#like it just needs MORE to be a hugo novel. it needs depth it needs something more than fleeting comfort and reader-relatability

[july-19th-club]

im trying i swear im trying SO hard not to be bitchy about legends and lattes getting finalized for the hugo but . okay the hugo is a prize for science fiction/speculative fiction/fantasy fiction. and words mean things and essentially this is putting a very plot-lite romance novel with a fantasy setting up against political spec fic and like, books being entered in a contest that the left hand of darkness once won. which isn't to say that the contest itself is like, sacred ground - starship troopers, 1960 - basically heinlen's treatise on why the military is necessary to whip the youths into shape - like, it's a seventy-year-old science fiction prize, there's gonna be a lot of unlikeable books on there, actually. and its not to say that lighter books or books riding a wave of hype haven't won it before (harry potter won it in 2001)...it's just. it's a weird collection this year, is all, and the contest has skewed wider in its interpretation of spec fic in the past ten-twenty years, which i'm not upset about! words mean things but im also a huge proponent of thee two-time hugo winner UKLG's thoughts on genre. genre is as mutable as the clouds. we call things 'spec fic' often because they're difficult to categorize. but, and i'm saying this huge long preface because i genuinely don't want to seem like a wet blanket, but it's just...it's the wrong contest for the book. there's been a lot of good sff this year. but that's a romance novel. and also its not hugo levels of good

#like if you liked it. enjoy! do not read the rest of my tags lol #opinions below do not eat #............................. #okay i think this should be enough tags to hide the rest under the readmore but just in case .......... #................... #ok . #but it's entirely plotless and . just my onion. plotless does not equal cozy . and visa versa #cozy books can have very intricate and exciting plots! dozens upon thousands of lite mysteries prove this #plotless books can be as far from cozy as possible - my year of rest and relaxation has next to no driving force and #leaves the reader with a memorable discomforting taste in the mouth #but this book relies entirely on what Types its characters are to sell itself. they are gay and quirky fantasy creatures. #and books with gay and quirky fantasy creatures can also be very good!!! i have read these also!!!! #but this book's gay and quirky fantasy creatures dont even DO anything or have lasting interiority . in my onion #like it just needs MORE to be a hugo novel. it needs depth it needs something more than fleeting comfort and reader-relatability

[alicedrawslesmis]

One thing I like of Les Mis re: Javert is the recurring theme of Surface vs. Depth or like objetive reality vs subjective

Illuminism, the very thing Hugo defends in civilization, progress, republican utopia, the end of superstition and the embracing of science of reason and even in some sense actual light (as in, public illumination, mapping of the sewers, opening doors and windows, opening the doors of the convent) is a good in and of itself.

HOWEVER. However. There is a contradictory theme here of then accepting the hidden depths that we can't see. Javert can only see the outside of things or the appearance of them. He couldn't even feel Marius's heartbeat, and he couldn't conceive of 'grieving' or 'loss' as emotions he could only say 'there will be a funeral'. Because he thinks only in terms of the effects, or of facts (which is part of the discussion we were having of the meaning of fact vs right in french, 'ways of fact'). Javert conceived of himself as a limpid pool but he just now had to come to grips with the fact that he has a human soul inside and he is not, in fact, an empty object or category.

Illuminism is sometimes criticized for this hyper-objectification of reality through a very specific White European lens that doesn't accept itself as biased. "We are civilization and we are the owners of objective truth". This is when anthropology was created, when phrenology started to get super popular, eugenics as well. So another thing I think is super interesting about Javert and this chapter specifically is the open criticism of the illuminism framework. Reality is not, for Hugo, simply a matter of phenomena. You need to consider beyond that when talking about ethics. Pactical day-to-day justice is not real divine justice. Is lying evil? Well first, what even is objective good and evil? You can't simply impose them 1:1 on an imperfect world

and also I find that this is a precursor to phenomenology, but that would take a long time and way more research to talk about. Just saying that Hugo is sometimes contradictory and hella interesting and in a way is also forward thinking but conservative too. And that's why I can't just say Les Mis is this or that. It's not a simple novel and probably the reason it was so hard for people at the time to defend it in the public sphere and why its critics have a really hard time simply like. Having a super basic understanding of what the book says

[secretmellowblog]

For the character ask game: Cosette, 2 + 25 👀

Thanks for the ask, even though I'm answering it late! (For this ask meme) #2. Favorite canon thing about this character? My favorite canon thing about Cosette is the way she parallels Jean Valjean-- not just in their traumatic backstories, but also in the way they both often "perform" politeness and kindness. Cosette needs to perform happiness for Jean Valjean in order to convince him to take care of himself, and it's...deeply sad! She has to 'trick' him into not doing self-destructive things by framing it in cheerful lighthearted ways, papering over difficult problems with polite nothings, pretending not to be that frightened or upset, and it's...very sad. And it feels like something that he taught her. The moments when she attempts to stop all the cheerfulness and talk to her father directly always tend to end with Jean Valjean breaking down-- like the moment when she asks "are you angry with me because I am happy?" or her attempts to ask directly about her mother, which both end with Jean Valjean shedding tears and avoiding her questions. There's something very realistic about that failure to communicate. I don't know whether Hugo fully considered this a negative thing-- but I do think he understands the way that children often put on a great performance of happiness in order to help their parents. Cosette is in many ways just Victor Hugo projecting his trauma over the death of his own young daughter onto Jean Valjean and Cosette's relationship, and like. As much as Cosette's writing is often deeply imperfect/ sexist, and as much as I think she should've been given more interiority and agency in the end of the story--- I think you can tell that Hugo did sincerely love his daughter? Cosette doesn't feel like a one-note cloying ingenue to me, but a fictionalized version of a real daughter Victor Hugo sincerely loved. I also think that Child-Cosette in particular is written very well! Lots of authors struggle to write children, but Hugo really captures a lot of the way children think and speak-- young Cosette isn't a cloying innocent ingenue, she's a starving frightened angry child, and it makes her teenage self far more interesting as a contrast. As a random addition: Hugo doesn't go into this, but it's fascinating how Cosette is extremely good at lying. She and Jean Valjean kind of share that talent. Very few people manage to trick Jean Valjean-- Marius fails utterly at pretending he's not in love with Cosette, and falls into all of his traps-- but Cosette manages to hide a secret love affair from him for a very long time. It's interesting how the two of them are very good at lying and concealing things from each other, and I don't fully know what to make of it.

Also my hot take is that anyone who thinks Cosette is a bland one-note ingenue should read Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and contrast her with Lucie Manette. XD I used to be obsessed with A Tale of Two Cities, but it's basically just "what if Les Mis was bad and all the criticisms about it were actually true?" That novel also features a young ingenue who takes care of her traumatized ex-prisoner father-- but unlike Cosette, Lucie has no interiority or depth, and doesn't feel like anything resembling a real human young girl. All of the interesting things about Cosette- like her naivete/coming of age story, or the way her excessive bubbliness is often an act she puts on for her father's happiness, or her silly funny dialogue, or her own hard past that parallels her father's-- just aren't there. Again, there are lots of places where I think Hugo's writing of Cosette fails; but there's also a lot of interesting details that are easy for people to explore and dig deeper into in fanworks.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

My first impression of this character was that she was Fine, but not very interesting? But the more I got invested in the novel and the fandom, the more I appreciated her as a character! Hugo's writing of her is deeply flawed, and she isn't given enough attention in the ending of the book specifically, but there's enough really compelling stuff there to be a great jumping off point for fanworks. I think I already answered how I see her now in the previous question, but I want to add that I also like that she's nicknamed Madame LaNoir, or the Lady in Black. Goth Cosette is canon! That's very fun to me.

#les mis #it takes me a while to gather thoughts #but yay thanks!! #see like #you cant write a fanfic about lucie manette from a tale of two cities #because theres just like Nothing #theres nothing to build off #shes not even a character #while Cosettes writing is flawed theres still Stuff There #I say this as someone who read A Tale of two cities an ungodly amount of times during my Dickens phase

[captainjacklyn]

Azul Ashengrotto x Great White Shark!reader AU

Part 1 (which includes the request), and this is Part 2 of my azul ashengrotto x shark! Reader fanfic.

Wow I can't believe I'm making a whole fanfic with this AU which started off as a simple head canon to a whole fucking novel. Thank you to the one who requested the head canon and to anon who requested a scenario.

