I have read and reviewed every entry in mini_fest -- woo hoo!!! I always try to do that for every fest I participate in; I love getting comments on the things I write, so I try to return the favor.

Sadly, I have not managed to do so yet for minerva_fest or sshg_giftfest, but the year is young :) Of course severus_snape is coming right up and that will no doubt keep me busy for a bit. Still, it's good to have goals, yes?

I've also been busy reading/posting on a group read of one of my very favorite books: Stephen King's The Stand, over on GoodReads. A lot of the participants have never read it before, and since I've read it probably ten or twelve times it's a lot of fun to see how people see it with fresh eyes. The hardest part for me is remembering where things happen in the book, so I know where to use spoiler tags.

I did manage to get quite a bit of reading done over break:

Another excellent collection from master storyteller Neil Gaiman. Some are horrifying, some heartwrenching, some made me laugh out loud, almost all gave me something I didn't expect. I particularly liked "The Thing About Cassandra," "Adventure Story" (one of the lol ones), "Calendar Tales," and "The Return of the Thin White Duke." As a bonus, for those who like that sort of thing, there is a nice meaty introduction, where Gaiman talks about how and when and where each of the stories was written. He also gives some background for his choice of title:

What we read as adults should be read, I think, with no warnings or alerts beyond, perhaps: enter at your own risk. We need to find out what fiction is, what it means to us, an experience that is going to be unlike anyone else's experience of the story.

...I wonder, Are fictions safe places? And then I ask myself, Should they be safe places? There are stories I read as a child that I wished, once I had read them, that I had never encountered, because I was not ready for them...They troubled and haunted my nightmares and daydreams, worried and upset me on profound levels, but they also taught me that, if I was going to read fiction, sometimes I would only know what my comfort zone was by leaving it; and now, as an adult, I would not erase the experience of having read them if I could.

There are still things that profoundly upset me when I encounter them, whether it's on the Web or in the word or the world...But they teach me things, and they open my eyes, and if they hurt, they hurt in ways that make me think and grow and change.

I wondered, reading about the college discussions, whether one day people would put a trigger warning on my fiction. I wondered whether or not they would be justified in doing it. And then I decided to do it first.

I'd been trying to track down a copy of Lammas Night for ages; it was out of print and super expensive last time I checked. But I got a copy for Christmas from Mr Psmith and ripped through it in about two days. Loved it, though I have two minor quibbles, one related to style and one related to substance. My stylistic quibble is that the book seems to lean more towards tell than show. The tell is done skillfully, and it's hard to see how one might get around it when so much of it turns on historical episodes, but there are parts where it does feel a little slow. I cried at the end; I saw one part coming, hard as it was, but not Richard and Geoffrey volunteering to crew the Prince's final flight My substantive quibble is that I am somewhat bothered by the fact that the sacrifice of the prince is accomplished via a sabotaged aircraft. After all of the emphasis on the importance of the personal connection between slayer and slain, both ritualistically and historically, it felt impersonal to have it happen at such a distance. It met the letter of the requirements -- it was Gray's hand that did the deed -- but it doesn't feel like it quite met the spirit of them. Perhaps if Gray had been piloting the plane and taken it down with both of them aboard? . Those two things aside, I really enjoyed this book. The historical references, some of which are borne out by documented fact (e.g., the popular contemporary belief that Sir Francis Drake rebuffed the Spanish Armada with the help of Britain's witches) are fascinating and make me want to hunt up more information. Whether they were effective or not, I have no doubt that witches of all persuasions across Britain were actively attempting to thwart the Nazis, and Hitler's failure to execute Operation Sea Lion is still something of a miracle.

Augh, poor Gerard!! Seriously creepy and entangled, I totally did not see the end coming. I knew it would be something twisty and weird, but did not suss out the specifics. I got a bit lost here and there in amongst all the names, and at times it was hard to tell what was real (i.e., part of the main narrative) and what wasn't (i.e., part of one of the stories-within-a-story), but overall it was really well done. The stories-within-a-story were intriguing, sort of High Gothic, and made me wish Viola had been a real person and written lots more. A great read for a gloomy snowy New Year's Day.



A very meh version of the town with a dark secret trope. There were no surprises and the story moved at a snail's pace for much of the book.

The fact that I found the bad guys MUCH more interesting than the good guys should tell you something, too.





Short story. Gorgeously lush beginning with the description of the decaying mansion. Screamingly horrifying ending. Brrrrr.

What's funny is that not an hour before reading this, I had read a story with a very similar plot: "Black Dog," in Neil Gaiman's Trigger Warnings (see above).

