What I’ve Read
A Bride for the Prizefighter by Alice Coldbreath – This Victorian working class romance was rather charming – I got the rec from Reformed Rake, a podcast by a Tiktoker who blogs about Romance novels of many eras. I found the main character really convincing, smart, and kind – when Mina’s father dies, she meets her estranged half-brother who arranges a marriage for her to HIS estranged half-brother, William Nye, the son of his father’s mistress who became a prize fighter and runs an pub. It felt like the descriptions of Mina’s life in the pub and her connections to the staff working there were very natural – Mina is a ‘lady’ in the sense of having an innate sense of decency and the value of other human beings, and Nye has a backbone of kindness to him that comes thru his rough demeanor. I felt like this had, as the Reformed Rake podcast noted, some genre connections to the Gothic, which was right up my alley. Very good romance, you can really see WHY these people like each other.

Love for Sale bypoisonivory - (https://archiveofourown.org/works/29789145) – Roy Harper, Arsenal, is between jobs and ends up hooking up with Jason Todd, who just happens to have an apartment to lend him – it’s just a business deal. Right? This story is a bit of a soft sugar daddy vibe, it works for me, despite being rather a departure from how I think about Jason Todd.

What I’m Reading:
The King in Yellow 25% -static – The next story up for me would be In the Court of the Dragon
The Count of Monte Cristo – 9%

Babel – Xing Book Club – 53% - I was just thinking about how much the first part of this novel reminds me of Naomi Novik's Scholomance series, in that it feels like someone taking the challenge of Hogwarts seriously - what does it mean to be brought into a magical community from the outside? What are the real impacts of magic on the world? What are the economies of how magic works? And who does this world consider expendable? We have just gotten to the point where Babel's students are going to be forced to confront those questions outside of England as adults who have been raised to serve the powers of the Empire of Britain. It's brutal and great.

Kristeva Powers of Horror -back in the swing of things! Chapter 2 for the end of the month.

The Witch King - Martha Wells - p80 - Solid introduction, feels akin to Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation in some details but its also very much its own thing 

What I’ll Read Next
Book Club is going to need to pick some more books soon but until then I have a breather.

Library books:
The last unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
The way home : two novellas from the world of The last unicorn by Peter S. Beagle.

Unnatural magic by C.M. Waggoner.
For the wolf by Hannah Whitten.
Horror: a very short introduction by Darryl Jones.

The spear cuts through water bySimon Jimenez.
Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum.

The artist's reality : philosophies of art by Mark Rothko ; edited and with an introduction by Christopher Rothko.
Into the Riverland by Nghi Vo
Fun home : a family tragicomic by Alison Bechdel.

Owned and need to read: California Bones, Raven Song by IA Ashcroft, Kraken's Sacrifice by Katee Robert, Even Though I Know the End by CL Polk, At The Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard, Tamryn Eradani's Enchanting Encounters Books 2 and 3, Like Real People Do by EL Massey, Tom Stoppard, Invention of love, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty, "You Just Need to Lose Weight" and Other Myths about Fatness by Aubrey Gordon, Alisha Rai Partners in Crime, the Right Swipe

What I've Read
Nona the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir - Oh, man, I really enjoyed this book. Partially because I finally got to the point in the series where I feel like all the players might, at last, be on the board, and we can finally see how they are all interacting.

There was so much love and so much sorrow in this book. I have so many points that I adored and I want to keep spoilers off people's main pages, but I might get into it in the comments. Nona was just such a lovely character to visit with and I'm glad that the trilogy expanded to give her enough space.

The bits with John going over his background and how he got to the place he is - that was fascinating and got the most discussion of any part of the books in the discord I was chatting with people about. I really adored the whole thing. And now I join the multitude waiting for the final book. 

Penric's Mission - Lois McMaster Bujold - This was the palate cleanser after burning thru three of the Locked Tomb books in short order. Little did I realize, I actually skipped one novella in between! I might go back to it, but honestly, I liked the twists on Penric's future and Desdemona's new friends in this story, and I might not circle back.


