#spinning silver by naomi novik

[silkpages]

naomi novik's 'spinning silver' is so good i was awake until six am just waiting to finish the tenth chapter. atp i genuinely don't know if i'm going to love this or 'uprooted' more

[hiuythn]

Hi, how are you? If you don't mind me asking, what are your top 7 favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series/etc)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before...... Thanks....

hi! I'm doing great, thank you for asking! I haven't thought of a top 7 before so that's interesting to think about. hm...I guess it would probably be:

1. Haikyū!! (it's so simple but it's so good. I heard Furudate created it to get people into volleyball and I'm confident in saying that he succeeded. there's just something so refreshing about it, but underneath everything, it still manages to communicate a thoughtful message that where you are today is not where you'll be tomorrow, and that the journey brought on by your passion—while it may not get your end—still has meaning in its pursuit.)

2. The Husky and His White Cat Shizun by Meatbun doesn't Eat Meat (xianxia danmei. my god, I went into this novel thinking it was another low-hanging fruit enemies to lovers type bait where the ML is basically abusive and the MC is a weak backboned twink, but no. no the story had me screaming, sobbing, and begging the author to stop because it hurt too much. I was in tears and I was laughing and I was in love and I was praying for them to be happy so, so bad. it's actually insane. NOTHING will beat how Meatbun managed to make me reconcile Chu Wanning's cold exterior with his soft heart, and Mo Ran's past life with his current one. I was actually baffled by how many fucking revelations, foreshadowing, and plot twists (that made sense and didn't come out of left field entirely) this book managed to have. Meatbun expertly weaved humor, tragedy, horror, mystery and romance all into one misleadingly-packaged book and I feel delightfully bamboozled.)

3. Turning by 쿠유 (Korean historical bl novel. Still reading this one, but the deep unspoken trust the MC and ML have for each other is really awe-inspiring, and they're also very competent at what they do. The relationships with their subordinates and allies are also really heartwarming. The plot is sufficiently interesting as well, and not just something cobbled together to make the characters kiss lol—not that that's bad intrinsically, but it can get old after a while.)

4. Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rock Riordan (everyone knows this one. I love it because I grew up reading it, and then reading it to my sister out loud with the voices and everything. I love an MC that just consistently doesn't know what he's doing and yet sees things through to the end, and whose motto is just "fuck it, fuck this, and fuck you". and again Percy and Annabeth have that "bantering duo who trust and balance each other out and are also very, very good at what they do" type relationship that I'm such a sucker for.)

5. Bleach by Tite Kubo (one of the Big 3 manga serialized back then. I'm down bad for the art, he's one of my favourite mangaka in terms of art style, and also it's nostalgic. I grew up watching ichigo fight through impossible odds with just his "fuck you don't touch my people" mentality. are you starting to see a pattern with me and protective, headstrong MCs? the cast of side characters are all pretty memorable, despite its growing size down the line and again, i love their designs. I know people gripe a lot about the plot and continuity errors, but I enjoyed it regardless—except for the accursed ending and Epilogue Dad Haircut..)

6. Montmorency by Eleanor Updale (victorian crime fiction novel. I was sent this as compensation in, like, 5th grade when the Scholastic Fair delivered the wrong order to me. I didn't expect to like it but it was surprisingly a good standalone read. i used to reread it loads but it's been about a decade now so some details are blurry, but i am very fond of it still.)

7. A Quiet Place (horror movie, though for me it's less horror and more of a family-centric movie. I'm awful with horror, I'm such a wuss, but this movie was so good with its character dynamics and the ending was so fitting that I couldn't help but rewatch it and have it engrained in my head. I haven't watch the other movies in this series and tbh I fully believe the first movie is sufficient on its own, not to say the other suck, I just have no urge to watch them. this movie was such a palate cleanser for me in cinema.)

thank you for your ask, had a lot of fun coming up with this list!

[artemisbarnowl]

We're SO back

[itsybitsybookworm]

.

