stuff i read 5 june 2020

[tabacoychanel]

D.B. Jackson, Thieftaker (2011) (Thieftaker #1) A private investigator in a pre-revolutionary noir Boston gets beat up by thugs—like really, graphically gets the shit beat out of him on multiple occasions and he’s also a sort of blood mage into the bargain so he’s constantly cutting himself open to power his (totally illegal!) magic. It’s historical fantasy and it somehow makes me wish for both less history and less fantasy?? How is that possible? I’m ok with magecraft being stigmatized and associated with the Salem Witch Trials, but the concept of using Latin to cast spells is so vanilla, and then he goes and gives you a verbatim English translation which takes the oomph right out of it. I don’t want to give the impression the book wasn’t gripping because it was, and I like Ethan quite a lot, but the actual plot when you examine it would not have stood up to a stiff breeze. Ethan’s emotional arc was resolved but the plot was a shambles. Bruh you are writing a m y s t e r y. Step up your game.

Erin Claiborne, A Hero at the End of the World (2014) This is what Carry On could have been had it been written by someone who was a participant in fandom rather than a lurker on the outskirts of it (which is what Rainbow Rowell was). Erin Claiborne has somehow written a coffeeshop AU where the stakes are saving-the-world high, which sounds like a contradiction in terms but isn’t. Erin Claiborne is eleveninches, one of the co-authors of the mind-bogglingly-meta Steve Rogers at 100: Celebrating Captain American on Film fic, among others. A Hero at the End of the World is paced like fanfic, not like profic (there’s an amnesia trope and a spot of random alternate-universe-hopping), and while it wasn’t exactly the story of my heart it was a delight from start to finish (which is more than I can say about Carry On which I found emotionally impenetrable). I would describe it as following Ron Weasley’s post-Hogwarts career as an Auror, I guess? After he slew Voldemort and this opened an irreparable breach between him and Harry, who now works as a barista. Written by someone who has a much better grasp of Harry’s character than of Ron’s, I would judge. I wouldn’t say Claiborne is a writer who gets me, since there is a notable lack of obsessive pining in this light fluffy cream puff of a story, but her banter is without peer. Standouts include “You pay taxes?” “Of course I don’t pay taxes, I’m rich” and when the Draco-analogue sputters in disbelief, “You were going to send my mother to Mount Unpleasant like a common criminal?” Lmao he’s less upset they’re sending Lucius to Azkaban than that Azkaban is the prison of the proletariat. Really brings the class analysis that was missing from HP (to be fair Carry On did not lack for the class lens either). Plus there is a surprising quantity of theory baked into the worldbuilding, which is neat because HP’s magic has always struck me as very logical and orderly on a micro level but on a macro level none of that shit makes any sense.

Cat Rambo, “Red in Tooth and Cog” Protagonist becomes a reluctant caretaker at a nature preserve for feral appliances. What a well-executed story! “There are no shelters for abandoned machines. We are reprocessed. Recycled. Reborn, perhaps. Probably not.”

Sam J. Miller, “Calved” “He wasn’t having a good time. When he was twelve he had begged me to bring him. I had pretended to like it, back then for his sake. Now he pretended for mine. We were both acting out what we thought the other wanted, and that thought should have troubled me. But that’s how it had been with my dad. That’s what I thought being a man meant.” Succeeds in being both a damning indictment of toxic masculinity and an ode to fatherhood. Actually, it does one by doing the other. I don’t think the climate change stuff was integrated as well as it could’ve been but still an extremely moving story.

Ada Palmer, Seven Surrenders (2017) (Terra Ignota #2) I have read the Iliad TWICE because two different professors assigned it and I’ve never understood why it was a cornerstone of Western art until now. It definitely helped that Ada Palmer’s version was a Pacific Rim fusion AU that took place on the moon with jaeger pilots. This book was two-thirds setup and the final third packed more fireworks than all of China on Lunar New Year. I mean, there are plenty of books that are constructed like puzzle-boxes, and you have that eureka moment when all the clues slot into place, but those revelations are confined to the pages of those books. Ada Palmer’s gift is shucking you like a corn husk and showing the inside of your own brain to you. I’m not saying I was less dazed by her virtuosity in this second book than in Too Like the Lightning, and I’m aware they’re supposed to be one continuous story, but at least I was prepared for it this time—the first time it happened I just about lost consciousness.

