#THE CORMORANTS would have been fantastic

[dormarunt]

If there is a second season maybe Palermo/The Professor will appear

Anon from your lips fingers to Pina, Alvaro Morte and Rodrigo de la Serna's ears. I would love nothing else, not even going to lie.

🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️🕯️

🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️Berlermo and Hermanos🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️

🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️🕯️in Berlin season two🕯️ 🕯️🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️

🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️🕯️

If it gets renewed, everyone is available and willing AND Pina makes a fantastic heist show like he did with the first season(s) of LCdP it would be amazing.

[barebevil]

I'll start with my pitch. This is a full soliloquy that i break out into whenever i talk to someone who shows just the barest modicum of interest in reading the book. I'm a great conversationalist don't worry about it. THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT IS A BOOK ABOUT BARU CORMORANT. When baru is a child her home is subject to foreign imperial expansion, by means of economics and education, she is discovered by an agent of this empire to be a math genius and is enrolled in an imperial school where she makes it her mission to prove herself an impress the powers that be in order to earn a favorable position and climb the hierarchy of power within the empire, for you see she means to behold the very machinations of the imperial machine. and she means to burn it all down from the inside. but in order to do so, to climb, to impress, she has to compromise everything about herself. she cant have personal values, personal relationships, morals, and no goals but this one: more power and more influence. She cannot be herself or she will doom herself and everything she's already sacrificed will have been for naught. (At this point is when I'll usually pivot and say the following--) I've cried over a book before, I've been moved to tears by books before, sometimes because something is sad, or it is joyous, whatever. i've cried over books before is the point, and i thought, as i was nearing the end of THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT that perhaps this would be such an instance. I thought, and no spoilies but, well, i was in the final stretch and thought that probably the end might make me cry. Reader it did not. Have you ever read something that was so viscerally upsetting that you skipping right past crying and went straight to nausea? because that's what happened to me. Not one tear, but a single sentence made me feel like i was genuinely going to throw up. Fuck this book is so fucking good. I really thought i might throw up thats how sad and upset i was. and it was PERFECT. What happened was exactly what needed to happen. Again, no spoilies but oh my god. Nauseous. AND THAT'S JUST THE FIRST BOOK. We then follow Baru as she achieves every single one of her goals, and goes more insane in the process. With every victory she destroys herself more, with every sacrifice she curries more favor. And she only becomes more insane and more horny. And now you may ask yourself, what does horny have to do with it? EVERYTHING. The higher she climbs, the more she injures and destroys and compromises herself, the more separation she creates between her mind and her body, the more removed she becomes from herself, the harder it becomes to unify the two, to satisfy any carnal need, harder to do as much as identify her own desires much less realize them. She loses herself, she wins, she loses more, she wins more.

The most common criticism i've seen online of the first book in the serious is that it's boring. First of all get better soon. second of all, YES Baru is an accountant she deals a lot in economic policy and money and numbers but oh my god its THRILLINGGGGG. I happen to find math quite romantic and poetic and I know that's not everyone's bag, but when in book 2 a whole page is dedicated to the description of one mathematical axiom as a metaphor for a situation Baru is trying to deal with, here i WAS almost moved to tears. It's such a good book.

Oh and did I mention? (I did not) The characters are all fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. It's wall to wall fucking hits, Seth Dickinson my close personal friend Seth Dickinson oh my god your mind your mind!!!!!!!!!!!

[bonni]

Closing thoughts on The Traitor Baru Cormorant

I love when a book is good enough to make me passionate about reading again.

First, the ending. When I was at around chapter 20 I made a post that was like "oh I think Baru will probably betray the rebellion but I'm not sure" but honestly if I was a more careful reader I would have already been sure at that point, and within another 2 or 3 chapters I understood that there was no alternative, nothing else that the narrative could be implying with the constant references to some great guarded secret and Baru's nervous fixation on red hair. The foreshadowing is certainly not subtle, but it doesn’t need to be. I don't think that Seth Dickinson set out with the intention of surprising the reader with Baru's betrayal, instead it's supposed to be something that we're constantly aware of, that we know is coming, but that only becomes obvious in the briefest moments, because the narration reflects Baru's own mental state. It's not that her betrayal is a shock, the signs are everywhere, but she only openly acknowledges them in moments of internal strife, and never states her intentions outright, because in order to deceive others, she must also deceive herself. It's a really clever narrative tactic and it's rewarding to careful readers.

The epilogue, on the other hand, was a bit surprising to me (in a good way). I guess it shouldn't have been, but I kind of figured Tain Hu and Xate Olake would stay missing and come back at a climactic moment in a later book to punish Baru for the mercy she showed them and stir turmoil in her heart. Instead, it seems her turmoil will be entirely self-inflicted. I really like the choice to give Baru hemianopsia, it's a condition that we don't see a lot in fiction and the way it's used to represent the divide in her heart is really interesting.

Onto more general praise, this book is incredibly gripping. Combat scenes in books are often boring, but the imagery in these ones are so rich. Tain Hu's duel against Cattlson, the bombing of the tax ships, the final battle at the Inirein, all fantastic.

Tain Hu's death is cathartic. It works really well. It's devastating, of course, but that's what makes character death meaningful. Muire Lo's death was also necessary for Baru's character, but in a way that made me a lot more depressed. Tain Hu got closure, but Muire Lo didn't, which makes his death infinitely sadder. I'm not criticizing the writing choice, it just kind of bums me out. I liked him a lot as a character.

Xate Yawa was evidently too interesting as a foil to Baru to get rid of. I'm excited to see more of her, she's such an interesting character in that she's utterly despicable which says a lot about our protagonist considering how blatantly similar they are.

Baru's closing letter emphasizes Xate Olake's death, but... this guy has faked his death what, 3 times now? It would be cool to see him return at some point, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking. He had become one of my favorite characters by the end of the book.

[alex51324]

Summer vacation 2024, Nockamixon State Park, part 3: Aquatic adventures!

After Chloe left, Sophie and I had a quiet day, and then on Monday we went out for some adventures, starting with a stop at the scenic spillway overlook:

This is where the water drains out when the lake gets high, but since it's been so hot and dry, there isn't much happening.

(This lake, like most Pennsylvania state park lakes, was created by damming up a stream. The founding goal of the Pennsylvania state park system was for every Pennsylvanian to have a state park within 25 miles--almost a century on, this goal still hasn't quite been achieved, but it's close! So, while we do have a few parks that were centered around unique places of intrinsic natural beauty, a lot of them were simply chosen for being conveniently located and having good potential to be developed for conservation and recreation. A lot of them are places that were unproductive for farming, and/or had been subject to extensive resource-extraction, especially timbering, so they required extensive ecological restoration, in addition to building park features. Some people are disparaging about our "fake lakes," but honestly, I think it's rather splendid, both in intention and result.)

Anyway, after the overlook, we walked the park's paved trail, which goes along one side of the lake and to a small waterfall. You can take a little detour out onto the fishing pier, which has stunning views of the lake:

(On the July 4 holiday--of which more, anon--this section of the park was packed. This is one of the parks nearest to Philadelphia, so a lot of people and families came out for the day.)

Here's the waterfall:

And a sign about it:

A wider view, showing more of the stone wall:

After that, it was back to the cabin for a campfire!

Tuesday, we got up early for a special adventure:

Kayaking! The previous day, I had tried to sign up for the local park's free kayaking program, again, and got wait-listed (even though it had just opened for registration that day), so I decided I'd just watch some how-to videos and try it on my own. Luckily, the temperature really dropped overnight, Monday into Tuesday, so it was cool enough for Sophie to hang out by herself in the car for a bit, as long as I got there first thing when the rental stand opened.

(Note: Sophie is very chill about being in the car; I clip her harness to the seatbelt and open all four windows the whole way, and make sure she has a big bowl of water in reach. This would not work with every dog.)

Anyway, kayaking was fantastic; I'm already planning to go again at the local lake, once the current heat wave is over. I mostly noodled around close to the rental area:

But the kayak felt very stable--I canoed a little as a kid, and I was really surprised to find that the kayak was less "tippy." It was also very easy to paddle; I expected I'd be super-sore the next day, but I wasn't.

