hexmix: a little ghost in a witch's hat (Default)
[personal profile] hexmix posting in [community profile] booknook


Title: What Moves the Dead
Author: T. Kingfisher
Genre: horror

[Posting a lil early as I'll be out of town, hope that's okay!]

I'd been wanting to read What Moves the Dead for some time, having heard 1) that it was a retelling of Fall of the House of Usher and 2) it had a nonbinary protag, but kept backburnering it. Then my book club ended up reading Poe's House of Usher this month and I followed that up with watching The Bloodhound, a modern adaptation of the short story (it's REALLY BAD, would not recommend), so I decided this would be the month to (finally!) read it. It also shoehorns nicely with the horror theme I'd been going for with my reviews for this event :)

What Moves is indeed a retelling of Usher, but in the place of Poe's nameless narrator is veteran soldier Alex Easton, a character entirely of Kingfisher's creation, who comes hand-in-hand with a fictional European country and language to round out their background. Easton journeys to the Usher estate upon hearing that their childhood friend Madeline is gravely ill, only to encounter a house oppressive in its decay, with grounds populated by disturbingly strange wildlife. Easton finds that it's not just Madeline who has fallen ill; her brother Roderick too suffers from what seems some unknown malady that fills him with a debilitating fear.

Kingfisher sticks fairly close to the original story, but puts her own disquieting spin on the events which nonetheless manage to feel very much within the spirit of the original. Having reread the original recently I was struck with how much time Poe spends just describing the house and the tarn; building up the atmosphere. I very much appreciated Kingfisher playing to this (every mention of the tarn right there at the start had me cheering like a sportsball fan) and building off of it. I personally caught on to where Kingfisher was going very early, but as it was right up my alley, I had an absolute blast reading anyway.

(Also, side note to say that this book is aesthetically VERY NICE. The cover rocks, the end paper illustrations are gorgeous (and spooky!), and even the house detail beneath the dust jacket is a real nice touch. A++ on book design alone.)

What Moves is a quick read, easily managed in one sitting, that expands on the source material without being a simple retread. I also really enjoyed all the characters, even Madeline and Roderick (and the gross old house and the grosser tarn). Easton makes for a great protagonist, and the country of Gallacia is also fairly interesting, especially as its culture and language are described in contrast with the rest of Europe/America—-I also just personally enjoyed that this was not a modern retelling, that Kingfisher works Gallacia into the broader history and time period of the original House of Usher.

What Moves maintains a nicely creepy atmosphere throughout, and while I wouldn't consider it outright scary, it's a fun read, especially if you're looking for a quick, not-too-spooky book to finish off spooky month.

Review: Library Exension app

Oct. 26th, 2025 09:25 am
merrileemakes: Tabby cat feet standing on an open book (peets)
[personal profile] merrileemakes posting in [community profile] booknook
Okay so here's me pushing the boundaries of "you can review anything" even further. Have y'all heard about Library Extension? It's a Chrome/Firefox/Edge extension that pops a box almost seamlessly into major book sites, like Amazon, Kobo, Google Books and GoodReads, and tells you if any of pre-defined set of libraries has that book.

It searches by title rather than ISBN so it picks up physical, ebook and audiobook editions of the title you're looking at. And links you straight to the page to borrow.

trees

It currently has the catalogue of over 5000 libraries, including catalogues of subscription services like Kobo Plus, Scribd and Everand. And if they don't have your local library you can ask and they'll try to add it.

Unfortunately it works on desktop browsers. And the title search does occasionally give you a random title and not the one you're looking at. But overall 9/10 will make my TBR list groan until it dies no regrets

Book Review: Ikigai

Oct. 25th, 2025 05:50 pm
huxleyenne: (little luna)
[personal profile] huxleyenne posting in [community profile] booknook
Full Title: 生き甲斐  Ikigai: Giving Every Day Meaning and Joy

Author: Yukari Mitsuhashi

First Published: In Great Britain by Kyle Books, an Imprint of Octopus Publishing Group LtD, 2018

"The Japanese word ikigai is formed of two Japanese characters, or kanji: 'iki' [生き], meaning life, and 'gai' [甲斐], meaning value or worth. Ikigai, then, is the value of life, or happiness in life. Put simply, it's the reason you get up in the morning." - That's the summary on the back of the book. 

This is a quick and thoughtful read. I'm a distractable person with a wandering mind, and it still only took me about an hour to reread this cover to cover. Here are some thoughts. 

Call it morbid curiosity or a guilty pleasure, but I read self-help books sometimes, including bad ones. It's a good idea to take life advice books with a grain of salt, and perhaps Ikigai is no different. Even so, I like this book. Nothing felt out of place or without meaning. There are no religious undertones that I noticed, nor does the author have the attitude that your purpose in life is to make money. She does her best to show the reader what the "value of life" means to her, and the anecdotes she used from others are brief, but effective. 

