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What I've Read
A Restless Truth - Freya Marske - Second in a series and I bring that up because the people I read who started this book did so without KNOWING that it was the second in a series. (It holds its own but a lot of the background does not make sense).

I really enjoyed this book - the main characters got to do some whacky and hilarious stuff in the midst of quite a serious investigation with high stakes. The sapphic love story is a delight but they are far from perfect people, and I think overall, I enjoyed this more than the first book. I found Maud to be a bit more relatable than Robin, the POV character for most of the first book, but I also just adored Violet and all her showy, prickly ways. Third book comes out this fall.

(I think that The Locked Tomb series may have unlocked something in my brain that really enjoys series, and having to wait for another feels like a gift of future pleasure rather than a punishment for not being a single book.)

Fanfic I've read

cacio e pepe by serephemeral - https://archiveofourown.org/works/21845440 - I adored this "Some Like it Hot" continuation. After movie ends with "Well, nobody's perfect!" Daphe, who is still sometimes Jerry, runs off into the sunset with Osgood. And Joe, and Sugar. The future doesn't look anything like they planned but it's amazing none the less. Kudos to schneefink for reccing this, I would never have found it otherwise and it's officially my favorite Some Like It Hot fic.

Polite Company by spicedrobot - https://archiveofourown.org/works/37924555 - Star Wars Prequels and Clone Wars Cartoon. Maul isn't a very good Jedi. Obi-Wan isn't a very good Sith. They make it work, after the kidnapping.

What I'm Reading

Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia - 23% - A re-read for me for the Discord book club. Super creepy and really readable.

The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction - Nick Groom - 39% - This is my first time reading the "very short introduction" books and it's really interesting! Pulling together some threads about English history and this aesthetic mode that have never quite tied themselves together in my head.

Also, I had re-watched Crimson Peak this week, and it was a fascinating re-watch! I caught so much more of the symbolism around Edith's clothing and Lucille's cryptic statements about their mother. I liked Thomas a lot less on this re-watch, before the ending, but I think I saw more of his wistful attempt to escape. I also totally did NOT remember how much Edith's writing shapes the early edges of her relationship with Thomas - he first is interested in her because of her writing! When he's trying to break her heart, he attacks her writing

The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson - 19% - A re-read before I get into the rest of the books for fun. I'm listening to the audiobook and the narrator, who I will not name, is pronouncing "duchy" wrong for the entire book. (So that it rhymes with "cootchie") and I'm solidering bravely on. I forgot how much of the book is just "terrified lesbian of color gradually sells people out for safety and the promise of future power" and ooooh, man, it's good.

Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection - Julia Kristeva - This is a very navel-gazing literary theory book that makes me realize all afresh that I have real problems with Freudian framing for everything, BUT, it is cited by every major work on horror that I have read. It's French, it's slow, it's worth a read but it's going to be a slog.

True Colors - Karen Traviss - 23% - static

Too Like The Lightning - Ada Palmer - Static

Underline the Black by not_poignant https://archiveofourown.org/works/41396784 - Probably going to return to this when it's finished.

On Earth as It Is in Heaven by samyazaz https://archiveofourown.org/works/833193 - Soulmate AU of Vikings - You don't need to know anything other than the first season or a vague sense of how history went down

What I'll Read Next

The Calculating Stars - Xing Book Club
Babel - Looks like it will on the Hugos list eventually, I'm trying to get out ahead of things

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, Aphorisms of Kerishdar

Owned and Read/Reading: ~~Frey Marske's A Restless Truth, Susanna Clarke's Pirenesi, True Colors by Karen Traviss~~

What I've Read

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - Xing Book Club - I adored this - like Tamsyn Muir's Nona the Ninth, this is written from the POV of a character who has the least information about where he is and how he got there, and the novel is largely about him finding out what happened. This is about a haunted house, maybe, from the view point of the living man doing the haunting, or maybe a labyrinth from the view of the minotaur. The atmospheric descriptions of the vast and impossible structure put me in mind of descriptions of hikers talking about walking great swaths of a trail and getting to directly experience their own minds paying attention to minute details of the world around them. I have heard it compared to House of Leaves, which seems somewhat fair - they have both have an epistolary style and a focus on an impossible space - but Piranesi is far gentler. I really, really enjoyed it - read it in a day - and I'm a bit sad I can't sum it up better! The mere plot of the thing doesn't really live up to the experience.

