cyphomandra

This is not everything I read in July because I decided to read all of Pamela Cox's Malory Towers continuations for inexplicable reasons, but I'll push them all into August for review. Island of Ghosts, Space Invaders, and Inventing the Renaissance were my faves this month.

After the siren, Darcy Green. AFL m/m romance. Fan-fave Falcons player Jake and new recruit Theo get off to a very bad start; things improve. I really liked all the Australian bits of this. As a romance, it’s fine, but didn’t particularly rock my world.

The Little Larrikin, Ethel Turner. Turner has a lot of passion, which I like when she’s agitating for economic reform, workers’ rights and fair treatment of WWI soldiers with PTSD (Cub series) OR breaking my heart with noble suffering and self-sacrifice (see Seven Little Australians) but I am less keen on her a) terrible romances and b) turgid sentimentality, and this is positively dripping with both. Parentless family, all boys, trying to survive in Sydney, when rich family with unmarried daughters moves in round the corner. Love, misunderstandings, dramatic denouements, and of course the youngest boy ( the titular larrikin) keeps shoving in his oar and being cute. Apparently Ethel drew on her own romance with her husband for this.

The right St John’s, Christine Chaundler. Jacqueline has her boarding school paid for by an eccentric relations and is startled when it turns out to be a very luxurious one, albeit one that has not historically appreciated the merits of hard work and fair play. Jacqueline plays up and reforms the school but ALAS - she has been sent to the wrong but confusingly identically named school, and after this is revealed (by the resentful evil antagonist) must depart, woe. I do think EBD’s The Wrong Chalet School does this better.

The Chalet School in peril, Katherine Bruce. Fill-in that follows the school during The Chalet School in Exile, probably the best book in the series. This struggles under the weight of rather a lot of research about what was going on in Austria immediately before the Anschluss and also under the decision to start off with Betty Wynne-Davies as a protagonist. Betty is an irresponsible junior who doesn’t reform until a later book (I think Goes To It?) and so she can’t really develop much here; once again I really wish someone would do a chalet book with the lead not being English-speaking, because it’s really interesting seeing what happens to the Austria and German pupils, and there are bits I really like in this (e.g. the staff smuggling files into the basement to burn in the furnace, as they’re being watched by Nazis and need to destroy all pupil records). I thought this got better as it went along. Unfortunately cursed by a terrible AI cover that suggests a crossover with the Midwich Cuckoos (which, okay, I would actually read).

The Chalet girls grow up, Merryn Williams. So I then re-read this, the book that split the EBD fandom between those who found it an amusing take that at least attempted to deal with societal changes, esp for women, from the 50s to 80s, and those who found it an appalling blasphemy on the sacred texts. Almost all the men in this are particularly terrible (which makes the decision to conclude with a het romance not as comforting as I think the author intends) and it takes wild swipes at Joey & Mary-Lou in particular, but it’s also entertaining and written by someone who I think does genuinely love the original books; it’s just she’d like them to grow up a little.

Three act tragedy, Agatha Christie. I read this mainly because Mr Satterthwaite shows up in it and now I’m having trouble remembering most of the other details, but I do really like the revelation of the motive behind the first murder (and Poirot’s appalled comment).

End times, Rebecca Priestly. Priestly contrasts her experiences in the 80s as a punk teenager who ended up joining (temporarily) an evangelical church and her trip in 2021 to the West Coast of NZ, both done with her long term friend Max and both in the context of foretold apocalypses (whether from religion or science -climate change). I enjoyed this but felt it was more part of a conversation where I’d missed some earlier bits (possibly I should have started with her Antarctica book) and once again I would really like memoir writers if they’re planning on leaving out family & partners that they actually foreground this rather than them occasionally popping up only when absolutely unavoidable.

Catherine goes to school, Joanna Lloyd. Books to Treasure reprinted this one, which is otherwise very hard to find, and I am grateful for this because I would have been a bit miffed to spend a lot of money on it for completeness. Catherine is thrilled to go to school because she loves academia, and is startled when her schoolmates are less keen on learning for the joy of it; nevertheless, she throws herself into things with enthusiasm. It’s fun - Lloyd’s dry sense of humour and her characters’ inability to take themselves too seriously are there - but but it’s more episodic than the sequel or Jane, both of which I like very much, and there are a few bits that really don’t work for me (if you let your dog off the lead and it kills someone else’s chickens I do not find this an amusing anecdote of lighthearted carelessness).

Audrey, a new girl, Joanna Lloyd (re-read). Then I read this one, in which Audrey shows up expecting Bramber Manor to be just like the school stories, including believing all the terrible things Lalage tells her o the first day (one of the teachers is an alcoholic, she mustn’t mention parsnips in front of one of the girls, etc). Entertaining and better than Catherine Goes, but I still like the middle two the best. There is a fifth book that I have yet to read.

Inventing the renaissance, Ada Palmer. I did not like Palmer’s sf (or at least not the first two volumes) but I do like her blog and I did like this. Lots of overview, lots of pictures (in addition to which I was constantly looking up even more art), and then following different characters through, with the final one being Machiavelli, and all of it grappling with the central question of what is the renaissance, what/how/who defines it, and why it remains relevant. Thought-provoking and very readable.

Island of ghosts, Gillian Bradshaw (re-read). Ariantes is the leader of a group of Samartians, steppe-riding barbarians, defeated by Rome and thus now ruled by them, sent to Britain to reinforce the defences at Hadrian’s Wall; he’s grieving his wife and child, the more he understands the Romans the more he risks losing touch with his own people, and when he uncovers a conspiracy things become even more complicated. I like this book a lot although I think the last time I re-read it was possibly after watching the deeply irritating 2004 King Arthur movie, which also features Samartians but is otherwise pretty dire. It’s good on recovery and community-building, and doesn’t gloss over the fairly terrible practices of pretty much everyone involved.

