rosanicus

Belated Reading Post

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 15:32:04 GMT

HELLO EVERYONE. I am alive. We got our Ofsted call a full term early and therefore I have been snowed under for quite some time, so not much actual reading going on, but I thought I'd drop some thoughts on my current reading material and also very briefly note that the Project Hail Mary film was excellent (went to see it so I was awake enough for end of term karaoke...) even though I don't have immediate plans to read the book.

CURRENTLY READING

I am struggling my way through Can't Spell Treason Without Tea, which I received for Christmas and wish so very deeply I liked more than I do. Cosy fantasy is a tough genre to balance, I think, and to be honest while I understand the criticism of Legends & Lattes I think that book was much more adept at understanding the appeal behind the idea of a fantasy coffeeshop. Meanwhile this book spent about sixty pages on the admin of getting deed authorisation from local government, ten pages on baking nice things for the shop, and maybe one page on the actual books being sold at the magic bookshop run by The World's Most Powerful Mage.

Relatedly, the main couple's excellent conflict resolution skills have been driving me up the wall. I need them to have a proper argument just one time. However, I am compelled by the mystery of the dragon eggs, so I continue my upward climb to the resolution one painfully obvious therapy speak conversation at a time. May or may not do a write-up of my various quibbles with the plot, but it all depends on whether it sticks any sort of landing with the dragons.

Thankfully, the WEJLU discord is just beginning a read-through of the Steeley books so I'll have that to sink into like a warm bath when I need it. Tubby Wilde <3

RECENTLY READ

One of my ongoing projects at school is organising our poor neglected libraries, and while weeding the KS1 library I came across a book I have genuinely been searching for (sans title) for years. It's an extremely short book in the Yellow Bananas strand called Ollie and the Trainers, about a boy who is taught to read by a pair of magic trainers. It was exactly as delightful as I remember it being when I was about seven. Then about ten minutes after finding that one I picked up The Perfect Hamburger by Alexander McCall Smith (yes, that one) which was another hit of pure nostalgia to my veins. Really I should stop reading so many of the books while weeding but it's just fun. I also keep opening cupboards which disgorge hundreds more unsorted books just when I think the whole library is organised. It's unfortunate really.

FUTURE READING

One day I will finish reading The Hands of the Emperor. Is it this day? I don't know. But god I love Cliopher Mdang more than my own life.

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Dear Yuletide Writer [WIP]

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 17:46:44 GMT

Hello! Fandoms I'm requesting this year: A W.E. Johns clean sweep.

General Likes: Presumed Dead, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Porn, Established Relationship, Time Travel/Time Loops, Outsider POV, Curtain Fic, Casefic, Whump General DNWS: Major Character Death, Terminal Illness, Infidelity, Rape/Non-Con between protagonists, Hate Crime/Violent Homophobia, MPreg, Omegaverse, Apocalyptic/Post-Apocalyptic scenarios and AUs

Fandom specific DNWs will be in each sub-category.

Biggles - W.E. Johns
( Prompts )
Worrals - W.E. Johns
( Prompts )
Gimlet - W.E. Johns
( Prompts )
Steeley - W.E. Johns
( Read more... )
The Spyflyers - W.E. Johns
( Prompts )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 20: Symptomatic

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 18:53:43 GMT

No 20: "That's new."

Symptomatic | Fancy Event | Resignation

A little sprinkling of Cub whump, although really he's got nothing but comfort in his near future - and in just the way he can cope with, aka Gimlet puts him to bed then smokes thoughtfully at the window instead of asking any questions about his physical or mental state.

( Cub & the Kittens, 323 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 19: Dehumanisation

Sun, 19 Oct 2025 18:25:05 GMT

No 19: "You're on your own, lost in the wild."

Dehumanisation | Living Weapon | On Patrol

Okay so I have been behind on Whumptober this week. But IN MY DEFENSE, it was double Parents Evening this week and I got home at 8pm multiple times. I may or may not catch up, but either way I will be trying to get back into the rhythm soon, and we're about to start the last week of term!

Finally yielded to the Sakhalin fic impulse again, this time with some minor Pat Manton introspection. This also ended up having a bit of an allusion to a Whumptober fill from last year, because I love being self-referential.

( Pat on Sakhalin, 567 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 13: Insignia

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 19:16:07 GMT

No 13: "How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished."

Never Enough | Insignia | Forced Retirement

Just a touch of King's Kittens angst, teetering on the edge of their demob.

