My Yuletide stories!
I got AMAZING stories this year - TWO nice, long, juicy ones. Both are gen adventures, and you can read either with pleasure without knowing the canon. I suggest you do so.
My gift story was Echoes, from Patricia Wrede's little-known but charming fantasy, Caught In Crystal. The novel is about a retired warrior and mom who gets pulled back into adventuring; I asked for a prequel in which she is still a member of her four-girl badass group.
Here the four girls are telling ghost stories:
"Like the one about the Elder Sister in the cursed lichyard, who riddled the bones for a whole night until sunlight could kill the lich-king. Or the sklathran'sy who escaped from Varna on a raft, only to find that their helmsman had died before they ever set out and kept them guided through sheer force of will." Barthelmy's eyes gleamed. "Or the one with the travelers who discover their innkeeper is really a Varnan wizard cannibal!"
[...]
"Lich-kings have been disproven," Varevice added.
An absolutely perfect and unexpectedly clever adventure starring four young, badass girls, full of banter and female friendship and understated but excellent worldbuilding.
I think all you really need to know is that the Sisterhood of Stars is a sort of adventuring academy consisting of 4-girl cells: a sorceress, a warrior, a healer, and a demon-friend. The latter work with "demons," known to themselves as "sklathrans'y," to help them break the spells that enslave them.)
Ithaka, or the Moons of Jupiter.
They were a fearsome sight, the miners: seven or eight feet tall and muscular, with thick, hard skin that would make even a Martian drylander’s seem soft, their long hair and their beards a profusion of wiry curls the colour of cooling lava, the heavy tramp of their feet as they marched in line like muted thunder.
You guys, I got a 12,746-word Yuletide Treat in C. L. Moore's Northwest Smith! (The other Smith requester got a shorter story, which I shall read shortly. Truly an embarrassment of riches-- that brings the world's total amount of C. L. Moore fic up to three stories, so far as I'm aware, counting the Jirel story I wrote for last year's Yuletide.) Smith and Yarol the Venusian are sent all over the moons of Jupiter in this incredibly atmospheric riff on Gilgamesh and the Odyssey. The worldbuilding is stunning. If you like pulp sf and sense of wonder, this is the story for you.
More recs forthcoming. I have not yet had a chance to read anything else yet, and I only read these because I stayed up in the hope that the archive would open at midnight. (The witching hour, when animals speak and Yuletide begins.)
I have three stories in the archive. Enjoy trying to figure out which they are, and if you have a guess, let me know! ;)
Crossposted to http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1094067.html. Comment here or there.
My gift story was Echoes, from Patricia Wrede's little-known but charming fantasy, Caught In Crystal. The novel is about a retired warrior and mom who gets pulled back into adventuring; I asked for a prequel in which she is still a member of her four-girl badass group.
Here the four girls are telling ghost stories:
"Like the one about the Elder Sister in the cursed lichyard, who riddled the bones for a whole night until sunlight could kill the lich-king. Or the sklathran'sy who escaped from Varna on a raft, only to find that their helmsman had died before they ever set out and kept them guided through sheer force of will." Barthelmy's eyes gleamed. "Or the one with the travelers who discover their innkeeper is really a Varnan wizard cannibal!"
[...]
"Lich-kings have been disproven," Varevice added.
An absolutely perfect and unexpectedly clever adventure starring four young, badass girls, full of banter and female friendship and understated but excellent worldbuilding.
I think all you really need to know is that the Sisterhood of Stars is a sort of adventuring academy consisting of 4-girl cells: a sorceress, a warrior, a healer, and a demon-friend. The latter work with "demons," known to themselves as "sklathrans'y," to help them break the spells that enslave them.)
Ithaka, or the Moons of Jupiter.
They were a fearsome sight, the miners: seven or eight feet tall and muscular, with thick, hard skin that would make even a Martian drylander’s seem soft, their long hair and their beards a profusion of wiry curls the colour of cooling lava, the heavy tramp of their feet as they marched in line like muted thunder.
You guys, I got a 12,746-word Yuletide Treat in C. L. Moore's Northwest Smith! (The other Smith requester got a shorter story, which I shall read shortly. Truly an embarrassment of riches-- that brings the world's total amount of C. L. Moore fic up to three stories, so far as I'm aware, counting the Jirel story I wrote for last year's Yuletide.) Smith and Yarol the Venusian are sent all over the moons of Jupiter in this incredibly atmospheric riff on Gilgamesh and the Odyssey. The worldbuilding is stunning. If you like pulp sf and sense of wonder, this is the story for you.
More recs forthcoming. I have not yet had a chance to read anything else yet, and I only read these because I stayed up in the hope that the archive would open at midnight. (The witching hour, when animals speak and Yuletide begins.)
I have three stories in the archive. Enjoy trying to figure out which they are, and if you have a guess, let me know! ;)
Crossposted to http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1094067.html. Comment here or there.