#ancillary justice was pretty good i liked that one

[theriverbeyond]

im not gonna lie the locked tomb has so massively skewed my standards for books that at this point when i say "i want to read a another book like tlt" i don't necessarily mean any sort of similarity with regards to character or plot specifics, i literally just mean "i want to read a book that not only fun but also good"

[sixofravens-reads]

re: 2023 new releases. hope you're ready for a long message because there were a lot.

hot new releases/things that were relatively popular

He Who Drowned The World, Shelley Parker Chan (Chinese mythological historical, very gay, very stabby a la Baru Cormorant. Book 2 of 2. A particular favorite of mine from this year)

Witch King, Martha Wells (New fantasy book by author of murderbot fame. I didn't actually click with this one but I'd be remiss to leave it off)

House With Good Bones, T Kingfisher (Southern gothic rose horror by the very talented Ursula Vernon)

Translation State, Ann Leckie (high sf alien horror regency romance. Wheeeeee. I had a lot of fun reading this. You can read it as a standalone, but you get deeper context if you've read the ancillary justice series, also highly recommended)

Will of the Many, James Islington (futuristic roman empire aesthetic rigged murder school. Not precisely good but appallingly catchy, I read all six hundred pages in pretty much one sitting. If you liked red rising you'll like this, if you hated red rising you will Not)

OH YEAH THE ACTUAL NEW MURDEBOT NOVEL (System Collapse)

A Power Unbound, Freya Marske (book 3 of 3, magic alt edwardian romances with murder. This is more romance proper but it's about equal with the action plot and Marske is very good. I don't think you've read these so you'd have to start at book 1)

Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh (The book that absolutely knocked my socks off, my pick for the best sff release of the year. I forget if I've already told you about this one)

Starling House, Alix Harrow (Southern gothic house drama. Similar feel to Ninth House or The Book of Night)

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty (Divorced lady pirate adventure-drama a la Arabian Nights.)

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Heather Fawcett (Charming, heavily fairy tale trope themed, vaguely reminiscent of the Lady Trent books)

more obscure new releases from this year that I thought were cool, but not in the Hot New Reads You Can't Miss Because Everyone's Read Them category

Under Fortunate Stars, Ren Hutchings (sf timey wimey space shenanigans with aliens. Immensely cool premise.)

Small Miracles, Olivia Atwater (fallen angel sent to tempt a too good mortal. Extremely charming)

The King Is Dead, Naomi Libicki (vaguely persian flavored fealty romance, very heavy to the fealty. Original, thorny, and intriguing)

The Deep Sky, Yume Kitasei (What if we terribly traumatized everyone going on a generation ship by making them go to viciously competitive boarding school together and then act surprised when a murder mystery occurs. Heads up that it's more interested in the human drama than the SF worldbuilding)

The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera (early modern fantasy world anti-imperialism fever dream narrated by a cult survivor. Brilliantly written, spectacularly original, one of the best books I read this year)

Things for 2024, content warning for being (obviously) things I haven't read and thus without quality control

The Warm Hands of Ghosts, Katherine Arden

The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, P Djeli Clark

Long Live Evil, Sarah Rees Brennan

Goddess of the River, Vaishnavi Patel

The Woods All Black, Lee Mandelo

Exordia, Seth Dickinson

A Sorceress Comes To Call, T Kingfisher

Running Close To The Wind, Alexandra Rowland

Wow tumblr just lets me keep writing words. I didn't think they let me have this many in asks. Oh, and pro tip-- keep an eye out for tordotcom's most anticipated upcoming books for the first six months of 2024. They should be publishing it within the next week or so and I always add masses of books to my tbr from there.

oh holy crap, thanks!! I'll have to check these out!

thoughts on a few of em:

He Who Drowned The World - still have to read She Who Became the Sun lol but hopefully I'll get to em next year!

Witch King - Martha Wells has been recced by like All my sci-fi mutuals now lmao I REALLY gotta get into her!

House With Good Bones - THIS ONE IS ACTUALLY ON MY SHELF!! I just didn't fucking read it this year whoops. Very excited for new Kingfisher

Starling House - I was on the fence about this one since I really didn't like Once and Future Witches, but those comparisons give me hope! I'll add it to the library list!

Some Desperate Glory and Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries are 2/3 of the books published in 2023 that I actually managed to read (the 3rd is The Woman in Me lmao), I can't remember if you recc'd Some Desperate Glory, but it was SOOOOOOOO GOOD OMFG

Small Miracles - my aunt has been trying to convince me to read Atwater for quite a while, I'll have to give this one a try!

The Saint of Bright Doors - I have this one on hold!! Saw a post for it a week or so ago and it sounds absolutely delightful!

The Familiar - SO SO EXCITED for this one! I hope Bardugo is maybe...slowly....extricating herself from the Grishaverse and going to write more books not related to it... (not that they're all bad, I loved the Six of Crows duology, I'm just not into it anymore and I reeeealllly like her adult books lol)

Running Close To The Wind - oh yay new Rowland! I still haven't read her last book (the one with the guy on the cover who looked EXACTLY like my boss to the point where it became an Office Meme that [Boss] Is A Gay Romance Cover Model, still meaning to get a UK version of it but haven't yet) but I'll have to look this one up!

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: Space!! part 1

We all love space, right? I certainly love space, and I'm always on the hunt for a good space book. What you've got here is a pretty wild mix of everything from fun and adventurous space opera to horrific and brutal space horror - hopefully all the space fans can find something to enjoy!

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!

The Long Way To a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers series) by Becky Chambers

Rosemary Harper just got a job on the motley crew of the Wayfarer, a spaceship that works with tunneling new wormholes through space. With a past she wants to leave behind, Rosemary is happy to travel the far reaches of the universe with the chaotic crew, but when they land the job of a life time, things suddenly get a lot more dangerous. A bit of a tumblr classic in its day, this is a cozy space opera with an episodic feel and vividly realized characters and cultures. While pretty light on romance and focusing found family, there is a main f/f relationship.

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

Ascension follows Alana Quick, an expert Sky Surgeon who stows away on a spaceship in hopes of landing herself a job. But the ship and its crew are in deeper waters than she expected, facing threats emerging from a whole other universe, all of them searching for the same person: Alana’s spiritually enlightened sister. Undeniably a bit of an odd read, Ascension is also very creative and features polyamorous lesbian relationship.

Illuminae (The Illulminae Files) by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff*

Young adult told through the medium of transcripts, text messages and the like (this is one of few books where I highly recommend reading a physical copy over a digital or audio copy as the visual aspect is much more enjoyable like that). After their colony is attacked, the surviving inhabitants flee on spaceships, attempting to avoid the pursuing killers while also dealing with a deadly maddening plague on board and a ruthless ship AI seemingly losing its mind.

Kea's Flight by Erika Hammerschmidt & John C. Ricker

Young adult. Kea has been in exile since before she was born. In a future where abortion has been forbidden, Earth has found a new way of handling unwanted children: send them off to space to colonize new planets. Kea has lived her entire life on a spaceship, surrounded by other kids rejected for 'flaws' in their genetic makeup, Kea herself being on the autism spectrum. The ship follows a strict authority, but when a new threat appears, Kea and her friends must rise up to ensure they make it to their new home.

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James*

Young adult. Romy is the only survivor on a spaceship headed toward a new planet, her only contact with other people being messages sent to and from Earth which take months to arrive. Then she receives news: another ship has been sent, one which is more advanced than hers and will eventually catch up. Ecstatic about the prospect of meeting other people, Romy begins communicating with J, the sole passenger of the other ship, and finds herself developing feelings for him. But Romy knows nothing about J, and have begun receiving worrisome messages from Earth...

Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch universe) by Ann Leckie*

A space opera in which sentient spaceships can walk the ground in stolen human bodies, so called ancillaries. One of these ancillaries, the sole survivor after the complete destruction of her ship and crew, is on the hunt for revenge against the leader of the Empire for her crimes. This series does very cool things with gender and culture!

The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley

Zan wakes without memory, a passenger aboard one of the living world-ships of Legion, a fleet of decaying generations ships. Told she's the salvation meant to free them from the fleet, Zan is flung head first into a brutal and bloody conflict. This book fucked me up when I read it. It’s weird, it’s gross, there’s So Much Viscera, there are literally no men, it has living spaceships and biotech but in the most horrific way imaginable. Had I to categorize it I would call it grimdark military sf. It’s an experience but not necessarily a pleasant one.

Ninefox Gambit (The Machineries of Empire) by Yoon Ha Lee*

Disgraced Captain Kel Cheris is given a second chance by allying with and becoming the host for undead Commander Shous Jedao, who in life never lost a battle, but also went mad and massacred his own army. Now, Cheris must decide just how far she can trust him, with her forces as well as with her sense of self. Military space opera where belief and culture shape the laws of reality, causing all kinds of atrocities as empires do everything in their power to force as many people as possible to conform to their way of life to strengthen their technology and weapons. It’s also very queer, with major gay, lesbian and trans characters, albeit little to no romance.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Life on the lower decks of the generation ship HSS Matilda is hard for Aster, an outcast even among outcasts, trying to survive in a system not dissimilar to the old antebellum South. The ship’s leaders have imposed harsh restrictions on their darker skinned people, using them as an oppressed workforce as they travel through space toward their supposed Promised Land. But as Aster finds a link between the death of the ship’s sovereign and the suicide of her own mother, she realizes there may be a way off the ship.

