#sff/h

[effusive-eschatologist]

I'm so excited to present the COVER REVEAL for my debut graphic novel, SN_33P'sCoolZine.pdf! It's the story of a spunky little AI who is making a punk zine to cope with grief for its creator. It's Adventure Time meets I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream!

You can pre-order it here: https://fifthwheelpress.myshopify.com/products/sn_33pscoolzine-pdf-by-tenacity-plys

And if you want to support me and my small indie press, reblog me so the whole world can meet SN_33P!

[kosmos-fantastika]

H. Rider Haggard - Cleopatra (USSR, 1990)

artist: Valery Smirnov

[ilikereadingactually]

The Witchstone

The Witchstone by Henry H. Neff

this book is such a charmer! fast-paced, funny, emotional without being devastating, and i unwittingly picked it to read while on a family vacay in the Catskills, very near the area where part of the story is set. a really compelling and satisfying read!

as may be clear from my reading history, i always love a charming devil, and the demon Laszlo is a prime example of the species. he's a smooth talker, a gadabout, glowing when he succeeds and hilarious when he fails—and he's got one of those secret soft hearts essential to a good hopeful story. he shares the spotlight with Maggie, the human bearer of the monstrous curse Laszlo is supposed to be in charge of, brilliant and badass in extremely relatable ways, determined and clever and loyal! and little brother Lump, who is just precious, and in my mind looks like a ten-year-old Elton John, rounds out a perfect trio for rollicking adventure.

this story is so well-paced, and so carefully wrought, imo! it's just predictable enough to be intensely compelling and satisfying; it's just touching enough to make me cry a little; there are just enough twists and turns to keep me guessing, and it ends with much-awaited triumph that really soared. for me it never tips too far over into its tropes, and always takes itself just seriously enough. on reflection i think this is partly because of the excellent character development, but also there were moments in here that truly surprised me, despite the structure of the story being a very familiar one.

truly a hidden gem, and i hope Neff is planning a sequel!

the deets

how i read it: an egalley from NetGalley. i am once again way behind, but i'm determined to catch up this month.

try this if you: enjoy whirlwind magical capers, love a non-romantic lead duo, find demonic bureaucracy deeply entertaining, or just like to see everyone get what's coming to them in good ways and bad!

some bits i really liked: i laughed so much reading this book

"Clarence, have you been crying?" The shark nodded and fumbled in his waistcoat for a handkerchief. As Clarence blew his snout, Laszlo could not help but admire his colleague's wristwatch, a vintage Breguet. ... The demon began to hyperventilate. Laszlo reached out a hand to steady him. "You're a good Keeper, Clarence. I know that. You know that. Most importantly, they know that." Clarence could only nod. Tears were welling up. Laszlo clasped the shark's moist and spongy hands between his own. He patted his colleague's wrist. ... "Meeting?" said Laszlo. "What time?" "Ten minutes ago." He consulted his new watch. "You're joking." "I'm not. And where did you get that?" Laszlo shoved the Breguet in his pocket. "Estate sale."

___

"That was diplomacy," Laszlo said with a sniff. ... "Face it, Your Highness, I'm the MVP of this squad. Without me, you'd be fixing butter churns back in Stinkerball." "Schemerdaal." "Whatever." Laszlo braced for another volley, but none came. Instead, Maggie merely sat quietly beside him and fiddled with her sleeve. "You're right," she finally said. "Without your help, we wouldn't be here, and we wouldn't be any closer to breaking the curse. I was wrong to say you're incompetent. Thank you." Laszlo swallowed the retort he had at the ready and checked his phone instead.

___

A glint appeared in the ageless eyes. "You are loyal." Maggie sighed. "I suppose I am. Sometimes I wish I wasn't." "Loyalty is an admirable quality," said the Signora. She looked at Lump, and her demeanor softened. "Those glasses are fabulous—where did you get them?" Lump cleared his throat. "Milan."

pub date: June 18, 2024! Go get it, it's out!

[dramyhsturgis]

Meet The Last Man!

