Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 61

Brightness Reef, by David Brin: DNF

I still really like his earlier Uplift books, Startide Rising and The Uplift War. I tried the sequel trilogy when it first came out, but never got very far into it. Having recently re-read the earlier books, I decided to give the sequels another try.

If your setting is a planet secretly inhabited by refugees from five cool alien races plus humans, then readers, by which I mean me, are probably interested in the five cool alien races and how they’re alien. Readers, by which I mean me, will be disappointed and annoyed if your main alien POV characters are a group of alien kids who are enamored of human culture and uninterested in their own, mimic humans down to human slang and facial expressions, take all their references from human culture, and even have nicknames from human literature such as that timelessly cool book which will certainly be understandable and appealing to kid aliens on an alien planet thousands of years in the future, Huckleberry Finn.

ETA: LOL, the last time I used the "kids these days" tag was for a different book I DNF'd due to insufferability!

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Yuletide Reveals: My Stories

This year I wrote six stories for Yuletide.

The Darkangel - Meredith Ann Pierce

The Gift of Terrain, for edenfalling .

Eoduin should be certain that she’d be chosen as Harvest Maiden. Who but the syndic’s daughter should be the one to mount the stone step with her new kirtle swirling around her ankles and hold her giftfruit high for all to see?

But the syndic didn’t choose the Harvest Maiden. Terrain did.

I think all you need to know to read this is that Terrain is a land on a terraformed, magical Moon.

This was a pinch hit I was hoping to treat anyway. I specifically wanted to write about Eoduin - she comes across very vividly in a very few pages - and her complicated relationship with Aeriel, her slave who is also (sort of) her friend. edenfalling specifically wanted her relationship with Terrain, and a harvest festival came to mind. A magical one, because it's a magical world; a fairytale-type story, since that's such an element of the first book in particular, which is the one where Eoduin appears.

Chains of Iron, Chains of Pearl, for idleflower .

Erin and Aeriel set out to save the Sea-of-Dust, but that isn't all they save.

This is a post-canon story and I'm not sure how much sense it will make if you don't know canon. But if you want to read, here's some canon spoilers. ( Read more... )

idleflower specifically wanted to see how they actually do the healing of the world. I wanted to do a fix-it for the aspect of the ending that I found depressing. And I wondered what would happen to the parts of the land that had evolved a fully-functioning ecosystem that needed the drought.

The New Mutants

Demons, Doom, and Pink Jelly Shoes, for genarti .

I can always tell when a story about summoning demons is written by someone who’s never summoned a demon.

This story will make a lot more sense with canon knowledge, but just in case, Illyana is a traumatized teenage mutant sorceress who knew a version of Ororo in a horrifying alternate universe; the version of Ororo she's interacting with in the story doesn't know about the AU.

Last Yuletide I wrote Ororo giving Illyana a houseplant for genarti . This year I wrote her Ororo taking Illyana shopping at the mall. One of my favorite aspects of the comics is how ordinary teenage concerns co-exist with horrific trauma and also magic and mutant powers. The comics have a bunch of stories along the lines of "Rachel and Amara spend a night in New York," and I always loved those.

I will never get tired of writing about demons trying to "help" Illyana, but I may never surpass the party dress made out of the fabric used to make the tags on the backs of shirts.

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

The Woman Who Watches the King, for eglantiere .

For some, the House is a prison. For some, it's a place of healing.

I don't think you need to know canon to read this story, and it doesn't spoil anything. All the characters are original.

I wrote this eglantiere and I am pleased and surprised that anyone else liked it, because it was tailored very specifically for her. Her prompt mentioned the House being deliberately used for religious or spiritual or ritual purposes, and I thought, "What if it was used as therapy?"

This is one of those stories that has a lot of thoughts that are better expressed in the form of the story than in any other way.

The image of the king carrying a corpse comes from Indian mythology - it's King Vikramaditya. In the story, it has another meaning.

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke & Grand Designs (TV)

Dorset: Portal to the House, for hangingfire

Maggie and Olabisi plan to transform a ruin containing a portal to the House into a cozy home with an artist's studio. But the ruin's status as a scheduled monument and the unique challenges of its proximity to the House endanger their project.

I don't think you need to know either canon to read this story. The House is a magical house. Grand Designs is a delightful British reality TV series which follows people building unusual homes.

I had never seen Grand Designs before I spotted hangingfire 's Yuletide promo post for it. I checked out the show and was immediately addicted, having recently bought a house and nearly gone mad trying to do some renovations. I really identified with the hapless home-builders and the way everything inevitably took twice as much time and cost twice as much as they had planned for.

hangingfire wanted Grand Designs with a fantasy twist. I immediately thought of the House, but wasn't sure if they knew Piranesi, and it was too late to ask via the mods. Then I checked their AO3 history and discovered that they had requested it last Yuletide.