Crypt of the moon spider, Nathan Ballingrud. Atmospheric novella in which Veronica’s husband has her committed to an asylum for the melancholic on the moon, where the director experiments with moon spider silk and the erasing of memories. Some nice vivid body horror bits and apparently the first in a trilogy, but it hasn’t actually left me with the desire to pick up the next one.

Space invaders, Nona Fernández. From rachelmanija's rec - excellent, unnerving story about grief and memory, revolving round the disappearance of one of a class of 12 year olds during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Very, very good.

Super Nintendo: the game-changing company that unlocked the power of play, Keza Macdonald. History of Nintendo, with an overview and then discussing several of their most noted games/game franchises, which does mean a certain amount of repetition but also allows for different angles to be taken on the same material (also, it means I can skip past the discussion of Ocarina of Time, which I’m currently playing for the first time, without hopefully stumbling into spoilers elsewhere). I am still never going to love Mario (I don’t think) but this did make me want to try some of the games, as well as the Metroid series. (Keza writes for the Guardian's games section)

A place to stand; a country doctor’s life in Hokianga, Clare Ward. Memoirish about her work and becoming part of the Hokianga, heavily grounded in her te reo journey. I like the writing and the grounding in the place but there’s no real pace or arc here, many of the pieces could be shuffled round with no real change.

There is no Antimemetics Division, qntm. Initially posted online in the SCP collaborative writing project, now revised and republished as a novel. The Antimemetics Division exists to protect humanity from things that they don’t and cannot understand; things that rewrite or erase memory, hiding themselves while they disable the ability of others to fight against them - a battle they are constantly losing. Marie Quinn (Marian Wheeler in the online version) is head of the division and having a series of very bad days. It does still have a bit of an episodic feel to it, and the second half is not as strong as the first, but I enjoyed it.

Excellent and troubling account of the development of AI, comparing it to colonial empires (or corporations, such as the East India Company) in the way it systematically extracts resources from marginalised communities in the service of, basically, making the companies involved wealthier, more powerful, and more immune from any sort of responsibility for their many terrible outcomes. I suspect most people reading this will not need more reasons to hate AI, but this is very good for specifics and consolidating my concerns.

( Things I hadn’t known before: )

Anyway. I tend to replay the Horizon series when I’m feeling depressed about humanity’s likely self-extinction, and each time they feel more and more prescient. I might have to go back and wipe out Ted Faro again.

In the heady aftermath of finishing FFVII Rebirth I picked up The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt and started playing that. I have not played either of the previous Witchers, nor read the books nor seen the TV series, but it seemed reasonable enough to pick up. However I got about eight hours in - I’m just finishing up the Bloody Baron storyline - and although I wasn’t not enjoying it, I also wasn’t really synching with it. It’s grim (local peasantry crushed down by the ongoing wars, rape and death everywhere) and while I do like dark storylines and tragedy, I like them much if they’re part of a spectrum of emotional experiences rather than a relentlessly mud-coloured slog. Possibly this may change? Even the fetch quests tend to be “find this person - oh look, they’re dead”, although I have had one where I got to shake a little bell in order to get a goat to follow me and no one killed the goat by the end of it. But right now I’m escorting the Baron clutching his miscarried foetus that was shapeshifting into a vengeance spirit, with extensive sides of domestic abuse, alcoholism, and attempted murder, and it it’s juuust noooot fun.

(I am also having trouble with the combat. Am I crap at blocking/parrying unless the game forces me to get good at it? Yes, but also the combat feels like I or the enemies are not quite synching up, there’s an adrenaline point mechanic I have failed to get the hang of, and the runes look interesting but I really need a lot more levels to customise my build. A colleague was saying how much he enjoyed the combat and I think I need to get him to go through it with me to see if that helps)

So I dug out Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I played this prior to my sabbatical three years ago and got all of the temples, shrines, and sages, but still had some mini quests and some of the main storyline to go; I then didn’t play it for months while moving, and when I eventually picked it up again it was too tricky to remember what had happened, so I started again and did the sky tutorial area and then the air temple. And then I put it down *again*, but at least that meant I could start without having to go through the tutorial area again. I’ve now added the lightning and water temples, and about 60 shrines - haven’t done much in the depths yet. TotK, like BotW, is a game where it’s so easy to get side-tracked, because there’s so much to find, and while it certainly has tragedy (I just completed the dragon’s tears quest line, which I knew was going to be soul-crushing but it still got me) it is also goofy and fun and full of life.

And then Summer Game Fest was on last Saturday! I’d heard rumours, so I checked in and watched the last half hour, and I was richly rewarded with FOUR trailers for the next Final Fantasy VII game, and the announcement that it would be titled Revelation and coming out on all platforms spring (northern hemisphere) next year. I am super excited. The world looks great (Wutai! Mideel!), they’ve added job classes in the form of new outfits for everyone (a neat solution to losing the strongest mage), Cid and Vincent are both playable, you get the High Wind and parachutes for everyone, and it looks fantastic. The trailers were pretty light on the Cloud Sephiroth Zack storyline, which they seem to be deliberately keeping back, but the hints were great. I’m so thrilled.

(Also Nintendo yesterday announced an Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake that will be out later this year! I’ve played bits of it but found it hard to get the controls to work when using the Switch, and while I do have a 3DS somewhere it’s not a console I’ve ever used much. Sooo - try and play the original, or hold off until the remake?)

