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#the young elites trilogy

the-ocean-is-scary · 11 months

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Y'all I just finished The Rose Society and I have some thoughts.

Spoilers ahead, be warned.

FIRST OF ALL

Y'all need to fucking start listening to Raffaele

When this bitch gets the FEELING that it's going to go wrong then this shit is GOING TO GO WRONG.

And he KNEW that resurrecting Enzo wouldn't be a good idea!

And what did everyone do?? RESURRECT HIM. OF FUCKING COURSE.

Also Lucent was giving big Janis Ian vibes in the arena-

I strive to be like Lucent. I mean, I'm already halfway there as a big fucking lesbian. Just need to get the badass part down.

And the slowly dying from brittle bones part...

Lmao Adelina sure do be in DEEP denial with Raffaele's discovery.

Denial is a river in Egypt

Also that scene with Maeve and Lucent? I swear I died. ANd it didn't seem forced. I'm so happy about that. I love my girls :)

Those last 2 and a half pages absolutely broke me.

Also that fight scene with Adelina and Violetta? Also broke me.

The scene where Raffaele calmed Enzo down? Holy mother of fuck. That broke me

This series is breaking me lmfao

Also I get why some people hate Raffaele so much but....honestly I love him. I get what he did, but honestly it was justified. I really like Raffaele as a character :)

#the young elites #the rose society #the midnight star #tye #tye trilogy #the young elites trilogy #marie lu #marielu #marie lu series #raffenzo #adelina amouteru #violetta amouteru #lucent tye #maeve corrigan #maecent #raffaele laurent bessette

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vivisandg · 1 year

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‼️I NEED SUGGESTIONS‼️

I now have a WATTPAD account(finally😂😭)! And I may or may not need suggestions/requests for a fic(we’ll start with a one shot to experiment💀). I’ll have the link to my wattpad in my bio FAST-TRAVEL 👉 https://www.tumblr.com/vivisandg || IMPORTANT STUFF AT VERY BOTTOM

Let’s start with stuff I will write:

Smut

Pregnancy stuff

Any sexual orientation(les/gay/straight/bi/etc.) and any genders(she/he/they)

Kinky stuff(WILL FURTHER EXPLAIN IN THE NOTS⬇️)

Fluff

Flirty(if I can even write that😭🤟)

Slow burn

ENEMIES TO LOVERS

And the fandoms that I will list below the NOTS

Stuff I will NOT write:

Age gap(3 yr tops)

Illegal age gaps

Pedo kinks and knife play

Somnopheilia

Torture(as kink, if the story has it in the plot then yes)

Anime stuff(IM SORRY)

If smut, no anal, it just sounds gross, sorry

Now the fandoms… these are just fandoms that I know fs I can write, I am open to anything, I’d just have to do research.

Maze Runner(James Dashner)

Criminal Minds

Percy Jackson(Rick Riordan)

Heroes of Olympus(Rick Riordan)

Hunger Games(Suzanne Collins)

Divergent(Veronica Roth)

Red Queen(Victoria Aveyard)

Young Elites(Marie Lu)

The Giver???(Lois Lowry)

Twilight(Stephanie Meyers)

Httyd: all movies, Riders of Berk, Race to the Edge(Cressida Cowell)

Harry Potter (J.K Rowling)

Fantastic Beasts and where to find them(J.K Rowling)

Fifty Shades of Grey(E.L James)

This is all I could think of for the time being, feel free to request a new fandom or specific character from a fandom. I will list the characters that I will write for and maybe what those writes will entail in another the post here after this one. Thank you!!❤️

#fanfic #writing #httyd rtte #viggo grimborn #eret son of eret #spencer reid x reader #finnick odair #hunger games #divergent #tmr x reader #gally tmr #the young elites #the red queen #fifty shades trilogy #criminal minds smut #smut

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someoneontheinternent · 9 months

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I'm someone on the internet, obviously...

I'm in the Marie Lu Fandom, which is small here

I may post my own stuff, but due to my art being so bad, I 99% of the time repost

So... beware of that.

Anyway, enjoy my crappy stuff

If your in the Marie Lu Fandom:

Your my cousin

I'm your cousin

We will work together to make the Fandom bigger

If it doesn't get bigger, we still have each other

#if your in the marie lu #fandom ur my cousin #marie lu legend #marie lu #legend trilogy #warcross #warcross marie lu #the young elites #stars and smoke #skyhunter #marie lu epik #legend especially

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virginiaoflykos · 9 months

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What to read after Light Bringer? (Series similar to Red Rising)

August 2023 update!

Red Rising is my favorite series of all time, and since I first read it, I have sought series and books similar in both spirit and execution. Some of these recs are books I haven’t read personally, but have often come up in discussions with other users!

1. The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson

Status: ongoing, expected 10 books in total, 4/10 out at the moment

Book 1: The Way of Kings. The Way of Kings takes place on the world of Roshar, where war is constantly being waged on the Shattered Plains, and the Highprinces of Alethkar fight to avenge a king that died many moons ago.

2. The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone

Status: finished, 6/6 books out.

Book 1 (in publication order): Three Parts Dead. Comprised of 6 standalone books set in the same universe, the Craft Sequence tells the tales of the city of Alt Coulumb. The city came out of the God Wars with one of its gods intact, Kos the Everburning. In return for the worship of his people, Kos provides heat and steam power to the citizens of Alt Coulumb; he is also the hub of a vast network of power relationships with other gods and god-like beings across the planet. Oh, and he has just died. If he isn’t revived in some form by the turn of the new moon, the city will descend into chaos and the finances of the globe will take a severe hit.

3. Hierarchy by James Islington

Status: ongoing, 1/3 planned books out

Book 1: The Will of the many. The Will of the Many tells the story of Vis, a young orphan who is adopted by one of the sociopolitical elites of the Hierarchy. Vis is tasked with entering a prestigious magical academy with one goal – ascend the ranks, figure out what the other major branches of the government are doing, and report back. However, that isn’t quite as easy as Vis or anyone else thought it was going to be…

4. Suneater by Christopher Ruocchio

Status: ongoing, 5/7 books out

Book 1: Empire of Silence. Hadrian is a man doomed to universal infamy after ordering the destruction of a sun to commit an unforgivable act of genocide. Told as a chronicle written by an older Hadrian, Empire of Silence details his earlier adventures and serves as an introduction to the characters and the setting.

5. Dune by Frank Herbert

Status: completed, 6/6 books out

Book 1: Dune. Set in the distant future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which various noble houses control planetary fiefs. It tells the story of young Paul Atreides, whose family accepts the stewardship of the planet Arrakis. While the planet is an inhospitable and sparsely populated desert wasteland, it is the only source of melange, or "spice", a drug that extends life and enhances mental abilities.

6. The Expanse by James S A Corey

Status: completed, 9/9 books out

Book 1: Leviathan wakes. Set hundreds of years in the future, after mankind has colonized the solar system. A hardened detective and a rogue ship's captain come together for what starts as a missing young woman and evolves into a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.

7. The First Law by Joe Abercrombie

Status: completed. 3 books in the original trilogy + 3 standalone books + 3 books in the newest trilogy

Book 1: The Blade Itself. The story follows the fortunes and misfortunes of bad people who do the right thing, good people who do the wrong thing, stupid people who do the stupid thing and, well, pretty much any combination of the above. Survival is no mean feat, and at the end of the day, dumb luck might be more of an asset than any amount of planning, skill, or noble intention.

8. Cradle by Will Wight

Status: completed, 12/12 books out

Book 1: Unsouled. Lindon is Unsouled, forbidden to learn the sacred arts of his clan. When faced with a looming fate he cannot ignore, he must rise beyond anything he's ever known...and forge his own Path

9. Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons (one PB’s favorites)

Status: completed, 4/4 books out

Book 1: Hyperion. The story weaves the interlocking tales of a diverse group of travelers sent on a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs on Hyperion. The travelers have been sent by the Church of the Final Atonement, alternately known as the Shrike Church, and the Hegemony (the government of the human star systems) to make a request of the Shrike. As they progress in their journey, each of the pilgrims tells their tale.

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caesarflickermans · 4 months

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A TENTH ANNIVERSARY INTERVIEW WITH SUZANNE COLLINS

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the publication of The Hunger Games, author Suzanne Collins and publisher David Levithan discussed the evolution of the story, the editorial process, and the first ten years of the life of the trilogy, encompassing both books and films. The following is their written conversation.

NOTE: The following interview contains a discussion of all three books in The Hunger Games Trilogy, so if you have yet to read Catching Fire and Mockingjay, you may want to read them before reading the full interview.

transcript below

DAVID LEVITHAN: Let’s start at the origin moment for The Hunger Games. You were flipping channels one night . . .

SUZANNE COLLINS: Yes, I was flipping through the channels one night between reality television programs and actual footage of the Iraq War, when the idea came to me. At the time, I was completing the fifth book in The Underland Chronicles and my brain was shifting to whatever the next project would be. I had been grappling with another story that just couldn’t get any air under its wings. I knew I wanted to continue to explore writing about just war theory for young audiences. In The Underland Chronicles, I’d examined the idea of an unjust war developing into a just war because of greed, xenophobia, and long-standing hatreds. For the next series, I wanted a completely new world and a different angle into the just war debate.

