#temeraire worldbuilding collection

[chiropteracupola]

c. 1540 CE: a young man from Chalco, and his dragon.

[recurring-polynya]

I love Temeraire! What did you think of it?

Oh, I love the Temeraire novels a lot! For starters, I read them originally as they were coming out. I was in my mid-twenties, and it was one of two extremely formative media periods for me (I also read the Abhorsen series and watched Bleach and Fullmetal Alchemist for the first time in this general time period). I even got to hear Naomi Novik do a reading at a local Barnes and Noble. She was wonderful, and she signed my copy of His Majesty's Dragon. I also ended up lending my copies to my dad. He enjoys Star Trek and other occasional mainstream sci fi and fantasy, but is not the sort to read a book about dragons. He does love aircraft and War and an excess of details, tho, so he loved them. I made it about five books into the series--they get real depressing in the middle, and I had to wait a year or two between books and it was the time period where I was getting married and moving houses. That's probably about when we dropped Bleach, too.

Anyway, I have since very much enjoyed Novik's standalone novels Spinning Silver and Uprooted, and I decided I wanted to do a full Temeraire re-read-to-completion (my dad actually loaned the later books in the series back to me). I started last November, and then Mr. P decided he wanted to re-read them, too, so he's been a book or two behind me throughout, but it's been a blast to talk about our favorite parts. Anyway, they are wonderful novels if you love worldbuilding and details. Couriers! Supply lines! Philosophical disagreements! I non-ironically love that they don't have a particularly strong plot structure, they play out more like episodes of a prestige television series. They'll get on a boat, and by God, Naomi Novik will tell you about spending four months on a boat. The stories have a good balance of Thrilling Battles of Global Importance and, y'know, shitting around, like I like. Traveling. Training. Gong Su's amazing improv cooking (love you, king!). Half of one book is about Temeraire working through some grief by starting a beef with the breeding ground equivalent of a homeowner's association. The cast is a sprawling collection of delightful weirdoes, human and dragon alike. There's a good balance of the side characters having interesting backstories or personal motivations that enrichens, rather than distracts from the main action. The dragon personalities are amazing, both as individuals and in broad strokes--my favorite aspect of this is that whenever there's an egg, they're all "💖 Egg! 💖 ~precious baby~ I would die for u 🥺" and the second it's out of the shell, it's like "Fuck you. Why do you eat so much? Don't touch my cow. I'll see you in Hell." This happens, like eight times.

The one single complaint I have is that Laurence is explicitly heterosexual, which I just choose to ignore, because dating both Jane Rowland and Tenzing Tharkay at the same time is the bisexual dream.

[problemswithbooks]

I'm looking at my bnha manga collection with such a range of emotions lmfao, bnha was really fun but idk is it mean to say I expected more? its not finished yet but the weird (shit) handling of some actually interesting characters and ideas is so disappointing. Maybe I'm just growing up and looking at how much of my love for the series was just the pretty art and my headcanons of the characters :/

Yeah, I understand how you feel. I haven't really bought any volumes for bnha, simply because I don't have the expendable income, but I did buy a lot of bleach back in the day.

Bleach had a pretty terrible ending, and the only reason I wasn't crushed by it was because I had already fallen out of love with it for a few arcs after it ended. It had it's own set of problems, some being that it had to many characters, the fights dragged on for ages and for me the story seemed to drop the most interesting parts of it's worldbuilding/story.

That said, I don't know if I regret buying them, or enjoying the series when I did, nor do I think I'd get rid of them. The art is great, the characters despite how many there were fun, and I have some really good memories watching and reading it with my sister.

Yes, the story was disappointing, but a lot of stories are. Sometimes the stories that have dropped plot threads or nonsensical world building are the ones that stay with you the most. I've thought more about the Temeraire series, Bnha, and Bleach way more then the stories I thought were nearly perfect. Or in the very least I interacted with them way more. I wrote fanfic for them, made meta about them, and engaged in the fandom space more for those stories.

And I don't think Bnha is just pretty art and headcannons. There's a reason why you liked it and there was really great stuff in it. It still has one of the best tournament arcs in Shonen I've seen when it comes to pacing and how much stuff Hori crammed into such a small amount of time. The characters that Hori focuses on are great and even if he doesn't always follow through perfectly there's some amazing talent in his character writing. Quirks are my favorite interpretation of superpowers.