I think perhaps my favorite thing the author said was toward the end, on page 89: "I think having ikigai ensures that I will never be bored until the day I die. Maybe that's happiness. You keep chasing your ikigai and one day you just die." This made me think of hobbies we passionately engage with and why we have them. If I had to call anything my ikigai, it would probably be writing fanfiction.  

A book like this has its place if you need a quick boost, or moment to think deeply about what you love and why it gets you out of bed in the morning. It doesn't have to be a job or family, though it can be those things. It just has to be true, and yours. Reading this feels meditative, in a way.

Saturday 25 October 2025

Oct. 25th, 2025 05:45 pm
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[personal profile] merryghoul posting in [community profile] doctor_who_sonic
Do you have a Doctor Who community or a journal that we are not currently linking to? Leave a note in the comments and we'll add you to the watchlist ([personal profile] doctor_watch).

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Off-DW News
Blogtor Who's Friday Video of the Day is a clip from The Awakening
Doctor Who News's obituary for Nabil Shaban

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Fanfiction
Completed
Inside Job by [personal profile] badly_knitted [River, OC | PG]

Recommendations
[personal profile] paranoidangel recommends the fic The Paradise Complex by unwillingadventurer [Ian/Barbara, One, Susan | General Audiences]

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Database maintenance

Oct. 25th, 2025 08:42 am
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Good morning, afternoon, and evening!

We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)

I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.

Ta for now!

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Eight works new to me. Three fantasies, two horror, two SF, and one hard-to-classify RPG. One of the SF books is pretty horrory, so maybe that should be three fantasies, three horror, one SF, and one hard-to-classify RPG.

Books Received, October 18 — October 24

Poll #33761 Books Received, October 18 — October 24
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 43


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Abyss by Nicholas Binge (May 2026)
5 (11.6%)

Testimony of Mute Things by Lois McMaster Bujold (October 2025)
24 (55.8%)

Morsel by Carter Keane (April 2026)
3 (7.0%)

The Cove by Claire Rose (May 2026)
5 (11.6%)

Outgunned by Riccardo ​“Rico” Sirignano & Simone Formicola, with art by Daniela Giubellini (December 2024)
4 (9.3%)

And Side by Side They Wander by Molly Tanzer (May 2026)
16 (37.2%)

Lightning Runes by Harry Turtledove (March 2026)
8 (18.6%)

A Long and Speaking Silence by Nghi Vo (May 2026)
21 (48.8%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
33 (76.7%)

paranoidangel: Ian and Barbara in Revolutionary France (Revolutionaries)
[personal profile] paranoidangel posting in [community profile] tardis_library
Title: The Paradise Complex
Creator: [archiveofourown.org profile] unwillingadventurer
Rating: General
Word Count/Length/Size: 13,231 words
Creator's Summary: Sometimes paradise isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Characters/Pairings: Ian Chesterton/Barbara Wright First Doctor, Susan Foreman
Warnings/Notes: None

Reasons for reccing: It's an interesting mystery, where the four of them turn up somewhere with multiple Ians and Barbaras and everything named after future companions. And it's told from Barbara's perspective in the future as she's telling their son, John.


Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12506300

Speak Up Saturday 🍹

Oct. 25th, 2025 03:33 pm
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[personal profile] feurioo posting in [community profile] tv_talk
Assortment of black and white speech bubbles

Welcome to the weekly roundup post! What are you watching this week? What are you excited about?

Fannish Stuff

Oct. 24th, 2025 10:10 pm
settiai: (Dark & Stormy Night -- chatona)
[personal profile] settiai
On the Critical Role front, a friend has sent me some very specific spoilers about last night's episode as well as timestamps to avoid, so I'm going to try to watch it again this weekend but this time going in prepared. When I watch this time, I'm going to very carefully fast-forward through some scenes to try to avoid being set off again like I was when I was watching it live. Because gods only know the last thing I need is another accidental panic attack.

We'll see how it goes?

I've gotta admit, one of the biggest things that annoys me about Critical Role is their refusal to add content warnings of any type even now that they're prerecording. It made sense when they were properly airing live prior to 2020, because that just wasn't possible, but now? It would help a lot of people to at least have an option to know in advance that an episode was going to include common triggers. They gave warnings for the Divergence miniseries, so it's definitely possible for them to do. They just don't do it most of the time.

Let's see...

I finally managed to get my Yuletide sign-up done earlier this afternoon. It took a lot longer than I was expecting, but I got it in a few hours before the deadline so that I still had time to go back and make a few small edits before they closed. So that's a relief at least. I'm having a few regrets about not trimming down my list of offers a bit more than I did, but that happens every year, so it's not exactly something new.

