That brought me here, that brings me back

[sovay]

Normally I dream about art of the kind I wish actually existed, like female-created pre-Code proto-noir or really inclusive '90's sci-fi TV. Last night I dreamed about reading a relatively famous fantasy trilogy from the '80's that I had just happened to miss during the period where I was reading anything with a genre-looking cover that wasn't nailed down. It was an entirely plausible '80's fantasy trilogy of a certain style; it was very Celticky and not very good. Everyone had flaming red or jet-black hair and lots of it. There was an important forest and frequent talk of the Goddess. The antagonists were not strictly speaking Roman, but they were an imperial power which had legions, so the audience didn't have to reach for the parallel; I want to say there was some component of science fantasy, or at least technology of the ancients that passed Clarke's Law, but I can't remember which direction it went. There was a love triangle. Everyone had hurt/comfort coming out of their ears. I was talking about it with a friend who doesn't exist in waking life at the equally dream-based sushi restaurant where he worked; his mother had named him after her favorite character, about which he felt embarrassedly ambivalent having read the series as an adult and realized that his namesake was the author's designated plucky comic relief. (Not that most people noticed, since the character's name was a permutation of "Seamus," but I understood the principle of the thing.) I didn't hate the experience of reading it, but it was definitely no longer my thing. I might have felt differently in elementary through high school. From outside the dream, I'm actually pretty sure I would have read it if I'd run across it on a library shelf and not noticed the problems for years. Anything that wasn't nailed down. I have piecemeal middle-school memories of Monica Hughes' The Isis Pedlar (1982) and that novel has a terrible case of the Space Irish. derspatchel and I are off to early dinner and the MFA.

Comments

[dhampyresa]

I feel like I've read that series.

[sovay]

I feel like I've read that series.

I'm kind of afraid I have retroactively called it into being.

[davidgillon]

I feel like I've read this several times over.

[sovay]

I feel like I've read this several times over.

I don't actually think I did, is the interesting thing. I just recognized it when I dreamed about it.

[genarti]

Goodness, that is entirely plausible! I think I read several of its close kindred.

[sovay]

Goodness, that is entirely plausible! I think I read several of its close kindred.

I know! It was a bit frightening!

Your icon is perfect.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Hey, I used to be on panels with that author, way back when. Mary Beth? Sarah Beth? something. Used to plunk a little altar to I-forget-what -she-was-calling-The-Morrígan in front of her, next to her cover flats. Suffered a fatal midlist crash between the seventh and eighth volumes of her trilogy, and is now writing vampires-in-space YAs as Guido Tuffa.

Nine

[sovay]

Used to plunk a little altar to I-forget-what-she-was-calling-The-Morrígan in front of her, next to her cover flats.

You see what I mean!

[rosefox]

That sounds hilariously Patricia Kennealy-like.

[sovay]

That sounds hilariously Patricia Kennealy-like.

. . . Is that a recommendation for or against?

[rosefox]

For! I absolutely adore her first three Celts! In! Spaaaaaace! books. Her Arthurian retelling in the same setting is bananapants but I appreciate that she genuinely makes it work (by, among other things, splitting Morgan into good and evil twins). The later books are more Jim Morrison fanfic than I'm comfortable with, but those six are terrific. I keep trying to get friends in publishing to reprint them but no one's nibbled yet. In the meantime, you can probably get tattered paperbacks for pennies. Try The Silver Branch first; you'll know pretty immediately whether it's your sort of thing.

[sovay]

her first three Celts! In! Spaaaaaace! books. Her Arthurian retelling in the same setting is bananapants but I appreciate that she genuinely makes it work

Given that my previously read Arthuriana includes Pamela F. Service's Winter of Magic's Return (1985) and Joan Aiken's The Stolen Lake (1981), both of which are bananapants in completely different directions, I don't see how I can refuse to give these a try.

(by, among other things, splitting Morgan into good and evil twins).

Yeah, I have to see how that works.

Try The Silver Branch first; you'll know pretty immediately whether it's your sort of thing.

Thank you! I am pretty sure I read about her books once with rushthatspeaks, but not so as I came away with any idea whether they were actually good or not.

[rosefox]

While I'm recommending bananapants Arthuriana, which is kind of a specialty of mine, let me put in a good word for Eric S. Nylund's A Game of Universe, which is the Grail quest! In! Spaaaaace! with a lot of blurring of reality and illusion and memory and double-crosses and con games and I don't even remember what-all else.

