feather_qwill

ONLINE E-BOOK (html, epub, mobi, pdf, and xhtml)

Free at my website.

Empty Dagger Hand (The Three Lands). Dolan is a quiet young man who spends his days working as a scribe. So why does he carry a hidden dagger?

New installment:

Side story | Loyal Revenge. His loyalty and his wickedness have come into conflict with each other.

EARLY ACCESS

My readers at Patreon and Ream get the first look at Flight Through the Forest (The Thousand Nations: The Motley Crew #2). That novella will go into general release next month.

BLOG FICTION

Tempestuous Tours (Crossing Worlds: A Visitor's Guide to the Three Lands #2). A whirlwind tour of the sites in the Three Lands that are most steeped in history, culture, and the occasional pickpocket.

New installment:

Reception chamber.

NEWS & UPCOMING FICTION

I'm sorry for posting so little online fiction last month; I spent all month struggling to transfer computers, so that I could retain/regain laptop access to the web, which I managed to achieve at the beginning of this month. Fortunately, I was able to edit and lay out "Flight Through the Forest" on my old laptop in the meantime.

The novella Heir (The Three Lands: Blood Vow side story) is up next on my release schedule. If you started reading Chronicles of the Great Peninsula during the last few years, here's your chance to meet several of Dolan's kinfolk, back when they were young. If you've been reading Chronicles of the Great Peninsula for a while now, here's the return of the characters from The Fire Before, fourteen years later. If you're a careful reader of Chronicles of the Great Peninsula, you know what's about to happen to the town of Valouse.

( Ways to offer me a tip, financial or nonfinancial )

lightreads

The Immortality Thief

3/5. Scifi about a refugee linguist who is forced into a dangerous mission to retrieve ancient data off a starship mere weeks from destruction from a dying star.

This is a space survival story with horror undertones, and a strong commitment to enemies-to-friends as our narrator travels the ship in the company of two people who are intimately connected to the massacre of his family and community. I’m into that as a project, and did enjoy it, though I think the book does not entirely do the legwork on how this relationship develops. That’s a hard thing to pull off, to be clear.

The other thing to know about this book is that it is first person narrated by someone with absolutely galloping ADHD and close to zero impulse control. He is a lot. And the book flows with his thinking – somewhat erratically, with lots of interruptions and a million tiny chapters. I think part of that is by design, and part of it is first book messiness. And also being about 20,000 words too long. But my point is, whether you enjoy this book or not will probably turn on whether you can vibe with the narrator. I sometimes could and often couldn’t, so here I am.

Content notes: Recollection of massacre, violence, body horror.

lightreads

The Impossible Fortune

4/5. Fifth Thursday Murder Club book. Do not start here.

A good romp, with a characteristically absurd premise and various people being variously ridiculous. It’s a bit of an uneven book, though. A few chapters were so piercingly perfect that I couldn’t stand it. He is really good at writing about grief in short but beautiful ways. Also a mother/daughter relationship. Thinking about it, there aren’t that many male authors who do that well and complexly. And this book made me care deeply about Ron in ways I never expected. That’s a real trick, if you can turn a reader around on a main character after four books.

Other parts of this fell completely flat. There is a heel turn by a particular character that I straight up rolled my eyes at, because I didn’t buy it even in the fantasy of this universe. There’s something to that. The fantasy of these books where you know the characters are going to be okay from bombs and hitmen and criminal bosses, but you know they aren’t going to be okay from the other stuff. Age. Time. Loss. He’s reaching for something there that hasn’t connected yet. But in the case of this one particular character, the fantasy of okayness had to reach too far.

Content notes: References to domestic violence. Recollection of police brutality. Grief/mourning.

pronker posting in

fancake

Fandom: Dark Shadows

Pairings/Characters: Barnabas Collins, Roger Collins, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, Angelique Bouchard Collins, Elliot Stokes, Julia Hoffman, David Collins, Hallie Stokes, Maggie Evans, Willie Loomis

Rating: T

Length: 102,807

Creator Links: SusanRains | Archive of Our Own

Theme: Mystery & Suspense

Summary: Four strangers converge on Collinsport. But maybe one of them is coming home.

The vicious killing of two young boys has Barnabas convinced that a vampire preys upon Collinsport. His suspects are four newcomers: three strangers, and an enemy from his own past, long believed dead.

Reccer's Notes: Though it may be read separately without much fuss, this fic follows Lunatic Yarn, recc'd a few days ago. Blood Levy details the goings on of the ever-put-upon Collins family as they struggle to maintain their reputation while wringing a little love and enjoyment out of ~Life. It's a fine mystery using all the familiar TV show performers, the main ones in their regular roles, while various supporting performers Author has envisioned as original characters. Beginning with sudden action, continuing in an eerie atmosphere, well, could we expect anything else?