Men with Stakes: Masculinity and the Gothic in US TV - Julia M. Wright - I picked this to read as part of the Great Queer Supernatural Re-Watch and while I think it was a good review of a number of shows and cogent points about the genre's relationship to masculinity, I found the writing distracting. There was no clear line between argumentation and summary, I felt like "the Gothic" was never actually defined, and overall, I feel like I would have gotten more out of this book if I had read some of the essasy in the bibliography before I started on this. Not a failure, just not quite where I wanted the next step in my journey to go.


A Half-Built Garden - Ruthanna Emrys - For the Xing Book Club and I really enjoyed this. It was clearly written by someone who loved Star Trek and science fiction and it's a loving addition to that canon. The author's note called the book "diaperpunk" which I sort of agree with - this is science fiction where "think of the children" is not an empty proverb, but tied to specific children, with specific parents and a specific place in time and humanity's history.

It's also, I have previously noted, a book where main character being Jewish has real impacts for how they interact with aliens. At one point, a character thinks, Man, am I going to end up in some future scornful halakhic commentary for the decision I am making about this alien's ritual? and I am delighted. Aliens at passover! Chametz in space! Kashrut on a floating constructed island run by AI!


What I'm Reading
True Colors - Karen Traviss - Have slowed down on this but the fanfic consumption is not slower.

What I'll Read Next

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke -Xing book club
Edit to add: Powers of Horror by Julia Kristeva


Dowry of Blood
Too Like the Lightning - Audiobook, maybe

Owned and need to read: Frey Marske's A Restless Truth, and Susanna Clarke's Pirenesi, California Bones, Raven Song by IA Ashcroft, Kraken's Sacrifice by Katee Robert, Even Though I Know the End by CL Polk, True Colors by Karen Traviss, At The Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard, Tamryn Eradani's Enchanting Encounters Books 2 and 3, Like Real People Do by EL Massey, Tom Stoppard, invention of love. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty, "You Just Need to Lose Weight" and Other Myths about Fatness by Aubrey Gordon, Alisha Rai Partners in Crime, the Right Swipe, Aphorisms of Kerishdar

Bit of a milestone: I was trying to record what I've been reading this year and see how many books I actually read without putting much effort into it. I just went in and totted up all the books so far, and we're nearing a nice round number!
(For the purposes of this accounting, fanfic over 50K count as novels.)

What I've Read:
walk by faith/tell no one what you've seen by Killbothtwins
Fandom: Star Wars prequels and novels
My thoughts: The ending on this first part was a bit of a woo-woo magic solution, but it was *very* emotionally satisfying. I really enjoyed the slow building of Obi-Wan's network of people to include almost all of the Jedi who Fall in canon - he's not just fighting the existing dark siders, he's actively seeking ways to support people so they don't fall in the first place.
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31805044

Winter's Crown by Astolat
Fandom: Game of Thrones
Author's Summary: “When the Night’s King rides,” the giant said, each word slow as cold honey pouring, “the King in the North must answer. The King in the North…whose name is Stark.”
My thoughts: This fic is divided between Robb's and Jaime's POV pretty equally and that works really well. It feels like an extension of Astolat's published work, Spinning Silver, in its focus on a darker folklore element and the idea of promises made to inhuman powers and what those will cost you to keep or to break. I loved Robb's determination and slow descent into not being a being not entirely human, and the way Jaime kept pulling him back from that.
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42924834


What I'm Reading:
A soul that's born in cold and Rain knows sunlight by KillBothTwins
Fandom: Star Wars
Author Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi, time traveler, finds trouble once again when he and Qui-Gon are called to Mandalore— but not THAT Mandalore mission. This one involves still pretending to see the future, babies, a slavery ring, and bothering even more people into becoming his friend. As usual, Obi-Wan drags everyone else along for the ride, including some interesting allies.
My thoughts: This is FUN. I really enjoy the way that the ripples of the first fic are helping save the galaxy, including making Jango Fett just a better dad.
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33144037

Carry On by Tamryn Eradani
Fandom: Supernatural
Author Summary: When Sam gets into Stanford, Dean needs a bigger paycheck than Bobby's garage can give him. Luckily, he knows a guy.
My thoughts: This is Supernatural version of Needs Must by thatotherperv, which is a wildly perfect Suits fic. This variation, which was removed from AO3 when the author went pro, is delightful and indulgent in similar ways. I'm savoring.

