Friday Five: Cold Air at the Top Edition

Hi all, and welcome to another Friday Five. It’s been a nice hot week so far, with it being more nice when outdoors and more just hot when penned up in a third floor flat with no aircon. I’m happy to be writing this on a slightly cooler morning, with the window open and the birds being irritatingly loud, by which I mean they’re making any noise in the slightest.

1. Happy Pride all! May it be everything you want, and the next month and the months after that too.

Here’s some of the content I’ve noticed tied to it and think worth spreading:

Good friend of this blog S.L. Dove has a sale on her books over at itch.io and speaking of sales, there’s also one by RoAnna Sylver and Numinous Spirit Press.

The Glasgow Worldcon ’24 blog is running a series of features, such as this Crafting Poetry with Pride post.

Storybundle had a Pride bundle – Lemberg’s book is the only one I recognise but given the rave reviews it’s had, if the others as good that’s a solid deal

Gollancz has a Pride Month Reading List

There’s an article here in Nikkei Asia about LGBTQ characters in SE Asian fiction, particularly fantasy

And a fantastic way to find new recommendations would be to look at the replies from this tweet by Claudie Arsenault:

If I had one Pride challenge for fellow authors, it'd be:

Find the books most like yours and promote them. What are books with similar approaches to your rep? Which ones share A Vibe?

Play the If You Liked Mine, You'll Like This Too game. Share the love, build your community!

— Claudie – 🐙 52,100/117,400 (@ClH2OArs) June 3, 2021

2. For those of you who don’t know, the Scottish SFFH festival Cymera is starting today and there’ll be a bunch of stuff recorded and stuck online. For access to that, click the link and have a nose around

3. Onto the blogs! Let’s start with my blog of the week, which is One More, run by the wisest and friendliest of bookwyrms in Imyril. I strongly recommend following her to everyone who desires larger TBR lists and insightful reviews. Good examples of this is her showcase on McKenna’s The Green Man series and this bite sized book review round up. So all hail the bookwyrm.

Other blog links I’ve got saved

Five Characters I Can’t Stop Thinking About – The Quill to Live is a great piece into some of the blogger’s favourite characters and what motivates them – and what he finds fascinating.

Fun for Monday: The Never Have I Ever Tag – bookforager – I enjoy reading a good tag and this one by Mayri was a lot of fun. Might have to have a go myself some time.

Sandstone Press’ Publishing Director Moira Forsyth is doing a series of blog posts on how to strengthen your writing for submission. This one is on characters, but it’s the seventh in the series, so a ton of back reading for us all.

The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu – A Cup of Cyanide -I’m not an anthology person, but Cyanide really sold this one, and I might just have to check it out. Okay. Will. When it’s released. Damn you, get away from my TBR pile, etc.etc.

Finally, I’m only just getting around to catching up with the Magic series at Witty & Sarcastic Bookclub and I like it so much I thought I’d share one more article from it, namely this one on Music as Magic.

4. A friend linked me to the following comic, which I share without comment as all comment is best made by the comic itself:

Catapult | I Do Not Want to Write Today: A Comic by Shing Yin Khor

5. Finally, this tweet thread on the Danse Macabre is great

You know who is really the life of the party? Death.
Not only she'll dance with every person present at once, but she'll diss them all – in verse.

🦴🪦A thread about the Danse Macabre (and a specific selection of death disses)🪦🦴 pic.twitter.com/VyBY21KjLW

— Mårco Målvagio – poorly explained history stuff (@MalvagioMarco) June 3, 2021

That’s it this week! Let me know if you have anything featured next Friday and have a great weekend.