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gideongriddle · 2 years

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my most anticipated 2022 fiction releases, in order of current release date

tagged by @earlymodernlesbian

okay i “understand” that i am just supposed to pick “nine” for this and also that there is a picture limit here on tumblr dot com but jokes on you i am including a runners up list of considerable length after my main ones

dead silence by s.a. barnes (feb. 8): in space no one can hear you scream etc etc. the premise is very classic horror (exploring somewhere a tragedy took place and discovering there’s still!! something there!!) and it’s been blurbed by a lot of horror writers i trust. possibly gay? but i could be misremembering

last exit by max gladstone (feb. 22): max gladstone hive!!! empress of forever and this is how you lose the time war are both all-time faves so auto-buy. definitely gay.

end of the world house by adrienne celt (apr. 19): am i being sucked in by a great title and visually arresting cover?? very possible. but i’m (obviously) a time loop bitch and there’s a very good kristin arnett blurb so here we are. not gay as far as i know

siren queen by nghi vo (may 10): i have not yet read my copy of the chosen and the beautiful but i loved the empress of salt and fortune and old hollywood but with disquieting magic as a concept is catnip to me!! no idea if gay??

the final strife by saara el arifi (june 21): okay some author i really love was talking about reading an arc and loving it and i thought it was amal el-mohtar on twitter but now i can find no evidence of that so maybe i am losing my marbles. anyway this seems like it will be excellent company to the trio of meaty adult sapphic fantasies from last year, so i’m excited!! enthusiastically gay.

our wives under the sea by julia armfield (july 12): kristin arnett blurb strikes again!!! i love gothic fiction and have been anticipating this one for over a year. titularly gay!!

high times in the low parliament by kelly robson (aug. 9): this seems almost like a farcical cousin to the goblin emperor?? anyway i always want to read about fairies and politics and tor dot com has me in a chokehold. the inciting incident is gay!!

the old place by bobby finger (sept. 20): i am a who! weekly listener first and a human second so i am legally obligated to support. but genuinely i love stories about old ladies and texas settings and expect this to be both funny and tender. unclear if gay but seems distinctly possible?

the golden enclaves by naomi novik (sept. 27): thrilled and terrified to see the scholomance trilogy conclude!! cannot recommend these books enough as both genuinely nerve-wracking YA romps and deeply moving explorations of teens choosing compassion in an environment that actively discourages that behavior. side characters gay romance real, protagonist romance gay in my head

!!! releases i am thrilled about but i felt could not qualify for the main list!!!

fevered star by rebecca roanhorse (apr. 19): sequel to black sun, which i own but have not read yet! gay!

i kissed shara wheeler by casey mcquiston (may 3): have already read this and guess what?? it fucks!! about some truly insufferable girls (affectionate) and made me laugh out loud and also cry about growing up queer and religious in the south. multi-directionally gay!!

seasonal fears by seanan mcguire (may 3): sequel to middlegame, which i own but have not read yet! seanan mcguire hive never loses. i assume gay in at least some small way bc of her track record as an author?

the grief of stones by katherine addison (june 14): sequel to the witness for the dead, which i own but have not read, which is a standalone sequel to the goblin emperor, which i have read and am obsessed with. gay!

lockland by robert jackson bennet (june 21): final book in the founders trilogy which okay i do not “own” and have not “read” at all but amal el-mohtar has definitely glowingly reviewed the previous two entries in the series and i trust her with my life so i will be purchasing them all i fear. gay!

don’t fear the reaper by stephen graham jones (aug. 2): sequel to my heart is a chainsaw, which i own but have not read yet! not gay to my knowledge

the oleander sword by tasha suri (aug. 12): sequel to the jasmine throne, which i own but i am licherally going to start reading today!!! famously gay

nona the ninth by tamsyn muir (sept. 13): i am not bothering to write what this is a sequel to, you freaks!!! you know!!!! being unable to talk about this book with people keeps me up at night. the [redacted] of it all... september cannot come soon enough!!!! GAY

a restless truth by freya marske (nov. 1): sequel to a marvellous light, which i own but have not read yet! gay!

