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cahn(There will probably be a part 3 someday.)
I'm going to start this off with a Yuletide rec, actually:
The Green Year (18000 words) by Selden
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Lady Bertilak/Gawain/Bertilak de Hautdesert, Background Arthur/Lancelot/Guinevere
Characters: Gawain (Arthurian), Bertilak de Hautdesert, Lady Bertilak, Morgan le Fay, Morgause (Arthurian), Gareth (Arthurian)
Additional Tags: Brief instance of parent-on-child violence, dubcon, Gore, (Mis)use of the backstory of a Catholic saint, Period-Typical Sexism, Period-Typical Homophobia, Gratuitous severed heads
Summary:
Every year there are one or two fics at Yuletide that are so good that they get categorized into my brain as "one of the best things I've read this year," with no qualifier. This year it was this Gawain and the Green Knight fic, which besides commenting on and critiquing and changing the original is conversant with all kinds of other Arthurian bits and pieces, from Once and Future King to the Mabinogion romances.
This thing is freaking amazing. I mean, sure, I could be nitpicky about detail if I wanted, and I'm sure it would have been improved by a pass through professional editing (which is kind of a content-free statement in that I imagine it's true of most works unless your editor is Vox Day, but then again he doesn't hit my standard of "professional"), but whatever. It's probably the best novella I've read this year, and unless the author objects I'm totally gonna nominate this for the Hugo.
Other stories I really really liked and would really like to put on my Hugo ballot:
Ambiguity Machines: An Examination (Vandana Singh) [I believe this just tips into Novelette] - I don't think I could really describe this properly; it's more of a setting/worldbuilding piece than a character/plot piece? This is beautifully cadenced and put together, and I really like it. I actually don't like the framing story much, but maybe someone else would. It reminds me a bit of one of John M. Ford's more beautiful stories in the way it cross-connects.
Morrigan in Shadow (Seth Dickinson) [novelette] - I really, really like Dickinson's writing and I meant it when I read Baru Cormorant and said I'd check out everything he wrote — there's something to me that's very precise and lucid about his writing, which I love, and his writing also asks interesting questions and plays with interesting ideas without losing sight of characters and plot. A little like Daniel Abraham, maybe? Anyway, this one is about pilots in a galactic war. Like Baru, it's playing with intersectionality and questions of monstrousness and humanity and ideas about how that works. I really, really like his stuff. This is the kind of story I think should win the Hugo in the novelette category — it's SF (I'm weird, I have a bias towards SF for the Hugo), it's about big SF-ian ideas, it's about big questions, but it's also about specific plot and characters.
Wooden Feathers (Ursula Vernon) [Short story] - Ursula Vernon is another one who just… writes really good stories, although her writing I would describe more as very real and emotionally true. This story is about a woodcarver, and I totally teared up.
Monkey King, Faerie Queen (Zen Cho) [Short story]- Everything I've read by Zen Cho is delightful, and this fairy-tale romp is no exception.
Soteriology and Stephen Greenwood (Julia August) [Short Story] - So, when I look at this with my practical rational eyes, it looks like a rather slight story. I DO NOT CARE. It is charming and I absolutely adore academia pastiche.
Stories I liked enough to rec them:
Penric's Demon (Bujold) [Novella] - Minor Chalion story about a guy and his pet demon. I'm putting this down here because it's maybe the only thing I've read from 2015 besides "The Green Year" that is actually eligible in the novella category. Anyway, I mean! It's Bujold, it's Chalion, it's fine! t's not earthshattering, but minor Bujold is still worthy of the ballot.
Things You Can Buy for a Penny (Will Kaufman) [Short story] - A fairy tale about the wet gentleman in the well who grants wishes. Well done, especially in the way it picks up the threads of stories alluded to earlier. It didn't quite hit an emotional sweet spot for me, but I did like it.
And You Shall Know Her By the Trail of Dead (Brooke Bolander) [Novelette] - Grimdark cyberpunk-ish, with plot. I liked it and thought it was well-written. It's got pretty well defined Bad Guys, and doesn't really grapple with ideas like the Dickinson above, but not every story has to, of course.