A Gentleman and An Officer by Trudemaethien (Restricted) https://archiveofourown.org/works/46045405 -Star Wars Clone Wars AU bit of military fic, Cody/Rex

The Creche by Blue_Sunshine https://archiveofourown.org/works/36847618 - AU Star Wars fic with a bit of a series. Anakin/Obi-Wan. Anakin goes down to the Jedi Temple's creche for the first time, after being raised mostly by Qui-Gon Jinn, and meets the crechemaster.

the first church of the end of the world by withbloodstainedclothingon https://archiveofourown.org/works/4007173 - Supernatural - Dean and Lisa and Castiel, AU of The End

What I'm Reading
True Colors - Karen Traviss - 23% - static - This is a Star Wars "Legends" novel that builds out a lot of the Mandalorian culture by focusing on the military fiction adventures of a subset of clone commandos who were raised and trained by one Mandalorian trainer in particular. There's a bunch of awkward stuff in this particular novel around a pregnancy and some real patriarchal BS, which is why I'm slow with it. But it's good background for my "Clones are Fun, Actually" reading.

A Restless Truth - Freya Marske - 55% - This is a fun fantasy with ship-board mystery and a sapphic romance that is both sweet and quite sexy. The first book in this trilogy was a delight and this is also adorable. I started this about three days ago and I have been blitzing thru.

Too Like The Lightning - Ada Palmer - A re-read bc a couple of my friends are starting it. It's a future mystery with a writing style like a 18th century novel, all breathless and Englightnment that I really enjoy.

Underline the Black by not_poignant https://archiveofourown.org/works/41396784 - Not_Poignant writes some really interesting fannish-feeling original work, and this seems like it's an Omegaverse AU of that - twisty and very hurt/moderate comfort.

On Earth as It Is in Heaven by samyazaz https://archiveofourown.org/works/833193 - Soulmate AU of Vikings - You don't need to know anything other than the first season or a vague sense of how history went down

What I'll Read Next

Powers of Horror - Chapter 1 - For the Great Queer Supernatural Re-Watch. This is a nonfiction theory book that is referred to in many of the horror-focused sources that we have previously read.

The Gothic A Very Short Introduction - After the last reading we did kind of didn't get into what The Gothic is in literature, I figured that this might be a good little supplemental piece.

The Calculating Stars - Xing Book Club

Mexican Gothic - Discord Book Club - A re-read for me, but I enjoyed the book the first time and I think it will be fun to get into again.

Babel - Looks like it will on the Hugos list eventually, I'm trying to get out ahead of things

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, Aphorisms of Kerishdar

Owned and Read/Reading: ~~Frey Marske's A Restless Truth, Susanna Clarke's Pirenesi,True Colors by Karen Traviss~~

Current Music: flogging molly

What I've Read

just me against the sky by magneticwave - https://archiveofourown.org/works/42315729 (48K) Bat-family alternate universe where Tim Drake is a girl and never became Robin but was a different and kind of badass. Girl!Tim/Girl!Jason, but mostly pre-relationship. This is charming and a tender and wonderful look at who Tim is and could have been, in a slightly diffrent world than the comics are showing us. (I think I came across it in the bookmarks of SPQR (https://archiveofourown.org/users/spqr) whose work in Mandalorian fandom is probably why I got into Star Wars prequel fanfic. ) "Just me against the sky" was a great fic to read, in part because it made me realize just how much of magneticwave's fic I have read in some many different fandoms. I went on a binge and re-read "staring down the barrel of the hot sun" and read "i want your warmth to stay beside me" for the first time and a few other shorter things - go, read their stuff, it's amazing.

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride (https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/83f3410a-8112-4958-93ff-6a7fbb184ff1) (Read by Michael Boatman, who deserves an Oscar) Read for Discord Book Club This book was totally outside my normal perview - a historical novel about John Brown's last few years of life, as told from a newly freed young mand who was mascarading as a girl for most of the novel. It's hilarious, it's painful, it's keenly attentive to the damage that suffering causes to the human soul under slavery, and it bounces between reverent and irreverent like a tennis ball in a dryer. Highly recommend. ( Somehow the book group discussion did not get into trans themes at all, but this book is from 2013 and the author is my mom's age so I don't think trans issues were at all on his mind. But it would make for a real discussion about gender as performance and how that works in the context of race for the space of the book.)

What I'm Reading

Phoenix Extravagant - by Yoon Ha Lee - (Read by Emily Woo Zeller) to the end of Chapter 11, for Xing Book Club - Man, this book is good. It's clearly cribbing off the Japanese invasion of Korea in a fantasy setting for languages and cultural notes, the main character is interesting. It's interested in the meaning and value of art to the culture that created it and what an invading culture values in those same works of art - the main character is an artist and they are dealing with the delicate balance of making a living under occupation while maintaining an identity as an artist and a person in their own culture. It doesn't cut quite as close to the soul as a A Memory Called Empire but that might be due to the fact that the narrator is a painter and I'm not. Lovely book, blitzed thru it as an audiook to the stopping point for the book club.

