One of my favorite book series is coming out with another story this month, so in honor of that, reading recs! I can always use new stuff to read. I'll start: If you like swordfights, political maneuvering, queer stuff, and fantasy settings (no magic in this one though), you should read Swordspoint and/or The Privilege of the Sword, by Ellen Kushner. Technically Swordspoint comes first, but I read TPotS first and it was fine (that was the book my friend had a copy of), they're set a generation apart. Swordspoint is slightly more adult, TPotS is about coming of age and the role of women in that society. (there's another book in the series, The Fall of the Kings, but I don't like it as much as I do the other two.) Bonus: If you like either one, a serial in the same world is coming out super soon. Also, if you're like me and like trashy romance novels, Hot Head by Damon Suede absolutely blew my mind recently. The writing style took a little getting used to, but it absolutely tore me apart and put me back together with feelings, and the sex was pretty hot. It was like two bucks on Kindle, but it appears to have gone up to sixish now. What awesome things have you read lately?
The Drowning Girl, by Caitlín Kiernan is one of my favorite books. It is a horror story about a young woman with schizophrenia who is trying to write down her ghost story. Which involves a werewolf and a mermaid who are the exact same person. It's a psychological thing where the monster isn't so scary as what the monster has done to the character's psyche. Also said young woman is a very well written lesbian. There is also a very well written transwoman in the story. The Shibboleth of Feanor, by JRR Tolkien. I forget which book exactly this story is in but it's lovely. It's like a lovely sort of linguistic history article about something in Middle-Earth. Namely about a dispute regarding the changing of a phoneme because elf politics. And it is written like some stuffy academics' journal article. This work is one of my favorite Tolkien pieces because well linguistics obviously. That and it has played a good part in changing how I view "stories" and what they are.
Tolkien is really hit or miss with me, but you had me at "written like some stuffy academics' journal article". And that horror story sounds really intriguing.