You guys are around middle school just so you are aware of the timeline.

Content & Warning(s) : This is pure angst and violence, as warnings we have fighting, blood & mentions of injuries/graphic violence, strong language, basically kids causing huge damage to each other. If you are sensitive to these kinds of topics please feel free to ignore. (the fact that I watched so many shark documentaries for this fic is unimaginable) Oh and the reader is a great white shark because the original hcs request was precisely asked for a great white. I'm sorry if you wanted to be a different kind but if you do not mind then enjoy.

The love story of a Shark and an Octopus Part 2 :

It had already been a few years since you two befriended each other, You both encountered a pair of moray eels who soon became your new companions spending time with azul and observing him studying his magic. You were truly happy to finally find people who weren't blood related to care for. Days went by and the bullying almost stopped with your presence around azul. But like I said, almost.

Due to your terrifying reputation as a white shark being the primordial predator of the seas. It would be unexpected to find someone who tried to mess with you, but unexpected never meant impossible. As you weren't the only deadly predator.

On that faithful day the leech twins were away so it was only going to be you and azul together. You and him were at his octopus pot simply having a chat together. You then had a sudden idea for a game leaving azul alone as you went to get the materials.

But when you came back, so much had happened and the horrid sight of your bestfriend getting beat up by a group of mermaids.

You dropped the seashells you were holding and speeded yourself towards them in anger, only to be slapped by another merman's tail. "[name]...!" azul who was getting held back by the others witnessed you getting slammed onto a coral reef nearby, making you bare your fangs from the impact.

"Ah ! So much for a white shark ! You were really overestimated [name] !" a cocky voice exclaimed as the others around him laughed, you opened your eyes to find an orca merfolk in front of you. A killer whale. You swinged your tail to hit him but he dodged and grabbed your hair to slam you back onto the rocks. Cutting you and making you bleed in the process, you had to admit he was about has big as you and the damage he inflicted was slowly making you lose consciousness. For some reason, his face was familiar to you.

"I think it's time I tell you who really is the boss around here, don't think I came all the way here just to eat your little octopus. Furthermore...I was waiting for this day my whole life, remember that mermaid who you caused this to ?" he lifted his tail slightly revealing a hideous scar tracing his fins. An extensive bite mark was placed there. No wonder he looked familiar, that boy was in your class when you were younger...Not only so but he was the one who worsen your reputation in the first place by provoking and making you lose your temper.

"Y-you...!" your words were faint but he understood that you started to reminisce him. "Hugo- !" at those words, Hugo smiled sadistically as he pushed you back onto the corals. "See ? You just needed a little shake to remember. You guys take care of the tako, this one's mine- !"

Hugo let go of your hair and grabbed you from both arms, slamming you once more and dragging you and practically wiping the ocean's depth with your body. You tried to fight back and bite him, even so your efforts were futile and he used his left hand to smash your head back onto the sand once more. Causing an enormous puddle of your own blood around the both of you.

He later on brought your head up with the hand he used to drag your face and used to other over your throat. Obliging you to look at azul receiving punches after punches, That was a grave mistake.

"OH YOU SON OF A-" you bit his arm to such capacity it broke his bone, making him let go of your body while hissing in pain. "You sly BITCH !" he yelled back and quickly pursued you. The other mermaids and mermen didn't notice your speedy arrival onto them as you lashed your tail onto the two mermaids who were holding azul and sent them flying to the water surface. You swam right after and grabbed one by the tail with your razor sharp teeth, ripping a huge chunk of their fin and overtaking the others.

Your power was truly underestimated when it came to regular merfolk. Overpowering all six in only a matter of seconds, azul was half awake on the sand when he saw you destroying each and every one of these bullies.

As you beat them all down, Hugo tackled your stomach and knocked the absolute wind out of you. "huff...huff...You asshole-" your stare on him was filled with rage as you panted and grabbed your throat, trying to steady yourself. "HOW ABOUT WE FINISH THIS LIKE WE STARTED !" you made a beeline for his own throat, smiling like an insane maniac. "FINE BY ME BITCH !"

End of part 2 click here to read part 3.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twistedwonderland #writer #angst prompt #twst floyd #twst yuu #twst imagines #twst mc #twst wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #octavinelle #tw violence #tw violent language #tw graphic violence #strong language #extensive damage #bleeding #azul x reader angst #azul twisted wonderland #azul ashengrotto x reader #azul ashengrotto x y/n #jade leech #floyd leech #coral sea #twst angst #twst azul #twst ashengrotto #great white shark

[cometomecosette]

Character ask: Grantaire

Tagged by anonymous

Favorite thing about them: Despite his small role, he’s such a rich character who appeals on multiple levels. For starters, he’s funny, witty, lively, and fun-loving, which provides much-needed relief from the story’s heavy drama. But at heart, of course, he’s a “sad clown,” and his cynical worldview is poignant and sometimes all too relatable. And then there’s the key contradiction within his character, which is both fascinating and moving: the fact that despite being a resolute skeptic, he adores his idealistic friends, is only happy in their presence despite mocking their beliefs, and loves Enjolras, idealism personified, to the point that he chooses to die with him. He would be a compelling character even without the gay subtext, but the fact that he’s almost explicitly in love with another man makes him all the more engaging for modern audiences. It’s impressive that Hugo managed to put so much substance into a minor character who only appears in a few scenes.

Least favorite thing about them: Well, he is a loose cannon who fails to make himself useful as a revolutionary. As much as we might like him, it’s understandable that Enjolras dislikes him until the end. In the novel (glossed over in the musical), there’s also his casual sexism, which was probably to be expected from such a wild and worldly young man in the 1830s.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I’m often disappointed with the state of the world and feel tempted to become a total cynic.

*I enjoy physical pleasures and sometimes indulge in them too much. (I’m more prone to overeating than drinking, though.)

*I admire Enjolras’s idealism enormously.

Three things I don’t have in common with them:

*I very rarely drink alcohol.

*I don’t belong to a group of revolutionaries.

*I’m female.

Favorite line: From the novel, it wasn’t easy going through his long speeches to pick out favorite lines, but I finally narrowed it down.

About Christ’s cross: “There is a gibbet which has been a success.” (Or, in another translation, “a gallows that made good.”)

About Enjolras: “What fine marble!”

From his first rambling speech: “Life is a hideous invention of I know not whom.”

From the famous dialogue in “Enjolras and his Lieutenants,” when Enjolras asks him if he’s good for anything: “I have a vague ambition in that direction.”

When Enjolras accuses him of believing in nothing: “I believe in you.”

From “Preliminary Gayeties:

"...I suspect that God is not rich. The appearance exists, it is true, but I feel that he is hard up.”

“Marius and his Marie, or his Marion, or his Maria, or his Mariette. They must make a queer pair of lovers. I know just what it is like. Ecstasies in which they forget to kiss. Pure on earth, but joined in heaven.“

And of course, from his ultimate self-sacrifice:

“Long live the republic, I’m one of them!”

And his final words, to Enjolras:

“Do you permit it?”

From the musical:

“I am agog, I am aghast!

Is Marius in love at last?

I have never heard him ooh and aah!

You talk of battles to be won,

And here he comes like Don Ju-an!

It’s better than an o-per-a!”

and

“Drink with me to days gone by.

Can it be you fear to die?

Will the world remember you when you fall?

Can it be your death means nothing at all?

Is your life just one more lie?”

brOTP: His fellow Amis, and in many productions of the musical, Gavroche.

OTP: Enjolras, though less in the main plot than in the afterlife, and/or in a better time and place where they could have reached an understanding sooner.

nOTP: Any woman.

Random headcanon: His backstory, with everything that made him such a skeptic and yet gave him such a profound need for others’ idealism, would probably be worthy of its own novel.

Unpopular opinion: While I do think he’s in love with Enjolras, I don’t take great offense to seeing his devotion read in a platonic way too, because it does have much more depth than just romantic attraction. And I certainly don’t think Enjolras is in love with him; I ship them in a sense of “what could have been.”

Song I associate with them: “Drink With Me.”

Favorite pictures of them:

This illustration by Gustave Brion.

Anthony Crivello with crazy ‘80s hair, Broadway, 1987.

And with normal hair in the 10th Anniversary Concert, 1995.

Paul Truckey, US 3rd National Tour, 1996.

Tom Zemon with Stephen Buntrock as Enjolras, Broadway, 1997.

