#Rosemary and Rue

[fadedfrost]

I got a new family member yesterday. Someone asked how big she was, so I grabbed the first trade paperback I could see to use for scale. That happened to be Rosemary and Rue by @seananmcguire

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 2A

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Endorsement from submitter: "That book was written in 1969 and yes, not everything hold up today, but for the time is very progressive"

A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants spend most of their time without a gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

Science fiction, classics, speculative fiction, anthropological science fiction, distant future, adult

October Day series (Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, Late Eclipses, One Salt Sea, Ashes of Honor, Chimes at Midnight, The Winter Long, A Red-Rose Chain, Once Broken Faith, The Brightest Fell, Of Things Unknown, Night and Silence, The Unkindest Tide, A Killing Frost, When Sorrows Come, Be the Serpent, Sleep No More, The Innocent Sleep, Silver and Lead, and other stories) by Seanan McGuire

October "Toby" Daye, a changeling who is half human and half fae, has been an outsider from birth. After getting burned by both sides of her heritage, Toby has denied the Faerie world, retreating to a "normal" life. Unfortunately for her, the Faerie world has other ideas…

The murder of Countess Evening Winterrose pulls Toby back into the fae world. Unable to resist Evening's dying curse, which binds her to investigate, Toby must resume her former position as knight errant and renew old alliances. As she steps back into fae society, dealing with a cast of characters not entirely good or evil, she realizes that more than her own life will be forfeited if she cannot find Evening's killer.

Fantasy, paranormal, urban fantasy, mystery, series, adult

[empressofthelibrary]

Reading Rosemary and Rue and knowing some spoilers in advance is so much fun. Every time Toby talks about Tybalt I giggle to myself. "I hate him so much, he sucks, he's a pompous arrogant bastard and we're gonna hate each other forever"

🎶~I know something you don't knooooowww~🎶

[vioqueenofmushrooms]

Violet doing an actual background? It's more likely than you might think!

The Luidaeg <333

[book-quotes-and-moodboards]

There’s nothing wrong with having a few monsters in the shadows. They keep me remembering what it is that I’m walking away from.

Rosemary and Rue (by Seanan McGuire)

[noahsbookhoard]

📚September 2024 Book Review (Part 3/4)📚

Have you ever been so bored in a book that you though you should catch up on months late blog posts with subsequent guilt instead of reading it? That's where I'm at. December's review is going to be tough.

Rosemary and Rue (October Daye #1) by Seanan McGuire

October Daye is a changeling, unable to fit in either the fae world or the human one she was trying to live a dull but safe life away from fae court. It all goes away when Countess Evening Winterose is murdered and binds her in a curse. To save her own life she must investigate, which draws her back in the convoluted world of the fae.

I don't know how I avoided reading Seanan McGuire's novel for so long, with her being active on this hellsite and me having Ocotber Daye as a contestant in my short foray into Tournament Tumblr (and now I understand the sadness of October Daye's fan with her champion losing so soon: she would have kicked ass as out new King Arthur, although she might have complained that she had to do it)

I really loved it! Urban Fantasy is not something I read a lot which is a shame because there's some gems out there. Toby is a really badass protagonist, I loved how the worldbuding mixes modernity and magic in a way that felt so natural (before now I never questioned the logistic of putting a curse on someone through answering machine). The characters even manage to be annoying in an engaging way! I also loved all the protocol and decorum involved in the fae court, maybe even more since it drew a sharp contrast with the outside/human world. It felt so much more magical.

Book 2 is on the TBR pile and I really want to read it before the end of the year. I might have to move it up a notch or two but it would be worth it.

Ilos by Marion Brunet

Due to climate change, earthquakes and the rise in sea level, Marseille is an underwater city. Nolane is a diver, finding valuables in flooded apartment and so was her bother before his death. Determined to avenge her brother, she gets hired by The Commodore, the powerful man and with the help of her friend will work to overthrow his rule on the city.

I read very little middle grade bit this one had an interesting idea and takes place in a city I know so I was curious. With my expectation sets on the right parameters it was a really nice book! The pacing was well metered and the multiples point of view allowed for more issues to be brought up without having one main character being the Super Hero Saving Everyone From Everything which would have been boring. The kids are actually a good team and although the Villain is a bit caricatural he isn't boring and the threat feels real (also because the stakes includes actual contemporary threats, it makes it more palatable to us readers)

It isn't that subtle in its message but climat change and immigration are subjects on which we are waaaaay past subtlety. 2052 isn't that long in the future and the prediction the book makes are pretty close to what scientist are warning is about.

A fun read for early Young Adult or late Middle Grade. Book 2 came out recently and I'll be sure to read it.

Les Hauts de Hurlevent (Wuthering Heights) by Emily Brontë

The intrication of two families, the Earnshaws and the Linton, with its lot of love, hate, cruelty and vengeance.

Ooooh I'm gonna make people mad...

It's a classic, it is very well written, it speaks of very important societal issue of its time. But at some point I grew a bit bored of bad people doing bad things to other bad people out of love, hate and sometimes both.

