Well that's a wrap
I have had a very unproductive liminal week, which has felt really great, but has also meant the to-do list is still longer than I was hoping it would be at this point. Oh well! Got some more fun holiday presents; also found an LP of "Gesang der Junglinge" and "Kontakte" at a thrift store, which I am totally going to creep myself out with tonight.
Family visit was good, but involved more time actually interacting with family and less time sitting around my uncle's house reading books than I had planned. I am feeling very thankful for my family, extended and otherwise, this year especially hearing everyone else's family stories on DW. And also because this may be the last year where we do Christmas like this, because the uncle who hosts has had late-stage lung cancer for several years now. My mom has eight siblings, and about fifteen niblings, and I lost count of the grandniblings, and they're busily working on great-grand-niblings at this point. And about three-quarters of them still live within an hour of her hometown: if everyone with a standing invite comes to Christmas, there are about 75 people there. (We only had half that on Christmas this year, but most of the rest will be there tomorrow for New Year's.) We have our issues, but we've been split about 50/50 politically since before I was born, so everybody learned 'don't talk politics unless everyone in the room has explicitly consented' very early, and when there are 30+ people in the room, that doesn't happen. And we also learned very early that you support family (at least, to their faces). And we're all happy weirdos enough that it's the kind of gathering where somebody can bring a box of old SF novels and know that they'll all disappear right quick. (Plus, with seventy-five people, there's probably at least one other person there who can sympathize personally with whatever it is.) Of course, it helps that my family are the out-of-town relatives, so my whole life we've only seen them a couple of times a year, so we only see each other on best behavior - I suspect the ones who live there have a less rosy view of it most of the time.
I got four Yuletide gifts!
This was my assigned fic, and it's great - exactly the sort of Heimdall fic I wished there were went I went looking earlier this year, and couldn't find. The writer knows their Norse myth and is really good at evoking atmosphere.
The Theft and the Gift (3494 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Norse Religion & Lore
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Heimdallr | Heimdall & Loki (Norse Religion & Lore), Loki & Thor
Characters: Heimdallr | Heimdall (Norse Religion & Lore), Loki (Norse Religion & Lore), Freyja | Freya (Norse Religion & Lore), Þórr | Thor (Norse Religion & Lore)
Additional Tags: necklace-stealing, hammer-stealing, Loki being Loki, shape-shifting, Talking Animals, Implied Relationships, implied pairings if you squinted
Summary: Just because the world around him behaves like a madhouse doesn't mean Heimdall has to be part of it.
I also got a treat in Pokemon: Magikarp Jump from someone who knows their Pokemon battles really well:
Between a Magikarp and a Golem (6013 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pokemon: Magikarp Jump (Video Game)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Summary: After a long reign as champion, Alex (trainer) finds themselves longing for something more. They later find themself in Hoppy Town . What are they doing there? Training Magikarp to just to extreme levels of course.
And two madness stories, which were both really great and exactly the sort of thing I like!
Falling Upward (543 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Round Planet (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Garth de la Spong (Round Planet), Tabitha Pippit-Whistle (Round Planet), Armstrong Wedgewood (Round Planet)
Additional Tags: Humor, Alcohol, Garth No, Garth YES!
Summary: Seven hours in the film vault, and Garth had enough tape for an entire nature documentary from the discarded clips from another documentary. Planet Something. Right. Round Planet. Practically the same thing, really.
Murderbot's Accidental Exchange Program (8605 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells, Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries), Justice of Toren One Esk Nineteen | Breq, Mercy of Kalr (Imperial Radch), Seivarden Vendaai, Gem of Sphene (Imperial Radch), Ekalu (Imperial Radch), Mercy of Kalr Kalr Five | Ettan
Additional Tags: mention of extreme violence, Cussing, Tea
Summary: What if Murderbot had needed to take a few more hops to get to Milu, and had found an uncrewed cargo ship to take it that way? And what if things had gotten... weird... during the journey?
I wrote one thing for Yuletide, and it's possibly the most obviously by-me thing that has ever been written, and I know I said that last year but I mean it even more this year. And the recip liked it! and so did a fair number of other people! So that's good. It's always reassuring when your anon fics don't do noticeably worse (or better) than your namespace ones.