Hadley Fraser, 25th Anniversary Concert, 2010.

George Blagden, 2012 film.

#les mis #les miserables #character ask #grantaire #fictional characters #ask game

[la-pheacienne]

What are your favourite greek classics? or in general from the greek literature canon? I'm not greek so i confess that i only know the ones that date back centuries that i needed to study from my classic greek classes :) I read antigone and i like it

And, aside from les mis, have you read any other french classics? or any that are now encapsulated as "european" (spanish, polish, romanian etc?

Sorry if any questions sound weird. Do not need to answer if they make you uncomfortable

No it's not weird at all, thank you for asking!!!

Unfortunately, I have read far less greek classics than I would like. My first response will be kind of basic, I think one should always, always, start with Homer (with a slight preference for Odyssey). Odyssey is truly magical. There is nothing quite like it. Thematically, conceptually, narratively, stylistically it is just so flawless. It is like a dream of adventure, love, monsters, good and evil, loyalty and treason, and longing for home of course.

Then since you have read Antigone you could try Oresteia, this is a trilogy (I think the first trilogy ever created?), so it's three consecutive tragedies, and it's amazing, I think this one particularly appeals to someone who is looking for a more, let's say, morally dubious world. It's less idealistic, it's a story about a rotten royal family tearing itself to pieces. What's cool is that every single POV has more or less valid reasons for doing what they are doing, and your opinion on the characters really changes when you go from one tragedy to the next. Everyone is partly right and partly wrong (some more than others), but in the end the gods intervene to settle this affair once and for all. It's really cool. Then Oedipus Rex has of course the OG "trying to change my destiny and making it happen instead" arc which is a really powerful theme, used consistently ever since in any type of modern media, films, tv shows and books.

But since you ask about Greece, in case you are interested in reading modern greek literature, I have a soft spot for the Murderess of Alexandros Papadiamantis (you can find it in Amazon), I think it's the best modern greek novel honestly. It's about an old woman who slowly becomes deranged and starts killing little girls, starting with her newborn granddaughter, because she feels that girls bring only misery to their families (and will only experience misery themselves). Then I will also include this quite niche recommendation (this one will be more difficult to find but an english translation does exist), its The End of Our Small Town by Dimitris Hatzis, it's a book with many beautiful and heartbreaking short stories/portraits of different social types of people in Greece during the period between the first and the second World War.

So, from Europe I have read french, russian, and english literature. And also Kafka, that's it. So I can only speak about this. From french literature, I would recommend a less talked about novel of Balzac, Le Cousin Pons, that is one of my absolute favourite books. Balzac is the contrary of Hugo in the sense that Hugo is a Romantic, he talks about society but aiming to inspire people, to put it simply, while Balzac is a Realist, so he wants to present society exactly as it is, and it is not a good portrait. Where Hugo is hopeful, Balzac is resigned, so it is a really depressing book. But still, hands-out the most in-depth portrait of french society, 100 percent relevant today, and the appeal of it is that it makes the modern reader feel akward cause the things he criticizes are still prevalent in the modern way of thinking. I guarantee that you will find people you know that are exactly like some characters in that book. It is the story of an antique collector that is ignored and scorned by his superficial bourgeois family because he's weird and he only cares about his hyperfixation (his collectables) until they realise the true value of his collection and they construct a plan to steal it and basically destroy him in the process.

#le cousin pons #oresteia #greek literature #homer #odyssey #oedipus rex #honoré de balzac #anonymous #french literature #or anything from balzar really just pick a random book

[hamliet]

Thanks for sharing your top 10 fave ships, Hamliet....I'm quite surprised that a one of your top 10s are shin soukoku (I thought you'll ship soukoku, cause you like Dazai) and zutara (need to rewatch that series again)....Do you mind if I ask why you ship them (atsushi/akutagawa and zuko/katara)? Also I'm surprised that you'll put chezou above wangxian and hualian (can I ask why?) Sorry for the long ask, please ignore it if my ask is already answered by you before....Thanks so much for your tumblr, Hamliet.....You writings and answers are inspiring and beautiful....Have a nice day.....💐🌷

Oh, I love soukoku, but I've been upfront since Day 1 that shin soukoku is my OTP from BSD. Look at my avatar, even, haha!

I tend to be drawn more to child-coded characters than to adult/mentor coded ones, if only because I tend to fear the mentor ones will die (they usually do, but Dazai shouldn't). I love Dazai too and I do think he's the stealth protagonist even over Atsushi, but the pure raging antagonism of Akutagawa and Atsushi's relationship with the obvious hints that they will end up working together and fulfilling everything all the past double blacks did not--even if I think soukoku isn't tragic obviously--well, that's my jam.

As for Cezhou, well, MXTX's three novels are some of my favorite novels of all time, creeping into my top ten list with the likes of Hugo and Dostoyevsky and Turgenev. QJJ is excellent and probably would make a top 20 list for sure (if we're talking danmei only, it'd be #4), but there's a kindness to MXTX's themes and stories that isn't present in other writing, and MXTX's thematic depth and exploration in all of her novels (even SVSSS) is at an unparalleled level. I think each ship in each novel--Bingqiu, Wangxian, and Hualian--work really well for the actual novel itself, I ship them like FedEx, and I've written countless fanfics for them. The main romance is the thematic heart of each story.

But to return to shin soukoku--I kinda have a personal taste thing for mutual antagonism. I like enemies to lovers when both hate each other.

It's just my personal taste, and so Cezhou hits all the right spots for that for me (also probably why Hexie has potential to be my favorite of Meatbun's ships if it is pulled off well in the end).

Zutara for the same reasons lol. Mutual antagonism, redemption weaved in--yes, please. Plus, the actual canon romance was not executed well.

#ask hamliet #shipping

[readingaway]

Mid Year Book Freakout Tag

Stolen from @ninja-muse, this was a good distraction for a few minutes

How many books have you read so far?

126; fewer than I wanted to have read but there’s a lot of extenuating circumstances and reading must take a back seat to everything else. A few have been re-reads like Dance of Thieves, Red White & Royal Blue, the first three books of An Ember in the Ashes, and I will get to re-reading We Hunt the Flame in the next few weeks. 

What genres have you read?

A decent mix, I think. It’s still somehow dominated by fantasy and YA (or YA fantasy), but I’ve gotten in quite a few other genres like contemporary/ adult literary fiction, historical fiction, romance, sci-fi, classics, and some nonfiction, poetry, short stories, and graphic novels. 

Best books you’ve read so far in 2021:

Not counting re-reads -

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (book 3 hurt so much)

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

A Memory of Light by Brandon Sanderson & Robert Jordan 

Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett (my favorite Discworld novel so far)

The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

New Spring by Robert Jordan

The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald (was a bit hard to read but the flow and the emotional pull)

The Lives of Christopher Chant and Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones (I’ve discovered that when I’m in a slump - usually because my reading has been too depressing or dry I just have to pick up a Jones or a Pratchett to fix things)

A Sky Beyond the Storm by Sabaa Tahir (I mean, I thought I was upset by certain things but then I checked the tagged posts on here and realized I’m normal, actually)

Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley

Curses are for Cads by Tamara Berry

The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino

The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson

The Valley and the Flood by Rebecca Mahoney

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Cures for Heartbreak by Margo Rabb

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Best sequel you’ve read so far in 2021:

Uh, I’m gonna go with The Box in the Woods even though it’s not quite a sequel, it is connected to the main series

New release you haven’t read yet, but want to:

Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton, Delicates by Brenna Thummler, Lucy Clark Will Not Apologize by Margo Rabb, and Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. There’s a few more but these are the ones I’m most anxious to get to.

Most anticipated release for the second half of the year:

I’m very excited for A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger, Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson, Hypnosis is for Hacks by Tamara Berry, and The Winners by Fredrik Backman - the intended release date is unclear but it looks like it should be out in English in November/ December but might be pushed to next year. (On that note, I am still waiting for The Winds of Winter and The Thorn of Emberlain.)

Biggest disappointment:

Ace by Angela Chen was well put together but nothing earth-shattering or even that affirming for me. I keep myself sheltered from discrimination so I don’t face the stuff that people in the stories related faced, nor is it like I’ve never heard of asexuality before. 

