dolorosa_12 | Three things on a Sunday afternoon

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Three things on a Sunday afternoon

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!

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"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.

Yuletide! :D The only thing I know For Sure that I'm nominating is The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water (by Zen Cho; a novella), where I desperately want more stories about Guet Imm and Tet Sang, either pre- or post-canon. I feel like I might also nominate On a Sunbeam (webcomic, by Tillie Walden) again? I think I'd need to reread it to figure that out, but that's not hard.

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.

Ooh, Zen Cho! I still haven't read that novella because it's a Tor.com one, and their ebook novella prices are, frankly, outrageous, so I'm waiting for the day that it is inevitably discounted on the Kindle (which will happen eventually). But I love Zen Cho's writing, and my impression is that that novella was very well received, so no doubt you will have lots of offers for it.

Completely fair! I bought a physical copy of the novella on the strength of my belief that I'd love it, and was very happy to be proven right. :) I am hoping that other folk are going to be super into it too; it feels like it should have a pretty good Yuletide showing!

That's a great article, thank you for the link. I know too well the historian's pedantry, and decision not to pedant or to analyse, when it's *good enough*. But the delight when a show does get the vibe, which is so much more important than the details.

Though I will pedant about her Buffy anecdote, which relates to something set in Iceland, not Germany. Tut. (It's even wronger, that way.)

I am planning to do Yuletide this year, but I have NO idea yet what I'm going to nominate or request or what I want to write.

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.

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.

Though I will pedant about her Buffy anecdote, which relates to something set in Iceland, not Germany.

For some reason I always remember that scene as taking place in medieval Sweden, rather than Iceland (certainly the actress is speaking Swedish, I think?), so now I feel really silly, and will clearly need to speed up the rewatch I'm currently doing with my husband. (We're only midway through Season 4.)

I won't know what I want to write until I see the tagset, and, preferably, people's letters. I normally cycle through a few of the same fandoms until I get fic for them, but this year I'm definitely introducing a new-to-me fandom into the mix when I request/nominate.

these types of stories have a tendency to be extremely twee
What do you mean by this?

Re: Ada Palmer, do you listen to her music?

Re: yuletide, I don't know. Maybe? I was burned pretty badly by my author in 2018 deliberately writing me a massive(ly triggering) DNW and really really really don't think I could take a repeat performance this year (or... ever?) but on the other hand, what are the chances?

On a Sunbeam (webcomic)

Tell me more? I am always looking for more webcomics.

On a Sunbeam is a queer space fantasy webcomic about a girl who joins a spaceship crew doing restoration jobs on weird old ruins. She's doing this because she wants to find the mysterious girl she dated once during high school (I think?), and the story is a lovely combination of found family, queer romance, and beautiful art and worldbuilding.

I love it because it's completely unapologetic about being space fantasy (all the spaceships look like fish! there are weird spirit foxes!), has a lot of unexplored bits of mentioned worldbuilding (sci-fi school sports! VR tabletop games! those foxes!), and the characters are generally all positive and kind to each other.

Tillie Walden says, in the 'About', "My initial goal with Sunbeam was to create a version of outer space that I would want to live in. So of course that includes tons of queer people, no men (did you notice?), trees, old buildings, and endless constellations.", and honestly all of this is very fair and a lot of what I love about it myself. (Walden also makes an effort to have characters who are clearly diverse as far as racial background goes, which also makes me like it.)

Ohhhh I am so tempted to do Yuletide this year, but my main barrier is usually taking the time to come up with a letter. ...But I should probably also give thoughts to nominations too, since I have some smaller fandoms that won't get nominated otherwise, hmm...

Oh my God, both those books you mentioned (the Morgenstern and the Harrow) are ones I tried and gave up on, which is weird because on paper they seem up my alley.

I need to get unbanned from Yuletide specifically because I want to request some version of Arthurian legend with the promptHelp, my subs are unionizing. (This definitely started out as a joke about how Gansey feels when he realizes Adam and Ronan are together but I kinda need it in the proper Arthurian context.)