But even if it was just great art and your headcannons that doesn't mean it didn't have value to you, even if it doesn't anymore. If you had fun with it, made some happy memories reading it and created your own stuff for it, even if it was just in your mind, then despite not living up to expectations, I think it was in the very least did it's job as entertainment.

[cricketnationrise]

Quarantine Reads Part 7

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6

151. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver: one of my mom’s buddy read pick. alternating pov. accidental baby acquisition. road tripping.

152. His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik: HOW did I miss that Naomi Novik had a whole dragon series??? HOWMST??? these are seriously right up my alley: dragons can talk and are partners with their riders, some dragons only let LADIES ride them (!!!), alternate history. plus there’s like 9 OF THEM??? amaze.

153. A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner: book 4 in the queen’s thief series (now complete!). political intrigue, gods are real and semi-present in people’s lives, greekish adjacent.

154. Heartstopper: Volume Two by Alice Oseman: yes i had already read these panels online, but my print copy came in so obviously it was time to reread (it’s going to be a tv show!) (also its still updating!)

155. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson: meticulously researched, interwoven personal stories, the book is HEFTY but reads pretty quick

156. The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak: really cool story set in the height of the ottoman empire, follows Jahan, the elephant keeper, and how he came to be there and him growing up

157. Longbourn by Jo Baker: a retelling of pride and prejudice from the servants’ point of view, content warning: wickham preying on like a 12 year old, witnessing a whipping, descriptions of starvation, being a soldier in the napoleonic war

158. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks: a ridiculously old Hebrew manuscript thought to be lost is found in Sarajevo, a conservator goes to examine it and finds several clues to the provenance of the text, follows the clues through history and flashes back to the present as the conservator tries to follow up on the clues, based on the true story of the Sarajevo Haggadah; content warning: murder, Holocaust, giving birth, the Inquisition

159. Goalie Interference by Avon Gale: hockey m/m romance between a set of tandem goalies on a fictional professional hockey team, lots o sex

160. What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli: coming of age story set in nyc the summer before college, trying to figure out who you are, missing connections, some bad communication that gives way to good communication

161. Trade Deadline by Avon Gale: a hockey player gets traded after many seasons on the same team to his hometown team that is struggling to bring in fans, he reconnects with a childhood friend (and first kiss) who helps run the local aquarium, cuteness ensues, romance (so there’s sex)

162. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead: two slaves manage to escape Georgia on the Underground Railroad, which, in this imagining is a series of safe houses and actual trains, follows their lives after that; content warning: violence, whipping, hunting people with dogs, severe illness, murder, racism

163. Small Gods by Terry Pratchett: 13th in the discworld series, this one explores the makings of a religion and how gods that have fallen out of favor can get a resurgence, very funny, highly ridiculous

164. Are You Listening? by Tillie Walden: graphic novel, Bea is on the run, runs into Lou, they find a cat, strange and dangerous stuff starts happening to them, magical realism, towns appearing and disappearing, haunted by a group of threatening men? creatures? unclear

165. The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix: a fun fantasy novel, old gods still exist, demons exist, a special family of booksellers are the main ones in london trying to stop them from wreaking havoc on the mundane population, a girl discovers her father is not what her mom told her

166. Bloom by Kevin Panetta: graphic novel, ya m/m getting together and falling in love, a boy is helping out in his parents’ bakery reluctantly when he is given permission to hang a help wanted flyer and meets the boy who becomes one of his best friends and maybe more

167. The Deal of a Lifetime by Fredrik Backman: short story, follows a father and son’s relationship

168. The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore: non-fiction, follows the author of the original wonder woman comics and his life, he seems like an ass to me though

169. Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson: a hacker and his network is targeted after sleeping with/romancing the fiance of the government official tasked with rooting out those people trying to avoid the regime, alif is forced to go on the run with the literal girl next door and manages to accidentally stumble into the world of the djinn; content warning: imprisonment, torture, starvation, riots, murder

170. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig: in the space between life and death, there is a library, full of every what if you can think of and many more that you didn’t, follows the protagonist as she explores her own life many times if she had made different decisions along the way

171. A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers: a crew that punches wormholes through space to make travel easier is given a huge contract that would set them up financially, but will take a massively long time to get to, and when they do, all is not as it seems, changing POV throughout the crew of a couple humans, a few differing alien species, and an AI as they go to do this job,

172. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows: epistolary novel set just after WW2, juliet ashton is a writer who receives a letter from Guernsey Island in the English Channel and they spark a friendship, after learning more about his experience during the war and his relationship with books, she starts corresponding with others from the island and eventually goes there herself. this is my actual favorite book. the love story is super sweet plus the friendships are A++++

173. Unshelved by Bill Barnes: comic strip collection set in a local library, follow the librarians as they battle loud teenagers, preteens who don’t want to read, and people who think the library is for anything but finding books to read

174. Ms. Marvel, Vol 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson: Ms. Marvel origin story, follows a teenager in Jersey City as she accidentally and suddenly acquires superpowers while trying to still make her curfew and not disappoint her parents and get good grades

175. Feast of Famine by Naomi Novik: short story set in the Temeraire series, won’t make sense unless you’re familiar with the worldbuilding

[themonkeycabal]

re: Fantasy Recs

riseoftherose said: If you don’t mind a slightly younger aimed author, I still enjoy a series I first read as a kid, always thought it deserved more rep. The Land of

Sorry friend, it looks like your rec got cut off a bit there. 

msprufrock said: Also aimed slightly younger, but I really enjoyed Akata Witch (and the sequel Akata Warrior) by Nnedi Okorafor. It’s a YA fantasy series set in Nigeria

Oh nice. Sounds like fun. Scarlet Odyssey is also set in a very Africa-like world, really loved that. 

gerundsandcoffee said: I liked Uprooted by Naomi Novik. It’s a stand alone original but heavily rooted in Eastern European folklore.

I think I might have read that one. It sounds familiar. I’ll have to look again. Thanks! 

solysgoldensun said: The Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman is pretty fun, involving dragons, fae, and librarians (oh my!) in a multiverse semi-portal fantasy deal with steam punk elements.

Oh nice. I’ve got a little bit of a weakness for steampunkish-ness. (oh, bonus, the first book was only $2.99. I picked it up. thanks!)

anomaly-nerd said: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is my current favorite. It’s a little plot heavy but the worldbuilding is fantastic and the protagonist is impossible not to love

I don’t mind plot-heavy if I feel like it’s going somewhere. Love good worldbuilding, though. So great. 

Anonymous said: I highly recommend Temeraire. That series was amazing. It's 9 books, complete storyline that begins in Napoleonic Wars era Europe and then expands into almost every continent. It was just mwah *chef's kiss*. The lead characters (one human, one dragon) are both absolutely adorkable and I thoroughly enjoyed every chapter. There are serious matters and some dark chapters, but it's a very optimistic series overall, not grimdark in the least.

Oh, thank you for reminding me of that one! I have the first one, I think I read it when it came out, but I never followed up on the rest of the series. 

emilise284 said: any/all of Diana Wynne Jones’s works: Howl’s Moving Castle, Dogsbody, and Fire and Hemlock are among my favorites. 

Robin McKinley is also gr9, I especially love Pegasus and Chalice

if you’re looking for recent fantasy Gideon the Ninth (and sequel, Harrow the Ninth) by Tamsyn Muir are GREAT fun and very gay (but also maybe edging a lil further towards grimdark than you’re in the mood for rn)

Cool. Thank you!

backwardsandinhighheels said: For urban fantasy, I’ve really enjoyed the Guild Codex series by Annette Marie - funny with found family vibes and slooow burn romances, and the heroine of Spellbound is a normal human girl in a magic guild which gives me serious Darcy vibes

That sounds like a lot of fun. Thanks. (score, the first one is $3.99 and has Margarita in the title. Can’t go wrong there. I grabbed it.) 

lady-of-luthien said: The first fantasy author I really got into was Tamora Pierce. She writes a lot of YA stuff. Song of the Lioness, The Immortals, and Protector of the Small series. All awesome.

Oh yes, I read some of those. Definitely fun. 

furyleika said: Absolutely second Robin McKinley, particularly The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown. Also Tamora Pierce. If you don’t mind younger aimed, my absolute favorites of all time are Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels straddle the fantasy/sci-fi line depending where in the timeline you’re reading. The Harper Hall series is a great starting point.

I also really like Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series. They may be closer to grim than not, but things turn out okay! Way less depressing than GRRM. I liked Holmberg’s Paper Magician series if you haven’t read that from her.

