#Raksura spoilers

[walks-the-ages]

Nope, sorry, the more I reread The Cloud Roads the more it stands out.

The first character interaction we ever see, is pretty much on page 2 and it's Moon insulting "the most mentally deficiant" (aka Intellectually Disabled) member of the Cordans, the guy who guards the shitty ineffective fence, named Hac, who is not only described as being an idiot, but he's also described as being very ugly.

And then there's Ilane.

You know, Moon's girlfriend? Possibly on the level of almost fiance, considering they wanted to have kids together? Yeah, she's a bad person because she's slow. Because she's stupid. Because she can't grasp basic concepts no matter how simply or repeatedly they're described to her.

Her character flaw of being jealous and mistrustful purely stem from her being too stupid to grasp basic biology such as "We've been having unprotected sex for around a year or more now, If our species were biologically compatible, you would probably be pregnant already even before we talk about wanting kids"

Moon apparently sat her down and repeatedly, patiently explained that their species are apparently just too different and he doesn't think he can get her pregnant, a very long, involved discussion, and her take away from that is "He is more interested in my room mate instead" no matter how much he tries to explain it in simple terms, she just keeps looking at him, all ~innocent and simple and devastated~.

And these are the first character interaction we see in the book (Hac), and the first big, important relationship Moon has. (Illane)

These are our first introductions to Moon, and it's meant to be justified that these character's are stupid and slow (aka, neurodivergent), because Hac is mean to Moon, and Illane "betrays" him.

And the most hilarious part is, he's been lying to them since day one.

These people are Fell survivors.

He decides he's gonna sneak out and fly around on the exact same night that a Harbinger has been spotted in the area by a prominent Elder, which even though the rest of the Cordans don't believe the elder and make fun of him (why, exactly?) Moon knows that Illane believes the elder that there are Fell nearby.

These people are Fell survivors. Their entire city and way of life was destroyed by the Fell, and they know that Fell like to infiltrate settlements and play nice before they bring down the swarm to slaughter everyone.

Illane's reaction to Moon being a Fell is, 100%, the correct reaction! If he were actually a Fell, she would have, if not saved her tribe, at least given them some advanced warning of the approaching Fell Flight.

The Cordans don't know what Raksura are.

Heck,Moon doesn't even know what a Raksura is!

The only black, dragon-y shapeshifters the Cordans or anyone in their general area have ever met is the murderous, evil Fell who genocided their people after infiltrating their city.

sure, Moon hasn't hurt anyone in the year or so he was staying with them-- but neither do the Fell Rulers when they come to groundling cities and play at politics.

Not until it's too late.

Ilane honestly, 100% made the correct choice, with the information she had at the time, especially considering her past experience with Fell and the fact that a Harbinger was literally spotted in the area just a few hours previously, literally a harbinger of imminent death and destruction.

But! Because it's happening to Moon, our main character, we're supposed to think the Cordans are being stupid and irrational and evil. And the only reason the betrayal happened is because Illane is "too slow" to understand that Moon can't get her pregnant because their species are too different, and because she completely fails to grasp this concept, she instead thinks he's cheating on her.

Illane realizes her boyfriend/fiance/partner/mate is secretly a Fell Ruler come to infiltrate her tribe and is out, communicating with a Fell Harbinger, keeps her cool, doesn't panic, and still grasps onto her love of Moon enough to test him by giving him a poison that only effects Fell before she alerts anyone to her discovery???

Looking at it from the Cordan's perspective really changes the perception here, don't it?

Do you think Moon would have reacted any different if it had been, say, Stone discovered as a massive, black shifter in the camp, disguised as a traveling old man???

Oh wait, we don't have to guess, because Moon's first reaction to Stone's shifted form is "wow, we all owe that elder an apology, he was right! There is a huge giant black flying lizard monster flying around that could annihilate the whole camp in just a few minutes" !

Oh but you know. We should hate Illane because uh *checks notes* the next time Moon sees her, weeks if not months later, she is living with a new man (don't forget, Cordan women are not allowed to live on their own and are assigned to live with a man to be house keepers and bed warmers!), and Moon has his feelings hurt by this.

Even though he'd be more than happy to be dating Jade right then if it weren't for the fraught politics involved.