Last night I finally beat Bonds of Friendship, the hardest combat challenge in FFVII Rebirth and the only thing standing between me and the platinum trophy. You play as Zack (with a fixed load out) and Cloud, and fight your way through ten boss fights, all of which are difficult and the last of which, Odin, is a nightmare; you cannot pause between fights, skip any fights, use items or change your load out once you start. Most of the bosses can one-shot you and/or have nasty attacks that make it very hard to continue (e.g. paralysis, silencing so you can’t cast spells, a gravity-based attack that reduces your HP to 1).

Odin himself is mounted on Sleipnir, is extremely fast, and fights in three phases; the first he uses a spear, the second a sword, the third both, and in all phases he has attacks that while blockable will put bracelets on your character and mean that any attack spell they cast will be met with an unblockable reprisal before your spell has even hit them, as well as a few unblockable (but dodgeable) attacks for good measure. If you are hit by too many attacks and/or fail to damage Odin enough, he gets bored and will give you a single warning before delivering an unavoidable whole party kill, Zantetsuken. At phase two he is able to cast Spatial Distortion and split the arena in two; one half has a burning floor that rapidly drains your health. At phase three he uses Temporal Distortion to trap one of your characters in a time bubble, unable to move/act but still able to be damaged, but this can be avoided if your character triggers their Limit Break as they are attacked. I did a lot of practising against Odin at full power in solo battles with Cloud in the VR simulator and can take him there, but he’s significantly stronger and faster in the Bonds battle.

And first you have to get to him. I have now died to all the bosses along the way many, many times, with the exception of round 3, which is against Phoenix and is accordingly very difficult to die on. Rounds 2 & 4 can suddenly go badly early on if I don’t dodge quickly enough at the start and get my buffs up; round 6 is against Ironclad, a massive giant with a very large sword, and often I would end up with only one conscious character doing laps around the arena with 1 HP desperately regenerating ATB. Round 7 has Alexander, a mechanical city, who after a number of battles I would usually be able to take out easily but occasionally for no good reason would kill Cloud unexpectedly and leave Zack stranded. Round 8 is the Mindflayer, who uses psychic attacks but is weak to synergy; this was usually doable once I got the hang of it and stopped remembering just how annoying soloing this with Cait Sith was. Round 9 is Bahamut, who has complicated mechanics involving form transformation and particles, and again either this went well or it went downhill rapidly and I ended up sliced into pieces. I got significantly better at blocking, dodging, and using synergy moves while I worked on this.

I spent several weeks tackling this, got frustrated, and abandoned it in favour of a new run on Stardew Valley, where for the first time I have managed to catch all the fish (including the five legendaries), ship all the stuff, acquire all the golden walnuts, and craft all the things, so now all I need is another 10 million gold to buy the clock and I will reach Perfection, woo hoo. I did a bit more Bonds and kept dying to Odin if I even got there. I tried Cyberpunk 2077 and decided that I should probably play it after the kids are asleep or else get headphones as it is definitely an adult game, I tried Ghost of Yotei and yes it looks lovely but it is also very grim. I did a few more days on Blue Prince, unlocked another trail on Lonely Mountains Downhill, and basically dithered. I couldn’t get into another game while my heart was still in Rebirth.

About a week ago I realised that on June 3rd FFVII Rebirth was coming out on the Switch 2, and at that time the streamlined progression option is likely to be unlocked for all platforms, which basically enables god mode. I really wanted to get the platinum before that, so I picked up Bonds again. On Sunday I got to Odin five times and got him into the third phase twice; on Monday I got to him twice and got into the second phase once. Last night I got to him but both Zack and Cloud got trapped on the wrong side of Spatial Distortion, and died rapidly. I tried again. I got wiped out on round 9, twice, 2 once, 7 once, got to Odin again, got him into phase 2, lost Zack, evaded Temporal Distortion with a limit break and then managed to pressure Odin just long enough to get off a level 3 wind spell and push him into a stagger. And kill him.

This is definitely the hardest platinum I’ve ever done, and I relied heavily on guides, mainly Optinoob and Solestro for the battles as well as random people in the comments and on Reddit. I am really really glad I eventually made it through. I do wish for story reasons that I’d been able to do more with Zack’s mechanics. You can only play him and Sephiroth in the simulator, and they each have a very short training challenge and then a long difficult battle challenge with Cloud. Sephiroth has a spin attack that builds his limit very fast, and I used that quite a bit in Rulers of the Outer Worlds , but Zack’s mechanics require you to play as him for long chunks of time (he charges up his attack to level 3) and the game guides were all based around using Zack to buff/heal etc while Cloud did the majority of the fighting and damage. I have seen a video in which someone solos Bonds with Zack, and while that looks totally unachievable, I might go back and try some of the earlier rounds using Zack as primary DPS.

Am I finished with Rebirth? Not… yet. I am working on a fic that requires me to replay one of the chapters, plus I have not actually 100%’d the game, although I do not think I can actually be bothered scanning every single enemy. But I do feel much more satisfied with it, and hopefully I will be able to get into something new now as well.

The mysterious affair at Styles (1921)
The murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
The big four (1927)
Peril at End house (1932)
Lord Edgeware dies (1933)
Death in the clouds (1935)
Cards on the table (1936)
The ABC murders (1936)
Dumb witness (1937)
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (1938)
Sad cypress (1940)
Sparkling cyanide (1945)
Death comes as the end (1945)
Taken at the flood (1948)
Crooked house (1949)
Mrs McGinty’s dead (1952)
Dead man’s folly (1956)
Cat among the pigeons (1959)
The clocks (1963)
Miss Marple’s final cases (1979)

About 20 years ago I sat a professional exam the preparation for which took up considerable amounts of my reading time, and as a reward for passing it I decided I would read all Agatha Christie’s detective stories in chronological order. I promptly ran aground on the jingoistic global conspiracy ones that are laden with racial and national stereotypes and bailed before I got very far, but nearly ten years ago I read all the Miss Marples in order, which worked a lot better, and vaguely thought about going back and doing the same with Poirot.

