Battleship Overflow Letter

Jun. 30th, 2025 03:06 pm
sheliak: A ship with decorated sails and elaborate prow, on a turbulent river. (ship: bilibin)
[personal profile] sheliak
I wasn't going to have one of these, but... I needed more room. This is going to be messy and will not have my usual formatting.


DNWs
    General DNWs:
  • Time loops (including both stable time loops and Groundhog Day style time loops)
  • Rape/noncon
  • Hopeless endings
  • Unrequested setting-change AUs (as opposed to canon divergence, which is pretty much always welcome)
  • Porn without plot
  • Mundane AUs
  • Omegaverse
  • Hanahaki
  • Soulmates
  • Characters begging to come/for sex acts

  • DNWs specific to 7 Seeds
  • Ango playing a major role (mention is fine).

  • DNWs specific to Akatsuki no Yona:
  • Yona/Hak, except as part of Yona/Hak/Soo-Won or Yona/Hak/Jae-ha.

  • DNWs specific to Chronicles of the Kencyrath:
  • Jame/Tori as a central part of a story, except as requested.
  • Harm to bonded creatures (e.g. Addy, Jorin, Drie's fish; also applies to original character creatures).

  • DNWs specific to the Dark Crystal universe:
  • Original Skeksis, urRu/Mystic, or UrSkek characters. (Original characters of any other species are fine, as are "nothing to work off of but the name, but the existence of an UrSkek/Mystic/Skeksis by this name is canon" characters.)

  • DNWs specific to Six Ages:
  • Any variant of the "Are Elmal and Yelmalio the same god or not?" mess.

  • DNWs specific to Star Trek: Rihannsu:
  • The Rihannsu becoming or evolving into the Romulans of TNG.

  • DNWs specific to Star Wars:
  • Jedi Order or Council bashing - I have a lot of affection for them, both as people as and a a culture/institution.
  • Tattooine Slave Culture (the specific fanon).
  • The Mando'a conlang, or Mandalore stuff in general.

  • DNWs specific to X-Men:
  • The Phoenix Force being portrayed as an intrinsically evil being.
  • Trevor Fitzroy.
  • Selene, the Shadow King, or Mojo playing a large role (exception: if I'm requesting Spiral, Mojo is okay then).
  • Any romantic pairings involving Empath.
  • Ororo/T'Challa--please don't even mention the marriage, even to say they're divorced.
  • Mutant!Moira.

    Battleship Tag DNWs
  • ABDL
  • Abusing Heat Suppressants
  • Accidental Knotting
  • Age Regression/De-Aging
  • Assgasm or Nogasm
  • Awkward Boners
  • Belly Kink
  • Biological BDSM AU
  • Boot Kink
  • Breast Expansion
  • Breeding Kink
  • Cheating/Infidelity
  • Cigarettes
  • Cock Warming
  • Come Inflation
  • Coming In Pants
  • Coregasm
  • Dry Humping
  • Eating disorders
  • Edging
  • Glory Hole
  • Hanahaki
  • Heat/rut
  • Hole Training
  • Inflation
  • Knotting
  • Makeover
  • Objectification
  • Omega/Omega
  • Omegaverse
  • Omorashi
  • Oral Knotting
  • Piss Enema
  • Plugged in Public
  • Red String of Fate
  • Rimming
  • Ruined Orgasm
  • Serial Killers
  • Sexting
  • Spanking
  • Somnophilia
  • Soulmate-Identifying Marks
  • Submission Pissing
  • Time Loop

Likes
    General Likes:
  • Time travel, including: time travel fixit; time travel with the glorious angst of knowing you're overwriting your future to give the past a chance; time travel that results in forming new kinds of relationships with people, like becoming friends with someone who was an enemy in the old timeline.
  • Seers (in the absence of predestination) who know what may happen and use that knowledge cleverly.
  • Strict honor codes.
  • Worldbuilding.
  • Alien POV.
  • A sense of wonder.
  • Loyalty.
  • Characters temporarily putting aside their weapons or sources of power as a show of trust.
  • Best enemies, who might kill each other someday but fundamentally respect and trust each other, perhaps more than they do their nominal allies. Rivals and enemies becoming friends, or allies, or lovers, or swearing loyalty to one another.
  • Kneeling. Physical gestures of loyalty or affection.
  • Unexpected mercy. Mercy in general, too.
  • Heroism in desperate straits, characters choosing to be heroic even in a dystopia or doomed world.
  • Magical abilities/superpowers in daily life.

