Yuletide reveals, year-end book meme, Snowflake Challenge start
So, I wrote three things this Yuletide, which is a first for me (it's been strictly one fic the past two years), and I've been inordinately pleased with the results.
First just the links, then a lot of nattering under the cut:
- A Pea-culiar Affair -- Hamster Princess, 3.5k, gen, Harriet and Mumfrey, set during book 1, with "The Princess and hte Pea" as the story being Harriet-ized [my assignment]
- Gashlycrumb Dragaerans -- Dragaera / Edward Gorey pastiche, 219 words, with all the character death warnings and all the spoilers [Madness treat]
- Surrounding Wednesday -- Monday Begins on Saturday, 9.5k gen, Privalov & Oira-Oira basically [Yuletide treat]
So, my assignment ended up being another Hamster Princess fic, although for someone other than
the_rck this time :)
A Pea-culiar Affair (3545 words) by hamsterwoman
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hamster Princess Series - Ursula Vernon
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Harriet Hamsterbone, Mumfrey (Hamster Princess), Original Rodent Characters - Character
Additional Tags: Fairy Tale Retellings
Summary:
Unaware of these leguminous machinations, Harriet had beaten Prince Dorian at checkers seven games in a row by the time the queen came back and told Harriet that her bedroom was now ready.
I offered the fandom in part because I had an idea from last time, but after I'd gotten the fic plotted out and done a bit of critter research, I reread the recipient's letter more carefully and realized that the fic I had in mind could well end up skirting a DNW -- so I set aside that idea and went with one of the prompts that caught my eye. Well, I ended up having a tremendous amount of fun with that prompt, more than I would have with my original idea I think, so it was all for the best! (Also, I'm amused that across the three years of Yuletide, I've written a Hans Christian Andersen(ish) triptych, heh.)
Then, while browsing letters, before requests had even closed, I came across
Lorelei's letter, which was requesting both Dragaera and The Gashlycrumb Tinies. I loved their Dragaera prompts but didn't think I could write them, but the proximity of the two fandoms just... jogged something in my brain, and I was like, a Dragaera poem in the style of The Gashlycrumb Tinies! (inspired in part by something similar curtana and skyclearblue had done for ASOIAF back in the glory days of westerosorting -- a collab that I've always loved and never forgotten). Well, this was the result:
Gashlycrumb Dragaerans (219 words) by hamsterwoman
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dragaera - Steven Brust
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Additional Tags: The Gashlycrumb Tinies -- Fusion, Pastiche, Gashlycrumb-appropriate mentions of character death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Temporary Character Death, Spoilers for everything
Summary:
A is for Aliera, soul mislaid by mistake
B is for Baritt who crossed the wrong snake
Which
sysann and
lunasariel were sufficiently positive about that I felt comfortable posting it (with copious warning tags, lol), and have been very pleased with the recipient's reaction (which I'd been a bit worried about, since, well, it's a poem, and a weird crossover/fusion) and also with how many people liked it, in particular my favorite Dragaera authors (♥!) and also at least one random person outside of Yuletide, which was an interesting experience! Within a day of
rachelmanija reccing it, this thing had more comments and kudos than my other two fics put together, despite their 24 hour headstart, and it was actually on the first page/in the top 10 of Madness by comments at the end of the first day, which I definitely had not expected, given how niche this fandom is (and I do think it's utterly incomprehensible/pointless without knowing fandom).
Both of these things were actually finished pretty early in the writing period, although the edits on Harriet took a while (cyanshadow helped me with hamster fight choreography, which is what true friends are for XD). But then! So I had seen
dreemyweird/
plumedy's wonderful 'Ponedelnik' prompts when browsing letters, and even seriously considered gaming my offers to match, but then chickened out decided to leave it up to the Yuletide gods, and ultimately matched elsewhere. But around the time that I had "Gashlycrumb Dragaerans" finished and my Harriet first draft written, ikel89 told me that if I wrote a Ponedelnik fic for Yuletide, she would read the canon to beta it, and I was like, "It's a deal!"
Surrounding Wednesday (9502 words) by hamsterwoman
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Понедельник начинается в субботу - Стругацкие | Monday Begins on Saturday - A. & B. Strugatsky
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Aleksandr "Sasha" Privalov, Roman Oira-Oira, Janus Polyektovich Nevstruev, Janus Poluektovich Nevstruev, Photon (Monday Begins on Saturday), Feodor Simeonovich Kivrin
Additional Tags: POV First Person, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Yuletide Treat
Summary:
From the very first time, when he manifested a bed for me to sleep in (well, a sofa, and ultimately the floor, and a number of accompanying idiosyncratic experiences, but it was still better than spending another night in the car) and then promptly rescued me from both Modest Matveevich’s wrath and the furies of the Solovets militia, as personified by the youthful Kovalyov, I had always been able to count on Roman to navigate any sticky situation, magical, bureaucratic, or mundane.
OR
Three times Sasha Privalov needed to be rescued and one time he decided to help himself.
I absolutely adored what
dreemyweird's letter said about the canon, but wasn't sure what to write. Well, I figured that rereading Ponedelnik with a special focus on Roman Oira-Oira and his relationship with Privalov would wiggle something loose, and reread the original through that lens. And, like, I've read this book some unholy number of times, but Roman always tended to get a little lost among the larger-than-life characters and my favorite colorful asshole, but this time, focusing on him and him and Sasha, I came out of the book with a whole new level of appreciation for him -- which was a really cool experience, like discovering a new room in a house I've lived most of my life -- and a couple of ideas for a "five times" sort of fic, although not enough for an actual 5 scenes. After some discussion with ikel89, I figured out what the "+1" part was going to be -- it seemed completely self-evident in retrospect, and when browsing the book later to check something, I realized I'd inadvertently written something that could actually count as the "different" story referenced in the end of canon. XD
Anyway, this one was TRICKY, because I do think about this canon in Russian, so I would, like, hear part of the dialogue or inner monologue in Russian, check my Russian copy to make sure I was staying true to voice/detail, try to render the bit in my head in English and set it down on paper, then check the same place in the English copy to make sure I was translating things correctly, and so on. I made a bunch of English-doesn't-work-that-way mistakes in the first draft, which cyanshadow helpfully caught (including "burning isolation" in the very first sentence, where Cyan was like, "it sounds poetic but what do you actually mean by that?" -- where I had gotten confused by Russian/English false friends and meant "insulation", in fact, very prosaically and literally XD) and strategized with ikel89 how to get the flavor of the canon across in English, as well as getting K and Cyan's parents to answer questions like, "what was the equivalent of the 'hard hat area' safety sign in the Soviet Union?" "would there have been slide projectors in Soviet academia in the 60s?" and "60s supercomputers, what bits did they have?" Somehow this fic ended up being almost 10k (the longest thing I've written for Yuletide), and even after reading it a ridiculous number of times in edits, I still really like it!
This fic also received an absolutely amazing comment from
dreemyweird, which felt like an additional Yuletide gift for me. Which turned into a comment exchange. Fairly early on in the course of which I started having a strong suspicion that this was also the author of the official Yuletide gift which I loved. Which was confirmed by reveals, whereupon it turned out (to no great surprise, because I think my Ponedelnik fic and the Ponedelnik portion of my letter were easily identifiable as being by the same person) that
dreemyweird had also guessed me as the author of "Surrounding Wednesday". I find this whole thing an additional delight, a sparkly bow on top of the gift of Ponedelnik-centric Yuletide I ended up having.
And between the Ponedelnik treat I got (by
Miss_M, and some comments, it turns out the English-speaking Ponedelnik fandom is larger than I had expected, which is also really cool to know!
Oh, also! So between these three fics, I ended up writing for every fandom I nominated in Yuletide, kind of by accident! I had nominated Hamster Princess to make sure it made it in, since I have so much fun writing in that canon, and had nominated Dragaera and Ponedelnik because I wanted to request them (I knew Warchild was being nominated elsewhere), and, well, here we are. Definitely never thought that would happen XD
For my record-keeping:
- A Pea-culiar Affair ended the anon period with 12 kudos, 4 comment threads, 1 bookmark, out of ~26 hits (this was a lot lower on kudos, though same on comments, relative to the Harriet fic last year, for all that that was longer, and even lower than the first year I wrote Harriet fic -- about half the kudos of last year's, a third of the previous year's. I wonder if people just know by now what "Hamster Princess" is and don't click out of curiosity like in the first couple of years of this fandom showing up on AO3?)
