My 2021 Guest Post Round-Up:
Sapphic Book Club gave me an Author Spotlight in December; I wrote about SF Worldbuilding Techniques.
I Heart Lesfic’s Project Kindness hosted a blog post from me on December 3, about growing closer to my work colleagues during the early days of the pandemic.
Queer Sci Fi featured Finding Refuge on November 28th.
The Lesbian Science Fiction Index now includes both Finding Refuge and Accepting Refuge.
This year, I’ll again be participating in the TBR Challenge hosted by Wendy the Super Librarian. My goal is to post reviews of a themed book on the third Wednesday of every month. Feel free to join me! Tag your social media posts with #TBRChallenge. The monthly themes, and my choices to fit those themes, are listed below. All of the books are from my To Be Read shelves (physical and virtual) as of December, 2021.
January 19 – Quickie
Instead of Three Wishes: Magical Short Stories by Megan Whalen Turner.
February 16 – Fairy Tale
Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise.
March 16 – Grumpy
Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki.
April 20 – Location, Location, Location
A Spectral Hue by Craig Laurance Gidney.
May 18 – Tales of Old
Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson.
June 15 – After the War
The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age by Juliet Nicolson.
July 20 – Vintage
Lolly Willowes: Or the Loving Huntsman by Sylvia Townsend Warner.
August 17 – Blue Collar
Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart.
September 21 – Animals
Black Maestro: The Epic Life of an American Legend by Joe Drape.
October 19 – Flirting with Danger
Exile by Lisa Bradley.
November 16 – Lies
The Conductors by Nicole Glover.
December 21 – Festive
Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce by Stanley Weintraub.
It’s true! I’ve never read Cotillion by Georgette Heyer! Until now. This book was published in 1953, so I felt free to include spoilers in this post.
I found the novel charming, with typical Heyer character types, plotlines, and shenanigans, except for one aspect, which I’ll detail later on. Oddly, given the title, there was no actual cotillion (formal ball, presenting young women to society), which surprised me. Instead, there are a couple of masquerades and a night at Almack’s, only one of which (masquerade two) is given any significant description.
Hero Freddy Standen is generally referred to in Romance genre parlance as a “beta hero,” to me considerably more palatable than the popular rakish “alphahole,” here represented by Freddy’s cousin Jack Westruther, who is handsome, dashing, a flirt, a gamester, you get the picture. In contrast, Freddy, of a well-off and respected family, is on the surface concerned chiefly with always looking his best in the most fashionable style and performing his social duties with the highest ton. He is exemplary in these social skills, and we learn he is also an exemplary elder brother to his several siblings, guiding and protecting them without being overbearing. And though he claims he does not have the greatest intellect, it’s clear his lack is more that he lacks interest in intellectual pursuits. I particularly enjoyed his interactions with his father, who appears to have underestimated his son until the betrothal, and their few scenes together are lovely.
Heroine Kitty Charing is a fairly typical innocent Heyer heroine. She was adopted as a child by the best friend of her deceased father; her adoptive father also seemingly had an unrequited passion for her deceased mother and never married, instead hoarding his large fortune and suffering from gout and dissatisfaction. Jack is his favored great-nephew and likely heir; he hopes Jack will marry Kitty, and they will then inherit his money. Instead, Kitty arranges a faux betrothal to Freddy that will enable her to at last visit London and its many social delights. The young woman without blood family becomes friends with Freddy’s sister Meg and displays some social skills of her own, though not so many that she doesn’t need Freddy’s help to extract her from difficulties.
Shenanigans ensue, as they do in Heyer novels, and several other romances percolate throughout, aided by Kitty and Freddy in varying degrees. At last, they realize they are in fact in love with each other, and make their betrothal real.