This lake is long and narrow, so there was a lot of shoreline to explore. I think this is about as far out as I got:

Here are some cormorants that like to sit on these big floats near the boat rental stand:

One more kayaking picture:

So if anyone out there's been thinking about trying kayaking--do it! If I--with my noodle arms, aversion to physical danger, and general lack of athleticism--can do it and enjoy it, you probably can, too!

After the kayak adventure, we took a drive down to a nearby town with some interesting shops--Doylestown, it's called. It has three bookstores, a rarity in these days, and a found a parking spot in the shade, so Sophie could hang out while I popped in (and checked on her between shops). After that we took a nice walk around the town, looking in windows (me) and collecting pats from strangers (Sophie).

Back to the cabin for another campfire--I'm going to do a food post next, because I made a lot of interesting campfire dinners--and then a night walk down to the wading spot at the lake:

My phone camera is not especially good for low-light conditions, but this turned out sort of atmospheric, I think.

Wednesday we took a hike, through an area with lots of berry bushes and lake views:

It was pretty hot, but a gorgeous day:

Then a campfire and a sunset walk to the lake:

Thursday was the July 4 holiday, which in Pennsylvania is always a Free Fishing Day, when you don't need a license to fish on state waters, and the park had fishing equipment to borrow, so I picked some up, and we went back to the fishing pier! Luckily, even though there were a lot of people, we got a spot. And I caught some fish!

This was actually my second fish; I caught one almost as soon as I put the hook in the water, and I Was Not Prepared, so I just put it back right away.

After that I got a bucket out of the car and filled it with lake water, so I could appreciate my fish for a little longer:

This guy jumped out of the bucket and escaped, but after that I covered the top of the bucket with my fish identification brochure, and ended up with four in the bucket!

So, I may have caught six fish, or four and two of them twice. (I identified two different kinds, green sunfish and bluegill, but within each type they all looked pretty similar.) I fished for a bit over an hour, then put the fish back and gave the spot to somebody else. We walked around a bit, and checked out a few areas of the park; somewhere or other--I think it was the boat launch area where we had lunch, but it might have been at the fishing pier, or somewhere else, we saw this cool boat!

It's all wood; the guy said his uncle had it made in Canada.

Once we'd had enough of the crowds, we went to a spot called John's Pond, which is one of those where you park on the shoulder of the road and walk in a little ways. I thought I'd try fishing a little there:

I caught one more little fish in there--and a lot of seaweed, and lost most of the hooks they gave me.

So I went to the Marina and bought some more--they have a vending machine--and we tried the fishing pier there. This one had no shade, but luckily, we had stopped at a yard sale earlier:

This beach umbrella was only $1, and I've already gotten my money's worth out of it! It was kind of baking on that pier, and I wasn't catching anything, so we packed it in and went back to the cabin. I had been going to walk down to the wading spot and see if I could see any fireworks there--town 4 miles away in the direction you're looking in that spot was having them--but just as it was getting dark it started to pour. So instead we sat on the porch and watched the rain for a bit, then went in to start packing up before our last night at the cabin.

The morning was hazy and hot, but on our way out we made a last stop at the wading spot:

And that was our trip! Another good one, even with the weird incident at the beginning.

[moniquill]

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/706010/to-shape-a-dragons-breath-by-moniquill-blackgoose/

“To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose is an early contender for the best fantasy novel of 2023. It’s one of those books that you have to thrust into the hands of everyone you know, just so you’ll have people to talk about it with. An Indigenous girl, Anequs, finds an egg, which hatches to produce a dragon that’s bonded to her — but according to the laws of the Anglish, who’ve colonized this alternate version of North America, Anequs must go to a special school to learn to control her baby dragon. If she fails her classes, her dragon, Kasaqua, will be slaughtered. What follows is reminiscent of R.F. Kuang’s “Babel”: Anequs is one of two Indigenous people at an elite school full of colonizers, who expect her to assimilate to their more “civilized” mores — but Anequs resists any suggestion that her own people’s knowledge or culture is inferior. Blackgoose’s worldbuilding is rich and fascinating, from the Norse-inspired Anglish culture, to the complex layers of Anequs’s society on Naquipaug island, to the alchemical properties of dragons’ exhalations. But what makes “Dragon’s Breath” such an absorbing read is Anequs herself: clever, resourceful, generous and uncompromising in the face of colonial condescension. This novel has garden parties and classroom scenes that are more suspenseful than most books’ epic battles.”

—The Washington Post

“[To Shape A Dragon’s Breath] has strong The Traitor Baru Cormorant vibes… it will reshape epic fantasy itself, in addition to the breath of a dragon.”

—LitHub

“To Shape a Dragon’s Breath is a remarkable novel that is bound to be a staple of fantasy shelves for years to come.”

—BuzzFeed

“Tender, thrilling and brimming with fire, this indigenous dragon story is one of the more exciting books I’ve had the pleasure of reading recently.”

—In Between Drafts

“Throughout the book, Blackgoose digs up the older roots of fantasy and plants new life with original ideas… a daring, entirely hot, take on dragonriders and worldbuilding… To Shape a Dragon’s Breath is one blazing epic gulp of a fantastic tale. Queer, anticolonialist, and full of dragons. Moniquill Blackgoose’s writing is easy to love: cutthroat, smooth, and reminds me of a story being told over an open fire.”

—Grimdark Magazine

“This is a classic fantasy at its finest, in which a young, underestimated outcast is introduced to a magical boarding school and all the friendships, drama, prejudice, and romance that immersion entails. The indigenous quest to maintain culture and identity within a paralyzingly restrictive imperialism determined to stamp out natives and their beliefs, and Anequs’ stubborn will to remain herself, create a fresh take on this setup and make this a must-read high-fantasy series. Blackgoose's focus on how storytelling and myth influence our culture and worldviews is also compelling. The relationships are exciting, the queer and polyamorous representation appealing, and it’s easy to fall hard for Anequs, her world, and her love for her dragon.”

—Booklist, STARRED review

“Dragons are never out of style, but To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose is set to explore them in a way that feels incredibly fresh and intriguing in this indigenous-inspired fantasy novel.”

—Fansided

“Moniquill Blackgoose combines dragon mythology with sharp commentary on colonization and the struggles of indigenous populations in "To Shape a Dragon's Breath."

—PopSugar

“The fantasy and wonder of To Shape a Dragon’s Breath started immediately. But it didn’t feel like I was thrown into the story; more like I was joining characters and a world that existed without me. To Shape a Dragon’s Breath didn’t feel like there was an on-ramp to the world or culture. It would have been difficult in many books, but Blackgoose crafted a deep culture, society, and world that felt engaging to follow.”

—Lightspeed Magazine

“Blackgoose blends Indigenous history with fantastical beasts, taking themes of inequality and social agency in new directions. An excellent crossover novel for adults and young adults alike.”

—Library Journal

“Between the social commentary (couched in the fantasy world setting), the action, and detailed world-building, there’s a lot to love. It’s an engrossing story/world, and having the Indigenous perspective makes it hit all the harder.”

—Cinelinx

“To Shape a Dragon’s Breath has so many things going for it. It centers on a queer, poly, Indigenous character, dragon-riding and a boarding school setting. With a focus on dismantling colonialism and taking back heritage, what more could you ask for in a young adult fantasy?”

—Geek Girl Authority

“Incredible.”

—BookRiot

“Brilliant.”

—The Nerd Daily

“A fantastic world with wonderful characters, dragons, and places to explore.”

