#if you liked the last book in the imperial radch series maybe

[gideonisms]

MY hot post-tlt book recs take is that recommending murderbot after tlt is doing murderbot a disservice. Almost completely dissimilar to tlt and imo even the sense of humor is much different. I guess they are both sci fi?

[letsoulswander]

tagged by @thebarghestiest for "people you want to get to know better"!

1. Favorite Ships currently, whatever is going on in IWTV. yall seen this shit? wild. anyway, also a fan of many other ships, like Jeckran/Tsira from Unnatural Magic by C.M. Waggoner. Or one-sided Seivarden/Breq (something is seriously wrong with both of them <3) from Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series. Cliopher/(redacted) from The Hands of the Emperor series by Victoria Goddard. Wow I'm doing a lot of books lately.

2. First Ship oh, probably the Doctor/River. Forest of the Dead changed something in me for good

3. Last Song The Listener by The Collection

4. Last Movie no idea, but I'm currently watching a really crappy one from 1994 called Tammy and the T-Rex. it's hilarious.

5. Currently reading At The Feet of The Sun by Victoria Goddard. It's the third(ish) in a series but I highly recommend all of it. Sadie has already told me some stuff that's gonna make me cry, so I'm excited for that.

6. Currently Watching I JUST caught up on the IWTV show, but I'm also watching S3 of The Bear with my roommate. I had a real thought about it this morning which is kind of driving me nuts. Anyway what's up with season 3? so many artsy shots and not a lot of story.

7. Currently Craving Cooler weather, a thunderstorm, or a pepsi. Maybe all three

I'm gonna tag @pinktheferret, @melodramatic-kitten, @papercutdoctor, @first-knife, @knife-wife, and @marilusia. Anyone else can do it as well and say I tagged you!

[pangolinheart]

I was tagged by @irisopranta so here's a little trivia!

Share your wallpaper: It's... just the default MSI wallpaper (I have commitment issues lol.) I could probably use a screenshot or a commission of a suitable dimensions, but meeehhhhh.

My mobile wallpaper is this Dragon Age Tarot-style commission from @needapotion

I've been thinking about changing it, but I'm not sure to what.

The last song you listened to: The Sharpest Lives by My Chemical Romance (I mostly listen to music while driving. Shockingly this song is not on any of my many playlists)

Currently reading: Uuuuhhhh I don't read as much as I should, but when I do I've been bouncing between: The Death and Life of Schneider Wrack by Nate Crowley, which I really enjoy but have been trying to finish for like a year and half (it's not long i'm just lazy). An inventive nautical zombie romp with a dash of social commentary.

Asian Ghost Short Stories: An Anthology of New and Classic Tales. The intersection of folklore, horror, and culture was the topic of both of my undergrad senior papers, though they mostly focused on Japan. I've already read most of the traditional Japanese stories in this book, but I don't know very much about ghosts in other Asian Countries, so it's been an interesting read! I was also drawn to it because it contains translations of new short horror stories by unpublished Asian authors. The Black Bestiary: A Phantasmagoria of Monsters and Myths from the Phillipines by Budjette Tan (Author), David Hontiveros, Kajo Baldisimo (Illustrator), and Bow Guerrero  (Illustrator). See above. This book is really interesting, because it's an illustrated compedium of myths and monsters, but the entries are written from the perspective of modern-day monster hunters recording their experiences in a journal. Apparently it's a sequel to a book called The Lost Journal of Alejandro Pardo, which I'll have to pick up sometime. The art is very cool. One of the illustrators, Kajo Baldisimo, is the main illustrator of a comic series called Trese that semi-recently received an animated adaptation with audio available in both English and Tagalog. I've been meaning to consume both of these at some point as well.

Last Movie: Uuuuuhhhhhh.... I'm not much of a movie person, so I don't really remember, but I guess maybe Dune?

Craving: Curry and rice (I'll make some the next time everyone else is out of the house >_>)

What are you wearing right now? Black leggings and a sweatshirt with the word "Catnip" over a collage of images of cats and slogans like "Cheap Thrills" in the style of an old-school Reefer Madness poster.

How tall are you: 5'4 (164.56 cm) (People always say "I thought you were taller!" Including someone i worked with in-person for more than a month-and-a-half.)

Piercings: Just the boring regular ear piercings.

Tattoos: None, sadly. See: fear of commitment

Glasses? Contacts? Neither.

Last drink: Ice water (I'm trying to drink more water, but I'd rather gargle metal shavings than drink room-temperature water.)

Last show: Hmm this one was also a while ago. I think it was Dragon Age: Absolution.

Last thing you ate: Pork roast (bleh) and potatoes for dinner.

Favorite color: This is a cop-out but I like lots of colors. I guess maybe green, orange or red? But I also like white, black, most shades of blue (navy can get fucked), purple, yellow, pink, silver/gray, etc.

Current obsession: FFXIV

Unrelated obsession: Dice! I love hand-made ttrpg dice sets! They're so pretty and unique! Sadly, not playing in any actual games has not put a damper on my bankruptcy-inducing dice habit.

Any pets: Two cats (Hansel and Gretel) and a dog (Isabella).

Do you have a crush on anyone? Nah.

Favorite fictional character: This one is really hard... There are probably so many I'm forgetting. The Justice of Toren/Breq from the Imperial Radch series, Matthew Swift from the Matthew Swift series, Alistair from DA:O, Anders, Fenris, and Isabela from DA2. Garrus from Mass Effect. Esteem from FFXIV, Alisaie from FFXIV (though I also really like Haurchefant, Y'shtola, Hilda, Ysayle, and Fordola.)

Honorable mentions to the characters I used to have keychains of on my pen case (I would try to encourage shier, nerdier students to talk to me by watching/playing things that were popular with high schoolers and putting my favorite character from the media on my pen case, which students would get very excited about): Chuuya from Bungo Stray Dogs, Childe from Genshin Impact, and Cu Chulainn from various Fate-related media.

The last place you traveled: Uhhhh I guess my last major trip was to... here (America)! My last "vacation" was to Sapporo (that was right before the pandemic.) I do occasionally take shorter day trips to towns around my area, but the furthest afield I've been recently is Grand Marais in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

I will be in Las Vegas for the FFXIV Fan Expo this summer though!

Tagging: I think everyone I interact with has already been tagged in this, but if you haven't done it and want to here is your unofficial tag!

[burningdarkfire]

#3 and 17 for the end of the year book ask, pls! :D

hellooo thank you 🫶

(send me end-of-year book asks!)

3. What were your top five books of the year?

i'll just combine some series before they dominate the entire board:

the radiant emperor duology by shelley parker-chan (cannot stress enough how much this fucks. every story in the world should have gender fuckery, revenge quests, and toxic threesomes)

imperial radch by ann leckie (you might think you love reading about toxic lesbians dealing with space imperalism but maybe it's actually about the friends you meet along the way)

bright dead things by ada limon (i read a good amount of poetry this year and sometimes it really does just hit your soul just right)

the first fifteen lives of harry august by claire north (whatever they have going on is weirder and hornier than sex. need i say more)

magpie murders by anthony horowitz (mysteries have really earned their spot in my reading this year and this one was very particularly fun!!)

