Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

sroloc--elbisivni asked: Ok I was the anon who asked about the Hero and the Crown and I picked it up on your recommendation and just finished reading and D A M N

DARLING WELCOME TO THE FAMILY, I’M SO PROUD TO HAVE BEEN YOUR SPONSOR IN READING THIS BOOK.  I MYSELF AM CURRENTLY REREADING IT AND I JUST LOVE IT SO MUCH.  D A M N.

Please forgive me for using this as an opportunity to pitch some of my other favorite Robin McKinley books, I CAN’T HELP MYSELF.  Don’t feel obliged to read them all, but they’re great, so if you’re ever strapped for a good book, they’re excellent defaults.

• Obviously you should read The Blue Sword, because Harry (the main character) is a badass and Corlath (Aerin and Tor’s many-times-great-grandson, the king of Damar) is a delight and Tsornin (the horse) is amazing.  AND GONTURAN MAKES A TRIUMPHAL RETURN TO THE BATTLEFIELD, AND LUTHE HAS A BIT, AND AERIN GETS A COUPLE CAMEOS.  Basically: read it.

• If you liked Aerin’s sense of humor and Talat the equine sass master, I recommend Dragonhaven, which is…fairly self-explanitory, but the basics are that the modern world is exactly the same except that instead of Yellowstone, we have Stonehill Dragon Preserve, and the main character (Jake) accidentally adopts a dragonlet.  Jake is perpetually hovering between cranky and wry and Lois is precious.

• If you liked the dreamy feeling of Aerin’s stint with Luthe in the stone hall and the weird magic of kelar, I recommend Chalice, which is weird dreamy magic start to finish.  The main character (Marisol) is part of a network of magic users who keep and care for their demense (like a…fief?) and she works magic through honey and the new Master (whose arrival makes the whole situation go straight to Hell, it’s not his fault, I love him) is about 80% literal fire.

• If you liked the weird magic of kelar and were sitting there thinking “You know what this needs?  Modern technology and some dimensional fuckery” I recommend Shadows, which is…well, weird magic, modern(ish) technology, and dimensional fuckery, 10/10 would experience again.

• If you liked Maur being terrifying and Aerin being tough even when it was awful for her, I recommend Sunshine, which is my number one favorite vampire novel ever, and in which even the nice vampires are pretty fucking terrifying.  The main character (Sunshine) lives in a world that’s basically our world plus demons and vampires and something called the Voodoo Wars that wiped out a good percentage of humanity.  She gets kidnapped by vampires and chained up with their other prisoner, who is also a vampire, and she is a brass bound bitch.  I adore her.  Also the vampire she gets chained up with is great, and the magic in Sunshine is just GORGEOUS.

• If you like retellings of fairy tales generally, I recommend Beauty, which is Beauty and the Beast and has a horse named Greatheart and roses and is basically awesome.  Spindle’s End is also good, but I like Beauty and the Beast better than Sleeping Beauty so.

• If you like to FUCKING SUFFER, I recommend the FUCK out of Pegasus, which is AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL and MAGIC-RIDDEN and ABOUT FUCKING PEGASI, but which is also only the first half of a story and it ends on a heartbreaking cliffhanger, so DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU.  The next book’s been ‘in the works’ for SO FUCKING LONG, god, someone needs to read this so I have someone to wail with.  @twistedangelsays: I’m coming for you, bitch.

• If you like McKinley’s style and want an epic saga in a similar style, I cannot recommend ANYTHING MORE WHOLEHEARTEDLY than the Kencyrath series by PC Hodgell.  THe link will take you to my epic-length book rec/tirade.  I just.  I love those books.

OKAY FRIEND I WILL LEAVE YOU ALONE NOW.  BUT IF YOU EVER NEED A BOOK REC HIT ME THE FUCK UP.

