#door of time books

[ohmightydevviepuu]

fanbinding: let's sail away (an anthology)

a flatback casebinding! WOOT!!

(this is, to date, my first and most successful flatback after the demo i made in bookbinding class)

the binding flatback casebinding as demonstrated in introduction to bookbinding and custom cases by tom and cindy hollander. glued headbands. duo bookcloth in oatmeal.

did the cutout on my silhouette portrait. covered the cutout with the bookcloth, cut and cleaned up the fabric, and laminated the davey board to that layer before gluing the text block.

cutout design is a converted embroidery pattern from UrbanThreads traced with a foil quill using the silhouette portrait.

HTV is siser twinkle for the stars / metallic gold for the titles.

the story an anthology of short Captain Swan fics from sambethe, including two no longer online from my personal archive.

[ohmightydevviepuu]

the story: often imitated but never surpassed, laura's season-long hockey AU changed the parameters of CS fanworks in every way possible. a truly epic and unexpected setting for a fairytale that i found on exactly the day i needed its company the most.

binding: five-volume sewn board CHONK in canvas-printed covers meant to evoke NY Rangers away game jerseys. half-letter folios with painted spines tied in laces. NHL font designs from FFonts. includes fanart by @distant-rose and @clockadile (not pictured).

A very long time ago, my mother-in-law mentioned that Justin used to skate so quickly and without much finesse and as such would trip over the blue line. And something in my brain just went: oh. And then I...wrote, like, a million words. And got people to like hockey? And spent most of my mid to late-20s writting about this fictional hockey team with their kids and their kids' kids and people made art and I made spotify playlists and it was, like, my little safe space of happiness and found family and an absolute excess of love that I could just dive into whenever I needed it and then life happened and I haven't written in forever and we moved and @ohmightydevviepuu asked me for my address because she bound totbl by hand! Five volumes! They're named for periods! She wrapped them in laces! And I gave her the wrong addresss because we just.moved but all five (!!!) volumes got here and I actually cried and ran around our new house because it's been years and literally almost a million words, but this is my whole fandom soul and all five (!!!) volumes are going in our new reading room.

[gncrezan]

sorry i can't actually stop thinking or posting about auggy they just have that effect (and also some twitter memes!)

[cozylittleartblog]

me omw to scare mormons out of a wendys!! 🍂🖤🍟

ootd from like 2 weeks ago and yes that really happened

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: alien intelligences

Intelligent spiders, octupi, plants, bacteria, and even entire oceans, intelligence without sentience, extra terrestrials and strange intelligences evolved right here on Earth - alien minds can take many forms. Allow me to share with you some books featuring the most alien and fascinating ones.

Previous book rec posts:

Really cool fantasy worldbuilding, really cool sci-fi worldbuilding, dark sapphic romances, mermaid books, vampire books, many worlds: portal fantasies, many worlds: alternate timelines, robots and artificial intelligences, post- and transhumanism

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!

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

The Doors of Eden is something of an experiment in speculative biology, featuring versions of Earth in which various different species were the one to rise to sentience, from dinosaurs to neanderthals. Now, something is threatening the existence of all timelines, dragging multiple different people and species into the struggle, among those a pair of cryptid hunting girlfriends and a transgender scientist.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

Millenia and generation spanning scifi. After the collapse of an 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. Millenia later, what remains of humanity arrives looking for a new home, only to be met by the artificial remains of the ancient woman who once led the uplift project - and she is not willing to let them on her planet.

Semiosis (Semiosis duology) by Sue Burke

A generational story following a group of humans trying to survive on a new planet, where a strange and unkowable intelligence is finding ways to use them to its whims. As the humans come across an abandoned city wrapped in the roots of a strange plant, they slowly come to the realization that mutual communication is the only path to peace and survival.

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

While I felt the characters could’ve been better developed, this is undeniably a well-written novel featuring an alien race and culture developed on a planet vastly different from ours. Firmly in the realm of hard scifi, this is a realistic, fascinating and slightly terrifying look at how first contact may look.

Brain Plague (The Elysium Cycle) by Joan Sloncewski*

Chrys, a struggling artist, agrees to become a carrier for a sentient strain of microbes. With their help, Chrys breathes new life into her career. But every microbe society is different - some function as friends and brain enhancers to their carrier, while others become a literal brain plague, a living addiction taking over the life of their carrier. And like every society, the microbe community is in constant flux - inluding the one inside Chrys's head.