- Surrounding Wednesday ended the anon period with 10 kudos/5 comment threads (from 4 distint people), 1 bookmark, and 40 hits
- Gashlycrumb Dragaerans with 26 kudos/9 comment threads (~66 hits)
Speaking of author reveals, I stayed up to satisfy my curiosity (well and also, New Year's Eve), and was pleased to see that I'd been correct about
philomytha being the author of the Rivers of London fic I loved, and, as is traditional, which of the fic I'd rec'd had been written by
misura (this hilarious one for Uprooted).
Meanwhile, a few more Yuletide recs, from the anonymous period still but that I didn't get around to posting earlier:
FAQ: The Snake Fight Portion of Your Thesis Defense (this 5 minute fandom): RE: Thesis defense issue (3k, gen) -- "It is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and a student needs a snake for her defense." -- absolutely hilarious and also stress-inducing. This story is at the top of the collection by comments, and it absolutely deserves to be there (actually, there are some gems in the comments, too). (Two other stories in the fandom I enjoyed were From the Outbox of T. R. Matthews, Ph.D. (2k, gen) and Publish and/or Perish (5.5k, gen))
The Good Place: The Three People, One Dog, and One Non-Human Non-Robot Not-a-Girl You Meet in Heaven (4k, gen, Jason/Janet) -- a Jason POV 5+1 fic which was amazingly hilarious and poignant
*
2020 book list, such as it is:
1. Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue
2. T.Kingfisher, Minor Mage
3. Frederik Pohl, The Way the Future Was
4. Naomi Alderman, The Power
5. Andrzej Sapkowski, Poslednee zhelanie [The Last Wish]
6. T.Kingfisher, Swordheart
7. Andrew Smith, Exile in Eden
8. Patricia Marx, Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It?: A Mother's Suggestions
9. Jonathan Kellerman, The Museum of Desire
10. Ben Aaronovitch, False Value
11. C.J. Cherryh, Cyteen
12. K.J. Charles, Slippery Creatures
13. Sarah Pinsker, A Song for a New Day
14. Emily Tesh, Silver in the Wood
15. J. Michael Straczynski, Becoming Superman
16. C.M.Waggoner, Unnatural Magic
17. Steven Brust, The Baron of Magister Valley
18. Jim Butcher, Peace Talks
19. Ben Aaronovitch, Tales from the Folly
20. K.J.Charles, The Sugared Game
21. Natasha Pulley, The Lost Future of Pepperharrow
22. Zen Cho, The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water
23. Jo Walton, Among Others
24. Emily Tesh, Drowned Country
25. Zen Cho, The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo
26. Andrew Bromfield's translation of Strugatskys' Monday Starts on Saturday
27. Susanna Clarke, Piranesi
28. Maria Dahvana Headley, Beowulf: A New Translation
29. Janelle Shane, You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place
30. Ursula Vernon, Harriet the Invincible [reread]
31. Wendy Xu, Suzanne Walker, Mooncakes
32. John M. Ford, The Dragon Waiting
33. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Ponedelnik nachinaetsya v subbotu (Monday Begins on Saturday) (reread)
34. Naomi Novik, A Deadly Education
35. The Fey and the Furious, by Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Carmel
36. Karin Lowachee, Omake
Year end book meme:
The first book you read in 2020:
It was Red, White and Royal Blue, completely unexpectedly. What happened was, I saw a quote from it in a "guess what book" meme on my flist and guessed what it was from general osmosis/ikel89 having read it, and then opened up the copy I had (also from K, from that summer) to check something and just... ended up reading the whole thing? Despite not actually liking it much? (I stand by my comparison to the horrible pink concoction L made us drink in Japantown -- disgustingly sweet and completely unnatural, but also weirdly compelling to take that next sip.)
The last book you finished in 2020:
I made sure to finish the Warchild universe Omake before Yuletide reveals even though I was pretty sure I was not getting any Cairo fic, but just in case. Since then I've just been slowly reading Gideon the Ninth, along with a lot of fic.
The first book you will finish (or did finish!) in 2021:
Who the hell can tell. I've been infected by ikel89's chaotic ways. The books I'm currently in the middle of are Gideon, The Hanged Man (Tarot Sequence sequel), Angel of the Crows, Deeplight, A Face Like Glass, and I also received a New Year present of a book I've been meaning to read, Ursula Vernon's/T.Kingfisher's wizard-with-sourdough-starter-familiar one, so could be any one of those, or something else entirely.
How many books read in 2020
36, which is, like, half a normal year for me, but this was not a normal year. Last year was also pretty low, with 51, but last year included a bunch of novellas and graphic novels, because I was reading for Hugo homework. This year was scarcer in both regards. I did read more fic this year (and watched a BUNCH more TV and YouTube than normal).
Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio?
I read 3 nonfiction things, which was the same number as I read last year (for a considerably higher ratio) -- Pohl's memoir The Way the Future Was, JMS's memoir Becoming Superman, and You Look Like a Thing and I Love You. All three were among my favorite books of the year. And I think I'm actually ready to go back to Hofstadter's Le Ton Beau de Marot, where I'd snagged myself on a poem exercise and haven't continued beyond that.
Male/Female authors?
I actually didn't keep track with charts this year because meh, I guess? But tallying up from my reading list:
Books: 23 books written by female authors, 13 books written by male authors -- so kind of back to the 2:1 male/female ratio that I'd observed in the first years I started counting.
Authors: for this one, I'm counting just individual authors I've read, so that the effect of being swamped by series is factored out somewhat (although this year there was no serious series reading). I read 18 female authors and 10-12 male authors (depending on how I count Ponedelnik, as one male author or 3, since it's co-authored by brothers and had a male translator). This continues to include more males than in past years, but I don't think that means much.
Also, because it's interesting, I tried to keep track of the gender of *protagonists*, too. The result (counting each book, not series, and excluding books that had a mix of them) is 22 male protagonists and 8 female protagonists -- back to being dominated by males, and heavily.
Breakdown by author:
Female:
- Vernon/Kingfisher -- 3 (weirdly, the ONLY author I read both this year and last year, that's so weird!)
- K.J.Charles -- 2
- Tesh(* new to me in pro fic) -- 2
- Zen Cho(* - first time I read something longer than a novelette)
- McQuiston*
- Alderman*
- Cherryh(* - first time I read a novel by her)
- Marx*
- Pinsker
- Waggoner*
- Pulley
- Walton
- Clarke
- Headley(* - first time I read something longer than a novelette)
- Shane*
- Xu*
- Novik
- Lowachee
Male:
- Aaronovitch -- 3
- Strugatsky brothers -- 2 (ish? I read the same book twice, in two different languages, once in translation by:
- Bromfield(* -- I read part of the same translation previously)
- Brust
- Kellerman
- Andrew Smith
- Pohl*
- Sapkowski
- JMS(* - first time reading a book by, though obviously I'm familiar with his writing for TV)
- Butcher
- JMF*
(also not a ton of authors I also read last year -- Aaronovitch, Brust, Kellerman and Andrew Smith -- all of whom had new books in existing series recently, which is what I read)
* = new-to-me author this year. 2-4 new-to-me male authors (a lot lower than previous years, but no Hugo homework to force me to read broadly, though one of them was a Hugo-nominated book). And 6-10 female authors (down from the teens last year, but my overall numbers are way down, too, so it's hard to judge). Unlike last year, though, many of these are definitely authors I'd want to read more by: I want to catch up on more Cherryh and Ford, I'm curious to check out some of JMS's comics work after reading about it in his memoir, I definitely want to see what else Emily Tesh and C.M.Waggoner publish next, and I'd be happy to read more by Naomi Alderman, too. So definitely a better track record with new authors than last year.
Most books read by one author this year?
Tie between Aaronovitch and Vernon/Kingfisher if you combine her pen names, with 3 each. I think Vernon wins, though, since one of the Aaronovitches was a co-created GN. Although one of the Vernons was a kidlit book reread, so I dunno. This continues last year's weird trend of not reading a lot by any one author.
Favorite books read?
On the fiction front, Silver in the Wood I think was my (new) favorite in the sense that I read it in one gulp as a little gem, liked pretty much everything about it, and it generally exceeded my expectations. (Overall favorite would have to be my beloved 'Monday', but it's not a fair field with that book on it, let alone on it twice ;)
I also found really engrossing and worthwhile (but far from enjoyable, given the subject matter) JMS's memoir, Becoming Superman -- actually, all ll three of the non-fictions were really great and some of my favorites, which I would not have expected.. Cyteen and Naomi Alderman's The Power were also really memorable books, though I wouldn't list either as an outright favorite. And Among Others was also not a book I loved unequivocally, but I did love it, and more than I was expecting to love fiction from Jo Walton, so I wanted to mention it here too.
Two of my favorite canons got new major installments this year -- RoL with False Value and Dragaera with Baron of Magister Valley -- and I really enjoyed both books, but, like, they didn't elevate the whole series for me, so it doesn't feel like they rise to the level of "favorite book" for the year, although they were definitely some of the books I was happiest to read.
