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wednesday reads
Mar. 11th, 2026 05:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
isisWhat I've recently finished reading:
The Princess Bride by William Goldman, which - I might have read years and years ago? Or I might have seen the movie (though I don't remember doing so)? Or maybe I just knew a lot about it by osmosis and because of the way certain things about it became memes, so I thought I had read it, but really never had. I don't know. Anyway, I read it because I wanted something light and silly to counteract recent more difficult reading and even more difficult current events, and it fit the bill.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, which I read and enjoyed despite DNFing The Martian due to finding it powerfully boring. (I liked the movie version! I think the story was fine, but the various supporting characters all felt like cardboard cutouts to me.) Here, the initial hook - the POV character waking up with amnesia on what he eventually determines is a spaceship - was very much up my alley, a trope I love! The various supporting characters that appeared in the flashbacks were definitely better than cardboard cutouts, though sometimes they felt a bit stock. However, they ultimately weren't very important, and I really bought into the book with gusto when...
Okay, I read this book basically unspoiled, in that I knew that the main character was on a desperate space mission to save Earth from some sort of extinction event, but that was it. So I'm going to spoiler-cut the rest, just in case someone reading this hasn't read this book, so that you may have the same experience I had.
There are still misunderstandings and near-fatal disasters and scary adventures, enough to make it a compelling, engaging read. I thought the ending was perfect, and I look forward to seeing the movie eventually! In conclusion, ROCKY MY BELOVED ♥♥♥
The Unicorn Hunter by Katherine Arden, which I read as e-ARC from NetGalley. Arden's One True Story (based on the books by her I've read) is that of a woman constrained by her sex and her circumstances who strives for the agency to direct her own life and protect what she cares about. This book is about a slightly-fantasy alternate-universe Anne of Brittany, who chafes against the fate she and her country are headed for: she will be forced to marry the King of France, bringing Brittany for annexation as her dowry.
To avoid this, in desperation she arranges a secret betrothal to France's enemy, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilien. However, in this version of the world, rulers have diviners who can discern events happening at a distance, and send messages back and forth; to keep it secret, she holds the proxy wedding in the enchanted forest of Brocéliande, which diviners can't penetrate at risk of madness. And there she sees a unicorn, and brings a diviner who disappeared in the forest centuries ago out into the "real" world, setting in motion a chain of events which blur the boundaries between her real kingdom of Brittany and the mysterious otherworld of the "kerriganed", the faerie people of Breton folklore.
If you squint you can see elements of both the Winternight Trilogy and The Warm Hands of Ghosts; a forthright woman who doesn't behave as she should according to the strictures of the day, a figure from a shadowy world who may have ulterior motives, the subtle mix of a realistic world and a fantastical one. Anne is a wonderful heroine who deliberately leads her opponents to underestimate her, who pursues her aims and protects her family with great courage. I really enjoyed this book, especially the afterword in which Arden talks a little about the real Anne, and the real Brittany, and the folkloric Brittany that inspired her.
"The Colorado River Does Not Reach 2030" by Len Necefer and Teal Lehto, on Substack. This is a short story in the form of a news article, in the author's words:
What I'm reading now:
In nonfiction, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes by Leah Litman. So far it's a little heavily steeped in pop culture references for me, which means references to pop culture I'm only familiar with through osmosis, but it's interesting and persuasive.
In fiction, Blood over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang. So far it feels rather cliche, though I like the worldbuilding. It reminds me very much of the cartoon Arcane.
In audio, I've just started book 2 of the Bobiverse, For We are Many by Dennis E. Taylor. It's fun!