I haven't read anything in the Yuletide collection this year except my gift fics, mostly because first I wanted to finish the new Murderbot book (A++, you should read it) and the new Rivers of London book (A++, you should read it) and the new Hamster Princess book (A++, you should read it) and the new Becky Chambers book and the Doctor Aphra trades (...still sitting on my to-read pile), all of which had come in from the library last month and I was saving until my yuletide writing was done. Maybe I will get in a few hours of collection-reading tonight, since I've decided to have a hermit New Year's Eve. (I think maybe I will try to get my friends together for Twelfth Night instead, since it's a weekend this year.)
Uh. I should probably do more of a year-end wrap-up this year, but ... it's been a weird year, where the good times were Great and there were also very long stretches of Not That. I dropped a lot of threads; I don't really feel like counting them. I failed my Goodreads reading challenge hard this year, wrote a lot more beginnings of stories than ends, and spent a lot of time putting one foot in front of the other. But I did keep doing that.
Anyway, I will pick the December Meme topics back up again next year, and maybe even FMK after that (stranger things have happened!)
Meanwhile here's that book list from![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
james_davis_nicoll.
Bold = read
Italic = read something by the author
Underline = own it
* = everybody should read it right now
- = already had it on my "you should read it right now" list.
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (2014)
The Stolen Lake by Joan Aiken (1981)
-Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa (2001-2010)
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō by Hitoshi Ashinano (1994-2006)
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)
Stinz: Charger: The War Stories by Donna Barr (1987)
The Sword and the Satchel by Elizabeth Boyer (1980)
Galactic Sibyl Sue Blue by Rosel George Brown (1968)
The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold (1989)
War for the Oaks by Emma Bull (1987)
Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler (1980)
Naamah’s Curse by Jacqueline Carey (2010)
The Fortunate Fall by Raphael Carter (1996)
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (2015)
Red Moon and Black Mountain by Joy Chant (1970)
The Vampire Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas (1980)
Gate of Ivrel by C.J. Cherryh (1976)
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho (2015)
Diadem from the Stars by Jo Clayton (1977)
-The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper (1973)
Genpei by Kara Dalkey (2000)
Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard (2010)
The Secret Country by Pamela Dean (1985)
-Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany (1975)
*The Door into Fire by Diane Duane (1979)
On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis (2016)
Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott (2006)
Enchantress From the Stars by Sylvia Louise Engdahl (1970)
Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle (1983)
The Dazzle of Day by Molly Gloss (1997)
A Mask for the General by Lisa Goldstein (1987)
Slow River by Nicola Griffith (1995)
*Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly (1988)
Winterlong by Elizabeth Hand (1990)
Ingathering by Zenna Henderson (1995)
The Interior Life by Dorothy Heydt (writing as Katherine Blake, 1990)
-God Stalk by P. C. Hodgell (1982)
-Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson (1998)
Zero Sum Game by S.L. Huang (2014)
Blood Price by Tanya Huff (1991)
-The Keeper of the Isis Light by Monica Hughes (1980)
God’s War by Kameron Hurley (2011)
Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta (2014)
The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin (2015)
-Cart and Cwidder by Diane Wynne Jones (1975)
Daughter of Mystery by Heather Rose Jones (2014)
Hellspark by Janet Kagan (1988)
A Voice Out of Ramah by Lee Killough (1979)
St Ailbe’s Hall by Naomi Kritzer (2004)
-Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz (1970)
Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner (1987)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962)
-Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier (2005)
-The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin (1974)
*Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (2013)
Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee (Also titled Drinking Sapphire Wine, 1979)
-Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (2016)
Wizard of the Pigeons by Megan Lindholm (1986)
-Adaptation by Malinda Lo (2012)
-Watchtower by Elizabeth A. Lynn (1979)
Tea with the Black Dragon by R. A. MacAvoy (1983)
The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald (2007)
China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh (1992)
Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre (1978)
*The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia A. McKillip (1976)
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees (1926)
Pennterra by Judith Moffett (1987)
The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe (2010)
Jirel of Joiry by C. L. Moore (1969)
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2016)
The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy (1989)
Vast by Linda Nagata (1998)
Galactic Derelict by Andre Norton (1959)
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik (2006)
Dragon Sword and Wind Child by Noriko Ogiwara (1993)
Outlaw School by Rebecca Ore (2000)
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor (2014)
Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce (1983)
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy (1976)
Godmother Night by Rachel Pollack (1996)
Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti (1859)
My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland (2011)
The Female Man by Joanna Russ (1975)
Stay Crazy by Erika L. Satifka (2016)
-The Healer’s War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (1988)
Five-Twelfths of Heaven by Melissa Scott (1985)
-Everfair by Nisi Shawl (2016)
-Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski (1986)
The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart (1970)
-Up the Walls of the World by James Tiptree, Jr. (1978)
-The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (1996)
The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge (1980)
*All Systems Red by Martha Wells (2017)
*The Well-Favored Man by Elizabeth Willey (1993)
Banner of Souls by Liz Williams (2004)
Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson (2012)
Ariosto by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1980)
Ooku by Fumi Yoshinaga (2005-present)
(If you're interested in trying to read down this list, you should check outelf's spreadsheet of which ones are available as free or non-DRM'd ebooks.)