Best books you read in 2020?
I actually do think Silver in the Wood was objectively very good. I totally think Cyteen and Among Others deserved the awards they won (Hugo for Cyteen and Nebula/Hugo/BFA for Walton), and I think the JMS memoir should have won the Best Related Hugo this year -- that was a hell of a book. And also, I am 100% not objective about Monday Begins on Saturday, but it is an amazing classic for a reason.
Least favorite?
Last year I had very strong feelings about it because last year's list included offbrand Zukos Children of Blood and Bone. This year, I did not read anything I hated with a passion strong enough to generate charts, so least favorite would have to go to Red, White and Royal Blue (it was reasonably charming in a fanficcy way but also pissed me off in some of its fundamental choices). I also did not think Marx's book of cartoons was particularly funny, so that would be another one, but my feelings about RWaRB are much stronger.
Most disappointing book/Book you wished you loved more than you did?
The Hollow Country, i.e. the sequel to my favorite book of the year, which had some things in it that I liked, but which I liked SO MUCH LESS than the first book, and therefore so much less than I'd been expecting, that it was definitely a disappointment. I missed Tobias's terse, grounded POV, found Henry whiny and insufferable, and generally wanted the story to focus on completely different things than it did. This seems to be a me problem, as other people who liked the first book seem to be liking this one just fine, but I was bummed.
Also, Peace Talks, which was new Dresden Files after years with nothing from that series, and which was a) definitely not a full book, and b) had pretty much nothing for my favorite character and left him in a bad spot besides. I'm actually surprised this is only the runner-up disappointment-wise, but I guess I don't expect the Dresden Files book to be flawless and also I was forewarned about it, which might've blunted the disappointment some?
There were also several books I liked that I wish I had liked MORE: Naomi Alderman's The Power, which I found really ambitious and thinky but somewhat spoiled for me by a particular choice or two; JMF's The Dragon Waiting, as recently described, where I wish the balance of focus and approaches to prose had been different; Minor Mage, which I thought was nice but I'd been expecting better from Vernon/Kingfisher; Song for a New Day, which I wanted to love as much as I loved And Then There Were (N-One) and didn't; and the Watchmaker sequel, which ran into the same problem for me that Watchmaker of Filigree Street itself did, but having it be a two-for-two thing makes it harder for me to overlook.
Best series you discovered in 2020?
What series did I discover this year? Alliance-Union, I guess -- and I do want to read the Cyteen sequel and 40K in Gehenna at some point. KJ Charles's Slipper Creatures, which I definitely can't wait to finish out. It looks like Swordheart is going to be the start of a trilogy, and I'm definitely looking forward to reading more (the Dervish book plz!). I definitely want to read more books set in the world of Waggoner's Unnatural Magic, although it seems like this book will be a standalone? I also plan to continue with the Scholomance books, and read more Tobias & Henry novellas if Emily Tesh writes more (with tempered expectations this time). I think my favorite series discovered is the Slippery Creatures one, because it's the one where I read all the available books and really enjoyed them and can't wait for more, but almost certainly Alliance-Union is the best one -- even from the single book I've read I can tell how impressive the scope of the thing is.
Favorite new author you discovered this year?
I was very impressed by Alderman, Cherryh, Ford, and Tesh (I have read short fiction by Cherryh before, but this was something else definitely) and would absolutely read a bunch more things by them, but I think Tesh might be my favorite of the lot by virtue of being the coziest/most accessible, and thus better fitting my present mood.
I would absolutely also read more non-fiction by Pohl, JMS, and Janelle Shane.
(Last year, one of my favorite new authors was Alix E. Harrow, and I must report that this year I tried her debut novel and found it too meh and boring to finish. Maybe I just prefer her writing shorter things?)
Oldest book read?
Depending on how you count, this is either Beowulf (in Headley's new translation, if that doesn't disqualify it) or Monday Begins on Saturday in the original (1965). I read a bunch of books that were several decades old this year -- The Way the Future Was is from 1978, The Dragon Waiting is from 1983, Cyteen is from 1988, and the Sapkowski is from the early 90s. Last year I had only one book that was from the 20th century, so this is a bit of a change.
Newest?
Like last year, the latest installment of the RoL comics: The Fey and the Furious -- the trade paperback is from Nov 10, 2020.
Longest book title?
Shane's "You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place", which is even longer than last year's Nevala-Lee bio (that was 16 words, this is 22).
Longest fiction title: "Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It?: A Mother's Suggestions" (which was actually funnier than most of the book), followed by "The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water".
Shortest title?
Not a lot of one word titles this year. Omake is the shortest, at 5 letters, followed by Cyteen with 6.
How many re-reads?
Three, although two were of the same book ('Monday') and all were related to Yuletide one way or another (the third was Harriet the Invincible, which I reread in full since I was writing a fic set during it).
Any in translation?
Yes -- The Last Wish translated from Polish to Russian, and 'Monday' translated from Russian to English.
Oh, and duh XD the Beowulf as well -- "translation" is literally in the title, and yet I completely forgot to include this until I saw it was
lebateleur's answer to this question on this meme XD
How many of this year's books were from the library?
I should've kept better track this year, but I didn't... Still, I think I can figure it out retroactively:
- 1 was an online freebie -- the Zen Cho novella
- 9 were (ahem) of dubious online provenance, though I also got a legal copy of at least two -- this is higher than previously because the library was shut down, except for ebooks, for most of the year, and there are generally longer queues for e-books, especially when they're the only option.
- 8 were books I bought for myself (mostly in e-copy, but the RoL GN was in hard copy, and Baron of Magister Valley I ended up buying both in e-copy, to read as soon as it dropped, and an autographed hard copy from Uncle Hugo's later).
- 17 from the library -- 7 in hard copy (everything up until the library shut down in March, then 1 more book, a GN, once one of the local branches reopened -- although I have a whole bunch more sitting around unread), 10 in e-copy
That's 26 books in e-copy, 9 in hard copy, and 2 in both -- skewed way towards e-copies this year, but artificially so by the pandemic/library closure.
Book that most changed my perspective:
The JMS memoir, because while I'd heard about some things, like Frankin's walkabout experience being based on something he had himself experienced, I had noooo idea what his life had been like growing up, HO-ly shit. It's given me a lot of additional appreciation for someone I already respected a lot as a creator -- not just knowing what he'd survived, but also some of the moral stands he took.
The Pohl memoir gave me an interesting look at an earlier SFF fandom/pro-dom timeframe than the Nevala-Lee book last year, and the AI book taught me a lot of fun things, too, but I don't think either of them necessarily changed my perspective broadly.
Over in fiction land, though: Baron of Magister Valley, which gave an entirely unexpected but SUPER fascinating backstory to a character whose backstory I'd never wondered about.
Also, with 'Monday', it was really interesting to read a book I know practically by heart and a) find out some bits that had been censored from the version I've been familiar with these past three decades, and b) discover a lot of new appreciation for a character I'd previously tended to overlook.
Favorite character:
Of new-to-me characters, I liked Grant in Cyteen a lot, and Dimi in The Dragon Waiting, Zale in Swordheart, Tobias and Mrs Silver in the Greenhollow books, and Will Darling from the K.J.Charles books.
Most memorable character:
Ariane Emory (I and II) from Cyteen, I think. Eve in The Power was also quite memorable, as were El in A Deadly Education, Mori in Among Others, and -- in a departure from "troubled girl protagonist fucked up by her circumstances and/or parental figures" -- Piranesi in Piranesi.
Favorite scene:
No huge ones spring to mind, but the battle in The Dragon Waiting was very cool, and the scene where I figured out the twist in The Baron of Magister Valley was definitely a scene I wanted to talk about.
Favorite quote:
I usually answer this question by going through all of my write-ups and excerpting the quotes I'd marked down that still ping me. So here are a few:
Baron of Magister Valley: "May you find a purple robe cut to your size."
Unnatural Magic: "To say that a reig is the troll version of a human woman is as absurd a folly as to claim that a hedgehog is the rapid version of a pincushion."
Among Others: "The thing about Tolkien, about The Lord of the Rings, is that it's perfect. It's this whole world, this whole process of immersion, this journey. It's not, I'm pretty sure, actually true, but that makes it more amazing, that someone could make it all up. Reading it changes everything. [...] It is an oasis for the soul.")
The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo: "Aunt Iris must go to Paris to see a tailor about a dress. What strange exigencies drive the rich."
Beowulf: "Bro, Fate can fuck you up."
Most inspirational in terms of own writing?