The Lamps Thereof Are Fire and Flames (Rosamund Hodge) - So — this is a lovely fairy-tale mashup about love and truth, and I suspect if I hadn't just read Uprooted (which is stylistically very similar and just really well done, and I have a lot more to say about it at some point, but very quickly: go read it if you haven't) I would like it more.
By Degrees and Dilatory Time (S.L. Huang) [Short story] - Fuck cancer, y/y? Anyway, this is a story about a person, living in the future. It's clearly written by someone who knows whereof she speaks.
Court Bindings (Karalynn Lee) [Short story] - I really like this one! Korean-inflected fantasy. (I kind of want to talk about this one if you've read it, but not if you haven't.)
Please Undo This Hurt (Seth Dickinson) - Okay, so: this is the one story on this list I didn't like. I only read it to the end because it was by Dickinson. I in fact disliked it, and that's why you should read it. Because I disliked it in a very particular way: it talks about a specific kind of depression-thinking where my brain starts casting error, please abort, because it shies away from thinking that way in self-defense. I think for the people who are unlucky enough to have brains that don't work like mine, this is probably an extremely powerful story.
Drinking with the Elfin Knight (Ginger Weil) [Novelette] - Teen angst; the title describes it pretty well. I thought this was a good story, although I think maybe I'm too old to read stories about teen angst now? It's on my long list, if I need more novelettes.
Acrobatic Duality (Tamara Vardomskaya) [Short story] - actually this one was good! It's about competitive acrobatics. I personally felt like the story was a little on the slight side, but it's a good story and definitely worth reading, and I think a lot of people (on FFA? forget where I got this rec) really liked it.
Night of the Salamander (Michael Swanwick) - apparently this is, like, part 4 in a series about a medieval detective? I thought this was super well written and intriguing, and I am probably going to check out the rest of the series, although quite frankly I think the main character is a jerk and it's not great fun to read from his perspective; that's why it's not making my short list.
The Practical Witch's Guide to Acquiring Real Estate - Really the title says it all. This is a fluffy piece, quite entertaining.
I'm going to start this off with a Yuletide rec, actually:
The Green Year (18000 words) by Selden
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Lady Bertilak/Gawain/Bertilak de Hautdesert, Background Arthur/Lancelot/Guinevere
Characters: Gawain (Arthurian), Bertilak de Hautdesert, Lady Bertilak, Morgan le Fay, Morgause (Arthurian), Gareth (Arthurian)
Additional Tags: Brief instance of parent-on-child violence, dubcon, Gore, (Mis)use of the backstory of a Catholic saint, Period-Typical Sexism, Period-Typical Homophobia, Gratuitous severed heads
Summary:
Learn to love, and leave all other.
Or: Lady Bertilak offers Gawain her body as well as her girdle. Here, he takes the first, but not the second.
Every year there are one or two fics at Yuletide that are so good that they get categorized into my brain as "one of the best things I've read this year," with no qualifier. This year it was this Gawain and the Green Knight fic, which besides commenting on and critiquing and changing the original is conversant with all kinds of other Arthurian bits and pieces, from Once and Future King to the Mabinogion romances.
This thing is freaking amazing. I mean, sure, I could be nitpicky about detail if I wanted, and I'm sure it would have been improved by a pass through professional editing (which is kind of a content-free statement in that I imagine it's true of most works unless your editor is Vox Day, but then again he doesn't hit my standard of "professional"), but whatever. It's probably the best novella I've read this year, and unless the author objects I'm totally gonna nominate this for the Hugo.
Other stories I really really liked and would really like to put on my Hugo ballot:
Ambiguity Machines: An Examination (Vandana Singh) [I believe this just tips into Novelette] - I don't think I could really describe this properly; it's more of a setting/worldbuilding piece than a character/plot piece? This is beautifully cadenced and put together, and I really like it. I actually don't like the framing story much, but maybe someone else would. It reminds me a bit of one of John M. Ford's more beautiful stories in the way it cross-connects.
