#diane duane

[hoyabembedreamtime]

For the love of God, please get into better books. Think about what your missing out on.

[spockvarietyhour]

Currently reading (cover art by Boris Vallejo)

[canadiankazz]

I felt bad about Mike Flanagan not being included so I decided to make another poll.

Inspired by @ktlsyrtis 's poll.

Please, please, please reblog this so it reaches the widest audience possible.

Also sorry if I'm not the only one who's done another poll.

[lichqueenlibrarian]

Jim go the fuck to sleep

[mydnyteraven]

@lyculuscaelus I feel like you might be interested in this

A homebrew Iliad project

I've been fiddling with this for a long time.

Backstory: I've been dabbling in various depths of the great wine-dark sea of the ancient Greek classics since I was about seven or eight. (Might have been earlier, but I have no data to confirm that.)

I know Greek mythology like the back of my hand. (...Insert here the inevitable sound of Scotty whacking his head into an Enterprise bulkhead.) I know... a lot. And—leaving all the other stuff I know about that no one here is gonna care about one way or the other—I've read the Iliad and Odyssey probably about twice a year for the last fifty years or so. Or maybe more.

To my grief, I don't have enough classical Greek (or good enough Greek of any kind) to do any kind of respectable new translation of the work. That's far beyond my scope, or my level of scholarship. But I can sure as hell do... a retelling? A restatement? I have a number of favorite translations to use as guides, and the Perseus digital library... and, you know, dictionaries. And I'm not afraid to use them. :)

...And I'm a storyteller, and have no shame about the possibilities inherent in going where lots of others of my tribe have gone before—in restatement or in fiction. So let's just call this "a homebrew version of a work that hasn't been out of 'print' for thirty-five hundred years" and leave it there. (Is this ὕβρις? Yeah, seems likely enough. Whether this is going to be a manifestation of the downfall of the Greeks, or of the Geeks, remains to be seen.)

Anyway: my plan is to start publishing books (i.e., chapters) of this homebrew Iliad in the Fic Foundry writing website that will be opening up at last sometime over the next couple of months. The first few books will be open-access: after that they'll go subscription. They'll come out at irregular intervals (because there'll be paying work going on as well. [resigned sigh: So what else is new.])

When starting a project like this it seems like it might be wise to, in a general way, set out the goals.

Ease of accessibility. Lots of people have never read this story, or have experienced it only in one kind or another of paraphrase. (Yeah, well, here comes another one.) For maximum accessibility, I think this means what I want to do is a prose retelling. Nor am I going to get too hung up on anachronisms in the prose style. I'm reaching for the around-the-campfire sound, a little; or the story told after dinner, in episodes (and let's not throw the beef bones at the bard, she's doing the best she can).

Fidelity to the source material. This is an old, old story that both ascends to surprising heights of feeling and amazing depths of cruelty. There are things in it that some modern readers are not going to like at all: particularly the graphic gore and violence of what is repeatedly described as "the world's greatest war story". But these aspects of the Iliad, and the frequently callous, cruel and misogynistic understructure of its story, come with the territory of the original. I will in appropriate ficcer's style add trigger warnings where I think they're needed.

Completeness of the story. The temptation is always going to lurk for an adapter to decide what's important and what can be thrown out. I'm hardly immune. But it's my intention to leave the structure as intact as possible. Some people will disagree with my choices. (shrug) People have been disagreeing about ways to handle this work for centuries. What'll a few more be, among friends?

...So that's the plan. When this material starts to be ready to appear online, I'll let people here know where they need to go to access it. And after that... we'll see how things go.

I'll start this story as its first tellers did, and ask the Goddesses of epic storytelling to stand by me and lend a hand telling this one. At the end of the day, it all comes down to one angry young man: Achilles, only son of King Peleus. Achilles was completely possessed by a bitter rage that brought a whole host of troubles down on the great army of the Greeks. That unquenchable fury sent many a strong man’s soul to the Underworld, and left their bodies feeding the dogs and the vultures, while Heaven’s intentions moved inexorably on toward the Gods’ final goal...