I am still not entirely sure what happened but I read all of these in totally chaotic order (I have put them in a neat chronological list for this because it's interesting) since the beginning of April, and they’re not all Poirots, either. I did have to spend four days supervising work that requires me to do something every 20 minutes and then sit there watching for the rest of the time just in case I had to suddenly do something extremely crucial, which certainly lent itself towards reading, and also some of the library Libby editions had a bit of an explanatory note at the back with some critical appraisal, so I did check for ones that looked unfamiliar. Of this lot, I definitely haven’t read Death Comes as the End before - it’s her historical ancient Egypt one - and I’m not sure I’ve read Lord Edgeware Dies, Dead Man’s Folly or Miss Marple’s Final Cases (short stories) either.

Yes, there are terrible moments of racism (this time around I was particularly appalled at the bit in Death in the Clouds where two characters compare their interests in the hope of finding common ground - “They disliked loud voices, noisy restaurants, and Negroes.” - and while Carlotta Adams in Lord Edgeware Dies is an interesting and sympathetic character, the bit where Poirot points out to Hastings that she’s Jewish and thus may be led into danger through her fondness for money is unpleasant, especially for a book published in 1933. But I do like many of her plots, and some of her characters. Poirot, obviously, with his eccentricities, (usual) keen perception, and fondness for setting little traps for people to reveal themselves unexpectedly (in Cards on the Table, he suspects a young woman might have stolen from a previous careless employer; he asks her, vaguely, to select the best six pairs of French silk stockings from a muddled pile as a gift for an imaginary niece, and when he counts them again afterwards two pairs have vanished). In The Clocks, late in Christie’s oeuvre, Poirot has another young sidekick who has brought him a mystery to solve, and I do like Poirot’s description of him as a terrier wagging his tail as he brings a nice fat rat to his master (a master who should, if he was a policeman prior to WWI, be considerably aged and non mobile in 1963).

The later books also have Ariadne Oliver, the dishevelled apple-eating detective novelist who is tied by public expectations to her serial Finnish detective, and I like her a lot. Hastings has waned on me over the years - so clueless! So hopelessly hidebound, and terrible with women - and The Big Four (which I loved as a child, as it was the first book I’d read in which the main character faked his own death and came back as his brother, and I thought that was brilliant), which requires Hastings to “help” Poirot investigate a dire global conspiracy has far too much of him and it’s all mostly bad. But. She wrote this when her life was falling apart, as a fix-up of various short stories with the conspiracy as a throughline, it was the year after the brilliant The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and whatever else its many flaws, it rattles along with relentless enthusiasm and a certain self-aware humour - “Do you not know that all celebrated detectives have brothers who would be even more celebrated then they are were it not for constitutional indolence?" Poirot asks Hastings, who has been startled to hear of Poirot’s (imaginary) brother Achilles, and I have to laugh.

Poirot is funny quite often - in Taken in the Flood, a post-war book with bitter family infighting, a character is holding forth on the mysterious dangers of Africa:

“[…] a country where a man could disappear and never be heard of again.”
“Possibly, possibly,” said Poirot. “But the same is true of Piccadilly Circus.”

And earlier in 1937’s Dumb Witness, in which Hastings spends much of the time talking to the dog responsible for the title:

“After all this is a free country.”
“English people seem to labour under that misapprehension,” murmured Poirot.

Murderwise, I prefer the murderer not to start stacking up more bodies as soon as Poirot investigates - I think it’s in Sayer’s Unnatural Death where Wimsey actually addresses this directly , that his investigations have caused more deaths than if he’d left things covered up, but Poirot is never troubled by this (he does, notoriously, cover up one investigation, but I think that - and also And Then There Were None - are to a significant degree grappling with justice in a society with capital punishment; but again this is something Sayers digs deeper into).

I am not going to go through them all now, especially as I'm also now reading her memoir of being on an archeological dig (Come, Tell Me How you Live) and her autobiography and another couple of detective stories, but I will make a brief note here to myself to consider writing more about her treatment of adoption (odd in interesting ways) and servants (historical interest), and that latter one takes me into a brief bit about Death Comes as the End, which is set in Thebes around 2000BC. What struck me about this was the focus on one particular family, without any indication of who was Pharaoh or what was being fought over or which Pyramid was being constructed (common features in other historicals set in Ancient Egypt) as well as the no doubt terribly well-informed descriptions of all the household objects. And yes, servants (and slaves), and I suspect Christie enjoyed putting discussions about how to manage prickly longstanding servants of the house in, which to her no doubt felt timeless.

I have now finished chapter 13 of FFVII Rebirth on hard mode and I have 87 of the 88 items required for Johnny's treasure trove. What now stands between me and completion is a) finishing Chadley's Brutal and Legendary Challenges (I've done all 6 Brutal and 7 of the 9 Legendary) and b) finishing chapter 14 on hard mode. (I did the piano! I got my son to operate one stick while I did the other, and it only took half a dozen attempts. Flushed with success we then attempted Let the Battles Begin, which is the reward piece, and did appallingly :D )

Unfortunately the last two legendary challenges are total nightmares. Ten rounds, fighting as Cloud and Zack for Bonds of Friendship (I have made it to the 5th round, once, after many, many attempts) or as Cloud and Sephiroth for To Be a Hero (the 4th round, ditto, ditto), and because Zack and Sephiroth are not playable characters you cannot change their loadouts. Technically Sephiroth's challenge should be easier because he is a stronger character but alas because he is also the villain that I have spent so much time fighting against I tend to put off healing him and instead feel vaguely satisfied when he gets stomped into the ground AGAIN and this is not helping :D

Chapter 13 was great though - I'd forgotten a lot of it, the way Cloud is so increasingly cold and unreachable, the bit where they start fighting on the same side as the Turks (against fiends) and then end up fighting against them, the individual trials for all the characters except Cloud. The Temple is a fantastic, unnerving setting, and the gravity shifts work much better now that I know I've solved them once.

