Snowflake days 2 & 3, and 2022 books and memes
fandomtrees did indeed get delayed, so now reveals will be on Jan 11 -- which means more time to fill up all the trees! The needy trees spreadsheet is here, and currently there are 8 trees that are under the "everyone gets at least 2 gifts" threshold for reveals. Some fandoms requested by the remaining needy trees are House of the Dragon, My Hero Academia, Encanto, Emelan, The Tarot Sequence, Genshin Impact, DCEU, Top Gun, Kingdom Hearts, Leverage, and Stranger Things.
(My tree, which is not needy, but which I'm very eager to see revealed, is here -- where, in addition to my the usual suspects fandoms (Amber, Discworld, Dragaera, Murderbot, RoL, Terra Ignota, Vorkosigan) and newcomers Chalion and Radiant Emperor, I'm also asking for ridiculous Taskmaster AUs and art of cute critters, because where else am I going to ask for that XD)
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I feel like I have less energy for Snowflake than usual this year... I'm still enjoying browsing the posts, but the more active participation feels like more effort than the usual "whee!" But I love this post- holiday tradition, so let's see if I can keep it going despite that.
Challenge #2: In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for your fave character, ship or fandom.
So I already did this a couple of Snowflakes ago for the one fandom I shamelessly want to lure people into, lol: Dragaera promo from 2020.
But I was thinking of what else I both love enough and is obscure enough (in the Anglosphere) that it merits a promo, and I had Monday Begins on Saturday on the brain, courtesy of Yuletide (♥!) and it's been ages since I've pitched it to people en masse as opposed to chatting about it with individuals, and since then there's been a very good translation and an e-book format, so, let's do this!
'Monday' is a delightful urban fantasy/satire? sci-fi fairy tale? from the giants of Soviet SF, the Brothers Strugatsky (whose work I heartily recommend in general! I cannot vouch for the translations, except that they exist, but I recommend, to anyone who enjoyed Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem, Definitely Maybe [За миллиард лет до конца света / A Billion Years Before the End of the World], which engages with similarly interesting ideas, and Roadside Picnic to anyone looking to get their heart broken in the best way -- but I digress). 'Monday' was written in 1964, but holds up surprisingly well, IMO, with some caveats I'll mention below, and has a really good English translation available from Andrew Bromfield* (as Monday Starts on Saturday), including a Kindle version. (Apparently there's also an audiobook, but I don't know anything about what it's like.)
The premise of the story -- look, I'm not going to go all "Harry Potter meets Discworld", even though there are reasons to compare it to both of those things. But the premise of the story is, Sasha Privalov is a young computer programmer who serendipitously ends up in a town in northern Russia where the National Research Institute for Thaumaturgy and Wizardry is based (there is a cute acronym which I will let you discover for yourself; this is just a literal translation of the Russian name). The book consists of three novellas? novelettes? in a trench coat following his adventures. In the first one, he wanders about the town and the premises, encountering denizens of Russian fairy tales and trying to use the scientific method to figure out what's going on -- and (spoiler, lol) decides to stay. The second novella is a slice-of-life of the workings of the institute, complete with academic rivalries, bureaucracy, exciting serious research and entirely bullshit research, the atmosphere of passionate people working together on Big Things and also having to deal with petty nonsense, etc. The third novella has more of the slice-of-life stuff, but also features a neat scientific/magical mystery and an unusual take on time-travel / travel into literary worlds. All three novellas feature the same extended cast of characters and Sasha Privalov as the protagonist and narrator.
This is a really funny book! The fractured fairy tale stuff is funny, the academic and Soviet bureaucracy satire is fabulous, and there's also just some really funny stuff besides those kinds of humor. It is also one of those books that can be enjoyed by both children and adults, IMO -- I read and loved it at ten, but have also introduced it to friends who were adults when they encountered it, and they also loved it.
Some caveats, because it seems like the people on Amazon/Goodreads who did not enjoy this book had no idea what they were getting into: The cover copy refers to the book as "a fairy tale for research scientists" and the level of characterization in the main narrative is about at the level of a fairy tale or cartoon -- most people have one or two main characteristics which are frequently stressed by the narration. One thing I like very much about the book is that it features an Afterword written by "the real Privalov", who points out all the things the Strugatsky brothers got wrong in writing this book about him and his institute, including calling out the flat characterization, as well as all the things they got wrong about the magical science. This level of unreliable narration helps me enjoy the broad characterization of the book without fraying my suspension of disbelief. It also helps with the way women are depicted in the book -- nothing at all terrible, considering it's a book from 50+ years ago, but they're pretty scarce. There is also the general Soviet Union belief in a Glorious Communist Future, but the book is actually quite low on Soviet propaganda, considering the provenance.
You can find a selection of Goodreads reviews under the Russian title.
And a few iconic illustrations of this book, which give a bit of a feel for some characters and scenes.
And the book itself is on Google Books if you fancy a browse.
Oh, right, and I'm not going to pretend there's a thriving Anglophone fandom for a 50-year-old Soviet book, but there are 6 whole fics in English on AO3 (half of them written for me, lol <3) and 3 vids. And if you read in Russian, then it's more like 50 fics :P But the book itself is wonderful and worth promo-ing, IMO.
*Note: there is also a much older DAW edition, translated by Leonid Renen. It can be found online in PDF, but I have read it, and it's... not good. Do yourself and this book a favor, don't read that one. But I suppose you could poke about in it a little bit to see if it might be your thing.
Challenge #3: In your own space, Scream Into the Void. Get it all out.
I don't think I have anything fannish to scream into the void about personally. I appreciated reading and agreeing with several of the rants (e.g. dolorosa_12's post about interaction in online spaces, and littleotas's post about criticism) , but honestly, my own fandom experience is sufficiently curated that I don't encounter these things unless I go looking for them specifically -- that's one upside of only being in tiny fandoms, only being on LJ/DW fannishly, and even then only following individual people I know pretty well (and selectively dipping into anon memes just for my small fandoms). It's a very low-key existence, but everyone I interact with in fandom is lovely :)
I did have some RL screaming into the void I felt like doing recently (work stuff; now is not a fun time to be in hi-tech), but I conveyed it into a poem a couple of months back, and it will theoretically soon be published, so, really, best possible (well, best plausible) outcome of void-screaming, I feel like.
