Yuletide: the obligatory brag post

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[ETA: I’m sinkauli. Also choirwoman, though there’s not much to read there, I mostly use the account for fanfic-purpose comments.]

My assignment: A Thank-You Present for nomeancity. They primarily wanted Peter/Harriet but wrote “My head canon is also that Sylvia and Eiluned are in a committed relationship at the point we meet them in the books” in their signup, and the plot bunny on my shoulder (I think it’s the angel bunny, not the devil bunny) came up with Peter and Harriet sending them off on a substitute honeymoon so P&H had to take a back bench themselves in the story. Not that nomeancity minded 🙂  I asked in a Discord server where (as far as I know) nobody does Yuletide but a lot of history geeks hang out how to discover what the weather was like in Prague in November 1935, and someone sent me a cvs file that I profusely thanked them for but of course never got round to using! The music took over from the weather, I think.

Then a pinch hit came along that I couldn’t resist: Sergeant Perks’ Office Hours for Elsin. Lots of people like it (it’s even been on one or two rec lists) but the recipient themself doesn’t seem to have seen it yet. Somewhat like last year, in fact, when it was my pinch hit that the recipient jumped with joy about and the actual assignment that only got attention from other people. Well, it was fun to write and it’s nice that so many people like it! (It’s almost a companion piece to my other Monstrous Regiment fic, With This Ring, but set a lot later because Mal has climbed up the ranks from corporal to lieutenant while Polly is still, by choice, a sergeant.)

I nominated the False Doctrine series by Alice Degan without much hope, but then another person nominated more characters, and it must be a fandom of at least three because nnozomi got their main gift in it which I’m sure I didn’t accidentally write. I did write a drabble treat, Incidental Music, so nnozomi has two False Doctrine gifts and it’s actually an existing fandom now! Let’s see what happens next year.

From my all too well populated list of “I can write this, let’s see how the bunnies jump”: kittenfindskitten, a Derkholm double drabble for iceplanet. I was in the middle of the November Nethack Tournament at the time, which had a robotfindskitten side branch, and one thing just led to another…

And finally, pikkugen was amazed that they had two gifts! three gifts! so I wrote them a ficlet just to be in on the fun: Friend, brother, father, Onfim of Novgorod all grown up and writing to his friend Danilo on the occasion of Danilo’s ordination to the priesthood. The prompts were just too tempting. (This was probably the devil bunny. Father Danilo has my permission to exorcise it.) Honestly, it wasn’t until I replied to Gen’s first comment that I realised that “Genyushka” means the same in Russian that “pikkugen” means in Finnish, namely “little Gen”.

Reading notes, week 52

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Hannelore, het meisje uit de sekte by Frank Krake. A strange genre for me, and I’ve promptly reserved another book in the same genre from the library because I’m curious: ego document (written by an investigative journalist) from a girl who spent basically her whole childhood, from 2 to 17 years old, in a cult. (This cult, it’s all real except that most cult members’ real names have been changed to protect them.)

Bastion by Mercedes Lackey. Last in the Collegium Chronicles. In which Mags and Amily finally Do It, though not as much as they’d like because enemies turn up (and get dispatched). Now, of course, I want to reread the Herald Spy series as well.

Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses by Diane Duane. Reread after I don’t know how long. Frankly, it’s a somewhat daunting book: intricate, difficult, and beautiful. I’m still not sure what exactly happened. (And I’m not completely sure Lee should take up with Matt again, even though all the worlds have changed!) Tagging this as “urban fantasy” but there’s a good case for “cozy science fiction”.

Also it’s Yuletide, so I’ve been reading a LOT of fanfic. I intend to write a separate recommendation post after the New Year (i.e. after author reveal) because it’s much more hassle to replace every “Anonymous” by the name later than to wait and do it all in one go.

Index of reading notes is here.

Reading notes, week 51

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Redoubt by Mercedes Lackey. Which still has far too much kidnapping. Though the good parts are very good.

DNF: The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder by Sarah J. Harris. YA murder mystery with an autistic, strongly synaesthetic and face-blind first-person protagonist, which would seem to be exactly my catnip but goodness, she’s trying so much too hard.

The How Lovely Are Thy Branches Advent Calendar by Diane Duane. Companion volume to the next one. This should NOT be your first Young Wizards book because you probably wouldn’t understand a single paragraph of it.

How Lovely Are Thy Branches by Diane Duane. Wonderful slice-of-life with some low-key adventure, and an intense experience for a favourite alien (who will of course insist that we are the aliens).

