skygiants

The SHRIEK I let out this morning when I looked at my inbox and realized that in addition to the Yuletide gifts of which I have already spoken I'd received two additional Yuletide treats!

The first one is another Quest backstory fic for Deeplight and may I say once again how thrilled I am that my request has kicked off a rich and semi-interlocking canon of Quest backstory in the Yuletide archive! This one is an extremely devious and fun fic about the actual logistics of recruitment for the Quest's particular mission, and it made me absolutely delighted to read.

Hooked

Many have suffered grief, and the process moulds and tempers men in different ways.

And then there's the second one, which, well, to repeat what I said multiple times on other platforms: HOW DARE YOU? ASSASSINATED IN MY OWN HOME???

frequency relay

The tape crackled to a stop, saBrihesi's parting nearly buried in static, and saGorresil lifted the cassette out of the player with gentle tenderness—like a gardener, inspecting new-grown leaves.

This is an absurdly, overwhelmingly, UNJUSTLY beautiful fic with equally unjustly beautiful illustrations for my short story "This Is New Gehesran Calling" and I am literally speechlesss about how good it is. The very technically anonymous individuals who have perpetrated this have come for every one of my narrative weak spots with LASER precision, I have never been so attacked in my life and I'm going to spend the rest of the day more or less incoherent about it! Happy Boxing Day, everyone!!!!!

(I have to admit that when I first saw this I went into a brief panic about whether it was even legal for me to read and whether I was about to ruin some poor stranger's day by sticking an authorial nose in where it didn't belong, so apologies to everyone who had to listen to me scream this morning and talk me down from the ledge of contacting the mods to make sure there hadn't been some kind of tagging mistake. Except for the people who might, hypothetically, have been in on this conspiracy. NO APOLOGIES FOR YOU, YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING YOU GOT.)

Consolation Songs, the charity anthology edited by Iona Datt Sharma I mentioned last week, is out today! One can purchase it in physical or mobi form from the Amazon or as epub from Smashwords.

Meanwhile, I personally stayed up too late last night gorging everyone else's extremely delightful stories, including:

"Storm Story," Llinos Cathryn Thomas - a magical generation ship crossing a boundless ocean, a once-in-a-lifetime storm, and a mandate to keep the lights burning; near-impossible tasks, community and hope

"Girls Who Read Austen," Tansy Rayner Roberts - Greek mythology monsters college roommate AU!

"Upside the Head," Marissa Lingen - a medical trial for a new treatment for head trauma (in mostly, specifically, hockey players); unexpected changes & unexpected growth

"Bethany, Bethany," Lizbeth Myles - a changeling story about sisters! my jam!!!

"Seaview on Mars," Katie Rathfelder - accessible elder-home hunting on a space colony that is now but was not always thriving; a really great evocation of a larger world and context from a quiet and personal moment

"A Hundred and Seventy Storms," Aliette de Bodard - a sentient spaceship and her human cousin weathering a terrible storm (as a sidenote, Aliette de Bodard's Xuya books have been on my TBR for a while but had not personally realized that the premise was quite that much "McCaffrey's Ship Who Sang books, but good!", which I am very excited about)

"Low Energy Economy," Adrian Tchaikovsky - a contract worker chugs along on a doomed mission that may not in fact be completely doomed after all

"Four," Freya Marske - a Good Omens-ish riff on apocalyptic powers, set in suburban Australia & ft. Freya's trademark incredibly gleaming prose

"St. Anselm-By-The-Riverside," Iona Datt Sharma - a middle-aged hospital worker navigates her way through a first romance in a world that is borked in ways slightly parallel to our own; rich and layered with a fascinating second thread running through it

"This Is New Gehesran Calling," Rebecca Fraimow - this one is me! pirate radio and diasporic community in space!

"Of a Female Stranger," Jeannelle M. Ferreira - turn-of-the-eighteenth-century selkies! "are they lesbians" OF COURSE they are lesbians and it's great

"Love, Your Flatmate," Stephanie Burgis - a human gets stuck with an unwanted fairy houseguest during COVID-19 lockdown ... And Indeed They Were Roommates

If any of that sounds interesting, and if you have six dollars to spare, please consider making the purchase; all proceeds go to the University College London Hospitals NHS Trust!