And now to my additional thoughts; one plotline has, in my opinion, aged badly. One of the great-nephews, Lord Dolphinton, is an Irish Earl without much money and a manipulative mother (who is not portrayed directly). Her machinations are both made easier and thwarted by Dolph being slow of mind in a somewhat non-specific way; despite being spied upon by servants and pressured by his mother, he manages to keep hold of his own opinions and desires, which he is stalwart about proclaiming (and repeating) at need to anyone but his mother. He understands social cues and complex ideas, but usually needs instructions repeated several times in order to remember all the details. He’s dreadfully afraid of his mother, who threatens to have a doctor lock him up if he doesn’t obey such commands as “propose marriage to Kitty.” To me, this is an abusive situation and not one conducive to madcap comedy.
Dolph has fallen in love with practical Hannah Plymstock, whose revolutionary Cit brother does not approve of Earls; Dolph’s mother would certainly not approve of Hannah, who has no money, title, or social standing. Hannah is not deeply in love with Dolph, but demonstrates tenderness and understanding for him and his issues; she plans to extract him from beneath his mother’s thumb so they may live together on his Irish horse farm. Horses are Dolph’s greatest love and skill and he much prefers his life there to being forced to mingle in crowded London.
Kitty, and later Freddy, help to arrange for Dolph and Hannah to marry, but I found the final events of this scheme rather horrible. After their escape from London, Dolph is so terrified of his mother’s pursuit that in one long scene, he repeatedly hides in a cupboard or under a table when he hears approaching horses. I winced my way through all that only because I knew it would be a happy ending, and because I planned to write about the book. I was much relieved when all that was over.
I’m glad I finally read this one; I’m not sure if it’s the very last unread Heyer romance for me, but it completes the major ones.
I’m ready to start putting together my TBR Challenge list for 2022! Thank you to SuperWendy for organizing!
Fiction:
Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone is space opera on a grand scale with a seemingly all-powerful Empress, a giant pirate with fur and a tail, space monks, massive fleets of spaceships and the pilots who can merge with them, be-weaponed machine-people, people made entirely of nanomaterials, souls in The Cloud…you get the picture. Scope! Sense of wonder! Homage to Journey to the West! Plus there are Space Lesbians, including the main point of view character, a too-powerful, morally ambiguous tech billionaire from the near future of our world named Vivian Liao. The novel feels very of this moment to me, and comments throughout on our present, as speculative fiction should.
Unhistoric Acts: An Imperfect Social State (Clorinda Cathcart’s Circle Book 15) by L.A. Hall was as delightful as this series always is. We’ve now moved well beyond the original series in time, so much so that babies born in the first series are now marrying and having babies of their own. It’s very satisfying watching the large cast of characters continue with old social connections as well as make new ones, and to see how the progress of history is affecting them and their lives.
Miss Moriarty, I Presume? (The Lady Sherlock Series Book 6) by Sherry Thomas continues the Moriarty plotline, easily guessed from the title, but has some interesting complications worked in, showing the complex machinations of those living in his orbit as well as Charlotte Holmes’ and Mrs. Watson’s efforts to protect themselves and their loved ones. It’s a fairly torturous plot this time, that surprised me a couple of times. I’m ready for the next one in the series!
Subtle Blood: Will Darling Adventures Series, Book 3 by K.J. Charles was a delight, first upping the ante from the previous two books, then nicely tying up the arcs of mystery plot, romance, and secondary character arcs. I continue to enjoy the post-World War One, 1920s setting inordinately and even though this is the end of a trilogy, I am hoping Charles will revisit these characters.
The Assassins of Thasalon by Lois McMaster Bujold is the tenth, I think, in the Penric and Desdemona series; unlike the rest of the series, it’s novel length. As always with Bujold, I enjoyed the characters, and the plot twists and turns. I’m looking forward to the most recent novella.
The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord was my TBR Challenge book for the month.
Nonfiction:
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong is truly excellent and I highly recommend it. It’s about Hong’s Asian American experience in both general and particular, told through her life as a poet. I made particular note of how racism affects the writer and their writing, as well as reader experiences of that writing.
Publishers treated the ethnic story as the “single story,” which Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie defines as follows: “Create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.”