In March 2024, I will be offering the module "Meet The Last Man" with SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online via Signum University.

Mary Shelley's novel The Last Man is one of the most relevant books we can read right now, and I'm really looking forward to exploring it with students!

Here is more information.

[lastseenleaving]

High above a jungle-planet float the last refuges of humanity—plant-made civilizations held together by tradition, technology, and arcane science. In these living cities, architects are revered above anyone else. If not for their ability to psychically manipulate the architecture, the cities would plunge into the devastating earthrage storms below. Charismatic, powerful, mystical, Iravan is one such architect. In his city, his word is nearly law. His abilities are his identity, but to Ahilya, his wife, they are a way for survival to be reliant on the privileged few. Like most others, she cannot manipulate the plants. And she desperately seeks change. Their marriage is already thorny—then Iravan is accused of pushing his abilities to forbidden limits. He needs Ahilya to help clear his name; she needs him to tip the balance of rule in their society. As their paths become increasingly intertwined, deadly truths emerge, challenging everything each of them believes. And as the earthrages become longer, and their floating city begins to plummet, Iravan and Ahilya's discoveries might destroy their marriage, their culture, and their entire civilization.

[boundwithpurple]

about

hello! my name is h., any pronouns, 30s. formerly @awildwickedslip. this is mostly a fandom blog (predominately house of the dragon and asoiaf, but also feat. iwtv and various other vampire media, and supernatural). accordingly i post incest totally untagged. i try to tag slightly more consistently for csa and rape, but they are pretty fundamental and baked in to all the texts i am currently into and what i am currently doing, so i make no promises. do what you have to do. 

as for non-fandom things, i mostly process other fixations through fandom on this blog, but i am a graduate student in medieval and early modern english literature and also am interested in: gothic literature/literary criticism and theory/feminist theory/sff but especially fantasy/medieval history and culture/historical queerness and transness/sex and sexuality and kink/trauma trauma studies trauma narratives etc

links and tags

ao3 - my fic

my fic - tag with rebloggable links

fic talk snippets etc - snippets from WIPS, dvd commentaries, plans, musings, &c.

* - imprecisely curated assemblage of more worthwhile text posts

hotd text - original text &c. posts, specifically. (see also asoiaf text, iwtv text, &c.)

readings - screenshots of and quotes from and thoughts about what i'm reading (and far more occassionally watching)

medialogging - monthly logs of media

[ofmdrecaps]

11/13-14/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; David Jenkins; Rhys Darby; Taika Waititi; Con O'Neill; Nathan Foad; Kristian Nairn; Anapela Polata'ivao; Vico Ortiz; Jes Tom; Zayre Ferrer; Petition Status; Articles; Transgender Awareness Week; Love Notes;

Hey crew! So I am trying VERY HARD to be better about alt text across all the platforms, and it's taking way longer for me to get things out because of it. If anyone has a good idea on how to do those more easily will you please let me know? I do want to try to be more accessible (and I know the Repo is absolutely not terribly accessible at the moment). Anyway-- thanks Crew! Happy Friday!

= David Jenkins =

Chaos Dad out partying!

Source: King Malisz's Instagram

Apparently (and I didn't know this, so thank you to the folks who explained to me wtf was going on) apparently CIS is considered a slur on twitter and will literally make your posts un-retweetable, and so Dad decided to go full hog and cause Cissmegeddon the other day. Props to our crewmates who helped him irritate the shit out of Elon.

Source: David Jenkins Twitter

= Rhys Darby =

Rhys is going to Australia in April! Apr 30, 2025 at the Princess Theatre in Brisbane you can see the legend in person! Are you in town then? Get tickets here!

Source: Adopt Our Crew's Twitter

He's also announced all his UK & Ireland Tour Dates for 2025! You can buy tickets here!

Source: Rhys' Instagram

Reminder about new Atlanta show at the Helium clubs Nov 29, 30, and Dec 1st! Get tickets here!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rhys Darby (@rhysiedarby)

Source: Rhys Instagram Stories

= Taika Waititi =

Interior Chinatown is almost here! Remember to check it out on November 19th on HULU! Taika was out doing lots of promos with the crew!

