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.

[shadaras]

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.

[bruttimabuoni]

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.)

[singedsun]

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.

[dhampyresa]

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?

[aimedatthestars]

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...

[likeadeuce]

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.

[merit]

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

[lirazel]

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.

[morbane]

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.

[lyr]

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.