DL: Can you tell me what you mean by the “just war theory” and how that applies to the setup of the trilogy?

SC: Just war theory has evolved over thousands of years in an attempt to define what circumstances give you the moral right to wage war and what is acceptable behavior within that war and its aftermath. The why and the how. It helps differentiate between what’s considered a necessary and an unnecessary war. In The Hunger Games Trilogy, the districts rebel against their own government because of its corruption. The citizens of the districts have no basic human rights, are treated as slave labor, and are subjected to the Hunger Games annually. I believe the majority of today’s audience would define that as grounds for revolution. They have just cause but the nature of the conflict raises a lot of questions. Do the districts have the authority to wage war? What is their chance of success? How does the reemergence of District 13 alter the situation? When we enter the story, Panem is a powder keg and Katniss the spark.

DL: As with most novelists I know, once you have that origin moment — usually a connection of two elements (in this case, war and entertainment) — the number of connections quickly increases, as different elements of the story take their place. I know another connection you made early on was with mythology, particularly the myth of Theseus. How did that piece come to fit?

SC: I was such a huge Greek mythology geek as a kid, it’s impossible for it not to come into play in my storytelling. As a young prince of Athens, he participated in a lottery that required seven girls and seven boys to be taken to Crete and thrown into a labyrinth to be destroyed by the Minotaur. In one version of the myth, this excessively cruel punishment resulted from the Athenians opposing Crete in a war. Sometimes the labyrinth’s a maze; sometimes it’s an arena. In my teens I read Mary Renault’s The King Must Die, in which the tributes end up in the Bull Court. They’re trained to perform with a wild bull for an audience composed of the elite of Crete who bet on the entertainment. Theseus and his team dance and handspring over the bull in what’s called bull-leaping. You can see depictions of this in ancient sculpture and vase paintings. The show ended when they’d either exhausted the bull or one of the team had been killed. After I read that book, I could never go back to thinking of the labyrinth as simply a maze, except perhaps ethically. It will always be an arena to me.

DL: But in this case, you dispensed with the Minotaur, no? Instead, the arena harkens more to gladiator vs. gladiator than to gladiator vs. bull. What influenced this construction?

SC: A fascination with the gladiator movies of my childhood, particularly Spartacus. Whenever it ran, I’d be glued to the set. My dad would get outPlutarch’s Lives and read me passages from “Life of Crassus,” since Spartacus, being a slave, didn’t rate his own book. It’s about a person who’s forced to become a gladiator, breaks out of the gladiator school/arena to lead a rebellion, and becomes the face of a war. That’s the dramatic arc of both the real-life Third Servile War and the fictional Hunger Games Trilogy.

DL: Can you talk about how war stories influenced you as a young reader, and then later as a writer? How did this knowledge of war stories affect your approach to writing The Hunger Games?

SC: Now you can find many wonderful books written for young audiences that deal with war. That wasn’t the case when I was growing up. It was one of the reasons Greek mythology appealed to me: the characters battled, there was the Trojan War. My family had been heavily impacted by war the year my father, who was career Air Force, went to Vietnam, but except for my myths, I rarely encountered it in books. I liked Johnny Tremain but it ends as the Revolutionary War kicks off. The one really memorable book I had about war was Boris by Jaap ter Haar, which deals with the Siege of Leningrad in World War II.

My war stories came from my dad, a historian and a doctor of political science. The four years before he left for Vietnam, the Army borrowed him from the Air Force to teach at West Point. His final assignment would be at Air Command and Staff College. As his kids, we were never too young to learn, whether he was teaching us history or taking us on vacation to a battlefield or posing a philosophical dilemma. He approached history as a story, and fortunately he was a very engaging storyteller. As a result, in my own writing, war felt like a completely natural topic for children.

DL: Another key piece of The Hunger Games is the voice and perspective that Katniss brings to it. I know some novelists start with a character and then find a story through that character, but with The Hunger Games (and correct me if I’m wrong) I believe you had the idea for the story first, and then Katniss stepped into it. Where did she come from? I’d love for you to talk about the origin of her name, and also the origin of her very distinctive voice.

SC: Katniss appeared almost immediately after I had the idea, standing by the bed with that bow and arrow. I’d spent a lot of time during The Underland Chronicles weighing the attributes of different weapons. I used archers very sparingly because they required light and the Underland has little natural illumination. But a bow and arrow can be handmade, shot from a distance, and weaponized when the story transitions into warfare. She was a born archer.

Her name came later, while I was researching survival training and specifically edible plants. In one of my books, I found the arrowhead plant, and the more I read about it, the more it seemed to reflect her. Its Latin name has the same roots as Sagittarius, the archer. The edible tuber roots she could gather, the arrowhead-shaped leaves were her defense, and the little white blossoms kept it in the tradition of flower names, like Rue and Primrose. I looked at the list of alternative names for it. Swamp Potato. Duck Potato. Katniss easily won the day.

As to her voice, I hadn’t intended to write in first person. I thought the book would be in the third person like The Underland Chronicles. Then I sat down to work and the first page poured out in first person, like she was saying, “Step aside, this is my story to tell.” So I let her.

DL: I am now trying to summon an alternate universe where the Mockingjay is named Swamp Potato Everdeen. Seems like a PR challenge. But let’s stay for a second on the voice — because it’s not a straightforward, generic American voice. There’s a regionalism to it, isn’t there? Was that present from the start?

SC: It was. There’s a slight District 12 regionalism to it, and some of the other tributes use phrases unique to their regions as well. The way they speak, particularly the way in which they refuse to speak like citizens of the Capitol, is important to them. No one in District 12 wants to sound like Effie Trinket unless they’re mocking her. So they hold on to their regionalisms as a quiet form of rebellion. The closest thing they have to freedom of speech is their manner of speaking.

DL: I’m curious about Katniss’s family structure. Was it always as we see it, or did you ever consider giving her parents greater roles? How much do you think the Everdeen family’s story sets the stage for Katniss’s story within the trilogy?

SC: Her parents have their own histories in District 12 but I only included what’s pertinent to Katniss’s tale. Her father’s hunting skills, musicality, and death in the mines. Her mother’s healing talent and vulnerabilities. Her deep love for Prim. Those are the elements that seemed essential to me.

DL: This completely fascinates me because I, as an author, rarely know more (consciously) about the characters than what’s in the story. But this sounds like you know much more about the Everdeen parents than found their way to the page. What are some of the more interesting things about them that a reader wouldn’t necessarily know?

SC: Your way sounds a lot more efficient. I have a world of information about the characters that didn’t make it into the book. With some stories, revealing that could be illuminating, but in the case of The Hunger Games, I think it would only be a distraction unless it was part of a new tale within the world of Panem.

DL: I have to ask — did you know from the start how Prim’s story was going to end? (I can’t imagine writing the reaping scene while knowing — but at the same time I can’t imagine writing it without knowing.)

SC: You almost have to know it and not know it at the same time to write it convincingly, because the dramatic question, Can Katniss save Prim?, is introduced in the first chapter of the first book, and not answered until almost the end of the trilogy. At first there’s the relief that, yes, she can volunteer for Prim. Then Rue, who reminds her of Prim, joins her in the arena and she can’t save her. That tragedy refreshes the question. For most of the second book, Prim’s largely out of harm’s way, although there’s always the threat that the Capitol might hurt her to hurt Katniss. The jabberjays are a reminder of that. Once she’s in District 13 and the war has shifted to the Capitol, Katniss begins to hope Prim’s not only safe but has a bright future as a doctor. But it’s an illusion. The danger that made Prim vulnerable in the beginning, the threat of the arena, still exists. In the first book, it’s a venue for the Games; in the second, the platform for the revolution; in the third, it’s the battleground of Panem, coming to a head in the Capitol. The arena transforms but it’s never eradicated; in fact it’s expanded to include everyone in the country. Can Katniss save Prim? No. Because no one is safe while the arena exists.

DL: If Katniss was the first character to make herself known within story, when did Peeta and Gale come into the equation? Did you know from the beginning how their stories would play out vis-à-vis Katniss’s?

SC: Peeta and Gale appeared quickly, less as two points on a love triangle, more as two perspectives in the just war debate. Gale, because of his experiences and temperament, tends toward violent remedies. Peeta’s natural inclination is toward diplomacy. Katniss isn’t just deciding on a partner; she’s figuring out her worldview.

DL: And did you always know which worldview would win? It’s interesting to see it presented in such a clear-cut way, because when I think of Katniss, I certainly think of force over diplomacy.

SC: And yet Katniss isn’t someone eager to engage in violence and she takes no pleasure in it. Her circumstances repeatedly push her into making choices that include the use of force. But if you look carefully at what happens in the arena, her compassionate choices determine her survival. Taking on Rue as an ally results in Thresh sparing her life. Seeking out Peeta and caring for him when she discovers how badly wounded he is ultimately leads to her winning the Games. She uses force only in self-defense or defense of a third party, and I’m including Cato’s mercy killing in that. As the trilogy progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to avoid the use of force because the overall violence is escalating with the war. The how and the why become harder to answer.

