LINKDING

<blockquote>Where Genly Ai went, after Winter. [Written for Yuletide 2010.]</blockquote> ➤ oh, wow. Very effective at grounding in setting such that it evokes a strong consistent feeling throughout. Plus excellent alien anthropology

<blockquote>“It’s wastoures! They came through Newton and Blackhill and killed everything, and then they split into two big groups and one turned north, and the other’s coming here. I stay ahead of them and earn pennies by warning people.” Wastoures. Perhaps you have not heard of them, you people born a thousand years after Ada and Blanche and this runner—whose name is Hardourt, though his part in this story is nearly over: his name will not matter to you, though it matters to him. In your time they are gone, but in the twelfth century, every child knew of them, and adults as well. Wastoures: scarce larger than chickens but unfeathered and wingless, snake-necked and sharp-beaked and bright-clawed, with little arms ending in daggery talons. For long years there would be no wastoures (except in memory and dread), and then a population bloom, like duckweed choking an August pond, or locusts after a dry spring, or cicadas rising from the ground each seventeenth year. For reasons unknowable, they emerged in their scores of thousands from some unknown cave or forgotten Roman mine, and seethed like floodwater or plague across the land.</blockquote> ➤ I'm fascinated by the way the narrative continues to draw your attention to what might happen to the other characters Ada encounters throughout the story, and the structure of Story.

<blockquote>The Fleet of the Godless came to the waters around Au by chance. It was an odd assortment of the refugees of the world; some had deliberately renounced all gods, some had offended one god in particular. A few were some god’s favorites that another, rival god had cursed. But most were merely the descendants of the original unfortunates and had never lived any other way.</blockquote> ➤ part of leckie's godsverse ➤ the one with the self-serving god who has promised to protect and care for a particular island nation, with things like human sacrifice as recompense

<blockquote>“No,” answered my father. “Better.” He sat on the bench behind him. My brothers and I knew better than to sit ourselves. “He wants to end the curse on his line. And Artau Ehat, the lord of the sky and protector of Therete, has said to the king of Therete — or to his priests, since because of the curse the king himself isn’t able to enter the god’s presence — that the curse will be ended when the prince Atehatsqe marries your sister. And,” he continued into our perplexed silence, “if he can get a better price for timber, so much the better.”</blockquote> ➤ part of leckie's godsverse

<blockquote>She wore no jewels, only the short trousers of a ball player and an undecorated armguard that covered her from wrist to elbow, her hand curled into a fist to hold it in place. She wasn't jumping or crouching, only standing, her arms at her side, her head tilted just slightly, as though she were listening to a voice only she could hear.</blockquote> ➤ Politics and religious/political games ➤ part 2: http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/she-commands-me-and-i-obey-part-2-of-2/

<blockquote>Being an account, in pastiche style, of a boy whose story may or may not be the embodiment of the hero’s journey, and who therefore encounters a call to adventure, a wise advisor, a mystical weapon, a road of trials, a rogue, a princess, and a villain (in that order); and who, over the course of fighting an evil empire, finds himself attaining his goals, both symbolic and literal. In space.</blockquote> ➤ HOLY SHIT THIS FIC. Apparently the author intends to write the entirety of the original trilogy of star wars in this style but even if they never get around to the rest of it I can die happy because as it is this is 17k words about Ben Kenobi and the history of Tatooine in the style of the digression about the Bishop that starts Les Mis and IT'S SO GOOD.

<blockquote>Five Rejuvenations Kalique Abrasax Took And One She Didn't.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Mark thinks hanging out with Ivan at a pre-wedding ball will keep him out of trouble. Set toward the end of A Civil Campaign.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Crownprince Rudolf's childhood is lonely, filled with the harsh discipline of a future soldier king. But if you never have time to sit and listen to the stories of soul-dealing demons or the Erlkings cruel court, it can be very hard to know what to make of a friend, whose hair is filled with starlight and whose hand is cold like ice.</blockquote>

<blockquote>General Li has a daughter.</blockquote> ➤ in which it's Shang who's crossdressing, not Ping

<blockquote>A record of the sub-committee's interview of Maggie Farrell, Somnotician and candidate for the position of artist on the delegation which will shortly leave Earth to make first contact with the inhabitants of Toliman B.</blockquote> ➤ Again: AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

<blockquote>"It's only a story, Xury," said Téo gently. "I know it is a story, " Xury replied with wounded dignity. "I am fifteen, not five. But do you see why she is so important to us? She never quit. No matter what was flung at her, she kept on. And eventually she won. There are worse stories, Téo. Like the story that sings loudly, 'You are alone, enslaved, helpless and without hope, and thus it shall be forever.' That is a terrible story to believe in."</blockquote> ➤ AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