The Princess Bride by William Goldman, which - I might have read years and years ago? Or I might have seen the movie (though I don't remember doing so)? Or maybe I just knew a lot about it by osmosis and because of the way certain things about it became memes, so I thought I had read it, but really never had. I don't know. Anyway, I read it because I wanted something light and silly to counteract recent more difficult reading and even more difficult current events, and it fit the bill.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, which I read and enjoyed despite DNFing The Martian due to finding it powerfully boring. (I liked the movie version! I think the story was fine, but the various supporting characters all felt like cardboard cutouts to me.) Here, the initial hook - the POV character waking up with amnesia on what he eventually determines is a spaceship - was very much up my alley, a trope I love! The various supporting characters that appeared in the flashbacks were definitely better than cardboard cutouts, though sometimes they felt a bit stock. However, they ultimately weren't very important, and I really bought into the book with gusto when...
Okay, I read this book basically unspoiled, in that I knew that the main character was on a desperate space mission to save Earth from some sort of extinction event, but that was it. So I'm going to spoiler-cut the rest, just in case someone reading this hasn't read this book, so that you may have the same experience I had.
Spoiler spoiler spoiler!
Okay, if you have been reading my book posts for a while, you know that I am a big fan of stories about human-alien encounters. My last books post included a review of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shroud, and I mentioned that it reminded me a little of Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward, in the sense that it starts with an environment which is the opposite of anything humans would expect to find life on, and reasons out from physics and chemistry what life might be like in that environment. But really, Tchaikovsky's approach to human-alien encounters is more adversarial and combative, and probably more realistic, than Forward's. Here, there's also an alien whose form and manner is reasoned out from the conditions of the planet where it developed, but its interactions with the human are more Forwardian than Tchaikovskian. Both the alien and the human are mindful that they are there for the same reason - to save their respective civilizations - and they approach their interactions carefully and with much forethought, for the most part.There are still misunderstandings and near-fatal disasters and scary adventures, enough to make it a compelling, engaging read. I thought the ending was perfect, and I look forward to seeing the movie eventually! In conclusion, ROCKY MY BELOVED ♥♥♥
The Unicorn Hunter by Katherine Arden, which I read as e-ARC from NetGalley. Arden's One True Story (based on the books by her I've read) is that of a woman constrained by her sex and her circumstances who strives for the agency to direct her own life and protect what she cares about. This book is about a slightly-fantasy alternate-universe Anne of Brittany, who chafes against the fate she and her country are headed for: she will be forced to marry the King of France, bringing Brittany for annexation as her dowry.
To avoid this, in desperation she arranges a secret betrothal to France's enemy, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilien. However, in this version of the world, rulers have diviners who can discern events happening at a distance, and send messages back and forth; to keep it secret, she holds the proxy wedding in the enchanted forest of Brocéliande, which diviners can't penetrate at risk of madness. And there she sees a unicorn, and brings a diviner who disappeared in the forest centuries ago out into the "real" world, setting in motion a chain of events which blur the boundaries between her real kingdom of Brittany and the mysterious otherworld of the "kerriganed", the faerie people of Breton folklore.
If you squint you can see elements of both the Winternight Trilogy and The Warm Hands of Ghosts; a forthright woman who doesn't behave as she should according to the strictures of the day, a figure from a shadowy world who may have ulterior motives, the subtle mix of a realistic world and a fantastical one. Anne is a wonderful heroine who deliberately leads her opponents to underestimate her, who pursues her aims and protects her family with great courage. I really enjoyed this book, especially the afterword in which Arden talks a little about the real Anne, and the real Brittany, and the folkloric Brittany that inspired her.
"The Colorado River Does Not Reach 2030" by Len Necefer and Teal Lehto, on Substack. This is a short story in the form of a news article, in the author's words:
What follows is a work of near-future fiction. It is not a prediction. It is a scenario built from conditions that are measurable today: Lake Powell is at 26% capacity and falling, snowpack at record lows, seven states deadlocked on water allocation, and a federal agency that has been gutted of the expertise needed to manage the crisis. // Every element in this scenario is drawn from published science, existing legal disputes, or political dynamics already in motion. Some characters are composites, some are real. The timeline is compressed. The chain of events is plausible. The unsettling part is how little I had to invent.It's cli-fi in the model of Kim Stanley Robinson, purported interviews and charts and mocked-up newspaper images and X tweets, the story of the destruction of the west through climate change and human stupidity. It's really good - and (as the author says) plausible and unsettling.