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey - Post-apocalyptic queer women using their position of trust to circumvent the controlling powers of patriarchy and patriotism? A Western that focuses on a baby bookbinder? Adorable. I pulled this out of my metaphorical stack of ebooks that I got for free from Tor because I read this author's discussion of how this book helped her tease out why she kept calling herself "straight" and giving her queer characters tragic endings. https://www.thebooksmugglers.com/2018/06/between-the-coats-a-sensitivity-read-changed-my-life-an-essay-by-sarah-gailey.html


Still Reading - Holdovers from last week:
Westerns: Making the Man in Fiction and Film by Lee Clark Mitchell
Moby Dick by Herman Melville - Whale Weekly

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson - Book Club - I'm technically not actually finishing this in time for book club and I'm okay with that. I think it's probably better to just bask in it -plot is very much secondary. Honestly, I feel like the summaries and discussions I have read of this book undersell just how much of it is about the messiness of human relationships - there's a great deal of hard scifi awesomeness, but also a great deal about the main two characters and their slow romance.


What I'll Read Next:
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance by Dorothy Johnson - I watched this movie for the Westerns portion of the Great Queer Supernatural Re-Watch, and I was curious. The movie stars John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, and it is so perfectly apt for their types that I wanted to see if the story had been greatly altered to fit. I find Jimmy Stewart excellent in comedies and tragedies, but his style of acting is pre-Stanislovsky and it seems like it would work better for me in a theatrical setting. It felt a bit odd here. John Wayne is a piece of shit who supported the House Un-American Activitoes Committee and was ardently racist. As an actor, he's usually boring and uninspired, tho I will admit his role in Stagecoach was charming.

Library books in the house:
Maul: Lockdown - Joe Schreiber
Tiger's Daughter - K Arsenault Rivera
Riot Baby - Rochi Onyeuchi
The Silence of the Wilting Skin - Tlotlo Tsamaase
Whispers Underground - Ben Aaronovitch
Penric's Demon - LM Bujold
The Book of the Unnamed Midwife - Med Elison
The Uncle's Story - Witi Ihimaera

Newly purchased: Man, this is just an ongoing backlog

Owned and need to read: NK Jemisin's The World We Make, Frey Marske's A Restless Truth, California Bones, the Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison, Raven Song by IA Ashcroft, Kraken's Sacrifice by Katee Robert, Even Though I Know the End by CL Polk, True Colors by Karen Traviss, At The Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard, Tamryn Eradani's Enchanting Encounters Books 2 and 3, Like Real People Do by EL Massey, Rescued by the Married Monster Hunters Ennis Rook Bashe

What I've Read
- Omega Required - Dessa Lux (aka, fanfic writer Dira Sudis) - Werewolf Omegaverse m/m arranged marriage romance novel- I bought this in 2018, read 25% of it and then never picked it up again. I finished it this week and I found the main couple really quite charming.  Beau wants to be a werewolf doctor to humans, Rory ran away from home at 16 with an older man who promised to take good care of him and has some major trauma around sex. It's careful to show Rory's recovery, tho it's a romance novel so he's improving on a pretty brisk pace. Beau is used taking care of only himself and not asking for help so he makes some fairly stupid (but very in-character!) mistakes around his new job. The resolution is sweet and generally hits the points that think a thoughtful romance ought to. I am probably going to read other things Dira has written - this series has a couple of other books, and this is hitting a self-indulgent spot for me.

Wife to the Marines: A Military Reverse Harem Romance by Krista Wolf (reverse harem het romance, straight woman with three straight men) - Well, this book had some great elements? The sex was fun, the character dynamics were a bit spare (perfectly fine for this genre) but what was there felt engaging, the plot was brisk and both acknowledged the silly elements but made them feel emotionally true to the female lead's internal life. I finished it and at the low price of $1, I feel like I got my money's worth. I have definitely paid more for worse. 

