February 2023 Doings!

February is over at last — thank goodness. February is rarely as bad a month as I think it'll be, but it's also never the best month, and I tend to be generally more tired and irritable during this month than most of the rest of the year, even when I actively work to get rest and keep a good attitude. But! February is over, spring begins this month, and I am actively ignoring my sister's predictions that we'll have a cold snap and possibly snow in the next month or two.

Writing!

• This has been a pretty productive writing month! I spent most of my writing time working on my semi-secret selkie story, which has a current wordcount of about 25K and a good bit of story left to go. I mentioned this project in my recent Taleweaver's Desk post, but if you missed that: the semi-secret selkie story is a roles-reversed Little Mermaid story, but, you know, with selkies instead of mermaids because selkies are infinitely cooler and I've loved them ever since I was eight-ish and discovered their existence in one of the Magic Treehouse books. And now I get to write about them! It's delightful.
• My other main writing project was, of course, my D&D campaign. I didn't get as much done on this one as I wanted, since other things ended up taking up a lot of time, but I was able to have this month's sessions prepped on time, plus one more session's worth of material that I thought I'd use but ended up not needing.
• The other reason I didn't do more D&D prep is that the party is about to hit Pelennor Fields . . . which means that we're also at one of the two points where the incident that started this whole LOTR adventure (the party preventing Boromir's death and Merry and Pippin's capture) has a greater impact on how the story goes. So I've been trying to work out what's going on with Gondor, specifically with Denethor and Faramir, since Boromir's still alive. It's been an interesting thing to think through, to be sure.

Reading!

• So, remember how I decided to read the entire City Between series back in January? Yeah. I stand by that as an excellent decision, but it did result in two more questionable corollary decisions . . .
• The first of those decisions was following City Between up with Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. Neverwhere is also a good book, but as a chaser for W.R. Gingell's magnificent series, well . . . it pales a bit. The quality of writing and language is technically a bit better, but the themes of City Between are, I think, superior — and as main characters go, Pet is decidedly preferable to Richard.
• The second questionable decision was not so much a willful choice as a series of non-decisions, which is to say that I left off reading On Earth As It Is in Hell until kind of the last minute. I posted my review of the book a couple weeks ago, so I won't rehash those here, but in general, I thought it was a good conclusion to the series, and I enjoyed the fact that it was very family-centric, though there were a couple things I thought could have been done better.
• Besides On Earth As It Is in Hell, I also checked a few more new releases off my to-be-read list! I started A Whisker Behind, the first City Between spinoff, on the very day it released, and I very much enjoyed it. Athelas is one of my top three favorite characters from the original series, so I was pleased to see him again and to get back to the world of Between and Behind. The vibe of the story with him at the helm is rather different than the vibe of City Between, but not at all in a bad way.
• In addition, I read Moira's Pen, a book of short stories from the world of The Queen's Thief, and Mysteries of Thorn Manor, a sequel novella to Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson. Both were excellent; Moira's Pen had more new stories than I expected, and Thorn Manor was just a lot of fun. I love Nathaniel and Elizabeth's dynamic, and now I kind of want to reread Sorcery. Not that I have time for that . . .
• My final new read of the month was How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery. This was my sole Blind Date read for the month — by the time I got to my library, the selection of blind date books was a bit abysmal, and every single one of the speculative fiction reads remaining had either "horror" or "LBGTQ+" as a defining characteristic, or else was something that I could easily identify as a book I'd read and didn't care to reread at the moment. So, I fell back on "Memoir, Animals, Nature, Science." The resulting book was an enjoyable read and reasonably light. I don't think it's something I'd revisit over and over again, but I'd probably consider rereading it in the future if I came across it again.
• Finally, we have the rereads. I've been rereading The Fellowship of the Ring via email subscription since last September, and that finished at the end of February. I also reread The Last Battle because I didn't get to it last summer and I was, at the time, extremely stressed and in need of something familiar and comforting. I know, one would not think that the end of a world would be comforting, but as it turns out, a reminder that all will one day be set right is, in fact, extremely helpful when one is stressed. Also, it's Narnia.
• Oh, and I reread Blood in the Snow because I wanted to remind myself of how particular bits went. It was enjoyable, and I was pleased to find that I still enjoyed it. Alas that I cannot get back to actually writing in that world for a while yet . . .

Watching!

• I said at the start of the year that I wanted to start doing a better job of tracking what I was watching, in the same way that I was tracking what I was reading with a Google Form, and I feel like it's been helpful. If nothing else, I have a useful record that I can go back and look at without just having to guess.
• Not that I've had much to track, of course. Just a couple more episodes of Leverage Season 2, specifically "The Tap-Out Job" and "The Order 23 Job," both of which I really enjoyed. "The Tap-Out Job" was very Eliot-centric, and Eliot is high-key my favorite character in the show. And then "The Order 23 Job" was just exciting and twisty and had a brilliant con and so much going on that all came together brilliantly in the end . . . and also an Eliot subplot that made me quite happy. It was great.

 Life!