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I wasn't sure if I'd read enough books to bother doing the yearly book meme, but silverflight8 made the good point that it would be quick, so:
1. Ben Aaronovitch, Monday Monday
2. Ben Aaronovitch, Amongst Our Weapons
3. Ilona Andrews, Fated Blades
4. Adrian Tchaikvsky, Elder Race
5. Alix E Harrow, A Spindle Splintered
6. Seanan McGuire, Across the Green Grass Fields
7. Freya Marske, A Restless Truth
8. Jasper Sanchez, The Unpopular Vote
9. Cat Valente, The Past is Red
10. P. Djeli Clark, A Master of Djinn
11. Ryka Aoki, A Light from Uncommon Stars
12. Shelley Parker-Chan, She Who Became the Sun
13. Becky Chambers, A Psalm for the Wild-Built
14. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Prisoner of Limnos
15. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Orphans of Raspay
16. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Physicions of Vilnoc
17. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Assassins of Thasalon
18. Lois McMaster Bujold, Knot of Shadows
19. Lois McMaster Bujold, Masquerade in Lodi
20. Everina Maxwell, Ocean's Echo
Book meme:
The first book you read in 2022:
Monday, Monday, a Rivers of London graphic novel.
The last book you finished in 2022:
Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell. I got the book in ARC and read part of it, then wandered away and only finished it up well after the book's release. Partly it's due to my general haphazard reading this year, but partly it's due to the fact that a thing that happens partway through the book turned it from something I was really loving to something I was much less interested in (though I do like the book on the whole).
The first book you will finish (or did finish!) in 2023:
I have no idea... Probably the next RoL GN that's coming out in late January. But it also wouldn't surprise me if it was something else entirely. Like, last year I said "It might be Master of Djinn, which is my current Kindle book, or it might be Light from Uncommon Stars, which is my hard copy book" -- and you can see those books were #10 and 11 and I didn't even fully finish them in time for Hugo voting, IIRC. I thought I might finish Beartown next, but that was a book from the VRBO and stayed in Hawaii, so unless I go to the effort of tracking it down, it might not get finished. And I'm also about 40% into Adrian Tchaikovsky's City of Last Chances, which I started reading on the plane to Hawaii and am really enjoying, but it's also a really long book, and I'm not sure when I'll next be doing a chunk of reading, since that doesn't seem to happen regularly anymore, especially once work starts up again.
How many books read in 2022
20. Abysmal. And only 7 are full-length novels. (I did a lot of sudoku and watched a lot of Taskmaster, though :P)
Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio?
Zero non-fiction.
Male/Female authors?
4 individual male authors (5 books by male authors), 9 individual female authors (14 books by female authors), and 1 husband-wife duo writing under a female pen name.
10 books with male protagonists (well, unless you count Des as a co-protagonist if the Penric books), 5 books with female protagonists, 3 books with M and F co-protagonists (alternative POVs), and 1 book with a nb protagonist.
Most books read by one author this year?
Lois McMaster Bujold with 6, followed by Ben Aaronovitch with 1.5. No other duplicates, although I did read short stories / novelettes by Seanan McGuire, Cat Valente, and Alix E. Harrow in addition to the novella+ length books I'm counting.
Favorite books read?
Elder Race and She Who Became the Sun, but I also greatly enjoyed Assassins of Thasalon.
Best books you read in 2022?
She Who Became the Sun, I think. Elder Race is also really good, but SWBtS is more ambitious, I think.
Least favorite?
A Psalm for the Wild-Built. Not only did I dislike the book, and was really annoyed for it to get the Hugo novella win over a book I considered much more worthy (Elder Race), but it also cemented in my mind the disappointing trend of Becky Chambers, an author whose worldbuilding I like a lot, and whose strengths as an author I was enjoying watching grow from Wayfarers 1 to Wayfarers 3, basically becoming entrenched in my least favorite aspects of her writing and doubling down on all of that stuff instead of the stuff I wish she would do more of. I mean, obviously, she can write whatever makes her happy and/or makes her money, but to me personally it feels like a waste.
Most disappointing book/Book you wished you loved more than you did?
Hm. I was not disappointed by 'Psalm' because I had read enough reviews to know full well I was going to hate it or at least dislike it, so there was no surprise. Nothing on the list really disappointed me deeply, but I was slightly sad that I enjoyed Ocean's Echo and A Restless Truth less than the debut novels from their authors -- but not too disappointed, because, really, they're doing different things, and I respect them for trying those things, just they are less RTMI. I liked Amongs Our Weapons but not as much as some other installments in the RoL canon, which is always frustrating. I wish I had liked the sci-fi aspects of Light from Uncommon Stars as much as I liked other parts of it. And I was disappointed by Knot of Shadows, the currently-most-recent Penric novella, because it was just kind of grim and not very fun. I don't know which of these slight disappointments was my biggest disappointment of the year -- maybe the Penric?
Best series you discovered in 2022?
Radiant Emperor -- the series that starts with She Who Became the Sun. I mean, the only other series I started this year were Chambers's Monk & Robot (if I read more, it will be hatereading pure and simple) and Alix E. Harrow's fairy tale portal fantasy thing, which I do plan to read the next one, but I wasn't blown away.
Favorite new author you discovered this year?
Jasper Sanchez, Ryka Aoki, and Shelley Parker-Chan were the only completely new to me authors I read this year; this was also the first year I finished a book by Tchaikovsky, but I started one and bounced before. I would actually be happy to read more books by all 4 of them, and am already reading another one by Tchaikovsky (City of Last Chances) and enjoying it. But since I didn't "discover" him this year, the favorite is definitely Parker-Chan. I was very impressed with the debut and very happy she won the Astounding.
Oldest book read?
A lot of it was either Hugo reading (so 2021) or new releases, so the oldest is the pub-order-earliest of the Penric books I was catching up on, Prisoner of Limnos (2017)
Newest?
Ocean's Echo and A Restless Truth both came out in November 2022 -- Goodreads says Nov 1 for both (though I read them both in ARC that I got before that). So those two, I guess.
Longest book title?
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, I guess?
Shortest title?
No one-word titles this year, and Elder Race is the shortest of the two-word titles by letter count.
How many re-reads?
None. Oh wait, that's not entirely true! Part of The Past is Red was the novelette (I think?) "The Future is Blue", which I have already read, so, like, 0.5.
Any in translation?
None that I finished, but I read about 2/3 of Beartown before I had to leave the book in Hawaii, and that was translated from Swedish. And I started a book in Russian (Vita Nostra) but didn't get very far in.
How many of this year's books were from the library?
