#Greg van Eekhout
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I wanted to say that you are the first person to ever make me read a series because of fanfic! You’ve always been part of a small group of authors that I will read fic for regardless of whether or not I’ve read the og work but your California Bones fanfic really sparked my interest.
I just finished the trilogy yesterday and it’s sooooo good!! I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before, I’m already a sucker for anything with interesting worldbuilding. And the gabriel&max relationship is just, <3, so good. Like a lot of fanfic relationships have a heavy dose of fanon going on, but they really are just canonically like that. Pacific Fire killed me. gonna go slam through whatevers on ao3 and re-read all ur fics with a greater appreciation for ur mastery of characterization.
Oh wow, thank you so much; this is so great to hear! AREN'T THOSE BOOKS SO GOOD. *__* The worldbuilding is just amazing, and like you say, Max and Gabriel really are Like That.
I'm so completely thrilled you like them! You should also check out the whole fic section on AO3; there's not a lot of it, but it's all Max and Gabriel, and all really good. Out of those, I especially liked the post-canon one where they retire to the desert, and the one that has a (not so) fake relationship for Reasons.
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Originally posted on DW a few days ago.
I read Greg van Eekhout's California Bones this past weekend, the first book in his Daniel Blackland trilogy, and you may be observing fic from me in the very near (now) future, so I’m cross-posting the DW posts in which I talked about it this past week.
It's very good - wildly creative urban fantasy/alternate history in which "osteomancers" consume the bones of extinct animals to absorb their powers, whether it's a real-world ability (swimming and breathing underwater from an aquatic creature, strength of a mammoth, etc) or a magical one: dragon bones for flight and fire, the bones of an invisible mystic serpent to avoid pursuers, etc.
The La Brea Tar Pits are consequently the magical equivalent of a major oil strike, leading to a vastly altered world in which Southern and Northern California are independent countries, LA is a canal city a la Venice, and also a horrifying dystopia in which magicians eat other magicians to consume their magic, and the city in general is a dystopian police state.
The book is a heist novel, with the protagonist and his friends trying to pull off an impossible break-in of the vaults of the city's absolute dictator, the superhumanly powerful Hierarch.
Of course, in my classic way - h/t to rionaleonhart on DW for describing this phenomenon perfectly - I immediately found the worst person in the canon and made a beeline for them. This is not, fortunately, the Hierarch, who is a straight-up villain, but rather, the Javert-like character who is hunting the heist gang, and his partner, a human hound who can smell magic.
I still wasn't that far gone and in fact was kind of uncertain whether I wanted to go ahead and read the next books in the series, because they are pretty dark, so I checked out the fic on AO3 and found that:
a) All of it features my problematic faves, so clearly I'm not the only one who latched onto them. (And in fairness, I can see why; I'll talk more about it under the spoiler cut, but they're definite fandom catnip.)
b) It's all extremely good!
I was expecting the usual small-fandom experience where there's 1 fic in Portuguese, 2 Harry Potter crossovers, and 1 drabble that's part of someone's 200-fandom drabble collection ... but no! There are only four fics, but they're all excellent, they hit my buttons delightfully, and while they did spoil me for some later developments in the series, they also took me from lukewarm about whether to read onward, to slamming the hold button on the books at the library and then, um, rereading about 12 times every scene in this book in which these characters appear and thinking about nothing else for the last couple of days.
It's actually kind of an interesting phenomenon because the characters didn't mash down my id buttons on this level until after reading the fic. The book has a very emotionally restrained, kind of bleak style, and I think it took the extra emotionality of the fic to push me over the edge. But once I went, I went hard.
Under the readmore gets pretty spoilery, especially for the first half of the book, but LOOK, I have to talk about them or I will EXPLODE.
So Gabriel Argent is a mid-level bureaucrat in the Evil Dystopian Ministry of Whatever. He is careful, conscientious, an enormous nerd (he does math in his head to calm himself down), very annoyed by incompetence and slacking, and tries to do his job to the best of his ability and very carefully not think any more than he has to about the ethics of everything he's doing.