Source: Sthanlee's Instagram

Source: Variety Instagram

Source: Jerabraham

= Con O'Neill =

Con is going to be in a new sitcom SAS Rogue Heroes! Thank you to Irene Adler for finding this! Sun.co.uk Article.

Source: Irene Adler's Instagram

= Nathan Foad =

Nathan sent us a bathroom selfie-- and ALSO shared this awesome review of Voyage of the Damned (the book he narrated) by _brainbowie_ on instagram! OH AND JUST BY THE WAY-- IT WAS NOMINATED for Audible's "Best Audiobooks of the Year 2024 in both the SFF list AND the Top 20 overall!!"

ANNND if you have read it and would like to help Voyage of the Damned out -- please put a review up on Audible! Let the world know how much Nathan's voice should be cherished! In addition - if you haven't already, please help Nathan and the author out by voting for it on Goodreads for 2024's Goodreads Choice Awards!

Source: Goodreads

= Kristian Nairn =

Kristian was kind enough to share a playlist featuring his love of synthwave!

Source: Kristian Nairn's Instagram

= Anapela Polataivao =

Source: The Guerilla Connection Instagram

BTS of The Guerilla Connection!

Source: TheGuerillaConnection

= Vico Ortiz =

Vico had a great time at their first stand up comedy show! More random IG stories of it!

Source: Vico's Instagram Stories

= Jes Tom =

Jes Tom is out at Little Secrets Comedy tonight at the New York Comedy Festival if you're in town! November 15 @ 10:30 pm - 11:30 pm!

Source: Jes Tom's Instagram

= Zayre Ferrer =

Thank you so much to @adoptourcrew and Zadry Ferrer for highlighting this awesome Fellowship award awarded to our dear writer Zayre Ferrer! They were named one of the #inevitablefoundation's 2024 Visionary Fellows!

Source: Zadryg.bsky via @adoptourcrew

== Petition Status ==

Great news! Up to 90,150 signatures! To all our new OFMD fans out there, have you signed the petition yet? Thank you luci5459.bsky.social for sharing! (and @adoptourcrew for promoting!) https://www.change.org/p/save-our-flag-means-death

Source: Luci5429.bsky.social

== Articles ==

More articles featuring OFMD and Zayre Ferrer! Thanks @adoptourcrew!

Source: Adopt Our Crew Bsky

== Transgender Awareness Week ==

Happy Transgender Awareness week crew! Sending all my love out to our trans siblings out there <3 Especially know, please know how much we see and love you, and we have your backs no matter what comes, okay? Wanna learn more about Transgender Awareness Week and how you can help be a better ally? Visit GLAAD's website.

Source: Glaad Website

== Love Notes ==

Wow, now as you can tell, a lots gone on the last couple days! Especially with Rhys! Jeez! Everything seems to be ramping up, which is pretty great -- I don't know if you all are feeling the energy too, but it's nice to see some good things going on in these uncertain times. I know things are still rough right now, and some of you are itching to get out and make a difference. Please know that if you are feeling up for it now, it's totally okay to do that. Find things to do in your local community, find out how ot help online-- whatever you feel comfortable with. --and if you're not quite ready yet, that's okay too. I took two days off work this week despite having a huge project to finish, because I got sick, and my brain told me it needed a break, that there had been too much. I know not everyone has the luxery of doing that-- but if you do, please take some time if you need it. I've probably mentioned this before, but something that always bothers me about the phrase "You can't help anyone else if you don't help yourself!" is that that's not entirely true. YOU CAN. You can do all sorts of stuff without helping yourself, and by tiring yourself, and burning yourself out. But it's not sustainable, and you can't do it forever. You are so very strong, and I bet you could help so many people, and family and burn brightly until there was nothing left of you-- but that's not what any of us want. We want you to be okay on the other side of all this-- and sometimes that means taking a break even when things feel like they just can't wait. We care so much for you lovelies. Please care for yourselves too if you need it <3

