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ospreyarcher · 10 months

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My new book is now available for preorder!

After a century-long sleep, a Union soldier wakes up in 1965. Cavalry lieutenant Russell Krause is all at sea in this strange new century of electric lights and automobiles. But he soon acquires a guide: Caleb O’Connor, a kind-hearted, history-loving college student with secrets he’s desperate to hide. Caleb is gay, and he’s completely smitten with this lively, warm-hearted soldier, who has swiftly become his best friend. But Russell’s nineteenth century understanding of friendship is far more affectionate than any 1960s friendship is allowed to be. In between telling Russell about escalators, record players, and the Civil Rights movement, Caleb has to explain that men in 1965 are no longer allowed to hold hands or share beds or kiss… which is tough, because Caleb would love to be kissing Russell. Despite these chilling changes in social customs, Caleb and Russell’s loving friendship grows ever closer. But the cultural divide may prove wider than even love can bridge.

Content warnings: period-typical attitudes in general, but especially toward homosexuality

The Sleeping Soldier will be coming out on August 7. Preorder now!

#aster glenn gray #my books #the sleeping soldier #m/m #m/m romance

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fated-mates · 1 month

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An absolute classic for a reason, we’re talking about BEAUTY AND THE BEAST today — about the trope itself, about how the 1991 Disney movie brought it back to life (yes, we see you, Dain), and about why we love the vibe of scarred and broken men in a castle being found and renovated by whip smart, bookish heroines. Spoiler: It’s patriarchy.

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aurorawest · 3 months

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2023 Reading Wrap-Up

Is it February of 2024? Yes! Am I still going to post my favorite books that I read in 2023? Also yes!

Ginn Hale's Cadeleonian Series, the second half of which I read in 2023: Champion of the Scarlet Wolf, Book Two; Master of Restless Shadows, Book One; and Master of Restless Shadows, Book Two

This series begins with Lord of the White Hell and continues with Champion of the Scarlet Wolf, then concludes with Master of Restless Shadows. Each duology follows a different set of characters, but it's a true series so you need to read them in order. It's a toss-up for me whether I preferred Champion of the Scarlet Wolf or Master of Restless Shadows. Both are fantastic duologies. I particularly loved getting Atreau's story in Master because he's sort of an unlikable playboy-esque character in the preceding books...but wait! Turns out there's more to him after all.

After Francesco by Brian Malloy

Who would think a book about living through the AIDS epidemic in NYC in the 80s would be as funny as this book is? It will also tear your heart out and stomp on it. Also takes place partly in Minneapolis (and is by a Minnesotan author).

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

Folklorist meets the Green Man and they fall in love. This is the first half of a duology, the second being Drowned Country, which I just finished today so can't included it on my 2023 wrap-up. All the dark and violent whimsy of the mythic past and the most brutal versions of fairy tales, plus a lovely romance.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

Imagine the love child of Lost, Person of Interest, and Battlestar Galactica, but queer and with multiverse shenanigans thrown in (the author has cited Ender's Game as a huge influence). I don't want to say anything more than that, because I feel strongly that you need to go into this book knowing nothing. The twists and turns are so good, the main trio are wonderful, complicated characters, and the world is super cool.

The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley

In some ways the most heartbreaking of Pulley's novels. Also probably her most dreamy and magical. It's my least favorite of her books, but my least favorite Natasha Pulley book still ended up on my best of 2023 reading list.

The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley

This book awakened in me a latent love of Soviet queers. You'll see this book filed under sci-fi by booksellers, but it isn't really—it's historical fiction about a very real nuclear disaster in the USSR that was covered up for decades. Like all of Pulley's books, the characters are deeply complicated and flawed. The pleasure is really in reading the way she tells a story and her beautiful use of language, so even if you're not interested in Soviet nuclear disasters, I absolutely recommend you read this. Also, you'll probably be interested in Soviet nuclear disasters when you're done.