Oh, and Illane is also the one who realizes that Jade, who is has lied her way into their camp is suspicious and might be a Fell because she looked similar to Moon, which takes a hell of a lot of observation skills, and the obvious conclusion, of Fell-like stranger suddenly showing up and demaning to know how they make the Fell poison..... is that the Fell are trying to find out how they make it so they can destroy the source and leave the Cordans defenseless. Which is logical and the correct assumption to make!

But we should think Illane's an evil, conniving bitch for making the Elders suspicious of Jade. Because we're not supposed to like Ilane.

Anyways. This reread is going to be interesting. I'll make note if there's ever any other neurodivergent characters in the Raksura books at any point, but off the top of my head I don't think there's literally any Raksura, ever, who are autistic or intellectully disabled.

The only "neurodivergent" raksura I can think of is the Solitary Warrior who's name I can't remember, who may or may not be the horror movie buzzword sociopath/psychopath secret serial killer Or whatever his evil backstory was. [eye rolling emoji]

I love these books, I love this world, and I love these characters, but as an autistic person especially, this analysis reread is not off to a great start.

And that's why it's so important to critically analyze the media you love-- if you don't notice these things, you will just accept them at face value and internalize it.

[rjalker]

I've said this many times and I'm saying it again. Moon should have been legitimately, for real, not just anxious about it, actually infertile. Completely unable to father children. No cure available.

Because it's easy for the Indigo Cloud court to say they keep him around because they like him for who he is, and not so he can make babies for them, after they've taken him in for........the sole explicit purpose of making babies for them....

But literally everyone knows that's not true. Everyone.

And if it was meant to be true, especially because Martha Wells apparently didn't want to write anything about his kids at all, then he should have actually been infertile the way he feared.

Completely, by Raksuran standards, absolutely fucking worthless as a consort. Because consorts are only valuable because they can bring in fresh blood and make babies for the colony.

Assurances that they like him for who is is fall really fucking flat when literally everyone there, including Moon, knows that literally the only reason he's with them is to make babies for them. That's the only reason they let him in the front door and the only reason they kept him around. They literally had zero other choice. No other colony would send them one of their own consorts because that's just how shitty their colony was when he got there. Literally no one in their right minds would send them a consort.

Literally the best they could do was some random violent feral solitary Stone picked up out in the woods.

Literally the only reason Moon is with them is because he can make babies for them and that's why he's valuable. They know this. He knows this. That is literally the entire reason Stone rescued him. If he were some random infertile warrior or even an Arbora Stone would have left him for dead Because We All Know Solitaries Are Mentally Ill Serial Killers™.

But no. They were literally so desperate for a consort to make babies for them that Stone was willing to take the risk of bringing Moon home. Even though the level of atrocity a fucking consort would have to commit to become exiled is literally unimaginable and absolutely unspeakable.

Saying that they like Moon for who he is when literally everyone knows he's only there to make babies for them is so fucking weak and meaningless when it's objectively not true.

The only way that'd mean anything is if they confirmed he was, in fact, infertile, and that it is literally impossible for him to fulfill his Biologically Assigned Role™ for the colony....

and they still fucking keep him around. Because they do genuinely like him as a person for who he is, not the fact that he can give them babies, and not because they had literally no other options.

And this once again ties in with the fact that Moon and Jade were literally forced together because they Literally Had No Other Choice. But that's another post.

[sealwithfeels]

honestly I don't know why so many fantasy readers get on Brandon Sanderson's case about shit like bland prose, flat characters and bad humour, and then turn around and praise Martha Wells, who is far worse at all of those things.

Sanderson at least admits to making his prose simple for a reason, while Wells' prose is painfully amateur and constantly repeats the exact same phrases in quick succession - I can only take 'I would rather be watching my downloaded human media' so many times. Sanderson can construct a compelling plot and the pacing makes sense, while I don't know what the hell is going on with Wells' inability to write an interesting climax without the protagonist getting knocked unconscious and why random pace-killing bullshit got tacked onto the end of The Serpent Sea.