<blockquote>After fleeing east from war-torn Sarain, Buri and Thayet return triumphant to the K'miri clans with the Dominion Jewel. But while its powers protect them, the Jewel also makes them a target.</blockquote>

<blockquote>I didn’t take her voice for myself. I want to set the record straight on that, right up front. People got a lot of crazy notions in their heads, the way the story got around, and that was one of them.</blockquote>

<blockquote>slash of blood against snow and who would wish for a child "red as blood"—pretty words, but the daughter suffers. --Lightsey Darst, "[Snow White]" The Queen has her tale. The Court has another.</blockquote>

<blockquote>A Mongol woman warrior, a Chinese princess who overthrew the Emperor, a cross-dressing French writer and an Egyptian inventor-mathematician help a city of quasi-Roman lesbians to outwit and defeat a host of aliens who treat humans as toys to be tested to destruction. Also features clockpunk attack robots, lesbian kissage, assorted dinosaurs and a telepathic pteranodon.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Hamlet in space, starring sensible and heroic Ophelia, genderswapped Claudius, clones Rosencrantz and Guilderstern and alien Fortinbras. (Alas, there are no sharks in space riding motorcycles, nor is there a time machine.)</blockquote> ➤ HOLY CRAP THIS IS AMAZING

<blockquote>What if Snow White was a cool character who knew what she wanted and how to get it?</blockquote>

<blockquote>Greendale really is a psychiatric hospital, but Abed has a foolproof escape plan for him and all his friends. Shared delusion? Shared delusion? Shared delusion?</blockquote>

<blockquote>"You want to recruit me for what? You want me to go where?" Sgt. Brad Colbert has been on a lot of strange missions, but this promises to be his most out there yet: Atlantis This is not a story about falling in love. This is a story about falling in team.</blockquote> ➤ most of this fic is absobloodylutely wonderful. The ending doesn't quite live up to the everything else but it's still totally worth a read.

<blockquote>Enjolras finds Marius after the Napoleon incident. Symphony-fic in a single movement: of Beethoven, Napoleon, and the trials of Marius Pontmercy. Composed to celebrate the memory of a great man.</blockquote>

<blockquote>To the city of York, in the year of our Lord 1780, there came a young man who had fallen upon hard times.</blockquote> ➤ or, how Childermass came to work for Norrell. ➤ An interesting story, and somewhat unsettling and stick-in-your-head in the way that any good fic about the magic of JS&MN ought to. ➤ It's -- oh, I'm describing it wrong. But this fic is extremely effective at feeling utterly like a part of the world of JS&MN.

From Angua’s office, with the door cracked, being a captain wasn’t all that different from being a sergeant.

<blockquote>There was a time when the woods near Duva ate girls…or so the story goes. But it’s just possible that the danger may be a little bit closer to home.</blockquote> ➤ The nature and identity of good and bad in this story is very interesting, and definitely commentary on traditional fairy tales

<blockquote>Hobbes turned over in bed and poked Calvin with his tail. “Maybe you live on a different plane of existence. That somehow we both occupy the same space and that’s why we can see each other and others can’t.”</blockquote>

<blockquote>Child Ballad 32 is a loathly lady story. The only popular version I know of is Steeleye Span’s “King Henry,” on Below the Salt. I have had this album for well over a decade, and occasionally I found myself wondering about the monstrous lady in the story, and even more about King Henry, who agreed to kill his horse and hawk and hounds to feed her. I don’t know that I’d easily forgive someone who forced me to kill my dog. This had been kicking around in my head for the better part of a decade, and then I was privy to a very odd conversation in a bookstore about people with extreme forms of body dysmorphic disorder, and then I drank a lot of coffee and drove for about forty-five minutes and “King Henry” came on the CD player and I went home and wrote the story in one long jag, which probably explains a few things about it.</blockquote>

➤ Does what it says on the tin. A very alien and botanical look at Gaila. also on ao3 at http://archiveofourown.org/works/506879

➤ character study of Fraser as an ex-alcoholic, depressing but good

<blockquote>Bill just couldn't leave her like that . . . but enlisting Jeannie Miller's help was a mistake. A mistake, because McKay was definitely going to kill him when he discovered the mess—well, mortal danger—Bill had gotten his sister into. Yeah. He was definitely a dead man. As soon as he managed to escape himself, that is. Of course, Bill really needn't have worried, because Jeannie, her brother, and Teyla were a little distracted by body swapping and explosions and terrorist attacks and the terrible question of what, exactly, constitutes human rights . . .</blockquote>