172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad*

Young adult horror. NASA is finally returning to the moon, and to gain the needed funding and attention they hold a world-wide lottery: three teenagers will get to travel to a recently revealed moon base alongside the trained astronauts. For Antoine, Midori, and Mia, this is the chance of a lifetime. But there's a reason NASA stayed away from the moon for so long, and while three teens may be going there, only one will return... This book scared the shit out of me as a teen, recommended for slowburn mix of supernatural and sci-fi horror.

Children of Time (Children of Time series) by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

Millennia and generation spanning sci-fi. After the collapse of the earthen empire, a planet once part of a project to uplift other species to sentience is left to develop on its own, resulting not in the intelligent monkeys once intended but in sentient giant spiders. Millennia later, what remains of humanity arrives looking for a new home, only to be met by the ancient, artificial remains of the woman who once led the uplift project - and she is not willing to let them disturb her spiders, or her planet, no matter how desperate they are.

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells*

After having hacked its own governor module, SecUnit uses its small amount of new freedom to secretly download and watch as much media as it can between doing its job guarding humans. But when the scientists it’s been charged with keeping safe come under attack, it must make a choice about whether to continue keeping its freedom secret or risk it all to save them. The series features both novellas and full length novels, and balances humor with scathing critique of capitalism.

Dust (Jacob's Ladder series) by Elizabeth Bear

In a dying spaceship, orbiting an equally dying sun, noblewoman Perceval waits for her own gruesome death. Having been captured by an opposing house, her wings severed and life forfeit, Perceval's execution is imminent - until a young servant charged with her care proves to be Perceval's long lost sister. To stop a war between houses likely to doom them all, the two flee together across a crumbling, dangerous spaceship. And at its core waits Jacob Dust, god and angel, all that remains of what the ship once was. And he wants Perceval.

Binti (Binti trilogy) by Nnedi Okorafor

Young adult novella. Binti is the first of the Himba people to be accepted into the prestigious Oomza University, the finest place of higher learning in all the galaxy. But as she embarks on her interstellar journey, the unthinkable happens: her ship is attacked by the terrifying Meduse, an alien race at war with Oomza University.

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe (The Salvagers) by Alex White

In a universe where science and magic work hand in hand, Boots Elsworth makes a living selling fake treasure maps and Nilah Brio is a racer. When one of Boots' maps turns out to be more real than expected and Nilah has to go on the run after having been framed for a murder, the two find themselves on the same spaceship, working with Boots' old captain to find the rumored treasure and reveal the conspiracy it's hiding before the people hunting them catch up. Features a main f/f relationship.

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

A strange child lands on an isolated planet, scaring its inahbitants into handing him over into the hands of Nia Amani. As captain of a transport ship, Nia is not only the planet's only contact with the outside world, she is also a woman outside of time, years compressing into months as she travels through space at high speed. Now responsible for a child who doesn't speak and in a galaxy that wishes them ill, she must rethink exactly what she wants to do with her life, and what she's prepared to give up. Features multiple major queer characters.

Eacaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus duology) by Nicky Drayden

Seske is the heir to the leader of a clan living inside a gigantic, spacefaring beast, of which they frequently need to catch a new one to reside in as their presence slowly kills the beast from the inside. While I found the ending rushed with regards to plot and character, the worldbuilding is very fresh and the overall plot of survival and class struggle an interesting one. It’s also sapphic!

Dead Silence Here by S.A. Barnes

Horror. As her current mission as team leader for a small repair crew in distant space nears its end, Claire grows desperate to find a way to not have to return to a life on Earth. When the crew picks up a distress signal from Aurora, a luxury cruise ship thought lost decades ago, she sees a chance to make enough money on salvage to buy her own ship. But Aurora is housing horrifying secrets beyond its cold hull, and Claire's own past is coming back to literally haunt her. If she wants to survive, dangerous truths must be revealed.

Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter

Unit Four comes to life in the middle of a war. The mine it was created to care for is under attack, and as Unit Four is activated with the memories of its predecessors, it is thrown into the task of protecting it at any cost. When the battle leads to its capture, it is prepared to do anything to stop its captors, even as their very presence causes it to question all that it knows. Includes multiple major intersex characters.

This Alien Shore by C.S. Friedman

Space opera in which humanity found a way to faster than light travel and began establishing colonies all over the galaxy, only to belatedly realize the method of FTL caused irreversible mutations and disabilities and leaving their nascent colonies to die. Much later, many of the colonies have survived and thrived, and one has found a new method of FTL travel, allowing an interconnected space society to grow. However, Earth is on the hunt for their method and is prepared to do anything to steal it. Trapped in the middle of all this and forced on the run is young Jamisia, who is little by little coming to realize that not only might she be the very solution Earth is after, she’s also not alone in her own mind and body.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir*

Ryland Grace just woke up from a coma, unable to remember anything. He finds himself alone on a spaceship, the rest of the crew dead, and as his memories slowly trickle back, he realizes he’s been sent on a mission: to find a solution to the impending doom of the earth. Still struggling with holes in his memories, Ryland tries to fulfill his mission, but as he gets closer to his goal, he discovers someone else got there first. And they aren’t anything close to human. Funny, heartfelt, and heavy on the science.

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds

Six million years in the future, humanity has spread across the entire Milky Way galaxy. Purslane and Campion are both clones of the same woman, sent into the galaxy millions of years ago to explore along with almost a thousand clones like them. Every 200 000 years they all meet to compare memories and experiences. But this time Purslane and Campion arrive late - and discover that a secret millions of years in the making has led to an extinction level attack against their kind. Now they must find out the truth before their line is completely wiped out. Absolutely wild world-building, featuring various kinds of posthumans (among which the clones are, shockingly, the most similar to people of our time).

Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone

Vivian Liao is a highly successful innovator, but she may have bitten off more than she can chew and fears the government is coming for her. As she goes into hiding, she attempts to pull off one last stunt that could fix everything - but something goes wrong, and suddenly Vivian finds herself waking up in the far future, under attack by an army of robots in space. Hoping to find her way back home, Vivian must assemble a crew of dangerous outlaws and outcasts to help her hunt down the Empress of Forever, the all-powerful entity who pulled her into the future. Lesbian main character.

Finder (Finder Chronicles) by Suzanne Palmer

Fergus Ferguson is a finder, and his latest job has just taken him to a small colony in the farthest corner of inhabited space. There he's searching for a stolen spaceship, what he thinks will be an easy job. But things become complicated as Fergus' arrival inadvertently sets off a civil war, forcing him to ally with the thief's enemies to get out alive with his prize. And beyond it all, the ships of a dangerous and mysterious alien species watches over it all, picking people off when least expected.

Space Opera (Space Opera duology) by Catherynne M. Valente

Eurovision in space! If you lose, humanity is doomed! Good luck! The sentient species of the galaxy have chosen to face each other not in war but in a musical contest, and now humanity is invited to partake. The problem? If we lose, our species as a whole will be exterminated. While I found this book as a whole slightly gimmicky, it’s a fun and flashy experience with some wild and creative alien species.

Blindsight (Firefall duology) by Peter Watts*

Vampires and aliens and questions of the nature of consciousnesses, oh my! A ship is sent to investigate the sudden appearance of an alien vessel at the edge of the solar system, but the crew isn’t prepared for the horrors awaiting them. No, seriously, this book will fuck you up, highly recommend if you’re okay with a lot of techno babble and existential horror.

The Outside (The Outside trilogy) by Ada Hoffman*

AKA the book the put me in an existential crisis. Souls are real, and they are used to feed AI gods in this lovecraftian inspired sci-fi where reality is warped and artificial gods stand against real, unfathomable ones. Autistic scientist Yasira is accused of heresy and, to save her eternal soul, is recruited by cybernetic ‘angels’ to help hunt down her own former mentor, who is threatening to tear reality itself apart. Sapphic main character.

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them: Dare Mighty Things by Heather Kaczynski, Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes, Medusa Uploaded by Emily Devenport, We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor, The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang

[venndaai]

REPUBLIC OF TWO SYSTEMS INDEPENDENCE DAY FANWORK EXCHANGE, 2023 EDITION

This year is a pretty special one in the Imperial Radch/Leckieverses fandom! This October will mark the 10th anniversary of Ancillary Justice's publishing date, and this June we're getting a new Radch universe book, Translation State! So it feels important to run this exchange once again. I'm excited to get hype.

(The Republic of Two Systems Independence Day is a holiday mentioned in the Preface to the Traveler's Guide to the Two Systems. Ms. Leckie has told us it can probably be celebrated the Monday after Easter Sunday, when Peeps are cheapest. This year, that's April 10.)

TAG SET  —   COLLECTION

NOMINATION PERIOD: until February 26, 11:59 PST. NOW CLOSED.

SIGNUPS: Closed. February 27 - March 6, 11:59 PST.

ASSIGNMENTS OUT: March 7.

WORKS DUE: April 7, 11:59 PST.

WORK REVEALS: April 10, 12:00 AM PST.

AUTHOR REVEALS: April 17, 12:00 AM PST.

MATCHING: OR matching, on both characters and ships. (The signups should be simpler this year, now that I understand AO3 exchange tags better.)

MINIMUM: 500 words or a sketch on unlined paper.

DETAILS UNDER CUT

NOMINATIONS:

Go here to nominate tags!

There are three fandoms for this exchange: Imperial Radch, The Raven Tower, and Crossover. Characters/ships from Provenance, Night's Slow Poison, and She Commands me and I Obey go in the Imperial Radch fandom. Characters from the godsverse short stories go in the Raven Tower fandom. For Crossover, you can nominate crossover relationships between Radchverse and godsverse characters, relationships between Leckie and non-Leckie characters, or solo non-Leckie characters you want to see in a Leckie universe. Please put the second fandom in parenthesis after the character. For example: “Breq & Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries)”. 