( Copper & Trapper, 200 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 12: Sacred Place/"It'll be for nothing."

Sun, 12 Oct 2025 18:52:12 GMT

No 12: "It'll be for nothing."

Cardiac Arrest | Sacred Place | Withholding Medical Treatment

Struggled mightily today so here is a drabble about the saddest little man in the Jamesian canon, amateur archaeologist Paxton from A Warning to the Curious.

( Paxton, 100 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 11: Laceration

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 18:57:37 GMT

No 11: "Can you get through all the pain inside you?"

Hidden Injury | Laceration | Forced Reveal | Alt Prompt: Concussion

It's Ted Scott! He's a fantastic pilot! A fearless mailman! A bearer of plot armour so thick he could jump out of a space shuttle and land with barely a scratch! And today I gave him a concussion <3

This is a sort of alt-canon for an early scene in Flying Against Time, the NINTH Ted Scott book. God. There's too many of them.

( Ted Scott & Walter Hapworth, 1047 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 10: Secrets

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 18:24:32 GMT

No 10: "There's nothing you can ever say, nothing you can ever do."

Without Consent | Lips Sewn Shut | Secrets

So in the Steeley book Murder by Air there's a side character called Helene who is [SPOILERS] almost immediately supposed (by Steeley) to be a man crossdressing as a disguise. However, within the canon of the book there's plenty of opportunities for Helene/Constantino to pull back the curtain and return to dressing in a socially expected way, and they don't! So I have adopted the headcanon that Helene/Constantino is exploring some transgender feelings, which is the point of this fic.

( Helene, 743 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 9: Touch

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 18:42:13 GMT

No 9: "We'll make it alright to come undone."

Touch | Flashbacks | Scalding

Thanks to Tweague I've developed a Max Carrados interest! This is based on the episode of the Rivals of Sherlock Holmes and its featured physical affection between Carrados and Greatorex, but I have also been reading the short stories from the beginning and enjoying the Max Carrados ride while it lasts (there's not quite as much canon for this as Biggles, lmao).

( Max Carrados, 632 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 8: Self-Inflicted Injury

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 19:00:35 GMT

No 8: "Oh horror, oh horror, what did you see?"

Self-Inflicted Injury | Held at Gunpoint | Dissociation

Last year Sholio wrote this great fic which includes a mention of Biggles self-harming during WW1 and since then the concept has lived in my hindbrain like a crouching little gremlin. Obvious warning for self-harm in this one!

( Biggles, 266 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 7: Trapped with the Enemy

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 18:41:29 GMT

No 7: "Tell me that you're okay, and I'm fine."

Trapped with the Enemy | Elevator | Pushed Beyond Breaking Point

It's.............. the Daemon AU! I struggled mightily with the prompts today, then I thought, hey, Foreign Legionnaire exists, and then I subsequently thought, I miss my silly daemon OCs.
( Daemon AU, 389 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 6: "No grave can hold my body down."

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 18:59:31 GMT

No 6: "No grave can hold my body down."

Caught in a Net | Medical Restraints | Pinned to the Wall

A shorter one today. It's the sort of thing I might revisit later in the month, as at the moment I am battling an entrenched autumn cold and didn't have time for Proper Revenant EvS, which is the vibe I wanted to capture. Warning for MCD (This is my MCD icon. I've decided.)

( Buries a Hatchet AU, ~400 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 5: Phobia

Sun, 05 Oct 2025 15:08:45 GMT

No 5: "My panic's at the ceiling, but I'm face down on the carpet."

Quivering | Dream Journal | Phobia

Gimlet whump! Come get your Gimlet whump! This is set post-Gets the Answer, and is basically a snippet about Gimlet responding poorly to his own trauma responses. He doesn't have time for this, guys.

( Gimlet, ~700 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 4: "Don't be scared, I've done this before."

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 18:02:45 GMT

No 4: "Don't be scared, I've done this before."
Non-human Whumper | Iron Rod | Loss of Powers

VERY loosely based on the prompts today. This is a side-fic to verse. chorus. verse. in honour of Biggles' terrible horrible no-good very bad day in the time loop where EvS kills him on sight.
( Biggles & the spectre of EvS, 1459 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 3: Candlelight

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 19:41:58 GMT

No 3: "I look in people's windows, transfixed by rose golden glows."
Isolation | Candlelight | Found Family

NOT EVEN WHUMP, SORRY LADS.