Anonymous asked: I wanna know more about the Hero and the Crown! i picked up McKinley's the blue sword one day but got distracted and for one reason or another never finished and now i'm trying to track her stuff down again

Oh, BABE, I’m actually jealous, I totally want to read Hero and the Crown again for the first time.  Buckle up, this is going to be quite a book rec.

Okay, so so so so SO, first things first, I don’t blame you for getting distracted during The Blue Sword, it’s a little more political machinations and army tactics and training than Hero and the Crown.  They take place in the same country, Damar, and they’re a set, but Blue Sword takes place hundreds of years later–to put it in perspective, Hero and the Crown happens in a time that’s still horses and knights and swordplay, whereas Blue Sword is a colonization, guns n’ steel, not quite up to telephones era.  Aerin, the main character from Hero and the Crown, is a legend and revered folk hero to the Damarians of Blue Sword, because Aerin is AMAZING.

All right, so, Hero and the Crown is the story of Aerin Dragon-killer, first sol of Damar (first sol being the highest female rank except for being actually married to the king).  Aerin is daughter of King Arlbeth and his witch-woman wife, who was the object of much suspicion from the country before her death, and even more suspicion afterward.  So that suspicion all spills over onto Aerin, who is tall and gawky and not good at being a first sol–in fact, she’s so spectacularly bad at being a first sol that some of her cousins are fairly convinced she’s illegitimate.  She breaks dishes just by being in the same room, she perpetually brings her sword (which she’s not supposed to have) and her saddle (which is for a warhorse rather than a lady’s pony) back to her chambers, she prefers to punch someone in the face rather than scheme, and, just to boot, she exhibits absolutely none of the royal line’s hereditary magic.  Basically, Aerin sucks at being a first sol, which would be fine with her if everyone didn’t expect her to be a first sol all the time.

And then one day Aerin takes her sword and her second-hand warhorse and something called kenet that makes you fireproof and goes to kill a dragon, and she finds out that, while she sucks at being a first sol, she does NOT suck at dragon slaying.  Events unfold from there.  Aerin is stubborn and hot-tempered and snarky and willful, she is everything I ever wanted to be as a kid.  Her perspective on life of “well THAT happened” is an absolute delight to read, and the world of Damar is glorious.

Other things I can guarantee you within the book include:

• a Big Ass Dragon (as opposed to the smaller annoying dragons Aerin largely handles)
  
• not one but two excellently constructed romantic plots (this might be the only book I’ve ever read where the protagonist is in love with two people and it’s…just not an issue, at all, ever, she’s just like ‘that happened’ and carries on fighting a war, this book is probably why I hate love triangles so much)
• magic EVERYWHERE (they call it the Gift and it kind of does shenanigans on its own once it’s strong enough)
• the Blue Sword, Gonturan, which Aerin carried long before she appeared in the eponymous novel
• wizards and mages and small trick-magicians
• a demon army
• AERIN

Other important characters include:

• Talat, Aerin’s second-hand warhorse, who was her father’s favorite horse until a sword cut rendered Talat lame in one leg, and YES, Talat is a character, fight me
  
• Tor, the first sola (heir to the throne), who is called ‘cousin’ in the general sense despite no apparent blood relation to Aerin, and who is at fault for the sword training, the dragon slaying, and probably the army raising, he is also one of the romances and he is HEART EYES over Aerin, I ship it
• Luthe, who I’m not gonna tell you much about because SPOILERS, but yeah, Luthe, FUCK YEAH, you’re going to need to trust me on that
  
• Galanna, another (very vain) cousin, she of the illegitimacy rumor-spreading, who Aerin once drugged so that she could sneak into Galanna’s rooms and shave off her eyebrows, and yes I included her so that I could add that tidbit
• Arlbeth, king of Damar, who gets a mention because he’s king and Aerin’s father, he’s very good at both
• Aerin’s army of wild dogs and hunting cats, who get a mention because??? Why wouldn’t they, that’s awesome
• Gonturan, who gets a mention on account of being awesome
• Maur, the Big Ass Dragon, who gets a mention on account of being a Big Ass Dragon
• AERIN

Basically: Hero and the Crown is amazing, buy it on Amazon here, and I love Robin McKinley like I love lungs, I don’t always think of it because it’s just there, and if you’re in the mood for any other vehemently delighted recs for McKinley’s books, I got you, hit me up.