  • Time Travel Likes
  • Time travel fixit.
  • Time travel with the glorious angst of knowing you're overwriting your future to give the past a chance.
  • Time travel that results in forming new kinds of relationships with people, like becoming friends with someone who was an enemy in the old timeline.
  • Crack pairings that suddenly make perfect sense due to time travel!
  • Characters gaining a new perspective--on other people, history, themselves, etc.
  • Characters who were neglected in canon getting to shine, including but not limited to those characters using their knowledge of the future to achieve great things.
  • In action series, characters using their future knowledge to become totally badass (especially when it's a female character doing this).

  • Worldbuilding Likes:
  • Culture! I really love a piece that gets into the POV of the culture it's depicting.
  • Family structure. How do people see their relationships? Which ones do they prioritize?
  • Craft details!
  • Clothing, cloth, fibers, weaving, spinning... Also jewelry. Who wears it? What does it indicate (e.g., gender, status, ...?)
  • Architecture, how homes and public buildings reflect a culture.
  • Food! What do people eat? How do they store food for the times when they can't farm/hunt/forage for more? Do they trade for food?

  • Hurt/Comfort Likes:
  • Leaders slowly earning the trust of traumatized people who have every reason to fear the worst from the world in general and possibly them in particular.
  • A character is disparaged by their own allies, but an unlikely person (such as an honorable enemy or captor) recognizes their excellence and tells them so.
  • I already mentioned unexpected mercy, but it goes here too: I love a buildup of fear and then relief, mercy from someone who (as far as the character knows) has absolutely no reason to be merciful.
  • Characters who have no mercy for themselves, but can have it for others, or whose friends and lovers disagree with their self-judgement.
  • Characters pushing themselves to their limits and beyond, and others being there to catch them when they do.
  • Characters going to great lengths to help one another.
  • The less-hurt person also being in some distress, and struggling with it, and perhaps taking comfort in their own ability to help others.
  • Characters who are convinced that they don't matter and no one cares learning that actually someone does care and does think they matter.
  • Rescues! Rescues where the rescuee is convinced no one's coming, implacable rescuers overcoming terrible obstacles to save their friends/lovers.

  • Art Likes:
  • Pen and ink. Watercolor. Charcoal.
  • Use of light and shadow.
  • Limited color palettes can be very lovely!
  • Flowing lines.
  • Stained glass, decorated pottery, tapestry, art that evokes any of these.
  • Body language.
  • "Royal ease" position, when appropriate (for gods and rulers).
  • Favorite artists: John R. Neill, Ivan Bilibin, Leo & Diane Dillon, Alphonse Mucha, Thomas Canty, James Gurney, Jan Pospíšil, Michelle Lockamy. On the comics side of things, Dave Cockrum for character designs & clothing, John Byrne for body language, Alan Davis, David Aja (his Scarlet Witch covers especially).


Any Fandom I've Requested Before
1: Any Character I've Requested Before (AFIRB)
Any & Relationship I’ve Requested Before (AFIRB)

Any / Relationship I’ve Requested Before (AFIRB)

Medium: Fic - Character

Tags:
Teaching/Mentorship
Time Travel Fix-It
Unexpected Mercy
Grief/Mourning
Hurt/Comfort
Interactions with Gods
Katabasis
Loyalty
Memories
Mirrors
Exhaustion
Blood
celestial
Experimental
Apocalypse
Mental Link
Shapeshifting
Dimension Travel
Peggy Sue Time Travel
Fealty/Devotion

For this fandom, you can see my other exchange letters, the fandom's tag on this journal, or my Everything page on the app for old prompts.