!!! general runners-up !!!

the thousand eyes by a.k. larkwood (feb. 15): sequel to the unspoken name, which i didn’t really feel needed a sequel??? but i am v happy to revisit these characters. gay!

extasia by claire legrand (feb. 22): i’m reading less and less YA these days but i loved sawkill girls and weird saint shit is always up my alley. gay!

dead collections by isaac fellman (feb. 22): eternally horny for new spins on vampires and also narratives about archives!! trans, idk if gay!

all the white spaces by ally wilkes (mar. 29): the terror-adjacent, with a trans protag!!! strong blurbs from other horror authors!! unknown if gay

sea of tranquility by emily st. mandel (apr. 5): i never got around to reading the glass hotel but i am a station eleven bitch. presumed straight?

when women were dragons by kelly barnhill (may 3): absolutely the sickest premise of all time?? unknown if gay

misrule by heather walter (may 10): sequel to malice, which i liked but did not love?? very curious if the duology sticks the landing. gay!

this time tomorrow by emma straub (may 17): listen any type of time travel or distortion is interesting to me!!! presumed straight?

yerba buena by nina lacour (may 31): have never read anything by this author but obvi know her excellent reputation! gay!

mistakes were made by meryl wilsner (oct. 11): own but have not read this author’s previous romance, something to talk about. this is being sold as “the milf book” so. gay!

ocean’s echo by everina maxwell (nov. 1): in the same universe of winter’s orbit which i loved!! gay!

even though i knew the end by c.l. polk (nov. 8): have not read any of this author’s work bc i am dumb but all her shit is extremely up my alley! noir AND vampires. gay!

#obvi some of these release dates might shift and there are many books i have not heard about yet but will end up loving!!!#book blogging on main

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izartn · 3 years

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Dunno I’ve been thinking and the last book I remember liking by RR was The Son of Neptune bc outsider pov on percy??? I’m always a sucker for those. Also the Leo and Jason parts of the first of HoO; Piper was meh, Jason a little less meh and Leo surprisingly good. But I just lost any major interest in the series with Mark of Athena; it was entertaining but it didn’t thrill me anymore. Maybe I had grown too old? But mostly I think it was so many charas saturating the plot.

But really, The Last Olympian is such a good finale? Of course I wanted to read more of Percy and Annabeth but I was so happy when I finished it... And of course the undervalued Kane Chronicles, whose mythology and fantasy I liked even moren although the charas weren’t superior; that trilogy deserved so much more.

The nome system, the different specializations and rituals and the way the protags are living gods at different points of the story??? the whole walt-anubis-sadie situation? and zia, omg? The romance is also wonkers in this trilogy, it’s so subtly creepy-wrong and the supernatural vibes... But like, when treated more seriously. Hello Sadie is 13 by book 2 and I completely forgot that bcs she was being romanced by a god and a 15-16 years old, and doing dangerous things and being Isis avatar, and like no way she is that age. Also, Anubis as a 5.000 years old teen is like... no, riordan. It’s still being a bit weird. I wasn’t expecting the kiss >_< You could’ve made it an interesting exploration of the mutable qualities of the egyptian gods and the lack of like, modern standards of behavior, and then go ahead with the Walt-Anubis plotline. And after PJO and seeing the results of god-human unions... Play with what it means, but for the love of god, Sadie’s age >.>

But I loved her being obsessed with Adele bcs by then I was too. XD

TW INCEST. Here I go off the rails speculating for a parragraph on ancient egypt royalty and the kanes, if you don’t want to read it, close the tab or scroll past it, it’s nothing too dark, nor it’s explicit in any case. More like the result of reading too much weird fic.

