Shelving
Jul. 24th, 2025 08:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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We have “deindexed” all adult NSFW content from our browse and search pages. We understand this action is sudden and disruptive, and we are truly sorry for the frustration and confusion caused by this change.Itch instantly caved to their "Warriors for Innocence."
Recently, we came under scrutiny from our payment processors regarding the nature of some content hosted on itch.io. Due to a game titled No Mercy, which was temporarily available on itch.io before being banned back in April, the organization Collective Shout launched a campaign against Steam and itch.io, directing concerns to our payment processors about the nature of certain content found on both platforms.
Maybe I should make a note of what I read, so they don't all blur into one.
Recently (in the last two weeks):
Grandmother's Secrets by Rosina-Fawzia al Rawi
(1) is a novella in the Rivers of London series about Isaac Newton's line of British official government wizards. Starring Thomas Nightingale in a rare trip abroad to visit 1920s New York and hunt down the maker of an enchanted saxophone.
Very Bertie Wooster dancing the Charleston in a gay club, and it's the novella that reveals Nightingale to be asexual. A rare win for the aces :)
(2) is a children's book in which a young wizard whose only gift is for working with dough is forced to find out exactly what she can do with it when her kingdom is in peril.
It's very well written - the plot escalates smoothly and it keeps you reading without being too busy or hectic. The prose is powerful but doesn't intrude. I enjoyed it but didn't really connect emotionally.
(3) follows a slow and unworldly (third, spare, novice nun) princess as she makes/finds allies in a quest to rescue her sister from the sister's husband. He is the prince of a neighbouring, much more powerful kingdom, and having murdered their elder sister is now abusing the middle sister.
I enjoyed this one much more for its blend of realistic dynastic politics and weird wizardly powers. I liked the characters more too, and they combined with the excellent workmanship of the author in a way I almost had feels about. (Not quite - my feels don't get engaged much any more, sadly.)
(4) A dead man turns up inside a hermetically sealed house run by a powerful AI, and a detective goes inside the house to try to solve the murder. This turns out to be a mistake. I enjoyed Arkady Martine's Teixcalaan series (A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace) so I thought I might enjoy this too.
I am finding it haunting, and I appreciate her attempts to construct intelligences that are not human, but this one feels a bit like there is no plot, just an experience. And it's not a particularly pleasant experience. Rose House is not a particularly likeable character, even if its murder was in self defense. (Or was it?)
(5) A non-fiction book, partially a treatise on the origin of belly dancing and partially an autobiography.
I appreciated this as coming from within the culture where raqs sharqi originated, and it is a beautiful memoir of the author growing up with the dance. It was interesting to think of it as a private, indoors thing done by the women of the household chiefly for each other
In the early years of fandom, creators shared their stories, art, and other fanworks in handmade fanzines. Often printed on the cheap and assembled by volunteers at zine-making parties, these zines brought fans around the world in contact with each other and kept fan communities alive.
Honoring the tradition of our foremothers, when we planned Mereth Aderthad 2025, we wanted a fanzine to go with it. Works in the zine respond to the twelve presentations given at Mereth Aderthad.
We are very excited to make the Mereth Aderthad fanzine available to download for anyone who would like to check it out! The zine features thirteen stories, five poems, and nine works of art and was beautifully designed by Anérea. While some of the fanworks were heard at Mereth Aderthad, others are brand-new and available to enjoy for the first time.
You can download a copy of the Mereth Aderthad 2025 fanzine here!