LINKDING

<blockquote>Ava and Zach dig into the blue crate, not yet put away, and select three eggs each. Golden eggs from golden geese in Wisconsin, eggs that remind Ava of crafty Easter displays. Mythique doesn’t use chicken eggs, and Ava doesn’t use any magical ingredients at all until she can prove herself by making a golden omelet just as perfect as she can make with a chicken egg. Until they prove their worth, the new people, she and Zach, are stuck peeling potatoes and washing lettuce. She’s been trying for two weeks. Zach’s been trying for three.</blockquote> ➤ excellent and unsettling

<blockquote>“There is the past and the not-past,” Heron said, blood dripping from their arm onto the nightingale floor. “Which is this?” “The not-past, you idiot.” Dog grunted as he peeled back Heron’s sleeve. He was in Heart of Storms, shoulders tense and eyes alive with lightning. With a tsk, he tore off a clean strip of bandage. “Hold still.”</blockquote> ➤ I love this!??? About an undefined relationship that is nonetheless vital to the characters involved (one male, one nonbinary)

<blockquote>“Nah. We are one hundred percent shit-outta-luck,” she said, voice high and brittle as she leaned back from the computer. She gave a tight little laugh as she gestured at different possible trajectories, the different deflections achievable with nukes or booster rockets or heroic space missions. The wall of screens in front of us showed projected death tolls and ecological changes, with a lot of graphs that dropped sharply right at the end. “Earth is, uh … not to be melodramatic about it, but, absolutely doomed.”</blockquote> ➤ this is AMAZING

<blockquote>The date is June 18th, 1815. The place is Waterlô. And Sa Segokgo is racing against time. The treads of her boots scoop up huge tracts of bloody, Belgian soil and thresh it into aerosol. Archaic bullets dart about her like swarming mosquitoes, pinging noisily off her poly-diadmant suit, its staalglas facepiece. An experienced strandrunner, she is not daunted by such minor impacts. Over ridges and craters she leaps, devouring meters with each stride, explosively imprinting the IOvac corporate icon wherever she lands. Her armor does its work, yes, but it is her conditioned body that knows how to exert itself most efficiently. Every movement must barter energy for distance, and profit. There are no pit stops in this sport; to spend recklessly will purchase only a quicker death.</blockquote>

<blockquote>He's shivering as he emerges from the pod. No surprise, he was frozen for like a billion years. I do all the stuff on the script, all the "Fear Not! You are a welcomed citizen of our Utopia!" stuff while I'm toweling him off. Apparently he's about as good as I am with awkward silence 'cause it's not three seconds before he starts making small talk. "So, how'd you get to be a. . ." He waves his hand. "A Tour Guide To The Future?!" "Yeah." The guy smiles gratefully at me. "I imagine you had a lot of training. . . ?" "None whatsoever!" I chirp. He looks confused. "Allocator chose me because I incidentally have the exact skills and qualifications necessary for this task, and because I had one of the highest enthusiasm scores!"</blockquote> ➤ this story is weird and incredible and I was very surprised to be having feelings by the end given how much I was giggling through most of the story. I love it.

<blockquote>Back up here, she says again. That’s what you’re gonna go for? Some lame esprit de l’escalier moment? What about the girl that broke your heart? Have you even told me about this chick? Why not go back and fix things with her? You make a face. Oh, you say. Oh, yeah, no. That’s not a great idea. What? Why the hell not? I dunno, man, you say. We just. We weren’t meant to be. That’s what people always say to make themselves feel better when shit ends stupidly, An Li says. Well, you say. An Li says, it’s going on the list. </blockquote>

<blockquote>“You must wait here,” the Highest of the High Priests told her. “We will return and bring you back to the Land of Nibiru once we have found the circlet to place upon your head.” The very mention of the circlet made the High Priest tremble with joy. Though the journey through the portal had been brief, the Land of Nibiru was many universes away from where Corrina now stood—in her own small kitchen, in her own small house. The priest looked strange, she realized, with his headdress and robe and flowing beard, next to the magnet-encrusted refrigerator and grimy cabinets and microwave that always smelled of cheese. She had not noticed the priests’ strangeness back in Nibiru. Everything was strange there. “You are the Chosen One. We are certain of it. And you will sit on the High Throne and your Rule will be benevolent and long.” He bowed low, and his long beard draped across the vinyl floor. It needed to have been swept days ago. And mopped. Cheerios clung to the long, gray strands. “Okay,” Corrina said. She was barefoot and filthy and was likely leaving foot-shaped stains on the floor from the juice of an unknown berry, oozing now off her feet. She was eleven years old. The High Priest told her this was the normal age for a Chosen One. He had read all the history books, so he knew.</blockquote> ➤ INTO IT

<blockquote>Nobody pays attention to a slump-backed brownish girl with droopy-lidded eyes. She's got all the genes that make her look Less Human, according to the Important powers that be.</blockquote> ➤ this story is incredible. Great narrative voice, great characters, worldbuilding, etc. Main character is autistic, and author is too.