Yes, I knew which worldview would win, but in the interest of examining just war theory you need to make the arguments as strongly as possible on both sides. While Katniss ultimately chooses Peeta, remember that in order to end the Hunger Games her last act is to assassinate an unarmed woman. Conversely, in The Underland Chronicles, Gregor’s last act is to break his sword to interrupt the cycle of violence. The point of both stories is to take the reader through the journey, have them confront the issues with the protagonist, and then hopefully inspire them to think about it and discuss it. What would they do in Katniss’s or Gregor’s situation? How would they define a just or unjust war and what behavior is acceptable within warfare? What are the human costs of life, limb, and sanity? How does developing technology impact the debate? The hope is that better discussions might lead to more nonviolent forms of conflict resolution, so we evolve out of choosing war as an option.

DL: Where does Haymitch fit into this examination of war? What worldview does he bring?

SC: Haymitch was badly damaged in his own war, the second Quarter Quell, in which he witnessed and participated in terrible things in order to survive and then saw his loved ones killed for his strategy. He self-medicates with white liquor to combat severe PTSD. His chances of recovery are compromised because he’s forced to mentor the tributes every year. He’s a version of what Katniss might become, if the Hunger Games continues. Peeta comments on how similar they are, and it’s true. They both really struggle with their worldview. He manages to defuse the escalating violence at Gale’s whipping with words, but he participates in a plot to bring down the government that will entail a civil war.

The ray of light that penetrates that very dark cloud in his brain is the moment that Katniss volunteers for Prim. He sees, as do many people in Panem, the power of her sacrifice. And when that carries into her Games, with Rue and Peeta, he slowly begins to believe that with Katniss it might be possible to end the Hunger Games.

DL: I’m also curious about how you balanced the personal and political in drawing the relationship between Katniss and Gale. They have such a history together — and I think you powerfully show the conflict that arises when you love someone, but don’t love what they believe in. (I think that resonates particularly now, when so many families and relationships and friendships have been disrupted by politics.)

SC: Yes, I think it’s painful, especially because they feel so in tune in so many ways. Katniss’s and Gale’s differences of opinion are based in just war theory. Do we revolt? How do we conduct ourselves in the war? And the ethical and personal lines climax at the same moment — the double tap bombing that takes Prim’s life. But it’s rarely simple; there are a lot of gray areas. It’s complicated by Peeta often holding a conflicting view while being the rival for her heart, so the emotional pull and the ethical pull become so intertwined it’s impossible to separate them. What do you do when someone you love, someone you know to be a good person, has a view which completely opposes your own? You keep trying to understand what led to the difference and see if it can be bridged. Maybe, maybe not. I think many conflicts grow out of fear, and in an attempt to counter that fear, people reach for solutions that may be comforting in the short term, but only increase their vulnerability in the long run and cause a lot of destruction along the way.

DL: In drawing Gale’s and Peeta’s roles in the story, how conscious were you of the gender inversion from traditional narrative tropes? As you note above, both are important far beyond any romantic subplot, but I do think there’s something fascinating about the way they both reinscribe roles that would traditionally be that of the “girlfriend.” Gale in particular gets to be “the girl back home” from so many Westerns and adventure movies — but of course is so much more than that. And Peeta, while a very strong character in his own right, often has to take a backseat to Katniss and her strategy, both in and out of the arena. Did you think about them in terms of gender and tropes, or did that just come naturally as the characters did what they were going to do on the page?

SC: It came naturally because, while Gale and Peeta are very important characters, it’s Katniss’s story.

DL: For Peeta . . . why baking?

SC: Bread crops up a lot in The Hunger Games. It’s the main food source in the districts, as it was for many people historically. When Peeta throws a starving Katniss bread in the flashback, he’s keeping her alive long enough to work out a strategy for survival. It seemed in keeping with his character to be a baker, a life giver.

But there’s a dark side to bread, too. When Plutarch Heavensbee references it, he’s talking about Panem et Circenses, Bread and Circuses, where food and entertainment lull people into relinquishing their political power. Bread can contribute to life or death in the Hunger Games.

DL: Speaking of Plutarch — in a meta way, the two of you share a job (although when you do it, only fictional people die). When you were designing the arena for the first book, what influences came into play? Did you design the arena and then have the participants react to it, or did you design the arena with specific reactions and plot points in mind?

SC: Katniss has a lot going against her in the first arena — she’s inexperienced, smaller than a lot of her competitors, and hasn’t the training of the Careers — so the arena needed to be in her favor. The landscape closely resembles the woods around District 12, with similar flora and fauna. She can feed herself and recognize the nightlock as poisonous. Thematically, the Girl on Fire needed to encounter fire at some point, so I built that in. I didn’t want it too physically flashy, because the audience needs to focus on the human dynamic, the plight of the star-crossed lovers, the alliance with Rue, the twist that two tributes can survive from the same district. Also, the Gamemakers would want to leave room for a noticeable elevation in spectacle when the Games move to the Quarter Quell arena in Catching Fire with the more intricate clock design.

DL: So where does Plutarch fall into the just war spectrum? There are many layers to his involvement in what’s going on.

SC: Plutarch is the namesake of the biographer Plutarch, and he’s one of the few characters who has a sense of the arc of history. He’s never lived in a world without the Hunger Games; it was well established by the time he was born and then he rose through the ranks to become Head Gamemaker. At some point, he’s gone from accepting that the Games are necessary to deciding they’re unnecessary, and he sets about ending them. Plutarch has a personal agenda as well. He’s seen so many of his peers killed off, like Seneca Crane, that he wonders how long it will be before the mad king decides he’s a threat not an asset. It’s no way to live. And as a gamemaker among gamemakers, he likes the challenge of the revolution. But even after they succeed he questions how long the resulting peace will last. He has a fairly low opinion of human beings, but ultimately doesn’t rule out that they might be able to change.

DL: When it comes to larger world building, how much did you know about Panem before you started writing? If I had asked you, while you were writing the opening pages, “Suzanne, what’s the primary industry of District Five?” would you have known the answer, or did those details emerge to you when they emerged within the writing of the story?

SC: Before I started writing I knew there were thirteen districts — that’s a nod to the thirteen colonies — and that they’d each be known for a specific industry. I knew 12 would be coal and most of the others were set, but I had a few blanks that naturally filled in as the story evolved. When I was little we had that board game, Game of the States, where each state was identified by its exports. And even today we associate different locations in the country with a product, with seafood or wine or tech. Of course, it’s a very simplified take on Panem. No district exists entirely by its designated trade. But for purposes of the Hunger Games, it’s another way to divide and define the districts.

DL: How do you think being from District 12 defines Katniss, Peeta, and Gale? Could they have been from any other district, or is their residency in 12 formative for the parts of their personalities that drive the story?

SC: Very formative. District 12 is the joke district, small and poor, rarely producing a victor in the Hunger Games. As a result, the Capitol largely ignores it. The enforcement of the laws is lax, the relationship with the Peacekeepers less hostile. This allows the kids to grow up far less constrained than in other districts. Katniss and Gale become talented archers by slipping off in the woods to hunt. That possibility of training with a weapon is unthinkable in, say, District 11, with its oppressive military presence. Finnick’s trident and Johanna’s ax skills develop as part of their districts’ industries, but they would never be allowed access to those weapons outside of work. Also, Katniss, Peeta, and Gale view the Capitol in a different manner by virtue of knowing their Peacekeepers better. Darius, in the Hob, is considered a friend, and he proves himself to be so more than once. This makes the Capitol more approachable on a level, more possible to befriend, and more possible to defeat. More human.

DL: Let’s talk about the Capitol for a moment — particularly its most powerful resident. I know that every name you give a character is deliberate, so why President Snow?

SC: Snow because of its coldness and purity. That’s purity of thought, although most people would consider it pure evil. His methods are monstrous, but in his mind, he’s all that’s holding Panem together. His first name, Coriolanus, is a nod to the titular character in Shakespeare’s play who was based on material from Plutarch’s Lives. He was known for his anti-populist sentiments, and Snow is definitely not a man of the people.

DL: The bond between Katniss and Snow is one of the most interesting in the entire series. Because even when they are in opposition, there seems to be an understanding between them that few if any of the other characters in the trilogy share. What role do you feel Snow plays for Katniss — and how does this fit into your examination of war?

SC: On the surface, she’s the face of the rebels, he’s the face of the Capitol. Underneath, things are a lot more complicated. Snow’s quite old under all that plastic surgery. Without saying too much, he’s been waiting for Katniss for a long time. She’s the worthy opponent who will test the strength of his citadel, of his life’s work. He’s the embodiment of evil to her, with the power of life and death. They’re obsessed with each other to the point of being blinded to the larger picture. “I was watching you, Mockingjay. And you were watching me. I’m afraid we have both been played for fools.” By Coin, that is. And then their unholy alliance at the end brings her down.

DL: One of the things that both Snow and Katniss realize is the power of media and imagery on the population. Snow may appear heartless to some, but he is very attuned to the “hearts and minds” of his citizens . . . and he is also attuned to the danger of losing them to Katniss. What role do you see propaganda playing in the war they’re waging?

