#a lot of fury's story is being righteously frustrated and angry with being forced into a role they never wanted

[fiddles-ifs]

I have a gender question for the cyberpunk IF!

Does Rider's sex have to be the same we select for Fury or can they be separate? I'm so excited! Identity crisis MC my beloved.

It will be generally assumed by other characters that Fury is cis -- but you'll have options to gradually change their gender expression throughout the course of that story. Starting with their hair, which can deviate from Rider's right off the bat. (The Initiative and Marik aren't pleased. With that.)

[pentanguine]

Favorite Books of 2019

Half of this list is Terry Pratchett. That’s not hyperbole.

20. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

Everyone adores this book, and while I certainly loved it, I think it may have been a bit overhyped for me. But this was the first Discworld book I read where I remember finding it heartbreaking--not just angry at injustice, but angry at the tragedy of injustice. 

19. The Truth, Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett writing a well-developed romantic arc?? It’s more likely than you think! I am also a sucker for philosophical questions like “What is The Truth?”

18. Small Gods, TP

I think chronologically, this is the first blisteringly angry Discworld book, where you suddenly realize how much fury is pent up in the satire. There’s a lot of futility and frustration in this story, but the ending is so simple and quiet and good.

17. Record of a Spaceborn Few, Becky Chambers

I find Chambers novels to be more like leisurely explorations than novels with a driving plot, and I could have happily explored this culture for days. Again, I’m a sucker for philosophical questions: What is the meaning of death? What purpose does culture serve even when it’s no longer practical? What makes a human society work?

16. In an Absent Dream, Seanan McGuire

I love this book’s style of focusing on small moments, and putting all the battles, quests, and conventional milestones of growing up off the page. This is a brutal read, but the brutality is in the terrible, everyday choices Lundy’s forced to make.

15. Monstrous Regiment, TP

Come for the cross-dressing, stay for the social commentary on war, nationalism, religion, and being an underdog of any stripe. Gender is bonus window-dressing.

14. The Wee Free Men, TP

I’ve realized that I love Pterry’s approach to kids’ books because he spends them deconstructing tropes, even the tropes of deconstructing tropes. Tiffany Aching is incisive and bookish, but also hard and selfish, and also sensible, and also strange...she’s like a real kid! A real person!

13. I Shall Wear Midnight, TP

Later-Pratchett often dispenses with the satire and goes straight for righteously angry social commentary, and this book packs a wallop. Stand your ground! “...change the present, so that when it becomes the past, it will turn out to be a past worth having!”

12. The Library Book, Susan Orlean

"Makes history come alive” is a cliche, but so true in this case. Even at its most drily factual, the book is gripping as it explore the rollicking past of American libraries and westward expansion, with some gorgeously poetic homages to stories and fire.

11. Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

If you’ve only watched the movie, which predictably focus on big, theatre-packing action sequences, I encourage you to read the books. They tell the story of ordinary people going through unimaginable horror, but also a delightful, bittersweet tale of undying friendship. [They’re also very racist. Tolkien, why.]

10. Jingo, TP

And this was the Discworld book where I felt like he really started to develop his characters as people. Almost a year later, my most vivid memory is of the hilarious friendship between Colon and Nobby.

9. Unseen Academicals, TP

Worth!! This book is brimming more of that glorious, cold, barely contained fury, and even though it’s not Pterry’s strongest writing, I adore it. Nutt and Glenda work together so well and make a perfect pair of unlikely badasses.

8. Going Postal, TP

My note for this book says “Moist is an inspiration and a riot,” and although I don’t remember why I found him inspiring, he is definitely a riot. Or maybe cleverly orchestrating one from behind the scenes.

7. The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson

This is a pretentious book about ideas. It’s dense, intellectual, packed full of high-brow culture, and honestly, sometimes kind of annoying. But the writing and the story are so rich, and her interpretation of queer motherhood is so original, that it’s almost impossible to put down. I’m also in love with language that talks about the impossibility of language. 

6. Thud!, TP

One of the things I love about Discworld is that it’s never easy. There’s none of this Shining White Warrior defeating the Evil Dark nonsense, just Sam Vimes, reading Where’s My Cow?, becoming more jaded and more determined to be a good man at the same time.

5. The Fifth Elephant, TP

I’ll be honest that I read this book almost a full year ago and don’t remember the nuances of why I loved it, but it was the first Discworld book that blew my mind. It made me jump around my room; it made me want to reread it immediately; it made me stay up until 1AM having passionate opinions about a man named Carrot.

4. Gender Queer: A Memoir, Maia Kobabe

This was probably my most anticipated book of the year, and it more than lived up to the expectation. I’ve been reading Maia’s comics for years, and they’re beautiful reflections on nonbinary experiences (and often on books, nature, and activism as well). I read eir memoir twice in two weeks, each time in one sitting, and it did make me cry.

3. Caroline’s Heart, Austin Chant

I am determined to make “Trans Western” an actual genre, and this is the jewel in the crown of the books I’ve read so far. It’s a gentle love story between a witch and a cowboy that’s also a devastating tale of grief, with excitingly original world-building. If you’ve never read Austin Chant, I encourage you to give him a try--he’s a wonderful writer.

2. Days Without End, Sebastian Barry

Days Without End is a good book to read when you’re Sad. The entire book feels like a slow, quiet elegy to some forgotten idyllic time, but who can say when that time was? The Wild West is full of cold, dirty, violent death, starvation, genocide, loneliness. There’s nothing to romanticize here, and yet somehow Barry has written an impossibly R/romantic book. Every sentence is slow, quiet, and poetic. Every moment, however horrific, feels like it’s drifting slowly through a strong spell of sunlight. I could try and describe the dreamy horror of this book for days and never come close to capturing what it does.

1. In the Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado

Everyone is raving about this book, and there’s a reason for that: it’s GENIUS. The structure of the book is genre-busting (or maybe genre deconstructing would be more accurate), and the writing is like poetry in that every word feels so deliberate and loaded with meaning. I took three pages of notes as I read and I’m not sure it was enough.