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley

Haha, you thought The Watchmaker of Filigree Street punched you in the chest with feels? Get ready for the sequel, which will have you Curled Into A Sobbing Ball On The Floor™. Join Thaniel Steepleton, Keita Mori, and their adopted Waifish Victorian Orphan, Six, as they go to Japan, where things are weird, there are ghosts, and Thaniel and Mori still somehow don't understand what they mean to each other.

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

"What if France won the Napoleonic Wars because of time travelers" shouldn't have shattered me the way this book did, but of course it's a Natasha Pulley novel so it absolutely did. Missouri Kite is the most Gay Little Man™. And Joe, poor Joe. The PINING. The YEARNING. When the reveal happens, I had to go back and read prior sections of the book and good god do they hit different. Different and SADDER. This book is my favorite of Natasha Pulley's novels.

Tommy Cabot Was Here and Peter Cabot Gets Lost by Cat Sebastian

The first two books in Cat Sebastian's The Cabots series. The books are historical fiction that follow various queer men in the Cabot family. The Cabots are one of those old money, liberal New England families—think Kennedys. Both books are about Sad Gay Men™ finding love in soft, tiptoeing Cat Sebastian fashion. Peter Cabot is a road trip romance and a bit longer, so the characters have some time to breathe.

Something Wild & Wonderful by Anita Kelly

This was probably a Stucky fic at one point, right? I mean. No shade though, truly! This was my favorite romcom that I read in 2023. It was also a comp for Strangers to Husbands, haha. I love the setting—hiking the Pacific Crest Trail—and I love the main characters, Alexei and Ben. Alexei came out to his family recently and got rejected, while Ben is from a big, accepting Portuguese family. Funny, touching, and an excellent love story.

Cattle Stop by Kit Oliver

Looks like a romcom but will stab you in the heart repeatedly. Kit Oliver has a gorgeous way with words and captures the dynamic between two people who have no idea how to talk to each other so well. I'm also a sucker for farm settings.

The Sugared Game and Subtle Blood by KJ Charles (The Will Darling Adventures)

I've read almost all of KJ Charles's books at this point, but the Will Darling Adventures are my favorites (I read the first book in the series in 2022). I love the combination of romance and action/adventure. I've never met a m/m book set in the interwar period that I haven't loved. Will and Kim are wonderful characters, and sometimes I think about what other adventures they had after book three ended.

Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray

An FBI agent and a GRU agent get assigned to work a case together in 1959 and they fall in looooove. There's a road trip, a family dinner, and FEELS. I'm not sure I've ever had a time skip hit me in the gut so hard. Remember how I said I love Soviet queers? Here's another example.

Wranglestone and Timberdark by Darren Charlton

What if the real dystopia isn't the zombie apocalypse, but "normal" life? I don't know if I've ever read a YA series that sucker-punched me as hard as this one. I know I've never read a zombie book that sucker-punched me as hard as this one. I don't think these books have even been published in the US (only in the UK), but if you can get your hands on them, they're worth it. Really beautifully written in a style that evokes the emptiness of the great national parks of the American west.

Honorable mentions:

The Charioteer by Mary Renault

The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi

A Power Unbound by Freya Marske

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oldshrewsburyian · 7 months

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If you, like me, enjoy Arthuriana, queer fiction, and Golden Age detective fiction, I have absolutely fabulous news for you, which is that there is a novella which will give you all these things at the same time. Massive thanks to @kivrin for the copy and the rec.

#aster glenn gray #i love everyone in this bar slash orchard slash uncanny fairy realm #a garter as a lesser gift #the sgatgk retelling i didn't know i needed #i have a lot of feelings

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edgeoflight · 10 months

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I read A Garter As A Lesser Gift in a couple of hours the other day and I just really really loved it. It’s a World War 2 retelling of Gawain and the Green Knight with a happy m/m/f ending. A short, sweet book that didn’t pretend to be more than it was, stayed tightly grounded in one character and one plot, and overall was a delightful treat of an evening’s read.

I think that’s something so valuable. A book can change your life and all that, but it can also be just a nice evening reading a little story with a happy ending.