SC: Propaganda decides the outcome of the war. This is why Plutarch implements the airtime assault; he understands that whoever controls the airwaves controls the power. Like Snow, he’s been waiting for Katniss, because he needs a Spartacus to lead his campaign. There have been possible candidates, like Finnick, but no one else has captured the imagination of the country like she has.

DL: In terms of the revolution, appearance matters — and two of the characters who seem to understand this the most are Cinna and Caesar Flickerman, one in a principled way, one . . . not as principled. How did you draw these two characters into your themes?

SC: That’s exactly right. Cinna uses his artistic gifts to woo the crowd with spectacle and beauty. Even after his death, his Mockingjay costume designs are used in the revolution. Caesar, whose job is to maintain the myth of the glorious games, transitions into warfare with the prisoner of war interviews with Peeta. They are both helping to keep up appearances.

DL: As a writer, you studiously avoided the trope of harkening back to the “old” geography — i.e., there isn’t a character who says, “This was once a land known as . . . Delaware.” (And thank goodness for that.) Why did you decide to avoid pinning down Panem to our contemporary geography?

SC: The geography has changed because of natural and man-made disasters, so it’s not as simple as overlaying a current map on Panem. But more importantly, it’s not relevant to the story. Telling the reader the continent gives them the layout in general, but borders are very changeful. Look at how the map of North America has evolved in the past 300 years. It makes little difference to Katniss what we called Panem in the past.

DL: Let’s talk about the D word. When you sat down to write The Hunger Games, did you think of it as a dystopian novel?

SC: I thought of it as a war story. I love dystopia, but it will always be secondary to that. Setting the trilogy in a futuristic North America makes it familiar enough to relate to but just different enough to gain some perspective. When people ask me how far in the future it’s set, I say, “It depends on how optimistic you are.”

DL: What do you think it was about the world into which the book was published that made it viewed so prominently as a dystopia?

SC: In the same way most people would define The Underland Chronicles as a fantasy series, they would define The Hunger Games as a dystopian trilogy, and they’d be right. The elements of the genres are there in both cases. But they’re first and foremost war stories to me. The thing is, whether you came for the war, dystopia, action adventure, propaganda, coming of age, or romance, I’m happy you’re reading it. Everyone brings their own experiences to the book that will color how they interpret it. I imagine the number of people who immediately identify it as a just war theory story are in the minority, but most stories are more than one thing.

DL: What was the relationship between current events and the world you were drawing? I know that with many speculative writers, they see something in the news and find it filtering into their fictional world. Were you reacting to the world around you, or was your reaction more grounded in a more timeless and/or historical consideration of war?

SC: I would say the latter. Some authors — okay, you for instance — can digest events quickly and channel them into their writing, as you did so effectively with September 11 in Love Is the Higher Law. But I don’t process and integrate things rapidly, so history works better for me.

DL: There’s nothing I like more than talking to writers about writing — so I’d love to ask about your process (even though I’ve always found the word process to be far too orderly to describe how a writer’s mind works).

As I recall, when we at Scholastic first saw the proposal for The Hunger Games Trilogy, the summary of the first book was substantial, the summary for the second book was significantly shorter, and the summary of the third book was . . . remarkably brief. So, first question: Did you stick to that early outline?

SC: I had to go back and take a look. Yes, I stuck to it very closely, but as you point out, the third book summary is remarkably brief. I basically tell you there’s a war that the Capitol eventually loses. Just coming off The Underland Chronicles, which also ends with a war, I think I’d seen how much develops along the way and wanted that freedom for this series as well.

DL: Would you outline books two and three as you were writing book one? Or would you just take notes for later? Was this the same or different from what you did with The Underland Chronicles?

SC: Structure’s one of my favorite parts of writing. I always work a story out with Post-its, sometimes using different colors for different character arcs. I create a chapter grid, as well, and keep files for later books, so that whenever I have an idea that might be useful, I can make a note of it. I wrote scripts for many years before I tried books, so a lot of my writing habits developed through that experience.

DL: Would you deliberately plant things in book one to bloom in books two or three? Are there any seeds you planted in the first book that you ended up not growing?

SC: Oh, yes, I definitely planted things. For instance, Johanna Mason is mentioned in the third chapter of the first book although she won’t appear until Catching Fire. Plutarch is that unnamed gamemaker who falls into the punch bowl when she shoots the arrow. Peeta whispers “Always” in Catching Fire when Katniss is under the influence of sleep syrup but she doesn’t hear the word until after she’s been shot in Mockingjay. Sometimes you just don’t have time to let all the seeds grow, or you cut them out because they don’t really add to the story. Like those wild dogs that roam around District 12. One could potentially have been tamed, but Buttercup stole their thunder.

DL: Since much of your early experience as a writer was as a playwright, I’m curious: What did you learn as a playwright that helped you as a novelist?

SC: I studied theater for many years — first acting, then playwriting — and I have a particular love for classical theater. I formed my ideas about structure as a playwright, how crucial it is and how, when it’s done well, it’s really inseparable from character. It’s like a living thing to me. I also wrote for children’s television for seventeen years. I learned a lot writing for preschool. If a three-year-old doesn’t like something, they just get up and walk away from the set. I saw my own kids do that. How do you hold their attention? It’s hard and the internet has made it harder. So for the eight novels, I developed a three-act structure, with each act being composed of nine chapters, using elements from both play and screenplay structures — double layering it, so to speak.

DL: Where do you write? Are you a longhand writer or a laptop writer? Do you listen to music as you write, or go for the monastic, writerly silence?

SC: I write best at home in a recliner. I used to write longhand, but now it’s all laptop. Definitely not music; it demands to be listened to. I like quiet, but not silence.

DL: You talked earlier about researching survival training and edible plants for these books. What other research did you have to do? Are you a reading researcher, a hands-on researcher, or a mix of both? (I’m imagining an elaborate archery complex in your backyard, but I am guessing that’s not necessarily accurate.)

SC: You know, I’m just not very handy. I read a lot about how to build a bow from scratch, but I doubt I could ever make one. Being good with your hands is a gift. So I do a lot of book research. Sometimes I visit museums or historic sites for inspiration. I was trained in stage combat, particularly sword fighting in drama school; I have a nice collection of swords designed for that, but that was more helpful for The Underland Chronicles. The only time I got to do archery was in gym class in high school.

DL: While I wish I could say the editorial team (Kate Egan, Jennifer Rees, and myself ) were the first-ever readers of The Hunger Games, I know this isn’t true. When you’re writing a book, who reads it first?

SC: My husband, Cap, and my literary agent, Rosemary Stimola, have consistently been the books’ first readers. They both have excellent critique skills and give insightful notes. I like to keep the editorial team as much in the dark as possible, so that when they read the first draft it’s with completely fresh eyes.

DL: Looking back now at the editorial conversations we had about The Hunger Games — which were primarily with Kate, as Jen and I rode shotgun — can you recall any significant shifts or discussions?

SC: What I mostly recall is how relieved I was to know that I had such amazing people to work with on the book before it entered the world. I had eight novels come out in eight years with Scholastic, so that was fast for me and I needed feedback I could trust. You’re all so smart, intuitive, and communicative, and with the three of you, no stone went unturned. With The Hunger Games Trilogy, I really depended on your brains and hearts to catch what worked and what didn’t.

DL: And then there was the question of the title . . .

SC: Okay, this I remember clearly. The original title of the first book was The Tribute of District Twelve. You wanted to change it to The Hunger Games, which was my name for the series. I said, “Okay, but I’m not thinking of another name for the series!” To this day, more people ask me about “the Gregor series” than “The Underland Chronicles,” and I didn’t want a repeat of that because it’s confusing. But you were right, The Hunger Games was a much better name for the book. Catching Fire was originally called The Ripple Effect and I wanted to change that one, because it was too watery for a Girl on Fire, so we came up with Catching Fire. The third book I’d come up with a title so bad I can’t even remember it except it had the word ashes in it. We both hated it. One day, you said, “What if we just call it Mockingjay?” And that seemed perfect. The three parts of the book had been subtitled “The Mockingjay,” “The Assault,” and “The Assassin.” We changed the title to Mockingjay and the first part to “The Ashes” and got that lovely alliteration in the subtitles. Thank goodness you were there; you have far better taste in titles. I believe in the acknowledgments, I call you the Title Master.

DL: With The Hunger Games, the choice of Games is natural — but the choice of Hunger is much more odd and interesting. So I’ll ask: Why Hunger Games?

SC: Because food is a lethal weapon. Withholding food, that is. Just like it is in Boris when the Nazis starve out the people of Leningrad. It’s a weapon that targets everyone in a war, not just the soldiers in combat, but the civilians too. In the prologue of Henry V, the Chorus talks about Harry as Mars, the god of war. “And at his heels, Leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire crouch for employment.” Famine, sword, and fire are his dogs of war, and famine leads the pack. With a rising global population and environmental issues, I think food could be a significant weapon in the future.

DL: The cover was another huge effort. We easily had over a hundred different covers comped up before we landed on the iconic one. There were some covers that pictured Katniss — something I can’t imagine doing now. And there were others that tried to picture scenes. Of course, the answer was in front of us the entire time — the Mockingjay symbol, which the art director Elizabeth Parisi deployed to such amazing effect. What do you think of the impact the cover and the symbol have had? What were your thoughts when you saw this cover?