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

honestly, i've had a pretty disappointing reading year overall, so i can't say i've been particularly delighted and surprised by how good any books were, but here are at least two:

the thursday murder club series, especially #4 - the last devil to die, by richard osman was surprisingly touching for what i thought would be relatively trite genre fiction, and i'm glad i picked them up

i liked the hunger games as a teenager and had reservations about how good the prequel could possibly be, but the ballad of songbirds and snakes by suzanne collins was surprisingly strong as a story and incredibly enjoyable to read as a bonus

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

kind anon who sent the ask-

I'm really glad you liked the way things turned out. It always great when you find a story that clicks with you <3

my comment is, stories aren't bad or good just because they click with you. There are so many amazing movies I can't watch, because of this one thing about them, so many bad ones that make me happy... there are characters I have to avoid, specifically because of something in ME that gets reflected back onto them, and then back onto me and then, just, mess of nothing good happens.

People say, oh this was handled well, this was dealt with in a good way- and it's true for them!

but not for everyone

the thing you sent the ask about is....

well, it's a me thing. and it isn't, since there are other people like me out there, but not everything is made for me, for my specific needs. That's okay. That's good. They're are a lot of people in the world. We all need to see ourselves in stories

I guess what I'm trying to say is one person's potion of healing is another's poison of instant depression

and the thing in ask is, it's kinda, the problem isn't the way it turns out? the problem was at the start, for me. And I knew that. So I stayed away from the rest, knowing that, and maybe I can't completely keep from bumping into it- did just last night actually, which was tricky- but that's normal and fine. That's life.

There's this one book series I reread every month because it just comforts me so much. The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie. It's not a series I'd recommend to everyone (Tv trope spoilers are your friend). But for me? It's perfect. It's what I need.

I hope everyone finds at least one story like that

whew, that felt kinda nice to write down. Thank you for the ask :)

[zenosanalytic]

Hello! You seem to have interesting taste in books, esteemed viper. Would you have any recommendations for someone who enjoyed both Murderbot, Imperial Radch and The Locked Tomb (although the last one with a thesaurus, because not a native English speaker)? Thanks!

(Foreword: the links are to the first place that pops up on searches for me; not advocating you buy from these particular places, especially Amazon; if you want to buy rather than borrow from a library, Please do not buy from Amazon if you can at all help it. Like: There is no Ethical Consumption Under Capitalism, obviously, but even Barnes&Nobles is better than Bezos’s human-misery factory)

The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin is REALLY good Axiom’s End, by Lindsay Ellis, starts rough, but improves ALLOT after the first act and finishes wonderfully. Also, The Subtext: The rich, Rich Subtext :3 :3 :3 The Teixcalaan Series by (Ascended Homestuck)Arkady Martine, two books out currently, is a Very Fun and Rare example of what you could call Hard-Political Sci Fi? VERY Much about Diplomacy, Bureaucracy, History, Culture and the, shall we say, “complications” of Empire for everyone involved(but mostly the ppl being Empired at). The first book, A Memory Called Empire, is VERY Good, though it’s got a weird flow where I felt it started strong, ended strong, but wobbled a bit in the middle. The 2nd book, A Desolation Called Peace is... It’s good in different ways, flawed in that the plotting generally feels more Convenient and less deeply Developed than in Memory, but I found I didn’t really care about the problems weighed against what I liked in it. The Temeraire Series, by Naomi Novik(remember that name: anybook wearing it is likely to be Good) is a WONDERFUL Historical-Fantasy series, set in a time period(The Napoleonic Era) woefully underserved in the Fantasy genre which asks the Very Important Question “What if Dragons Were Real?”, and then deconstructs European Empire and Imperial Imagination with the answers. It’s Great. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is another wonderfully Political Fantasy book set in the Age of Sail/Steam, but with Airships. The Airships aren’t important though; the Clothes are. And the Politicking(which means Dinner Planning). And the Lifetime of Familial Truama. And the Engineering. And the Buff SwordFighting Girlfriends who will skewer anyone who so much as ruffles your Bueautiously Bedazzled Brow, even if they don’t particularly understand or care that much for your ideals. There’s apparently a 2nd book in the series, that I JUST found out about looking up this one, so I’m going to be getting on getting that >:| Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke, is not a book, but rather a Positive TOME. It’s big is what I’m saying. Magisterial would be an apt description, and you’ll need the thesaurus for this one too I assure you. It is ALSO set in the Napoleonic Era, which is kind of becoming a theme with this list isnt it, and it’s about Two Gentlemen(actually Four, and one Lady) of markedly different Romantic Literary Tropes bringing Magic back to the world(they used to have Magic, but then a Giant Crow ate it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). It is VERY Good but, like I said, HUGE, and it takes, like, a month to read(unless you’re insane like me, and dedicate every waking moment of, like, a week to reading it, which invariably happens when I open the dang thing). The author also has a new book out, Piranesi, which has won ALL The Praise, but I haven’t read it yet so’s I can nary say good nor bad about it, sadly :T She also wrote a book of short-stories, which I ALSO have not read, and ALSO Have Been Meaning To Read for, like, a decade now X| The Greta Helsing Novels by (Ascended Homestuck)Vivian Shaw, currently a Trilogy but I’m hoping maybe someday publishers will Wisen and we’ll get more it’d be a Wonderful counterpoint to the Dresden Files approach to pulp, is pretty much The Opposite of Strange and Norrell. They’re nice, Light, quick, fun reads, Competent and Workerly; the sort of thing ppl tend to call “summer” or “vacation” books. It’s about a human doctor who takes care of the undead, and the Shenanigans this gets her into. Shaw has a FANTASTIC brain, and she uses the series as an excuse to share&explore her knowledge on various esoteric subjects like Sewer Architecture, Nuclear Reactors, and Historical Divine Bureaucracy Headcanons :3 :3 Also, like, 80% of the characters in the series are taken from 1800s pulp horror fiction; It’s Gr8. IF you can find a collection of either of their works, which isn’t terribly likely, sadly, because Capitalism is Awful, Jack Vance and Fritz Leiber were probably the BEST writers of the Pulp Fantasy Era/Genre(think Conan or Lovecraft). Tales of the Dying Earth is basically the soil Adventure Time(and He Man, coincidentally, and basically the Whole subgenre of “Wait: This isn’t THE PAST!!!” scifi-fantasy) grew out of, and it’s also a pretty excellent transposition of The Odyssey into SciFi Fantasy. Of Leiber I have read only a comic rendition of SOME of his Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, and a SINGLE TEASER PASSAGE from his actual writing, and both totally blew me away with their artistry, pathos, and naturalistic flow and dialogue. I dont know his works directly, though, so maybe the rest isn’t so great, or dabbles in the execrable gender- racial- and imperial-politics so common to white male sci-fi writers of that era.