#a garter as a lesser gift #gawain and the green knight #recommended books #recommendations #aster glenn gray

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mlmkindleul · 2 years

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Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray

Kicking off this blog with a book that I highly, highly recommend! Honeytrap is a historical road romance that spans some 30 years. Most of it takes place in the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, when an American FBI agent is assigned to accompany a KGB agent on a cross-country trip.

As the two men come to learn more about each other, they fall in love, but obviously, they’re doomed...or are they?

Gray is excellent when it comes to historical detail and setting. You will feel like you are in each of the eras this book touches on without ever getting an infodump or awkward, unnatural dialogue that explains things actual people in that time period would never have had to explain to each other. The character work is also beautifully done, and though we never go to Russia, Gray gives us a sense of what Gennady’s life there is like based on how he reacts to what he sees in America.

Caveat there’s homophobic language in the book that accurately reflects historical attitudes and vocabulary. But it’s not a novel that is primarily about gay persecution or suffering; it’s a really beautiful depiction of two men from different worlds forming a connection.

All I can say is, this book took me on a JOURNEY and you should pick it up.

#mlm romance #mm romance #aster glenn gray #honeytrap #kindle unlimited

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the-novel-approach-reviews · 8 months

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Review: The Sleeping Soldier by Aster Glenn Gray

Title: The Sleeping Soldier Author: Aster Glenn Gray Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited Length: 350 Pages Category: Historical, Remixed Fairy Tale Rating: 4 Stars At a Glance: As is the way of fairy tales, there’s a lesson to be learned in The Sleeping Soldier. And it’s Caleb who must learn it. The sweet and satisfying happy ending isn’t unforeseen but is earned. Reviewed By: Lisa Blurb: After a…

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#4 stars #Amazon/Kindle Unlimited #Aster Glenn Gray #Historical Romance #Remixed Fairy Tale #Self-Published

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queerromancerecs · 4 months

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Title: The Larks Still Bravely Singing

Author: Aster Glenn Gray

Summary: A shattering breakup leaves Robert convinced that he is a destructive force in romantic relationships. When he finds himself falling in love with David, an old friend from boarding school, he’s sure that he shouldn’t confess his feelings. But as their meandering conversations drift from books and poetry to more intimate topics, Robert’s love deepens - and so do his fears of hurting David.Since he was wounded, David has been batted from hospital to hospital like a shuttlecock, leaving him adrift and anxious. His renewed friendship with Robert gives him a much-needed sense of peace and stability. Slowly, David opens up to Robert about the nervous fears that plague him, and when Robert responds with sympathy and support, David finds himself feeling much more than friendship. But he’s afraid that he’s already a burden on Robert, and that asking for more will only strain their developing bond.Can these two wounded soldiers heal each other?

Genre: historical romance

Ship type: m/m

Why you like it: I was amazed at how immersive the book was. The writing style, vocabulary, the way the main character thought about life, it was all very on point. And I must say I quite like the way the author handled the WWI topic—or rather its aftermath—and characters’ disabilities (and I’m not talking only about the physical ones). It was an important part of the story, but it wasn’t overpowering, it wasn’t wallowing in self-pity.

Content tags: period-typical homophobia and ableism (probably less than is strictly period typical, but this is a romance novel, not a historical essay), implied/referenced suicide

Links: amazon

(image description: two white men seated, one with his arm around the other. they are dressed in 20′s-esque fashion.)

#Title: The Larks Still Bravely Singing #Author: Aster Glenn Gray #Ship Type: m/m #Genre: Romance - Historical #Genre: Historical - 1920s

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fahye · 9 months

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book recs: august '23

(I want to try and do these posts more frequently because I DEARLY miss yelling about books, txitter is [poop emoji]-ing, and bluesky is promising but I don't have much of an audience there yet)

ok! stuff freya has read recently and enjoyed:

A FIRE BORN OF EXILE by aliette de bodard -- did you enjoy nirvana in fire? this is for YOU. it's a revenge story set in aliette's xuya space opera universe, with a pile of complicated characters with mixed or obscured motives, a sapphic romance, and just really incredible use of worldbuilding and politics.

