potentialities

An Ass's Headgear (1335 words) by mayhap
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Inspector Alleyn Mysteries - Ngaio Marsh
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Roderick Alleyn
Additional Tags: Stealth Crossover, Humor, Backstory
Summary:

Police Constable Alleyn runs into difficulties on Boat Race Night.

This was my main assignment! It may be the least stealthy crossover with the Stealth Crossover tag, but I really enjoyed writing it and I'm so glad that people enjoyed reading it.

The Artist's Model (2475 words) by mayhap
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Jack and Jill - Louisa May Alcott
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Relationships: Jack Minot/Ralph Evans
Characters: Jack Minot, Ralph Evans
Additional Tags: Hand Jobs, Frottage, Yuleporn, Yuletide Treat, Age Difference
Summary:

Jack is always eager to lend a friend a hand any way he can.

I also wrote a treat, because I could not resist the siren song of debauching extremely wholesome children's literature! Jack and Jill is more of a deep cut from Louisa May Alcott's œuvre, but I loved it when I was a kid and I thought it held up well on reread, too.

Also I can now thank mattador by name for writing for me!

What I've been reading

I finished reading War and Peace, after a long intermission of having put it down and read other books instead. I was ( spoilers, and also frivolity )

I reread Tied Up in Tinsel. The central conceit, an English country house staffed entirely by convicted murderers, is pretty ridiculous (and also a cheat; some of them are actually manslaughterers), but it works anyway because Troy is the viewpoint character again in this one and she is the best. ♥Troy♥

I reread Black As He's Painted, wherein the role of the semi-obligatory romance subplot is played by a retired diplomat and a stray cat. It is charming.

What I'm reading next

Jo Walton's new book, My Real Children, just came out and it looks really good.

What I've been reading

I read Where'd You Go, Bernadette, which was the first book selected by the informal Goodreads book club set up by a friend of mine from high school. When I got to the last (virtual) page of the book with the author bio and saw that Maria Semple had written for Arrested Development, several things about the way the book was put together retroactively made much more sense to me: the OTT ridiculousness of some of the scenarios and especially the minor recurring characters and their deeply ridiculous correspondence, but also the cleverness in the structure and the way everything came together in the end.

I reread Killer Dolphin and was very happy that I was still able to love it. Although I had forgotten/not previously noticed exactly how much time Peregrine and Jeremy devote to discussing the question of whether the mysterious Mr. Conducis was hitting on Perry or not at the beginning; even when they have seemingly decisively settled on not, one or the other of them will be all, yeah, but was it queer or was it queer queer? It is a subject that interests them greatly. As in Night at the Vulcan, Ngaio Marsh made the supporting male actor in the theatrical production gay—not a lead, of course! Heaven forfend!—but this time around none of the characters pitch slur-filled temperaments about it, and Perry is rather anxious to assure Alleyn that he is "no trouble to anyone" and "doesn't bring it into the theatre," which is completely cringeworthy but means well, anyway.

This book brings in Marsh's twin passions, writing and theatre, but then False Scent had both of them and I found it a bit perfunctory and lifeless, so I think Shakespeare must be the magic ingredient that breathed life back into the series. I would love to read Perry's play about Shakespeare's son's glove, whereas even the characters in Night at the Vulcan admit that the play they're doing is terrible. I also like Perry himself, very much, as indeed Alleyn does; he makes an excellent point of view character. I definitely shipped him with Jeremy when I first read the book and before I realized what I was doing; it's the way Perry is so exquisitely of and concerned about Jeremy being humiliated that is just catnip to me as a relationship dynamic. On reread, I feel like, if anything, their neverending no homo debate makes me feel shippier about them, as it is clearly all denial and projection. *g*

What I'm reading now

Clutch of Constables is my next Ngaio Marsh book. Also presumably other things.

What I've been reading

I read Son of Interflux, one of Gordon Korman's non-Macdonald Hall books. Although I strongly suspect it has to do with the fact that he must have written This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall before he went through puberty, I do so very enjoy his habit of pairing slashy male friendships with wacky hijinks. Reminds me of Wodehouse in that regard.