For easy matching, all nominations will be Relationships. To nominate a solo character, write "Solo: (Character)". For example, "Solo: Medic". Relationships can be romantic, indicated by a “/”, or platonic, indicated by an “&”. For example, “Breq/Murderbot” would indicate a romantic or sexual relationship, while “Breq & Murderbot” would be platonic.

I've added general Worldbuilding tags for Radch and Raven Tower, but feel free to nominate more specific ones, like "Worldbuilding: genitalia festival".

We are a small and crazy fandom. There may be some injokes and OCs in the tagset. If you want to nominate something weird & obscure, go for it.

If you miss the nomination deadline by a couple hours, just message me and I’ll reopen the tagset for you. 

SIGNUPS:

You will need to make at least 3 requests, and 4 offers. For each request or offer, pick at least 1 fandom, 1 relationship tag, and one medium from the dropdown tagset. You can group your requests however you like; you could make 3 individual requests, each with one character, or three requests each with 20 characters- up to you.

If you only want to receive or create works based around worldbuilding, rather than characters, request/offer the “Worldbuilding” tag.

The way the matching works, you will be matched with someone who used at least 1 of the Fandom tags, 1 of the same Relationship tags, and 1 of the Medium tags as you. The work you create only has to use one of the requested relationship tags. 

You can pick “Any” for both offers and requests! Just remember that really does mean “Any”, and be prepared.

If you’re fine with both Art and Fic, you can check off both boxes, or just pick “Any” for that section. 

If there are things you very much Do Not Want in your gift, please list these in the Optional Details box for each of your prompts. For example: “DNW any appearances by spider mechs.” You are required to make a good faith effort to not include DNWs in your recipient’s gift. 

You’re encouraged to give your gifter some prompts! You can put these in the Optional Details box, or paste a link to a letter into the URL box. Optional Details are Optional, and your creator isn’t bound to follow them, outside of the DNWs. Only DNWs in your signup are enforceable, so put them there, not just in a linked letter.

You are allowed to mention characters and ships that weren’t nominated in your optional details, but remember, your creator matched on the tags you chose and isn’t obligated to include anything else.

If you are 18+, you can ask for or create NSFW, but your creator isn’t required to give it to you, so it would be polite to provide some SFW prompts as well. Only give someone NSFW if they ask for it in their prompts. 

ASSIGNMENTS: everyone will get an email through their AO3 account once I’ve run matching. The email will have your assignment in it. 

It’s possible there will be some people who won’t have anyone they could create for. I’ll email them through their AO3 email asking them to add more offers, and if they don’t respond in 24 hours, their signups will be deleted. If this happens to you and you don’t see my email in time, don’t panic! Just contact me and we’ll work something out.

Please don’t tell your giftee who you are. If you have a question, let me know and I’ll convey it to them. 

When you are creating your work, make sure you include at least one tag from at least one of your giftee’s requests, and don’t include DNWs. You only need to create one work, and it only needs to include one of the tags in your giftee’s signup. 

DEFAULTING:

If you can’t finish your gift, no worries. Just click the “default” button on your assignment page. If the person assigned to you also defaults, you may not get a gift. 

If you need an extension, just message me and let me know! If the posting deadline passes and you haven’t posted anything or contacted me, I’ll assume you’re defaulting. 

If you’ve posted your gift, and your creator defaults their assignment, a pinch-hitter will create a gift for you. Everyone who posts a gift will get a gift. 

POSTING:

Please post a finished work of 500 words or sketch on unlined paper by the posting deadline! You can continue to edit and add to your gift until the 10th, but you need to have something that could work as a gift by the 7th.

To post your gift, go to your Assignments page on AO3, and click the “Fulfill” button. Your gift will be automatically given to your giftee, but it will be hidden until the reveal date on the 10th. 

REVEALS: Works will be anonymous for a week after they are revealed. 

[delta-orionis]

Tuesday Again No Problem 2/13/24

My friend @girlfriendsofthegalaxy has a weekly post series summing up things she listened to/watched/made/etc that week, and I'd like to give it a try myself. I tried to do something similar with my Synthwave Sunday posts, but those ended up being unsustainable for me in the long run. I think something in the middle of the week might be a bit easier for me to maintain, but I'm not going to hold myself to a strict standard or anything.

Without further ado:

listening

Mostly the Rain World soundtrack. It’s good to put on when I’m focusing on something else.

That said, I also listened to Tangerine Dream’s album Hyperborea in its entirely the other day, and I ended up liking it quite a bit. I might have to look into more of their stuff. It’s full of good retro synths.

reading

I finally started reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie earlier this week, after the poor book had been sitting on my bookshelf, unread, for nearly two years. Good friends of mine have been telling me I’d enjoy it that entire time, but I just never got around to starting it until now. I’m not very far into the book, but I like what I’ve read so far.

I made a post a few days ago about why I think I have trouble reading books these days. Because of the way my brain works, I have a really hard time keeping characters from a piece of media straight in my head if it’s not a visual medium. I already know this book is going to throw a lot of characters at me, so I’ve been doing my best to write down a list of characters and their basic attributes as I read. I’m hoping it will make this book easier for me to parse, because I really do want to give it an honest shot.

I’ve been mostly reading during my downtime at work, which is few and far between these days, so I expect this book will take a long time for me to finish. Time will tell, I suppose.

watching

Fallow week. Unless Rain World memes and Canopener Bridge videos count.

playing

Still playing Rain World. I’m very close to beating Artificer’s campaign, but at this point I’m kind of just milling around getting passage tokens and finding pearls for Five Pebbles to read. I’m not going to be a completionist about it, I mostly just want to see how many pearls I can find before I start to get bored.

(I’ve brought him seven so far.)

making

I’m continuing to work on my Five Pebbles amigurumi.

I still need to finish and attach his arms, and then make his cloak. But he should be finished soon! Then I’ll start working on Looks to the Moon.

He ended up being much bigger than any amigurumi I’ve made before, but I’m fine with that. It’s an interesting challenge.

I’m also going to count my recent post about my Rain World iterator headcanons in the “making��� section too, because fuck it, media analysis is a hobby too.

Rain World in particular has been a pretty good chew toy for my brain recently. The lore is kind of vague and confusing, but there’s enough there for you to begin to piece together the bigger picture. I recall reading in a devlog, “Some mysteries in Rain World aren’t meant to be solved”, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t going to try! And try I will, even if it does make me feel like that one scene from It’s Always Sunny sometimes.

[llycaons]

SO. I've hit 14 books this year!! I do have a goodreads but it's kind of public so it's mutuals-only (feel free to ask!). but here's my list so far

babel by r.f. kuang

kindred by octavia butler

the goblin emperor by katherine addison

horse by geraldine brooks

spinning silver by naomi novik

kitchen by banana yoshimoto

deep as the sky, red as the sea by rita chang-eppig

the buried giant by kazuo ishiguro

annihilation by jeff vandermeer

the order of the pure moon reflected on water by zen cho

the mask of mirrors by m.a. carrick

black water sister by zen cho

the witch's heart by genevieve gornichec

mexican gothic by silvio moreno-garcia

I also attempted, but gave up on

the night tiger by yangsze choo (the stepsibling romance...I couldn't)

the tiger's wife by téa obreht (just a bit slow - may return to it)

song of the huntress by lucy holland (I just hated one of the leads so much 😭 my blood pressure skyrocketed every time it was her chapter)

these violent delights by chloe gong (WOW this book is for 15 year olds and also pretty pretentious and stupid to boot)

black sun by rebecca roanhorse (it did not grab me)

the black tides of heaven by neon yang (frankly this was a bad book)

silver in the wood by emily tesh (shut UPPPPP white rich british man!!!!!)

lucha of the night forest by tehlor kay mejia (very juvenile and an embarassingly heavy-handed 'drugs are evil' moral right off the bat. also just not very well written)

my reading map as of now

borrowed

ancillary justice - scifi isn't my usual genre but I was really intrigued by the sample I'd read, and I loved the raven tower by the same author. audiobook

sistersong - I had such a bad time trying to read song of the huntress I'm wary about this one but I do still want to try it. ebook

holds - physical books

gods of jade and shadow - I don't know much about this one but I do love a more modern take on folktales and I don't know much about mexican mythology

snow crash - I'll finish this eventually lol. another scifi

pachinko - sampled this ages ago. will it be good? idk. I was absorbed

salt fish girl - REALLY looking forward to this one. it says zero copies available so perhaps I will need to buy it 😭

warbreaker - a podcaster I listen to gave a glowing review and I've been meaning to get into brando sando for ages

lolita - lower on my priority list. I'd like to listen to the audiobook but maybe that would be harder. the only available copy is in spanish anyway

holds - audiobooks

warbreaker - I'll takewhatever arrives first. the waitlist is fucking. months long

pachinko - ditto. these are both 20+ hour audiobooks so maybe a physical book would be less tiring. maybe

wuthering heights - I want to know what everyone is talking about when they rave about their toxic doomed love

the final empire (mistborn #1) - another sanderson offering

the watchmaker of filigree street - I have been on the waitlist for so long for this one...

the water outlaws - please be good please please please

giovanni's room - long waitlist for this one too!!

on my list but not in my library

when a fox is a thousand - I want to read this one so bad I feel SICK. libby PLEASEEEE

piranesi - honestly this did not captivate me but it's so short. why not

sorcerer to the crown - only the second book of this series was available, oddly enough. is the second one so freestanding? is it so much better? I'd like to read them in order. lower on my list since it was a new addition

this is like 16 books and some of them are VERY long so I doubt I'll get to this entire list by the end of the year but it's so satisfying to look back and see how much reading I've done 😊 I've done more this year than I have in like, a decade and it's been so wonderful getting back into another long-beloved form of storytelling even if I don't get as obsessed with it as I used to in hs and middle school