And Much of Lahiri’s fiction complies with the MFA orthodoxy of show, don’t tell, which allows the reader to step into the character’s pain without having to, as Susan Sontag writes, locate their own privilege “on the same map” as the character’s suffering…Because the character’s inner thoughts are evacuated, the reader can get behind the cockpit of the character’s consciousness and cinematically see what the character sees without being disturbed by incessant editorializing….Innocence is, as Bernstein writes, not just an “absence of knowledge” but “an active state of repelling knowledge,” embroiled in the statement, “Well, I don’t see race” where I eclipses the seeing. Innocence is both a privilege and a cognitive handicap, a sheltered unknowingness that, once protracted into adulthood, hardens into entitlement.
Accepting Refuge: A Place of Refuge, Part Two, is now available!
Excerpt:
Accepting Refuge, A Place of Refuge, Book Two
Miki woke early, from a nasty dream of living in the humid, congested Gamma Habitat back in the Federated Colonies. She’d been searching for Jon Churchill, who needed her, pushing her way through crowds of people who ignored and blocked her at every turn. The places she searched grew steadily more absurd. She’d even crawled inside the works of some kind of gear-based horological device, squeezing through at the size of a gnat.
The habitat was noisy with booming speaker announcements and harsh commands and agitated conversations in corners. When her eyes shot open, the cool quiet of the house on Refuge both surprised and soothed her, at least until she remembered the crushing news she’d learned in the wee hours of the morning.
The bed beside her was empty. Where was Talia?
After a moment’s panic, Miki thrashed free of her blanket cocoon and grabbed a robe. She found Talia sleeping in the central living area, on the long and squishy blue couch.
Miki sat on the edge of an equally squishy armchair, lighter blue than the couch. She curled her legs beneath her, waiting for Talia to wake. She knew better than to jostle sleeping fighters, especially ones on the mend from a year’s imprisonment.
They’d been here on Refuge for close to two weeks. She’d only known Talia was still alive for six weeks or so. Really, she should be satisfied with knowing nothing except Talia was alive, instead of cremated to ash, or chemically disintegrated, or moldering in an unmarked grave. Most mornings when she woke, she was surprised by joy when she remembered. Talia was alive. Alive.
Talia cracked one eye open and made a questioning noise.
“We’re safe. We’re in the new house, on Refuge. Do you want breakfast?” Miki asked.
Talia sat up slowly and scrubbed her face with thin hands, squinting into the warm yellow light streaming in the front windows. Miki was still getting used to natural light after years in habitats, then living in ships and orbital stations. The sun from the front windows glowed on Talia’s brown cheekbones; but outdoors in harsh daylight, she could still see gray undertones of exhaustion in Talia’s face, and her cheeks were hollow from thirteen months in a Federated Colonies prison. The short curly hair on her skull, once dark, glinted now with silver.
“What is it?” Talia asked, her voice rough from sleep.
Talia always knew when something was wrong, especially with Miki. Even though she swore she could not read Miki’s mind. Miki said, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Time to get up anyway.” Talia sat up straighter and took a deep breath, then looked expectant.
“Last night and this morning, I was playing cards with Faigin. I’d forgotten what a good cheat she always was.”
“Only you would use good and cheat in the same sentence.” One corner of Talia’s mouth quirked for an instant.
Miki waited for her to say more, but she was obviously, by her silence, prompting her to continue. “Faigin said—she told me—” Miki sighed and started over. “She told me she thinks Jon Churchill is dead. And so do you.”
“Yes. I’m sorry.” Talia’s eyes were steady, full of truth.
Miki swallowed. “I guess that’s it, then. That’s all I needed to know.”
They would never see Jon again, Jon who’d saved orphaned Miki from a life and death in Federated indenture, his first and very unlikely recruit. She’d been so desperate to escape and have a place in the world. Jon had given her that place, as “Churchill’s little genius.” He’d been her accidental savior, her absent-minded father figure, a tortured guerilla, an interstellar icon.
Now all that was done, he was gone.
“Miki, can I help?”