List of Fandoms (... I'm probably leaving something out):
7 Seeds
A Matter of Profit - Hilari Bell
Age of Apocalypse
Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Bleach
Books of the Raksura
Casey Jones the Union Scab - Joe Hill (Song)
Cat-Eye Willie Claims His Lover
Chronicles of the Kencyrath
Crossover Fandom (Star Wars Sequel Trilogy x Star Wars Legends, Star Trek: DS9 x X-Men Comics, Chronicles of the Kencyrath x War Gods, X-Men Comics x Age of Apocalypse, Dark Crystal comics x Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance), Transformers Generation One x Transformers Shattered Glass
마왕의 고백 | The Dark Lord's Confession (Webcomic)
Dreaming of Sunshine
Glorantha (sometimes as RuneQuest)
Heartstrikers Series - Rachel Aaron
Heer Halewijn (Traditional Ballad)
Homestuck (only the Eldritchfuck Roseworld AU from FFA)
John Barleycorn
King of Dragon Pass
Liavek
Long John Moore (Traditional Song)
Marvel Comics/Marvel 616 (X-Men, always)
Mesopotamian Mythology
Monstress
묘령의 황자 | Mystic Prince (Webcomic)
Naruto
New Mutants (Comics)
Original Work (mostly femdommy het, some gen with mostly similar power dynamics)
Otoyomegatari | The Bride's Stories
Planet of the Dragons - Richard Brightfield
Revolutionary Princess Eve (Webcomic)
SCP Foundation
Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind
SCP Foundation
Star Trek: Crossroad - Barbara Hambly
Star Trek: Rihannsu
Star Trek: The Entropy Effect - Vonda McIntyre
Star Trek: Various Authors
Star Wars Legends: Republic (Comics)
Star Wars: All Media Types
The Dark Crystal tie-in comics
The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance
The Sun Sword - Michelle West
Transformers (Skybound 2023)
Vespertine Series - Margaret Rogerson
The Vicars of Lower Squashby - Jared Pechacek
Vampire: The Masquerade
Warhammer (also as FFA Warhammer AUs )
X-Men (Comicsverse) (sometimes as Marvel 616/Marvel Comics)
Yona of the Dawn



delphi: An illustrated crow kicks a little ball of snow with a contemplative expression. (Default)
[personal profile] delphi
Fandom 50 #22

Day by Day by [archiveofourown.org profile] surprisepink
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Ship: Stede Bonnet/Izzy Hands
Medium: Fic
Length: 1361 words
Rating: Teen
My Bookmark Tags: slice of life, romance, humour, happy ending, established relationship, izzy lives, future, flirtation, compatibility, service
Summary: A typical raid for Captain Bonnet and his new first mate.

Excerpt:
“I’m getting the hang of this, if I do say so myself,” says Stede, cheerily.

“And you do.”

“What’s that, Izzy?’

“Say so yourself.” The man looks entirely unimpressed, but it does take a lot to impress Izzy. Stede has accepted it by this point, and knows not to take it personally. Knows, too, that if Izzy actually wasn’t at least a little happy with him, he could leave the ship just about anywhere and find another pirate crew to join. And yet, port after port, he doesn’t.

And all Stede had ever wanted was for people to stay.

This is everything I love about the idea of Stede and Izzy together on the Revenge, with Stede captaining and Izzy serving as his first mate. The way they rile each other up is perfect, tempered to just the right heat by a better understanding of each other. Izzy's ways of trying to serve Stede while keeping his ego in check are moving, and so is Stede's growing sense of what he's doing and what it means.

The story's funny, with a comedic moment early on that made me laugh out loud, and the sexual chemistry between Stede and Izzy absolutely crackles. This one really made my day.

Icon — Runaway to the Stars

Jun. 30th, 2025 09:39 pm
sheliak: Handwoven tapestry of the planet Jupiter. (Default)
[personal profile] sheliak
Tail end of the month, didn't icon, busy with Battleship signup, so: have a single icon of Talita from RTTS being relatable. (Text could use some work, ah well.)

Recent reading

Jun. 30th, 2025 11:36 pm
troisoiseaux: (reading 5)
[personal profile] troisoiseaux
Following a conversation with [personal profile] sovay about formative mermaid media, spent the evening re-reading The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler - a 2003 middle-grade novel about a girl who discovers she can turn into a mermaid - to see how it holds up as a recommendation for a young reader 20+ years (oof) later. Emily's mermaid adventures include but are not limited to befriending another tweenage mermaid, exploring a sunken ship, and discovering that her long-lost father is a merman and sneaking into the underwater prison (!) where he's been languishing for the past 12 years (!!) for breaking the law against fraternization with humans (!!!). (Also, that her mom's memory of their relationship was wiped (!!!!) and their family friend the creepy lighthouse keeper has been an agent for the anti-human-fraternization king of the merfolk the whole time. (!!!!!)) So, yeah, the plot is kind of bananas, but it's charming and, most importantly, the descriptions of how cool it would be to swim in the ocean as a mermaid and explore kelp forests and sunken ships, etc., are great. Verdict: it holds up! I don't think I'd noticed as a kid how many of the throwaway minor (human) characters had punny or otherwise nautical names like "Sandra Castle" and "Mrs. Brig"; I definitely had never realized that the author is British and therefore the book presumably takes place in England rather than, like, Florida (as I'd pictured as a kid) or Maine (as I imagined it this time).

