forestofglory

25) Tonight's the first night of Hanukah so I thought for #DecRecs today I would rec the lovely Jewish short fantasy story "Seven Commentaries on an Imperfect Land" by Ruthanna Emrys

about finding magic in unexpected places and building community

https://reactormag.com/seven-commentaries-on-an-imperfect-land-ruthanna-emrys/

26)Yuletide has brought us two new "Fandom for Robots" fics and they are both great!

Processing Time
https://archiveofourown.org/works/61422142

This one leans into some of the darker aspects of the source material so mind the tags. Utterly gorgeous!

Interview with the Robot
https://archiveofourown.org/works/61619161

Featuring a mildly baffled but kind museum director

both lovely and worth your time!

27)I couldn't let a reccing event go by with out yelling about The King’s Road: Diplomacy and the Remaking of the Silk Road by Xin Wen so that's today's #DecRecs

I love this book so much! It's about the nitty-gritty of diplomatic travel in Central Asia between 850-1000 CE, and it centers the city of Dunhuang, which was during this period sometimes part of various imperial states in the region but mostly an independent city state. I love that it decenters China!

A significant source of information for this book is the documents found in the library cave at Dunhuang, an important source for this time period in general.

I totally fangirl Xin Wen based on his scholar ship, he's so smart and reads so many langues and has a sharp eye for details! I especially love all the detail about the material culture of travel here

28) It's been a very busy day and I haven't actually had time to sit down at my computer. So here's a drive by #DecRecs

The House of Aunts by Zen Cho!

The trials and tribulations of being a Malaysian teen vampire with six aunts

https://giganotosaurus.org/2011/12/01/the-house-of-aunts/


(I know I didn't include today's rec, but 1. I haven't posted it yet and 2. I want the final post to include more than two recs)

#DecRecs is reccing fest that happens in December. People rec things (where things can be anything) they want to rec and share them with the hashtag #DecRecs. This year like last year I'm reccing a thing every day for the month!

Here's everything I've posted for #DecRecs so far this year:

( Read more... )

Here's the last week or so of DecRecs form me!
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My last minute project for the month, #DecRecs, is going well so far! Not only have I had a lot fun reccing a different thing everyday so far this month, but other people have joined me in reccing things! #DecRecs has been pretty active on mastodon, and people on Twitter and Cohost have also joined in. It's been very fun seeing all the different things people are reccing!

I've rounded up my recs to post here as well. I've added numbers but not otherwise cleaned these up Here are the 1st 8:
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Short and Sweet: Collections and Anthologies

Thanks to writing up my goals yesterday I was reminded to ask again for someone to read this over, and owlmoose kindly offered to help last night. So here it is!

I've mentioned in my last several goal check ins that I've been struggling to read longer short stories, and have thus been reading a lot of flash fiction and other very short things. So my most recent Short&Sweet is a rec list of very short stories. You can check it out here.

My latest Short and Sweet where I talk about 2020 stories that I liked is up! You can check in out here.

Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, episodes 1-2 — R and have started watching a new show together -- its Chinese drama with detectives and mysteries and such! Having just started this I’m still confused about who is who and how they are all related. There seem to be a bunch of competing official investigation offices. One thing that I’m really enjoying is the food! Our main detective is such a foodie and its adorable! There’s lots of discussion of cooking technique and such. I have no idea how historically accurate it is but at least there’s no potatoes yet. (Content note: prostitution, child death)

Flavorful Origins, episodes 1- 6 — this a mainland-Chinese produced food documentary with little ten minute episodes available on Netflix. Watching how this episode treats pork lungs, raw crab, ext exactly the same as any other ingredient really makes me realize how exocitizing most western coverage of Chinese food is. Anyways it's a fun and informative show.

Technically, You Started It by Lana Wood Johnson — YA romance told in text messages. This was the first thing I got out of the library now that I can pick up my holds again. It was cute and fun and I gobbled it up. Ultimately I wanted the ethical implications of something one of the characters did to be explored more, but I still enjoyed this a lot. It’s been ages since I read a novel!

No Man's Land by A.J. Fitzwater — having read a novel I thought I’d try reading this novella. It's a fantasy set in New Zealand during WWII, very queer in a lot of ways. This had so much texture, I loved all the daily life on a farm bits, and the food especially sounded so good!

Bloom by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau — This queer YA graphic novel was the other thing I got from my first trip back to the library. It's pretty cute, featuring teens working at a bakery, but the ending felt really rushed and unearned.

