Victoria Janssen

#TBRChallenge – Old School: Magic Flutes by Eva Ibbotson

Posted on April 21, 2021 by Victoria Janssen

Given that Magic Flutes by Eva Ibbotson was published in 1982, I decided it could safely fit this month’s challenge theme. Plus, I’ve been looking forward to reading it for a long time, as one of the few by this author I have not already read. Plus it combines a 1920s setting with musician characters, which is catnip for me.

Magic Flutes is set in Vienna shortly after the First World War. English foundling Guy Farne has become a millionaire through his innate intelligence and knowledge of mining and chemistry; his drive to make a fortune is driven by the need to impress his first love, Nerine, whose family spurned him. Tessa was a Princess of Pfaffenstein, though her family and fortunes have been reduced by the war; she is currently working what is essentially an unpaid internship backstage with an opera company in Vienna; meanwhile, her great-aunts hope to marry her off to Maxi, the only suitably aristocratic candidate available. Add to them a large secondary cast including Guy’s faithful employees, a houseful of aging Austrian aristocrats, and an opera company drawn from all over Europe, and mix thoroughly.

The characters and plot are very Old School Romance, more so even than Ibbotson’s other novels; it’s a sweet fantasy with a fairy tale atmosphere. Guy is the self-made millionaire who doesn’t quite understand his own feelings. Tessa possesses the most noble traits of nobility while at the same time being endlessly kind and giving to people at all social levels.

Here are a couple of quotes to give a flavor of Ibbotson’s prose style, which enchants me. In this scene, Guy Farne is visiting a Very Historic Castle.
The round walls were hung with tapestries which Guy suspected had been chosen more for their capacity to exclude draughts than for their artistic content, for they mainly depicted people holding heads: Judith that of Holofernes, Salome of John the Baptist and St. Jerome of a dismembered stag.

Later on, heads return to the narrative: “This,” announced the Duchess unnecessarily as they entered a low building piled from floor to ceiling with skulls, “is the charnel house.”
“Those skulls on the right are from the Black Death,” said the Margravine helpfully…
“Putzerl found this one when she climbed out through the dungeons onto the south face, the naughty girl.”
“She believes it’s a Turk and we never had the heart to contradict her, though it is most unlikely. The Turks were all impaled on the eastern wall.”

Guy is single-minded in impressing Nerine, who’s been widowed by the war, but she was never the woman he thought she was. Tessa is blissfully happy being run off her feet by the opera company and does not have a single thought of romantic entanglement that does not happen as part of an opera’s plot, at least at first; Maxi is dedicated to hunting and fishing far more than to the childhood friend to whom he’s expected to propose. Maxi’s brilliant gambit to woo Tessa is to bring his dogs with him. (Spoiler: she loves the dogs.)

As for the secondary characters, the opera company are the most vivid. It’s difficult for me to tell if the varying European nationalities are stereotyped, as to me they all seem affectionately caricatured. They are full of life all the same, and their love of music comes through with a feeling of truth. Raisa, the fat soprano, is a classic diva with her vocal complaints and little dachshund, but never fails to come through in performance. Zoltan Klasky, the elitist Marxist orchestra conductor, is passionately devoted to the atonal opera he is composing about railroad workers. Jacob, who has sunk his life and entire fortune into the company, achieves apotheosis when presenting Mozart’s Magic Flute.

Though I enjoyed the romance, the affectionate treatment of music is the reason I loved this book so much.

I love this book. If you’re looking for a frothy escape, put on an opera recording and settle in.