And really that no one (no god ever) ever mentioned the practice of marrying family in egyptian dynasties to horrorize or joke a little to carter and sadie? (i know my mind is perturbed but these two see each other when? once, twice a year a bit more in the lucky ones? honestly if this was and adult or even ya and the author another it’d been an interesting conflict treated seriously. keeping canon ending pairs et all!!) Although carter knows for sure and just hasn’t clocked in what it means they’re the blood of pharaohs. Yup your ancestors x-generation removed were into incest for purity reasons. And know you’re the incarnation of the horus-pharaoh in earth too. Enjoy! (this is like in yu-gi-oh!! fandom where we pretend the concept didn’t exist bcs too serious and creepy to be treated seriously. and like atem died at 15? 16?)

END TW

I guess they did the whole explaining the gods have the same relationship their vessels have with each other by feels-possesion double track influence, so that one is resolved, bcs if not it’d be beyond weird that isis is both their mother and the spouse of their osiris-julius and also sadie sometimes. Like, Kane Chronicles mythology is much much older than in other RR series and it tracks with the undercurrents of the trilogy (crap under the radar i think?) and how the gods acts i think.

But you see the above clusterfuck??? If RR had aged a bit the charas, bc is not as if Sadie is a real 12-13 years old, more like a 15-16 one at minimum with how she acts and the narrative treats her, and made Carter like 18-19? Thinking about what he wants out of life and uni, etc because for him it clocks with his arc. Or even older; I think that would be have been better but then it’d be another kind of book. Make Sadie the one starting uni and Carter the one finishing his master in egyptology bcs that’s all he’s known all his life, and he’s interested in it truly, and their father is still the one who wants to reunite the three for Sadie’s birthday going with Carter in plane from whatever university he’s in (could be one in egypt Julius has ties to) and it’s then when all goes to shit.

The conflict, the stakes... You could treat the family conflict and well, the racial aspect of the books in more profundity. Maybe make them biracial but their father is afroamerican and the mother is british but descendant from egyptian immigrants, so yup. You have that connection with the original land of the myths, and Carter and Sadie perspectives on being poc shoe the contrast btwn the sister raised by her mother parents, and the brother by the father. But that’s need much more sensitivity than RR is able of. I wouldn’t dare to write that book alone, that’s for sure.

As I understand it there are more than some problematic elements to RR tendency to diversify his cast without doing profound analysis and research and using sensivity readers so. I’m south european white, I don’t have a real idea of all the messes he made with Kane Chronicles so I don’t have anything more say anything more about this. But yeah, it’d been another demography completely different from the original, and would have needed another author which I think would have suited the mood I get from this trilogy even now.

We all know the errors RR makes like doubling down on romance forever saving the day and female characterization or his well. Well-intentioned if misguided discourse? (that cursed word) I’m all for social justice, but Magnus Chase read like a pamphlet at various points instead of being organically integrated in the story (KC and HoH have sometimes that problem but in MC is really blatant) who am I going to lie, although Magnus has fascinating potential as a protag.

And Alex chara too, plus Hearth and Blitzen. I think he made a full on queer protag quartet without realising it (which is why Blitz and Hearth are those two guys instead of confirming any status. like just besties, or qrp or budding romance, which one? we can’t have full on queer quartet) plus Samira and his poor we’ll call it that, handle of her muslim lifestyle from what I’ve seen from muslim fans reviews. (so, my idea of sadie above wouldn’t been plausible) If she’s gonna marry make her at least older than 20? After finishing uni, which I think is something you usa (noarospec) people do regularly without religion or anything? But really marriages just make me go yikes anyway so. Do away with that plot point you don’t have to follow so exactly the myths.

And so their charas aren’t explored with profundity. Although they could have been really interesting.

And the ending was... meh. The point was the anticlimax, but Loki was well build enough in the two first books and the third was a deception honestly.

But again, I think I also simply aged of his books + started noticing his fails. See above my KC tangent. Curiously I think the PJO books (not HoO) are good as they are... No urge to make charas older or anything. The dysfunction is different in both stories I feel.

I KNOW! It’s because in KC we see the magician society and it’s full of adults and seriousness so it would have fit having two older teens-young adults be the protags, exploring it properly and so Carter and Sadie being the chiefs of the Brooklyn nome and the initiators of the gods path in contemporary times wouldn’t struck me as so weird. The nome politics ;_; We were robbed.