( Bertie & Gimlet at Strathcarglas, 300 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 2: Taking Accountability

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 20:07:44 GMT

No 2: "You’ve got a lot of nerve to dredge up all my fears.”

Prophecy | Sewer | Taking Accountability

This is a loose accountability-taking but I was once again staring at the prompts for most of my free time today in despair. So hooray for writing things at all!

( Fritz & Frau Lowenhardt, 490 words )

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Whumptober 2025 Day 1: Beg for forgiveness

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 20:12:21 GMT

NO 1: "Please don't cry"
Lamb to slaughter | Ceremony | Beg for forgiveness

I don't know if this quite works, but I was struggling mightily to get anything written so I'm just grateful this appeared.

( Algy & EvS, 300ish words )

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The Unofficial Biggles Activity Book

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 18:51:05 GMT

Sometimes you have an idea in the dead of night and then, several weeks later, spend a lazy Sunday bringing it to life.

The puzzles include a logic problem, a ciphered postcard from a Very Mysterious Person, a dot-to-dot picture and several other little problems that I hope bring some measure of joy and whimsy to your day.

Download link is available on Ao3, and can be printed booklet style or as individual pages depending on your preference.

I really enjoyed putting this together, so a sequel may one day occur, but when it does I will definitely spend less time putting together puzzles that turn out to be rubbish and having to bin them (viz. my inability to draw mazes).

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Fic: verse. chorus. verse

Sun, 21 Sep 2025 22:50:13 GMT

verse. chorus. verse. (13374 words) by dotsayers
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Biggles Series - W. E. Johns
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: James "Biggles" Bigglesworth/Erich von Stalhein, James "Biggles" Bigglesworth & Erich Von Stalhein, James Bigglesworth & Ginger Hebblethwaite & Algy Lacey & Bertie Lissie & Erich von Stalhein
Characters: Erich von Stalhein, James "Biggles" Bigglesworth, Algy Lacey, Bertie Lissie, Ginger Hebblethwaite, Lorrington "Gimlet" King
Additional Tags: Time Loop, Temporary Character Death, Suicide, Whump, Angst with a Happy Ending, Unreliable Narrator, Dubious Morality, Not Beta Read, POV Third Person Limited
Summary:

A sharp clatter from the street woke Erich from an uneasy dream.

(Erich von Stalhein is trapped in a snare from which he cannot escape alone.)

a year and a half ago i posted an excerpt of this wip on dreamwidth, then barely touched it until 2pm today. then i wrote nine thousand words of it

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hAPPy birthday exchange reveals!

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 19:28:56 GMT

I joined this exchange expecting to write a bit of Biggles fic to keep my hand in, which admittedly I did. But I also committed almost five thousand words of original vampire filth, which was less expected.

My main assignment was for karanguni, who I only discovered after writing and posting actually coded the app which the exchange celebrates, and I ended up writing Original Work because emulating Pterry felt too difficult for an exchange with such a tight turnaround. So instead I wrote, as mentioned, five thousand words of original vampire filth.

I thought about the characters in this a normal amount and now I've got Ideas for the continuing adventures of Laurence de Ros, horrible vampire, and his tailor William Cooper, horrible vampire fetishist. They will have a spring wedding if they don't kill each other first.

For treats, I wrote in plane sight for philomytha, for her prompt about EvS as a were-plane which I've always thought is a fantastic prompt so I was pleased to knock out a triple drabble for it, featuring EvS as an off-pattern biplane with dubious instruments and Biggles Just Going With It. I imagine he's been awake for three days and has essentially thrown his hands up at the universe. I also wrote observant for ysande , which features Bertie and Gimlet sniping at each other for two hundred words while things blow up in the distance.

I RECEIVED a FANTASTIC fic from ysande, a courtroom transcript fic about EvS being put on trial for hurting Biggles, and it's such a perfect encapsulation of the Algy&EvS dynamic as well as the Biggles -> EvS dynamic, it's so wonderful and I can't stop smiling thinking about it. It really evokes the first chapter of Strong Poison in tone, I enjoyed it muchly - and the cameo by the most handsome man in England, of course!

And lastly I must rec Steeplechase by Philomytha, just the most perfect bit of Bertie&EvS whump with GIMLET EX MACHINA!!!!

EDIT: ALSO ALSO ALSO, not in the exchange but tweague wrote a TWENTY THOUSAND WORD Ted Scott fanfic of filth and delight, it is SO fucking good, everyone must read it immediately even if they have less than 0 interest in the actual books.