Ponedelnik! :DDD (also Harriet, but I reread Harriet already intending to write fic, whereas I read Ponedelnik the first time just to get in the mood for my own request).
How many you'd actually read again?
A number of books this year were ones that I think would reward a reread: Cyteen (now that I have some sense of the worldbuilding), The Dragon Waiting (with Draco Concordans for reference), The Power (with awareness of the twist), The Baron of Magister Valley (because Brust's books tend to reward rereads in general, and also that character reveal!). I could see myself rereading Silver in the Wood just for the pleasure of it, and possibly Slippery Creatures because it's such a fun romp.
A book that you never want to read again:
I'm not a rereader in general, but speaking of books I actively don't want to reread -- of books I really enjoyed, JMS's memoir was rough -- I don't think I'd want to put myself through reading that again.
Book you recommended most to others in 2020?
From this list: For books I just discovered this year, I recommended and gifted Swordheart and Silver in the Wood to a couple of folks. I recommended You Look Like a Thing and I Love You a whole bunch, and the JMS memoir with content warnings (ALLLL the content warnings, seriously). And of course I kept recommending 'Monday' to anyone who would listen, and Dragaera, and this year some folks took me up on it actually :)
The book series you read the most volumes of in 2020:
I only read more than one volume of one series this year -- Rivers of London, between the new novel, the collection of short stories, and the new GN trade.
The genre you read the most in 2020:
- 21 fantasy (including 10 urban fantasy, 5 secondary world, and 5 ~historical fantasy)
- 5 sci-fi (a lot of it near-future sci-fi or looking like near-future sci-fi)
- 4 romance (3 m/m without fantastic elements and 1 paranormal m/f)
- 3 non-fiction
- 2 kidlit / fairytale
- 3 mystery
- 1 poetry/myth
- 1 humour
Some other stuff I kept track of this year tallied up after the fact:
- 2 were graphic novels
- 4 were novellas
Your favorite "classic" you read in 2020:
Beowulf, I guess? I don't know if I've read anything else that would qualify as a classic, though I'm sure Cyteen would qualify as classic SF.
Most surprising (in a good way) book of the year?
Slippery Creatures, because it was a ton of fun and was proof that I could enjoy a KJ Charles book, whereas previously I was afraid there was a fatal id mismatch between us (based on the Magpie books). And now I feel emboldened to try other KJ Charles books.
The hardest book you read in 2020 (topic or writing style):
Writing style: Cyteen was very dense and The Dragon Waiting was very subtle and elided, and in both of these cases I was happy that I was reading the book along with people who had read it before and could help us feel not completely adrift in the hardest chapters.
Content-wise: as mentioned above, the JMS memoir was rough, and it was really hard to read about awful things happening to a real person from I know through his work and his writing about his work ("JMS Speaks" on the Lurker's Guide) and respect a lot.
I had expected Song for a New Day to be hard to read, in the middle of a pandemic, but actually it was kind of neat -- wistful, like.
The funniest book you read in 2020:
Not the humour book, which I barely remember. I think this has got to be You Look Like a Thing and I Love You, which, despite being non-fiction about AI, made me giggle out loud multiple times and quote funny bits to anyone who would stand still long enough to listen.
The saddest book you read in 2020:
JMS memoir was the one that made me saddest because it was real things happening to real people. Cyteen also made me sad/angry a lot, but on behalf of fictional character, and The Power had some very tough bits, too, although it made me more angry than sad.
The shortest book you read in 2020:
I suppose The Fey and the Furious, which was a trade-sized GN, as opposed to Mooncakes, which was a book-sized one. For text-only books, probably 'Jade Yeo'?
The longest book that you read in 2020:
Cyteen was 680 pages in hard cover. I don't think anything I read this year topped that.
Best book that was outside your comfort zone/a new genre for you?
Of the ones I finished, I guess Cyteen and The Dragon Waiting, because it's been ages since I've read any 'classic' SFF, and actually I never read much of the stuff from the 80s at all -- I was still in the USSR in the 80s, so was reading either domestic stuff or older classics (Asimov, Bradbury, Simak) as they appeared in translation, and by the time I was in the US and reading in English, it was already the 90s, so English-language 80s SF is a complete dead zone for me -- and both of these books come from it. It's a very niche deifnition of 'genre', but I can't htink of anything else. Like, Beowulf might be outside of many people's comfort zone, but I've actually read it before, so it wasn't for me.
But counting books which I read but did not finish this year, A Terrible Country (recommended by
tabacoychanel, where I got to about 75% before the pandemic upended my reading), which is contemporary literature -- a genre I almost never read -- about Russia (even more so), which was really, really good, and I need to finish it and write it up properly.
Most thrilling, unputdownable book of 2020?
I probably read the Kellerman in two sittings, but I remember nothing from it. The ones I remember were Slippery Creatures (which broke my no-reading streak) and sequel, plus A Deadly Education, even though I did take a break in the middle there. But in a weird way for nonfiction, also the JMS memoir -- I did not read it in the slow, measured way I generally read nonfiction books/bios.
Most beautifully written book in 2020?
However we may disagree about her characters, Natasha Pulley writes some damn beautiful books, so Lost Future of Pepperharrow is definitely on the list, but I think Silver in the Wood beats it for me.
Book you most anticipated in 2020?
The Baron of Magister Valley, which was great! I also anticipated Peace Talks and Battle Ground, but the first one was a major disappointment, and I got like 4% in the latter, so, you can surmise from that how that anticipation went.
Favorite cover of a book you read in 2020?
I totally picked up Minor Mage for the armadillo on the cover:
I like the fussy, detailed cover of Unnatural Magic, which feels fitting to the world of the book:
I like the BoMV cover:
And this isn't really my style, but it's objectively a cool cover:
Book that had the greatest impact on you this year?
I can't think of any books which had a momentous impact, but Cyteen and The Dragon Waiting were both one-chapter-a-week type sync reads, so each occupied a significant chunk of time in terms of discussion. We sped up the TDW syncread but kept on pace with Cyteen, so that one actually took up the most reading real estate, as it were.
Book you can't believe you waited till 2020 to finally read?
Dunno... the older books I was either not aware of or would've been afraid to tackle on my own. I suppose The Last Wish, because I started reading the Witcher books several years ago and then stopped, and it was only the show that made me go back to them.
Book that had a scene that left you reeling and dying to talk to someone about it?
BoMV and the character reveal, OMG!
Looking Ahead:
One book you didn't read this year that will be your #1 priority in 2021?
I have completely failed at reading any of the books I put on this list last year, some of which have been carryovers from prior years -- I STILL have not read Sorcerer to the Crown, any of the Craft books I've started, or made any progress on Crooked Kingdom, read any Magnus Chase books, or any more Maggie Stiefvater books, or The Night Circus, or the Cloud Roads sequels, or finished any Hardinges this year, though I started two. I did read "the Pinsker book that came out this year" at least. And I started but gave up on The Ten Thousand Doors of January, so can check that one off as well.
Anyway, my #1 priority will actually be finishing The Hanged Man before the library demands it back (it took a while for my library to acquire a copy, and only in hardcover, and then it was stuck in hold limbo while the library was closed, and now I finally have it). And I've been chipping away at the library copy of Angel of the Crows as well. Beyond that, we'll see.
New book you are most anticipating for 2021?
Last year, this list was False Value (read as soon as it came out), Baron of Magister Valley (ditto), Peace Talks (ditto, but a disappointment), and Thorn of Emberlain, which is back to not having a pub date, I guess? Anyway, for next year, I'm looking forward to:
- Perhaps the Stars !!!!! (June 1)
I don't think we're getting a Peter Grant novel in 2021, because I imagine it would've been announced by now if we were (though he's been averaging a novel every 18-24 months or so, so maybe, if he lands on the shorter end of that range?). Maybe Tsalmot is a possibility? It was handed over to the editor in October 2020, so conceivably could still come out in 2021, though probably early 2022 is more realistic.
And I'm not sure any other books I'm looking forward to have confirmed publication dates *sigh* They are, in no particular order, because at this point I don't expect any of them to actually show up, ever:
- Thorn of Emberlain
- Warboy (Warchild #4)
- Doors of Stone (Kvothe #3) LOL, who are we even kidding
- and ditto for Winds of Winter (and hopefully I will still care by the time it comes along, which seems increasingly unlikely)
*
Yay, Snowflake!
Challenge #1: In your own space, introduce yourself!
Hmm, really nothing has changed since I did the Snowflake intro post last year. So. That's still me :)
I will hopefully have more informative content for future challenges, heh, and meanwhile just enjoy reading through other people's posts.
*
Finally, a quick plug for
fandomtrees, which is planning reveals in a couple of days on Jan 4. There are still a couple of needy trees with no gifts, and of course everyone could always use more goodies in theirs. (My tree is here.)