The characters is the main cause of annoyance, they are all pushing their worst trait forward and bringing each other down. It made for some interesting plot and development but it's always downward to misery. At the end there is a sliver of hope but through the rest of it nothing brought me much joy. Where I might be biased I read it for entertainment, which means the literary qualities and social critic of the novel were not my main interest. There are there, I could see that, but I was more invested in the story and that aspect was gloomy. I can see why it is some people's favorite book, it just did not hit me the right way.

Did I like it? No. Did I dislike it? Hard to say! That's a must read but if I read it again it should be with a totally different frame of mind.

The Rest of the Robots (Robot Cycle #2) by Isaac Asimov

The second compilation of 8 short stories, furthering the exploration of the positioning robots and 3 laws of robotic and their limits

This book has the probably which a lot of short stories compilation have: One Good Story and A Lot of Very Mid One. Three months later I only remember 2 of them, the first one because it was funny and the fourth one because it gave me chills.

"Robot AL-76 Goes Astray" takes a spin on something that had been introduced before but never exploited: the fact that robots aren't allowed on Earth. It's a pretty comical one with a bit of a sitcom vibe. It felt a little like a Phineas and Ferb episode, with absurdly wild things happening but somehow somersaulting back to the start when the robotists finally arrive.

"Let's Get Together" does a good job at introducing hints to what is really going on. I caught it just before the characters did and got this oh no moment that feel so good! Not a very roboty one, but a really really good one.

In the 6 others there are 3 I found really bizarre in the description of Human-Robot relationships, and 2 did not mark me at all.

The last one, that slipped my mind but seems more contemporary now than ever was "Galley Slave": it's a trial in which a professor is accusing a robot tasked with proofreading to have altered his book and harmed his reputation. In the era of generative AI being used for basically anything the story seemed pertinent even thought the story unsurprisingly takes the side of the robot. At least it ta kles the issue and has some interesting things to say, a must read even if it isn't the best of the bunch.

[geraniums-red]

Seanan McGuire - Rosemary and Rue

Book 1 of the October Daye series

In Rosemary and Rue the human and Sidhe worlds exist side by side, or possibly in the same space. The book starts with Toby Daye, who has both Sidhe and human parents, on a magical stake-out for her investigation agency. Things go wrong, and then more things go wrong as she tries to investigate a murder and not get killed in the process.

Toby spends most of the book not so much jaded as depressed, making her a somewhat unreliable narrator, who is constantly surprised when people are pleased to see her, and is capable of thinking 'this cat hates me' as the cat in question is winding around her ankles. I was starting to assume that the world was not nearly as bad as she describes it, and then the ending of the book came along and broke my heart, and I am angry with the world on her behalf and can also understand why she has trust issues.

People die in this book, and not just ones we didn't care about or who are courting danger. There are friendships and kindess, but there is also abuse and betrayal. It's not necessarily a more deadly world than Holly Black's fairie, but it feels like a sadder one, with less joy to balance out the cruelty.

An enthralling book with a bittersweet ending. The first one of a long series, so it'll be interesting seeing how things progress.

[knit-braid]

Re-reading all the Toby books from the beginning.

Ross is quarter ROANE?! Oh dang there was no way to catch that on the first read through. Seanan, you complicated genius! I’m looking forward to finding more foreshadowing that trusting little me missed.

[paullovescomics]

Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror books that I read in the second half of 2023, part 2 of 3

[living400lbs]

If I recall correctly, she was nominated for awards for FEED but not Rosemary and Rue. FEED also was published before she won the Astounding Award (was Campbell, I'm using the new name retroactively).

The Library of Congress (American) gives every literary author a single number for all their works originally written in one language, whatever pseudonym they used.

Seanan McGuire is actually in the schedule (the official list of what numbers mean what and how to make new ones; there are only a few literary authors in each category actually in the schedule) as Mira Grant. 

Her number is PS3607.R36395. Let me break that down for you. 

PS in American literature in English. (The Library of Congress is... very American.) (PS8001-PS8649 is the Canadian numbers for Canadian literature -- the LOC has agreed not to put anything else there.)

PS700-PS3626 is for works by a single American author who writes in English, literary critiques covering one such author or their works, and biographies covering one such author (this includes things like speeches, because the LOC defines "biography" expansively).

PS3600-PS3626 is for American authors who write in English and were first published in or after 2001, as well as all the other stuff about individual authors like that. 

PS3607 is for American authors who write in English, were first published in or after 2001, and have surnames that begin with G. (Remember, McGuire is under Mira Grant.) (And all the other stuff about individual authors like that.)

PS3607.R indicates that the second letter of the author's surname is R.

PS3607.R36395 means precisely "The person who published in this language, place, and time under the name Mira Grant". The string of digits after the R was chosen to make that name file alphabetically in the Library of Congress' catalog with all the other authors. This contains books by and about Seanan McGuire.