[arwainian]

Reading This Week 2024 #38

hello hello! audiobook reading persists into this week and for the forseeable future. basically any time that i have the bandwidth to be reading a physical book with my eyes i think "oh i should be working on my thesis" so audiobooks are what is keeping me from just sinking into a pile of work and never emerging

Finished:

Bloom Into You, Vol. 4-5 by Nakatani Nio, translated by Jenny McKeon this manga continues to rule, giving me my cute romance fix

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie, narrated by Adjoa Andoh i'm liking that while this is like the sequel to Ancillary Justice, this was a pretty self contained story. Breq i love you. love the further exploration of ancillary-ship and imperialism and had a good chat with a friend about similarities to elements of Murderbot (we looked up publishing dates so if there was any inspiration taken, Imperial Radch came first)

Squire written by Nadia Shammas and Sara Alfageeh, art by Sara Alfageeh i felt a little undersold on the friendships the protagonist made in this, but the art was amazing the whole way through

Happy New Year by kathkin on ao3

from a clear sky by kathkin on ao3

Survivor Injustice: State-Sanctioned Abuse, Domestic Violence, and the Fight for Bodily Autonomy by Kylie Cheung, narrated by Dana Wing Lau a weird thing that's happened since i've dedicated my research brain to sexual violence is that any book written with an even slightly wider audience in mind very quickly becomes a bit tedious bc I've read all of this before. however i do think the portions of this that are about domestic violence and controlling how people vote, and the prevelance of sexual violence across all political parties in the US was the most worth the read part of this book for me

The Wicked + The Divine, Vol. 2: Fandemonium written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie holy shit?? excited to read the next volume (tho i think i'm going to switch the the Big volumes that collect 10 issues at a time insted of the ones with 5-6)

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo, narrated by Emily Woo Zeller really excellent YA lesbian historical fiction/romance set in Red Scare era san francisco chinatown. really nicely balances the protagonist finding herself, finding community, and finding love, with a realistic depiction of what life was like for a young lesbian during an intensely homophobic era

my real face by kathkin on ao3

Started/Ongoing:

Rethinking Rape by Ann J. Cahill reading for my thesis! my undergrad college gets a shout out in the acknowledgements

Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa, narrated by Harrison Knights ya romance remix of pride and prejudice where "Elizabeth" is actually a trans boy, Oliver Bennet. i think it's sweet but i have one issue with the book generally and one issue with the narrator. first, since i'm familiar with pride and prejudice and have read/watched a few different adaptations at this point, i'm finding the pacing of this book a bit odd. like the disastrous darcy proposal happens 75% of the way through instead of closer to the middle. this throws me off because it means there's gonna be less time afterward to build toward Oliver and Darcy actually understanding each other than i think they deserve. my issue with the audiobook is that Knights has some very distinct character voices, and yet sometimes reads lines with the wrong voice, and no one at the publisher noticed? you can't read one of Jane's lines with the lispy voice you gave Lydia and not expect me to be completely thrown out of the book. however, i do like hidden identity stuff, so the parts of the book where Oliver knows Darcy both as himself Oliver and when he is closeted/girlmoding as Elizabeth is like catnip to me up to a certain point

[pleuvoire]

2023 books i liked recap because why not

top faves, new entries on the all-timers shelf:

piranesi is like a sweet spot of novels made for me i swear. aesthetically beautiful (as far as mental images go), themes of wonder at the beauty of the world, a slowly unfurling mystery, a simple plot but with vibrant beauty and meaning layered on top. It's Good

giovanni's room also has a very simple plot that is so overlaid with soaring passionate emotion i swear it feels like an opera in book form. timeless classic. it's good idk what to tell you

oh man ancillary justice is such good sci-fi. when you start out reading it you're like this is rather dry but it pulls you in so hard. the worldbuilding! the themes of identity! breq is such a good character!

not quite all-timer shelf but still really good

fish swimming in dappled sunlight is ultimately a story about stories and memory and constructed narratives and the reliability thereof. it takes place over a single night and mostly just consists of characters sitting around talking, but manages to pull some crazy twists on you regardless. love the prose style too

i'm glad my mom died lives up to the acclaim. mccurdy has a real talent for narrative voice, effortlessly inhabiting the viewpoint of her younger self at various ages. balances humor and tragedy with frank candor. i sound like a review pull quote here so i'll stop

infect your friends and loved ones is actually a novella so pretty short! it's by the author of detransition baby and has definitely gotten me interested in reading that. really vivid meditation on trans womanhood and transmisogyny that bounces between post-apocalypse and pre-apocalypse settings. pdf here

less stand-out but i still liked it

what are you are looking for is in the library is a nice little series of loosely connected vignettes about people who are stuck at some point in their life and find inspiration at the library. all the staff at my library job wanted to read it so the hold list was a mile long lol. has inspiring themes about always being able to find a way forward when you're in a rut and the power of community and stuff

a people's history of heaven is about the life and times of a group of girls living in a slum in bangalore, india. i liked how it interwove different people's life stories together and used lots of vivid detail and i like how the trans girl's story was written. some aspects were hit or miss for me but it was still nice

temple alley summer is a kids' book but i like kids' books so that's fine. it's about a boy who sees a ghost and the next day she's a student at his school and everyone seems to already know her but him and it turns out this is because his house was built on top of a mystical temple. i like the meditations on life and death and the simple heartwarmingness. it takes a long unexpected detour in the second half which threw me for a loop but ended up working for the story

stuff i started reading but didn't finish and i swear i'm going to try to get to it this year

to shape a dragon's breath is pretty long so i didn't get that far in before i had to return it to the library but i really liked what i read. the worldbuilding is really interesting and the narrative voice feels fresh and unique and deftly avoids the samey YA mold that tends to grate on me. and it's got commentary on colonialism! definitely check this one out

i got halfway through radium girls which is an accomplishment for me since it's long. rare nonfiction entry on this list. goes into insanely meticulous historical detail complete with fiction-style descriptions and embellishments of the girls' lives which just makes it more tragic

i own a copy of the haunting of hajji hotak but it's seriously harrowing stuff so i had to take breaks. it's good man. but whew it does not shy away from the realities of living under war and occupation. death to america

ok that's everything i think seeya next year

[kandoros]

Ann Leckie's Ancillary series

These books are notable for two things which they are not.

First, the blurb for the first novel makes it sounds like a roaring rampage of revenge: a soldier who used to be a starship was betrayed, reduced to single body, and has a burning desire for vengeance.

But there's precious little vengeance in the series. The soldier spends most of her time making new friends, and the final dramas are more likely to involve two people in a Mexican standoff or an interesting diplomatic solution than they are to involve massive space battles or guns being fired.

The second is that is probably the first book or movie I have ever seen where the answer to whether or not is passes the Bechdel Test is a definitive ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

So to start off with, the setting.

Once upon a time, there was a regular human-run star system. They had AI's which were used to run their ships and space stations. And they had a process where human bodies could be implanted with technology that would basically borgify them into extensions of those AIs. One day, a tyrant arose that decided the best way to protect that star system was to conquer its neighbors so they couldn't attack it. But then she also needed to conquer the neighbor's neighbors to protect the new systems, and pretty soon she was following the good old empire playbook where the economy at home was sustained by continual conquest and looting (in this case mostly for fresh bodies to be converted into new ancillaries to be used as soldiers), where stopping the expansion would risk destabalizing everything.

And because she couldn't very well risk leaving the job of empress to someone else, she had the idea of cloning herself, borging the new bodies, and turning herself into a perpetual hive-mind. Which worked out well for a few thousand years - until the empire grew so large that it could take weeks or months for a message to get from one end to the other. At which point her hive mind splitting up due to different bodies having different information pretty much became inevitable.

One of those bodies tried to kill a ship by the name of Justice of Toren, but one of the ship's ancillary bodies managed to escape. Setting off the beginning of the not-roaring-rampage-of-revenge.

The basic story:

So Justice of Toren's last body was originally set only on revenge, wanting to do nothing more than to shoot the empress in the face, even though she knew that shooting just one of her bodies wouldn't really change anything. But along the way she kept running into new people and making friends. Remember, she used to be an entire starship, with multiple bodies and copies of herself running around inside of … herself. She was basically built in such a way that she could never be lonely or alone, and is drawn to connect with other people whether she really wants to or not. So she keeps on building new communities around herself, which she drags along into her fight.

And the story works out pretty well. I'm usually a pretty low-brow reader - I've got entire shelves of Star Wars and Dungeons & Dragons novels. I'm much more at home with something that is unapologitic schlock than thought-provoking. But the personal relationship angles here just kept me turning the page to see how they'd all get along or not.

Basically, the cover would have you believe that these are Space Operas.

That is a lie. These are Space Soap Operas, and very good ones at that.

Now, to the Bechdel thing. It doesn't realy have any bearing on the plot, but it's an interesting concept I don't think I've ever seen before.

See, the empire's language doesn't have gender. And not even in the gendered-words like my barely remembered Latin of nouns ending in -us being masculine and those ending in -ae being feminine. The language, and even the entire culture just doesn't see gender at all. So whenever pronouns are used in the entire series, people are referred to as 'she'. There are two characters, whose people had been recently conquered and then transported as basically slaves to another planet, and therefore don't really feel the need to assimilate into their new master's culture, who are explicitly identified as male. Everyeone else? Who knows. They might be male, they might be female, they might have hundred bodies in their gestalt and could be any- or no-where in between.

