pedanther

Fiction books
Tove Jansson, tr. David McDuff. The Moomins and the Great Flood
WE Johns. Biggles Forms a Syndicate
Sharon Lee. Sea Wrack and Changewind (e)
KG Lethbridge. The Rout of the Ollafubs (re-read)
Alexander McCall Smith. The Tin Dog
Andy Weir. The Martian (e) (re-read)
Oscar Wilde. Lady Windermere's Fan
Jane Yolen. Sister Light, Sister Dark (e)

In progress
Tove Jansson, tr. Elizabeth Portch. Comet in Moominland
Tim Powers. Down and Out in Purgatory: The Collected Stories of Tim Powers (e)
Helen Simonson. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (e)

Abandoned
Martin Cruz Smith. Gorky Park

Non-fiction books
Colin Duriez. The Tolkien and Middle-Earth Handbook
Alan Loy McGinnis. The Friendship Factor

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Agatha Christie. The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Fiction books
(anthology). Mists and Magic
Ben Aaronovitch. Remembrance of the Daleks (re-read)
Arthur Conan Doyle. The Sign of the Four (e) (re-read)
Yoon Ha Lee. Ninefox Gambit (e)
Yoon Ha Lee. Raven Stratagem (e)
Robert Louis Stevenson. Catriona (e)

In progress
Anne Brontë. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (e)

Picture books
Chris Ferrie. General Relativity for Babies (e)

Non-fiction books
Thom Hartmann. Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class (e)

In progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book
Gerard Jones. Men of Tomorrow

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
(anthology) The Workers' Paradise

Fiction books
Becky Chambers. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (e)
Arthur Conan Doyle. A Study in Scarlet (e) (re-read)
Neil Gaiman. Day of the Dead (e) (re-read)
Thomas Babington Macaulay. Lays of Ancient Rome

In progress
Anne Brontë. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (e)
Alexandre Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo (e) (re-read)
Robert Louis Stevenson. Catriona (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book
Gerard Jones. Men of Tomorrow

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Katherine Locke. The Girl with the Red Balloon (e)

Fiction books
Patricia A. McKillip. Harpist in the Wind (e)
Patricia A. McKillip. Heir of Sea and Fire (e)
Patricia A. McKillip. The Riddle-Master of Hed
Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped (e)
Arthur Upfield. The Devil's Steps (e)

In progress
Anne Brontë. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (e)
Arthur Conan Doyle. A Study in Scarlet (e) (re-read)
Alexandre Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo (e) (re-read)
Robert Louis Stevenson. Catriona (e)

Picture books
Michael Dahl, Ethen Beavers. Bedtime for Batman
Oliver Jeffers. Begin Again

Non-fiction books
Neil Gaiman. Adventures in the Dream Trade (e)
Steve Lindstrom. CSS Refactoring (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books in progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Gail Carriger. Soulless

Fiction books
Becky Chambers. A Psalm for the Wild-Built (e)
Diane Duane. Spock's World
Barbara Hambly. Ishmael
Barry Hughart. Bridge of Birds (e) (re-read)
Barry Hughart. Eight Skilled Gentlemen (e)
Barry Hughart. The Story of the Stone (e)
CS Lewis. The Screwtape Letters (e) (re-read)
William Sleator. The Spirit House
Arthur Upfield. Bushranger of the Skies (e)
Arthur Upfield. Death of a Swagman (re-read)

In progress
Anne Brontë. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (e)
Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Mary Robinette Kowal. The Calculating Stars (e)

Fiction books
Sholly Fisch, Dario Brizuela. Scooby-Doo Team-Up, Volume 1 (e)
Sholly Fisch, Dario Brizuela, Scott Jeralds. Scooby-Doo Team-Up, Volume 2 (e)
Sholly Fisch, Dario Brizuela. Scooby-Doo Team-Up, Volume 3 (e)
Sholly Fisch, Dario Brizuela, Dave Alvarez, Scott Jeralds. Scooby-Doo Team-Up, Volume 4 (e)
Sholly Fisch, Dario Brizuela, Dave Alvarez, Scott Jeralds. Scooby-Doo Team-Up, Volume 5 (e)
T Kingfisher. A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (e)
Thornton Wilder. The Matchmaker (re-read)
Thornton Wilder. Our Town
Thornton Wilder. The Skin of Our Teeth
Devon Williamson. The Hardcase Hotel

In progress
L Frank Baum. Ozma of Oz (e)
Shannon Chakraborty. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
Sholly Fisch, Dario Brizuela, Scott Jeralds, Walter Carzon, Horacio Ottolini. Scooby-Doo Team-Up, Volume 6 (e)
CS Lewis. The Screwtape Letters (e) (re-read)
Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped (e)