Owl Be Home For Christmas by Diane Duane. With grown-up Kit and Nita (with blue hair!) and Lissa. (Carmela and Dairine are both away, which is a pity because I’d have liked to see them grown up as well.) And of course the protagonist is a little owl wizard.

Damaged by Martina Cole. Fourth installment in a series but it does stand alone without knowing who the bleep these people are. Much more brutal than I’m used to, including chapters from the villain’s POV and fascinating glimpses into the world of professional crime. The chapters are very short (3 pages on average, some only one page) and hop from one POV to another, which makes for a choppy read, but the story is so gripping that I couldn’t stop in spite of all the adultery and all the cigarettes and all the bitching. I don’t know if I’m going to seek out earlier books in this series (I do like the protagonist!) but I’m glad I didn’t DNF it. (One peeve: how were they so sure of the gender of the perp? There was literally nothing conclusive, and I’d have liked to have them called [pronoun] all through the book only to have it turn out to a person of another gender in the end.) Also, introducing a completely new named character on page 326 of 357?

Index of reading notes is here.

Reading notes, week 50

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Foundation by Mercedes Lackey. Comfort reread of the Collegium Chronicles, don’t know what sparked it. I can bear the abuse now (because I’ve read it enough times to know it gets better) and sort of ignore the eye dialect.

Intrigues by Mercedes Lackey. Ditto.

Changes by Mercedes Lackey. So much ditto.

And now for something completely different:

That Time I Got Kidnapped by Tom Mitchell. Hilarious story (for youngish teens) set roughly in the United States I used to imagine before I knew people from the real United States. One thing I really can’t believe: how can a fourteen-year-old British boy not know what peanut butter is? (he thinks it’s butter with bits of peanut in)

Index of reading notes is here.

Reading notes, week 49

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Hazel Katie by MotherInLore. Novel-length Five Hundred Kingdoms fanfic, with an afterword detailing exactly what was pinched from where. (But the mixture is a real folk tale in all respects!) A little bit of annoying eye dialect (probably actual though perhaps not completely accurate Scots, as well as hare-lip slurring) but that doesn’t jar as much as in books by, for instance, Mercedes Lackey.

And Then There Were (N-One) by Sarah Pinsker. Wonderful novella (about 24K) about an unusual convention, with murder mystery. “We all built the future with our choices every day, never knowing which ones mattered.” Also recommended: the interview with the author in the same issue of Uncanny Magazine.

Reviving Lothíriel by bajablessed (and their friend Hanne, who supplied the plot). In this version of the setting women are very repressed in Gondor, even having to obey their younger brothers, and Lothíriel is shocked at first that men and women in Rohan treat each other like ordinary human beings. Much cringe in the early chapters (also it could have used some copy editing, L’s brother’s name is spelt at least three different ways) but it grows on one. This author has written many different versions of Éomer/Lothíriel, and I briefly dipped into another, but that didn’t have enough love, friendship, liking and joy in it for my taste.

Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer. Reread because I was recommending it to someone. Even better than I remembered.

Maneki Neko by Bruce Sterling. Sort of similar, but not by far as cute. Set in a near-future somewhat dystopian (but with optimistic touches) Japan.

The Cat’s Eye by R. Austin Freeman. Splendidly intricate! (And the cat is completely unrelated, I was already reading it when I read the two cat stories.) I especially like the woman masquerading as a man dressing up as a woman. And after reading a book partly from Polton’s viewpoint (The Jacob Street Mystery) I appreciate Polton even more in books in which he’s seen through others’ eyes. Next Thorndyke readings will start from #1, skipping the ones I’ve already had.

St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid (reread) by C. L. Polk, and its sequel Ivy, Angelica, Bay (new). Oh wow. Urban fantasy witchcraft at its best. With bees!

Index of reading notes is here.

Reading notes, week 48

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A lot of fanfic, mostly forgettable, because I was also trying to finish TNNT (and got in a second ascension on the penultimate day) and writing some of my own.

Notes and Incunabula: An Introduction by inamac. Setting for the following (and any following after that, as they appear):

The Wilbraham Estate Disposal Committee by inamac. Hilary and Gerry becoming (at least) friends!

DNF: (at least not yet, I may pick it up again sometime) John Halifax, Gentleman by Dinah Maria Craik. Girls in the Chalet School books loved it, and someone in an Agatha Christie novel read it, but I think I’m not enough of a Victorian to find this kind of virtue-signalling interesting. (What is interesting is all the homoerotic subtext in the early chapters, but I peeked at the back and at least one of the men — teenage boys at the start of the book — marries, happily as far as I can see. Anyway, I can’t see a woman writing for a general public in 1856 actually going all-out with homoeroticism.)