She could handle this. It was just one more thing, a small thing, really, compared to losing their rebellion and fleeing the Federated Colonies for good. She’d already been fairly sure that if Jon was alive, she would have found some trace of him.
Miki stood up. She hadn’t had much sleep, what with the nightmares, and she was due to look over the schematics of the Refuge security satellites, part of the promises she’d made when they’d come here for sanctuary.
“Miki? Abikaas, let me help.”
If she was to keep Talia safe, the security satellites needed to be in top condition at all times. The worst things about the Federated Colonies might be changing, but the galaxy was big and it was possible other, more dangerous enemies would have their eye on habitable planets like Refuge, however isolated. Interstellar politics would stabilize, perhaps, but not for a long time. Miki couldn’t control that, but she could control the efficiency of the satellites. She had plans to train them, using a method similar to how humans could learn new skills using games.
“Miki, wait.”
Without noticing, Miki had started to leave the room. She settled her facial expression before turning back. Talia was holding out her hand. Miki hesitated, then stepped over and took it, sitting at a corner of the couch. Talia burrowed into her side and laid her head on Miki’s thigh.
“You should’ve told me before about Jon,” Miki said, suddenly close to tears. She toyed with her row of gold ear studs to distract herself. She did not want to cry in front of Talia, not right now. She could feel the bones of Talia’s fragile arm across her legs, feel her ribs as she breathed.
Talia had been so formidable before her capture by the FC, her muscles like wire, her smile cocky and crooked from a single dimple in her rounded cheek. Miki remembered the first time she’d seen her, wrenching off a helmet to let her luxuriant dark hair spring free into a cloud around her serious face.
Talia said, her voice muffled, “I should have, but the time never seemed right.”
“When did you…how….”
“One day, I just knew. I’m not sure when that was. It was difficult to tell how much time had passed, in that horrible place.”
“Not your fault.”
“I’m sorry he’s gone. He was always so sad, and so angry at himself. I hope he found peace, somehow.”
***
Accepting Refuge: A Place of Refuge, Part Two, is now available for pre-order. Release date is December 6, 2021.
I haven’t uploaded to Smashwords or Google Play yet, but hopefully will take care of that soon.
Excerpt:
Accepting Refuge, A Place of Refuge, Book Two
Miki woke early, from a nasty dream of living in the humid, congested Gamma Habitat back in the Federated Colonies. She’d been searching for Jon Churchill, who needed her, pushing her way through crowds of people who ignored and blocked her at every turn. The places she searched grew steadily more absurd. She’d even crawled inside the works of some kind of gear-based horological device, squeezing through at the size of a gnat.
The habitat was noisy with booming speaker announcements and harsh commands and agitated conversations in corners. When her eyes shot open, the cool quiet of the house on Refuge both surprised and soothed her, at least until she remembered the crushing news she’d learned in the wee hours of the morning.
The bed beside her was empty. Where was Talia?
After a moment’s panic, Miki thrashed free of her blanket cocoon and grabbed a robe. She found Talia sleeping in the central living area, on the long and squishy blue couch.
Miki sat on the edge of an equally squishy armchair, lighter blue than the couch. She curled her legs beneath her, waiting for Talia to wake. She knew better than to jostle sleeping fighters, especially ones on the mend from a year’s imprisonment.
They’d been here on Refuge for close to two weeks. She’d only known Talia was still alive for six weeks or so. Really, she should be satisfied with knowing nothing except Talia was alive, instead of cremated to ash, or chemically disintegrated, or moldering in an unmarked grave. Most mornings when she woke, she was surprised by joy when she remembered. Talia was alive. Alive.
Talia cracked one eye open and made a questioning noise.
“We’re safe. We’re in the new house, on Refuge. Do you want breakfast?” Miki asked.
Talia sat up slowly and scrubbed her face with thin hands, squinting into the warm yellow light streaming in the front windows. Miki was still getting used to natural light after years in habitats, then living in ships and orbital stations. The sun from the front windows glowed on Talia’s brown cheekbones; but outdoors in harsh daylight, she could still see gray undertones of exhaustion in Talia’s face, and her cheeks were hollow from thirteen months in a Federated Colonies prison. The short curly hair on her skull, once dark, glinted now with silver.
