[terapsina]

Ask Game for us Self-proclaimed BOOK WORMS 📖🐛

Name the best book you've read so far this year.

Favorite fantasy book(s).

Favorite fantasy sub-genre(s). (high fantasy, urban fantasy, portal fantasy etc.)

Favorite science fiction book(s).

Favorite science fiction sub-genre(s). (dystopian, superhero, aliens etc.)

Favorite romance novel(s).

What kind of common romance tropes do you enjoy and what kind do you dislike?

Favorite queer fiction book(s).

Favorite detective novel(s).

Favorite classical literature.

Favorite historical fiction.

Favorite horror book(s).

Favorite thriller(s).

Favorite humor and satire book(s).

Which genre(s) are your favorite?

Favorite trilogy.

Favorite finished book series.

Favorite unfinished book series.

Do you read new and less known books or only the big bestsellers?

Where and how do you find new books to read?

The book(s) on your school reading list you actually enjoyed.

Favorite example of a Chosen One trope in a book.

Favorite heist story book(s).

Favorite Young Adult book(s).

Favorite Middle Grade book(s).

Favorite novella(s).

What was the first book you remember reading as a kid?

Goodreads or StoryGraph (or something else)?

How many books do you have on your 'to-be-read' list?

How many books do you have on your 'currently-reading' list?

Do you mostly read through e-reader; reading app on phone; on your laptop; a physical copy; or by audiobook?

Name your favorite author(s).

How often do you read by listening to audiobooks?

Favorite book narration voice actor(s).

Least favorite trope in your most favorite book genre.

Your absolute most favorite character(s) from any book you've ever read.

The only example of your least favorite trope being written in such a way that you enjoyed it.

How many books have you read this year?

Do you read reviews before picking up a book?

Did you ever want to be a writer?

When you get ready for a week long trip to somewhere how many books do you download/pack inside the suitcase?

Do you buy hardcover book copies for previously purchased paperbacks and library books you enjoyed reading?

Title of a book you own that's in the worst physical condition you have. Explain what happened to it. Post a picture if you want.

The book(s) whose stories have become part of your very makeup.

What book(s) would you sell your soul to get a TV or movie adaptation of?

I like _____, recommend me a book to read, please (insert a book, or trope, or character, or... anything you like before asking for this one).

What are the last three books you read?

Do you leave reviews for the books you've read? How often?

Do you prefer hopeful, humorous, very emotional or darker books?

What kind of book have you never read but always hope to find at some point in the future?

[bajoop-sheeb]

PLEASE for the love of the universe read anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy written from marginalized perspectives. Y’all (you know who you are) are killing me. To see people praise books about empire written exclusively by white women and then turn around and say you don’t know who Octavia Butler is or that you haven’t read any NK Jemisin or that Babel was too heavy-handed just kills me! I’m not saying you HAVE to enjoy specific books but there is such an obvious pattern here

Some of y’all love marginalized stories but you don’t give a fuck about marginalized creators and characters, and it shows. Like damn

[spid3rgrrrl]

If anyone has any recommendations give them to me please!

[bajoop-sheeb]

Gladly! The pieces on this list aren’t limited to specifically anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy, but they do center related and relevant topics, themes, etc.

Anything by NK Jemisin. She is the best speculative fiction writer of her generation and probably the best speculative fiction writer alive. She is easily one of the best writers working right now, across all genres. That’s not hyperbole. She deserves all the hype.

Anything by Octavia Butler. She needs no introduction. Her short fiction is incredible; “Bloodchild” is one of the pieces that inspired me to write.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. Excellent. Just read it.

The Radiant Emperor duology by Shelley P. Chan. It broke my heart and it'll break yours.

Babel by RF Kuang. You’ve probably already heard of this book because Harper Voyager marketed the shit out of it and was right to do so. It’s very, very good. Kuang writes a compulsively readable story, that’s for sure.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo.

So Long Been Dreaming: Post-Colonial Science Fiction and Fantasy (anthology) edited by Nalo Hopkinson.

Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (anthology) edited by Nalo Hopkinson.

Severely underhyped books of assorted speculative genres:

The Blood Trials by NE Davenport. Given the current chokehold romantasy has on the public it’s insane to me that this book hasn’t sold a billion copies.

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez. It’ll change you.

The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera.

The Lesson by Caldwell Turnbull.

Read widely. Read diversely. People of the Caucasian persuasion need to stop getting pissy when the story doesn’t immediately center them and they don’t automatically relate to everything the character says and does and is. Just let yourself get swept in the story—even if it touches on (gasp!) racism—and maybe, just maybe, it’ll reveal something to you.

Or maybe not! Marginalized sff authors do not have to and should not have to educate their readers. But if I see one more white person complain about how Black characters are fundamentally annoying because they complain too much I’m going to fling myself into the sun

Thanks for coming to my ted talk I didn’t want to do it but here I am

[teeth-and-spackle]

Don't forget Aliette de Bodard! Especially her Xuya and Dominion of the Fallen series.

Zen Cho is my other favorite - Sorcerer to the Crown and The True Queen, and also Black Water Sister.