Not all of Sanderson's characters work for everyone, and some of supporting cast are pretty flat but he tries to keep the main characters varied and attempts to give them some memorable personality trait and doesn't treat them as more important than they should be, unlike Wells who reuses the same stock archetypes for major characters and forgets to give anyone a personality outside the few mains and then for some reason expects you to give a shit about these personalityless nobodies and gives them critical roles in the plot (seriously what the fuck is Chime's personality and why is he treated as so important to Moon when Moon spends the whole time finding him annoying, and why the hell was the critical traitor plot given to Jade's nobody sister who has no presence before or after)

I at least get the impression that Sanderson is trying, and you can see improvement with his books over time, while with Wells it feels like she's lazy and coasting on having found a way to appeal to the 'it literally me, so relatable' crowd to her books' detriment. Sanderson at least in theory understands character arcs and tries to make his characters different, while Wells just uses the same 'awkward woobie who everyone bad is mean to and needs a bland worshipful found family to soothe away all their pain, while they're kind of entitled dicks about it' main character.

Please at least be consistent when criticising authors.

[whetstonefires]

I really enjoyed Witch King and think it's Good but need to announce the ludicrous brass balls involved in the title.

Because it's named after the main character, who is known by that title, we establish that right out the gate.

Fairly soon after, we establish that he, like Dorothy, is not a witch at all. Although he is on good terms with them and uses some of their techniques.

Bit after that we learn that witches don't hold with kings, or indeed with governance. Kai says eventually that they don't have enough communal norms to even rebel against if you wanted to. Fascinating.

The flashback-to-origin-story half of the narrative terminates before we reach the point where people started calling Kai the Witch King.

We never find out how that happened! We never even really see anyone using the title except when he's being introduced to one major supporting character by another in the first or second chapter! It's wild. Witch King without Witch King. Garfield without Garfield.

This is so funny to me I can forgive the letdown, because to be quite honest by the middle of the book I was counting on the origin of the title as a sort of tying-together moment for the whole narrative, linking the end of the earlier timeslice to the beginning of the later one, and was astonished that it didn't come. It makes the novel feel weirdly unfinished to me, like Wells accidentally left off the last few chapters somehow.

I have been denied catharsis about the title of the book. 🤣

[sunderedstar]

/squints/ is that a Harbors of the Sun reference, Ms Wells...?

[abigailspinach]

““How did she and the Arbora die?” That wasn’t a welcome subject either. It was like an old wound that had never quite stopped bleeding. Moon didn’t want to talk about the details, but he owed Stone some kind of an answer. He propped his chin on his arms and looked out into the dark. “Tath killed them.” Tath were reptilian groundlings, predators, and they had surrounded the tree Moon’s family had been sleeping in. He remembered waking, confused and terrified, as his mother tossed him out of the nest. He had realized later that she had picked him because he was the only other one who could fly, the only one who had a chance to escape while she stayed to defend the others. He had been too young to fly well, and had crashed down through the branches, tumbling nearly to the ground, within reach of the Tath waiting below. One had snatched at him and Moon had clawed its eyes, struggling away. He had half-flown, half-climbed through the trees back up to the nest. But his mother and the others were all dead, torn to pieces. If he had realized how hard living without them would be, he would have let the Tath catch him. He just said, “It happened... fast.””

— The Cloud Roads: Volume One of the Books of the Raksura by Martha Wells

[ilovedthestars]

**Contains character/worldbuilding info that is slowly revealed over the course of Witch King, but no big plot spoilers**

Witch King was the first non-Murderbot book by Martha Wells that I've read, so I spent a lot of it playing "Spot the Murderbot Parallels." They're very different books in style & content but there's also lots of of fun little things that reminded me of Murderbot. (I'm curious how many of these are Wells trademarks that show up in Raksura or her other books, but I don't have any other points of comparison). I kept a running list while I was reading, and most of them ended up being related to the respective protagonists, so without further ado:

Similarities between Murderbot & Kai

Villain-coded protagonists

Set apart from “mortals”/“humans”

And also exist somewhat between two worlds/two different kinds of being

And also are somewhat unique and alone among beings like them because of their choices/circumstances

Very dangerous to go up against as an individual, but also very much in danger themselves from larger societal/political forces and spend a lot of time on the run or hiding who they are

Fewer physical limitations (don’t need to breathe as much, can heal/repair, not slowed down by injury or pain)

Have the ability to become disembodied and occupy different “hardware” (ES gunship and 2.0, Kai’s body swapping and travel between the underearth and upper earth)

Also have telepathy (the feed) allowing private/secret communication, detecting people from far away, and sharing of senses

Touch is significant to them and associated trust/intimacy (although it sort of works in different directions for the two of them)

Despite all the politics happening around them, their driving force is “keep my people safe” (Kai uses the phrase “my mortals” at one point which made me very happy, and getting his found family back together is what drives the plot)

Use pain magic / self sacrifice to protect others (Making the decision "not to be like them" even at personal cost to self, more of a vague theme than a specific thing but I think they have this in common. this could probably be its own whole post tbh)

But also very willing to murder people when necessary in self defense, pursuit of goals, or occasionally sheer anger

“If they hurt my human(s) I will murder everyone”

Bonus: other similarities with the Murderbot books

Casual brownness and queerness and polyamory!!