Good Thing the First: I am caught up on reading mini_fest, yay! So many wonderful little stocking stuffers, and one or two more substantial offerings. My favorite so far is a Minerva/Severus piece entitled Dark and Deep. Doesn't that title make you want to go there right now and read it?

Good Thing the Second: Real life is FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY slowing down, and I am so looking forward to getting back on LJ more. Since October when we moved house, it's just been one thing after another and woah, am I ready to slow down a little. I can also take on more of the mod-ly burdens for sshg_giftfest, which to date have been shouldered almost entirely by the valiant amorette, whom I owe big time for doing SO much more than her fair share. She is a true rock!

Good Thing the Third: Mr Psmith graduates tomorrow!!!! I am so proud of him I can hardly stand it :)

Good Thing the Fourth: This, shared with me by a fellow nerdgeek at work today. There are no words for how very much I love this:

I'm supposed to be packing today, because the movers are coming on Thursday and the house is sooooo not ready for them. We have loads of random crap everywhere that has to be dealt with: plastic bags of candle stubs, odd gloves, cracked pots, old shoes, clothes we no longer wear, ancient jars of herbs in the back of the cabinet, mysterious keys that unlock who-knows-what, dessicated magic markers, old cans of paint, and oh, the swarming hordes of dust bunnies...

Le sigh.

I'm also supposed to be writing an article for the next issue of Carpe Nocturne, which is due on Friday, but I can't seem to come up with the hook to make it all fall into place.

Instead of doing ANY of that, I went and signed up for this, because the mods put out a plea for a few more folks to ease their matching, and because nursedarry taunted me into it:


happy_trekmas is open for signups until October 4th!

Hurry up, Severus is waiting :)

Sign Ups begin Sep 7 at sshg_giftfest

Signups are open over at hoggywartyxmas!!

Just got back from the SAA conference in Cleveland (if you ever get a chance to eat at this place don't pass it up it is To Die For) and my little fangirl heart is very happy. There was a great lightning round (where lots of people talk one after another very quickly) on collecting fandom, and then later three of us did a panel discussion on archival and primary source material in dystopian/horror fiction. Fabulous.

Pursuant to that, Archive of Our Own recently announced that they'll be importing en masse yet another archive of fanfic, this one relating to Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas of the Harry Potter books:

The Seamus/Dean Forever Archive was a Harry Potter archive which was active from approximately 2002-2005...Open Doors will be working with Miss Cora, the moderator, to import Seamus/Dean Forever into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, both its fanfiction and fanart will be hosted on the OTW's servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

I'm happy to say that this isn't the first time AO3 has taken on a preservation role for fanfic collections. They've imported others in the past, as part of their Open Doors project. They're also encouraging people to document the stories surrounding fan communities via the Fanlore site.

So if you know a fan archive that's become -- or about to become -- defunct, or if you have an archive you can't or don't wish to maintain any more, contact AO3. If you have a story to tell about a fan community, or about how you got into fandom, visit Fanlore and preserve it for posterity.

And please spread the word: what we do has value, don't let it get lost!

The University of Iowa is digitizing its massive collection of fanzines and other fan works. As a fan, as a librarian, as an archivist, as someone who has been involved in six-figure digitization projects and knows just how complicated and expensive this is (and what a huge long-term commitment is involved), I am practically giddy with excitement. Best of all, they're going to open it up for crowdsourced transcription, so you can read fanfic and help future readers/researchers/fans all at the same time. Is that squee-worthy or what??

Thanks to ennyousai for alerting me to this project :)

...Peter Balestrieri, Curator of Science Fiction and Popular Culture Collections for UI Libraries, and his colleagues are working to preserve the writings and records of fan communities. While these fandoms have become increasingly accessible and well known since the advent of digital communication, they are nearly as old as the genre itself—and in some cases, nearly as storied.

“Our collecting emphasis on fandoms and fan-created/related materials is solid and ongoing, as is our connection to fan communities and our dedication to helping them preserve and provide access to their histories for research and pleasure,” Balestrieri [said]...Now, the pulps and passion projects alike will be getting properly preserved and digitized so they can be made accessible to readers and researchers the world over...Once the titles are digitized, they’ll become the basis of a searchable database that UI is counting on volunteers to develop through crowdsourced transcription...

Read the whole fabulous story ====>

minerva_fest always results in a bouquet of fabulous stories, so run on over and leave some inspiration :)

Minerva_Fest!

(banner by featherxquill; art by Kit466 [used with permission])

The prompt review post is up over at sshg_promptfest, and there are some excellent ones. As a tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett, the fest particularly invited Discworld crossover prompts and I think we have outdone ourselves. Go ye and marvel!