[deena-bo-beena]

I'd like to add anything by Nnedi Okorafor to this. She's a Nigerian American Afrofuturist writer who's won Nebula, Hugo, and other prestigious awards for her sci-fi/fantasy writing.

She's my favorite author right now! I'd start with her Binti trilogy, but she also has some YA books (Akata Witch series, it's on my TBR), She Who Fears Death series (love this one) and some standalone books and short story anthologies.

Right now I'm reading the Desert Magician duology from her. The first book was sooo goood! Just started the 2nd one :D

If you like YA sci-fi books, I’d also give Namina Forna a chance. Her The Gilded Ones trilogy was excellently written!

[heavenlyyshecomes]

"Publishers for Palestine is a global collective of publishers, and others who work in publishing around the world, who stand for justice, freedom of expression, and the power of the written word.

Join us for an international #ReadPalestine week, starting Wednesday, November 29, on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. During this week, we encourage people around the world to read fiction and poetry by Palestinian and Palestinian diaspora authors, as well as nonfiction about Palestinian history, politics, arts, culture, and life, as well as books about organizing, resistance, and solidarity for a Free Palestine. 

To encourage the spread of #ReadPalestine, signatories of the Publishers for Palestine letter of solidarity have organized a Free Palestine Reading List. Participating publishers are offering one of their e-book titles for free download from November 29 to December 5; all titles are available through this website. There are currently more than thirty books on the list in nine languages, including a half-dozen award winners, with more coming in.

We also encourage readers to post on social media about their favorite Palestine books, to quote from their favorite authors, and to make learning more about Palestine an act of solidarity, using the hashtags #ReadPalestine, #LirelaPalestine, #اقرأ_فلسطين, and more. Participating indie bookstores and libraries are invited to join us by creating Read Palestine displays, social media posts, and other forms of creative solidarity."

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

Maiden, Mother, Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes edited by Gwen Benaway

goodreads

Have you read this trans book?

Yes and I liked it

Yes and I didn‘t like it

No

I‘ve never heard of it

No but I'd like to

Voting ended onNov 22, 2023

Drawing on high fantasy and other genres of fantasy writing, Maiden, Mother, Crone is the first anthology by trans femme authors to explore the realms of magic, supernatural beings, and alternate universes. Enter a universe of wonder where trans femmes are powerful heroines, sorceresses, and warriors fighting against dark forces in vivid magical worlds.

With celebrated trans femme writers like Kai Cheng Thom, Casey Plett, and Gwen Benaway, and featuring art by Alex Morris, this anthology will transform the landscape of fantasy fiction and offer radical portals into excitement, danger, and transformation.

Mod Opinion: I hadn‘t heard of this one before, but it sounds very interesting and it has some authors in here whose work I enjoy, so I‘m excited to check it out.

[nalt0r-deactivated20250722]

[johnturturro]

just another day stanning libraries

[solitairians]

look i dislike the corporate artyle book cover trend as much as the next person but we cant pretend every book looking the same is something new. if you stepped into a bookstore in 2013 there would be approximately 57 books whose cover art consisted of a girl in a ballgown with her back half-turned to the camera photoshopped into a vaguely fantasy-like landscape. i was 11 years old fighting for my life to find the right maximalistic girl and her single-adjective book title we cannot forget the horrors i went through please be respectful of my experiences

[solitairians]

the guardian angels of preteen girls........

[danskjavlarna]

Source details and larger version.

I’ve collected quite a few vintage dragons – see what treasures they’re guarding!

[girlwithlandscape]

Lynda Barry

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

I love when hardcore Harry Potter fans try to insult people by calling them “muggle” and “mudblood”. not only is your vitriol toothless and comical, it’s also establishing you as one of the bad guys…?

[ruffboi-mags]

[catboygirljoker]

it also illustrates how harry potter is yet another story where the fantasy fascists are, in the text of the story, objectively correct.

like, the bad guys believe that wizards are better than muggles, that muggles should be subjugated, that wizards should just take over the world and muggles would be better for it, and....yeah? in the story, they’re correct. most if not all muggle characters are stupid, dull, cruel, incompetent, ineffectual, ignorant, and envy how Special and Great wizards are (if they're even enlightened enough to know they exist). wizards and witches are objectively better than muggles in every way. there’s nothing in the text to suggest that voldemort is actually wrong about them. if anything, the story’s counterpoint to his worldview isn’t “muggles are equals with wizards and should be treated as such” but “we should be nice instead of mean to the poor, sad, barbaric muggles.”

no wonder harry potter fans call non-fans “muggles.” if you want to call people in the out-group something that indicates they’re missing out on something awesome and just jealous of how cool the in-group is, there’s a pre-packaged word right there for you to call them, complete with ideology that backs that up.

at best, it’s the kind of lazy, unthinking worldbuilding and theming that occurs when you try to make your escapist fantasy as cool as possible but don’t explore the implications. at worst, it’s consistent with rowling’s proven real-world bigotry.

