skygiants | (no subject)

You know that thing where no matter what hobby you have, you can write a cozy themed mystery novel series about it? Like, there's knitting-themed cozy mysteries and gardening-themed cozy mysteries and accounting-themed cozy mysteries and so on?

I don't think 'cozy themed series' is a thing for fantasy novels, because it's kind of been subsumed by urban fantasy which is a whole separate thing, but maybe it should be a thing? Actually I would kind of love if that was a thing. (ACCOUNTING-THEMED COZY FANTASY NOVELS BY THE DOZENS.) And if it was a thing, then Barbara Ashford's Spellcast and its sequel Spellcrossed would fall squarely into that subgenre.

So the basic premise is that Our Heroine Maggie goes on a road trip and accidentally gets sucked into a tiny community theater in a charming small town in Vermont, which is full of charmingly eccentric theatrical types and wacky theatrical hijinks, and also it turns out powered by the charming and angsty fairy director who uses his MAGICAL FAIRY POWERS to help all these charmingly eccentric characters put on successful musicals while coming to terms with their personal hangups and growing as people. The first book is about Maggie getting over her low self-esteem by performing as the clambake lady in "Carousel," and the second book is about Maggie getting over her parent issues by directing "Into the Woods." While falling in love with/sorting out relationship status with the charming and angsty fairy director, of course. They are basically the coziest damn things I've ever read.

And, like, OK:
- it's wish fulfillment up the wazoo
- there are all kinds of ethical problems with fairy magic cheerfully being used to futz with people's emotional states and ability to perform high-quality theater that are really very BARELY glancingly addressed
- don't go in looking for numinous because there's really very little numinous to be found
- also many of the charmingly eccentric theatrical types verge on stereotype (I cringed, for example, at the subplot about the gay actor playing Neville Craven who kept accidentally giving off incest vibes during his scenes with Archibald in "The Secret Garden") (although actually the loud and intimidating but good-hearted Chinese choreographer who SPEAKS IN ALLCAPS was my favorite and I would very happily read all about her romance with her mild-mannered Swiss-German stage manager husband)

So if you're likely to be irritated by those things, stay away, but I had massive amounts of fun. The books just kind of exude comfort -- at least if you are a person who loves musicals and loves cheesy fantasy novels, which, I mean, there's no denying I am the target audience. There is an X painted on my chest. HERE I AM.

But also I think I'm a bit cozy comfort fantasy-starved? Seriously, cozy theme fantasy can become a thing any time now.

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Ah, yes, the Crossroads series by Nick O'Donohoe, well-described by

sovay above. I remember those books fondly, too, though I think I agree that they don't *quite* meet the "cozy" standard. I unwisely winnowed those from my collection some years back, having badly underestimated the likelihood of finding them again at need.

OTOH, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the even more obscure O'Donohoe book I kept: Too Too Solid Flesh, which is a pure sci-fi whodunit featuring a production of Hamlet largely performed by robot actors. Very Asimovian, totally fascinating, and published by -- of all things -- TSR, the company behing the Dungeons & Dragons empire. Very, very odd, but also very, very good...and, of course, utterly out of print.

...I have got to find Too Too Solid Flesh!

Too Too Solid Flesh, which is a pure sci-fi whodunit featuring a production of Hamlet largely performed by robot actors.

That sounds deeply confusing and I must find it.

I was just about to check Google to see if this was the same Nick! Too Too Sooid Flesh was one of those complete impulse buys that I ended up loving, and I never found anyone else who read it (and bits of it - the Curse of Consciousness and the ageing/deafening of the robot character have stuck with me very strongly).

In related, Sharyn McCrumb's Bimbos of the Death Sun - murder of unpleasant author at sf convention - might be kind of cozy?

In related, Sharyn McCrumb's Bimbos of the Death Sun - murder of unpleasant author at sf convention - might be kind of cozy?

Yes, except I remember it being garbage about actual fan culture, even for allowing for the differences between when I read it, when I started attending conventions, and when it was written in 1988. (Which was sad when I realized, because the title is a gift from the B-movie gods.) Diana Wynne Jones' Deep Secret (1997)?

Edited 2014-10-14 04:27 (UTC)

I remember it being weird about women and the sequel being awful, but I had been to precisely one con when I read it and had minimal fan exprience! I should, however, reread Deep Secret, as although I know I've read it the only thing that seems to have stuck with me is the confusing hotel layout. And is there a bit with a centaur in a lift?

And is there a bit with a centaur in a lift?

There is!

(As a novel, I prefer the sequel The Merlin Conspiracy (2003), but it's not the one that takes place at a con. And Deep Secret does have some amazing sequences, like getting to Babylon by candlelight, there and back again.)

A better murder mystery set at a sf convention is We'll Always Have Parrots by Donna Andrews. I think it is more true to fan culture than Bimbos of the Death Sun and the characters are more likeable. It is my second favourite book by Donna Andrews. My favourite is Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon, a murder mystery set in a software development company.

A better murder mystery set at a sf convention is We'll Always Have Parrots by Donna Andrews.

That is my mother's favorite in the series.

Oh, I really really like that. It was incredibly ambitious and dark for a TSR book. Remarkably, Hamlet actually did seem like Hamlet.

I loved this book.