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by You Are Another Me (@you.are.another.me)

Source: You are another me Instagram

[cephalog0d]

Tagged by @dizaryswrites for 9 books on my 2025 TBR list! Most of these I've had sitting around for an embarrassingly long time but haven't gotten to yet... I don't tend to plan my reading much except for book club, so this will probably change wildly by the end of the year, especially once we do book club picks in April and I add a bunch of new stuff to my ever-growing list. XD

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell*

Ascender by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen

Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky

System Collapse by Martha Wells

The Hub Series by James H. Schmitz**

Monarchs of the Sea by Danna Staaf

Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver by Jill Heinerth

Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

*My book club leader asked us if we wanted to do a romantasy type book since we're SFF but haven't done that, and I said it probably wasn't my thing but I'd give it a shot, and she found me a monster one. So I'm very excited to see how that goes.

**This one is like my third reread of the series but I'm excited because I have actual physical copies now, so I'm counting it anyway.

I'll tag @dangerousdan-dan as my book buddy, and I know @raan-miir-tah has talked about books before! (and specifically books I also like XD)(@outtoshatter I don't know that you have stuff planned out like this, but if you have anything!)

[lgbtqreads]

hello! have been big into sci-fi horror recently. creepy space stations. horrific scientific experiments. all that fun stuff. do you have any general queer recs in that vein? :0 thank you!

Ooh, try The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw and The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling. I wanna say Linden A. Lewis though I don’t know if those books really tip into Horror? Check ‘em out, though!

ETA: Wait also The World is Not Yours by Kemi Ashing-Giwa! Also this Q prompted me to organize the Horror section of SFF/H by subgenre so thanks for that!

[specialagentartemis]

As someone who doesn't really like grimdark -- my biggest annoyance in 'historical style' fantasy writing (y'know, the standard medieval fantasy, or other eras) is that everything is trying so hard to be Game of Thrones, and it's just like 'please stop'. Not everything has to be about the conception of society being a terrible place full of violence and violence being the only answer and everything is dirty and everyone is mean, and so on so forth that GRRM and his fans like to posit as 'historically accurate'.

People have always been people, whatever era they lived in. They liked colourful things, they wrote shopping lists and asked their parents to remember them to their siblings and friends, they cared about keeping up appearances, they found joy in the lives they lived and the things around them, they cursed poor candelight and cats smudging their ink, they left behind marks that mean we know even now that they existed, and they sang and told stories as they worked.

Yeah, sure, wars happened, plagues happened, they didn't have the modcons and knowledge we do now, but that doesn't change that they were people doing what people do.

... I think this is why I like Pratchett, honestly. He acknowledges the way that people will be people, even down to the faults that come of it, but he also acknowledges the funnier side of things, and even the brighter, more hopeful, more optimistic side of things.

But yeah, this is why I can't be having with grimdark.

Undeniably! I don't disagree with you that there's a lot more to life and history than suffering. That's important.

I admit I don't read a whole lot of medieval-esque fantasy. I actually really loved A Song of Ice and Fire for some of the most compelling character writing and political intrigue I've read in fantasy, but it's not my go-to genre. What books are doing it in a grimdark way? I guess I would hardly be surprised if there's that kind of trend-chasing in medievalesque historicalesque second-world fantasy, but I've often found descriptions of being "grimdark" to boil down to "I didn't like it" more than naming a consistent set of traits tbh.

I'm an archaeologist, haha; I definitely know the feeling of connecting with humanity across the centuries and millennia, looking and something and thinking, oh, wow! I do that, or I've seen that, or that's just like us... I study 700 year old pottery, and there's something special about holding a pot that was clearly made by a child, because it looks basically the same as the pinch-pots I made in elementary school art class. It's something that I definitely think people writing in very different times and cultures could stand to remember more, that people inhabited these lives. Making characters feel like real people who really live in this world is a perennial pitfall of second-world sff. That's for sure.