THE SLEEPING SOLDIER by aster glenn gray -- I am an enormous sucker for aster's historical m/m romances, and this one was incredible. a union soldier goes to sleep in 1865 and wakes up in 1965, and his new college roommate has a series of gay crises about it. sweet, exuberant, well researched. both a wonderful romance and an absolutely fascinating examination of male friendships and homosexuality in two different historical time periods.

A DEADLY EDUCATION by naomi novik -- doing a reread of the first two scholomance books before I dive into the third. these books are so disgustingly tailored to ME, a huge fan of magical academia stories with a truly deliciously unnecessary level of worldbuilding detail about how the magic works (and how the school is trying to kill you).

BATH HAUS by p.j. vernon -- a man goes to a gay bathhouse, cheating on his partner, and narrowly escapes being murdered. things get worse from there. I can only recommend this to you if you enjoy thrillers that STRESS YOU THE FUCK OUT, which I normally don't; I nearly put it down a couple of times, but I HAD to know what was going on. it's a masterclass in propulsive tension and does some really cool things with unreliable narration.

HAVEMERCY by jaida jones and danielle bennett -- seven hundred years late to this party, but OH MY GOD. this is the completely gay political/military fantasy of my dreams (the YEARNING), plus there are magical-mechanical dragons. I will be devouring the other books in this series in short order.

EVERY VERSION OF YOU by grace chan -- a beautiful and fascinating literary scifi book about humanity and family and love, and being given the choice to upload your consciousness to a digital paradise as the planet dies around you. unsurprisingly it deals with some heavy stuff, but it's fantastic. and australian!

A THIEF AND A GENTLEMAN by arden powell -- another m/m romance in arden's flos magicae series. the title alone is probably enough to tell you why I enjoyed it, but I especially liked the way it kept subverting my expectations in favour of more chewy emotional honesty and complexity.

STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER by fern brady -- a memoir by a scottish comedian about being diagnosed with autism in her thirties, and her life up to that point. funny and chaotic and an all-around amazing read. I loved fern on taskmaster and I love her even more now.

#book recs

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kivrin · 8 months

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Learned by Heart, the Emma Donoghue book about Anne Lister (really centered on her schoolmate and partner Eliza Raine) was very good.

I continued the Aster Glenn Gray trend with their A Garter as a Lesser Gift, a WWII m/m/f retelling of Gawain and the Green Knight, and also ready Casey McQuiston's YA I Kissed Shara Wheeler which stressed me out with the protagonist's realistic not-noticing her best friend struggling to tell her something.

Now I'm reading a 1970s novel-length Star Trek fanfic, The Weight by Leslie Fish. Amazing that Archive of Our Own is importing pre-internet fic! I had read about this story in books about fandom, but i imagined that at best I might find PDF scans somewhere. FANDOM HISTORY FTW!

#reading #life of kivrin

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ospreyarcher · 10 months

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Birthday Sale!

My birthday is on July 2nd, so I am having a birthday sale!

First up, Briarley, an m/m World War II retelling of Beauty and the Beast. During a storm, an English parson takes refuge in an empty country house, only to discover a banquet table that has never known rationing… and a man cursed to remain in the form of a dragon, unless he can learn to love and be loved. Only 99 cents till July 3rd! Buy here now!

Another World War II retelling! A Garter as a Lesser Gift is an m/m/f retelling of Gawain and the Green Knight, with Gawain as a cocky RAF pilot who gets more than he bargained for when he agrees to a shooting contest with a stranger dressed all in green. An enchanted castle, chats about Golden Age detective novels, an ill-advised bet that means Gawain has to turn over to his host all the kisses he receives from his host’s flirtatious wife... And oh no he’s catching feelings. Buy here now!

Honeytrap! Cold War spies from opposite sides in love! When Soviet agent Gennady Matskevitch is assigned to crack a case with American agent Daniel Hawthorne, he’s aghast when his boss gives him a second, secret assignment: honeytrap the American agent. Gennady likes the assignment less and less as he and Daniel become ever closer friends... but somehow he finds himself thinking of about kissing Daniel more and more... Buy here now!

