#the kingston cycle

[book--brackets]

Valdemar: Mage Wars by Mercedes Lackey (1994-1996)

It is an age when Valdemar is yet unfounded, its organization of Heralds yet unformed, and magic is still a wild and uncontrolled force.

Skandranon Rashkae is perhaps the finest specimen of his race, with gleaming ebony feathers, majestic wingspan, keen magesight and sharp intelligence. Courageous, bold, and crafty, Skan is everything a gryphon should be. He is the fulfillment of everything that the Mage of Silence, the human sorcerer called Urtho, intended to achieve when he created these magical beings to be his champions, the defenders of his realm--a verdant plain long coveted by the evil mage Maar.

Now Maar is once again advancing on Urtho's Keep, this time with a huge force spearheaded by magical constructs of his own--cruel birds of prey ready to perform any evil their creator may demand of them. And when one of Urtho's Seers wakes from a horrifying vision in which she sees a devastating magical weapon being placed in the hands of Maar's common soldiers, Skandrannon is sent to spy across enemy lines, cloaked in the protective of Urtho's powerful Spell of Silence.

Sorcerer Royal by Zen Cho (2015-2019)

At his wit’s end, Zacharias Wythe, freed slave, eminently proficient magician, and Sorcerer Royal of the Unnatural Philosophers—one of the most respected organizations throughout all of Britain—ventures to the border of Fairyland to discover why England’s magical stocks are drying up.

But when his adventure brings him in contact with a most unusual comrade, a woman with immense power and an unfathomable gift, he sets on a path which will alter the nature of sorcery in all of Britain—and the world at large…

Valdemar: Vows and Honor by Mercedes Lackey (1988-1998)

She was Tarma. Born to the Clan of the Hawk of the nomadic Shin'a'in people, she saw her entire clan slain by brigands. Vowing blood revenge upon the murderers, she became one of the sword-sworn, the most elite of all warriors. And trained in all the forms of death-dealing combat, she took to the road in search of her enemies.

She was Kethry. Born to a noble house, sold into a hateful "marriage", she fled life's harshness for the sanctuary of the White Winds, a powerful school of sorcery. Becoming an adept, she pledged to use her talents for the greatest good. Yet unlike other sorcerers, Kethry could use worldly weapons as well as magical skills. And when she became the bearer of a uniquely magical sword that drew her to those in need, Kethry was led to a fateful meeting with Tarma.

United by sword-spell and the will of the Goddess, Tarma and Kethry swore a blood oath to carry on their mutual fight against evil. And together, swordsmaster and sorceress set forth to fulfill their destiny....

The Kingston Cycle by C. L. Polk (2018-2021)

In an original world reminiscent of Edwardian England in the shadow of a World War, cabals of noble families use their unique magical gifts to control the fates of nations, while one young man seeks only to live a life of his own. 

Magic marked Miles Singer for suffering the day he was born, doomed either to be enslaved to his family's interest or to be committed to a witches' asylum. He went to war to escape his destiny and came home a different man, but he couldn't leave his past behind. The war between Aeland and Laneer leaves men changed, strangers to their friends and family, but even after faking his own death and reinventing himself as a doctor at a cash-strapped veterans' hospital, Miles can't hide what he truly is. 

When a fatally poisoned patient exposes Miles' healing gift and his witchmark, he must put his anonymity and freedom at risk to investigate his patient's murder. To find the truth he'll need to rely on the family he despises, and on the kindness of the most gorgeous man he's ever seen.

The Faerie Wars Chronicles by Harbie Brennan (2003-2011)

When Henry Atherton helps Mr. Fogarty clean up around his house, he expects to find a mess and a cranky old man; what he doesn't expect to find is Pyrgus Malvae, crown prince of the Faerie realm, who has escaped the treacherous Faeries of the Night by traveling to the human world through a portal powered by trapped lightning. An egomaniacal demon prince, greedy glue factory owners Brimstone and Chalkhill, and the nefarious Lord Hairstreak, leader of the Faeries of the Night, all dream of ruling the Faerie realm and are out to kill Pyrgus.

Enlisting the help of his sister, Holly Blue, and his new friend, Henry, Pyrgus must get back to the Faerie world alive before one of his many enemies gets to him instead. But how many portals are open, and can Pyrgus find the right one before it falls into the wrong hands?