Switching to very matter of fact writing style for effect, often when describing violence/emotion (Wells is really good at deploying this at just the right moment and it was so cool to see it in literally the first chapter of Witch King)

Worldbuilding elements are dropped in without ever being explained for the convenience of the reader (what exactly is the feed? what exactly is a cursebreaker? who knows)

There's clearly a huge world full of culture and politics and history and we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg

Oddly specifically, there's a lot of different conflicting calendar systems (none of which are ever explained, obviously)

and finally, even more oddly specifically:

Chapter Four of Witch King 🤝 Chapter One of Network Effect Protagonist sneaks onto a boat and then beats up the people on it

[blood-starved-beast]

About

Cause apparently tumblr refuses to work them nowadays. So!

Name's Dee | Age: Adult; don't follow if you're < 18 years old | Multishipper but more specifically I ship (or don't) based on my own taste. | Blog is fandom centric.

I try to keep spoilers and trigger warnings (tw [insert trigger here]) tagged but I might goof up. Don't feel afraid to send an ask if I do.

Current Fandoms:

Bloodborne

Dungeon Meshi

Books of Raksura

the Shadow Campaigns

Arcane/League of Legends (Lore exclusive, not the MMO)

Hades II - spoilers tag is "hades II spoilers"

Past Fandoms/Fandoms I will talk about if Asked:

Legend of Zelda

Voltron: Legendary Defender (up to and excluding the final episode)

Avatar: the Last Airbender (includes LOK and Chronicles novels)

Queen's Thief series

Various book fandoms (feel free to ask me specifics/recs/questions)

This list is not all-inclusive. Feel free to ask.

Ask and Submission Policy

I'm open to asks! Just as long as they're appropiate. Submissions too but I avoid links cause of potentially spamware types.

If you send me spam or slurs or any inappropriate behavior you are getting blocked/reported on sight. I will not even dignify you with a response. This is your only warning.

I'm also an avid reader! Feel free to ask me about books especially wlw fantasy/scifi. I might have read it or at least come across it in my readings.

[captainsupernoodle]

parched rivers run by skadii - final fantasy VII, 9/10 chapters, 136k, zack/cloud

Zack laughs hysterically. “No, no, no. That’s not how this works. Didn’t you hear Jessie the other day? I die for you. Not the other way ‘round.” Zack lives. What next?

i don't think i've ever read a story where someone was SO enthusiastic about being in love as zack. kept me up way too late last night.

raksura core by oriflamme - final fantasy/books of the raksura crossover, series, around 130k words of the main series in complete fics

cloud as an isolated dragon person in a fantasy setting with complex dragon person social dynamics. being cloud, this gets complicated. masterlist and more info here

how river learned to stop worrying and love the moon also by oriflamme - books of the raksura, 18k, complete

Chime is, apparently, useless. No one else seems to notice or care that their first consort wears almost the exact same jewelry to every formal event. Really. It's been years. So River takes matters into his own hands.

tides don't turn by silentwalrus - ffvii, 20k, wip

It was all because of a stupid cow. Water buffalo. Whatever.

and we're gonna sing it again by procrastinatingbookworm - trigun, 5k oneshot

Wolfwood haunts the narrative — after his death, after it ends, and after a new story begins.

i'm gonna go ahead and rec all of procrastinatingbookworm's stuff for trigun fans, but the ghostwood au by shelternmberone is a SPECIAL treat. set in tristamp era with spoilers for trigun 98/the manga. other top favorites are terrors don't prey on innocent victims and will we ever grow a proper sense of panic

fool in the moon by arahir - trigun, 8k

Vash is a walking death wish. A race between self-sacrifice and skill, and in all Wolfwood’s shitty years on this shit-ass planet he’s never met a man with so much of each.