#aster glenn gray #my writing #sale

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pagemelt · 1 year

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I've been thinking a lot about how the concepts of owing and being owed come up in Book World, particularly in the context of rant reviews (which is a style of review that I don't find particularly interesting but would defend to the death if I had to). "I don't owe that author anything" and "I don't owe that book anything" are pretty common refrains, and, like, I get it. But the framing feels off. I mentioned it in a TikTok at some point last year, but there's this quote in Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray that I think about constantly:

"It's not about owing," Gennady said. He stepped back to look into Daniel's face. "That's so American; everything is debts and spending for you. It's not about owing, it's about what is necessary to move forward, like a roadway that comes to a river and you need a bridge or a ferry to cross. And if there is no bridge, no ferry, there's nowhere left to go."

#booklr

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aurorawest · 8 months

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Reading update

White Trash Warlock by David R Slayton - 4.75/5 stars

Urban fantasy with a protagonist from a trailer park, who, for bonus points, got sectioned by his older brother as a teen. Daddy issues, mommy issues, and brother issues, what's not to like? I ordered everything else by this author I could find when I finished the book, including the other two books in this series.

The Fascinators by Andrew Eliopulos - DNF

Boring.

The Revolutionary and the Rogue by Blake Ferre - DNF

Boring, with the added crime of actual plot happening but still, somehow, nothing actually happening. I kept reading whole pages and realizing I had no idea what I'd just read.

The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard - DNF

OMFG CAN I CATCH A BREAK. This was such a disappointing DNF, too, because I'd really been looking forward to it. One of the characters is a spaceship and it bills itself as a space opera? Yes please. But after the initial marriage of convenience setup, it's just all a bunch of pointless, boring conversations. Nothing happens. I flipped ahead. Still nothing happening. Not a space opera but definitely cozy sci-fi, which I think I officially hate.

Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray - 5/5 stars

An FBI agent and a GRU agent get assigned to work a case together in 1959 and they fall in looooove. But oof, this book was so good. I'm not sure I've ever had a time skip hit me in the gut so hard. I really can't recommend this book enough, it fits squarely in my niche interest of mid-century America or Britain m/m romance. I think Natasha Pulley also awakened something in me with The Half Life of Valery K, because I seem to be a sucker for gay Soviet men. Speaking of, if you liked The Half Life of Valery K, I bet you'll like this too! Anyway, read this, but be prepared to be hurt by it.

Ordinary Monsters by JM Miro - 4/5 stars

X-men meets Strangers Things with a dash of English boarding school, set in Victorian Britain.

Human Enough by ES Yu - DNF

Promising until it devolved into boring, pointless conversations and tumblr posts on neurodivergence.

Olympic Enemies by Rebecca J Caffery - DNF

I put this down on page 12 and my wife grabbed it to flip through it, cackling at the amateurish prose.

Frost Bite by J Emery - 4.5/5 stars

Snowed-in cabin fic with an enemies to lovers romance between a vampire and a (former) vampire hunter. It was cute and a quick read.

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner - DNF

Very Not Like Other Girls. Also read a review that said pregnancy was a huge focus of the book, and that's a squick for me.

Reverie by Ryan La Sala - 3.75/5 stars

This book didn't quite live up to the promise of its beginning (missing memories, bizarre disruptions to time and space) and the writing was a little twee at times, but overall I enjoyed it. This was the author's debut, so I suspect subsequent books will probably be better. I did feel like the teenage main characters were weirdly inured to death, which also contributed to me knocking of a quarter of a star from what would otherwise have been a solid 4 star book.

All Souls Near & Nigh by Hailey Turner - 3/5 stars

If you like The Tarot Sequence by KD Edwards, this series might be worth picking up. I will say, though, that it's nowhere near as good. I think it's a combination of pacing and too many characters that detracts from my enjoyment of this series. This is the second book and I enjoyed it more than the first, probably because I sort of remembered the massive cast of characters from the first one. It's one of those things where I really don't think they're all necessary and some should be combined with others. The pacing is also...weird. It's pretty much nonstop action. At one point I think the main character drove back and forth between various crime scene locations and his office like 5 times in a day.