I can't quite decide whether to push on with chapter 14 or to try and get at least one of the remaining challenges first. If I get To Be a Hero and do chapter 14, I will max out Cloud's weapon, which means he'll do more damage and it should make the last challenge easier (!). However, spending entire evenings getting nowhere is not all that relaxing, and I keep eyeing my unplayed games (current frontrunners - Cyberpunk 2077, the Witcher III, and Ghost of Yotei - feel free to put in your preferences).

While dithering, I picked up Stardew Valley and did a new playthrough. I'd looked at a min-max guide for ideas, and it really emphasises fishing early (for income and because if you're good at the fishing mini game that transfers over to your next playthrough, whereas a lot of your other expertise is locked behind XP levels). It definitely helped, although I didn't get a truffle before winter and there were none at the travelling cart, so I finished the community centre on day 2 of Spring. I am also significantly better at Skull Cavern dives than I used to be - I got down to level 100 with only two staircases, and I've picked up 9 prismatic shards.

The earl meets his match, TJ Alexander
But not too bold, Hache Pueyo
I’m thinking of ending things, Iain Reid
Everything but the medicine: a doctor’s tale, Lucy O’Hagan
Crash test, Amy James
Brat Farrar, Josephine Tey
The Detective, Matthew Reilly


The earl meets his match, TJ Alexander. I picked this up after abandoning a terrible historical m/m romance that lacked both historical setting and believable romance, and while this was better it’s still not great. T4T soft romance in which an Earl (Christopher) reluctantly leaves the comfort and privacy of his estate due to an provision in his father’s will that requires him to be married by 25 to keep his inheritance; he hires the distractingly handsome James as a valet to help keep up appearances, but events ensue, etc. I had issues with the will in the first place and also with Christopher as an Earl (does he run the estate? Where are all his tenants and staff etc?) and the lack of genuine conflict as well as finding both characters a bit underdeveloped. I did think the bit where Christopher becomes Christopher (after his twin brother is washed overboard in a storm) hinted at something darker and more complicated - he is literally stealing his brother’s clothes before anyone’s even tried to retrieve the brother, but this didn’t play out.

But not too bold, Hache Pueyo. The eldritch spider-goddess Anatema who rules over Capricious House has eaten the Keeper of the Keys, and Dália, her protegée, must take on the role - and also investigate the crime the Keeper died for. But Anatema is constantly searching for a new bride, and Dália is both beautiful and intelligent - sapphic monster gothic, heavy on the vibes. I liked it and it works at novella-length but could have done with a bit more plot and a relationship that didn't lean so heavily on Dália's looks.

I’m thinking of ending things, Iain Reid. A het couple are driving through the gathering darkness to the isolated rural farm of the guy’s (Jake’s) parents; the book is from the pov of Jake’s unnamed girlfriend, who is no longer committed to the relationship, intrigued by this glimpse into a past Jake doesn’t talk about, and hiding the fact that she is receiving mysterious and inexplicable phone calls from her own number. .I liked the writing and I liked the unnerving, atmospheric feel of the book - it’s very much dreamlike, intensely vivid and increasingly incohesive - but the characters are difficult to like, and while there is a story reason for the overbearing intellectual bullying Jake inflicts on his girlfriend, you still have to read it before you know that.

Everything but the medicine: a doctor’s tale, Lucy O’Hagan. Memoir of a NZ GP, her life and career, focusing on how she develops her own personal values (through hardship, through mistakes, through burnout) and brings them into the consulting room to meet and understand her patients. Thoughtful and interesting, a bit bitsy at times but a solid read.

Crash test, Amy James. F1 driver Travis Keeping is secretly in a relationship with an up-and-coming F2 driver, Jacob, but when Jacob is seriously injured in a crash, and Travis is unable to keep away and ends up outing both of them to Jacob’s homophobic family, everything starts to fall apart. I did like Travis while wishing we got more racing and less (paraphrased) “I felt terrible. I went out and won another race.” but Jacob is a fairly terrible boyfriend, internalised homophobia or not, and although he does do a lot of work on himself it’s all stuff that Travis doesn’t see before taking him back (to a chorus of swelling violins etc). I do think it’s an interesting failure though and I have put the sequel on hold.

Brat Farrar, Josephine Tey. I was reading an extract of Kate Camp’s (NZ writer) memoir and realised way, way, too belatedly, that her mum was my favourite English teacher (in my defence she did use her maiden name). Elaine Lynskey was a fantastic English teacher even if she never really understood my fondness for genre, and among many other things she lent me her copy of Brat Farrar, which she herself had borrowed permanently from the school library (the library card has a date well before I ever started at that school and a totally different name), and it was helpfully sticking out of the shelf at me so I re-read it (I realise “lent” may not be the appropriate word here given that I obviously still have her copy many years later but I could always give it back). I do love the book and I would say it’s despite its really appallingly snobbery, but I can't because the snobbery is so inherent in every part of the story, plot and character and tone. It wouldn’t be a story if Brat didn’t have a familial fondness for horses and for a specific English estate, nor would it be a story if his murderous not-actual twin wasn’t equally a creation of that society. But I do love it anyway, and the bit where Brat wrestles with his knowledge and what to do with it, redeems a lot.