If I had to summarize Seven Surrenders in one sentence I’d say it’s a conversation about how to make public policy decisions, how to weigh short-term vs long-term considerations (the more accurate but less useful summary would be the exploding-head emoji). How does every one of these fictional world leaders protesting “We didn’t create this system we just inherited it” still manage to show more accountability than any of our real-world political leaders in this convulsive and epochal moment lol. Does complacency stifle innovation—not in the trite “we’re a venture-capital-funded tech startup look at us Innovate” sense, but in the real sense? Is there nobility in the vocation of being a soldier, even if there is only savagery in war itself? How does Ada Palmer gild mundane events in baroque language but make a routine recitation of hereditary titles sound deranged and pathetic?

A non-exhaustive list of things that hurt me or amused me: The metaphorical resonance of Mycroft’s cyborg heart!! That every Hive has their pet name for Jehovah and Utopia’s is “The Alien.” The way Papadelias caught Saladin’s scent because Mycroft slipped up and used the same trick twice. When they’re all gathered at the G7 brothel to hear the results of the paternity test like it’s a tabloid talk show and Faust snorts, “I don’t think much can be done to keep me from being the child’s uncle” (I wouldn’t say I’ve come around to liking Felix Faust but his brain fascinates me). Whoah I did not expect the Mitsubishi to be the only Hive to go down fighting (their whole one-share-one-vote plutocracy rubbed me the wrong way for obvious I’m-a-socialist reasons). When the Utopians offer Madame their conditions for surrender and Madame fishes for information and Mushi stonewalls her with “Ma’am this is a negotiation, I will only share relevant info” that was great (I wonder if it’s Mycroft’s partiality that colors my sympathies here—he admits his bias against Thisbe but I haven’t noticed him admitting the same of Madame—either way I hate Madame and everything she stands for—I don’t hate the 18th century I just can’t relate to how she wants to build an atom bomb merely to prove she can???). I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise that anarchist!Saladin is now Madame’s dog but it did surprise me that Mycroft didn’t take it as a betrayal?

Before I started Seven Surrenders the name Apollo Mojave would have rung a dim bell but now, now I see he’s the absence this book is built around. The scene where Cornel Mason tracks the truant Mycroft to Apollo’s statue and they mourn him together is so powerful (the Martian ants!!!). So, let’s talk about Mycroft’s murder trial. I get why we only see this fourteen-years-past trial now, with the weight of the first book’s events to drive it home, and it is impeccably done. All the big set-pieces are impeccably executed, Sniper outing the G7 brothel on live TV, Jehovah’s assassination on the steps of the Senate building. Even the buildup of tension to Carlyle’s first “sensayer session” with Dominic was like nothing I saw in book 1. But back to Mycroft, who murdered Apollo (or challenged him to single combat and prevailed?). It broke his heart to do it. He didn’t expect to be exonerated or celebrated for it, he just expected it to work, and Providence denied him even that. The fates are cruel. I love that Apollo was the brightest star in the Utopian filament not because he was the smartest, but because he was a skilled communicator who could translate their ideas into concepts the other Hives could understand. I think my pro-Utopia bias is showing, and it hasn’t abated, despite learning they’re just as “dirty” as the other Hives. I’m pretty proud of myself: The only time I cried reading this book was when Mycroft confessed he wasn’t finishing Apollo’s Iliad, he was writing this account instead, because this--not Apollo's words but the world he made--was the most fitting monument to his memory. And then Achilles fucking strolls out and I was like ofc!!!! Lieutenant Aimer!!! The fucking Sadcat parable ahhhh how did I not see this coming.

If I wasn't already agnostic Ada Palmer would have barred my path to atheism, not because she's changed my mind about God but because she's changed my mind about humanity.