SC: Oh, it’s a brilliant cover, which I should point out I had nothing to do with. I only saw a handful of the many you developed. The one that made it to print is absolutely fantastic; I loved it at first sight. It’s classy, powerful, and utterly unique to the story. It doesn’t limit the age of the audience and I think that really contributed to adults feeling comfortable reading it. And then, of course, you followed it up with the wonderful evolution of the mockingjay throughout the series. There’s something universal about the imagery, the captive bird gaining freedom, which I think is why so many of the foreign publishers chose to use it instead of designing their own. And it translated beautifully to the screen where it still holds as the central symbolic image for the franchise.

DL: Obviously, the four movies had an enormous impact on how widely the story spread across the globe. The whole movie process started with the producers coming on board. What made you know they were the right people to shepherd this story into another form?

SC: When I decided to sell the entertainment rights to the book, I had phone interviews with over a dozen producers. Nina Jacobson’s understanding of and passion for the piece along with her commitment to protecting it won me over. She’s so articulate, I knew she’d be an excellent person to usher it into the world. The team at Lionsgate’s enthusiasm and insight made a deep impression as well. I needed partners with the courage not to shy away from the difficult elements of the piece, ones who wouldn’t try to steer the story to an easier, more traditional ending. Prim can’t live. The victory can’t be joyous. The wounds have to leave lasting scars. It’s not an easy ending but it’s an intentional one.

DL: You cowrote the screenplay for the first Hunger Games movie. I know it’s an enormously tricky thing for an author to adapt their own work. How did you approach it? What was the hardest thing about translating a novel into a screenplay? What was the most rewarding?

SC: I wrote the initial treatments and first draft and then Billy Ray came on for several drafts and then our director, Gary Ross, developed it into his shooting script and we ultimately did a couple of passes together. I did the boil down of the book, which is a lot of cutting things while trying to retain the dramatic structure. I think the hardest thing for me, because I’m not a terribly visual person, was finding the way to translate many words into few images. Billy and Gary, both far more experienced screenwriters and gifted directors as well, really excelled at that. Throughout the franchise I had terrific screenwriters, and Francis Lawrence, who directed the last three films, is an incredible visual storyteller.

The most rewarding moment on the Hunger Games movie would have been the first time I saw it put together, still in rough form, and thinking it worked.

DL: One of the strange things for me about having a novel adapted is knowing that the actors involved will become, in many people’s minds, the faces and bodies of the characters who have heretofore lived as bodiless voices in my head. Which I suppose leads to a three-part question: Do you picture your characters as you’re writing them? If so, how close did Jennifer Lawrence come to the Katniss in your head? And now when you think about Katniss, do you see Jennifer or do you still see what you imagined before?

SC: I definitely do picture the characters when I’m writing them. The actress who looks exactly like my book Katniss doesn’t exist. Jennifer looked close enough and felt very right, which is more important. She gives an amazing performance. When I think of the books, I still think of my initial image of Katniss. When I think of the movies, I think of Jen. Those images aren’t at war any more than the books are with the films. Because they’re faithful adaptations, the story becomes the primary thing. Some people will never read a book, but they might see the same story in a movie. When it works well, the two entities support and enrich each other.

DL: All of the actors did such a fantastic job with your characters (truly). Are there any in particular that have stayed with you?

SC: A writer friend of mine once said, “Your cast — they’re like a basket of diamonds.” That’s how I think of them. I feel fortunate to have had such a talented team — directors, producers, screenwriters, performers, designers, editors, marketing, publicity, everybody — to make the journey with. And I’m so grateful for the readers and viewers who invested in The Hunger Games. Stories are made to be shared.

DL: We’re talking on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of The Hunger Games. Looking back at the past ten years, what have some of the highlights been?

SC: The response from the readers, especially the young audience for which it was written. Seeing beautiful and faithful adaptations reach the screen. Occasionally hearing it make its way into public discourse on politics or social issues.

DL: The Hunger Games Trilogy has been an international bestseller. Why do you think this series struck such an important chord throughout the world?

SC: Possibly because the themes are universal. War is a magnet for difficult issues. In The Hunger Games, you have vast inequality of wealth, destruction of the planet, political struggles, war as a media event, human rights abuses, propaganda, and a whole lot of other elements that affect human beings wherever they live. I think the story might tap into the anxiety a lot of people feel about the future right now.

DL: As we celebrate the past ten years and look forward to many decades to come for this trilogy, I’d love for us to end where we should — with the millions of readers who’ve embraced these books. What words would you like to leave them with?

SC: Thank you for joining Katniss on her journey. And may the odds be ever in your favor.

#thg #the hunger games #suzanne collins #katniss everdeen #catching fire #mockingjay #tbosas #thg book club #saw they took the pdf version down smh

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iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia · 3 months

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hello! new follower of your blog! i just want to say before anything else, that i'm really sorry for your loss. i hope you will feel better soon. i am sure that your dog loves you so much. i wish you the best for your healing ❤️

this my first request, and it's going to be kinda detailed but i hope it's okay for you

can you please make some headcanons or mini-hcs of the m6 with a malfetto mc? a malfetto (according to The Young Elites book trilogy) is a person who has been afflicted by a deadly plague called the blood fever. mc is a survivor of the plague but they have strange markings on their skin or their eye/hair color changed from their original one. these markings made malfettos to be believed as cursed children because the people thought they were unnatural abominations sent by the gods. because people are evil, they often persecute malfettos and burn them at the stakes, stone them to death, and more execution methods. a malfetto is also gifted with supernatural abilities (fire manipulation, sensing of energies/emotions, teleportation, night vision, etc.), which makes them more scarier in the eyes of people.

i'm sorry if this is too long! but hopefully (if luck is by my side today) you will be able to write some hcs or mini-hcs about this. thank you! :)

The Arcana Mini-HCs: MC is a Malfetto

~ I have no idea what this book trilogy is, so please forgive me if I got the concept wrong! Hope you enjoy these! ^.^ ~

Julian: strongly values your ties to your humanity and, if it's something you want, will dedicate his life to reversing the effects of the blood fever so you can have a normal life. never judges you either way, and is always quick to remind you that you loves you for you

Asra: always happy to use their magical expertise to help you work with your supernatural abilities. they're well-versed in glamour spells to help you move around, but would ultimately love to travel with you until you find a community where you can safely live as yourself

Nadia: admires the survivor's strength you have and wants to empower you to use your abilities for good, while she uses her position as a social leader to effect change on the stigma around malfettos. deeply proud to be seen as your partner in public

Muriel: also knows what it's like to be feared and cast out for his appearance and physical abilities. shares common ground with your experience and is happy to give you a life of peace in the woods with him. fiercely protective of your safety and emotional well being

Portia: genuinely thinks that you are the coolest person alive. you survived a terrible illness, got awesome powers because of it, and a free makeover? she never discounts your suffering, but she wants people to see you as she does and will build a community around you

Lucio: he's not going to lie, he was harboring his own bias against you at first until you were able to prove him wrong. now he uses his own learning experience to challenge other people's assumptions. he'd be lying if he said he never brags about your abilities, though ...

#ask arcana brainrot #the arcana #the arcana headcanons #the arcana hc #the arcana game #asra the arcana #julian the arcana #nadia the arcana #muriel the arcana #portia the arcana #lucio the arcana #asra alnazar #julian devorak #nadia satrinava #muriel of the kokhuri #portia devorak #lucio morgasson

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richincolor · 15 days

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New Releases

A bunch of new books coming out this week and all but one are sequels or trilogies. I'm personally excited for The Lady of Rapture by Sarah Raughley which is the third book in the Bones of Ruin series. Which book will you be purchasing this week?

Click to read more about this week's new releases.

Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao Feiwel & Friends

Dear Wendy’s Sophie and Jo, two aromantic and asexual students at Wellesley College, engage in an online feud while unknowingly becoming friends in real life, in this dual POV Young Adult contemporary debut from Ann Zhao. Sophie Chi is in her first year at Wellesley College (despite her parents’ wishes that she attend a “real” university, rather than a liberal arts school) and has long accepted her aromantic and asexual identities. Despite knowing she’ll never fall in love, she enjoys running an Instagram account that offers relationship advice to students at Wellesley. No one except her roommate knows that she’s behind the incredibly popular “Dear Wendy” account. When Joanna “Jo” Ephron―also a first-year student at Wellesley―created their “Sincerely Wanda” account, it wasn’t at all meant to be serious or take off like it does―not like Dear Wendy’s. But now they might have a rivalry of sorts with Dear Wendy? Oops . As if Jo’s not busy enough having existential crises over gender, the fact that she’ll never truly be loved or be enough, or her few friends finding The One and forgetting her! While tensions are rising online, Sophie and Jo are getting closer in real life, bonding over their shared aroace identities. As their friendship develops and they work together to start a campus organization for other a-spec students, can their growing bond survive if they learn just who’s behind the Wendy and Wanda accounts? With its exploration of a-spec identities, college life, and more, this platonic comedy, perfect for fans of Netflix’s The Half of It and Alice Oseman’s Loveless, is ultimately a love story about two people who are not―and will not―be in love!

