Hello folks! This is just a quick heads-up to let you all know that I will not have a full blog post up this Friday, as it is Christmas Week and I have family stuff, etc. I plan to have my “Fave Reads of the Year” list up the following Friday (last Friday of the year!). I have a long list worked out, but I am having a very difficult time cutting it down, lol! This is always my problem with all sorts of “best of” lists. I love too many things and I hate trying to prioritize, put in numerical order, or cut down, so we’ll see how it goes…
Also: I have a couple of upcoming-release books I plan to review. HOWEVER, they are both HarperCollins books, and I am waiting to post reviews of these books until the current HarperCollins strike is resolved. While this does impact the authors, most of the affected authors have voiced enthusiastic support for the striking HarperCollins union. They have encouraged book reviewers NOT to cross the virtual picket line, and to withhold reviews until further notice.
I also highly recommend following the Strike account on Twitter: @/hcpunion for all updates, and links to ways you can support the strike.
Ok, that’s all from me for now! Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! Happy Chanukah to my friends in the Jewish community! And a general happy week to everyone, religious or not! See you all after Christmas!
Title: Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency Author: Chen Chen Released: 13 September 2022 How I Got It: bought from publisher website Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Today, I have a slightly different sort of book review for you all. I’m talking about a new poetry collection by poet Chen Chen (author of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities) titled Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency.
I read a lot of poetry, but I don’t talk about it much on this site, a fact that I want to try to change. Since I literally just finished reading this one a few minutes ago, I thought I’d go ahead and write up a review while it’s still fresh in my mind and before I have a chance to get distracted by other things and forget to do it.
Chen Chen is a queer Chinese-American poet. The vast majority of his poetry centers on his Chinese-ness and his queer-ness to varying degrees. I really enjoyed his first full collection (When I Grow Up…) and so I leapt at the chance to buy his new one. This book did not disappoint.
The language is sharp and playful and incisive and contemporary. At times delightfully vulgar, and at other times fascinatingly opaque. Chen Chen demonstrates skill and ingenuity with a wide range of forms, from compact carefully constructed tercets to large prose poems that are almost breathless with long momentum to a clever little anagram poem that uses only words spelled from the letters of his name (with the clever addition of the phrase “no middle name” to fill out the severe lack of options in just “Chen Chen”).
I took particular pleasure in the homage to other Asian-American poets throughout the collection, including Justin Chin, Marilyn Chin, Bhanu Kapil, and others. But what I loved the most, probably, was the sheer unembarrassed SPECIFICITY of the poems in this collection.
These are poems for now, vital and relevant in the wake of the pandemic and 2020 shutdown, and in the midst of continued tensions. Many of the poems reference the pandemic, as the narrator faces resurgence of anti-Chinese racism, and invokes never-ending questions that all Asian-Americans face in one way or another: are we ever Asian enough? Are we ever American enough? How can we be both at once, and who gets to decide?
Chen Chen also invokes the specificity, locality, and histories of his own personal life with such unabashed and blunt detail that you feel you might as well be sitting at his dining room table, listening to him talk about his family and his partner and his life. The reader lives with him in Massachusetts, struggling with his mother’s disapproval for being gay; and travels to Lubbock, Texas for grad school, and joins him when he visits China, feeling both inside and outside the culture.
The specificity of “Doctor’s Note” in particular, resonates with me as the note declares: “Please excuse Chen Chen from class. He is currently dead.” This poem goes on to list the ways that Chen Chen has attempted to remedy to situation, including the Coldplay song “The Scientist,” new episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Tai Chi in his room. Perhaps not every reader can identify with these specifics, but everyone knows that sensation of being so miserable that all you can do is stay in bed surrounded by the little things you love.
Sometimes the unrelenting detail can be off-putting for the more squeamish: such as in the poem “Winter” in which the narrator contemplates “Big smelly bowel movements this blue January morning” and wonders if the words “shit” or “scat” are “more or less literary than ‘poop’…” Or, in the poem “Ode to Rereading Rimbaud in Lubbock, Texas,” where the narrator describes his “poetics of deep threat & tonguefuck.” These sorts of details might be a bit much for some readers. They make even me squirm a bit in places (and I have a high tolerance), but in the end they only add to the layers upon layers of empathy and emotional resonance that radiate from these poems.
No doubt, the vulgarity can be uncomfortable in places, but it is clearly MEANT to be uncomfortable, and thus shake the reader out of their commonplace experiences). And for every moment of uncomfortable vulgarity, there are dozens of moments of beauty and pathos, as Chen Chen (or the narrator of the poems) showers his lover/partner Jeff with adoration, laments the strained relationship with his mother, and grieves the death of Jeff’s mother.