A Half Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys (Read by Kate Handford) - 37% read - also for Xing Book Club, but it's the next book out- A pastoral Earth that revolted and rebuilt to stave off climate apocalypse makes first contact with some aliens who have some fascinatingly different ideas about where sentient species should end up. Great themes! - people compare it to Le Guin and I see the commonalities but I'm going to see how it sticks the landing. The aliens see motherhood, specifically gestational motherhood, as a key sign of leadership ability, and so the main character's relationship with the aliens really has a lot of baby care woven in. Polyamory! Jews in the future! The alluring glitter of apocalyptic corporate culture in the far future. Espionage! Alternate forms of government!

Harrow the Ninth - 86% - Tamsyn Muir - When I get done with this book, I'm doing to have to do some screaming about it. What's notable about the reading experience is that so many people have told me that they read and enjoyed this series that there's a whole LIST of people I can go and scream at when something absurd happens. Is this the experience that people were having reading the Harry Potter books as they came out? Because I didn't, I was an awkward kid who read books to get away from people and not to connect with them, but man, I could see how the allure of this feeling would linger as a warm and fuzzy memory well past the point I finish this book. (Not to the point of remaining financially loyal to the author if she starts, ya know, targeting peopel for stocastic violence thru twitter, jesus fucking christ, some Harry Potter fans have some major fucking blinders on for their asshole) I accidentally created a bookclub around The Locked Tomb Series and its going well!

Men With Stakes - Julia Wright - still at 65% - need to finish the book for March 12th
A Very Good Book for the Great Queer Supernatural Re-Watch! Highly recommend for people who want to think about the show and the way it fit into concepts of masculinity as part of the landscape of tv. I wish the author would define her concept of "the gothic" somewhere in the book!

What I'll Read Next

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - Xing Book Club

Audiobooks from Libby that I need to get to: Spare by Harry No Last Name, Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, Re-reads planned via audiobook for A Taste of Gold and Iron and Mexican Gothic (I got some friends to read it and it's landed very well and I want to talk about it again!)

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

Work in Progress Wednesday (The Return)
Sock Madness was once again too much for me- I got one sock done and sent it in to be a cheerleader rather than on a team. I found this technique (intarsia in the round) a good stretch of skills but no way I was getting that done in time for the second sock. That said, I have started the second sock and I'm knitting it flat, against the rules of the competition socks, and it's sooooo much easier. Intarsia in the round, kids, not even once.

What I've Read

Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir - Oh, man, the last third of this book is just payoff after payoff - stuff that I was certain was going to be left to be resolved in the next book was just laid out in front of your eyes and it worked so damned well. This was my second attempt to read this book - the first time, just after it came out, I made charts and tried to keep track of all the characters and figure out the mystery of the whole thing, well, I had some trouble. The second time around had a much better result when I just let the whole thing wash over me. I really enjoyed this book and I'm starting on the next one immediately.

Penric's Fox - Lois McMaster Bujold - I am still really enjoying this series, which are short mysteries set in the Chalion universe with a metaphysical 'odd couple'- a young human man with no background in magic is host of a centuries-old demon who has the memories and personalities of nine previous women hosts as part of her constituent parts. They fight crime! It's also got touches of the kind of settled affection that I tend to associate with long-married couples who still adore each other. Penric gets roped into solving murders that are short and clear, with a cast of interesting recurring characters and a boss who is a badass woman in her 70s. The mysteries are a bit straightforward but explore some of the interesting edge cases of how magic in their world works. Fun palette cleansing reads. (I which Bujold had a little more eye for queer relationships in her books but what she does provide is emotionally solid, so, meh.)

I'm Not As Think As You Drunk I Am - Mardiaz173 - https://archiveofourown.org/works/33021898 - Clark Kent/ Bruce Wayne - DC comics universe - This was just a nice short little fic where Superman wants desperately to date Batman, but Bruce Wayne keeps showing Clark a side of himself that few people get to see. Which will our hero choose? (I read this on the recommendation of the podcast Clio/Mireille for their Sept 2022 episode on Superman/Batman Identity Porn fic.) It is a fun fic and a charming podcast.

Living With a Tiger by x_los - https://archiveofourown.org/works/33488392 - 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù - Original Luò Bīnghé/Shěn Yuán, post Post-Bingge vs. Bingmei Extra - I am delving at last into the fic for the Scum Villain fandom, and I love the set-up on this. X_los wrote an AU that really delves into a grey version of the characters from the canon, and I really enjoyed it. (If you don't care to read the canon, this is still mostly intelligible on its own.) The tags are accurate.

