(no subject)

I think I may have done Pyramids a disservice by reading it mostly on the plane home from Austin while exhausted. I like the first bit, the British Boy's School send-up via assassination training, quite a bit! But once young Teppic heads home to Parody Egypt, I just kept thinking "this feels like a dry run for Small Gods," and Small Gods - at least in my memory - is so good that I could not help but find it wanting.

I don't know, maybe it's just that all the bits of Pyramids don't quite come together. Dios-the-priest (not to be confused with any other Dioses, although I still maintain it would be hilarious if Akio showed up on the Discworld, if only to flirt with Nanny Ogg) is suitably and successfully creepy, and as I said the Assassins' Training School is a lot of fun, and Teppic himself is fine, and I love the helpful family mummies at the end, but somehow it all feels much more like bits and less like a put-together plot. Maybe it's just that I also feel like I know as much or more about ancient Egypt than the book does, so the parody-commentary is all a bit superficial. And there's interesting stuff about gods and religion in there, but it's all still sort of being formed, and hasn't yet come together.

Ptraci also does not much come together, since her main attributes until the very end are being sexy and scantily-clad and a poor singer, which is a shame after books full of amazing and strong ladies. So I suspect I was also cranky about that, although I had forgotten the way it ended, and I did like that.

But I don't know, as I said, maybe I am doing the book a disservice! Pyramids fans out there, what do you think? Please feel free to defend it to me! (Pyramids anti-fans, I want to know what you think too!)

(no subject)

While we're all waiting for Yuletide assignments to come out, I want to take some time to gush about my Kaleidescope fic! The one thing I have been requesting from the world for years is Capital Scandal fic about Cha Song Joo being amazing, and the world has finally seen fit to provide it for me and it is all I could have dreamed:

Twentieth Century Blues

On nights like these, though, when the damp air sticks to the back of her throat and makes even the finest silk hanbok feel like a sodden rag against her skin, her fingers always ache with the memory of hours spent fumbling with numb, greasy hands, assembling and disassembling the weapons placed in front of her.

It's a gorgeous, quiet fic about how dangerous Cha Song Joo is and how tired she is and I love it to pieces, so mystery author, if you're reading this, so many hearts for you!

The other awesome thing about Kaleidoscope is that it's so small I can actually read through the archive in a single day (SO WEIRD) so while I'm here, have a few more recs! The usual procedure is to put the fandoms as the cut text, right? ( So: recs for Chak De! India, Red Cliff, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and Seirei no Moribito. )

I put my favorites here, but seriously everything I read in the archive haas been awesome, so I definitely encourage you to go check out the full list - there were loads of fandoms that I didn't know but YOU MAY, and if you've always secretly been longing to see them written it may well be your lucky day.

And now I am ready for Yuletide! BRING IT.