The Ordinary Princess by M. M. Kaye (1980)

Along with Wit, Charm, Health, and Courage, Princess Amy of Phantasmorania receives a special fairy christening gift: Ordinariness. Unlike her six beautiful sisters, she has brown hair and freckles, and would rather have adventures than play the harp, embroider tapestries . . . or become a Queen. When her royal parents try to marry her off, Amy runs away and, because she's so ordinary, easily becomes the fourteenth assistant kitchen maid at a neighboring palace. And there . . . much to everyone's surprise . . . she meets a prince just as ordinary (and special) as she is 

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge (1946)

When orphaned young Maria Merryweather arrives at Moonacre Manor, she feels as if she's entered Paradise. Her new guardian, her uncle Sir Benjamin, is kind and funny; the Manor itself feels like home right away; and every person and animal she meets is like an old friend. But there is something incredibly sad beneath all of this beauty and comfort--a tragedy that happened years ago, shadowing Moonacre Manor and the town around it--and Maria is determined to learn about it, change it, and give her own life story a happy ending. But what can one solitary girl do?

Dr. Greta Helsing by Vivian Shaw (2017-2024)

Meet Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead. After inheriting a highly specialised, and highly peculiar, medical practice, Dr Helsing spends her days treating London’s undead for a host of ills: vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights and entropy in mummies. Although barely making ends meet, this is just the quiet, supernatural-adjacent life Greta’s dreamed of since childhood.

But when a sect of murderous monks emerges, killing human undead and alike, Greta must use all her unusual skills to keep her supernatural clients – and the rest of London – safe.

Of Mermaids and Orisa by Natasha Bowen (2021-2022)

Simi prayed to the gods, once. Now she serves them as Mami Wata—a mermaid—collecting the souls of those who die at sea and blessing their journeys back home.

But when a living boy is thrown overboard, Simi does the unthinkable—she saves his life, going against an ancient decree. And punishment awaits those who dare to defy it.

To protect the other Mami Wata, Simi must journey to the Supreme Creator to make amends. But something is amiss. There’s the boy she rescued, who knows more than he should. And something is shadowing Simi, something that would rather see her fail. . . .

Danger lurks at every turn, and as Simi draws closer, she must brave vengeful gods, treacherous lands, and legendary creatures. Because if she doesn’t, then she risks not only the fate of all Mami Wata, but also the world as she knows it.

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust (2017)

Sixteen-year-old Mina is motherless, her magician father is vicious, and her silent heart has never beat with love for anyone--has never beat at all, in fact, but she'd always thought that fact normal. She never guessed that her father cut out her heart and replaced it with one of glass. When she moves to Whitespring Castle and sees its king for the first time, Mina forms a plan: win the king's heart with her beauty, become queen, and finally know love. The only catch is that she'll have to become a stepmother.

Fifteen-year-old Lynet looks just like her late mother, and one day she discovers why: a magician created her out of snow in the dead queen's image, at her father's order. But despite being the dead queen made flesh, Lynet would rather be like her fierce and regal stepmother, Mina. She gets her wish when her father makes Lynet queen of the southern territories, displacing Mina. Now Mina is starting to look at Lynet with something like hatred, and Lynet must decide what to do--and who to be--to win back the only mother she's ever known...or else defeat her once and for all.

[ratsreading]

I feel like Witchmark is a very queer story, even aside from the actual main character being queer. The worldbuilding around magic parallels it . It's the having to hide lest people discover what you are and lock you up. It's the expectation to grow up and submit to normalcy. It's the break from family. It's the way Miles fights for his agency, his freedom to live life as he chooses, even at the cost of everything else.

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

The Kingston Cycle, A Summary:

Witchmark: Huh, it seems like people might be doing bad things for profit and power.

Stormsong: I'm trying to reform the system from within but gosh it is not going very well.

Soulstar: Burn it all to the motherfucking ground.

[pewcat2]

"You taught me that I should make Aeland a better place than it was before," Grace said. "You told me to defend Aeland with everything I had. That's what I'm doing. I'm protecting Aeland from you." (Soulstar)

and

"You would applaud it if it were another woman," Ysbeta said. "You would call it ambitious, and bold, and brave. Why can't that woman be me?" (The Midnight Bargain)

be hitting me in the unique combination of mommy and daddy issues that come from being raised to be a strong, powerful woman by the same people that want me to dull my opinions when they make them uncomfortable.

Thank you, @clpolk, for emotionally ruining me for the forseeable future.

[superbelievesintadcooper]

Ahh I finished Soulstar and it was fantastic! Beautiful end to the series, I'm so sad to be done. I love all of these characters so deeply and I know that they'll stay with me forever, they're always on my mind. Kingston Cycle has quickly become my favorite book series of all time and I'll definitely be rereading in the future!