In terms of books I think were just bad, Coyote America by Dan Flores was a flop; it looked like it might be pretty informative and some parts of it were, but there were so many assumptions and presumptions, as well as poor argumentation, that it threw everything else the author was claiming into question. Brideshead Revisited and A Handful of Dust, both by Evelyn Waugh were also big disappointments, out of all the classics I’ve read so far this year they were both boring, stale duds in which nothing interesting happened at all and the narrative voice was even more boring and grating. 

Biggest surprise:

Um, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I thought it would be iffy but it was... it flowed well and highlighted the differences between the women and had such emotional depth and also drew so much attention to patriarchal religious structures and patriarchy in general. 

Favorite new author (debut or new to you):

Ooh, I’ve read quite a few debut novels - mostly middle grade since I’ve been reading a lot of middle grade since my own novel project falls somewhere between middle grade and YA and I want to study the story types and narrative styles and I like how they’re written much more clearly than YA and adult books and yet typically have great emotional depth. So for most notable debut authors I liked Rebecca Mahoney and Nora Shalaway Carpenter. In new to me authors, Rachel Maddow, Tillie Walden, and Natuso Kirino all have other books that I’m now interested in checking out. Actually I have one of Tillie Walden’s other books next to me right now.

Underrated gems:

I’m going to say Spindle’s End, The Goddess Chronicle, The Valley and the Flood, Cures for Heartbreak, the Chrestomanci series by Diana Wynne Jones, Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland, Black Flamingo by Dean Atta, The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham (a classic horror/ sci-fi novel), and The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar

Newest fictional crush:

Was gonna say “don’t have any” but one could say that I love Marko in Saga (they draw him with such a strong jawline and he wears armor and has beautiful ram horns; bearded Marko was peak Marko) and Eleanor Wilde in Tamara Berry’s Eleanor Wilde mystery series might count.

Newest favorite characters:

the crew in Saga and Ashby in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet stick out but really, I loved a lot of characters this year.

Book that made you cry:

Jumping Off Swings by Jo Knowles, Love & Olives by Jenna Evans Welch, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid leap to mind

Book that made you happy:

Aside from the ones I already listed, The Transatlantic Book Club by Felicity-Hayes McCoy

Most beautiful book cover of a book you’ve read so far this year:

Oh but there’s quite a few! Like The Pull of the Stars, the vintage classics copy of Orlando, The Go-Between, The Valley and the Flood 

How are you doing with your year’s goals?

Well I didn’t make any official goals aside from my overall reading goal of 200 books, which I’m doing well on. I might up it to 250 but I’m not sure how demanding fall semester is going to be yet. Aside from that I just have vague goals to push my boundaries and read as diversely as possible - not just with things like #ownvoices books but in genre, all the different categories, as well. That’s going pretty well.

What books do you need to read by the end of the year?

SO MANY. I can’t give a list because there is no way to keep it concise.

Tagging: @softironman, @she-wolf-of-highgarden, @motherofkittens94 and anyone who wants to do it.

#tag games

[maxwell-grant]

Ever read or heard of Al Ewing's El Sombra trilogy?

So now that I actually finished Pax Omega I can give my thoughts on the trilogy. In short: I like it! It's got a lot of incredible strengths and interesting takes on the material it pulls from, it's got a very rich setting and interesting characters to explore, in terms of what else I've read from Al Ewing's general work it's second only to Immortal Hulk for me. This trilogy may have actually convinced me that steampunk has at least some value as something other than obnoxious set dressing, and that is no small feat.

I got a separate post planned for El Sombra as a character because I want to write about his character arc and the trilogy's relation to his respective influences, but below are my particular thoughts on the books. Spoilers below the cut

El Sombra is easily the simplest of the three, and the most straightforward "pulp" novel of the three. For the most part it's 200+ pages dedicated to establishing the misery of Pasito, the vileness of the Nazis, and the character of El Sombra as he hacks his way through whatever bastards he can get his hands on. It has to do a lot of work in making sure we fully understand El Sombra's character before the next novels can get to work putting him on bigger settings in a supporting role, and in that it succeeds very well. It's a Zorro character stuck in a 2000 AD world of dystopian mechanized nightmares and fighting savagely to kill it, gradually learning that he needs more than just a sword and superhuman skills to do it.

One thing that sticks out to me about El Sombra is how grueling of a read it can be, especially in the first two chapters when the story's establishing the situation of Pasito nine years after the wedding massacre, through the POV of the story's villain. While there are many pulp stories that include Nazis as villains, I've never seen one that goes as in-depth into the sheer atrocities of Nazi regimes as much as this one. Ewing really spares no time conveying just how utterly wretched they are in many ways other than just ethnic massacres (and the massacres of the book are harrowing to read as well, no grisly detail spared), the many insidious ways totalitarianism corrodes the soul of all subjected to it, long before the Nazis actually start dying. It's incredibly disturbing and not at all out of line with the real atrocities perpetuated in history.

And it's made all the more effective because the book goes to great length to describe the many, many life stories of all those that get killed by El Sombra, whether irredeemably evil or merely misguided soldiers, which lends a lot of weight to them. He's not just tearing his way through cartoonish embodiments of evil, he's murdering people brutally, to our enjoyment, because painting Nazis as people is not the same as humanizing them, it only makes them much, much more horrifying than any doomsday weapon could ever be.

The scene in particular where El Sombra has to dash alone into a burning building to rescue children, children who are seconds away from dying, children he had to kill an entire squad of Nazis just to be able to rescue, children that he cannot leave on the streets because otherwise they will be trampled or killed by a mob, had me gasping and not wanting to turn the page out of fear, actual fear that he wasn't gonna make it.

"Zorro vs Nazis" is an incredible simple premise, and I don't think it could be done better than it was here. Very, very solid start, although I do recommend that you go in aware of just how brutal and disturbing it can get.

Gods of Manhattan was the first one I read, and contrary to El Sombra's more western and pulp roots, this very much reads like a superhero comic book centered around pulp icons. Out of the three it's the one I like the least, but it's a very good book, one that could easily work on it's own even without it being a sequel. It's considerably less harrowing of a read than El Sombra and instead much more based around meat and potatoes storytelling, showing how the building blocks at work here are being arranged, and a larger exploration of liberty and egalitarianism and political aspects of the works Ewing's pulling from. Gods of Manhattan is the trilogy's moral compass, contrasting to the simple revenge thriller in El Sombra and the science fiction anthology of Pax Omega, setting up the major players of this world before Ewing can knock them around for the final installment.

One of the things I like most about the El Sombra trilogy is the mix-and-match of properties. Doc Thunder, for example, bears many surface similarities to Doc Savage, but he functions mainly as a Superman figure. He wears a logo akin to Shazam's, he has a reputation akin to that of Captain America's, we later learn his real name is Hugo and he's the in-universe equivalent to Hugo Danner. As the most straightforward superhero of the setting, Thunder condenses the history of it's biggest icons into a single being. The primary Shadow analogue here is the villain, but the villain also shares more common traits with The Spider and Spider-Man, and traits of The Shadow manifest in two other characters (the titular El Sombra, and a character known in-universe as The Blue Ghost who functions as more of a Spirit analogue). There's a shapeshifting dead-faced supervillain by the name of Anton Venger, referencing the pulp hero The Avenger. The Lex Luthor analogue turns into Doomsday by the story's end. It's the crafting of an interesting new mythology from bits and pieces from a larger whole and there's enough rich content here to last for a whole franchise.

If I had one major problem with this book, it would be the character of Marlene Lang. Marlene functions here mainly as the Margo to Blood-Spider's Shadow, and naturally, she gets twisted to the extreme. While the story's demonization of The Shadow's archetype is grounded in a larger point about the dangers of dark vigilantism, it's treatment of not-Margo/Nita here is purely for the sake of reinforcing the Spider's own awfulness. The story demonizes her by painting her as decadent and sadistic and promiscuous, and the latter in particular is really hammered into you as something that paints her as evil and unlikable, which is really shitty. I expected better from Ewing and I don't think this is a decision he would have gone with had he written the story today.

Still, Gods of Manhattan is terrific and gets a very solid recommendation from me. But much to my surprise, my favorite of the books actually wound up being Pax Omega.