Within that number, most of the individual books will have numbers that look like PS3607.R36395 E94 2016. This is a book by McGuire -- it's meant to be a first-edition copy of Every Heart a Doorway -- so the second "cutter" -- that is, the second set of numbers after the decimal point that begins with a letter, in this case E94, represents the title of the book. The date is the date of publication. 

This means that the books will be filed alphabetically by title, and very much not in series order. (Sorry). 

If someone else has written a book about Every Heart a Doorway, that will be filed right after Every Heart a Doorway, with a number that looks something like PS3607.R36395 E94333 2017. 

You can see that this call number contains all of the Every Heart a Doorway's call number except the date. Right after E94, which represents the title, is a 3. This indicated that the book with this call number is about the book that PS3607.R36395 E94 indicated. The next two 3s represent the beginning of the name of the author of the book about Every Heart a Doorway. (We're pretending this is a book by Nina Baym, who was a scholar of American literature and women's writings, but died in 2018.) Then 2017 would be the date of publication of the book about Every Heart a Doorway.

Remember that all the works by and about Seanan McGuire have to fit in PS3607.R36395. That means that some second cutters can't be used to represent the title of an individual work. If the number is PS3607.R36395 DATE, it's a collection of all of McGuire's works (or all the ones in a specific genre). You probably won't see this until she's dead, which will hopefully not be soon. Collections of some of McGuire's works will be in PS3607.R36395 A6 DATE. If it's in PS3607.R36395 ANUMBER DATE, and the number starts with a digit smaller than 6, it's a translation. If it's in PS3607.R36395 Z458 DATE or later, it's a criticism of McGuire's work as a whole or a biography of McGuire. (Note about Z458 or later -- cutters behave as decimal numbers, so Z46 is "later"  than Z458.)

Thanks for coming along with me on this journey! If you're ever poking around an academic library that uses LC classification, I hope some of this is helpful.

[nevinslibrary]

Weird & Wonderful Wednesday

Yes, yes, yes, it’s another Seanan McGuire book. I know. I know. But, can you blame me?

In this book’s world, the Fae never ‘disappeared’, instead they just started hiding. They live parallel lives to our own worlds. Toby is Half-fae and is rejected by her Faerie family. So, she goes back to the human world. She wants to just be normal again.

That is not to be though. Countess Evening Winterrose is murdered, and in dying puts a curse on Toby. This means that Toby now needs to solve the mystery, and do it before the curse catches her.

The world building was amazing as usual. It was definitely urban paranormal, but, it was a nice balance between the two. I was never pulled out of the urban part because it was paranormal, and I was never pulled out of the paranormal because it took place in a more ‘real’ sort of world. It was a great great read.

You may like this book If you Liked: House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas, Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs, or Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill

Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Rosemary and Rue | Author: Seanan McGuire | Publisher: DAW (2009)

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 1B

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

October Day series (Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, Late Eclipses, One Salt Sea, Ashes of Honor, Chimes at Midnight, The Winter Long, A Red-Rose Chain, Once Broken Faith, The Brightest Fell, Of Things Unknown, Night and Silence, The Unkindest Tide, A Killing Frost, When Sorrows Come, Be the Serpent, Sleep No More, The Innocent Sleep, Silver and Lead, and other stories) by Seanan McGuire

October "Toby" Daye, a changeling who is half human and half fae, has been an outsider from birth. After getting burned by both sides of her heritage, Toby has denied the Faerie world, retreating to a "normal" life. Unfortunately for her, the Faerie world has other ideas…

The murder of Countess Evening Winterrose pulls Toby back into the fae world. Unable to resist Evening's dying curse, which binds her to investigate, Toby must resume her former position as knight errant and renew old alliances. As she steps back into fae society, dealing with a cast of characters not entirely good or evil, she realizes that more than her own life will be forfeited if she cannot find Evening's killer.

Fantasy, paranormal, urban fantasy, mystery, series, adult

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

Endorsement from submitter: "Broke my heart <3333333 Fumiko Nakajima woman of all time"

A mysterious child lands in the care of a solitary woman, changing both of their lives forever in this captivating debut of connection across space and time.

"This is when your life begins."

Nia Imani is a woman out of place and outside of time. Decades of travel through the stars are condensed into mere months for her, though the years continue to march steadily onward for everyone she has ever known. Her friends and lovers have aged past her; all she has left is work. Alone and adrift, she lives only for the next paycheck, until the day she meets a mysterious boy, fallen from the sky.

A boy, broken by his past.

The scarred child does not speak, his only form of communication the beautiful and haunting music he plays on an old wooden flute. Captured by his songs and their strange, immediate connection, Nia decides to take the boy in. And over years of starlit travel, these two outsiders discover in each other the things they lack. For him, a home, a place of love and safety. For her, an anchor to the world outside of herself.

For both of them, a family.

But Nia is not the only one who wants the boy. The past hungers for him, and when it catches up, it threatens to tear this makeshift family apart.

Science fiction, time travel, lyrical, adult

[empressofthelibrary]

...well aside from the whodunnit, that didn't go the way I expected at all

[spiralhouseshop]

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