He occupies a weird, slippery place in the Lawful Good to Lawful Evil spectrum. I would call him Lawful Neutral, except that increasingly, as the book goes along and Gabriel keeps running headlong into all the various ways that his orders and his moral compass conflict, and gets increasingly pissed off about the dystopia he lives in, he doesn't decide to stop following the rules, he instead decides to Change The Rules so that he can keep following better rules, even if it means murdering his way up the hierarchy to reach a high enough level that he can change the government so that it serves the people instead of the other way around.
So that's Gabriel. He's hunting the heist team protagonists, and in order to do this, Gabriel needs the services of Max, who is a magic-sniffing hound.
Since they're living in a horrifying dystopia, hounds are human beings who are taken from their families as children, brutally trained until there's little left of their original personalities (in theory), and kept naked in cages except when they're taken out on collars and leashes to hunt down magic users. They have no rights and are for all intents and purposes considered animals and treated as such. Max is scheduled to be executed ("put down") in two days because he killed his last handler, but as he's older than most of the hounds, he's the only available one who is trained to trace the unusual and rare form of magic that the hero uses.
Max is smart, sarcastic, bleakly cynical, and very clearly not an animal, and as soon as Gabriel realizes this, he also realizes that the way to deal with Max and not go the way of his last handler is by treating him like a person.
Gabriel stepped up close to him. He reached for [Max's] neck. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said, unnecessarily perhaps. Max made no movement. Gabriel unbuckled his collar. "Shall we continue?"
Max's throat moved as he swallowed. "They'll make you put the collar back on when you return me to the kennels." Then he turned and resumed sniffing.
(It's worth pointing out that Max is not actually doglike in any way except a heightened sense of smell. He's a human being whose legal status is "dog.")
Understandably, he's an enormous psychological mess.
Gabriel descended the stairs with Max trailing him. Max moved tentatively.
"You're used to leading, not following," Gabriel said.
Max looked at him.
"You can walk ahead if you want."
"I don't know where I'm going," Max said. "If you're not going to keep me on a leash, you could at least tell me where we're going."
"Fair enough. But can you tell me one thing?"
"I can tell you if I know it. I don't know much. I'm a hound."
"Why did you kill your last handler?"
Max's answer came without a moment of hesitation. "I wanted to die."
Gabriel found himself frozen, halfway down the stone steps. In the dim light, Max's eyes were the brightest things in the stairway.
"Why, Max?"
"I thought I already said, Inspector Argent. I'm a hound."
"Do you still want to die?"
"Not before I've had a chance to pee," Max said.
Gabriel nodded. "Then you have something to live for. Come on."
Gabriel files paperwork indicating that he needs Max for the current case and Max isn't going back to the kennels and his scheduled death until Gabriel is done with him, however long that takes. He also gives Max normal clothes (a spare set of his own, technically) and ordinary food (hounds in the kennels are fed a "nutritionally balanced slurry") and basically, well, treats him exactly as a partner instead of a dog. Max continues to be a sarcastic nihilist with a death wish.
"Is my time up?" Max asked. "Are they coming for me?" He still didn't seem to care much whether he lived or died.
"They better not be. I filed all the right paperwork. You just stay here and keep working on our problem while I see what's going on. And if anyone asks, we are doing *anything* except contemplating the death of our leader."
"What leader?" Max said.
"Good ..."
Gabriel checked himself. He'd almost said "Good dog."
"Good," he said again, shutting the office door behind him.
Things go on like this until Gabriel gets himself on the bad side of the regime (basically by scrupulously following protocol and not taking into account that he's working for a horrifyingly corrupt dictatorship) and they end up on the run, being hunted by the authorities. When it becomes clear that the police are killing and terrorizing everyone Gabriel's ever known to get him to give himself up, Gabriel tries to do the noble thing for once, but Max is having none of it.
"What are you doing?" Max snarled. He sensed Gabriel's intentions before Gabriel could even act on them.