Ok IM STOPPING THERE. Because I’m not Heartless and I think that’s Enough for now. If you like the taste exhibited by my posting, well, these are also parts of that taste so maybe you’ll like them too. I certainly hope so :>

[scribhneoir-sidhe]

TOP 10 READS OF THE YEAR

Okay you can blame this on @dorsalfin, giving me license to ramble about books is always dangerous. Thanks for the opportunity bestie! <3

10. Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey- this was one of the hard copy books I bought for myself before coming to Spain and I finished it in a single afternoon sitting in a park. Absolutely love everything about it, the characters, the writing, the themes. Real comfy novella! I especially like how it plays with setting, it’s Old West styled, but it seems to be maybe post-apocalyptic? Definitely dystopian. Very fun!

9. Texas: The Great Theft by Carmen Boullosa- this was actually a book I read for an English class about literature from the U.S./Mexico border and was probably my favorite thing I’ve read for a class and that includes all the Irish mythology I read for my Celtic narratives class. It begins as such a simple story and rapidly spins out of control until it ends with the most heartbreaking and almost disturbing climax. I wrote an entire paper on how it uses narrative voice and narrator perspective and I’ll still never get enough of it.

8. The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green- it had been a while since I’d read a John Green book! What’s even more surprising is this was non-fiction. I’m hoping to start reading more of that, maybe not exactly along the same lines as this, but branching out more. Anyway, I really liked this one! I actually had to read it at home instead of on the go like I normally do cuz the stories kept making me tear up. I think my favorite is the review of Harvey.

7. The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin- oh man this book! My siblings have been trying to get me to read Jemisin for a while now and I’m so glad I listened to them. This book had a fantastic premise and Jemisin really knows how to turn a phrase, some of the descriptions of the semi-metaphorical city combat gave me chills. I think I would’ve enjoyed it even more if I actually liked NYC, but that can’t be helped. 😂

6. Imperial Radch Trilogy by Anne Leckie- This has been on my TBR list for a while now! Between this and a few of the others, half of this list is just “Genre fiction that grapples with empire and decolonization and such.” I really loved how the trilogy approached personhood when it came to Breq/Justice of Toren, as well as how the empire both shaped and was also expressed by the actions and personalities of its inhabitants. Plus I listened to the trilogy in audiobook form and Adjoa Andoh did an amazing job bringing the characters to life. I particularly liked Presger Translator Dlique/Zeiat!

5. When the Moon Was Ours by Anna Marie McLemore- God I will never get enough of Anna Marie’s writing. I’m definitely picking up a few more of their books when I get back to the states (Libby doesn’t seem to have them). WtMWO is such a subtle book in so many ways, Anna Marie does magical realism so well and I got drawn in almost without realizing it. As always the characters were the best part and the unabashed queerness of everything. I really hope I get to meet Anna Marie again, last time I hadn’t read anything of their’s and now I want to just have dinner with them and chat.

4. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel- Holy shit this book. Maybe reading a book about a pandemic post-apocalypse was not the best idea at the current moment but I did it anyway. And I’m really glad! Even though it did give me an existential crisis or two in the process, I really enjoyed everything this book did. It’s such an interesting exploration of how people react to the world crumbling, and without a lot of the usual action-movie focus on big set pieces, it had the time to really let everything sink in. I absolutely love the concept of a group of actors and musicians traveling the wasteland, bringing hope and cheer to the survivors, it’s my favorite apocalyptic message.

3. The Masquerade Series by Seth Dickinson- OH BOY! These books are fucked up! Like I kinda knew that going in, hell the titles give you no illusions on what the main character is, but WOW! My reading process for this book was just me periodically going “holy shit, that is so messed up” at the narrative. Also the thought and care put into the worldbuilding are absolutely fantastic and make me want to put that much attention into my own world. Even if I cannot bring myself to be that detailed about the economics.

2. Teixcalaan Series by Arkady Martine- More empire scifi! Again, the worldbuilding is such an integral part of all of these stories; it has to be, the empires themselves are essentially characters. And Martine already won my heart by using aztec inspirations for the Teixcalaanli. The love they have for poetry and allusion was such a fun element, both in a worldbuilding sense and in the way it appears in the actual text, where you can see how it affects their thought process within the narration. Such a fantastic device! I cannot wait for the third book!

1. Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin- All I can say is I understand why this won the Hugo award three years in a row. The first book lit a fire under me, both with the plot twists that seem obvious on the second go around and the excellent theming of oppressed people demanding their autonomy and personhood be recognized. And I can never pass up an anti-nihilistic healing the world story.

All in all, a good haul! I cheated a bit since several of these are series, but I just read a ton this year! Mostly in the last four months tbf. I’m gonna tag @rosemary-and-time-to-sleep, @jadeandquartzes, @libelluslucis and @isaakandreyevs. Plus anyone else who’s interested. Looking forward to seeing what you guys have read!

[stillwinterair]

I did it! I read 33 books in 2020!

It’s been a shitty year, but boy, I completely blew past my goal. Previously, the most I’d ever read in a year was 16, in 2019. And before that, probably uhhh... probably in 2014ish, and probably only like 5, maybe 6. I never really considered myself a big reader, I have pretty severe ADHD and dyslexia, so this... this feels really big, for me, personally.

So, without further ado the full list:

Season of Storms by Andrzej Sapkowski (The Witcher mid-quel) -- finished January 4th, 2/5 stars

Star Wars: Hard Merchandise by K.W. Jeter (The Bounty Hunter Wars Trilogy #3) -- finished January 17th, 2/5 stars

Star Wars: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn (The Thrawn Trilogy #1) -- finished February 2nd, 3/5 stars

Migration by Julie E. Czerneda (Species Imperative #2) -- finished February 18th, 4/5 stars

Mass Effect: Revelation by Drew Karpyshyn -- finished February 25th, 2/5 stars

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) -- finished March 12th, 4/5 stars

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch #1) -- finished March 29th, 3/5 stars [this is the book I was in the middle of when the pandemic hit, so, that was fun, I read most of this book in a state of panic]

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (Goblin Emperor #1) -- finished April 16th, 4/5 stars [this was the first book I read while quarantined, so I didn’t have a reading regimen ironed out the way I did at work, so this one took me forever to finish]

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #1) -- finished May 3rd, 5/5 stars

Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks (Culture #1) -- finished May 21st, 3/5 stars

Caliban’s War by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #2) -- finished May 30th, 5/5 stars

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut -- finished June 1st, 4/5 stars

The Strong Shall Live by Louis L’Amour -- finished June 2nd, 3/5 stars

Larissa by Emily Davenport -- finished June 4th, 3/5 stars [see how close together the last several have been? I was really feeling it here but was also amidst a depression spiral.]