Family visit was good, but involved more time actually interacting with family and less time sitting around my uncle's house reading books than I had planned. I am feeling very thankful for my family, extended and otherwise, this year especially hearing everyone else's family stories on DW. And also because this may be the last year where we do Christmas like this, because the uncle who hosts has had late-stage lung cancer for several years now. My mom has eight siblings, and about fifteen niblings, and I lost count of the grandniblings, and they're busily working on great-grand-niblings at this point. And about three-quarters of them still live within an hour of her hometown: if everyone with a standing invite comes to Christmas, there are about 75 people there. (We only had half that on Christmas this year, but most of the rest will be there tomorrow for New Year's.) We have our issues, but we've been split about 50/50 politically since before I was born, so everybody learned 'don't talk politics unless everyone in the room has explicitly consented' very early, and when there are 30+ people in the room, that doesn't happen. And we also learned very early that you support family (at least, to their faces). And we're all happy weirdos enough that it's the kind of gathering where somebody can bring a box of old SF novels and know that they'll all disappear right quick. (Plus, with seventy-five people, there's probably at least one other person there who can sympathize personally with whatever it is.) Of course, it helps that my family are the out-of-town relatives, so my whole life we've only seen them a couple of times a year, so we only see each other on best behavior - I suspect the ones who live there have a less rosy view of it most of the time.
I got four Yuletide gifts!
This was my assigned fic, and it's great - exactly the sort of Heimdall fic I wished there were went I went looking earlier this year, and couldn't find. The writer knows their Norse myth and is really good at evoking atmosphere.
The Theft and the Gift (3494 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Norse Religion & Lore
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Heimdallr | Heimdall & Loki (Norse Religion & Lore), Loki & Thor
Characters: Heimdallr | Heimdall (Norse Religion & Lore), Loki (Norse Religion & Lore), Freyja | Freya (Norse Religion & Lore), Þórr | Thor (Norse Religion & Lore)
Additional Tags: necklace-stealing, hammer-stealing, Loki being Loki, shape-shifting, Talking Animals, Implied Relationships, implied pairings if you squinted
Summary: Just because the world around him behaves like a madhouse doesn't mean Heimdall has to be part of it.
I also got a treat in Pokemon: Magikarp Jump from someone who knows their Pokemon battles really well:
Between a Magikarp and a Golem (6013 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pokemon: Magikarp Jump (Video Game)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Summary: After a long reign as champion, Alex (trainer) finds themselves longing for something more. They later find themself in Hoppy Town . What are they doing there? Training Magikarp to just to extreme levels of course.
And two madness stories, which were both really great and exactly the sort of thing I like!
Falling Upward (543 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Round Planet (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Garth de la Spong (Round Planet), Tabitha Pippit-Whistle (Round Planet), Armstrong Wedgewood (Round Planet)
Additional Tags: Humor, Alcohol, Garth No, Garth YES!
Summary: Seven hours in the film vault, and Garth had enough tape for an entire nature documentary from the discarded clips from another documentary. Planet Something. Right. Round Planet. Practically the same thing, really.