—Girl Who Reads

NATIONAL PRINT

Washington Post—review—5/8

Locus—review—May 2023 issue

Booklist—STARRED review—4/15

Lightspeed Magazine—review—December 2022 issue

Library Journal—what to read in 2023—2/7

Library Journal—review—1/30

Publishers Weekly—forthcoming books by indigenous authors—1/20

Booklist—series starters spotlight—1/1

Library Journal—SFF preview 2023—11/1

ONLINE

Cinelinx—5 new books—5/9

Geek Girl Authority—new books roundup—5/9

BookRiot—new releases today—5/9

Girl Who Reads—8 new Fantasy Novels—5/9

BuzzFeed—most anticipated of spring—3/14

PopSugar—new fantasy to read in May—4/25

Fangirlish—10 LGBTQ books coming out in May—5/7

Grimdark Magazine—review—2/3

The Lesbrary—sapphic May books—5/6

Fansided—new SFF in May—5/6

Fantasy Book Café—most anticipated books of May—5/7

The Nerd daily—new May books—5/4

Ms Magazine—best new May books—5/3

io9—new May books—5/1

Tor.com—new fantasy in May—5/1

In Between Drafts—best of May—5/1

BookRiot—best of May—5/1

LitHub—Dragons, Decolonization, and More: May’s best SFF—5/1

Distractify—best of May—4/26

American Booksellers Association—Q&A—4/26

Yahoo—best of spring—3/14

Ms Magazine—most anticipated books of 2023—1/25

Reads Rainbow—most anticipated—1/25

Tor.com—most anticipated—1/18

PopSugar—most anticipated books of 2023—1/25

Geek Girl Authority—most anticipated—1/2

BookRiot—SFF debuts to watch for—12/29

Lightspeed Mag—review—12/8

LOCAL MEDIA

Arlington Magazine—best new books of May—5/1

Galesburg Public Library Blog—review—5/8

[nyx-b-log]

been another busy week so i've had less time to read than normal but sometimes that's just how it is 🤷‍♀️

finished skulduggery pleasant playing with fire and enjoyed it, of course. love whenever things that are going to be important later (which is more than i thought, actually) get casually dropped and i'm like a-ha! also have to give a shoutout to rupert degas' version of billy ray sanguine, was fucking fantastic. it hit all the right beats, definitely the way to experience the character.

the faceless ones (book three) isn't available until at least next week, so i tried a non-fiction book on magic but couldn't stand the person reading it so moved on to the girls are never gone by sarah glenn marsh. it's a YA horror about a girl who's started a ghost hunting podcast and goes up to investigate an old house in the middle of renovation and the mysterious drowning of a teenager 30 years earlier. there's also a wlw romance. it's okay so far, the insta-crush at the start was pretty egregious but other than that it's basically what i was expecting (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). the main character also has type-1 diabetes and how she handles it comes up fairly often, which is nice to see, and the love interest is of puerto rican descent.

the traitor baru cormorant continues (i'm honestly not that much further on from where i was. like i said, busy week) and i really do need to stress a content warning i sort of breezed over last time: there is on-page frequent homophobia, depictions of conversion therapy, and grappling with the direct impacts of colonialism. it's unpleasant (but well-written). bear that in mind before going in. on a lighter note it's also a book where you have to be paying attention, so maybe reading it in a way that's less spaced out than what i've been doing would be a better idea 😅

there's gonna be no new manga for a while (ace attorney investigations 2 has all of my attention rn) but! i ordered some books last week and they came the other day, so i now have (most of) jujutsu kaisen (v excited to get round to that) and the bonus mushishi story, which looks beautiful and i can't wait to read it. the picture isn't quite doing it justice

that's it for this week! things are back to normal next week, so hopefully i can get some more reading done!

[na102]

I've now watched both seasons of Wheel of Time and they're great!!! I haven't read the books and am curious- what do you like/not like about them, and would you recommend them? (Also are they gay)

Yay! I'm glad you like the show! I do recommend the books they obviously have their flaws but are worth it and while it's not direct I saw it as very gay.

The rest of this is a detailed rant going more in depth. With some (mild mild) spoilers

I really love the world building and detail it just sucks you in. The story arcs themselves are fantastic ive never felt such euphoria at climaxes than I do with this book series it's also the only one to ever make me cry same goes for the characterization. I could go on and on about what I love about this series. However I will sum it that for everything I disliked there is 10 more things I liked.

when it comes to female characters this is probably some of the best female centred fiction I have ever read pre Locked Tomb and Baru Cormorant. Just women who aren't completely men obsessed that are independent, brave, talented, heroic and just their own character. In addition many of them are ambitious.

When it comes to gayness that depends on how much you are okay with reading in between the lines. The earlier and middle books it is HEAVILY implied that many Aes Sedai are or have been at one point lesbian lovers "pillow friends". There is also some Polyamory (spelled incorrectly the one where it's people who share the same spouse but don't sleep with each other )

despite that distinction there are a LOT of women who are very *close* to each other including ones In The same polycule.

The books are very long that's both a pro and con.

One of the things I'm not a huge fan of is how the series does change genres. The 1st few books are more of coming of age and then you get court drama but the build up is worth and it's still a great read. It takes you through their whole lives. I recommend starting with the Prequel New Spring if u are going to read them it adds extra layers to the earlier parts.

The series also changes with the last few books( Robert Jordan passed away while still writing the series so Brandon Sanderson completed the books based on his notes). This is where a lot of issues come into play. With only notes he does wrap it up nicely however he does flub some characterization. The main issues center around the female characters.

Despite some of the great writing of women it is still written by a man a while back. There are some negative portrayals,stereotypes by Robert Jordan .They are also a little less free with sexual expression. There is way(way) less sex than the show but the characters are also a little younger and it fits the setting. everything else outweighs it. Believe me there are many scenes that are better and more intimate then sex ones.

It gets much worse when Sanderson takes over. A lot of the near canon lesbianism is removed and there are a lot of submissive portrayals of women in addition to just out of character behavior. However with the book wrapping up you are very much distracted by everything else going on and the ending is so well done and cathartic I didn't even really care.

But it was overall a groundbreaking work of fiction. To this day it is still my all time favorite series. I think it's the best epic fantasy series there is. There are so many different worlds and so many different stories within it. It changed my life.

Sorry about the rant hope this helps. I do 100% recommend the book series. I also recommend using your local library if possible cuz there are lot of books in the series and it can get pricy buying them.

[eilooxara]

In no particular order, some books I have read and what I have thought of them:

Annihilation/Authority/Acceptance: These were good. The prose is beautiful. I find the characters difficult to understand but the weird premise and plot carries the story until a gratifying conclusion that tells me "yes correct these characters are weird and fucked up" in a way that makes it absolutely worth it.

Provenance by Ann Leckie: I liked this one! It had interesting stuff to say about culture and collective memory and a compelling adventure plot to tell it. This was also the correct use of Kooky Characters™. They were weird as shit in a charming way but that wasn't the point.

Ancillary Justice/Sword/Mercy by Ann Leckie: of course I liked these, everyone likes these. Breq is a great perspective character partially because of the degree to which she does not get things. The setting is fantastically deep and there is a really good exploration of the themes of personhood and empire and social class and lots more.

The Traitor/Monster/Tyrant Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson: these are probably my favorite books right now. Gods they hurt to read. Every single character and setting element is in service to the eloquently expressed themes, which are deep and get deeper as you think about it. The characters are so well realized. So believable while never sacrificing their thematic significance for it. And the prose is so well done that it made me give a shit about economics.

The Killing Moon/The Shadowed Sun by NK Jemisin: I liked these. They are heavily plot-driven with excellent atmosphere and a delightfully fucked up premise. The characters are a little dry. These books have been heavily influential on my own recent writing.

Fellside by MR Carey: wonderful character writing and interesting plot in what appears at first a meh premise. Not my favorite of Carey's work but good.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo: I liked this a lot. I wanted to go deeper into the main character's Whole Deal and I expect that a sequel if such exists will deliver on that. Not to be confused with the other books about a Ninth House you might have heard about.

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie: I love love love this book! It's such a cool premise with such a fascinating perspective character exploring a very interesting "what is the inevitable conclusion of this weird setting conceit?" kind of mystery. It's perfectly put together. I remain so deeply impressed by it. Like.

The Thousand Names by Django Wexler: this is an extremely well written book about rather uninteresting characters doing rather uninteresting things. I was gripped with suspense throughout the book just because the prose is so exquisitely done, even while not really caring about the characters or setting.

Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo: Absolutely fantastic character work and a compelling and suspenseful heist story. Fucked up in an interesting way. I read "The Lies Of Locke Lamora" and wondered what it would be like if it were good; this is that.

On that note, The Lies of Locke Lamora by what's his face: suspenseful and decently well-written heist story that absolutely sucked in every other way. The sort of tale that is ripe for taking away and giving to someone else.