The first three of Kennealy's Keltiad books are about a princess (later queen) named Aeron; that's the trilogy that starts with The Silver Branch. They're set on six planets that were settled by the six Celtic nations when St. Brendan the astrogator took them off Earth to escape those nasty Christian monks. They have a magical school that could kick Hogwarts's ass without trying hard, an immramm with imagery straight out of Taliesin, a foster-incestuous romantic triangle that comes really really close to being poly, intergalactic political shenanigans, magic that can turn moons into slag, random words from Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Welsh all gloriously mashed together, loving parents and families and friends, tragic deaths, shocking betrayal, duels, and true love (don't worry, they're not kissing books).

The Arthur books start with The Hawk's Gray Feather and take place a couple thousand years before the Aeron books. (She's a descendant of his, actually.) They have an eeeeeevil dictator overlord, spy-bards, hidden mountains, extremely complicated romantic entanglements, even more complicated family trees, magic powered by the destruction of suns, surprise! space Amazons, surprise! space fire elementals, tragic deaths, shocking betrayal, duels, and true love (still not much kissing).

The culture is 100% gender-egalitarian, all the way down to the most obscure background characters. No one is canonically queer but there's no homophobia--it just doesn't come up--and some of the same-sex friendships are very, very close and intimate in a way that begs for fanfic (or can be enjoyed as intimate friendships, because it's not like we get a lot of those in our SF/F either). The Aeron books crush the Bechdel test. The Arthur books are much more about men, and are first-person narrated by a man, but the women in those books clearly do have plenty of conversations not about men; it's just that the narrator by necessity isn't around for them. The villainous space Egyptians (did I mention those?) are a little racefaily, but when a starship from Earth shows up with an Enterprise-style multiculti crew, those characterizations are all handled very well, and there are plenty of white villains among the white white white Kelts.

If I had a movie studio dedicated to book adaptations, these would be at the top of my list. They're completely over the top and glorious and amazing. I am now very frustrated that my copies are in J's room because I want to reread them right now.

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

So I went looking for these, OF COURSE.

Did you know she published an e-book in 2014 with four stories in this 'verse?

[sovay]

While I'm recommending bananapants Arthuriana, which is kind of a specialty of mine, let me put in a good word for Eric S. Nylund's A Game of Universe, which is the Grail quest! In! Spaaaaace! with a lot of blurring of reality and illusion and memory and double-crosses and con games and I don't even remember what-all else.

Thank you! I forgot to mention Merlin's Mirror (1975) by Andre Norton, in which Merlin is half space alien.

If I had a movie studio dedicated to book adaptations, these would be at the top of my list. They're completely over the top and glorious and amazing. I am now very frustrated that my copies are in J's room because I want to reread them right now.

I hope by now you have retrieved them!

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the sort of book I'd have found in a yellowing paperback in a used bookstore and been gaga about. With a woman with implausible amounts of hair and a Renaissance Faire dress on the cover, doing power poses. Later in life I would revisit it and be embarrassed by all the characters going "Och!" and "Hoots, mon!" at the beginnings of their sentences.

[sovay]

With a woman with implausible amounts of hair and a Renaissance Faire dress on the cover, doing power poses.

Yes! I go back and forth on whether they would have rated art by Thomas Canty. (I can't actually remember anything about the covers from the dream. I can remember that they were shelved next to R. A. MacAvoy. I don't always understand my brain.)

Later in life I would revisit it and be embarrassed by all the characters going "Och!" and "Hoots, mon!" at the beginnings of their sentences.

*snerk*

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I love that everything about this dream is adjacent to reality. Not just the no-longer-quite-your-thing Celtic fantasy, but also the friend you were discussing it with, and the sushi restaurant. And now I'm thinking about multiple universes and, of all things, marketing success. Like, if you can't do well in this universe with your fantasy trilogy, how about you try selling it in the next universe over?

[sovay]

I love that everything about this dream is adjacent to reality. Not just the no-longer-quite-your-thing Celtic fantasy, but also the friend you were discussing it with, and the sushi restaurant.

I don't know if it's the same parallel reality the nonexistent movies come from, either.

And now I'm thinking about multiple universes and, of all things, marketing success. Like, if you can't do well in this universe with your fantasy trilogy, how about you try selling it in the next universe over?

That won't do any good with some of my favorite authors, though, unless ours is the parallel where their books got sold!