[radiantmists]

someone who's read witchmark please help me decipher the symbolism of miles choosing 'singer' as his fake surname when the whole reason he had to go into hiding is because he wasn't a storm-singer.

is a singer, to him, someone who's free? who has power and can use it for good? or is the name his way of keeping a tie to his family, to grace?

i feel like there has to be something there but i can't decide what.

[extremesofmediocrity]

I just read The Kingston Cycle by CL Polk and even though it's a quintessentially Tumblr ™️ series I can't find other people talking about here.

My main question re: the series is, what the fuck was up with that?

We're just supposed to be cool with the death penalty all of a sudden?

[hurglewurm]

trying to figure out faces for these gay people in witchmark by cl polk hehehe... had a lot of fun giving tristan the most Jaw ever

[id: two bust illustrations of miles singer, followed by two bust illustrations of tristan hunter. miles is wearing a black waistcoat and green tie in one drawing, seen in profile, wearing small round glasses. in the other, he is facing the viewer, wearing a brown coat. his "little doctor glasses" are labelled, as are his sack jacket, his tired face, and his unbrushed hair. he has an olive complexion and dark brown hair, with honey brown eyes.

the first drawing of tristan has him facing the viewer, wearing a grey waistcoat with a silver ascot. his wavy blond hair is braided over one shoulder and artfully swept back. he has arched brows, narrow blue eyes, a prominent jaw, full lips, and slightly tan skin. he has one dimple. in the other drawing he is seen in profile, wearing a red robe embroidered with gold, using one hand to brush loose hair off his forehead. his thick eyebrows, "silly monogrammed robe", and blond hair are labelled. end id.]

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Book names + authors under the cut

Robbie Fontaine/Kelly Bennet- Green Creek Series by TJ Klune

Miles Singer/Tristan Hunter- Witchmark (Kingston Cycle) by C.L. Polk

Henry "Monty" Montague/Percy Newton- The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue(The Montague Siblings) by Mackenzi Lee

Agatha Wellbelove/Niamh Brody- Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell

[christabelq]

'SOULSTAR' BOOK REVIEW...

I haven’t done a review for a while, but I felt I should for this book, as I didn't like it and wanted to explore why. The book’s about a necromantic witch called Robin, who is fighting to make the country of Aeland a better place. At first she tries to do this by working with the new king, who appears to be quite progressive, but as time goes on, it becomes clear he’s not the person she thought he was and she needs to take a different route. She takes over as the head of the Free Democracy party when the previous leader Jacob is assassinated and ends up bringing about a revolution. The blurb for the book describes it as A WHIRLWIND OF MAGIC, POLITICS, ROMANCE, AND INTRIGUE, which sounded right up my street, but it totally didn't live up to my expectations and here are some of the reasons…

One of the villains (a terminally ill old man) is tried near the end and sentenced to hang. I find the idea of capital punishment deeply troubling, so this was never going to sit well with me. I think it’s inhumane, and when mistakes happen (which they totally do), there’s nothing you can do about it. The trial also left a bad taste in my mouth. It’s what I believe is commonly referred to as a kangaroo court, when the accused isn’t given a chance to defend himself and the verdict’s pretty much decided before anyone says a word. To make matters worse, Robin traps the man’s soul in a tree for a thousand years after he’s been hanged. This isn’t part of the court’s decision and there’s no consultation. She just does it. For me this little display suggests that power has totally gone to her head and Aeland has simply traded one arrogant despot for another, which I’m sure wasn’t what the author had in mind.

The pacing feels off. Parts of the book seemed rushed (e.g. the revolution and a lot of the magic stuff), while other parts felt bloated and unnecessarily drawn out. The author seemed unable to tell what to focus on to best serve the story, and if there was any editorial guidance, it must have been pretty poor judging by how it turned out.

Complex issues are dealt with in what for me seems like a totally simplistic way. The revolutionaries are holier than thou and the people they’re fighting against are like pantomime villains, when in the real world, almost everyone is somewhere in the middle. You only really hear one viewpoint about stuff and the whole mess gets cleared up in a ridiculously short amount of time.