What I'm Reading

Harrow the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir has got her hooks in my soul. Like with Gideon the Ninth, I was spoiled by tumblr osmosis for some elements of this book, but I honestly don't think it matters! Starts basically directly after Gideon the Ninth and I am glad I followed my friend's recommendation to start this book immediately upon finishing Gideon, as my poor memory would not have helped with understanding this book. I find these books do very little explicit handholding of like, "Character realized that this new development related back to This Setup from Chapter 2" and yet Muir does indeed set up enough reminders to guide you back to the points you need to recall for the payoff to be satisfying.

What I'll Read Next
Phoenix Extravagant - Yun Ha Lee - Book Club
The Uncle's Story - Witi Ihimaera - The library wants this back and I don't want to give it back! I might end up having to buy more of the Ihimaera books I want to read - local libraries are NOT great about having these around, and I am slow.
The Good Lord Bird

Library books
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys
Unnamed Midwife (whole series)

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

running with lightning feet by blackkat - https://archiveofourown.org/works/23348836 - Clones Wars Era AU - Feral/ Wolffe, Savage/Sinker, Maul/Fox/Amidala (Rare pair hell trifecta, my dudes.) I’m re-reading this in bits and pieces. While it's not quite complete, there's a real lovely bunch of character work on Dathomir and the world building about the way the team is going to handle the downfall of Palpatine is great. I

Our Bodies Safe to Shore by dharmaavocado - https://archiveofourown.org/works/15933347 - Star Wars, Obi-Wan/Rex, Maori selkies. This has a great little mystery at the core of it that I wasn't expecting - Obi-Wan is a nice normal English teacher in a world where the Fae have invaded most places - but not Aotearoa. So he goes there to hide from whatever happened, and meets a family of selkies who, slowly and gradually, decide to keep him. Everything I have read by this author really hits a particular spot for me - one with a lot of tenderness.

praying for the wicked on the weekend by Just_a_Loth_Cat, coldishcase - https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872874 - Darth Maul/Obi-Wan Kenobi with some identity porn - Darth Maul hires a dude he meets in a bar to play Obi-Wan Kenobi in a sex fantasy for him - not realizing that he'd actually found Kenobi on Tatooine and that "Ben" would be willing to play along. It has some great smut paired with some excellent character work. Series is not complete but I'm pretty pleased with it so far.

Sidebar: I have a very simple rule for the porn I'll read about Darth Maul that's set post-Phantom Menace - he got cut in half and that's going to have some impact on his sex life. No perfect prosthetics, no changing the nature of his injury so that he only lost his legs: either commit to writing a character who has disabilities, or set it before he got cut in half. He has force powers, he has two good hands, he's certainly very compelling (because there is *so* much smut) - there's plenty to work with! This fic does a fair bit of work on that, and I liked reading it.

What I’m Reading

Battle of the Linguist Mages – Scotto Moore - Book Club - a bit spare with a lot of the character depths, with a really interesting mystery going on. I am betting that the Not!Scientologists are, in fact, right about aliens invading the earth.

What I’m Going to Read Next

True Colors - Karen Traviss - there's some fanfic I want to read of the Republic Commando series and I want to actually meet these characters before I delve into it.
Two Old Women - Velma Wallis

Current Music: velodrome - dessa

What I've Read
No actual books - just delightful fanfic!
I found some great Star Wars "No Body Dies/Everybody Lives" Clone Wars AU fics, include the massive series of the Reconstruction Corps AU and its spin off Reconstruction Corps AU: Open Skies (focusing on Waxer, Boil, & Numa), including the excellent Will You Walk With Me? by cac0daemonia and A New Chapter of Our Nights by cac0daemonia and sophronist

Also some good Batfam writing: A Meditation on Railroading by eggmacguffin

What I'm Reading Now
Unconquerable Sun - slow going still
A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland - OH, this is lovely. It just came out yesterday and I'm already 200 pages in. Rowland does a great job of writing characters who are anxious without being devoured by it. The fealty in this fic is just stellar, as well!

What I'll Read Next
The last of the Hugo Award nominated short stories and novelettes!
Next book club read will be Battle of the Linguist Mages

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

Star Wars Republic Commando: Hard Contact by Karen Traviss – I did not expect to like this as much as I did. I felt like I was back in middle school, reading a book a day and getting really sunk into the world. Like a knife to gut, this book is straightforward. Exactly what I wanted to read.