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1138980.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).
First just the links, then a lot of nattering under the cut:
- A Pea-culiar Affair -- Hamster Princess, 3.5k, gen, Harriet and Mumfrey, set during book 1, with "The Princess and hte Pea" as the story being Harriet-ized [my assignment]
- Gashlycrumb Dragaerans -- Dragaera / Edward Gorey pastiche, 219 words, with all the character death warnings and all the spoilers [Madness treat]
- Surrounding Wednesday -- Monday Begins on Saturday, 9.5k gen, Privalov & Oira-Oira basically [Yuletide treat]
So, my assignment ended up being another Hamster Princess fic, although for someone other than
the_rck this time :)
A Pea-culiar Affair (3545 words) by hamsterwoman
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hamster Princess Series - Ursula Vernon
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Harriet Hamsterbone, Mumfrey (Hamster Princess), Original Rodent Characters - Character
Additional Tags: Fairy Tale Retellings
Summary:
Unaware of these leguminous machinations, Harriet had beaten Prince Dorian at checkers seven games in a row by the time the queen came back and told Harriet that her bedroom was now ready.
I offered the fandom in part because I had an idea from last time, but after I'd gotten the fic plotted out and done a bit of critter research, I reread the recipient's letter more carefully and realized that the fic I had in mind could well end up skirting a DNW -- so I set aside that idea and went with one of the prompts that caught my eye. Well, I ended up having a tremendous amount of fun with that prompt, more than I would have with my original idea I think, so it was all for the best! (Also, I'm amused that across the three years of Yuletide, I've written a Hans Christian Andersen(ish) triptych, heh.)
Then, while browsing letters, before requests had even closed, I came across
Lorelei's letter, which was requesting both Dragaera and The Gashlycrumb Tinies. I loved their Dragaera prompts but didn't think I could write them, but the proximity of the two fandoms just... jogged something in my brain, and I was like, a Dragaera poem in the style of The Gashlycrumb Tinies! (inspired in part by something similar curtana and skyclearblue had done for ASOIAF back in the glory days of westerosorting -- a collab that I've always loved and never forgotten). Well, this was the result:
Gashlycrumb Dragaerans (219 words) by hamsterwoman
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dragaera - Steven Brust
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Additional Tags: The Gashlycrumb Tinies -- Fusion, Pastiche, Gashlycrumb-appropriate mentions of character death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Temporary Character Death, Spoilers for everything
Summary:
A is for Aliera, soul mislaid by mistake
B is for Baritt who crossed the wrong snake
Which
sysann and
lunasariel were sufficiently positive about that I felt comfortable posting it (with copious warning tags, lol), and have been very pleased with the recipient's reaction (which I'd been a bit worried about, since, well, it's a poem, and a weird crossover/fusion) and also with how many people liked it, in particular my favorite Dragaera authors (♥!) and also at least one random person outside of Yuletide, which was an interesting experience! Within a day of
rachelmanija reccing it, this thing had more comments and kudos than my other two fics put together, despite their 24 hour headstart, and it was actually on the first page/in the top 10 of Madness by comments at the end of the first day, which I definitely had not expected, given how niche this fandom is (and I do think it's utterly incomprehensible/pointless without knowing fandom).
Both of these things were actually finished pretty early in the writing period, although the edits on Harriet took a while (cyanshadow helped me with hamster fight choreography, which is what true friends are for XD). But then! So I had seen
dreemyweird/
plumedy's wonderful 'Ponedelnik' prompts when browsing letters, and even seriously considered gaming my offers to match, but then chickened out decided to leave it up to the Yuletide gods, and ultimately matched elsewhere. But around the time that I had "Gashlycrumb Dragaerans" finished and my Harriet first draft written, ikel89 told me that if I wrote a Ponedelnik fic for Yuletide, she would read the canon to beta it, and I was like, "It's a deal!"
Surrounding Wednesday (9502 words) by hamsterwoman
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Понедельник начинается в субботу - Стругацкие | Monday Begins on Saturday - A. & B. Strugatsky
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Aleksandr "Sasha" Privalov, Roman Oira-Oira, Janus Polyektovich Nevstruev, Janus Poluektovich Nevstruev, Photon (Monday Begins on Saturday), Feodor Simeonovich Kivrin
Additional Tags: POV First Person, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Yuletide Treat
Summary:
From the very first time, when he manifested a bed for me to sleep in (well, a sofa, and ultimately the floor, and a number of accompanying idiosyncratic experiences, but it was still better than spending another night in the car) and then promptly rescued me from both Modest Matveevich’s wrath and the furies of the Solovets militia, as personified by the youthful Kovalyov, I had always been able to count on Roman to navigate any sticky situation, magical, bureaucratic, or mundane.
OR
Three times Sasha Privalov needed to be rescued and one time he decided to help himself.
I absolutely adored what
dreemyweird's letter said about the canon, but wasn't sure what to write. Well, I figured that rereading Ponedelnik with a special focus on Roman Oira-Oira and his relationship with Privalov would wiggle something loose, and reread the original through that lens. And, like, I've read this book some unholy number of times, but Roman always tended to get a little lost among the larger-than-life characters and my favorite colorful asshole, but this time, focusing on him and him and Sasha, I came out of the book with a whole new level of appreciation for him -- which was a really cool experience, like discovering a new room in a house I've lived most of my life -- and a couple of ideas for a "five times" sort of fic, although not enough for an actual 5 scenes. After some discussion with ikel89, I figured out what the "+1" part was going to be -- it seemed completely self-evident in retrospect, and when browsing the book later to check something, I realized I'd inadvertently written something that could actually count as the "different" story referenced in the end of canon. XD
Anyway, this one was TRICKY, because I do think about this canon in Russian, so I would, like, hear part of the dialogue or inner monologue in Russian, check my Russian copy to make sure I was staying true to voice/detail, try to render the bit in my head in English and set it down on paper, then check the same place in the English copy to make sure I was translating things correctly, and so on. I made a bunch of English-doesn't-work-that-way mistakes in the first draft, which cyanshadow helpfully caught (including "burning isolation" in the very first sentence, where Cyan was like, "it sounds poetic but what do you actually mean by that?" -- where I had gotten confused by Russian/English false friends and meant "insulation", in fact, very prosaically and literally XD) and strategized with ikel89 how to get the flavor of the canon across in English, as well as getting K and Cyan's parents to answer questions like, "what was the equivalent of the 'hard hat area' safety sign in the Soviet Union?" "would there have been slide projectors in Soviet academia in the 60s?" and "60s supercomputers, what bits did they have?" Somehow this fic ended up being almost 10k (the longest thing I've written for Yuletide), and even after reading it a ridiculous number of times in edits, I still really like it!
This fic also received an absolutely amazing comment from
dreemyweird, which felt like an additional Yuletide gift for me. Which turned into a comment exchange. Fairly early on in the course of which I started having a strong suspicion that this was also the author of the official Yuletide gift which I loved. Which was confirmed by reveals, whereupon it turned out (to no great surprise, because I think my Ponedelnik fic and the Ponedelnik portion of my letter were easily identifiable as being by the same person) that
dreemyweird had also guessed me as the author of "Surrounding Wednesday". I find this whole thing an additional delight, a sparkly bow on top of the gift of Ponedelnik-centric Yuletide I ended up having.
And between the Ponedelnik treat I got (by
Miss_M, and some comments, it turns out the English-speaking Ponedelnik fandom is larger than I had expected, which is also really cool to know!
Oh, also! So between these three fics, I ended up writing for every fandom I nominated in Yuletide, kind of by accident! I had nominated Hamster Princess to make sure it made it in, since I have so much fun writing in that canon, and had nominated Dragaera and Ponedelnik because I wanted to request them (I knew Warchild was being nominated elsewhere), and, well, here we are. Definitely never thought that would happen XD
For my record-keeping:
- A Pea-culiar Affair ended the anon period with 12 kudos, 4 comment threads, 1 bookmark, out of ~26 hits (this was a lot lower on kudos, though same on comments, relative to the Harriet fic last year, for all that that was longer, and even lower than the first year I wrote Harriet fic -- about half the kudos of last year's, a third of the previous year's. I wonder if people just know by now what "Hamster Princess" is and don't click out of curiosity like in the first couple of years of this fandom showing up on AO3?)
- Surrounding Wednesday ended the anon period with 10 kudos/5 comment threads (from 4 distint people), 1 bookmark, and 40 hits
- Gashlycrumb Dragaerans with 26 kudos/9 comment threads (~66 hits)
Speaking of author reveals, I stayed up to satisfy my curiosity (well and also, New Year's Eve), and was pleased to see that I'd been correct about
philomytha being the author of the Rivers of London fic I loved, and, as is traditional, which of the fic I'd rec'd had been written by
misura (this hilarious one for Uprooted).
