![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Yuletide recs: apart from my gift, only what I've read and really enjoyed so far.
My gift:
Weekend In Death (In Death series - JD Robb)
A computer game graphics designer is shot while waiting with his daughter to buy tickets for the latest G-Flick. Can Eve and her detectives find out why and whodonit?
Someone To Watch Over Me (Twisted Disney Princesses; Mulan, Tiana)
Mulan is old when she comes to America. Restless and old. Tiana is nineteen when she becomes a monster. Not that the folks who decide how things can be haven’t been telling her that her kind has to stay on the edge her whole life. Between them, what can’t they do?
Uh, wow. I mean, really, I was all OH EM GEE WOW after reading this. Dark sides and painful might-have-beens - Mulan and Mushu surviving as hungry ghosts and going unfed because she has no descendants. *weeps* And then a bitter and vengeful Tiana recognising what's in Mulan and what both of them need.
Healing (Black Jewels - Anne Bishop; Wilhelmina, Jaenelle)
Wilhelmina Benedict visits her sister after Queen of the Darkness.
I never even considered Wilhelmina after the events of the trilogy. She's barely mentioned in the later books. But this gives a lovely ending (or beginning) to the awkward and difficult relationship between Wilhelmina and Jaenelle as sisters by blood, but not by Blood.
Chatter All Day (Sadler's Wells - Lorna Hill; Mariella Foster, Jane Foster, Irma Foster, Nigel Monkhouse, Robin Campbell)
"A marriage is announced and will take place shortly between Mr Robin Campbell of Inveross and Miss Mariella Foster, daughter of the ballerina Mrs Irma Foster and noted ballet critic Mr Oscar Deveraux." - Northumbrian News, 19th July 1957.
It's pitch-perfect, IMO, from Mariella's anxiety, to her relationships with her mother and Jane. Nigel and his mother are characteristically awful, and the chatter of the town gossips, Mariella's friends in London, and up at her uni are just wonderfully varied. And, of course, there's Robin, who is so very reliably Robin. Overall, it feels like someone unearthed a missing chapter from one of Lorna Hill's books.
Texts From Cephalopods (Octopus Steals My Video Camera and Swims off with It While It's Recording (Youtube))
It is a well-established fact in marine biology that the octopus is the drunk texter of the cephalopod family.
I don't really think anything more needs to be said about this fic...
Dinner And A Show (Dexter; Debra Morgan)
Deb shares a meal with the many men in her life. It’s not always the murder mystery version of dinner theater, but it’s damn close.
It's Debra Morgan. Having dinner through assorted seasons. And being utterly Debra at it. There's no further explanation possibly needed, other than that this is amazeballs and you should read it if you're any kind of a Dexter fan.
What Might Have Been (Elenium/Tamuli Series - David & Leigh Eddings; Talen)
Four lives that Talen might have led.
So very intriguing, one part slightly scary, and if not quite as hilarious as some of the passages in the original books, really well-characterised.
Like A Wave (Discworld - Terry Pratchett; Tiffany, Granny Aching)
A moment in time, like a slice carved off a block of cheese.
It has footnotes, which I am always a sucker for. It has Tiffany, which I am also always a sucker for. And it has Tiffany's relationship with Granny Aching, which I am not usually a sucker for, but which I am clearly a sucker for in this situation.
The Death And Resurrection Of Persephone, In Stages (Greek Mythology; Persephone.)
Persephone walks into Hades willingly, Demeter is desolate, Artemis unforgiving, and Persephone has more power than she (or Zeus) realizes.
The myth of Persephone told backwards, upside down, and inside out - and really quite amazing.
She Will PLace On Your Head A Graceful Garland; She Will Bestow On You A Beautiful Crown (Hebrew Bible; Bathsheba, Abigail)
King's wives; king's sons.
I've always wondered a little about Abigail - on one hand, when she first meets David, she's presented as a very capable, intelligent woman. On the other, after her marriage to David, she pretty much disappears, and her son is never mentioned other than in a 'family list'. I like the idea that she remained a clever, resourceful woman in David's court - and a mentor to a future king.