Rosewater (The Wormwood trilogy) by Tade Thompson

In Nigeria lies Rosewater, a city bordering on a strange, alien biodome. Its motives are unknown, but it’s having an undeniable effect on the surrounding life. Kaaro, former criminal and current psychic agent for the government, is one of the people changed by it. When other psychics like him begin getting killed, Kaaro must take it upon himself to find out the truth about the biodome and its intentions.

Dawn (Xenogenesis trilogy) by Octavia E. Butler*

After a devestating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on.

Blindsight 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, a group of various level of transhumanism, 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.

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson*

Utterly unique in world-building, story, and prose, Midnight Robber follows young Tan-Tan and her father, inhabitants of the Carribean-colonized planet of Toussaint. When her father commits a terrible crime, he’s exiled to a parallel version of the same planet, home to strange aliens and other human exiles. Tan-Tan, not wanting to lose her father, follows with him. Trapped on this new planet, he becomes her worst nightmare. Enter this book with caution, as it contains graphic child sexual abuse.

Fragment (Fragment duology) by Warren Fahy*

The reality TV show Sealife is having a rough time - as it turns out, a ship full of scientist doesn’t make for the kind of drama they hoped for. Hoping for some excitement, they reach Hender's Island, a fragment of a lost continent that may contain an interesting new ecosystem. But as they step foot on the island, they quickly come to realize the ecosystem isn’t just new, it’s highly dangerous and very hungry. Among all this life is one single species that may be more dangerous than any other, but which may also be the salvation of the scientists on the island. A bit wonky, but genuinely one of the most fun books I have read, I love it so much.

Axiom's End (Noumena trilogy) by Lindsay Ellis

It’s 2007, and a leak has just confirmed that the US has reached alien contact. Cora wants nothing to do with it, but as her absent father is the whistleblower who dropped the news the media won’t leave her alone. Even worse, she soon finds herself meeting and being pursued by the alien presence itself as it tries to remain in hiding - and discovering that there is a much larger threat on the horizon.

The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis*

Francie has just traveled to Roswell to attend her college friend's wedding to a UFO conspirasist. Not a believer herself, Francie is shocked when she finds herself abducted by an alien. Her abductor is not much what popular media would have you believe, looking more like a tumbleweed than a grey alien, and is clearly on some kind of mission it isn’t willing to put on hold for the sake of Francie attending to her duties as a bridesmaid. As more people get roped along - among those a conman, an old lady, a ufo conspirasist, and a retiree with an RV - Francie finds herself getting closer to the alien and wanting to help it succeed.

Bonus rec: if you like this book, you may also enjoy the movie Paul, which has a similarly humorous tone and similar plot.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir*

Ryland Grace just woke up up from a coma, unable to remember anything. He finds himself alone on a space ship, 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.

Survival by Julie E. Czerneda

Mac, a biologist studying salmon on Earth, has little interest in life beyond her own planet. Despite this, she’s sought out by Brymn, an alien archaeologist hoping her expertise as a biologist can help him solve the secret behind the Chasm, a region of space completely devoid of life. Trying as she might not to get incolved, Mac has little choice as she and her colleagues come under attack by the mysterious Ro, the species Brymn's people suspect to be the cause of the Chasm.

Translation State by Ann Leckie*

An exploration of the alien as filtered through the human. At what point does the human become something else? When does something else become human? Is it a question of biology or culture, nature or nurture? Can we choose it? Can it be forced upon us? Set in the Imperial Radch universe, Translation State follows three different characters embroiled in the question of what makes a human. The alien Presger can only communicate with humans using their translators - people they’ve created that are not quite human and not quite alien. But as news of a translator fugitive arises, conflict brews regarding what right they have to choose their own identity and home.

Exo (Exo duology) by Fonda Lee*

Young adult. Earth has long since been under the control of an alien presence. Donovan Reyes is an exo, a human enhanced with alien technology, working to keep the colony and its people safe. The biggest enemy is Sapience, a terrorist organisation opposing alien rule by any means necessary. When a mission goes awry, Donovan finds himself abducted by Sapiance, something that risks a war. While it took until the second book for me to be fully sold on this series, it features a genuinely nuanced take on oppression and resistance rarely seen in YA genre.

