Thief of Songs, by M.C.A. Hogarth

[rowyn]

Thief of Songs is set in a fantasy world, where humans have four sexes: male, female, hermaphrodite, and neuter. The latter two are created due to the effects of magic in the setting. The story feels like a poly triad romance to me, with one member of the triad being asexual romantic. The emphasis is on the sexual-and-romantic relationship between

Comments

[haikujaguar]

Yay, you liked it! :D

[rowyn]

I did! I predict you will have many other happy readers, too. :)

[haikujaguar]

I hope so! I wrote the sort of book I would enjoy reading even though I wasn't sure if it would come across as too conflict-light, and the last time I did that it became my current bestseller (Mindtouch). :)

I have more books planned in this series!

[alltoseek]

When I was a kid (9, 10, 11?) my older brother pointed out that in all stories (books, tv, whatever) there is a conflict, an obstacle to overcome. Well, yes, this is obvious, but it wasn't to kids like us - I think my brother figured this out on his own before learning it in language arts.

Anyway, upon hearing my brother declare that, and defend it, I immediately determined that one day I would write a conflict-free story.

I haven't written it yet.

I think even if/when I should, TPTB will declare it a prose poem or something.

But I had this idea of writing a series of really happy stories where only nice things happen.

Y'know, current pop culture is so dark and dystopian and violent and hyper-sexualized I think maybe there's an audience for something more Norman-Rockwellish (wo the 1940's-50's white middle-class patriarchal heterosexual limits).

[alltoseek]

Yes, I'd also noticed that your rates tend to hover right around 8.

But there was that series of stories you started that you then abandoned fairly quickly. So I think if you were going to rate something less than a 5 you wouldn't bother finishing it.

<5 = not worth finishing
5 = tolerable, barely
6 = tolerable, meh
7 = OK with reservations
8 = Not bad, pretty good actually
9 = Oooh, really good!
10 = The World's Most Perfect Book

[rowyn]

Yep, when I first set up the scale, that's about what I listed it out as.

* digs up her original book-review scale*

I've reviewed at least two 5s. (Storm Front was one of them.) But yes, <5 is almost certainly not worth finishing. I usually don't even mention them. And a bunch of 9s. No 10s. Yet. I expect that to change, though. It's not impossible to get a 10! It's just really, really hard.

[jordangreywolf]

I think it's perfectly legitimate if you haven't read any books that manage to hit 10 or less than 5. It means that even the better books still have room for improvement before you're wholly satisfied with them (that theoretical 10), and it means that you haven't bothered to review (or, perhaps, even to read all the way through to the end) a book that would garner less than a "meh, it's okay." An awful lot of really dreadful books have SIGNS that they're going to be dreadful, so that is bound to have an impact on the selection of books you actually get around to reviewing.

That's my take on it, anyway. :)