The Jacob Street Mystery (The Unconscious Witness) by R. Austin Freeman. I think this is the last Dr. Thorndyke book, and the good doctor only features in the last 40% or so (not unusual), and then largely behind the scenes (unusual). Most Goodreads reviewers seem to find the first 60% in which things actually happen, boring and the last 40% in which things are investigated exciting, but for me it’s the other way round (well, I’m not easily bored; but I did like the actual story better than the drawn-out denouement). Freeman mostly narrowly avoids period-typical racism, except for the assumption that “Africans” are “probably passionate and impulsive, and inexperienced in European ways” though the African character in question is a barrister working in London. I really like the protagonist (of the first part)!

Index of reading notes is here.

Reading notes, week 47

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Deep Secret by Diana Wynne Jones. I’d forgotten about the fat-shaming, which DWJ is so prone to, grr. But everything except that is better every time I reread it.

the sound of silent wings by betony. Interesting take on the Six Swans fairy tale.

roses and sentiments, drowning in the sea of clouds by lightningwaltz. Ditto, perhaps even more heartbreaking.

tongue-tied I took her in by quadrille. Yet another!

The Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones. Goodness, didn’t DWJ know about the “low life expectancy” fallacy? Prehistoric woman thinks of herself as old at about 30. Apart from that, it’s between very okay and absolutely splendid, with layers upon layers that unfold on rereading. Some mild fat-shaming but that’s DWJ for you.

Schedule: 15th Day of the Month of Festivale, Amended by sexybee. Saint of Steel/White Rat fanfic, wonderful slice-of-life for Bishop Beartongue.

The Clamor of Imprudent Hearts by resolute. Zale, Stephen, Isthvan and Earstripe take over while Bishop Beartongue is in hospital. Nice teen gnole, good resolution for all.

As Seen on Bishop Beartongue’s Desk by resolute. Epistolary slice-of-life. Hilarious. Includes goats.

As long as I fight, I am moved by hope; and if I fight with hope, then I can wait by Madanimalscientist. Zale at their best! Also includes goats (a cute baby goat trying to eat Zale’s collar and braid).

Index of reading notes is here.

Reading notes, week 46

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Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree. I’d expected it to be the sequel to Legends & Lattes, but it was actually a prequel, with a very young Viv! Once I was over the hurdle of expecting it to be Something Else Entirely, which took surprisingly long, it was as charming as the other one. And it had a post-Legends & Lattes afterword (incidentally making a planned fanfic treat completely irrelevant, I’ll have to write something else).

Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery. Much darker than the other Anne of Green Gables novels, and much more grown-up too (which is not the same thing). Couldn’t read it all in one stretch, had to lay it aside from time to time.

Index of reading notes is here.

Reading notes, week 45

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Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew. It took me a long time to get into the South African setting but I wanted to go on anyway, perhaps to prove to myself that I wasn’t putting it aside because of that (though race stuff is done very well). Then at about 3/4 it suddenly became really interesting! I don’t think I want to read further installments, or watch the TV series, though. Some of the recipes at the back of the book look delectable but how can one person eat everything the protagonist seems to be eating?

DNF: The Helpline by Katherine Collette. Meh. Didn’t get interested at any point in the first 10 or so pages and didn’t think it would get any better. Far too mainstream, probably.

Het internet is stuk by Marleen Stikker. Good history of the internet, what went wrong, and what can be better (and how). As I told someone interested: “first she tells how the internet started as belonging to people, then how corporations took it all over, and finally shows how people can take it back from the corporations”.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. Unfailing cozy comfort reread, mostly because I intend to get the sequel one of these days.

Index of reading notes is here.

Reading notes, week 44

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Calling on Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede. #3 of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Cimorene being a good queen (and Mendanbar slightly too anxious, but that’s a common failing of expectant fathers). Once again, the story needed the rabbit-turned-donkey more than I did. I liked the fire witch more than last time, though!

De uitgestelde ondergang van de wereld by Thomas von der Dunk. Goodness, I was at school with his brother (and probably also with him but I didn’t know all my classmates’ kid siblings) and learned a bit of Russian from his grandfather! Newspaper columns, and I should probably stop reading collections of newspaper columns because what I got from this book was that the writer can basically only write one thing (Religion Is Bad) and writes it over and over again.

Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede. #4 of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. A bit more disjointed than the other ones, but that’s probably because the protagonist doesn’t know what he’s doing (and that’s for a reason!). Dragons and cats are very, very good in this one.

Index of reading notes is here.