What I'm reading now:
In nonfiction, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes by Leah Litman. So far it's a little heavily steeped in pop culture references for me, which means references to pop culture I'm only familiar with through osmosis, but it's interesting and persuasive.
In fiction, Blood over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang. So far it feels rather cliche, though I like the worldbuilding. It reminds me very much of the cartoon Arcane.
In audio, I've just started book 2 of the Bobiverse, For We are Many by Dennis E. Taylor. It's fun!
The Hero's Journey in the Heated Rivalry series (spoilers for The Long Game)
Mar. 10th, 2026 03:51 pmmificprincessofgeeks posted about Rachel Reid having said that Shane has "the Hero's Journey", in the Heated Rivalry books. And
raven commented, agreeing and saying that Shane grows and changes more, internally.I've been thinking about this, and I started to write a comment but it got so long I decided to post here about it.
I re-read the start of Heated Rivalry—it's a flash-forward prologue to the hookups era and focuses on an after-game hookup, with the overall theme being Shane's dilemma where he's desperate for the hookups (with hints at his feelings for Ilya that he's massively suppressing), his denial about being gay (seeing it as an aberration he's too "weak" not to give into), and his rationalizations about just not having found the right woman yet. He's conflicted and miserable despite the scene being hot.
Then by the end of the book, Shane and Ilya are opening the Irina Foundation, and Shane has fully accepted being gay and loving Ilya. So the external barriers (the NHL's and hockey culture's homophobia, being closeted, not living together) are still there for them both, but Shane has made the internal Hero's Journey of battling against being gay (his internalized homophobia) then overcoming that and accepting it, and accepting his love for Ilya. Ilya battles against acknowledging that he's falling in love (a lost cause from early on), but he's clear about his sexuality from the start, and he's accepted his feelings for Shane by the tuna melts scene, whereas Shane's not there yet.
The Long Game might be seen as a bit more Ilya's Hero's Journey as he starts with many problems—loneliness as he's just moved to Ottawa, having to be on a poorly-playing losing team, still not seeing enough of Shane—and he gets depressed, which he has to battle against. Like (eventually), therapy, medication, being honest with Shane about how much he's struggling, finding friends in the Centaurs and a family in the Hollanders. But the terrible "wait until we retire to come out" plan is still hanging over him (over both of them), largely due to Shane's fear of exposure and change, and as Ilya is still afraid to be honest with Shane about how much the terrible plan makes him suffer.
So then there are two external deus ex machina events that force the "wait until we retire" plan to collapse—the Tampa plane near-tragedy, and the fanmail outing. Both of them energize Ilya to fight back (the near crash makes him rally his team and win games, and to move things along with Shane as he'd finally been honest about his pain in the cathartic row beforehand), and then the fanmail outing is actually what Ilya needs to move their relationship into the light. All this doesn't solve Ilya's tendency to depression, but he gets a lot better at handling it. He learns to manage the dragon, rather than killing it.
There's still a Hero's Journey for Shane in The Long Game though, which I missed initially as the book seems so Ilya-focused. This time it's Shane's fear of coming out of the closet and being exposed, which he's way more afraid of than Ilya is—again, Ilya has real issues to battle with (even his depression can be seen as an external antagonist as it's partly biologically driven and recurs despite psychotherapy and meds), but Shane's big challenge is once more internal. He's terrified of being outed and of losing hockey and being shamed and reviled by the world. It's his intense need for privacy and his internalized homophobia that he has to combat—and in initially not doing so he hurts Ilya (but Ilya conceals that hurt from him until their big fight). The fight and the Tampa plane near-crash wake Shane up and move him along a bit, but he's still delaying their coming out as he's so afraid of it.