Posted in historical fiction, reading, romance novels, wwi | Tagged reading challenge | 2 Comments

My March Reading Log

Posted on April 10, 2021 by Victoria Janssen

Fiction:
Battle Hill Bolero by Daniel José Older is third in the Bone Street Rumba trilogy, one of the best urban fantasy series I’ve ever read because of its superb, deep grounding in contemporary Brooklyn. I’d been hoarding it for a while; I bought this series as it came out, but enjoyed it so much I didn’t want to devour it all in one swoop. Compared to the previous two books in the trilogy, the conclusion is epic, as in, there is a literal epic battle between forces of freedom and bureaucracy featuring the dead, and the not-quite-alive, and various spiritual beings of uncertain provenance (not sure where the River Giants originated in the world of the books, but they’re cool), and even creatures of Hell. The human characters I love so much – Gordo, Baba Eddie and his husband Russell, and Kia – have smaller roles this time, but they are there, and very much themselves when they do appear. One thing that did surprise me is that after an extremely intense and logical separation at the end of the second book, Midnight Taxi Tango, Carlos and Sasha reconnected; but after they did, it felt right to me, just as it should have been, which I think is an impressive sign of Older’s skill as a writer. To me, their reconnection signaled a change in level between the first two books and the last. The first two were urban fantasy very grounded in place and character; the third takes it up a notch and though the characterization and specific detail of the setting are still present, everything has a more expansive, mythological feel. Songs will be sung of the deeds in this book. I highly recommend the trilogy, but definitely start at the beginning with Half-Resurrection Blues.

The Physicians of Vilnoc by Lois McMaster Bujold is currently the last in the Penric and Desdemona series; Penric is summoned by his brother-in-law the general to try and solve the puzzle of a mysterious illness in the fort causing fever, bruising, and death, and try to learn how the disease is spreading. Despite being in the midst of a real-life pandemic, I was not too worried about the fictional one, since I assumed the story would have a happy ending (it did). It was more of a problem-solving episode on Penric’s part, as he was separated from his family for the duration and instead interacting with people new to him.

The Courtesan and the Clergyman: A Game of Chance and Love by L.A. Hall is a brief, sweet view of Abby Gowing’s courtship with Thomas Thorne as they both move into a new stage of their life. It’s thirteenth in the “Clorinda Cathcart’s Circle,” but because the stories jump around in time a bit, you can easily read this one out of sequence.

#TBR Challenge – Wild Angel by Pat Murphy.

Fanfiction:
From the Ground Up by Rianne is a Check Please! novel about Kent Parson overcoming his own internalized homophobia and fear of coming out; he’s paired with an original character who’s a journalist from Quebec. Jack and Bitty appear very, very briefly.

Way Down We Go by xiaq is a Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter story mostly set in Alabama, where they’ve both fled at different times for different reasons. It’s AU so far as I can tell; Draco is outcast from society after the War and Harry has become extremely magically powerful. The main reason I found it interesting was the in-universe existence of fanfiction about Draco and Harry, which some of the characters have read, and which they point out to Draco and Harry. It’s not a huge part of the story, but I always note when writers do meta stuff like that.

My Home And Native Land by copperbadge is an absolutely delightful tale of how Ronon Dex decided to become a Canadian. Highly recommended.

Fanfiction, Great British Bake Off Edition:
Here I shall write about my new fandom, fictional universes mashed up with the Great British Bake Off. Rather than be judge-y, I’m going to talk about the stories I enjoyed most, rather than those I felt were underbaked, or lacked the flavors I prefer.

The Art Of Cooking For Two by littleblackfox is an MCU AU, no superpowers, with Nick Fury as a cranky Paul Hollywood avatar and Peggy Carter, old lady version, filling the role of Mary Berry to absolute perfection. The only thing I felt it lacked was enough T’Challa; the story is from 2016, so his movie (2018) wasn’t out yet, and thus his characterization felt sort of misty, beyond him being hyper competent. The story is from Bucky’s point of view, and follows the same pleasantly repetitive structure as GBBO itself. Alexander Pierce is a character as well, so it’s no surprise when he turns out to be an untrustworthy contestant. I loved this one for the relationships. Bucky and Steve is the obvious one, and Thor and Jane, but Bucky also develops a mentor/father relationship with Wanda, Luis flirts with Peggy and is a good friend to all, Bruce is nuanced in a minor role. I had read this one before, but that was before I’d seen GBBO, so it was lovely to revisit. Includes recipes!

