What I've Read

Their Bounty by K A Merikan - M/M/M/M reverse harem romance. A little too goofy to be really dark to me, a densely packed set of fantasies around a young man rescued from melodramatic human trafficking by a set of anti-heroic gay mercenaries. A much more enjoyable execution of concept than last week's hetero reverse harem romance.  If you read Hannibal fic, then this is probably fluffy for you, but uh, the warnings are not for nothing. 

Thrawn: Treason by Timothy Zhan A Star Wars canonical novel that re-writes Thrawn to work with Disneyfied Star Wars era - not quite for me, but I am glad I finished it. I find that I mostly liked the first book of this series because Thrawn the viewpoint on Thrawn was tight enough that his tactical brilliance seemed like a something we could witness in real time thru the eyes of Eli Vanto. This Thrawn is less approachable and I missed watching him and Eli bounce off each other. If I wasn't hoping for more Eli/Thrawn, I might have liked this book more. It did suffer slightly from franchise-itis, that the ending had to set up elements of the Star Wars Rebels cartoon (which I have not started to watch, because no clones). I find a greater affinity for the pre-Disney Star Wars stuff, for the most part, but not without exceptions

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland (book club re-read) The book club adored this book (minus our one Token Straight Man who is also our Token Hard Sci-Fi Defender, who had never read a romance novel and could not accept the genre conventions) and I found the re-read allowed me to slow down and just bask in the writing in the places where it really deserved to be basked in. 
 
What I'm Reading 

Supernatural Reading is back! We're doing Westerns: Making the Man in Fiction and Film by Lee Clark Mitchell



2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson - Book club pick! I am literally one page in, and I have to get halfway thru by twos week hence. Doable!

I'm stalled on Hunting Towards Heartstill by Blackkat - I'm gonna let myself skip forward a little bit, I think....

I haven't opened Stay with Me, Go Places by Cacodaemonia at all, too busy, which is foolish, because I am in love with her Waxer and Boil. 


What I'll Read Next: I need to pick something from this list and just throw myself at it. 

I need to pick of Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir from the library when I get a chance. 

What I've Read
The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik - Oh, this is how you end a trilogy. This books took the relationships and themes and even the monsters that have followed the main character from the very first book, and hunted them all down to pull the last thematic dregs from their depths. I didn't quite cry when I found out what really happened to Orion, but man, it hurt. It hurt so good. El Higgins will always live in my heart. 

Mutually-Assured Destruction by Sineala -  Bucky/Tony 616 Marvel comics in the 1960s - Identity porn! 1960's Tony Stark is Iron Man and nobody knows. So when the Winter Soldier comes out of the Soviet Union to ask to join the Avengers on the condition that he doesn't ever tell anyone his name or reveal his face, even to Captain America.... Tony thinks, oh, maybe we could be friends? Maybe I can be a little bit myself with this one? And things snowball from there. This is a great fic by an author that loves the 1960s comics version of the Avengers, and honestly, the tone fits those comics so well. This fic was slipping into a warm bath - angsty just in measure to the comfort. I was following updates from Sineala's Patreon while she was writing it and I was so glad to see if come out!


Fic Rec based on Scholomance series: If you want a smaller, single person version of the themes in The Scholomance Trilogy, I heartily recommend two other works by Astolat (aka, Naomi Novik in her fic writing persona) -
-Heal Thyself a Draco post-canon character study about what damage using Dark Magic does to a person, and what it takes for Draco to really come out of it the other side. (Technically Harry/Draco, but only towards the end, well after Draco has done the work of fixing himself.)    
-Victory Condition: A Tranformers fic in which Megatron and Optimus Prime have to actually talk thru their world views, and Optimus Prime has to face that the Golden Age he remembered was built on the suffering of people he didn't see. (Honestly, I kind of recommended The Scholomance series to someone based on the idea that El Higgins is a Megatron with a bit more support and Orion the human is pretty clearly based on Orion Pax aka Optimus Prime, but with some complicated history.) 

Honorable mentions to fic that didn't quite make the novel-length cut: Don’t be afraid. by spqr -Star Wars, Anakin/Obi-Wan, ages reversed. I... I find this pairing normally not for me, and I am aware that this is working on me because I love fic where a traumatized character is confronted with love and care, and well, this did the job. 

What I'm Reading

Homeworld Elegy - Ashcroft Writes - Star Wars AU - Obi-Wan/ Cad Bane - 138K words -Once I got some momentum on this fic, I'm just flying thru it. I'm in a section that creates a whole history for Cad Bane and Duros and their world and his childhood romance with a friend, and I'm like, I thought this was just a mean blue man in a big hat, and now you are making my feel emotions??? It's just working for me really well. 

Two Old Women by Velma Wallis - I'm just not finishing this very quickly, dunno why. The voice just feels like listening to someone telling a story. 

What I'll Read Next:

Library books are on hold for this week because I'm going to be traveling, unless I get finished with them before I go.