I was particularly struck by this stanza speaking to his lover in “Summer”: “You wrap your arms around me & it’s like you’re the patron saint of touch as / well as soft sunlight & soothed dogs. Or you must be the early representative / of divine holding. Or you’re both & also a boy, like me, holding on.”
I was also painfully struck by “a small book of questions: question vii” when the narrator describes his efforts to make his mother acknowledge his boyfriend and laments: “I want to remember better. / But I want more, more of the / better to remember.”
At its heart, this collection is about the never-ending riddle of identity — race, sexuality, family identity — and also about love and grief and stubborn joy in the face of that grief. Many people will find something in this collection, some empathy, some resonance, some connection. But, if you are a) queer, b) Asian-American, or c) have parents who routinely disappoint you while also being disappointed IN you (bonus points if, like me, you have all three!) then this book was made for YOU SPECIFICALLY. And you definitely need it.
Titles: A Marvellous Light & A Restless Truth Author: Freya Marske Release Dates: 26 Oct 2021 and 1 Nov 2022 How I Got It: received the first book as an ARC through work, bought the second one Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
It’s a two-for-one sale, folks! Not literally, of course. But I am doing a double review of the first two books in Freya Marske’s historical romance fantasy Last Binding trilogy: A Marvellous Light and its sequel, A Restless Truth. I read A Marvellous Light last year as an ARC, when I was curating for my job at Fox & Wit (and did end up choosing the book for that month’s release), and I always meant to write a full review for it. But alas, as so often happens, it slipped my mind and I never got it.
Fast forward a year later, and the sequel, A Restless Truth, released in September. I bought it immediately on audio (I have the first book in both print and audio, and I really enjoyed the audio so I figured ‘why not?’), and finished it in a day and a half. And again, I have been meaning to write up a review since I finished. So, here we go! I’ll do both of them together, and then I will hopefully review the last book in the trilogy whenever it releases.
The series is set in the early 1900s, Edwardian England, one of my favorite time periods for historical romance, when William Morris was all the rage and Art Nouveau was beginning to emerge (I’m a HUGE Art Nouveau fan). Of course, this is a version of England with magic, but other than that the series adheres very closely to its time period, displaying an impressive amount of research not only into the history but also the aesthetics and attitudes.
A Marvellous Light focuses on the main character of Sir Robin Blythe and Edwin Courcey. Following the death of his parents — famous philanthropists and secret backbiting devious social manipulators — Robin is placed in a seemingly dull low-level government job by an old enemy of his parents. However, when Edwin Courcey, gentleman magician, waltzes into his office fully expecting someone in the know, Robin discovers that magic is real, he has accidentally been placed in a job of liaison to the secret magical community, and his predecessor Reggie has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. It’s a lot to absorb on the first day. To make matters worse, a trio of magicians hiding their identities attack Robin that night, believing he must know more than he does, and placed a painful cursed tattoo on his arm. The only one with any hope of helping him remove the curse and find out what happened to his predecessor is Edwin Courcey.
For his part, Edwin Courcey just wants this whole mess dealt with and out of his hair. He had considered Reggie a friend, and is distraught over his disappearance, and he doesn’t have the time or the energy to help guide a brand new “civilian” learn about the magical community. Still, it is quickly apparent that he will have to deal with it, so he takes Robin to his family’s country estate to research the curse and try to remove it. Unfortunately, among his family Edwin feels he is instantly revealed to be a weakling and failure: weakest of all his family in magic, though by far the most brilliant and learned in his study of the field. And his family, including his abusive older father and his glittery empty-headed sister, seemed determined to make him miserable and embarrass his guest. And to make matters even more complicated, Robin starts having visions.
As Robin and Edwin research the curse, and try to find out what happened to Reggie, they find themselves caught in the middle of a tangled conspiracy or murder, magic, and fantastical objects of great power that may or may not exist, and which could change the lives of every magician in England. Along the way, they also discover their similarities in taste and attitude, and grow closer, something almost like friends (a novel concept for Edwin), and then possibly more. As their attraction increases, and Robin begins to contemplate the possibility of a future together, Edwin tries desperately to keep control of the situation, even as danger closes in on them with deadly urgency.
The sequel, A Restless Truth, focuses on Robin’s sister, Maud, previously introduced in the first book. With the main conflicts of the first book resolved but new and dangerous threats established for the rest of the trilogy, Robin has sent Maud to collect an older woman magician from America who may hold the key to the whole problem. However, on the return voyage from America to England on a White Star ocean liner, the woman magician is murdered within hours of heading out to sea and an important magical artifact is stolen. Now, Maud must find out who killed her and stole the artifact, find out what they know about the business her brother Robin has gotten involved in, and not get killed herself in the process.