The character of Zelind. Zelind is non-binary, which on the face of it sounds great, but the sense I got was that khe was a token character. I had no clue about kher appearance or what kher life as non-binary was like (e.g. the specific challenges khe faced). I noticed that the author used the wrong pronouns for kher a few times (usually SHE/HER, but also at least one THEY), which made me wonder if KHE was once a SHE and the non-binary element was added quite late in the writing process to be on trend or something. It certainly doesn’t add to the plot in any way. If it wasn't a late change, then it's another example of sloppy editing. You expect that kind of slip in self-published books, but not when they're from a big company like Tor and not when its something people might be sensitive about. I also wondered how everyone the character meets seems to immediately know which pronouns to use for kher. I don’t have any direct experience of this myself, but I’m guessing it doesn’t always work that way for real non-binary people, so it doesn’t ring true. Another thing that didn’t seem realistic was the way the character rustled up a machine to generate electricity at the drop of a hat, when others have been trying for years and utterly failing. It’s not properly explained how khe is able to do it and it all happens off camera so to speak, so you don’t get to see what it actually involves. This character could have been so much more and for me was a big disappointment.

The plot feels contrived. I knew all along where the book was headed, so getting through it felt like a chore. There were also quite a few times when seemingly hopeless situations were quickly resolved by unlikely events, e.g. Robin happening to know there would be a hidden door which would allow her and Grace to escape from a burning room, or footsteps lying undisturbed on a snowy rooftop for days, so Robin can solve the mystery of Jacob’s assassination (luckily there hasn’t been any snow in the meantime and it hasn't melted either). Magic also felt a bit convenient at times and the rules around it seemed to shift to fit the plot.

So those are my biggest gripes. I won’t tell anyone they shouldn’t read the book, because I’ve seen a lot of glowing reviews and I’m sure a lot of people will 💜 it, but for me it just didn’t work. I haven’t read the other books in the Kingston cycle and I won’t be doing now. This one was more than enough. 2/5

[alfvaen]

Summer's ended, not for the first time. I guess I can see that it was not as ridiculously hot and smoky as some of the other recent summers around here, but still not great. Also ended is another month, which means it's time for me to ramble about books and stuff.

Possible spoilers for Kim Stanley Robinson's "Science In The Capital" series, Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books, C.L. Polk's Kingston Cycle, and, for the last time for a while, Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga.

Lois McMaster Bujold: Gentleman Jole And The Red Queen, completed September 4

Here I come at last to the end of my latest Vorkosigan Saga reread. And my first reread of this book at all. It came out after I reached the end of the series in my reread blog in 2015, which was probably the last time I did a full reread of the series up to that point. I did read a number of books in the series to my sons when they got old enough, but I was unable to persuade them to go much past A Civil Campaign with my lukewarm assessments of the later books.

My primary impression of my first read of the series is that nothing happens. Which I'm sure is not a fair assessment, but, basically, it does not reach the level of excitement of any of the previous books in the series whatsoever. I kept catching what I thought where clues about where the plot was really going to go when it picked up, and then every single time it turned out to be a false alarm and the plot continued to not pick up. It's a fairly gentle book, and I found that excruciatingly annoying.

Sure, we return to Cordelia, we return to Sergyar, we revisit some of the landmarks (literally) from Shards of Honour. See, the surprise ending of Cryoburn (which I am now spoiling for you all) is the death of Aral Vorkosigan, and all that we get to deal with it is five drabbles (100-word snippets from the point of view of Miles, Cordelia, Ivan, Gregor and Mark). For this book, it's three years later, and Cordelia, now sole Vicereine of Sergyar, is contemplating changing her life in two ways: by resigning as Vicereine…and starting some embryos of new children of hers and Aral's from his frozen seed.

We also get to really meet Admiral Oliver Jole, who's in charge of the fleet around Sergyar. Previously I only remember him as one of Aral's staff officers back in The Vor Game. And it is gradually revealed (perhaps a spoiler, but I don't really care) that that whole time, he was Aral's lover. In fact, Aral, Cordelia and Jole were a secret throuple. It makes a kind of sense, since, by Cordelia's assessment, Aral is bisexual but more attracted to men, particularly military men. He probably wants to be monogamous, to be a good Barrayaran, but Cordelia's from Beta Colony and they have far fewer sexual hangups, so she wouldn't care, and so he gets to have his same-sex relationship as well.

Cordelia tells Jole that out of her frozen eggs, some of them weren't viable, but they can do a thing where they can remove the nucleus and replace it with genetic material from another cell. Including a sperm cell. So she offers him the chance to create his own embryos with his and Aral's DNA. Which he accepts. And so now they're both gestating some children in uterine replicators…and then they end up starting their own affair. It sounded like they had had their own sexual encounters before, but only with Aral also participating; now they're trying a relationship with just the two of them, sub rosa at first.