Swordheart from T. Kingfisher is awesome and funny and romantic. It says it’s in the same series as something else of hers, but I didn’t read those and enjoyed it anyways. Okay, I’ll stop. (Oh wait! Have you read Neil Gaiman’s stuff? I like almost all of it.)

Oh, I’ve totally read Anne McCaffrey, very into Pern back in ye olden tymes.  

I have the Paper Magician, but I haven’t read it yet. I just finished Spellbreaker/Spellmaker and I wanted to try somebody else first. 

T. Kingfisher sounds familiar, but I don’t recognize any of the titles (maybe I read Clockwork Boys, that sounds really familiar. Or I started to read it and got distracted and forgot -- this happens). I will check out Swordheart. 

Garth Nix sounds familiar, too (I am bad with names, so this happens a lot, too). I’ll check out the first one. Thanks! 

And, yes, I’ve read all the Neil Gaiman things lol. 

owl-librarian said: Echoing Diana Wynne Jones, Tamora Pierce, and Garth Nix rec’s. I also recently reread a bunch of Patricia C Wrede books, which are delightful. If J/YA isn’t your jam, try Mercedes Lackey; HIGHLY prolific fantasy writer. Some of her stuff is a little dated now, but gosh a lot of it is still awesome. I particularly like her Arrows of the Queen trilogy.

Oh, yes, definitely I’ve ready Mercedes Lackey. Back in ye olden days with Anne McCaffrey and Terry Brooks (I was very into the Shannara books in high school). 

gothfirefaerie said: If you like amazing world building and word porn I can not recommend Patricia a McKillip enough! My favorites are alphabet of thorn, fantastic beasts of eld and ombria in shadow. Also great for world building is Michelle Sagara and her chronicles of elantra but while I wouldn’t call them grimdark they are heavy.

Those sound fun. Thank you. Love worldbuilding. 

owl-librarian said: Have you done any Terry Pratchett? He’s the right kind of fantasy for me, definitely not too heavy “high fantasy” - and full of real characters and great humor! If you are intimidated by his Oeuvre start with “Guards! Guards!” or “The Wee Free Men”

Oh yes, absolutely. Great fun. 

owl-librarian said: I also highly suggest the Bordertown books edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling; it was a shared world created back in the 80s for authors to play in - there are several short story collections and a couple of novels set in this town that is the border between our world and faerie. It was revived in the 2010s with Ellen and Holly Black in another short story collection.

That sounds familiar, but I don’t think I ever read any of it. Thank you, I’ll check it out. 

cathsith said: @sarahreesbrennan In Other Lands is *amazing* and lots of fun and the furthest thing from grim!dark that I can think of

Awesome. Thank you.

lover-of-the-starkindler said: *nods along for most of the recs and takes notes of the others* Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn is good; Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope is a Tam Lin retelling set in Elizabethan England and is amazing; Woodwalker by Emily B. Martin if you like sneaking through forests and political plots…

Sweet, thank you.

Thanks everybody I will check out all of your lovely recs. 

[words-writ-in-starlight]

thank you so much omg Name of the Wind is SO FRUSTRATING, I tried reading it and just did NOT like the protagonist or the writing style or ANYTHING, and people KEEP RECOMMENDING IT TO ME

mhmhmhMHMHM you have come to the RIGHT PLACE

Okay, so first, a disclaimer: I read Name of the Wind four and a bit years ago and, despite my usually excellent memory for plots and characters, retained exactly jack and shit of the whole thing except for the arguments I wrote in my head about my frustration.  But like...I’ve been holding onto those for a long time, so just.  Sit tight and listen to me complain for a minute, I deserve this.

First and foremost, it’s pitched as this revolutionary take on...something, and if my life and the lives of everyone I love depended on it, I couldn’t tell you what it’s supposed to revolutionize.  It’s not even a particularly well-executed piece on Magic Has A Price, which is what I usually hear about (what with the very academic, scientific take on magic), the fucking early Dresden Files are better at that.  (Shit y’all, remember Toby Daye, the series I haven’t shut up about?  Magic Has A Price masterpiece right there.)  I mean, goddamn, @Patrick Rothfuss, I’m really sorry, but you’re never going to do Magic Is A Science better than Fullmetal Alchemist, which basically invented equivalent exchange, so just put that one to bed.  For actual revolutionary takes on various genres, I’d suggest Imperial Radch (scifi), The Wrath and the Dawn (fairy tale retelling), Stormdancer (steampunk/fantasy), Sunshine (paranormal urban), and Kencyrath Chronicles (epic fantasy).

