#mannerpunk

[nothwell]

Fiorenzo is a queer fantasy-of-manners romance featuring swordplay, hurt/comfort, and a happily-ever-after.

[wordingg]

Fiorenzo by Sebastian Nothwell

I finished Fiorenzo the latest novel from Sebastian Nothwell over the weekend.

Fiorenzo is set in a low magic historic version of Venice and switches points of view between the two protagonists: Fiore, the beautiful sex worker and Enzo, his mysterious masked lover. They are drawn to each other as soon as they see one another, but they're both carrying around a boatload of secrets and baggage. They must struggle to overcome murder plots, duels of honor, and an unfortunate bout of appendicitis if they're ever going to be together.

It's been such a long time since I read a straight-up romance without any other genres taking up the foreground, that I sort of forgot how pleasant they can be. Especially when both the main characters are likeable, and you're really rooting for them to get together. I also enjoyed that, while there are a few misunderstandings in this story, none of them are especially drawn out or frustrating. That's probably one of my biggest pet peeves in romance novels.

My one big complaint about this book would be that it suffers from this weird trick of the plot. After a certain point, the plot sort of lurches from sick bed to sick bed. The formula that sets in after the first act is completed seems to be: something exciting happens, someone gets hurt, let's all remember how low fantasy this book is oh yeah real low, okay now our characters are going to sit in a room for fifty pages until one of them physically recovers, rinse repeat. This definitely isn't the worst formula I've ever read, but I do think that it's overused. I wonder if there was some kind of point the author was trying to make or if maybe they were just trying really hard to be realistic with the amount of danger the characters were in? I'm honestly not sure.

Otherwise, I thought the setting was fascinating and the cast of characters around our main characters were also really intriguing. It reads like a much older book, but with much more modern sensibilities. It goes a little bit into the history of castratos in opera, it uses an alternate history setting where women and homosexual relationships are not stigmatized, and has little hints of fantasy creatures tossed in here and there. One of the main characters is also a hermaphrodite (I use that word as the closest one that fits their anatomy, since they don't really fit into intersex), probably the most concrete 'fantasy' part of this romance fantasy.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes classics like Jane Austen or Count of Monte Cristo, but would like a much gayer, spicier version of those books.

[bonaesperanza]

I just read a review of Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint that calls it "a precursor to mannerpunk", and I am honestly baffled. I guess we are calling anything with a semi-realistic depiction of historical social norms mannerpunk now, huh. It also compared it to Austen, which I also found deeply baffling. Is... is there an Austen novel that I missed that consists almost exclusively of sword fights, political intrigue and the everyday life of a committed feral gay couple living in the slums?

[bloody-wonder]

currently...

thank you @magpiefngrl for tagging me💜

last song: last weekend i went to budapest for the first time and so on the train i relistened to the hungarian cast album of rudolf affaire mayerling to set the mood

last book: finished the henchmen of zenda on that same train. i really liked it but i think it could've been better if kjc invested more time into establishing rupert of hentzau's rizz instead of just repeating his descriptions from (i assume) the og book over and over again. now i have only one kjc book left🥲

currently reading: the fall of the kings - the last book in ellen kushner's riverside trilogy - and it's great. my reread of swordspoint made me appreciate it a lot more, so i was concerned that the next books could turn out not as good, since they take place after huge time skips and focus on new characters. but the joke's on me bc it turns out they are still the queerest, the sexiest and the most mannerpunk stories i've read,, probably since lymond. i was immediately shipping the new couple introduced in the last book. they just don't make them like this anymore :( and by "they" i mean most mm historical romance authors😒

last movie: in october i attended the vienna film festival and the last movie i saw i went into knowing almost nothing about it. it was realm of satan and it turned out to be a documentary about the church of satan in which there is almost no dialogue. it conveys information entirely through the visuals, showing us scenes from the daily life of real satanists. it was an interesting experience but my attention span can't handle a movie where nobody speaks anymore so i started zoning out towards the end. the q&a with the director and the cameraman afterwards was interesting too, altho they ended up answering a lot of burning questions (such as: where is all the freaky sex lol) which ironically they had been trying to avoid by making an atypical documentary where no one answers questions.

