#Sound of Tor

[torpublishinggroup]

We are so excited to announce we are rebranding! 

🍨 Welcome to our Ice Cream ParTOR 🍨

Flavors:

💧 Tears of Our Enemies: best served cold, obvi

🐉 Dragon Fire: as spicy as some of our books

🍄 Goblin: tastes like mischief, mushrooms, and questionable life choices

😈 Eldritch horror: the screams only make it tastier

🎁 Holiday Surprise: is it eggnog? Chocolate? Mashed potatoes? You’ll never know until it’s in your mouth 

🌈 Space is Gay Rainbow Swirl: all the colors of the galaxy, with glitter that’s (probably not) FDA approved

All ice cream comes in a cup or unicorn horn.

Enjoy xo

[adamfanti11i]

obsessed with our 5 20+ goal scorers being four forwards that are max 24yo and our top defenseman actually

[the-labyrinth-of-me]

(Alan Wake jingle plays in the background)

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: THE NIGHT GUEST by Hildur Knútsdóttir.

Sticking with the insomnia-flavored tiny horror theme (and also, apparently, the Deeply Fucked Up Bright Pink Books Published By Tor theme *side eyes JUST LIKE HOME*).

I watched (Zoomed) a conversation between Mary Robinette Kowal and Hildur on the day the book came out, and it was really interesting! Plus I am SO susceptible to Buying Books Impulsively Because I Think The Author Is Neat (*other side eyes unintentional Columbus Book Festival haul*), so I picked up a copy when Bookshop did a coupon for it.

I'm only a few chapters in, but so far I'm very intrigued! It's starting as a tense little mystery about Why Is She Always Exhausted When She Wakes Up and so far medical professionals have Found Nothing Wrong, which she knows is bullshit but can't solve (the exhaustion and the resignation about it are uh. too real. it's a very real book). The suspense and the tension are already ratcheting up, and the chapters are very bite-size and readable! Will report back a final verdict when I'm done!!

(Side note: it comes with apparently a massive content warning re: animal death/harm, which, per the Zoom conversation, does not fuck up Icelandic readers like it tends to fuck up American readers?? Specifics are all over Goodreads, so check there first if that's a heads up you need!)

[lightofunova]

[empresskaze]

my brain when trying to write anything lately...

[tyrannuspitch]

oh no the fun symbolism in that edit that just came out of my queue is not linguistically accurate :(

that's a T-rune not a TH-rune, so it doesn't matter than the L-rune is a T-rune with a missing piece. because his name is thor not tor :(

but! potentially you could still argue that a TH-rune (ᚦ) is two L-runes (ᛚ) put together, with one mirrored along the vertical axis... like so:

which could maybe mean something about... shadows? reflections? halves? loki as a defective version of thor, but thor's sense of identity inherently incorporating loki? loki being lonely and severed from thor? idk it's less obvious and therefore harder to interpret. but it IS linguistically accurate. whenever you need someone to make your symbolism worse and more contrived just give me a call 👍

[elfroot-and-laurels-moved]

sending you “The terrible fire of old regret is honey on my tongue” for Lathuilas 👀

Jay HOW did you read my mind bc I've been thinking about Lathuilas and Narmeleth like nonstop. Also on AO3.

                Narmeleth. Here, alive, imprisoned. Within her mind, and within these walls. Sithad—for that was the name by which Lathuilas knew the place—stood still, but Narmeleth had passed long hence, and Lathuilas cursed the stones that had failed to hold her. No, no—not the stones, but those who had watched her. Her father, her jailer, her mentor, her tempter: Laerdan, Oakheart, Celebrimbor, Antheron. Annatar.                 Sauron.                 Alone in this place now called Delossad, the place of abhorrence, Lathuilas turned to a rusted brazier and rushed it with pointless rage. Piece by piece every loose remnant of her beloved’s imprisonment fell to her hands and her sword. Each rotted corpse of furniture, each crumbling hint of debris: all of it she thrashed, dashing it upon the ground, the walls, the ceiling.

                It was, in its own way, a pleasing draught, warm and heady as Miruvor and yet thrice as bitter. And it would not return Narmeleth to her side, nor would it chase the shadows from her mind.                 “Adarthêl.” Scarce had Lathuilas heard Dúventoliel’s footfalls as she approached, but now the young healer stood in the hall. Her eyes shone in the dim light, and they were those of her father. Lathuilas closed her own eyes and turned away her face in shame.                 “Tôriell.” How long had the girl cared for her father’s sister as she slept? Lathuilas could never know. She had been unaware, lost in dreams. Lost in nightmares.                 “We have driven off the Angmarim sent by Mordrambor.” Further shame, for Lathuilas heard the hatred in the voice of her brother’s daughter. She heard the hatred and knew that she had failed him.                 “You would seek to face the foul Númenórean himself.” The words were observation and accusation both, and they made Dúventoliel set her jaw. Fire flashed in the green beryls of her eyes, and for a moment more, she stood as the image of Findolag, her father. Then the rage was hidden, snuffed out but not gone, and she turned to the plain ring that adorned her finger.                 “I would find justice for those whom he has taken.” Lathuilas knew she spoke of the Dûnadan, and her heart ached once more, for how could she deny her brother’s daughter that which she so craved? How could Lathuilas deny Dúventoliel in this, the most precious of things? And yet: how could she not?                 “It is not justice you seek, child. It is the fire of vengeance, and it shall destroy you, as all fire does.” Lathuilas did not look at Dúventoliel as she spoke. There was no need.                 “Then we shall be destroyed together, Adarthêl.” Closing her eyes, Lathuilas turned away from Dúventoliel’s retreating form. She faced once more the darkness of Narmeleth’s cell, and she let the sweet fire burn through her, as she had done since that day in the holly glade so long past.                 For Dúventoliel was right: Lathuilas had burned slowly since the moment Narmeleth had left her side. In the shadows of Delossad, Lathuilas still burned, and that fire was all that kept her alive.