Second, the main character is not likable.  There.  I said it.  I found Kvothe absolutely fucking insufferable in every way.  His “modern” self telling the story was, like, a little more tolerable, but for the majority of the novel he’s an arrogant twit too convinced of his own cleverness to drag his head out of his ass for long enough to actually get anything done.  It’s possible to do a very self-confident, clever character in a way that their arrogance is actually charming--King Arthur: Legend of the Sword comes to mind.  Shit, son, so does Roy Mustang, and half the other characters in FMA.  In books, I’d rec maybe Captive Prince (Laurent).  It’s important, if you’re doing that, to make sure that the character can actually put their money where their mouth is and do the thing they’re bragging about, or else make it a Learning Experience that sticks with them.  Kvothe ain’t that.  Kvothe is just completely baselessly sure that he’s going to be the best from the very beginning, despite evidence to the contrary, and I found it intolerably annoying.

Third, the universe is interesting, the magic is kind of a neat concept for all that it’s (from what I can tell) an Eragon bootleg, which is, of course, the child of LOTR and Star Wars almost exactly. But the writing style was like a fucking textbook.  I mean.  Goddamn.  Not exactly sweeping me away into the infinite Imagisphere with that.  And I’m not--my standards for evocative prose are not that high, the Animorphs books were written for thirteen-year-olds, but fuck me NotW was not remotely achieving it.  If you’re going to frontload that kind of technical jargon, you need to make it the point of the book, like The Martian, which is very up front about being a science ramble that enjoys what it’s doing, or else find a good balance like Sabriel, which is heavy on the technical angle of Abhorsen magic and glyphs and shit without sacrificing the characters.

Fourth, I dimly recall a girl who’s there for like a hot minute as a love interest?  I don’t think I remember any others?  So, you know...points off for that one.  It’s the 21st century.  Women, POC, the homosexual agenda, they should all be in there.  Thanks.

Fifth, the whole urban setup gets a lot of time and attention, but it’s just not...well done?  It’s just not.  It does not give a cohesive sense of place, nor an emotional connection to the people in that place.  Please, for the love of God, Jesus, and any other deities you want to throw in there, read the first book in the Kencyrath series, it is called God Stalk and it’s very good at this.  I’d also say Toby Daye, but that’s about a real place (San Francisco) rather than a fantasy setting, like NotW and God Stalk.

Sixth, and this is a writerly complaint, not an opinion, but: right, so, in the “modern” day when Kvothe is telling the story, some grand disaster is underway, right?  Am I making that up?  See, I’d never know if I was making it up, because it does not get a single goddamn mention in the main bulk of the novel.  That is a clear and evident sign that you need to critically reevaluate what part of the timeline is the main novel.  I’m not saying that your novel necessarily needs to be the worst day/month/week of your character’s life, but if you could have included the entire text of the novel in a page or two of emotionally laden dialogue or memories, you probably should have.  And don’t come at me with “Oh, Name of the Wind is the first in a series, things get underway later in the series” because if your FIRST BOOK does not grab me, I’m absolutely not giving you ANOTHER BOOK to get it done.  You want to set up some kind of heartwrenching Things Were Different Once arrangement?  Make me care about your characters and then drop bits of backstory as we go, or include a prologue, or get over your fear of flashbacks and use them judiciously. Crucially, give them a relationship to The Way Things Were and then use that relationship to make your reader upset for them.  Again, Toby Daye is a great example.  So is the Imperial Radch series by Anne Leckie.

Which brings me to seventh, which is that I am APPALLED that over the course of that entire goddamn book, there was not one single interpersonal relationship I ever came to give a damn about.  I think there was the girl, I think Kvothe might have had one (1) friend, I think there was a teacher?  And there was the kid Bast in the “modern” day, who I retained more of than literally anyone/anything else because he was the only person I gave a flying fuck about.  Again, I, the writer, am horrified about this, far more so than I, the reader.  The main thing that original content creators should take away from fanfic culture is that your readers will almost universally care more about the relationships between characters than anything else.  You are going to need a pretty balls-out crazy good universe and plot to smooth over a general lack of engaging relationships, and NotW just isn’t that good.  So, like, let that be a lesson.  I’m not recommending anything for this because this should be obvious.