The Detective, Matthew Reilly. Sam Speedman is a private detective with autism who despite being short, slight, and wearing glasses, manages to pull off a daring rescue of a kidnapped scientist in the opening pages, and then finally gets a lead on the one case he has never solved, a case which saw his mentor disappear without trace (although his eyes were later sent to his family) a case that will lead him into the dark heart of American racism etc etc. Sam teams up with Audrey, an African-American FBI agent investigating the mysterious disappearance of her partner, after an infant’s body is found stashed inside an old doll, and DNA analysis shows that the baby’s mother is one of the women whose disappearance his mentor was investigating, and then there are a number of set pieces (with diagrams; I would read fewer Reilly books if I weren't fond of these, but these ones are sadly lacking in the bizarre inventiveness of those of the Seven Ancient Wonders series) across the American South (alligators, flooded cemeteries, mine shafts, creepy estates etc) as the two of them discover a secret conspiracy of slave-keeping families. It is not a great book, I’m not sure it’s occurred to Reilly that if he’s appalled at the state of race relations in the US (he puts in a number of real references) that making up stuff isn’t terribly helpful, and it’s worse on female characters than Reilly usually is (Sam is a virgin who eats lunch at Hooters everyday because it’s predictable and the women there are nice to him; he ends up sleeping with a grateful Audrey after he rescues her from an attempted gang rape by various slave-keeping henchmen), and maybe I should finally get around to reading his historical young Queen Elizabeth novel The Tournament, which gets significantly better reviews and might leave me feeling less irked.

The War that Saved My Life was my favourite this month - I liked bits of the others but nothing that was entirely successful for me.

The war that saved my life, Kimberley Brubaker Bradley (re-read).
Havoc, Rebecca Wait.
Tragedy at Pike River Mine, Rebecca Macfie.
Heels over head, Elyse Springer.
The death of us, Abigail Dean.
Cinder house, Freya Maske.
Billy Summers, Stephen King
Every step she takes, Alison Cochrun.

The war that saved my life, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Locked away and abused by her evil mother for having a club foot, Ada’s chance for an actual life comes when her brother and his friends are evacuated to the countryside in the early days of WWII and she manages to go with them. They’re placed (reluctantly) with Susan, who is grieving the death of her female lover, and basically this remains an intensely satisfying recovery/family-building/humanising story, with horses.

Havoc, Rebecca Wait. Teenage Ida flees her and her mother’s disgrace (I think they’re in the Shetlands or the Hebrides, so lots of small-town social ostracism) by organising her own scholarship to an eccentric, failing, English girls’ boarding school (in the 1980s, which I feel I should specify given my fondness for elderly boarding school stories); but her new room mate is an arsonist, a new teacher is lying about his past, and there’s a strange epidemic of compulsive twitching and seizures slowly spreading through the school… This is black comedy, readable and well-written, and I like the girls’ plot lines. I wasn’t that thrilled about the bits from the staff povs and I did feel the denouement was lacking in punch, but I liked it.

Tragedy at Pike River Mine, Rebecca Macfie. I took my mother to see the Pike River movie, about the disaster that killed 29 miners, and got curious about some of the background; this book goes through the many, many terrible decisions made by the people who built the mine in the first place (“We’re going to be cheaper and more efficient because we’ve never built a mine before so we’re not hampered by pre-conceived ideas” was basically their approach, with a lot of doubling-down when anything went wrong - the coal-cutting machines, for example, couldn’t handle the slope and broke down multiple times per shift, but although more reliable replacements were available management were convinced that it was just the miners complaining) and the cover-up in the immediate aftermath of the disaster (I hadn’t really followed this as the original explosion was between the September and February Chch earthquakes). The movie focuses on the friendship between two women who lost men in the mine (one her husband, one her son - her other son was one of the two survivors who were able to get out after the first explosion), played by Robyn Malcom and Melanie Lynskey, both excellent as always; it does end on a surprisingly upbeat note and yet the whole thing is still dragging on legally even now (the book keeps getting updated). Thorough, but not overwhelming.

Heels Over Head, Elyse Springer. Jeremy is on track to compete in diving at the Olympics and has no time for anything or anyone else, not least the new raw talent tattooed and publicly out diver Brandon, whom Jeremy’s coach has just offered to train. They fall in love, Jeremy’s homophobic redneck family say horrible things, Jeremy & Brandon are stunning at pairs diving, Brandon quietly makes himself homeless when he doesn’t want to bother anyone about why funding hasn’t come through, Jeremy works himself up over the Olympics and feels he has to break up with Brandon etc etc. I did like quite a bit of this but Jeremy is hard work and Brandon is two-dimensional. The diving is fun? But the book ends a day or so before the Olympics themselves, which does leave one hanging.

The Death of Us, Abigail Dean. I read and didn’t much like Dean’s Girl A, in which Girl A escapes a House of Horrors (quasi religious abusive large family) only to end up having to confront her past when her jailed mother dies and leaves her the house. I liked this a bit more but I don’t think I’d read another of hers. Isabelle and Edward meet, fall in love, and make a life together - a life which is torn apart violently when they become the victims of a serial rapist (and murderer), the South London Invader. Years afterwards, the Invader is caught - Isabelle and Edward, now long separated, meet up again at court and start to work through what went wrong.

Cinder House, Freya Marske. Cinderella retelling that starts with Ella’s death, as she tumbles down the stairs of her house and becomes its ghost, bound to its physical form. Her stepmother and stepsisters learn that they can force Ella to do household chores by threatening the house, but then Ella makes a bargain with a fairy charm-seller that earns her three nights, no more, where she can leave the house, and be part of the living world again… The ghost/house bits are great and I also liked Ella, but this is pitched as queer and while Ella is bi, the grand central romance is still Ella/male prince, so I can understand the annoyance on GoodReads.