Shadow and Bone/etc by Leigh Bardugo: could have been Six of Crows but wasn't yet. These are not bad, they are well worth reading, but I don't find them that compelling.

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo: what if Shadow and Bone were good? This has escaped the obligatory ya fantasy trappings that kept the first series in this setting from being great.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman: I love this book. I love the setting, the characters, the perfectly written prose, the story.

The Fifth Season/Broken Earth series by NK Jemisin: I fucking love these. The setting goes so deep. The prose is good. The characters are SO good. Stuff is so fucked up. The themes are well delivered.

Vermilion by Molly Tanzer: this should have been good but I hated it because it was bad. There was so much cool stuff in play and none of it was put to any use at all. Instead, dumb generic stuff was layered on top of it like cement on an ice cream sandwich.

The Girl With All The Gifts by MR Carey: one of the best books I have ever read. The character work. The perspective study. The way the reader slowly finds out what the premise actually is. It's absolutely masterful and I love it.

Flex by Ferrett Steinmetz: this was possibly the most generic "modern fantasy" book I have ever read. Nothing about it stands out to me at all.

Planetfall by Emma Newman: this was a really odd one. I liked it. It snuck a character study about mental illness into one of the weirder SF premises I have found.

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells: these are very good. Extremely compelling main character voice lends a lighthearted air to very heavy and thematically dense books about human rights and personhood and trauma recovery. Also there's adventures and while that's the meat of the story, the thing that stays with me is the themes.

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee: gods I wanted this to be good. It had so many things that good books have: cool setting elements, interesting character motivations, a plot that could have been suspenseful if someone else had written it. It just... wasn't good. It was a slog. I finished it and I was relieved and frustrated in equal measure.

A Memory Called Empire/A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine: I really enjoyed these. They are thick with theme and densely plotted, the setting and story are fascinating, but the most compelling part is the richly realized characters.

Gideon the Ninth/Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir: I loved these, but so does everyone, that hardly says much. The characters are really well done and the setting is sooo fucked up and the plot makes no fucking sense at first but that's ok.

Starfish/Maelstrom/Behemoth by Peter Watts: I love these so so much. Every piece of prose fits perfectly into the theme, the character, the plot, they are masterworks of storytelling. Hard to get through because they are emotionally very heavy. They have to be because that's what they're about.

The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers: I couldn't finish it. It feels so vacuously wholesome. It frustrated me.

A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin: don't believe what people on tumblr say about these, or any impression you might have from the show. This series is not, primarily, about surprise character deaths and all the other things you've heard. These books are beautifully written (yes the prose is good I'll fight you), compelling, and heavily thematic. The characters are so beautifully and intimately written. Martin is one of the best authors ever at giving you a sense of a character from just a few words. Yes, there's brutality and misogyny and all that but it's about that. It's about trying to exist in a world that is unjust. Martin started the conversation that all of the good fantasy and SF authors are now engaging in--what does it mean if the world rewards cruelty? Does it really do that? Are honesty, kindness, and mercy weaknesses? Can we change this? Martin did not, I think, have an answer to these questions, but he got the ball rolling and that's Important. The deep flaw is that the plot is too complex. I would be surprised if an ending ever is written to this series.

[gatheringbones]

would love to hear your gideon the ninth opinions tbh. i keep trying and failing to read this is how you lose the time war. i want to read lesbian fantasy but what i’ve seen seems to operate on “homophobia doesn’t exist!” but fails to consider how that’d change the setting. which leads to a kinda hollow “the gays can be straight now too!” type feeling of idk a world without homophobia equaling a world where we sadly replicate and perfectly assimilate into heteronormative structures? i’ve mainly been reading history stuff cause of that, but i’m still a a little gunshy about romances but every “escapist” fantasy/sci-fi book treats gayness as a weird aggressive non entity or a source of shame. which i imagine had a lot to do w straight authors but of course those are all the big name lesbian books. idk. have you read gentrification of the mind? it’s really good. do u have any good fantasy/sci-fi recs? i’m super tired so sorry if this is incoherent lol

Oh, you got it, I’ve always had the same issue. Either a sci-fi/fantasy book will make queerness indistinguishable from straightness, or it will lean doubly hard on that disability/debilitating social condition angle and give us something extremely hard to read to teach us that homophobia is Bad. Or they’ll pull what Gideon did— devote ten thousand words to loving descriptions of blood and gore and viscera and anime fight scenes, but touching a lesbian’s body or describing and sitting in the feelings you have for them is too much— these things have to be sublimated into torturous metaphors about longing and silence and buried emotions and a dead girl you’re in love with that makes your parents off themselves. (To say nothing of the fact that nothing about the context of Gideon made sense unless you knew it was homestuck fan fiction from the getgo, which I didn’t at the time. Even so, nothing about the character dynamics rang true, they felt like action figures being bounced beside one another in front of a cardboard background.)

Sometimes I would read a lesbian fantasy book by a lesbian (!!), but it would be about kings and queens and princesses and the story would follow all of the exact same beats as a straight hallmark movie right down to the story structure— the slow burn, the kiss at the three quarter mark, the Test Of The Relationship, the climactic finish where the dragons/demons are defeated. The romance would feel good in that, the feelings were positive and framed positively and no one was killed for having them, the parental and society support are all there, there’s no such thing as homophobia so there’s nothing to make the reader or the characters flinch— it’s nice. Extremely nice. Vanilla wafer nice. Cotton candy nice.

The problem is that books like baru cormorant feel like they ought to be preferable to that bland sugarsweetness, but they’re not, because they’re also depriving the reader of one of the best and most powerful and compelling aspects of lesbian writing— the fact that we made it impossible for the state to do what it wanted to us because we’re too good at finding and talking to one another. They don’t have anything like this. Or this. Or this. Or this. Or this. Or this. Or this. To say nothing of the fact that no one even comes close to looking like this.

Confessions of the Fox came close— it’s a trans story, but it lives in and operates from that space. A lot of Sarah Waters work comes close, even if it’s not fantastical. But you’re right, the good stuff is hard to find, which means we have to write it, and read enough so that when we do write it we pack it full of the most potent symbols we can find.

[dansnaturepictures]

17th April 2021-Part 2 of 2: Glossy Ibis and more at Stanpit Marsh: The 10 pictures I took in this photoset are different to those I tweeted tonight 

As we have seemed to do often on my Mum’s birthday over the years today we delved into Dorset going slightly into it at the brilliant Stanpit Marsh in Christchurch. What had drawn us here was the long staying Glossy Ibis which we caught sight of here in November after a couple of times of trying. We looked over the marsh looking into the harbour towards Hengistbury Head and Mudeford past the car park and scout hut and my Mum thought she saw it flying. The area I mean shown in the first two pictures in this photoset. We then walked around on the path and to our delight we did see the Glossy Ibis stood there. This was a brilliant moment to see this exotic jet black curved beak beauty. It was very mobile and no sooner had we fixed binoculars on it and limbered for a picture - at this distance a bridge camera zoom in - had it gone behind a tuft of grass but we still managed a decent handful of sightings of it at the start of the walk. One of my best birds this year, a rarity we saw our first of these in Dorset at RSPB Radipole Lake in Weymouth in 2012, we have now seen it three years running both of the sightings here of it and one at Fishlake Meadows near Romsey back in Hampshire in 2019 a good little indicator that this is a bird becoming more common to see right now.

As we walked on we loved taking in ideal conditions of bright sunshine flowing through and sky and sea a divine shade of blue. I took the fourth-eighth pictures in this photoset of views here today. There was also a photo I took I tweeted tonight on Dans_Pictures looking down a channel in a reedbed towards the prominent church in Christchurch which featured in a lot of my landscapes like Hengistbury Head in the distance did as they so often do here today. I had wanted to take that picture and it be one of my proudest sort of in November and I think I did take a version in the end but the angle wasn’t there or the light wasn’t good or something if I remember rightly. So it was great being able to take this shot in gorgeous sunshine today. We had a great walk for seeing birds such as Little Egret, Shelduck and Curlew quite a few times, with many Mute Swans about in the harbour too as can be seen in the sixth picture. It was nice to see ponies with a foal too which I tweeted a picture showing. We got close and special views of a nice bronzed Black-tailed Godwit up close and saw lots in a group in the sea of the harbour too which was so lovely to see again. 