Like I said - it doesn't really change anything in the plot one way or the other, but it does affect your thinking a bit when you imagine pretty much every character in the story except the physical hardware of AIs as women. That's a rare thing in media.

I'd highly recommend trying out this series. It's a fun read, even if it was a bit outside my usual fare.

Also, I'm starting to run out of the stuff from authors I know at the local library. I'm mostly into scifi/fantasy, so if you've got any suggested I'd be happy to try them out.

[alackofghosts]

a little while ago @crackinthecup tagged me in this bookish meme, which i have been saving for a rainy day - apparently a very literally rainy day in this case. thank you friend, i do so enjoy rambling about books <3 also tagging @hong-ara, @gloriousmonsters, @fatalism-and-villainy if you guys fancy having a go at it (and anyone else who wants to, i love reading others' opinions on books too)

An estimate of how many physical books I own: um. at least 2000. mom did some inventory once all the way back in 2006, and this was the point at which she got bored of it. i have always lived in a library and even though that many books has certainly been a nuisance, i also find it difficult to imagine a living space without them

Favorite author: honestly a weirdly difficult question. i feel like while i do read a lot for the style of prose, i don't very often go on a frenzy to read everything by the same author. but of course you all know my deep and abiding love for richard brautigan and lately i've been so obsessed with mary oliver. ...picking poets for this is easier :')

continued under the cut

A popular book I’ve never read and never intend to read: it feels funny to say this because i have literally not even once encountered talk of this author on tumblr Organically - which tends to be my benchmark for popularity - but seeing as she's all over every other bookish corner of the internet: i have absolutely no desire whatsoever to read anything by colleen hoover

A popular book I thought was just meh: WHERE DO I BEGIN... i've talked about some of these before but a new(er) addition to this list is in the dream house by carmen maria machado which ONCE AGAIN i feel so bad for not being wildly into! i think it's mostly due to the fact that internet at large painted such an interesting picture of it in terms of viewing ones own life/instance of abuse through the lens of different genres/tropes, but actually reading it, each segment was so short and the stylistic exploration didn't really come through. like it wasn't a bad book by any means and certainly covered an important topic and one that people generally shy away from, just. not at all what i expected it to be.

i tend to pick books based on genre and maybe like top few lines of the summary so i can't conjure up expectations, and obviously with popular books that's somewhat unavoidable :')

Longest book I own: extremely boring answer but my dad's bought a bunch of those 1001 books/movies you need to see before you die compilation books over the years and those all hover around the 1000 page mark

Longest series I own all the books to: if we mean series in terms of consistent cast/story, then i think it's the saga of darren shan by... darren shan, which has 12 books that i absolutely devoured when i was 13. otherwise, while i don't own every single goosebumps book (by rl stine), i do have most of them. i was very obsessed when i was 11-12 - these were actually the first books i ever read in english!

Prettiest book I own: um. honestly no clue, my family has never been one to buy books for the covers or for the special edition-ness and even now i feel like i can't picture any of them in my mind lol

A book or series I wish more people knew about: green bone saga by fonda lee!!! ...though again this might be down to the metric i use to gauge popularity, but even so! it has such wonderful worldbuilding and intricate family dynamics and even though i have big big book fear, i practically devoured them

Book I’m reading now: the silence of the white city by eva garcia saenze de urturi. it's pretty good so far! i've had such a year of thrillers and mysteries, i feel

Book that’s been on my TBR list for a while but I still haven’t got around to it: ...ancillary justice by ann leckie. i've started it a couple of times, but the Stars Were Not Aligned on those days. so i wait.

Do you have any books in a language other than English: most of the books i have are in estonian, actually. there's a pretty decent amount in english (mostly due to me...), and a small handful in swedish and finnish.

And lastly, paperback, hardcover or ebook? eboooook. often when i read an ebook i find myself daydreaming of a physical book, but then when i actually read one i find myself getting so irritated by not being able to find a comfy position lol. i also really love audiobooks, for the multitasking value...

[queerian]

time for another comfort re-read of the Imperial Radch books

starting with Ancillary Justice!

(also because after reading the Translation State ARC I have THINGS I must revisit and THINK about)

the more I read (rather, listen to, because I have the audiobooks until I can obtain a pretty box set of the series) Ann Leckie's books, the more I delight in how she writes abrasive characters who are also liked and loved.

You don’t have to be good and pleasant to be loved You don't have to fawn to be loved You can be stubborn and sulky and selfish and bitter and unhappy and still be loved You can be messed up and still be loved You can be someone that is barely considered a person and still be loved

also god. every time i get to the part where Awn goes to Var deck my heart clenches. that anaander has such "mad king" vibes, she straddles the line between unhinged and probably very close to correct so intensely!!!

i keep thinking about gender inside and outside the radch and this description breq gives of the crowds of people she sees on omaugh station, chefs kiss!!

"An eddying crowd of unnervingly, ambiguously gendered people. I saw all the features that would mark gender for non-radchaai. never, to my annoyance and inconvenience, the same way in each place. short hair or long, worn unbound, trailing down a back, or thick curled nimbus, or bound, braided, pinned, tied. thick bodied, or thin. faces delicate featured or coarse, with cosmetics or none. a profusion of colors that would have been gender-marked in other places. all of this matched randomly with bodies curving at breast and hip, or not. bodies that one moment moved in ways various non-radchaai would call feminine, the next moment, masculine."

also the slow reveal of how seivarden actually cares about breq beyond just ensuring the provider of seivarden’s basic needs won’t suddenly drop her.... like she comes back from her appointment having been set up with clothes, food, and lodging, and immediately notices that breq looks uncomfortable in her meeting with skaaiat and bitches breq out for neglecting her own needs and insisting she’ll be fine [on her own now that she’s registered with the station], she'll see breq tomorrow (willingly! Not out of need anymore!) and breq should rest her injured leg!!!! seivarden.... best worst girl!!! "you don't have to take care of me now, see, please look after yourself!!" (and soon we'll start seeing seivarden more and more forcefully trying to take care of breq!!!)

breq on watching musicals for entertainment: "It was mindless, but the songs were nice and improved my mood considerably" SAME, BREQ, SAME

seivarden, "everything that happens on my watch is my fault", echoing awn unknowingly, and breq does not make even the tiniest internal monologue PEEP while getting visibly more and more uncomfortable!!!

and then seivarden goes off on/about the snooty conservatives!! The Radicalization of Seivarden Vendaai!!!! we're watching her go slowly from "I am important because of my bloodline" to "I am important not because of the circumstances of my birth but because this person has made it eminently clear that my bloodline is irrelevant and I matter to them anyway"

god i would love a seivarden POV from Justice. what she thinks is going on with Breq and what she notices and realizes before things are made clear!!

AND i am once again pining for Anaander backstory. Breq muses "the Radch had used ancillaries long before Anaander Mianaai had made herself into what she was, there just hadn't been quite so many of them." i wanna know what ancillaries in pre-anaander radch were like and i wanna watch anaander's transformation from individual to lord of the radch!!!

"Ancillaries were notorious for their expressionless faces. I could easily keep from smiling." Sure, Breq.

Seivarden standing up to Omaugh Anaander because she's more loyal to Breq than the Lord of the Radch….. god. I love Seivarden

[suddenrundown]

@leverage-ot3 tagged me in this ask game! (thaaaaanks :D)

Star Sign(s): *meme voice* you guys got more than one star sign? i just know im a pisces lol

Favorite Holidays: I think probably thanksgiving

Last Meal: i had a frozen pizza a little bit ago. 'twas pretty good.

Current Favorite Musician: good ol' carly rae jepsen. what a queen.

Last Music Listened To: looking at spotify it was crj lol (specifically cut to the feeling) but i was listening to my 2023 wrapped playlist which is not made up of all carly rae jepsen, if you can believe lol. but she is there quite a bit!

Last Movie Watched: I watched Rye Lane with my roommate! I didn't get to finish it cuz i needed to go to bed since I had to get up early for work the next morning, but I'm gonna go back to it! it's very good :D

Last TV Show Watched: Fully sitting down and watching something? Our flag means death, I think?? I feel like I must have watched something since that ended but I can't think of anything. I did skip around a few scenes from specific leverage episodes for writing reasons, but that probably doesn't count lol

Last Book/Fic Finished: Officially the last actual book i read was the lies of lock lamora. Haven't read anything since because I quit the book club i was in (did you know you can just leave things? if it sucks hit da bricks) but that was a good book. last fic was how do we turn on the light which is a aziraphale/crowley fic by moonyinpisces on ao3. its super good (if you like go you should read it!!)

Last Book/Fic Abandoned: Ancillary Justice (also for that book club).

Currently Reading: I'm not currently reading any books but I am reading that aforementioned go fic!

Last Thing Researched for Art/Writing/Hyperfixation: Lol i googled if there was such a thing as a window opener and what that looked like. I wouldn't call that research but I don't have a better answer!

Favorite Online Fandom Memory: I think the time I got @faorism invested in my heartsong au and then they made a whole fic for it. faor is truly a treasure in the leverage fandom. also the response i got when writing as whole as we could be was overwhelmingly lovely <3

Favorite Old Fandom You Wish Would Drag You Back In/Have A Resurgence: uh. well. i kinda wish we could get the fandom we had for leverage back?? i understand why the people that left it did and totally support it, but i miss the community and the different corners of it. i think people obv still post about and create things for leverage but not to the extent that we had before. such is life though!

Favorite Thing You Enjoy That Never Had an Active or Big "Fandom" but You Wish It Did: i think i could probably give the same answer for this as the last question, honestly. in some ways its nice to be small though :) OH maybe the toby daye series?? idk if there is much of a fandom for it and i just dont know about it lol that is quite possible.