Pax Omega is an incredibly ambitious book, spanning the entirety of time from beginning to end, every chapter presenting a radical shift in setting as we jump through time periods of this world's history. It has a truly staggering amount of worldbuilding to get through and a lot of it is pure exposition. It's a one man sci-fi anthology, and while that's turned off some of it's readers, I liked it considerably better than the other books. It weaves together it's narrative threads incredibly well as it gradually gives you a sense of where the story is heading (and was always heading right from the first book) as wilder and wilder concepts get brought into play corresponding to the massive changes brought by time.

Despite how separate a lot of these stories are, they all come together, and there is not a single wasted chapter or page here. It's got fun thrills, it's got action, it's got harrowing descriptions and passsages (particularly regarding El Sombra's discovery of Berlin), it's got enough worldbuilding in here for entire shared universes and not a single dull moment. Pax Omega cements this trilogy as one of my favorite superhero universes as well as easily the best superhero novels I've ever read, although it's playing with a lot of images and icons much older than superheroes, and even weaves in a bit of meta-storytelling.

It's definitely the book I'll most likely revisit in the future, and while I don't think this is a trilogy that could work as well outside of it's literary format, I think there's a lot of interesting aspects here to be learned from by anyone who wants to tackle pulp characters, or superheroes. Very impressed with this one.

#replies tag #al ewing #el sombra #gods of manhattan #pax omega #pulp heroes

[celiabowens]

2020 reads, summer tbr edition. The plan is to come back to this post as I read the books and probably dump my thoughts here, not sure yet lol

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: really liked it, although the narrative structure wasn’t quite my cup of tea. Still, Ocean Vuong’s prose is incredibly beautiful and raw. Overall, I’d still recommend it to everyone, even if non-linear narratives aren’t your thing, because Vuong’s prose is incredibly frank and yet stunning, and the way it captures memories and brief moments in time is absolutely incredible. The novel has so many layers, its complexity and nuance are truly outstanding. 

The Empire of Gold: really liked this one! It develops the political conflict that was built in the first two books very well. The build up is quite slow and I get why some people may have issues with the pace, but I really liked the different storylines and how they all came together. Also loved the romance so much. I wouldn’t have minded more space for female side characters though.

Provenance: this wasn’t a bad read, but not as good as I expected it to be either. It reads much like a comedy of manners mixed with interplanetary politics, which was fun, but not as in depth as I wished. The characters fell a bit flat (especially the secondary characters) and their relationships weren’t as developed as I had hoped. The world was very cool though, especially with how fleshed out it felt, even when it came to minimal details.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: i’m very conflicted about this. On one hand, I really did like it, the book is fast and compelling (and reads very much like a tv show). On the other hand, the ending felt like unnecessary drama and it ruined it just a little bit for me. Anyway, worth the hype.

Girl Serpent Thorn: sort of disappointing? It’s a nice YA fantasy, but the premise begged for a more complex and nuanced development. The characters weren’t particularly fleshed out and the plot was a bit too flimsy. The mythology and world building, mostly inspired by Persian folklore, were really interesting and the bisexual rep was nice as well. 

The Nickel Boys: I really don’t mesh well with Colson Whitehead’s writing style (it just sort of reads very essay-like? I’m more of a purple prose person and his books almost read like non-fiction in general), but I liked this much more than The Intuitionist. This is such a hopeless and cruel novel and it delivers one punch to the gut after another. The final twist was as brilliant as heartbreaking truly. Glad I read it, as hard as it was. 

Shorefall: I liked it as much as Foundryside, but I still think this series lacks the spark and the nuance The Divine Cities Trilogy had. It’s still a pretty complex fantasy series (and Bennett is a master of his craft for sure) and I liked the economical and political subplots so much, but the characters do very little for me. The f/f romance is super cute and the cast works well, but the characters aren’t as compelling on their own. Still, a solid read.

Realm of Ash: this was great! I really like how Tasha Suri creates so much tension between her characters (the slow burn, the yearning...) and the character development in general. I love how this book was mostly focused on the court, because the moral ambiguity and the intrigue really set it apart from its companion, in a good way. 

Salt Slow

Dune: DNFed this one at 40% (which is like, over 250 pages), because it was extremely boring and yet confusing. As much as I like modern science fiction, I think most of the classics may not be for me. 

The Once and Future King

Angels and Insects: DNFed this one, no regrets. I read Possession earlier this year and as tough as it was (it’s just really such a dense book), the painfully slow pace was worth it, because of how well crafted and complex it was. Angel and Insects contains two novella and the payoff wasn’t worth the boredom, so I just dropped it.

A Gentleman in Moscow: this was literally perfect until the ending. I just...found it overly bizarre and forced. The rest of the novel is, however, 100% worth the hype. It’s compelling and nuanced and such a good character study. Really loved the prose too.

The Impossible Girl: the premise was better than its execution, I guess. I feel like my biggest problem with this one was how flat the characters felt to me and how the plot was a little messy. The premise was great (crossdressing girl with two hearts working as a resurrectionist was interesting to say the least), and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the novel overall, because I did, just not as much as I thought. 

Notes on a Nervous Planet (if all the academic reading I need to do for thesis doesn’t end me first)

I actually don’t do too well with structured TBRs and I might read these in a month truthfully, so I don’t know how this experiment will go, but I guess I’ll see.

Stuff I’ve read out of the TBR: The Kindgom of Back by Marie Lu (I loved this one, would totally recommend checking it out), The Gameshouse by Claire North (the first novella is good, the rest was painful to read tbh), The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel (well written, but I really just did not care at all for it).

#2020 reads #gio rambles #tbr #summer 2020 tbr #i only have to do thesis and academic reading so #i might actually fly through some of these

[cbk1000]

So, I’m reading a Reddit thread on the most common bad habits that are seen from fanfiction writers, and one user mentions word count and points out how common it is to see really long fics that are several hundred thousand words. Their argument is that an average length for published literature is between 100k to 150k and any fic longer than this is usually an indication that the writer needs a good editor to mercilessly trim it. I was curious what you guys think about this.

While this is certainly true of some fics (and plenty of published novels as well), I’m not sure this can really be applied across the board since fanfic is a different sort of medium and it’s often trying to accomplish something different than an original novel. I have read long fics that could use some trimming; I remember reading one a while ago (I think it was in the Mass Effect fandom) that started off really well, had good, in-depth characterization and some excellent action scenes, but then it just started spinning its wheels and went on for chapters and chapters doing nothing much more than having its characters stand around talking to one another. It was like 100 pages of endless navel gazing. Even Victor Hugo couldn’t pull that off.

But, tbh, the vast majority of long fics I’ve read have felt necessarily long. For instance, some epic Final Fantasy fics that function as sequels to a game that is 40+ hours long. Or novelizations of a game that’s 40+ hours long. Marvel fics reimagining the entire universe. GoT fics where the source material itself is extremely long and complicated. And on a personal note, all of my longest fics have been complete rewrites of shows that lasted for years. If I’m redoing in its entirety a story that took its original creators several seasons and over a hundred episodes to tell, I’m not going to be able to explore it in the depth that I want in 50,000 words.

 Thoughts? What are your experiences with reading long fic? Similar to mine, or did you feel that most of them really suffered for lack of a professional editor?

#fanfic #fic #writing #just thought this was an interesting discussion #most of the published novels i read are very long because i prefer something i can settle into #so i'm sort of predisposed to viewing fics that are 200 and even 300 thousand words as not insanely long #i do wonder if one of the problems the user who made this argument has with long fanfics is that fic is written by amateurs #and they think amateurs generally just don't have any business writing something that long

[ckret2]

do you have any tips on writing ace/aro characters, so that they come off as natural n not forced?

I'm gonna assume you're coming at this from a non-ace/aro perspective, so like, lemme give a super simple quick-and-dirty trick, and then I'll give you a couple of caveats to it. Also every time I say ace/aro in this post I mean "ace&aro OR ace OR aro." The example I'm using for this trick is more ace-oriented but like, apply the same mental exercise to romance. Here we go, here's the trick:

Pretend you're writing inside the mind of an adult character in a series aimed at little kids.

On the surface that sounds terrible I know, but bear with me while I explain it.

If you're watching, like, Sesame Street? There are adult characters running around. Various humans, Oscar the Grouch, Bert and Ernie, etc.

None of these characters think about fucking.

Like, ever.

I know, this concept is jarring, because Oscar is clearly a freak, and we all have headcanons about Bert and Ernie—but like, realistically speaking, they live inside a show aimed at preschoolers, and therefore they never think about fucking. They think about taxes, they think about repairing broken home appliances, they think about the state of the environment, they think about great works of art, but they don't think about fucking. You can examine the thoughts inside their heads at any time and fucking never crosses their minds.