Calling of Light (Shamanborn #3) by Lori M. Lee Page Street YA

Queen Meilyr is dead, and a tenuous peace has settled over Evewyn. King Meilek’s acension has ended his sister’s oppression of the shamanborn, marking a new start for the country where Sirscha, once a prisoner, has been elevated to a position as the King’s Shadow. Yet, beneath the surface, tensions between shamanborn and other citizens remain high. Conflicts rage at Evewyn’s borders. The Soulless still lurks in the darkness. And while some might call Sirscha a hero for allegedly killing the Queen, to many she’s a monster―a soulrender just like the Soulless. Sometimes Sirscha even believes that herself. But Sirscha recognizes the Soulless as the world’s common enemy, and she is determined to hunt him down to prevent yet another war. As the Soulless reemerges and both his power and the Dead Wood grow, Sirscha knows time is running short. She’ll have to trust in her true friends―and her own power―if she hopes to end the Soulless’s hold over the land for good. When defeating him requires a sacrifice too terrible to conceive, Sirscha will have to decide how far she’s willing to go to save Evewyn.

The Lady of Rapture (The Bones of Ruin #3) by Sarah Raughley Margaret K. McElderry Books

For years, the elite secret society called the Enlightenment Committee has waited for the apocalyptic force known as Hiva to destroy the world as it has so many times before. What the Committee didn’t know, however, was that Hiva wasn’t an event—it was a person. Iris Marlow. An African tightrope dancer with no memories of her past. A girl who cannot die. At least, she couldn’t die. Until her own friends discovered her one weakness and murdered her once and for all. The world-ending threat she posed should be gone too, but there’s one more Hiva out there, and unlike Iris, this one has no love for humanity. In her absence, this Hiva has taken it upon himself to judge if humanity deserves to live. But when it comes to Hivas, the judgment is always the same. The ending is always total destruction. And while Iris is dead, she’s not gone—and after the betrayal that ended her life as Iris, she is now out for revenge. The world’s days are numbered. The Cataclysm has begun.

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods (To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods #1) by Molly X. Chang Del Rey

She has power over death. He has power over her. When two enemies strike a dangerous bargain, will they end a war . . . or ignite one? Heroes die, cowards live. Daughter of a conquered world, Ruying hates the invaders who descended from the heavens long before she was born and defeated the magic of her people with technologies unlike anything her world had ever seen. Blessed by Death, born with the ability to pull the life right out of mortal bodies, Ruying shouldn’t have to fear these foreign invaders, but she does. Especially because she wants to keep herself and her family safe. When Ruying’s Gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an impossible deal: If she becomes his private assassin and eliminates his political rivals—whose deaths he swears would be for the good of both their worlds and would protect her people from further brutalization—her family will never starve or suffer harm again. But to accept this bargain, she must use the powers she has always feared, powers that will shave years off her own existence. Can Ruying trust this prince, whose promises of a better world make her heart ache and whose smiles make her pulse beat faster? Are the evils of this agreement really in the service of a much greater good? Or will she betray her entire nation by protecting those she loves the most?

Sheine Lende (Elatsoe #2) by Darcie Little Badger Levine Querido

Darcie Little Badger’s Elatsoe launched her career and in the years since has become a beloved favorite. This prequel to Elatsoe, centered on Ellie’s grandmother, deepens and expands Darcie’s one-of-a-kind world and introduces us to another cast of characters that will wend their way around readers’ hearts. Shane works with her mother and their ghost dogs, tracking down missing persons even when their families can’t afford to pay. Their own family was displaced from their traditional home years ago following a devastating flood – and the loss of Shane’s father and her grandparents. They don’t think they’ll ever get their home back. Then Shane’s mother and a local boy go missing, after a strange interaction with a fairy ring. Shane, her brother, her friends, and her lone, surviving grandparent – who isn’t to be trusted – set off on the road to find them. But they may not be anywhere in this world – or this place in time. Nevertheless, Shane is going to find them.

#new releases #young adult books #weneeddiversebooks

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fearthefluff · 1 year

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Fantasy Romance Recommendations Pt.2

This is list number 2 and it will be focusing on Urban Fantasy and Contemporary romance with fantasy elements. For more traditional Fantasy recs, check list 1! Maybe it will help someone somewhere. XD ***Some of the books listed here are not Romance novels officially but all have romance and have HFN or HEA endings Urban Fantasy Romance (Paranormal Romance)

Hidden Legacy Series by Ilona Andrews 2 Trilogies Nevada Baylor is a Truthseeker; she is able to tell when people lie. When her family's detective agency is tasked with apprehending a powerful fire wielding psychopath, it puts them on the path of collision with the powerful magical elite who rules Houston. Guildcodex Series by Annette Marie 4 Series. Spellbound, Demonized, Unveiled and Wraped. When feisty redhead Tori landed a job at a sketchy pub, she had no idea she'd just joined a magic guild. And the three guys she drenched with a margarita during her first shift? Yeah, they were mages. She's about to get a crash course in the world of magic and mythics. Mercernary Librarians Trilogy by Kit Rocha Meet the Mercenary Librarians: a trio of information brokers who join forces with a squad of elite super-soldiers to use their knowledge to help the hopeless in a dystopian post-apocalyptic United States ruled by a corporate autocracy. Psy-Changeling Series by Nalini Singh A world shared by Changeling, a race of animal shifters , the Psy, a race of powerful psychic who live without emotions and Humans. Tension between the 3 races are rising. The Firebrand Series by Helen Harper Emma, an aspiring detective, is placed with the Supernatural Squad in London. Soon she is brutally murdered by an unknown assailant, wakes up twelve hours later in the morgue – and is very much alive. Contemporary Romance with Fantasy Elements The Dead Romantic by Ashley Poston Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem... she no longer believes in love. Then her new editor shows up at her front door as a ghost. Romance is most certainly dead... but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories. The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family--and a new love--changes the course of her life. A Stitch in Time by Kelley Armstrong Thorne Manor has always been haunted...and it has always haunted Bronwyn Dale. As a young girl, Bronwyn could pass through a time slip in her great-aunt’s house, where she visited William Thorne, a boy her own age, born two centuries earlier.

#Fantasy Romance Recommendations Pt.2 #fantasy romance #fantasy #romance #fantasy books #urban fantasy #paranormal romance #ilona andrews #annette marie #kit rocha #nalini singh #helen harper #ashley poston #sangu mandanna #kelley armstrong

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy: When Rousseau comes to Hobbeswarts

The Scholomance trilogy is Naomi Novik’s take on a “school for wizardry”:

It.

Is.

Superb.

Novik takes a belt-sander to all the crumbling tropes left by lesser writers to reveal fresh wood beneath, fashioning something breathtakingly new:

https://www.naominovik.com/category/scholomance/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/29/hobbeswarts/#the-chosen-one

Here’s the premise: the wizards of the world live in constant peril from malificaria — the magic monsters that prey on those born with magic, especially the children. In a state of nature, only one in ten wizard kids reaches adulthood.

So the wizarding world built the Scholomance, a fully automated magical secondary school that exists in the void — a dimension beyond our world. The Scholomance is also an extremely dangerous place — three quarters of the wizard children who attend will die before graduation — but it is much safer than life on the outside.

The Scholomance’s builders all hail from “enclaves” — magical palaces that have also been built in the void — and the enclave kids are the elites of the school, just as their parents are the elites of the world. Outside the scholomance, every “indie” wizard dreams of a place in an enclave, where they and their children might find a modicum of safety.

Inside the school, the indie kids suck up to the enclavers for four solid years, in the dim hope that they and their family might earn a place as second-class citizens to the enclaves. Indeed, the only reason the enclaves allow indie kids to attend the Scholomance is so that they will be servants for their own children, and cannon-fodder to stand between them and the monstrous hordes.

The Scholomance is a cross between Lord of the Flies and Harry Potter: an adult-free, highly lethal environment with no adults, where interactions between kids are strictly transactional. There is no love, nor honor — only the brutal logic of how much each person can bargain for from the others around them.

By the time I’d read the first couple chapters, I was thinking of it as Hobbeswarts, a place where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Novik’s school for wizards is a place where the supernatural is very definitely “red of tooth and claw.”

Enter the protagonist, Galadriel “El” Higgins, whose mother is a legendary indie healer who raised her in a yurt in a Welsh forest commune after she graduated from the Scholomance already pregnant (El’s father died in the final graduation battle for their year, sacrificing himself to save his pregnant teen girlfriend and their child).

El isn’t just an indie, she’s a “loser kid”: one of those indies who is looked upon with contempt by the enclavers and unlikely to find a crew who will protect her through her years of schooling — let alone the lethal “graduation,” where seniors battle their way through a dense cloud of malificaria, who devour fully half of the kids who survive that far.

But El isn’t an outcast because she’s a weakling with nothing to offer to her social betters. Far from it: El is, if anything, too powerful — so powerful that when she casts even minor workings, they cause major damage. While other young wizards are given low-powered defensive spells by the Scholomance, El is handed apocalyptic superweapons that can raze whole nations.