• For being the shortest month of the year, February is awfully long. You know what I mean?
• Work this month was very busy — you would think that not much would happen in February, since it's usually cold and grey, but there were actually a fair number of projects and events. The month started with the Lenten newsletter — a project that I enjoy, but which takes a good bit of time — and ended with rapidly designing branding for a new workshop series so we could start promoting it on time. And in between were Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent . . . which is a two-service, two-bulletin week that happened to also fall on a short week. And I didn't actually realize this until near the end of the week before, which meant that I didn't work ahead as much as I should have. So, yeah. That was stressful.
• This month was also the start of the Big Thing I’m Not Talking About Yet . . . which I'm sort of talking about now but am still not going to properly name because I've had one good week in it (the week of Valentine's Day), one flat-out awful, actual-tears-and-crisis-of-identity-and-self-worth week (the week of Ash Wednesday), and one week that's been half neutral and half emotional remnants from the bad week. So, I'm going to wait one more month, and in my March Doings I will either give proper details on what's up (because the bad week turned out to be a fluke) or inform y'all that it is a Thing Which Shall No More Be Spoken Of (because the bad week was the standard and what I am going to get out of it is not worth multiple years of dealing with . . . that).
• On a more cheerful note, I finally acquired a treadmill desk! I mentioned towards the start of the year that I wanted to find ways to exercise while doing other things that aren't just watching shows, which mainly means writing/blogging/browsing the internet, and the most effective way to do that seemed to be acquiring a desk attachment for the treadmill. I've used it on and off since getting it, and I'm pretty happy with it. I haven't tried novel-writing while walking yet, but I've written other things with a fair bit of success. I don't think I could edit or do anything polished — not until I'm more practiced, at least — but for drafting, it works quite well.
• I also got a new desk chair, which is very exciting — seriously, it is. I've spent most of my life using either spare dining room chairs or, most recently, my mom's old desk chair, and they all worked, but they tended to be lacking in the area of back support. And then last month, a review program I'm in had a really nice desk chair available for request, so I snatched it up, and it is so comfy. It reclines, y'all. So when I've been sitting long enough that my back is starting to hurt, I can take my hands off the keyboard and lean back, and it's so nice. Of course, it also has proper back support, so that helps.
• What else? We did get snow on the first day of the month, but only briefly, and not enough for many, if any, schools to cancel — which, given our area, shows just how little it was. If that's the only snow we get, I will not complain. (On the other hand, if we do get more snow, I'd like just enough that I get a day off of work, please and thank you very much.)
• Oh! I did more embroidery! February is National Embroidery Month, so I decided to try my hand at embroidering script, since I want to eventually create some pieces using song lyrics and book references. The pattern I used is neither a song lyric nor a book reference, however, because I wanted to make sure my first attempt was with something that an expert had already tested and knew could turn out well. I'm pleased with the end result (pictured at the start of this section); I just have to wash out the stabilizer and figure out what I want to do with it now. I'm hoping to do something that can be hung or displayed, but I'm not sure I left quite enough on the edges to keep in a hoop long-term. I'll figure something out, though.

March Plans

• March is shaping up to be another busy month, that much is certain.
• On the upside, my sister will be home for part of it! Only for a week — for spring break — but I'm excited to see her again.
• I would like to finish the Semi-Secret Selkie Project in March; at the very least, I need to be mostly done with it by the end of the month. It's kind of looking like it might be longer than I originally intended it to be. (Whoops . . .) And, of course, I'll still have D&D writing to do.
• Work will also be busy because Easter is coming, and that always has a host of associated events and activities. It should be less stressful than last year, though, since I won't have fourteen banners and a devotional book to design and either make or order! (That's not a complaint; it was an exciting project, and I liked getting to apply my book design skills. But it was a lot at times.)
• On the reading front, the second Miss Dark book is coming soon, and I'm on the list for an ARC — very excited for that! Otherwise, I'll either continue playing catch up or get distracted by rereading Lockwood & Co because half my internet social circles are talking about the new show and, in so doing, both rousing my curiosity and making me miss the characters. I don't have Netflix (and also don't have time to add ANOTHER show), so rereading the books may be my best option. Oh, and I acquired more Brother Cadfael Chronicles, so I may read some of those. We'll see.
• That should be everything worth mentioning. I have some other plans regarding baking and a few thoughts about what craft project I want to work on, and, of course, the Big Thing continues, but this post is long enough as it is, so I'll leave things where they are.

How was your February? Anything you're looking forward to in March? Are you ready for spring? Have you ever had the experience of enjoying a book less (or more) than usual because of what you read directly before it? Do you think The Last Battle can be a comfort read? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

End-of-Year Book Celebration 2022!

Hello, everyone! I'm aware that I'm posting my 2022 reading recap long after everyone else has done theirs, but you know what? That's ok. I would much rather be a little behind the trend and not have killed myself trying to get everything done on time than be timely and not have slept in three days. Or, at least, if I'm going to not have slept, I'd rather it be because I was enjoying my reread of the City Between series. But we're getting away from the point, which is: End-of-Year Book Celebration! As always, if you want the short-and-sweet top five list, you can head over to Light and Shadows, or you can stick around here for all the different categories.

2022 End of Year Book Celebration

Before we get into the categories, though, let's do some statistics! In total, I read 120 books — Goodreads says 119, but I have decided that the Alice books count as two even if they're in the same volume — and 28,895 pages. So, I've roughly doubled my book count from my Mid-Year Book Celebration, which is pretty appropriate, and I've surpassed my overall reading goal for the year by 21 books. My average book length has been about 242 pages, which is the lowest it's been in a while, but that's not really surprising. I haven't been reading many, if any, epics this year. My average book rating is 4.4 stars, which is about where it normally lands. For more statistics or a full list of everything I've read, you can check out my Goodreads Year in Books or my tracking form results.

