Two excellent novellas
Jul. 14th, 2020 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12In almost every fic exchange in which I have participated, I have requested the same thing: post-canon hurt/comfort with Paige and Warden from Samantha Shannon's Bone Season series.
And now I don't have to request it again, because the author herself has written it: an excellent little novella called The Dawn Chorus, which bridges the gap between the third book in the series, and the fourth, which is due to be published next year.
I am really loving this trend of authors writing what amounts to professional fanfic of their own series in novellas. As well as Samantha Shannon's book, Aliette de Bodard published Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders, a post-canon novella in her post-apocalyptic Dominion of the Fallen series in which my favourite pairing of characters, fallen angel Asmodeus and his Vietnamese dragon prince husband Thuan solve a murder mystery, uncover corruption in the dragon kingdom under the Seine, and finally get a chance to work together instead of at cross purposes.
What I appreciated most about the two novellas was the space they afforded to their characters' emotions and explorations of their relationships. This is why I describe them as 'published fanfic' — one of the things I love most about fanfic is that character or relationship studies are so often at the heart of the writing, but you don't see this in most published fiction, unless it's romance. I'd love to see it in more SFF series.
I've reviewed both novellas together over at my reviews blog. As always, I welcome comments and discussion either here on Dreamwidth or at the original post.
And now I don't have to request it again, because the author herself has written it: an excellent little novella called The Dawn Chorus, which bridges the gap between the third book in the series, and the fourth, which is due to be published next year.
I am really loving this trend of authors writing what amounts to professional fanfic of their own series in novellas. As well as Samantha Shannon's book, Aliette de Bodard published Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders, a post-canon novella in her post-apocalyptic Dominion of the Fallen series in which my favourite pairing of characters, fallen angel Asmodeus and his Vietnamese dragon prince husband Thuan solve a murder mystery, uncover corruption in the dragon kingdom under the Seine, and finally get a chance to work together instead of at cross purposes.
What I appreciated most about the two novellas was the space they afforded to their characters' emotions and explorations of their relationships. This is why I describe them as 'published fanfic' — one of the things I love most about fanfic is that character or relationship studies are so often at the heart of the writing, but you don't see this in most published fiction, unless it's romance. I'd love to see it in more SFF series.
I've reviewed both novellas together over at my reviews blog. As always, I welcome comments and discussion either here on Dreamwidth or at the original post.
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Date: 2020-07-14 03:21 pm (UTC)I just read "The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water" and it read like fanfic of an unpublished novel (which even the author said) - if I had to guess, I'd say the author had the setting and characters but not the plot, and then decided to write an AU novella for it instead.
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Date: 2020-07-14 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-14 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-14 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-14 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 01:21 pm (UTC)Thuan isn't in Book 1 at all, and it's focused on House Silverspires, which is a rival House to Hawthorn (Asmodeus' House), so you only get him as a sort of vaguely menacing antagonist. If memory serves, the two of them become a couple (it's a political arranged marriage) in Book 2, and Book 3 is pretty solidly focused on their relationship. But the series has an ensemble cast, so there are also a lot of other characters who are prominent at various points.
I think you could start reading in Book 2, but you'd miss a lot of the context, so my advice would be to start at the beginning. I'm currently doing a reread of the whole trilogy.
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Date: 2020-07-16 03:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-17 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 04:10 am (UTC)That makes so much sense!
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Date: 2020-07-16 02:02 pm (UTC)