Made some progress in the Dune audiobook over the weekend; I'm through Book One (of three). Unfortunately, so far Book Two has mostly involved Paul being rude about his mom not being able to follow along with whatever Space Jesus logic-connections-as-revelation thing he has going on, which I'm finding less interesting than the Space Medici politics and backstabbing of the first third.

June fanworks round-up post!

Jul. 1st, 2025 03:22 pm
china_shop: Chu Shuzhi wielding his magic blue strings. (Guardian - CSZ strings)
[personal profile] china_shop posting in [community profile] sid_guardian
This is the fanworks round-up post for June! Please link in the comments to any Guardian (or related fandoms) fanworks you created or enjoyed last month.
  • all kinds of fanworks are welcome – fic, art, vids, picspams, etc. - including those made for exchanges and events
  • new chapters of WIPs count
  • meta or discussion posts, too
  • whether or not you've already linked these in a post of their own, we still want them here!

If you're linking to fanworks you didn't create yourself, please clearly mark these "REC", so there's no confusion about authorship/creatorship.

(And please still do link your fanworks, meta, etc. separately, in their own post, at any time!)

So ... what Guardian and related fandoms works did you create or enjoy in June?

Daily Check In

Jun. 30th, 2025 08:47 pm
senmut: Rebecca Horne in a hat with a smirk (Highlander: Rebecca)
[personal profile] senmut
*\o/* Word Count Step Count Headache?
Daily 0 11,585 no
Monthly 25,822 310,738 10 days


861 words avg / 500 goal | 10,358 steps avg / 8,000 goal | 1/3rd month in headache

第四年第一百七十二天

Jun. 30th, 2025 06:33 pm
nnozomi: (Default)
[personal profile] nnozomi posting in [community profile] guardian_learning
部首

化, to change; 北, north pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=21

语法
Chapter 34 quiz: Question words
https://routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/9781138651142/quizzes.php

词汇
推动, to promote; 推广, extension; 推进, to advance; 推开, to push away pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-3-word-list/

Guardian:
它可以化个人的恐惧为电力值, it is capable of changing individual fear into electrical power
沈教授他到底是怎么样的人啊, just what kind of person is this Professor Shen?
计划可以顺利推进, the plan can move forward smoothly

Me:
北方人也不会推开辣的。
他是哪人?

waiting for the moment to turn

Jun. 30th, 2025 06:24 pm
musesfool: ROBIN (never enough robin)
[personal profile] musesfool
Recs update ahoy:

[personal profile] unfitforsociety has been updated for June 2025 with 15 recs in 3 fandoms:

13 Batfamily
2 Percy Jackson crossovers



I'm not sure why I went looking for PJO crossovers but I'm kind of glad I did?

Anyway, I took today and Thursday off and I'm looking forward to this 2 day work week. *g*

1SE for June 2025

Jun. 30th, 2025 10:04 pm
nanila: me (Default)
[personal profile] nanila


I can't quite believe how much has happened this month. At least 60 days of stuff were packed into June's 30. And now we're halfway through the year. Dear Time, Please slow down, Love, Me.

pick-n-mix

Jun. 30th, 2025 03:39 pm
jadelennox: Elephants and giraffes comic: "I'm eating a whole leprechaun" (sgnp: leprechaun)
[personal profile] jadelennox

Poll #33308 choices of varying difficulty
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 33


pick one science!

View Answers

space
20 (60.6%)

dinosaurs
13 (39.4%)

pick one plastic pal who's fun to be with!

View Answers

murderbot
6 (18.2%)

lieutenant commander data
11 (33.3%)

lieutenant commander murderbot
5 (15.2%)

murderdata
11 (33.3%)

pick one cat!

View Answers

a cat who does crimes
1 (3.0%)

a cat who does naps
2 (6.1%)

trick question, they're the same cat
30 (90.9%)

pick one poll type!

