Recent reading

[luzula]

You Drive Through the Dust by dira
A book-length fic (for Generation Kill) and thus written up as a book. I am the kind of person who saves up things I'm looking forward to, and when I look at the date this was published, I realize that I've been saving this fic up for four years. This is kind of ridiculous. But it totally lived up to my expectations! I'm not sure why this trope appeals to me, but it does. It is basically worldbuilding porn (I mean, it also has good porn porn, but it's the worldbuilding that stands out). I love all the complex social interactions and politics that arise because of the wolves. Also the Nate/Brad is great, there's some really delicious pining here, not the oblivious kind, but the kind where both parties know where the other is at, and yet they can't do anything about it because circumstances. Recommended! But mind the content tags.

Människor kring en bro by Josef Kjellgren (People around a bridge, only in Swedish)
Novel from 1935 about the building of a bridge in Stockholm and the people who built it. Mostly about the male workers but also about some women (there is one Bechdel-test moment consisting of one woman performing an illegal abortion on another). I read this because this other book I read was said to be a homage to it. I liked it, it felt like a window on another time, and yet many of the political issues are sadly the same. Gentrification and job insecurity! Not new. Hilariously, one of the characters was very like a housemate in my previous shared household in that he had a big red hair and beard, was a communist, liked learning new languages, and played an instrument well. I told him to read the book; I bet he'd enjoy it.

Comments

[riverlight]

Isn't that GK story amazing? I beta'ed bits of that universe and it just KILLED me. (There are also amazing podfics of some of the stories in the verse.)

[luzula]

It is amazing, yes! Actually I recorded one of those podfics myself (the Brad/Ray one). And now I spontaneously started recording one of the remaining ones, I can't believe no one's recorded that one before. Really I guess I want to record the long one, but it would be over ten hours, so maybe not start with that when I haven't been recording much lately.

[riverlight]

Oh, haha, I didn't realize that! Well, there you go: an inadvertent—but real—compliment! :)

(Gosh, recording the long one would be quite an effort! But I for one would listen to it SO OFTEN.)

[rachelmanija]

Have you read the shorter stories in the wolf verse? They're just as good if not better. Probably my favorite fic series of all time.

[luzula]

I have, except for the last one! And podficced one of them, too. Yeah, it's because I loved those so much that I saved up the long one. And now I spontaneously started recording one of them that no one's podficced yet. Really I guess I want to record the long one, but it would be over ten hours, so maybe not start with that when I haven't been recording much lately.

[jesse_the_k]

Autocorrect holy moly an entire dira series to inhale. Thank you!

[luzula]

I love that feeling of anticipation. : )

[scribe]

Ooh, how readable do you think that first would be to someone who doesn't know the canon?

[luzula]

Pretty readable, I think? What you need to know is that the characters are US Marines in the Iraq invasion and they are psychically bonded to wolves. And be aware that there is dubcon sex when the wolves mate.

I don't know where would be best to start in the series, but I think you could start with the long one and then go back to read the others as prequels if you want.