But, oh man, I am too queer for this book. I am just too dang queer for this book. I literally picked this up because I was curious about the reverse harem romance sub-genre (aka, straight woman with multiple male partners, yay!) and wow, this is just - like, do gay people exist in this world? Do ace people? Polyamory is briefly mentioned but not actually engaged with at all, so functionally, nah. Because I just cannot imagine a world where queer people exist and these men are making the life choices they are making about committed relationships to other men, and having sex with the same woman in a committed relationship, and then like, just not talking about the fact that you are in a queer poly relationship. It's just, like, the most hetero and monogamous take possible on a very queer, very poly relationship. It's almost as if it's a het romance where the dude just happens to have three bodies? It's so fucking weird to see a book go so far out of its way to frame this as hetero brothers-in-arms who love each other? Like, the intense military friendship that is actually a romance in disguise is literally a gay cliche - this one is ours, straight people. 

Also, massive trigger warnings for eating disorders shit (the woman is a trainer and runs a youtube channel where she makes sad tasteless healthfood, constantly breaks food into good or bad categories, calorie counting, talks in detail about the weight loss plans of her clients, none of it needed) and also, uh, military kink?  using the American invasion of Afghanistan as a neutral-to-justified backdrop for a personal vendetta? (Dudes, is it gay to avenge the death of your boyfriend's brother under the cover of a legitimate Marine mission while you lie to him and keep him out of the loop, safe at home with your other shared boyfriend and girlfriend?) This was a compellingly written novel full of sympathetic depictions of people who I would not ever want to have a drink with!

 

What I'm Reading

A Taste of Gold and Iron - Alexandra Rowlan - A re-read for my book club. So sweet, so queer, so fun. 

Thrawn: Treason - Timothy Zahn - Getting fun and brisk with this one! 55% in. 

Hunting Towards Heartstill - Blackkat - Star Wars Clone Wars Cartoon au - marriage of convenience, fake marriage, Mace Windu/Cody - Slowing down because we're crash landed on an abandoned Sith planet and I'm watching Mace be annoyed at Anakin and, well, he's very annoying! I'm going to try and buckle down and get some more under my belt so that I can actually just get past this part. I got stuck here last time too.

Stay With Me, Go Places - cac0daemonia-  https://archiveofourown.org/works/39540420 - "After months of living a quiet, peaceful life on Ryloth, Waxer and Boil must don their armor again. What begins as a rescue operation in conjunction with a bounty hunter becomes a journey that the Force itself seems to have a hand in." - I am really enjoying this ongoing series, the Reconstruction Corps AU, which posits that a fairly minor change in the Clone Wars plot around the clones control chips allowed the Jedi to stop Darth Sideous and save the galaxy and allow clones like Waxer and Boil to retire to little backwaters and build themselves a community. 

What I'll Read Next

2312 - Kim Stanley Robinson - Book club pick, long one, too! Bought it since we're probably splitting it up over six weeks
 
Library books:
Our Wives Under the Sea - Julia Armfield
Maul: Lockdown - Joe Schreiber 
The Whale Rider -Witi Ihimaera 
Tiger's Daughter - K Arsenault Rivera 
Riot Baby - Rochi Onyeuchi
The Silence of the Wilting Skin - Tlotlo Tsamaase 
An Unkindness of Ghosts - Rivers Solomon

Libby: 
Truth of the Divine - Lindsay Ellis
Devil House - John Darnelle 
 

What I've Read
I have read no traditionally published books at all, only fanfic.


I re-read Spring in Hell (and everything's blooming)by blackkat, a Clone Wars Era AU in which Jon Antilles and a bunch of other dead-in-canon rogue Jedi foil a plot by Count Dooku, and Jon and clone trooper Rex have trauma bonding in a prison cell. It's angsty and great!

sanguine by glimmerglanger is an AU in which Obi-Wan Kenobi is a vampire - heavily focusing on themes of personhood, the dangers of people misunderstanding you, and Cody pining for the Jedi who routinely saves his life.

