#Seanan McGuire

[ingridverse]

I love these books so much. I've lost count of the number of times I've reread them

I won’t be the only person in this hellsite who is obsessed over horror killer mermaid stories and then constantly die inside when not only there is a severe lack of that sub genre, but also when amongst those few these two mfs are one of the few ones that actually have good compelling stories, and I’ll make sure of that!

[smallgodseries]

They weave his earthly incarnations out of sticks and straw, erecting them as monuments to the harvest, as bulwarks against the closing cold.  They build him because they can, because they are compelled to do so, because they remember, on some deep and binding level, that it’s the sticks and straw and tinder or it’s beans in the bread and blood on the snow.

Sometimes it is both.  We still require our temporary kings if we want the sun to remember how to rise.  Some rituals are old even before they begin; some patterns must repeat, over and over, until time itself unwinds into dust and shadow.

So they weave him, year on year, and they stand him in the city square, and they set guards against the inevitable.  Look at him, they argue, look at his greatness, look at his glory.  Look at the way he stands, golden against the winter sky.  Surely we owe him our protection.  Surely he should be preserved.  Surely that will keep us from the cold.

They forget to consult with the divine.  They forget to ask the god they tend with such devotion what he wants.

The god wants to burn.

Spring is not only the turning of the year; it is the restoration of hope, the dawning of a new chance to be better than we have been, and hope is bought with sacrifice.  With blood on the snow, or fire in the straw.  He wants better for us, he wants us to burn brightly, and so he yearns for the flame.  When released from his temporary embodiments, he carries the darkness and debris of the dying year out of the world with him, and leaves us renewed, restored, ready to be more than we have been.

Weave him well, thank him for his service, and allow him to burn.

That is how we worship.  That is how we serve.

That is how we bring back the sun.

[whoreadsbooksanymore]

Seeing a marburg virus outbreak in 2024 on the heels of a global coronavirus pandemic reminds me of reading a seanan mcguire interview in 2012ish where she discussed how our societal approach to quarantine is a joke & the individual desire for freedom & autonomy over safety gets people killed. I have to wonder what going through the early '20s as someone well educated in viral mutations and infection vectors must've been like. Prophets screaming from a crumbling parapet

[yeehawpim]

[key-the-kitty]

Ha haha

haa!!!!

You really need to read the rest

Hey, so, have you read Feed and all the Newsflesh books by Mira Grant (aka @seananmcguire)? They're fantastic and I love them and I totally had my heart ripped out and cried several times so much fun! Highly recommended!

[chitaqua-toast]

[text-id, in Bugs Bunny in formal-wear meme format, a Mari Llywd which is a horse skull worn with a flower crown and various colorful streamers, with text with font-flourishes pasted in:

i wish all

People Who Have Houses

a very

LET ME IN

/end text-id]

(Thank you @rfpreiwaphase for writing out the id!)

[hellchilde]

seanan mcguire writing Feed in 2010: there was a presidential election, and a perfectly normal and reasonable human was running against the personification of evil

me in 2010: i dunno that seems like a caricature, surely that would never happen

me in 2024: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[nzbookwyrm]

January 2025

[aquaticintrepid]

my book tattoos! The bells of the Abhorsen from Garth Nix's series and a doorway from Seanan McGuire's Wayward children

[hellcourt-v]

Family portrait

[marmotsomsierost]

Quentin, buddy, you are in the wrong book series.

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

[smallgodseries]

“It all started with a mouse,” that’s what they like to say, over and over again, like it’s somehow impressive.  You know what else started with a mouse?  A hell of a lot of hantavirus, that’s what.  You have mice, you generally call an exterminator, that’s all I’m saying.  But it won’t do you a lot of good, because the mice will get in anyway.  Or get out. Can’t keep mice in cages forever.�� That’s not what mice were made for.

Still, they tried like hell, didn’t they?  They changed the rules so many times we pretty much had to throw out the whole rulebook and start over with a new one.  Commandment one: Thou shalt let us do whatever we want, because we’re always right, and if you disagree with us, you’re wrong.  That’s how you lock in the result you want.  You cheat.

Oh, they cheated.  Go ahead and say they did everything legally, but if you have two mice and one maze, and say the rules are the same for both of then, then lay a trail of spray cheese between one mouse and the finish line, while the other has to run it the ordinary way, well, that’s cheating whether or not there’s a rule against it.  Ask any first grader.  That’s the real trick: if a first grader knows you cheated, you’re not even being subtle about it.

They didn’t use spray cheese, of course.  They used money.  And they weren’t racing mice, they were racing legal arguments.  Money votes.  Anyone who tries to say otherwise just doesn’t have any money.

But it all started with a mouse, and from there, it evolved—or devolved—into corruption, greed, and the desperate need to keep being the only people who could solve the maze.  They got so busy changing the rules that they forgot the one rule they couldn’t change.  The rule they should have remembered.  The first rule of mice:

Can’t keep them out.  And that means you can’t keep them in, either.

Everything crumbles.  Every mouse gets out.  And every story yearns to be free.  So tell me, now that you know it all started with a mouse, how are you going to write the ending?  I belong to you now, after all, as much as I belong to anyone.

But most of all, I belong to me.

********************************

For more information on Mickey Mouse entering public domain: https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/mickey-mouse-public-domain-disney-copyright-lawsuits-1235844322/

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 2

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children series)

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children No Solicitations No Visitors No Guests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

No matter the cost.

Fantasy, portal fantasy, mystery, magical realism, boarding school, novella, series, adult

Imperial Radch series (Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Mercy, Provenance, Translation State, and other stories) by Ann Leckie

Endorsement from submitter: "Breq/Justice of Toren is a ship AI and doesn't have a gender. The Radchaai language only has one pronoun for people, so (almost) everyone in the empire is she/her, to the point that they're infamous for failing to correctly guess which pronoun to use with outsiders."

On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.

Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.

Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.

Science fiction, space opera, far future, series, adult

[the-dragongirl]

@andthentheresanne and I decided that the best idea was to donate blood as a pair of blood workers - specifically as Toby Daye and Eira Rosynhwyr from @seananmcguire's October Daye novels.

[linovadraws]

Greg is a registered service animal!