Needle by Hal Clement

1950s classic. A small island in the pacific ocean and a fourteen-year-old boy have just become the center of an interstellar chase between an alien Hunter and the criminal he's pursuing. Robert is a regular boy, but he has a very special passenger: an alien symbiont hiding inside his body. The alien became stranded on Earth as he pursued a criminal of his own species, and now they are both trapped on the same island, playing a game of cat and mouse as Robert and the Hunter struggle to find their prey before it finds them.

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.

Under the Skin by Michel Faber

A dark allegory of alienation and dehumanization, Under the Skin follows Isserley, a woman traveling along the roads of England and picking up hitchhikers. Little does her passengers know, she’s an alien hiding her true self, and they are her prey and a delicacy for her species.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

1960s Polish classic. Arriving on a station orbiting the planet Solaris, Kris Kelvin is meant to study the strange, possibly sentient ocean that covers its entire surface. But the effects of the ocean are far reaching - Kelvin finds the crew of the station secretive and unstable, and is shocked to wake one day to the embodiement of a long dead lover. Was it created by the brain-like ocean, and if so, why?

West of Eden (West of Eden trilogy) by Harry Harrison

65 million years ago, the meteor that killed the dinosaurs never arrived. Without it, the dinosaurs lived and thrived, allowing a the complex society of the matriarchal Yilanè to arise. Meanwhile, in the new world, humans still evolve, and when an impending ice age forces the Yilanè across the ocean in search for a new home, the two are destined to clash. A bleak story of the cycle of violence and hate leading to war, West of Eden is a marvel of world-building.

Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool

Triptych by J.M. Frey

Kalp is a widower and alien refugee newly arrived on Earth; Gwen is a language expert secretly recruited by the United Nations to help integrate a ship of alien refugees; Basil is an engineer who loves them both. Together they must defend their relationship against a violently intolerant world.

The Sparrow (The Sparrow duology) by Mary Doria Russell

When proof of alien life is found, the United Nations are too slow in their plans for a first contact mission. Instead, the Society of Jesus overtake them and send their own ship, but the crew could never have been prepared for what they will find.

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Something massive and alien crashes into the ocean off the coast of Nigeria. Three people, a marine biologist, a rapper, and a soldier, find themselves encountering this presence, and have to race to save humanity before it's too late.

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them: Salvaged by Madeleine Roux, Exodus by Nicky Drayden, The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull, Embassytown by China Miéville

[auspicioustidings]

You know what fuck it, Simon Riley deserves to retire from service and open up a tiny little bakery because his ma always loved the cake he made her for her birthday every year. It was shit, he made it from box mix that was expiring so was reduced to 25p, but she always acted like it was the best cake on the planet.

He puts a ton of work into learning to bake. Finds he likes it, likes how you have set steps to follow to reach the correct outcome, likes that to get things ready he's awake with the sun when it's quiet and there's nobody around. He decides to name it Beth's (his ma would have liked that, she'd have been mortified if he named it after her).

He's not expecting much on opening day. He sells out. Every soldier he has ever worked with, every single one still alive and kicking, walked into that bakery as a friend to support him. Even those that wound up on a different side from him came because they understand that the Ghost deserves this, he deserves to grow old and fat, to make peace with his past and learn to enjoy his future. So few of them get the chance.

[7cfc00]

home is where the heart is (and yours is gone)

[ohmightydevviepuu]

i need to talk about what an absolute platonic ideal of fic this story is for me. i found it on the day i needed it most. i read it in one single sitting. i made my sister bring me a grilled cheese so i wouldn't have to get up. i ran out my laptop battery and while it charged i ran out my ipad battery and then switched back.

so to say that binding this fic was a goal of mine is not an adequate thing to say. i love this fic so much--and all of its horses.

since i first read this story in 2019 i have had the absolute honor to get to know A and idoltina and to luxuriate in the art that comes from Iverna. it was important to me to do this justice.

binding details

cover: took my inspiration from old 1980s category romances, because nora roberts and irish thoroughbred. using the art provided by idoltina, i re-created the vibe of an old silhouette category romance. the cover itself is a giclee print on hahnemuhle william turner 310gsm (the last sheets i got through my inkjet before it gave up and i had to switch substrates). the covers are finished with archival modpodge.

