sutcliff_swap | Promote your favorite Sutcliff book(s)!

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Promote your favorite Sutcliff book(s)!

We're going to post the Sutcliff Swap rules and schedule, and open for sign-ups, Real Soon Now! But while you're waiting, why not squee about your favorite Sutcliff book in the comments here? This is your chance to remind others of that book they'd almost forgotten they'd loved, and inspire them to request or offer fanfiction or fanart for it. And if a book you haven't read sounds good to you, you can read it this summer and enjoy the fanworks created for it - and maybe you'll want to request it for Yuletide or Yuletart, or for next year's Sutcliff Swap. (Because this is going to be so much fun we will want to do it again!)

We're doing this on Dreamwidth only, so that we can use comment subject lines to identify the books we're talking about. If you don't have a Dreamwidth login, you can use OpenID or comment anonymously. ETA: anonymous commenting is now enabled! OpenID works too, which will email you comment replies. Please join in and promote your favorite Sutcliff books (this post has a list of all the books), and start thinking about what you might want to request and offer for the Sutcliff Swap!

Also, if you are intrigued by the descriptions of books you haven't read yet, you should be sure to join, not just watch, the community (at either site) so you can see locked posts. *cough*

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Mark of the Horse Lord is my other favorite Sutcliff. It is essentially The Prince and the Pauper, but with serious consequences, and about the decisions that make a man who he is, which are often forced by circumstances, with a bad choice and a worse choice. It is also (like all of Sutcliff's books) about loyalty and honour and responsibility, particularly the responsibility of a king to his people.

This last is most interesting because Phaedrus, a former slave-gladiator of Corstopitum who has won his wooden foil, has become king of the Dalriadain not by birth but because he resembles the true prince, Midir, who was deposed and thought killed by the usurper queen, Liadhan. The story is about how he is found by the men who oppose Liadhan, taught what he needs to know, and then put forward as the lost Midir - and how he does his best to lead the people who have become 'his' people.

As always with Sutcliff, Roman-era Britain comes completely to life, with a level of detail that is both evocative and yet not at all dense. This book has more of the numinous than many of her others, more of a feeling of the supernatural world that underlies the world of men, but it is a very real-feeling animistic supernatural, believable in context. This is also one of her rare books in which women have more of a role, and I loved reading of the warrior women of the Dalriadain. I liked the princess Murna a lot.

There is also tremendous subtext supporting a relationship between Conory, one of the Dalriadain warriors, and the prince Midir. When Phaedrus is learning about the people of the tribe he'll have to pretend to remember:

There were other things [Phaedrus] knew about Conory, a great many other things, including some that Midir had never told him. But he did not recite them now. They had had to be learned, but though the Arena years had hardened him to most things, he still disliked trampling more often than need be in another man’s private territory.

Later someone says of Conory and Midir that "they were closer to each other than most brothers," and Conory is described through Phaedrus' eyes as a "wasp-waisted creature with hair bleached to the silken paleness of ripe barley, who wore a wild cat for a collar, and went prinked out like a dancing girl with crystal drops in his ears and his slender wrists chiming with bracelets of beads strung on gold wires!"

This is not a particularly cheery book, though, and there is a very high body count, because, you know, war.

There's a BAMF usurper queen? Political intrigue and secret identity? And the supernatural? Quite exciting.

Is Liadhan/Phaedrus shippable? :)

Well, hmm. Phaedrus/Liadhan would be...interesting. Logistically difficult, though. But Liadhan's daughter Murna actually marries Phaedrus, and it's a fascinating and very layered relationship. In fact it is probably my favorite canon M/F relationship in Sutcliff, now that I think of it.

Liadhan/Phaedrus/Murna? How very Greek tragedy. :)

To continue the previous conversation, if I understand correctly, in FW there's A ♥ B, B dies, A gets hurt/comfort ♥ from friend!C? (Only with less symbols and more Romans.)

Haha, yes. Although the circumstances surrounding B's death are utterly tragic (if you are reading this in your email, AVERT YOUR EYES unless you want some SPOILER! Although certainly your assessment constitutes a spoiler as well); skip A is forced by circumstance to kill B's brother, which ultimately leads to a battle to the death between A and B.

Also, A/C is more fanon than canon. (Well, A/B is fanon, too, as B is married, but it could certainly be unrequited, and there's more subtext for it in my view; certainly they are very close friends.)

What, he kills his love/crush/affinity? That is very Greek tragedy. (Oh, well, I hear he's a little bit Greek?)

I don't mind spoilers. I often look in the end of the book before I even start reading. It's the journey from point A to point B that counts for me. :)

But A and C live happily ever after, right? At least, moderately happily? As much as it's possible given the weather conditions?

Oh! No WONDER she made him part-Greek! *penny drops*

Yes, A and C run off to Belgica together and have many happy sexy adventures.