More once I plough through the next batch!
My gift:
Weekend In Death (In Death series - JD Robb)
A computer game graphics designer is shot while waiting with his daughter to buy tickets for the latest G-Flick. Can Eve and her detectives find out why and whodonit?
Someone To Watch Over Me (Twisted Disney Princesses; Mulan, Tiana)
Mulan is old when she comes to America. Restless and old. Tiana is nineteen when she becomes a monster. Not that the folks who decide how things can be haven’t been telling her that her kind has to stay on the edge her whole life. Between them, what can’t they do?
Uh, wow. I mean, really, I was all OH EM GEE WOW after reading this. Dark sides and painful might-have-beens - Mulan and Mushu surviving as hungry ghosts and going unfed because she has no descendants. *weeps* And then a bitter and vengeful Tiana recognising what's in Mulan and what both of them need.
Healing (Black Jewels - Anne Bishop; Wilhelmina, Jaenelle)
Wilhelmina Benedict visits her sister after Queen of the Darkness.
I never even considered Wilhelmina after the events of the trilogy. She's barely mentioned in the later books. But this gives a lovely ending (or beginning) to the awkward and difficult relationship between Wilhelmina and Jaenelle as sisters by blood, but not by Blood.
Chatter All Day (Sadler's Wells - Lorna Hill; Mariella Foster, Jane Foster, Irma Foster, Nigel Monkhouse, Robin Campbell)
"A marriage is announced and will take place shortly between Mr Robin Campbell of Inveross and Miss Mariella Foster, daughter of the ballerina Mrs Irma Foster and noted ballet critic Mr Oscar Deveraux." - Northumbrian News, 19th July 1957.
It's pitch-perfect, IMO, from Mariella's anxiety, to her relationships with her mother and Jane. Nigel and his mother are characteristically awful, and the chatter of the town gossips, Mariella's friends in London, and up at her uni are just wonderfully varied. And, of course, there's Robin, who is so very reliably Robin. Overall, it feels like someone unearthed a missing chapter from one of Lorna Hill's books.
Texts From Cephalopods (Octopus Steals My Video Camera and Swims off with It While It's Recording (Youtube))
It is a well-established fact in marine biology that the octopus is the drunk texter of the cephalopod family.
I don't really think anything more needs to be said about this fic...
Dinner And A Show (Dexter; Debra Morgan)
Deb shares a meal with the many men in her life. It’s not always the murder mystery version of dinner theater, but it’s damn close.
It's Debra Morgan. Having dinner through assorted seasons. And being utterly Debra at it. There's no further explanation possibly needed, other than that this is amazeballs and you should read it if you're any kind of a Dexter fan.
What Might Have Been (Elenium/Tamuli Series - David & Leigh Eddings; Talen)
Four lives that Talen might have led.
So very intriguing, one part slightly scary, and if not quite as hilarious as some of the passages in the original books, really well-characterised.
Like A Wave (Discworld - Terry Pratchett; Tiffany, Granny Aching)
A moment in time, like a slice carved off a block of cheese.
It has footnotes, which I am always a sucker for. It has Tiffany, which I am also always a sucker for. And it has Tiffany's relationship with Granny Aching, which I am not usually a sucker for, but which I am clearly a sucker for in this situation.
The Death And Resurrection Of Persephone, In Stages (Greek Mythology; Persephone.)
Persephone walks into Hades willingly, Demeter is desolate, Artemis unforgiving, and Persephone has more power than she (or Zeus) realizes.
The myth of Persephone told backwards, upside down, and inside out - and really quite amazing.
She Will PLace On Your Head A Graceful Garland; She Will Bestow On You A Beautiful Crown (Hebrew Bible; Bathsheba, Abigail)
King's wives; king's sons.
I've always wondered a little about Abigail - on one hand, when she first meets David, she's presented as a very capable, intelligent woman. On the other, after her marriage to David, she pretty much disappears, and her son is never mentioned other than in a 'family list'. I like the idea that she remained a clever, resourceful woman in David's court - and a mentor to a future king.
More once I plough through the next batch!
Tags: