Rec me something!

[conuly]

In particular, if it's something that nobody else seems to know about, I promise to give it a solid try in the hopes that you'll have somebody to talk about it with.

Comments

[steorra]

Have you read Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko?

[conuly]

Yes! Enjoyed it! Was not obsessed with it. (For reference, obsessed means "read/watched/listened more than three times within the first two days of encountering it". I, uh, kinda get stuck on things.)

[profiterole_reads]

I loved it, especially the first book.

[gingicat]

Loved it!

[readerjane]

The Steerswoman, by Rosemary Kirstein

[adrian_turtle]

YES! Steerswoman books are amazing.

[sathari]

Cosigned!

[kareina]

Have you read the Alpennia books by Heather Rose Jones?

[profiterole_reads]

I loved them, especially the first 2 books.

[kareina]

I love them all. I love music, so the third, with its magicial music is especially fun, and I identify with the brutal honesty and cluelessness of when some things shouldn't be said of the maon character in the young adult one.

[profiterole_reads]

Have you read One Verse Multi by Sander Santiago?

[conuly]

No, I haven't. What's it about?

[profiterole_reads]

Copy-pasting a part of my review:

Martin works for the Multi-verse Protection Corporation. Things are getting worrying as the number of rifts to close starts increasing at a faster pace.

I really enjoyed the science in this book. It was sometimes complex, but never hard to understand. The author played with the Mandela effect (false memories shared by many people). There was also some humour, especially in the interactions between the characters and their parallel world counterparts.

The protagonist is a Black trans man and there's major m/m/m.

[sabotabby]

The Most Famous Short Film Of All Time by Tucker Lieberman. Absurdist slice-of-life stuff about a trans guy who can't figure himself or anyone else out.

[imhilien]

Have you read Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart. :)

[conuly]

Don't think so. What's it about?

[imhilien]

It's set in an Ancient China with magic. A Holmes-and-Watson type duo must solve a mystery. Great fun in places.

[siderea]

Not What You Expected by Joan Aiken. It's an anthology of short stories. Absolutely brilliant: gorgeous, funny, elegiac, by turns whimsical and dark. Nobody else seems to know this exists.

[conuly]

Is this one of her books she wrote for kids?

[siderea]

Yep.

[gwydion]

Silver in the Wood and it's sequel by Emily Tesh.

[conuly]

For some reason, I just couldn't get into that. I don't know why, either.

[sallymn]

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson. I had it as a text in one of my uni subjects, it's a 'revisit' of Lovecraft's 'The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath' and best of you've read that (though Lovecraft can be heavy going and it's not absolutely needed!) with a middle-aged, academic female protagonist in a weird fantasy world.

[conuly]

I'm more concerned that even Lovecraft's contemporaries thought he was excessively racist, but I assume a revist would either avoid that or engage with it constructively.

[sallymn]

This one engages with his sexism and such rather than racism - there are others that confront the latter.

[swingandswirl]

If you don't mind a TV show, I love Numb3rs. Quirky little cop show that ran from 2005-2010, about a math genius who helps his FBI agent brother solve crimes. My favorite thing about it is that it's smart as well as kind; plus, it was surprisingly damn diverse for a show of that time period.

Books-wise, I cannot say enough good things about Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor.

[conuly]

I'm always looking for something to watch with Jenn and Eva, and we all enjoy blatant copaganda procedurals, so thanks!

I love Goblin Emperor.

[swingandswirl]

I will say, for a show of its time, N3 isn't too bad re: copaganda. The agents actually see consequences sometimes!

And wasn't Goblin Emperor amazing? Have you read the sequel yet?

[conuly]

I've read the companion novels, yes. Wouldn't quite call them sequels. I liked them, but not as much!

[fred_mouse]

Spirits that Walk in Shadow by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. There are several other books in the same world, but this is my absolute favourite. It does have several plot threads that aren't resolved, which I still have hopes will result in another book. It also has some body horror elements.

[conuly]

How horror are the horror elements?

[fred_mouse]

I didn't find it very horror, but I'm an unreliable measure. I would put them on the 'slightly uncomfortable' end. However, looking at the review on storygraph it looks like other people didn't particularly parse it as horror at all -- no-one has added content warnings.

[silveradept]

I could recommend a fair few things, based on what you are interested in, but in general, I'd throw out:

Eva Evergreen, Semi-Magical Witch (Abe)
The Last Mapmaker (Soontornvat)
I kissed Shara Wheeler (McQuiston)

as things I've enjoyed recently and would pass along.

[conuly]

I've read the first two, but haven't evenheard of the last. What's it about?

[silveradept]

Ultimately, it's about destroying the illusions of small-town, deeply conservative life where everyone pretends everything is okay and nobody has problems or differences than the evangelical ideal, but it goes through three people getting kissed by the perfect girl, a clue hunt she left behind before disappearing, and the revelation of several "scandals" that being people together before an actual scandal right and properly blows everything to hell and back before it gets there.