Also in this area we loved seeing a few Sandwich Terns, two of them with one flying then they settled for ages on the shallow water with a godwit I took the third picture in this photoset showing this. It was lovely to make our their neat plumage. We saw a couple or maybe it was the same one fishing over the harbour later on in the walk and at one point it had a battle with a gull which was spectacular to watch, we saw a good range of gulls today too. Sandwich Terns are very much the bird of weeks off work for me these days it seems with one seen at Farlington Marshes to start the similar to this one June week off last year and we saw our first of the year during my week off in January during the bird year list foundation building an overwinterting one in Hampshire which was a key moment of that week and my yea so far. We saw one well at Pennington on Easter Sunday too as I said.

We did also see two great different flowers at Stanpit today, some bright white scurvygrass adorning the marsh floor and some bright yellow marsh marigold emanating also from the grassy areas which looked stunning I had seen neither before. Daffodil and bluebell were around here too like Winchester this morning.

We doubled back along the tree line, where we got a brilliant view of a Great Spotted Woodpecker flying across and into a tree and came to the area where the Glossy Ibis had been. With no clear decent photo taken of the bird at that point I put my big lens on my DSLR as I was covering the same area I had already taken landscapes with my normal lens in so I knew I might not do so much again. We were then so happy to see the Glossy Ibis again in the air and as I snapped away with the appropriate tool my big lens on my DSLR camera it looked as though like last November my chance for a photo to remember the ibis by would be in the air. We just wondered where it would settle and as we watched it get lower after a great flying session where Lapwing and other birds were also in the air I anticipated something extraordinary. I thought it may well fly right over our heads, and that it did! It was an amazing few moments to both of our delight as I seemed to get the balance right between binocular views, trying for photos and simply watching it in aw of how close this quite rare bird truly was to us. Spectacular. I managed the ninth picture in this photoset of it flying among others. 

It flew on over towards another marshy area by a boat sculpture where it had been reported a lot last year. We wandered back through the wooded area to there in case we could see it again. On the way through we got a quick view of my first Redstart of the year a female, always a crucial bird to see every spring especially in or close to the New Forest a huge part of the year seeing this bird on my B list of favourites for another year. My year list reached 133, the joint sixth highest amount of birds I had ever seen on a year on this date alongside my 2014. Redstart and Glossy Ibis were year ticks in the same weekend for me in 2019 Redstart came first the day before the Fishlake Meadows Glossy Ibis sighting the Redstart at a strong area for them Pig Bush in the New Forest. 

We reached a little pool where we thought it might have gone and I was so happy to see the Glossy Ibis was there. We then spent a divine few minutes getting the honour to watch this bird move side to side across the pool mostly with its beak down hunting but it gave us flashes of brilliance as it looked up now and again. The soft early evening sunlight caressed the feathers of its back and head. It was one of the most beautiful and captivating natural moments I’d had this year, perhaps the greatest moment of wildlife for me since seeing the Tawny Owl and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker in the woods on one walk and so much more four weeks ago today. Such is this bird’s exotic nature that for a minute I could have been in an African swamp rather than a Dorset marsh. The greatest respect to the fantastic Dorset obviously I have always loved this county. What a way to celebrate that British wildlife is phenomenal and it’s been lovely day all round for discussing wildlife with lots of people at both Winchester and Stanpit Marsh. Everything was happening at once as when we arrived at this bit to look over the pool the ibis was on a Kestrel flew right in front of us a stunning view of a special bird.

On the way in and out we took in some beautiful New Forest vistas as you can do on journeys to Dorset and this included some nice bright red tulips with some daffodils which I took a picture of and tweeted and liked admiring on the way back. The perfect birthday for my Mum to kick off our time off, what a day for wildlife and photos! I hope you all had a good one.

Wildlife Sightings Summary: My first Glossy Ibis and Redstart of the year, three of my favourite birds the Shelduck, Little Egret and Great Crested Grebe, Grey Heron, Lapwing, Oystercatcher, Redshank, Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew, Mallard, a straggling Wigeon, Mute Swan, Herring Gull, what’s not so usual for us in a day both Lesser Black-backed Gull and Great Black-backed Gull, Sandwich Tern, Cormorant, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Kestrel, House Sparrow, Wren, Dunnock, Great Tit, Linnet and Greenfinch in another nice day of finches, Robin, Blackbird, Rock Pipit and I heard Cetti’s Warbler and also Reed Warbler faintly I believe.

[hunxi-guilai]

ask lightning round 8

oh would you look at the time, here we go again --

!!!! I take it back, CQL does bless us with Lan Wangji and Nie Mingjue having interactions! 

rip this is what I get for running this blog having seen this show... mm... once...

when will I get a fic of Lan Wangji + Nie Mingjue interactions pre-Sunshot... Nie Mingjue babysitting baby Wangji and Huaisang while Lan Xichen has to go Do Important Lan Sect Things... Lan Xichen comes back and hulking teenager Nie Mingjue is mock-fencing with bb!Wangji and giving him swordwork pointers while lil Wangji nods along solemnly... Lan Xichen leaning against the gate, eyes soft smile warm, watching the two of them before they notice he’s back... Lan Xichen making eye contact with bb!Huaisang and holding a finger to his lips, and bb!Huaisang lighting up with the possibility of pranking da-ge... just... some soft Nie bros + Twin Jades content when...

I truly came into this fandom like “oh yeah I don’t even ship nielan” but it’s been a few months and can confirm that I fully ship nielan

man oh man I would go feral over it but the moment I read this ask I immediately thought about the time @baoshan-sanren​ went feral over Lan Wangji’s 世事无常 ‘life is unpredictable’ / ‘there are no constants in the world,’ (throws back a shot) which I feel like is the unspoken first line to the second line of 幸好 ‘fortunately’

gosh, I feel like I’ve been muttering about this in a few tags recently, but when I was watching CQL I kept a list of ‘missing moments (I might want to see in fic)’ taped to my wall and one of them was “Lan Wangji - Jiang Cheng roadtrip-of-revenge post-episode 19.” 

Honestly, I think they work really well together (that is, pre-Nightless City), because neither of them mince words, and are powerfully motivated in the same direction. When we see them storm the indoctrination camp together? Incredible. Their communication in investigating the various massacres left behind? Unparalleled (Lan Wangji talks!!! Jiang Cheng listens!!! Jiang Cheng talks!!! Lan Wangji listens!!! No one yells or deflects or issues ad hominem insults!!! They cozy up to each other to peer through a hole in the roof and Lan Wangji casts a protective spell to keep the Bad Vibes from affecting either of them!!! They’re completely in sync when it comes to protecting Wei Wuxian from Wen Zhuliu!!!).

If there’s a timeline where Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng actually coordinated their ‘save-Wei Wuxian-from-himself’ efforts, I think things could have turned out very, very differently

hmmm... we can definitely wave it away with ‘production error,’ but what’s always fun is reading every choice as deliberate and seeing what that says subtextually about the story/character/worldbuilding

and what I’m getting is:

the Nie Sect are secretly loaded (to commission a custom sword for Nie Huaisang in addition to the saber he’s supposed to have in Fatal Journey? idk that sounds pretty pricey but if you don’t write a postcolonial novel about fantasy economics like Seth Dickinson in The Traitor Baru Cormorant, have you really come up with a fantastic economic system?)