Abaddon’s Gate by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #3) -- finished June 13th, 4/5 stars

Regeneration by Julie E. Czerneda (Species Imperative #3) -- finished June 25th, 4/5 stars

Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #4) -- finished July 4th, 5/5 stars

Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #5) -- finished July 16th, 5/5 stars [began a different book July 5th -- The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold, but hated it so deeply I gave up on the 9th and immediately jumped to this book, objectively the right choice because this is easily one of the best books I’ve ever read]

The Assassin’s Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke (Magic of Blood and Sea #1) -- finished July 21st, 2/5 stars

Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #6) -- finished August 5th, 4/5 stars

Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente -- finished August 13th, 5/5 stars [read this book in one sitting, I loved it so much]

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb #1) -- finished September 9th, 3/5 stars

Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #7) -- finished September 19th, 5/5 stars

All Systems Red by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries #1) -- finished September 21st, 2/5 stars

Strange Dogs by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #6.5) -- finished October 1st, 5/5 stars

Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights by various -- finished October 12th, 4/5 stars [there were some truly 5/5 stories in here imo, but being a short story collection, the stinkers dragged it down]

Tiamat’s Wrath by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #8) -- finished October 19th, 5/5 stars

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse (The Sixth World #1) -- finished October 26th, 4/5 stars

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch #2) -- finished November 8th, 4/5 stars

Dragon Age: Asunder by David Gaider -- finished re-read November 18th, 4/5 stars [first read in 2014]

The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (Culture #2) -- finished November 28th, 4/5 stars

Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon -- finished December 14th, 5/5 stars

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch #3) -- finished December 28th, 2/5 stars

And that’s all she wrote! I had a blast! Didn’t read nearly as much fantasy as I planned to, the sci-fi clearly really drew me in this year. I’d also been putting off The Expanse for soooo long, but boy, it sucked me in like absolutely nothing else.

Standouts:

Caliban’s War, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, and mother fucking Tiamat’s Wrath absolutely blew me the hell away. Really, nothing quite compared to The Expanse, and these four in particular were just...... perfect.

Six-Gun Snow White was a goddamn weird one, but I couldn’t help reading it in one sitting. It really hit all the right notes for me. I could stand for some more wild west retellings of fairytales, you know?

Remnant Population just reeeally touched me. This is such a gorgeous little first contact story. Sometimes I think I hate slow-paced books, but then I find something like Remnant Population and I realize that slow pacing can be incredible. Oh, how I cried at the end of this one.

The City of Brass was just as good as I’d hoped! I can’t wait to read the sequel in 2021; it’s been sitting on my shelf since September!

The Player of Games just hit me right in my strike zone. I’d almost given up on the Culture series after Consider Phlebas, which I’d found really mediocre, but the character writing, pacing, world building, tension... everything just gelled so well in this book, I’m excited to read more Banks content.

Trail of Lightning was so good! Another book whose sequel is sitting on my shelf as we speak; the post-apocalyptic Navajo Witcher vibe was everything I ever wanted it. The cheese and melodrama were a little too much, but hey, I fell in love with Maggie Hoskie and everything about the Sixth World.

Tevinter Nights was exactly the Dragon Age 4 tease I’d been hoping for. There’s so much fun to be had here. I wrote reviews of each and every short story in the book here, if you’re interested!

[irradiate-space]

Imperial Radch but it takes epidemiology seriously

The True Radch, the Dyson Sphere that Anaander Miaanaai left and will never return to, takes its purity seriously. It doesn’t let anything in that isn’t ritually pure, and ritual purity is unspecified in the series.

The Radch mostly seems to get by by wearing gloves and being proper.

But what if it took diseases seriously?

Ancillaries are popsicle corpses from other worlds, reanimated systems away from their home biomes. They’re given implants to give them a new consciousness, and some other things, but then these ancillaries just go out and be wet and human all over their decade-mates, their officers, and the the planetary/stations populations where they’re stationed.

You know how every so often a chunk of permafrost thaws in Siberia? And how as a result there have been outbreaks of fossil anthrax as a result? Ancillaries are that sort of disease reservoir.

And yes, human officers do fuck ancillaries, and do fuck other humans.

Some ancillary bodies have been on ice for hundreds or thousands of years.

Imagine rolling up to the Medic and saying, “what’s this wart?” Medic replies, “Congratulations, Lieutenant. You’ve got a disease last seen on a planet fifteen Jumps and a hundred and fifty years ago. It has no known cure, and at this stage in the infection, you’ll be braindead in a week, followed two weeks later by everyone else onboard. There’s nothing to be done for it. Ship, tell Captain that I’m ordering the ship sterilized.” One flash-cleanse later, now you have a very lonely Ship wandering the spaceways, without crew or Captain, looking for someone to help bootstrap it back to crewedness.

How might taking this into account change the Imperial Radch novels?

Some plot bunnies for consideration:

thorough screening of passengers arriving from outsystem or outplanet or offstation, with mandatory quarantine

ancillaries walk around in their impenetrable mirror-shields all the time, because it’s a two-way disease barrier

Breq can’t get an in-person audience with Anaander during her first week at Omaugh Palace, but instead spends three weeks in quarantine with Seivarden, working her way through local bureaucrats to get to the point where she can actually meet with Anaander face to face instead of in a telepresence call mediated by Station

thorough disease scanning facilitates thorough biological scanning of all sorts, which might lead to someone discovering that Breq takes the sort of drugs that ancillaries take to support their implants

instead of booking passage in personal cabins within a ship, passengers have personal cabins, which are container-like units transported by a ship: Breq has been using a subsistence-mode container, but has to upgrade to something nice enough to support Seivarden when she discovers her, which in turn needs to be upgraded to something nice enough for the Honored Breq, from the Gerentate

One Esk probably wouldn’t have been as friendly with the Orisians, because the Orisians might not have been able to see one Esk’s faces behind the solid silver of their armor. Or maybe ancillaries can detune their armor to allow light to pass through it, in low-risk situations. Do ancillaries wear their uniforms over or under their armor?