I think none... Or, well, half -- I started Light from Uncommon Stars in library copy, but continued/finished the Hugo voter packet version. I either already owned or bought the Penrics and Djinn, and bought the RoL books -- 9 books. 1 was a gift (unpopular vote). 6 were Hugo voter packet books. 2 were ARCs, and 2 were ebooks of unknown-to-me provenance. (Monday Monday was the only thing I read fully in hard copy; Light from Uncommon Stars also started out that way.)
Book that most changed my perspective:
Mmm. Elder Race most changed my perspective on the author (in a positive direction). Light from Uncommon Stars had some passages that changed my perspective on performer's art vs performer's identity -- or maybe not changed my perspective so much as enriched it.
Favorite character:
Of new-to-me characters, Surakos Bosha and Tanar Xarre in the Penric books immediately joined my cadre of favorites in that canon. Tennalhin Halkana of Ocean's Echo was a standout, and I imprinted on Esen-Temur and Wang Baoxiang in She Who Became the Sun. I also liked everyone in Elder Race.
Most memorable character:
Bosha and Tennal were both quite memorable. Also General Ouyang in SWBtS, who does not make the list of favorites, but made an impression.
Favorite scene:
I can't think of any major standouts, but I really appreciated the way the scene of Katrina performing the Bartok was done in Light from Uncommon Stars (it managed to convey the power of music to me, via a written medium and also to me as a person who is generally not moved by music, which I thought was a neat trick), Penric opening up to the physician in The Physicians of Vilnoc about his trauma with healing.
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 two, both from Penric:
Prisoner of Limnos
Nikys, after Bosha was complaining that Tanar might run off to become a pirate queen: "Do pirate queens keep secretaries?"
Bosha: "I dread finding out."Collapse
Assasins of Thasalon
Penric and Adelis saying good-bye as Adelis is heading off to Thasalon: Adelis gripped Pen's arm in the gesture of military brotherhood. [...] "Don't waste my work," Pen murmured. Adelis touched the burn scars by his eyes and smiled grimly. "I'll try not.""
Most inspirational in terms of own writing?
I don't think any of these influenced what I wrote this year.
How many you'd actually read again?
I generally don't reread, but could see myself revisiting some of the Penrics (Limnos and Thassalon) or Elder Race.
A book that you never want to read again:
Psalm for the Wild-Built. It was annoying enough the first time.
Book you recommended most to others in 2022?
Elder Race, I think -- it does very well a specific thing that I like and know some other people also enjoy. I'm not sure if anyone other than isis took me up on this (other people on my flist also read it, but I think as part of Hugo homework, like I had done), and I was very gratified that she enjoyed it as much as I had.
The book series you read the most volumes of in 2022:
Penric with 6, followed with RoL with 2.
The genre you read the most in 2022:
- 6 secondary world fantasy
- 5.5 sci-fi (the half is Light from Uncommon Stars, which includes both sci-fi and fantasy elements)
- 4.5 urban fantasy
- 3 historical / alt-historical fantasy
- 1 was YA (non-spec)
Some other stuff I tallied up:
- 1 was a graphic novel
- 12 were novellas
Your favorite "classic" you read in 2022:
I did not read anything that could be called a classic even at a stretch.
Most surprising (in a good way) book of the year?
No major surprises, but Elder Race plesantly surprised me by how much better written it was than the first Tchaikovsky book I had attempted; She Who Became the Sun surprised me by actually living up to the hype; and Across the Green Grass Fields surprised me slightly by not annoying me the way the other recent Wayward Children book I had read had done.
The hardest book you read in 2022 (topic or writing style):
I did not do any hard reading this year. The Physicians of Vilnoc, which deals with a plague, was still pretty hard to read in a post-Covid world. Light From Uncommon Stars, The Past is Red and She Who Became the Sun had some emotionally rough passages.
The funniest book you read in 2022:
Ocean's Echo, I think, courtesy of Tennal, but A Restless Truth also had some very funny moments.
The saddest book you read in 2022:
I think Light from Uncommon Stars feels the saddest, even though it is at its core a wish-fulfillment fantasy. The Past is Red is also plenty sad, but feels more angry than elegaic, and She Who Became the Sun feels grandly tragic rather than sad.
The shortest book you read in 2022:
I assume the graphic novel, Monday Monday.
The longest book that you read in 2022:
Ocean's Echo is 464 pages?? I guess that one.
Best book that was outside your comfort zone/a new genre for you?
I'm still iffy on books that mix science fiction and fantasy, so I guess Light from Uncommon Stars. But that aspect of it didn't really work for me.
Most thrilling, unputdownable book of 2022?
I dunno, maybe Assassins of Thasalon.
Most beautifully written book in 2022?
I took down a lot of quotes in Light from Uncommon Stars, but it's quite idiosyncratically written. The prose in She Who Became the Sun was also very strong. And Bujold's writing is always great, so all the Penrics were very good as well.
Book you most anticipated in 2022?
Amongst Our Weapons, I guess, and it was fine but did not blow me away.
Favorite cover of a book you read in 2022?
Light from Uncommon Stars and She Who Became the Sun both have striking covers:
And this wasn't the cover on my Kindle, but the Subterranean cover for Physicians for Vilnoc is also very memorable:
(I like the pose and the background, which are both evocative)
Book that had the greatest impact on you this year?
None, really, but I guess the Penrics (let's say Assassins of Thasalon) in that I ended up requesting (and receiving <3) the canon for Yuletide.
Book you can't believe you waited till 2022 to finally read?
Prisoner of Limnos, which has been sitting on my Kindle for like 5 years.
Book that had a scene that left you reeling and dying to talk to someone about it?
I think the closest is a couple of (very spoilery) scenes in She Who Became the Sun, especially the last one between Zhu and the Prince of Radiance.
Looking Ahead:
One book you didn't read this year that will be your #1 priority in 2023?
The Golden Enclaves! I'm spoiled thoroughly for everything and looking forward to experiencing it for myself. I also keep meaning to start, and not getting around to it, the Green Bone Saga/The Jade City, which I got as a gift back in August and have been wanting to try for several years, but as you can see, my reading has not been great in general.
New book you are most anticipating for 2023?
TSALMOTH! April can't get here soon enough!
And here's the perennial list of shame (I kid! but these are books I've been carrying over for like 5 years or more)
- Thorn of Emberlain - some time in 2023, maybe?
- Warboy (Warchild #4)
- Doors of Stone (Kvothe #3) -- lots of rumors, no actual release date?