"I'm going to turn myself in."
"They'll kill you."
"Not right away." He took a step down the sidewalk. Max gripped his shoulder and spun him around.
"You don't have to come with me," Gabriel said, calm, despite the painful pressure of Max's fingers. "While they're busy arresting me, you can hide."
Max tightened his grip. "I have no friends. No money. No place to go. Without you, I'll be tracked down and killed. With you, I have a chance. A very small, very sad chance. I need you."
SO YEAH. I mean, I'm not going to spoil the entire thing (this takes us about halfway through the book) but they are absolute id catnip for me, especially as Gabriel increasingly develops a very weird, nerdy, rules-obsessed version of a conscience and starts to act on it, and from the spoilers I've gotten from fic, there is a ton of excellent loyalty kink ahead for them as well, in the books I haven't read yet. Not that I'm checking several times a day to see if my holds have come in yet or anything.
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Book Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark
Book Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark
If you can’t get enough Clone Wars, or you just really dig the tradition of Star Wars anthologies, this is gonna be a must-read for you.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark is unique in where it enters canon and interacts with the show. Not only is it so carefully edited, it’s clear that heart went into each story from each author.
The book
The intro is written by Jennifer…
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#Anna Ursu#book#book review#books#E. Anne Convery#Greg van Eekhout#Jason Fry#Ksenia Zelentsova#literature#Lou Anders#Preeti Chhibber#reading#Rebecca Roanhorse#review#Sarah Beth Durst#Star Wars#star wars books#Stories of Light and Dark#The Clone Wars#Tom Angleberger#Zoraida Córdova
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Fenris and Mott - you've never read Norse mythology like this!
Fenris and Mott - you've never read Norse mythology like this! @barbfisch @blueslipper @harperkids @gregvaneekhout
Fenris and Mott, by Greg van Eekhout, (Aug. 2022, HarperCollins), $16.99, ISBN: 9780062970633
Ages 8-12
Greg van Eekhout’s latest novel is an hilariously adorable spin on Greek mythology starring a tween girl in need of a friend and an adorable dog who is much more than he seems. Mott is a 12-year-old root beer enthusiast, transplanted from Pennyslvania to California, and missing her best friend.…
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#dogs#fantasy#Fenris#Fenris & Mott#friendship#Greg van Eekhout#HarperCollins Children&039;s#Norse mythology#Vikings
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I Was Absolutely NOT Procrastinating Today, Nevertheless, Here is a Cover of "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)"
This is the fault of my friend Greg van Eekhout, who today on Facebook opined that “If you’re over 45 and play guitar you have a moral duty to learn at least one yacht rock song.” To which I commented that I called dibs on “Brandy” by Looking Glass. And since I called dibs on it, I felt beholden to, you know, actually whomp it up. It is the weekend, so I felt like I could take a couple of hours…
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I Was Absolutely NOT Procrastinating Today, Nevertheless, Here is a Cover of "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)"
This is the fault of my friend Greg van Eekhout, who today on Facebook opined that “If you’re over 45 and play guitar you have a moral duty to learn at least one yacht rock song.” To which I commented that I called dibs on “Brandy” by Looking Glass. And since I called dibs on it, I felt beholden to, you know, actually whomp it up. It is the weekend, so I felt like I could take a couple of hours…
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Again, Anakin’s barely suppressed smile said something different than the grave look in his eyes. “Well, in any case, I’m coming with you.”
Obi-Wan had foreseen this. Anakin was as close as a brother, and of course he wouldn’t let Obi-Wan face this mission alone. So Obi-Wan gave
Anakin an answer crafted to convince him to stay behind.
“The presence of one Jedi on Mandalore will be hard enough to conceal. Two Jedi will be impossible. You’d put the mission at risk. And Satine.”
Obi-Wan watched the struggle on Anakin’s face: the thing he wanted to do versus the thing he needed to do. In the end, reason won out. This was much to Obi-Wan’s relief. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if Anakin had decided the other way.