Billy Summers, Stephen King. Billy was a (US) sniper in Iraq. Now he kills for money - only bad guys - and he’s just taken one last job, which involves going under cover in a small town where he will live in a quiet suburban house and spend each day sitting in an office (with a convenient view of a key building), writing his memoir. Billy takes pains to ensure people think he’s a lot stupider than he actually is, to fly under the radar, but the process of writing his memoir is forcing him confront his real identity; and then he endangers his cover by rescuing a young woman who’s been drugged, gang-raped and dumped on the roadside. This is solid King as crime-writer (although every so often there’s a mention of the Shining, as the characters take to the relevant mountains), and I always enjoy his pacing. Billy’s relationship with Alice doesn’t always work for me (and surely she has some other friends, even if she’s estranged from her family?).

Every step she takes, Alison Cochrun. Overly responsible Sadie gets the chance to escape her family business responsibilities when her sister, a travel blogger, is unable to walk the Camino de Santiago due to injury. Turbulence on the flight over leads to Sadie coming out to the hot queer woman sitting next to her, convinced that she is about to die without ever really grappling with her own sexual identity, but then they don’t crash, her sister has failed to tell Sadie the tour is explicitly queer, and the hot queer woman, Mal, is also on it. Mal offers to be Sadie’s hot gay mentor EVEN though she’s secretly attracted to Sadie and I’m sure you can see exactly where this is going (the “I’ve never kissed a woman, show me” is okay but by the time Sadie was ordering Mal to have sex with her because otherwise she never would I was having significant boundary issues). I don’t know why Cochrun consistently writes characters with the emotional maturity of teenagers (Sadie is supposed to be 35) but in many ways this would have worked much better for me if they’d been early 20s at most and also if Mal wasn’t secretly the incredibly rich heir to a Portuguese winery empire. I did like bits of it and I did have to have a pastel de nata (okay, two) from the local Portuguese tart makers after reading, but I do wonder whether I should keep trying with Cochrun.

2025 has been my most productive year for sometime! I posted ~37K of fanfic, 7 Final Fantasy and 2 Yuletide. I posted earlier about the FFVII fics I wrote for candyheartsex and seasonsofdrabbles, and I've done Yuletide, but here are the others:

I picked up a pinch hit for the Whump Exchange and then had it bounced by the mod for containing a recipient DNW, which was non con. What I thought I’d written was rough sex, which the recipient explicitly did want and I thought it was quite clear the characters did too, so I was a bit miffed and even more so when the mod reassigned the fic to someone else without first giving me the chance to fix mine but fine, I sent regrets and an apology to the mod in a mature adult fashion and then sulked for DAYS until it was less than 24 hours before author reveals, at which point I cut all the sex out and tweaked the fic to make it work as a recipient treat. I wanted to focus on Genesis’s degradation (this has a specific medical meaning in FFVII) and one particular image that got a hold of me, and it still works for that; Genesis and Sephiroth shoving each other against walls and being bitey will just have to wait for another time.

Ripping Myself Off (1317 words) by Cyphomandra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Genesis Rhapsodos/Sephiroth
Characters: Genesis Rhapsodos, Sephiroth (Compilation of FFVII)
Additional Tags: Body Horror, Serious Injuries, Whump
Summary:

Genesis and Sephiroth, after the incident in the training room.

My lingering irritation at this meant that when I then saw another pinch hit (for my Chocolate Box recipient) for a non con exchange I pounced on that just to prove I could write non con intentionally. I wrote 3.6K of yes totally definitely non con for the deadline and then added another 15K (!) before the collection opened because I felt bad for the characters and wanted to get them to a slightly better place, which does possibly indicate that I am still doing the challenge wrong. Back in the lab again with Zack and Cloud, and it was interesting because I went into the fic expecting Cloud to be the one to do all the suffering, but it’s actually Zack who ended up the most tormented. Despite that, it’s still more upbeat than canon. I am currently resisting the urge to add more (not least because I think Cloud is going to fall apart spectacularly a few more days after the fic ends).

Exposure Protocol (16852 words) by Cyphomandra
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth (Video Games 2020-2024)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Relationships: Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Characters: Zack Fair, Cloud Strife, Hojo (Compilation of FFVII)
Additional Tags: Warning: Hojo (Compilation of FFVII), Human Experimentation, Mad Scientists, Bad Guys Made Them Do It, Rape/Non-con Elements, Whump, nobody expects the seventh infantry, Love Interest Rapes Them to Prevent Something Worse, canon AU
Summary:

“…rate of mako uptake and binding to DNA-linked receptors can be predicted via measurement of specific pharmacokinetic parameters (see table 1). In individuals with poor profiles (predicted uptake <5% of normal), toxicosis is common. Typically high dose oral has been used in this setting, but the failure rate remains unacceptably high. In this article I outline, with detailed case studies, three new methods of achieving effective levels without such shortcomings; rectal adminstration, externalisation of the large gut with mesenteric perfusion, and removal of at least 50% of dermis in conjunction with mako baths. Note is also made of the role of partially pre-metabolised mako sourced from high-mako individuals…”

from Overcoming mako toxicosis: a paradigm shift. Hojo et al. Research and Development, Shinra Electric Power Company.

[in submission]

In the 24 hours or so before the collection went live and before I did final edits, I wrote two drabble treats for the Summer Season of Drabbles, both FFVII again, one Cloud/Rufus and one Cid/Vincent; I can see where shippers for both pairings are coming from but I haven’t tried to write them before, so this was fun. I then almost had another DNW moment when I did a casual last minute check and found that one prompter DNW’d present tense, necessitating a rewrite of that treat - followed by total panic until I checked my non con recipient as I’d written the whole thing in present tense, but fortunately they only DNW’d sensible things like het.