But people being people doesn't just mean being nice and funny and quirky. Like, very often it does mean being selfish or prejudiced or suspicious of people unlike them. Generosity is ubiquitous in humans vultures, and so is violence.

I love Terry Pratchett! I love Discworld! He definitely has one of the sharpest, most sympathetic satirical eyes for modern life, and I love Discworld for that. But the Discworld books are also comedies, and not the be-all end-all of fantasy. I dunno. I kind of get tired, sometimes, of the "people are inherently good actually" discourse of tumblr. I don't believe that. I don't believe people are inherently bad either; I don't believe people are inherently anything other than prone to ingroup/outgroup thinking tbh.

I'm definitely not saying you have to like grimdark fantasy. I don't think anyone has to like any genre. I try not to moralize liking genres. I get a lot of value out of books that feel to me like they're acknowledging that sometimes things really are that bad and sometimes people are mean and you gotta deal with it. I'm not always in the mood for that. Certainly I have plenty of faves that aren't depressing as well (I do love Discworld! I blog about The Murderbot Diaries a Lot!) I'm interested in books that make an attempt to portray the best, most utopian society the author can imagine. I just... also, for example, read Ninefox Gambit at the height of the pandemic when no one knew what was going on and no one knew when there would be a vaccine and there were protests every day being met with police brutality and I was throwing up nearly everything I ate out of anxiety, and the violence and the war and the heavy imperial dystopianness of it calmed my brain down a lot during that time. Because "react badly to plagues" and "violence" are also what people do, and at that time, it resonated to see someone agreeing.

[angora48]

Welcome Post

Hey there! This is a blog for posting my stories, mainly sickfic (H/C, whump!, caretaking, etc.) and hiccup fic. For most of my fanfic, I'll share links from my AO3--also angora48--and I'll post my OC stories and some of my more overt kink stuff directly here.

Fandoms

When it comes to fic writing, I dabble in all sorts of stuff--I like to bounce around! I enjoy plenty of SFF stuff and sitcoms with Big Neurodivergent Energy. Here's some of what's on the way:

Abbott Elementary

Doctor Who

Lord of the Rings

Marvel

Star Wars

Parks and Rec

Shadow and Bone

Supergirl

Ted Lasso

Wicked

Along with, you know, whatever else latches onto my brain and won't let go!

Under the cut, I'm gonna start a master list of my fic links for easy navigation:

Hic Fic

OCs

Maritza & Eric

"Saturday Morning Solitude" (f, Maritza)

"Friendly Fire" (m, Eric)

"Weekend Visit" (m, Maritza)

Fanfic

Abbott Elementary - "Transferable Skills" (m, Gregory)

Abbott Elementary - "The Other 10%" (f, Janine)

Casanova - "An Intriguing Predilection" - Chapter 1, 2 (f, Geneviève) - ongoing

Sickfic

OCs

Malcolm & Andy

"Fictional Cuisine" - Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (m, Malcolm) - ongoing

Fanfic

Captain America - "Old Habits" (m, Bucky)

Wicked - "Behind the Curtain" - Chapter 1 (m, Boq, Fiyero) - ongoing

[effusive-eschatologist]

SNEEP SNEEP SNEEP

[songofwizardry]

belated Ramadan Mubarak!

I try to do a bit of reading every Ramadan, so, for accountability, and so that when I inevitably don’t get through them I can find my list next year—here's my (extremely very ambitious) reading list for this year!

