linndechir

Taskmaster s22 finale – ( Spoilers )

The outtakes (part 3) were also fun, in particular Chloe claiming they’d been coaching Isy in shit-talking (without much success), and Isy thinking she could make up brand new numbers for the dice-rolling live task. Isy is such a delight!

And, New Year’s Treat cast. I don’t know who any of these people are, except ( one )

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I read some books and it wasn’t for Hugo homework! (which makes it the first time since February – wait, no, since March, because I read Cinder House before it was nominated… although with an eye towards nominating it, so, let’s keep it February – and the 4-8 books this year that weren’t Hugo-related (the others being To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, The Holy Vible, and Hexwood).

14. Martha Wells, Platform Decay – I enjoyed it, which was a relief, because I’d found System Collapse kind of a slog and was worried that I had run out of Murderbot enjoyment – but I think it’s just that System Collapse is not as good as the other books. ( Spoilers )

15. T.Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon), Daggerbound – I really loved Swordheart when I read it, and also immediately wanted the Dervish sequel – and thus was a bit disappointed when Vernon said she was working on the Angharad book next – and delighted to hear that those plans had been swapped and the first sequel to come out would be the Dervish one. (I have not read the book in which Learned Edmund first appears, although I am now more inclined to do so, even though the Dervish was definitely my favorite of the protagonists.) But my favorite character overall – and this will come as a surprise to no one who knows me, I’m sure – was Francis. ( Spoilers from here )


16. Karin Lowachee, Under the Silence (Warchild novella) – I heard this was coming out some time ago (probably from florianschild?) and immediately bought a copy, and looks like read about 40% before forgetting about it entirely until cafemassolit (who got me into the Warchild books in the first place) mentioned it, and then I went back and finished it. Look, I respect Lowachee’s determination to explore trauma and recovery and growing from there with sensitivity and nuance, but the reason I’m into this series is a lot simpler than that, and it’s Cairo. So, I got more out of the 5 paragraphs (or whatever) of Cairo in here than all the sensitive and nuanced stuff between ( spoilers )
But regardless of the ratio of RTMI stuff in this novella vs not so much, I’m glad she hasn’t completely abandoned this universe.

17. Freya Marske, Bodies of Magic – I really liked this! I had thought Cinder House was very good, and had really enjoyed the first of the Last Binding books (the subsequent ones were diminishing returns), but neither of those was the kind of fantasy I love best, while this is magic school with sciencey magic, AKA two of my favorite fantasy tropes together, plus a mystery plot. And both the science-y magic and the school parts are very well done, and I enjoyed the mystery. And the m/m was hot :) (there is also a very sweet f/nb budding romance, but that is considerably less RTMI than the messy m/m couple). ( More, with marked spoilers )

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And a few links I’ve been saving for an unlocked post:


Adorable Ghosts fanart

Stashing this mostly for myself, but someone else might also remember this: a video on Out of this World, aka that sitcom with a half-alien girl which is the reason behind my username.