Compare that to the ways PJO with its ephemeral demigod lives and constant death and youth as the one who bring the necessary change for the gods (plus the absence of older demigods coming back to help in TLO, be it bcs they’re done with greek gods or they’re dead, functions really well following Percy since he’s 12 to his 16 birthday and beyond if he had managed to do the roman fussion correctly. Make it so PJO ends with Percy and Annabeth at 16 and HoO alt series, starts 4-6 years later. Because the roman camp and its senate and norms and village are more serious and imply a heavy adult-political presence, with legacies etc; because the gods are starting to forget their promises; bring up the parallels with Luke and mentions of how live has been treating both Anna and Percy. Enrich the world and make the sequel interesting to your original audience who is much older than when they started reading the PJO books.

Well. This is a fantasy...We know RR would never ;_; Although he’s done much for young fantasy. And know I’m searching the impossible fic.

#percy jackson #kane chronicles #magnus chase #tw: incest #meta #rick riordan #PJO

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monabela · 7 years

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no one told me it was femslash february before the month actually started, but I managed to throw something together! I present a series of AUs (loosely) based on Sonata Arctica songs bc I'm always a slut for Sonata Arctica (and femslash). there's ten of them, all different f/f Hetalia pairings. with canon female characters :D I hope I can actually finish all ten before the end of the month! we shall see.

a chapter starts anew

part I of the femslash Sonata Arctica AUs

Now when you think it's all over, you find love A flower stars to bloom, a chapter starts anew The greatest moment in life

- Larger Than Life

characters/pairings: Belgium (Manon)/Hungary (Erzsébet), Spain (Antonio), Netherlands (Martin), Luxembourg (Noah)

word count: 2114 summary: Manon Leclercq is a world famous actress who never had time to build a life between her roles. Until she meets Erzsébet Héderváry.

warning: character death (but not in a tragic way? just because the characters are old)

She had been one of the first of her kind. Some people would argue that she was the only of her kind, but she never believed that.

Her name had buzzed around theaters and smoke-filled bars, hummed to the tune of rock-n-roll hits, whispered reverently by young girls putting on bright red lipstick and young men trying to get to them.

She had wondered if it was all worth it, at that point.

Manon Leclercq. Was that her? Was she the person going on stage to collect award after award? Were those her arms heavy with flowers? Who was Manon Leclercq?

She flitted from role to role without pause, without consideration for much else. She always had been a hard worker; sometimes, she could feel the blisters on her fingers from the factory work she had done during the war still, as clear as she could see the scar on her elder brother’s face or the guarded closeness on her younger one’s.

She had only been 21 when she’d done her first movie, and sometimes Manon felt like she hadn’t sat down since. Like, maybe, she had forgotten to build something of her own in-between the lives of Lady Jane and Detective Michelle and her series of sequels.

Her brothers, bless them, spread out across the world, but wrote often of their amazing travels. Martin, the oldest of them, sent pictures and short poems. Noah sent souvenirs and foreign words. Manon read their scribbly handwritings on film sets in America, Iceland, Spain and Japan and had the feeling they were taking her more places than she was taking herself. She loved acting, didn’t doubt that she always would, but sometimes she thought that her entire life had become a movie, and not a particularly exciting one to watch.

In the late fifties, as her roles grew more prolific, she acquired a co-star in this strange movie. Well, Antonio liked to call himself her right-hand man. Or her friend. It took her a while to come around to that one.

The first full feature in color she did was with him, and the audience had been enamored with his bright green eyes. Manon liked him, and recognized that he was very handsome, but felt as though she was missing the real appeal.

People assumed they were together. They never were. It was strange even to them sometimes, that something that seemed so natural was not, in fact, the case, but they could laugh about it.

Manon was offered her first role as a mother in 1961, when she was 35. Antonio laughed at her. She accepted the part. Critics were loving. She stuck her tongue out at Antonio when she finished her Oscar acceptance speech. He swung her off the ground afterwards and probably started a whole slew of new rumors. She didn’t really care, even if Martin ranted in his letters that Antonio wasn’t good enough for her and she should watch her back.