So maybe Vash taking a bullet to the head for him shouldn’t have been a surprise

[ashanimus]

Oh god. Well, most people say that Raksura lacks the polish of Murderbot and they're right, and I think that even she's said she'd have done some stuff differently--but as you say. Looking back on older work or adding stories to it, as she also has on a Patreon situation during Covid I think, these things are always a collaboration with the younger self.

Personally, I think matriarchal dragonshifters with their social soap opera and adventures on a biopunk star trek planet is just too awesome. The protagonist is such a bitch (affectionate) and I love him so so much. He and Storm would probably Dislike each other if they ever met, but there's themes of alienation in common there even if their journeys are VERY distinct.

I will caution that many of the themes in the Raksura stories involve sexual politics and sexual violence/its fallout in both metaphorical and literal ways--so if that is something that you will find upsetting, I would proceed with heavy caution. It also covers things like history, legacy, tradition and how its outgrown/maintained and why. There is a character in the series that I think Arcove would have a really interesting conversation with lol but for fear of spoilers I'll hold my peace for now.

For you specifically--and this is also where I started--for CJ Cherryh, I would suggest the Pride of Chanur. Imagine, if you will: a proud, middle-aged ship captain, still sharp but also Too Old For This Shit, finds her and her crew embroiled in a complex political mess because a human--a strange alien!--tried to stow away on their ship. And the people chasing him are enemies of her species (they call themselves Hani. They are matriarchal lion aliens).

Given how you have your own awesome sapient fantasy lions, I figure you may enjoy some sci fi lion aliens.

Cherryh is an amazing writer and I think her strongest skill is the epic empathy that generates the most immersive and intense point of view characters. Which is a good thing given her most famous works involve aliens. The work is quite dated now in that it's zeerust--you've got VHS tapes in space and such. But that lends it such a charm that of all her work, its the one I return to the most. She's also known for the Faded Sun trilogy. The Foreigner series I think is very dry and she can tend towards dryness but that type of comment of of course, a matter of tastes :3

Xenofiction Fans: Read Hunters Unlucky

Xenofiction fandom is really stagnant--I think that as impressive as some of the like, warrior cats and wings of fire animations I've seen out there are really impressive I really wish there were other titles that came to the attention of so many talented and energetic people! There's so much creative xeno out there, from the older titles that inspired modern ones, to the modern ones geared more towards adults like Abigail Hilton's "Hunters Unlucky" universe.

i especially like the latter because of how fannish they are, in the BEST way possible. It's one of the coolest combinations of technical skill, lush creativity and the fannish self indulgence that make me really really happy. Its a xenofictional epic with fantasy species and dense with complicated feelings, relationships and emotional processes that are IN the text rather than extrapolated from.

I also have found these books in particular challenging because things aren't drawn in terms of heavy black and white, and the conflict of old generation vs younger ones and the million little well meaning steps that it takes to get to a miserable status quo is REALLY fascinating.

I will add that while the title novel and the follow up are friendly for all that these books are significantly more adult in terms of the themes and content discussed usually described in the genre, especially lately. They're also quite a bit more explicitly LGBT, but perhaps not in the way one might think reading that sentence.

This is a bit of a crap review tbh and I'd like to do something a bit more thought out but I have a lot of feelings and really want people to experience something new, challenging and ultimately really inspiring. I've been turning these stories over in my head like rotisserie chickens.

[h0riz0nstuff]

I don’t know about other people, but Plainsong in particular and Utaru generally give me huge Raksura vibes, what with the strong communal living and the wood and rattan dwelling on giant dishes with giant trees on them, etc…

[walks-the-ages]

(major books of the raksura spoilers)

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Someone explain to me why is it that when Moon and Jade finally have kids. Moon is a father. They have literal infants.

But they don't matter. They barely exist. I can't even remember what their names are, or how many there are, or what type they are.

Why on earth do Raksura give live birth ? And like, okay, sure, Raksuran Queens don't give a fuck about their kids. Sure. Okay. But why don't we SEE more of Moon interacting with his kids instead of them just being this vague background motivation.

I usually don't care about "kid fic" but GOD DAMNIT i want to see Moon and his kids actually interacting

[rjalker]

like that’s just fucking unconciounably racist. Saying that Shade shouldn’t have kids because he’s mixed race and his kids might turn out to be evil.

