Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I procrastinated just long enough on this post of Yuletide fanfic recommendations for the authors to be revealed, so I'm including that information:

(Probably) don't need to know canon:

Miss Marple books, by Agatha Christie:

And One Cried Murder by thelittlestbird: Miss Jane Marple is recovering from an illness, and she and the visiting nurse investigate a murder. The nurse does all the legwork, and they collaborate on the planning and analysis.

Might need to know canon:

Enchanted Forest chronicles, by Patricia Wrede:

Home Sweet Home by wolfraven80. The witch Morwen and the magician Telemain are trapped in her cottage when the magical door spell goes awry. Fortunately, her cats can still get in and out.


Need to know canon:

The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula Le Guin:

Some Things that No One Teaches You, by DachOsmin: Estraven enters kemmer while they and Genly Ai are crossing the Gobrin Ice.

Always Coming Home by Ursula Le Guin:

How to Enter the Five Houses, by ellen_fremedon: Excellent world-building for a book I love.

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher:

A Few Days after the War, a bit of the rebuilding after the events of the book.

The Saint of Steel, by T. Kingfisher. Several people posted good fics in this fandom:

Property Law, by Gammarad: the solicitor-sacrosanct Zale applies property law to help a gnole client. Zale is a minor character, and I'm clearly not the only person who enjoys reading about them.

In the Consul's Court of Archon's Glory // Applicant No. #001 (on the instigation of the Temple of the White Rat), by raven (singlecrow): In which a bridge collapses, and Beartongue and Zale try to figure out if they can sue for negligence.

This Place of Hospitality by NaomiK. The Sisters of St. Ursa are fleeing the city, and the Temple of the White Rat provides an escort.

Enchanted Forest chronicles:

Procrastinating with Princesses Kazul is pushing one of her grandchildren to leave Kazul's cave and set up on their own, and they really don't want to, in part because that would mean deciding on a gender.

I just spent a couple of hours browsing through the latest batch of Yuletide fanfiction, and found a few I like:

In Which Cimorene Settles In as King's Chief Cook and Librarian, and Deals with Politics The author's summary is "exactly what it says on the tin," and I'll go with that. (Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Patricia Wrede)

Tell Me What You Eat pre-canon for the Nero Wolfe mysteries, describing the last (part of Archie Goodwin's job interview with Nero Wolfe, the part where Wolfe is getting Fritz Brenner's opinion of the candidate. This is pleasantly domestic, no mystery/detective content at all.

Wintersong a Moomintroll story in which Moomintroll decides to spend the winter awake; it's an atmospheric piece about the first day after almost everyone else settles in to hibernate; things happen, in the low-key way that things often happen in the books. The author here gets Tove Jansson's voice and the mood of the series (I'm in the middle of rereading Finn Family Moomintroll).

Three Tellings About Dead Things in the Earth is Always Coming Home fanfic. Echoing the book, the author gives us three unrelated short pieces with no obvious connection beyond that they all have to do with the Kesh: a bit of life story/dream that Stone Telling left in the Madrone Lodge after going to Wakwaha to tell them about her time with the Condor, a play, and another somewhat metafictional encounter with Pandora, much later than those in Always Coming Home.

I haven't done an actual "recent reading" post since summer, though I've been recording authors and titles as I went. So, here's a somewhat sketchy three-month book writeup, including books I realized I didn't need to finish.

( book discussion, cut for length: Abraham, Taylor, McHugh, Beagle, Petroski, Pratchett, Gentle, Thurber )