View Answers

radio button
6 (18.2%)

ticky boxes
18 (54.5%)

free text answer
0 (0.0%)

scientifically constructed and balanced poll with an IRB approval and crosstabs
9 (27.3%)

pick one brassica!

View Answers

brussels sprouts
5 (15.2%)

box choy
2 (6.1%)

cauliflower
5 (15.2%)

turnip
2 (6.1%)

kohlrabi
3 (9.1%)

mustard
4 (12.1%)

sauerkraut
2 (6.1%)

candytuft
1 (3.0%)

horseradish
6 (18.2%)

purple pickled horseradish, maybe with a little charoset
3 (9.1%)

pick one way to feel better!

View Answers

petting the cat
5 (15.2%)

eating cheese
1 (3.0%)

throwing your phone into the fires of mount doom
2 (6.1%)

medication
1 (3.0%)

looking at pictures of nebulas
1 (3.0%)

throwing the technology of your choice into the fires of mount doom
0 (0.0%)

petting this other cat
7 (21.2%)

doing crimes
5 (15.2%)

reading
3 (9.1%)

writing
1 (3.0%)

'rithmetic
0 (0.0%)

digging in the dirt
1 (3.0%)

listening to music
0 (0.0%)

being in the ocean
2 (6.1%)

throwing mount doom into the fires of mount doom, just to see if you can create a singularity via recursive destruction
4 (12.1%)

Readercon 2025 Schedule

Jun. 30th, 2025 03:50 pm
oracne: turtle (Default)
[personal profile] oracne

My schedule is finalized! I didn't list participants in case there were changes.

Who will I see at Readercon next month?

The Works of P. Djèlí­ Clark

Salon I/J Friday, July 18, 2025, 1:00 PM EDT

Our Guest of Honor P. Djèlí Clark rounded out his first decade as a published author with a Nebula and a Locus for his fantasy police procedural novel, The Master of Djinn, and both those awards plus a British Fantasy Award for his monster-hunting novella Ring Shout. His short story "How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub" is short-listed for the Hugo this year. As a History professor at University of Connecticut, he investigates the pathways leading from West African storyteller/poets (griots, a.k.a. djèlí) to the American abolitionist movement. Help us celebrate the works of our honored guest!

The Purposes of Memorable Insults in Sci-Fi and Fantasy

Salon I/J Friday, July 18, 2025, 5:00 PM EDT

Some of the most quotable lines in science fiction and fantasy are zingers. Wit can do a lot to build a character, a world, and a universe, and has the ability to either support or undermine reader expectations. This panel aims to explore and elaborate on the use of wit—and especially takedowns—in literature, exposing how a verbal jab can serve as more than just a punchline.

Moving from Traditional Publishing to Self-Publishing [I'm moderating this one]

Salon G/H Friday, July 18, 2025, 7:00 PM EDT

It's becoming increasingly common to hear of authors whose self-published work was so successful that they were picked up by a traditional publisher. But what of the authors who have gone the other way, by turning their backs on traditional publishing and going into self-publishing? Panelists will survey the varying reasons for making this transition, how authors have navigated it, and what this might say about the state of publishing overall.

Kaffeeklatsch: Victoria Janssen

Suite 830 Friday, July 18, 2025, 8:00 PM EDT

Meet the Pros(e) party

Salon F Friday, July 18, 2025, 10:15 PM EDT

Program participants are assigned to tables with a roughly equal number of conferencegoers and other participants, and then table placements are scrambled at regular intervals so that everyone gets to meet a new set of people in a small-group setting. Think of it as a low-key sort of speed dating where you need never be the sole focus of anyone's attention, and the goal is just to get to know some cool Readerconnish people. Please note that this event will include a bar and is mask-optional, unlike most other programming.

The Works of Cecilia Tan [I'm moderating this one]

Salon I/J Saturday, July 19, 2025, 12:00 PM EDT

Our Guest of Honor, Cecilia Tan, has a publication history that spans Asimov's, Absolute Magnitude, Ms. Magazine, Penthouse, and Best American Erotica, among others. Writer and editor of science fiction and fantasy, especially as they intersect with erotica and romance, she is also the founder of Circlet Press, an independent publisher that specializes in speculative erotica. Her own writing earned a Lifetime Achievement for Erotica in 2014 from Romantic Times magazine. She also contributes to America's other pastime, baseball, in her role as Publications Director for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). Come hear our panel discuss Cecilia's many talents and accomplishments.