(suggestions are very welcome, with the warning that I very much may not get through them. this year, I’m trying to learn more about Islam and liberation theology and I’m trying to read more abolitionist texts, and of course my standard queer Muslim books, I’m trying to read more poetry by Muslim poets I don’t know well, and every Ramadan I try and only read fiction by Muslim authors, so there’s some sff on here too!)

non-fic:

memoirs:

We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib (reread)

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H

The Colour of God by Ayesha S Chaudhry

Love is an Ex-Country by Randa Jarrar

A Dutiful Boy by Mohsin Zaidi

other nonfic:

Islam and Anarchism by Mohamed Abdou

We Do This Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba (reread-ish? I never fully finished it)

Let This Radicalise You by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba

Qur'an and Woman by Amina Wadud (which I also never finished)

The Women's Khutbah Book by Fatima Seedat and Sa'diyya Shaikh

Qur’an of the Oppressed: Liberation Theology and Gender Justice in Islam by Shadaab Rahemtulla

With Stones in Our Hands: Writings on Muslims, Racism, and Empire by Sohail Daulatzai and Junaid Rana

fiction:

The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad

Mirage by Somaiya Daud (yes I still have not read this)

The Light at the Bottom of the World by London Shah

Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman

A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faisal

poetry:

Halal If You Hear Me (anthology)

If They Come For Us by Fatimah Asghar (reread)

Hagar Poems by Mohja Kahf

Bad Diaspora Poems by Momtaza Mehri

The Fortieth Day by Kazim Ali

Black Seeds by Tariq Touré

Postcolonial Banter by Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

[postsofbabel]

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[lloke]

I was tagged by @nohoperadio for this meme about 10 books or categories-of-books you're planning to read this year... their list is full of Actual Literature and mine isn't going to be nearly as impressive, but here it is anyway...

So I use Goodreads (link - feel free to friend me) and have a gigantic to-read list, which I've tried to manage by breaking it up into various categories/genres, ordering each list according to an obscure algorithm and then rotating through the categories in an overly complicated system that changes every few months... but without some kind of system to tell me what to read next I think I would just be paralyzed by indecision because there are too many books that I want to read Right Now. But anyway that means my reading is pretty planned out and I do have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to be reading this year.

I read mostly SFF and one subgenre I've been very into lately is "stuff with interesting aliens" and one book that's currently near the top of that list is The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, which as I understand it is a book about aliens and religion, both topics that I'm interested in. So I'm looking forward to that one.

Another category which is sometimes a subgenre of the above is books (usually SF but occasionally fantasy) which depict a society that Does Gender Differently, especially in the sense of having some kind of non-binary gender system. Sometimes I become an insane completionist about things, and this is one of those things.... it's just fun seeing how many different tri-gender (or whatever) systems writers can come up with, even when the books themselves are otherwise terrible. I've now read most of the well-known stuff in this subgenre and have been venturing into the increasingly obscure... one that I'll probably get to this year is called Eifelheim by Michael Flynn, which apparently also involves both religious themes and aliens with three sexes? Hey, sign me up.

In the general category of "stuff by authors I like and want to read more of" some I've got coming up are Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick, The Truth and Other Stories by Stanisław Lem, Rocannon's World by Ursula K. Le Guin.... also some more Asimov and Heinlein, which I'm a little embarrassed about as I have been given to understand that all Real SF Fans already read all that "golden age" stuff when they were 12 and haven't glanced at it since.

Also: more silly Sherlock Holmes fanfics pastiches, of which I've already read way too many. I usually go for the ones that bring in SFF elements (the crackier the better) or that sound like they might have h/c in them lol. Coming up in the near future is Lindsay Faye's Observations by Gaslight.

In the nonfiction category, the next on the list is Buddhisms: An Introduction by John S. Strong, which I picked out just by searching around for a good introductory book on the topic. That's how I tend to approach nonfiction reading, by starting with a general overview of whatever topic I'm interested in to get some background on the "scholarly consensus" before delving into books on more specific subtopics or scholars presenting their own idiosyncratic view or "bold new theory" or whatever. Mostly I've been reading about religion lately; I kind of want to get back into math and science stuff which I liked as a kid and did well at in school, but everything I learned is so rusty now... and I dunno, I like the idea of being the sort of person who actually understands relativity theory or whatever but realistically I'm probably not actually smart enough for it lol.

I guess that's roughly ten things. Tagging (only if they want to obviously) @ipsomaniac @paradigm-adrift and/or anyone else who feels like doing it.

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Illustrated book covers 2023

(artist: Leo Nickolls)