[beatrice-otter]

Yuletide Recs 2019

Happy Yuletide, everyone! First, I got a delightful little fic written for me: promenade.  My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle and Mrs. Higgins.  Wonderful story.  Mrs. Higgins was superb, and Eliza's reactions to the English upper class abroad are perfect. Here are some other fics I have enjoyed: 4'33"--John Cage The Sound Of A Yuletide Fic Not Being Written. There sure are a lot of cars going by.  Great meta look at writing, and 4'33" The Addams Family (movies) An Addams Family Contract (Written in Secret, Signed in Blood).  “I’m an Addams,” Debbie protests indignantly. Immediately after making this statement, Debbie realized that it was true.  (Or, Wednesday wants to exorcise Debbie. Debbie wants to kill Wednesday. A negotiation begins.)  This is AMAZING and hysterically funny, and the thought of Debbie and Wednesday working together is TERRIFYING. Don't I Deserve Love (and Jewelry).  The plan to win Wednesday’s friendship did not start well. She shared her admiration for the girl’s blowtorch, then hinted about her own childhood affinity for matchsticks and fire accelerants, but Wednesday was unimpressed.  Do better,” she said before lowering her hockey mask and stalking after Pubert. Honeymoon in Transylvania.  Ahahahaha, this is wonderful.  Gomez and Morticia vs. the TSA! Alien Series A Room with a Crappy View. 17k of Ripley and Hicks awesomeness post-Aliens. This is an absolutely AMAZEBALLS fic, and I LOVE it. I love that they deal with their trauma. I love how they wrote the Colonel, doing the best she could on the evidence she had and how frustrating that was and yet, when you look at it from her POV, what better way could she have handled it? The action is great, the relationships between Ripley and Hicks and Bishop were awesome, this is an absolute treat. All About Eve Getting Back to Being a Woman.  Karen knew enough not to go to New Haven.  Never let it be said that Margo Channing doesn't know how to take care of her friends.  I love this. I could just hear Bette Davis and the others saying their lines, and the ending is perfect--I think Karen and Lloyd will be able to have a much better relationship after this, if he's willing to accept and live into the changed relationship. Till I have the possession of everything she touches.  Addison DeWitt/Eve Harrington and their daughter.  VERY well done Addison perspective. Aubrey-Maturin series. Vent de Boulet.  Jack & Aubrey, Teen.  The aftermath of Stephen's escape from the French interrogators at Port Mahon.  Wonderful portrayal of the relationship between them and natural consequences of their trauma-filled lives. Babette's Feast Body and Soul.  After the French dinner, a new normal established itself among the faithful. Ballet Shoes A Long Way from the Cromwell Road.  Petrova visits Pauline in Hollywood after the war ends. Bletchley Circle Logical Recovery.  After the showdown with Marta Magro at the warehouses, Jean, Millie, and Lucy embark for Glasgow to find Eliška. Archival research, an extended stay with Jean's cousin, undercover rescue missions, and much emotional processing of past events ensue. Cabaret Infinite Variety.  London, 1950. Clifford has coming looking for Sally. Instead he finds a girl who may or may not be her – or their – daughter, the reclusive former Master of Ceremonies, and an annoying parrot. He becomes part of their strange household, full of love and bickering; sorrow, pain and music. No-one will tell him where Sally is, or even whether she’s alive. No-one will tell him anything. Except the parrot, who tells him that life is a Cabaret.  Oh, wow, this is painful but SO GOOD and the ending is perfect. DC Teen Titans From Cold to Fire.  "Do you want to go out with me?" "What?" Young Justice Getting Stupid in your area.  Hang-time includes considerations of evil clones and taking down a newly raised lich lord.  Love the banter. Die Hard Your Answers Please.  “Come on, kid,” McClane said gruffly. “This place is fucking depressing. You’re coming to stay with me.” Enchanted Forrest Chronicles Best Served Cold.  In which Antorell causes trouble in the Enchanted Forest, and Cimorene and Alianora make an amphibious new friend.  Hilarious, I love Ribbita! Ghostbusters Better Than Roses. Janine dates. It's...something. The Goblin Emperor Imperial (non) Immunity.  Csevet doesn't get sick. Maia's not so confident. Light a Mourner's Candle.  The Archprelate finds a chaplain for Maia. Against a Sure Winter.  When the opportunity arose to become one of the four ceremonial bodyguards for the new Emperor, Cala Athmaza volunteered. He didn't fully realize what he was letting himself in for, but he knew in his heart he had made the right choice. Sugar Lumps.  Maia spends some time with his horse. Greek Mythology beauty, her artificers.  Shortly after their wedding, Aphrodite sustains a small wound.  Really great Aphrodite/Hephaestus dynamic. a thing of beauty, golden.  Olympus’ one-century wonder appears in Hephaestus’ workshop between one strike on his anvil and the next..  Another really great Aphrodite/Hephaestus fic. Hancock yeah I know the shortcut, rather take the long way. Ray daydreams a New York that looks a lot like something out of an old Daredevil comic - towers looming over the city like cragged, jaded sentries, impartial to the neon kaleidoscope of chaos churning along below them. Hancock roosts on the tallest, craggiest one of course, brooding as he watches the slow pulsing heartbeat of the city below him. Ready to dive off his perch and into action with the first cry of distress, and there’s probably lots of those in a city like New York. Lots of zooming around, saving people, saving the world. Hopefully with slightly less metaphorical middle fingers to the world. And less alcohol. Ray’s not an idiot though, and one sparkly life-changing month doesn’t just fix people. History RPF 15th Century. these late eclipses.  Anne Neville, like others of her line, is born with a gift.  I LOVE the way magic is brought into this, it melds so well with the history. 19th Century/German folklore The Bargain.  Bettina finds a secret door at her grandmother's house, one that leads to something very unexpected. The things she learns as a result change her life in small but important ways. Imperial Radch Still Left in Want of Mercy.  The Republic of Two Systems is about a month old. Seivarden is having yet another crisis - can Mercy of Kalr get her through it? Maybe, with the crew's and Fleet Captain's help.  Interesting Ship perspective. high above the trees.  An unexpected embassy. Really excellent, probably the best way I've ever seen "Awn Lives" done. The Incredibles Life of a Superhero, Junior Grade.  Fortunately, this was Tuesday night training, not a real villain-chasing experience. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell The Magicians of Starecross Hall.  Being a series of interludes in the life of John Segundus, newly practical magician, in the year following the disappearances of Messrs. Strange and Norrell. Including: a new school for young magicians, explorations of the King’s Roads, Lady Pole’s alarming needle-work, unanticipated trips to Faerie, and John Childermass.  I love this story!  How the school got started, and 'Miss Wintertowne' (although I do think she would style herself 'Mrs' Wintertowne, because she is married and up through the 18th Century 'Mistress/Mrs' vs. 