#foz meadows

[fozmeadows]

IM BACK BABEY! 😁🎉

[moonboundbooks]

🕯 A Strange & Stubborn Endurance and All The Hidden Paths - by @fozmeadows 🕯

This was the 2nd part of my trade with @lizz_binding . Originally I meant to just do ASASE for our rebind trade but wanted to spoil her a bit so gave myself an excuse to do the sequel for her as well by calling it an early birthday present. (Her birthday is mid-june)

Last year she really raved about Book 1 and I'm so glad I read it because it's absolutely stunning. The writing is beautiful, the world-building is gorgeous, the story is wonderful. 10000% recommend.

Since I was doing both books I leaned into the filigree theme of them and decided to do inlays of them embedded into each other. The two lighter greens on each book is inlayed bookcloth with the darker green being the htv. I went with greens to match the Tithenaian colors.

They're not perfect but I LOVE them!

[nobeerreviews]

Life isn't a story... There's no neat beginnings, no happy endings, because everything always keeps on going. That's just life, girl. That's all it is: life, and lives, and all of them lived overlapping.

-- Foz Meadows

(Pula, Italy)

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 1

Choose a book:

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle series)

The Tithenai Chronicles by Foz Meadows

Voting ended onNov 30, 2024

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants spend most of their time without a gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

Science fiction, classics, speculative fiction, anthropological science fiction, distant future, adult

The Tithenai Chronicles (A Strange and Stubborn Endurance, All the Hidden Paths) by Foz Meadows

Endorsement from submitter: "Incredible plot, incredible worldbuilding, incredible relationship building."

“Stolen me? As soon to say a caged bird can be stolen by the sky.”

Velasin vin Aaro never planned to marry at all, let alone a girl from neighboring Tithena. When an ugly confrontation reveals his preference for men, Vel fears he’s ruined the diplomatic union before it can even begin. But while his family is ready to disown him, the Tithenai envoy has a different plans: for Vel to marry his former intended’s brother instead.

Caethari Aeduria always knew he might end up in a political marriage, but his sudden betrothal to a man from Ralia, where such relationships are forbidden, comes as a shock.

With an unknown faction willing to kill to end their new alliance, Vel and Cae have no choice but to trust each other. Survival is one thing, but love―as both will learn―is quite another.

Byzantine politics, lush sexual energy, and a queer love story that is by turns sweet and sultry, Foz Meadows' A Strange and Stubborn Endurance is an exploration of gender, identity, and self-worth. It is a book that will live in your heart long after you turn the last page.

Fantasy, romance, arranged marriage, politics, murder mystery, secondary world, series, adult

[thoughtportal]

[monetizeme]

Against AI

A response to Erin Underwood's open letter to SFWA and the SFF community

"AI is harmful in every possible way. It’s a highly inaccurate plagiarism tool built on creative theft, accelerated environmental destruction, human rights abuses, heightened risks of psychosis, sexual blackmail, educational collapse and the erosion of our collective sense of truth, and the only reason it’s ubiquitous despite all this is because a handful of sociopathic billionaires working in a highly unregulated field have doubled and tripled down on putting it in everything, because the minute the AI bubble bursts, they’ll loose a staggering amount of money. (That, of course, and it’s the kind of tech that aids in committing war crimes, which is always of powerful interest to the military-industrial complex.)

So when (to return to the open letter at hand) I see someone argue, as Underwood has done, that “there is no putting the genie back in the bottle” - that we must account for and accept certain types of AI use going forward, because that’s simply the world we inhabit now - it makes me want to scream until my throat ruptures, because no, we fucking don’t. We don’t have to accept AI as a technological innovation any more than we have to accept meth as a chemical innovation, and for similar reasons: AI is bad for us as a species. It harms us - and our planet - far in excess of any benefit it provides; and those benefits are overwhelmingly achievable through other, less toxic ends."

[moonbyte]

Iron & Gold - aka Naza and Asrien

So I have finished the Tithenai chronicles by @fozmeadows (containing the two novels "A Strange And Stubborn Endurance" and "All The Hidden Paths"), and I am incredibly pleased by these very well-written books while equally sad that the series is resolved with 'only' two books.

So, in true spirit of fandom, I decided to add to the empty space that exists with fanfiction: Iron & Gold In this case, since I feel like the main characters Velasin and Caethari are deserving of a fairly UNEVENTFUL life from here-on out, and dear Markel also doesn't need any more stress and stabbings in his life, I focused on the two that I am absolutely very normal about (I swear. I PROMISE. Ask my friends which I definitely haven't bribed), which would be Naza and Asrien. Ok, look, I enjoy size difference (and if Velasin is like 1.75m, then Asrien is 1.5m and Naza is frigging 2m; Asrien is just SO TINY and Naza is SO TALL) and their entire dynamic is extremely unexpected and fun. No spoilers from me on whether this is just a random ship I caught onto or if there's something more substantial, read the books to find out ♪ Either way, I have 23 chapters planned out (lets see if it stays at that lmao) for what may happen to them after All The Hidden Paths and I had to vent all the excitement for having finished the novels and starting now with the fic by diving into fanart.

I know that authors can't (officially) acknowledge fanfics of their own works, but I hope you like the art I made (there is NO Asrien/Naza art! How? Why?!), and I hope you are pleased in knowing that at least one reader loved the world you created a whole lot ♥ (I also may or may not have infected four more friends with buying those books cause I kept raving about them haha)

Either way, long story short, I had a lot of fun with the novels, and I had a lot of fun with this art piece. So thank you, @fozmeadows, for having made the former which allowed me to make the latter ♪

[thedraconiclibrary]

Truly, having such a healing experience rereading The Tithenai Chronicles duology by Foz Meadows. I’m a third into book 2, All The Hidden Paths, and god these characters are just so beautiful and wholesome while their lives have been so cruel. It’s such a comfort to read traumatized people heal and have a nonlinear path forwards while being supported by people who genuinely love them.

Also yes, yes I did name my plant Velasin after one of the main characters, and I will indeed be naming another plant Caethari once I get one that fits the name.