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Further on, as the corridor turns once more, is a locked door. This leads to the so-named inner garden, which is the palace courtyard. The garden may be entered only by invitation of the Chara or one of his council lords. It is intended as private place of restoration from the heavy duties of the Chara and the council lords.

The garden is a green area of grasses and hedges, in the Emorian fashion of gardens of pleasure. Towards the back of the garden is a small grove of trees. The tallest of these trees is father to the rest. Imported as a sapling from Koretia, it was replanted by the very hands of the Chara Peter.

Surrounding the garden are the four wings of the palace; this is the only place where all four wings can be seen at once. The garden is sunken to the original level of the hill, which causes the West Wing to loom above it. Only the remaining wings of the palace, though, are two-storeyed.

A break between the South Wing and the East Wing is gated and heavily guarded. It offers a splendid view of the black border mountains to the south.

[Translator's note: The protagonists of Blood Vow and Law of Vengeance keep bumping into each other in the inner garden, alas.]

bunn

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ursula

Porting a pair of book reviews over from Bluesky:

Fonda Lee's Last Contract of Isako is terraforming cyberpunk. It's also a samurai movie in book form--directly, rather than in the secondhand way you'd get by riffing on cyberpunk without knowing the sources. Last Contract of Isako is thinking through what it means to have a moral code--an unrelenting and in some ways horrifying code--in service to someone who has no ethics at all. It comes down more or less on the side that some ethics are better than none, which is refreshing when you're used to grimdark, or real-world nihilism. It's also tremendously tightly plotted, in that way where as a reader you know one thing will happen but aren't ready for the sudden unfurling of ramifications!

Last Contract pairs well with Ann Leckie's Radiant Star, in the sense that both are portraits of people who are fucking things up for deeply embedded cultural reasons. Though the book I think you should read Radiant Star against is Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Leckie loves point of view experiments, and Radiant Star is experimenting with an opinionated nineteenth-century style narrator who can dip in and out of other points of view.

Like Jonathan Strange, Radiant Star is particularly interested in the ways that social stratification of various kinds leads people to ignore the knowledge of those they think are inferior, at great peril. When the narrator of Radiant Star comments that a decision is really very understandable, it is about to become a giant clusterfuck, and this becomes funnier and funnier (and scarier and scarier) as the book goes on. You can read most of Radiant Star with general awareness of Ancillary Justice, but the end will be most satisfying if you remember the events of Ancillary Mercy (it's close in time to that book, though places & characters don't repeat).

I requested both of these books from Netgalley, and I'm very glad I did.

sineala

What I Just Finished Reading

Naomi Novik, The Summer War: Fantasy novella about a girl who ends up unwillingly married to a fairy prince as part of a treaty and/or revenge. Is it petty of me to be annoyed that an author who got here by writing queer fanfic and then did not write anything queer professionally (as far as I know; I haven't read the Scholomance books yet) has decided that now there can be queer characters in the background but mostly in unflattering ways? And also that the main character still needs to basically be rescued by her brothers even though the story wants me to believe she is Smart and Independent? Yeah, probably.

Cat Sebastian, We Could Be So Good:

lysimache keeps telling me I should read the second book of this historical m/m romance series but unfortunately I am the type of person who has to Read The Whole Thing From The Beginning so I said, no, I was reading the first one first. So this is the first one. It was kind of meh. It had a great 1950s NYC setting but nothing really happened and then it just kind of ended. Also we all know exactly what books the author read about being gay in NYC because there are only two and everyone's historical gay romance regurgitates the same facts from them (seriously, you can go to places other than the Navy Yards, I'm pretty sure) so I was really confused that the author seems to have missed the part where "fairy" actually has a really specific meaning. I guess now I read the second one? The second one is baseball.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

( Captain America #9 )

What I'm Reading Next

I guess the second Cat Sebastian book in that series? Probably?

Current Mood: full

sineala

So Marvel Trumps Hate, a fannish charity auction that I have occasionally participated in, has people offering fic and art and various other fannish crafts and services for charity. There are usually a few people offering fanbinds of Marvel fanfiction, and in 2024, a bunch of people got together and organized a group bid for

zerosconsort to bind two of my stories. I had no idea this was happening! It was awesome!

So I talked with Zero about it -- mostly in the spring and summer of 2025 -- and we settled on doing two anthologies of my shorter Steve/Tony fic, split by POV. So there would be one Steve book and one Tony book. I know we talked about what stories should go in there and how to balance the word count, but this was also the period of time where I was getting 20-25 migraines a month for about five months straight, so I don't actually... remember... a lot of last year especially well, my capacity for coherent reasoning was at about 0%, and I figured whatever Zero wanted to do was probably going to be good and I would just be pleasantly surprised when Books Got Here.

(I am really sorry. It was a lot of migraines.)

Zero did also mention that she was additionally working on a fanbind of my Trek AU and would send me that too, and I thought that was really sweet of her. She commissioned additional art, also, which is definitely above and beyond. It's really nice art.