'Miss' had as much to do with age and experience and such as it did with marital status) and how she uses embroidery as a kind of art therapy.  I love the slow burn, and I love the stuff about exploring the King's Roads and Faerie.  It is excellent and awesome. Lilo & Stitch The Dance.  Lilo peeked out from behind the curtains and looked over the stage. A Little Princess Discipulae.  "I just realized," Sara said. "Becky, I could have a tutor now. I could hire someone to teach me anything I wanted. All the things that are hard to learn alone from books — Greek and Latin, Sanskrit, algebra, anything I wanted. What would you learn, Becky, if you could?"  Really great look at what their lives could be like post-canon. Marvel Captain Marvel Take my hand (and we'll march to the front lines). There's a dream Vers has sometimes. this youthful heart can love you. Carol waited a week before she left with the Skrulls. Space Cases.  Monica tried many other times to win her mother over to a pet. A rabbit, a pony, a parakeet. This is not any of those stories. This is the story of Monica Rambeau and a Flerken named Goose.  Or: Why Nick Fury is never allowed to babysit ever again. The Tesseract's Wife.  A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points: non-linear snapshots of a love story. Fly Me To The Moon.  "It's a vacation. Like spring break," Carol says. Monica's eyes widen. "Really? So we can hang out? What are we going to do?" "Well," Carol says, leaning back in her chair and flashing that old, familiar smirk. "I thought we could go to the moon." Into the Spiderverse i got you.  Miles thinks he's hiding the truth about Spider-Man, but one unfortunate night, it comes to light. one last leap.  Telling his parents he's Spider-Man is a leap of faith Miles can't bring himself to take. My Life to Liv.  Liv survived her encounters with her interdimensional Spider-nemeses, of course. So what's next for her? Interdimensional Phone Pals.  Gwen Stacy is many things, but open to friendships isn’t really one of them.  Or,  Five rules Gwen makes for herself, and how Peter B. makes her question them. Into the Spiderverse/Murder, She Wrote Spider, She Wrote.  Miles and May visit her old friend Jessica in Cabot Cove. Mulan (1998) the proper order of things. Great outsider perspective. The Mummy After the Mummy.  London was becoming Rick's least favourite place, and not just because of all the rain. Loving Evy was one thing: figuring out whether she loved him back after the Egyptian heat faded away was something else. Where's a good rising of the undead when you need one? Don't worry, Jonathan found one.  Lovely fun adventure. Course Correction.  Jonathan really is serious about staying away from tombs and mummies this time (except trouble always seems to find him). Good thing Ardeth is there to help him stay on-track. Travelers by Night.  Very quickly, Jonathan weighed the odds. On one hand, potential death, whether by armed bandits, a mummy’s curse, or people who looked like bandits and who were very angry about someone unleashing a mummy’s curse. On the other hand, potential riches, home ground, and topics of conversation other than what happened at school fifteen years ago and who got it in the neck where. Murderbot How I Spent My Vacation Between Survey Missions. What happens when ART reunites with Murderbot during another break between research survey missions? Media gets viewed, of course, but there might also be some bad news for more shady corporations. Situation Normal.  Hi, I said, along with amusement sigil 159 = wave. It seemed a little inadequate, but what do you say to the ship that radically altered your appearance, helped you figure out your past, and also threatened you with terrifying weapons? Amusement sigils seemed like my best bet. My Fair Lady Here We Are Together.  Eliza and Freddy are working together. Henry isn't happy, and makes sure everyone knows it. One Day at a Time what they say about the young. Without the kids around, it feels like everything has changed, except for all the other things about Penelope's life that could change, too. a return to normal.  Penelope and Schneider's Friday night plans fall through, so they have a movie night instead.  Very sweet. Persuasion. The Pen in Their Hands. Five letters that were written, but were never sent, aboard H.M.S. Laconia. (And one that was.) Smooth Water. “If I wanted easy comfort, I should not have become a captain’s wife.” Wonderful Austen voice. A Step Not Taken.  What if that day at Lyme had gone just a little differently? Peter Wimsey The Duke's Parlormaid.  A story in correspondence, with detective interruptions.  Really captured the feel of the books and all the character voices. Poirot The Mice Will Play.  When Poirot returns unexpectedly from a case, he finds out something new about Miss Lemon. RED The One Bathtub.  “I did have dinner plans,” Han said, grudgingly, and so Victoria kicked the door in and graciously allowed Han to be the first into the bathroom. She understood the pain of missed reservations. Rivers of London Through All the Years, This Is My Home.  At night, when the rest of the staff and most, if not all, of the masters were asleep, Molly would wander the moonlit halls and remember what fresh air felt like on her skin. Of Molly, of Thomas, and of the years they've spent together - and of the Folly, strong and everlasting.  Lovely Molly perspective. Peelian Principles.  "You're very calm about this," Seawoll said on the fifth day.  Nightingale's perspective on Peter's time as a hostage, and REALLY AWESOME. UXB.  When one the deadliest weapons of the Blitz threatens London once again, Peter finds himself on the front line.  Wonderful casefic, just perfect. Saved! Conversation Starters. Cassandra and Roland have five important conversations. Sense and Sensibility Realization and Renewal.  As Marianne recovers, Elinor and Colonel Brandon find themselves drawn to one another. Sense8 Blue and Gold.  Wolfgang comes home with Kala and Rajan after Paris. Finding a place with them. Star Trek: Rihannsu Day Comes Up New.  "I have done something spectacularly stupid," Arrhae said.  This is a wonderful extension and meditation on what might happen past canon.  Ever since I first read The Romulan Way as a teen, I've wondered what happened to Arrhae in the end, and the subsequent books were great but didn't answer the ultimate question.  This doesn't either, but it suggests something further, which I appreciate. Terminator Movies A Fistful of Sarahs.  The sky cracks open, and Sarah watches herself tumble out of a rift in the space time continuum. She’s older than she is now, and she’s got a lot more scars, and she’s carrying the biggest and weirdest looking gun Sarah’s ever seen. with all the hope in my heart (and doubt in my mind). Sarah Connor has done this before. Dani has not. Post-Terminator: Dark Fate. Fate, the Future, and Other Sons of Bitches.  Sarah and Dani hit the road. Winnie the Pooh In Which Pooh Hunts for the Meaning of Christmas.  Pooh finds a mysterious envelope pinned to the door of his house. In Which Eeyore Loses His Tail Again, Or At Least Plans To.  It's a bright, sunny day, and Eeyore has a plan to make it tolerable. Now if only his friends will cooperate.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