EIGHTH, what...was the plot of the first book?  No, seriously, I was asking this when I finished it, too.  The only plot points I recall now are Kvothe deciding that he wanted to do The Magic, Kvothe conning his way into The School For The Magic (in, if I recall correctly, kind of a FMA ripoff?), something about a library for The Magic, a bunch of technical stuff about The Magic and Kvothe being an arrogant twit, and Kvothe getting whipped.  From what I remember, the entire book basically seemed to lead up to Kvothe getting whipped and ended shortly thereafter.  And, uh...how should I put this.  That’s.  Not a plot.  Again, that’s maybe a couple paragraphs of conversation between Kvothe and someone he cares about regarding the scars on his back, not an entire fucking novel.  Again, this should be obvious, I’m not recommending anything.

Anyway, TL;DR, NotW is ultimately a forgettable fantasy novel without anything in particular to distinguish it from a myriad of other unremarkably flawed fantasy novels, and I wouldn’t have any opinions on it whatsoever if people didn’t keep pitching it to me as the Second Coming of Tolkien, leGuin, McCaffrey, and fuck knows who else.  

A collection of the content I recommended here and why I recced them, plus some others:

Imperial Radch, Ann Leckie (unique scifi, excellent example of emotionally resonant flashbacks)

The Wrath and The Dawn, Renee Ahdieh (unique fairy tale retelling)

Stormdancer, Jay Kristoff (unique steampunk fantasy)

Sunshine, Robin McKinley (unique paranormal urban fantasy)

Kencyrath Chronicles, PC Hodgell (unique epic fantasy, well-executed fantasy cities and colleges)

Fullmetal Alchemist, Hiromu Arakawa (magic with a price, scientific magic, charmingly arrogant characters) (manga or Brotherhood anime)

October Daye, Seanan McGuire (magic with a price, emotionally resonant memories/prologue, well-executed urban locale)

Captive Prince, CS Pacat (charmingly arrogant/engagingly arrogant characters, well-executed political scheming)

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, dir. Guy Ritchie (charmingly arrogant characters, concise worldbuilding)

The Martian, Andy Weir (technical frontloading without being unreadable)

Sabriel, Garth Nix (technical magic and worldbuilding without losing character engagement)

Source and Shield Series, Moira J. Moore (unique urban non-Earth fantasy, charmingly arrogant characters, emotionally resonant conversations about the past)

Temeraire Series, Naomi Novik (technical worldbuilding without being unreadable, having a fucking plot in each book even if your overall plot is extremely big-picture and doesn’t show up until later)

The Wicked + The Divine, Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie (unique folklore retelling/urban fantasy, charmingly arrogant characters, having some fucking diversity)

[juushika]

I try to do this every year: here's the best media that I encountered, but which was probably not released, in 2017. It’s long!! oops!!

Books

I read 176 books in 2017. My primary reading goal was to prioritize authors of color, ideally making them half of my reading material. This fell apart somewhat in the face of various and intense life stresses, but in the end 40% of the books I read this year were by PoC, up from 10%* from last year, and I'm proud of that. It's something I will continue to prioritize.

* a metric which may be somewhat out of date, as I discovered neato things while looking into Jewish authors!! but I'm too lazy for recalculations, so let's let it stand

Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller. I love this book so much that it took me five months to write a review. Miller wrote it with precise, peculiar inspirations--the identity of a mysterious artist; sessions with a ouija board--and while I traditionally resist the idea that the author is a conduit rather than a creator (yes to authorial responsibility! boo on authorial intent!) I think there can be moments when an author reaches above and beyond themselves. I believe Beagle did this in The Last Unicorn:

A lot of things appeal to people out of their own histories in that story. I feel sometimes like Schmendrick, when the first time he actually casts real magic summoning up the shades of Robin Hood, Maid Marian and the Merry Men...people who never existed, really they’re myths, and yet there they are. And at that point he falls on his face, picks himself up, and thinks: "I wonder what I did...I did something..." Which is very much the way I feel about The Last Unicorn. Finally, fifty years later. (source)

And I believe that Miller does it here. This is an exceptional novel; its purpose and joy and energy is remarkable, and it may be safe to call it my favorite book of the year.