<blockquote>My mother had daughters year after year, and one by one, my father devoured us. There were only three names allowed in the family, and only three children. There was the oldest, who was always Ruth, and the middle child, who was always Susan. The youngest was “the baby” or simply Baby. When a new daughter was born, she became the baby. The former baby became Susan, and Susan became Ruth—and Ruth vanished. Telling the story like this, it sounds as if we knew what was happening. We did not. I am telling you this so that it will not be a shock to you, the way that it was to me.</blockquote> ➤ gosh. wow. this is really good.

<blockquote>The currents seemed to pull the empty ache out of her, as though her body were just a translucent husk. And then the sound of her heart beating inside her would remind her it was time to surface, and she would feel the slight throbbing of her body asking to live, and reluctantly, made aware again of her natural place above water, she would rise.</blockquote> ➤ about a free-diver in the mediterranean. A lovely story of grief and loss and living, well-grounded in its setting.

<blockquote>The Jewel of Athat was mainly a cargo ship, and most spaces were narrow and cramped. Like the Outer Station, where it was docked, it was austere, its decks and bulkheads scuffed and dingy with age. Inarakhat Kels, armed, and properly masked, had already turned away one passenger, and now he stood in the passageway that led from the station to the ship, awaiting the next.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The mule nipped at Marjan’s hand as she burdened it with her packs. She pushed its nose away, careful not to hurt it. She needed the mule to be well. Her life — and her unborn child’s — depended on it. She led the mule outside the stable and carefully latched the door behind them. She didn’t want the other animals to suffer from the cold. Bad enough she was stealing the mule. She didn’t want Iresna and Gavek to lose anything else.</blockquote> ➤ in which women born with a special mark can do magic, but only if with their mother or their daughter. And this sort of magic has been outlawed, so it is dangerous to have a daughter as a marked woman. I liked that the in-laws in this story are good people!

<blockquote>Voud sacrificed the frogs, and said the appropriate prayer. Then she asked her first question. "Is Ytine going to remarry?" "She's free to do as she likes. Your brother Irris has been gone more than a year, and he was never a particularly good husband; no one would blame her." "He was a drunk," said Voud. "He never did what he should." "A fair description," said the crane. "Unfortunately, your question is the sort I warned you against; I don't know the answer. Ask Ytine herself."</blockquote> ➤ part of leckie's godsverse

<blockquote>Down at the riverfront at Kalub, the little gods congregated in clouds, flies and dragonflies and even small birds approaching would–be travelers. They scattered out of the way of wagons and carts, circled over the flagstoned road and then re–formed.  Umri walked through them, careful not to jostle or hit. The citizens of Kalub paid deference to a host of more powerful gods, including the river itself, but it was wise to be wary of even these tiny things. A small bird lit on her shoulder. “Take me with you, I’ll see you safely to your destination!” it chirped. “No thank you,” said Umri, “I’m seeing someone off.” The tiny brown bird cocked its head, eyeing the bag in her hand, but flew off without saying more.</blockquote> ➤ part of leckie's godsverse ➤ the one with the deposed god and the treasure at the bottom of a lake

<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>I hadn’t had a minute, since getting off the airship, to put down my carpet bag and close my eyes. But Dr. Clarence Fullerton was intent on showing me the entire encampment before I rested. He never paused to allow me a word in edgewise, although at that point I was so exhausted I couldn’t have said much anyway.</blockquote> ➤ autistic lesbian representation in the context of alternate-19th-century dinosaur fossil wars! IT'S SO GREAT. ➤ (the word autistic is never used but it's clear the main character is intended to be seen as such. and the author is autistic too.)

<blockquote>Here’s how I remember it: A touch shocked me. I was reaching for a flash-seared bog-oyster, and then a fingertip, softer than I’d ever felt, brushed my knuckle. The softness startled me so much, it took me a moment to realize the hand had seven fingers, three more than mine. Be held a striped cloth in ber other hand. I came up with the correct pronoun by instinct, even before my mind took in the fact that a pilot was touching my hand. Holy shit, a pilot!</blockquote> ➤ here for it omg! both the A+ gender/sexuality stuff (wayyyyy more than a binary, though still binarized thinking about who is the penetrator/penetratee in sex, and a main character who doesn't want to fulfill the expectations set out for ym), and the scifi worldbuilding stuff, and the extremely pragmatic approach the main character takes to yr relationship with Dot. ➤ Saw someone refer to this as a/b/o fic before a/b/o was a thing, and yeah, this story does exactly the gender deconstruction things that my fave kinds of a/b/o fics do (although this story never really gets to a place of explicitly criticizing the binarization of penetration roles as a whole, just the main character's discomfort with yr place in that system) ➤ also WAIT this author is the author of that book I keep seeing like everyone talk about (All the birds in the sky)? okay fiiiiiiine I guess I will put that book on my to read list after all