Nie Mingjue was trying to push Nie Huaisang towards a non-fatal form of cultivation in hopes that Nie Huaisang could escape the family doom

Nie Huaisang has a spiritual sword all along, but only has so many hands and generally prefers to carry his fan instead

Nie Huaisang is secretly pioneering fan cultivation

Nie Huaisang is secretly proficient enough in cultivation to keep his sword in a convenient universe-pocket, only to be extracted in moments of necessity, and everyone has been underestimating him in more ways than one

Nie Huaisang’s sword just Really Wants to Get Along with its wielder, and has learned how to transform into a fan, Sylblade style

The possibilities are endless!

hm, I read the show as Jiang Cheng and Jin Guangyao co-parenting Jin Ling, because Jin Ling seems pretty fond of both of them (and will pit one of them against the other, if it’s in his interests)

Jin Ling and auntie Qin Su interactions when

I think part of Jiang Cheng’s involvement with Jin Ling’s childhood is related to the fact that Jin Ling is also the only potential heir to the Yunmeng Jiang Sect by blood. It’s definitely weaker than the Jin Sect’s claim on his future, but I also cannot imagine that Jiang Cheng would let the single child of the next generation in his family be raised exclusively by Lanling Jin (they might raise him into another Jin Zixuan and he cannot let that happen, he endured over a decade of peacock!Zixuan and he is not. going. through that. again.).

...actually, this is never resolved, and by the end of the show, Jin Ling is still positioned to inherit both Lanling Jin and Yunmeng Jiang if Jiang Cheng doesn’t get a move on and appoint an alternate successor

no idea! If I had to guess, a year or two younger than Wei Wuxian & co (I think it’s mentioned that he’s too young to participate in Cloud Recesses summer camp? but again I have seen this show, mm, once, so I could be totally making that up) 

why stop at twice? obviously the solution to the question of who-gets-together with the juniors is just juniors OT4

Lan Jingyi is the one unafraid to call Jin Ling on his bullshit, Jin Ling will aggressively mother everyone else and bankroll all operations, Lan Sizhui is the only one with the patience to endlessly peacekeep among the four of them, and Ouyang Zizhen possesses the only braincell in the bunch

...I am slowly becoming inured to the what-the-fuckery of the subtitles, but also, what the fuck

oof... I mean, partially yes, it does feel like Jiang Cheng is being a little thoughtless here (because Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao continue to be narrative foils occupy similar spaces in their relative sect hierarchies), but Wei Wuxian, in classic form, moves straight past the insult and onwards to the more pressing part of the discussion, which is whether or not Jiang Cheng plans to let Jiang Yanli’s re-betrothal to Jin Zixuan proceed. I think there’s definitely a moment where Wei Wuxian could have taken Jiang Cheng’s words very, very personally, but Wei Wuxian is also used to Jiang Cheng’s harsher language, knows that Jiang Cheng is just talking about Jin Guangyao, not making implications about Wei Wuxian “knowing his place’ or anything, so any possible friction there gets smoothed over as the conversation proceeds

y’all, I know next to nothing about the timeline of the show except that the flashbacks last thirty episodes, which is approximately twenty-nine episodes too many --

I jest. I love giving CQL shit for a 30-episode straight flashback. but also I believe the MDZS/CQL timeline is notoriously difficult to untangle -- I feel like I’ve seen posts going around/an AO3 link with a year-by-year breakdown of when things happened? but alas I do not have it on hand

I don’t think 湛 is gendered at all, so I think that’s relatively safe to use for genderbending purposes!

he does not, that is exclusively an invention of the YouTube subs, I am affronted

linguistic meta > [scroll down] > ‘Naming, Names, and Courtesy Names’

um... you’re going to have to be more specific about which epithets. I talk about the gendered nature of 君 in this post (tl;dr it’s technically gender-neutral but is overwhelmingly used for men), and 尊, which I touch on in this post, is also technically gender-neutral.

宗主 zongzhu is gender-neutral, 兄 xiong is gendered male, ‘Lady X’ is the translation for the honorific -姑娘 guniang, which literally means ‘young woman’ and could conceivably also be translated as ‘Miss’

I also encourage you to check out these posts by @bingleycharles, which are wonderful and much more intelligible than anything I produce

I mean, considering that Lan Wangji probably didn’t know what character A-Yuan’s name was (have I mentioned, ridiculously homophonous language), he likely just chose another character that sounded the same and didn’t have horrible horrible connotations at first blush

a lot of folks do read into the change in character, though, since A-Yuan goes from 苑, ‘emperor’s garden,’ to 愿, ‘to long for, to wish’ / ‘to be willing’

oooh, so generally, you don’t name things after people in Chinese. It’s actually incredibly disrespectful and all sorts of Bad Vibes to use the exact characters of a living person’s name to name someone/something else

but especially do not use Ji-ji, because that is slang for dick

I’d suggest going for adjectives associated with Lan Wangji that aren’t in any of his names, and then doubling them for cuteness factor!

oof... probably still by the honorific 先生 -xiansheng, because if Wei Wuxian used a family term, that would be even more intimate than their current relationship of ‘mutually avoidant and frostily aloof,’ and Lan Qiren would probably throw his shoe at Wei Wuxian if nothing else were close at hand

oh! 一问三不知 is an established phrase in Mandarin, and not something invented for MDZS/CQL. It’s used to describe when someone truly does not know anything about a subject, regardless of how you rephrase the question.

Literally, it translates to “one-ask, three-don’t-knows,” and baidu-baike is telling me that the ‘three-don’t-knows” specifically refer to not knowing:

the origin 

the process

the conclusion

of whatever subject you’re asking about. It’s a phrase that can also be used to describe someone’s defense in court -- just saying ‘I don’t know’ to every question to protect themselves, which specifically casts the ‘three-don’t-know’s as not knowing:

the origin/inciting incident 

the process of the crime

the conclusion of the crime

uh... yikes?

but to be fair, my thoughts on the relationships of most characters to Jin Guangyao is ‘yikes’

do I think that the two of them genuinely loved and appreciated aspects of each other? yes. do I think that they made each other happy for a time? yes. did Jin Guangyao really jettison Qin Su the moment she started to become a liability rather than an asset? also yes.  

I think the scene implied that Lan Xichen figures it out, because we see a shot of him looking away at the sudden realization the moment before Jin Guangyao says 是不是吃了什么金丹妙药 / was it perhaps because you ate some excellent golden core medicine? which I feel really spells it out for everyone 

Jin Guangyao really lays it out for everyone to deduce in that scene by monologuing about:

Jiang Cheng apparently running around Lotus Pier the night before, asking people to unsheathe Suibian

a sword that only Wei Wuxian could unsheathe

a sword that Jiang Cheng had unsheathed

sixteen years ago, Wei Wuxian began refusing to carry Suibian around, coming up with a different excuse every time

Jiang Cheng had his core melted, then restored, during the Sunshot Campaign

It’s certainly enough for Lan Xichen to put together, but I don’t think Jin Ling figures it out (he is, after all, of a younger, kinder generation)

um... gotta say I’m not sure what the line is, but I don’t think the word ‘physiological’ appears in the Chinese? 

hm, I gotta say that I don’t think I’ve really run across this problem? I probably just...don’t read enough fics to get bothered by this, but honestly, if a fic has OC names that don’t make sense, then that indicates a lack of basic research that would probably put me off the rest of the fic, too... it’s like, pretty hard to make a name that doesn’t make sense, because then I feel like you’d have to choose a name composed of phonemes that don’t exist in Mandarin Chinese, which takes some doing.

like, most of the time when I read an OC name I idly think ‘oh hm I wonder what the characters are used to write their name’ but aside from that I don’t usually give OC names much more thought

oof... I don’t think I know about martial sibling dynamics or adopted sibling dynamics to make a nuanced comment on this? I am afraid I have had experience with neither, but I also get the sense that this is probably very, very subjective on a case-by-case basis

gotta say... no idea... but given Wei Wuxian’s history with texts... probably something to do with pornography...

HAH, well, the interpretation I’ve seen floating around is that Nie Huaisang writes the rankings, which means him putting Nie Mingjue at #7 is either 1) him throwing a bone to da-ge or 2) him artificially deflating Nie Mingjue’s scores so as to not be accused of favoritism

(also I am obliged to link this iconic post, because I laughed out loud when I saw it the first time)

I’m willing to bet that both Nie bros are in agreement that Lan Xichen deserves first in all things, but especially in this ranking

[logosminuspity]

QUESTION ONE!!! Also, 2, 8, and 14

THANK YOU FOR THE QUESTIONS, MYR!

1) Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it? HOOO boy ok...two main things that I’ve been working very extensively on this year are two different original fiction stories (I trade off writing between the two when my muse is struggling with one more than the other): 

The first is a supposed to be a high fantasy story set in a world long since bereft of magic but suffering from a plague of living shadows and bonebeasts that are born of dead bodies (unless you cremate them). It features a perpetually depressed and hopelessly gay lesbian protagonist who is drawn into a world of politics and intrigue all while she is trying to redefine her life and her path given the doors that have been closed to her. I’m aiming for a long haul duology or trilogy with this that has a lot of introspective commentary on finding one’s own belonging...or at least a bunch of fun fantasy

The second is my lesbian pirates novel I’m working on, which is legit just supposed to be a fun piracy adventure with wlw main characters, all inspired by my damn migraine dream I had of a woman who calls herself Vale, the King of Pirates. To hopefully include much banter and adventure!

2) Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

Honestly, I have notes to write what is supposed to be a contemporary hyper-surrealist novel whose current working title is either “13 Faces in the Sky of Infinite Space” or “Kill the Horizon”--this is going to be a hugely daunting adventure for me in reflection, loss, and the struggle of human condition whenever I get to it, which is why I’m dealing with more straightforward fiction first in an attempt to first get the practice of actually WRITING A DAMN NOVEL. But this bad boy is one I look forward to if only to write for myself.

8) Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read?

Yes and no! Yes, in that I love to write good wlw stories--hit me up especially with some intensive character development, fantastic plot, or some well done political intrigue or even plain old adventure! I try to write the stories I would want to read no one else has written for me, dammit! That said, I also absolutely ADORE stories that go hella deep into political intrigue and especially ethical quandries (such as The Baru Cormorant series), which I don’t think I could ever write myself (I’m too soft-hearted).

14) At what point in writing do you come up with a title?

Usually dead last. I despise coming up with titles. I want them to FEEL RIGHT. And 99% of the time it feels like trash. SUCH IS LIFE.

[canmom]

@random-thought-depository commented on this post:

I think speculative fiction worlds tend to be more dystopian than our world, though that could be a judgment biased by observing our world from the perspective of a relatively safe and comfortable First World person. I think fiction is actively biased toward dystopian worlds because of how drama works.

Like e.g. looking at your fiction, Vector definitely has that Chris Wayan's Planetocopia author appeal feel at points (I think that's a good thing!), but it feels like it overall depicts a worse world than the one we inhabit.

Hmm, I have never heard of Planetocopia so I will take your word that that’s a positive comparison! :p

Anyway you started talking to me about my own fiction so... I got started...

As far as dystopianness... it is true, that in general in VECTOR I’m kinda deliberately putting the most fucked up things I can think of down at many points. At the same time... though the technology is obviously pretty fantastical, what I’m drawing on for the “State” in VECTOR is, I hope at least, following through on the same logic of power and accumulation and etc. that we see in the real world. It’s just rather more naked and unapologetic about its intentions than most real states.

At least one part of the impetus behind VECTOR is me trying to grapple with being the product of like, a world system which is so manifestly, automatically, universally-but-very-unequally cruel. Sure, we’re not literally putting people in magical nuclear reactors to melt into pillars of oily radioactive goo... but the energy and objects we consume to live do come into existence through forcing people (including ourselves!) to spend large portions of our lives doing miserable, tedious, health-destroying shit because that’s what we each have to do to survive, that sends people into holes in the ground to get cancer, that endlessly transforms the Earth... and all this miserable ‘necessity’ links up into a self-reproducing society, one that has somehow proven resilient enough to survive this long despite many people wishing it would stop.

So all the fantastical body-horror stuff is, for the most part, tied back into infrastructure in ways which I hope like, reinforce the central conceit. And underneath the sci-fi dressing, the awful things that happen in the story are at least partly inspired by awful things in reality. (In fact some of the awful things that states have done in reality I’ve shied away from portraying.)

The hope is that through distancing metaphors I can find a different angle to think about these things, or failing that at least talk about them in a way that’s more engaging than a leftist theory tract! At worst, having this connection to stuff I’m genuinely pretty caught up thinking about will hopefully make the story itself feel (going back to the original post) more sincere/true an expression of where I’m at in this world. It’s a story that’s trying to say something, even if I’m not always sure what I want to say... and the process of writing it gets me closer, I hope.

Of course the danger is that by dressing it up in dystopian sci-fi dressing it becomes too far to link back to what inspired it. It’s just another wacky sci-fi evil empire, with no relevance. But idk. I hope my concerns came across, at least to readers who share part of my worldview. (At least if I fall short, you can always go read the Baru Cormorant instead!)

Part of the problem with drawing it to an ending is that I don’t want to just go for a tragedy and have the State stomp on them all - I can’t accept that, that wouldn’t feel ‘true’. But I also find it very hard to present an alternative that doesn’t feel cheap somehow. We have barely glimpsed how the rebel VECTOR village lives, or the everyday life of the nomadic culture on the steppe, and that’s partly because I’ve been finding it much harder to write when I’m trying to portray something good (but imperfect) rather than something dreadful that needs to be destroyed! But hopefully I’ll get there.

[veliseraptor]

hey, sorry if you've already made this but do you have a rec list for female anti-heroes? or anti-villains? or... just fiction centring morally complex women? I'd just really like to read more lit like that but I don't know where to start :/

I don’t remember if I have done this! And the answer is…fewer than I’d like, alas. But let’s see what I’ve got. (A number of of these are series, which I’ve listed by the first book and noted.) I’m always looking for more of these, though, so if anyone has recs…

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (The Broken Earth Trilogy)

Really any of NK Jemisin’s work would qualify, but I’m going ahead and going with this one. The main character(s) is a remarkable piece of work, and this series as a whole is just…incredible. Her realization especially of mother/daughter relationships and the complexity and possible ugliness thereof is really…augh. I cried at the end of the third book. (It also does great things with themes of oppression and power and dehumanization while telling a great story.)

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett (The Divine Cities Trilogy)

Mostly I think the protagonist of the first book (this one) fits what you’re looking for best, but this whole series is aces and the second book also features an excellent protagonist who I think you might like. And the worldbuilding and thematics of this series are also just *kisses fingers* so consider this a general rec, too.

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone (The Craft Sequence)

I love this series, I really do. Taking place after the God Wars, in which the various gods of the world were overthrown by human sorcerers, not only is it super conceptually interesting with a lot of themes I’m personally really into (imperialism! religion and the relationship between humans and gods!) but also some really excellent complex female characters, especially the protagonist of this book, Tara, and my personal favorite, Elayne Kevarian. 

The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton

This is a retelling of King Lear and it’s one of the best retellings I’ve read in a while (I love reading retellings but I’m very picky about their execution). One of my favorite things about it is the way it brings Goneril and Regan (here Gaela and Regan) into prominence, keeping all their sharp edges while making them full characters, sympathetic and understandable. 

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente

I love this book. I love Catherynne M. Valente’s prose, and this is probably my favorite of hers that I’ve read so far. It’s a retelling of the Russian fairy tale The Death of Koschei the Deathless blended with the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and it’s...really good, and Marya Morevna is a fantastic protagonist. It’s been a bit since I read this one, but from what I remember I think she fits the bill for what you’re describing.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (The Masquerade)

Fuck man, this book. Fair warning that it is brutal in a lot of ways - don’t come into it expecting to leave without some bruised emotions. But the main character is a glorious example of what you’re talking about. And I don’t want to say more than that, because this is kind of a book it’s good to go into without spoilers.

I’m just gonna go ahead, too, and throw in a couple of Ancient Greek plays that have two of my favorite morally complex women. Obvs they’re going to come with misogynist baggage because Ancient Greece, but I’d say they’re both worth a read.

Medea by Euripides

This was actually my first Greek tragedy and I fell in love hard and fast. It’s a seriously elegant piece of work - Euripides had a reputation as a misogynist but he writes really good morally complex women, imo. And Medea in this…dominates. She owns the stage and the story, and god damn does this do the work of making her ultimately murdering two people and her own children not…totally (at least for me) remove sympathy with her. And she gets away with it. In a motherfucking dragon chariot.