Graceling series by Kristin Cashore. The books stand alone and are all perfectly good; but it's Bitterblue that won me, and I think it benefits from reading the entire series. This uses a speculative concept to explore trauma and abuse in ways that are simultaneously metaphorical, literal, and unique to the worldbuilding. I admire a narrative that's able to capitalize on the potential of its genre in that way, and there's interesting narrative-in-absentia techniques at play here, and, crucially, it's thoughtful and compassionate.

Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. I adore the companion animal trope, and am dubious of dragons; I did not expect that this would be so thorough an exploration of the former as to totally negate the later. It engages almost every question that surrounds this trope, especially re: sapience, personhood, power dynamics; the long-form adventure allows for a diverse and evolving culture. And it's tropey in every way it needs to be to give its premise emotional weight. Multiple books in this series won a 5-star rating, and as many made me cry. It's as in love and as engaged with this trope as I am. Simon Vance's audio narration makes these an especial delight.

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree, Jr. I read this in the same year as my first Joanna Russ book (The Female Man)--and neither are perfect, but both are invaluable, and the combined effect has stayed with me. But nothing lingered moreso than this Tiptree collection: so exhaustive, so exhausting; the tension between her profound bitterness and daydreaming, between her (presumed, implicit, assumed) male PoV and persistent feminist themes, elevates this collection beyond the limitations of individual stories.

The Devourers by Indra Das. It would be insincere to say that this is what I wish every werewolf novel would be--I love them all uniquely--but this is what I wish every werewolf novel would be: this visceral, this vivid, this inhuman, this engaged with the concept of the Other.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf. The only real goal in life is to love or be loved as Virginia Woolf loved Vita Sackville-West; the energy that emanates from this, passionate and playful and irreverent, is incandescent. I always expect historical books about sex and gender to be restrained or dated, and for good reason, but this has aged so well; it's fluid and complicated, but too quick to become heavy. In every page, a delight.

Honorable mentions in books

Ursula K. Le Guin. I read a handful of her books this year; I didn't love them all equally (The Beginning Place is hardly her most famous but it's my favorite so far) but I'm consistently impressed, no matter how minor the work. She's profoundly skilled; she integrates and expands her central theses in ways that capitalize on the speculative genres she writes in, to great effect.

Octavia E. Butler by Gerry Canavan. I hesitate to say that I loved this biography more than Butler's novels themselves, but that reflects how it felt to read this: it summarized, contextualized, and celebrated Butler's cumulative effort and impact in a way that made me appreciate her anew.

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore. I read a lot of YA I bounce off of, a lot of magical realism I don't think works; but this I loved, for its specific images, for the way that the fluidity of its style suits its issues of gender, for its beauty and love.

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson. The energy in this is infectious, and needs to be, as it's as much about a love affair with a speculative premise and a place as with a person--and all those elements are accessible, distinctive, alive.

Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner. Fairyland which feels truly transporting and fantastic, truly fae, is hard to capture. This is such a quiet book, unassuming in structure and frame, but its depiction of fairyland is one of the most convincing that I've ever seen.

Games

Nier: Automata. I watched this played on release, and called it then, in March: game of the year. I was not mistaken. There's more this could do, further it could go; but what it does, with its androids and tropes, its meta elements and narrative structure and soundtrack, is phenomenal. One of the most remarkable things that a game can do is be profoundly wedded to its interactive medium, because few other platforms have the opportunity to interact with the consumer so directly--and Automata achieves that, to great effect.

Kirby series. I have no particular love of platforms, Nintendo, or nostalgia; but these looked cute, and: they are. Kirby is shaped like friendship, and the softness and colors of level design, the creative gameplay of Kirby's transformations, the sincerely impressive interaction with level elements in games like Epic Yarn, are a complete package. These brought me unmitigated joy; that's not something I often find.

Honorable mentions in video games

Dishonored 2. The plot and setting hasn't stuck with me as much as the first game. But to internalize criticism and then go on to make a more diverse game is fantastic (and it pays off, in Meagan Foster especially), and the small, almost-domestic moments and ongoing lore/religion in the worldbuilding are very much my thing.

Dark Souls III DLC. The base game was on my list last year, so this entry feels like cheating--but these were substantial additions, big worlds and significant narrative and so many new monster designs, all of which compliment the base game. It's an impressive product, and I wish more DLC resembled it.

