First Post

[hoisinsauce]

A space to chat fandom! Anon!

Got a WIP you're excited about? Want to rave about your fave? Or is your fandom absolutely in love with a character who detracts from every scene they bumble into, and you need somewhere to vent? You're in the right place!

(start a comment thread by replying to this post)

Comments

Re: Books - Currently Reading

[(Anonymous)]

Bought a copy of gideon the ninth a while back because people were piling on the author with "don't read this book!1111"s and I always try to support authors when I see that. Decided to start it now. Expectations rather low; it's YA, the blurb looks like it was the result of that roomful of monkeys with typewriters, plus the recommendation on the front is from a man whom I consider an idiot. The cover doesn't even seem to physically fit the book. So we're off to a good start. But will see! Hopefully it'll be entertaining either way.

Re: Books - Currently Reading

[(Anonymous)]

I'm curious now. What sin did the author commit?

Re: Books - Currently Reading

[(Anonymous)]

Wrote a darkfic, I think? I don't remember the details, beyond that the episode was wanky and the people harassing her seemed far worse than she did. I want to say it was a homestuck fanfic but I might have her confused with someone else.

Re: Books - Currently Reading

[(Anonymous)]

Ok yeah looks like she wrote a fic where some homestuck troll raped another teen troll and then the victim killed the rapist. And this got characterised as "she's a child abuser". The fancops eased off her after she revealed she had been abused, but it's still really shitty that she felt she had to make that reveal to those ghouls.

Re: Books - Currently Reading

[(Anonymous)]

SA

Having read a few chapters, though, I'm fairly confident it's *really* because she's a better writer than the rest of the YA crowd, and they're jelly. It's not really my style, and I'm still wondering if it's Old Kingdom fanfic at heart (put in space to disguise it?), but you can tell she actually cares about the writing and there are some nice touches (eg: a character who has grown up surrounded by skeletons describing sizes of everyday objects in terms of numbers of bodies). It feels creative so far, albeit not a style I'm too fond of.

Re: Books - Currently Reading

[(Anonymous)]

looked into this and it seems the author is urbanAnchorite? incredibly surprised to learn about this, because i was a big fan of her back in my homestuck days. i don't remember her writing anything particularly problematic, although my experience is probably colored by just how popular darkfic was in the homestuck community in general.

might pick this up, now that my interest is piqued. thanks for the suggestion.

Re: Books - Currently Reading

[(Anonymous)]

Lol, I read that as "incredibly unsurprised", since pretty much every writer I like gets attacked for something stupid at some point! I like writers who experiment and take risks; mobs do not like them. So at this point I use attempts at cancellation as a recommendations list. But I'd never come across her before, maybe because my attempts at reading homestuck itself did not go well.

Re: Books - Currently Reading

[(Anonymous)]

Ooh, I've been meaning to read this, but the person who recommended it to me gave it a glowing review and I'm scared I'll be disappointed. Soon!

Re: Books - Currently Reading

[(Anonymous)]

Hah, I'll make sure not to spoil it, then! I'm about 4 chapters in, atm. So far I'm finding it veryyyy YA in some ways (the characters talk like tumblr teens, trying v hard to be badass, and the attempts at humor don't work for me), but well-structured and intriguing. The writing style is... odd. But different! It's one of those books where you can tell the author started with fanfic, but I mean it's YA, so hey; if you go in expecting YA I don't think you'll be too disappointed by the general style. Some lines seem pinched from other things and it's not my thing so far, but I've read much much worse, and I do want to see what happens next. And you get the impression she had a blast writing it. I picked it up because I wanted a light read between other things and didn't realise how long it was. xD The style is a bit harder to understand right away than I expected. (Or maybe I need more sleep... I haven't looked too closely, so not sure what it is, but feels like the sentences are in a very different rhythm to what I find natural). If you like undead things, there are a lot of them, and there's already been one image that I did find really cool tbf, though I won't spoil it. It's better than I expected, so far.

Re: Books - Currently Reading

[(Anonymous)]

I'm intrigued! I like undead things, and it's always nice when you can tell an author had fun with their work.