About halfway through the book, we get Miles and his family coming to visit, which is nice to see (though it still doesn't lead to anything exciting happening), including all six of their kids. Miles is in the loop on his mother's plans for new children, but not about Jole.

There's also a few subplots--Jole's assistant who ends up dating a ghem-lord from the Cetagandan embassy, plans to build a new facility so they can relocate the capital away from its current too-close-to-a-volcano location that keep going awry, and bored teenagers getting into trouble (which provides one of the few moments of tension). One explosion near the end which provides one of the others.

When I think of similarly low-excitement stories from elsewhere in the saga, I mostly end up with novellas--"Winterfair Gifts", perhaps, which is maybe principally a romance; "The Mountains of Mourning", which was a mystery, and still had attempted horse-murder and firebombing, and infanticide, so it packs way more of a punch; and "The Flowers of Vashnoi", which still has a little drama in it. This one is attempting to be an entire novel and it feels like it doesn't have enough steam. It also kind of reminds me of Ursula Le Guin's Tehanu, which I recall being equally dull for large chunks of it, and even that had some excitement at the end. This one just feels like waving a languid goodbye.

Goodbye, Vorkosigan Saga. We'll always have Memory. We'll probably never get to see stories with Miles's children (or Cordelia and Jole's children, or Ivan's or Gregor's) growing up, outside of fanfic. Lois isn't being mean to the characters any more, they can have their happily ever after.

Jenn Lyons: The Ruin of Kings, completed September 11

It was time to try a new author again, a female author. But considering the last two books were SF and urban fantasy, probably not one of those, which was a bit of a quandary because many of the one I was interested in were one of those. But I browsed the epic fantasy books on my shelf and decided to go with Jenn Lyons. I've heard good things about it, and my wife recommended it (and has read the whole series), so I guess. It seems thick, but it's actually not even 600 pages in the copy I've got, and I'm not worried about long books putting me behind on my Goodreads challenge any more anyway. (Since I changed my goal from 100 to 90, then added those two short humorous library books, I've been consistently ahead. I might be able to fit in a Neal Stephenson before the end of the year.)

The book is oddly structured. In the first part, our main character, Kihrin, is in jail and being watched over a being named Talon who seems to have absorbed the memories of a lot of other people. They pass back and forth a "recording stone" and tell Kihrin's story at different points (Kihrin started later than Talon thought he should so she takes it upon herself to fill in the backstory). This happens over alternating chapters (labelled with who's doing the telling), fairly short, Kihrin's in first person and Talon's in third, and often from different POVs. Oh, and this is also being annotated by a different character that we don't even meet until half to two-thirds of the way through the book, who puts in footnotes that I'm not sure even add much value.

I'm not entirely sure it all works. There's the disorientation of the rapid timeline shifts, the confusion of when the further-forward timeline mentions something that hasn't happened in the backstory timeline, the fact that due to body-swapping magic I started to lose track of who was who and who was whose child/parent and who was dead and who was alive… Sometimes information was dropped that seemed irrelevant, and so I didn't retain it, until it turned out that hey, that god was going to be an actual character and things that happened centuries ago are actually relevant. It feels like a book I'm going to have to reread, and not because "it was just that good" but because there's so much that I missed the first time through. (For instance, it's got icons at the beginnings of chapters, which I missed about 95% of on my way through, even after I first noticed them.) I also belatedly noticed the family tree at the back, which might have been helpful earlier (or perhaps spoilery), and it's confusingly annotated because of the body-swap thing mentioned above. And yeah, a lot of godlike characters with weird relationships to each other and Kihrin. (I do actually kind of like Talon, who is an interesting and dangerously amoral character mostly being used a tool by others.) Plus a significant item which seemed to just randomly appear to the main character during the climax? That could have been done better with a little bit of foreshadowing and/or lampshading to explain why it was more than just a horrendous coincidence.

It reminded me in bits of other series. The backstory structure reminded me a little bit of the Kingkiller Chronicles, some of the characters and worldbuilding reminded me of the Eli Monpress series, and the mostly nasty noble characters made me think of Pierce Brown's Red Rising. I will doubtless continue reading the series, but it hasn't fully won me over.

Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, completed September 15

I definitely wanted a palate-cleanser after the Jenn Lyons, something that wasn't fantasy. And maybe not even speculative fiction at all. And, because of my schedule, with a male author. And Huckleberry Finn has been sitting there for a while…and sometimes even gets some discussion on Tumblr, mostly to do with people claiming it's a bad book because Huck uses the n-word, and other people rebutting that that's part of the whole point, having it examine Huck's learned racism, or something. So it's still being talked about, is the thing, more often than, say, Madame Bovary.