El does her best to hide all this, but something shines through. She gives off the kind of “evil sorceress” vibes that make her a social pariah. That sinister aura, combined with her prickly character, quick to anger and slow to forgive, leaves her isolated through her first two years of school.

And then, as the story starts, El has a run-in with Orion Lake, the golden boy of the ultra-powerful New York City enclave. Orion is one of the school’s best fighters, and he alone among the student body seeks out malificaria to kill, leaping to the defense of weaker kids and demanding nothing in return.

After Orion defends her, repeatedly, from monsters she was prepared to deal with herself, she treats him to the kind of tongue-lashing that only an evil-sorceress-in-waiting who has spent years on the periphery, cordially loathing the popular kids, can dole out.

This is the meet-cute that begins El and Orion’s journey to graduation and beyond, as they perform a kind of social magic trick that has no supernatural component, inadvertently and haltingly bringing solidarity to the Scholomance, in a kind of Rousseauvian revolution that could transform the lives of the entire student body — and perhaps the whole wizarding world.

I first read Novik’s fiction last year, devouring her nine-volume Temeraire series, a retelling of the Napoleonic Wars in a world where dragons are real. The Temeraire books have it all: swashbuckling hand-to-hand combat; grand, sweeping battles; a huge cast of beautifully realized characters; a brilliantly wrought geopolitics, and a through-line that is fantastically tight, plotted to a fare-thee-well:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/08/temeraire/#but-i-am-napoleon

I had neglected the Temeraire books because I am generally not a fan of historical fiction, nor high fantasy, nor military stories, but Novik found depths in all three of these forms that I had never imagined, innovating fresh angles that transformed me into a true believer.

The Scholomance series performs the same trick. Novik’s handling of the geopolitics and class warfare of the wizarding world — revealed through the subsequent two volumes as she progressively widens the tale’s aperture — make JK Rowling’s attempts look like they were scrawled in crayon. By a toddler.

This is true all the way down to the micro-level: Novik’s thrilling innovations in high-stakes combat-school battle-tactics make Ender Wiggins look like a piker (and also makes me wonder if there’s some intentional wordplay in the rhyming surnames).

And when it comes to complicating the “chosen one” trope, Novik leaves Rowling and Card so far behind in her dust, they basically disappear.

As for the cosmic horror of the void and the monsters that it spawns, Novik out-Lovecrafts Lovecraft, in a manner to rival such great post-Lovecraftian subverters as NK Jemisin:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/09/the-old-crow-is-getting-slow/#i-love-ny

Novik is part of a longstanding and brilliant tendency in genre that refuses to cede all the best, most engrossing tropes to racist pigs like Lovecraft, warmongers like Card, and bigots like Rowling. She wrestles these ideas out of their hands and works them, revealing the poverty of those reactionary writers’ shriveled imaginations.

I read the Scholomance books as audiobooks, listening to Anisha Dadia’s superb narration as I did my physiotherapy laps in the pool each day:

https://libro.fm/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=scholomance+novik

I was delighted to discover DRM-free editions on Libro.fm that would play on my cheapo underwater MP3 player:

https://sewobye.com/products/waterproof-mp3-player-for-swimming-underwater-sport-waterproof-headphones-clip-mp3-player-sewobye-8gb-shuffle

When I finished the final book yesterday, I literally gasped aloud. As with the Temeraire series, Novik’s intricate plotting manages to sprout from a small personal tale to a world-shaking planetary-scale upheaval, and nails the landing in a way that is nothing less than dazzling.

What!

Writer!

Have you ever wanted to say thank you for these posts? Here’s how you can do that: I’m kickstarting the audiobook for my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

[Image ID: The covers of Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy in sequence from left to right: The Last Graduate, A Deadly Education and The Golden Enclaves. Each has a kind of brushed-gold effect frame around a solid rectangle on which is a woodcut-style figure (in order: a keyhole, a book, and a portal with an eye showing through it. The rectangles are, in order, forest green, black, and brushed gold.]

#pluralistic #audiobooks #worldbuilding #geopolitics #class war #the chosen one #cosmic horror #tropes #school for wizardry #naomi novik #fantasy

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wetcatspellcaster · 6 months

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i love the way your fic breaks my heart - do you have any book recs or other fic recs that inspired you or have the same kind of angst? it hurt so good 😫

Hi anon! This was a really nice message to receive... I have no idea if I emulate the writers I admire or not, but I certainly figure there are some books that have informed me in my past and it was fun thinking of them to answer this question!

For fic, please just check my bookmarks on AO3! I actually write a little different to what I read (I also don't tend to read much for the pairings I write for, combination of 'feeding myself' and fighting off the potential for imposter syndrome/accidental plagiarism) but the fics I've bookmarked are all ones that I objectively loved and also reveal all of my fictional obsessions... knowing myself, the angstiest ones there will be Spike/Buffy :')))))

As for books! These are some basic bitch recs but I'm a basic bitch so-

Holly Black has a big influence on the kind of heroines I write, and her books are usually a little angsty although they have happy endings... most people have heard of The Cruel Prince which is one of my favourites, but Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a standalone vampire novel and is pretty good for angst that hurts in the right way tbh, that heroine is really Going Through It

Sarah Rees Brennan (good fic author and good author) taught me everything I know in The Demon's Lexicon, which is just a really funny, trashy YA novel except that the plot twist is tragic af and I saw it coming from chapter one and it still hurt so good! In Other Lands is not angsty AT ALL but great if you like slow burn romance.

I write Darklina for a reason :') Leigh Bardugo got good at the right amount of angst with Six of Crows and I KNOW that's a basic bitch rec but KAZ/INEJ ARE THE 'ANGST THAT HURTS SO GOOD' BLUEPRINT!!!!

I remember Marie Lu's The Young Elites trilogy making me cry for hours in the good way and I'm now worried that was formative.

This is not a romance book and doesn't have romance in, but The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly is an amazing novel about grief and processing loss through and using fairytales and I'm reading the sequel now and honestly? God-tier writing.

The Wicked and the Divine is a comic book series but it's sexy af and definitely gets that balance of 'sacrifice' vs. 'selfishness' that it seems I've become lowkey obsessed with.

I also just recently read an amazing fantasy duology by AK Larkwood (The Unspoken Name and The Serpent Gates) and I'm adding it here bc these were the first books that I'd read in a long time that were genuinely... aspirational - I wanted to learn from them and try to write more like that author. They had just the right balance of angst and levity... also there is a peak Astarion coded character in them tbh so people should read them for the hot fucked-up elf boy.

#asks #anons #...book recs?#i guess???#anyway i don't know if i write like any of these people but these are all books i have read.#thank you anon this was actually a very fun question!

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adrialae · 7 months

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this is probably one of the most niche fandom posts i'll ever make but i was rereading the young elites trilogy and i realized.

teren santoro 🤝 eli ever:

- regeneration powers

- part of a rare group who gained powers after a near-death experience (the blood fever counts right?)

- condemns that same group and dedicates their life to hunting down the rest of them

- self-hatred

do you see it. i'll be surprised if even one person sees this and recognizes both characters but tell me you see it.

#(i've connected the dots) (you didn't connect shit) (i've connected them)#teren santoro #the young elites #tye #marie lu #eli cardale #eli ever #vicious #villains #v e schwab #i never use this many tags but tell me ONE PERSON sees it

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emiliosandozsequence · 5 months

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got the young elites trilogy by marie lu for the second day of hanukkah <3

#i just Know i'm going to kin the main character of this series when i read it bc she has white hair & is turned into stardust in the end #emilio.txt

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myhauntedsalem · 3 months

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James Dean and “Little Bastard”

Almost 60 years ago Hollywood star James Dean was killed while driving his Porsche 550 Spyder, cutting short a promising career.

He left behind a legacy of teenage rebellion and angst, but there are many who believe he also left a sinister curse, bestowed on the car he died in.

James Dean in a promotional shot for ‘Rebel Without a Cause’.

When many think of Hollywood in its “Golden Age”, a number of names may come to mind. Brando, Taylor, Monroe, Hitchcock, Sinatra and Disney. All are legends of classic cinema, as well as many others. One name though stands out for a number of reasons, mainly due to the fact that his career was short, and the legacy he left behind eternal. His name was James Dean. Starring in just three major motion pictures, Dean stamped himself, through his fame, his enigmatic personality and popularity, as an icon, an embodiment of rebellion and non-conformity, of teenage trauma and confusion.

However, it is his death and the possible aftermath of that, that has had many paranormal researchers and writers in debate. Many have come to believe that the car Dean was in when he died was cursed, others believe the curse started with the star’s death. Whatever the truth, stories of a “curse” have been circulating for the last 50 years, and have been debated and wrote about for just as long.

The moody, impulsive and reckless heart-throb already had a reputation for being difficult and many of his peers and Hollywood Elite started calling him “Little Bastard”, however it is claimed it was a personal moniker bestowed by his mechanic. Either way, it would be the name painted on a Porsche 550 Spyder that Dean would acquire while filming his 3rd and final film ‘Giant’, and many who looked at it felt strange feelings about the vehicle.