Re: Books - Currently Reading - Gideon the Ninth

[(Anonymous)]

SA

Made a subthread.

Still enjoying it, but the dialogue is so tumblr, the main character feels like one of the worst blogs and this is unfortunate because I think I'm supposed to care about her. But instead I just want her to suffer. :P

Re: Books - Currently Reading - Gideon the Ninth

[(Anonymous)]

Am learning vocab from the prose, though. TIL "prolix" ("wordy").

Re: Books - Currently Reading - Gideon the Ninth

[(Anonymous)]

Also this is silly, but I like that the cover art of the character matches up with the description of the character, and seems to have been made with the author's input.

Re: Books - Currently Reading - Gideon the Ninth

[(Anonymous)]

The main characters are going down the paths I was hoping they'd go down. There are a LOT of characters, so I'm glad the author provided a cast list, even if I did view it with foreboding when I started the book. Though I am a sucker for things structured like "there are ten pairs of royals; what will each pair be like?", and the format is a lot like that. Also, it's necromancers in space, but there was very little space at the start, and it felt like more of an aesthetic than anything. Still kinda does, but it's got a little more sci-fi and space-y. And some of the narration is cringey but other bits do make me laugh. I kinda get the impression the author wrote a book about the create-your-own-character she was playing as in some rpg or other; it's got a bit of a videogame feel.

Re: Books - Currently Reading - Gideon the Ninth

[(Anonymous)]

I <3 how silly it is. There's a necromancer who wears a corset made of bones over her top just for the aesthetic, but the effect is spoiled because she rattles when she walks. And there's energy created when there has been a lot of death, called... thanergy. :P

Re: Books - Currently Reading - Gideon the Ninth

[(Anonymous)]

For anyone who's read Bartimaeus, the dynamic between the main characters kinda reminds me of that (though the servant is more "acting badass and loudly proclaiming she hates someone she doesn't seem to actually hate", whereas Bartimaeus would eat Nathaniel in a heartbeat if Nathaniel fucked up his summoning spell. Aaand they seem bound together out of social pressure and status rather than any powerful exploitative magic that *physically* binds them.) But there's defo a grumpy-goth-prodigy-brat-and-their-reluctant-protector-who-is-also-petty vibe, with the pair occasionally being impressed by each other and being annoyed that they're impressed.

Re: Books - Currently Reading - Gideon the Ninth

[(Anonymous)]

And now it's a detective novel with ghosts. Hey, whatever, I'm into that.

Re: Books - Currently Reading - Gideon the Ninth

[(Anonymous)]

Finished! Got a lot pacier around 20 chapters in and I stayed up to read it and tired myself out. xD I'll put some non-spoilery summary notes up in a bit!

Re: Books - Currently Reading - Gideon the Ninth

[(Anonymous)]

So, I enjoyed it overall; my comments will probably linger on the things that bothered me but that's just how I am and all the previous positive stuff still holds!

It starts off with a lot of unfamiliar scenery and is a bit confusing for the first few chapters. It clicks after that, but it's a strange way to open the book. I kept reading because I was curious, but it took a while to feel easy to read. I WAS intrigued, though, and I think creating mystery is one of her strengths.

The plot is carefully constructed; a few too many long battles for my taste, but it's good and suspense-y. The ending makes sense, though felt like an amalgam of some other series, which I won't list because spoilers! But I like that the plot feels very 'fair', with hints given early for things that happen later, and the groundwork laid for twists. The mysteries are good. The weird is good. It's very atmospheric and strange. You can see it's been developed along a YA plot template, but there's enough of the author's own brand of weird that it doesn't feel too formulaic. I *really* enjoyed the main setting and the concept for it.

The prose is often fun; it's not really my style but you can tell she's taken care over it and she's tried to update idioms to reflect the characters' circumstances, so it'll say "at the end of the night" instead of "at the end of the day" and so on. I liked the attention to detail and the silliness.