binding method: sewn boards again and always. the initial typeset for this fic came in at a whopping 700+ pages, so i knew i could not comfortably bind it in one piece. however, the plotting on this fic is so meticulous that at the exact midpoint of the pagecount there was also an appropriate midpoint where i could break the fic.

for the spine piece of the sewn boards i took artists' canvas and painted a mixture of purple and purple metallic paints to get a color i was happy with. not only was purple thematically on point but i happen to know that A loves purple. similarly, i used purple tissue to glue the sewn spine and purple 220gsm cardstock for the endpapers.

typeset: horse dingbats for the central ornaments and headers. kaoly (demo) for the title pages and drop caps; rose quay for the chapter headings. garamond 11pt for the text body.

printed on neemah cougar natural cream vellum 70# text weight paper.

stock images courtesy of unsplash: tim schmidbauer, scott warman, kirsten lachance.

I wrote this, in 2015 and 2016, a monster of a fic that went from “haha 16 chapters at most, like 2-5K words each” to a massive 28 chapter epic of over 220k words and 7 spin-offs. And @ohmightydevviepuu surprised me by binding it, by hand, into two novels (JUST THE ONE STORY BECAUSE IT WAS TOO LONG JUST BY ITSELF???) and honestly I’ve had these for weeks and only just now stopped looking at them like they might vanish. It’s one thing to know how verbose you are and another to see it in physical form, like yeah you wrote so much about love and trauma and healing and family and *so many horses* that it’s literally not gonna all fit into one book.

Anyway, Dev made me cry and i texted several people to yell at them because only @distant-rose knew my address and @idoltina had commissioned that art from @iverna for my birthday a few years ago (a scene from one of the penultimate chapters) that Dev then used for the covers, and then it turns out literally everyone knew this was happening and there was a collective worry about the post office.

Anyway it turns out I’m still not done tearing up over this. Thank you, Devra ❤️🦢⚓️

[ohmightydevviepuu]

valdemar, part ii: books that blooded me

wooof, it took me a lot longer than i intended to get back to these. and it was not smooth sailing once i powered through. i'm still struggling with some aspects of the casebinding, for starters; gotta work on my hinge gap width and the width of my spine pieces. did half of them with no blotter paper after i pasted the endpapers down, WHOOPS, definitely did not have to tear them back open, i swear, i promise. HTV fought me at every turn, a combo of using the wrong blade depth, i think, and the wrong setting on my silhouette. it even wrangled with the iron!

BUT. i continue to learn. and now i have two more trilogies to gaze upon. i have three more to go: two that i am doing as slipcases (because they are signed!) and one that i will do like this to finish it all up. see you in six months? 😅

[shy-sapphic-ace]

List of queer books I read, loved & recommend!

(There isn't any particular order, I wrote these as I remembered them)

Master Of One - Jaida Jones & Dani Bennett (mlm, fantasy, very cool worldbuilding and magic system, funny, cool characters)

Legends & Lattes - Travis Baldree (wlw, fantasy, very soft & chill vibes)

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon (wlw, high fantasy, cool worldbuilding, kinda reminds me of LOTR but with more dragons and feminism and lesbians)

Even Though I Knew The End - C.L. Polk (wlw, supernatural noir, cool 1930s detective story with angels & demons, I loved this one!)

The Love Interest - Cale Dietrich (mlm, science fiction, very cool concept)

The Darkest Part Of The Forest - Holly Black (side mlm, fantasy, cool fae lore)

The Weight Of The Stars - K. Ancrum (wlw, not quite science fiction but space stuff is involved, lovely and complex characters)

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz (mlm, fiction, very nice in general, there is also a sequel)

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue - Mackenzi Lee (mlm, historical and vaguely fantasy, nice story but I preferred the sequel honestly)

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy - Mackenzi Lee (wlw, the sequel to the one before, more fantasy elements than the first, asexual main character!!)