The Master Bakers by EverlivingGhosts is a non-sfnal AU of the new Star Wars movies; for example, creepy judge Snoke is just an unpleasant human being. Hux is the point-of-view character, a very introverted and self-doubting perfectionist who is out to win and that’s all. Then Kylo Ren shows up on his motorcycle, messy and artistic and emotional, and the game is on. They end up together, of course. Phasma is a great character in this, though her role is small. This story was incredibly sweet, and in the background Finn, Poe, and Rey are as OT3 as you can wish for.

Red Velvet, White Meringue, and Royal Icing by HMS_Chill is an AU of the book Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, which I have not yet read. I had no trouble following the story, which follows the “plot” of a season of GBBO, though I imagine I was missing Easter Eggs about all the secondary bakers. Alex is from Texas and a law student in the UK, where his mother and sister also live. Henry works for a theater, researching production design and historical elements of the plays they’re producing. There’s a slow-building, sweet romance between the two main characters. This is the first GBBO AU I’d read in which real life judges Paul and Prue and real life hosts Noel and Sandi appear as background characters.

Sugar and Spice by authorette, GBBO mixed with Emmerdale, is a lovely (and canonical) F/F romance that, unusually, is from the pov of the person who does not go to the Great British Bake Off. Veterinarian Vanessa Woodfield gets signed up for the show by her sister; Charity Dingle volunteers to be her Fake Girlfriend to obtain publicity for her pub. Charity is surprised by how meaningful this relationship becomes to her but takes a little while to overcome self-doubt and trust in Vanessa’s feelings for her. Emmerdale is a very long-running British soap opera, but you don’t need to have ever seen it to enjoy this story.

Love is a Layered Cake by WorryinglyInnocent blends GBBO with Once Upon A Time in a non-magical setting. Sheep farmer and contestant Raymond “Rum” Gold (Rumpelstiltskin) has been entered without his knowledge by his teenaged son, but goes along with it because one of the judges is his longtime celebrity crush, Belle. Gold’s aunt Elvira and son Bae are delightful, as are Belle’s judging partner Granny and eccentric contestant Jefferson (The Mad Hatter, played by Sebastian Stan in the series). The Belle/Rum pairing is canonical. I don’t think you need to have seen the show, but it helped for identifying the contestants and getting related in-jokes. The series is currently available on Disney+ if you’re curious, and there are tons of clips out there. I had seen a few episodes previously.

Pies and Prejudice by linoresearch whips GBBO together with a mundane-world version of Supernatural for an American-set version of the baking show, while also mashing it up with Pride and Prejudice, featuring Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak. Dean has been signed up by his brother Sam, and convinced to participate by the fees he will be paid and the potential for a cash prize (Ah, America!). Yes, Dean makes pie. The secondary characters and the realistic background details of the show, which moves from mansion to mansion all over the country, are great. The mash-up element sometimes fits awkwardly because bits of Austen dialogue seem out of place in the contemporary world, from a diction standpoint. I was impressed, regardless.

Long before I saw GBBO, I read four and twenty lovebirds (baked in a pie) by stardust_rain, a Rivers of London/GBBO mashup, so reread it for this post. It’s less about GBBO itself and more about the fallout when a contestant (Peter Grant) begins a relationship with a judge (Nightingale) after the show ends, and the tabloids run rampant over their lives. Yes, there is a happy ending.

Posted in fanfiction, reading, romance novels, sf/f | Tagged reading log | Comments Off

#TBRChallenge – Book by a Favorite Author: Wild Angel by Pat Murphy

Posted on March 17, 2021 by Victoria Janssen

Wild Angel by Pat Murphy is a book by a favorite science fiction author I have been saving since it came out in paperback in 2000. (Yes, I know it was a long time ago!)

When Sarah McKensie’s parents are murdered in 1850 California, the young girl is saved by a mother wolf and raised in the pack. Part Mowgli, part Tarzan of the Apes, Sarah becomes the Wild Angel of the Sierras, rescuing those in need, while eluding her parents’ killer, a man who still wants to see her dead. Sarah lives with the wolves, hunts with the wolves, fights for dominance in the pack. She watches people from a distance, but she does not think of herself as one of them. She belongs to the pack. How can such a child be reclaimed for civilization?

