![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Just finished watching Julie and the Phantoms on Netflix, a show that has no business being as good as it ended up being. Julie is a teen who lost her mom, and also lost the ability to play the music that she used to make with her mom. When she accidentally brings three ghosts—three members of a boy band that was on the verge of breaking out when they died—back, they discover that they can be heard when they’re making music. The actors commit to roles that require extreme suspension of disbelief, and they’re very wholesome and charming. The songs are generic but the lead is a great singer, and I ended up sobbing twice in later episodes because it skillfully played on my heartstrings. Obviously, premised on death of a parent, death of a teenaged child. Mild romance, no sex.
Leigh Bardugo, Rule of Wolves: Conclusion of the King of Scars duology in which the war between Ravka and Fierda is resolved, at least for now. Mostly the guilty are punished and the just rewarded, including a fascinating solution to the problem of who the king will be, and in general it was satisfying.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Guns of the Dawn: Fantasy war novel: the protagonist is a minor noblewoman who, when her country starts drafting women to serve in its ongoing war against its revolutionary neighbor, becomes a soldier in the hated swamp country. There is sorcery, conferred on men of breeding by anointing them with the king’s blood, but it is overmatched by the enemy’s guns. Ultimately, she has to decide what honor means in a corrupt and corrupting system.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Tiger and the Wolf: Shapeshifters without fandom tropes. The protagonist is the child of the tiger queen (by rape) and a would-be wolf king, headman of one of the wolf bands. Raised by the wolf shifters, she has two animal souls/forms but will have to choose one to survive. Her father’s grim plans for her lead her to flee as he chases; her story interacts with a snake priest come from the South for mysterious reasons and a Southern champion with a monstrous crocodile form.
Aiden Thomas, Cemetery Boys: A trans boy who wants to be a brujo accidentally summons the wrong dead spirit, a young cis man who is definitely not reconciled to being dead; he and his vegan best friend—who refuses to perform bruja magic because it requires animal blood—have to figure out how to deal with a mysterious death and also with the hot ghost while navigating magical family/community that isn’t really sure how to treat their children who aren’t doing things the usual way. The villain is pretty obvious. No transphobic violence (but a few references to harassment and a couple of family members misgender the protagonist, albeit not as a matter of policy/consistently).
Susanna Clarke, Piranesi: Piranesi (though he doesn’t think that’s his name, it’s what the Other calls him) lives in a great House full of infinite rooms themselves full of statues, and sometimes the sea. Through his journal, we start to see that the mystery here is not what Piranesi thinks it is. It’s an eerie, mournful story with striking descriptions of the statues that make up Piranesi’s mostly lonely world.
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future: Robinson’s usual great ecological detail/political theories and musings applied to climate change in the near future. Things aren’t great but he argues that there’s a path forward, essentially via socialism. Seems to me to understate the chances that the US will fuck it up for everyone, but if you want to read something that is moderately hopeful (despite depicting tens of millions of deaths in already-unavoidable disasters) about fixing the climate, this could do it.
Everina Maxwell, Winter’s Orbit: Forced into marriage with his cousin’s widower in order to secure a galactic peace treaty, a prince known for being irresponsible and happy-go-lucky falls hard for the tightly controlled man he’s married nearly as soon as they met. But mutual incomprehension and political conspiracy stand in the way. Mutual pining, very strong clam/not-clam dynamics.
Seanan McGuire, Across the Green Grass Fields:This Wayward Children book is different from most of the others because it’s almost entirely about the protagonist’s adventures in the Otherlands—in her case, a world of unicorns and centaurs and other hooved beings. Regan misses her parents and doesn’t want to fulfill the destiny that everyone assumes a human there must have, and it’s another version of the sadness and necessity of growing up.
Leigh Bardugo, Rule of Wolves: Conclusion of the King of Scars duology in which the war between Ravka and Fierda is resolved, at least for now. Mostly the guilty are punished and the just rewarded, including a fascinating solution to the problem of who the king will be, and in general it was satisfying.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Guns of the Dawn: Fantasy war novel: the protagonist is a minor noblewoman who, when her country starts drafting women to serve in its ongoing war against its revolutionary neighbor, becomes a soldier in the hated swamp country. There is sorcery, conferred on men of breeding by anointing them with the king’s blood, but it is overmatched by the enemy’s guns. Ultimately, she has to decide what honor means in a corrupt and corrupting system.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Tiger and the Wolf: Shapeshifters without fandom tropes. The protagonist is the child of the tiger queen (by rape) and a would-be wolf king, headman of one of the wolf bands. Raised by the wolf shifters, she has two animal souls/forms but will have to choose one to survive. Her father’s grim plans for her lead her to flee as he chases; her story interacts with a snake priest come from the South for mysterious reasons and a Southern champion with a monstrous crocodile form.
Aiden Thomas, Cemetery Boys: A trans boy who wants to be a brujo accidentally summons the wrong dead spirit, a young cis man who is definitely not reconciled to being dead; he and his vegan best friend—who refuses to perform bruja magic because it requires animal blood—have to figure out how to deal with a mysterious death and also with the hot ghost while navigating magical family/community that isn’t really sure how to treat their children who aren’t doing things the usual way. The villain is pretty obvious. No transphobic violence (but a few references to harassment and a couple of family members misgender the protagonist, albeit not as a matter of policy/consistently).
Susanna Clarke, Piranesi: Piranesi (though he doesn’t think that’s his name, it’s what the Other calls him) lives in a great House full of infinite rooms themselves full of statues, and sometimes the sea. Through his journal, we start to see that the mystery here is not what Piranesi thinks it is. It’s an eerie, mournful story with striking descriptions of the statues that make up Piranesi’s mostly lonely world.
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future: Robinson’s usual great ecological detail/political theories and musings applied to climate change in the near future. Things aren’t great but he argues that there’s a path forward, essentially via socialism. Seems to me to understate the chances that the US will fuck it up for everyone, but if you want to read something that is moderately hopeful (despite depicting tens of millions of deaths in already-unavoidable disasters) about fixing the climate, this could do it.
Everina Maxwell, Winter’s Orbit: Forced into marriage with his cousin’s widower in order to secure a galactic peace treaty, a prince known for being irresponsible and happy-go-lucky falls hard for the tightly controlled man he’s married nearly as soon as they met. But mutual incomprehension and political conspiracy stand in the way. Mutual pining, very strong clam/not-clam dynamics.
Seanan McGuire, Across the Green Grass Fields:This Wayward Children book is different from most of the others because it’s almost entirely about the protagonist’s adventures in the Otherlands—in her case, a world of unicorns and centaurs and other hooved beings. Regan misses her parents and doesn’t want to fulfill the destiny that everyone assumes a human there must have, and it’s another version of the sadness and necessity of growing up.