Meanwhile, a few more Yuletide recs, from the anonymous period still but that I didn't get around to posting earlier:
FAQ: The Snake Fight Portion of Your Thesis Defense (this 5 minute fandom): RE: Thesis defense issue (3k, gen) -- "It is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and a student needs a snake for her defense." -- absolutely hilarious and also stress-inducing. This story is at the top of the collection by comments, and it absolutely deserves to be there (actually, there are some gems in the comments, too). (Two other stories in the fandom I enjoyed were From the Outbox of T. R. Matthews, Ph.D. (2k, gen) and Publish and/or Perish (5.5k, gen))
The Good Place: The Three People, One Dog, and One Non-Human Non-Robot Not-a-Girl You Meet in Heaven (4k, gen, Jason/Janet) -- a Jason POV 5+1 fic which was amazingly hilarious and poignant
*
2020 book list, such as it is:
1. Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue
2. T.Kingfisher, Minor Mage
3. Frederik Pohl, The Way the Future Was
4. Naomi Alderman, The Power
5. Andrzej Sapkowski, Poslednee zhelanie [The Last Wish]
6. T.Kingfisher, Swordheart
7. Andrew Smith, Exile in Eden
8. Patricia Marx, Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It?: A Mother's Suggestions
9. Jonathan Kellerman, The Museum of Desire
10. Ben Aaronovitch, False Value
11. C.J. Cherryh, Cyteen
12. K.J. Charles, Slippery Creatures
13. Sarah Pinsker, A Song for a New Day
14. Emily Tesh, Silver in the Wood
15. J. Michael Straczynski, Becoming Superman
16. C.M.Waggoner, Unnatural Magic
17. Steven Brust, The Baron of Magister Valley
18. Jim Butcher, Peace Talks
19. Ben Aaronovitch, Tales from the Folly
20. K.J.Charles, The Sugared Game
21. Natasha Pulley, The Lost Future of Pepperharrow
22. Zen Cho, The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water
23. Jo Walton, Among Others
24. Emily Tesh, Drowned Country
25. Zen Cho, The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo
26. Andrew Bromfield's translation of Strugatskys' Monday Starts on Saturday
27. Susanna Clarke, Piranesi
28. Maria Dahvana Headley, Beowulf: A New Translation
29. Janelle Shane, You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place
30. Ursula Vernon, Harriet the Invincible [reread]
31. Wendy Xu, Suzanne Walker, Mooncakes
32. John M. Ford, The Dragon Waiting
33. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Ponedelnik nachinaetsya v subbotu (Monday Begins on Saturday) (reread)
34. Naomi Novik, A Deadly Education
35. The Fey and the Furious, by Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Carmel
36. Karin Lowachee, Omake
Year end book meme:
The first book you read in 2020:
It was Red, White and Royal Blue, completely unexpectedly. What happened was, I saw a quote from it in a "guess what book" meme on my flist and guessed what it was from general osmosis/ikel89 having read it, and then opened up the copy I had (also from K, from that summer) to check something and just... ended up reading the whole thing? Despite not actually liking it much? (I stand by my comparison to the horrible pink concoction L made us drink in Japantown -- disgustingly sweet and completely unnatural, but also weirdly compelling to take that next sip.)
The last book you finished in 2020:
I made sure to finish the Warchild universe Omake before Yuletide reveals even though I was pretty sure I was not getting any Cairo fic, but just in case. Since then I've just been slowly reading Gideon the Ninth, along with a lot of fic.
The first book you will finish (or did finish!) in 2021:
Who the hell can tell. I've been infected by ikel89's chaotic ways. The books I'm currently in the middle of are Gideon, The Hanged Man (Tarot Sequence sequel), Angel of the Crows, Deeplight, A Face Like Glass, and I also received a New Year present of a book I've been meaning to read, Ursula Vernon's/T.Kingfisher's wizard-with-sourdough-starter-familiar one, so could be any one of those, or something else entirely.
How many books read in 2020
36, which is, like, half a normal year for me, but this was not a normal year. Last year was also pretty low, with 51, but last year included a bunch of novellas and graphic novels, because I was reading for Hugo homework. This year was scarcer in both regards. I did read more fic this year (and watched a BUNCH more TV and YouTube than normal).
Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio?
I read 3 nonfiction things, which was the same number as I read last year (for a considerably higher ratio) -- Pohl's memoir The Way the Future Was, JMS's memoir Becoming Superman, and You Look Like a Thing and I Love You. All three were among my favorite books of the year. And I think I'm actually ready to go back to Hofstadter's Le Ton Beau de Marot, where I'd snagged myself on a poem exercise and haven't continued beyond that.
Male/Female authors?
I actually didn't keep track with charts this year because meh, I guess? But tallying up from my reading list:
Books: 23 books written by female authors, 13 books written by male authors -- so kind of back to the 2:1 male/female ratio that I'd observed in the first years I started counting.
Authors: for this one, I'm counting just individual authors I've read, so that the effect of being swamped by series is factored out somewhat (although this year there was no serious series reading). I read 18 female authors and 10-12 male authors (depending on how I count Ponedelnik, as one male author or 3, since it's co-authored by brothers and had a male translator). This continues to include more males than in past years, but I don't think that means much.
Also, because it's interesting, I tried to keep track of the gender of *protagonists*, too. The result (counting each book, not series, and excluding books that had a mix of them) is 22 male protagonists and 8 female protagonists -- back to being dominated by males, and heavily.
Breakdown by author:
Female:
- Vernon/Kingfisher -- 3 (weirdly, the ONLY author I read both this year and last year, that's so weird!)
- K.J.Charles -- 2
- Tesh(* new to me in pro fic) -- 2
- Zen Cho(* - first time I read something longer than a novelette)
- McQuiston*
- Alderman*
- Cherryh(* - first time I read a novel by her)
- Marx*
- Pinsker
- Waggoner*
- Pulley
- Walton
- Clarke
- Headley(* - first time I read something longer than a novelette)
- Shane*
- Xu*
- Novik
- Lowachee
Male:
- Aaronovitch -- 3
- Strugatsky brothers -- 2 (ish? I read the same book twice, in two different languages, once in translation by:
- Bromfield(* -- I read part of the same translation previously)
- Brust
- Kellerman
- Andrew Smith
- Pohl*
- Sapkowski
- JMS(* - first time reading a book by, though obviously I'm familiar with his writing for TV)
- Butcher
- JMF*
(also not a ton of authors I also read last year -- Aaronovitch, Brust, Kellerman and Andrew Smith -- all of whom had new books in existing series recently, which is what I read)
* = new-to-me author this year. 2-4 new-to-me male authors (a lot lower than previous years, but no Hugo homework to force me to read broadly, though one of them was a Hugo-nominated book). And 6-10 female authors (down from the teens last year, but my overall numbers are way down, too, so it's hard to judge). Unlike last year, though, many of these are definitely authors I'd want to read more by: I want to catch up on more Cherryh and Ford, I'm curious to check out some of JMS's comics work after reading about it in his memoir, I definitely want to see what else Emily Tesh and C.M.Waggoner publish next, and I'd be happy to read more by Naomi Alderman, too. So definitely a better track record with new authors than last year.
Most books read by one author this year?
Tie between Aaronovitch and Vernon/Kingfisher if you combine her pen names, with 3 each. I think Vernon wins, though, since one of the Aaronovitches was a co-created GN. Although one of the Vernons was a kidlit book reread, so I dunno. This continues last year's weird trend of not reading a lot by any one author.
Favorite books read?
On the fiction front, Silver in the Wood I think was my (new) favorite in the sense that I read it in one gulp as a little gem, liked pretty much everything about it, and it generally exceeded my expectations. (Overall favorite would have to be my beloved 'Monday', but it's not a fair field with that book on it, let alone on it twice ;)
I also found really engrossing and worthwhile (but far from enjoyable, given the subject matter) JMS's memoir, Becoming Superman -- actually, all ll three of the non-fictions were really great and some of my favorites, which I would not have expected.. Cyteen and Naomi Alderman's The Power were also really memorable books, though I wouldn't list either as an outright favorite. And Among Others was also not a book I loved unequivocally, but I did love it, and more than I was expecting to love fiction from Jo Walton, so I wanted to mention it here too.
Two of my favorite canons got new major installments this year -- RoL with False Value and Dragaera with Baron of Magister Valley -- and I really enjoyed both books, but, like, they didn't elevate the whole series for me, so it doesn't feel like they rise to the level of "favorite book" for the year, although they were definitely some of the books I was happiest to read.