As a kid, I read The Jungle Book and Tarzan of the Apes over and over and over again, but as you might imagine, the racism and colonialism in those stories is intolerable for me as an adult. I love the idea of a female wild child, set in the American version of a fantastical wilderness, as commentary on those earlier works. Murphy avoids racist stereotypes unless accurately portraying the racism exhibited by White people as part of the setting. California is depicted as a place and state of mind, clearly set apart from “civilization” in the opening chapters, as characters refer to “The States” and the rarity of (white) women in California is emphasized.

Sarah McKensie, a toddler when her parents are killed, learns to survive through being taught first by the wolves, then by observation of humans, then later by human mentors. There are two sympathetic Native American characters in minor but significant roles who avoid Magical status by surviving, but I was disappointed when both faded out of the story halfway through; Malila’s human companionship and mentoring of Sarah is replaced with Max’s in the third section, and we do not see her again. It might be true to the genre Murphy is riffing on, but I can’t help but wish there had been more of Malila’s and Sarah’s friendship.

I tore right through this book. There are unlikely events and coincidences, dated portrayals of wild animal behavior, and Primitive Innocence exhibited by the heroine, just as in Tarzan. Sarah gets an Animal Companion, the wolf Beka. There’s a cameo by Samuel Clemens, whose Mark Twain quotes are used as epigraphs for each chapter. There’s a clearly-defined enemy who remains a threat throughout the book, a sub-plot featuring the artist and writer Max, Clampers, and eventually an elephant. It was fun.

As a side note, Wild Angel is part of a meta-fictional project as well; it’s second in a trilogy and is supposed to have been written by Mary Maxwell, who is a pseudonym of Max Merriwell (whose avatar appears in the book as the character named Max), who is actually Pat Murphy, a real person whom I have met. None of this affected my reading of the book as a rollicking adventure story, but perhaps when I finally read the other books in the trilogy, I will become enlightened in some way. Here’s an essay by Wendy Pearson at Strange Horizons on this topic.

Finally, I think Wild Angel could be compared in interesting ways with Wild Life by Molly Gloss, also published in 2000. Gloss’ book set in 1905 and features a lost child, Sasquatch mythology, and a woman who wears trousers and writes adventure stories. I highly recommend both!

Posted in reading, sf/f | Tagged reading challenge, reading log | 1 Comment

My February Reading Log

Posted on March 5, 2021 by Victoria Janssen

Fiction:
In the course of reading Coming to Terms: Consequences Impend (Clorinda Cathcart’s Circle Book 12) by L.A. Hall, I discovered I had somehow missed Tricks and Traps: Tables Turned (Clorinda Cathcart’s Circle Book 10)! Which I had not noticed, because both volumes 9 and 11 were further back in the continuity. It was good to find out my memory is not that terrible, that I had in fact missed an installment! And I still managed to enjoy reading it.

Tricks and Traps: Tables Turned (Clorinda Cathcart’s Circle Book 10) is a plotty entry in the series with a good role for Bet Bloggs/Leda Hacker, and check-ins with series characters old and new.

#TBR Challenge – Pembroke Park by Michelle Martin.

Fanfiction:
Wherein was bound a child by lotesse is a three-story sequel to Susan Cooper’s “The Dark is Rising” sequence, in which an adult Bran Davies meets again with Will Stanton and regains some of his memories of book events. The first story’s plot is all about finding Will, who has been declared a missing person, so content warning for his grieving family until there’s a happy ending. In the second and third stories, Bran and Will became a couple, and it turned out I was totally there for that, and also for Will’s family being all over the place, and for discussions of agriculture and special appearances by Herne the Hunter, and the genius of the Thames wearing snazzy couture.