To help her in this endeavor she recruits the charming and beautiful Miss Violet Debenham, a British transplant to the U.S. who is returning home to England, now an actress and a huge walking scandal (of her own making), and the disdainful, perpetually-annoyed Lord Hawthorne (also briefly introduced in the first book), who would really rather not have anything to do with any of this nonsense, thank you very much.
As they work together, Maud finds herself growing more and more attracted to Violet, a previously-unrealized romantic inclination now awakening in her with sudden passion. Violet, meanwhile, is happy to be a dalliance while aboard ship but is desperate to keep her secrets and her heart as detached and distant as possible. As the two women try to work out what they desire and what they are willing to sacrifice to get it, they must contend with at least one murderer, a jewel thief, an obnoxious parrot, and a whole menagerie of animals in the cargo hold. And, just to make matters worse, Maud discovers she may or may not be a medium. In the face of all these problems, Maud is determined not to fail at this mission her brother has given her, conscious more than ever that Robin is the only person in her life she has ever been able to rely on.
These books are UTTERLY DELIGHTFUL. When I first read the arc for A Marvellous Light, I had it in ebook format, and I devoured it. As soon as the book was released I got the hardcover AND the audiobook version immediately, and re-read it by audio. I have since re-read it in one format or another 3 or 4 times. And A Restless Truth is just as delightful and re-readable.
Both stories feature an exciting, tense, action-packed plot full of murder, mystery, and magical artifacts of importance to all the magicians of England. In classic mystery fashion, the artifacts in these first two books function as macguffins – an item that everyone is after, and which propels the actions of the plot, but which seem to have little-to-no actual influence on what finally happens. I am very curious/excited to see how these artifacts come together in the final book of the trilogy and prove as powerful (or not) as they are believed to be.
True to their billing as romance fantasies, both books also give heavy importance to the romantic subplots between Robin and Edwin, and Maud and Violet. They follow the traditional romance series formula of each book focusing on a different couple who are connected in some way or another through one or more repeating characters (think of the Bridgerton series in which each book focuses on a different Bridgerton sibling finding their happily-ever-after). In this case, obviously, the books are connected through the Blyth siblings Robin and Maud, as well as by the overarching external plot. There is not another Blyth sibling for the third book, but I suspect Lord Hawthorne will be the focus for the romantic subplot of the final installment. However, in that case, the main plot will also have to combine all the previous characters in order to reach its conclusion.
One thing I found enormously amusing about both A Marvellous Light and A Restless Truth is the ways that both Blyth siblings are friendly, cheerful, high-energy puppy characters who both fall in love with introverted, cynical, suspicious and paranoid cat people. It’s hilarious. However, where Robin was long aware of his own proclivities for men, and indulged them in secret (as more men than some might suspect did in boarding school and in gentlemen’s clubs), Maud enters her romantic situation completely unaware of her own interests. Violet sparks a sudden sexual awakening for her, and its amusing to watch as Maud throws herself enthusiastically into the discovery.
Speaking of sexual awakening: be aware that these books are NOT shy about the sexual content. Steamy isn’t a sufficient enough word. They are explicit, and sexy, and creative. So if that’s not your thing, reader beware. I, personally, love that shit. The steamier the better.
bonus! look at this fan art of Edwin and Robin by Ellie Bailey (@efpbailey on twitter)
As much as I loved both books, and both couples, I will say that my heart belongs to Robin and Edwin first and foremost. Robin was just so wonderful: cheerful, honest, optimistic. And Edwin was… well, Edwin was me. I identified so strongly with Edwin it was kind of pathetic: shy, introverted, nerdy, the weakest/least successful member of his family and looked down on by his siblings, with a disastrous love life, whose happy place is always in a library and buried in a book. Like Edwin, I could not help but love Robin, who saw him for who he really was, believed in him even when everyone else was laughing at him, and dragged him gently out of his shell. Yep, I am absolutely an Edwin Courcey still searching for my own Robin Blyth.
Long story short (too late, I know): if you enjoy historical fantasy and/or queer romance novels, plus a large helping of murder mystery, these books are for you. The magical murderous plots are exciting and adventurous, the romances are swoony and sexy, and the characters are all wonderfully complex and charming and relatable. You should totally pick them up now so you’re ready when the final book in the trilogy releases! (There’s no solid date on that yet, but I would guess sometime late next year… *fingers crossed*)
Hello all! If you take a look around, you’ll notice that I have been tinkering with the site a bit! I have a new static landing page, and I have added other pages as well. Don’t worry! The blog is still running and will be easy enough to find under the “Blog” tab. And if you subscribe by email you’ll be sent directly to the new post anyway, without having to navigate anywhere.