Handover (100 words) by Cyphomandra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth (Video Games 2020-2024), Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rufus Shinra/Cloud Strife
Characters: Rufus Shinra, Cloud Strife
Additional Tags: Glove Kink, Flirting, Treat, Drabble
Summary:

Rufus wants to send a message.

Regular Maintenance (100 words) by Cyphomandra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth (Video Games 2020-2024), Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Cid Highwind/Vincent Valentine
Characters: Cid Highwind, Vincent Valentine
Additional Tags: Get Together, Drabble, Treat
Summary:

Cid gets some assistance with the Bronco - and offers some in return.

(I then plodded slowly onwards with another Zakkura long fic, but although this is now pushing 10k the ending is still very far off and I could not get momentum. I signed up for wip big bang in the hope it would help, but noooo.)

Writing goals for next year: finish something that's not for an exchange. Try and match/exceed word count.

Dear Confectioner,

Thanks so much for creating a bonbon for me! Really anything in these would be great, but here are some directions:

Writingwise: in general, I like humour, excitement, angst (if justified – not massive amounts of agonising over accidentally returning character X's library book before they finished it), food, moments of peace amongst activity, things that give me new thoughts about canon, and things that bring me back to feeling like I’m experiencing the canon again for the first time. I'm fine with ratings from G to Explicit. I like experimental formats - epistolary, IF, found documents etc.

Romantic tropes I like include sharing a bed, undercover as a couple, forced to seek refuge in a Canadian (equivalents accepted) shack etc. Two of my requests (Horizon and DCC) are for platonic relationships and for these I really like shared low-key activities (as a respite from the canon!), or moments of character. For both, I like non-mundane AUs, like psychic wolf companions, daemons, or Sentinel-Guide. I don't usually like mundane AUs for canons with sf/f elements but if you put your coffeeshop in space and add enough aliens I will probably like it.

Artwise: I like a range of styles, from cartoon/chibi to black & white to photorealism. I tend to like art that focuses on the quieter moments in canon and gives characters a breathing space between dramatic events; I also like quirky interpretations that give me a new view on characters. I’m happy with explicit art as long as it’s tagged!

DNWs: child/animal death or child/animal sexual abuse. Omegaverse or trans headcanons. I have previously DNW’d earthquakes but am back to being okay with fictional natural disasters.

Compilation of Final Fantasy VII

Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Genesis Rhapsodos/Cloud Strife

Pretty much anything goes with this; I love Cloud, I love how much he tries despite how messed up he is, and he deserves pretty much anything from fluff to angst to complete crack. I am always up for Zack & Cloud, pre-game or Nibelheim, sharing a moment or on a mission or trapped in the lab - Zack is such a great character. I am also up for Zack Lives AUs and I always like time travel.

With Genesis - he's grown on me and there's so much scope here. Meeting up when Cloud is a trooper and somehow impresses him, or post-game when they're the only two survivors who can really compare experiences - or PWP at any and all times inbetween. I am okay with dub con for this pairing and it doesn't have to be a happy ending, although if they earn it that's great.

For art - really I will just stare at all of them forever. Fight scenes! Uncomfortable meals together! Lost in the snow!

Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth (Video Games 2020-2024)

Roche/Cloud Strife
Sephiroth/Cloud Strife

Gosh I have no idea who my fave is :D Anyway, I love these games and their shiny, beautiful characters. Midgar looks amazing and the open world is gorgeous, and I just want more. Roche is such a delightful goofball who ends up breaking my heart - could things have gone another way? Is there still a chance for him to come back? What would have happened if he'd not let Cloud go after Junon, or even followed after him earlier?

Sephiroth - well. He's so obsessed with Cloud, and the end of Rebirth is just brutal. I will take pretty much anything in this, from what actually happened in Nibelheim to canon AUs to dubcon/noncon (which is practically canon), although please actually don't turn Cloud into a mindless puppet. He's fought so hard to avoid that.

Horizon (video games)

Aloy and Beta

I am replaying Forbidden West at the moment and I just have so many questions about these two. What was Beta's upbringing like? I'm not sure the Far Zeniths had any other children on the ship (too wedded to their control and power) - what did she think of her role, and what was it like when she saw Aloy for the first time? How does Aloy feel about being no longer alone? Really I just want more of the interactions between them, in game or after (although I haven't yet played Burning Shores so nothing that relies heavily on events then).

Dungeon Crawler Carl Series - Matt Dinniman

Carl and Princess Donut and Katia Grim

I love Carl, who is trying so hard despite everything being so stacked against him, and how he teeters between his goals and their costs. I love Princess Donut, who is very much a cat despite everything, and Katia, who has grown so much (ha!) during her time in the dungeon. I love the gamelit/RPG tropes (loot boxes! stat increases!) and the horror tropes and the pokes at reality TV. I love that everyone has their own agenda (look at Donut, running a revolution in her spare time) and I really, really love the way that Carl, even as he blows everything up and gets increasingly unstable, can listen to others, respect their opinions, and give them chances to make their own paths.

Prompts - go wild. I'm okay with glimpses of backstory for all three (what did Donut think of Carl originally?) or a missing scene from the series, or an AU where a floor goes differently (or, I don't know, a bizarre AU where suddenly everyone is a cat EXCEPT Donut :D ). Feel free to play with formats. Please don't permanently kill any of the requested characters but otherwise darkness consistent with canon is fine. I am fine with gore. I do not ship any of the nominated characters - one of the things I like about DCC is that Carl hasn't had any sexual relationships since entering the dungeon. Canonical relationships (Katia/Bautista and I SUPPOSE Donut/Gravy Boat) are fine but I don't really want them to be the focus.