“There is something a little good in war. Trial by combat.” “It is not strange for the deaths of saints to be accompanied by miracles.” “They saved the world.” “Made the world, more like. Two thousand, two hundred and four deaths buy one golden age.” “I am a Humanist because I believe in heroes, that history is driven by those individuals with fire enough to change the world.” “We would hardly work so hard for our utopias if we let ourselves live in the illusion that they are already real.” “I did not plan this. I simply resurrected the weapons with which it was done.” “There has to be an Outsider or the next strangest will be named Outsider.” “She is an unexpected threat, outside the palette of the possible, as when a fortress city, whose death-stained towers have stopped a hundred battle lines, is brought low by a pestilence within.” “Snakes sleep most of their lives, you know—they stir only to feed.” “A kind God would have left us Bridger. A cruel One would have left us nothing. This One left you. You know how to fight this war, Achilles.” “When Utopians forge Earth’s rare metals into dragon fleets that feed on sunlight as they bear their masters across the sky-white surface of the Moon, they are wizards, even if they use science to deny it.” “If Fate had set all the treasures of this world before him, the Golden Fleece, the Holy Grail, the Armor of Achilles, Asclepius’s wand that raises loved ones from Hades’s hall, Papa would have chosen this.” “His Grace is an exile in time, and it is madness to him that his subjects are his by vote, and not by birth or conquest.” “My old self had been so armored in conviction that it had never hesitated. My new, raw self did not yet know to name these icy stab-wounds ‘doubt.’” “I lived in that unique and absolute philosophic calm of one who has already drunk the hemlock, or already sees his heart’s blood streaming from the wound.” “But I gave that up to teach you, gentle reader, what violence the human beast can sow when we are free.” “I didn’t have to destroy you, Cornel. I just turned all of you into 18th century aristocrats and let you do it yourselves.” “Tyrants and assassins have a great symbiosis.” “I need a companion in this world who is neither my subject nor my enemy.” “Think of our perversion as topiary. We all had the seeds in us, but it’s Madame who made them art.” “I should have but to Will a thing for it to be, yet here I was reduced to these weak tools: hands, eyes, memory. Beyond these limits I would be forever powerless … I have learned, I think, to eke out more from what this flesh can do than any human, but no finite thing can substitute for lost infinity.” “I was not Apollo’s pupil, nor his killer; Cornel was not the avenger nor the unrequited lover; we were just two people who had lost the same friend.” “Oh, miraculous chameleon, Science, who can reverse your doctrine hourly and never shake our faith!” “As if it were not cruelty enough that change in time cannot create without destroying, once again He makes the agent He sends to bring about His better world love this one.” “The Utopians fuel their Spaceships with whatever they can mine from the Space Rocks they’ve already reached, and the Resources on those Space Rocks limit how much further they can go. You’re the only Outpost left on my Frontier with enough Resources to let me go further.” “And thanks to Madame’s training, Dominic believes a man may only love something weaker than himself.” “Bash by this definition is not just a group of people, but that special group of people with whom one can communicate completely.” “Nor would you speak with ease if you saw the better part of your heart severed on a table before you. It was the better part, not the clumsy meat pump biology had fit me with, but love’s creation, mine and Saladin’s, which Saladin planted to mark his territory, so every clock tick that measured my life’s hours was his as much as mine.” “Diogenes with his barrel and his sunlight lived every hour of his life content, while Alexander fought and bled, mourned friends, faced enemies, and died unsatisfied.” “Don’t let the living stay mortal and the dead stay dead because of me. Apollo, Seine Mardi, older heroes, Patriarch Voltaire, Diogenes, Odysseus, MASON who will die someday, Papa, good Spain, my Saladin, and every victim of the coming war, they all could walk the Earth another hundred years, five hundred, live to walk on Mars, on Titan, on the ship decks wrought of substances undreamt-of which will someday bear us to the Sea of Stars. If there are still colors in grief’s palette that I—orphan, parricide, traitor, wanderer, fool—have not yet had wrung out of my flesh, then let me suffer them, not all the world."

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

The Cat Rambo story sounds neat -- I'm going to check it out!