Anonymous asked: for the fanfic ask game, how about H, R, and S?

Woo, people are doing the thing!  From this post.

H: How would you describe your style?

Too many fucking commas.  

Seriously, though, I’m not sure how I’d describe my style, since I tend to vary it depending on how I want the story to feel.  Something like things we lost in the fire, my Les Mis Avatar AU, is supposed to feel very different from, like, this, my First Order Rey AU.  I guess my style is very character-driven–I perceive my characters (and other people’s characters, in fic) as very real people, so I try to model the feeling of the story after the way the POV character thinks.  Which is how I end up with things like the Hamilton Star Wars AU, which has A LOT of commas and run-on sentences because…Alexander Hamilton.

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) who you consider an influence?

Oh buddy.  Oh buddy buckle up.  First and biggest nod goes to Robin McKinley (GO READ HER STUFF IMMEDIATELY), who I aspire to be when I grow up.  Robin McKinley taught a very scared and very lonely kid who had just been told that she was too old for playing pretend that there was still magic in the world, and I’m always going to owe a massive debt to her for that.  If this was a ‘pick one’ sort of question, it would be her.  JK Rowling, obligatory honorable mention, Lions for the Cup.  PC Hodgell, who is better at sweeping world-building and not-cliche battles between Good and Evil than anyone I can think of off the top of my head (see my rant about her tragically unknown series here).  Neil Gaiman, who balances the creepy with the daily with the mystical in a way I desperately envy.  The innumerable mediocre authors I trucked through in my school libraries, who taught me what NOT to do, which is just as important as what to do.  For fic authors… @notbecauseofvictories, because her Tumblr fics showed me that it was okay to be messy and wild and just…happy about what I was writing at a time where I kind of needed it.  @determamfidd because Sansukh was, like, fucking life-changing, buddy, I am living a post-Sansukh life right now.  The author of the first fic I ever read (no idea who it was, but it was a Buffy fic with a rewrite of Season 3, and I was PRETTY CONCUSSED at the time, so the fact that I even remember the plot should earn me brownie points, it was a great fic and I should find it again).  Um…I can think of maybe twenty more people, published and otherwise, off the top of my head, but I think this massive block of text is long enough, yes?

S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?

Um…many.  I’m a sucker for soulmate AU’s, I really am.  I am also pathetically weak for mutual pining, particularly the whole “X person will never love me back and it’s okay I’ll just sit here and quietly pine away because I WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY” thing.  It’s probably a good part of the reason I like Enjolras/Grantaire so much, the Enjolras/Grantaire tag on AO3 is here for you and all your pining needs.  Those are probably the two biggest ones, although I’m also weak for size difference because I’m FIVE GODDAMN FEET TALL and everyone I could hypothetically date is a fucking giant.

Anonymous asked: Important questions in no particular order: what is the Foxhole Court, do I need to give a shit about sports in order to enjoy it, are there LGBT characters/relationships, and in the event that I cave, should I just buy all the books in one fell swoop?

patroclvss:

Originally posted by nosilanollid

I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED.

let me answer all of that under a read more bc im gonna gush a lot about this series.