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Holiday Reading

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 16:26:16 GMT

Wife and I have just returned from our honeymoon trip to the Canary Islands and, in the midst of eating a lot of pizza and drinking a lot of free drinks, I did manage to read a few books! We also watched series 3 of Is It Cake? because the bungalow had free Netflix, having never watched it before, and unfortunately we were enthralled.

Not including it here as I didn't finish it, but I am enjoying Jacqueline Winspear's The White Lady for what it is, although I think the past-present-past chapter structure is a bit annoying as I'm much more interested in the present storyline than the build-up of the espionage backstory, which is sort of surprising to me as usually WW1-era espionage being carried out by genteel Belgian ladies would be 100% up my alley.

Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy and Network Effect by Martha Wells

Slightly cheating with this as I actually read two of these the night before we left. I fucking love Murderbot and this was my first time reading Network Effect, which adds so much to the Murderbot & ART dynamic and also has some great Ratthi content, in its way. Three great reads and I can't wait to get to the last two books - I bought all the paperbacks last week because my class gave me Forbidden Planet vouchers for an end of year gift. Also excited to go back and read all the extra content which I am aware exists but haven't actually sought out yet.

Biggles Flies East by WE Johns

There was quite a large gap between Network Effect and this, I have to tell you. I read a LOT of fanfic while lying by the pool, including this excellent Murderbot fic by Chrome, and Reading Actual Books takes a lot of mental effort when it's very hot and you just sort of want to melt with a cocktail by your elbow. Of course I love Flies East the mostest, so this was a delightful reread, and I did then immediately read half of & Co on the back of it just to experience double joy. Biggles is having a terrible time, the opposite of me reading it having the Time of My Life.

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

I put this on the Kobo (mostly because my dad has always extolled Buchan's virtues as an author of exciting yarns) and was then very close to putting it away forever on page 8 when one of the characters started going in deep on antisemitic conspiracy theories. Luckily that character was shortly dispatched by virture of Getting Horribly Murdered (and is later condemned by a different character, although that one's a bit more wishy-washy than one might prefer!), so I persevered and had a fairly good time with the breathless, breakneck pace of the rest of the book. I can't say whether I strictly recommend it given the mentioned dose of oh my god what the fuck, but I did enjoy Hannay's insane ballsiness and general willing to do whatever it took to survive, generally involving putting on disguises, doing grand theft auto, and beating up people who irritate him. I may yet read the next Hannay book, so I suppose this was a success?

Fete for a King/Infinite Jes by Sam Storyteller

These are on Ao3 but damn it they ARE romance novels so I'm counting them. I think this is my third read of these two because I find them so endlessly charming. Short pitch: Ruritanian-set romance series about the royal family of a small nation in the Mediterranean, between France and Italy. The first book is about the king-elect (it's a democratic monarchy a la Naboo apparently) falling in love with a Guy Fieri style celebrity chef, and the second book is about the king's dad (the retired king) learning how to do podcasts. I enjoy them a lot, they're very charming in style and the characters are fun, and there's also nearly twenty stories in the series now so I might need to catch up past the one where they go to Eurovision for the first time.

We got home from said holiday at 1am and I immediately slept for 13 hours, so it remains to be seen how much reading will get done between now and the Wednesday Meme. Hoping to get through at least one of the remaining Murderbots, anyway.

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Wednesday Reading Meme

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 18:35:17 GMT

It's a chunky one this week! I missed Wednesday last and decided I'd do a rollover, lottery style, rather than a late post and then a sparse offering.

What I've Just Finished Reading

All Systems Red & Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Obviously I love Murderbot. These were both rereads and it's always a treat to return to this world and these characters. One thing I'd sort of forgotten in the intervening year-ish between last reading these and watching the show was exactly how much I adore Murderbot's narration - it's so compelling to read, and I adore how much it says by not saying anything.

The show definitely builds out the characters from Preservation Aux - I'd actually forgotten that Volescu and Overse existed in the intervening time, and it was strange reading the rescue of Bharadwaj with Volescu there instead of Arada. But the book still features some depth which you can see beneath Murderbot's snark, and the 'We're not fucking leaving you' from Mensah is just... woo! I love FRIENDSHIP. I think I might like Artificial Condition even more, especially the Ganaka Pit reveal and the story of the ComfortUnits and just - so much fridge horror for Murderbot. Its so traumatised and doesn't have any language for it and I just need to give it a blanket and the ability to marathon vast quantities of Star Trek.