As for my specific reading goals:

• I exactly met my goal of 12 books published before 1975. Two of these reads, A Christmas Carol and Dracula, I enjoyed via email subscription service, which was an absolute delight — one that I will continue enjoy, as I'm currently receiving Moby Dick, Carmilla, various Sherlock Holmes stories, assorted works of Edgar Allan Poe, and eventually some other stories as well by installment in this method. My classic reads did skew a bit more towards children's fantasy and rereads than I intended (with the Alice books, George MacDonald's Curdie books, and several of the Chronicles of Narnia making up about half of the reads that fall into this goal), but it's fine.
• Towards my goal of 15 non-speculative fiction books, I've definitely read 11 books, with another few that could count if you squint at them. I thought I was doing better at this, and then I realized that the fact that I didn't have a good superhero genre category and the fact that several of my reads listed as things like "classic" or "poetry" are also speculative fiction threw off my numbers a bit. Oh well. I still managed about ten percent reading-outside-my-usual-genre, so I'm satisfied.
• I entirely failed at catching up with the Tor.com Wheel of Time reading series. Eventually, I will read all the way through the Wheel of Time series. Eventually is not, however, now. The problem is mostly that I need to reread the first several books, but I simply cannot with Rand in the first few books, and the general distrust among all the characters grates. A lot.
• Finally, when it comes to reading more poetry, I did pretty well. I think I probably averaged a few poems every week, though my method shifted through the year. Initially, I was working my way through books of poetry, which I'm still doing to some degree, but I've since supplemented with the aforementioned Edgar Allan Poe email subscription (which switches between poetry and prose works) and other poems shared in my circles on the internet. I am still being more deliberate about reading poetry, though, so I count this goal as met.

That's it for the statistics. Now, let's talk about some specific books that I particularly want to celebrate from the last six-ish months.

1. Best book you've read in the second half of 2022:

I'm cheating a little bit here, but my best new-to-me read this half of the year has definitely been H.L. Burke's Supervillain Rehabilitation Project series and its spinoffs. I haven't quite finished all the books, but they're a brilliant blend of relational and character-based drama with superhero action-adventure — and you know I love that family relationships get just as much weight as romantic ones in most cases.

2. Best sequel you've read in the second half of 2022:

This category features a tie between two fairy tale retellings. W.R. Gingell's Castle and Key is a Gothic-esque take on Bluebeard, with a story-based curse, a healthy dose of mystery, and a heroine who has no intention of being drawn into nonsense. And Kendra E. Ardnek's Emmazel blends Rapunzel with Emma in a delightful tale that gets all the points for actually making me like Emma (the character).

3. Best book you've reread second half of 2022 (or all of 2022):

This is a new category I'm adding because I tend to reread a lot. But my best reread of 2022 was definitely my return to The Tales of Goldstone Wood. I didn't get all the way through the series (just up to Dragonwitch), but I loved revisiting these familiar friends and beautiful stories, especially as I was able to appreciate aspects of the stories that I couldn't the first time around.

4. New release you haven't read yet but want to:

Can you believe I still haven't read Moira's Pen or The Lost Metal? This is what happens when you get so busy at the end of the year that you forget to check on new releases or request them from the library. I do have them out now, though, so hopefully I'll get to them before my next Book Celebration post.

5. Most anticipated release for next year:

You're probably expecting me to say something like the Sanderson Secret Projects or Margaret Rogerson's Mysteries of Thorn Manor . . . but the actual answer is the World Behind series by W.R. Gingell, which is a City Between spinoff focusing on everyone's favorite questionably-reformed fae steward. All five books release in 2023, beginning with A Whisker Behind in February, and I am so hyped.

5. Biggest disappointment:

This was definitely The Blue Salt Road by Joanne M. Harris. I went into it excited for selkies, but I wasn't expecting a tragedy in the end, and it just wasn't what I hoped it would be.

6. Biggest surprise:

Probably the fact that Emmazel ended up being one of my favorite books this year. I didn't think I'd dislike it, to be clear, but I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than I expected!

7. A book that made you cry:

I very rarely cry over books, but surprisingly, I think the book that came closest was actually Dracula, as it's a bit different to lose a character you've grown attached to over months and months instead of one you just met, at most, a week or two ago.

8. A book that made you happy:

Quite a few, but specifically Between Friends, which is the City Between anthology that released in December. I enjoyed revisiting all the short stories I've read in the past, but I also got quite a bit of delight out of the new short stories, especially "Pins and Needles."

9. Favorite post you've done this half of the year:

My absolute favorite post of the year (either half) was definitely my Silmaril Awards Ceremony, in which I got to write a character I've been cheering on for YEARS finally get her Silmaril. I also had fun with my New Year's Eve short story and my Thoughts from a Reluctant (Possible) Plotter post.

10. Most beautiful book you've bought/received this half of the year:

I had quite the book haul from Realm Makers (the prospect of getting books signed is an excellent motivator to buy things, and book trades are another very convenient way of expanding my library), but probably the prettiest books I acquired this year are the new editions of Spindle and Wolfskin. I ordered them through the audiobook Kickstarter, so I got them early, and the new paperbacks are very pretty and shiny.

Well, that's my celebration! How about you? What were the highs and lows of your last six months, reading-wise? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

Well, this post is about half a month late, but in my defense, when it should've gone up, I was in the middle of the Silmaril Awards and in Ohio, so I think I can be excused for delaying it a bit. In any case, we're well into autumn, so it's high time to spotlight a new season of reads. But before I do that, don't forget that all six Snow Queen retellings in the Broken Mirrors Arista Challenge collection will release in December (just late enough to be not fall) and are currently available for preorder! That includes my own Through a Shattered Glass, Wyn Estelle Owen's The White Queen's Spell (much-anticipated sequel to The Dark King's Curse), and Kendra E. Ardnek's Snowfield Palace (book 4 in her Austen Fairytale series). And now that we have that bit of shameless promotion out of the way, let's take a look at some other books that have either released recently or will come out this season.

Autumn 2022 Reads

1. Unraveller by Frances Hardinge (September 1). While the blurb for this book is a bit vague, what we have does sound cool — apparently, we have a world where curses are common and one boy is able to undo them, except not everyone is happy with that. It's also maybe a nomance, which y'all know I'm happy about. I haven't picked it up yet, but I hope to sometime.