Gallant - V.E. Schwab (no romance, but in the background one of the characters(?) uses they/them pronouns, very cool dark fantasy vibe)

Stranger Than Fanfiction - Chris Colfer (gay main character, trans main character, coming-of-age, nice book)

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (yes it's the Love, Simon book, mlm, fiction, pretty nice)

They Both Die At The End - Adam Silvera (mlm, sci-fi ish but mostly fiction, cool ideas, but the ending is sad! Very amazing book though, I haven't read the prequel yet)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid (wlw, bi main character, historical fiction, cool story, just a neat book in general)

This Is How You Lose The Time War - Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (wlw, sci-fi, very cool time travel stuff!! and very beautiful, it felt like reading poetry most of the time)

One Last Stop - Casey McQuinston (wlw, background trans & pan & queer characters, sci-fi or fantasy idk, but time travel, I loooved this book, great)

The House In The Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune (mlm, fantasy, THIS BOOK oh my gosh you should read it!!, just cute and lovely and good)

Under The Whispering Door - TJ Klune (mlm, fantasy, this book is also sooo amazing, great character development and awesome relationships and stuff, it's been a while since I read it but it was so good)

In the Lives of Puppets - TJ Klune (mlm, ace main character!!, sci-fi, now THIS is found family, oughh feelings. argh, tj klune you’ve done it again, a human and his family of funky robots… I love them)

And They Lived... - Steven Salvatore (nblm, fiction, about gender identity and learning to love yourself, read it a while ago but it was very nice)

I Wish You All The Best - Mason Deaver (nblm, fiction, about finding your identity and people who care about you, very cute and sweet)

The Song Of Achilles - Madeleine Miller (mlm, historical, very good in general)

Carry On - Rainbow Rowell (mlm, background wlw in the third book, fantasy, it's a trilogy, basically Harry Potter if it was gay and also better)

Silver In The Wood - Emily Tesh (mlm, fantasy, very pretty, lots of fae stuff and lovely descriptions, it has a really good sequel too)

Pretty much anything by Alice Oseman (all cute and lovely and great, though I've only read Radio Silence so far I hear only good things, Solitaire is on my to-read list)

I Kissed Shara Wheeler - Casey McQuinston (wlw, fiction, it's been a while but I liked this book)

The Falling In Love Montage - Ciara Smyth (wlw, fiction, this book was so cute and funny and deeply emotional it made me Feel way too many things, I'd definitely recommend it)

What Big Teeth - Rose Szabo (a bit of queerness all around, fantasy, werewolves and monsters, this one was pretty cool!, lots of original ideas for the world/character building)

His Quiet Agent - Ada Maria Soto (mlm, asexual, fiction, about like spies but this book was so gentle and sweet I wanted to cry in the best way possible)

Some By Virtue Fall - Alexandra Rowland (wlw, historical fiction(?), theatre drama!! rival romance!! duels!!, a very good read in general)

Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend - Emma R. Alban (wlw, historical fiction, I’m not usually one for regency romances, but I really liked this!!, very cute and lots of drama, and there’s a sequel coming out soon!)

[brainrotcharacters]

"it should be me" those are romance words Logan

[ohmightydevviepuu]

the story: written for the Captain Swan Supernatural Summer and a favorite of @spartanguard's work, it was such a pleasure to explore this fic for binding. kait has been a wonderful friend and supporter and fellow writer and cheerleader over these many years, and what a gift to be able to give some small part of that back to her. did i overdo it on the middlemist imagery? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

binding: half-letter sewn boards with homemade fabric bookcloth and gem details. ribbon closure obi band.

i wanted to keep the dark garden imagery but include the pops of color brought in by the pink flowers in the middlemist field. all font choices approved personally by @optomisticgirl.

Y'all. @ohmightydevviepuu is living up to the MIGHTY in her URL, because she is SO TALENTED. LOOK AT THIS STUNNINNGGGGG PIECE!!!!

Seriously—this looks professionally made. The construction of this is INCREDIBLE; the actual page setup is PERFECT; and then she took it the extra step with the gorgeous details on the front (and back) with the gemstones and the ribbon and the flowers (which I need to find a way to secure so I never lose them because I am going to cherish this forever).

We all know the feeling of success of feeling a story. But holding it in your hands like this is something else, and I can't thank Dev enough 💗 (she has her own post coming for this and I don't want to steal its thunder because she deserves ALL THE CREDIT FOR THIS AMAZINGNESS but I had to say SOMETHING because I've been staring at this for a WEEK)

[cubbyhole-for-flea-bee]

Apologies

[onaperduamedee]

Your whole life, you've always known what you wanted to do. Yet now, I'm looking at you, and I don't think you have any idea what you want to do next.

[backpackingspace]

Love that it's Canon that odysseus built secret passage ways into his house and then never fucking told anybody about them (except penelope of course)

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

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