I had enormous fun writing this story, which packs in as many Grand Designs tropes as I could manage.

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke & The Magician's Nephew - C. S. Lewis

Flotsam, for gammarad .

Sarah Raphael finds an unusual object while exploring the labyrinth.

This story will make a lot more sense if you know both canons.

I matched with gammarad on two canons, Piranesi and a movie, The Endless. I originally planned to do the latter, and sent a mod query about that. I also provided a bait question asking if they'd be interested in a Narnia crossover with Piranesi. They said yes.

However, gammarad had also requested The Endless for another exchange, and got a story very similar to the one I have planned to write, only better. So I then reconsidered Piranesi, for which their request was a story about Sarah Raphael, with worldbuilding.

Piranesi has several Narnia references, and there's a suggestion that one of the main characters might be a descendant of a certain Narnia character. I was originally going to send Sarah Raphael to Charn, but the Wood Between the Worlds itself felt like a better parallel with the House.

We only ever see one guinea pig in the wood in The Magician's Nephew, and it does get left there as it seems happy there. But we do know that Andrew Ketterley did multiple guinea pig experiments, so it seemed completely possible that Polly and Digory only saw one guinea pig but the Wood contained at least two.

Thanks to scioscribe and sholio for helping me brainstorm some of these stories.

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Chocolate Box Letter

Dear Chocolatier,

Thank you for creating for me! If you have any questions, please check with the mods. I am a very easy recipient and will be delighted with whatever you create for me. I have no special requirements beyond what's specifically stated in my DNWs. I'm fine with all POVs (i.e., first, second, third), tenses, ratings, etc. I like short fics, long fics, and in-between fics. Similarly, there are no art styles I dislike.

My AO3 name is Edonohana.

I like hurt-comfort, action/adventure, domestic life, survival situations, mysterious alien technology, worldbuilding, evocative descriptions, camaraderie, loyalty, trauma recovery, learning to love again or trust again or enjoy life again, miniature things, food, and animals.

Art-specific likes: I like watercolors, bold graphics, Tarot cards, comics, pin-ups, characters in pretty/cozy environments, battle poses, and Art Nouveau. You can never go wrong by posing a character using their powers or with an adorable kitten/tiny dragon/pegasus/etc.

I have requested a bunch of these canons before. All prompts in previous exchanges are still valid and welcomed. You can find them by clicking on the "fic exchange letter" tag.

( General DNWs )

( Dark Tower - Stephen King )

( Dune - Frank Herbert )

( Dune (1984) )

( Dune (2021) )

( Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin )

( Marvel (comics) )

( The Stand - Stephen King )

( Star Trek: TOS )

( True Detective )

( The Wheel of Time (TV)  )

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I aten't dead

But phone, wifi, and 4G are all out. I had to dig my car out of ice to drive alternate route (the one that's not collapsed) downhill until I got enough reception to find out who wrote my Yuletide stories. THANK YOU!

Reveal post whenever possible.

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Yuletide Recs, Part III

Canon knowledge preferable but not strictly necessary:

17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future - Jon Bois
Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion... - Sandia Labs

Long-Term Projects. 2128 words.

Even after radiation stops being able to kill, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant doesn't offer a lot of entertainment. What keeps drawing people back? A sense of duty to a lost future? Reenacting old mistakes? Boredom?

It's probably mostly boredom.

I think all you need to know is that it crosses over a future in which everyone is immortal with the real-life monument trying to warn future people away from nuclear waste. Like most of the "Football in the Future" stories I've read, it's very moving in a way that sneaks up on you.

Content Note: Contains brief, non-graphic, but conceptually disturbing mention of radiation sickness.

Need to know canon:

Dark Tower - Stephen King

You Sound Like the Fuckin' Terminator. 1750 words.

“Do you hear yourself, Roland?” Eddie asks, lowering his voice and putting on his best Schwarzenegger impression. “Your clothes… give them to me now. You sound like the fuckin’ terminator.”

“Or stand here blathering like a fool till the world’s moved on,” Roland offers dryly.

Eddie/Roland PWP bondage, hot and funny and perfectly in-character, which is not something one often finds in PWP smut. Great dialogue.

Dread and Faith.

The laughing boy couldn’t even keep the son of Steven safe.

Painful, sweet, touching Cuthbert/Alain fic, on the road back from Mejis.