2. What If? 2 by Randall Munroe (September 13). I loved the original What If? — it's lots of weird, fun questions answered with a magnificent blend of sarcasm and sincere curiosity — so I was pretty hyped when I saw there was going to be a follow-up. I've already read it (I requested it from the library pretty much as soon as it became available), and I can confirm that it's just as good as the first book was.

3. Sweet Vendetta Blues by Hazel West (September 27). Y'all have already heard my thoughts on this one (unless you missed that post), but it was a good (though sometimes dark) book, so I wanted to make sure it made this list. Road-trip thriller vibes, brotherhood, angst, a bit of mystery, it's got all that good stuff.

4. Road of the Lost by Nafiza Azad (October 18). It's a new fae story! We'll see which side this one leans to, but it sounds like it has potential, with hidden destinies and identities and journeys between worlds. Also, brownies are rather underused as fae creatures, so I'm interested to see how the author handles them.

5. Strike the Zither by Joan He (October 25). This is Asian-inspired epic fantasy featuring a strategist-turned-spy, and it sounds quite good. I read a sample chapter on the Tor.com blog a while back as well and enjoyed that. I am a little wary, as the last thing I read by this author was a bit frustrating in the end, but maybe the second time will be better.

6. Moira's Pen by Megan Whalen Turner (November 1). More Queen's Thief! Sort of! This is a collection of short fiction, some previously published and some not, from the world of The Queen's Thief, and I am so excited! This is definitely one of my top two most anticipated releases for this season . . . though I am kind of annoyed that the cover matches literally none of the other covers in the series. What the pumpernickel, Greenwillow Books? Who made that decision?

7. The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson (November 15). And we have the other most-anticipated read of the season! To say I'm nervous for this book would be an understatement — it sounds like Big Stuff is going down in this story, including a lot of new Cosmere connections, and I am quite worried for my favorite characters. But I am also excited for a return to Scadrial and more of Wax and Wayne and company. (I am not reading the preview chapters, though. I want to read the whole thing as it's meant to be experienced.) Of course, that means I should probably finish my dropped reread of the other Mistborn books . . .

What book releases are you excited for this fall, or what books that have already released this season have you read and loved? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

I was going to start this post by saying that I feel like I've been rereading a lot lately, but then I realized . . . there has never been a time when I didn't reread quite a bit. Because here's the deal: my to-be-read list may be tall enough to reach the International Space Station and weighty enough to bring said space station crashing down to earth, but that will not stop me when I feel like rereading an old favorite. Or, in some cases, an old semi-favorite. Or just a book that's been on my mind lately. But, you know, the mark of a great book is that you can read it over and over again and never love it less, so . . . maybe it just speaks to the quality of the books I've read? There definitely are certain books I tend to come back to more than others or that are just a special treat to reread, and today, I'm spotlighting a few of those.

Books I Love to Reread

1. The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner. This has got to be one of the most rereadable series I know of. If you've read the Queen's Thief book, you know that these are subtle, marvelously plotted stories and that Turner is a master of foreshadowing and perfectly prepared twists. This becomes even more clear on the reread, when you can pick up all kinds of clues you missed the first time around. In fact, I'd argue that you have to reread them at least once for the full experience. This is balanced by the fact that they're just the right length to be easy to pick up and reread — you can get through them fairly quickly without feeling guilty about taking a full month away from your library books and to-be-read list. (Plus, it's physically impossible to not love the characters more every time you read their stories.)
2. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. Speaking of falling in love with characters all over again . . . every time I reread Howl's Moving Castle, I find new reasons to love this story and these characters. That said, the bigger reason why it's on this list is that it's very much a comfort read for me, and it has been from the first. If I'm stressed or upset and need to be very quickly cheered up and pulled out of my troubles, and if whatever I'm currently reading doesn't seem like it'll do the trick for whatever reason (or if I'm not currently reading anything), this is my first choice of what to pick up. Even a few chapters are often enough to get me perked back up, thinking reasonably, and able to deal with whatever has me in a tizzy.
3. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Of course, LOTR has to make the list! For several years, I did a yearly or bi-yearly reread of this series, usually scheduled around either my birthday or half-birthday (since I read the trilogy for the first time within days of when I turned either twelve or thirteen, if I recall correctly). That dropped off, but I did recently reread these books, and they were just so lovely to come back to — even better than I remembered, since you really do notice new facets of the story each time. The only reason it's not at the top of the list is that the length does make this a bit more of a time commitment than some other books. (Technically, the Queen's Thief series may be longer in total, but each book is a quicker read.)
4. The All Creatures Great and Small series by James Herriot (especially the first book). Like Howl, this is very much a comfort read, but of a somewhat different kind. It's a wonderfully steadying, heartwarming in the realest possible sense. I reach for Howl when stress and frustration reach a boiling point, and it makes me laugh and forget my problems for an hour or two. I reach for All Creatures when my world feels uncertain, and it helps me remember that everything will be ok in the end (because, even if Herriot never alludes to God or anything particularly spiritual, many of these stories come out to the lesson of the sparrows). Of course, I don't only pick it up in times of emotional turmoil; it's a lovely read any time I need something comparatively low-stakes and optimistic and sincere and funny.
5. Entwined by Heather Dixon Wallwork. This is both one of my favorite fairy tale retellings and a Christmas read, thereby giving me two excuses to pick it up over and over again. While I don't tend to notice new things about this story as much as I do other stories on this list, it's always a pleasure to rediscover moments I'd forgotten or reexperience the best bits and to come out of the story feeling immensely cheered and pleased.