Now, this doesn't mean they're childish/immature/naive. I specified "adult characters" for a reason. (Which is why, say, Elmo can't count for this example; the reason Elmo doesn't think about sex is because he's a baby.) Oscar is the wisest person on the planet. Bert and Ernie are out there living adult lives—and Ernie's a bit of a dork, but he's clearly an adult with some goofy thoughts, not an adult with the mind of a child. The human characters on the show are all normal humans, and the only trait they have in common is that they all get along with kids or else they wouldn't be on the show. You could write any of these characters into serious adult plots, just age up the vocab a bit, and they'd work just fine.

These adults are also all living in a real-ish world, and all have adult educations and knowledge bases. If you removed these characters from the setting of Sesame Street to ensure there are no preschoolers around and like, asked them if they know what sex is, they'd be like, yeah. Sure. Obviously. They wouldn't be naive. They are probably all reasonably knowledgeable about sex, to whatever extent we can expect out of muppets.

But none of them think about it. None of them care about it. They don't not know about it, they just don't think about it. If a guest singer comes on with a low-cut top, none of them will even notice that you can see almost all of her cleavage. If someone shows up who they personally consider extremely good looking by whatever their respective standards are, they will admire that person's looks but not once think about that person naked. On Valentine's Day they will think about handing out chocolates to their friends, and not think about the state of their sex lives. Due to the fact that they're not naive, if SOMEBODY ELSE goes "got a date for valentine's!! Hope we'll be up late. ;)" they might go "oh congrats, gonna see a late movie? ...... oh no wait, I figured out what you mean, haha good luck."

They aren't clueless. But the nature of the reality they live in precludes sex from naturally occurring to them or appealing to them.

You can do ace characters like that. You can also do aro characters like that—this specific example is focused on ace because like, even toddler shows will show romance in the form of A Mommy And A Daddy Who Are Married or whatever, and I couldn't think of an easy broadly-recognizable example for romance-free settings. But you can apply the same "knows about it, doesn't think about it, doesn't care about it" logic to aro characters.

The advantage of taking that approach is this: you never have to focus on I wonder what it's like to never think about sex/romance? because it is, at least in my opinion, VERY easy to imagine the aforementioned characters never thinking about sex/romance. You don't have to stop and try to figure out how they interact with the world, because they just DO interact with the world, never thinking about the things they don't feel the need to think about.

A lot of times I see ace/aro characters written as somehow preoccupied with their own absence of XYZ feelings, or else mentally explaining/justifying why they dislike XYZ activities as if their orientations are something they thoughtfully reasoned out rather than something innate/unconscious; and in both cases I think that's a reflection of allo writers being preoccupied with the absent feelings or trying to come up with an explanation that makes sense to THEM for why someone would "decide" to have this orientation the writers themselves don't have an internal instinctive understanding of.

But the same writers would probably have no problem writing Oscar without sexual thoughts because it probably never occurred to them to give Oscar sexual thoughts in the first place. It's not something they need to think about and justify. They can just do it.

Now, here are the caveats:

- Of course you don't want to LITERALLY write ace/aro characters like ACTUAL characters from shows aimed at preschoolers. You can AND SHOULD have them be gritty and intelligent and willing to go commit murders or whatever, and can AND SHOULD have them demonstrate all the depth and complexity of a character in a Victor Hugo novel. This example isn't given as a suggestion for a basis of characterization, but just as a thought exercise to help someone I'm presuming is allo get into the mindset of what it's like to have a character who simply never thinks about sex or romance. "How to have a character not be thinking about sex" is all you should take from this. Please don't write ace/aro characters like you're writing to a five-year-old audience.

- Of course, ace/aro folks are all different. Some of them think about sex or romance a lot. Some of them find romance fascinating to think and write about specifically because they don't have an internal sensation of it—hi there, yours truly. Some of them are demi or gray and do feel sexual or romantic attraction once in a blue moon. Some of them aren't merely neutral to the topics, but actively repulsed, uncomfortable, hostile, etc, whether that's because of just an instinctive Ew Yuck reaction or because they live in a society where the topics (and sometimes the activities) are forced on people all the time and they got sick of it. Some of them are actively sad/wistful that they don't experience those desires. Some are very pleased with how they are but still spend a lot of time comparing/contrasting their experience of the world with other people's. "Completely oblivious and completely disinterested and completely neutral" is a real possibility, but only one possibility out of many, and it would suck if that's the only sort of ace/aro rep we get.

But—BUT—if you're new at writing ace/aro characters, particularly if you're still figuring out the very basics of how to write about them in a way that sounds natural, I still recommend this thought experiment as a way to wrap your mind around the very basic root level experience of what it's like to have a character that doesn't feel attraction. Everything else can be piled on top of that foundation later.

Because if you hop straight on to something complicated like "smut scene with a character who's ace but sex positive and into doing kinky shit," what you might actually end up writing is "character with a token line included about how they don't desire sex but think it's fun and then they spend the rest of the scene having extremely allo-sounding thoughts/reactions," whereas if you've already had some experience/practice putting yourself into the head of a, like, basic tutorial level ace character, it's easier to extrapolate from that and do things like go "well, this character is into kinky sex, BUT I probably shouldn't have them get aroused at the thought of seeing their partner naked, since their source of fun is from the act itself and not from a physical attraction to that person..." or whatever.

- If you want an example of a character who is definitely ace but who also definitely has weird sex, it's Oscar the Grouch. I will not be accepting criticism. You know it's true.

#asexuality #aromanticism #(I feel like I oughta apologize for putting this post in those tags specifically for the Oscar comment) #writing #anonymous #ask #m #(I also apologize for the fact that TUMBLR BROKE MY READ MORE)

[moghedien]

Hey, I'm a big wot fan and I've read the big names like asofi and lotr but not a lot more as far as fantasy is concerned and I wanted your recs as far as major big works are concerned...

Ok I’ve been thinking about this for a day or so and I’m not completely satisfied with what I came up with but I got some recommendations. I’m gonna try to mix this with big, more obvious series and also some newer stuff that definitely deserves attention. 

The first thing that comes to mind is Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere. If you haven’t read any of Brandon Sanderson’s books outside of the WoT books he’s written, then I’d definitely suggest those. The Cosmere consists of multiple series, so there’s a ton to read there. Elantris (standalone), Mistborn Era 1 (trilogy), Mistborn Era 2 (currently a trilogy), Warbreaker (currently a standalone), and The Stormlight Archive (currently three books, fourth coming out this year) are the books in the series. There’s also White Sand which is a comic series (and honestly isn’t very good) and a few novellas and short stories. If you want to get into the Cosmere, start with either Mistborn Era 1 or Warbreaker. Most people would suggest Mistborn Era 1, but I just prefer Warbreaker and it is a standalone so that would be my personal suggestion. Just don’t do what I did and foolishly start with The Stormlight Archive because those books are like a million words a piece and require a lot of trust. I love the books, they’re probably my favorite Brandon Sanderson series, but they are a bad starting place.

The Broken Earth Trilogy by NK Jemisin is my next suggestion. The series comes with big ol’ content warnings for like, everything. Like literally everything, but its all very, very intentionally handled. It’s not intense and rough for shock value, its like that to make a point and I think it does so well. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot or inciting action, but basically, it’s a world in which there is magic that is related with geology (as in rocks) and also the world is ending and also the main character needs to find her daughter that her husband kidnapped. Also every book in the trilogy won the Hugo for Best Novel, and this is the only series that has ever done that. The first book in the trilogy is The Fifth Season.

Next recommendation comes with a little disclaimer because I’ve only read the first book so far, but I intend to read the rest and it is sorta a classic in fantasy, I believe, and that’s The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. The first book is the Assassin’s Apprentice and like I said, that was the only one I’ve read in the series, but I liked it and intend to read the others eventually. I believe that Robin Hobb’s other series all take place in the same world too, and there’s quite a few of those, but I’m pretty certain that the Assassin’s Apprentice is the place to start.