Total sidebar: I think it's Glimmerglanger who has made repeated use of a trope that I adore, which is Clone trooper Mandalorian religion and the common parting line between soldiers who feared dying before they can meet again is, "If we don't meet again, I'll wait for you before marching on." And I am slain every time I see this trope used because, well, what more tender promise can we make to those we leave behind?

There All the Honor Lies by Hero_Thief - Space Royalty and arranged marriage AU, clone wars era where Jango Fett is less of a feral hog to his children and decides to take over pacifist Mandalore by marrying one of his clone sons to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Self indulgent and goofy!


What I'm Reading

Still on Unconquerable Sun - the book club are all having trouble with the pacing on this one. I'm going to try switching to an audiobook. This feels like a bit of self indulgence for Kate Elliott


What I'll Read Next
Book club unanimously picked Battle of the Linguist  Mages by Scotto Moore. 

What I’ve Read
Strange Adventures by Tom King – Hugo 2022 Nominated – Best Graphic Novel – Eh. This is good, but it’s incredibly Tom King-ish. By which I mean, an American gets involved in a war abroad, lies a lot, and the CIA could probably sue for co-author credit. King’s work is good, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sure if the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy angle is really working for me. It does finish out my Best Graphic Novel category, tho!

Tame a Wild Human by Kari Greg – I read this technically-a-book book on some curiousity – got it from the library, and at free, I think the price is fair. It’s unexamined werewolf porn – there’s better on AO3, but it’s not terrible, I just think that the happy ending is, uh, kind of soured by knowing that your “misunderstood” werewolf bf did literally order some torture and murder to occur in front of you? Which might work for some people, or even me, if the writing could pull it off, but uh, nope.

a simple thing by iridan – Star Wars & Mandalorian to season 2, not in continuity with Book of Boba Fett – This 650K work is technically lacking a chapter or two before it's complete, but I read it over the course of about 5 days, riveted. It’s a truly ambitious work that brings in a significant amount of Expanded Universe characters and backstory to flesh out a potential future for both Din Djarin and the Mandalorians as a culture in diaspora. Like. This is magnificent and I have enjoyed every word. I also really appreciated how the author was very careful about thinking thru what elements of fanon v canon v her own headcanon she wanted to include, and I think she did a really good job at that.

“Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, Mar/Apr 2021) Hugo Nominated for Best Short Story - deliciously creepy, makes interesting use of an online medium, definitely recommend reading on a computer rather than a phone. An interesting blend of modern tech as the medium to explore a theme that is probably more in the realm of fantasy, and I enjoyed how carefully the metanarrative built on itself, slowly, comment by comment, until the story's conclusions arrived in your brain as gently as a needle. 


What I’m Reading
Never Say You Can’t Survive by Charlies Jane Anders – Hugo Nominated Best Related Work – How to get Through Hard Times by Making Up Stories – Just started, we’ll see!

Star Wars Republic Commando: Hard Contact by Karen Traviss – Traviss laid the groundwork for a lot of Mandalorian cultural elements, including language, so I’m going to read this as backstory for Mandalorian fic. It’s compelling and I’m appreciating the fact that someone noticed that the Republic grew a slave army to fight their wars, and that’s BAD. Pages, they are turning. I'm not sure whether or not I would find this all so compelling if I didn't have the Star Wars gremlins living rent free in my skull, but they have indeed taken up residence there, so this is pretty great for me.


What I’ll Read Next
Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott – Book Group
Short stories and novelettes - Hugo Nominated

What I've Read

His Secret Illuminations and His Sacred Incantations - I have finished a two-book series by Scarlett Gale (aka, ScarlettStorm on AO3) and I was delighted by it - warm and sweet and very horny, with a surprisingly significant subplot on overcoming religious indoctrination and liberating others as you go. Totally not interested in world building, the plot started when Scarlett's friend was lamenting the lack of romance novels where the sheltered young man gets swept off his feet by a magnificent warrior woman. Warm and tender femdom! Lucian is raised in an abbey where he has learned illumination, healing magic, and to fear his abbot as much as he loves his god. What happens when he sent out into the world for the first time with a devastatingly gorgeous She-Wolf to hunt down stolen manuscripts? I paid actually money for these and I am happy I did!

