#something vaguely cormorant shaped

[possumnest]

been using my sketchbook more lately 🐓

[kitewithfish]

Wednesday Reading Meme April 5 2023

What I've Read A Restless Truth - Freya Marske - Second in a series and I bring that up because the people I read who started this book did so without KNOWING that it was the second in a series. (It holds its own but a lot of the background does not make sense).

I really enjoyed this book - the main characters got to do some whacky and hilarious stuff in the midst of quite a serious investigation with high stakes. The sapphic love story is a delight but they are far from perfect people, and I think overall, I enjoyed this more than the first book. I found Maud to be a bit more relatable than Robin, the POV character for most of the first book, but I also just adored Violet and all her showy, prickly ways. Third book comes out this fall.

(I think that The Locked Tomb series may have unlocked something in my brain that really enjoys series, and having to wait for another feels like a gift of future pleasure rather than a punishment for not being a single book.)

Fanfic I've read

cacio e pepe by serephemeral - https://archiveofourown.org/works/21845440 - I adored this "Some Like it Hot" continuation. After movie ends with "Well, nobody's perfect!" Daphe, who is still sometimes Jerry, runs off into the sunset with Osgood. And Joe, and Sugar. The future doesn't look anything like they planned but it's amazing none the less. Kudos to schneefink for reccing this, I would never have found it otherwise and it's officially my favorite Some Like It Hot fic.

Polite Company by spicedrobot - https://archiveofourown.org/works/37924555 - Star Wars Prequels and Clone Wars Cartoon. Maul isn't a very good Jedi. Obi-Wan isn't a very good Sith. They make it work, after the kidnapping.

What I'm Reading

Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia - 23% - A re-read for me for the Discord book club. Super creepy and really readable.

The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction - Nick Groom - 39% - This is my first time reading the "very short introduction" books and it's really interesting! Pulling together some threads about English history and this aesthetic mode that have never quite tied themselves together in my head. 

Also, I had re-watched Crimson Peak this week, and it was a fascinating re-watch! I caught so much more of the symbolism around Edith's clothing and Lucille's cryptic statements about their mother. I liked Thomas a lot less on this re-watch, before the ending, but I think I saw more of his wistful attempt to escape. I also totally did NOT remember how much Edith's writing shapes the early edges of her relationship with Thomas - he first is interested in her because of her writing! When he's trying to break her heart, he attacks her writing 

The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson - 19% - A re-read before I get into the rest of the books for fun. I'm listening to the audiobook and the narrator, who I will not name, is pronouncing "duchy" wrong for the entire book. (So that it rhymes with "cootchie") and I'm solidering bravely on. I forgot how much of the book is just "terrified lesbian of color gradually sells people out for safety and the promise of future power" and ooooh, man, it's good.

Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection - Julia Kristeva - This is a very navel-gazing literary theory book that makes me realize all afresh that I have real problems with Freudian framing for everything, BUT, it is cited by every major work on horror that I have read. It's French, it's slow, it's worth a read but it's going to be a slog.

True Colors - Karen Traviss - 23% - static

Too Like The Lightning - Ada Palmer - Static

Underline the Black by not_poignant https://archiveofourown.org/works/41396784 - Probably going to return to this when it's finished. On Earth as It Is in Heaven by samyazaz https://archiveofourown.org/works/833193 - Soulmate AU of Vikings - You don't need to know anything other than the first season or a vague sense of how history went down

What I'll Read Next

The Calculating Stars - Xing Book Club Babel - Looks like it will on the Hugos list eventually, I'm trying to get out ahead of things

Owned and need to read: California Bones, Raven Song by IA Ashcroft, Kraken's Sacrifice by Katee Robert, Even Though I Know the End by CL Polk, At The Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard, Tamryn Eradani's Enchanting Encounters Books 2 and 3, Like Real People Do by EL Massey, Tom Stoppard, invention of love. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty, "You Just Need to Lose Weight" and Other Myths about Fatness by Aubrey Gordon, Alisha Rai Partners in Crime, the Right Swipe, Aphorisms of Kerishdar

[st-just]