- Winds of Winter -- I've seen a Nov 2023 date out there, but no idea if it's accurate or what (and hopefully I will still care by the time it comes along, which seems increasingly unlikely)
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Fannish End-of-year Meme #2:
Favorite main character of 2022: Tennalhin Halkana from Ocean's Echo, I think. I continue to like Penric, but reading six books in a row (even mostly novellas) from his POV was a bit much, so I was a little sick of him by the end. Also, Steven/Marc/Jake in Moon Knight was certainly and interesting character.
Favorite villain of 2022: There were not many out-and-out villains in the books that I read, and the ones that were, were not their books' particular strength. So I'm going to go with audiovisual again -- Harrow from Moon Knight was a wonderful example of the kind of villain I find particularly compelling, antagonists who are really committed to seeing their actions as right and just and genuinely believe that. I also thought The Riddler was the most interesting thing about the new Batman movie (which is not dismissive of the movie as a whole, which I thought was well done, the Riddler was just the most interesting to me personally, since I'm not a Batman fan).
Favorite M/F couples of 2022: I guess Adelis/Tanar from the Penric books? (as well as Tanar/Bosha). The sci-fi enemies-to-rivals romance in Fated Blades was also fun, but the book itself was so slight, I no longer remember anyone's names.
Non-shippily, I liked Zhu and Xu Da as "brothers" in She Who Became the Sun, and the fact that the relationship between Nyr and Lynesse explicitly remains platonic in Elder Race.
Favorite F/F couples of 2022: I read a bunch of f/f this year, but none of it really grabbed me in a shippy way -- Maud/Violet in A Restless Truth was fine but not my preferred dynamic, ditto Fatima/Sita in the Djinn-verse, Zhu/Ma in SWBTS was the aspect of the book I was least interested in, and the f/f Light from Uncommon Stars just felt random. Oh, and there was the stuff in A Spindle Splintered as well, which also didn't work for me (although the friendship did). And the Rivers of London book had not one but two significant new f/f relationships, one that was part of the whodunit and Caroline/Grace Yutani -- but neither of those grabbed me either. As such, my favorite f/f couples would be very much background ones: the unacted-on but still very significant Flora Sutton/Elizabeth Nevenby in A Restless Truth and Marie Van Schuyler/Bowers in the Death on the Nile movie.
And non-shippily, Kamala and Nakia's friendship in Ms Marvel was very cute, and Alison and Kitty's sisterly relationship in BBC Ghosts is also adorable.
Favorite M/M couples of 2022: I read less m/m than usual this year, but still some. The one that turned into an actual new ship was Esen-Temur/General Ouyang in She Who Became the Sun, for all that it's never really acted on in canon and for how it ended. I liked Tennal/Surit in Ocean's Echo (but thought the book could've used a bit more actual romance). And the central romance in Unpopular Vote left me completely cold; I liked the portrayal of both characters involved, I just didn't see any chemistry between them. And over in TV-land, I found the Captain's crush on Adam the assistant DA on BBC Ghosts very cute.
Favorite Crossover couples of 2022: I don't think I have any actually shippy answers for this, but I was noticing that I read two books featuring memorable eunuch characters in rapid succession, She Who Became the Sun and Prisoner of Limnos (which introduces Bosha), and I reflected several times that I'd really like it if Bosha could have a chat with Ouyang about, like, a less unhealthy way to deal with, well, everything. And, like, it's not like I blame Ouyang for handling things badly / not as well as Bosha -- different cultural perceptions of eunuchs, different kinds of trauma attendant with their individual experiences of becoming eunuchs, different OTHER kinds of trauma, and also, the Bosha we meet certainly has the advantage of having found someone he can give his loyalty to with no conflicts at all, while Ouyang's loyalty to Esen is very, very complicated. But I still feel like it would be nice for Ouyang to have some external perspective.
Also, while the guys in Winter's Orbit reminded me of Ivan (sunny, always underestimated Kiem) and Gregor (quiet, stoic woobie Jainan), Tennal in Ocean's Echo is very much a Miles Vorkosigan sort of character, and I'd find it fun to have Tennal and Miles thrown together and see how much chaos they would cause. Miles is a scion of a military dynasty, Tennal is aggressively civilian -- I feel like they would ping off each other in a fun way.
(But Miles Vorkosigan/River Tam forever, still.).
Favorite Polyships of 2022: Kamala/Bruno/Kamran vibes in Ms Marvel were very cute. Also, the Penric books I read this year added additional potential participants to the mix of my demon W -- at this point I would happily ship any combination of Adelis, Tanar, Bosha, Penric(/Desdemona), and Nikys that did not involve actual incest.
Favorite Crossover Polyships of 2022: I always struggle with this question, to the point that maybe I should just ditch it... But, OK, I'm just going to double down on the Miles + Tennal from the crossover answer above and throw in Maud Blythe from A Restless Truth, for maximum chaos. When I read A Restless Truth, I felt like Maud came across fairly Miles-like -- not living up to that, but aiming for some of the same traits -- and I'd find it neat to have her interact with actual Miles. It would be platonic -- she's not nearly Amazonian enough to be his type, and she seems to not be interested in men at all -- but I think Maud's parent trauma and Miles's relationship with his parents would interact interestingly (and Tennal's relationship with his family, too). And speaking of Tennal, who has untrustworthy parental figure trauma of his own, and a canonical clever younger sister he adores, to Maud's beloved older brother, I think the two of them would also interact cutely. So, yes, let's take the chaotic guile hero protagonists from fannish authors whom I know to be Vorkosigan fans and throw them together with Miles and see what happens. Definitely nothing shippy, but it would be fun.
NOTPs of 2022: I'm interpreting this as canonical pairings that didn't work for me, and I guess that would be Mark/Ralph in Unpopular Vote and Shizuka/Lan Tran in Light from Uncommon Stars. I didn't hate them or anything, but those relationships were relative weak spots in the books. There haven't been any relationships I actively disliked.
Fandom that you never expected to get into: Taskmaster XD Both in the sense of watching the show, which isn't the kind of thing I usually watch, and in the sense of reading the fic, which, RPF is not my thing, and I'm not into the kinky Alex/Greg stuff which is like 93% of the Taskmaster fic on AO3, but I'm reading it for the articles for the glimpses of other characters and relationships in interesting situations.
Fandom that made an unexpected comeback: Hmm. Well, Penric certainly made a comeback for reasons that had nothing to do with new books being published, so I suppose it's unexpected in terms of specific timing, though I always intended to go back and catch up. I can't think of anything else / anything more dramatic than that.