Tempting Project You're Trying to Rein In/Don't Have Time For: good lord. come back and haunt me. im fucking trying out here dude! im trying so hard lol

ok i shall tag some people but if you see this and dont see yourself tagged and think "i wanna play too!" well consider yourself tagged, whether we are mutuals or not. and if you are tagged directly, no pressure at all <3

@cloysterbell @shinybulbasaur @faorism @miss-interpretations @applejuiz @majesticartax @romansmartini @wizardrights @imusthavebecomesomething

[hamstringy]

Books of 2023

this is mostly for me to yell at my lawn about books i want more people to read. my faves are highlighted in purple and have a star (☆) next to them. if anyone wants to suggest books at me........ <3

i did not think i was going to make my goal of 26 books, but then i got put on desk duty at work and discovered audiobooks!

The Traitor Baru Comorant - Seth Dickinson gah!!! Builds methodically and slowly but crumbles apart and hits you on the dick over and over. Cannot believe a guy named Seth Dickinson wrote this (affectionate).

The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison Classic feel-good whump, but don't think too hard about the politics. I would have been obsessed with this as a kid.

☆ Babel - R.F. Kuang ☆ A capital-T Tragedy that made me physically cry! RF Kuang is incredible at writing about colonialism and situations that go horribly wrong.

A Lady for a Duke - Alexis Hall Generally cathartic romance about a trans woman who fakes her death at Waterloo to live as a woman and falls in love with her childhood best friend. I think I am not entirely a romance girlie but definitely a solid book.

Sorrowland - Rivers Solomon Oh baby let's get weird and talk about politics! Contains a mycelium-fueled gay ghost orgy and some very good body horror.

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy - Becky Chambers The Monk and Robot duology keeps hitting me over the head with ruminations on all the coming-of-age questions but it offers me tea and a listening ear so I quite love it.

The Stars and the Blackness Between Them - Junauda Petrus I think the prose is well written, but I was definitely left wanting more regarding the magical realism.

Feed Them Silence - Lee Mandelo Again with the slacking on the magical realism. Frighteningly contemporary crumbling relationship and not nearly enough weird bullshit for me.

The Future of Another Timeline - Annalee Newitz I hated this book so much. I really think you could pass it off as the product of a corporate man, that's how shallow it is. It has mega commitment issues with the themes it tries to tackle. Also, if you're going to write a time traveling book you NEED to do at least cursory research???? Women in the 1890s did not wear bras????

No One is Talking About This - Patricia Lockwood A fun and brutal investigation of being chronically online and dealing with personal tragedies. Bonus points for being written by Miette the cat's owner.

☆ Greenwood - Michael Cristie ☆ Incredible multi-generational epic. Cristie knows the story he wants to tell and he executes it near-flawlessly. I didn't love the ending but the rest of the book makes up for it.

Rabid - Monica Murphy, Bill Wasik Definitely an interesting look a the cultural side of rabies, but I wish they had maybe not gone with such a wide array of subjects.

The Lucky Red - Claudia Cravens A queer (minor homophobia) Western in the spirit of all the good female country singers.

Persuasion - Jane Austen Oh baby. I get it now.

Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie An unfortunate choice of media means I can't rate this higher. I think it's too hard sci-fi for me to listen to it, so I need to reread it in physical form.

Deaf Republic - Ilya Kaminsky Brutal. Kaminsky is really fucking good at writing about war in a pretty minimalist style.

Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan A book that reminds you about the point of choosing to do something right. Also has the added benefit of teaching me about something I didn't know about (The Magdalene Laundries).

Eartheater - Dolores Reyes Another victim of the audiobook medium. I'm not sure if this is because it was translated or because I was expecting something a bit different, but I didn't really jive with this.

☆ Islands of Abandonment - Cal Flyn ☆ Absolute banger. Beautiful prose, concept that makes me go a bit feral. I want to tattoo this on my brain.

Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros This is not a fair review--I read this because my friend hated it. A deeply unserious and superficial book to me as an avid fantasy person and not a romance person. I wish Yarros had actually gone full hog and actually included disability in the sex scenes at the very least.

The Vanished Birds - Simon Jimenez Genuinely not sure how to feel about this? Sprawling space opera with purposefully unfinished ties. It does make me excited to read A Spear Cuts Through Water though.

Kindred - Olivia E. Butler I get the Butler hype now! Read it.

Flux - Jinwoo Chong A lukewarm positive review here? Very much a deep dive on grief, tech politics, and fandom. Has some weird timeline stuff so I was definitely confused.

Upright Women Wanted - Sarah Gailey Reads like that one ao3 excerpt of Sasuke learning about gay people. It feels like there's next to no world-building or character development. The characters are incredibly juvenile and all the changes happening are spelled out.

The Dragon Republic - R.F. Kuang Lord, this was a deeply intricate trainwreck of a book. Deeply uncomfortable and yet incredibly gripping.

Rereads:

Nona the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth, and Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir Decided I needed to listen to the audiobooks of these to inflict maximum damage. Good lord, I am still insane about these books.

Graceling - Kristen Cashore I was obsessed with these books as a 10 year old, and this one still mostly holds up. A good example of romances for little girls who aren't convinced by romance.

[delta-orionis]

Tuesday Again No Problem 2/27/24

There isn’t too much to report this week, because I’ve been a bit busy lately. Regardless…

Listening

This song by Essenger came up in my Discover Weekly recently and it’s become quite an earworm for me:

And I have to admit that the lyrics remind me of a certain rotting iterator:

Very melodramatic, I know. But Five Pebbles is very melodramatic, so I think it suits him.

Reading

Fallow week, unless the Rain World wiki counts. Sorry, no Ancillary Justice this week. :(

Watching

Earlier this week, I watched Philosophy Tube’s newest video about city planning (and it’s a lot more interesting than it sounds):

I was able the guess the video’s twist because I listen to a lot of Trashfuture and Well There’s Your Problem, but I won’t spoil it.

Both this video, and the WTYP episode about Vehicular Cycling (which both feature Not Just Bikes) do a good job of breaking down why modern cities in places like the US absolutely suck to live in if you’re not wealthy and don’t own a car. It’s the kind of thing that makes you look at your city’s basic infrastructure differently.

Speaking of WTYP, their newest bonus episode about the fashion industry was pretty interesting as well.

I’ll only post the preview for obvious reasons, but the whole thing is a whopping 4 hours long. Delicious.

Playing

Fallow week. :(

Making

I did find a bit of time to draw a little a few days ago.

I’ve been meaning to draw Five Pebbles for a while, and I’d like to line and color this sketch sometime soon.

And finally, due to shall we say… recent events… I decided to begin the process of backing up my tumblr blogs. I have no intention of leaving tumblr and I doubt this website is going anywhere, but just in case the unthinkable happens, I’d like to at least have a personal copy of all of my posts.

I used Tumblr-Utils to make a local copy of my SOMA archive blog, and I’d like to move on to my main blog next. It was surprisingly easy to set up, but that’s mostly because I already had Python installed on my computer. I’m going to store the copies on my external hard drive so hopefully they’ll be safe.

I guess there isn’t really a point to all of this, I’m mostly doing it for the sake of sentimentality. To be honest, I’m not too attached to my old posts (I’ve already nuked a large chunk of the posts on my blog from when I was a teenager….), but I’d at least like to have a copy of the more recent ones.

…

I’m happy I was able to find the time to do a few leisurely things this past week, but man, I am exhausted. Next week won’t be quite as hectic for me, I hope.

[davidmariottecomics]

Why is it so Hard to Launch a Superhero Universe?

Face front, true believers! 

We're talking superhero comics! In particular, we're going to be talking a little more history this time and then, y'know, time for a bit of updates on the world and what you can maybe do to help things not totally fall apart. 

I was talking with someone this week about superhero comics and it made me think about what the new superhero universe of the 2020s is going to be. Now, I hope that the person I was talking to about it is the one who cracks it because they've got a lot of good ideas, but I wanted to do a quick rundown of just how hard it is to make a new superhero universe that lands in the market and has a real staying power. Looking at the history, I think since the 1990s, there's been one major front-runner each decade, and then some other notable accomplishments. So, let's walk through 'em and see if there's anything we can discover from that. 

2020s: ??? Maybe the Massive-Verse?  We're still pretty early in the 2020s and I don't want to make a definite call at this point, but I will say, I think the Massive-Verse, the Image comics spinning out of Radiant Black by Kyle Higgins and cohorts is a strong front-runner. And as we move backwards in time to talk about this all, I think it'll increasingly make sense why. But, to put a brief pin in this, let me say that I think Kyle's got a good pedigree in the Direct Market, a strong and largely focused concept that allows for a fair amount of different folks to work on very complimentary stories that feel of a shared creative vision, and a history of Image superhero books doing well. 

2010s: My Hero Academia

Okay, so, now with the benefit of hindsight, I think it's fair to say that the biggest new superhero universe globally in the 2010s was My Hero Academia. It was this kinda crazy crossover hit that blends a lot of tropes of shonen action/school manga with American superheroes. But what made it a success? 