The fact that Shade isn’t evil, and that Consolation isn’t evil, does not negate this absurd level of racism, especially because the only reason they aren’t evil is because they’re half Raksura.

Consolation, who is half Raksura, despite being a child, leads the rest of her flight who are fully Fell, even though there has to be at least one person there who’s older than her. And the only reason her flight isn’t evil is because, again, they are led by someone who isn’t fully Fell, so that’s why they’re not evil.

Because fuck the kethel and dakti from other flights even after it gets explicitly stated that they are being abused by the rulers and progenitors on a universal scale, I guess /s

They don’t get to kill their abusers and escape and be sympathetic because they’re Fell without being part Raksura, so no one cares about them.

Like, Consolation is great.

But why the hell is she leading them. She is a child. And a bunch of them are probably also children but you can’t expect me to believe she’s the oldest one there. I refuse to believe that.

Why are adult Fell following a half-Raksuran child. Why are we told that this is the only way they have morals.

Why couldn’t we see a 100% purely Fell flight that wasn’t fucking evil and abusive? Why couldn’t we see 100% purely fell dakti and kethel revolt and kill their fucking abusive families? You can’t fucking tell me every single ruler and progenitor is evil and abusive, because in that case the only option for the kethel and dakti if they want t stop being enslaved is to fucking kill them all and guess what that leads to???? the extinction of their species. Since rulers and progenitors are the only ones who can have kids.

it’s bullshit. It’s racist bullshit.

Species are not factions. And no, saying that only people who are half-Evil™-species are capable of morals is not a moral statement to make.

We should have seen Fell that weren’t fucking evil abusive bastards. We should have seen kethel and dakti who didn’t need a half-Raksuran savior to free them. We should have seen rulers and progenitors who were fighting back with the kethel and dakti against the abusive peices of shit running their flights.

[eminentsound]

I just assumed the names coincidentally didn't repeat among the book characters but there are lots of repeats elsewhere, especially between different colonies, which is why colony identification is so important.

Constantly imagined Jade with green scales though. That was a really weird choice of name for a main character with such a distinctive appearance. If she'd had a non-color name it would've been fine.

i've been reading Martha Wells's Books of the Raksura and an underrated aspect of warrior cats is how well the naming system worked, because I can't stop thinking about how unsustainable the Raksura naming system is and it's annoying me.

[sunderedstar]

@blitzlowin​ /cracks knuckles/ i do this for u. there is no order to this list, but here we go -

the jasmine throne - 2021, epic fantasy. fantastic. lesbeans. just gorgeous worldbuilding, and the main characters Priya and Malini are likeable and smart while they’re maneuvering around each other and the other moving pieces in a colonized country under the thumb of an empire that’s rapidly taking a turn towards war. the cover for book 2, the oleander sword, just dropped, and I’m dying.

-

the luminous dead - 2019, scifi/horror. lesbeans, with even more emphasis on the morally grey aspects this time. absolutely fucking terrifying - the threats in this alien caves are very real, stacked with the psychological tension of having someone above control the caving suit that keeps you alive while underground for weeks at a time and the economic pressures of being trapped on a dead-end planet, leaving you no choice but to keep delving deeper...and deeper... 

again, the worldbuilding is insane. I reread it periodically and can never get over how well-paced the beats are. this is the kind of merch you get:

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iron widow - 2021, scifi/fantasy. the bisexual poly love triangle we’ve all been screaming about. I describe it as an inverse Pacific Rim, but you won’t get why until pretty much the final pages. all three of these have had morally dubious protagonists but in iron widow Zetian GOES OFF AND WE LOVE HER FOR IT. she’s chaotic furious. she’s unhinged in the best way. “May he stay unsettled.” the author themselves has described this as accidentally furry Dragonball Z with giant Pacific Rim robots and monsters, essentially. I have absolutely no idea what will happen with book 2 but I know it’ll be balls-to-the-walls insane (complimentary).

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the outside - 2019, cosmic horror scifi. lesbeans. humanity is ruled by AI gods throughout the stars, the angels are cybernetic post-human cogs in a repressive machine, and Yasira accidentally makes a scientific leap that invites in a disruptive, heretical, reality warping presence that destroys a space station. things spiral out of control from there. the second book didn’t hit as well for me (mostly because mysteriously it was half the length it needed to be? it goes from a novel to a sequel novella almost, so not sure what happened there) but the outside is 9/10.