Murderbot's Accidental Exchange Program (8605 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells, Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries), Justice of Toren One Esk Nineteen | Breq, Mercy of Kalr (Imperial Radch), Seivarden Vendaai, Gem of Sphene (Imperial Radch), Ekalu (Imperial Radch), Mercy of Kalr Kalr Five | Ettan
Additional Tags: mention of extreme violence, Cussing, Tea
Summary: What if Murderbot had needed to take a few more hops to get to Milu, and had found an uncrewed cargo ship to take it that way? And what if things had gotten... weird... during the journey?
I wrote one thing for Yuletide, and it's possibly the most obviously by-me thing that has ever been written, and I know I said that last year but I mean it even more this year. And the recip liked it! and so did a fair number of other people! So that's good. It's always reassuring when your anon fics don't do noticeably worse (or better) than your namespace ones.
I haven't read anything in the Yuletide collection this year except my gift fics, mostly because first I wanted to finish the new Murderbot book (A++, you should read it) and the new Rivers of London book (A++, you should read it) and the new Hamster Princess book (A++, you should read it) and the new Becky Chambers book and the Doctor Aphra trades (...still sitting on my to-read pile), all of which had come in from the library last month and I was saving until my yuletide writing was done. Maybe I will get in a few hours of collection-reading tonight, since I've decided to have a hermit New Year's Eve. (I think maybe I will try to get my friends together for Twelfth Night instead, since it's a weekend this year.)
Uh. I should probably do more of a year-end wrap-up this year, but ... it's been a weird year, where the good times were Great and there were also very long stretches of Not That. I dropped a lot of threads; I don't really feel like counting them. I failed my Goodreads reading challenge hard this year, wrote a lot more beginnings of stories than ends, and spent a lot of time putting one foot in front of the other. But I did keep doing that.
Anyway, I will pick the December Meme topics back up again next year, and maybe even FMK after that (stranger things have happened!)
Meanwhile here's that book list from
james_davis_nicoll.Bold = read
Italic = read something by the author
Underline = own it
* = everybody should read it right now
- = already had it on my "you should read it right now" list.
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (2014)
The Stolen Lake by Joan Aiken (1981)
-Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa (2001-2010)
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō by Hitoshi Ashinano (1994-2006)
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)
Stinz: Charger: The War Stories by Donna Barr (1987)
The Sword and the Satchel by Elizabeth Boyer (1980)
Galactic Sibyl Sue Blue by Rosel George Brown (1968)
The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold (1989)
War for the Oaks by Emma Bull (1987)
Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler (1980)
Naamah’s Curse by Jacqueline Carey (2010)
The Fortunate Fall by Raphael Carter (1996)
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (2015)
Red Moon and Black Mountain by Joy Chant (1970)
The Vampire Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas (1980)
Gate of Ivrel by C.J. Cherryh (1976)
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho (2015)
Diadem from the Stars by Jo Clayton (1977)
-The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper (1973)
Genpei by Kara Dalkey (2000)
Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard (2010)
The Secret Country by Pamela Dean (1985)
-Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany (1975)
*The Door into Fire by Diane Duane (1979)
On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis (2016)
Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott (2006)
Enchantress From the Stars by Sylvia Louise Engdahl (1970)
Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle (1983)
The Dazzle of Day by Molly Gloss (1997)
A Mask for the General by Lisa Goldstein (1987)
Slow River by Nicola Griffith (1995)
*Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly (1988)
Winterlong by Elizabeth Hand (1990)
Ingathering by Zenna Henderson (1995)
The Interior Life by Dorothy Heydt (writing as Katherine Blake, 1990)
-God Stalk by P. C. Hodgell (1982)
-Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson (1998)
Zero Sum Game by S.L. Huang (2014)
Blood Price by Tanya Huff (1991)
-The Keeper of the Isis Light by Monica Hughes (1980)
God’s War by Kameron Hurley (2011)
Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta (2014)
The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin (2015)
-Cart and Cwidder by Diane Wynne Jones (1975)
Daughter of Mystery by Heather Rose Jones (2014)
Hellspark by Janet Kagan (1988)
A Voice Out of Ramah by Lee Killough (1979)
St Ailbe’s Hall by Naomi Kritzer (2004)
-Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz (1970)
Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner (1987)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962)
-Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier (2005)
-The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin (1974)
*Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (2013)
Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee (Also titled Drinking Sapphire Wine, 1979)
-Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (2016)
Wizard of the Pigeons by Megan Lindholm (1986)
-Adaptation by Malinda Lo (2012)
-Watchtower by Elizabeth A. Lynn (1979)
Tea with the Black Dragon by R. A. MacAvoy (1983)
The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald (2007)
China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh (1992)
Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre (1978)
*The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia A. McKillip (1976)
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees (1926)
Pennterra by Judith Moffett (1987)
The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe (2010)
Jirel of Joiry by C. L. Moore (1969)
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2016)
The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy (1989)
Vast by Linda Nagata (1998)
Galactic Derelict by Andre Norton (1959)
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik (2006)
Dragon Sword and Wind Child by Noriko Ogiwara (1993)
Outlaw School by Rebecca Ore (2000)
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor (2014)
Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce (1983)
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy (1976)
Godmother Night by Rachel Pollack (1996)
Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti (1859)
My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland (2011)
The Female Man by Joanna Russ (1975)
Stay Crazy by Erika L. Satifka (2016)
-The Healer’s War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (1988)
Five-Twelfths of Heaven by Melissa Scott (1985)
-Everfair by Nisi Shawl (2016)
-Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski (1986)
The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart (1970)
-Up the Walls of the World by James Tiptree, Jr. (1978)
-The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (1996)
The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge (1980)
*All Systems Red by Martha Wells (2017)
*The Well-Favored Man by Elizabeth Willey (1993)
Banner of Souls by Liz Williams (2004)
Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson (2012)
Ariosto by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1980)
Ooku by Fumi Yoshinaga (2005-present)
(If you're interested in trying to read down this list, you should check out
elf's spreadsheet of which ones are available as free or non-DRM'd ebooks.)
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Edit: alif the unseen is also great
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Smashwords gives authors 85% of the take; that's the highest amount to authors of any of the ebook platforms. (The downside: their formatting options are limited, their search engine's terrible, and they're swamped with horrible un-edited dreck. But if you find content you like, you can be comfortable knowing SW isn't trying to screw the authors out of control of their books.)
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I lost some threads--and a lot of energy--this year also.
I was delighted with my gift--a charming Natsume's Book of Friends tale involving overdue library books, friendship, and implied (one-way at least) pairing of two characters I sort of ship together. I'll need to log into A03 soon and see if my recip liked their story.
I'd love to talk Guardian with you (I finished ep. 7 last night) via email if you like. No time pressure. My email is ekaterin "at" yahoo if you're interested.
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The US release retitling of RoL as Midnight Riot feels even more Entirely Missing the Point than it used to, to me - at the heart of the series are the Rivers, and the Folly learning to flow with them instead of stand apart and against them and with the other communities of the Demi-monde; Lesley and Peter, two different sides of the modern Met and what Police 'should' be, country and city, changed by magic and choosing magic, vigilante and vigilant; and Nightingale, a Merlin without a king who was lost and then grew young again, and gets a second chance of coming of age and coming of place and coming of continuity again.
Punch wasn't the major point; Punch was catalyst, sure, but there's more to London than riot and rebellion, and more to complicated and contested traditions of Newton than the formerly 'Faceless' man vs. the sanctioned society of the semi-wise.
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I actually feel a lot better about the first book after LS, though? First read-through kind of felt like he wanted to write a book about the Rivers but couldn't find enough story so he ended up shoehorning in a Punch-n-Judy thing with it* and the two plots never really had much to say to each other. Lies Sleeping finally brought it all back around, and I think a reread of the first one now would feel a lot more cohesive (...even though it probably still isn't really.)
*as an American who was not exposed to Punch and Judy until adulthood, I felt like three or four dark fantasy retellings pointing out how creepy it is were already enough for me, so it was hard for me to really care about that plot on first read anyway. Everybody except you knows that it's super creepy on first glance, England!
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