I've had Hero at the End of the World recommended to me but never got very far into it. From your description, I'm kind of torn... I don't like amnesia plots and generally don't enjoy coffee shop AUs... but Ron... but you say the author gets Harry more than Ron, so maybe better not...

Seven Surrenders! ♥ ♥ I think this one's my favorite of the three, or maybe I just think that this was the book where my fascination with the world tipped over into full-on love for the series and awe of Palmer. Anyway I'm super pleased that it's continuing to work for you as well as it's doing!

(the more accurate but less useful summary would be the exploding-head emoji)

XD <3

(I wouldn’t say I’ve come around to liking Felix Faust but his brain fascinates me)

I wouldn't say that I like Faust as a person (but I'm not sure who I *would* say that about in this book; Vivien Ancelet, maybe, and Bridger, poor kid), but I find he injects a lot of fun whenever he shows up, and he's always interesting to listen to when he speaks, even though I don't always agree with him.

(I wonder if it’s Mycroft’s partiality that colors my sympathies here—he admits his bias against Thisbe but I haven’t noticed him admitting the same of Madame—either way I hate Madame and everything she stands for

I don't think Madame needs any help to be hateable, but over the course of the books I did start to wonder how Mycroft's biases were shaping my response to both characters and Hives. So I'll be curious to see if you reach any conclusions on that score for yourself, and will share mine when you're done with book 3 :)

It definitely helped that Ada Palmer’s version was a Pacific Rim fusion AU that took place on the moon

LOL, yeah, Apollo's Pacific Rim AU Iliad is just inexplicably hilarious to me, I confess.

“His Grace is an exile in time, and it is madness to him that his subjects are his by vote, and not by birth or conquest.”

I loved this quote, too. And the quote about Dominic being able to love only something weaker than himself also jumped out at me, as did others on your list.

Onward! I can't wait to be able to talk to you about this series without fear of spoiling you!

[tabacoychanel]

Felix is such a pot-stirrer omg! Never a dull day with him.

I can see why it might be your favorite book of the three. I'm still too busy admiring the whole edifice (the part that's aboveground that i can see) to think about such things lol

it's good to be back, off to read your updates now <3

[tabacoychanel]

also torn about the Claiborne. i mean i was serious when i said it was a cream puff--there's not a lot of substance? one of those less-than-the-sum-of-its parts books, i'd say. but the dialogue was HIGHLY amusing she really doesn't put a foot wrong with the dialogue and the wry tone. so, on balance, probably not for you because if i recommend a book for you i want it to be a home run, which is probably selfish if me XD

[hamsterwoman]

Felix is such a pot-stirrer omg! Never a dull day with him.

He IS! Ooh, which reminds me: so, as of the end of book 2 I was leaning heavily towards self-sorting as Gordian, which was confirmed by book 3. And after confirming the Gordian sorting for myself, I finally understood where my predilection for rubber-necking at Fandom Wank comes from -- it's totally a Brillist Faust-looking-gleefully-at-orgies-and-other-trashfires thing :P This trait of mine hadn't really fit into any of my other fannish taxonomies, so it was exciting to find it an explanation!

I'm still too busy admiring the whole edifice (the part that's aboveground that i can see) to think about such things lol

Oh yeah, I definitely also think of this series as a cohesive whole, so "favorite book" is less meaningful than it usually is in a series, and I do think it's mostly "this is the book where I knew the series had me" vs "this is the one book I see myself rereading"

but the dialogue was HIGHLY amusing she really doesn't put a foot wrong with the dialogue

This is a huge thing for me, so that's good to know! Probably not enough to sway e to pick it up, but if I come across it, I will keep it in mind.

because if i recommend a book for you i want it to be a home run, which is probably selfish if me XD

I 100% get this feeling! <333

BTW, the other day I read a book! It was a KJ Charles m/m, but I finished it, like a person who reads books! Which is making me tentatively consider possibly reading other things at some point in the future. Which is to say that if at some point you are up again for a sync read of Deeplight or maybe the Sarah Pinsker novel (pandemic themes and all), let me know? I don't know if your libraries are open again; ours aren't yet, but I happen to have copies of both of those, so I'd be set whenever you are.