[petermorwood]

37 Years Ago Today...

There are many phrases which ease the tension of a wedding rehearsal.

"Cuff keys? I thought YOU had them..." is not one.

There are many phrases used during the course of a wedding ceremony.

"One Ring to Rule Them All, One Ring To Bind Them..." is not one.

Not even when the wedding takes place at a Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention where the phrase "Hey, great hall costume!" from a small child suggests the small child has either Failed To Get It...

...or is Witty Beyond Their Years.

Don't use the phrase "Oh good, it IS you!" at this point...

... or "Will you marry me?" at this point.

Just get on with things.

We've been getting on with things for 37 years as of 10 AM Eastern Standard Time today, and we intend to continue doing so for a good few years more.

Love you, hon.

Happy Anniversary!

[spocks-husband]

Can't believe Diane Duane invented love with this passage that's so crazy

[alternatefuturesao3]

DIANE, YOU CANNOT JUST SAY THIS ABOUT THE MOON.

[dduane]

Status report: In the "Adventures In Staying Housed" department...

Greetings to the Bluesky folks who've dropped by! Just to confirm what's going on:

We're hoping to sign the lease on our rented house early next this week, but we have some rental arrears that we're very much hoping to be able to deal with in the short term. Some extra cash flow in the short term would be a really big help.

With that in mind, may I possibly point you at the following SF and fantasy ebook bundles at our ebook store? All are DRM-free and come with our lifetime replacement guarantee if you lose the files or your reading device, change platforms, or whatever. (With this caveat only: due to Brexit, we can no longer sell into the UK. Our profound apologies.) And once you buy a book from us, you own it. Period.

Our store's full inventory of the revised/edited Young Wizards young adult SF/fantasy novels, and the interstitial works that go with them, is here:

All the current works in the LGBTQ-centered Middle Kingdoms adult fantasy universe are here:

And if you're feeling expansive, our entire store inventory—36 ebooks at present—is here:

Finally: if you're all ebooked up at the moment, but you'd still like to be of assistance... after some public-demand style noodging we've finally installed a Ko-Fi. If you choose to go this route, please consider yourself thanked in advance for your thoughtfulness! We very much appreciate it.

Thanks, everybody! ❤ ...And we very much look forward to enlarging your TBR pile. :)

[doolallymagpie]

as I enjoy linguistic fuckery in my sci-fi, I’m a big fan of how Diane Duane said, while writing her Romulan books, “you’re gonna either learn Rihannsu and you’re gonna like it, or you’re just gonna have to hope I have someone translate for you in their inner monologue”

[andietries]

GASP

From the episode of the cansino guy with an alien in Pijamas bff that later disappears after travelling to the beginning of the universe

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Wizards

[at unicorn fuck club] Brandon Sanderson: boy, i love being a fantasy writer! Sanderson: and the best part of being a fantasy writer? Sanderson: it's talking about wizards! Terry Goodkind: wizards? did you say wizards?? Goodkind: i LOVE talking about wizards! Sanderson: me TOO!

Sanderson: i mean, why even be a fantasy writer if you don't like wizards? Diane Duane: i write about wizards too! some of them are cats! Tanya Huff: OMG me two!!! Huff: TWINSIES!!!

Sanderson: how about you george? how do you feel about wizards? GRR Martin: well see the saga of fire and ice is based on the historical war of the roses so actually its p realistic Martin: just kidding, of course there's wizards! Goodkind: WIZARDS! Sanderson: WIZARDS! Duane: WIZARDS! Huff: WIZARDS!