Then the fanmail outing is the final blow that means he can't hide anymore (to Shane's horror, but to Ilya's secret relief). So that's his big hero's test in this book (where realizing he was gay and choosing Ilya over 'performing straightness' was his big battle in HR). And the scene where Shane stands up to Roger Crowell is his "battling the dragon" moment, where he fights for Ilya and for himself, defies Crowell who represents homophobia and the potential loss of hockey, and finally, finally, Shane fully chooses Ilya rather than prioritizing hockey and maintaining his straight public persona.
He's afraid that being exposed will mean his reputation will be destroyed, that he won't be seen as "good"—and that happens to some degree, but he finds it's survivable. It's shown in the way he doesn't arrange any extra chairs at his wedding to Ilya at the end of TLG after they've been outed. He doesn't think many guests will come now that he's not "good" anymore in a black & white, all or nothing public image sense. But his friends do come, and Shane finds there's a place he can exist in between being perfect and being reviled. It's a more adult, integrated sense of self.
I suspect Shane will once again have a Hero's Journey in the pending 3rd book in the HR trilogy (Unrivaled). What will that be? I wonder if it might be Shane's retirement from playing hockey in the NHL and what comes after? He was terrified of coming out because he thought it would mean losing NHL-level hockey, but he survived that in TLG after battling Crowell, emerging still playing NHL hockey with Ilya on the Centaurs. Inevitably, he and Ilya will age out of playing NHL hockey and it will definitely be more of a challenge for Shane than for Ilya. Ilya already prioritized Shane over hockey when he moved to the Centaurs—I wouldn't be surprised if he retired first, in Unrivaled, with both of them having to deal with that as a precursor. There's an excellent fanfic about that (can't recall the title!) which I imagine Rachel hasn't read, as most authors don't read fanfic of their books especially with an a ongoing series, to avoid accusations of copying.
But for Shane, hockey is still a huge part of his sense of self. He's going to have to figure out who he is when he's not an NHL player anymore. I suspect Rachel might bring in external factors again to move him along in his battle against retiring (as otherwise I suspect he'd put it off for way too long)—like a major injury or an accumulation of smaller injuries. There might also need to be another big goal for him to switch focus to as well, something to give his life meaning after retirement, to answer the question: "who am I if I'm not playing pro hockey?" A dad? A coach? It'll be interesting to see.
Couple of quick HR recs
Mar. 10th, 2026 12:51 pmmificI'm so impressed by friends who post long rec lists - I can barely keep up with reading a few WIPs and some random other recs here and there!
Partly as I'm trying to finish editing a podfic for the Podfic Big Bang (not HR, sorry, I'm still daunted by Ilya's accent but I'll get there eventually), and am also writing a HR AU and outlining another largely epistolary HR fic. And doing some art. Agh!
Anyway, before I forget - this one is great! Partly a social media fic and with a great premise, clever and funny - some explicit texts between Ilya and "Jane" go viral as the internet can't believe how bad at sexting Jane is. I'll Be Jane by gurlsrool.
Also this HR vid is great! Fine Not Fine
Partly as I'm trying to finish editing a podfic for the Podfic Big Bang (not HR, sorry, I'm still daunted by Ilya's accent but I'll get there eventually), and am also writing a HR AU and outlining another largely epistolary HR fic. And doing some art. Agh!
Anyway, before I forget - this one is great! Partly a social media fic and with a great premise, clever and funny - some explicit texts between Ilya and "Jane" go viral as the internet can't believe how bad at sexting Jane is. I'll Be Jane by gurlsrool.
Also this HR vid is great! Fine Not Fine
Wrote another HR fic: If We Could
Mar. 5th, 2026 11:53 pmmificThe missing episode 5 scene in Ilya's hotel room at the All-Star weekend in Tampa.
Many others have had a go at this, and I wanted to try my hand at it.
If We Could
At 1361 words, it's short and probably a little over-optimistic, but obviously in writing it I already know what's coming in the rest of eps 5 & 6. 😊
Many others have had a go at this, and I wanted to try my hand at it.
If We Could
At 1361 words, it's short and probably a little over-optimistic, but obviously in writing it I already know what's coming in the rest of eps 5 & 6. 😊