“At least take my ship, Master.”
“The Twilight? That bucket of bolts? I thought you liked me.”
“Corellian freighters come and go from Mandalore by the dozens. She’s your best chance at landing unchallenged. Besides, the transponder’s malfunctioning, so you can leave Coruscant orbit without anybody noticing.”
It was Obi-Wan’s turn to smirk. “Malfunctioning or deactivated on purpose?”
Anakin shrugged with innocence. “Hey, you know the Twilight. She’s seen some heavy battles these last few weeks. It takes a toll.”
Kenobi's Shadow by Greg van Eekhout, included in The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark anthology
#star wars#obi wan kenobi#anakin skywalker#anakin and obi wan#The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark#The Twilight? That bucket of bolts? I thought you liked me. LOL
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Weird Kid by Greg van Eekhout
A middle schooler with body image issues teams up with a would be middle school costumed adventurer to save their town and possibly the word.
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Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark- Review
One incredible story is not enough to make this mostly uninspired Clone Wars themed anthology worth picking up.
(Review contains minor spoilers)
It’s been a big year for The Clone Wars. Twelve years after the cult favorite animated series started, it finally came to a conclusion earlier this spring on Disney+. Lucasfilm Publishing smartly capitalized off the hype for this long awaited finale with an anthology comic series released through IDW Publishing and a young reader collection of short fiction, Star Wars: The Clone Wars Stories of Light and Dark.
On paper, the idea of a collection of short stories centered on the heroes and villains of The Clone Wars sounds incredible. I personally love short stories and From A Certain Point of View was maybe the most creative Star Wars book of the last decade. (I can’t wait for its sequel this November.) The talent assembled for this project is similarly impressive. You have veteran Star Wars writers like Jason Fry, Zoraida Cordova, and Rebecca Roanhorse alongside standout science fiction and fantasy writers such as Yoon Ha Lee and young adult stars like Sarah Beth Durst and Preeti Chhibber .
It’s disappointing then that Star Wars: The Clone Wars Stories of Light and Dark feels like a mostly phoned in endeavor. The editorial decision to make each story a retelling of an existing episode of the television series does a lot to hamper creativity to begin with. Rather than finding new tales to tell with these iconic and beloved characters, the writing talent assembled is forced to recant existing narratives and hopefully inject some life into them in the process.
The level of creativity in tackling this limiting editorial decision varies from writer to writer. Lou Anders, Tom Angleberger, and Rebecca Roanhorse opt to tell their stories in the voice of their characters through smart uses of first person point of view. Anders manages to inject his take on “Dooku Captured” and “The Gungan General” with the indignant haughtiness that made the series’ take on the Count Dooku so fun. Angleberger and Roanhorse have their characters (Bane and Maul respectively) recount their stories to another character and it’s fun just seeing the inner monologues of these different villains.
Others opt for more direct rewriting of their assigned episodes. These by and large make up the more boring or frustrating reads. While Jason Fry manages to turn “Ambush” into a discussion of Yoda’s relationship to the Force in wartime and Greg van Eekhout peppers in new bits of dialogue into the already jampacked “The Lawless,” most of these revisitings are unimpressive. The most frustrating proves to be Yoon Ha Lee’s take on season four’s incredible Umbara arc. Lee is a talented writer of military focused science fiction so his taking on this story makes perfect sense, but “The Shadow of Umbara” can’t help but feel phoned in. It feels less like an adaptation but instead a heavily truncated transcription of four episodes of content. The complex character dynamics are stripped down. The emotions are lost. The horrors of war are nonpresent. It’s beyond disappointing.
The most inspired take of the collection comes from Sarah Beth Durst who reorients the point of view of season five’s “Young Jedi” arc to Katooni. Katooni was already a standout character in this story and getting to step into this fledgling Jedi’s thoughts and really get to understand her fears, hopes, and insecurities adds a nice flair to the narrative. There’s also just a certain joy in seeing the next generation of Jedi in awe of Ahsoka. Very relatable.