I read The Large, the Small and the Human Mind, which is a sort of short introduction to Roger Penrose, who was in turn one of Neal Stephenson's inspirations in writing Anathem, one of my very favorite books. Interestingly, while I happened to be reading it, physicists talking about consciousness was in the news.

I read Travels in Hyperreality, a collection of Umberto Eco's newspaper and magazine articles. "Cultural anthropologists accept cultures in which people eat dogs, monkeys, frogs, and snakes, and even cultures where adults chew gum, so it should be all right for countries to exist where university professors contribute to the newspapers," as he deadpans in the preface to the American edition. The titular piece is probably also the best: a glorious travelogue through American reproductions of other times and places and artworks.

What I'm reading now

I started rereading Death of a Fool, only it is so boring. That is probably why I have never reread it before. Also I vaguely thought it belonged much earlier chronologically, with the big glut of titles in the form of "Death [and | in | around | somehow pertaining to ] the $noun", but apparently not. The whole conceit of my chronological reread dictates that I must finish it before I can proceed.

What I've been reading

I reread Swing, Brother, Swing. One of Ngaio Marsh's strengths is making me care more than I would ordinarily about the one-off heterosexual romances in the B-plots, and Carlisle/Ned are one of my favorite pairings—cousins and childhood friends (the socially-acceptable version of sibcest!) who play a longstanding game where they narrate bits of their lives in third person omniscient at each other. This book has another drugs subplot, though, so I'm on wikipedia once again, going, okay, unlike heroin I know you can actually smoke cocaine, and even Ngiao Marsh would know about cocaine injection because of Sherlock Holmes, but I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as a cocaine pill okay. Ngaio Marsh really needed a drugs beta.

I reread Night at the Vulcan, and I was really surprised that with standardized pagecounts in iBooks it's among the very shortest of the Alleyn books, definitely of the ones I've reread so far. The investigation phase of the book is actually quite short and Alleyn zeroes in on the murderer very quickly. I still love the theatre plot, although now that I am ten years older than her and do not cherish even secret and delusional ambitions of becoming a non-amateur actor I no longer identify quite as desperately with Martyn Tarne, although, again, adorable het relationship between ( spoiler, but not for the murder plot ) Also, ( spoiler for the murder plot )

I read Red Dragon, because it is contrary to everything I stand for to be in a fandom that is at least partly based on a book and not have read that book, and I read some Hannibal fic so I can hardly say I'm not in that fandom now. So yes, I officially see what you did there, with the handful of bits from the book that were used or changed to create the show, and I officially do like the show better. (How is Hannibal supposed to have maroon eyes? Is he albino?)

Then I read The Silence of the Lambs, which I enjoyed more because it has Clarice and also it has more Hannibal Lecter in it, and I was also seriously weirded out because this was the second book in a row that uses a bunch of incidental locations that are right in my neighborhood, even though as far as I can tell Thomas Harris has never lived in Missouri. This isn't actually a seething hotbed of serial killers, I promise. (I have to give the bookverse props for accuracy on that front though; Will Graham is correctly considered to have an impressive amount of experience with serial killers because he's caught two of them, whereas in the televisionverse serial killers appear to be only slightly less common than check fraud. But then, that's part of the fictional landscape that Hannibal Lecter helped create.)

I read Roman Warfare, because I placed holds on all the books my library has about the Roman army. Stupid research for my ridiculous Gladiator fic is eating my brain, I swear.

I read A Tale for the Time Being and I love this book so much. Like, I want everyone to drop what they're doing right now, but I also don't want to say anything about it because I don't want to spoil anything about the way it unfolds—seriously, if I've already decided that I'm interested in reading a book, I'll stop wherever I am in the blurb and not read any further, that is how spoilerphobic I can be. So I'll compromise and say it's a book about a teenage diarist in Tokyo, the middle-aged Japanese-Canadian novelist who finds the diary, bullying, writer's block, Zen Buddhism, translation, and time travel (which is another way of saying writing). And not that anyone on the Booker selection committee is reading this, but if you are and this book doesn't win I will totally cut you.

I read Last Rituals, which was kind of mediocre, but I did enjoy the Icelandic setting.

What I'm reading now

Marcus Aurelius: A Life. If you guessed that this is more ridiculous research, you are correct.