In the same vein I need to finally remember to nominate Winter Solstice: Camelot Station. And probably the recent Amazon "Tick" series and Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts.

The Library of the Unwritten was one of my lockdown library books and I struggled... and decided to DNF. I have read a lot of books about books (and/or libraries) and concept wasn't 'new' or daring enough to grab my attention. Though, yes, the completionist part of me did suffer as I had read about 100 pages by then.

Yuletide! Let's see - I hadn't thought too much about nominations yet, but perhaps You Let Me In or An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good

I scanned that article--I don't have time to read about it all at the moment--and did find it very interesting. I love The Borgias but because I think the casting is so great, I never had any desire to watch Borgia. This has made me curious about it!

The one thing I know I'm nominating for sure is Fiddler on the Roof. I want to find out how Hodel and Perchik fell in love! (Or sister fic. Sister fic would be acceptable.) Other than that, I have a bunch of well-maybes. The canons I most enjoyed this year were ones that were really satisfying and didn't make me want fic, necessarily.

I am considering asking for Crash Landing On You fic, because I still think that show did wrong by Seo Dan, but I have not had the best of luck with kdrama requests in the past, so we'll see.

Edited 2020-09-14 10:42 (UTC)

Are you signed up for the Tor.com newsletter? Because I am 99% sure I got that particular ebook in one of their once-a-month-we-give-out-free-ebooks things. All the Tor.com novellas I've read have been through that free feature.

Re: tweeness, I find that there is a fine line between whimsical, and cloyingly sentimental, and a lot of authors who are currently writing fantasy novels about magical libraries, magical books, and the power of storytelling tip over into the twee, sentimental side of things. (A prime candidate would be Alix E Harrow's Hugo Award-winning story from last year, which was about witches who worked in public libraries, and made me so, so angry, because it wasn't just sentimental, it was patronising and white saviour-y, and barely any Hugo voters seemed to notice this.)

I haven't listened to any of Ada Palmer's music, but I have no doubt that it is as intricate, well thought out, and clever as the rest of her creative output!

That is such a vile thing to have happened to you in 2018 Yuletide — I can understand why you would feel burned by that. I had a pretty meh Yuletide last year (for reasons that had nothing to do with my my gift, which was fine), and avoided doing any other exchanges this year for that reason. Do you like the writing and gift-giving part of Yuletide as much as the receiving? If so, maybe signing up to be a pinch-hitter, or writing treats could be a low-stakes way to ease yourself back into things, without exposing yourself to the potential of a triggering gift.

The letter isn't a requirement! It's true that it's helpful to the author, but at minimum all you need is to pick some fandoms and characters and state any DNWs explicitly in the sign up.

From the sound of things, I'm not alone regarding those Morgenstern and Harrow books as unbearably twee. It's strange, because the SFF publishing community went into raptures over them, especially Harrow's book.

My subs are unionizing is hilarious, I need Arthurian fic for this immediately!

From the sound of things, DNFing The Library of the Unwritten was a common reaction. I think I have to give books about books, or magical libraries a miss for now, because the last three I've read have been so frustrating.

The title of An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good was so fantastic that I had to look it up, and it sounds like a lot of fun.

I haven't watched either Borgia series, but I enjoyed the article because it articulated something I've long come to realise: historical nitpickery frequently misses the point. Historical fiction doesn't need to be a picture perfect reflection of the past, because often that would lead to a lot of time-wasting due to the need to translate every tiny detail to make it comprehensible to modern viewers. It's enough if the overall attitudes and motivations for the characters make sense for someone of that historical and cultural time period.

Fiddler on the Roof sounds like it would be a good Yuletide fandom, and I bet you'll find people willing to write it. I don't have any personal experience with kdramas and Yuletide, but I'm peripherally aware that Crash Landing On You was pretty popular in Dreamwidth circles this year, so maybe you'll have more luck this time.