Closure. A little indie puzzle platformed that exceeds expectations for that genre because the way that its core game mechanic interacts with player, art design, atmosphere, and narrative is so successful. (It even makes up for sometimes-finicky physics.)

Visual Media

Car Boys. I'm disappointed that Nick Robinson proved not to be the person we wanted him to be, but that doesn't change the profound impact that this series had on me. Not only is it a fantastic example of emergent narrative, it simultaneously embraces my fear of existential horror and my profound longing for a greater meaning. This served a similar function for me as did Critical Role last year, despite dissimilarities in tone and content.

Dark Matter season 3. The boy and I have been watching this together, and with few misstep we've been consistently satisfied with the way this series combines found family tropes and genre mainstays. But season 3 is a cut above. It's still all those things, but the ongoing, consistent character development, particularly of the female characters, most especially of the Android, is phenomenal. There were episodes that made me cry, that I would call legitimately perfect.

Blame! I've enjoyed everything I've seen by Polygon Pictures, including Knights of Sidonia, but this is the best they could be: tropes I love, a perfect setting for their visual style and capabilities; great pacing, writing that does interesting things with its subgenre. Without competition, the best film I saw this year; it looks great and it’s just so engaging to watch.

Person of Interest. Found family/AI feels is in essence all I've ever wanted from a narrative, and this delivers, delivers in droves: it has the crime serial format I love but, like Fringe, deviates from format to great effect. But it's the particular combination of themes that sold me: using AI as a launchpad to explore all varieties of personhood and socialization.

Honorable mentions in visual media

Yuri!!! on Ice. There is a need in the world for stories like this; queer love stories, stories about what it means to become one's best self, stories which are funny and sweet and profoundly empathetic. This year started poorly (and just kept on keepin' on, but:) and there was a sense of karmic balance that this existed post-election. It's escapism without being hollow; it's how I want the world to be.

Polygon. Monster Factory goes here. So does Awful Squad. But the boy and I have been branching out and watching almost anything that pops up on this channel; the balance between inoffensive good humor and video game nerdom is really likable.

[thornfield13713]

Hey, what's this 'Monstrous Regiment' fic you're talking about? Thanks!

A Monstrous Regiment is a Temeraire-Jane Austen crossover focused on Elizabeth Bennet and Colonel Fitzwilliam. It was begun before Dragons and Decorum (which may be found in the short story collection The Golden Age and Other Stories by Naomi Novok), and thus some of the characterisation and most of the plot differs wildly from that story, but has nonetheless shaped some of my ideas about Temeraire-verse Austen characters and their fates.

It is Lizzy/Colonel Fitzwilliam, I’m afraid, or at least hinting that way, and Darcy does not come off well, but the worldbuilding, military aspects and writing style are engaging enough that I don’t mind that too much.

[chiropteracupola]

"Are you finished with my portrait yet? Show me!" "Cipacton, I can't draw you if you keep moving!"

[chiropteracupola]

I destroyed a bond of friendship and respect / Between the only people left who'd even look me in the eye / Now I laugh and make a fortune / Off the same ones that I tortured / And a world screams, "Kiss me, Son of God!"

[chiropteracupola]

"...and Ardroy was a dragon's favourite if ever he had seen one. But then, Keith could not blame her."

Another illustration of Luzula's excellent Flight of the Heron/Temeraire crossover fic, 'The Flight of Dragons,' this time of Pràiseach and Ewen Cameron.

[chiropteracupola]

an assortment of my temeraireverse fic-dragons!

[cygnet and honoré are from fifteenth-century britain and france, aquilillus, flavia magna, and bán are from second-century britain, and cipachcoatzin is from sixteenth-century mesoamerica]

[chiropteracupola]

Martín Macuilmazatl, a young gentleman of the Ciudad de México.

[chiropteracupola]

Y no hai remedio…

[chiropteracupola]

it's hibernation season. everybody get cozy.

[chiropteracupola]

Ain't nothing come easy / No, nothing comes quick / But I want for you this, that you are well / I want for us this, that we are well...

Another illustration of Temeraire-crossover fic — this time, James Norrington and Tempest, from @boltlightning's delightful Pirates of the Caribbean crossover 'windfall / landfall'.