“What is it?” Talia asked, her voice rough from sleep.
Talia always knew when something was wrong, especially with Miki. Even though she swore she could not read Miki’s mind. Miki said, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Time to get up anyway.” Talia sat up straighter and took a deep breath, then looked expectant.
“Last night and this morning, I was playing cards with Faigin. I’d forgotten what a good cheat she always was.”
“Only you would use good and cheat in the same sentence.” One corner of Talia’s mouth quirked for an instant.
Miki waited for her to say more, but she was obviously, by her silence, prompting her to continue. “Faigin said—she told me—” Miki sighed and started over. “She told me she thinks Jon Churchill is dead. And so do you.”
“Yes. I’m sorry.” Talia’s eyes were steady, full of truth.
Miki swallowed. “I guess that’s it, then. That’s all I needed to know.”
They would never see Jon again, Jon who’d saved orphaned Miki from a life and death in Federated indenture, his first and very unlikely recruit. She’d been so desperate to escape and have a place in the world. Jon had given her that place, as “Churchill’s little genius.” He’d been her accidental savior, her absent-minded father figure, a tortured guerilla, an interstellar icon.
Now all that was done, he was gone.
“Miki, can I help?”
She could handle this. It was just one more thing, a small thing, really, compared to losing their rebellion and fleeing the Federated Colonies for good. She’d already been fairly sure that if Jon was alive, she would have found some trace of him.
Miki stood up. She hadn’t had much sleep, what with the nightmares, and she was due to look over the schematics of the Refuge security satellites, part of the promises she’d made when they’d come here for sanctuary.
“Miki? Abikaas, let me help.”
If she was to keep Talia safe, the security satellites needed to be in top condition at all times. The worst things about the Federated Colonies might be changing, but the galaxy was big and it was possible other, more dangerous enemies would have their eye on habitable planets like Refuge, however isolated. Interstellar politics would stabilize, perhaps, but not for a long time. Miki couldn’t control that, but she could control the efficiency of the satellites. She had plans to train them, using a method similar to how humans could learn new skills using games.
“Miki, wait.”
Without noticing, Miki had started to leave the room. She settled her facial expression before turning back. Talia was holding out her hand. Miki hesitated, then stepped over and took it, sitting at a corner of the couch. Talia burrowed into her side and laid her head on Miki’s thigh.
“You should’ve told me before about Jon,” Miki said, suddenly close to tears. She toyed with her row of gold ear studs to distract herself. She did not want to cry in front of Talia, not right now. She could feel the bones of Talia’s fragile arm across her legs, feel her ribs as she breathed.
Talia had been so formidable before her capture by the FC, her muscles like wire, her smile cocky and crooked from a single dimple in her rounded cheek. Miki remembered the first time she’d seen her, wrenching off a helmet to let her luxuriant dark hair spring free into a cloud around her serious face.
Talia said, her voice muffled, “I should have, but the time never seemed right.”
“When did you…how….”
“One day, I just knew. I’m not sure when that was. It was difficult to tell how much time had passed, in that horrible place.”
“Not your fault.”
“I’m sorry he’s gone. He was always so sad, and so angry at himself. I hope he found peace, somehow.”
***
My adventure with indie-publishing Finding Refuge with the Kalikoi collective got me writing again, and has been fun. Plus I have actually learned some things about preparing, publishing, and *cue music*…myself.
1. Writing is a thousand times less stressful when I am writing primarily to please myself. You’d think I would’ve learned this lesson long ago, and I sort of did, but print publishing messed with my head.
2. I cannot comprehend the complexities of Photoshop or even its simpler relatives. In fact, even a basic tutorial makes me want to weep. It was definitely worth it to me to pay for a nice cover, made easier by me having a day job. Augusta Scarlett did mine. If you have the talent to do your own, she has a post linking 35 Great Sites With Awesome Stock Photos for Your Book Cover.