He Dreams in Kaiju Blue by Ardatli remixes “Pacific Rim” with Young Avengers, but I don’t think you need familiarity with Young Avengers to read; “Pacific Rim” knowledge is more necessary, I think, or at least the basic premise of the movies. In an odd congruence with the previous story, Billy Maximoff is essentially missing while in a coma, but seems to be present and cognizant in the mind of Teddy Altman, who’s taken his place as the co-pilot of Magnus Echo. While the Marvel characters do not have their superhero powers, there is magical (?) science related to Jaegers, and there are Young Avengers as Jaeger pilots: Kate Bishop paired with America Chavez, Eli Bradley with Josiah X, and Cassie with her father Scott Lang. Also keep an eye out for characters from Runaways and X-Men. There’s a happy ending, but it takes a while to get there; the plot starts to pick up steam about halfway through. I realized later that this is first in a series.

The Messrs. Carter and Potts Expansion Pack by alby_mangroves and Speranza completes the Avengers: Endgame fixit time loop, focusing on Steve and Bucky, and with bonus Captain Marvel. Poignant yet also happy and satisfying.

I re-read Lilac City by nwhepcat, an all-time favorite sequel series to Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. Her post-series versions of Xander are, in my opinion, far superior to the character we saw on screen, and he’s the point of view character here. A recovering alcoholic, he’s fled to Spokane after painfully splitting from the Scooby Gang, and manages a grocery store on the night shift until Things begin to happen, and he has to remember his vampire-killing skills, and other things that make life worth living rather than just existing within. It was just as good as the previous few times I’ve read it, and I aspire to someday writing something this good. Highly recommended. Content warnings for alcoholism and sad deaths-by-vampire, but there’s also Found Family and reconnection with both people and skills. I think of this as the “guitar story.” Read it to learn why.

Another excellent Avengers: Endgame MCU fixit is a flame in two cupped hands by notcaycepollard. This series is comprised of three stories, each with a different point of view character, and involves the “second chance” type of time travel. The first story is Natasha; after she sacrifices her life on Vormir, she awakens as a teenager in the Red Room, at a moment of one of her greatest regrets. And then she begins to change things. I won’t spoil the rest, because I loved this, and could happily read quite a bit more in this alternate universe. Trigger warning for 9/11/01 events.

Victory Bonds by copperbadge posits the formation of The Justice League in 1947. Clark Kent narrates how wartime experiences shift into superheroing for Superman, Batman, Green Lantern (Alan Scott), and Wonder Woman, with bonus Robin and Flash towards the end. There are all sorts of delightful twists on comics canon to make this AU feel fresh and new. But the best reason to read this story is Lois “Louis” Lane. This is The Best Lois.

The Life Which He Has Imagined by bluesyturtle is a different take on post-“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” Bucky Barnes. On the run from Hydra after the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D., Bucky makes his way to New York City and ends up being represented by Nelson and Murdock and making friends with Deadpool. This is a very Soft story of Found Family, and I enjoyed it for those aspects as well as because the story didn’t follow the path I expected.

Posted in fanfiction, historical fiction, reading | Tagged reading log | Comments Off

Chickpea/Barley/Spinach Soup

Posted on February 27, 2021 by Victoria Janssen

Chickpea/Barley/Spinach Soup

Heaping tablespoon of ghee
2 or more large cloves of garlic, put through the press
1/3 cup white vinegar, or a good sploosh
good pinch of cayenne
4 cups chicken stock, divided in half, or water with bouillon
1 can chickpeas, drained
cinnamon stick, maybe a bay leaf
1 cup barley, rinsed
onion powder, garlic powder
pinch of salt
1-2 cups of frozen spinach, thawed and drained in a colander [or fresh]
diced tomatoes, either canned or fresh
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

Sauté crushed garlic in ghee until brown; I did this in the saucepan. Add a good pinch of cayenne and the vinegar and simmer for another minute or so.

Add two cups of the stock, the chickpeas, and the cinnamon stick; simmer for about ten minutes. This is a good time to rinse the barley.

Add the second two cups of stock (I used boiling water from the electric kettle so I didn’t bring the temperature down), the barley, and the onion powder and garlic powder. I put in a pinch of salt, but note the feta will be salty. Simmer for about one hour or until the barley is chewy.