Manon grew older, and her roles grew, but she wasn’t sure that she did so herself. Even on her fortieth birthday, she still felt like the country girl coming into the big city she’d been at 21, albeit with dyed hair and crow’s feet around her eyes. She watched Antonio and Martin snipe at each other affectionately, Noah trying to defend his beard by saying it was fashionable. There was still so much life stretched out before her, god willing, and she was happy but wanted something more.

Over the years, Manon had been with a few men. Because they were nice, and it was what was expected of her. It wasn’t until 1972 that everything fell into place.

Her name was Erzsébet Héderváry, but almost everyone called her Liz. She was from Hungary and told the most interesting stories about life on the other side of the Curtain, and even if some of them seemed completely unbelievable, Manon kept listening to the woman’s accented voice, enraptured. Familiar words took on new shapes on her tongue and smiling lips. She worked on the photography for Manon’s latest movie and didn’t seem to grasp how big Manon was around here.

It was refreshing.

Erzsébet had green eyes too, and Manon finally saw the appeal, though it wasn’t because of the color. It was because they crinkled and lit up with sparkles when she smiled, sometimes shone with repressed longing for her distant home country. They seemed to see Manon for who she was, which was as confusing as it was thrilling, because who was that, anyway?

Manon Leclercq, 47 years old, properly in love for the first time in her life. With a woman.

She wondered if Erzsébet saw that, too, and what she thought of it.

She told Antonio, because god knew Antonio was enjoying the sexual revolution as if he were 26 again and being proclaimed the country’s most eligible bachelor. He laughed, but quickly turned serious when he realized that Manon was.

He said, as he almost always did, to let everything flow its natural course, which sounded hippie-ish enough that Manon hung up on him in a huff.

Still, she took the advice.

It led to a friendship with Erzsébet, who was, so it turned out, two years older than Manon, and gladly taught her Hungarian words, had a habit of dropping by whenever she was around and calling at odd times when she wasn’t. She was as dedicated to her art as Manon was to hers, which Manon admired immensely.

And, as Antonio miraculously settled down and started doing musicals – playing a surprising amount of villain roles before moving on to directing –, Martin published his poems and Noah fell in love with a woman on a faraway island, Manon passed fifty and only fell deeper for Erzsébet with every laugh, every flick of brown hair and every word about her performances, positive or negative. Erzsébet was never afraid to tell Manon what she truly thought, which was just another good thing about her.

Manon’s roles slowly dwindled down, and she decided to take some time off – take some time off! – when she had been offered three witch parts in a row.

Erzsébet laughed, told her that she was far too beautiful to be a witch, and came with her without her having to ask. They went to see Antonio and Manon’s brothers and travelled through as much of Europe as they could.

When Manon came back home in 1980, she found that the press didn’t wonder en masse where she’d been like they once would have. Thing were coming to an end, apparently. There were new faces to wear the masks she’d donned, and even if red lipstick and petticoats had long since gone out of style and it was all jeans and neon now, she was certain much remained the same, and was happy to give advice to younger actors playing her children, or even her grandchildren, when she got back to her job.

Still, there was more free time now. Time to sit back and reflect on life. Time to drink wine with Erzsébet and Antonio and listen to them banter about the latest musicals or the cinematography of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which Manon still hadn’t seen after eight years despite Antonio trying to drag her to special showings every year.

She finally watched it on VHS with running commentary from Erzsébet. The commentary was the best part – she wasn’t sure about the movie itself. It was strange. Erzsébet had a lot to say about the camera work but also sang along to all the songs, horribly.

When it was 1983, and Erzsébet had not stopped singing Africa in months, Manon won an Oscar for Best Actress. It wasn’t her first, but she knew with certainty it would be the last. She wasn’t old, but she was old enough, and that year off with Erzsébet had shown her what she wanted for the rest of her life.

Erzsébet followed her into retirement, no questions asked, and with a minimum of protests about Manon covering most of their expenses.