(this is a pet peeve i also have with invincible, zootopia, and the mcu among other stories, but that’s another post)

[mango-habanero-autism-deactivat]

I am once again reminding you that Margaret Atwood called a bunch of victims of sexual assault liars because they accused someone she respected and liked, Steve Galloway, a fellow author, and then she called indigenous people a bunch of foul insults when they dug up that Joseph Boyden, another beloved author friend of hers, was a pretendian. Before being exposed as such, Boyden was infamous for his graphic depictions of violence against women in his novels.

And even way before that, she used her social capital and her public goodwill towards the goal of turning an institution where disabled people had been institutionalized and tortured into a cutesy arts retreat, against the explicit wishes of the survivors.

The signs of her being evil trash have been there for a long time, it's just taken a while for her to do something that's managed to actually poke a hole in her gigantic armour of self promotion as some kind of queen of feminist CanLit

[mango-habanero-autism-deactivat]

All you folks in the reblog tags talking about times you met Margaret Atwood and she was a colossal jerk to you are cool as hell, and that tracks with other friends of mine who met her and described her as the dragon of white women.

[sjimmie89]

Luckily she's old as hell!

Can't wait to get to seperate art from author. The handsmaids tale truly deserves a spot on the 100 best books ever written. (And does one hell of an LGBT side character for the time. Our network basically saves the world! )

(And seriously, how many great books weren't written by great douchebags... Almost all of them! )

[neechees]

Tbh A Handmaid's Tale isn't that great either. I don't think it deserves a spot at all considering its a narrative that appropriates the real life, institutionalized experiences that nonwhite women have already experienced, and continue to experience, while making the main character a white woman, and brutalize its female characters of color. Its a white woman going "what if all these racialized misogynist experiences happened to WHITE WOMEN?", like sexual slavery & slavery in general, forced sterilization, having your children be taken away/stolen and given to another (white, rich) family to be raised, or being forced to give your rapist & owner children, or how the handmaid's literally find liberation in escaping to Canada (which doesn't really make any sense besides to piggyback off of Black People's history), a clear paralell to the underground railroad, and Black people's trauma within slavery. I've seen white people learn about or mention Harriet Tubman and the actual Underground railroad or other things woc have gone through and say "Just like in the Handmaid's Tale!".

And idk this white woman who's been proven to be nasty and racist writing all that while being nasty and racist... Handmaid's Tale sucks ass too and I can't bring myself to care about it.

Painting Oppression in White Face: How The Handmaid’s Tale Appropriates Racism Against Black, Indigenous, Women of Color

How The Handmaid’s Tale takes historical and current atrocities faced by black, indigenous, women of color and paints it in whiteface.

[hotvampireadjacent]

[sandmandaddy69]

[allofthemwitches-deactivated202]

:(

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Random mansion generator

The Procgen Mansion Generator produces large three-dee dwellings to toy with your imagination, offering various architectural styles and other options. Each mansion even comes with floorplans:

https://boingboing.net/2019/07/12/random-mansion-generator.html

[something-from-elsewhere]

Oooooh! Saving this

[lady-feral]

That’s fun

[vesperlionheart]

Hey, but don’t fall asleep on this Medieval Fantasy City Generator   

[awrenthatwrites]

Reblogging for the last!

[writingquestionsanswered]

NEAT.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

I’ve seen the Ursula K LeGuin quote about capitalism going around, but to really appreciate it you have to know the context.

The year is 2014. She has been given a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Awards. Neil Gaiman puts it on her neck in front of a crowd of booksellers who bankrolled the event, and it’s time to make a standard “thank you for this award, insert story here, something about diversity, blah blah blah” speech. She starts off doing just that, thanking her friends and fellow authors. All is well.

Then this old lady from Oregon looks her audience of executives dead in the eye, and says “Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.”

She rails against the reduction of her art to a commodity produced only for profit. She denounces publishers who overcharge libraries for their products and censor writers in favor of something “more profitable”. She specifically denounces Amazon and its business practices, knowing full well that her audience is filled with Amazon employees. And to cap it off, she warns them: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”

Ursula K LeGuin got up in front of an audience of some of the most powerful people in publishing, was expected to give a trite and politically safe argument about literature, and instead told them directly “Your empire will fall. And I will help it along.”

[jasonball34]

legendary quote from Eoin Colfer

“I’m going to tell you something now. When I wrote (and this is quite embarrassing), when I started to write Artemis Fowl, I got the words ‘centaur’ and ‘satyr’ mixed up. So, I intended to write a satyr like Mr. Tumnus, uh, but I wrote the word centaur. And so for the entire book, I had written centaur, but meant satyr, and then I was too embarrassed to admit that. Uh, and so I just left it. And so I had to put in references to four legs and everything. So that’s why Foaly is a centaur. Because I mixed up, and people say to me “oh, it’s very clever the way you did the Foaly pun, since he’s a centaur,” and I’m like “that was a total fluke.” I was so lucky. So then I had to keep it, basically.”

this was during the livestreamed author chat q+a session for Fowl Twins 2 at Books Of Wonder on October 17, I think the vod is still up

[iesnoth]

AnD tHat’S wHy hE hAS fRiGGin HORNS

[pusluktalaratlasi]

Albertine Bookstore, NYC