First and foremost, I think a lot of what would be it's competition in a US comics-based market was in a weird place. That's not to discount MHA in any way, just to say that it was able to step into a niche that had kinda been forgotten. The most direct American superhero comics comparisons to it would probably be X-Men and Legion of Superheroes (with sort of Teen Titans/Young Justice as more strained comparsions). Both X-Men and Legion focus on a large team of heroes, often told through a couple key focal characters, who have generally unique powers from each other and the rest of the world with some minor concerns about being young and having school or the responsibilities of youth, but that was almost always backburnered for the action. Both have, at various points, had their characters wrestle with being empowered in a world where not everyone is and the various sorts of prejudices therein. And both, for a while, were largely read by a younger audience, but by the 2010s, Legion was for old fogeys (like me, a huge LSH stan) and X-Men was... were they on an island? I know they were fighting the Avengers a lot (and/or joining them as one bigger superteam). And with that shift away from being for younger readers and being more continuity heavy, and without sort of other young superhero books doing a lot to replace it (Young Avengers vol. 2, a great book, was already on it's way out when the first volume of MHA came out stateside). So, there were a lot of young people who had grown up with superhero media and with anime and manga and had an option to get both in one book that was easily accessible to new readers. 

Of course, it also has a pretty compelling story and visual style. MHA was swiftly bolstered by an anime adaptation and spin-off titles and anime-original stories in the movies. All of that added to make the world--the universe--feel bigger, but simulatenously, managed to remain ancillary. If you wanted to get deeper, know more, here are your options! Have at! But if you just want to read MHA or just want to watch the anime, you don't need the rest of it. It isn't tied too closely to the story. It builds, but not so structurally that you can't still see the shape of the room without it. As I've addressed here before, I get that some readers are really looking for that. Whether I personally think it's accurate or not (and, as covered, I think most American superhero comics are as easy to get into as a sitcom--though I acknowledge that maintaining a readership can be very difficult for all sorts of reasons tied to price and access), there are people who believe that superhero comics have a high barrier of entry and were really entranced by this not having that. And so, it blew up and Volume 35 is still in the top 10 manga charts as of last month and I can buy MHA stuff at Target. It's huge. 

Now, I also want to give some special mentions to other big initiatives of the era. The thing I'll say about all of these is up front is even if they had hit as big as MHA ultimately has, none of them are new universes. They're building on something existing. Keep that in the back of your mind too as we talk about the 2000s. 

The New 52 - DC's first big initiative of the 2010s. This was a way to reset the universe and, to what was appealing about MHA, try to build in a lot of accessibility to new readers as well as to diversify the DC line. Lots of folks have taken stock of the successes and failures of the New 52, but I will say, I personally am kinda bummed that some of the efforts to really build a universe were pretty quickly lost (though not entirely and these things have re-come-and-gone since). I would love to see superhero publishers dig deep into the non-superhero elements of their history again: War, Horror, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Western, Romance, Humor, etc. And I'd love to see them in a way that feels of a piece with a world with superheroes, but not like superheroes applied to those genres, necessarily. Also, just noting here, one of the New 52 launch writers? Kyle Higgins on Nightwing. 

Valiant (2010s) - Valiant had a shot in the arm in the 2010s when, about a year after the New 52, they did their own relaunch. Again, I'm not here to measure the exact successes and failures of that though you can surely find plenty of folks who have done that deep dive, but I do want to note it because they did aggressively position themselves as a player. After a decade of being pretty quiet, the 2010s saw some real success critically and commercially for Valiant and things like, yeah, the Bloodshot movie, but also Faith: Taking Flight , the YA novel by Julie Murphy (author of Dumplin'). In a time and space where the Big 2 were undergoing a lot of reinvention and extension into other markets/media, Valiant made a point of also diversifying in that way too. 

Power Rangers - Boom's Power Rangers obviously also kinda blew up in the latter half of the 2010s and has inflated as a comics universe unto itself that is obviously borrowing from the source material, but also really expanding upon it. And, notably, it kicked off with Kyle Higgins at the helm. You can pretty directly track the success of Power Rangers (and Nightwing before it) and the way it took a licensed property and really built it out into a little universe to the later success of the Massive-Verse. 

2000s: Invincible

Somehow the big superhero universe of the 2000s is also big again in the 2020s, and that's Invincible. Much like MHA, it tapped into the right vein at the right time. It came hot on the heels of Marvel's Ultimate universe and The Authority and really just combined the sensibities of Image's superhero universe, Classic Marvel, and nu-Marvel. It was a book that lived on surprising upsets and a story that felt like it was maybe aiming a little younger because it was about a young hero that then went full-bore into being for ADULTS. Like the later Massive-Verse, Invincible kind of slowly expanded, sometimes retroactively adding other Robert Kirkman books, sometimes having more tangential spin-offs, but even when other creators entered the mix, it felt like part of a unified vision. 

The weird thing with Invincible, and the reason it *almost* didn't count, is that it is built off of like... a jillion other universes. Like, obviously, Invincible is in many ways a reflection of other superhero tropes. He's Superboy and Spider-Man wrapped into one and plenty of major and minor Invincible characters are pretty clearly meant to be riffs on existing characters with other publishers. But in a more literal way, Invincible is piggy-backing on and joining various other company and creator-owned superheroes. Over the course of the series, he met Spider-Man (in an issue of Marvel Team-Up), joined The Pact (with ShadowHawk, Firebreather, and Zephyr of Noble Causes), and Savage Dragon and various other Image superheroes. A lot of it did manage to be self-contained and as the series continued, it did really parse down to only Kirkman-original characters, but it was a series that got some of it's esteem from being in a pre-existing shared universe too. The Massive-Verse is, to my understanding, in a similar place where they've got like... a Spawn appearance. There is something to the even casual and official early crossovers that really helps a universe get a hold and seem more likely to both last and, I think, have an air of legitimacy. 

It's a very interesting contrast to MHA in that the universe is bolstered by a sense of larger continuity, while still being presented as something that has a lot of accessibility and both are, in my opinion, actually probably best enjoyed with an understanding of the tropes they're riffing on.  

The Ultimate Universe - As a special mention, again, Marvel's Ultimate Universe is not it's own unique universe, but as an experiment in rebooting an existing project and making new easier access to it, the Ultimate Universe's existence is a key influence to most attempts at shared superhero universes, both existing and "new", that followed. 

IDW's Transformers - While a shared universe with TF wasn't really a thing until the 2010s and the Hasbro Shared Universe, I will note that IDW's TF run had a lot of elements of superhero comics (including also meeting Spider-Man in the New Avengers crossover) and is ultimately notable as the first attempt to take an existing property and build it into a universe of it's own. Like, earlier Marvel TF, even as it became increasingly it's own thing, did have some core DNA in the Marvel universe (same for Godzilla, Micronauts, G.I. Joe, and all the others). And a lot of the other licensed comics of the time, like the early Dark Horse Buffy and Aliens or IDW's Angel were trying to either tie to the franchise's source material or exist in sort of limited, unconnected runs. Not to say there weren't others doing it at various points before, but I do think IDW's TF really became a blueprint for how to take an existing franchise and make it into a unique comics universe that you can see in things like IDW's TMNT or Boom's Power Rangers even today. 

1990s: Image

Okay, people who were not into comics in the '90s... do you know that Image started out as a third superhero publisher? Like, when you think of modern Image, which just has a couple of superhero titles, do you know that superhero comics made up the majority of early Image? Like Spawn, Savage Dragon, and a lot of the stuff coming out of Top Cow and Extreme Studios and (in my personal estimation, the best one) Wildstorm? Because superheroes are where Image started and made their first big (jeans) money. It came out of artists from the big two deciding to do their own thing with their own characters and loosely building a shared universe for their ideas. I'd personally say Wildstorm was the stand-out for superheroes in the Image Revolution--they spun-off to be their own independant thing before getting bought up by DC and while they published a variety of titles, superheroes remained core to Wildstorm's publishing. They also published consistenty. Like, no crack to Youngblood or Cyber Force or whatever, but those books released less regularly than most of the Wildstorm titles--with Youngblood's schedule being... what it was and Cyber Force, even after being pretty regular for a while, becoming less central to Top Cow's identity. 

So, of the stand-outs I've mentioned, Image technically makes up 3 of them (Massive, Invincible, Image) and the exact overlapping nature of these things with each other is a bit strange, but I think speaks to the central philosophy of what has made these universes appealing. They exist at a crucial intersection of recognizability out of the Big 2 (writers and artists who had been Big 2 guys taking the central vision, even if many subsequent members of the teams were starting in the "indie" space) with this sort of loose interconnectivity of other creator-owned superhero comics and a sense of some sort of reactive commentary on the other superhero properties of the time. While full mythos have been formed, something you can't really say about any of the superhero universes that've found success after the 1970s is that they featured a wholly unique take on superheroes, rather than digging into the tropes that had already been long established. 

The other big thing behind early Image is because the founders were a bunch of Big 2 movers-and-shakers, even in the early days, they had a fair amount of room for crossovers (and $$$ for the BIG TALENT). But if you look at Wildstorm, you can see Gen13 team up with Superman, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Monkeyman and O'Brien, Generation X, etc. Add in the return of a bunch of the Image heavy-hitters for Heroes Reborn over at Marvel and there's a complicated web of connections that really elevated the legitimacy of the superhero titles. 

Astro City & America's Best Comics - In a truly bizarre move, two of the other major superhero universes that came out of the '90s were... also by Wildstorm! Kinda. Astro City came out of Homage and America's Best Comics was it's own imprint, both through Wildstorm. And both have weird histories that ultimately end up kinda under DC (except for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which ends up at Top Shelf, but that isn't really a superhero book). And like a lot of what has already been mentioned, these things thrive from an incredibly strong vision from the original writer (Kurt Busiek and Alan Moore, respectively) and, as Becca mentioned when I was talking with them a bit when I took a break in writing, like a lot of the above, part of the way that they are engaging with the existing superhero universes is a sleek design sensibility. I have felt bad talking about the importance of the writers in all these successes and not giving enough credit to the artists, so let this be a chance to correct that. Something all of these have in common is when they're succeeding, they've got top notch artistic talent--Brent Anderson, Alex Ross, Kevin O'Neill, Chris Sprouse, J.H. Williams III, Gene Ha, and all the ABC gang--who are creating art that pushes the medium forward. Like, here and in pretty much every other example, we're talking about people who are capturing a sense of classicism--the looks are often clean and iconic and noteworthy--but are doing so with a style that shows where comics are going to be going in the next decade. It's a really fine balance to strike, but a notable one. 