last tv show: finished the umbrella academy a while ago. i didn't particularly like it to begin with but i must admit the cast grew on me somewhat over the last couple of seasons.

currently watching: i want to finally finish the last season of vikings which isn't going great bc all the running shows with their new seasons like hotd, rings of power, the dragon prince, arcane and ofc wwdits are distracting me. besides most of the time these days i'm not in the mood for narrative tv so i end up watching nature documentaries or youtube/nebula😬

current obsession: i did a big impulsive purchase today without asking for anyone's opinion or permission and i still feel pretty weird about it. ig i haven't yet settled into the idea that i'm an adult earning my own money and can spend it however i want and if the impulsive factor will come back to bite me in the ass well then i'll face the consequences and learn from my mistakes. or whatever adults are supposed to do. etc.

tagging @figuringthengsout @fugitoidkry @oliviermiraarmstrongs @fandomreferencepending @doh-rae-me

(i changed some of the questions back to the more typical form of this tag but if you want to do this specific one here it is)

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 10 of Gideon the Ninth

Continued list of things Gideon is not familiar with:

lunch

salad

She does know about mayonnaise, however, which seems like an odd thing to have on Pluto given all of the other things that Pluto seems to lack

The way she describes things like the sink, or the salad, where she seems to know about them but has never actually encountered them before reminds me of growing up in the desert and learning about things like galoshes, or seeing pictures of actually-green trees in picture books

(At some point when I was like 7, the government introduced some new assessment for kids my age to rate how good schools were, or something, and there was a question on there about using the word "galoshes" in a sentence and I remember that people got very mad, like, how the fuck do you expect seven-year-olds in Arizona to know what galoshes are? I remember because this whole drama caused me to learn, for the first time, what galoshes were)

The way Gideon describes people she isn't attracted to continues to be deeply entertaining, please continue with the stuff like "knife-faced" and "thirty knuckles to each fist" and "a collection of lemons in a sack"

Does Dulcinea think everyone from the Ninth House is a nun? Or everyone with facepaint? Actually, you know what, I don't think I actually know the significance of the facepaint, either. Other than we've seen actual nuns wearing it, and Harrow seems to think it's Tradition in some sense, in some context, for some purpose, there hasn't really been any information about it. I think there was also some narrative about Gideon wearing it for some reason when she was younger, but other than that...? Anyway, Dulcinea seems to have some strange, romantic, and probably very incorrect ideas about the Ninth House from somewhere. I'm not sure why she thinks Gideon is "doing penance" and can't talk, because Gideon 100% did talk to her back in Chapter 7, and she even responded, and Harrow didn't rebuke Gideon in front of her, so she has no reason to think Gideon is being punished. Like, as it happens, Harrow did in fact give very specific instructions for Gideon not to talk to anyone, but Dulcinea has no way of knowing that

Also, Dulcinea has got Gideon good. Like, in terms of characters you should never ever ever in a million years trust, attractive-character-who-immediately-starts-flirting-with-the-MC-twenty-minutes-into-the-movie is like public enemy #1, I do not trust her at all. It makes some sense that she'd be interested in things like eye color genetics, but supposedly she is a necromancer, not a cavalier, and she is frail and weak and suffering from a fatal genetic disorder, why does she want to see Gideon hold her sword, and how does she immediately know her stance is wrong? Why would she know anything about swords? Also, she is named after someone who was entirely fictional, so I would not be surprised if it turns out she is either faking her illness, or that the Seventh House just sent someone else to pretend to be Dulcinea (perhaps the real Dulcinea is already dead and the Seventh doesn't want to let on about that for similar reasons to why Harrow doesn't want to let on that her parents are dead?) I'm not entirely sure this isn't going in a mannerpunk direction anymore

Anyway, all of the others seem to so far have vastly different reactions to Gideon. Dulcinea was... Dulcinea, knife-face won't even deign to rudely tell her to leave, Magnus was aggressively normal, the teenagers just gossiped. It's a little hard to tell what the actual reputation of the Ninth House is with the other houses, or if it's actually just completely different in each one?

