queenslayerbee | Jan. 17th, 2024

Snowflake Challenge promotional banner with image of snow-covered trees and an old barn in the background. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

Rec Us Your Newest Thing. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I feel like all I've been doing during this event is recommending things LOL, but why not continue? I do like talking about my new shiny interests.

Titans (1999) #1-20. I just finish Devin Grayson's run in this volume and I really, really enjoyed it. It's definitely unpolished in some parts, heavy-handed in others but a.) the plot is solid and traps you, b.) the characters are MIGHTY interesting in this, and c.) the dynamics involved between them are JUICY AS FUCK. And the art is peak comic-book art. I really don't ask for more.
"Lud-in-the-Mist" by Hope Mirrless. This book has been on my to-read list for a long time now, after a friend's recommendation. I've just started it, I've only read a few episodes, but it's been a while since a book ensnared me so quickly. The jist of the premise is as follows:

Lud-in-the-Mist, the capital city of the small country Dorimare, is a port at the conﬂuence of two rivers, the Dapple and the Dawl. The Dapple has its origin beyond the Debatable Hills to the west of Lud-in-the-Mist, in Fairyland. In the days of Duke Aubrey, some centuries earlier, fairy things had been looked upon with reverence, and fairy fruit was brought down the Dapple and enjoyed by the people of Dorimare. But after Duke Aubrey had been expelled from Dorimare by the burghers, the eating of fairy fruit came to be regarded as a crime, and anything related to Fairyland was unspeakable. Now, when his son Ranulph is believed to have eaten fairy fruit, Nathaniel Chanticleer, the mayor of Lud-in-the-Mist, finds himself looking into old mysteries in order to save his son and the people of his city.

But really, what has captured me is Mirrless' prose. It's vivid, whimsical in the best way, and utterly, utterly beautiful. Prose that is just functional has its place, don't get me wrong, but I do often feel that prose itself -beyond characters, tropes, ships, whatever-, receives very little appreciation. Craft matters!! And I love it when I'm before a book where the writer obviously gave it their all, where they thought long and hard about it, where every word is well-placed and produces a nearly musical effect. I want to write like this, damn xD

To close this, I wanted to link to the ficlets I've received in response to my prompts in the three sentences ficathon, so far