[tabacoychanel]

ahaha you're Gordian i did kinda suspect

myself, i empathize with Cato, I feel like I am temperamentally Utopian but am going to spend my whole life not joining the Hive I belong to for Reasons (not mass-murder reasons though! I am not a mass murderer I just go around shrouded in an acid veil of self-loathing and shooting myself in the foot)

v proud of you for finishing a book

i have been stalled in the middle of this KJ Charles m/m regency for 6 months and i expect i'll finish it like, eventually, but not in a tearing hurry tbh. i also periodically have to reorient myself between KJ Charles and KJ Parker, one of whom who writes sweet tender m/m romances and the other one writes books where everyone is an asshole (or so serpentcast discord server informs me) actually I am 10% into this KJ Parker book and I do like it, but I can't handle more than 4 assholes in a room at a time in my current frame of mind

the trashfires at fandom_wank are unparallelled though--if you're gonna watch anything go down that's the place to do it. next time hit me up when you go and i'll bring the wine ;)

our library remains closed but I have been maxing out my holds on e-books for the past....two months. which means i have successfully waited in the queue and obtained copies of both Deeplight and Song for a New Day, and it's up to you which one you wanna tackle first. I'm still hanging my head in shame for not finishing Cyteen, which I am two chapters out from the end and I just ...can't. not for any definable reason I just--can't right now. not cuz I don't care about Ari and Justin and Grant, it's something about me mentally.

[hamsterwoman]

myself, i empathize with Cato, I feel like I am temperamentally Utopian but am going to spend my whole life not joining the Hive I belong to for Reasons

Aww! :( (but at least they are not mass murder reasons XD) I have been thinking Utopian or Utopian-adjacent might be for you (but I also want to see if you still think so after book 3; I'd waffled between Utopia and Gordian for a while, but in book 3 actually a fairly small detail about Utopia made me convinced it was not for me) I do love Cato and empathize a lot with his plight.

The KJ Charles I managed to read like a reading person was Slippery Creatures (K's rec, post-WWI setting). I also have to do a careful double-check vs KJ Parker, LOL. I don't think I've read any KJ Parker novels, but I did read something shorter for Hugo homework and enjoyed it, and plan to build my way up to novels at some point. Assholes are generally a selling point for me, but maybe not right now, yeah...

next time hit me up when you go and i'll bring the wine ;)

Hehe, I actually don't know where fresh wank lives these days, but the other week I dug up what I could find of "His wife? A horse" wank for L -- I forget how that came up -- and it was a romp to revisit :D

and obtained copies of both Deeplight and Song for a New Day,

Excellent! Let's try the Pinsker? I opened it the other day and the first line made me want to continue, and at this point, I'll take it?

Cyteen was a SLOG -- like, not in a negative way, but it was A Lot, and it was only the sync read and bearshorty diligently staying on schedule that got me to finish. And I still owe you like 20 comments on that post, and I've yet to actually write up my own thoughts on the last chapter, so I totally, totally understand.

[tabacoychanel]

excellent, the Pinkser is a go then!

thanks for understanding about Cyteen. i bet it's easier when you're doing it as a reread lol. i too was impressed at how bearshorty kept on top of the schedule when neither of us did

[hamsterwoman]

excellent, the Pinkser is a go then!

K also wants in on the sync read, so, extra yay! I'll make a post

I figure we don't have to be chapter-by-chapter formal/staged with it like with the giant ball of dense that was Cyteen, so we can keep it kind of free-form with chapter/% stamps in the comment headings to corral spoilers, but proceeding at our own pace. Sounds OK?

[hamsterwoman]

ETA: https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1127256.html

[cafemassolit]

You are making me curious about Claiborne (curse your funny and witty reviews), which I might pick up when I’m in the mood for something fanficcy and can’t be bothered to identify the fic to read XD Or maybe I need to read the Steve Rogers at 100 first — I really liked the idea of this fic from the serpentcast episode, but have not, as it happens, read it XD (I think after reading 13 letters fic-trilogy, I reached some sort of peak satisfaction from Steve fics, and had not read more, but given that the hilarious post scriptum about a movie made in-universe about the 13 letters was near the top of my list of fave bits of the story, maybe I should read the SR at100, eventually XD) And fwiw, of KJCs I do rec Slippery Creatures and Think of England above all else; I read most of her stuff and I don’t like them equally, but these two I am very squee about.

