#the sprite and the gardener | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

carriagelamp · 1 year

Text

A few really superb books this month and few very "meh" ones. Nothing truly appalling though so that's something. If you read nothing else though, consider reading This is How You Lose the Time War because man that book made me feel things, I knocked that one out in a day

(EDIT: I am feeling very self-satisfied, this has been sitting in my drafts for a few weeks waiting for me to stop being lazy and post it and suddenly I have the entire internet backing up my assessment that Time War kicks complete ass. Go read it if you haven't, bigolas dickolas said so)

A Psalm for the Wild-Built

After reading Legends & Lattes last month I was really craving some more “cosy fantasy”. This one is obviously scifi instead, but it came highly recommend and it was exactly what I needed. It’s a pandemic lockdown novel and you can feel it, and I mean this in a very affectionate way. Everything from the characters, the narrative, to the tone feels rather healing now that we’re three years out from the initial covid outbreak.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built is a look at a world, not ours but an analogy of it, that had hit its industrial climate crisis and has since come out the other side. There are multiple catalysts, but one catalyst was the sudden sentience gained by the robots that they used. Not knowing how it was done but determined to allow the robots to self-determine, they allowed the robots to retreat into nature to find themselves, and they were left with the need to completely restructure their society without robotic aid. Humans stepped away from factories and manufacturing, and managed to recreate society — smaller scale, self-sufficient, and entirely based around the idea of existing in harmony with the natural world. Most of their planet has been left to re-wild itself, and humans keep to their own areas and focus on caring for their own communities.

The main character, Dex, is a travelling tea monk that feels a calling for something more, something different than what they’re doing. That calling leads them further into the wilderness than they have ever gone before and in doing so runs face to face with a robot who has come down from the mountains in an effort to see how humans are doing since the separation.

A Prayer For the Crown-Shy

A lovely sequel and conclusion for A Psalm for the Wild-Built. In this story, Dex and Mosscap descend from the mountains into human populated land so that Mosscap can continue its mission to learn “what humans need”. Along the way it learns how complex and varied that answer is, even for someone like Dex.

The Darkness Outside Us

I read this a little while ago but never got around to reviewing it. Honestly, I mostly found it disappointing and I couldn’t tell you why. I really enjoyed the other books I read by this author, but The Darkness Outside Us did not do it for me. I didn’t like the protagonist. I didn’t like the world it painted. I didn’t like Kodiac or the relationship it was trying to set up or how it was doing it. I don’t know, I can be picky with scifi though and I don't love amnesiac plots, so your mileage may vary, I have heard it highly recommended.

Two astronauts from opposite sides of a global cold war find themselves on an assignment together, travelling through space on a rescue mission. Ambrose wakes with no memory of the launch, and is surprised to find any sort of companion at all, never mind a surly, reclusive coworker who is determined to keep their countries’ animosity alive and well. He tries to ignore Kodiac and focus on the need to rescue his sister, but being completely alone with only an AI and a single companion on a dangerous mission makes that easier said than done.

Dear NOMAN v1

Sapphic manga with vaguely shonen adventure vibes. Don’t bother reading it, it’s mediocre at best and kinda squicky at worse. The main character is fourteen I think? And the romantic interest, a crow demon, very much is presented as an adult woman. I just can’t. The story itself isn’t very interesting either, as the girl gets recruited into a vaguely Bleach-rip-off style ghost hunting job, but the relationship is just. No. Untenable. Moving on.

Magic Tree House: Dinosaurs Before Dark // Sunset of the Sabertooth

I found myself rereading this to kids and honestly they really are just excellent, fun little introductions to chapter books. No notes, still charming. Love Jack and Annie and their ability to use books to travel through time.

Doctor Who: Scratchman

EXCELLENT read. A novel spin off of a show can always be hit or miss (see the Torchwood book coming up) but this one really knocked it out of the park. Tom Baker, unsurprisingly, has a great handle on the Fourth Doctor’s character voice, and the way he wrote Sarah and Harry is completely delightful. I’ve only seen a bit of the Fourth Doctor so this is actually my first intro to Harry, and it made me fall completely in love with this dingus.

