Hello, internets!

[sholio]

I have not been around much lately; work + social life/volunteerism + writing fiction has stolen all my online time and most of my energy. (Woe!) And it doesn't help that my workplace has tightened its rules on blogging, so I can't pop in and check LJ during the day. Hopefully things will lighten up soon.

Hmm, what's going on these days ...

1. sga_genficathon is humming along nicely. I am thrilled to be able to sit back this year and watch stories magically appear, with just a few very minor snags to iron out and/or author requests to fix formatting errors, etc. I am still way, way behind on reading, but I am really impressed with the variety of stories, styles and subjects available to read -- The Choices That Damn Us deserves way more comments than it's gotten (a chilling, believable, Teyla-centric AU that depicts a very plausible direction in which the Stargate Program could have gone). On a much more cheerful note (yes, I am counting apocafic as "more cheerful") Where the White Lillies Grow is a long and very enjoyable, John & Rodney-centric story of two clashing AUs, one in which a series of Years Without a Summer in the 1800s wiped out most of civilization on Earth, and another in which a darker Atlantis expedition never regained contact with Earth. A malfunctioning Stargate causes them to collide ...

2. Switching to serious RL stuff, Tor Books does it again with a YA fantasy about a magical USA in which the continent is conveniently empty of inhabitants when the Europeans arrive. This is not, in the book, presented as a terrible tragedy or a reason to explore a necessarily very different America; instead it's an excuse for a light-hearted romp with mammoths and covered wagons in an America that (in defiance of logic, reason or morality) is pretty much the same as the one we know except for the no-pesky-indigenous-people thing. Then Lois McMaster Bujold, whose books I like very much, gets involved in the comments and makes everything so very much worse. *headdesk* Due to the whole lack-of-time thing, I haven't read more than a random smattering of posts on this, but naraht has link roundups. (How do you make the LJ-user code work for Dreamwidth accounts? Cannot figure it out. Brain is very limp and floppy tonight.)

Comments

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

I'm about to run off to work, so very quickly: Thank you for the recs! I plan to read the genficathon once things calm down here, so much appreciated.

On the DW thing:

user name=jadesfire2808 site=livejournal.com

inside <> should work :)

[ratcreature]

The code thing depends on from where you post, I think. On DW the posting interfaces recognize additional site="livejournal.com" or site="insanejournal.com" added to the tag and when you crosspost to say LJ the crossposter formats the DW user tags to point to the original site too. AFAIK on LJ you'd have to do this manually and insert the links and tiny head and so on by hand (though there are scripts that generate this code for you), but giving the site as parameter does not work.

[indusnm.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'm glad to have read this--otherwise I feel like I'd miss everything during finals.

So are you switching your fics over to DW?

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

That bit with The 13th Child, man, I just cannot get behind the sentiment that an alt history piece that excises Native Americans is the same as an alt history piece that says Native Americans aren't important to the development of America.

Maybe it's just that I've been tuned into the crazy channel for the whole deal, but so far the only good argument I've seen is that it could bolster the 'empty plains' myth. I don't see the author talking about intent, and with something this subtle, I think I need some to differentiate this from normal alt history that doesn't get accused of racist undertones.

[astridv.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recs, very helpful. Where the White Lillies Grow is already next on my to-read list, but I admit The Choices That Damn Us had scared me off at first because it sounded so *dark*. I mean, pitch black. But now my curiosity is piqued.

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

Wow I just killed three hours down that rabbit hole. Damnit, racefail!!! Still, excellent books to buy someday were linked on the main thread, and a new website discovered. And there are geese outside my window. ^_^ All does not quite suck.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reminder. I should go post Tuesday's fics!

[livrelibre.livejournal.com]

Yay for sga_genficathon (*bookmarks for later since I am similarly lacking in time*) and I'm glad it's going well. Boo on continued Racefail (oh my sweet - again!)!!1! And thanks for clearing up that markup ? because I was wondering the exact same thing. . .