I have read the Iliad TWICE because two different professors assigned it and I’ve never understood why it was a cornerstone of Western art until now.
What a grand opening line to a grand review of a grand book :D I do admit that I end up laughing every time the mecha Iliad details are mentioned, but I do appreciate the Iliad-shaped puzzle piece it’s there to be. I have to ask about the “fucking Sadcat parable” — not something I know, and I’m afraid I’m missing out on a wham moment there? Puppy eyes & a mic for you to show off those Iliad learnings, please :D I have a feeling my brain still keeps on trying to puzzle meaningful Greek mythology threads floating mid-air, but I simply don’t know Iliad well enough to fully understand the implications there.

now I see he’s the absence this book is built around
That, and the bloody fact that we still don’t know if we know anything. MYCROFT.

I agree with you that book 1 kind of prepares you for book 2 — you think! — and then it keeps on upping the bloody ante!!

Links for my review of Seven Surrenders, or the Miraculous Unmasking Of G7 Brothel, if you are interested: https://ikel89.livejournal.com/211487.html//https://cafemassolit.dreamwidth.org/16706.html

I love that Apollo was the brightest star in the Utopian filament not because he was the smartest, but because he was a skilled communicator who could translate their ideas into concepts the other Hives could understand. I think my pro-Utopia bias is showing
I love Utopia dearly, and feel absurdly pleased with your allegiance to then, but myself I’m a textbook Humanist :’D Keep wondering about Apollo himself though, about what made him compelling to others, but you make a solid point there.

Your selection of quotes continues to play my heartstrings so much urgh. Hard to remember my original lighter amusement in the face of this evidence.

[tabacoychanel]

oh my god i'm so pumped! i saw bearshorty hadn't got a copy and i PM'd her to send her my e-copy but i guess someone already did!!! sorry i'm behind, i have the Pinkser downloaded on my ereader but I haven't started yet because it's Jonnrya Week on tumblr/ao3 and I didn't think I was gonna do anything but then I accidently wrote >7k in 48 hours which is some kind of record for me, usually the words come out of me like i'm a constipated worm lol

pursuant to your comments from the other thread, about how you did not expect Jonsa to be this fandom's juggernaut ship--YOU AND ME BOTH BUDDY. After S6 of the hbo show it just exploded because of the actors' chemistry anna it was fucking insane i've never seen anything like it. While I sincerely hope your interest in asoiaf will be reignited if/when The Winds of Winter is published, even if it's not I'm just glad that asoiaf was the occasion of us becoming friends, for which I am eternally grateful.

[hamsterwoman]

LOL, I emailed bearshorty the *ahem* copy I have from K. It seemed onl fair, as her dad procured for me copies of a Russian series that K got me into. Basically, I love LJ/DW :D

but then I accidently wrote >7k in 48 hours

Holy crap! But that sounds like a lot of fun!

I actually lost a day to falling asleep at 8 p.m. yesterday, but I'm finding it very fast and readable, so I think you should have no problem catching up. And K also only started today/her-yesterday.

even if it's not I'm just glad that asoiaf was the occasion of us becoming friends, for which I am eternally grateful.

That for sure! Like a good 70% of my closest LJ friends right now are westerosorting folks (yourself very much included, obviously!) or people I got to know through them, so I will always be grateful for ASOIAF for that. <33

[tabacoychanel]

see my addendum to this post--i cannot BELIEVE it slipped my mind to mention Brust-related info to you.