Last fandom of 2022: US Ghosts. It's also the last fandom I started consuming canon for, the last fandom I read a significant amount of fic for (despite not being done with the show), and I even joined a Discord server for it (and then, as per usual, never visited it again).
(My tree, which is not needy, but which I'm very eager to see revealed, is here -- where, in addition to my the usual suspects fandoms (Amber, Discworld, Dragaera, Murderbot, RoL, Terra Ignota, Vorkosigan) and newcomers Chalion and Radiant Emperor, I'm also asking for ridiculous Taskmaster AUs and art of cute critters, because where else am I going to ask for that XD)
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I feel like I have less energy for Snowflake than usual this year... I'm still enjoying browsing the posts, but the more active participation feels like more effort than the usual "whee!" But I love this post- holiday tradition, so let's see if I can keep it going despite that.
Challenge #2: In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for your fave character, ship or fandom.
So I already did this a couple of Snowflakes ago for the one fandom I shamelessly want to lure people into, lol: Dragaera promo from 2020.
But I was thinking of what else I both love enough and is obscure enough (in the Anglosphere) that it merits a promo, and I had Monday Begins on Saturday on the brain, courtesy of Yuletide (♥!) and it's been ages since I've pitched it to people en masse as opposed to chatting about it with individuals, and since then there's been a very good translation and an e-book format, so, let's do this!
'Monday' is a delightful urban fantasy/satire? sci-fi fairy tale? from the giants of Soviet SF, the Brothers Strugatsky (whose work I heartily recommend in general! I cannot vouch for the translations, except that they exist, but I recommend, to anyone who enjoyed Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem, Definitely Maybe [За миллиард лет до конца света / A Billion Years Before the End of the World], which engages with similarly interesting ideas, and Roadside Picnic to anyone looking to get their heart broken in the best way -- but I digress). 'Monday' was written in 1964, but holds up surprisingly well, IMO, with some caveats I'll mention below, and has a really good English translation available from Andrew Bromfield* (as Monday Starts on Saturday), including a Kindle version. (Apparently there's also an audiobook, but I don't know anything about what it's like.)
The premise of the story -- look, I'm not going to go all "Harry Potter meets Discworld", even though there are reasons to compare it to both of those things. But the premise of the story is, Sasha Privalov is a young computer programmer who serendipitously ends up in a town in northern Russia where the National Research Institute for Thaumaturgy and Wizardry is based (there is a cute acronym which I will let you discover for yourself; this is just a literal translation of the Russian name). The book consists of three novellas? novelettes? in a trench coat following his adventures. In the first one, he wanders about the town and the premises, encountering denizens of Russian fairy tales and trying to use the scientific method to figure out what's going on -- and (spoiler, lol) decides to stay. The second novella is a slice-of-life of the workings of the institute, complete with academic rivalries, bureaucracy, exciting serious research and entirely bullshit research, the atmosphere of passionate people working together on Big Things and also having to deal with petty nonsense, etc. The third novella has more of the slice-of-life stuff, but also features a neat scientific/magical mystery and an unusual take on time-travel / travel into literary worlds. All three novellas feature the same extended cast of characters and Sasha Privalov as the protagonist and narrator.
This is a really funny book! The fractured fairy tale stuff is funny, the academic and Soviet bureaucracy satire is fabulous, and there's also just some really funny stuff besides those kinds of humor. It is also one of those books that can be enjoyed by both children and adults, IMO -- I read and loved it at ten, but have also introduced it to friends who were adults when they encountered it, and they also loved it.
Some caveats, because it seems like the people on Amazon/Goodreads who did not enjoy this book had no idea what they were getting into: The cover copy refers to the book as "a fairy tale for research scientists" and the level of characterization in the main narrative is about at the level of a fairy tale or cartoon -- most people have one or two main characteristics which are frequently stressed by the narration. One thing I like very much about the book is that it features an Afterword written by "the real Privalov", who points out all the things the Strugatsky brothers got wrong in writing this book about him and his institute, including calling out the flat characterization, as well as all the things they got wrong about the magical science. This level of unreliable narration helps me enjoy the broad characterization of the book without fraying my suspension of disbelief. It also helps with the way women are depicted in the book -- nothing at all terrible, considering it's a book from 50+ years ago, but they're pretty scarce. There is also the general Soviet Union belief in a Glorious Communist Future, but the book is actually quite low on Soviet propaganda, considering the provenance.
You can find a selection of Goodreads reviews under the Russian title.
And a few iconic illustrations of this book, which give a bit of a feel for some characters and scenes.
And the book itself is on Google Books if you fancy a browse.
Oh, right, and I'm not going to pretend there's a thriving Anglophone fandom for a 50-year-old Soviet book, but there are 6 whole fics in English on AO3 (half of them written for me, lol <3) and 3 vids. And if you read in Russian, then it's more like 50 fics :P But the book itself is wonderful and worth promo-ing, IMO.
*Note: there is also a much older DAW edition, translated by Leonid Renen. It can be found online in PDF, but I have read it, and it's... not good. Do yourself and this book a favor, don't read that one. But I suppose you could poke about in it a little bit to see if it might be your thing.
Challenge #3: In your own space, Scream Into the Void. Get it all out.
I don't think I have anything fannish to scream into the void about personally. I appreciated reading and agreeing with several of the rants (e.g. dolorosa_12's post about interaction in online spaces, and littleotas's post about criticism) , but honestly, my own fandom experience is sufficiently curated that I don't encounter these things unless I go looking for them specifically -- that's one upside of only being in tiny fandoms, only being on LJ/DW fannishly, and even then only following individual people I know pretty well (and selectively dipping into anon memes just for my small fandoms). It's a very low-key existence, but everyone I interact with in fandom is lovely :)
I did have some RL screaming into the void I felt like doing recently (work stuff; now is not a fun time to be in hi-tech), but I conveyed it into a poem a couple of months back, and it will theoretically soon be published, so, really, best possible (well, best plausible) outcome of void-screaming, I feel like.