Strangers Like Me by K_R_Closson - This fic just really nailed for me a world in which Obi-Wan Kenobi was rescued by Mandalorians. It's very, very good. I am noticing that Obi-Wan's backstory in canon is an ongoing spiral of tragedies, and I adore that fanfic writers have quite simply not forgotten that. I know I read some of the novels that detail his early life in the Jedi Order and leaving it and coming back, but man, Closson really nailed this one. Bravo!

I have also been reading a lot of stuff that is moderately too short to mention, but mostly in Star Wars.

What I'm Reading

Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott – Book Group - Like Kate Elliot usually does, I'm off to a slow start meeting all the characters and seeing the world thru their eyes. I wish I could mainline this one, but it's for book group, so slow and steady. I want more Persephone.

Those Who Can by K_R_Closson -I'm currently reading her always-a-girl underpaid teacher Obi-Wan who goes to teach clones troopers on Kamino - it's brilliant.

Triple Zero (Republic Commando) by Karen Traviss - more in the same series as Hard Contact. It's got a lot to recommend it, not least of which is ease of reading. It's even in a shitty, 2006 trade paperback that is falling apart and losing pages - I am in love.

What I'll Read Next

Westerns by Lee Clark Mitchell - for Supernatural theory reading
Never Say You Can't Survive

I have returned! I trust no one missed me.

A tiny note to myself and other people who use the Archive of Our Own bookmarking system - If you want to have a record of the bookmark that endures even if the author orphans the work or deletes it, you can do that by just copy/pasting the info that you'd like to save into the Bookmark Notes section. I also would like to extend a copious amount of thanks to all the people using this system - it has allowed me to hunt down further works by an author who has orphaned a lot of excellent writing.

What I’ve Read:

Vacation is great for getting a lot of reading done!

Thrawn by Timothy Zahn (2017) – Ok, so this one came at me a bit sideways – in short, I have subscribed to furiosophie, who has written some truly devastatingly wonderful fic in the Mandalorian fandom, and it turned out she was writing a series called to “post·mor·tem” and I started reading that and… it has pining, and platonic but not platonic bedsharing, and cultural differences among aliens, all of which is surely just the most perfect catnip for me. This is the novel that the fanfic is based on, and it is some solid Star Wars scifi writing – we have some characters that are changing and growing over time, Thrawn is officially brought into the Disneyfied Star Wars canon, and I overall quite enjoyed the book. Tho I am not sure I would have sought it out without that fanfic!

Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather (Our Lady of Endless Worlds #1) It has space nuns in a living ship, trying to help people even when it costs them a lot. Goodness without centralization. This is why Firefly could have been, in some ways. It’s not really like Mary Doria Russells The Sparrow and Children of God (which are a single story and cannot be read alone! I will fight on this one, they don’t make sense alone!) It also felt like V for Vendetta, in the ‘goodness in the face of the oncoming storm’ wins a small victory.

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (The Radiant Emperor #1) – Hugo Novel Nominee - I really liked this. In an ancient China with a thin veneer of otherworldly power, our main character matches wits and seeks military victories and wins by sheer cleverness. I love the un-twist of the ending, how the character’s journey comes to a surprising and potent ending.

The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh by K.J. Charles (Society of Gentlemen #0.5) – Delightful porn!

An Ever-Fixed Mark by AMarguerite – A super long Pride and Prejudice with soulmarks AU, that indulges my tastes for long and detailed works about the Napoleonic wars and British society life. If the main listed pairing bothers you in differing from the novel, don’t worry, Lizzy gets there.

Meet Death Sitting by bomberqueen17 – The Witcher – Jaskier/Geralt – It’s just…. a reconciliation and the victory of kindness to engage a person who has been traumatized and hurt? I love it? I have not finished every entry in this very long series but it contains Jaskier explaining how periods work to Ciri, so just accept that it is wonderful.

Sew a Thousand Sequins to Your Sorrows by out_there – Loki TV series – Loki/Mobius – Not really novel-length, but it has a real interest in seeing what Loki will do if given enough rope to hang himself and then pull himself back over the ledge.

I have been also reading a good deal of smaller fanworks in a few oddball pairings – Thrawn/Eli Vanto (Star Wars Thrawn Series), Napoleon Bonaparte/ William Laurence (His Majesty’s Dragon AUs)

What I’m Reading Now:

A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark (Hugo Nominee for Best Novel) – I have stopped exactly halfway and I will have more to add when I finish it later!

Monsters in the Closet -ongoing reading project.

What I’ll Read Next

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation Vol 2, the next in the Thrawn series, probably all the novellettes and short stories for the Hugo project.

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kitewithfish

May 2025

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