It’s a bizarre product and it leaves you wondering who exactly this collection was targeted to. The stories feels so disparate and also dependent on the continuity of the series to make sense for a new reader and fans of the show are unlikely to get much out of this book due to the familiarity of the source material.
And then there is “Bug.” The final story in this collection is somehow a must read despite it all. E. Anne Convery spins an original Star Wars fairy tale out of the traumatic aftermath of “Massacre.” Centered on a nameless young girl forced to work for her abusive innkeep parents on a backwater planet, “Bug” feels instantly compelling in its deft weaving of familiar fantasy tropes with Star Wars back droppings. When a strange old woman arrives fleeing the war, our protagonist’s world begins to expand and strange magic seems to spill from every corner. Convery writers her Dathomiran visitor with the right amount of wonder and fear and she feels right at home alongside any number of fairy tale witches and sorceresses. “Bug” proves to be an incredibly enjoyable genre play but also a blast of a story in its own right. It feels like the kind of bedtime tale you could read to an adventurous child at night and it hints to a larger world just outside its doorstep.
It’s a shame then that I have trouble recommending paying for a $17.99 book just for one stellar short story. If the entire collection had showcased the same level of freedom and creativity as its final piece this may have been something really special. But unfortunately, what we are left with is a mostly forgettable collection with one diamond in the rough. I guess I have to wait until FACPOV in November after all.
Score: C
#Star Wars#Star Wars books#review#reviews#The Clone Wars#Star Wars: The Clone Wars#Clone Wars#Lou Anders#Preeti Chhibber#zoraida cordov#Jason Fry#Rebecca Roanhorse#Greg van Eekhout#Anne Ursu#Yoon Ha Lee#Tom Angleberger#Sarah Beth Durst#E. Anne Convery#Zoraida Cordova
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Congratulations to the 2019 finalists for the Andre Norton Award!
#Andre Norton Award#Nebula Awards#Fran Wilde#Yoon Ha Lee#Greg Van Eekhout#Naomi Kritzer#Carlos Hernandez#Henry Lien#awards
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In high school, I stole a six-foot submarine sandwich from a banquet room in front of several hundred people. I did it because I was in marching band, and we were promised food if we played, and they broke their promise. It was my first and only heist, motivated by justice and hunger.
Greg van Eekhout (428)
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Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Daniel Blackland Series - Greg van Eekhout
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Words: 7299
Relationships: Gabriel Argent/Max, Gabriel Argent & Cassandra Morales
Characters: Gabriel Argent, Max (Daniel Blackland), Cassandra Morales, Daniel Blackland, Sam Blackland, Em (Daniel Blackland)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Fix-It of Sorts, Gratuitous Puppies
Summary:
It was about six months after San Francisco when Gabriel came home at the end of a long workday to find Cassandra Morales in his kitchen.
(Or: If the thing that keeps Gabriel from going full tyrannical dictator is his connections to other people, Cassandra thinks it's a good idea to build some redundancy into that system. For purely practical reasons, of course. Set after Dragon Coast; major spoilers for the end of the series.)
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Daniel Blackland post #2 on DW.
I posted about these at DW over the last few days, but since the books have now come in at the library and I’ve read them, here’s post #2, and there is a very strong likelihood of MOAR FIC.
See post #1 in which I talk about Gabriel and Max, my Problematic Faves. Actually, Max, you are not problematic in any way except that recurring killing-people thing. You are an absolute sweetheart. Just keep doing what you’re doing.
Outside-the-cut reactions: I really loved the trilogy a lot. It's more upbeat and optimistic than the somewhat bleak first book suggested, the worldbuilding continues to be absolutely fascinating and original, and I enjoyed the characters a lot! (Especially certain ones.)
Bullet-point All The Spoilers reactions with no particular context follow. If you like reading unspoiled, I recommend not reading the spoilers because there are some really nice twists. However, feel free to ask if you have any questions, because there is some pretty heavy content in this series - cannibalism, police brutality, slavery, graphic violence to name just a few. Also, obviously, if spoilers don't matter, read on!