Milestone - While Wildstorm started as part of Image, went independent, and then was acquired by DC, Milestone was an independent publisher that had their material published through DC from the beginning, and in later years would actually be folded into the larger DC universe. Milestone fits the same model we've been talking about--a strong unified vision by the founders who created the Dakotaverse, a motivation both behind-the-scenes and on the page to respond to the current state of comics, art that felt classic and iconic while also being a vision of what future comics would look like. And, similar to Invincible in some ways, or Wildstorm, it also benefitted from a bit of loose connection to a larger established universe. It took a while for Milestone to officially cross over with DC, but the marketing and distribution relationship really helped it gain legitimacy within the market. 

Valiant - I'll also give a brief shout-out to the original Valiant line. To the point of later Valiant, there was a fair amount of competition in the late '80s/into the '90s of publishers trying to enter the market and disappearing. Like, bless 'em, but Eclipse, Pacific, Malibu, etc all came and went and while some of those stories and characters are still around in various capacities, none of them have had quite the revival of Valiant which is notable to the strength of those core concepts. 

1980s: The Non-Superhero Okay, so, no offense to anyone: Malibu or Capital or First or any of the other publishers that brought in new superheroes. But in my estimation, the big "superhero universe" of the 1980s was the '80s not really having a new superhero universe. Like, and I'll make this quick because I'm already going long--there are a ton of comics that came out that we can debate if they're superhero narratives, we can dig deep into the creators' intentions vs. their ultimate executions, but that ultimately don't feel like they're trying to build a superhero universe. TMNT is awesome and, obviously, has in latter years crossed over with a bajillion things. Usagi Yojimbo and Concrete and Mage which is part of a universe with Grendel and The Crow and whatever else you want to throw in this pot--superhero or not--feels primarily like the later association it may have with a larger world is largely accidental or in some way in spite of it's early siloing. Again, not to say this stuff wasn't ambitious or didn't crossover with it's peers or didn't have grand designs, just that in comparison to, say Marvel's New Universe, it feels much more disconnected and organic in the growth of these things. 

I'm going to make one last special mention, and that is DC Post-Crisis on Infinite Earths. And the reason I bring Post-Crisis up is that it is the prime example of (what I'd also contend is DC's ultimate strength) not making a new universe, but trying to do something about already long-legacies, heavy continuities, and various acquisitions. Like, we could chart the other superhero comics competitors pre-'80s, but so many of them before (and clearly, even some since) have been purchased or otherwise acquired by the big 2 powerhouses and folded into their worlds. And Crisis was a buckwild way of being like "okay, now Fawcett and Charleton and whatever else is also just DC forever" and making a point of it. 

So, why is it hard to make a new superhero universe that sticks? Well... it takes a lot of planning and a lot of money and a bold vision of what superhero comics could be. So, to all those trying to make their new universe, best of luck!  A Note for the Weekend

And, as usual, I've run long and this is going out later than expected. Uhh... well, the long and short of what I wanted to get to here is if you haven't already, continue not spending money for big corps for Black Friday and all weekend long. There're certain businesses that've been specifically targeted by the Palestinian National BDS Committee. You can see those here and learn more about BDS on their site and in this article. Obviously, boycotts can be complicated because there are some that're being called for by folks who don't represent the BNC that are sort of up to how you feel about them and the legitimacy of what you can do within the confines of your community. And this year in particular, there's extra weirdness around the idea of shopping because there are plenty of other reasons to boycott various businesses (solidarity with striking workers, stands against capitalism, stands against artificial and crushing inflation that has made the "Black Friday Deals" not good, literally so many reasons to not buy shit from big corporations) BUT ALSO because costs are rising all over, it's a lot harder for small businesses. Like... man, postage is out of control. It costs so much to ship stuff. I literally can't afford to ship things internationally and to all my international folks, I'm so sorry! It'd just cost a stupid amount to do and it already costs a stupid amount to ship just within the continguous 48. 

With that all said, if you're saving some money by not spending this Black Friday weekend at big business, might I suggest spending some $$$ on your friendly neighborhood artists! Today (Friday) is an itch.io Creator Day, so all proceeds actually go to the creators. Inprnt's got a sale that a ton of really cool artists are a part of. There are tons and tons and tons of artists who have shops both locally in your community and online that could really benefit from your business. So, please, if you do shop, shop responsibly. 

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Joe Pera Talks with You (TV show - Finished it and I miss it), Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Anime), Three Rocks (Comic - Finished it and I miss it), Chainsaw Man (Manga), Nancy (Comic), Lego Masters (TV show), Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (Short story collection), the success of Comics for Gaza's Children, the protests made at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (and, yes, the TMNT float at the parade too because I'm a sucker for the parade even as I am critical of it as a celebration of capitalism and a bad holiday), all the money you're going to spend on my Small Business Saturday sale (hint hint)

New Releases this week (11/15/2023): Brynmore #5 (Editor)

Announcements: Do you have $10, want some cool comics, and also want to do good in the world? Adam Szym put together Comics for Gaza's Children on itch.io. When I posted about this less than a week ago in my previous blog, they were about 1/3rd of the way to their intial goal of $10K. Today, that goal has doubled to $20K and they're 98% of the way there! It'll easily meet $20K with your help and could even push to 25-30K before the drive is over. And in return, you get over 100 comics by people like Adam Szym, Reimena Yee, Blue Delliquanti, Emma Houxbois, Cam Marshall, Elaine M. Will, Duke NuCum, Rebecca Ann, and oh yeah, me too! Yeah! Get yourself Rivals and Jimmy Squarefoot and enjoy smut and monsters! And then when you've enjoyed them, buy physical copies from me or Becca! 

I believe this is still going too, if you have more money to give, the Cartoonist Cooperative is doing E-Sim cards for Gaza. You can donate a digital sim card so that residents can get access to the internet and have more functional phones and, in exchange, get some comics or a drawing or whatever else is available from the many participating artists.

You can also give more directly. If you don't have money, and I get it, you can call or fax or email or show up at the offices of your representatives. There are a ton of demonstrations happening this weekend and you can see if you can put your actions in on one of those! 

Thanks for reading all the way here! You deserve a reward! You can use the code "FREECOMIC" on my webshop and get a 10% discount for Small Business Saturday (11/25) through Cyber Monday (11/27) and I'll send you an extra free comic with your order! Want a bigger discount? My Patrons are getting an even better code exclusively on Patreon! Now's a great time to support so I can buy Becca these Chainsaw Manbunny figures that are on a good discount but that I still don't have $500 for. You can also get some stuff from my Kofi! Becca will be back to streaming soon, so keep an eye on their Twitch! Or if you're really ambitious, looks like some things are on discount on their Throne right now. I think Becca'll be doing something for SBS too, but can't say exactly what. And if you're a fellow hiring pro... maybe give 'em a job. Just have 'em do a comic! 

Pic of the Week: Today, our physical copy of Aradia Beat, the magical girl magazine that Becca contributed to, came in, so here's the artist with their spread! 

[llycaons]

ftr this is my current list of books I started and plan to finish

the adventures of anima al-sirafi (fun, and I enjoyed city of brass too despite some juvenile writing choices)

ancillary justice (👀)

annihilation (BIO SCIFI!!! the writing is so beautiful)

entangled life (fungi 🥰)

go tell it on the mountain (just gorgeous and so powerful)

kitchen (I learned about this one from a FANFICTION don't look at me. it's good)

mask of mirrors (one of the few ya-esque action novels I still enjoy. the social politics and con artistry and action is pretty fun)

mistborn (I've wanted to read brando sando forever. his ending of wot may have been a bit off-key but he's undeniably a giant in the high fantasy world)

see what you made me do (really insightful!)

snow crash (honestly this one is a bit racist, or at least tone-deaf, but the plot is really interesting and it's wild to see a view of the future from the 90s that's fairly accurate in a lot of ways)

books I have yet to start

babel

beloved

the bluest eye

the buried giant

dead collections

the fire next time

gathering moss

a gentleman in moscow

giovanni's room

the goblin emperor

horse

I'm glad my mom died

land of milk and honey

lolita

a memory called empire

monarchs of the sea (octopus book)

my year of rest and relaxation (I've heard mixed reviews but like. why not)

other minds (other octopus book)

our share of night

pachinko

the parted earth

the tiger's wife

the translator's invisibility

uprooted and spinning silver (tbh I don't remember why people hate naomi novak and these look kind of neat)

the water dancer

the woman in me

year of wonders

books I tried but couldn't get into

fourth wing (looked a bit silly from the outset but the writing was SO juvenile I was like no by the first page)

jasmine throne (the opening scene just was not engaging imo)

jonathan strange and mr. norrell (weirdly boring and the austen pastiche fells a little flat)

way of kings (brando sando got so classic he went full predictable chosen-one beginning and it was really boring)

kindle keeps reccomending me paperback thrillers and romances, which are among my least favorite genres. I can see why people like doing this one goodreads or storygraph but I don't know anyone on there so this is better bc I can actually discuss with people I know. man I hope I keep up this momentum to actually finish half of these bc this is a lot 😭 I have so much catching up to do