As you may have gathered, the vast majority of my reading is science fiction or fantasy, and very little of it is what anyone might call "literature". (My wife and I had a disagreement recently about whether or not Sherlock Holmes stories count as "literature". I think that they're detective stories and thus still kind of genre, like the Dick Francis books are thrillers. But it's a fine distinction.) I read very little mainstream until I was in university, when I decided to branch out a bit. I actually liked Thomas Hardy's The Return of The Native, so I went out and read some more on my own initiative (mostly I liked them except for Jude The Obscure), and I also liked Dickens and Twain and Victor Hugo, and to some extent George Eliot and Jane Austen. But most of it just doesn't scratch that itch and give me what I want in a read.

I am already somewhat familiar with the Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn milieu. Which is to say, I had a tape of the soundtrack of a Tom Sawyer musical when I was a kid (lost decades ago, I couldn't even hum any of the songs, but I remember the bit about the fence whitewashing and the confrontation with "Inj*n Joe" at the end), and I had the Classic Comics version of Huckleberry Finn so in theory I know basically how it goes. I read the actual Twain version of Tom Sawyer a few years ago, but I haven't read this one yet.

So, is it the greatest American novel ever written? Chyeah, right. I mean, it was fine, I guess. It had its moments. It was very episodic as they went down the river (and, as was lampshaded in the text, why would you head south down the river, apart from the obvious answer of "it's hard to go upstream", when you're trying to help a runaway slave get to free states)? It was entertaining in parts, when Huck was coming up with regular off-the-cuff entire fictional backstories. Constant use of the n-word, which I was expecting, though perhaps not quite that much. But it's first-person POV so I guess it's just Huck's vernacular. Still, I can see that it would be off-putting.

The most annoying parts of the book, I'd say, were the parts actually involving Tom Sawyer. Tom apparently has a mental disorder where he reads a lot of bad books and absorbs their clichés and then insists that all of the clichés have to be present every time or else you're not doing it right. We see it near the beginning of the book where he's trying to set up the local boys as bandits or something (though grudgingly he admits that it's all really pretend), but it also dominates the last quarter of the book. Due to outlandish coincidence, Huck is staying with Tom's uncle and aunt who think that he's Tom, and when Tom actually shows up he has to pretend to be his own brother Sid. But Jim has also been captured as a runaway slave and Huck wants to free him. And Tom insists that Jim has to do all of the prisoner clichés and make the actual rescue 1000% harder, to the point of having to spend days digging a tunnel, warning the household in anonymous notes, getting a grindstone for him to scratch messages on (which they have to actually let Jim out to help them do), giving him random animal companions, and I was not there for it. It was trying to be funny but mostly it just came across as stupid.

And the reason Jim got captured in the first place was because of these two con artists they'd been traveling with, who were generally referred to as "the duke" and "the king" because of their respective claims to alleged nobility. They are nasty pieces of work (well, not so bad as Huck's actually-abusive father that he fakes his own death to get away from in the early part of the book, but highly distasteful) that at least do manage to get themselves tarred and feathered by the end, but I didn't enjoy most of the time we spent with them. So if we take the other third of the book without them or Tom Sawyer, it was pretty enjoyable. The rest of the time it was mostly just tolerable.

Kim Stanley Robinson: Sixty Days And Counting, completed September 21

After the laugh-fest that was Huckleberry Finn, I didn't want something too light-hearted, and I was still feeling a little off fantasy, so I went through my male-author books looking for something else, like maybe some science fiction. It had been more than a year (my usual "long-enough" criterion for continuing in a series) since I read the last book in Kim Stanley Robinson's "Science In The Capital" series, so I thought it might be a good choice.

I'm not always the biggest Kim Stanley Robinson fan. His Orange County trilogy was middling, and while I did enjoy the Green Mars trilogy, some parts were a bit of a slog. But, to my surprise, this series has been pretty readable. It focuses on a group of people in and around the National Science Foundation in what is presumably a near-future or, by this time, possibly-alternate-near-past. (The books were published during the second Bush administration.) We have the Quibler family--Charlie and Anna, and their kids Nick and Joe, and then we have Frank Vanderwal. Frank starts out in San Diego but comes to Washington to work for the NSF, Anna also works there, and Charlie was an assistant for Senator Phil Chase. In the first book, Forty Signs of Rain, there's a big rainstorm and the capital floods; in the second, Fifty Degrees Below, there's a very cold winter and the Gulf Stream starts shutting down. Because the series is primarily about climate change.