Best books you read in 2020?
I actually do think Silver in the Wood was objectively very good. I totally think Cyteen and Among Others deserved the awards they won (Hugo for Cyteen and Nebula/Hugo/BFA for Walton), and I think the JMS memoir should have won the Best Related Hugo this year -- that was a hell of a book. And also, I am 100% not objective about Monday Begins on Saturday, but it is an amazing classic for a reason.
Least favorite?
Last year I had very strong feelings about it because last year's list included offbrand Zukos Children of Blood and Bone. This year, I did not read anything I hated with a passion strong enough to generate charts, so least favorite would have to go to Red, White and Royal Blue (it was reasonably charming in a fanficcy way but also pissed me off in some of its fundamental choices). I also did not think Marx's book of cartoons was particularly funny, so that would be another one, but my feelings about RWaRB are much stronger.
Most disappointing book/Book you wished you loved more than you did?
The Hollow Country, i.e. the sequel to my favorite book of the year, which had some things in it that I liked, but which I liked SO MUCH LESS than the first book, and therefore so much less than I'd been expecting, that it was definitely a disappointment. I missed Tobias's terse, grounded POV, found Henry whiny and insufferable, and generally wanted the story to focus on completely different things than it did. This seems to be a me problem, as other people who liked the first book seem to be liking this one just fine, but I was bummed.
Also, Peace Talks, which was new Dresden Files after years with nothing from that series, and which was a) definitely not a full book, and b) had pretty much nothing for my favorite character and left him in a bad spot besides. I'm actually surprised this is only the runner-up disappointment-wise, but I guess I don't expect the Dresden Files book to be flawless and also I was forewarned about it, which might've blunted the disappointment some?
There were also several books I liked that I wish I had liked MORE: Naomi Alderman's The Power, which I found really ambitious and thinky but somewhat spoiled for me by a particular choice or two; JMF's The Dragon Waiting, as recently described, where I wish the balance of focus and approaches to prose had been different; Minor Mage, which I thought was nice but I'd been expecting better from Vernon/Kingfisher; Song for a New Day, which I wanted to love as much as I loved And Then There Were (N-One) and didn't; and the Watchmaker sequel, which ran into the same problem for me that Watchmaker of Filigree Street itself did, but having it be a two-for-two thing makes it harder for me to overlook.
Best series you discovered in 2020?
What series did I discover this year? Alliance-Union, I guess -- and I do want to read the Cyteen sequel and 40K in Gehenna at some point. KJ Charles's Slipper Creatures, which I definitely can't wait to finish out. It looks like Swordheart is going to be the start of a trilogy, and I'm definitely looking forward to reading more (the Dervish book plz!). I definitely want to read more books set in the world of Waggoner's Unnatural Magic, although it seems like this book will be a standalone? I also plan to continue with the Scholomance books, and read more Tobias & Henry novellas if Emily Tesh writes more (with tempered expectations this time). I think my favorite series discovered is the Slippery Creatures one, because it's the one where I read all the available books and really enjoyed them and can't wait for more, but almost certainly Alliance-Union is the best one -- even from the single book I've read I can tell how impressive the scope of the thing is.
Favorite new author you discovered this year?
I was very impressed by Alderman, Cherryh, Ford, and Tesh (I have read short fiction by Cherryh before, but this was something else definitely) and would absolutely read a bunch more things by them, but I think Tesh might be my favorite of the lot by virtue of being the coziest/most accessible, and thus better fitting my present mood.
I would absolutely also read more non-fiction by Pohl, JMS, and Janelle Shane.
(Last year, one of my favorite new authors was Alix E. Harrow, and I must report that this year I tried her debut novel and found it too meh and boring to finish. Maybe I just prefer her writing shorter things?)
Oldest book read?
Depending on how you count, this is either Beowulf (in Headley's new translation, if that doesn't disqualify it) or Monday Begins on Saturday in the original (1965). I read a bunch of books that were several decades old this year -- The Way the Future Was is from 1978, The Dragon Waiting is from 1983, Cyteen is from 1988, and the Sapkowski is from the early 90s. Last year I had only one book that was from the 20th century, so this is a bit of a change.
Newest?
Like last year, the latest installment of the RoL comics: The Fey and the Furious -- the trade paperback is from Nov 10, 2020.
Longest book title?
Shane's "You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place", which is even longer than last year's Nevala-Lee bio (that was 16 words, this is 22).
Longest fiction title: "Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It?: A Mother's Suggestions" (which was actually funnier than most of the book), followed by "The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water".
Shortest title?
Not a lot of one word titles this year. Omake is the shortest, at 5 letters, followed by Cyteen with 6.
How many re-reads?
Three, although two were of the same book ('Monday') and all were related to Yuletide one way or another (the third was Harriet the Invincible, which I reread in full since I was writing a fic set during it).
Any in translation?
Yes -- The Last Wish translated from Polish to Russian, and 'Monday' translated from Russian to English.
Oh, and duh XD the Beowulf as well -- "translation" is literally in the title, and yet I completely forgot to include this until I saw it was
lebateleur's answer to this question on this meme XD
How many of this year's books were from the library?
I should've kept better track this year, but I didn't... Still, I think I can figure it out retroactively:
- 1 was an online freebie -- the Zen Cho novella
- 9 were (ahem) of dubious online provenance, though I also got a legal copy of at least two -- this is higher than previously because the library was shut down, except for ebooks, for most of the year, and there are generally longer queues for e-books, especially when they're the only option.
- 8 were books I bought for myself (mostly in e-copy, but the RoL GN was in hard copy, and Baron of Magister Valley I ended up buying both in e-copy, to read as soon as it dropped, and an autographed hard copy from Uncle Hugo's later).
- 17 from the library -- 7 in hard copy (everything up until the library shut down in March, then 1 more book, a GN, once one of the local branches reopened -- although I have a whole bunch more sitting around unread), 10 in e-copy
That's 26 books in e-copy, 9 in hard copy, and 2 in both -- skewed way towards e-copies this year, but artificially so by the pandemic/library closure.
Book that most changed my perspective:
The JMS memoir, because while I'd heard about some things, like Frankin's walkabout experience being based on something he had himself experienced, I had noooo idea what his life had been like growing up, HO-ly shit. It's given me a lot of additional appreciation for someone I already respected a lot as a creator -- not just knowing what he'd survived, but also some of the moral stands he took.
The Pohl memoir gave me an interesting look at an earlier SFF fandom/pro-dom timeframe than the Nevala-Lee book last year, and the AI book taught me a lot of fun things, too, but I don't think either of them necessarily changed my perspective broadly.
Over in fiction land, though: Baron of Magister Valley, which gave an entirely unexpected but SUPER fascinating backstory to a character whose backstory I'd never wondered about.
Also, with 'Monday', it was really interesting to read a book I know practically by heart and a) find out some bits that had been censored from the version I've been familiar with these past three decades, and b) discover a lot of new appreciation for a character I'd previously tended to overlook.
Favorite character:
Of new-to-me characters, I liked Grant in Cyteen a lot, and Dimi in The Dragon Waiting, Zale in Swordheart, Tobias and Mrs Silver in the Greenhollow books, and Will Darling from the K.J.Charles books.
Most memorable character:
Ariane Emory (I and II) from Cyteen, I think. Eve in The Power was also quite memorable, as were El in A Deadly Education, Mori in Among Others, and -- in a departure from "troubled girl protagonist fucked up by her circumstances and/or parental figures" -- Piranesi in Piranesi.
Favorite scene:
No huge ones spring to mind, but the battle in The Dragon Waiting was very cool, and the scene where I figured out the twist in The Baron of Magister Valley was definitely a scene I wanted to talk about.
Favorite quote:
I usually answer this question by going through all of my write-ups and excerpting the quotes I'd marked down that still ping me. So here are a few:
Baron of Magister Valley: "May you find a purple robe cut to your size."
Unnatural Magic: "To say that a reig is the troll version of a human woman is as absurd a folly as to claim that a hedgehog is the rapid version of a pincushion."
Among Others: "The thing about Tolkien, about The Lord of the Rings, is that it's perfect. It's this whole world, this whole process of immersion, this journey. It's not, I'm pretty sure, actually true, but that makes it more amazing, that someone could make it all up. Reading it changes everything. [...] It is an oasis for the soul.")
The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo: "Aunt Iris must go to Paris to see a tailor about a dress. What strange exigencies drive the rich."
Beowulf: "Bro, Fate can fuck you up."
Most inspirational in terms of own writing?
Ponedelnik! :DDD (also Harriet, but I reread Harriet already intending to write fic, whereas I read Ponedelnik the first time just to get in the mood for my own request).