Semi-coherent Thoughts on The Poppy War

So, if I’m being totally honest, I mostly picked this up on the basis of the number of people I scrolled past talking about how it was well-written but so relentlessly dark and miserable they couldn’t finish it, which is a fairly-but-not-perfectly reliable indicator I’m going to like it. And in this case it worked! I absolutely do not blame any with that reaction, though – I drew a comparison the Traitor Baru Cormorant while I was reading it and having finished I actually think it’s got a fundamental similarity in terms of how, while I wouldn’t be surprised to see some growth or redemption in the sequels, taken on its own the book does kind of read as the heroine reacting to being oppressed and tortured by a fucked up world by just becoming the worst person in it, gaining power and a degree of safety while losing every personal relationship she really cared about. The setting is horrifying, the plot is full of misery and atrocities, and the thematic arc isn’t exactly uplifting, either.

Anyways – the goodreads page lists the book as “Grimdark YA” which, I admit, struck me as kind of an oxymoron but having read the book, does basically track. If you look from ten thousand feet up and squint, the book does kind of fit into the shape of a generic YA fantasy story – the heroine is an orphan who grows up with an abusive adoptive family. Faced with the prospect of being married off to a man three times her age, she throws herself into her studies and ends up with the highest exam scores in her entire province, earning her free admission to the empire’s most elite academy. While the school is full of spoiled and spiteful bullies, she also makes probably the first real friend in her life there. While there, the whimsical and obtuse teacher who all the others consider a joke takes her on as an apprentice, and together they discover that she’s the heir to the powerful mystical heritage of an almost extinct people. When the empire is invaded, she and her master save the city from being captured, and while doing so she reconciles with her worst bully. Afterwards, she’s assigned to the quirky team of other mystics, lead by the stern-but-haunted-but-darkly-handsome slightly older guy whose the only other surviving member of her people. Through him, she’s finally able to embrace her heritage and save the empire in spectacular fashion.

And it’s all just incredibly fucked up. Like, I get the vague sense that if I actually read much/was invested in YA I’d probably read this as some commentary on the genre and how traumatizing a standard adventure plot would be to the protagonist, or something. The heroine’s powerful mystical heritage is an inherent connection to a god of anger, vengeance and fire, and they were kept as opium-addicted shock troopers by the empire before being genocided by their opposition during the last war. The haunted, handsome slightly older commanding officer switches between maniac episodes, beating and emotionally abusing her in fits of rage, and drugging himself into a stupor. She saves the empire via magical genocide!

Really, I rather loved the finale. It reminded me of, like, a really well-done evil ending in an rpg or visual novel? A mixture of triumph and horror, of the catharsis of fully giving into temptation, of a ‘victory’ so terrible you feel like you fucked up along the line and there must have been a better option somewhere. And a feeling like it would probably have been better for everyone if the heroine had died during it, given the shape of life ahead of her. (But, importantly, she never stops feeling like the heroine, if that makes any sense?) Like the two different renegade resolutions to curing the genophage in Mass Effect 3, is actually the closest I can compare it to, in terms of emotional reaction.

The book is a bit heavy-handed in terms of Rin’s character development, though. Like, okay, the setting is obviously the Wuxia 2nd Sino-Japanese War, so I’m not going to complain about the transparent analogues to the Rape of Nanjing or Unit 731. But, like, you do feel bad for Jiang trying to teach Rin serenity and enlightenment when it seems like 90% of her life so far has consisted of nothing but object lessons that the only way to have any sort of safety is to have power or leverage, that success can only be achieved through pain and sacrifice, and that validation or approval from authority figures is gained only through pain, cleverness, or brutality. Then throw her into a war where the enemy is, well, pretty accurate for the IJA in China circa 1942, honestly, which is to say horrible demons who seem to only gain pleasure through inventive torture and the infliction of barbaric bloodshed on as massive as scale as possible, and have them start horribly murdering or torturing everyone she has a vaguely positive relationship with. Rin rejecting Jiang and ignoring all the warnings being shouted at her to embrace the Phoenix seems almost over-determined, I guess?

Anyway, there’s certainly more to unpack (still not sure quite what to make about the whole ‘chemically destroy her womb so period cramps don’t interrupt her studies’ beat, beyond it being another example her identifying self-harm and pain with success and validation), but yeah, looking forward to giving the sequels a try when my hold on them at the library goes through.