Do you like rereading books? What are your favorite books to reread? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah

I have mixed feelings about a lot of recent trends in fantasy and speculative fiction . . . but one trend that I absolutely love is the move towards settings based in locations and cultures other than medieval, Edwardian, or Victorian European ones (specifically those from northern and western Europe). While I will always appreciate the classics when they're well done, it's nice to get some variety. And since I've never actually compiled a list of my favorite non-European fantasy stories, I thought I should remedy that this week! Not all of these are recent releases — actually, most of them have been out for a while, since I'm SUPER behind on any recent books that I didn't agree to review — but they're well-loved by me and well worth a read!

(Please note that I'm not including any urban/contemporary fantasy on this list — while my love of the City Between and Dragons in Our Midst series is deep and well-documented, these genres aren't as overwhelmingly Europe-based as many other fantasy genres are.)

 

Non-European Fantasy Favorites

1. The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner. I debated a lot about whether or not I could include this series because, you know, it's heavily inspired by ancient Greece (with a side trip in one book to ancient Persia), and Greece is technically European? But it's very much not your standard medieval European fantasy, and that's evident in everything from the lore and mythology to the food to the architecture to the landscape to the language and names. It's so great.
Bonus Greek-inspired fantasy recommendation: Coiled by H.L. Burke.

2. Golden Daughter by Anne Elisabeth Stengl. I would like to be very clear that the only reason this isn't first on the list is that it's the seventh book in the series — it's a gorgeous Asian-inspired fantasy epic (and, realistically, you could pick it up without having read any of the other Goldstone Wood novels, though there are certain elements whose significance you might not pick up on). As in the Queen's Thief books, this isn't just a standard fantasy novel with an "exotic" aesthetic tacked on — the location informs the culture, which informs the characters and storyline, and everything just comes together so well.
Bonus Asian-inspired fantasy recommendation: The Dragon's Flower by Wyn Estelle Owens

3. The Books of the Infinite trilogy by R. J. Larson. Arguably the least like traditional European fantasy out of everything on this list and everything that I considered putting on this list, the Books of the Infinite take place in a world much like Israel and its neighbors in the second half of the Old Testament. It's a story of prophets and kings, of signs and miracles and mercy and judgment, and it's generally well worth a read.
Bonus Biblical fantasy recommendation: Overpowered by Kathryn McConaughy

4. Horseman by Kyle Robert Shultz. This Wild West-inspired tale takes place in Shultz's Afterverse, and while I don't love it quite as much as the original Beaumont and Beasley series, it's still a lot of fun. You've got classic Wild West and fantasy tropes, plus the kind of colorful assortment of characters you can only get in this type of setting, plus reimaginings of American folklore — it's great.
Bonus Wild West fantasy recommendation: Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale

5. Jackaby by William Ritter. Storms, I haven't read these books in ages, though the last one has been on my mind lately because of some of the myths and folklore I've been reading. Anyway, this historical fantasy-mystery series is set somewhere in New England in the late 1800s — the author doesn't specify which state, which I can't entirely blame him for. And it does feel pretty American, particularly leaning on the idea of America at the time as a blending of people (and, in this case, magical beings) immigrated from other cultures and countries.
Bonus American fantasy-mystery recommendation: The Lost Plot by Genevieve Cogman

What are your favorite non-European fantasy reads, whether recent or not? Please tell me in the comments; I can always use more recs!
Thanks for reading!

 

Here we are, halfway through 2021, and you all know what that means! It's time to check in with my reading for the year! As promised, we're renaming this because, let's be real, "Book Freakout" is not accurate. From here on out, these posts will be the Mid-Year (or End-of-Year) Book CELEBRATIONS! Because what are they, really, but a space for me to recognize and rejoice in all the awesome stories I've enjoyed?

As always, we're going to start the party with some statistics and updates on my reading goals. Thus far, I've read 44 books and 15.5K pages this year, which puts me a bit ahead of schedule for completing my overall goal of reading 75 books this year. It also puts me behind what I had read around this time last year (by about 14 books and 4K pages), but I have, y'know, a job this year. On the upside, I've liked most of what I've read; my average rating is 4.2 stars. As for my more specific reading goals:

• Towards my goal of 12 books written or published before 1975, I have read . . . 1 book. Wow. That's even worse than I thought — I expected that The Last Unicorn, at least, would have fallen into the "older books" zone, but it was published in 1986. That means the only book I've read that was published before 1975 is The Two Towers. (On the upside, I'm currently rereading Return of the King, so I'm about to have two books for this goal!)
• I've read 4 books outside the speculative fiction genres . . . sort of, at least? Three (the Jenny Lawson memoirs) definitely count. One (Isle of Swords) is . . . I think technically historical adventure fiction? But I can't remember for sure if there's any elements that would edge it over into historical fantasy.
• As for my goal of 1 epic-length Tolkien or Jordan novel every 2 months, I've read . . . again, one book. I briefly misremembered this goal as "one epic-length fantasy every 2 months," and if that were the case, I'd be doing great with my Sanderson reread. But nope. I even specifically said "non-Sanderson" in my original version of the goal.
• Finally, I have not been keeping up at all with my goal of tracking my reads in more detail. I meant to make a spreadsheet, and then I just . . . forgot. I went back and made a spreadsheet this past week of my reads thus far this year, though, so we'll try to do it for July and see how it goes. (Technically, my goal was only to do it for one month, so I haven't failed yet!)

And now, with those statistics out of the way, let's get on with the celebration proper!

2021 Mid-Year Book Celebration!

1. Best book you've read so far in 2021:

It's a tie, but not between the books you're thinking it will be.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

The Werewolf of Whitechapel by Suzannah Rowntree

There is absolutely no way I can pick between these two. They're both magnificent urban fantasy adventures — one modern-ish, one historical. Neverwhere is probably one of the best showcases of Gaiman's magical writing style I've encountered, and it has mythical and fairy-tale vibes that can't be beat. On the other hand, The Werewolf of Whitechapel is a fantasy-mystery with a storytelling voice I just love and a heroine I couldn't dislike if I tried. Not that I'd want to try.