This book felt like it knew what it should be: a fun adventure — occasionally tense, often funny — that isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. It fit very naturally into the world as a good, solid, simple Doctor Who adventure. The Doctor, Sarah, and Harry are intending just to stop for a break and a picnic, but soon find themselves doing their best to protect a host of villagers against an invading force of evil, skeletal scarecrows that are attempting to infect the humans around them. A necessary plot point is understanding how phone party lines work and this delighted me more than I can say for a book published in 2019.

Torchwood: Something In The Water

Meh. In the spectrum of Torchwood novels this falls smack dab in the middle. Not atrocious but certainly not good. It had instances I really quite enjoyed, the beginning was pretty fun, and there was a lot of promise to it, but reading about a fatal and rapidly-spreading respiratory infection that requires a government response hits VERY differently post-pandemic. Maybe it would have felt more believable or enjoyable in 2008, but when you know what a global response actually does/should look like? It ends up taking a book that should have really been Owen’s time to shine and just made him look like an absolute fucking moron. It was disappointing. I would secretly love to see it rewritten because it had potential, it had so much potential. Tosh was the only character with half a brain in the whole novel, god help her.

The Sprite and the Gardener

I’ve been meaning to read this for ages, ever since I found out that original comic that circulated tumblr was being developed in a fully fledged story. And it’s so worth reading, the art is stunning. The story is sweet, and every page is just such a pleasure to look at, I can’t get over the colour palette.

Before, caring for plants was the task of sprites... but that was before humans appeared and begin to carefully and rigidly cultivate them. Now sprites have little to do... except Wisteria finds herself enamored by one young gardener who is trying so hard but continuously failing to bring life to her dead little garden.

This is How You Lose The Time War

I was skeptical about this one because, again, I’m picky about my scifi and often don’t love time travel stories (ignore all the Doctor Who…) But this was one of the best books I read this month, easily. It’s a very quick read, and it’s more poetic imagery than heavy duty scifi. It feels like a pure example of the truly romantic love letter genre blasted into the future.

If you read any book from this list, I would recommend this one. It was so delightfully different from anything else I’ve read in a while.

EDIT: to allow the much more influential voice have a say:

Doctor Who: Time Lord Fairytales

Pure fun. This book is composed of various twisted fairytales all set in the Doctor Who universe. Some involve the Doctor, others borrow species, characters, or props. I had the audiobook of this and my mother, who knows almost nothing about Doctor Who, ended up listening to it and enjoying it immensely just as scifi-flavoured fairytales.

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp

I’ve been meaning to read this book for years and finally got around to it. It was a really fun middle grade read! If you liked Holes this hits a similar notes in the way it weaves a number of seemingly disconnected stories and histories together into a single narrative.

In part the story is about two raccoons who take over as the Sugar Man Swamp Scouts, who have the job of listening for Intelligence and to wake the Sugar Man in case of emergency. In another part, it’s about a boy who is trying to help his mom save their little cafe on the edge of the swamp. In part it’s about a conniving businessman and his alligator-wrestling colleague attempting to profit off the swamp. In part it’s about a grandfather who loved his grandson, his swamp, and wanted nothing more than to take a picture of a woodpecker.

The Underneath

I wanted to read another book by this author after reading True Blue Scouts (and Maybe a Fox, which a few years back) but this one didn’t do it for me. It was a fine book, and a fine animal adventure, but the pacing just felt like it dragged too much to really keep me interested. I could have finished it if I’d really wanted to, but there were other things I wanted to move on to more. If you feel like a rather melancholic, somewhat mythological middle grade animal story though you’d probably quite enjoy it.

Like True Blue Scouts, The Underneath weaves together a number of different stories, including one about a mythical snake and her daughter, a hateful isolated man, an old injured dog, and a mother cat. The dog, who stepped in front of his master’s gun at the wrong moment, is now kept chained in the yard and spends most of his time hiding beneath his master’s house. He was lonely and isolated… until a mother cat joins him and ends up giving birth to her kittens. They’re now both devoted to caring for the kittens, and trying to protect them from the horrible master in the house above.