[tabacoychanel]

ok idk what happened when i tried to edit my comment lol what happened was yesterday i sent Cory Doctorow an email. Idk if you've read him but his Little Brother was very formative for me ten years ago. The proximate cause of me sending a random author an email was he quoted Steve Brust on twitter, or paraphrased something Brust said that really resonated with me, and I felt like authors don't get enough appreciation so i emailed him. What I did not expect was for him to reply within HOURS, and tell me i'd made his day, and agree Brust is a treasure of the first order, and urge me forcefully to read Brust's The Sun the Moon and the Stars. as my concierge I come to you with this information!!! would i like it, is it good, why is Cory Doctorow so awesome

he must get so much fanmail and spam but he's always so patient and thoughtful and kind from what i've seen of him. he's not my favorite author, as a writer? but as a human he's right up there

[hamsterwoman]

What I did not expect was for him to reply within HOURS, and tell me i'd made his day, and agree Brust is a treasure of the first order,

Haha, that is unexpected, and pretty awesome!

I actually haven't read any Doctrow -- I confess I did try Little Brother at some point but did not get much farther than the cover blurb and like the first page -- the tone felt really didactic to me, based on that? (maybe unfairly, but it didn't make me want to keep reading)

I actually also haven't read The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars but m understanding is that it's a fairy tale retelling and pretty good. I have read a few non-Dragaera things by Brust -- his recent Good Guys and the Incrementalists (co-authored with Skyler White) and half of Agyar, and I enjoyed them to various degrees, but have come to the conclusion that what I really love is the characters and the world of Dragaera IN COMBINATION with Brust's writing. I still appreciate his unreliable narrator, dialogue heavy, letting the reader figure it out for themselves approach in the other things, but it is reading on hard mode, and I just don't care to put in the same amount of work for a non-Dragaera payoff, I guess?

[tabacoychanel]

ahhhh ok noted :D

[tabacoychanel]

the Miraculous Unmasking Of G7 Brothel
roflmao. WHeeeeee off to read!!

I think after reading 13 letters fic-trilogy, I reached some sort of peak satisfaction from Steve fics, and had not read more
that's a favorite of mine as well, although the first part more than the second two parts--i just feel like the actual letters were almost a disappointment after the buildup? and i don't even remember what happened in part 3 but part 1 was seared into my BRAIN. i remember the moment when i realized every single scene took place during the winter lol.

I have Think of England on my list! Even if I read nothing else I'll make sure I hit that one since it's sooooo well-spoken-of.

Oh no sorry the Sadcat parable is when Bridger accidentally turned a cat into a different cat---he was trying to heal a sick cat and he did but he ended up with a cat with a completely different personality. It kind of presages what happens to Major/Achilles, and also was barely-averted when Saladin first showed up wearing Apollo's coat and Bridger was this close to accidentally turning Saladin (!!!) into Apollo. When Bridger's transformation into Achilles happened that's what I was thinking of, those previous episodes.

myself I’m a textbook Humanist
awwwww

the bloody fact that we still don’t know if we know anything. MYCROFT.
RIGHT??

[cafemassolit]

and i don't even remember what happened in part 3 but part 1 was seared into my BRAIN.
same XD though I don't really mind re: 13 letters themselves, because of how perfectly they anticipated my potential disillusionment after all the hype with making Bucky go "damn it they were just unpolished drafts, ofc I mind as a writer than they were leaked" XD Which was an impressive trick to disarm my Bob the Expectations Builder. Part 3 was kinda hazy until the very end I think? and then the end had those amazing footnotes about the in-universe media takes like the movie done by Joe Wright and I am still wheezing remembering how funny that was.

on KJC, Slippery Creatures as a trilogy promises to be complete & out this year (fingers crossed!!) and I'll let you know if they overwhelm me collectively to the extend that I'd rec it above the Edwardian pulp deliciousness that is ToE.

Sadcat -- ho shit, something I had forgotten and also what a neat parallel. And Saladin!Achilles, WHAT IS THAT TERRIFYING THOUGHT put that back XDD

[tabacoychanel]

Which was an impressive trick to disarm my Bob the Expectations Builder
i totally forgot how upset Bucky was about that!! i think your Bob needs some paid time off though ;-)

[cafemassolit]

I'd offer Bob an honorable retirement, but tbh deep down I'm loath to lose to view from up the high horse XDD It's not the worse vantage point :P