3. Aside from reviews of the actual novella, getting feedback related to the writing-adjacent process can be very useful along the way. It was an immense help to have other writers help me with my blurb, in particular, but also to help me choose a cover model and to discuss wordcount concerns.
4. “Writing-adjacent” is a term I made up for myself. It covers everything that is not writing or editing the story. Emailing a cover artist, reading new-to-me blogs to see if I want to submit them a review copy, struggling with a blurb, asking if someone can proofread a manuscript for me are all writing-adjacent tasks. They are work, and I started keeping track of the days I performed writing-adjacent work, because it helped show me I was making progress.
5. Organization is key. Each platform that will sell your book (Kindle, Google Play, etc.) wants different variations on the same information (summary, blurb, categories, keywords). I am now keeping a document for each novella and projected novella that includes all of this information in the same place. It’s the gift that keeps on giving!
The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord is a complex, far-future space opera that includes the sport of Wallrunning. The skills and implications of Wallrunning, it turns out, influence events on an interstellar scale.
I was very pleased to re-encounter characters from Lord’s earlier novel The Best of All Possible Worlds (described at the end of this post), though The Galaxy Game focuses on other protagonists. A prologue helped orient me to the spacefaring civilization featured in these novels, and a little of how things had changed on these worlds in the interim. There’s a lot going on: pilots who bond with living spaceships, people with psychic powers, dealing with the fallout from the fairly recent destruction of the planet Sadira and its refugees.
Wallrunning is a strategy game involving, as you might guess, a wall with different zones, each with different microgravities. The wall can tilt and shear as well; complex team strategy involving such roles as ladders, hookers, slingers, snakes, an anchor, and a nexus, can help or hinder other players, cause wall tilting, or send players flying off the wall into a bodycatcher at the bottom. The game conveys status on star players and influences a major portion of several economies, whether directly or indirectly.
Though there are several point of view characters, the major focus is on Rafidelarua, a teenager who is oblivious to the larger implications of almost every situation he encounters. This means that reading the story includes piecing together disparate clues from an array of angles. Rafi moves among several different cultures and economies, and I learned about them along with him. Things Rafi encounters in passing, like the mindship he travels in, and the reason behind his quarantine prior to interstellar travel, gradually loom larger in the narrative and suddenly merge into the overarching plot. Rafi’s training as a wallrunner, then a nexus, seems almost like an aside for a while, until its significance bursts out in an extremely satisfying way.
I loved Lord’s approach to thoughtful, intersectional speculative fiction. I wrote about The Best of All Possible Worlds for Heroes and Heartbreakers back in February 2013; I described it as having the feel of one of Ursula K. LeGuin’s Hainish novels. It’s about a society of humans spread across a number of different planets, each with their own unique cultures and levels of paranormal ability. The core of the story is the relationship between Grace Delarua, a government liaison to refugees from the destroyed planet Sadira, and Dllenahkh, the chief representative for that group. Dllenahkh has very strong psychic abilities, and Grace is beginning to discover her own talents in this area.
For the entire story, Grace and Dllenahkh have an unusually harmonious working relationship and consider each other friends, but at the same time, both are restraining much more romantic and physical desires. Their interaction is complicated by the fact that most of the surviving Sadiri are male, and thus are seeking wives on Grace’s planet. Naturally, the romance eventually emerges, amid complications arising from their differing cultures. If you like sweet friends-to-lovers romances, or slow burn, this is a wonderful and rewarding example.
However, the thing I most appreciated about The Best of All Possible Worlds was the outside relationships both characters formed and maintained throughout the story. Neither character is an island. During the course of the novel, they build and maintain strong connections that are richly realistic. In particular, I loved that Grace had so many female friends, for instance her BFF Gilda, a famous scientist she meets in the course of her work, and her superior officer, Dr. Daniyel, who offers the perspective of an older generation to Grace.