However, I’d love it if you folks took a look around when you have a chance. As mentioned in my previous post, I have gone ahead and added an information page specifically for freelance editing, for which I am now open. Even if you yourselves are not in need of such services, I would greatly appreciate if you could share the word with any writer-type friends who might be!
In addition, as you may see in the “Featured” column on the Home page, in the coming days/weeks I will be adding a separate page/tab for my personal writings (not blog posts or book reviews, but poetry, snippets of fiction, and creative nonfiction kinds of things). AND I will be linking to a new little side project shop I am in the process of putting together on Etsy.
In the meantime, you can definitely still expect a full book review post from me this upcoming Friday!
(Also, I’m not entirely happy with the header image still, so that will likely continue to change for awhile.)
Hello folks! I just have a few updates this week. We have officially hit December and the holiday season, and there are only 5 Fridays left in the year (including today). I know! I’m shocked and horrified by this as well. I hope everyone is having fun preparing for their various holiday-season traditions (there are so many holidays in so many religions and cultures around the world this time of year, it’s pretty amazing!) And I hope that the concurrent issues of shopping, travel, dealing with family, etc don’t stress anyone out too badly (they always stress me out plenty).
As we are nearing the end of the year, and all that entails, I wanted to give you heads up that weekly posts will probably be a bit spotty this month. I have one book review in draft right now, that I will probably post next week. And I am planning to do a “My Favorite Reads of the Year” list in time for the New Year. That might be it from me for the month. I suspect most people aren’t going to mind too much; they have other things to worry about besides reading my blog posts, lol. But I apologize for the slow-down anyway.
In other news, I am considering starting to take on freelance editing work – this kind of editing (developmental and copy/line-editing) is usually for folks who are preparing to indie or self-publish, but can be useful even for those planning to submit manuscripts to agents/editors in traditional publishing. I have done some editing work in the past, but it has always been for friends, or friends of friends, for small amounts of money or pro bono. I have recently picked up a couple new potential clients (we’re still hammering out confirmations) based on word-of-mouth, and it has made me think I might like to try making it more official. I might post the information as a page here, or possibly make a full website landing page for everything. But in any case, if this is something anyone out there has been looking into for a project, feel free to contact me!
I am also thinking about some things I would like to do for the blog starting in the new year.
The blog I ran in the height of the blog-popularity from 2011-2015 or so was not huge — I didn’t have thousands of readers or anything — but it did fairly well. It had around 500 subscribers, lots of comments, averaged a couple thousand hits a week, etc. This new one doesn’t get a fraction of that engagement. I know the blogging heyday is past. I can’t expect anything like that again, but it’s still disheartening. I keep wondering if writing this blog is like screaming into a void that no one else hears or cares about, and I would be better off just redirecting this writing time/energy back toward my own personal writing. On the other hand, I do enjoy writing these little book reviews, and my main goal originally was to help support and spread the word about books/authors that I really love. I’m just not sure I’m even doing that if NO ONE reads these (except for DirtyBuddha, the only reader who consistently looks at/likes every post! Shout out to you! Thanks!)
On top of all that, I’ve had ideas for things I wanted to write/talk about that I haven’t yet because, as few readers I have now, I fear that people will care even less about these other things. Most of them are still book-related (though not all), but they aren’t book reviews and if that’s what most of my readers (few as they are) are here for it would feel like a waste of time to even sit down to type these other ideas out. The problem stems, I think, from the fact that I have advanced degrees in literature but I stopped teaching and I feel like I have all this information and all these niche interests floating around my head with no useful outlet.
I talked to my best friend about that a bit, and she gave me some good advice that kind of boiled down to: don’t worry about what others think. On one level, that’s kind of the point of a blog, to share content that you think/hope others will engage with, so you kind of have to care. On another level, though, she’s right. If the blog is for me, for talking about things I’m interested in (even if it’s aimed at an empty void), then does it really matter? And, she said, maybe you’ll write a post that will show up on someone’s google search someday, for someone with the same niche interests who never thought anyone else had ever written about the topic before, and even if that’s the only reader you ever get for that post, won’t it be nice to be there for the one person who really wanted to read it?
It’s a nice thought. Though it still begs the question of how much time and energy I should pour into this blog, and how much of that time is a waste that should be aimed at things that will have more long-term benefits (like finishing one of my damn novels).