[ksfoxwald]

It might fall under "Mannerpunk/Fantasy of Manners?" I haven't heard that term used much lately so my memory could be off but I think it is the general term for a non-magical secondary world that focuses on political conflict.

Every time I try to describe the Baru Cormorant books, I stumble over the genre. Wikipedia lists it as fantasy, but I'm 90% sure that determination was made just because it's a pre-industrial speculative fiction setting. Is that what fantasy is? Doesn't fantasy imply an element of the supernatural? Baru Cormorant feels like historical fiction, except the world whose history it's based on doesn't exist. It's definitely spec fic, but any classification more specific than that eludes me. I'd almost call it a sci fi, because sci fi is the genre I'm most used to finding these sorts of philosophical explorations in, except calling it that would be perfectly misleading.

Is there a word for deeply philosophical speculative fiction that takes place in a fictional pre-industrial world, where science and technology are relevant, but so are kings and queens and knights in shining armor? 🤷

[tremontainetheserial]

The wait is finally over! #Tremontaine season 3 is here and we can all inhale @ellenkushner‘s episode one as one would savor a cup of delectable hot chocolate. Don’t miss any episodes: bit.ly/tremontaine

[47ness]

Inktober, steampunk edition, day 9 "The Gentleman's Hat"

[serialboxapp]

Welcome to season 3 of #Tremontaine,where ambition, love affairs, and rivalries dance with deadly results!

[nothwell]

I am a human author telling human stories to other humans. Supporting human artists to illustrate these human stories is the only logical and ethical choice.

@thistlearts is my cover artist. He did incredible paintings for Mr Warren's Profession, Oak King Holly King, Tales from Blackthorn Briar, and Fiorenzo.

@lauravian_arts designed adorable stickers for Oak King Holly King. (Available now in my etsy - and perhaps soon, a Kickstarter?)

Collaborating with human artists is a joy and a dream.

AI is unethical, illegal, and dangerous theft from real human beings. No excuses.

(And thank you to @noahhawthorneauthor for inspiring this post!)

[ethereallad]

Book Radar: The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Book Radar: The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

I’m in the middle of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s mannerpunk novel in preparation for an author interview. The Beautiful Ones (St. Martin’s Press), released this week, is quite different from Moreno-Garcia’s contemporary work. I’d describe it as Vanity Fairwith telekinesis. Manipulation is the major theme: of objects, and of feelings. The imaginary country the author conjures has elements of the Belle…

[samayla]

Writeblr Challenge Day 17

Do you have a favourite genre to write?

Magic + Manners

I enjoy writing fantasy of every flavor, but my current love is writing period fantasy.

Utterly Impractical is firmly entrenched in this genre because of its source material, but even Magpie Grace elements of the style. The mortals may be more relaxed, but the fairies are very much creatures of manners and rules and rituals.

A few books I read to get into the mood:

There are of course many, many more, but these are my favorites! Goodreads has several lists featuring "fantasy of manners," "mannerpunk," "regency fantasy," and the like.

[lilacsolanum]

The last bits of the Twist chapters involves the token Terrible Uptight Prim Antagonist character from every romantic comedy (though instead of a blonde woman played by Betty Gilpin, it’s a man from fantasy bad idea land Tevinter) and it is THRILLING and I am living for every minute of it. I am also writing the kind of mannerpunk I FUCKING LOVE, where it’s two people technically making polite conversation but is actually a vicious insult filled rap battle in the insinuations.