How many you'd actually read again?
A number of books this year were ones that I think would reward a reread: Cyteen (now that I have some sense of the worldbuilding), The Dragon Waiting (with Draco Concordans for reference), The Power (with awareness of the twist), The Baron of Magister Valley (because Brust's books tend to reward rereads in general, and also that character reveal!). I could see myself rereading Silver in the Wood just for the pleasure of it, and possibly Slippery Creatures because it's such a fun romp.
A book that you never want to read again:
I'm not a rereader in general, but speaking of books I actively don't want to reread -- of books I really enjoyed, JMS's memoir was rough -- I don't think I'd want to put myself through reading that again.
Book you recommended most to others in 2020?
From this list: For books I just discovered this year, I recommended and gifted Swordheart and Silver in the Wood to a couple of folks. I recommended You Look Like a Thing and I Love You a whole bunch, and the JMS memoir with content warnings (ALLLL the content warnings, seriously). And of course I kept recommending 'Monday' to anyone who would listen, and Dragaera, and this year some folks took me up on it actually :)
The book series you read the most volumes of in 2020:
I only read more than one volume of one series this year -- Rivers of London, between the new novel, the collection of short stories, and the new GN trade.
The genre you read the most in 2020:
- 21 fantasy (including 10 urban fantasy, 5 secondary world, and 5 ~historical fantasy)
- 5 sci-fi (a lot of it near-future sci-fi or looking like near-future sci-fi)
- 4 romance (3 m/m without fantastic elements and 1 paranormal m/f)
- 3 non-fiction
- 2 kidlit / fairytale
- 3 mystery
- 1 poetry/myth
- 1 humour
Some other stuff I kept track of this year tallied up after the fact:
- 2 were graphic novels
- 4 were novellas
Your favorite "classic" you read in 2020:
Beowulf, I guess? I don't know if I've read anything else that would qualify as a classic, though I'm sure Cyteen would qualify as classic SF.
Most surprising (in a good way) book of the year?
Slippery Creatures, because it was a ton of fun and was proof that I could enjoy a KJ Charles book, whereas previously I was afraid there was a fatal id mismatch between us (based on the Magpie books). And now I feel emboldened to try other KJ Charles books.
The hardest book you read in 2020 (topic or writing style):
Writing style: Cyteen was very dense and The Dragon Waiting was very subtle and elided, and in both of these cases I was happy that I was reading the book along with people who had read it before and could help us feel not completely adrift in the hardest chapters.
Content-wise: as mentioned above, the JMS memoir was rough, and it was really hard to read about awful things happening to a real person from I know through his work and his writing about his work ("JMS Speaks" on the Lurker's Guide) and respect a lot.
I had expected Song for a New Day to be hard to read, in the middle of a pandemic, but actually it was kind of neat -- wistful, like.
The funniest book you read in 2020:
Not the humour book, which I barely remember. I think this has got to be You Look Like a Thing and I Love You, which, despite being non-fiction about AI, made me giggle out loud multiple times and quote funny bits to anyone who would stand still long enough to listen.
The saddest book you read in 2020:
JMS memoir was the one that made me saddest because it was real things happening to real people. Cyteen also made me sad/angry a lot, but on behalf of fictional character, and The Power had some very tough bits, too, although it made me more angry than sad.
The shortest book you read in 2020:
I suppose The Fey and the Furious, which was a trade-sized GN, as opposed to Mooncakes, which was a book-sized one. For text-only books, probably 'Jade Yeo'?
The longest book that you read in 2020:
Cyteen was 680 pages in hard cover. I don't think anything I read this year topped that.
Best book that was outside your comfort zone/a new genre for you?
Of the ones I finished, I guess Cyteen and The Dragon Waiting, because it's been ages since I've read any 'classic' SFF, and actually I never read much of the stuff from the 80s at all -- I was still in the USSR in the 80s, so was reading either domestic stuff or older classics (Asimov, Bradbury, Simak) as they appeared in translation, and by the time I was in the US and reading in English, it was already the 90s, so English-language 80s SF is a complete dead zone for me -- and both of these books come from it. It's a very niche deifnition of 'genre', but I can't htink of anything else. Like, Beowulf might be outside of many people's comfort zone, but I've actually read it before, so it wasn't for me.
But counting books which I read but did not finish this year, A Terrible Country (recommended by
tabacoychanel, where I got to about 75% before the pandemic upended my reading), which is contemporary literature -- a genre I almost never read -- about Russia (even more so), which was really, really good, and I need to finish it and write it up properly.
Most thrilling, unputdownable book of 2020?
I probably read the Kellerman in two sittings, but I remember nothing from it. The ones I remember were Slippery Creatures (which broke my no-reading streak) and sequel, plus A Deadly Education, even though I did take a break in the middle there. But in a weird way for nonfiction, also the JMS memoir -- I did not read it in the slow, measured way I generally read nonfiction books/bios.
Most beautifully written book in 2020?
However we may disagree about her characters, Natasha Pulley writes some damn beautiful books, so Lost Future of Pepperharrow is definitely on the list, but I think Silver in the Wood beats it for me.
Book you most anticipated in 2020?
The Baron of Magister Valley, which was great! I also anticipated Peace Talks and Battle Ground, but the first one was a major disappointment, and I got like 4% in the latter, so, you can surmise from that how that anticipation went.
Favorite cover of a book you read in 2020?
I totally picked up Minor Mage for the armadillo on the cover:
I like the fussy, detailed cover of Unnatural Magic, which feels fitting to the world of the book:
I like the BoMV cover:
And this isn't really my style, but it's objectively a cool cover:
Book that had the greatest impact on you this year?
I can't think of any books which had a momentous impact, but Cyteen and The Dragon Waiting were both one-chapter-a-week type sync reads, so each occupied a significant chunk of time in terms of discussion. We sped up the TDW syncread but kept on pace with Cyteen, so that one actually took up the most reading real estate, as it were.
Book you can't believe you waited till 2020 to finally read?
Dunno... the older books I was either not aware of or would've been afraid to tackle on my own. I suppose The Last Wish, because I started reading the Witcher books several years ago and then stopped, and it was only the show that made me go back to them.
Book that had a scene that left you reeling and dying to talk to someone about it?
BoMV and the character reveal, OMG!
Looking Ahead:
One book you didn't read this year that will be your #1 priority in 2021?
I have completely failed at reading any of the books I put on this list last year, some of which have been carryovers from prior years -- I STILL have not read Sorcerer to the Crown, any of the Craft books I've started, or made any progress on Crooked Kingdom, read any Magnus Chase books, or any more Maggie Stiefvater books, or The Night Circus, or the Cloud Roads sequels, or finished any Hardinges this year, though I started two. I did read "the Pinsker book that came out this year" at least. And I started but gave up on The Ten Thousand Doors of January, so can check that one off as well.
Anyway, my #1 priority will actually be finishing The Hanged Man before the library demands it back (it took a while for my library to acquire a copy, and only in hardcover, and then it was stuck in hold limbo while the library was closed, and now I finally have it). And I've been chipping away at the library copy of Angel of the Crows as well. Beyond that, we'll see.
New book you are most anticipating for 2021?
Last year, this list was False Value (read as soon as it came out), Baron of Magister Valley (ditto), Peace Talks (ditto, but a disappointment), and Thorn of Emberlain, which is back to not having a pub date, I guess? Anyway, for next year, I'm looking forward to:
- Perhaps the Stars !!!!! (June 1)
I don't think we're getting a Peter Grant novel in 2021, because I imagine it would've been announced by now if we were (though he's been averaging a novel every 18-24 months or so, so maybe, if he lands on the shorter end of that range?). Maybe Tsalmot is a possibility? It was handed over to the editor in October 2020, so conceivably could still come out in 2021, though probably early 2022 is more realistic.
And I'm not sure any other books I'm looking forward to have confirmed publication dates *sigh* They are, in no particular order, because at this point I don't expect any of them to actually show up, ever:
- Thorn of Emberlain
- Warboy (Warchild #4)
- Doors of Stone (Kvothe #3) LOL, who are we even kidding
- and ditto for Winds of Winter (and hopefully I will still care by the time it comes along, which seems increasingly unlikely)
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Yay, Snowflake!
Challenge #1: In your own space, introduce yourself!
Hmm, really nothing has changed since I did the Snowflake intro post last year. So. That's still me :)
I will hopefully have more informative content for future challenges, heh, and meanwhile just enjoy reading through other people's posts.
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Finally, a quick plug for
fandomtrees, which is planning reveals in a couple of days on Jan 4. There are still a couple of needy trees with no gifts, and of course everyone could always use more goodies in theirs. (My tree is here.)
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1138980.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).