My understanding is that the free ebooks only work if you live in the US or Canada — certainly I've been tricked by that with Tor.com in the past. (Whenever they're releasing a free ebook, they scream about it on social media, but make no mention of the fact that it's limited to the US and Canada, so you click through the link all excited, and then see that it's regionally limited in the small print. It's one of the many things I find extremely irritating about Tor.com.)

I really loved the "Night Circus" too, was sure I'd love anything from Morgenstern but just could not get into it

I feel like I am constantly discovering new reasons to be irritated with people who don't understand that national borders mean basically nothing anymore. That is stupid and I am sorry.

Would you be able to work around that with a VPN?

because often that would lead to a lot of time-wasting due to the need to translate every tiny detail to make it comprehensible to modern viewers.

Yes! (The one I always think of this is that "Tiffany is a Byzantine name, but you would never dream of calling a character in a novel set in Byzantium by that name, now would you?" post on Tumblr. I don't even know if it's true, but I like to believe that it is.)

Yeah, I definitely think there are like four people on my flist alone who would be willing to write FotR!

That sounds absolutely very rtmi! thank you!

it wasn't just sentimental, it was patronising and white saviour-y
I don't think I've read that story, so I would love to hear your thoughts about it. You always have such interesting thoughts.

Afaik I know most (all?) of Ada Palmer's music can be found on Bandcamp.

yeah, it is was Unpleasant, to say the least! For the sake of clarity, that fic has since been deleted and the fic gifted to me in yuletide 2018 was a treat and the author did nothing wrong. I do like writing/gift-giving! I might try just doing treats this year, that's a good idea, thank you!

Edited ( Edit: mixed up my comment threads, oops) 2020-09-14 22:21 (UTC)

I hope you enjoy it! :)

I think it's not so much national borders so much as how the rights to books are sold. Normally, if you sell a book to a publisher, the rights to sell the book in the US and Canada are one deal, and the rights to sell the book in the UK, Ireland and the Commonwealth are a separate deal. (This is why you tend to get different US and UK editions of books.) Some authors are only successful in selling their books in one region.

But therefore, it's impossible to make ebooks free in the two different regions, because often they've been sold to a completely different publishing company than the one who publishes them in the other region. Does that make sense?

I suspect a VPN would get around that, but I've never tested it. As I say, my objection is less to the fact that there are region specific ebook giveaways, and more that Tor.com refuse to state this fact plainly when promoting it — it's all just 'free ebook of the month!', which leaves a very sour taste in the mouth of this non-American reader.

Same here — The Night Circus was great, but the follow up was just so twee and sentimental.

I wanted more celestial and infernal politics, and less pontificating about the power of stories.

This was an interesting thought to me, because I related to it and yet relating to it surprised me, as someone who (I will make this relevant!) often puts 'the power of stories' into a list of likes for fanfic gift exchanges. Thinking further, I think I like that message to be buried very deep down and for me to catch glimpses of it; if it's in a story as an Important Message, I want that message to tell me something new about the power of stories. But a piece of fiction telling me "Stories are powerful" and not going further with that concept is very offputting. It's not an insight. I want an insight.

I have no idea what I want for this year's Yuletide, and am making my own sign-up conditional on making progress on an auction fic.

'The Tiffany Problem' is a real and legitimate thing. The actual name for this phenomenon was coined by author Jo Walton, who is herself a good friend of Ada Palmer's. (Tiffany is a variant on the name Theophania, and it is attested right back to medieval times in England and France.)

I'm glad to know that's true! And I like Jo Walton very much, but I wasn't aware it was connected to her.

Oh, yes, I get why it is the way that it is, and the whole rights-being-sold thing makes sense in a 20th century world. I just think it's insufficient for the moment now, and the changes in culture. When a new DW episode comes out, the fans in the US don't want to have to wait (a day or, worse, months) to be able to watch it. They want to be able to watch it while the UK people are watching it so they can be part of the discussion. Pop culture, especially, moves so very fast that I think there has to be a solution that takes global conversations into account.