Keep reading

*takes off anon hat*

OKAY because I keep seeing it pop up on my dash and it looks like EXACTLY my cup of tea (I’m that person who considers things like Die Hard and, like, fuck, I don’t know, the Mummy and superhero movies and Deadpool to be wholesome cleansing entertainment, intrigue and murder and violence are my shit) and I was just, like, SO CONCERNED that I needed to give a shit about sports.  I just.  Do not.  BUT Check Please! is a gift unto this earth and I kinda give half a fuck about hockey after reading it, so SOLD, I’m gonna go get the first book.

royalslayer asked: hello yes i heard about book suggestions and. novel of the dresden files, by jim butcher. a wonderful mix of fantastic, fantasy and noir novel. the humor is spot on, the characters believable. it is not perfect by any means, but it is highly enjoyable and i recommend it to everyone.

BABE, The Dresden Files are the shit, I haven’t had time to blow through the whole series but I fucking LOVE the urban-fantasy-noir vibe of them, I aspire to that vibe in my life and in my writing.  Harry Dresden is the patron saint of Being Fucking Done, I adore him, and Murphy is so small and fighty and lawful, I just.  I fucking LOVE The Dresden Files, like, hell fucking yes, I need to acquire ALL OF THEM and read them obsessively.  Everyone, if you’re in the mood for weird dark cities full of intricate magic and secrets, and characters who just want to take a nap but are going to save the world anyway so that they CAN take a nap, Harry Dresden is here for you.  Like, no, it’s not perfect, no book is, but it’s a great fucking ride.

Also if anyone has any good recommendations for fic of “Harry Dresden gets sucked into another magic user’s debacle and just wants to be left alone,” hit me the fuck up.  Like there’s this one particular one where Sarah Williams’ stepmother (of Labyrinth) comes to him and asks for help because Sarah, the newly-crowned Goblin Queen, keeps visiting and is getting increasingly inhuman and the stepmother is afraid, it’s both deeply unnerving and FUCKING GLORIOUS, I believe the series is called “Children’s Voices Should Be Dear” and y’all should go read it.

I’m gonna fucking post this publicly because DRESDEN FILES.

ALSO-ALSO, oh my God, guys, make this a thing, send me book recs or requests for book recs, oh my god do it, I’ve read too many books in my life.

Anonymous asked: Okay, so, now that you're suffering and probably in need of a person to rant to: what are the Foxhole Court books about, I am curious and also overly optimistic about how much free time I'm likely to have this summer.

dyinghistoric:

OmG

well first of all I hope you have a great summer!

and secondly /fuck/ where do i start
Basically the foxhole court books (which is actually called the all for the game series) is basically a trilogy about
Well
A game and a team that plays it? God i don’t know how to describe it
But it’s not quite a sports book and it’s not quite a thriller
It’s suspenseful

But the MAIN THING TO UNDERSTAND is that the characters are absolutely incredible. The characters and their interactions are what make everything worth it. They are fantastic.

I’m going to type this with as much seriousness as i can possibly muster
I have read many, many hundreds of books in my life
these were at the fucking top, and Andrew Joseph Minyard is my #1 favorite book character ever

So basically
1) a really interesting (and made-up?) sport that is written really well even for people like me who don’t like sports
2) incredible twists and turns and surprises; a great plot and excellent writing to back it up
3) CHARACTERS AND THEIR INTERACTIONS
4) Andrew Joseph Minyard

also! If you’re planning on reading them, get them all at the same time. (I got all of them on my kindle for $1.98 cause i had some coupon things? but i don’t think the regular prices are much more) They flow right into each other like one big book. Having all three is a necessity in my eyes; it took me two and a half days, i was so caught up. Couldn’t put them down

so
yeah
there is my rave review. :) EVERYONE SHOULD READ THESE FANTASTIC BOOKS

allgreymatters:

words-writ-in-starlight:

mintgal:

honestly the high fantasy genre is suffering because authors can’t stop ripping off tolkien and basing their worlds off the same few shitty medieval european countries complete with Historically Accurate Misogyny™, HF has so much untapped potential for creating beautiful and diverse and interesting worlds and authors just squander it by rehashing middle earth over and over

And like!  I like Middle Earth!  I love LotR!  I do!  But G U Y S.  Pull yourselves out of your hobbit hole and revel in the potential for new and cool shit in your high fantasy worlds.  I read this book where the main character’s literal job in life was to blow up ghosts with enchanted gauntlets, and her main love interest was a pirate king who spontaneously turned into a giant bloodthirsty monster around ghosts and let me tell you a thing, watching them take down corrupt governments was a goddamn delight.