Agamemnon by Aeschylus

I wrote a paper about how Clytemnestra owns this play - she drives the action, she takes charge, the men around her are relegated to helplessness and impotence - the only person who stands against her at all is Cassandra (who, of course, no one listens to). I don’t like the rest of this play cycle nearly as much as the first one, but this one…hoo boy. I could talk about this play, Clytemnestra, and the gender stuff with Clytemnestra in this play for approximately forever. Also murdering Agamemnon with an axe is, as the kids say, a #big mood.

[aion-rsa]

The Unspoken Name's Map Proves It's A Different Kind of Fantasy

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Orc-centric fantasy The Unspoken Name is a different kind of fantasy than has come before — and its map proves it!

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This article is sponsored by Tor Books.

Fantasy maps, which have been a staple of fiction for decades, can tell the reader a lot about the book's world, story, and even characters. Perhaps the most famous comes from The Hobbit, with its Dwarvish rune ciphers explained by the language-loving author in a brief translation guide on the next few pages. Or The Lord of the Rings, a version of which Peter Jackson used to create the fairytale atmosphere of his early 2000s adaptation of the journey from the Shire to Mordor. These maps give a reader their first taste of what the tone of the story might be like. What do the names sound like? What variety of languages and naming conventions exist in a fantastical world?

Some fantasy maps are present mostly for the reader’s convenience. They help the prospective reader navigate a journey that may switch back and forth through places with complicated names. Other fantasy books customize their maps to their characters. With typical J.R.R. Tolkein thoroughness, the map in The Hobbit includes careful calligraphy, delicately-drawn mountains, and the dwarven script clearly written over the rest afterward, with runes overlapping the inked mountains. (Depending on which edition you’re looking at, the effect is enhanced or reduced.) This is Thorin’s map, modified after the dwarves’ mountain was invaded by the dragon. In The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson, the world map is studded with sociopolitical notes in the titular character’s voice (“stupid feudal marriage politics”).

A.K. Larkwood’s genre-bending fantasy The Unspoken Name, a new fantasy about an orc priestess turned wizard's assassin, does something a bit different with its map, signalling the ways in which it is doing something a bit different with the fantasy genre altogether...

The first big difference to notice in Csorwe’s map in The Unspoken Name is that it is unmistakably Csorwe’s. (In the real world, the map was created by Tim Paul.) So who is Csorwe, and what exactly is her story? Csorwe started her life as an orphaned orc picked up by the priestesses of the Unspoken One, an eldritch god fond of child sacrifices and the undead. She’s offered an escape from its thrall by Belthandros Sethennai, the known worlds’ foremost wizard.

Fast forward several years and Csorwe is Sethennai’s right-hand sword, charged with finding a magical object that can bring unprecedented power. The novel is the sort of chase-after-a-magical-object structure that is very common in fantasy, but in and around that chase is a study in characters who are all in one way or another in service to Sethennai or the supernatural. Csorwe begins to suspect that there’s more to life than helping Sethennai, and her choices about who to ally herself with drive the story.

Csorwe herself is straightforward and tough. She knows how to take and give damage, and isn’t interested in finery or study. This isn’t the kind of fantasy where these are innate orcish traits. In the world of The Unspoken Name, people can be humans, elves, or orcs (or, rarely, giant snakes), and they’re all varied people. Another main orc character is a wizard librarian. No, these are Csorwe traits, and they’re evident on the book’s map.

The first parts to notice about the map are the thick lines, of both rivers and words. Many (but not all) place names are written in blocky capitals. Like Csowrwe, they’re loud and big and straightforward. The handwriting varies. The drawings are also varied and sometimes simple. They’re perfectly readable, but lines are askew, sketched in, ending before or after they are supposed to. This isn’t a map made by a scribe to be a beautiful advertisement to travelers coming to see a fair city. It’s a functional record of places visited and places suspected to be worth visiting for work.

Then there are the thumbtacks-and-string lines, most of them connecting round portals. These caught my eye immediately because they set the map apart in an important way: it isn’t contiguous. Most locations are by themselves on a scrap of paper connected by thumbtacks, and each area has a portal. This immediately makes the reader wonder about the world-building. What are these portals? How easy or difficult is it to get through them?

read more: Ruin of the Kings is Must-Read Epic Fantasy

This is where the genre-bending comes in. In The Unspoken Name, there are roughly two kinds of magic: Wizards receive their magic from patron entities such as the Unspoken One. Magic can also be siphoned off into technological wonders, such as the portals and the ships that fly through them. The portals are used in various ways throughout the story, both as everyday conveyance and as magical weapons. Because of them, the physical distances between places don’t really matter. What matters is whether someone has made a portal between two cities.

Between the portals is the Maze, the space-between-spaces where worlds decay or collide. The book’s geography isn’t complicated; the story moves pretty linearly from one world to another. I was left sometimes wondering why these were different planar worlds at all rather than just different parts of one planet, but that turns out to be a world-building question the novel does eventually answer, thematically if not geographically. The way Csorwe gradually comes to understand more about the portals helps carry the reader along. And it is weird, with cities decaying into what look like weird works of art.

These separate places could have been conveyed on the map(s) as different pieces of paper and it would have been clever enough. The thumbtacks add a little more to really finish the effect. They’re really more nails than thumbtacks, stabbed into each paper with portal paths indicated by string like the PEPE SILVA conspiracy board. It gives the map a sense of life, with tacked-together urgency and piratical charm, as if it has all along been hanging on the wooden wall of a ship.

The tattered worlds of The Unspoken Name don’t need to be united, per se. They’re functioning well enough with the portal system. It’s the characters’ emotional connections to the world-building that makes the answers to the questions this map poses so interesting. By inviting questions the novel answers, The Unspoken Name’s map is a remarkable portal into the book.

The Unspoken Name is now available to purchase. Check out the full synopsis below...

A. K. Larkwood's The Unspoken Name is a stunning debut fantasy about an orc priestess turned wizard's assassin.

What if you knew how and when you will die?

Csorwe does—she will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice.

But on the day of her foretold death, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Leave with him, and live. Turn away from her destiny and her god to become a thief, a spy, an assassin—the wizard's loyal sword. Topple an empire, and help him reclaim his seat of power.

But Csorwe will soon learn—gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.

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Feature Megan Crouse

Feb 20, 2020

Fantasy Books

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[asleepinawell]

What would you recommend to someone that's new to fantasy lit? I've always been really into sci fi but have almost no reference for fantasy. I've pretty much only read lotr. Any recs?

Yeah, I might have a few. These are mostly stuff I read a while ago and kind of all over the place.

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series is the big obvious one. It’d recommend starting with either Wyrd Sisters or Guards Guards.

The Westmark trilogy by Lloyd Alexander was a series I read a lot growing up.

Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust was another one I reread a bunch.

Robin Hobb is one of those authors who is a total asshat about fanfic, but I still enjoy her books. The Farseer Trilogy would be the place to start.

The Earthsea Cycle series by Ursula K Le Guin is one of the classics. It’s been forever since I read it.

Another classic is Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time series. They’re technically science fantasy I think....sort of in-between.

Marie Brennan’s Memoir of Lady Trent series is a lot of fun and has dragons.

If you’re looking for an epic sweeping fantasy series that will take you forever to read, there’s Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, which...it’s far from perfect. I had some issues with it, but if you just want to dive into a really long fantasy series you could do a lot worse.

Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel novels are great. Alternate history France fantasy world (and would be rated E on ao3, fair warning).

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

The Shadow Campaigns by Django Wexler

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell by Susanna Clarke

The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin (note: I didn't finish this one. not because it wasn't good, but because it was pretty dark and I wasn't in the mood for dark. I liked what I read and it has a reputation as an excellent book).

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie. another one I haven't read! her Ancillary scifi series was fantastic though and this is her newer fantasy book that I'm planning to read and I feel safe saying it's probably a good read.

I haven’t been reading nearly as much in the last few years unfortunately but I know there’s been a lot of fantastic fantasy novels come out, a lot of them by women. Might be worth looking at some of the Hugo winners.

Oh, I still haven’t gotten around to reading it, but everyone I know who’s read it won’t shut up about how good it is: The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson.

Also if you’re interested in webcomics, check out Gunnerkrigg Court.