And here is another series that I’ve only read the first book for so far but enjoyed a lot. It’s also a much newer series: The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee is a sort of combination of a mafia movie and a martial arts movie, but actually it’s a book, takes place in a fantasy world, and there’s magic. The first book is Jade City and I enjoyed it a lot when I read it, but just haven’t gotten to the sequel yet though I’ve heard great things about it. The third book isn’t out yet and I’m not sure if that is the conclusion of the series but I think it is.

Obviously I can’t make one of these lists without mentioning the Witcher Saga by Andrzej Sapkowski. So the Witcher Saga is technically “The Witcher Saga plus two short story collections and also another book now.” If you watched the Netflix series and thought, “you know, that was somewhat confusing but I’d like to be much more confused just in general but also have in depth knowledge of seemingly random things,” then this series is for you! Ok, so I really do love the Witcher books and that sounds like I’m being harsh on it, but I just think its important to note that the writing style isn’t really traditional. Point of view jumps can seem weird and random and disjointed at times, but it does have a point to it all. If you’re going to read the Witcher, I’m going to just go ahead and give you the reading order because its unclear where you should start and in what order you should read it all. Start with the short story collections, beginning with The Last Wish, then Sword of Destiny, then you read the Saga, beginning with Blood of Elves and going in order from there. Read Season of Storms after the Saga. Also, the entire series in general deals with fairy tale retellings, but the short stories are MUCH more so. 

The last thing I’m going to suggest isn’t a series but a standalone book, though it is big enough that it could be a trilogy of three books rather than one massive book. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon came out last year and was one of my favorite books I read last year. I don’t really know how to describe it, but its told over multiple POVs and multiple cultures and has a genuine slow burn f/f romance that was definitely a highlight of the book for me personally. The author has said that she wants to write more in the world eventually, so there may eventually be a sequel, but at the moment, the book doesn’t require one and is a genuine standalone. 

Some fantasy authors who I don’t really have a specific work of theirs to mention but who I think deserve mentions because I’ve liked their books I’ve read: Mary Robinette Kowal, Naomi Novik, Sarah Gailey, Seannan McGuire, Rebecca Roanhorse

Also I just want to note that there are some gaps, as there are some major series I’ve never read that I know have huge followings like Malazan Book of the Fallen and pretty much every YA fantasy series ever. I don’t really want to outright recommend them because I have no experience with them whatsoever, but there’s a ton out there that’s widely loved that I just haven’t read. I could also make a long list of fantasy “classics” I would actively tell people to avoid, but that’s a whooooole other thing...

[lizardrosen]

BrickClub 1.7.3-1.7.4

Chapter III. A Storm on the Brain

I’m going to say right off that I much prefer “A Tempest Within A Brain” as FMA has it, but I know that there’s not really that much of a difference.

“There is a spectacle greater than the sea, and that is the sky there is a spectacle greater than the sky, and that is the human soul.” I love lines like this!

“he lived a quiet life, reassured and hopeful, having only two concerns: to hide his name and to sanctify his life; to escape the clutches of men and to return to G-d.” The characters in this book are at their most engaging when they have two goals which mostly align but then come into conflict, and it’s easy to see how being virtuous would obscure the fact that he used to be a dangerous criminal most of the time. 

It’s also important to note that his “initial impulse” is to denounce himself and force the system to set Champmathieu free, but his self-interest intercedes and makes him wait to see what happens. I think we focus a lot on how being and doing good is a difficult decision he has to make constantly in spite of his more selfish impulses, but bits like this also remind us that he wants to be good, so his philanthropy and self-sacrifice isn’t going against his basic nature. It’s just a struggle to put that into practice when he knows what that will cost him, and that’s the basic point of this chapter and the novel as a whole.

What he had always most dreaded in his hours of turning on himself, during his nights of insomnia, was ever to hear that name spoken; he told himself that this would, for him, be the end of everything; that the day that name reappeared, it would cause his new life to vaporize around him, and, who knows, inside of him, his new soul?

It’s so upsetting to see how thoroughly he dissociates his different names and selves, and that he truly can’t believe that “Jean Valjean” can only become “Monsieur Madeliene” by being completely destroyed and hidden. He’d be much happier and healthier if he believed that the good and bad were all a part of him, and I’m so sad for Jean Valjean D:

I’m struck by how many times during this one chapter he decides that everything is settled and it’s obvious what he has to do next, but then remembers another element of the situation which changes his mind. In contrast, Javert Derailed is just full of a whole bunch of questions with not even a false conclusion until he makes up his mind and then sticks to it.

Hugo pauses to remind us that “he said, he cried out” is a silent dialogue with himself, so that later when Valjean is distressed enough to speak out loud we’ll notice it as something remarkable.

This is a really good (and dare I say, iconic) chapter, but there’s honestly not that much to say about it without just giving a summary, so I’ll say that it captures a state of mind brilliantly and Who Am I does a really good job at translating this whole part into music.

Also, look at this excellent chapter ending:

And so this sorry soul went on debating with himself in anguish. Eighteen hundred years before this poor wretched man, the mysterious being in whom all the holiness and all the suffering of humanity are gathered, had also, while the olive trees were shivering in the wild wind of infinity, long pushed away with his hand the fearsome chalice that appeared to him, streaming shadow and running over with darkness in the star-filled depths.

Chapter IV. Forms Suffering Takes During Sleep

Valjean finally falls asleep and has a weird dream, not directly related to his dilemma but definitely the kind of thing that a sleep-deprived brain would cobble together in an attempt to jolt him along to some kind of decision.

I’m really curious about when he found the time to write down his memory of this dream. Some time must have passed because the envelope is labeled “The dream I dreamed that night.” I’m guessing it was in the time between going to withdraw and bury all the money from Lafitte, and getting re-arrested.

As other people have mentioned, I don’t think we ever hear anything about Valjean’s brother except for in this chapter, so maybe he doesn’t have one, but the dream provided him one. Whether he actually exists or not, he probably represents mankind in general, and Champmathieu in particular, because Valjean has taken to heart that he was called “Brother” by the bishop.

I think the men the color of ash and dirt are 1) really cool! and 2) related to Javert’s observation that “You know, in the lower classes, families often vanish from sight like that. We look, we can’t find a thing. Those sorts of people, when they’re not mud, they’re dust.”

This line is really creepy: Then the first man I saw and questioned when I entered the town said to me, “Where are you going? Don’t you know you’ve been dead a long time?”

He wakes up and he’s temporarily forgotten he ordered the cabriolet to arrive for him at four thirty in the morning, and needs to collect his thoughts (and his conscience) but finally gets ready to go.

#BrickClub #les mis #valjean #javert #champmathieu

[cometomecosette]

You mentioned in your last post that neither angry Eponine nor sweet sad Eponine is your ideal Eponine, so I was wondering, how would you describe your ideal Eponine?

Hmm, this is interesting! I’d never really thought of it in depth before.

My ideal Éponine would be grubby, tomboyish and tough; believable both as a street urchin and as the Thénardiers’ daughter. Samantha Barks’s girlish fragility in the film I can accept because her mother is Helena Bonham Carter’s more feminine Mme. Thénardier, but in stage performances with a more typically brash, crude Mme. T., I like her daughter to give off similar vibes. But I don’t like her to be constantly aggressive either. One aspect of Hugo’s Éponine that I think is underrated is how intelligent she is – deeply damaged and mentally unstable, yes, but intelligent too – and how she almost always uses her intellect rather than aggression in tight spots. Now of course the musical’s Éponine is written very differently, but I like to see her convey at least some of the cunning and sass Hugo gave her, rather than having “lovesick” and “tough” be her only two modes. Yet of course she also needs to be convincing as a young girl full of inner vulnerability, passion and yearning, and capable of sweetness and tenderness too. It’s not an easy balance to strike, but it can be done.

As for my issue with angry Éponines, it’s not that I think she should only be sweetly sad and never frustrated about her unrequited love, it’s that I don’t like her to be overly angry at Marius himself. I don’t even think she’s particularly angry at Marius in the novel – I see her attempt to lead him to die with her more as a desperate attempt to claim him for herself than as revenge. Besides, that’s not the musical. I want to believe that musical-Éponine truly likes Marius as a person, not just as an object of obsession, and that her love for him is truly selfless. That means not feeling entitled to his love, not blaming him for failing to give it to her, and not blaming him for failing to read her mind. The more warmly and selflessly she can love him, the more fitting it feels when she appears as an angel singing “To love another person is to see the face of God.”