Looking forward to charging through the next few books, especially with that new short story coming soon!

Swordheart by T Kingfisher

Last week I got an Ao3 notification about a fic for the Saint of Steel, which I faintly remembered seeing in someone's Yuletide signup last year, and after reading half of the first chapter of said fic I decided I had to read these books. I started with Swordheart because it seemed sensible to begin with an earlier book in the universe, although I am now aware that Clocktaur War also exists and will probably look into it at some point.

I really enjoyed this book! It had been ages since I'd read a good old fashioned romp, and this was absolutely one of those. It's a delightful romance, a solid adventure, and features a cast of very lovable characters - especially Brindle the gnole, a new all-time character for me. I loved the way that the trust between Sarkis and Halla grew through the book, and how Zale the priest-lawyer gets Halla to join in on some recreational human experimentation - as ethically as possible! In a way it reminded me of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, despite having almost nothing in common with it whatsoever, because of the ultimately positive worldview it embraces.

The Saint of Steel Series by T Kingfisher

Paladin's Grace
- Stephen and Grace OTP forever!!! I love slightly esoteric careers for romance novel protagonists - my all-time fave being Rowley the taxidermist from An Unseen Attraction by KJ Charles - so Grace the perfumier and Stephen the paladin of a dead god were extreme catnip to me. The ongoing intrigue surrounding Marguerite and the attempted assassination of the prince were really fun, and I loved getting more insight into the Temple of the White Rat, especially Bishop Beartongue, who is an icon. I enjoyed the glimpses of the wider group of paladins, which is of course a staple of the romance genre - introducing potential leads for future books in the series. All around a very fun read - OH MY GOD, forgot to mention the KNITTING!!!! Stephen the recreational knitter is such a perfect character beat and I love it.
Paladin's Strength
- Another fun one. I enjoyed Grace more, I think because the plot was more inherently interesting to me, but Strength had the advantage of a group of nuns who turn into bears so it all came out in the wash. Clara is a delightful woman and I think Istvhan just about deserves her, she's so wonderfully herself in every way. I loved how tortured Istvhan was about his reactions to her, and the ongoing misunderstanding about it was actually interesting rather than infuriating. The entire sequence in the colosseum is just excellent, and I adored the way that Istvhan was willing to reorient his goals to support Clara in finding the other sisters of St Ursa.
Paladin's Hope
- MY FAVOURITE! To be the predictable lesbian, I do prefer same sex romance novels to het ones, so while I enjoyed the previous two and the overall attitude of acceptance and background radiation levels of queerness, it just didn't hit as hard as Piper and Galen fucking in an ancient underground clockwork death maze. I loved Piper's character, and his wonderworking reminded me so strongly of Thara Celehar from The Cemeteries of Amalo series that I fell immediately in fondness with him as soon as it was mentioned. He's such a good foil for Galen, traumatised and raw still from the death of the Saint, and I loved how they respected each other straight away and were able to balance one another's flaws as the book progressed. I think one of the other reasons this was my favourite was the prominence of Earstripe the gnole, another all timer! Gnoles are everything to me. I think it's the dormant Reepicheep obsession lying within my soul.
Paladin's Faith
- This one is going to be less effusive. I like Marguerite a lot, so I was excited to read a book from her POV, but my GOD did this one drag on. On my Kobo this was over 800 pages and it really felt it - I took a short break between finishing Hope and beginning this, so I don't think it was romance fatigue, I just found it so hard to care about Shane. I think it's because his name is Shane, which I found completely incongruous every time it appeared, which - given he's the love interest - was frequently. It wasn't a bad book, and if you enjoy the idea of a romance novel which ends with a drawn out siege on a demon cult then feel free to try it. But I missed Galen and Piper, bundled off on a noble quest off page and never appearing again, and without a fifth book the cliffhanger ending was more annoying than intriguing.
FINAL POINT: I was really annoyed that Hope is only 300 pages (I checked Goodreads!) while the others are, respectively, 366, 445 and 464(!) pages. While I was reading it I noticed that the sex seemed less detailed so I reckon that's probably most of it (because oh my god, the M/F couples have a lot of very detailed sex) but I do feel a bit cheated since it was my favourite and it's so much shorter :(

Enemies to Lovers by Aster Glenn Gray

I'm only human. osprey_archer posted about a sale on her books and I, weak, finally took the plunge and bought the ones which I'd had my eye on for a while. This was a delightful story about writer's groups, fandom nemeses, and the fact that actually, having different opinions about TV can be quite a strong basis for a relationship - as long as you can keep things in perspective. The fandomspeak was so spot on and I sort of want to watch Paranoid now, it seems like exactly the sort of show I'd watch three seasons of in a fugue state and then read the Ao3 tag from top to bottom. And of course I would be reading Starlight and hanging on every update - I was in SteveBucky fandom for the whump, I know exactly what that fic would be like and I know I'd be reading the fuck out of it.