Bond girl Ursula Andress is said to have refused to ever sit in it, and it is a legendary story in Hollywood that upon meeting Dean outside a restaurant, British actor Alec Guinness, who would later win an Oscar and play Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars trilogy, would apparently feel the car was “sinister” and warn Dean, saying “If you get in that car you will be found dead in it by this time next week.”

Many see this as Guinness, on some level, knowing the car was already cursed. If this happened, it would be an eerie prediction of the future, as just a week later Dean would die, in that car, while on his way to Salinas, California.

Many were aware of the troubled actor’s fascination with sports cars and knew he had participated in races. Warner Brothers Studios had, while he was filming ‘Giant’, forbid him from racing, however the actor, upon completing filming, decided to end his break from racing and, defying studio executives, planned to return to the race track. Many were also aware of his fascination with witchcraft and the Macabre, and on several occasions he told friends he felt he would die young.

And so, it was on September 30th, 1955, that Dean and his mechanic were driving to Salinas to drive the Spyder in a number of races. Somewhere along that journey, Dean was booked by police for speeding, which surprised nobody when it came out, as he was regularly seen, as his fame and fortune grew, speeding through the streets of Los Angeles at night, often until sunrise. His mechanic had suggested that he get acquainted with the car before racing it, and it was this suggestion that, perhaps, ultimately caused Dean to collide with another driver turning left at an intersection hours later, causing Dean to die instantly from a number of injuries.

The mechanic and the other driver all suffered injuries and survived. Dean was just 24, and Hollywood and his many fans mourned not only the loss of the star, but the tragic end to a beckoning career. More than 3000 people attended his funeral days later in his hometown.

Two of his performances, in East of Eden and Giant, would gain him posthumous nominations for each for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 1955 and 1956, becoming the first actor to be nominated after his death.

Over the years stories have circulated of eerie events that have apparently occurred surrounding parts of the Spyder. A man is claimed to have purchased the wreckage, and sold various parts off. Two doctors, who were also racing enthusiasts, are said to have purchased a rear engine that survived the crash, and the other doctor was said to have acquired smaller parts. Both doctors participated in the same race against one another 13 months after Dean died, and both had accidents in that race, one walking away severely injured and the other being killed instantly after smashing into a tree. He was also driving a Spyder.

Claims also of the wreckage being given to the State Highway Patrol to display in various locations, in an effort to deter speeding, were also told, and it’s claimed a number of people, attempting to steal parts of the wreckage, ranging from blood-soaked upholstery to a steering wheel, all suffered horrific injuries. On one occasion a garage holding the wreckage apparently caught fire, and burnt everything within range BUT the Spyder, not even scorching its paint!

A man said to have been given two surviving wheels from the Spyder was said to have had an accident that almost killed him, and the wreckage apparently disappeared at some point after supposedly crushing a truck driver transporting it interstate. Nobody has seen the wreckage since, although parts were rumored to have been sold on eBay in recent times, and a man claims to have small parts of the original vehicle inserted into a Spyder he has collected, but is aware of the so-called “curse” and refuses to drive it.

Accounts by many who have said to have touched the wreckage claim also they suffered health problems or had serious accidents soon after. It is thought that the Spyder Dean purchased was, at the time, one of five shipped to the U.S.A., and only 90 were ever made according to some sources.

If the Spyder was cursed before Dean got it, how did it start and could all of the vehicles be cursed?

James Dean is said to haunt the highway on which he died on, many claiming to still see his specter driving the Spyder fast down the highway.

#James Dean and “Little Bastard”#little bastard #james dean #ghost and hauntings #paranormal #ghost and spirits #haunted locations #haunted salem #myhauntedsalem #ghosts #spirits

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just-late-roman-republic-things · 5 months

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Book Review: Roma soy yo, by Santiago Posteguillo

In some ways this book is the opposite of Robert Harris' Cicero Trilogy. Harris' protagonist Cicero is morally gray, and Julius Caesar is a very evil (but fun) arch-villain. Posteguillo has made Caesar a squeaky-clean protagonist, and painted Sulla and the optimates (but not Cicero or Lucullus) as utterly repugnant villains.

That narrative choice will play a big part in whether you like this book. If you think Caesar's annoying, overrated, or simply detest him, this isn't the book for you. But if you feel neutral to positive about him, or can separate the fictional characters from the historical figures, the story itself is well-crafted and entertaining.

Characterization

I can't think of Posteguillo's Caesar as the Caesar. This is just my subjective take, but he's too normal. Too well-adjusted and earnest. It's hard to see this character as the same man who would expand the war in Gaul for his own glory, brag about killing over a million people, and choose to invade his own country instead of swallowing his pride.

Granted, Posteguillo's story takes place twenty years before all that, and I think Caesar's pre-Gaul career could be portrayed sympathetically. I don't think he was plotting to take over the world or break the republic from the start, as Harris portrays him. But nor could I find any foreshadowing for Caesar's arc taking a much darker turn later, so my best guess is that Posteguillo is going to try to keep him heroic in the sequels, too. If so, that's his right, but it's not the narrative choice I'd make. I like Posteguillo's protagonist, but in some ways, trying to call him "Caesar" weighs the character down with the audience's expectations, instead of letting the story be appreciated for what it is.

The villains were pretty flat, and eviller than their historical counterparts. I wasn't impressed by the rape scenes Posteguillo included, nor did they serve a purpose other than reminding us that the Bad Guys were, indeed, Bad Guys. And I think Posteguillo, like most novelists, overstates how important Caesar actually was pre-Gaul.

On the bright side, this book has my favorite portrayals so far of Labienus, and Cornelia Cinnae. Aurelia and Sertorius were also great. Cicero only appears a couple times, but I like what I saw, and I think he'll be a fun character in future books.

Posteguillo took on the very difficult task of making Caesar and Cornelia's relationship look heartwarming, despite the awkward facts that 1) it was an arranged marriage, 2) Caesar was 17 and Cornelia was 13, and 3) this was uncomfortably young even by Roman standards. (Caesar and Cornelia probably had little choice in the matter.) I think Posteguillo did as well as anybody could do without fudging the ages. Cornelia was adorable and I love her dearly.

And Lucullus! I am so happy to finally have a Lucullus I can recommend to people! He's pragmatic, calculating, and the one character in the book who can genuinely scare Caesar, which is a lot of fun to read. Best of the optimates, by far.

Historical Accuracy

Posteguillo did his research for this book, but he did get some things wrong. And I think he got enough wrong that this book can be misleading about how Roman politics really worked. It's a very well-written story, but it isn't a history.

The biggest issue is that Posteguillo divides politicians into optimates and populares, representing senatorial elites and liberal reformers, respectively. This is an oversimplification. Roman politics was usually divided along personal lines, not ideologies, and there would usually be many little political coalitions happening at any given time. A single politician, like Caesar or Pompey, could change their alliances and which laws they supported many times. Even Sulla, the archconservative par excellence, actually expanded Italian enrollment in the Senate and upheld the expansion of citizenship to all Italians.

Most errors in the book can be attributed to Posteguillo dramatizing events for the sake of a good story. E.g. Caesar's prosecution of Dolabella really wasn't that dangerous, and many other young lawyers were similarly attacking ex-Sullans for their ill-gotten gains. But it's more dramatic if we pretend the Sullan regime still has an iron grip on Rome.

And Caesar never actually opposed "the Senate" - his early career was marked by building alliances with senators and simultaneously supporting popular causes, and over half the Senate with sided with Caesar against Pompey or refused to take a side in the civil war. Nor was Caesar a populist radical; his legislation was mostly marked by compromises. It was his personal power that Cato et al considered a threat.

A few errors just seem to be mistakes. Lepidus (cos. 78) didn't rebel while Sulla was alive. Caesar couldn't legally receive payment from the Greeks he represented in court.

In his afterword, Posteguillo only mentions a few of the changes he made. Which bugs me a little, but I can't blame him for not saying "Here's all the things that would undermine the premise of this story!" And hey, it's just fiction. As long as you keep that in mind, instead of treating it like a history book, it's fine.

Language

Posteguillo is a great author for improving your Spanish. I'm around B2 level, and this book was just challenging enough without being too much. There isn't much subtext in his writing style (except for the scenes with Lucullus - part of what makes him so fun). Normally, I prefer subtext-heavy books. But it was actually easier to follow the prose and work out unfamiliar words because Posteguillo's writing is so straightforward. He uses few metaphors, and a moderate amount of description.

He also writes in Castilian Spanish, and my norteamericano ass was pretty stunned to read strangers calling Marius and Sulla tú and vosotros instead of usted and ustedes! That, and telling someone to coge las espadas would get you a whacking around here!

In short

Despite the issues mentioned above, I did enjoy this book, especially the flashbacks. Posteguillo is excellent at developing tension, suspense, and pacing. He's very good at switching between time periods without getting confusing, and at revealing information as appropriate instead of in infodumps. If you're looking for a fun, morally "simple" story, and aren't too fussed about accuracy, you may like the book, too. And again, I have to praise the characterizations of Aurelia, Cornelia, Labienus and Lucullus - the book is worth reading for them alone.

#jlrrt reads #roma soy yo #santiago posteguillo #book review #book rec #i also really like the cicero trilogy too btw #there can be two cakes!

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