All that said, I’m fully open to different interpretations of Éponine and I like seeing each actress make the role her own. The same is true for all the characters. I wouldn’t want any of them to always be the same.

#eponine #my humble opinion

[flying-elliska]

salut ellie! someone once asked you about your writing and you recommended falling in love with language and finding ways of writing you love. i was wondering, what books and/or writing styles are you in love with? it's just so interesting to know what somehow had an impact on the way you're writing bc i honestly adore your style

wow do you remember that ? that is such a flattering question oh my god. well, i’m still working on it. some of my favorites are (i’m very eclectic lmao) : 

- His Dark Materials (it’s a fantasy book series ‘for kids’ but it’s actually insanely deep and philosophic) is pretty much the first book series that made me fall in love with stories, and made me want to write. I think I found it when I was 10, and it completely shaped me. It’s so ambitious and clever, it never talks down to the reader, brings up those amazing worlds and philosophical concepts and is still accessible to kids. Most of all it is so committed to atmosphere, to making it vivid, to really make you go through what the characters are. I’m thinking of it and I can remember exactly certain passages in an almost sensory way : the witch Serafina Pekkala describing what it feels like to feel the Aurora Borealis on her bare skin as she is flying through the arctic. The polar bear Iorek giving Lyra frozen moss to help bandage his wounds after a battle. The grilled poppy heads that the Jordan College scholars at Oxford eat during a meeting. The little Gallivespians on their dragonflies and the way the sun reflects off their poisonous spurs. That’s how you make a story stick ; that’s how you can put in deep stuff without ever making it boring. I am so excited they’re making a tv series because that shit deserves some recognition. And I mean the whole plot about the importance of stories, free will, the horror of religious fundamentalism....always relevant. Philip Pullman’s stuff is great in general, I love his Sally Lockhart series, which is more adult and adventure focused, and is a great deal of fun. And of course, the sequel to HDM he’s been putting out recently. 

- I spent a lot of my teen years reading either crime novels or historical novels. (When I think of some of the stuff I read when I was 13 I’m like oh my god what were my parents doing lmao some of that was really horrible.) And I think it gave me a good feeling for suspense and setting, and how important tension is. One of my all time faves is Andrea Japp. She is a French writer who does mostly crime, involving complex/monstrous woman characters and a very sensory, poetic approach to language, often involving food, plants and poisons. My favorite by her is the “Season of the Beast”/Agnès de Souarcy chronicles, which is a crime series set in medieval times, with a cool independent lady at its core, crimes in a monastery, and this very gloomy end of times vibe that I love. I also read a lot of Scandi Noir stuff, I love the kind of ...laconic approach to life. And again : vibe. Vibe is so important. And Sherlock Holmes stories. I love the Mary Russell series that take place in that universe and are basically a big Mary Sue self insert guilty pleasure but are just. So much fun. 

- I like poetry a lot - not stuff that is too wordy, but something short, sharp and vivid. i think reading poetry is essential to feeding your inner ‘metaphor culture’. I love Mary Oliver. Rimbaud, too, that I read at 17 and rocked my world. One of my underrated faves is  Hồ Xuân Hương, a Vietnamese poet from the 18th century who was adept at using nature metaphors to hide both erotic stuff, irreverent jokes, and political criticism, and correspond with all the great scholars of her time under a pseudonym. Badass.  Recently I bought ‘Soft Science’ by Franny Choi, which is about cyborgs, having a female body, emotions and politics and it’s absolutely brilliant. 

- I love reading fairy tales, too. Currently reading (i always read a lot of books at once lol) Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales, basically fairy tales for grown ups, collected from folklore all over the world, with an amazing kind of gruesome humor and wisdom. Norse mythology is also so damn funny. That one bit with Thor dressing up as a bride or Loki’s shenanigans...amazing. And I like fantasy, I find it very soothing to read for some reason, my fave has to be Robin Hobb and her Realm of the Elderlings series. And Terry Pratchett, especially the series with Death or the Witches. Just brilliant. Neil Gaiman too. 

- I tend to be very impatient when it comes to literary fiction, I find a lot of it is self-indulgent, dreary. I’m a genre reader through and through, I need to be amazed. I loved ‘the Elegance of the Hedgehog’ by Muriel Barbery though. Some stuff by Amélie Nothomb, Virginie Despentes occasionally (they’re French writers with a very dark, wry approach to life, tho the first is more polished acid and the second very punk rock). And ‘Special Topics in Calamity Physics’ by Marisha Pessl is pretentious as hell but a lot of fun, if you like dark academia. Salman Rushdie has a way with language that is amazing. 

- I read a lot of non-fiction. At the moment : the Cabaret of Plants (about the symbolic/socio historical meaning of plants and how they shaped history) by Richard Mabey and ‘Feminist Fight Club’ by Jessica Bennett. One I absolutely love is ‘the Botany of Desire’ by Michael Pollan in which he traces the history of four plant species (apple, potato, cannabis, tulip) and how they impacted us as much as we impacted them. I was obsessed with plants for most of my life as you can see lol (my mother is a herbalist and I wanted to become a botanist for quite a while.). Also philosophy/anthropology in little bits. I love Tim Ingold. Things about witches. Anything by Rebecca Solnit is incredible. 

- I’ve been reading a lot of YA recently, because it’s fun and quick and keeps me reading, and has a lot of good female characters. Big fave recently : Jane Unlimited by Kristin Cashore. It’s about a young bisexual woman who’s grieving and comes to this weird house full of doors, each of which leads to a different path in life, and we follow her through each choice she can potentially make, each of one becomes a different genre of story : creepy ghost story, spy story, sci-fi, cute romance, etc. It’s so innovative and it’s a story that is also bisexual culture at its core. Also I absolutely love love love love love (etc forever) the Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater. What she does with language is just so cool, because she stays simple and efficient but uses her metaphors in such a fulgurant, vivid way. Some of her lines are just. bam! genius. #goals. Also Ronan Lynch is probably THE character that helped me the most with my coming out. He’s one of my forever faves.  Of course Harry Potter, lmao, I was of the generation that pretty much grew up with him, the last book came out when I was 17. JK Rowling really should just stop rn. But I learned so much from those, about the importance of making your story feel like home, and having a clear emotional journey. And Harry is such a sarcastic little shit, I love him. And I love a Series of Unfortunate Events too, the darkly funny tone of it, the celebration of knowledge and resilience. 

- I think in terms of the classics (I had to read in school lmao), I do like Victor Hugo a lot even though some of his stuff just doesn’t fucking stop. I also like Balzac and his Comédie Humaine, he’s very observant, mean and funny when it comes to people (even though it’s depressing.) Colette is my grandma’s fave writer and she is a rockstar, I love her (also hella bi culture). Jane Austen is great, I read Pride and Prejudice in one night straight, I was so hooked. Love Jane Eyre too. I read On the Road by Jack Kerouac while hopped up on opioid pain killers and that’s probably the only way to appreciate it, but it did mark me.  

- But to be completely fucking candid, I probably read the most fanfic nowadays still. Esp since I got to college, I need to unwind when I read, and having characters you already know can be so comforting. Now, of course, there’s a lot of fanfic that is just fluff (nothing wrong with that) but I honestly really believe in the literary value of fanfic. Because some of that shit simply just really slaps and is well written. But also as a genre on its own : you just simply don’t get so much emotional nuance, and depth in most other things. Because these are characters we already know and the writers are not afraid to be self-indulgent and plot is secondary, we see shades of things that we never see anywhere else, we see relationships developping in the small things and wow that shit is breathtaking, bro, sometimes. The art of infinite variation on a theme. Even though a lot of fic writers could use a bit of stricter editing, and do stuff a bit too many unnecessary details in here, so does Victor Hugo soooooooo....

lol i could go on forever. i love book soooo much. uni kinda killed my reading appetite, I used to read several books a week when I was in middle school. hope i can get back there (although maybe not as much bc i have a life now lol.) but thinking about everything i have yet to read makes me sooooo happy. I want to get more into sci-fi, English lit classics. Basically I like stuff that’s witty, dark, political, hedonistic, with dry humor, but a warm heart. Stories that celebrate knowledge, curiosity and human weirdness. And that gets to the point. When I get bored by a book, I put it down, because I just don’t have the time. I also hate writers where you can tell that they think they’re better than other people. Misanthropy is boring. Thank you for this question anon I had a blast

#reading #books #book recs #literature #anon asks