This is the best time to get your spinach out of the freezer and dump it into the colander. Rinse with hot water from the faucet, which thaws it and cooks it a tiny bit. The water drains through the colander, and I also pressed the spinach up against the sides with a spatula to squeeze out more water. If fresh, I don’t think you need to wilt it, as it will go into the hot soup later.

This is also a good time to take your feta out of its brine, slice it, rinse it off, and crumble it. I put thinnish slices in a bowl and broke them up with my potato masher, which worked really well. Cover the bowl of feta and stick it back in the refrigerator for later.

When the barley tastes soft and chewy, take the soup off the burner. Stir in the tomatoes and spinach, cover, and let stand for ten minutes or so. Serve with crumbled feta on top.

Posted in writing | Comments Off

#TBRChallenge – New-To-You Author: Pembroke Park by Michelle Martin

Posted on February 20, 2021 by Victoria Janssen

Pembroke Park by Michelle Martin was a gift from Keira Soleore several years ago.
It is repeatedly cited as the first lesbian Regency Romance, traditionally published by the storied Naiad Press in 1986.

Description:
When Lady Joanna Sinclair meets lady Diana March on horseback and clad in male attire, she is outraged. Such bizarre behavior is simply unacceptable in Herefordshire! But she is irresistibly drawn to the headstrong Diana, whose eccentricity cloaks a mysterious darkness in her past. And Joanna learns that Diana’s coterie of “unusual” friends has among them her own brother-in-law, who is in headlong pursuit of the beautiful and elusive Geoffrey. Under Diana’s influence, falling ever more deeply in love with her, Joanna asserts her independence from her brother, the arrogant and overbearing Hugo, who vows to subdue both of these defiant women. But Hugo is up against more than he bargains for in Lady Diana March.

Pembroke Park is longer than the “trad” Regencies being published contemporaneously, and features a much larger cast of characters, many of whom have their own minor sub-plots. I feel the author owed more to Georgette Heyer in terms of length, plot complexity, and period diction, while taking the opposite tack towards conventional society. Aside from the main couple, Diana and Joanna, we are given glimpses of Diana’s prior relationship and of Hildegarde’s relationship with Celeste, as well as some relationships between men. Joanna is a widow with a young daughter, whose relationship with her deceased husband was good but not passionate. Diana is wealthy and has traveled extensively abroad, while being secure in her unconventionality.

Joanna is a fine artist and Diana is a musician, and their artistic talents can stand for everything that they are denied as women in Regency society, representing a way out for them mentally and emotionally. Diana’s shock when she discovers Joanna’s immense talent in drawing and painting represents not only how deeply she sees Joanna, but also is an example of talent being overlooked by society at large because the artist is not paradigmatic for the time and place. Joanna in turn is swept away by Diana’s talent when she hears Diana playing her own compositions. Diana’s music is not something she has previously thought of as valuable others. In both cases, social roles have contributed to suppressing their talent; in effect, they unconsciously self-censor themselves. They each need the other to see and identify that their talents are powerful and unusual, with both intrinsic and extrinsic value. Mutual admiration becomes part of their bond and could be argued to be at its core.

I most enjoyed the story when queer characters interacted with each other, showing the validation of community; among Diana’s friends, I particularly enjoyed Lady Hildegarde Dennison and her witty repartee. However, the outcome of the novel felt somewhat forced to me, because I felt it changed direction rather abruptly from “we shall defy convention!” to “we shall defy convention while pretending we are not defying convention!” And then the book ended. It left what I felt were important questions unanswered, or even fully discussed among the participants. Thus, it was a less satisfying ending than I had hoped, despite being a happy one. On the other hand, the ending did make me think on genre conventions, and the Regency genre, and today’s queer romance novels and the ways in which they approach Regency genre conventions. Definitely an interesting book to read for anyone interested in the history of the Romance genre.

Laura Vivanco at Teach Me Tonight took a more academic approach to the novel.