Briarley by Aster Glenn Gray

I genuinely think I first heard about this book on Tumblr in 2019 and I am so glad I finally read it! It's such a gentle and wonderful romance, with exactly the right fairytale tone and a protagonist I really adored in Edward Harper, parson and father and bisexual icon. Briars was also wonderful, so prickly and unhappy and the scene where Harper tries really really hard to be tactful about asking if he's gay or what is so excellently painful. I do have a vague idea to write some epilogue fic for them, just because I love man-out-of-time stories so much and the idea of introducing Briars to all sorts of modern entertainments would be endlessly delightful to me. I loved the servants, and Harper's daughter, and the stalwart support from her schoolteacher. Just so lovely all around.

Deck the Halls with Secret Agents by Aster Glenn Gray

SPIES! CHRISTMAS! SUSPICIOUSLY TWITTISH BRITISH ARISTOCRATS! I loved this. So delightful, so heartfelt and melancholy while also laugh-out-loud funny. The mental image of an American and Soviet spy doing spy games in a French manor house while wearing stupid Christmas jumpers is just so wonderful to me, and Nikolai and George truly deserve an anonymous and peaceful retirement somewhere sunny and warm. I am imaginging a thirty-years-later thing where they are middle-aged expats in Greece and someone tries to recruit them for one last job, to which they simply tell them to fuck off.

The Larks Still Bravely Singing by Aster Glenn Gray

I! Love! Interwar romance! I feel like saying 'this was wonderful' is getting repetitive, but it WAS so I WILL say it. Robert and David held my heart in their hands for the whole book, I was so determined that they'd see things through to the end and they did! The interweaving of their past together at school with the hints of wartime trauma and the way that they've both changed over time was deftly handled. The scene of them at the party, where David struggles and Robert finds just the right thing to talk about, really shows how they improve one another, and the support Robert shows is just. It's everything. I also loved the cats, and the vicar and his family, and the way that Oxford is both a balm and a sort of sandpaper to the soul by turns. Highly recommend!

Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver (again!)

Finished reading it to the class this afternoon! They really liked it - mostly - and were quite keen on reading the sequel, although with just under two weeks left I declined to start reading it to them myself. From now I'll probably try them on some short stories, possibly a few ghost stories just to startle the nervs, and hope that my new student - who is still throwing tables and screaming in the corridors - will enjoy that a bit more.

What I'm Reading Now

Rogue Protocol is next up in Murderbot, so I'm technically on page one of that. Beyond that I've got so many books on my technically-currently-reading pile that I simply could not list them all. One day I'll cut them down - my honeymoon is in two weeks, so hopefully that'll help.

What I'm Going To Read Next

I need to stop putting books in this section because it is almost 100% of the time a guarantee that I won't be reading it any time soon! Nevertheless, I will say that I've still got Honeytrap and The Sleeping Soldier to read, so that's a fairly safe bet in the near future.

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Wednesday Reading Meme

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 18:28:00 GMT

What I've Just Finished Reading

Wolf Brother and Spirit Walker by Michelle Paver, the first two books of the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. I never read these when I was the target demographic but it was chosen for our 'reading spine' in Year 5 and oh my god, these books are so good. I've read and enjoyed both Dark Matter and Thin Ice in the past, but it was still a shock how visceral and scary parts of these books got while still being appropriate for my Year 5s. I've actually been reading it to them chapter by chapter for the past few weeks but on Monday I got so excited about a cliffhanger I had to bring it home and finish it that night. And then I found an ebook of the second book and stayed up until 11 reading that as well...

My wife, tangentially, is very excited about this because they are some of her all-time favourite books.