In any case, it’s something I’ve been thinking about. Some of the things I’ve been thinking about writing about include an old course syllabus idea I had for (anti)war novels, and one for planetary romances, and one for time travel narratives. While these would all at least still be book lists/discussions, it feels like people only care about new/recent releases these days, so I don’t know that anyone would care about reading lists of mostly-classics. I also have thoughts on indulging some more of anime nerdiness – for instance, I’ve considered writing about Robotech (an American dub/adaptation of a Japanese anime that aired in 1985, and one of my personal obsessions). I’ve also thought about writing about art more. And I’ve had a grand idea for a big essay about an obscure 1940s novel called The Journal of Albion Moonlight bouncing around my head for years. So yeah, the ideas are ALL OVER THE PLACE.
I suppose what I’m saying is that these are things that might happen in 2023, but I’m not certain yet, because despite my best friend’s assurances that it’s my blog and I can do what I want with it, I’m still a bit tired of screaming into an empty void. If anyone has an opinion in one direction or the other, please feel free to comment.
My final announcement is a big one for me personally. For the first time in TWELVE YEARS, I have successfully “won”/completed the NaNoWriMo challenge! I cannot tell you how excited I am to finally accomplish this again after so many attempts! I actually hit the official word count goal, 50k words, on Monday, November 28th. And then I spent the last two days of the month seeing if I could stretch that word count a bit before Nano was officially over. I finally ended up with: 55,828 words, nearly 6k over the word goal!
So yeah, I’m pretty stoked about that!
Anyway, that’s a lot of information and ideas to throw at you all so I’ll stop talking now. If anyone has any opinions/feelings on any of this, please feel free to comment! In the meantime, have a good weekend and happy “start of December and the mad-rush to the new year” season, everyone!
Hello folks! I have been busy at work on my NaNoWriMo project and am therefore a bit behind on my reading and book-reviewing schedule for the month. I have one book review I need to write up still, and a couple books in the queue, but I am trying very heard to keep focused on my NaNo project while I can.
So, because I still wanted to post SOMETHING today, and in the spirit of sharing with the writing/book community, I thought I might share with you all the opening for my current project.
I gave a brief description of the project in this post: “It’s That Time of Year Again.” The project is going fairly well so far (*knock on wood*). I’m at about 28,000 words currently, which is just a TINY bit behind the recommended daily word count. But I have hopes for getting caught up this weekend (*fingers crossed*).
If you’re only interested in my book review posts, I totally understand, and I apologize for the lack thereof this week. But hopefully some of you will enjoy this little sneak-peek.
Art by Jenna Barton (@)dappermouth_art (used for vibe inspiration)
Prologue —
When Ellianora was five her mother told her folktales about the Osei, from her homeland of Noridreia — magical shapeshifters who lived in the forests and made deals with humans that were as much curse as gift. When Ellianora was ten her Noridreian-immigrant nanny told her the Osei were not mere folktale but REAL, hiding in the secret places of the world following years of human violence. There had been no recorded contact with the Osei in nearly a century, but every once in a long while one might still appear when summoned by a human desperate enough to call them. Or so her nanny said. Ellianora was not sure she really believed it.
When Ellianora was twenty she snuck out into the forest that skirted the eastern edges of Idelwyth to summon the Osei. She was finally desperate enough.
She wore her simplest, sturdiest dress in a deep navy that blended into the shadows. She carried a bag of the items needed to perform the summoning, as taught to her by her nanny, and a single lantern to light her way through the dark moonless night. The new moon was the best time to summon the Osei. They were more willing to appear with no moon as witness to their movements and the deals. Once she had gone far enough into the forest, Ellianora found a small clearing, surrounded on all sides by tall imposing great-grandfather trees, and knelt.
From her bag she revealed a small silver bowl she had borrowed from her mother’s best silver service, a glass bottle she had filled with cool, clean water, a sachet of tea leaves and rose petals, and the sharpest paring knife she could find in the kitchen. As her nanny had once instructed, she took a moment to clear her mind and focus on her intention, her desire.
Call the Osei. Make a deal. Beg for help.
Then, mind clear and intention firmly set, she placed the silver bowl before her and poured the water into it. Next came the tea leaves and rose petals. She waited a moment for the leaves and petals to swirl in the water, some staying afloat on the surface, some sinking to the bottom of the bowl. Finally, she lifted the knife in her right hand, pressed it firmly into the palm of her left hand, and pulled as quickly as she could, before she could overthink it and back out. The knife sliced through the meat of her palm. She squeezed her hand, gritting her teeth against the pain, and let the blood drip into the bowl.
Water, tea and flower, blood. Gifts for the Osei, to entice them out into the open.
“Osei, I summon you,” she spoke in a low clear voice. “I beg an audience with Kunochi, Lord of the Forest. Lord Kunochi, I entreat you to grant me your aid.”