Morrigan in Shadow (Seth Dickinson) [novelette] - I really, really like Dickinson's writing and I meant it when I read Baru Cormorant and said I'd check out everything he wrote — there's something to me that's very precise and lucid about his writing, which I love, and his writing also asks interesting questions and plays with interesting ideas without losing sight of characters and plot. A little like Daniel Abraham, maybe? Anyway, this one is about pilots in a galactic war. Like Baru, it's playing with intersectionality and questions of monstrousness and humanity and ideas about how that works. I really, really like his stuff. This is the kind of story I think should win the Hugo in the novelette category — it's SF (I'm weird, I have a bias towards SF for the Hugo), it's about big SF-ian ideas, it's about big questions, but it's also about specific plot and characters.
Wooden Feathers (Ursula Vernon) [Short story] - Ursula Vernon is another one who just… writes really good stories, although her writing I would describe more as very real and emotionally true. This story is about a woodcarver, and I totally teared up.
Monkey King, Faerie Queen (Zen Cho) [Short story]- Everything I've read by Zen Cho is delightful, and this fairy-tale romp is no exception.
Soteriology and Stephen Greenwood (Julia August) [Short Story] - So, when I look at this with my practical rational eyes, it looks like a rather slight story. I DO NOT CARE. It is charming and I absolutely adore academia pastiche.
Stories I liked enough to rec them:
Penric's Demon (Bujold) [Novella] - Minor Chalion story about a guy and his pet demon. I'm putting this down here because it's maybe the only thing I've read from 2015 besides "The Green Year" that is actually eligible in the novella category. Anyway, I mean! It's Bujold, it's Chalion, it's fine! t's not earthshattering, but minor Bujold is still worthy of the ballot.
Things You Can Buy for a Penny (Will Kaufman) [Short story] - A fairy tale about the wet gentleman in the well who grants wishes. Well done, especially in the way it picks up the threads of stories alluded to earlier. It didn't quite hit an emotional sweet spot for me, but I did like it.
And You Shall Know Her By the Trail of Dead (Brooke Bolander) [Novelette] - Grimdark cyberpunk-ish, with plot. I liked it and thought it was well-written. It's got pretty well defined Bad Guys, and doesn't really grapple with ideas like the Dickinson above, but not every story has to, of course.
The Lamps Thereof Are Fire and Flames (Rosamund Hodge) - So — this is a lovely fairy-tale mashup about love and truth, and I suspect if I hadn't just read Uprooted (which is stylistically very similar and just really well done, and I have a lot more to say about it at some point, but very quickly: go read it if you haven't) I would like it more.
By Degrees and Dilatory Time (S.L. Huang) [Short story] - Fuck cancer, y/y? Anyway, this is a story about a person, living in the future. It's clearly written by someone who knows whereof she speaks.
Court Bindings (Karalynn Lee) [Short story] - I really like this one! Korean-inflected fantasy. (I kind of want to talk about this one if you've read it, but not if you haven't.)
Please Undo This Hurt (Seth Dickinson) - Okay, so: this is the one story on this list I didn't like. I only read it to the end because it was by Dickinson. I in fact disliked it, and that's why you should read it. Because I disliked it in a very particular way: it talks about a specific kind of depression-thinking where my brain starts casting error, please abort, because it shies away from thinking that way in self-defense. I think for the people who are unlucky enough to have brains that don't work like mine, this is probably an extremely powerful story.
Drinking with the Elfin Knight (Ginger Weil) [Novelette] - Teen angst; the title describes it pretty well. I thought this was a good story, although I think maybe I'm too old to read stories about teen angst now? It's on my long list, if I need more novelettes.
Acrobatic Duality (Tamara Vardomskaya) [Short story] - actually this one was good! It's about competitive acrobatics. I personally felt like the story was a little on the slight side, but it's a good story and definitely worth reading, and I think a lot of people (on FFA? forget where I got this rec) really liked it.
Night of the Salamander (Michael Swanwick) - apparently this is, like, part 4 in a series about a medieval detective? I thought this was super well written and intriguing, and I am probably going to check out the rest of the series, although quite frankly I think the main character is a jerk and it's not great fun to read from his perspective; that's why it's not making my short list.
The Practical Witch's Guide to Acquiring Real Estate - Really the title says it all. This is a fluffy piece, quite entertaining.
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Date: 2016-01-22 03:46 am (UTC)