*
I wasn't sure if I'd read enough books to bother doing the yearly book meme, but silverflight8 made the good point that it would be quick, so:
1. Ben Aaronovitch, Monday Monday
2. Ben Aaronovitch, Amongst Our Weapons
3. Ilona Andrews, Fated Blades
4. Adrian Tchaikvsky, Elder Race
5. Alix E Harrow, A Spindle Splintered
6. Seanan McGuire, Across the Green Grass Fields
7. Freya Marske, A Restless Truth
8. Jasper Sanchez, The Unpopular Vote
9. Cat Valente, The Past is Red
10. P. Djeli Clark, A Master of Djinn
11. Ryka Aoki, A Light from Uncommon Stars
12. Shelley Parker-Chan, She Who Became the Sun
13. Becky Chambers, A Psalm for the Wild-Built
14. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Prisoner of Limnos
15. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Orphans of Raspay
16. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Physicions of Vilnoc
17. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Assassins of Thasalon
18. Lois McMaster Bujold, Knot of Shadows
19. Lois McMaster Bujold, Masquerade in Lodi
20. Everina Maxwell, Ocean's Echo
Book meme:
The first book you read in 2022:
Monday, Monday, a Rivers of London graphic novel.
The last book you finished in 2022:
Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell. I got the book in ARC and read part of it, then wandered away and only finished it up well after the book's release. Partly it's due to my general haphazard reading this year, but partly it's due to the fact that a thing that happens partway through the book turned it from something I was really loving to something I was much less interested in (though I do like the book on the whole).
The first book you will finish (or did finish!) in 2023:
I have no idea... Probably the next RoL GN that's coming out in late January. But it also wouldn't surprise me if it was something else entirely. Like, last year I said "It might be Master of Djinn, which is my current Kindle book, or it might be Light from Uncommon Stars, which is my hard copy book" -- and you can see those books were #10 and 11 and I didn't even fully finish them in time for Hugo voting, IIRC. I thought I might finish Beartown next, but that was a book from the VRBO and stayed in Hawaii, so unless I go to the effort of tracking it down, it might not get finished. And I'm also about 40% into Adrian Tchaikovsky's City of Last Chances, which I started reading on the plane to Hawaii and am really enjoying, but it's also a really long book, and I'm not sure when I'll next be doing a chunk of reading, since that doesn't seem to happen regularly anymore, especially once work starts up again.
How many books read in 2022
20. Abysmal. And only 7 are full-length novels. (I did a lot of sudoku and watched a lot of Taskmaster, though :P)
Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio?
Zero non-fiction.
Male/Female authors?
4 individual male authors (5 books by male authors), 9 individual female authors (14 books by female authors), and 1 husband-wife duo writing under a female pen name.
10 books with male protagonists (well, unless you count Des as a co-protagonist if the Penric books), 5 books with female protagonists, 3 books with M and F co-protagonists (alternative POVs), and 1 book with a nb protagonist.
Most books read by one author this year?
Lois McMaster Bujold with 6, followed by Ben Aaronovitch with 1.5. No other duplicates, although I did read short stories / novelettes by Seanan McGuire, Cat Valente, and Alix E. Harrow in addition to the novella+ length books I'm counting.
Favorite books read?
Elder Race and She Who Became the Sun, but I also greatly enjoyed Assassins of Thasalon.
Best books you read in 2022?
She Who Became the Sun, I think. Elder Race is also really good, but SWBtS is more ambitious, I think.
Least favorite?
A Psalm for the Wild-Built. Not only did I dislike the book, and was really annoyed for it to get the Hugo novella win over a book I considered much more worthy (Elder Race), but it also cemented in my mind the disappointing trend of Becky Chambers, an author whose worldbuilding I like a lot, and whose strengths as an author I was enjoying watching grow from Wayfarers 1 to Wayfarers 3, basically becoming entrenched in my least favorite aspects of her writing and doubling down on all of that stuff instead of the stuff I wish she would do more of. I mean, obviously, she can write whatever makes her happy and/or makes her money, but to me personally it feels like a waste.
Most disappointing book/Book you wished you loved more than you did?
Hm. I was not disappointed by 'Psalm' because I had read enough reviews to know full well I was going to hate it or at least dislike it, so there was no surprise. Nothing on the list really disappointed me deeply, but I was slightly sad that I enjoyed Ocean's Echo and A Restless Truth less than the debut novels from their authors -- but not too disappointed, because, really, they're doing different things, and I respect them for trying those things, just they are less RTMI. I liked Amongs Our Weapons but not as much as some other installments in the RoL canon, which is always frustrating. I wish I had liked the sci-fi aspects of Light from Uncommon Stars as much as I liked other parts of it. And I was disappointed by Knot of Shadows, the currently-most-recent Penric novella, because it was just kind of grim and not very fun. I don't know which of these slight disappointments was my biggest disappointment of the year -- maybe the Penric?
Best series you discovered in 2022?
Radiant Emperor -- the series that starts with She Who Became the Sun. I mean, the only other series I started this year were Chambers's Monk & Robot (if I read more, it will be hatereading pure and simple) and Alix E. Harrow's fairy tale portal fantasy thing, which I do plan to read the next one, but I wasn't blown away.
Favorite new author you discovered this year?
Jasper Sanchez, Ryka Aoki, and Shelley Parker-Chan were the only completely new to me authors I read this year; this was also the first year I finished a book by Tchaikovsky, but I started one and bounced before. I would actually be happy to read more books by all 4 of them, and am already reading another one by Tchaikovsky (City of Last Chances) and enjoying it. But since I didn't "discover" him this year, the favorite is definitely Parker-Chan. I was very impressed with the debut and very happy she won the Astounding.
Oldest book read?
A lot of it was either Hugo reading (so 2021) or new releases, so the oldest is the pub-order-earliest of the Penric books I was catching up on, Prisoner of Limnos (2017)
Newest?
Ocean's Echo and A Restless Truth both came out in November 2022 -- Goodreads says Nov 1 for both (though I read them both in ARC that I got before that). So those two, I guess.
Longest book title?
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, I guess?
Shortest title?
No one-word titles this year, and Elder Race is the shortest of the two-word titles by letter count.
How many re-reads?
None. Oh wait, that's not entirely true! Part of The Past is Red was the novelette (I think?) "The Future is Blue", which I have already read, so, like, 0.5.
Any in translation?
None that I finished, but I read about 2/3 of Beartown before I had to leave the book in Hawaii, and that was translated from Swedish. And I started a book in Russian (Vita Nostra) but didn't get very far in.
How many of this year's books were from the library?
I think none... Or, well, half -- I started Light from Uncommon Stars in library copy, but continued/finished the Hugo voter packet version. I either already owned or bought the Penrics and Djinn, and bought the RoL books -- 9 books. 1 was a gift (unpopular vote). 6 were Hugo voter packet books. 2 were ARCs, and 2 were ebooks of unknown-to-me provenance. (Monday Monday was the only thing I read fully in hard copy; Light from Uncommon Stars also started out that way.)