2. Best sequel you've read so far in 2021:

And here are the books you thought would be the answer to question one — another tie between two amazing books —

Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson

Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

Again, I can't choose between these. Rhythm was epic and explosive and heavy — literally and figuratively. Like Words of Radiance, it had some of the deepest darkness and most brilliant triumphs in the series to date. But Return was all I could've wanted from the conclusion to one of my favorite series — and then some.

3. New release you haven't read yet but want to:

Literally almost anything from my last two new-releases posts, ha! I've been mood reading a lot, and I've been playing catch-up since, I don't know, probably since 2015 to be honest.

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year:

Mine.

But also . . .

Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson

Margaret Rogerson is one of my favorite authors, and the blurb for her next book reminds me of Abhorsen, which I also love, and I am SO PSYCHED. (It's also going to be a nomance! Which is FABULOUS.) I may or may not have joined the OwlCrate mailing list solely so I could order the special signed edition. I have no regrets.

5. Biggest disappointment:

The Unicorn Anthology

I don't DNF books very often, but this anthology just made me sad and angry, and it was full of stories by people who really wanted to be writing Literary Fiction but were, for some reason, writing fantasy — and so, to spite the fantasy crowd, they filled their stories with the same sort of misery that permeates the worst of literary fiction.

As for books I actually finished, The Last Unicorn probably takes the spot. I'm glad I read it once, but I really do not want to repeat the experience.

6. Biggest surprise:

Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo

I read this book because I heard it had Kaz Brekker in it. I didn't even enjoy the Kaz Brekker bit that much. But the rest of it, I enjoyed far more than I expected based on the previous book. Less angst, more clever, desperate people being clever.

7. Favorite new-to-you author:

S.D. Smith, author of the Green Ember series

Other than Redwall, I generally haven't been one for the fantasy subgenre I like to refer to as "small creatures with swords." (That might be its actual name? I don't know.) But this series kept popping up on my radar, and I knew the author was associated with Andrew Peterson, so I figured I would give it a try . . . and storms, did I make the right choice.

8. Newest fictional ship:

• This isn't new, but my appreciation for Gen/Irene, Helen/Sophos, and Adolin/Shallan has been renewed and lifted to greater levels than ever. Relationship goals, all of them. Some of them shouldn't be relationship goals, maybe. (Looking at you, Gen/Irene.) But they are anyway, and they're beautiful.
• In terms of new ships, Lois and Chaiman are the sweetest and I shipped them before I was even certain there was any hope in shipping them.
• Sharp/Short from the Miss Sharp's Monsters series also gets a shoutout. They're an excellent match.

Yeah. There's not a lot to mention here. Most of the new books I've read haven't been romance-heavy, and I like it that way. (Also, I reread a lot this year.)

9. Newest favorite character:

Again, this year has had a lot of rereading, so I've spent a fair amount of time just renewing my appreciation for old favorite characters. That said, there are a few new faces on that list . . .

• Miss Sharp (Miss Sharp's Monsters) is whip-smart, stubbornly protective, and brave and loyal to a fault — not to mention quite witty. She's the best part of the series that bears her name — though I love many of her companions, allies, and sometimes enemies as well, particularly May, Inspector Short, and Grand Duke Vasily.
• The Marquis (Neverwhere) is a magnificent character, catlike in all the ways that matter most. Any scene he happens to be in is a good one, and the short story he had all to himself was just as good as the full novel I met him in.
• And from the Green Ember books, we have Helmer (grumpy, but heroic; I initially liked him out of spite for another character and then was pleased when my choice proved well-made), Picket (despite some initial frustrations and misgivings), Smalls (SMALLS!), and probably Weezie as well — I haven't known her quite long enough to be certain, but I very much like her in the half a book I can go off of.

10. A book that made you cry:

Rhythm of War didn't actually make me cry, but it did cause other distressed noises more than a few times, so I'd say that counts.

11. A book that made you happy:

Can I say The Werewolf of Whitechapel again? No? I have to talk about something else? Fine.

The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo was a very cool collection of in-world myths, fairy tales, and legends. I very much enjoyed it, dark though it was at times. Part of me wants to try to do something similar for some of my worlds, but we'll see.

12. Favorite book to film adaptation you've seen this year:

Fellowship of the Ring. Yes, it's a rewatch. I'm counting it because otherwise I have nothing to count.

13. Favorite post you've done so far this year:

I've been blogging a little less this year, but I still have a few posts that I really enjoyed writing and whose end result I'm pleased with.

• "Old Years' Memories; New Years' Visions" — My annual New Year's short story chronicling the adventures of Carrie and Tamison! This one may be my favorite in the series so far, in no small part due to how many references I got to make to all the books I've written and am going to write.
• Giving Fanfic Some Credit — I'd been thinking about writing this post for at least a year before I finally wrote it, and I really enjoyed being able to celebrate fanfiction, which is a large part of what's gotten me into more than one fandom.
• Some Thoughts on Spoilers — I have strong-ish opinions about spoilers, and they run in the opposite direction to everyone else's strong opinions. Or so it seems sometimes.

14. Most beautiful book you've bought so far this year:

Behold: Spindle. It's beautiful, and it's mine, and I got so excited when I found it.

15. What books do you need to read by the end of the year?

Heh. All of them. (But I do have four months free of Kindle Unlimited, and I want to make the most of it, so . . . probably allllllll the indie fantasy/spec fic that I've been holding off on because I don't like buying ebooks unless I know they'll be good.)

What about you? What were your favorite reads of the year? Biggest surprises (for good or ill)? Are you caught up on 2021 releases, or are you just as behind as I am? And, if you're a fellow Margaret Rogerson fan, how excited are you for Vespertine? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

February 2021 Doings!