It's at its weakest when it's trying to do characters and dialogue. This is a shame because it's built around a relationship between two characters, but to me they never stopped reading *as* characters, not people. And it's the same for the rest of the cast. They overreact and underreact in a very YA way, and often it feels like it's trying a bit hard to be quotable. I should emphasise, though, this is nowhere NEAR male-writer levels of questionable characterisation. And this is personal taste; I like naturalism and realism and psychological depth over one-liners; ymmv. I could enjoy it but yeah it felt a bit... anime archetypes, sometimes. Well, that sounds harsh. I like anime so should note that. :P I think this might be a situation where the author wanted to tell one story, but felt she had to include character journeys along a set pattern according to genre fiction rules, and it suffers for it because she's not really that interested in that bit. That's my guess, anyway.

The humor generally fell a bit flat for me, but at the same time I found the weakness of the jokes endearing and quite funny in itself. It's hard to describe; the attempts at humor are very earnest and very fanfic. I did laugh at some bits.

There are a lot of bones. If you like skeletons, you will love this book. I think the author just really liked skeletons and wanted to see a lot of them (the whole book feels like that and it's a nice energy). Characters wear skull face paint and black robes and wield rapiers just for the aesthetic, etc. It's a ballpark for goths who like scifi. Something I did appreciate about it was that it was lively. Often when I read books with cool settings and interesting worldbuilding, I find the tradeoff is that they're very dry. This book does not have that problem. It's more like reading a cartoon. :P

Re: Books - Currently Reading - Gideon the Ninth

[(Anonymous)]

One thing I really didn't like (rot13 because spoilers!):
n zna fnirf gur qnl. Abg va gur frafr bs qbvat fghss, ohg n tbbq puhax bs vg vf n zlfgrel abiry, naq ur fbyirf gur zlfgrel, orpnhfr bs uvf ebznagvp srryvatf. Naq V sbhaq gung dhvgr jrveq orpnhfr jbzra ner cebzvarag gubebhtubhg, zbfg bs gur znva pnfg ner jbzra, naq gurl pbhyq rnfvyl unir unq n jbzna jbex vg bhg vafgrnq, vafgrnq bs fuhagvat gurz bss gb gur fvqr n ovg gbjneq gur raq. Naq vg jnf bqq gb unir guvf enaqbz thl'f eryngvbafuvc fhqqrayl gnxr pragre fgntr, rfcrpvnyyl fvapr gur cebgntbavfg'f ebznaprf jrer nonaqbarq. Gurer jnf na boivbhf punenpgre jub pbhyq unir qbar jung ur qvq, naq V guvax gur qenzn naq gvqvarff bs uvf nep znqr vg uneqre gb pner nobhg uvf sngr orpnhfr vg sryg gbb Ubyyljbbq. Fb lrnu vg jnf obgu n ovg enaqbz naq vg uheg gur fgehpgher. Vg pbhyq'ir rnfvyl orra gnxra bhg va jnlf gung vzb jbhyq'ir vzcebirq gur obbx, fb V nffhzr gur nhgube whfg yvxrq vg gung jnl.

Re: Books - Currently Reading - Gideon the Ninth

[(Anonymous)]

SA

(The vibe reminds me a little of Shadow of the Colossus. I mean, SotC is much emptier, but there's a weird mysterious old landscape and stuff you're just left to figure out. Was playing The Farthest Land earlier and it reminded me.)

Re: Books - Currently Reading - Gideon the Ninth

[(Anonymous)]

Also, a comment that will probably lead to wank if I make it elsewhere-- something I find very current about the book is the way it's being advertised as 'lesbian necromancers', leading with the word 'lesbian'. While several characters are, and it's not hidden or anything, it's fairly irrelevant to the plot. There's a lot in terms of subtext, but I think it would be an odd thing to advertise the book with at any other moment in time, and it gives me the vibe that people using that as the point to focus on when they advertise it are doing so as a chance to demonstrate their own values. If I'd picked it up expecting and wanting that to be the focus of the book, I would have been quite pissed off.

Re: Books - Currently Reading - Gideon the Ninth

[(Anonymous)]

I was gonna buy the sequel, but I think I'll wait until it comes out as a paperback. There was a preview at the back of the first book and,
ngl, it looked kinda terrible. xD But if this one took a while to hit its stride, maybe that one does, too.