Posted in historical fiction, reading, romance novels | Tagged reading challenge, reading log | 3 Comments

My January Reading Log

Posted on February 6, 2021 by Victoria Janssen

Fiction:
The Orphans of Raspay: A Penric and Desdemona novella by Lois McMaster Bujold had fun twists and turns; there is currently one more novella in this series for me to read. I am a huge fan of Bujold so enjoy these immensely.

Shadows in Death by J.D. Robb is the fifty-first Eve Dallas mystery, this time upping the ante with a contract killer villain. There are also bonus appearances of Roarke’s Irish family, proving Robb knows we’re in this for the secondary characters as much as for the mystery. It was an unchallenging read for a difficult week.

All the Devils Are Here was my first Louise Penny novel, sixteenth in the Chief Inspector Gamache mystery series. I’ve had this author recommended to me several times over the years, and decided it was okay to just jump in at the current end. Gamache is a homicide detective in Montreal, but for this book, he and his family are in Paris, where his two children and their families live and work; his godfather is also a major character. I was able to easily pick up the essentials of the established relationships and events and even became emotionally engaged (though likely not nearly as much as longtime readers of the series!). This novel had the feeling of renewal, of tying off some old threads and establishing a new normal for the characters. All those who recommended Penny were right, she’s an excellent writer.

#TBR Challenge – Tree of Cats by Ellis Avery.

Fanfiction:
Mr. Carter and Mr. Potts by Speranza is a very satisfying fixit for Infinity War, involving a lot of time travel.

Drive It Like You Stole It: A Bodyswap by AggressiveWhenStartled is utterly hilarious. Hapless Peter Parker is trying to keep an eye on Captain America and The Winter Soldier, who end up in each others’ bodies. This is followed by a road trip to try and cure their problem (which is not, however, affecting their mutual sex life) and scandalize Peter Parker while they’re at it. My description in no way does it justice. The dialogue is just terrific.

almost there and nowhere near it by shellybelle is the Check Please! “Gilmore Girls AU that absolutely no one asked for” but you do not have to have seen Gilmore Girls to enjoy it, because I don’t think I have ever seen even a single episode, and I still followed it fine. It’s basically a small-town romcom featuring familiar characters.

Halo Effect by Alex51324 is first in a series of two stories that the author notes tell me are Alternate Universe Downton Abbey. I have seen a portion of exactly one episode of this show (conveniently, the one where this story branches off), but so far as I can tell that made no difference in my enjoyment. The story starts with a slightly different outcome to an episode that leads to better things happening to Thomas Barrow, a footman in a large house. I gather he is mostly an antagonist in the series. He’s a gay man in the Edwardian period where homosexual activity could lead to prison time at hard labor; the writer seems to have done their research into how gay men of the time managed their emotional and sexual relationships. This story also features the leadup to World War One, which is why I started reading the story in the first place. If you do know the show, there are author notes explaining various shifts in the canonical continuity. Recommended.

Soldier’s Heart by Alex51324 was the second part of the “Halo Effect” series, a massive Downton Abbey AU featuring Thomas Barrow and a host of original characters. I really enjoyed this, though it took over a week to read because of the length. I believe most of the story was original to the author, and a good portion takes place on the Western Front. I was left hanging regarding a couple of presumably-canon-related plot points near the end, about canon characters; that was the only time I think knowing the actual show’s plot was relevant. Overall, the story covers Barrow’s service in WWI and the progress of his career after that, as well as resolution of some apparently canonical relationships. Content Warnings for World War One wounds, deaths, and grief.

Untitled Goat Game by Hark_bananas, whatthefoucault is a lowkey, lighthearted Winter Soldier story featuring a very funny original character, Beth, as Bucky’s therapist. There are serious themes which resolve happily.

Posted in fanfiction, mystery, reading, sf/f, wwi | Tagged reading log | Comments Off

#TBRChallenge – Comfort Read: Tree of Cats by Ellis Avery

Posted on January 20, 2021 by Victoria Janssen

For my “comfort read” I chose Tree of Cats by Ellis Avery, the final novel by a college friend who died from cancer in 2019. Another college friend who read the manuscript told me the outlines of the story, which led me to believe it would fit in this category. And in a metatextual way, it comforts me to know that this last work of Ellis’ hands is out in the world. Reader, it was not a comfort read, at least not in the conventional sense. But I was comforted.

