#Princess Floralinda

[thanergetic-hyperlinks]

Tamsyn Muir's writing beyond The Locked Tomb

Y'all, turns out there's lots of imagery and themes in TLT that Muir was already playing with in her earlier fiction. A lot of it is easily available online, in which case I'll link to it. (The short stories that aren't can also be easily read if googled, to be quite honest—that's how I read The Deepwater Bride and Why the Mermaids Left Boralus). • The House That Made the Sixteen Loops of Time (2011)

5K. Short sort-of-cozy romance (?) with (you guessed it) a time travel loop. Explores a very queer potential relationship. CamPal enjoyers might find a similar sweetness.

• The Magician's Apprentice (2012, Lightspeed Magazine)

5K. This is the one that stopped me dead on my tracks. It features an older, male mentor figure called John (a “very ordinary man” with “dark eyes”) who introduces the young, female main character to magic that has a terrible cost—and to literature such as Lolita. This excellent post by @familyabolisher does an incredible job of analyzing the very deliberate intertextual links between TLT and Lolita.

• The Woman in the Hill (2015, Lightspeed Magazine, originally for Dreams From the Witch House anthology of Lovecraftian horror by women)

4K. Possibly my favorite! It's a straightforward Lovecraftian horror, centered on the image of the woman (is it human though?) trapped in an unnatural pool inside a cursed cave. Chain imagery too. It does something different from Alecto, mind, but you can see links, ways of playing with facets of a strong central image. It's fun to consider how reliable the two narrators are. Here's an analysis and afterthought from Reactor Mag.

• Chew (2013) 4K. Zombie abuse and cannibalistic revenge story ft. an uncanny woman revenant, told from the eyes of a traumatized German boy. I was strongly reminded of Harrow's conversations with the Body. Tamsyn gave an interview on the themes and her intentions. Interesting to read in light of Alecto, I think, although I don't think she's going the same route in TLT: “the idea of post-war rebuilding connecting to rebuilding the body of the zombie; a Frankenstein who once rebuilt doesn’t act as planned or desired. […] I love cannibalism […] it’s innately spiritual […] any afterlife she goes to, he’s going too.”

• Apothecia (2014, published on Tumblr and tapas.io)

Short webcomic where an alien monster tries to corrupt the ruthless human girl who holds it captive. Musings on responsibility and murder, mention of child abuse. The alien's speech patterns remind me of a Resurrection Beast. You get wonderful dialogue like “Murder is a profession. Job. Employment, you tiny leg dog. There you are, walking along. Walk walk walk. Now you are a walker. Good job. Special child. Murder is like this.” Art by Shelby Cragg.

• The Deepwater Bride (2015, Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine)

The opening line is: “In the time of our crawling Night Lord's ascendancy, foretold by exodus of starlight into his sucking astral wounds, I turned sixteen and received Barbie's Dream Car.” Need I say more? Extremely fun. A novelette where a young queer girl from a clairvoyant family struggles with an apocalyptic event while being annoyed by another very plucky girl. Lots of descriptions with nerdy marine zoology terms. Close in tone to Gideon. In the background, someone dies EXACTLY like that one death at the end of Gideon, which makes me wonder what happened to make Tamsyn interested in this particular image. I also liked that Tamsyn is aware of Nightwish. No link, but you'll get a PDF immediately if you Google.

• Union (2015, Clarkesworld Magazine)

5.5K. Very weird, extremely Kiwi story about a town that gets sent lab-grown wives by the government, but they're not made the usual way so they're Weird and people have feelings about it. Fascinating and eerie description of non-human (in some people's eyes, sub-human) women (?) who cannot be observed to have recognizable feelings or thoughts, yet have some sort of inner life. Quite touching, very uncanny.

• Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower (2020)

Short novel (~200 pages). Very funny. I was reminded of Coronabeth because the whole plot is “princess finds herself branching out into decidedly non-princess-like activities”, but other than that—this is a fairytale for adults about people who make eachother worse. No particular links to TLT but a very fun read with some gut punches. Extremely Tamsyn through and through, what with the dubious morality and all.

• Why the Mermaids Left Boralus (2021, in Folk & Fairy Tales of Azeroth by Blizzard Entertainment)

Set in the World of Warcraft universe. Haven't read this one yet, will report back lmao. As with The Deepwater Bride, no link but I easily found a PDF of the entire compilation. It's illustrated!

• Undercover (2022, from Into Shadow, Amazon Original Collection)

Haven't read it either. Will edit once I do.

[nona-gay-simus]

For all my TLT girlies (gender-neutral), please read Tamsyn Muir's standalone fantasy novella Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower.

There is:

Subversion of classic fairytale tropes

A princess protagonist who starts out just like all the other girls and slowly morphs into a murderous bimbo

A secondary MC who is very Harrow-coded

And a non-binary icon to boost!

Graphic death and violence

General gross stuff

TazMuir's trademark sense of humour

[chaos-has-theories]

Marcille Donato and the Forty-Flight Dungeon

[zozthethird]

"It's a dragon and you are a... whatever you are..."

[specificpollsaboutbooks]

Famous Authors, Lesser Known Works

Round 1

Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower :

Tamsyn Muir is better known for The Locked Tomb

It’s a weird snarky fantasy that does fun things with the princess-in-the-tower trope and the princess/monster dichotomy. The ending isn’t really a happy one but the novella is bouncy and clever and fun to read.

The Cloud Roads :

Martha Wells is better known for The Murderbot Diaries

Fantasy with shapeshifting dragon-people!

