Scales and Tales

Been busy with some other things, but I have done some reading. I'm now about halfway through The Baron of Magister Valley (Brust) and have just started Xenotech: Queen's Gambit (Schroeder).

The latter is a book I've been waiting two years for: I purchased the first book in the Xenotech Support series at a convention, pre-pandemic, to see if I'd enjoy it. I did, very much, and was excited to pick up the next one when the con came round again! Then the convention was cancelled two years in a row. This year I got both my convention and the next two books, which I'm very much looking forward to. :D

If you enjoy humourous sci-fi, pick up the first book, Xenotech Rising, and have fun!

My feelings on the Brust novel so far are somewhat more complex, mostly because of the introduction. The story itself is fun so far (the daring escape has just occurred!) though, and hopefully it will lessen the unpleasantness of Will Shetterly's existence, which has made Dragaera and the Dzur far less enjoyable than they ought to be. :/

I'm stuck on elves again. (This is a thing that happens to me periodically, I've learned. Although no, I haven't learned why it happens.) In the last month, I have:

* gone on a Forgotten Realms fanfic binge
* reread Salvatore's dark elf prequel trilogy (Homeland, Exile, & Soujourn)
* recced a bunch of Forgotten Realms fanfic
* started rereading Brust's Hawk
* purchased Vallista to follow it up with
* reread three Sidhe novels by Josepha Sherman
* read a bunch of LOTR fanfic
* watched 8 hours of LOTR films
* thought about going to the library for the LOTR books
* gone looking for my bootlegged Record of Lodoss War episodes

Oh, yeah, and

* acquired an elf-themed icon

So... send help?

And by help I definitely mean recs for elf-centric canons and fic. :D There must be things out there I haven't read yet! Save me from having to resort to Mercedes Lackey rereads, friends. :D

(As a side note, who has Sapkowski's Blood of Elves waiting in the to-be-read pile? Yeah, it's me! I've been meaning to pick up the Witcher novels for about a year now, before Netflix decided to make it a show; having elves in the title should bump it up the stack!)

My prompt from hamsterwoman was "Dragaera," and I was supposed to post about it on the 17th. Sorry I'm late. (If there was a 34th of January, I would have pushed it back till then, but alas.)


Have you ever encountered a canon that really drew you in and held your interest over several years? One that stacked up the tropes/character types/plot twists you like into a big pile of enjoyable action?

One that you couldn't for the life of you figure out why there just isn't a fandom?

That's Dragaera.

( A currently-unfinished series of fantasy novels, with side series, there's really not any other series I can compare it to. Some introductory stuff for those unfamiliar with it, below the cut: )

With that out of the way, on to the specifics! I mentioned that this series if a perpetual case of "why isn't there any active fandom!?" for me, and at risk of repeating myself, I really don't understand why there isn't a fandom for this!

It seems to be absolutely stuffed with tropes that fandom loves: the wisecracking Vlad and his talking animal sidekick, the anti-hero with a heart/slow reformation of Vlad's character from amoral assassin to something more principled (though I don't think Vlad's morality will never be "normal," and that's a point of appeal as well!), the Dragaeran culture that makes Vlad an outsider and an underdog, the amazing descriptions of food that will leave you hungry after reading... :D There are 17 Houses for all your Sorting needs, and a gender-neutral society that means female characters can do anything the male ones can. There's plenty of opportunities for angst around Dragaeran prejudices (the Houseless, inter-House romances or the offspring thereof, Dragaeran/Easterner conflict, bias against the Jhereg and Teckla Houses...) and a wide-open playground of unexplored regions where Dragaeran prejudices don't apply (the East, the Isles).

There are plenty of options when it comes to relationships, too, whether you're into Vlad and his wife Cawti struggling through the breakup of their marriage, or Vlad's intense foe-yay with his Dragaeran friend-and-sometimes-boss, or the deep loyalty between Vlad and his secretary Kragar, or Cawti building a new life with her (female, Dragaeran) former assassination partner Norathar. The Khaavren romances feature two forbidden inter-House loves in addition to a successful romantic pairing.


If you've read them, talk at me about them! If you have questions, hit me with them - I am always willing to pimp this series to people to see if I can't build a little fandom for it. :D

My prompt for the 13th was supplied by blnchflr, who asked me to talk about "Characters who are Good whom you like (unless you don't like any Good characters)."

I spent about three days trying to work out an answer to this one, only to belatedly realise that I may be overthinking it -- I kept trying to figure out the difference between good and Good, and it only occurred to me yesterday that maybe the uppercase was just an attempt to distinguish "a morally good character" from "a good character" in the sense of well-written. *facepalming* blnchflr, feel free to chime in with your intentions!

( Some thoughts below the cut! )

Well, that got long, and kind of turned into a "discuss two tropes you've grown to hate" meta more so than one on good characters and goodness! Sorry. *sheepish* In summary: I have a lot of ~feelings~ about the notion of "Good People" and characters who think they belong in that category, most of which are bound up in the very shallow, platitude-y way that many canons apply it.


Edit: Just discovered my HTML was borked, and half this entry never showed up! Welp. Fixed now, and I did a bunch of editing, too. Hope somebody notices!

The only problem with rereading The Phoenix Guards is that, by about halfway through, all my writing invariably begins to resemble that of the inestimable Paarfi of Roundwood.

Considering I'm trying to write Homestuck fic, the results are... entertaining.

I HAVE TWO GIFTFICS! TWO! I AM SO EXCITED!

My very firstest Yuletide giftfics, let me show you them: my Black Jewels Trilogy story "Winsol in Brief" (Wilhelmina, with a side of Karla!) and my Dragaera story "Snowflakes" (Kragar, Vlad, with a side of Daymar and slash!).