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the world gives way - 2021. scifi. you will cry. like that’s it, it’s a short little novel written entirely to gut you. that is all.

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murderbot - scifi. I feel like everyone by this point has heard about/read murderbot by this point, but the fact is I can’t in good conscious leave it off a rec list. there are six books, now, a mix of novellas and one full length novel about Murderbot, and Martha Wells (bless her for this and for the Books of the Raksura, her series full of bi poly shapeshifters) apparently has a contract to write at least three more murderbot books so we’re set for life basically. Ms Wells has never let me down ever, in her life -

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the darkangel trilogy - 1982-1990. scifi/fantasy, though you may not realize the scifi at work at first. 

okay. okay listen. listen. hear me out. you read the first book description. it sounds like a traditional dracula hetero set up. Aerial and her mistress are kidnapped by the darkangel. it has an almost fairy-tale kind of logic to the magic system. it ends with Aerial literally exchanging her heart with the darkangel’s to save his life, causing him to fall in love with her. 

meredith ann pierce then spends the next two books deconstructing the consequences of that choice, as Aerial finds herself more and more estranged from the rest of the humanity-adjacent people of her world - including the darkangel himself - and becoming a sorceress whether she wants to be or not, inextricably linked to the sci-fantasy workings that keep their world turning under the light of a [spoilers] COMPLETELY IRRADIATED EARTH. ultimately she has to make a choice to give the darkangel his own choice back, and take up a responsibility that will leave her cut off from her humanity entirely but for one person who stays with her to the very end. meredith ann pierce’s meld of scifi and fantasy is what I aspire to - the worldbuilding is so subtle at first that you don’t even realize what’s happening until it happens. 

(do I like to imagine it ends on a slightly lesbean note because of that last part? maybe so...)

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tgcf/heaven official’s blessing - 2017, now being published officially in English starting with book 1 in December this year. putting the g in LGBT. before, I could have linked to the free online English translation, but everything has been taken down since it was licensed officially for publication. Xie Lian ascended to godhood 800 years ago, and through a series of catastrophes and extremely traumatic events was banished, ascended again, got banished again in even more disgrace, and spent the rest of that time wandering the world, luckless and alone, until he finally...ascended again. but the evil and mysteries that plagued him 800 years ago haven’t gone away, either. (MXTX also did MDZS/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, the basis of the Untamed show.)

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 23 of 26

Title: Stories of the Raksura, Volume Two (2015)

Author: Martha Wells

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Adventure, Short Story Collection, Third-Person, LGBT Protagonist, Female Protagonist

Rating: 8/10 (note: this is an average)

Date Began: 8/30/2021

Date Finished: 9/8/2021

Stories of the Raksura, Volume Two is the second of two short story/novella collections that take place in the Books of the Raksura universe. As before, I recommend reading the original trilogy if you’re interested in this series— otherwise you will be pretty confused. You can check out my review of The Cloud Roads here. 

Of the two novellas and three short stories in this volume, my favorites were “The Dead City” and “The Dark Earth Below”, both of which got a 9/10 from me.

Individual ratings, content warnings, and minor series spoilers below the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Suicidal ideation, graphic violence, gore, death, parental disownment, childbirth.  

#1 - The Dead City (9/10)

Fleeing from the ruins of Saraseil, Moon attempts to process his trauma. After wandering aimlessly, he stumbles upon a small village troubled by a rash of strange disappearances. Moon resolves to uncover a mysterious threat and save the locals— but he must hide his true identity lest they turn on him.

He was tired of looking at dead groundlings, tired of feeling sorry for them. The Fell had hunted them through the streets of Saraseil, dug through the walls of their houses. There was a raw lump of emotion in his chest, boiling and expanding until it felt as if it was going to burst through his scales.

He wanted to make somebody else feel sorry.

This story really clicked with me; it’s more emotionally intense than many stories in this series. It’s also one of the few glimpses we get of Moon before discovering the Raksura, and the difference between this painfully lonely version of him and the version we get throughout the series is quite striking. Things gets better, Moon, I swear! The prose is also on point and very entertaining to read. I found the monsters in this story pretty creepy; basically a Three Worlds take on zombies.