That said! Despite the issues, clearly I still picked up book 2, and I'll probably read book 3 at some point. I really like the two main characters.

#white trash warlock #david r slayton #honeytrap #aster glenn gray #the red scholar's wake #ordinary monsters #jm miro #human enough #olympic enemies #the fascinators #the revolutionary and the rogue #frost bite #j emery #reading tag #the lost apothecary #reverie #ryan la sala #all souls near & nigh #hailey turnter

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balioc · 1 year

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BALIOC’S READING LIST, 2022 EDITION

With one exception, this list counts only published books, consumed in published-book format, that I read for the first time and finished. (There was one serious-seeming book that, as far as I know, exists only in free-floating PDF form.) No rereads, nothing abandoned halfway through, no Internet detritus of any kind apart from the aforementioned, etc. Also no children’s picture books.

1. The Blue Castle, Lucy Maude Montgomery

2. The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, Priya Parker

3. The Girl and the Mountain, Mark Lawrence

4. There Is No Antimemetics Division, qntm

5. Dreamsnake, Vonda N. McIntyre

6. War and State Building in Medieval Japan, Various (ed. John A. Ferejohn and Frances McCall Rosenbluth)

7. Legal Systems Very Different From Ours, David Friedman, Peter T. Leeson, and David Skarbek

8. The Revolutions, Felix Gilman

9. Age of Ash, Daniel Abraham

10. When the Sea Turned to Silver, Grace Lin

11. Summer in Orcus, T. Kingfisher

12. The Thousand Eyes, A. K. Larkwood

13. Kingfall, David Estes

14. Surrogation, Suspended Reason

15. The Hands of the Emperor, Victoria Goddard

16. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro

17. Hakkenden -- Part 1: "An Ill-Considered Jest," Kyokutei Bakin

18. Claws of the Cat, Susan Spann

19. Blade of the Samurai, Susan Spann

20. Flask of the Drunken Master, Susan Spann

21. The Ninja's Daughter, Susan Spann

22. Betrayal at Iga, Susan Spann

23. Trial at Mount Koya, Susan Spann

24. Ghost of the Bamboo Road, Susan Spann

25. Fires of Edo, Susan Spann

26. The Discord of Gods, Jenn Lyons

27. All the Seas of the World, Guy Gavriel Kay

28. Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley, Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany

29. Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success, Ran Abramitzky and Leah Bousyan

30. Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

31. Perhaps the Stars, Ada Palmer

32. Dreadgod, Will Wight

33. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore

34. Manfred, George Gordon, Lord Byron

35. Friend to Mankind: Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), Various (ed. Michael Shepherd)

36. Locklands, Robert Jackson Bennett

37. The Jade Setter of Janloon, Fonda Lee

38. Spring Snow, Yukio Mishima

39. Against All Gods, Miles Cameron

40. Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

41. Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century, J. Bradford DeLong

42. The Golden Enclaves, Naomi Novik

43. The Rise of the Dragon: An Illustrated History of the Targaryen Dynasty, Vol. I, George R. R. Martin, Elio M. Garcia Jr., and Linda Antonsson

44. A Garter as a Lesser Gift, Aster Glenn Gray

45. The Night-Bird's Feather, Jenna Moran

46. Absolution by Murder, Peter Tremayne

47. The Lost Metal, Brandon Sanderson

48. Shroud for the Archbishop, Peter Tremayne

49. Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter, Richard Parks

50. Yamada Monogatari: To Break the Demon Gate, Richard Parks

51. Yamada Monogatari: The War God's Son, Richard Parks

52. Yamada Monogatari: The Emperor in Shadow, Richard Parks

53. Pulling the Wings off Angels, K. J. Parker

54. Laurus, Eugene Vodolazkin

55. The Ogre's Wife: Fairy Tales for Grownups, Richard Parks

56. The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Plausible works of improving nonfiction consumed in 2021: 7

[“plausible” and “improving” are being defined very liberally here]