I was thinking about adapting Imperial Radch for movies/TV right after finishing books :) how do you think, what would be the best way to show what a ship with ancillaries is?

(my previous thoughts on an IR tv series)

SINGING

Okay hear me out here, because there are some obvious ways to depict the way ancillaries work--have Hundred Captain Rubran wake up and mumble "tea, Ship" and then show two ancillaries already working together flawlessly to brew it or something--but this is JUSTICE OF TOREN and therefore SINGING.

Here's what I'm picturing. So, in this elaborately discussed four part series of Ancillary Justice, we spend the whole first episode with Breq singing alone in her pitchy, scratchy voice, thoughtlessly humming at every moment, and it's just an oddity. When she's toying with the instrument in Strigan's house, we hear her sing a Radchaai piece, anything at all really as long as it's very clearly familiar to her.  When she sits down to tell the story of how Justice of Toren became Breq from the Gerentate (the more I think about this, the more I think that you would just have to manipulate the pacing in any way necessary so that the first episode would end at Breq agreeing to tell Strigan the story, it would hit so much better that way), she's still toying with the instrument, and we hear her pluck out the first few chords of the same song before she sets it aside and takes on her ancillary emotionlessness and begins to speak. 

Then at the very start of the second episode, the one that features the flashback to Ors, someone on board Justice of Toren is listening to music.  Captain Rubran, maybe.  Anyone at all, as long as it's not Lieutenant Awn--the idea here is to drive home that music predates Awn, because in this visual exercise we're using music as the method of showing what ships with ancillaries are like.  So we disconnect it from Awn for the moment.  

The point is, someone is listening to music, and it sounds different on a different set of instruments, but when the lyrics on the recording picks up, we realize it's the same song that Breq was singing before.  The camera cuts to the ancillary making tea for the listener, within earshot of the music but not reacting.  Then it cuts to an ancillary cleaning a shuttle, or doing some other private task that requires no human soldiers to be present, and it's singing the same song acapella, perfectly in time with the music we just heard.  We cut to more ancillaries, each of them in private tasks or bunkrooms, out of sight of the human officers, and with each new voice added, we leave the previous voices laced into the background audio, until finally there's a shot of Justice of Toren floating above the blue-green-grey marble of Shis'urna over the music of all the ancillaries singing in chorus.

Then we cut to four armored ancillaries in Ors, singing along in the town square as they patrol, with only their own voices, and finally, last of all, one of One Esk singing all alone as it pours Lieutenant Awn tea.

@NETFLIX HOOK A BITCH UP 

[deathcupcake]

Tag 9 peeps with awesome tastes

Tagged by @aileuromania

Colours I’m current wearing: Blackest black and nothing else.

Last band shirt I bought: I haven't bought a band shirt since the 80s, I think? Not because I don't like bands but because I hate the fit of crewneck unisex tees and no one bothers making better shirts in my size. However, the last band item I purchased was probably a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds tea towel or tote bag. I love my Nick Cave tea towel set (he’s sold three on different tours). Oh wait, I did get a De La Soul t-shirt as part of the Kickstarter campaign (maybe even other bands?) but as I don’t wear it, I don't count it.

Last band I saw live: Poptone but we’ll see David J next week.

Last song I listened to: Mmmm Skyscraper I Love You by Underworld

Lipstick or chapstick: Lipstick or lip balm or lip gloss or lip stain or Carmex. No Chapstick (unless you mean it in a generic way and not as a brand name).

Last 3 shows I watched: Nature, NCIS, Westworld (I think), unless you count all of the YouTube channels I've been binging on lately.

Last movie I watched: the unsatisfying/tepid The Light Between Oceans. I wanted more scenery, actual good plot, fewer absolutely stupid people. What a waste of a good cast and lovely setting.

3 characters I identify with: I don't think I ever truly identify with characters, at least not at this stage in my life. In the last decade, I might choose Vathi from Sixth of the Dusk and Zoe Ardelay from Troubled Waters. Maybe also Nahadoth from the Inheritance Trilogy, Essun from The Broken Earth trilogy, Breq from the Imperial Radch trilogy, and in younger days, Anne Elliot from Persuasion, Sabella from Sabella or the Bloodstone/Kill the Dead or the Narrator from the Four-BEE series. But to me identify means more than "really liked and empathized with" so maybe none of these?

Books I’m currently reading: Three Moments of an Explosion: Stories by China Miéville; Descender; Vol. 2 by Jeff Lemire; Who Killed Mister Moonlight? by David J. Haskins. The latter two I've been "reading" for half a year, meaning I started them but because they are physical books, I rarely read them (I do most of my reading on the Metro). I just finished Arcanum Unbounded by Brandon Sanderson, but my 2018 Reading Challenge is going just as badly as last year's.

Tagging: everyone and no one because I’m fucking lazy, that’s why.

[williamvapespeare]

I was tagged by the fab @buildarocketboys

Name: Anna

Nickname: None, really. People from highschool used to call me a shortened version of my last name.

Zodiac: Gemini

Hogwarts House: Gryffindor

Height: 5′6″

Ethnicity: Half Argentine, half white (hoho being American is fun rn...)

Favorite fruit: bananas or raspberries

Favorite Season: AUTUMN omg leaves and crisp air and Halloween and sweaters and coffee

Favorite Book Series: the Imperial Radch trilogy is AMAZING, one of the best series i’ve ever read. (but more long term, Harry Potter, LOTR, etc) 

First Book Series: Maybe Harry Potter? But I read lots of series as a kid, so like Mortal Engines, something by Tamora Pierce, I don’t know.

Favorite Fictional Character: Currently it’s probably James Flint or Thomas Hamilton, but long term maybe Sirius Black (he holds a special place in my heart, but I just have a lot of feelings about so many characters) or maybe Hamlet (I’m a nerd and Hamlet is amazing ok).

Favorite Flower: something bad ass and potentially poisonous

Favorite Scent: cinnamon, apples, nutmeg, that kind of thing

Favorite Color: green

Favorite Animal: horses or cats, it’s a toss up

Favorite Band: Ahhh too many!! Also my music taste is so varied that it’s weird to pick just one (like blues bands, classic rock, folk, etc)

Average Hours of Sleep: either 2 or 14, there’s no in between

Number of Blankets: just a duvet usually, but right now i’m visiting the US which is so hot so like zero

Dream Trip: Next trip I have planned is to Portugal to visit friends :D

Last Thing I Googled: WHY IS MY FLIGHT DELAYED >:(

Blog Created: 2013, but i was basically inactive for like 3 years, so i’ve been actually using it for the past year, mainly because I started writing fanfiction again

Blogs Followed: 320 (omg so few)

Follower Count: I have a pretty small amount of followers. But to be fair I don’t follow too many blogs either and only recently started actually being active again...hopefully it’s not cause I suck?

What I Usually Post About: Black Sails + like anything related to Black Sails (THE BEST SHOW IN THE WORLD), random shit, nature, being queer, other media that isn’t Black Sails, me complaining about my life...

Do I get asks regularly:  I get some anons now and then and some from my tumblr bros, but not hugely regularly.

tagging @nettlewildfairy, @emmatomorr0w (if you guys want to) + anyone else who wants!

[morhath]

Hi! would you please rec a book or a series or both (as many as you want) that you love like Queen's Thief? I'm still book drunk and there are only so many times I can reread this series (and not combust).

I’m too Brains™ to write an entire new book rec post, but here is an older one where someone asked for books similar to The Magicians and Queen’s Thief.

Some other stuff:

I’ve recently been reading a bunch of Brandon Sanderson’s work, and I think it hits a lot of the same things that I enjoy about the Queen’s Thief books.  (Complicated politics, occasional trickstery characters, amazing worldbuilding, etc.)  The Mistborn series is probably most like QT, and that’s what I started with, but I’m a Stormlight Archive girl all the way now.  (I have a Thing about knights, namely that I want to be one.)

Also RE: the first book rec post, Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (which is SciFi but definitely has some stuff in common with QT) has a sequel that recently came out and I’m PUMPED to get it as soon as I have money.