Kunochi, according to her nanny, was one of the most powerful and most magnanimous of the Osei. If any Osei would grant her their aid, it would be he. It would have been best to speak the summoning in Noridreian, but her mother had given up her language in the name of assimilation and forbidden anyone from teaching it to her children. Wesmarin Imperial would have to do.
Ellianora waited. The forest was silent around her except for the occasional breeze and the music of the crickets. She counted to one hundred in her head, and then repeated the summoning, just to be safe. And waited. And waited.
Nothing happened. Of course, nothing. It was a silly fancy to try this at all. A fool’s errand. A desperate last-minute ploy for reprieve that did nothing but give her a momentary illusion of control.
And then, something did happen. The branches and leaves that surrounded Ellianora shook and shuddered. The entire forest seemed to take a deep breath and hold it. From the deepest shadows around her, a pale long-fingered hand appeared.
“Hello little human,” came the rumbling of a deep voice like distant rolling thunder.
Ellianora choked on a gasp and slapped both hands over her mouth. Blood from her left palm smeared across her lips and chin.
“I am not Kunochi,” said the thunder-voice, “but perhaps I will suffice…”
While I’ve been busy with NaNoWriMo, it has come to my attention that November is also novella reading month: “Novellavember.” The wonderful and awesome bookseller, Kel, who is a bit Twitter-famous and can be found at the handle @panediting, has put a lot of work into promoting a bunch of novellas in the bookstore where she works, and sharing photos.
I do not currently have a bookstore, but I thought I could share some novella suggestions of my own. A few are ones I have mentioned on the blog before, and some are new.
So! Novellas to read for Novellavember:
Alix E. Harrow’s fractured fairy tale duology, A Spindle Splintered and A Mirror Mended: these two novellas feature main character Zinnia Gray, a folklore major who is dying from a progressive disease, who comes to discover she is a variation on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale motif when she accidentally ends up in an alternate dimension with another Sleeping Beauty. In the second book, having survived the first incident, Zinnia begins trekking through fairy tales versions helping the characters fix their lives and save their happy endings until she is caught by the Evil Queen of one version of Snow White and must figure out how to save herself. Alix Harrow described these books as Into the SpiderVerse for fairy tale princesses, and that is a very accurate description. These books are an absolute delight, filled with sarcasm, sapphic women, and incisive commentary on the plight of women in fairy tales.
Lina Rather’s “nuns in space!” duology: Sisters of the Vast Black, and Sisters of the Forsaken Stars: I wrote a full review for the first novella in this duology back when it came out, which can be found here. These are slim, tightly-plotted, space operas in miniature, about nuns of the Order of Saint Rita, traveling around in their sentient spaceship saving lives and accidentally starting revolutions. These nuns are smart and complex, and their group includes a former war criminal, a lesbian engineer, and a lot of progressive liberals. The bits about the sentient spaceship are especially fascinating, and the political aspects are tense and horrifying. As a lapsed Catholic, whose patron saint is St. Rita, and loves space opera, these books were pretty much made for me. I adore them both!
Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey: for something completely different, try this novella set in a dystopian America where technology has been outlawed or destroyed and society has reverted to a “wild west” style of living. To keep the isolated masses entertained and educated on government-controlled and highly censored reading materials, women librarians travel in horse-drawn carriages to various small towns in the west. Secretly-gay Esther stows away on such a carriage to escape her father when her lover is discovered and hanged. Once aboard, the other librarians train her, and reveal that they are not as “upright” and “government controlled” as the public might believe. This book was a joy! As one might guess, it is filled with gay and nonbinary women librarians who are secretly part of a rebellion against the oppressive government. And the righteous anger in every word is incendiary.
Servant Mage by Kate Elliott: This book is not really like Upright Women Wanted at all, but I think it has a similar tone/feel to it in that righteous anger drips from every word, and I love that about it. This novella is set in a world where magic exists, but in the years since an uprising destroyed the monarchist government, those who possess magic (once considered special and noble) are now taken from their families and made into slaves so that their magic may properly benefit all of society. Fellian is one such mage, however she is saved from her servitude by a group of monarchist rebels who need her magical abilities to help their cause. As Fellian works with this group, led by an exiled noble, she slowly realizes that the monarchists aren’t actually any better than the oppressive government they are fighting to overthrow. Kate Elliott is a master of the craft (see my review of her chonky space opera, Unconquerable Sun), and she proves to be as amazing in this short format as she is in her very expansive novels. The ending of this book is earned by every step of the narrative, and it is SO SATISFYING.