They go to Gallia Belgica for adventures? Really? All right, now I want that one, for all the fannish sequels. :)

Phaedrus is also a Greek name. Liadhan/Phaedrus/Murna FTW! She desires power, she desires him. His body craves one woman, his political advantage suggests another. She is an obedient daughter, she is an ambitious politician. OT3 all around. Are AUs allowed in this swap? :D

I'll second this. Warrior Scarlet is a lovely little tale, and has some very strong Sutcliffy themes.

Yes, all the fannish sequels. I am not sure why this one gets them and The Silver Branch doesn't, since Justin and Flavius also run off together.

Phaedrus has some Greek in him but I would not call his story a tragedy in the classical sense. Again, I'll spoiler-tag just in case someone who does not want to be spoiled is reading this thread: skip this is a Sacrificial King story, but getting there is immensely satisfying.

You are sure coming up with the AUs considering you haven't actually read the book yet! :-) (And yes, branching-canon AUs are allowed. But not 'the characters are in SPACE' type AUs.)

Sutcliff is big on this sunset-sailing thing, I gather. :) But timewise FW and TSB do not cross, right? They could have journeyed together then...

I get the supernatural-spiritual-hero's journey-top of the hill-passing aspect of MHL now.

Oh, but what about Mars? They are Romans on Barsoom! :P

Well, Justin and Flavius run off to the north. And actually Flavius (TSB) is Alexios' (FW) ancestor - possibly his father? I think there are a few stories which explore this (and

carmarthen has theories on this).

I think we are actually leaving Barsoom for the Eagle fandom, Fandom Of AUs. (Although even though I deride them, I'm sort of writing an Eagle Space AU....)

Yes, I remember the multiple theories, they're quite neat!

I think there's some Small Fandom Critical Mass. When you have a certain quantity of fic, AUs happen en masse, until that moment, it's canon and near-canon. :)

But if there are ghosts, it doesn't count as an unacceptable AU, does it? Valid question, I am very partial to ghosts.

I think ghosts are a perfectly acceptable AU. Speaking as a mod. And as someone who is contemplating writing a ghost story. La la la.

Ghosts and space! \o/

Armed with this knowledge of the rules & books, I shall begin tracking down some Sutcliff. Thank you very much!

It is something like Marcus and Cradoc in EOT9, only if Marcus and Cradoc had been really close friends with instant kinship and Marcus had a Really Obvious Crush (at the very least), rather than the hidden wariness Cradoc shows from the beginning because he already knows things about going to go south.

A & C have the potential to live happily ever after, certainly, and we know A must live long enough to produce descendants to pass the dolphin ring onto for later books.

I think

opalmatrix originated the theories! I'm just the one trying to write a story about Alexios' mother, because apparently I like having a million WIPs stuck between 3000-4000 words.

Speaking as a me, I think adding supernatural elements to canon settings should be fine if they're within the conceptualization of the canon-era people? So ghosts, for sure.

(IDK, Isis, how do we feel about gods/werewolves/etc.? I don't really have a problem with bringing in mythological/supernatural things, personally...)

Argh, between this and the Uffington horse pic in the fanmedia challenge (which I wasn't going to do, since I'm already overbooked for summer), I seem to have ordered a copy (my libraries fail at having it) and am contemplating ways to get Esca and maybe Cottia to interact with it.

I wonder if there's any lingering oral tradition about Lubrin Dhu among the Iceni....

To get out of the Celtic-Roman-Viking rut a bit (and now for something completely different)....

Blood and Sand is one of Sutcliff's adult novels, set in the 19th century Ottoman Empire. It's based on the true story of Thomas Keith, a Scottish soldier who converted to Islam and fought for the Ottomans. Here's the summary:

The Ottoman Empire (that "Sick Old Man of Europe"), is the setting of an aptly titled novel that examines the loyalty between men that helps makes warfare bearable. Thomas Keith, a Scottish soldier during the Napoleonic wars, is captured in 1807 in the Nile delta by Turkish forces under the Egyptian viceroy. With no reason to rejoin the English forces, he is persuaded to become an officer in the viceroy's army. Training for desert warfare, and witnessing the fellowship and piety of the Bedouin troops, he converts to Islam. During a long but unsuccessful campaign to free the holy cities of Mecca and Medina from forces hostile to the Turks, Thomas commands a troop of cavalry, marries a girl he has rescued and serves as amir (governor) of Medina, making a close friend of Tussun Bey, the viceroy's son. Loyalty and friendship are the strong thread on which Sutcliffe strings her stirring narrative--most of it based on historical fact. In this veteran British author's hands, what might have become merely a harsh tale of violence in the deserts of Arabia becomes a memorable, sensitively rendered story.