The Dragon Age Reverse Bang's deadline is Sunday, so my artist and I are both hurrying to get everything finished. My brain's a bit mush right now despite me napping after work, because A. I slept like crap and B. I think that I might be coming down with something, so I think that I'm going to go to bed in a bit so that I can plan on getting up early and curling up with my laptop to spend tomorrow writing until I get this ever-growing monster of a fic done.

Dear Yuletide Writer(s),

Oct. 24th, 2025 12:44 pm
settiai: (Yuletide -- liviapenn)
[personal profile] settiai
Just to note: this year's requests include the Gargoyles cartoon, the movie Home Alone (1990), the Hornblower TV movies, the Peacemakers television show (2003), the book Stealing Fire by Jo Graham, the movie Titanic (1997), the movie The Wild Robot (2024), and the webcomic The Witch Wolf.

My AO3 account is [archiveofourown.org profile] Settiai.




First of all, relax! I'm far from being picky, and I can pretty much guarantee that I'll love whatever you decide to write me. These are nothing but guidelines for you to take to heart or ignore to your heart's content. Also, hey! You're writing me fic! In a tiny(ish) fandom that I adore! That's automatically a good reason for me to love you, no matter what. So, please, keep that in mind. Trust me, you can pretty much do no wrong. ♥

That said, I thought that I'd elaborate a bit on my eight requests in case, like me, you're the type of person who likes to have something to work with. If you're not that type of person, it's totally fine with me if you skip over anything/everything that I've included in this letter. Feel free to use and/or ignore as much of this as you want.

General Likes/Dislikes )

Gargoyles (Cartoon) )

Home Alone (Movies) )

Hornblower (TV) )

Peacemakers (2003) )

Stealing Fire - Jo Graham )

Titanic (1997) )

The Wild Robot (2024) )

The Witch Wolf (Webcomic) )

No matter what, please don't stress out about writing for me. I'll love whatever you give me, so don't worry. Write what makes you happy, and I can guarantee that I'll be happy in return.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


High school student and semi-professional tarot card reader Danika Dizon assists her PI mother to look for a missing person... a teen who vanished after Danika gave her a tarot card reading.

Death in the Cards by Mia P. Manansala

Critical Role

Oct. 23rd, 2025 11:55 pm
settiai: (Critical Role -- settiai)
[personal profile] settiai
Okay, yeah, I think that I may no longer be watching Critical Role.

Rambling under the cut. )

ETA: In retrospect, I was definitely having a mild panic attack for a while there, so I've apparently found a fun new trigger. A friend is sending me some very specific spoilers and timestamps about last night's episode, so I'm going to try it again when I can go in prepared. It's not as bad as it initially seemed, but the way it was handled was definitely... not great.
arcanetrivia: animated gif of Guybrush, dizzy with stars over his head after jumping through the window of the Bloody Lip bar (monkey island (guybrush dizzy))
[personal profile] arcanetrivia posting in [site community profile] dw_community_promo
Ahoy there, adventure gamers! [community profile] monkeyisland is a community for the beloved classic game series Monkey Island, featuring the comedic swashbuckling adventures of the improbably-named Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate™. Anything about Monkey Island is fair game: your own fanworks (art, fic, videos, games, music, cosplay, memes/silliness, whatever), recs of others' fanworks, livestreams/let's-plays, discussions, news and articles, tips for messing about in the game resources or scripting, requests for hints, screenshots, all that good stuff. If Monkey Island is your jam rum rum and jam (it's an old pirate favorite, everybody knows that), then come on over and have a grog.

Monkey Island text logo

Thursday 23rd October 2025

Oct. 23rd, 2025 07:04 pm
usuallyhats: The Second Doctor at the TARDIS console, Jamie biting his knuckles as he looks over the Doctor's shoulder (two jamie ohnoes)
[personal profile] usuallyhats posting in [community profile] doctor_who_sonic
Do you have a Doctor Who community or a journal that we are not currently linking to? Leave a note in the comments and we'll add you to the watchlist ([personal profile] doctor_watch).

Editor's Note: If your item was not linked, it's because the header lacked the information that we like to give our readers. Please at least give the title, rating, and pairing or characters, and please include the header in the storypost itself, not just in the linking post. Spoiler warnings are also greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Off-Dreamwidth News
Blogtor Who's video of the day for yesterday was a clip from 1968's "The Dominators"
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Discussion and Miscellany
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Fanfiction
Complete
Always Alone by [personal profile] badly_knitted (Jack | PG)

Icons, Fanart & Creative Endeavours
[personal profile] purplecat with five Martha icons

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james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


The August 2023 Nightmares Underneath Bundle featuring The Nightmares Underneath, the old-school horror-fantasy tabletop roleplaying game from Chthonstone Games.

Bundle of Holding: Nightmares Underneath (from 2023)

Girl in the Creek by Wendy N. Wagner

Oct. 23rd, 2025 08:51 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Faraday, Oregon, seems to have a missing persons problem. Its problem is much worse.

Girl in the Creek by Wendy N. Wagner

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