The Green Knight (Movie)

he shall have of me the same. 1424 words.

Five answers Gawain might have made to the knight's challenge, and one he did.

Beautifully written, elegantly designed, strange and atmospheric.

The Red Tree - Caitlin Kiernan

Not Bound to be Kind. 2531 words.

Rereading some of these onionskin pages, it’s all there, sprinkled like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs, like arsenic on rock cake. I’m going to list all the clues I’ve finally gathered up, the better to poison myself with my dear, and yes, I am mixing up my fairytale metaphors, fuck off and leave me alone:

Both Constance and Amanda are (were. are) roughly the same height and build and have (had. have. had. do-si-fucking-do) pale skin and black hair, on their heads and on their sex.

Pitch-perfect Sarah voice, intense, explicit, clever, terrifying.

Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena

She Wore a Crimson Flower. 1021 words.

The gunslinger rides up at dawn, a lone figure on a high-stepping white mount.

Gorgeously written, very in-character Western AU.

If you enjoy something, please comment and let the author know!

What have you enjoyed so far this Yuletide?

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Yuletide Recs, Part II

If you missed my first Yuletide rec post, here it is.

I'm happily browsing the collection while stuck at home as it's alternately raining, snowing, and/or freezing, and the main road off the mountain had a sinkhole open up in it.

As usual, my recs are sorted by how much canon knowledge you need.

Don't need to know canon:

Le città invisibili | Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino.

Three Watery Cities. 1928 words.

The water comes hurrying now, its flow steady and relentless, broadening again to become a stream; the stream deepens to become a river, and still with irresistible generosity it builds, until the river overflows, bursting its bank, and Severina fills like a chalice.

Absolutely gorgeous, pitch-perfect pastiche, a set of descriptions of three different watery cities.

"Top 5 Rat Movies I Made Up" - JP Brammer: Legends of the Great Below

the greatest thread in the history of the forums. 3615 words.

I think there’s something so special about the idea that JP saw all of us thirsty fuckers in the trenches of Twitter and Tumblr and PawsNClaws and thought “I’m gonna make this one for them. I’m gonna give them the gay rat bro romance they deserve.”

Another fic for the article about rat movies that don't exist but should, this homage to fandom starts a bit low-key but gets funnier and funnier as it goes along. I ended up literally crying with laughter.

Canon knowledge preferable but not necessary:

Anne of Green Gables - L. M.Montgomery

Ice Flowers. Art.

A lovely wintery watercolor of Anne and Diana kissing.

Nod - Adrian Barnes

marginalia. 16,402 words.

Several years after the end of the world, what is left of humanity has set about the task of rebuilding the civilization and protecting the children, not necessarily in that order. But who decides what civilization is, anyway?

This story is set years after the events of the book and involves different characters. All you need to know is that an apocalypse occurred because most people became unable to sleep, causing psychosis and death. The Sleepers consisted of a few adults who all dreamed of beautiful golden light, and a few children who stopped speaking and became unnaturally calm.

This story works as a standalone and is satisfying on multiple levels, blending post-apocalypse, horror, and a cleverly constructed murder mystery.

Content warning: child murder, creepy children, cults, violence.

Need to know canon, but the canon is short and available online.

"Black Box" - Jennifer Egan

A short story available online here.

A strange, compelling story about a woman on a secret mission.

Content warning: rape, violence, probable imperialism.

Burn Bag. 2013 words.

Expect a period of readjustment following mission termination and retrieval.

Stunning, beautifully written story of trauma and recovery.

Content warning: PTSD from everything in the content warning to the original.

The canon you need to know is this xkcd comic.

Spherical Cows and Other Questions. 1426 words.

What if the wave that blew up the cows had made them even bigger, like the size of a moon, or a planet? Would a cow-planet weigh more than the Earth? How many people could it feed?

I skipped the math, which is apparently accurate (!) but it was still hilarious.

If you enjoy something, please comment and let the author know!

What have you enjoyed so far this Yuletide?

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Welcome to the Walk-In Freezer Part III

I forgot to bring in my pretty glass bird bath and it exploded.

I got Yak Trax boot chains - thanks Graydon! They are great.

Chooks are laying four eggs per day, despite the cold and way shorter days. Mary-Lou, who used to grudgingly lay one tiny white egg twice a week, has stopped laying entirely.

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Yuletide Recs, Part I

The collection is full of wonderful things. Note that "Undisclosed Fandom" is a catch-all tag for fandoms that are appearing for the first time this Yuletide and have not yet been given their own categories. It's definitely worth a browse there.

Here are the stories I've loved so far:

Don't need to know canon:

Le città invisibili | Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino.