Fanwork Links:
Blood Levy (Dark Shadows 1971) Book 3 - Chapter 1 - Carey Kasdot (SusanRains) - Dark Shadows (1966) [Archive of Our Own]

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: comatose in bed
Current Music: birdsong

kingstoken posting in

fancake

Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (tagged both books and Granada)
Pairings/Characters: Holmes/Watson
Rating: T
Length: 11,539 words
Creator Links: Unpainted Canvas (RatTale)
Theme: mystery & suspense, casefic

Summary: During a hard case Holmes and Watson part ways after an argument, and now Holmes suddenly has more to worry about than missing children.

Reccer's Notes: After they have a terrible row, Watson is kidnapped by bad guys to prevent Holmes from pursuing a case. The entire story is from Holmes POV, and there is a lot of worry and tension as Holmes tries to solve the disappearance of his friend. It's a good casefic, as well as the circumstances leading to realization of feelings by Holmes.

Fanwork Links: AO3

runpunkrun posting in

fancake

Moody photograph of the ocean from an outlook. In the foreground, two dirty hands claw their way up over the edge toward the viewer. Text: Mystery & Suspense, at Fancake.

Spooky season's not over yet because our theme for November is mystery & suspense!

The tag for this round is: theme: mystery & suspense

If you're just joining us, be sure to check out our policy on content notes. Content notes aren't required, but they're nice to include in your recs, especially if a fanwork has untagged content that readers may wish to know about in advance.

( Rules! )

( Posting Template! )

( Promote this round! )

Reblog on Tumblr | Reskeet on Bluesky | Retoot on Mastodon

pronker posting in

fancake

Fandom: Dark Shadows

Pairings/Characters: Barnabas Collins, Julia Hoffman, Elliot Stokes, David Collins, Elizabeth Collins, Roger Collins, Angelique Bouchard Collins, Harry Johnson, Willie Loomis, Maggie Evans

Rating: T

Length: 37,304

Creator Links: archiveofourown.org/users/SusanRains/pseuds/Carey%20Kasdot

Theme: Uncommon settings

Summary: A dumbwaiter system found in the house unleashes a baffling illness which turns pleasant friends into infatuated screwballs. Meanwhile, games with the dumbwaiter bring Hallie and David nights of terror. With the addition of an afghan that roams the house at will and a houseguest no one wants, Collinwood hits the height of mayhem.

Reccer's Notes: You'd be pretty hard put to discover a stranger, more unsettling setting than a dumbwaiter in which an intrepid soul or two ventures to travel. Add to this Halloween rec the inimitable spookiness of the great estate of Collinwood and you've discovered a delightful read with stellar characterizations and the usual undercurrent of Things Unseen in the fandom.

Fanwork Links: The Lunatic Yarn (Dark Shadows 1971) Book 2 - Carey Kasdot (SusanRains) - Dark Shadows (1966) [Archive of Our Own]

Current Mood: peaceful
Current Location: comatose in bed
Current Music: birdsong

full_metal_ox posting in

fancake

Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi
Pairings/Characters: M/M; Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian; Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, Lan Sizhui, Jiang Yanli, Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling, Wen Qing, and others.
Rating: Explicit
Length: 193,252
Content Notes: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, animal death, body horror, bullying, conspiracy, domestic violence, Scenery Porn, Scenery Gorn, Smut
Creator Tags: Horror, Spooky, Opposites Attract, Fluff and Angst, Gore, Ghosts, Necromancy
Creator Links: (AO3)

darkterrible; (Threads) tucsonodd; (Twitter)

darkterrible666

Theme: Uncommon Settings, Casefic, Canon LGBTQ+ Characters, Cops & Crime, Fandom Classics, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery & Suspense, Novel-Length Fic, Psychic Powers, Uncommon Settings, Urban Fantasy, Worldbuilding

Summary: Wei Wuxian can see the dead. Weird happenings ensue.

Author’s Notes: I really struggled with putting this back up again (sorry I know I'm a flake) I have a love/hate relationship with it. But here it is.

This is a repost (it's all over the internet in various formats and languages) but it is mine.

I wrote this a looong time ago, before I really had a GREAT understanding of the naming conventions used in the untamed. Some of it might be incorrect.

Reccer's Notes:: Although November’s Mystery & Suspense theme would apply, I’m using Uncommon Settings to shoehorn in this beloved modern-with-magic paranoir fic in time for Halloween; the intrigue-haunted waterfront city of Lotus, patterned after Venice, is very much a character in its own right. (Note that, despite the geographical inspiration, nobody seems to have been whitewashed.)

medium blues has a history as cryptic and elusive as its subject matter: for various reasons (including having been targeted in the fandom’s 2020 cyberbullying scandal) the author—along with this fic—has periodically vanished and resurfaced under a succession of pseudonyms.

Here are the author’s original summary and tags:

( Continue. )

Fanwork Links: medium blues, by

darkterrible.