 Guys. It's been a year. A year ago today, I was on my last spring break, planning a cheese night for my dorm and trying to find a formal dress for the Junior-Senior Formal and stressing about my capstone paper and final graphic design project. A year ago today, I was less than a week from the world turning upside down around me, and I had no idea. It's so weird. Anyway. I will say that this past February was a lot less stressful than February 2020 — even with COVID in the picture, there's a lot less uncertainty floating around. (Also, the nice thing about a nine-to-five job is that it is, in fact, nine to five, as opposed to college classes, which are whenever you get up to whenever you can't think anymore today.)

Writing!

• The first draft of the Midnight Show sequel is finished! It topped out at about 77K words and 35 chapters, which is almost twice as long as The Midnight Show and about 17K longer than I want it to be. Still, it's a satisfactory first draft. It's not quite as clean as TMS's first version was (or Blood in the Snow's), but it's in better shape than some.
• I gave myself a couple days of rest from writing and then I started all over with the first round of rewrites.
• I'm currently sitting at 8 chapters, about one fifth of the book, rewritten or added. I'm messing with the timeline a little, so I've had to add some bits and heavily rework some scenes. And there was one chapter that I have to rewrite a second time so I could properly write the chapters that had to build on it. Other than that, though, it's going well.
• On a side note, I was looking back at my Doings! post for last February, and I found this reference:

I also toyed with another writing project, but ended up dropping it because it conflicted with a different novel (or novella) that I plan to write in the future.

• I had totally forgotten about this — it was an experimental project intended for the Tattered Slippers Arista Challenge that I only worked on for a few days before scrapping. Had it worked out, y'all would've gotten a Mechanical Heart sequel instead of The Midnight Show. The issue was that it used a very similar "twist" as The Midnight Show does to explain the dancing (which was, in this version, not dancing but rather inventing), and the idea that would become TMS was already developed enough that I didn't want to waste it.
• The experimental part of the project, for the record, refers to the writing process I was going to try out: essentially, outlining the story and then iterating that outline and making it more and more detailed until I had a proper prose narrative. I hoped it would be a faster way of getting a functional first draft out. It might've worked too, save for the teensy little problem that I do not enjoy outlines. Especially not ultra-detailed ones.
• The story would've been really fun had I written it, though. It was going to involve Breen and Luis attending a "Creatives Consortium" — basically a convention intended to bring the inventors and alchemists and scientists together with artists and creatives, only for Strange Goings On to occur in the night. And I CLEARLY has fun with the outline, which I just reread while writing this post. A few highlights for those curious:

• So, armed with COFFEE and CRAFTS and lots of stuff to tinker and mess with, they STAY UP.

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• Around midnight, the roommate is like “Hey, I hear something. Music? It’s weird.”
• Breen is like “Cool cool. I am deaf, but I will take your word for it.”
• Roommate: “This music is making me feel super weird. My head hurts. Something Is Up.”
• Breen: “Hey, you ok? You're randomly standing up and wandering off and you’re moving kind of weirdly.”
• Roommate: *does not respond*
• Breen: Ok rude.

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• Breen is like “Ok, was I hallucinating on coffee or did that actually happen? SUPER WEIRD.”

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• Luis, who is friends with Josiah: Let’s go talk to the person who owns this place.
• Breen, who spent 10-ish years getting screwed over by a noble: Let’s not.
• Roommate, who is oblivious to both things: Nah, Goggles is right. Let’s talk to the person in charge.

• Alas, this novel will never be written. But I wrote The Midnight Show instead, and quite frankly, I think that's for the best. The Mechanical Heart sequel would've been fun. But The Midnight Show is possibly one of my favorite things I've written in my life, so . . . worth it. Mechanical Heart will get a different sequel when the time is right.
• D&D-wise, I am still behind on writing stuff, but we're also running short sessions, so it's ok. And I feel like I'm getting better at improv, so that's reassuring. I will say, though, that a lot of this month has been an unending series of "Gah, that is not this character's accent; I could do it ten minutes ago; what happened?" Voice actor, I am not. But at least the current group of NPCs is easier than some others I've invented.

Reading!

• February (and the start of the year in general) tends to be a time for rereads, and this February was no exception. This February was also a really good reading month . . . mostly because it was dominated by two amazing authors.
• So, I did finish Rhythm of War before it was due at the library, but only barely. Had we not had a snow day on the Monday before I was supposed to return it, I would've been out of luck. Instead, I devoured pretty much the last third of the book in a single day. It was intense. And now I have feels. Most of them are about how awesome Adolin and Navani are and how awful Moash is (storm you, Moash), but also . . . so many reveals. So much epicness. I spent a lot of time internally screaming. And occasionally externally not-quite-screaming. It was great.
• Anyway. After finishing Rhythm, I needed something equally awesome but a little bit lighter as a chaser, plus Return of the Thief was due at the library soon . . . so I proceeded to devour the entire Queen's Thief series in about ten days. The first five books were just as good on the reread as they were the first times round — in fact, I'd argue most of them were better. And Return of the Thief was amazing. Again, I have many feelings. It still hasn't topped The King of Attolia is still my #1 favorite in the series, but Return is a very close second. And there's so much to love about the book, but I think my favorite thing was seeing Gen and Irene . . . I suppose you could say, seeing them at their most united. And there's one scene between them that's so small, but it hit so hard and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.
• After that, I was going to be responsible and continue working through my library stacks . . . but I reread Mistborn instead. No regrets. It was really weird to reread the book and think "Wow, you can really tell that this is some of Sanderson's early work" while simultaneously still being really impressed by the man's storytelling and writing skill, but that certainly didn't detract from my enjoyment of it. (And now I'm working on rereading The Well of Ascension, also instead of reading from my library stacks. Again, I regret nothing.)
• And, as if there wasn't enough awesome in this month already, I finally read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. It was dark enough that I'm kinda glad I didn't read it when I first heard of it, but it was also really good. It kind of has this dream-like, or perhaps nightmare-like, balance of strange and un-strange and fairytale and humanity. If I lived in a city, it would have me glancing over my shoulder, just in case. But I don't, so . . . yeah. I'll definitely be coming back to this one sometime.

