skygiants: Hazel, from the cover of Breadcrumbs, about to venture into the Snow Queen's forest (into the woods)
[personal profile] skygiants
I took shameless advantage of my friendship with Iona Datt Sharma and Katherine Fabian to demand an early copy of Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night, their upcoming novella, which is coming out this Friday just in time for it to be the most enjoyable holiday-adjacent thing you'll read this season.

Layla is a respectably-gay-married pathologist with a full-time career, a house and two kids; Nat is an aggressively queer jobbing composer. Their only commonalities: they're both poly, neither of them do very much magic, and they're both dating deeply weird fairyland-adjacent professional magician Meraud. Other than that they have very little to talk about, and generally attempt to avoid doing so -- until Meraud disappears, with his rescue contingent on a complex magical treasure hunt that, Tam Lin-esque, can only be performed by his beloved.

In this case beloved is a plural, which means it's time for some OBLIGATE TEAMWORK.

"I'm only hanging out with you because this ONE PERSON needs us to work together but I GUESS if they like you there's something to you" is a great and tragically underused story structure and it is utilized here SO WELL. There's collective magical riddle-solving! There's a fake engagement! There's the collision of different kinds of queer lifestyles! There's nonprofit bureaucracy and city planning! But most of all there are the complex family and community networks that weave through everybody's lives, and the magic that these connections create, which is really what the story is about, and feel-good in the best possible way.

Date: 2018-12-02 06:02 pm (UTC)
happydork: A graph-theoretic tree in the shape of a dog, with the caption "Tree (with bark)" (Default)
From: [personal profile] happydork
<3<3<3

Date: 2018-12-02 06:28 pm (UTC)
sovay: (Haruspex: Autumn War)
From: [personal profile] sovay
Their only commonalities: they're both poly, neither of them do very much magic, and they're both dating deeply weird fairyland-adjacent professional magician Meraud.

I just really like this sentence.

Date: 2018-12-02 06:55 pm (UTC)
raven: [hello my name is] and a silhouette image of a raven (Default)
From: [personal profile] raven
Meraud's deep weirdness is my most significant contribution to this story and I am very glad you like it.

Date: 2018-12-02 08:22 pm (UTC)
schneefink: River walking among trees, from "Safe" (Default)
From: [personal profile] schneefink
Sounds interesting, I put it on my list :)

Date: 2018-12-02 11:07 pm (UTC)
dhampyresa: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dhampyresa
OH NICE

Date: 2018-12-03 04:32 pm (UTC)
larryhammer: floral print origami penguin, facing left (Default)
From: [personal profile] larryhammer
+1

Date: 2018-12-03 02:00 am (UTC)
nevanna: (Default)
From: [personal profile] nevanna
All of this sounds amazing!

Date: 2018-12-03 02:18 am (UTC)
genarti: ([fma] EYEHEARTS!!!)
From: [personal profile] genarti
Obligate teamwork *____*

This all sound so delightful!!! UNSURPRISINGLY, but still.

Date: 2018-12-03 04:30 am (UTC)
ellen_fremedon: overlapping pages from Beowulf manuscript, one with a large rubric, on a maroon ground (Default)
From: [personal profile] ellen_fremedon
This sounds fantastic!

Date: 2018-12-03 01:04 pm (UTC)
cinaed: Tough times don't last, tough people do, remember? (Gregory Peck)
From: [personal profile] cinaed
This sounds amazing and I immediately pre-ordered it!

Date: 2018-12-07 07:05 pm (UTC)
sandrylene: Scott Pilgrim generator based pic of me (Default)
From: [personal profile] sandrylene
Yay, I pre-ordered and saw I just got it, I think, and am looking forward to this as part of my holiday enforced relaxation and fucking off time period. :D

Date: 2018-12-16 07:39 pm (UTC)
alchimie: (Default)
From: [personal profile] alchimie
This sounds fantastic, I will have to look for it.

Date: 2018-12-21 09:02 pm (UTC)
alchimie: (Default)
From: [personal profile] alchimie
I am reading this now due to your review and it is amazing -- I am so glad I saw your post about it!

Date: 2018-12-22 12:16 am (UTC)
alchimie: (Default)
From: [personal profile] alchimie
Very lovely, and it has a pulse of magic to it that reminds me of when I first discovered the old style of urban fantasy in the early 90s -- but better, because more aligned with the things I care about. I am torn between racing through it and going slowly to linger.

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skygiants: Princess Tutu, facing darkness with a green light in the distance (Default)
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