Frank seems to have the most interesting plotlines--he meets a mysterious woman mamed Caroline during the flood, whose husband seems to be into some shady dealings such as election tampering, and they have an affair, and during the second book he starts sleeping rough in his van and in a treehouse in a local park; he may also have gotten a brain injury that affects his decision-making processes. Meanwhile, Senator Phil Chase ends up running for president (spoilers: he wins) and somehow manages to commit to trying to deal with climate problems (which is how you can tell this is actually science fiction).

There's also a subplot about a group of climate refugees from a fictionalized place called Khembalung in alternate-Tibet, who were displaced onto islands in the Indian Ocean which are now disappearing as ocean levels rise. Charlie deals with parenting young Joe (who some Khembali suspect might be a reincarnation of a Dalai Lama-type figure) while his job for Phil Chase becomes more important.

I guess the nature of the plot (and the fact that it's supposed to be mostly realistic) means that, without a large timeskip to the future, we can't have a strong resolution that ties up all the climate loose ends. We deal with the Caroline plot, and there is progress made on the climate problems, but the rest mostly seems to just…end at a point. Plus there are plenty of scenes which are just there for theme or atmosphere or something (did we really need to see so much of Charlie and Frank hiking the Sierra Nevada with some of Charlie's friends?) It didn't gel for me, and it's gotten to the point where it feels like alternate history more than extrapolation. I'm sure it won't be the last Kim Stanley Robinson I read, but I liked the other books in the series better.

Terry Pratchett: A Hat Full of Sky, completed September 24

Reread time again, and now that I've finished the Vorkosigan reread, what's next? Well, some of the series I've been rereading have been longer ones, but I couldn't settle on another one of those. I kept thinking of shorter series to reread instead. And when I did the Katherine Kurtz Deryni series in four trilogies, I found it was nice to stick my interstitial rereads one at a time in the middle of the series rather than put them all at the end, and that's also what I did during the Vorkosigan reread. So this time I am going to be doing three shorter series rereads, and my four interstitial rereads before and after each one.

Among the "interstitials" is my slower Discworld series reread. I elected not to reread the whole thing all at once, because that's like 40 books, that would have taken too long, so instead I've been doing one book per other series reread. In fact, I started the reread before I got into doing all the series rereads, apparently, way back in like 2005, before Unseen Academicals was even out, which explains how I've managed to get this far into the series at this pace. One or two a year, and it kind of adds up. (In the interim I did read a lot of the series to my daughter as well, from Mort through to where we bogged down and abandoned The Fifth Elephant) My wife, who had fallen behind in the Discworld series apart from Amazing Maurice and the Tiffany Aching books, elected to read the books she'd missed just fast enough to stay ahead of me. (And now that I'm actually reached the Tiffany Aching rereads she may end up pulling even further ahead.)

When I first read The Wee Free Men I had no idea that there would be more Tiffany Aching books (and I don't know if Terry Pratchett did, either). I don't recall that it made a huge impression on me at the time, then. It was definitely aimed at younger readers, with a young protagonist and the Nac Mac Feegles for comic relief (and tiny but sort-of-adult reinforcements), and I, at the time, was not a younger reader. But I did like later books featuring Tiffany, and so this is the one where things do start to pick up a bit.

Now she's no longer trying to do everything on her own, she's being taken into the witching apprenticeship track, such as it is, which is a bit of an adjustment. And this ain't no Harry Potter. This is more like, say, the first part of A Wizard of Earthsea, before Ged goes to the wizard's college on Roke and is still studying with Ogion on Gont. Or maybe Tehanu, which I haven't read nearly as much and don't remember as clearly. But we also have a spooky creature, like Ged's shadow, for Tiffany to confront.

Apparently when I first read this I was kind of meh on it, since I only gave it three stars on Goodreads, but this time around I liked it better, and I'll bump it up to four. The Nac Mac Feegle scenes no longer strike me as gratuitous comedic pandering, and the book does a good job of showing Granny Weatherwax's power as a witch, as well as Tiffany's burgeoning powers. (And one has to wonder if Lois McMaster Bujold read this before "Penric's Demon" or if it's just a coincidence.)

C.L. Polk: Soulstar, completed September 28

"Female diversity" slot time again. (Anyone else getting tired of hearing me call it that? The more I repeat it the worse it sounds. How about "non-white non-male"?) Last time around I snuck in another Michelle Sagara, and perhaps I should be trying one of the new authors I have piling up for this slot, but I did kind of want to finish this C.L. Polk series first. She(/they) is a person of colour from the Calgary area, though I've never managed to see her in person.