[eatingfireflies]

Fanfic Author Meme

tagged by @greaseonmymouth! 

Author Name: epithalamium, long af and impossible to google (because you’ll get the definition and examples instead), but I’ve been using it since I was a teenager.  

Fandoms You Write For: right now it’s ... uh Zero Escape and some video game fandoms. I have one FE3H fic out and we’ll see if it sticks.

Where You Post: AO3. Deleted the email connected to ffnet and my DW is really for more personal stuff, so AO3 is where it’s all at. There are some drabbles I failed to archive before I accidentally deleted my tumblr, but we just pretend that never happened. 

Most Popular One-Shot: Oh god it’s SnK fics, you know? ‘In which Erwin reads the newspaper’ has the most kudos. ‘Dirty talk’ has the most hits. The newspaper one has a better hit to kudos ratio, and has been translated into two languages so let’s go for that. 

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story:  ‘Hope & Legacy: Black Brothers Edition’ is my Remus/Sirius fic collab with @greaseonmymouth. For something I wrote by myself it’s ‘Wake up and smell the coffee’ which is Rin/Nitori.

Favourite Story You Wrote: I like them all but ‘Travelling in company’ has 190 hits and I think that’s a bit sad because I think this is one of the more solid ‘mystery-driven’ fics I’ve ever written.

Story You Were Nervous to Post: None. Look, I have a Beck Mongolian Chop Squad fic that’s about Eiji and Manabu. I fully expected that fic to get 0 hits. I fear nothing. I do in fact fear everything but that’s neither here nor there

How Do You Choose Your Titles: I hope it’s more than one word, but otherwise pretty much anything goes. I have really boring titles. Some of them come from lyrics, like I have a bunch of AoiPei fics with Christmas Carols titles lmaoo. 

Do You Outline: Not usually. I tend to just let ideas rest until I can see a beginning paragraph and an ending paragraph--that is, I will only write if I know how it will end and exactly how I will end it. I might change up the words when I get there, but it’s usually the same as when I started. It’s getting from point A to point B that’s hard. I don’t outline that, even though I sometimes have vague ideas. 

I’m writing a DimiLeth fic that I need to outline and I did write down some bullet points on issues/plot points that I wanted to focus on... but I reread my notes last week and didn’t understand a word I wrote down so there’s that.  

Complete: Most of my stuff is a one-shot, you know ;D

In-Progress: ‘Defining justice’ (cashepar, fe3h), ‘Safe’ (aoipei, ze), ‘The Magician (souyo, p4). I will finish things someday.  

Coming Soon: ‘Achievable perfection’ (dimileth, fe3h), an extra chapter tied up with ‘Safe’ that’s currently called ‘Thirst fic’ lmaoo (aoipei, ze), a fic about Jabo and Hayate that no one will read and which is called ‘Jabobobobobo’ on my gdocs (Jabo/Hayate, smt dx2), and a dark fic with Manov Mistree and Roger Retinz which is almost done tbh? (Manov/Roger, aa6). Also there’s a solo Aoi there somewhere.  

Not yet started: I need to write an AoiPei fic set in ZTD timeline to complete the set. I have ideas and I kinda know where to go, but I’m still letting that ferment. 

Do You Accept Prompts: Not really, sorry. I write Very Slowly to begin with. 

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: ‘Achievable perfection’!! Mannerpunk is my fave genre ever and I’m kinda glad I got into fe3h so I can do this kind of things again. :”D

Consider yourself tagged if you want to do this!

[balletbookworm]

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner (The World of Riverside #1)

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner (The World of Riverside #1)

Summary from Goodreads: The classic forerunner to The Fall of the Kings now with three bonus stories.

Hailed by critics as “a bravura performance” (Locus) and “witty, sharp-eyed, [and] full of interesting people” (Newsday), this classic melodrama of manners, filled with remarkable plot twists and unexpected humor, takes fantasy to an unprecedented level of elegant writing and scintillating wit.…