neotoma

Ada Palmer, of Ex Urbe, and historian at University of Chicago, has just published her first novel, Too Like the Lightning.

I just finished it (though there was one scene that almost made me stop reading, for real) and would love to talk about it, but I'm not going to spoil you.

Instead, I'm going to give you the jacket blurb, and hope that intersts those of you who haven't picked it up yet:

Mycroft Canner is a convict. For his crimes he is required, as is the custom of the 25th century, to wander the world being as useful as he can to all he meets. Carlyle Foster is a sensayer–a spiritual counselor in a world that has outlawed the public practice of religion, but which also knows that the inner lives of humans cannot be wished away.

The world into which Mycroft and Carlyle have been born is as strange to our 21st-century eyes as ours would be to a native of the 1500s. It is a hard-won utopia built on technologically-generated abundance, and also on complex and mandatory systems of labeling all public writing and speech. What seem to us normal gender distinctions are now distinctly taboo in most social situations. And most of the world’s population is affiliated with globe-girdling clans of the like-minded, whose endless economic and cultural competition is carefully managed by central planners of inestimable subtlety. To us it seems like a mad combination of heaven and hell. To them, it seems like normal life.

And in this world, Mycroft and Carlyle have stumbled on the wild card that may destabilize the system: the boy Bridger, who can effortlessly make his wishes come true. Who can, it would seem, bring inanimate objects to life…

Not a complete list by any means, but some delightful stories to read that you might not have seen anyway.

Goblin Emperor

Peace & Purring -- Csethiro and Maia escape the tenth iteration of their wedding rehearsal, and relax a little.

Imperial Radch

Daughter of Fishes -- Translator Zeiat has an ingenious idea that she thinks will make tea even better.

Ray Bradbury

When She Woke at Dawn -- The Martians are returning to Earth. (The Martian Chronicles & There Will Come Soft Rains)

Seseme Street

Felt Lines -- Sesame Street muppets talk about their personal experiences on StoryCorps.

Exclusive Content -- In old days, Cookie think, just having monsters on television was spooky. Monsters doing classy drama was transgressive. Transgressive mean it a thing that people not expect you to do, and they think you strange when you do it. It special kind of surprise.

Location is Everything -- Mr. Hooper has always wanted his own store.

Stargate Universe

Manifest Destiny -- "I think I've worked out the bad news on my own,” Rush says as crisply as he can, like that will keep the tremble out of his voice, and now he's the one who can't quite look at Eli. “What's the good news?”

Australia Is No Better Than Here -- Young and Rush, in the three year stasis. Or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, possibly.

Tomorrowland

Gift Guides for Grumpy Bastards -- When Casey tries to figure out a present for the birthday Frank doesn't want to celebrate, she finds the one person who knows everything there is to know on Frank Walker.

Vorkosigan Saga

Not Quite Vor -- Deportment isn't the sum of a girl's education when she grows up Koudelka. Few people stop to remember that quieter than Martya or gentler than Delia doesn’t mean particularly gentle or quiet.

I've created a page for Jo Walton's The Just City at TV tropes. Anyone who has read the book want to add to it?

If you haven't read The Just City yet, it's a pretty awesome book -- Athena with the help of 300 adults from across human history, tries to create The Just City from Plato's The Republic on Thera, before the explosion. It goes about as well as you might imagine, given 300 idealists from many different eras, whose only commonality is that they've read Plato in the original Greek and prayed to Athena to let them create the Just City.

I think I'm going to get myself a copy of Sita Sings the Blues, having seen it through Netflix. It's an amazing story, and the art shifts are not only gorgeous, but well support the interweaving tales of Nina Paley (who made this movie on her computer) and Sita and Rama. The use of Annette Hanshaw's songs from the 1920s makes for a wonderful conceit for the film, which you should all watch.

Fortunately, it's on a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License, so if you want to download it an watch it, you can.

But I think I'll buy a copy when I can afford it -- because art like this needs to be supported. And maybe I need to finally read the Ramayana...

Ongoing

Family Man

by Dylan Meconis -- What do scholars, gypsies, Jews, and wolves all have in common? In 1768, they could only find safety in numbers. But belonging to a pack doesn't mean your troubles are over... This is gorgeous, well-research story focusing on an disgraced (and possibly atheistic) theologian and an enigmatic spinster librarian, is mostly about 18th century life, university politics, the struggle between reason and faith, and possibly werewolves. Her research notes alone are worth a look. It's been on pause while she researches and writes the script, but it's due back September 21st.