<blockquote>Everybody knows about Thrull. Thrull like legend among us folk—biggest, greenest, meanest, nastiest, and dirtiest of all—with one big difference: legends false, Thrull true. We tell the story of Thrull and the reindeer feast, and the story of Thrull and the Mountain Witches, and the story of how Thrull wrestled Winter and wed Summer on Grandmother Rock, and the story of how Thrull broke Stone Peak making love, but the best story I know, that the story of Thrull and the Askin’ Man. Now pour some hard stuff for yourself, and pour a glass for me. Set your tape deck down and listen. This tells the day Thrull got smart.</blockquote> ➤ I love it! a story about guest rights and how to use the rules towards your own ends, told from the pov of a sentient nonhuman pov (implied to be a troll or something similar). ➤ Also I'm very pleased that Thrull is a female character, which I wasn't expecting from the title and the opening paragraph

<blockquote>She can hear Clarice explaining, in her reasonable voice, that Madeleine — bereaved twice over, made vulnerable by an experimental drug — has invented a shadow-self to love, and perhaps they should unpack the racism of its manifestation, and didn’t Madeleine have any black friends in real life? “I wish we could see each other all the time,” says Madeleine, sixteen, on her back in the sunny field, long hair spread like so many corn snakes through the grass. “Whenever we wanted.” “Yeah,” murmurs Zeinab, looking up at the sky. “Too bad I made you up inside my head.” Madeleine steels herself against the careening tug of Sylvia Plath before remembering that she started reading her in high school. Instead, she turns to Zeinab, blinks. “What? No. You’re inside my head.”</blockquote> ➤ the ending makes me so happy!

<blockquote>translation help (codex lucis) FROM: Cara Falco <msadventurerby-yahoo.com> 21/11/2013 15:03 TO: Stephen Greenwood <s.t.greenwoodby-chr.ox.ac.uk> hi we have a page of the codex lucis & need it translated asap. it’s the missing prophecy so there isn’t anything online. can u help? thanks cara</blockquote> ➤ I love the juxtaposition of the very different concerns of the various academics and of Cara

<blockquote>There was a witch who lived up in the mountains, and I never heard but that she was a good one.</blockquote> ➤ apparently it's based on a folk story called "Raw Head and Bloody Bones" which I'd never heard of before! ➤ This is the story of a witch and her razorback hog familiar, and what happens after an unscrupulous man kills her hog. It's really good!

<blockquote>Mutende was amused to see how many other students, high-born though they were, made signs to ward off evil. Less amusing was that he had to stop himself from doing the same.</blockquote>

<blockquote>This is the story that was supposed to be about owls and ended up being, in part, about Israel's bombing of Lebanon in 2006.</blockquote> ➤ REALLY GOOD. I'm not sure the ending quite lives up to how good the rest of the story is, but that doesn't really matter given how good the rest of the story is

<blockquote>Carol and I were librarians at an infinite library where roughly 72% of books are Moby-Dick. Our library contains, within in its stacks, every edition of Moby-Dick that ever has been or will be or could be published. So does the main Library, of course, but at our branch the probability of coming across one of them is much higher.</blockquote> ➤ OMG

<blockquote>Upon waking in a dampened bed—and it had been a poor idea to sleep in the Summer Room, but that was the way of Summer, wasn’t it? to make you forget its weight—your thoughts got all sidetracked by the languid scent of lilacs, and thunderstorms, and berries so fresh they were still hot from the sun. The Summer Room simmered, with sweating flesh at sundown, cool drinks, lies told, and oh the heat-haze, hay-scented, lying naked, running fingertips down your skin.</blockquote> ➤ oh my god, deeply weird but really interesting and I love it and I kind of want fic about it now.

<blockquote>I am Robot!Ophelia, and I will never die for love again.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Into the house with the courtyard and the apple tree, there comes a bride. She is from the north, dressed all in furs. She brings with her all the things that a bride should have: a bow carved with prayers in the old whisper-language (to hunt meat for the table), a set of small bronze knives (to cut up meat for the table), and a long knife sheathed in dragonskin (for keeping husbands honest). She brings with her two strong-legged hunting dogs, and a white wolf pelt to lay upon the bridal bed, and a red deerskin to wear on special occasions.</blockquote> ➤ An excellent fairy-tale-ish story about ladies. INTO IT.

<blockquote>I’ll pretend I’m going blind if I have to: start fumbling my work, carving sloppy lines onto the dolls, squinting, tripping over nothing. Everything my mother did in her twenty-fifth year. Everything my aunt and uncle did. Now the three of them sit in the best positions by the fire; how honored they are, for giving their sight to feed us. How well-fed, while we labor carving more dolls for the pot. They’ll kill me for laziness if I don’t go blind in the next year.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Everyone thinks my brother is nice. He set up a rescue centre for birds, after the terraforming accident poisoned the lake. That's always the image of him, holding a bird covered in sludge. The birds are never the same after they're cleaned, but the gossips never talk about that. Cleaning birds is a safe way to make people notice you, and my brother likes safe. I jumped off a cliff once. He was all, "You'll die if you jump." I broke most of my bones, but I made it. It's worth trying for the feel of it. Not the bones part, but the rush of something new. It should have been something, falling and surviving. But the gossips only cared about how much it upset my brother.</blockquote>

<blockquote>History is a thing we make—in more senses than one. And from more directions.</blockquote> ➤ OH DUDE. This story starts off a bit slow but it is totally worth the read