12 notes · View notes

neonthewrite · 5 months

Text

Bowman of the Garden

Another GT July prompt is done! This one is "Garden", and any readers of Bowman of Wellwood might recognize that title symmetry. We have a brand new AU featuring Bowman Leafwing, living in a very different environment than the beautiful Wellwood forest. I do want to explore more of this AU, as it's very different from Bowman's origins. For now, enjoy a small sample of it!

~~~

Bowman Leafwing eyed the back of the Big House, where the humans sat talking and drinking their tea on the patio. It was a morning ritual of theirs‒tea on the patio, discussing their plans for the day. As the self-appointed scout sprite of the garden village, Bowman kept an eye and ear on these discussions every morning. If they planned anything out of the ordinary, he’d know.

It was a Wednesday, though. Not much would be on the schedule, and they confirmed it with their chatter, overheard from one of the bulky stone planters where Bowman hid. A normal Wednesday, meaning they’d go inside after tea and then be gone at Jobs all day. In the afternoon, the Lawn People would come by and cut all the grass in the yard with their awful loud machines.

So long as they didn’t mess with the landscaping or the greenhouse (and they never did), the wood sprites of the garden didn’t mind.

Soon enough, the humans finished up their morning tea and shifted in their seats. Satisfied that no more news of the day was forthcoming, Bowman backed away from the edge of the planter, further among the protective leaves of the fern growing there. Keen eyes peered out from the leafy cover that matched the leafy wings on Bowman’s back, and as soon as the humans had gone back into their tall, ivy-covered house, he turned away.

Tall boots of supple bark and sturdy cloth gave him quiet steps among the mulch and soil until he reached the other side of the planter; a basin big enough for a human to curl up in, it housed a verdant fern to break up the monotony of the lawn. Bowman, four inches tall and brown-skinned with deep green hair, blended right in among that curated vegetation. His dedication to the morning routine, to keeping an eye on those giants-of-the-house, kept him safe, but it also kept the others safe. If the humans talked of plans that could affect the denizens of the garden, Bowman Leafwing was the first to know.

Today, there was little to report. From the planter, there was a moderate stretch of empty lawn before the lush growth of flowers and grasses and shrubs covering the back third of the yard, mostly unbothered by human intervention and thriving all the same.

Among that chaos was home, where his little cousin and her mentor could use their gifts to tend to the plants, where his aunt and uncle could sing with the birds, arrange the litter of leaves and twigs like a miniature forest floor. No one spotted them there, for no one thought to look for a wood sprite, small and made to blend in among the greenery.

Bowman eyed a flowering shrub standing taller than the grasses and flower patches around it, as innocuous as any plant, and spotted a fellow sprite on one bough with ease. With one gesture, he confirmed they saw him, too. Raising his hands and wings, Bowman sent his report, or what might count as one, using silent signs that would look like leaves shifting in the breeze.

No news, good news. Lawn People later. Safe another day.

The other sprite acknowledged the report and ducked out of sight. Bowman smirked. That was his job done. If anyone wanted to find him after the morning scouting, they would have a task ahead of them.

One final glance at the Big House confirmed again that the humans had gone in and no one was watching. Bowman’s wings fanned open and his smile widened, and then with a leap and a powerful flap he was in the air, darting upwards like a leaf on a gale.

They had it pretty good, there in that garden. The verdant months gave them plenty of cover outside, plenty of resources, lots of sun on their wings. The winters in the greenhouse were cozy and close, without worry of the snow or the icy winds. They were safe from humans who never wanted to question why the growth in their backyard was so lush, year after year, and safe from worry over dangerous animals thanks to the nearly-overgrown wooden privacy fence.

Beyond that fence, though, was wilder land, not nearly enough to be a forest but full of life all the same. That less-tamed, wooded area, with its dappled sunlight and thick foliage and only the occasional reminder of the nearby humans, was Bowman’s goal. He darted over the garden, over the fence, and something wild welcomed him there.

Back the way he came, the Big House still stood peeking through the trees, but Bowman ignored it for the woods before him. In the other direction, someone else’s big human house would be waiting, but he wouldn’t get that far. He knew to stay closer to safety.

If he asked anyone else, he wasn’t really supposed to leave the garden without making it known. Bowman chose which rules to follow, and no amount of reminders had changed that over the years.

As he ducked and weaved around branches and through golden sunbeams, wind whipping through his wild hair, things felt right. Bowman belonged in the air. His wings, honed every day in his races among the trees and over the Big House, practically sang with elation. Every sunbeam they drank up spurred him to fly a little bit longer. His were the fastest wings around, and no member of the garden village could wrest the title away from him.

#gtjuly #gtjuly2023 #mywriting #bowman leafwing #wood sprite #bowman of wellwood #g/t #gt #giant tiny #bowman of the garden

34 notes · View notes