It is not exactly a happy book (based on true story, and so far I've yet to read a Sutcliff novel based on a true story that wasn't a tragedy), but it is ridiculously, almost over-the-top homoerotic. I originally bought this because of the superficial similarities to Lawrence of Arabia, my fandom at the time, and having read it, they're very superficial--Thomas isn't at all like Lawrence, and Tussun Bey is nothing like Ali--but it's just about as homoerotic. For example, right after they go naked swimming:

He was aware of an abrupt movement beside him and when he looked round the boy had come up to his elbow and was looking with concerned interest at the entry scar of the musket ball just below his, Thomas's, hip. It would fade and turn silvery by and by, but now it was still purplish and had the indefinable look of being tight and sore.

"That was at El Hamed?" Tussun said.

"Yes."

"Ssss," the boy sucked in his breath between his teeth. "It must have been a sharp hurt in its time."

"Sharp enough," Thomas agreed. "But I had a good surgeon. In a year it will be small enough--almost--to cover with the ball of my thumb."

Tussun put out a slim brown hand, and with the unselfconscious ease of old friendship [NOTE: THEY MET YESTERDAY], set his own thumb lightly over the puckered and livid place. "In a year, maybe," he said judicially, "assuredly there is a way to go yet."

More ridiculously homoerotic bits at my journal; includes a brief neutral mention by a character of pederasty.

Also, because this is an adult novel, everyone knows what sex is. Sometimes they even have it. There is a graphic description of circumcision which uh, kind of surprised me. And Thomas does eventually marry (his relationship with his wife is pretty interesting!). There are aspects of it regarding women and especially women's sexuality that kind of bothered me, but other aspects that didn't.

There are actually two stories in this fandom on AO3, which I think probably puts it #3? or at least tied? for most-written Sutcliff fandoms.

Seeing as, IF I sugn up, my ONLY desire for any fandom would be "a God!OC happens to get involved, now what?", this question is of vital interest to me. :) Speaking as a potential participant.

"Also, because this is an adult novel, everyone knows what sex is. Sometimes they even have it."

Well, that's a great selling point. A 19th century Osmanlı setting - this is probably the closest to contemporary that Sutcliff came? Judging by the period, it's probably the time of Mustafa IV or Mahmud II the Reformer (mostly the latter, I guess). After some googling, I'm wondering about him being called Aga: I thought until 1826 only yeniçeri and "top-managers" at court were called agas. (Like the eunuchs-in-charge at the Sultan's harem, that thing.) IS he one of the yeniçeri? (Originally they only admitted Christian boys in early teens, to be raised in islam & in absolute loyalty to the sultan... then again, it's the 19th century, maybe he could have been accepted by then, what with the general decline.)

Interesting!

Loved this book so, so much - the number of times I borrowed it from the library was absolutely ridiculous. And Talore! - I'd forgotten, but isn't there a lovely piece of description when he's just looking at the fire?

... thank you for mentioning, apart from wishing I could go back and change sign-up right now...

(PS. Sun's out up here. You might be lucky.)

That's honestly the best summary I think I've ever read of this book - thank you so much. This one, I kind of grew into? I read it early, found it onfusing, and then read it again much later and very much enjoyed the complexity of the loyalties and the descriptions. I've often wondered how she came to write it.

... also to add very quietly and for the record that, to my knowledge, gloria_mundi (of AO3, above) wrote the very first Sutcliff fiction on the web: she wrote it about this book and posted on the long defunct and sadly missed Slash Cotillion website. That would have been... eh, pre 2002? Just saying. :)

I fear I've failed to do it justice here, sigh. It is a very good short exposition of some of her main themes. And the wonderfully detailed evocation of the very-alien-to-us background culture is another big plus for me.

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Promote your favorite Sutcliff book(s)!

Mark of the Horse Lord

Re: Mark of the Horse Lord

Re: Mark of the Horse Lord

Re: Mark of the Horse Lord

Re: Mark of the Horse Lord

Re: Mark of the Horse Lord

Really Frontier Wolf (was: Mark of the Horse Lord)

Really Frontier Wolf (but still a bit Mark of the Horse Lord)

Re: Warrior Scarlet

A little Frontier Wolf (and yet more Mark of the Horse Lord)

A little Frontier Wolf & The Silver Branch & Mark of the Horse Lord

Re: A little Frontier Wolf & The Silver Branch & Mark of the Horse Lord

More Frontier Wolf & The Silver Branch & Eot9 all of a sudden

AUs and the rules

Re: AUs and the rules

Re: Mark of the Horse Lord

Re: A little Frontier Wolf & The Silver Branch & Mark of the Horse Lord

Re: More Frontier Wolf & The Silver Branch & Eot9 all of a sudden

Re: Sun Horse, Moon Horse

Blood and Sand

Re: More Frontier Wolf & The Silver Branch & Eot9 all of a sudden

Re: Blood and Sand

Re: Warrior Scarlet

Re: Blood and Sand

Re: Warrior Scarlet