[thereadingmoon]

SPOILERS FOR: “Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower” by Tamsyn Muir

on the ending of princess floralinda:

1.) as far as the hero’s journey is concerned, floralinda’s outer situation hasn’t changed that much. she is still a commodity—she isn’t a prize anymore, but she is a weapon. she is a monster. she is an object in a bloodsoaked art piece. she’s traded one cage for another, but the new one is one she can prowl in, maim in. it reminds me of how longtime convicts commit crimes just to go back to prison because it’s become all they’ve ever known and the outside world has become too complex and inaccessible to them. the prison ward is orderly, sensical, and comfortable—and for floralinda, fear and hunger and blood and gore are, too.

2.) floralinda’s third biggest flaw is her reliance on rigid norms. as a princess, she’s meant to be saved; as a fairy, cobweb should grant wishes. there’s also her strict dichotomies on gender and what is expected of men and women and how she forcibly genders cobweb, who went from ambivalent to dismayed at the idea of being seen through the lens of human gender binary. crazy, i thought, you go girl, expecting her gender to go queer. and it did in a sense, she transformed to something Other by the end, as said by the witch, but another thing stood out to me: she’s become a tool that assists the continued oppression and violence on women. instead of shaking the status quo, floralinda worsens it. she doesn’t think of the welfare of the women after her; instead she revels at the idea they’d follow her path, they’d get hurt, they’d transform, they’d transmogrify. she’s enabled the notion that one day, she won’t be the exception: she’d be the rule. she’s worsened the cycle for the women after her and the only way for them to break free is for them to gut her through and she salivates for it.

[chillyweirdoinacoffin]

Princess Floralinda 2 News!!

Found another new Tamsyn interview (from Fall 2022)! It’s short, and not really about TLT. But drops THIS news I haven’t seen anywhere else: Floralinda 2 will be called “Queen Floralinda Takes Her Throne.”👸🏼 No word on the release date.

[someabsolutenonsense]

Collection of Tamsyn Muir monstrous blonde girls

[cinnamonglaive]

My favorite line from Princess Floralinda and the Forty Flight Tower occurs shortly after the princess has bruised her foot, and is taking council with her fairy companion/prisoner:

“Do you think I will be able to get up tomorrow morning?”

“I think you will be able to get up tomorrow morning in a few weeks”.

[evenstarfalls]

Princess monster

[notedchampagne]

i read princess floralinda and the 40 flight tower : first off FUCK THE TUMBLR POST that made me mistakenly believe this book had cannibalism in it. i am mournful to say that it did not.

despite this i enjoyed it a stupid amount and i think its a very entertaining read, especially if you share tazs sense of humor or like the variation in narrative styles throughout tlt. actually i think reading this book made me realize more why she wrote gtn and htn all [gestures] like that... tlt definitely has a larger number of memes but the way princess floralinda is written reminds me a lot of the original character-based humor you can see in gideons speech and just the general situational hilarity of things. i also think her take on a princess story is really delightful and sweet! and i didnt expect that amorphous, ambiguous kind of romance in it. its also very much like tlt in the manner that love is slowly present between the cracks in the story, but with tlt love IS the point of everything while in floralinda the love is a sickly ironic kind of development. it was like if stockholm syndrome was entertaining. A+.

i would recommend this mainly if you 1) liked mercymorn in htn 2) appreciate a good character development coming from a dumb princess, and 3) again, share that similar sense of horrific fucking humor taz has:

[meatgoat]

tamsyn blonde symptoms

bad princess

saltwater terror

combination bad princess saltwater terror

[chaos-has-theories]

Finally listening to Princess Floralinda and the Forty Flight Tower 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀 I am prepared to be torn into emotional scraps one way or another

[bannedfrombookclub]

Princess Floralinda and the Forty Flight Tower is a subversive fairy tale retelling by Tamsyn Muir and I had a blast reading it.

For Locked Tomb fans you have Muir's distinctive voice, blend of horror, humour, queerness, and a loveably toxic relationship. The audiobook is also voiced by Moira Quirk.

For anyone who watched Damsel: you have a princess survival story that's a lot more thought out, grittier, and contains an interesting character arc.

[adolin]

I finished Princess Floralinda and the Forty Flight Tower! Some thoughts

It was SO cute I love it. I had a good chuckle at the narrative voice thorough the book but especially at the witch coming back and seeing a new business opportunity, and Agent Cobweb pouncing on it.

Jaded rough-handed once-Princess with a spear... new lesbian gender expression just dropped. Floralinda call me

Whatever weird interspecies gay possessive hatelove is going on between Floralinda and Cobweb... I'm obsessed

Has anyone written a fic where Floralinda fucks the next Princess and Cobweb sits on her shoulders and tugs on her hair and bosses her around criticising how she goes about it. Because I think someone should

[thereadingmoon]

I feel like Muir isn’t afraid to tell a story. In the sense that she writes like she doesn’t care what a reader thinks of her.

When I first read GtN, I found it as very average SF/F fare and my heart was barely in it. I felt like the ending was messy with its battle royale aspects and I wrote Gideon off as a standard edgy YA-style protagonist. The narrative sounded so simplistic and I didn’t feel attached to the cast of characters. On its surface, GtN is a very standard high-concept story with a stereotypical summary on goodreads. I was ready to write Muir off as an ok and middling debut writer.

Then I picked up Harrow.

It was like Muir was a sleeper agent and just blew my mind. I could see her skill in her craft and my investment did a complete 180. I had to reread GtN and realized all the things I missed and all the things that were planted from the start that were hidden by Gideon’s ignorance, flippancy, and naivety—the reasons why I wrote the book off. I underestimated Muir because I thought Gideon’s voice was her voice.

The writer is a liar, an illusionist, and a conman and I fell for Muir’s game. And that is so refreshing.