Daniel Blackland series spoilers for book 2 (Pacific Fire) and book 3 (Dragon Coast) follow below!
Pacific Fire
• This book definitely needed more Gabriel and Max, and more Cassandra.
• Although I'm glad Cassandra got to take (most of) a book off, and I loved her adorable pink canal house.
• And I found the two different outside descriptions of Max that we got in this book made a hilarious contrast with each other. Gabriel: he's very aerodynamic-looking and kind of pointy. Sam/Em: this guy is hot as blazes and should definitely be modeling underwear or something.
• Sam and Em were really sweet teens and very charming, but I kept wanting more of the book to be about the characters from the previous book.
• But I did really like them, which is important since the next book is all about Saving Sam, and this book did get me invested in him enough that I wanted him to not die!
• Low-key side note about Moth having a boyfriend with no big deal made of it was nice. <3
• I loved the pilot lady and was sad when she died. ;___;
• Okay, the nightmare abomination bat hounds are AWFUL and, like everything to do with hounds, becomes doubly sad if you start thinking about Max.
• But also it was really interesting to see the wide range of variety in how hounds or people with hound-like powers exist in society, from slaves to the lady running the osteomantic "glue factory."
• Which was really horrible, by the way.
• #Gabriel stop manipulating everyone around you 2k2045. Even if you're basically right.
• For whatever reason, one of the things I really loved about this book was all the descriptions of cozy interiors! The Emmas' safehouse, Cassandra's cozy little canal house, the Bautistas' farmhouse ... and also that Sam's reaction to every comfortable place he ends up is "this is so nice, I want to stay here forever." SAAAAAM.
Dragon Coast
• CASSANDRAAAAAAAAAAAA
• Max is such a BAMF.
• I also cannot fail to mention how much I loved the Daniel and Moth Show. I didn't really have feelings on Moth in the first book, but he is BRINGING IT in books 2 and 3, and I really felt how close he and Daniel are in this book. Also, hilarious snark right, left, and sideways.
• I really enjoyed the Northern Kingdom! It was gorgeous and fascinating, rotten in its own way but in a completely different way from the South. And the whole trope of someone having to pretend to be an insider while having total amnesia about what is actually going on (Daniel pretending to be Paul) is 100% my jam.
• GABRIEL-MAX-CASSANDRA ROAD TRIP IS ALL I EVER WANTED, I WILL TAKE 20 BOOKS OF IT. Gabriel tripping over tree roots and being generally useless in the woods! Cassandra being 100% done with both of them and wanting Gabriel to tell her just one likable fact about him in case she has to save his life later! The little shared moment of fellow-feeling with Cassandra and Max that Gabriel is sort of low-key jealous of!
• "He's not a dog. He's a man. And he's my friend." *crying forever*
• Gabriel completely losing it when Max is badly hurt! THE HAND-HOLDING! Please staple this chapter to my id.
• Gabriel made ALL the bad decisions in this book and was also the best jackass woobie. I love him.
• Everyone deserves someone who loves them enough to shoot them in the head if they're about to do something monstrous. ;______;
• I really appreciated that they actually used the word "love" for Gabriel and Max. More than once, even! *bawls*
• And I love that it's now solidly canon that Gabriel cannot become a tyrant like the Hierarch, at least unless something happens to Max first, because if he ever appears to be headed in that direction, Max will stop him no matter how much it tears him up to have to do so. And in all honesty this was really obviously a case of "power corrupts" and a sort of slippery slope due to trying to make decisions based on the Greater Good, because Gabriel isn't evil, he's not a bad guy, he's very genuinely trying to do what's best for everyone, he's just having an increasingly hard time seeing the people in the Greater Good math. Which is why he needs a Max.
• However, based on the tag scene, for the next 20 years Gabriel's trump card in every argument with Max is going to be "And also, remember that time you shot me in the head."