Girl Genius

by Phil and Kaja Foglio -- Mad Scientists rule Europe. Badly. Steampunk alternate Europe, with Mad Science! What's not to love?

Dresden Codak

by Aaron Diaz -- a sometimes Dada comic focusing on physics, philosophy, transhumanism, nerd jokes, and occasional descents to Mesoamerican underworlds. Famous for the Hob storyline and the Dungeons and Discourses.

Oglaf

by Trudy Cooper -- hilarious and NSFW. Extremely NSFW with plenty of mocking of fairy tales and fantasy literature tropes.

Erfworld

written by Rob Balder, illustrated by Jamie Noguchi (first book) and Xin Ye (second book)-- the story of Parson Gotti, obsessive gamer summoned to be a 'Perfect Warlord' to a city losing a war -- in a universe based on turn-based strategy wargames, with extra cutifying factor. It updates about three or four times a month, usually two comics pages to one text page, and it's wonderful to see what happens when a normal human's lateral thinking gets into a turn-based wargame.

Freefall

by Mark Stanley-- the story of Florence Ambrose, uplifted wolf and starship engineer, Sam Starfall, larcenous business-squid, and Helix, a young cargo-moving robot. Because all three main characters are not humans, they all have unique perspectives of the human society they're living in on the Planet Jean. Lots of hard science in the science fiction, and used to very good effect. The archives are enormous -- the comic has been MWF since 1998 -- so block out a weekend to read it.

Completed

Bite Me!

also by Dylan Meconis -- A French Revolutionary Vampire Farce! This one is just fricking hilarious, especially if you check the alt text. Be warned though, the author says it's in "the universe a few doors down" from Family Man, so there may be spoilers for that in this -- or maybe not, who knows?

Digger

by Ursula Vernon ursulav -- A Wombat. A dead god. A very peculiar epic. Anthropology, art shifts for the purposes of storytelling, religion, geology, the trouble with dwarf mining, a Statue of Ganesh, anthropomorphic hyenas, an incredibly pragmatic wombat engineer, and the shadowchild. squee!

What webcomics do you love?

There seems to be a fan-challenge on YouTube to create the best AU vid for Supernatural. Some of the entries are flawed but neat, and some are downright awesome. Here are a few that I think are worth watching -- if anyone knows of the journals of the makers, let me know and I'll update the links:

A False Heaven -- Dean kills Sam to prevent Lucifer from getting him -- but for Sam, Heaven isn't Heaven with Dean. Lyrical and sad

Apocalypse -- What if Dean and Sam will play their roles? What if they would say "yes"? Beautiful and bleak.

Zombie King -- Sam is the 'first' zombie, the original host and Dean gets killed by him, but instead of being turned an angel intervenes and brings Dean back to life. He must stop Sam of course, before the whole world gets infected. This is seriously well constructed, creepy, and tragic.

Murdering the Angels -- Dean came back from Hell a new man.

Yes -- Completely distraught by the destruction Lucifer has brought to the world, Dean is confronted once more by Zachariah, who shows him that saying yes to Michael could be the only thing to end this destruction and protect Sam from Lucifer. Emotionally shattered, Dean finally says yes. The world changes. Not actually part of the challenge, but the constructed reality is amazing, and OMG, if God shows up like this in the show, the fandom will have a collective fit. :D

HANK SPECIFIC
( Gen )
( Het )
( Slash )
( Oddball Thingies )

I'm still looking for good Mutant-X fics, good Dark Beast fics (he's scary, but he's most disturbing when he's acting like Hank), and I'd really *really* like to see Hank gender-swapped in a fic and see how he'd be different if he'd been born 'Hannah' (probably would have married Bobby, if Bobby grew up enough to notice smart girls are hot...)

Also, Hank is a Hufflepuff at heart. Discuss.

Since I recently lost my mind to my comics collection, it was inevitable that something was going to crawl out of it...

( Weird present-tense XMen fic; Bobby, Hank; current Astonishing continuity sorta... )This is mostly the fault of gblvr and sanj, because I've actually been able to hand them X-men First Class to read, and then discuss later. I am heavily pimping the awesome of Hank&Bobby (or Hank/Bobby) at them.