So I was expecting three books in the mail yesterday and opened the box and got FIVE BOOKS and my first thought, honestly, was, "Oh, my God, I have had so many migraines, and I don't remember talking about five books. Is this something we actually talked about that I was supposed to know about or is this supposed to be a surprise that I don't know about?" But it was in fact not a thing I was already supposed to know! It was a surprise! So that's good! I didn't entirely break my brain! Whew.

Yeah. It has been A Time.

(The two additional books, that I did not know about, are Thrust Issues and my Ults soulmate AU. The Ults soulmate AU has every occurrence of the word "soulmate" in red. Hooray for rubrication.)

Anyway, if you want to see them, I personally am terrible at taking pictures so nobody wants me to take any, I promise you, but Zero made a very nice masterpost on Tumblr with more detail about all of the books.

The Star Trek AU is black with SILVER SPARKLES. Like spaaaaace. Eeee.

Current Mood: pleased

duskpeterson

As you leave the council chamber, you may observe many people entering and leaving a room to your left. This is the palace headquarters of the Emorian subcommander, who has charge over the Emorian army. During the daytime, the subcommander is generally to be found at the home camp of Emor's army, located on the palace grounds. However, most of the army clerks and scribes work in the subcommander's headquarters. Because the chamber contains valuable documents, it may not be entered except by prior invitation.

Further down the corridor, you will pass another door on the left, where palace guards are entering and exiting. Do not travel through this door. It leads to the guardroom. If you are a noble prisoner, you will be brought here and confined until your trial.

When you reach the end of this corridor, turn right. The corridor you are on wraps around the back of the court. You will see on your left the north doors to the court, which I mentioned before. Directly opposite them is another door, unguarded.

Do not enter. This door leads to the dungeon. Anyone who opens this door, who has no business in the dungeon, is assumed to be a spy and is promptly made a "guest" in the dungeon.

If you receive a formal invitation to visit the dungeon, I suggest that you not eat on the morning of the visit. Strong warriors have been known to regurgitate the contents of their morning meal when they witness what takes place in that dungeon. The Chara's dungeon represents Emor at its worst. You may wish to see Emor at its worst, if you are contemplating attacking Emor.

As you continue your journey around the back of the court, you will encounter a heavily guarded door. This leads to the North Wing of the palace, where many council lords and palace officials live. All of the guards will have their backs to you. Anyone who has been granted entrance to the West Wing may enter the North Wing, but upon your return, you will have to undergo the process of having your credentials checked again. Unless you have business in the remainder of the palace, it is best to remain within the East Wing.

[Translator's note: A little back tour of the East Wing occurs in Empty Dagger Hand, under increasingly unfortunate circumstances.]

bunn

primer, paint, varnish all done, I've unjammed the autobailer, and I've been for a little row (Turns out I remember how to row, though I did catch a couple of minor crabs).

Getting her down the hill and into the water was a breeze. Getting her back up was probably no harder than moving the canoe: the Mirror is heavier, but not as long, and the trolley is a lot better designed than the canoe one.

I went for a paint colour that is described on the tin as 'cream' but it's a very rich and buttery sort of cream.

Just need to sort the rigging, and the rudder uphaul. oh yes and find some rope for a painter, and a bailer sponge. Then I get to find out if I've forgotten how to sail...

Boat refurbishment websites are full of people with ridiculously high standards and apparently unlimited time and tools. I keep telling myself: she's a battered old Mirror Dinghy from 1972. It doesn't matter if the varnish isn't perfect, the paint has the odd run visible, the rubbing strake has lost a small chunk at the back of the skeg, or that there are scrapes and stains from her chequered history (as long as they aren't bad enough to be unsound, which I *think* they aren't. And if they are, I'll learn!)

The point is to get the boat to the point where I can go sailing this year, not to somehow erase 50+ years of dings and stains.

I saw two sets of mirror dinghy sails (2x main and jib) advertised on Facebook marketplace locally, so I bought them. The sail numbers are from boats from 1970, but the sails don't look very used, and the sail numbers are not the original vinyl, so either the numbers have been replaced, or the whole sails are newer - though I think they must be from before 2007, since sails newer than that are a slightly different colour. I thought it would be handy to have spares.

I wondered what happened to the boats they belonged to, but the person who was selling them didn't know: she'd bought them to make garden shades out of, and then decided they were too small.

We have another foster kitty, Star. She's been helping with the renovations. The smallest adult cat I've ever seen, I think but she has no difficulty at all jumping up into the boat. She came from a bad situation and has had some immune system issues, which is why she has that scar on her face. We think it's healing up, but it's not a quick process.

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FIC: Inner garden (Tempestuous Tours)

I sail!

last contract, radiant star

Wednesday Reading Meme

Books for me, by me!

FIC: From the council chamber to the courtyard (Tempestuous Tours)

She floats!

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