Un-Kafkaesque Bureaucracies [I'm moderating this one]

Salon I/J Saturday, July 19, 2025, 7:00 PM EDT

In fiction, bureaucracies are generally depicted as evil in its most banal form, yet many of the actual bureaucracies that shape our lives exist to protect us from corporate greed. How can—and should—we tell other stories about bureaucrats and bureaucracies, particularly as the U.S. stands on the precipice of disastrous deregulation? And might fantasies of bureaucracy (such Addison's The Goblin Emperor and Goddard's The Hands of the Emperor) be the next cozy subgenre?

The Endless Appetite for Fanfiction

Create / Collaborate Saturday, July 19, 2025, 8:00 PM EDT

In an article of the same name (https://www.fansplaining.com/articles/endless-appetite-fanfiction), Elizabeth Minkel discussed how "2024 was the year [fanfic] truly broke containment—everyone seemed to want a piece of the fanfiction pie, leaving fic authors themselves besieged on all sides." Attempts to steal and monetize fanfic proliferated, as did reviews treating living authors as distant and unreachable. What do these trends say about larger changes in attitudes toward stories and creators? How can fans of all kinds nurture supportive connections to authors?

Bundle of Holding: Broken Tales

Jun. 30th, 2025 03:44 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


The English-language rulebook and supplements for Broken Tales, the tabletop fantasy roleplaying game of upside-down fairy tales from Italian game publisher The World Anvil Publishing.

Bundle of Holding: Broken Tales
smallhobbit: (Gloucestershire Peregrine)
[personal profile] smallhobbit
Week 4 had a creative theme, so I wrote a tanka:

Counting garden birds
Filling up the water bowls
Walking through the woods
Small steps to gentle progress
Building a lifetime's habit

And I downloaded a knitting pattern from the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, to knit a bittern - a 'knittern' for making later.

In addition, I downloaded 14 spotter sheets for use during different seasons (and therefore encouraging me to go out), plus masks and colouring sheets for our after school club.

Finally, I made a bumblebee felt craft brooch from a kit I'd myself a while ago.




Looking back on the 30 Days Wild challenge, it's been fun and hopefully will encourage me to do more - I always feel it would be a good idea, but finding the necessary motivation is important.  I've become a member of the British Trust for Ornithology (it's not very expensive) and have submitted two weeks' worth of garden bird sightings.  And I'm currently watching the house martins flying around catching flies.


anehan: Tang Lian from The Blood of Youth (The Blood of Youth: Tang Lian salutes)
[personal profile] anehan
I'll Have What He's Having by Adib Khorram
M/M romance. DNF'd in chapter 7. No complaints about the plot, the setting, the characters, etc. The reason for the DNF was the amateurish writing. It's got infodumping, characterisation with a capital C, cringy sex. I felt like I was reading Khorram's daydream about what a cool life would be like. And the frustrating thing is that I think all of these issues were solvable with the help of a good editor. As it is, it's not worth bothering with.

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer
This, on the other hand, is extremely worth bothering with, because it's fantastic. Sci-fi mystery/thriller, with a smattering of M/M romance. I recommend not spoiling yourself for the plot twist beforehand, though from experience I can say that even if you do get spoiled, it's still worth reading.

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
The second book in the Shadow of the Leviathan series, and just as good as the first. Mystery with thoughtful depictions of power, responsibility, and the danger of good intentions.

The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
DNF'd at 16%. This isn't so much an anti-rec as it is a warning, because I think The Game of Kings really requires you to have a better grasp of British history -- especially the Anglo-Scottish Wars -- than I do. It assumes you have a lot of background knowledge about the people and the events, and if you don't, it's often dull reading. It might have got more interesting later on, but there are too many books I really want to read for me to bother finding out.

Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy
As far as I can remember, the only work by a Russian author that I'd ever read before this was a short story by Anton Chekhov, which we had to read at school. The reason I picked Kreuzer Sonata up was because I was going to see a ballet based on it soon after, and I'm glad I did. It deals with domestic violence, and yet it's a surprisingly easy read. Anyway, I've now read both a short story and a novella by a famous Russian author. What's next, a whole novel?

(The ballet was good, too, though I think the choreographer had mostly missed the point of the novella.)

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nineveh_uk: Illustration that looks like Harriet Vane (Default)
nineveh_uk

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