Watching!

• So, I'm currently on Episode 51 in Critical Role, which means we're done with Fjord and ocean arcs and all that for the time being — but which, more importantly, means I hit the backstory reveal for a certain character. And I knew this character's backstory and family already going into the show. But seeing how it actually played out hit hard and oh my pumpernickel. I am in awe. You know someone's a good storyteller when a reveal you already know about is that effective.
• Outside Critical Role, I watched one of the many Zorro movies — not the original, but the 1975 version that's just called Zorro. So that was some good swashbuckling fun. (I also rewatched parts of The Princess Bride, which my parents decided to watch on a night when I had other things I had to do. I managed to squeeze in time for the important bits, at least.)
• In addition, we watched Roman Holiday, which was . . . I mean, it was fine? I understand why it's a classic and why it's so popular. I think the story and characters were well-crafted, and I appreciate the choices made in the end (even if I feel bad for Irving . . . Joe brought this mess on himself, but Irving was literally dragged into it). It's not my favorite movie I've ever seen, and I wouldn't say I loved it. But it was good.

Life!

• This was a pretty quiet month, on the whole. Most of it was occupied with work, writing, and D&D, which should come as a surprise to no one.
• The "extremely mysterious" technical issues were resolved by the next time I went in to work, which was a day later than expected, as it was the first of several snow days and holidays we had this month. I think that also might've been the only really snowy snow day — the rest tended to be more ice than snow. Since then, things have been progressing peacefully, and I've had some spare time to start making my office my own. (At this point, that mostly means cleaning and organizing and bringing in a kettle so I can make tea without using a coffee maker. But eventually, I'll have some decorations and such.)
• On one of the various snow/ice days, I decided to finally try making biscotti, which turned out well! We usually make cranberry almond biscotti at Christmas, which lasts forever. But I wanted something different, something more exciting. I was going to make chocolate raspberry biscotti . . . but my dad said he'd let me off helping to shovel the driveway if I made the biscotti that day, so I went with my second choice, cinnamon-butterscotch, instead. In hindsight, I probably should've stuck with the chocolate raspberry — the cinnamon-butterscotch had so many mix-ins (even using the amount specified in the recipe) that it was hard to get the dough to actually stick together and harder still to cut it after the first baking without the slices breaking and crumbling. Essentially, I did my first biscotti run on hard mode. But it still tasted good. And I hope to try the chocolate raspberry (or possibly a savory biscotti, probably cornmeal parmesan) later, sometime before the weather warms up too much.
• On the D&D front — the campaign I play in, not the campaign I run — we haven't been able to meet the last two weeks, and it's driving me a little crazy because of where we ended our last session: with a revelation that the homeland of two of our party members (including my paladin) just declared war on another country (which another party member is technically allied with? in that he's a noble and his country is allies with this other country). So that's going to be interesting. Especially since my character's father contacted her shortly before we learned about this to say he needed my character home immediately . . . We thought it had to do with some, ah, legal trouble we'd gotten in not long before. (Aka, someone framed us for murder — which, I mean, we did technically kill the person they said we killed, but only after he lured us into an ambush, set us on fire, and revealed that he was allied with a literal demon who's partially responsible for the world-covering darkness we've been trying to get rid of, so I don't think we're the ones in the wrong here. The problem was that we had a time-sensitive mission to finish, so we couldn't stick around to clear our names at the time.) But then he said what was happening was good news, and, well, let's just say that what happens next might be the thing that sends my tired, frustrated, didn't-ask-for-any-of-this paladin over the tipping point. And I am both excited and terrified to see how this will play out.

March Plans

• Non-work priority #1: get the Midnight Show sequel rewritten and sent off to betas. Ideally, I also should name it before sending it to betas. I have two ideas, so that's something; I'm just trying to decide which fits better. My one comfort: the release this year will be later than previous years' releases have been, so I'll have a little more time to work with. Not a lot. But a little.
• I also am really hoping that we can wrap up the current arc in the D&D campaign I'm running this month, or at least get close to wrapping it up. Does that necessitate my writing the rest of it? Yes. Yes, it does. But it'll happen. I just need to sit down and do the thing.
• And, as the NaNoWriMo website has been helpfully reminding me, Camp NaNoWriMo is just around the corner at this point, so I need to start thinking about what I'm doing there. "Nothing" or "TMS sequel edits" are the obvious choices, but if the timing works out, it could also be a good idea to work on other projects. Like whatever I'm doing for next year's Arista Challenge. Or one of the many projects I want to write or rewrite that I don't have a specific publication plan for. We'll see where things stand.
• Other than writing, I don't have a lot of plans. Hopefully I'll do something for Pi Day — it's been a while since I made a pie. (But my mom might want to make something, so . . . we'll see.) And I'm torn between wanting warm weather to come as soon as possible and wanting it to stay cold long enough for one last batch of biscotti.
• Do I have a life outside of work, writing, D&D, and food? Sources suggest no.
• (I'm also at a point where I'm a bit bored of my current knitting/crochet projects, but I also don't want to abandon them because if I do, who knows when or if I'll finish them. So that's a problem.)

How was your February? Any exciting plans for March? If you've read Rhythm of War, Return of the Thief, or Neverwhere, what were your favorite bits or the parts that stuck with you the most? Have you ever tried to write a story via steadily more detailed outlines or another weird method? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!