• And it won't work.
• I was honestly expecting way more angsty fallout from this, especially on Max's end, but NOPE, Max is just like "You know I was right, I don't even know why you're mad about this" and Gabriel spends about 24 hours being epically pissed at him before admitting that yeah, no, Max is actually right and they're fine.
• I really love the feeling at the end that, while everything is still an awful dystopia, it's getting a little better, piece by piece, because they're working hard to make it that way, and everyone is safe-for-now and happy and together. I also really love that the emphasis is on friends/found family more than romance at the end - Cassandra and Daniel don't get back together, nobody else really has a love interest; I think Sam/Em is the only romance that actually works out, and they're all of 17, so who knows. But it still feels like everyone got what they wanted, needed, and deserved. I really did not expect everything to work out this happily, and I'm very pleased with it.
Nitpicking
• There's a very definite continuity error between the first time we hear about Gabriel's mom's death (he saw her catch on fire) and the second a couple of books later (she submitted to the police and went quietly away and was never seen again). I get how this kind of thing happens, but there's just no real way to handwave this because it's fairly explicitly stated in both cases!
• I feel like Paul is a very obvious retcon of the golem plot in the first book - it doesn't even make SENSE for it all to have gone down the way that Daniel saw it with his mom leaving and the execution in the field and everything, and yet somehow end in her coming back and Paul being taken off and fixed somehow! However, it gave us the Daniel-as-Paul plot in the third book, which I loved, so OKAY WHATEVER. (I did, however, really love the change from his mom being just The Loving Mom in the first book, when all we knew was what kid Daniel remembered about her, to finding out that she's basically an awful person and one of Team Bad Guy. See, that one *doesn't* feel like a retcon to me; I love that sort of narrative switch-flip on the way that kid characters think of the adults in their lives.)
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SFWA Writers Reveal the One Big Secret That Got Them Published - San Diego Comic Con 2019 Panel
Sound is a little rough… SFWA Writers Reveal the One Big Secret That Got Them Published – San Diego Comic Con 2019 Panel – SDCC 2019 Members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) discuss writing careers, tips and tricks, and the one big secret that got them published. Learn how SFWA […]
https://www.epicgeekdom.com/2019/08/12/sfwa-writers-reveal-the-one-big-secret-that-got-them-published-san-diego-comic-con-2019-panel/
#comic con#comic_con#fantasy writers#geek#Greg Bear#Greg van Eekhout#hobby#Jeffe Kennedy#Jonathan Brazee#Kyle Aisteach#Marie Andreas#nerd#san diego comic con#San Diego Comic Con 2019#San Diego comic con international 2019#San Diego Comic-Con International#Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America#sdcc#sdcc 2019#sdcc19#sdcc2019#SFWA#SFWA Writers#tips and tricks
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Cog, by Greg Van Eekhout
This book was so good I didn’t want it to end! It’s about a robot who looks like a kid. He loses his owner and he has to find her and save himself from security drones who will destroy him. It has lots of action and it’s hilarious. It’s also sad and happy. It’s unlike any other book I’ve ever read. Cog is so good!
- Phineas, 8
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✨Urban Fantasy Recommendations ✨
I’m hosting an urban fantasy readathon for the month of April and I thought I’d share some recs and match them up with the prompts!