Sanderson: you gotta like wizards if you're gonna write fantasy Sanderson: jrrt, how do you feel about wizards? Tolkien: wizards? Tolkien: meh Tolkien: they're okay Sanderson: Goodkind: Martin: Duane: Huff:

Sanderson: tell us about the wizards in middle earth, jirt Tolkien: ugh god Tolkien: why do you always want to know about the wizards Tolkien: i have literally no interest in talking about these wizards Tolkien: when we could be talking about the hobbits sexy sexy feet Tolkien: big hairy stinky feet

Sanderson: c'mon jirt tell us about the wizards Tolkien: ok fine Tolkien: well there's gandalf the gray Tolkien: and saruman the white Tolkien: and umm radagast Tolkien: he's brown

Tolkien: and then there's like Tolkien: ummmm Tolkien: two other guys Sanderson: what're their names? Tolkien: what? oh jeez Tolkien: i gotta come up with TWO more wizard names? Tolkien: god this is intolerable

Sanderson: c'mon jirt you've got us all wondering Sanderson: you can't just say there are these other wizards and not tell us anything about them Tolkien: ugh christ Tolkien: fine Tolkien: they're Tolkien: god i dunno what colors are left Sanderson: there's blue Tolkien: fine that's it they're blue

Sanderson: wait both of them? Tolkien: yeah Sanderson: they're both blue? Tolkien: yeah Sanderson: Sanderson: you know there's a whole rainbow of color options Tolkien: oh my god shut up Tolkien: i am so fucking tired

Sanderson: so there's gandalf the gray, saruman the white, radagast the brown, and two blue guys Tolkien: yeah thats right Sanderson: and the blue guys aren't named Tolkien: nope Sanderson: Sanderson: ok but Tolkien: why do you all care so much about these stupid blue guys Tolkien: just accept it!

Tolkien: just deal with it, you foolish son of a took! Sanderson: Tolkien: you dotard! Naught but a ninnyhammer! Sanderson: [looking at his CTR ring] Now calm down, brandon-diddly-diddly-diddly-doodly, he's doing their best, shodilly-iddly- iddly-diddly. Gotta be nice, hostility-ility-biddly- diddly

Sanderson: if you didn't want to talk about wizards, why'd you even make the blue guys? you could have stopped at 3 Tolkien: i was on the spot, okay? i panicked! Tolkien: you lot with all your wizard pressure! Tolkien: i don't care about wizards!

Tolkien: listen, assholes, i got into fantasy for exactly 3 reasons: Tolkien: sexy hobbit feet Tolkien: feasts Tolkien: and fuckin' tom bombadil! Sanderson: tom bombadil? Tolkien: he's only the most important thing in middle earth! Tolkien: that capering buffoon of a wifeguy holds it all together!!

[discombobulatedgirlworld]

@dduane created the Romulan language!!! and is here on tumblr

[lichqueenlibrarian]

Reading Star Trek novels, expectation: will enjoy fun adventures, probably a resurgence of a teenage crush on Spock.

Reading Star Trek novels, reality: massive crush on Sarek.

[gargoylespodcast]

Hello, 2025! We are back! And we are joined by episode writers: Diane Duane and Peter Morwood! And we’re also joined by Series Creator, Greg Weisman, as usual! We have a lively discussion about Diane and Peter’s careers! Life in Ireland! The myth of Cu Chullain and the choices made in adapting this figure into the “Gargoyles Universe” because the mythological version is very colorful. We also discuss many other aspects of the episode, including sound design, the guest cast who took center stage, and the star power of Rory and Molly… and discussion of a couple of spin-offs that would have featured them! And more, MUCH MORE!

Available on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Audible, Spotify, and your podcatcher of choice! And join us on Patreon for the Exclusive Video Edition! 

Follow us on Twitter at: @FromEyrie Follow us on Bluesky at: GargoylesPodcast Follow us on Instagram at: GargoylesVoices Visit Jennifer L. Anderson’s online stores at: Angel Wings and Demon Tails Visit Greg Weisman at: Ask Greg Visit Diane Duane on Bluesky at: DianeDuane Visit Peter Morwood on Bluesky at: PeterMorwood Visit Diane Duane’s webpage at: dianeduane.com Everything you ever wanted to know about Gargoyles at: GargWiki