Description:
The thrilling and heartwarming story of a little black cat who cooperates with a human girl and with other cats to rescue her kitten from an evil mad scientist. Set in New York City’s West Village, this novel is one part mystery, one part fantasy, one part coming of age. Alternating between the point of view of its feline heroine Minna and its human heroine Ava, Tree of Cats delightfully imagines the secret life of cats, which includes an ancient information-sharing network called the Catalogue.

Tree of Cats resonates strongly with The Family Tooth: A Memoir in Essays, Avery’s 2016 book about her difficult relationship with her mother, her mother’s death, and her own severe illness. Tree of Cats is only about cats on the surface; though Avery creatively used a cat’s point of view for Minna, Minna’s concerns are very human. Minna’s relationship with her daughters is fraught, and must be re-established as a matter of survival, while accepting the grief of past events that cannot be changed. Minna suffers major life changes from human actions that she cannot control, and must learn to live and find happiness with the results. Meanwhile, Ava, a thirteen-year-old mixed race girl who lives in the West Village, is navigating her own desires for freedom and individuality while faced with the constraints of being a girl of color, whose world is more dangerous than that of her more privileged friends.

In the end, I came away with a sense of the importance of differing relationships and differing points of view, and memories, and art, all being necessary for survival and for growth. We humans don’t have a Catalogue tree to access memories of the living and the dead, but we do have memories written on leaves, and passed from one to another. We have art, so we are never truly alone.

Content warnings: cat deaths, in general and at human hands; fertility loss; child in peril. Both Ava and Minna survive relatively unscathed.

Posted in reading, sf/f | Tagged reading challenge, reading log | 5 Comments

Arisia 2021 Schedule

Posted on January 13, 2021 by Victoria Janssen

I’ll be participating in a couple of Zoom panels at Virtual Arisia 2021, January 15-18, 2021.

“Comfort Food Media: Extreme Stay-at-Home Edition”
2020 was going to be the year we were going to tackle the piles of unread books, of films we’d been meaning to see. Many of us haven’t actually worked on those lists, choosing instead to revisit the things that we know repair our collective calm. What old favorites did you return to this year, why is this so comforting, and what do you do with the discomfort that emerges when you realize your old favorites have become problematic? (We’re looking at you, Rowling.)
Zoom 3, Saturday 7:00 PM
Randee Dawn [moderator], Kevin Cafferty, Deirdre Crimmins, Andrea Hairston, Victoria Janssen, Dan Toland

“1986: The Year Nobody Left the Comic Shop”
The world of comics in 1986 brought us many works seminal to comics history, among them Watchmen and The Man of Steel, but that was hardly all that was going on that year. It also saw the continuations of the Claremont run on Uncanny X-Men, Wolfman/Pérez on New Teen Titans, and Levitz/Giffen on Legion of Super-Heroes, as well as the début of the New Universe, Chester Brown, and the ongoing British Comics Invasion. Come celebrate the comics of 1986 with Arisia!
Zoom 3, Mon 2:30 PM
Dan “Grim” Marsh [moderator], Victoria Janssen, Kevin Cafferty, Kevin Eldridge, Dan Toland

Posted in arisia, conferences | Comments Off

#TBRChallenge 2021

Posted on December 31, 2020 by Victoria Janssen

This year, I’ll be participating in SuperWendy’s TBR Challenge. 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 as of December, 2020.

January 20 – Comfort Read

Tree of Cats by Ellis Avery.

February 17 – New-To-You Author

Pembroke Park by Michelle Martin.

March 17 – Book by a Favorite Author

Wild Angel by Pat Murphy.

April 21 – Old School

Magic Flutes by Eva Ibbotson.

May 19 – Fairytale / Folktale

The Serial Garden by Joan Aiken.

June 16 – Book with One Word Title

Distances by Vandana Singh.