Book that most changed my perspective:
Mmm. Elder Race most changed my perspective on the author (in a positive direction). Light from Uncommon Stars had some passages that changed my perspective on performer's art vs performer's identity -- or maybe not changed my perspective so much as enriched it.
Favorite character:
Of new-to-me characters, Surakos Bosha and Tanar Xarre in the Penric books immediately joined my cadre of favorites in that canon. Tennalhin Halkana of Ocean's Echo was a standout, and I imprinted on Esen-Temur and Wang Baoxiang in She Who Became the Sun. I also liked everyone in Elder Race.
Most memorable character:
Bosha and Tennal were both quite memorable. Also General Ouyang in SWBtS, who does not make the list of favorites, but made an impression.
Favorite scene:
I can't think of any major standouts, but I really appreciated the way the scene of Katrina performing the Bartok was done in Light from Uncommon Stars (it managed to convey the power of music to me, via a written medium and also to me as a person who is generally not moved by music, which I thought was a neat trick), Penric opening up to the physician in The Physicians of Vilnoc about his trauma with healing.
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 two, both from Penric:
Prisoner of Limnos
Nikys, after Bosha was complaining that Tanar might run off to become a pirate queen: "Do pirate queens keep secretaries?"
Bosha: "I dread finding out."Collapse
Assasins of Thasalon
Penric and Adelis saying good-bye as Adelis is heading off to Thasalon: Adelis gripped Pen's arm in the gesture of military brotherhood. [...] "Don't waste my work," Pen murmured. Adelis touched the burn scars by his eyes and smiled grimly. "I'll try not.""
Most inspirational in terms of own writing?
I don't think any of these influenced what I wrote this year.
How many you'd actually read again?
I generally don't reread, but could see myself revisiting some of the Penrics (Limnos and Thassalon) or Elder Race.
A book that you never want to read again:
Psalm for the Wild-Built. It was annoying enough the first time.
Book you recommended most to others in 2022?
Elder Race, I think -- it does very well a specific thing that I like and know some other people also enjoy. I'm not sure if anyone other than isis took me up on this (other people on my flist also read it, but I think as part of Hugo homework, like I had done), and I was very gratified that she enjoyed it as much as I had.
The book series you read the most volumes of in 2022:
Penric with 6, followed with RoL with 2.
The genre you read the most in 2022:
- 6 secondary world fantasy
- 5.5 sci-fi (the half is Light from Uncommon Stars, which includes both sci-fi and fantasy elements)
- 4.5 urban fantasy
- 3 historical / alt-historical fantasy
- 1 was YA (non-spec)
Some other stuff I tallied up:
- 1 was a graphic novel
- 12 were novellas
Your favorite "classic" you read in 2022:
I did not read anything that could be called a classic even at a stretch.
Most surprising (in a good way) book of the year?
No major surprises, but Elder Race plesantly surprised me by how much better written it was than the first Tchaikovsky book I had attempted; She Who Became the Sun surprised me by actually living up to the hype; and Across the Green Grass Fields surprised me slightly by not annoying me the way the other recent Wayward Children book I had read had done.
The hardest book you read in 2022 (topic or writing style):
I did not do any hard reading this year. The Physicians of Vilnoc, which deals with a plague, was still pretty hard to read in a post-Covid world. Light From Uncommon Stars, The Past is Red and She Who Became the Sun had some emotionally rough passages.
The funniest book you read in 2022:
Ocean's Echo, I think, courtesy of Tennal, but A Restless Truth also had some very funny moments.
The saddest book you read in 2022:
I think Light from Uncommon Stars feels the saddest, even though it is at its core a wish-fulfillment fantasy. The Past is Red is also plenty sad, but feels more angry than elegaic, and She Who Became the Sun feels grandly tragic rather than sad.
The shortest book you read in 2022:
I assume the graphic novel, Monday Monday.
The longest book that you read in 2022:
Ocean's Echo is 464 pages?? I guess that one.
Best book that was outside your comfort zone/a new genre for you?
I'm still iffy on books that mix science fiction and fantasy, so I guess Light from Uncommon Stars. But that aspect of it didn't really work for me.
Most thrilling, unputdownable book of 2022?
I dunno, maybe Assassins of Thasalon.
Most beautifully written book in 2022?
I took down a lot of quotes in Light from Uncommon Stars, but it's quite idiosyncratically written. The prose in She Who Became the Sun was also very strong. And Bujold's writing is always great, so all the Penrics were very good as well.
Book you most anticipated in 2022?
Amongst Our Weapons, I guess, and it was fine but did not blow me away.
Favorite cover of a book you read in 2022?
Light from Uncommon Stars and She Who Became the Sun both have striking covers:
And this wasn't the cover on my Kindle, but the Subterranean cover for Physicians for Vilnoc is also very memorable:
(I like the pose and the background, which are both evocative)
Book that had the greatest impact on you this year?
None, really, but I guess the Penrics (let's say Assassins of Thasalon) in that I ended up requesting (and receiving <3) the canon for Yuletide.
Book you can't believe you waited till 2022 to finally read?
Prisoner of Limnos, which has been sitting on my Kindle for like 5 years.
Book that had a scene that left you reeling and dying to talk to someone about it?
I think the closest is a couple of (very spoilery) scenes in She Who Became the Sun, especially the last one between Zhu and the Prince of Radiance.
Looking Ahead:
One book you didn't read this year that will be your #1 priority in 2023?
The Golden Enclaves! I'm spoiled thoroughly for everything and looking forward to experiencing it for myself. I also keep meaning to start, and not getting around to it, the Green Bone Saga/The Jade City, which I got as a gift back in August and have been wanting to try for several years, but as you can see, my reading has not been great in general.
New book you are most anticipating for 2023?
TSALMOTH! April can't get here soon enough!
And here's the perennial list of shame (I kid! but these are books I've been carrying over for like 5 years or more)
- Thorn of Emberlain - some time in 2023, maybe?
- Warboy (Warchild #4)
- Doors of Stone (Kvothe #3) -- lots of rumors, no actual release date?
- Winds of Winter -- I've seen a Nov 2023 date out there, but no idea if it's accurate or what (and hopefully I will still care by the time it comes along, which seems increasingly unlikely)
**
Fannish End-of-year Meme #2:
Favorite main character of 2022: Tennalhin Halkana from Ocean's Echo, I think. I continue to like Penric, but reading six books in a row (even mostly novellas) from his POV was a bit much, so I was a little sick of him by the end. Also, Steven/Marc/Jake in Moon Knight was certainly and interesting character.