What I'm Reading
Lore Olympus, Vol 1 (Hugo Nominee for Best Graphic Novel) - Rachel Smythe - a beautiful webcomic turned into a collected graphic novel, nominally about the Greek pantheon with a focus on a budding  romance between Persephone and Hades.A Master of Djinn - (Hugo Nominee - Best Novel) P Djeli Clark - Still reading, still good, due for book club next Wednesday. Still a solid genre fantasy detective story. 

Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film - Harry M. Benshoff -I have been reading this with a friend chapter by chapter and I should finish this weekend in time for our discussion. Finally hit the chapters that Benshoff remembers firsthand (rather than pre-dating him) and I think there's still some really good stuff here! Let me know if you'd like me to write in more detail about this - I think it's doing a wonderful job of placing horror films in their cultural context around queer life in the US. 

I finally hit my first hard Nope on the Hugos reading list - DIE (vol. 4) by Kieron Gillen is both too far along in the series to make any sense without first reading the other volumes, and just unpleasant enough that I am calling it quits. So I will concede that I must have a gap in my Best Graphic Novel category. 

What I'll Read Next

(This section got a bit hefty, huh.)

Hugos Death Race Items - I have nearly all the short fiction to read -  Best Novelette and Best Short Story, as well as the Related Works Category (aka, the nonfiction section) - so I'll work on Never Say You Can't Survive by Charlie Jane Anders, and finish up the Graphic Novel category with Strange Adventures by Tom King. I have read his prior work on Batman, so I think he's a reasonably skilled writer whose take on Bane was deeply boring. We'll see what this turns up. 

I have purchased but not read the second volume of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi by Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù, so I hope I can get into that without having to go re-read the whole first novel over. I have returned to my watching of the TV adaptation, The Untamed on Netflix, so I am at least going to have a sense of the plot. But the novel is really required to understand the show - they took out all the actually explicit mentions of queerness so some things simply don't make sense. 

I have California Bones by Greg Van Eekhout from the library, on the recommendation of Sholio, who seemed delighted by it and has some fun things to say about the series. (I haven't read beyond the first enthusiastic rec post, so I remain only lightly spoiled.)

I recently purchased Manhunt, after watching a long video essay on transmisogyny and how the book uses horror in some interesting ways - and then I found out that Nicole Cliffe is dating the author? Good for her. 

Book club is probably going to look at A Prayer for Crown-Shy and/or Record of a Spaceborn Few for the next book so I went ahead and bought those because I love Becky Chambers 

And just because I have been really enjoying the Hugos Death Race project, I have decided to make up a spreadsheet to track the single-work nominees for the 2022 World Fantasy Awards- which gives me a slightly different list of books to read! (List is here- https://www.tor.com/2022/07/20/announcing-the-2022-world-fantasy-award-finalists-2/) 

I have read basically nothing new at all since last Reading Wednesday rolled around.  

However, I have vacation coming! So I have a lineup of things I'm bringing with me to read. 

What I will Read... On Vacation! 
I have read an excellent fic by Furiosophie on Admiral Thrawn and his right hand man, Eli Vanto - https://archiveofourown.org/series/2884722 , and I have caught the itch for source material! I have not read anything about Thrawn, tho I know there is a devoted Star Wars Extended Universe following for books featuring him. So I have Thrawn Ascendency Chaos Rising by Timothy Zahn loaded up on my Kindle from the library and I think I'll give it a try. 

The second translated volume of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is out so I'll go and read that, and for the Hugos Death Race I have Master of Djinn and She Who Became the Sun.

Just in case I feel nerdy but not too nerdy, I have Reading the Romance by Janice Radway with me as well, in case I feel like digging into  the intersections of popular literature and patriarchy