You don’t need to read these two books in order, as they’re not immediate sequels, but doing so offers some additional depth to the stories.
Fiction:
Scandal in Babylon by Barbara Hambly is a reworking of her fantasy novel Bride of the Rat God as a straightforward historical mystery set in 1920s Hollywood. I was always sorry there weren’t sequels to Bride of the Rat God, so this made me very happy, and I hope it turns into another series. British scholar Emma Blackstone was widowed by World War One and lost her parents and brother to the 1918 influenza pandemic; she now works as a secretary for her sister-in-law, lovable and extravagant silent film star Kitty Flint/Camille de la Rose, as well as caring for Kitty’s three Pekinese. Emma has a budding romance with calm and competent cameraman Zal Rokatansky, who’s clearly head over heels for her but patient with a slow paced relationship. The mystery revolves around a murder that seems a clear attempt at framing Kitty; so clear, in fact, that it’s suspicious. I enjoyed the mystery but was really in it for the delicious specific details of making silent films, from “motion picture yellow” foundation makeup to editing of title cards to vivid cameo appearances by Gloria Swanson. Like in Hambly’s Benjamin January series, the ensemble cast is catnip to me as well.
I read a galley of The Misfit Soldier by Michael Mammay because I really enjoyed Planetside, his debut military sf/mystery. The new book, out in February 2022, is essentially a military sf heist novel, except the heist is organized to rescue an abandoned soldier from the war zone, and also to accomplish [a spoiler]. The first-person narrator, an unenthusiastic soldier who joined the military to hide from gangsters, has a knack for choosing the right people for the right job and is always a few steps ahead of the plot.
Doll Bones by Holly Black was this month’s TBR Challenge book for the theme “Gothic.”
Fanfiction:
nor need we power or splendor by shellybelle is a long novel about the three-way romantic relationship between Clint Barton (Hawkeye), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), and Laura Barton, using some elements of MCU canon and others from the comics, so I couldn’t always predict what was going to happen with some major events. The story jumps back and forth in time, sometimes easy to follow and sometimes a little less so. The writer took a realistic approach to the characters, their evolving polyamorous relationship, and their raising of the Bartons’ three children.
The Arithmancer by White_Squirrel is an AU of the Harry Potter series with Hermione Granger, a mathematics prodigy, as the lead character. Given that this first story alone is over 500,000 words, I am not sure if I will read the whole series, which is more than a million words long. It’s clear that it was its own phenomenon in the fandom. The author looks deeply into how magic might work if approached with science and mathematics; also how events might have turned out if there was more consent and more safeguarding of children than in the canonical series. For instance, why in the world would Hermione’s parents let her keep going back to Hogwarts, if they knew what happened to her there? Sometimes this works, sometimes it works less well, but it’s interesting to be along for the ride, especially from a meta-commentary point of view. What fascinates me most about this series is the application of math and science to magic in ways that are clever, fit with how the magic was shown canonically, and which actually make sense to me. I am not terribly invested in Hermione’s rise to prominence as a youthful arithmancy genius, but it’s really cool to watch the author delve into how spells might actually work in the real world.
Nonfiction:
This blog post by my friend Lorrie Kim, about the new J.K. Rowling book, engages with reading it while knowing “Rowling is very much on the wrong side of the vicious and bewildering campaign of bigotry against trans people.” She wrote about the issue in more detail here: The Changing Politics of Reading Harry Potter in the Post-Trump U.S..
My World War One romance “Under Her Uniform” has been translated into Dutch! The ebook has been collected in the anthology 5 Tinten verder historisch 6 – een trio, 6 February 2018.
Original English version, Under Her Uniform:
Isobel Hailey disguised herself as a man to fight in the British Army in WWI. Only a few people know the truth, including her pair of officer lovers–so why can’t she stop thinking about handsome Corporal Andrew Southey instead? Isobel has to keep her wits about her and her fantasies hidden so she doesn’t blow her cover. But when she and Andrew find themselves working closely on a mission, their attraction–and the truth–is impossible to deny.