This book is the third in the Kingston Cycle, set in a kind of analog of Britain, where they use magic to keep huge storms from devastating them. The only trouble is, having magic is illegal unless you're part of the existing group of magic families, who guard their prerogatives jealously, and illegal witches are locked up (to secretly power the weather magic). The first two books concern two siblings, Miles and Grace, from one of these families, one of whom was hiding his identity after undergoing experiences likely to get him locked away, and the other trying to use her political power for good ends. For the third book, though, we switch to an unrelated side character, Robin Thorpe, who was one of these hidden witches, but the political landscape has now changed and they can come out of hiding--and need to, to save their country. Robin is heavily involved with an anti-monarchist group who wants a full democracy in the country; with all the upheaval, is it the right or wrong time to move forward?

The books also have romance subplots, which are…well, let's just say none of them are heterosexual. In this one, Robin is reunited with her nonbinary spouse who has been a captive for decades, so it's a renewal of relationship rather than a new relationship, but still with a romance feel to it.

There were times in the book where I was just seething at some of the horrible things the (generally rich and arrogant) antagonists were able to get away with, but in the end they got their come-uppances. It's a kind of a short book, actually, and at the end I did feel like I wouldn't have minded more of some plot threads, but overall it did feel like a satisfactory conclusion to the trilogy. We also have Polk's The Midnight Bargain and clearly that will have to go on my shelf.

I also read a few more comics from April 1994 on Marvel Unlimited (and a handful of back issues, now that they've started putting those in again), and then I started reading the Ed Yong book An Immense World that I believe I got for my birthday a couple of months ago. It's about the senses that various animals and other living beings use to experience the world. My progress has been kind of fitful, depending on how my fiction book reading progresses in a day and whether I feel like just doing puzzles or games or something, but I can often manage a few pages near the end of the day.

[book--brackets]

Kingston Cycle by C.L. Polk

Added!

[ratsreading]

Just finished Witchmark (C L Polk) and stars, it's fantastic.

I loved the theme of fighting for agency, of fighting to live your own life. The way Miles needs his freedom more than anything.

I loved the plot of a murder mystery uncovering greater evil.

I loved the queerness. And of course, the queerness is paralleled in the above theme of agency.

I found it all very compelling - the fight for agency, the trying to do what's right, the difficult family relations, the murder, the mystery and where it leads, the relationships. Fantastic worldbuilding too.

[betterbooksandthings]

"Like so many fabulous winged creatures, romantasy books continue to fly off the shelves. It’s undeniable that romantasy is quickly becoming a major subgenre. But my question is… how exactly are we defining Romantasy?

I think it might be useful to establish the parameters of the subgenre, and discuss a few favorite examples of romantasy books to see what aspects have made them so attractive to readers. So, let’s jump right into things…

Romantasy is, of course, a relatively new portmanteau for a subgenre that combines both fantasy—a story with fantastical elements—and romance—a story with a central love story featuring a romantic group that ends in a happily ever after or happy for now (HEA/HFN).

The question readers new to the concept often ask is if romantasy is simply a new term for either romantic fantasy—a fantasy book with romance elements—or fantasy romance—a romance story taking place in a fantasy setting. Right now, a book marketed as romantasy could technically fit into either subgenre category. After some deliberation, I’d argue that romantasy books should have a central romance with an HEA/HFN, not just a romance subplot. In short, romantasy should be more fantasy romance than romantic fantasy."

[rorytait]

Canberra: An evening ride around the lake

On my last night in Canberra, I took a bike for a ride around the eastern portion of the lake. This turned out to be a bit of a highlight due to the variety of views and how quickly I got away from the city itself.

The National Carillon sits on a little island in the lake, recently renamed in memory of the Queen. It contains 57 bells and chimes every 15 mins.

It was impressive that for essentially the whole route there was a proper cycle track.

I went through Kingston, a modern 'canals' style development full of upmarket apartments and restaurants, before following the busier lakeshore paths back.

[10 October 2022]

[thekinglemingle]

Proposal for Big Finish: David Tennant and Alex Kingston low stakes adventure, with the twist being that it's retired Fourteen not Ten and he can't let River realise that he knows their whole deal. He so desperately wants to tell her how much he misses her, but he can't spoil the existence of the second regeneration cycle and ruin Twelve's surprise.

And that's why River thinks she's seen Ten much older than he was in the library.