Um, excuse you?

How dare you describe this book and not tell us what the fuck it’s called and who wrote it so I can find it and go FUCKING READ IT RIGHT NOW???

It’s called Geist by Philippa Ballantine and I am scheming to acquire the second one almost as we speak.  I 100% recommend it.  Cool magic!  Cool ghosts!  Schemes and shenanigans!  Airships!  Ship-ships with pirates!  The main character Sorcha is a complicated, individual woman who is never spat on for being a woman!  (I might be wrong about that, but I can say with absolute confidence that anyone who does learns their lesson really really fast and also is a bad guy, because sexist dicks are bad guys, mmmmkay?)  She is also really, crazy powerful and badass and I am a tiny (very small) bit in love with her.

Her runaway-king-slash-pirate-slash-part-time-monster friend/eventual love interest Raed is cool too, I guess, but SORCHA MOTHERFUCKERS.

BOOK REC

SWEET TRINITY.

IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT THERE IS A (VERY SMALL BUT APPARENTLY EXTANT) FAN BASE ON TUMBLR FOR THE KENCYRATH CHRONICLES.

Beloved followers and non-followers alike, let me tell you a thing.  The Kencyrath Chronicles are up there as my favorite books ever.  Not the way I talk about loving Harry Potter–Hogwarts is my home, to coin a phase–or even the way I love everything Robin McKinley has ever touched–and I love her stuff like I love BREATHING, it’s not always at the forefront of my mind but when I go too long without it I ache, go read all of it immediately.  No, no, no.  This, my love for the Kencyrath Chronicles, is a WHOLE OTHER CREATURE.  Just talking about these books makes my hands shake and my bones feel heavy and my blood become a tangible fizzy thing in my veins.  Like, if being in love doesn’t feel this good, I’m honestly not interested.  

These books are about grand sweeping battles between good and evil and how those grand ideals become petty and ugly and messy as soon as you look closely enough, and how people fight them anyway because it’s their purpose or because it’s their choice or because it’s their people they’re protecting.  Magic is rampant, from the great and hated Three-Faced God of the Kencyr people and its ‘blessed’ chosen ones, the Shanir, who are hated and cherished by their own people and by themselves for how close they are to their meddling deity, to the wandering bands of rathorn (ARMORED FLESH-EATING UNICORNS, PEOPLE, HOW MUCH MORE OF A PITCH DO YOU NEED) and the migratory trees (yes, you read that correctly).  The main character is wild and casually vicious and desperate to be gentle, and she is loved by people everywhere she goes but she’s never really one of them, and the running joke in-universe is that you can track her progress across the world by falling buildings and burning cities (”…the Riverlands in ruins and you in the middle of it, looking apologetic” is a personal favorite quote).  The writing style fucking breathes with power and imagination and magic.  I am not a tough sell on books, really I’m not, but these books.  Trinity.  The fact that these books are not the most popular things since Lord of the Rings fucking breaks my heart, it really does.

So like.  Go read them.  Immediately.  The first two books, God Stalk and Dark of the Moon, are sold as an omnibus called Dark of the Gods, and please forgive their God-awful covers (why is the canonically very flat-chested lead a D-cup?  Don’t know, just kind of relieved I read the older edition with the less awful cover).  If you’ve read them and you liked them, please please PLEASE COME INTO MY ASK BOX AND NEVER EVER LEAVE.

(On a somewhat related note, I’ve read more books than I could care to count in my life, so if anyone ever wants a fantasy/sci-fi rec, I got you, hit me up.)