[erionmakuo]

Fanart of Mirnatirus from Spinning Silver by @naominovik Was lucky enough to catch her on her UK tour! :)

[reputayswift]

SPINNING SILVER ❆ NAOMI NOVIK

❝ THERE ARE MEN WHO ARE WOLVES INSIDE, and want to eat up other people to fill their bellies. That is what was in your house with you, all your life. But here you are with your brothers, and you are not eaten up, and there is not a wolf inside you. You have fed each other, and you kept the wolf away. That is all we can do for each other in the world, to keep the wolf away. ❞

[ace-and-ranty]

The thematic through lines between Spinning Silver and The Scholomance drive me absolutely insane. It is so fascinating, seeing themes resurface across an author's body of work.

You've got paying for things with honest hard work (mana, Magreta's hand-sewing), VS paying them with exploitation and other people's lives (malia, Chernobog's magic clothing). You've got mothers who set up their children as bet as possible (Gwen, Silvija) VS mothers who sold them for their own gains (Ophelia, Minartius' mother). You've got monsters of endless hunger (Mawmouths, Chernoborg). You've got all our righteously angry girlies (El, Miryem, Irina). And you've got people coming together as a circle (all the circle castings in the Scholomance, the Staryk King's capture)

It's also interesting of course to see where themes don't repeat. The Scholomance has a huge focus on collective action that's not very present in Spinning Silver. And Spinning Silver has a lot to say about personal dignity, about the "thousand tiny deaths" of seeing yourself ground down by abuse, which the Scholomance doesn't say much about. But just. GOD. The parallels.

[ekbelsher]

I finally painted the Mireym + Staryk king icy glare contest. Did Naomi Novik know, when she designed a character with white hair, white skin and an all-white outfit, what that would mean in terms of aesthetics? I tried my best to make him mysterious and sexy, but he still ended up looking like a fae version of Mr Clean

[drawulan]

Irina

[emily-e-draws]

wip of the faves... at any given moment I am thinking about the scholomance trilogy

(preview from the latest batch of sketches going up on my patreon!)

[anolis3]

"Spinning Silver", by Naomi Novik.

"But it was all the same choice, every time. The choice between the one death and all the little ones.", from Spinning Silver.

"So the fairy silver brought you a monster of fire for a husband, and me a monster of ice. We should put them in a room together and let them make us both widows.", from Spinning Silver.

[aelinfireheartgalathynius]

If you have not read A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (book one of the Scholomance series) yet I am begging you to do it because I do not have enough people to talk about it with and I love this series so much

I'm going to be honest I will not hear any Scholomance series slander they are my children and they are perfect

[fictionalnation]

Just finished a wonderful book and the author turned out to be the co-founder of AO3 SHOOKETHHH

[riverfortune]

I just finished listening to Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik and I really liked it! Some of my first articulated thoughts about the book were "Oh, this is like A Court of Thorns and Roses if it didn't suck." And by that I mean it's a loose retelling of a fairy tale (Rumpelstiltskin vs ACOTAR's Beauty and the Beast) where a scrappy and resourceful, cold-hearted protagonist who lives in a cottage uses her skills to keep her family from going hungry before being spirited away to live with a fae who wants to marry her (like ACOTAR), but its characters are wise and fair and they DON'T want to marry men who are monsters [in fact, the whole book doesn't go out of its way to talk about how sexy the bad boys are! The villains in the book are scary! They're fearsome! They're not hot! (Unless you mean literally because one of them is actually a fire demon but I am getting off topic)]. The protagonists, in fact, try very hard not to marry the men they don't like. (This is NOT a romantasy. I want to make that clear. It's a fairy tale.) It's a Rumpelstiltskin story but bits and pieces of a hundred other fairy tales are blended in seamlessly. The prose is lyrical. The narrative constantly rewards fairness, mercy, and kindness. The eastern European fantasy setting is crafted with love (I highly recommend the audiobook; the narrator's accents and lovely) and the author clearly respects history (also NOT like ACOTAR). I just liked it a lot and I think it would be a great thing to read on a cold winter's day with a hot bowl of porridge.

[stuff-diary]

This week I've been reading a new anthology by one of my favorite authors, Naomi Novik, and I can say it's as fantastic as expected. Not all the stories are on the same level, but the best ones are downright stunning. My favorite is probably the title one, Buried Deep; after finishing it I felt like I had just experienced something truly magical. I also loved the chance to revisit the worlds of many of her other books. Oh, and the preview for her next series left me shook. I need it now!

[stromuprisahat]

Irina @Chernobog: My husband may be a trash, but he's ~my~ trash. Find yourself a loser of your own.