YA:
The Percy Jackson series & it’s spin-offs by Rick Riordan (gods from multiple pantheons, familiars/animal companions, ghosts, lgbtq+ rep, unique magic system)
Any of the books under the Rick Riordan Presents imprint (bipoc authors, gods, unique magic systems)
The Witch King by H. E. Edgmon (witches, the fae, lgbtq+, bipoc author)
The Scapegracers by Hannah Abigail Clarke (witches, lgbtq+, unique magic system)
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (unique magic system, witches, ghosts, lgbtq+)
The Black Blade series by Jennifer Estep (unique magic system, the fae)
Seven Deadly Shadows by Courtney Alameda & Valynne E. Maetani (gods, ghosts/hauntings)
The Chronicles of Nick by Sherrilyn Kenyon (vampires, shifters, gods, witches, unique magic system, ghosts)
Carry On by Rainbow Rowell (lgbtq+, vampires, witches)
The Vampire Academy series by Richelle Meade (vampires, unique magic system)
The Price Guide to the Occult by Leslye Walton (unique magic system, lgbtq+)
Any of the Shadowhunter books by Cassandra Clare (unique magic system, vampires, werewolves, the fae, ghosts, lgbtq+, animal companion)
Adult:
The Adam Binder series by David R. Slayton (unique magic system, the fae, lgbtq+, animal companion, gods)
Wolf Gone Wild by Juliette Cross (paranormal romance, werewolf, vampires, witches)
Girls Weekend by C. M. Nascosta (paranormal romance, the fae, cozy)
Morning Glory Milking Farm by C. M. Nascosta (paranormal romance, cozy)
The Witches Wolves by Ellie Mae MacGregor (lgbtq+, witches, werewolves)
Spooky Smutty Stories 1 & 2 by Claire Cray (lgbtq+, paranormal romance, witches, vampires, werewolves, ghosts/hauntings)
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune (cozy, lgbtq+, paranormal romance, unique magic system)
The October Daye series, the InCyptids Series, the Wayward Children series, and pretty much everything else by Seanan McGuire (the fae, shifters, unique magic systems, paranormal romances, ghosts/hauntings, lgbtq+)
The Jane Yellowrock Series and the Soulwood series by Faith Hunter (vampires, shifters, witches, ghosts, the gods, animal companions, paranormal romances)
The Mercy Thompson series and the Alpha & Omega series by Patricia Briggs (shifters, vampires, witches, ghosts/hauntings, paranormal romance)
The Green Creek Series by TJ Klune (lgbtq+, werewolves, witches)
Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc. by Angela Roquet (the afterlife, gods, ghosts, unique magic system, paranormal romance, animal companion)
The Chicagoland Vampires series and the Heirs of Chicagoland series by Chloe Neill (vampires, shifters, paranormal romances, witches, the fae)
The Elemental Assassin series (unique magic system, paranormal romance)
The Whisper Hollow series by Yasmin Galenorn (shifters, witches, vampires, ghosts/hauntings, the afterlife, the fae, paranormal romance)
The Otherworld Series and the Fly By Night series by Yasmin Galenorn (paranormal romance, lgbtq+, polyamory, witches, vampires, shifters, the gods, the fae)
Black Blade Blues by J.A. Pitts (lgbtq+, shifters, witches, the gods, paranormal romance, unique magic system)
Norse Code by Greg Van Eekhout (bipoc author, the gods, ghosts/hauntings, the afterlife, unique magic system)
WebMage by Kelly McCullough (the gods, the fae(?), unique magic system, familiars)
Graphic Novels/Comics/Manga:
Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall (lgbtq+, werewolves)
The Tea Dragon Society by Kay O’Neill (unique magic system, lgbtq+, cozy, animal companion)
NORA: The Last Chronicle of Devildom by Kazunari Kakei (ghosts/hauntings, unique magic system)
Fangs by Sarah Anderson (vampires, werewolves, cozy)
Fangs by Billy Balibally (vampires, lgbtq+, animal companion, bipoc author) {please note this one is explicit and 18+}
Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker (lgbtq+, witches, werewolves)
Taproot by Keezy Young (lgbtq+, ghosts/hauntings, the afterlife)
Moonstruck by Grace Ellis (lgbtq+, shifters, vampires, witches, cozy)
*as always, please check content and trigger warnings before diving into any of these*
I can’t wait to see what you’ve all got planned for the readathon! And if you’ve got more recs, please add them!
#urbanfantasy2022#book recs#reading recommendations#urban fantasy books#urban fantasy readathon#booklr#books#reading#read#book#goodreads#bookish#goodbook#bookworm#booknerd#readathons
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