TRYING. I’ve never read before or since a book that was so empty and devoid of any deeper meaning. Shallow in the MOST literal sense. And to be frank I WAS digging! These books are a backyard sandbox marked out like an archeological site.

[judgingbooksbycovers]

The Salvation Gambit: A Novel

By Emily Skrutskie.

[zahroreadsthings]

cheering so loudly when the latest skrutskie novel continues the proud tradition of vent crawling

[the-dust-jacket]

[aurorawest]

I’m so excited to read the final book in this gay space trilogy!

Hm the printing seems messed up…

Hm I literally cannot read the words on the page…

I mean who needs to READ a book, amiright?

Terrible job, Del Rey.

[skrutskie]

"hey, murdock. i like the new look."

This year's gift commission from the outrageously talented Sarah Skrutskie, of a certain someone entering her villain era.

THE SALVATION GAMBIT is available wherever books are sold!

[madlovenovelist]

Slow and Steady Wins the Race.

A February 2023 wrap up With January wiped off from suffering with a moderate-to-severe case of COVID-19, it carried over through February, but at least the symptoms were much milder and I was able to feel like I was achieving something. Though, admittedly, I’m still not at 100% but the Doc assured me things will be back to normal in March… I just have to start getting my body used to activity…

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Zurah Saint Joseph- The Tarot Sequence by KD Edwards

Ettian Nassun- Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie

Zhao Yunlan- Guardian / Zhen Hun by Priest

Blue- This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone & Amal El-Mohtar

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

[pirate-deathmatch]

Round 1 Starboard: Cassandra Leung (The Abyss Surrounds Us) vs John Silver (Black Sails)

Cas can hold her own in hand-to-hand, and good at training sea monsters: unfortunately, sea monsters are not allowed in this battle. Meanwhile Silver, when he fails to avoid fights by negotiation and/or trickery, is pretty good with a sword by the end of the show-- but by that point he's also missing a leg.

[the pirates MAY use any special skills or equipment they possess. They may NOT call on any friends or creatures to assist them. For the sake of this tournament, all pirates CAN be killed and cannot come back to life during the fight. Remember: this isn't about favorites, this is about fighting power. Deathmatch masterpost Here.]