They saw the country together. Erzsébet followed the situation in Hungary with apparent anxiety. Manon learned to play the guitar and went to see a musical Antonio was directing that had songs written by Martin. Noah came back from his island with two daughters, and dressed in all black.

Erzsébet kissed Manon on her fifty-ninth birthday. It was so surreal that she forgot to kiss back, leading to Erzsébet pulling away, face stony but beautiful green eyes panicked. They flitted around the garden nervously. There was a smudge of Manon’s red lipstick on her lips.

Manon touched her own mouth, then pulled Erzsébet down when she tried to stand up.

Her hair was soft between Manon’s fingers, her lips dry beneath hers, and the soft sound she made when she kissed back would be seared into Manon’s memory for the rest of her life.

Antonio screamed at her in excitement when she told him. Martin just hummed as he tended to do, but he looked pleased. Noah and Manon’s nieces were quietly happy. It was more than she possibly could have hoped for.

The press staunchly refused to acknowledge the mere possibility of Manon and Erzsébet being anything beyond very good friends. While Manon scathingly thought they probably didn’t want their precious piece of movie history sullied by the fact that she happened to be in love with a woman, it also suited them quite well like that.

They traveled to Hungary in 1990, and Erzsébet cried for the first time in all those years Manon had known her. Her shoulders shook when she sank to her knees in the place where she had grown up, love and hate and sadness and bliss spilling out while her grey-streaked hair curtained her off from the rest of the world.

Yet, she had never been more beautiful to Manon. She loved this woman.

1995 marked the first time Manon’s relationship with Erzsébet was acknowledged without a hint of malice or underlying criticism.

Manon, who had by then earned the status of ‘icon’, which she loved and hated – it made her feel very old, but it was an honor – took her to a gala, and who said no to an icon of the film industry when she said the woman by her side was her life partner, right?

The press were mostly neutral on them. Manon attributed it to the fact that she really wasn’t that interesting anymore, no matter what Erzsébet told her with that gorgeous, familiar face of hers.

Manon was often told that she’d aged with grace, but she dyed her hair still, and her hands were quickly becoming alarmingly unsteady. Erzsébet, even with grey hair, looked every bit as youthful as the day Manon had first met her. And that wasn’t Manon’s prejudice talking, no matter what she said about that.

Noah disappeared in the spring of 1997, on one of his aimless trips around the world. His last postcard was sent from Slovenia, saying he was traveling east and sending much love to his grandchildren, and then there was nothing. Manon reckoned that was probably the way Noah preferred things. He’d always been fond of the mysterious.

Antonio forgot who Erzsébet was, but never Manon, not once. He recited a line from their first movie together with his last breath.

Martin did a surprisingly heartfelt poem at his memorial. Erzsébet held Manon’s hand, stroking the frail skin wordlessly. She didn’t cry. Erzsébet Héderváry didn’t cry, except for that one time in Hungary.

The second exception to that rule happened in December 2005. Manon told her to stop it, then. She didn’t want the last thing she saw to be her teary face. Erzsébet laughed through her tears and complained that Martin had taken way too long with her. Manon told her he’d been writing a poem as quickly as he could, which wasn’t very quick when his fingers never stopped shaking and the words could take minutes to find. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful poem.

Wasn’t it cruel, that Martin was the last one of them left, when he was the oldest?

Rather than telling her he wasn’t the last one left yet, Erzsébet told stories about her childhood and about their life together, some heavily embellished as always. It made Manon smile.

Manon Leclercq, iconic movie star, passed away aged 79, in the company of her life partner, Erzsébet Héderváry.

No one but them ever knew that she opened her eyes a last time, felt time slipping away as Erzsébet grasped her fingers, and whispered to her.

“I love you.”

#aph yuri #hunbelg #aph hungary #aph belgium #hetalia #w: 2500 #u: human #u: actors #u: historical #fin #fssa #I love hunbelg it's like. my second favorite femslash pairing #also I just remembered that like a century ago I promised to dedicate the hunbelg I was writing to scarlettlillies #this is not that one but here you go #my mom after I explained this story to her: so the lesson we learn from this is that even lesbians die?

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