I agree with you entirely! Part of what frustrates me so much is that publishers and media corporations seem to think that people pirate stuff due to cost, when it is really more due to immediacy, and wanting to participate in the global conversation. Most people who are fans of media that airs in another country would be quite happy to e.g. pay the equivalent of the UK license fee if it meant they could watch iPlayer outside the UK, etc.

See, I think I like stories about stories ... and yet the three most recent books that I've read with this particular trope have all irritated me profoundly. I'm not sure if it's just the fact that this type of book also tends to have magical libraries, and often really stereotypical librarian characters (the idea in The Library of the Unwritten that all librarians in Hell were failed authors was particularly irritating).

Thinking further, I think I like that message to be buried very deep down and for me to catch glimpses of it; if it's in a story as an Important Message, I want that message to tell me something new about the power of stories. But a piece of fiction telling me "Stories are powerful" and not going further with that concept is very offputting. It's not an insight. I want an insight.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, here. I want subtlety!

I wish you speedy progress on the auction fic!

Okay, so the story in question is called 'The Witch's Guide to Practical Escape', and it's about a witch who works in a public library in the US who has a magical talent for getting the right book to the right reader. (For example, a working class black boy comes into the library, and she introduces him to fantasy literature, a teenage girl whose parents are fundamentalist Christians gets given books on feminism and abortion, etc.) Most Hugos voters seemed to go into raptures over this story, viewing it as an uplifting, heartwarming tale of the power and magic of libraries. But I found it extremely patronising — it is true that for many, many people (myself included), libraries were a haven and a magical place that unlocked or increased our love of reading. But to me it just felt smug and sentimental, as if the library patrons were helpless, uncultured lost souls, and the librarian knew their own needs and inner lives better than they did. (And with the black teenage boy in particular it felt like one of those stories about a 'troubled' youth who is saved by a nice, well-meaning, motherly middle class woman.)

Thanks for the link to Ada Palmer's music, and good luck with whatever you decide to do about Yuletide.

Absolutely! I have relied on pirated kdrama and subs for years because there was literally no other way to access them, but when Viki and Netflix started showing them legally, I immediately switched to using those services. It's all about access.

I shall certainly be doing Yuletide, because I always do. But I haven't settled on what to nominate yet. It's always a balance between what I feel like writing and what I want to request, which I make a point of differentiating. I know it's silly, but I feel like if I wrote and requested the same fandom, I'd be sort of competing with my own gift, and that feels churlish.

Your nominating approach is so interesting, because it's so different to my own. I only nominate things I want to receive, because it's highly unlikely anyone else is going to nominate or request them, and then I rely on others to have nominated things I'm capable of writing. I always participate in Yuletide with the assumption that no one will request any of my nominated fandoms, and I can generally find something I'd be happy to write in the tagset, because a lot of the perennial Yuletide favourites are fandoms that I'm familiar with and can generally think of fic that will fit participants' requests.

Do you find it risky to use nomination slots nominating things you want to write, or are you always confident that at least someone will request them, and have prompts that you can write?

I make two lists, one with what I want to read, and one with whatever I feel most in the mood to write at the time. Then I treat the lists entirely differently. On the requesting list, I only nom the ones that are super rare, because I figure no one else will ask for them. On the writing list, I only nom the ones that I am pretty sure are just popular enough that if they're in the tagset someone will request them. I tend to offer a bunch of other things in the tagset too, mind, but I'm usually in the mood for a certain style of canon to work with, so it helps to have plenty of available options that suit.

Thank you for answering.

I'm curious, how would you write a story about the power of stories and/or libraries?

That's a really interesting method — thanks for sharing!

To be honest (and I'm sorry, this is kind of a boring answer), I don't think I'd even try. It's easy for me to find things to criticise, but I don't know what a well written story on that subject matter would look like. I think Garth Nix's latest book involves magical bookshops, and he's normally one of my favourite authors, so I'll see if he does a better job than the three books I've been criticising.

That's an entirely valid answer! I was just curious.

Looking forward to hearing what you think of Nix's book.

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Three things on a Sunday afternoon

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