What I'm Reading Now

I've been working through Home by Francis Pryor, which is an interesting look at how family structures may or may not have changed since the early Stone Age period in Britain as evidenced by the archaeological record. I really like the writing style of this but it's quite dense and with current work stress (astronomical for the past few weeks, only just starting to subside again) I've lost momentum quite badly. I'm also technically reading Biggles and the Black Mask but it is similarly slow-going. However, in exciting news I met my class for this September and the first thing one of them asked me is if I have any Biggles in the class library - the answer being, obviously, yes.

What I'm Going To Read Next

I mean, obviously the next four Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. I am obsessed.

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Fic: discipline

Mon, 26 May 2025 19:47:12 GMT

In a genuine departure from form, I have written fic which I felt was different enough from my usual eclectic mix of nonsense to whack it in the anonymous collection rather than claim it on Ao3. It's Gimlet/Cub impact play fic which does explain that I think.

discipline (1704 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Gimlet Series - W. E. Johns
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Lorrington "Gimlet" King/Nigel "Cub" Peters
Characters: Nigel "Cub" Peters, Lorrington "Gimlet" King
Additional Tags: One-Sided Attraction, Corporal Punishment, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Dubious Consent, Power Imbalance
Summary:

Gimlet didn't seem offended when he remained silent, at least. He tilted his head to one side, considering.

"I told you when you joined us that you'd come under me for discipline," he mused. It seemed that he was coming slowly to some decision which was, for now, hidden from Cub's perception.

CNTW: not underage here in the UK, BUT definitely a dynamic which I do not endorse in real life

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Wednesday Reading Meme

Wed, 14 May 2025 19:00:07 GMT

Thought I wasn't going to get much in for this and then I had an insanely good evening yesterday.

What I've Just Finished Reading

Buried: An alternative history of the first millenium in Britain by Professor Alice Roberts
- I bought this after Goodreads pushed my brother's partner's review of it onto my timeline despite the review being several years old. It's an excellent read and I have NO regrets - such a thoughtful and kind examination of historical burial practices, the limitations of archaeology, and the ongoing quest to discover exactly what happened on this little island after the fall of Rome. The second chapter is quite heavy going - it's about infant burials - but the author is upfront about it and even invites you to skip it, which I thought was nice. I did read it though because I wanted to learn more about it and ended up with lots of info about surgical abortions in the Roman era, which was COOL. Honestly, a lot of the info here was just cool to me, I love archaeology and grew up watching Time Team obsessively.
Donut Squad: TAKE OVER THE WORLD by Neill Cameron
- The boys in my class won't stop going on about this so when I saw it half-price at Waterstone's I picked it up (along with an enamel pin of Anxiety Donut, I'm not made of stone) and it is, irritatingly, really funny. It has the vibe of Beano or the Bash Street Kids, which makes sense since it's a compilation of strips from the kids' magazine The Phoenix. The strips are all four panels centering on a particular character or plotline (either world domination by the Donut Squad or the evil machinations of their enemies the Bagel Battalion) and they are genuinely very good. My favourite doughnuts are Sprunky the unpredictable (who does things like write communist propaganda on the walls of Buckingham Palace) and Chalky (the ghost of a murdered Victorian doughnut). It's very silly and it only took about forty minutes to read.
Pride by Eric Huang
- This one was another impulse buy at Waterstone's. It's a picture book about going to Pride as a child with your gay parents, and I loved it. So sweet and gentle in a way which will definitely not appeal to the boys in my class but that's fine, I'll lend it to the Reception teacher who was on our Sherlock Homos quiz team last term. I love children's books which deal with queer identity in this matter of fact way, it gives one a bit of hope.
Biggles Takes It Rough by W.E. Johns
- Reviewed here!
What it was like to be an Ancient Maya by David Long
- Research for next term's History topic and also the only book I could find at Waterstone's about the Maya. The book was simple and easy to follow, being a Barrington Stoke title, and I would describe it as largely inoffensive. It's an underrepresented period in children's books on this side of the Atlantic, abandoned in favour of the more dramatic and bloodthirsty representations of the Aztecs and Inca (I am not immune to the Pachacuti song from Horrible Histories). I learned just enough to discover that the scheme the school buys into has, once again, been massively reductive and occasionally outright incorrect. Great!

What I'm Reading Now

STILL Blood on Satan's Claw, I promise I'm reading it on and off it's just heavy going while we wait for the teens to get on with the rituals.

What I'm Going To Read Next

I plucked Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane off my bookshelf this morning and am very excited to get into it! I fucking love Robert Macfarlane, The Wild Places is one of my favourite books ever.

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