Favorite villain of 2022: There were not many out-and-out villains in the books that I read, and the ones that were, were not their books' particular strength. So I'm going to go with audiovisual again -- Harrow from Moon Knight was a wonderful example of the kind of villain I find particularly compelling, antagonists who are really committed to seeing their actions as right and just and genuinely believe that. I also thought The Riddler was the most interesting thing about the new Batman movie (which is not dismissive of the movie as a whole, which I thought was well done, the Riddler was just the most interesting to me personally, since I'm not a Batman fan).
Favorite M/F couples of 2022: I guess Adelis/Tanar from the Penric books? (as well as Tanar/Bosha). The sci-fi enemies-to-rivals romance in Fated Blades was also fun, but the book itself was so slight, I no longer remember anyone's names.
Non-shippily, I liked Zhu and Xu Da as "brothers" in She Who Became the Sun, and the fact that the relationship between Nyr and Lynesse explicitly remains platonic in Elder Race.
Favorite F/F couples of 2022: I read a bunch of f/f this year, but none of it really grabbed me in a shippy way -- Maud/Violet in A Restless Truth was fine but not my preferred dynamic, ditto Fatima/Sita in the Djinn-verse, Zhu/Ma in SWBTS was the aspect of the book I was least interested in, and the f/f Light from Uncommon Stars just felt random. Oh, and there was the stuff in A Spindle Splintered as well, which also didn't work for me (although the friendship did). And the Rivers of London book had not one but two significant new f/f relationships, one that was part of the whodunit and Caroline/Grace Yutani -- but neither of those grabbed me either. As such, my favorite f/f couples would be very much background ones: the unacted-on but still very significant Flora Sutton/Elizabeth Nevenby in A Restless Truth and Marie Van Schuyler/Bowers in the Death on the Nile movie.
And non-shippily, Kamala and Nakia's friendship in Ms Marvel was very cute, and Alison and Kitty's sisterly relationship in BBC Ghosts is also adorable.
Favorite M/M couples of 2022: I read less m/m than usual this year, but still some. The one that turned into an actual new ship was Esen-Temur/General Ouyang in She Who Became the Sun, for all that it's never really acted on in canon and for how it ended. I liked Tennal/Surit in Ocean's Echo (but thought the book could've used a bit more actual romance). And the central romance in Unpopular Vote left me completely cold; I liked the portrayal of both characters involved, I just didn't see any chemistry between them. And over in TV-land, I found the Captain's crush on Adam the assistant DA on BBC Ghosts very cute.
Favorite Crossover couples of 2022: I don't think I have any actually shippy answers for this, but I was noticing that I read two books featuring memorable eunuch characters in rapid succession, She Who Became the Sun and Prisoner of Limnos (which introduces Bosha), and I reflected several times that I'd really like it if Bosha could have a chat with Ouyang about, like, a less unhealthy way to deal with, well, everything. And, like, it's not like I blame Ouyang for handling things badly / not as well as Bosha -- different cultural perceptions of eunuchs, different kinds of trauma attendant with their individual experiences of becoming eunuchs, different OTHER kinds of trauma, and also, the Bosha we meet certainly has the advantage of having found someone he can give his loyalty to with no conflicts at all, while Ouyang's loyalty to Esen is very, very complicated. But I still feel like it would be nice for Ouyang to have some external perspective.
Also, while the guys in Winter's Orbit reminded me of Ivan (sunny, always underestimated Kiem) and Gregor (quiet, stoic woobie Jainan), Tennal in Ocean's Echo is very much a Miles Vorkosigan sort of character, and I'd find it fun to have Tennal and Miles thrown together and see how much chaos they would cause. Miles is a scion of a military dynasty, Tennal is aggressively civilian -- I feel like they would ping off each other in a fun way.
(But Miles Vorkosigan/River Tam forever, still.).
Favorite Polyships of 2022: Kamala/Bruno/Kamran vibes in Ms Marvel were very cute. Also, the Penric books I read this year added additional potential participants to the mix of my demon W -- at this point I would happily ship any combination of Adelis, Tanar, Bosha, Penric(/Desdemona), and Nikys that did not involve actual incest.
Favorite Crossover Polyships of 2022: I always struggle with this question, to the point that maybe I should just ditch it... But, OK, I'm just going to double down on the Miles + Tennal from the crossover answer above and throw in Maud Blythe from A Restless Truth, for maximum chaos. When I read A Restless Truth, I felt like Maud came across fairly Miles-like -- not living up to that, but aiming for some of the same traits -- and I'd find it neat to have her interact with actual Miles. It would be platonic -- she's not nearly Amazonian enough to be his type, and she seems to not be interested in men at all -- but I think Maud's parent trauma and Miles's relationship with his parents would interact interestingly (and Tennal's relationship with his family, too). And speaking of Tennal, who has untrustworthy parental figure trauma of his own, and a canonical clever younger sister he adores, to Maud's beloved older brother, I think the two of them would also interact cutely. So, yes, let's take the chaotic guile hero protagonists from fannish authors whom I know to be Vorkosigan fans and throw them together with Miles and see what happens. Definitely nothing shippy, but it would be fun.
NOTPs of 2022: I'm interpreting this as canonical pairings that didn't work for me, and I guess that would be Mark/Ralph in Unpopular Vote and Shizuka/Lan Tran in Light from Uncommon Stars. I didn't hate them or anything, but those relationships were relative weak spots in the books. There haven't been any relationships I actively disliked.
Fandom that you never expected to get into: Taskmaster XD Both in the sense of watching the show, which isn't the kind of thing I usually watch, and in the sense of reading the fic, which, RPF is not my thing, and I'm not into the kinky Alex/Greg stuff which is like 93% of the Taskmaster fic on AO3, but I'm reading it for the articles for the glimpses of other characters and relationships in interesting situations.
Fandom that made an unexpected comeback: Hmm. Well, Penric certainly made a comeback for reasons that had nothing to do with new books being published, so I suppose it's unexpected in terms of specific timing, though I always intended to go back and catch up. I can't think of anything else / anything more dramatic than that.
Last fandom of 2022: US Ghosts. It's also the last fandom I started consuming canon for, the last fandom I read a significant amount of fic for (despite not being done with the show), and I even joined a Discord server for it (and then, as per usual, never visited it again).