Also also RE: the first book rec post, I have now read the sequel to Behind the Throne by K.B. Wagers and can confirm it’s good.  I’m literally re-reading it right now.

I think I had only just started reading the October Daye books by Seanan McGuire when I wrote the original post, but I’ve now read all of them, they’ve become some of my absolute faves, and I would recommend them to QT fans.  They’re modern/urban fantasy mystery novels with faeries but also complicated politics and a somewhat Gen-ish main character.  Except she’s a woman.

Oh and Ann Leckie wrote a new book in the universe of the Imperial Radch books–it’s called Provenance and it’s out in September.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik is another book that’s old-timey fantasy but NOT based on England.  It’s Russia-based instead.  I really liked the main character, who is a super headstrong young woman, and the central mystery of how everything got fucked up was pretty intriguing.  I’m ambivalent on the main romance, partially because it 100% reads at first like the main character is really into her gorgeous, kind childhood friend (who is also a woman, just to make that super clear) and then she’s not and you’re sad.

Oh and I just remembered that one of my favorite books when I was little was The Kin by Peter Dickinson.  It’s about prehistoric people (like… right after spoken language developed) in Africa on a nomadic journey.  (So kinda like Thick as Thieves, amirite?)  I always find stories about people surviving off the land to be super fascinating (blame the botanist parents) and that was my favorite thing about this book as a kid.  I think I remember that their relationship with their gods is also kinda like in QT, maybe a little more subtle.  (And bear in mind that while I say this was something I liked when I was little, I was a super advanced reader.  This isn’t, like, a simple kids’ picture book.  It’s a fucking doorstopper, actually.  I read it again in the last few years, and it’s just as enjoyable to read as an adult.)

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (no idea if he’s related to the previous guy) is a diverse political story set in a world that isn’t ours but that doesn’t seem to fall into either SciFi or Fantasy.  It’s like historial fiction but on another planet but with humans???  Anyway.  I really liked it.  There are some Tragic Lesbians, but I think it’s at least half just a function of the whole BOOK being tragic.  There’s also some disability stuff I have mixed feelings about.

A History of Glitter and Blood by Hannah Moskowitz is about faeries with PTSD (no really) and people’s agency in telling their stories and also kinda cannibalism?  Also really lovely interpersonal relationships.  (That’s code for “some A+ gay shit”.)

Whoops, this kinda turned into a book rec post despite the fact that I said I wasn’t gonna write one.  Anyway, hope this helps!  And to everyone else–I love love love giving book recs so feel free to ask me.

Now I have to go make Second Dinner at 10 pm because my life is a mess.

[underthehedge]

Tag, I guess I’m it…

I was tagged by @boina-the-snake, I never get tagged in these things so this’ll be fun, though tbh I am terrible at simple answers to anything. Also I saved this to drafts and forgot about it.

Rules: Tag 10 people you would like to get to know better!

Favorite place: The Cairngorms

Relationship status: Single.

Favorite color: Green.

Pets: About 5 tarantulas at the moment, with some green banana roaches and a couple of small ant colonies.

Last song I listened to: Tamhasg by Mànran

Favorite TV show: Probably a tie between Archer, Futurama, Game of Thrones and maybe Vikings? There is no favourite, just what I feel like at the time.

First fandom: I’m not really a member of any major fandoms so to speak, though maybe Imperial Radch counts as I occasionally join in with them? Either that or does Biology count as a fandom?

Hobbies: Tarantulas and other inverts, house plants, cooking, hill walking, singing and reading

Books that I’m currently reading: The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett.

Favorite book: Like TV shows, I have many favourites for different reasons. Discworld books are all up there, really enjoyed Anne Leckie’s Imperial Radch series. Alan Garner’s Weirdstone of Brisingamen trilogy holds a special place for me (books published 1960, 1963 and the third book in 2012 lol). Oh and Alistair Reynolds’ Revelation space series is amazing, oh right and of course the His Dark Materials books from Philip Pullman, and of course Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series.

Worst thing you’ve ever eaten/tasted: Can’t think of anything specific; spinach and mushroom scrambled eggs that somehow tasted of fish? Oh and Papa John’s garlic dip which is a crime against garlic, dip and pizza.

I tag: @giantleopardmoth, @cassyblue, @afterpartyattheshire, any other followers want to give it a go, go for it.

[foxandfiction]

Provenance by Ann Leckie

Originally read November 2017

There have been a lot of follow ups to great books lately, with Stiefvater's All the Crooked Saints after The Raven Cycle, the final Magnus Chase book, and now Ann Leckie's standalone book, set after the events of the Imperial Radch trilogy. Throughout this book I thought that maybe Provenance should have been Leckie's debut, and the storm that was Imperial Radch should have been the follow up. It's hard to follow a series like that. And while this book didn't have quite the bang that the previous ones had, it was still a captivating sci fi adventure with an interesting way of looking at society. It had many of the things I love about Imperial Radch, and some new things to enjoy, as well.

Provenance introduces us to a new culture, a world outside of Radch space, on Hwae. Ingray, the adopted daughter of a noblewoman, is constantly trying to best her brother and impress her mother to become her heir. The book starts off with Ingray in the midst of an uncharacteristically harebrained plan. If it succeeds, she might impress her mother suficiently to at least feel like she's earned a place in the house. But if she fails, she might as well never come home. In it, we see some of the aftermath of the events of Imperial Radch-- everyone has an opinion on the rogue Radch AI, and people are preparing for the conclave. The Geck, who rarely leave their planet, make quite an appearance in this book because of it.

Leckie again manages to make the reader consider gender differently, without mentioning it at all. As opposed to Imperial Radch where every pronoun was the same one, Provenance has a multitude of them. Besides the traidtional he and she that we are familiar with, there's also a commonly used third gender pronoun, e/eir/em. People who use this pronoun are referred to as nemen, as opposed to men or women. It also appears that people decide their genders and their pronouns as they come of age in this world, though it isn't explicitly stated. Children are all referred to with they/them pronouns. It's all very interesting, and a nice contrast from both the singular pronoun of Imperial Radch, and the lack of a standardized, universally used third gender pronoun for English speaking society. It's nice to see how different ideas of gender in society could work.

It's also nice to see Leckie tackle characters from much different backgrounds as those in Imperial Radch. Family, which had no bearing on Breq and Seivarden, has a big role in Provenance. Ingray's relationship with her mother and her brother are both important and strained, and matter a great deal here. It's wonderful to see Leckie deal with both similar topics and much different ones, while still having a lot of fun in this universe. It almost makes me wish this wasn't a standalone, but the beginning of another series. This world has a lot to offer, and I hope it's not the last we see of it.

It's hard to write about Provenance without comparing it to Leckie's previous books, but Provenance isn't lacking in comparison. It's more a comedy of manners than it is a space opera, but if you loved Imperial Radch, what made it great is still present here.