[theradioghost]

what books did u get ? i rly need to get back into reading more now school is over

oh man. so I’ll give you what I bought & then I’m also gonna throw in some similar books that I have already read just because I can actually vouch for the quality of those

(brief note that my main qualifications when I was looking for books, besides not wanting YA, was that 1. they were not about straight cis white men and/or 2. they had particular appeal to one of the areas of sf&f that I have a particular fondness for and/or 3. they cost under five bucks. so there’s a lot of diverse lit, and a lot of novellas, and a lot of urban fantasy wizards who are also detectives/rebellious angels and or demons/necromancy/dragons/stuff that is explictly Lovecraftian adaptations but takes the piss out of Lovecraft/anything on this list/anything published by Tor)

new books that I have read:

(coming back to update this as I get through these books)

the Lovelace & Wick series by Jennifer Rainey – this is the Demon Husbands one I’ve been yelling about. Two gentleman demons in love – a Faustian tempter and a bringer of catastrophes – are growing increasingly dissatisfied with the work they do for hell, while also being forced to contend with new and dangerous enemies. Set in a vaguely-steampunk 1890s Massachusetts. Also includes monster-hunting steampunk scientist lesbian wives.

Deadline by Stephanie Ahn – fourteen months after a disastrous failed ritual, disgraced blood witch Harrietta Lee gets offered a ridiculously lucrative job quietly recovering a stolen artifact for a young member of a powerful magical family, and promptly finds out that this is too good to be true. Also she keeps meeting scary, hot women. Instantly the only wisecracking urban fantasy PI named Harry that my heart has any room for. (This one’s a bit Spicier than my usual fare but the author actually includes a list of content warnings including page numbers at the front of each book, which you can view with the preview option on the Amazon page.)

Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw – A kid hires London PI John Persons to kill his stepfather. The first catch is that the stepfather is a Lovecraftian horror. The second catch is that Persons is too. This is like, the noir-est horror I’ve ever read and that’s something I am very into. 

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark – An urban fantasy police procedural set in an alternate 1912 Cairo, in which two government officials are sent to deal with a strange, malevolent spirit in the midst of political upheaval as Egypt’s women demand universal suffrage. There’s a free short story prequel to this on tor.com called “A Dead Djinn in Cairo“ that’s worth reading first.

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone – high fantasy with a black protagonist, in which Tara Abernathy, a disgraced magic user and rookie associate in an internationally renowned necromancy firm, is assigned to resurrect a city’s murdered patron fire god – but first, with the help of a chain-smoking priest and a vampire-addicted servant of Justice Herself, she has to track down his killer.

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey – in an alternate history where the 1910 “Hippo Bill” passed, Winslow Remington Houndstooth, an ex-rancher out for revenge, is hired to travel north with a ragtag crew – a con artist and pickpocket, a demolitions expert with a proclivity for poisoning, the most dangerous contract killer in the country, and the very man who ruined his life – and take on the dangers of the massive swamp that was once the Mississippi river, a place ruled over by deadly feral hippos and a homicidal riverboat gambling king.

or, essentially, a swamp-based heist Western with a cast including a British-East Asian bisexual man, a black nb person, an unashamedly fat woman, and a pregnant Latina lesbian, and also their pet hippos. Listen just go ahead and get the version with both stories in it

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh – Tobias has lived in the woods as long as anyone can remember; long enough that the nearby town tells stories of the Green Man, the spirit-king of the forest, who dwells in the trees. These stories are truer, and far more dangerous, than anyone but Tobias knows – so when friendly, handsome, curious Henry Silver buys up the neighboring Greenhollow Hall and starts investigating the local folklore, Tobias will have to decide whether to sacrifice the only life he has known for centuries, or the first person he has loved in all that time.

not-new books that I have read:

idk if you don’t know about the Wayfarers series, the first of which is The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, but it is an absolutely stellar bit of sci-fi very much based around ideas of found family and discovering your own identity and place in the universe and love and compassion and stories based around sweet slice-of-life stuff in a scifi universe with lots of fun aliens and it is so very queer and so very heartwarming and all three books (which each have different casts, although the characters in all three are connected to one another and sort of cameo across all the books) are fantastic.

