Three things on a Sunday afternoon

[dolorosa_12]

This is one of those posts about unrelated things, none of which I feel really warrants a post of its own.

I stumbled across this excellent post by Ada Palmer on her blog. On the surface of things, it's about the two recent TV series about the Borgias, but what it's really about is being a professional historian (or someone who has deep historical knowledge about specific time periods), and learning to switch off that part of the brain when engaging with historical fiction. I really love the way Palmer writes — I haven't seen either series, but this doesn't matter, as her writing draws you in, no matter what the subject.

I've hit a bit of a reading slump, and it hasn't helped that the book I was reading, The Library of the Unwritten by AJ Hackwith, sounded cool in terms of concept (a librarian who spends the afterlife preserving and collecting all unwritten books, for the library of Hell), but really didn't work for me in terms of execution. It's the sort of book about books, stories, authors and bookishness that I think I would have adored fifteen years ago, but with which I am swiftly losing patience — the literary equivalent of Oscar-baity films about Hollywood. (Other recent examples of this subgenre of fantasy novel which I also found tooth-gratingly irritating include The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow, and The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (both of which were, indeed, pushed at me by Goodreads when I marked The Library of the Unwritten as 'read'.) I think it doesn't help that these types of stories have a tendency to be extremely twee — this wasn't as bad in that regard as Harrow's writing, but it was still too treacly for my tastes. I wanted more celestial and infernal politics, and less pontificating about the power of stories.

Talk to me about Yuletide! Who is planning to participate this year? What fandoms are you thinking of nominating? Nominations coordination in the comments is most welcome!

Comments

[schneefink]

"The Library of the Unwritten" is one of the very few books I started but didn't finish in the past few months. I wasn't even that far in when I realized that I was already getting way too annoyed at both the worldbuilding and the characters.

As for Yuletide, I'm definitely nominating "Campaign: Skyjacks", but not entirely sure about the other two. Possibly "Bloodrights" and "Kingdom of Gods," same as last year, but I should probably reread the books and I'd rather read new books atm.

[dolorosa_12]

You're a stronger person than I ... I tend to be really reluctant to give up on books once I've got beyond a particular point, even if they're really grating on me. I think I've got to stop reading books about librarians that aren't written by librarians, as there appears to be something of a trend of magical libraries at the moment, and it's rarely executed well. (I particularly could have done without the implication that all librarians are just failed or aspiring authors.) Given one of my most formative moments in a work of fiction is the point in His Dark Materials which prompts the quote 'tell them stories ... just tell them stories, and all will be well,' you'd think I'd have more patience for books about the magical power of stories, but I'm just finding them unbearably sentimental in the worst possible way at the moment.

I hadn't heard of any of your potential nominations, but I don't necessarily think it's a requirement to reread the books unless you're planning to write in those fandoms as well. I don't know if you nominate to request, to offer, or some combination of the two. (As for me, I nominate to request, because I know that it's almost certain that no one else will request a fandom I've nominated, and there's usually a bunch of other things in the tagset that I'm happy to offer.) But obviously you should do what feels most comfortable.

[schneefink]

Were you at the "books about books" panel in Dublin? The author of the "Library of the Unwritten" was there, that's where I heard about the book. Another panelist mentioned that many books written about "libraries" don't actually know what libraries are/are for and mix them up with e.g. archives, and several panelists definitely looked caught out ^^

I nominate to request. You might be right that it's not necessary to reread them before nominating; I'd just like to reread them before writing my requests.

[dolorosa_12]

I actually don't think I was at that panel, although I'd have to go back through my Dublin recaps to be absolutely sure.

Another panelist mentioned that many books written about "libraries" don't actually know what libraries are/are for and mix them up with e.g. archives, and several panelists definitely looked caught out

Hahahahaha! There are actually quite a few published authors who also work in libraries, although I don't think that libraries feature very heavily in their work.