[hearty-an0n]

toronto royals locking in my guess

[pulquedeguayaba]

Obsessed with this review in Spanish of Tor Bormann-Larsen's biography on Amundsen.

Basically it goes like this:

"God, it took me months to finish this book!!! Not because it was badly written. I think it's the most objective biography of this gentleman who called himself a polar adventurer just for having the title. An immature dude that, besides having delusions of grandeur, fancied himself the one and best polar explorer. The way this guy was able to sell his ideas and get people to sponsor all his enterprises that he believed had exclusive rights to left me with a bitter taste. He betrayed his mentors, friends, and family. He did all sorts of scams. Only hooking up with married women. Nowadays, no one would pay for even his bus ticket. In the end, he tries to play victim once again, dragging with him 5 more people. A clown till the end. This is nothing but a reminder that how a person, aside from the glory, fame and the capitalization of such a significant enterprise as scientific exploration, isn't better than a regular person that leads a quiet life contributing to society. They all hide their skeletons in their closet. But this guy, I can conclude, while he had the ability to survive the polar weather, for activities as equally as complex, like human relationships and science, was fucking useless. I have had enough of this wanker...a fucking disappointment".

It's so rare to come across reviews of polar exploration books in Spanish cos most of them aren't translated* so really caught my eye. Also she shits on Roald SO hard but still gives the book a 4 star review 😆

*More than willing and able to fill that gap btw 🙋

[avvidstarion]

new tav they're a tempest domain cleric of talos and i can't choose between two names. do they look more like a torrent or a cataclysm to you? right now they are cataclysm but i can always change it. My thought process for each name is in the tags

[brightbeautifulthings]

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

"None of this stuff really works, I know that, deep down. It's just a way of putting a tiny drop of your will into the great black ocean of the universe. Sometimes it's just too hard to lose what you love."

Year Read: 2023

Rating: 2/5

About: Two summers in a row, Wilder Harlow and his friends enjoy the freedom of boating, games, and beaches at Looking Glass Sound, but when the second ends in a town tragedy, the three of them are changed forever. Now a middle-aged man, Wilder returns to Looking Glass Sound to write his final memoir before his suicide-- the story that was stolen from him in college and sold as a best-selling novel. But the longer Wilder stays in the town, the more his grip on memory and reality begin to weaken, until he begins to suspect he may be haunted by the characters in the story. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Tor Nightfire. Trigger warnings: character death, suicidal ideation, body horror (graphic), torture/captivity mentions, poisoning, drowning, abortion, anxiety/panic attacks, internalized homophobia.

Thoughts: This started off so strong and then descended into absurdity. I really enjoyed the beginning story of the three friends and the chilling town murders and, to be perfectly honest, I think this by itself would have made a better novel. Had Ward spent more time developing these beginning relationships, dropping clues, and building up to the reveal, it would have been a more than adequate murder mystery story with a twist that, if not shocking, at least would have been heartfelt (and terrifying). The characters aren't particularly likeable, but at that age they are, at least, compelling in a way that drifts off when they get older and continue to be horrible.

Instead, Ward seems more focused on repeating the same kind of twisty mindfuck from The Last House on Needless Street instead of just… telling a good story. The thing is that not every story needs to be told that way. She seems to be playing around with metafiction here with the shifting perspectives and multiple retellings from different angles. There's an entire section that repeats the first part as a "novelization" with different characters that's downright tedious to read. Like a lot of metafiction where form doesn't follow function, it ends up feeling gimmicky and pointless. I like the end concept okay as a concept, but it comes so late in the book that it doesn't even feel real, let alone like it has any basis for being there. It ultimately ends up feeling like two very different books smashed together, and it does neither of them justice. Looking Glass Sound sacrifices good storytelling for the sake of cleverness without ever actually being that clever.

[squidsquadlove]

side by side PWHL OTT-MIN and BOS-TOR let's gooooooo

[wetdeadroses]

i want to be done at work already so i can play on my computer and make fictional characters kiss me in my head

[light-wrath-paradise]

Oh I can't wait for you to read about the things Erek does towards the end of the series. I'm sure your callout posts will be legendary

My hatred for Erek is already so catastrophic I had to write a wholeass song about it to let off some steam. After reading this ask I can only assume that I will write at least 3 more songs.