Masked Cities. Interactive text game.

You take a trip to the city of Agilulfa.

This intricate, clever, atmospheric text game is set in a city where everyone goes masked in public. (The masks are carnival-style masks, not medical masks.) I'm not even into games, and I played it through twice and plan to play it again.

Shadows of the Apt - Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Dreaming in Silver and Void.

She was found in the Lowlands, but she was from so much further away.

My wonderful gift! All you need to know is that kinden are people who have bug-related abilities and characteristics, so Wasps can fly and shoot electric shock "stings" from their hands, and so forth.

This story is a gorgeous, moving, sense-of-wonder take on the meeting of two people from extremely different worlds, who nonetheless have a meeting of minds. It's technically fantasy but it reads more like original science fiction. And if you like it, you will probably like the books.

"Top 5 Rat Movies I Made Up" - JP Brammer: Legends of the Great Below

Devotion and Adoration: a Queen/Knight Ship Manifesto

A manifesto for the Fiona Highrafter/Queen Elisaveta pairing from JP Brammer's Great Below.

A quintessential "only in Yuletide" story, this is a ship manifesto for two rats in a non-existent canon from an article about non-existent rat movies. It's charming and funny and now I ship them too.

Canon knowledge preferable but not necessary:

The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison.

from laden boughs, from hands. 3100 words.

A day in the life of the Untheileneise kitchens.

Exactly what it says on the tin: a day in the life in a fantasy world, cleverly structured and sweet in more ways than one.

Psmith - P. G. Wodehouse.

isle of joy. 3000 words.

Finding out that Psmith almost died in his New York adventure wakes Mike up to his real feelings.

A delightful Psmith/Mike story with a great Wodehousian voice and turns of phrase, like It was a thoroughly foreign state of being for Mike, who usually slept like a well-polished cricket bat.

St. Clare's - Enid Blyton.

Sixth Form at St. Clare's. 7088 words.

It's everyone's final year at St. Clare's, and two (foreign and somewhat mysterious) new girls have joined the form. Mysteries will be unraveled and secrets revealed -- hopefully in time for a midnight feast.

A wonderful treat for me! The story itself is set just before WWII, but includes excerpts from a memoir written by Anne-Marie after the war. The story is a more serious/realistic version of canon, with two immigrant girls joining the school, that still has all the delightful and funny canon elements like pranks, midnight feasts, etc. The excerpts are in a completely different style, a pitch-perfect postwar British memoir, and are also great. It works really well as a whole and has marvelous character bits - I particularly loved what Claudine does in the war.

Content note: Nobody meets a bad fate, but it is a pre-war/post-war story. There is a note mentioning that a character lived a long life and something happened after her death.

Need to know canon:

Amadeus - Movie.

What started as an attempt to welcome young Mozart to Vienna became something much, much more.

V'amo di core teneramente (I love you from the heart tenderly). 1985 words.

This story about a threesome between Mozart, Constanze, and Salieri is written in a pitch-perfect Salieri monologue, literate and sly and very hot despite not being at all explicit. It beautifully captures his sensuality and dubious reliability.

The Princess Bride - William Goldman. 3244 words.

vehigadta (and you shall tell)

Assorted items from the writings and correspondences of S. Morgenstern, and how I came to find them.

A very funny, very meta, very Jewish story about the Yuletide writer falling into a rabbit hole of S. Morgenstern research.

Content note: The story takes place in the present day, and mentions travel difficulties caused by the pandemic. That's it for pandemic references, and nobody gets covid.

If you enjoy something, please comment and let the author know!

What have you enjoyed so far this Yuletide?

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It's the Final Countdown for Yuletide!

TERRIFY yourself by watching the countdown clock!

THRILL to the stories you want to read in the collection!

As of the moment of posting, there are 1831 stories in the collection, and 13 hours, 22 minutes, and 1 second to write!

Who will join me in spreading cheer at a time when we could really need it, and spend the day raising the number of stories in the collection to a nice even 2000?

Also, apart from your own gift stories, what have you found by browsing fandoms and shaking presents that you look forward to reading?

Personally, I am particularly looking forward to the Salieri/Mozart/Constanze threesome for Amadeus, stories for Judy Blume's Fudge series, Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy, Caitlin Kiernan's The Red Tree, Stephen King's Dark Tower, and the multiple stories in The Darkangel, Dragonriders of Pern, Malory Towers, Mushishi, Nirvana in Fire, and the Onmyouji movies.

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Countdown to Yuletide!

Literal countdown clock

View Poll: Yuletide Progress Poll

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