Works written by women consumed in 2021: 23

Works written by men consumed in 2021: 29

Works written by both men and women consumed in 2021: 4

Balioc’s Choice Award, Fiction Division: The Remains of the Day

>>>> Honorable Mention: Laurus

Balioc’s Choice Award, Nonfiction Division: Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century

>>>> Honorable Mention: War and State Building in Medieval Japan

Series Award for: A Deeply Flawed Work of Luminescent Genius, No Really, This Thing is Artistically and Intellectually Important and Its Flaws Only Make It More So, Dear God What Were They Thinking Not Giving It the Hugo -- the Terra Ignora books, by Ada Palmer

Series Award for: I Cannot Begin to Articulate How Mad I Am That These Books of All Books Have Become Cultural Touchstones of My Local Social and Artistic Circle -- the Locked Tomb books, by Tamsyn Muir

Series Award for: I Must Give Credit to a Brave Author Who Makes Unexpected Moves and Tries New Things with Every Book, Even if Everything She Tries is Terrible -- the Locked Tomb books, by Tamsyn Muir

**********

Fiction-wise, this was actually a better year than you'd think from just eyeballing the list. The overall numbers are still below par, and there's too much shlocky formulaic mystery-series-type stuff; but there was a lot of real quality in there. I had real trouble deciding on my top two, and I ended up not giving either prize to a book by Jenna Moran writing at her normal level of quality, so that says something. There were a number of books that disappointed by not being amazing but that I'm still glad to have read (e.g. Summer in Orcus, The Hands of the Emperor). Even the shlocky formulaic stuff had more merit than you might expect, in many cases.

Serious contemplatively-emotional litfic is real good, at its best. Turns out.

Non-fiction-wise, this was a shitshow of unparalleled proportions. I read almost nothing, and what I read was uninspiring. (I started s number of things that I failed to finish, which didn't help.) I seriously considered making this a "no award" year. I am once again asking for your recommendations for really good, deeply-informative, blow-your-mind-open non-fiction.

#yearly reading list

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arwainian · 11 months

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Reading This Week 2023 #21

Finished:

The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty, narrated by Soneela Nankani

A Garter as a Lesser Gift by Aster Glenn Gray

Started and Finished:

Saga, Chapters 63 and 64 written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples, lettered by Fonografiks

Adventuries of Superman: Jon Kent #1-3 written by Tom Taylor, illustrated by Clayton Henry

Nightwing #102-103 written by Tom Taylor, illustrated by Travis Moore (with Vasco Georgieu providing art ing #103 as well)

Batman/Superman: World's Finest #13-15 written by Mark Waid, illustrated by Dan Mora & Tamra Bonvillain, letters by Steve Wands

"Jack Halberstam: "There are many different ways of being masculine, but do we know how to brind the structure that we call 'masculinity' down?"" interview of Jack Halberstamd by Miquel Missé

"The Rise of the Machines: AI 'story engines'" by K.J. Charles

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone, read by Cynthia Farrell & Emily Woo Zeller

61 fatt fics for the marathon

Started and Ongoing:

Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 12 by Ryoko Kui, translated by Taylor Engel

#cal reading log #arwainian princessoid decrees #cal reads comics

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the-novel-approach-reviews · 1 year

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Review: Enemies to Lovers by Aster Glenn Gray

Review: Enemies to Lovers by Aster Glenn Gray #AmReading #BookTwitter #FFRomance

Title: Enemies to Lovers Author: Aster Glenn Gray Publisher: Kalikoi Length: 92 Pages Category: Contemporary Romance Rating: 4 Stars At a Glance: Enemies to lovers is, perhaps, a slight exaggeration in the overall scheme of things. There is a sweetness and playfulness to the way Megan and Sarah’s relationship evolves, and it was a fun short read. Reviewed By: Lisa Blurb: Handcuffed together. Only…

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#4 stars #Aster Glenn Gray #Contemporary Romance #Enemies-To-Lovers #F/F Romance #Kalikoi

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