(Wayback Machine): https://web.archive.org/web/20220625040644/https://archiveofourown.org/works/39589791?view_adult=true&view_full_work=true

(Archive.today): https://archive.ph/cJARF

Frontispiece by

mojoflower, from her review on

wangxianficrecs: https://wangxianficrecs.tumblr.com/post/643044937390325760/medium-blues-by-darkandterrible-e

mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: due South
Characters/Pairings: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski, Diefenbaker, Victoria Metcalfe, original characters
Rating: Explicit
Length: 19,093
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings
Creator Links: thehoyden on AO3, luzula on the Audiofic Archive
Themes: Uncommon settings, Friends to lovers, First time, Working together, Complete AU: academia

Summary: "What the hell is this, an Austen novel?"

Reccer's Notes: Complete AUs are unusual in due South, and this is that rarity, a dS AU set in academia. Fraser is a new professor, looked down on by his colleagues as he's from the University of Guelph, and only Ray Kowalski, a punky, nonconformist professor, befriends him. They both have offices on the unpopular top floor (Fraser as he's bottom of the pecking order, and Ray as he likes to get away from the rest of the department), which helps kickstart their friendship. The story is about the highs and lows of academic life and there are some great sections showing Ray's unconventional teaching style which the students love, and Fraser's more traditional, but solid, approach. There's academic politics and also drama with the return of Victoria, Fraser's ex and his academic rival. It's about character development, and about Fraser and Ray's friendship which blossoms gradually into much, much more. The fic's beautifully written, and an extremely good read - highly recommended.

Fanwork Links: Academic Punk on AO3, and the excellent podfic by luzula is here

susieboo posting in

fancake

Fandom: Hamlet (William Shakespeare)
Pairings/Characters: Ophelia, Hamlet, Laertes, Polonious, Claudius (genderflipped to Claudia), Gertrude, Fortinbras, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (genderflipped to Rosie and Goldie), Claudia/Gertrude
Rating: Teen
Length: 11,174
Creator Links: AO3 profile.
Themes: Uncommon Settings, IN SPACE, Murder Mystery, Alternate Ending

Summary: Hamlet in space, starring sensible and heroic Ophelia, genderswapped Claudius, clones Rosencrantz and Guilderstern and alien Fortinbras. (Alas, there are no sharks in space riding motorcycles, nor is there a time machine.) (Taken from AO3)

Reccer's notes: This is just an extremely well-done sci-fi take on the classic play, with Ophelia as the protagonist. I really enjoy the species changes to certain characters, and the way the author plays with the well-known story beats to create something unique. The author's notes at the end also have some interesting insights into the writing choices they made.

Fanwork links: Rosemary for Remembrance

mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Rating: Gen
Length: 1133 & 700
Content Notes: No AO3 warnings apply. There are explicit details about a normal full-term delivery in Plus Ça Change.
Creator Links: toomuchplor on AO3
Themes: Uncommon settings, Friends to lovers, Complete AU: hospital, Humor

Summaries: Technically he *wasn’t* Dr. Sheppard, not for another two months, but it was standard for medical students to introduce themselves that way. It reassured the patients. It didn’t do anything for John’s sense of inner calm.

“Unh,” said McKay, and folded his arms under his face before flopping down again. The position pulled the sleeves of his scrubs top taut around his biceps. “If I hide here it’s harder for the interns to find me.”

Reccer's Notes: For a fandom rich in AUs, there are very few medical AUs in SGA. This is an excellent two-part series and I recommend reading it in reverse series order, as the second part is a prequel. In Plus Ça Change, John blunders into an unexpected ER situation as a 4th year medical student doing an ambulance ride-along, and meets Rodney, a medical resident. The other story, Living Will, is set 3 years later by which time they know each other well and John's an ER resident, Rodney now being chief medical resident. The stories are funny, with great characterisation and snark, and accurate medical details. Very much recommended!

Fanwork Links: Plus Ça Change, and Living Will

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

Good morning, afternoon, and evening!

We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)

I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.

Ta for now!

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Reading

UPDATE: Loyal Revenge (Empty Dagger Hand side story) + Thousand Nations early access fiction

ONLINE E-BOOK (html, epub, mobi, pdf, and xhtml)

EARLY ACCESS

BLOG FICTION

NEWS & UPCOMING FICTION

The Immortality Thief by Taran Hunt

The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman

Dark Shadows: Blood Levy by Susan Rains/Carey Kasdot

Sherlock Holmes: Bad Dog by Unpainted Canvas

Round 180: Mystery & Suspense

Dark Shadows: The Lunatic Yarn by Susan Rains/Carey Kasdot

Mo Dao Zu Shi, Chen Qing Ling: medium blues, by darkterrible; art by Mojoflower.

due South: Academic Punk by thehoyden

Hamlet: Rosemary for Remembrance by Gehayi

SGA: Living Will series by Toomuchplor

Database maintenance

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