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Such good things have happened this Yuletide!
One of them is that I received a wonderful Anathem fic:
I've been a bit of a broken record stuck on the song of "any new Anathem fic would be a miracle," but this is both a fulfillment of that most optimistic prompt and a smart, thoughtful, lovely work of fanfic, an able exploration both of the novel and of some ideas about childhood and parenting and being a person. I love it very much.
For my part, I wrote a fic for Mark Helprin's beautiful strange aggravating un-novel-like novel Winter's Tale, and I'm pretty pleased with it:
This story seems to have been strongly influenced by my sophomore year of college, specifically the paper I wrote about The Invention of Love and that one dialogue in Hedwig and the Angry Inch that goes something like: "Do you believe love is eternal?" "Yes." "What does that mean?" "That it creates something." "You mean like procreation?" "No." "Then recreation?" "No. Just creation." Surprisingly, it has less to do with the time I spent in New York, which is when I read this novel. I was worried about revisiting it, and there are parts I flinch at a little, but I'm happy I read it again. It's complicated but Helprin's women, while not a sufficient vision of womanhood in their supernatural giftedness and their moral assuredness, still feel valuable to me, and his vision of social change and interrogation of the notion of justice is a provocative one that I'm glad to have.
Surprisingly, and unrelated to Yuletide, someone also wrote an Imperial Radch fic and used part of the backstory that I came up with for my Drunk History!
So that's really cool! I never planned on becoming part of an Anaander Mianaai Backstory Fandom but I'm really pleased to be here now.
I had a vague thought of writing up some other recs for fic I read this year, because there's a bunch of it, but really you can just go to my AO3 bookmarks for that.
One of them is that I received a wonderful Anathem fic:
Forward By Torchlight, Guided By Stars (3589 words) by Artifactrix
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Anathem - Neal Stephenson
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Cord/Yulassetar Crade
Characters: Cord (Anathem), Fraa Erasmas, Yulassetar Crade
Additional Tags: discussion of canon-typical child neglect, attempts to derive 'good parenting' from first principles
Summary:
The Cord of five years ago, Cord thinks, would never have dreamed that one day she’d find herself sitting in the cold dirt with her long-gone sib, halfway across the world from Edhar, under a sky so dark that the stars shine in it thick as swarf on a shop floor. But here she is.Cord and Raz have a chat.
I've been a bit of a broken record stuck on the song of "any new Anathem fic would be a miracle," but this is both a fulfillment of that most optimistic prompt and a smart, thoughtful, lovely work of fanfic, an able exploration both of the novel and of some ideas about childhood and parenting and being a person. I love it very much.
For my part, I wrote a fic for Mark Helprin's beautiful strange aggravating un-novel-like novel Winter's Tale, and I'm pretty pleased with it:
Reward (2471 words) by Eccentric_Hat
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Beverly Penn/Peter Lake
Characters: Peter Lake, Beverly Penn, Harry Penn
Additional Tags: References to a canonical character death
Summary:Peter Lake is thinking about the past.
This story seems to have been strongly influenced by my sophomore year of college, specifically the paper I wrote about The Invention of Love and that one dialogue in Hedwig and the Angry Inch that goes something like: "Do you believe love is eternal?" "Yes." "What does that mean?" "That it creates something." "You mean like procreation?" "No." "Then recreation?" "No. Just creation." Surprisingly, it has less to do with the time I spent in New York, which is when I read this novel. I was worried about revisiting it, and there are parts I flinch at a little, but I'm happy I read it again. It's complicated but Helprin's women, while not a sufficient vision of womanhood in their supernatural giftedness and their moral assuredness, still feel valuable to me, and his vision of social change and interrogation of the notion of justice is a provocative one that I'm glad to have.
Surprisingly, and unrelated to Yuletide, someone also wrote an Imperial Radch fic and used part of the backstory that I came up with for my Drunk History!
Plans, as usual (1523 words) by Purple_Luna_Moth
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Anaander Mianaai, Lieutenant Tisarwat (mentioned)
Summary:Anaander Mianaai drinks tea, muses on history, and makes plans, her ability to do so being only slightly impeded by the fact that she is currently five.
So that's really cool! I never planned on becoming part of an Anaander Mianaai Backstory Fandom but I'm really pleased to be here now.
I had a vague thought of writing up some other recs for fic I read this year, because there's a bunch of it, but really you can just go to my AO3 bookmarks for that.