Urban Dragon by J.W. Troemner – Dragons are supposed to be ruthless, unpredictable, deadly, selfish creatures. So why is it that Rosa Hernandez seems to be able to keep her best friend Arkay in check? How did Arkay, a shape-changing dragon with lightning at her command, end up being found alone and starving and with no memory of her past by a homeless woman? And as evidence mounts that someone is hunting down supernatural beings, who can they trust? (I stumbled across this while looking for urban fantasy on TV Tropes and BOY am I glad I did. Good if you like close friendships between queer women or the enemies-to-lovers trope)

The Merry Spinster by Daniel Mallory Ortberg – of course I was going to read Daniel Ortberg’s short story collection, are you kidding me. Not “””darker””” fairy tale retellings, but fairy tales as often very surreal, psychological horror. Read this if you want to totally ruin “The Velveteen Rabbit” for yourself.

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker – historical fantasy set in the early-20th-century Orthodox Jewish and Middle Eastern immigrant communities of NYC, about the strange friendship that springs up between a bitter jinn trapped in a mortal body and a masterless golem living among humans. and it gave me feelings.

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle – a retelling of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “The Horror at Red Hook” from the perspective of a black man. One of the better pieces of horror I have ever read.

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff – a very different take on a similar concept to The Ballad of Black Tom, wherein a mid-century black Midwestern family find themselves mixed up in the plans of a bunch of cultists and set out to disentangle themselves from this whole cosmic-horror mess. Apparently Jordan Peele is adapting this into a TV show, so I’m stoked for that.

new books that I have not read:

(& also a couple that are just books I want, and some that I just haven’t read yet but got free from the Tor monthly ebook club, which is very much worth joining)

Armed in Her Fashion by Kate Heartfield– I’m just going to let the official blurb speak for this one because there is absolutely no way I could improve on it

The Black God’s Drums by P. Djeli Clark – New Orleans-based steampunk fantasy about an airship captain and a stowaway who talks to orishas.

Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef by Cassandra Khaw – Apparently several authors have written standalone works in this series, and Cassandra Khaw’s aren’t chronologically the first, but I love Cassandra Khaw and “chef for ghouls and pencil-pusher for the Ten Chinese Hells is forced to solve an inter-pantheon murder mystery” just sounds so good to me.

Bones and Bourbon by Dorian Graves – Cursed half-huldra PI is forced to help out his little brother and the demon who shares his body, and then everything goes wrong. Feat. carnivorous unicorns.

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova – reluctant bruja attempts to rid herself of her magic and instead plunges her entire family into magical trouble. YA.

Robbergirl by S. T. Gibson – WLW retelling of The Snow Queen from the perspective of the bandit princess. YA.

Passing Strange by Ellen Klages – slightly-fantastical historical lesbian noir novella set in the burgeoning 1940s gay club scene in San Francisco.

The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang – admittedly caught my eye because the cover art reminded me of Moribito, which I adore. East-Asian-inspired epic fantasy which I believe has a nonbinary protagonist.

Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire – I’ve been neglecting getting around to October Daye way, way too long considering how much I love Seanan McGuire and urban fantasy, but my mom started reading this and that pushed me over the edge because damn it, yes I want to read her take on the Wizard Detective genre that I have such a weakness for.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson – this was recommended to me in a Tumblr post listing interesting, diverse fantasy, and I’ve been into high fantasy political intrigue lately.

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg – came across this in a Twitter thread about fantasy worlds with unconventional and interesting magic systems. A newly graduated student of magic is bitter about being sent to learn paper-crafting magic rather than working with metal, until Murder Stuff Happens. YA.

Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett – queer fantasy sequel to The Tempest, with Miranda as protagonist.

Witchmark by C. L. Polk – post-WWI gaslamp fantasy MLM romance about a male witch in hiding, working as a doctor; the reviews seem to indicate people think it’s more ‘delightful’ than ‘literary’ but apparently it is pretty fucking delightful.

In the Vanisher’s Palace by Aliette de Bodard– East Asian WLW retelling of Beauty and the Beast and also one of them is a dragon.

Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys – another one of the rash of new Lovecraft adaptations that are turning perspectives around, this being one where the citizens of Innsmouth are the protagonists. Also has a really good short story prequel you can read for free on tor.com.

also I just feel like mentioning that I’m stupidly excited for Gideon the Ninth by Tamsin Muir to come out this fall because the review they’ve decided to put at the top of every blurb is “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” (not my exclamation mark) and I don’t know how anyone could more perfectly craft something to my tastes.