Trafik by Rikki Ducornet: Ok, this last one (for now) is a bit of a departure from the rest. It’s weird. If you don’t generally like more experimental literary fiction forms, you’re probably safe to skip this one. BUT if you are willing to go off the beaten path a bit, I highly recommend this one. For those not familiar with Rikki Ducornet, she is an avant-garde writer/poet, known for writing some very strange, dreamlike prose. One of her full novels, The Jade Cabinet, is a favorite of mine, and I’ve written a couple academic papers on it. Trafik is her most recent work (marketed as a novel, but as a teeny little book of about 120 pages, it’s definitely more in the novella category. It’s science fiction, of a sort, following a character named Quiver, a “mostly human” astronaut, and her neurotic robot Mic. When they accidentally destroy their cargo, they fear punishment from their employers and instead go rogue, making a run for the strange planet called Trafik. As I said, this is a WEIRD book, but it is weird in the best way possible – quirky, funny, hallucinatory. It functions as a nice, bite-sized introduction to Ducornet and her work.
Well, those should keep you busy for a bit at least! (And I just now noticed they are all women authors, so that’s fun). Time for me to dash back off to my Nano project (which is going pretty well for once… *knock on wood*). Catch you all later!
We are reaching the end of October. It is therefore that time of year again! It’s NaNoWriMo season, my friends!
I think at this point most bookish types are at least vaguely familiar with Nano, but for the uninitiated NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. Nano takes place in November (Novel, November, get it?). It started in 1999 and is run by a nonprofit group at the website www.nanowrimo.org
It’s a challenge, essentially, to write 50,000 words (of the first draft of a novel) over the course of just 30 days in November — 50,000 was chosen as the official word count goal because it is the rough average length of a published novel. (Sort of, the technical definition of a novel is a piece of fiction writing that is 40,000 words or longer. The average length has gone up in recent years and is probably more like 70-80k words at this point, but 50k is a good goal post for the challenge.) You sign up to join the challenge on the website, and keep track of your word count, follow other writers as “buddies,” and generally try to have fun. If you succeed in writing 50k words by Nov 30th, you officially “win” and get a printable certificate, some cool discounts from various participating business partnerships, and bragging rights.
I’ve been participating (or trying to, anyway) most years since 2010. The ONLY time I’ve “won” was in my first year in 2010, when I actually wrote 70k words towards the first draft of my novel Midnight’s Knife (currently at 160,000 words total, in the 2nd draft). That year, I was unemployed and taking a year break between the end of my MA degree and the beginning of my PhD, which was the ONLY reason I actually managed to succeed. Every other year, as I try to write while also working/studying, I have failed miserably. I have never made it past 25k words since then, and some years don’t even break 15k.
But I try most years (I’ve skipped a few), and will again this year. I am currently unemployed again, which might give me a better chance at winning. BUT I am actively looking for/interviewing for jobs, and will hopefully have a new position soon, which will no doubt kill my chances at hitting 50k. But that’s all right. I need the work. And any writing progress is good progress.
This year, I will be starting a new project I’ve had rattling around in the back of my brain for a few months now. I’ve been telling my brain to wait, to put that back where it came from, and so on, for ages. And I decided that now was the time to let my brain pick up the idea and run with it for a while. I’ve been embracing the “Pantser” method of late, so beyond the basic premise and main characters, I have very little idea of where I’m going with this, but its going to have ALL THE VIBES.
It’s a secondary world setting, loosely inspired by Victorian England, featuring period-appropriate imperialism, and an immigrant family from a conquered/“annexed” country vaguely inspired by Japan. I’m stealing from everywhere for this story (including the Victorian England setting, and the Japanese immigrant experience). This stealing also includes: 1) a main character inspired by Ann Elliott from Jane Austen’s Persuasion, 2) the MC’s immigrant mother based on my Japanese-immigrant grandmother, 3) a main Love Interest loosely based on a combination of Anne Lister (Gentleman Jack) and Julie D’Aubigny, and 4) an undead warlock I stole pretty much wholesale from a rural Ohioan legend a Ohioan friend told me about.
I don’t have a title yet so I’m just calling it the “Wesmaris Project” for the moment (Wesmaris being the name of the imperialist country that is the main setting).
Tags include: Victorian aesthetic, imperialist bullshit, immigrant family trauma, wlw, mutual pining, femme/butch, introvert/extrovert, magical beings, shady deals with fay in creepy forests, found family, undead warlock, thread magic, stitch-witchery, downtrodden women getting power and getting revenge, soundtrack by Florence + the Machine and Amazing Devil
And here’s the mood board I spent far too much time on:
Mood board made using Canva and images from Pinterest
Apologies for missing my Friday post deadline last week! I’ve been working like crazy to find a new job. Filling out dozens of applications, revising and re-revising my resume, drafting bunches of cover letters… I’ve had a handful of phone interviews that haven’t gone anywhere, and I have an in-person interview tomorrow (fingers crossed, friends!).
