Sutcliff recs
The Sutcliff Exchange 2013 again inspired stories of very high quality; all the works are worth trying but here are three of my favourites...
Blood Feud
I still haven't found a copy of this novel, so can vouch for this working without fandom knowledge.
Pilgrim, by Jay Tryfanstone
'Constantinople's the stink of piss and dead fish down on the Kontoskalion on a winter evening, when the sleet comes rolling in off the plains and the gold ran out with the tide. Wine watered down to the rot-gut skins and whores too poor for the baths, dung-heap cockerels and mangy dogs and beggars that might have been soldiers, once.' Jay creates a believable OC and gives him a fantastic narrative voice, far from Sutcliff's yet somehow wholly in keeping with her world. There's a beautiful sense of place, too. Simply enthralling!
Frontier Wolf
Two stories not about the usual suspects...
The Disciple, by Riventhorn
'A colony of bees, Lucius thought. They would make such a sweetness of honeycomb, golden as the amber necklace his mother used to wear. He must have bees. And a little pond by the orchard to keep stocked with fish.' A delicate meditation on Lucius: his faith, his hopes, and his unlikely friendship with Hilarion
Not the Emperor's Bodyguard, by Bunn
'Julius Gavros did not know whether to laugh or cry, seeing his new command for the first time: a tumble-down fort in the furthest corner of the world, with the gulls crying over it in the grey drizzle, a thin mewing that sounded utterly remote from the world of men.' How did a man like Gavros end up in command of the Frontier Wolves? Bunn's plausible answer conjures a wonderful picture of the abandoned Castellum
The exchange is running again this year, and I hope to get my act together to participate this time.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth (with
replies). Reply wherever you prefer
Blood Feud
I still haven't found a copy of this novel, so can vouch for this working without fandom knowledge.
Pilgrim, by Jay Tryfanstone
'Constantinople's the stink of piss and dead fish down on the Kontoskalion on a winter evening, when the sleet comes rolling in off the plains and the gold ran out with the tide. Wine watered down to the rot-gut skins and whores too poor for the baths, dung-heap cockerels and mangy dogs and beggars that might have been soldiers, once.' Jay creates a believable OC and gives him a fantastic narrative voice, far from Sutcliff's yet somehow wholly in keeping with her world. There's a beautiful sense of place, too. Simply enthralling!
Frontier Wolf
Two stories not about the usual suspects...
The Disciple, by Riventhorn
'A colony of bees, Lucius thought. They would make such a sweetness of honeycomb, golden as the amber necklace his mother used to wear. He must have bees. And a little pond by the orchard to keep stocked with fish.' A delicate meditation on Lucius: his faith, his hopes, and his unlikely friendship with Hilarion
Not the Emperor's Bodyguard, by Bunn
'Julius Gavros did not know whether to laugh or cry, seeing his new command for the first time: a tumble-down fort in the furthest corner of the world, with the gulls crying over it in the grey drizzle, a thin mewing that sounded utterly remote from the world of men.' How did a man like Gavros end up in command of the Frontier Wolves? Bunn's plausible answer conjures a wonderful picture of the abandoned Castellum
The exchange is running again this year, and I hope to get my act together to participate this time.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth (with
replies). Reply wherever you prefer