Even so, I had trouble understanding why I liked this story so much, but then I realized— it’s a freaking Murderbot plot. Hyper competent, emotionally stunted loner stumbles upon a bunch of strangers in need, and decides they must help said strangers without being able to articulate why… all while hiding their secret identity. Cue a bunch of badass action scenes spliced together with emotionally charged self-reflection. This is in no way a criticism, because I LOVE that plot, and it’s kind of funny to see a Murderbot prototype in the Raksura universe.

#2 - Mimesis (8/10)

Jade is on a diplomatic mission with a small contingent of warriors. When one of the younger ones disappears, she searches the nearby forest to find him. But she soon discovers much more than she bargained for.  

Of course, the lesson might be that instead of the court losing one warrior it was about to lose a warrior and a sister queen, just because Jade didn’t want to look like a coward. And maybe a predator’s burrow wasn’t a good place for an inner debate about responsibility and leadership.

This is a very short story, about the length of a standard chapter. But I did enjoy it; it’s nice to have a story from Jade’s POV. The monster here is maybe the creepiest one in the series? I like how its whole deal ties into the title. Other than that, not a whole lot to say about this one.

#3 - Trading Lesson (7/10)

A group of wandering traders visit the Indigo Cloud colony tree. Moon notices one attempting to swindle a Raksura, and promptly puts a stop to it.

Moon’s attempt to appear innocent and only mildly interested was clearly failing, so he said, “I like amber fine. I don’t like traders that take advantage of people.” Iglen wasn’t obligated to play fairly. But Moon wasn’t obligated to let him get away with it, either.

If “Mimesis” seemed short, this one is really only a few pages long. It’s basically a slice-of-life scene at Indigo Cloud. It’s some fun bonus content if you want to see a fragment of daily life among the Raksura, but not much else.

#4 - The Almost Last Voyage of the Wind-Ship Escarpment (8/10)

Jai is the captain of a small wind-ship with a tight-knit crew. Their newest member is a young man named Flaren, recently disowned and left for dead by his family. Jai feels an especially strong kinship with him— but when Flaren’s father offers her crew a job to deliver ransom in an active hostage situation, Flaren sees it as an opportunity to regain favor with his family.

Not only would they be rescuing people who were badly in need of rescuing, stuck-up Issilan nobles though they were, but the rest of the payment Canon Hain had promised was so large they couldn’t afford to pass it up. “The pirates want their ransom, we want their hostages and our payment for freeing them. If it goes well, everyone gets what they want.”

Everyone nodded, reassured, and Jai felt the tension ease. Then Shiri had to say darkly, “You hope that’s all they want.”

Honestly, I’ve always wanted to see a story that takes place in the Three Worlds, but doesn’t have anything to do with the Raksura. This is one such story, and I found it entertaining! I liked the themes of found family— specifically that love shouldn’t be conditional. It’s a cute story with some good action scenes.

#5 - The Dark Earth Below (9/10)

Jade is pregnant and close to giving birth, sending Moon into an anxious spiral. At the worst possible time, the Indigo Cloud colony finds itself the target of trouble. A small party of groundling explorers are found poisoned and near death along the forest floor. Moon finds both himself and the colony stalked by an invisible threat; but figuring out what it is and what it wants proves to be a challenge.

Stone growled and rubbed his face in frustration. Moon sympathized. He added, “I know, this doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes sense,” Stone countered. “We just don’t know why yet.”

This novella is the longest story in this collection; roughly half the book. “The Dark Earth Below” feels different than many Raksura stories. It’s a mix of domestic everyday life and a tense suspense plot. These might seem contradictory, but it totally works. It’s nice to see Moon and Jade interact as a bickering couple, a dimension of their relationship we don’t see much of in the main series. There’s some major catharsis seeing Moon at a point where he’s finally happy, a far cry from his character in “The Dead City”. At the same time, the suspense story (plus creepy monster; a running theme of this collection) is gripping. There’s something about an invisible threat stalking the main characters that really gets to me— and its final reveal sure is something.

Closing Thoughts

I ended up liking this collection a little more than the first one! These anthologies are great for anyone looking for more Raksura content after reading the main series. But I can’t recommend them if you’re not already familiar with at least the original trilogy. If you do end up reading the Raksura books, let me know what you think!