What I've been reading

I read Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century, a collection of short stories, each paired with a critical essay, edited by Justine Larbalestier. I think this is a great way to set up an anthology; it's like after you finish each story, someone is waiting eagerly to discuss it with you, which is awesome. (I got so mad at the essay about Karen Joy Fowler's "What I Didn't See", though. The author has a really bizarre reading where one offhand line is the true theme of the entire story, and also if you even acknowledge that it's possible to read it as 'literary fiction' you are a filthy collaborator and not, like, someone who's capable of seeing ambiguity in a without compulsively resolving it with a sledgehammer.)

I reread Death at the Bar, which is to Alleyn and Fox as The Adventure of the Three Garridebs is to Holmes and Watson. All the Holmes/Watson shippers (or, for that matter, platonic hurt/comfort fans, I guess) know exactly what I'm talking about. Although, unlike Holmes/Watson, no one on the internet seems to actually ship Alleyn/Fox. Including me. I mean, I wouldn't mind shipping it just to annoy Ngaio Marsh's homophobic ghost, but I just can't see my way to it. I'll have to settle for shipping Alleyn with Nigel Bathgate in the early books.

I read The Literature of Hope in the Middle Ages and Today: Connections in Medieval Romance, Modern Fantasy, and Science Fiction, which is a book I turned up doing a subject search at my library for either Science Fiction — Criticism or Fantasy — Criticism. I'm sympathetic to its thesis, which is essentially [thing that I love to read] has many things in common with [other thing that I love to read], but it's not exactly a deep or substantial analysis of the topic. Nice cover, though.

I read Bridge of Birds: A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was, and loved loved loved it. It's deceptively episodic at first, and hilarious, but everything comes together in a big way at the end and ♥

What I'm reading now

I just started rereading Surfeit of Lampreys. I remember the Lampreys being one of my absolute favorite fictional families. I can't believe they retitled it Death of a Peer when it was published in the U.S.; first of all, that is a pretty boring title, even not in comparison with Surfeit of Lampreys, and second of all how could you possibly pass up that surfeit of lampreys joke, I mean really.

What I'm reading next

I have the other two Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, among other things.

What I've been reading

I reread Death in Ecstasy, which was my least favorite Ngaio Marsh so far. The drugs subplot seriously strained my credulity—I don't consider myself to be an expert on heroin, by any means, but I can't find any evidence that anyone has ever smoked it in cigarettes. The main plot about the cult-y little church where they hand out these mysterious heroin cigarettes is not that much more realistic or engaging either. Also, this is the first book in my reread where Marsh's homophobia puts in an appearance, which is gross, especially since it's not just some throwaway characters but actually Alleyn and Fox (Foxkin nooooooo!) who get together to sneer at the poor harmlessly swishy acolyte boys nursing massive crushes on the tinpot cult leader. I mean, they are both hopeless doofuses but all this disproportionate animus makes me want to like them somehow anyway.

The next Ngaio Marsh I reread, though, was Vintage Murder, which is quite good. It's the first time she develops Alleyn as a character on his own, without the crutches of Nigel Bathgate (who will fade out of the books shortly) or even my beloved Foxkin, except in some adorable letters that Alleyn writes him. She does rely on two subjects that she loves: the theatre (again) and New Zealand (for the first time), including some breathtaking scenery porn. Alleyn makes astounding leaps in his ability to negotiate tricky social situations and control his impulses to be a total IRL troll, or maybe that's just limited to when he's hanging around with Nigel Bathgate, whose pigtails he takes such an inordinate amount of pleasure in pulling.

I reread Artists in Crime, which is an old favorite that I've reread lots of times and I still pretty much love it. I adore Troy, of course, but Lady Alleyn is the best.

I read Ann M. Martin's new book, Better to Wish, the opening part of a four-book family saga. It was good, although it feels like a much longer book was abridged to hit middle-grade length. (Why didn't I think of that? /lazywriter)

I read The Blue Faience Hippopotamus based on a recommendation from hermionesviolin (and her mom!), and it is, indeed, adorable. ♥

What I'm reading next

Hopefully more books than this week. It was a busy week.