“A Guide for Working Breeds by Vina Jie-Min Prasad” — I was excited to check out a new story form the author of “Fandome for Robots” this one features robots, dogs, and terrible working conditions. It is incredibly charming, and also rather dystopic

The Rise of Tea Culture in China by Bret Hinsch — I really love histories focused on food and drink! I found this one very clearly written and informative. It helps put tea drinking into a wider cultural context. I especially enjoyed the chapter on tea and masculinity.

Welcome to five fandom 5+1s and a meme! This is a series of posts about stuff that’s important to my own personal fandom history. I wanted some space to talk about happy and whimsical stuff and explore the different ways I’ve experienced fandom over time. I thought it would be fun to borrow the popular fanfic structure of 5+1 things. I’m using the word fandom very broadly here, to include SFF book fandom, transformative fandom, and just liking things. The things I’ve picked to talk about might not be the best or my favorites but they are fundamental to my experience and have shaped my thinking.

1. “Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard I first read this story online, as part of my first time voting in the Hugos. Although I don’t remember if I read it during the nomination period or after the story became a finalist, I do remember being blown away by this intense story about food, memory and belonging. This story helped get me hooked on reading short stories online, and it was also the first Xuya story that I read.

2. “The Witches of Athens” by Lara Elena Donnelly Two sisters, dinners, coffee shops, and a queer love story! This was another story I read when I was getting into online SFF shorts, and it remains one of my very favorite stories, and comfort reread.

3. ”The House of Aunts” by Zen Cho I discovered Zen Cho’s writing because she was writing for a wedding blog while I was planning my own wedding. I always enjoyed her posts, and , when I learned from her bio that she also wrote SFF, I immediately tracked down her stories. I can’t remember for sure if “The House of Aunts” was the first of her stories I read, but it was one of the first and it remains a favorite today. As I said in the last post Cho writes excellent older women, and this story about Maylsian teen vampire and the Aunties she lives with really showcases that.

4. Fandom for Robots by Vina Jie-Min Prasad This an adorable story about a robot that gets into online fandom and makes a friend. I read this before I was really into transformative fandom but I loved it all the same, and it was one of many nudges that helped me eventually start reading and writing fic.

5. ”Flow” by Marissa Lingen Marissa Lingen is one of my favorite authors and this my favorite of her stories. It’s about grief and nature and caretaking and it's just so good.

+1 poem When we Were Robots in Eygpt by Jo Walton I don’t often read poetry, and when I do I often feel I don’t really understand it, but I really like this poem. It's in my Passover Haggadah after the four questions, because it just captures something about the meaning of the ritual for me.

Come Drink With Me by Michelle Kan This is marketed as “An Aromantic Chinese Fairytale”. It is about a dragon and phoenix living among mortals and taking part in opera. It's mostly very slice of life, and I loved all the opera details. The ending was a bit of a change in tone and I’m not sure I liked it. Still overall very cute!

“Every Tiny Tooth and Claw (or: Letters from the First Month of the New Directorate)” by Marissa Lingen I have been mostly focusing my short fiction reading on 2019 work I want to read before Hugo nominations close, but this 2020 story snuck in there too. This is an epistolary story about academics and magical rodents with politics that start in the background and slowly creep up on the reader and the characters. I just loved how sweet these letters were and all the little details of daily life.

Outer Wilds by Mobius Digital justira mentioned that they enjoyed this game as a piece of cosy media. I asked R who is more into games than I am about it, and he had also heard good things about it. So we bought it and have been playing it together. So far it's really fun -- I love games with lots to explore and I can see why Ira called it cosy.

Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett So The Tempest is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays so I was intrigued by the concept of this novella about Miranda after she leaves the island. But I found it a bit too dark and suspenseful for my tastes. But it does have queer romance, so if you are into queer fansty and have higher tolerance for darkness than I do, which most people do, you might enjoy this a lot! (content note: physical abuse)

Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama spindizzy was talking about this manga on twitter a couple of weeks ago, and when I went to the library later that day the 1st two volumes were on display so I scooped them up! So far it's a pretty cute magical school type story with hints and a bigger and darker plot.

Star Trek: Voyager We finished season four and are starting season five. I keep being distracted by how many PADDs (those little tablet like things they use) everyone has. It seems that every new piece of information needs its own PADD. I know that it's an artifact of when the show was made, but I keep wondering why they have to hand carry PADDs around instead of sending an email.

The Orphans of Raspay by Lois McMaster Bujold This is the latest in the Penric and Desdemona novellas. This was a perfectly fine adventure story but I feel like Bujold can do much better, after spending the last several novellas getting to know some new characters it was disappointing that they barely make an appearance here. (Content note: Slavery including threatend sexual abuse)