In hiatus
T Kingfisher. Nettle & Bone (e)

Non-fiction books
Len Deighton. Blitzkrieg
Katherine Rundell. Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Agatha Christie. The Secret Adversary

Fiction books
Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice (e) (re-read)
L Frank Baum. The Marvelous Land of Oz (e) (re-read)
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Alliance of Equals (e) (re-read)
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Neogenesis (e) (re-read)
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Salvage Right (e)
Arthur Miller. All My Sons
John Parker. The Village Cricket Match

In progress
CS Lewis. The Screwtape Letters (e) (re-read)
Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Wizard of the Crow
Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
L Frank Baum. Ozma of Oz (e)

Fiction books
Tatsuya Endo, tr. Casey Loe. Spy x Family, volume 1
Tatsuya Endo, tr. Casey Loe. Spy x Family, volume 2
Arthur Upfield. The Mystery of Swordfish Reef

In progress
Aeschylus, tr. Robert Fagles. The Oresteia
Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice (e) (re-read)
L Frank Baum. The Marvelous Land of Oz (e) (re-read)
Neil Gaiman, et al. The Absolute Sandman: Volume One (re-read)
CS Lewis. The Screwtape Letters (e) (re-read)

Abandoned
Tatsuya Endo, tr. Casey Loe. Spy x Family, volume 3 (october point)

Non-fiction books
Hallie Rubenhold. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Richard Flanagan. Gould's Book of Fish

Memed from thisbluespirit: Tell the world one (1) fact/anecdote/secret/etc about each of the last ten (or whatever) things you wrote.

I will also be using thisbluespirit's addendum: since the whole point of meme flash fic is writing fast rather than thinking too hard, I can't say there would be much to tell, so I will count fic (of whatever length) but not flash fic, unless I do have something to say about them.

( Read more... )

Over on fictional_fans, a discussion post asked: What fanwork do you most wish you had finished and posted that you haven't (and let's face it, probably won't anytime soon?)

After consideration, I came up with a top three:

* Back in the day, when The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was new and everybody was coming up with League rosters from different eras, mine was a retro-futuristic team based around fictional visions of life on the cusp of the year 2000. Dan Dare was in it, and John Connor, with Susan Calvin and Umataro Tenma providing technical support. The elderly mentor character was from Nineteen Eighty-Four, because even though it fell short of the target by a decade or so I felt like it deserved a nod, and because I was going to have fun seeing how long I could make it look like the mentor character was Winston before it turned out it was actually Julia. My favorite development was when I realised that Stephen Byerley, from the Susan Calvin series, was born within a year of Tobio Tenma, which meant that if Dr. Tenma brought his family over to America when he joined forces with the League I could have Tobio and Stephen be childhood friends and amuse myself enormously by never, ever letting on whether the fic was set before or after Tobio's car accident.

* When Pacific Rim came out, I was also reading Girl Genius, which meant I had two fandoms that involved heroes fighting monsters with mad-science creations called "jaegers". As a result, I spent a bunch of time doing world-building for a Girl Genius fic with the premise of Bill & Barry Heterodyne inventing the Pacific Rim type of jaeger, an enormous combat robot that can only be powered by the combined brain waves of two people who trust each other implicitly. (In my notes, a character observes that given the world Bill & Barry live in -- where mad science runs rampant, and so do conspiracy and mistrust -- their real achievement wasn't building the jaegers but finding people to pilot them.) I had two ideas for turning this into an actual story: one was about Bill's daughter Agatha rediscovering the jaegers and running up against the pilot problem, and the other was a tale of the jaegers in their prime, as recounted by Theo DuMedd (which would have been fun, because in canon he's been known to tell Heterodyne tales that are almost completely made up, so I could have done the entire story and left it ambiguous about whether it was an AU or not).

* Years ago, I read a Doctor Who AU fic in which the Doctor gets talked out of running away from Gallifrey and instead becomes a respectable Time Lord and eventually Lord President, and it immediately gave me a plot bunny for a story set after his death, in which his granddaughter starts learning about his rebellious past that she'd never known of before, and ends up leaving Gallifrey herself to fill the Doctor-shaped hole in the universe. (I also had partial notes for a sequel showing how "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" went down in this timeline.) I never got it into a shape I was happy with -- I did complete a draft, but it was just two characters explaining the premise to each other for the benefit of the reader, so I scrubbed it and tried again -- and then the revived series kept dropping new information about the Doctor's early life that meant I had to keep rejiggering things. It actually absorbed "The Doctor's Wife" pretty well, and I think ended up richer for it, but the new revelations in the most recent season put me pretty much back at square one and I don't know if I've got the energy to try and rebuild it again.