I’ve also been doing a little bit of freelance lesson writing for a study website, AND I’ve been trying to submit a short story I wrote to some literature magazines. So… I just got very busy the week whizzed past me without my even really noticing. I’ll have a full blog post up this Friday on schedule, though!
A couple updates: *I just finished reading a couple great novellas I will try to write up reviews for soon. *Currently re-reading A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske (for the fifth time!) in preparation for the sequel A Restless Truth releasing on Nov 1st. *Also planning to re-read the very witchy sapphic romance Payback’s a Witch later this week in the spirit of the Halloween season!
I’m an Old (™). This is a fact. I’m what the internet affectionately calls an “elder millennial.” I have had teens and 20-somethings treat me like I should, in fact, be crawling into my own grave of my own volition by now. And somehow, I find myself getting into tabletop gaming for the first time in my life, at my age?
I have been a nerd, or a geek, or whatever my whole life. I have at least dabbled in most nerdy pursuits at some point or another. But I never got into tabletop gaming (whether it be card games, or co-op board games, or RPGs) as a kid/teenager, when most nerds are getting into that kind of thing. It wasn’t that I avoided them on purpose. I was just never really exposed to it at any point in K-12. My mom was not a gamer of any kind. My younger brother was a gamer, but only video games and Pokémon cards (which I dabbled in a bit, for his benefit, but didn’t really play). Being a military brat, I didn’t have many friends and didn’t keep any for very long, and none of them were tabletop gamers of any kind. So, I just didn’t really know anything about them.
Even in college, when some people might get into it if they missed out on it the first time around, I managed to accidentally avoid it by virtue of not living on campus and getting the full “college experience.” My best friend did live on a college campus, and so dabbled in a few things. Through her, I played my one and only RPG campaign one summer between semesters (and it wasn’t even D&D, it was the much simpler Mage series of RPGs by White Wolf).
Now, somehow, through a twist of brain-weirdness, and because of my abominable habit of picking up new habits the way some people catch a cold, I find myself getting into several varieties of tabletop gaming for the first time ever. I have picked up a couple board games (and I don’t mean your more traditional family board games like Clue or Monopoly). I started with one that seemed accessible and easy to learn for a newbie (and also appealed to me as a Disney nerd): Villainous. Then I grabbed Azul, because it had such great reviews on gaming sites. I also bought one of the Hunt a Killer murder mystery games: Mystery at Magnolia Gardens. And now I’m considering the much more massive (and expensive) game Descent: Legends of the Dark by Fantasy Flight Games. I’ve been considering this one after doing a lot of research on games I play on solo mode. I’ve dragged my mother, and once my brother, into playing Villainous with me. And my mom really enjoyed the Mystery of Magnolia Gardens game, but mostly I’m on my own for this new stage in my nerd development, lol!
In addition, I bought a game (also by Fantasy Flight Games) called Legacy of Dragonholt. It’s a bit like a cross between a full RPG (such as D&D) and a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book on steroids. I have managed to drag my mother into doing this one with me as well, lol! We do a couple hours on the weekends. It’s not as flexible as I would like (and as I would no doubt get from a full RPG game), but it is entertaining and it’s a good stepping stone into other, bigger things.
I have ALSO started buying Magic the Gathering cards for the first time in my life! And this bad habit I can entirely blame on Twitter. Particularly, the artists I follow on Twitter. Several artists I love and follow on social media started sharing the pieces they painted for one of the new MtG expansions: Streets of New Capenna, and I was in raptures! It’s a mix of magic and 1920s Jazz Age aesthetics! I am obsessed with 1920s history/style right now! It was made specifically for ME. How could I resist?
I am trying (with middling success) to teach myself how to actually playMagic the Gathering. I even downloaded the MtG: Arena app to play that way, since I have no one to play with IRL. But so far the intricacies of the rules and the various card functions is proving rather opaque to me. So… *shrug*
This has all happened in just the last three or four months. Will it STICK long term? I don’t know. I’m ADHD. Jumping from hyperfixation to hyperfixation is just part of my mental makeup. But maybe. If I can figure out what the hell I’m actually DOING? And if I can find actual people IRL to play any of these things with? Then maybe.
If you are an expert in any of these things, and care to offer sage advice, I am all ears. If you are brand new to the world of tabletop gaming and want to muddle through these things with me in a blind-leading-the-blind sort of scenario, please also chime in! If you want to just point and laugh at The Old (™) muddling her way through all of this, feel free. I am well aware how silly I look, and I’m at peace with it.
Amanda Haimoto Rudd 