Challenge: Books to Discover

Prompt: Books I want youth to discover

Um. Good Lord. So, so many books. Where to even start? 

All right, let me just pick a couple of authors. 

Barbara Hambly: 

• Darwath series. Portal fantasy; H.P. Lovecraft meets J.R.R. Tolkien. Some elements are a little bit dated, but generally not problematic, and it pulls off some moments that I swear to God only a History major with a martial arts background writing fantasy could have produced. 
• Stranger at the Wedding. A spinoff from her Windrose Chronicles, this is the standalone story of a young mage trying to save her sister from a death curse. 
• James Asher Novels. Vampires in Victorian-ish London recruit a former-spy-turned-college-professor to find out who's killing them. The series proceeds from there. 

Martha Wells:
Look, I know Murderbot gets all the attention and I have no problem with that, but her backlist is equally amazing:

• The Ile-Rein books. Beginning with a sort of Three Musketeers but with magic (The Element of Fire) to a gaslight London murder mystery (Death of the Necromancer) to a trilogy of London Being Bombed in WWII (Fall of Ile-Rein, starting with The Wizard Hunters) and featuring portal fantasy elements. The Death of the Necromancer is particularly amazing, but the whole series is good.
• City of Bones.  A pair of hunters for relics of the ancient world are recruited by psychically-empowered Lictors to help solve an ancient mystery that should never have been investigated. Standalone. 
• The Books of the Raksura. Sword and Sorcery, except informed by the Nature Channel rather than the History Channel. Come watch a lost Consort find his place among a matriarchal society of dragon-like shapeshifters. 

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

Villain: Storm Giant

Name: Mark Thomas Smith
Alias: Storm Giant
Age: 33
Appearance: Ordinarily 6'3" with the thick, heavy build of a boxer; light brown hair in a buzz cut, broken nose, brown eyes, light skin; dresses in anything from sweatpants and a tank top to full suits.
Job: freelance muscle for hire

Mark Smith was working as an apprentice electrician when he accidentally grounded himself to a live wire. The current involved should have been enough to kill him; instead, it triggered his anomalous powers. He found himself larger, stronger, and far more durable... and shortly after that, he discovered that he was charged with electricity, which he could use for ranged attacks. 

He did eventually get his license, and makes a decent living working as a licensed electrician. However, the money available working off the books as an "enhanced" bodyguard or leg-breaker eventually proved too tempting -- especially since he could look like an ordinary man right up until the time came to charge up his powers. He took up the name Storm Giant, and hunted around online until he found a specialized boutique that would provide clothing that could change size along with the person wearing it. 

At age 33, he is content to have most of his income tied to his regular job, and supplement it with the occasional special assignment. For those, he wears a special "ninja hood" of the same material as his clothes, and keeps a powerful, compact battery in his pocket to trigger his powers if another source of electricity isn't handy. He has never tested the full limits of his power; the more electricity he draws, the larger, stronger, and tougher he grows. If there's a limit to that, he hasn't found it yet -- but he's also aware that the bigger the giant, the more of a target it represents.

StV: Fellow Catholics

"Hey, Cat," said Maria, sitting down across from her teammate and opening her laptop. 

Cat was reading Small Unit Tactics, which might have been part of her studies or just something she'd decided to look into. With everything that was going on, Maria was a little jealous that she hadn't thought of it first. She didn't look irritated at the interruption though, smiling as she said, "Maria." 

"You're Catholic, aren't you?"

Cat made a yes-and-no gesture. "My parents are. I'm not very observant, myself." She eyed Maria suspiciously. "Why?"

"Um," said Maria. "I could use some advice." 

"Wow. You have definitely come to the wrong place," Cat told her, but she was smiling slightly as she said it. "All right, Catholic Advice. Approach and be enlightened, Novice Maria. I bring the wisdom of the nuns teaching at St. Peter's primary school, but without the rulers."

Maria chuckled and settled back, strangely relaxed. Catarina Montoya -- Nightfall when they were out in the field -- was... maybe not a close friend, but somebody Maria trusted. If anybody would know where she was coming from, it was Cat. "So, if I found myself irresistibly attracted to somebody -- a boy -- to the point where just being around him was a temptation to sin, what would  the Church expect of me? I'm supposed to avoid temptation, right?"

Cat blew out a breath. "All right. You and I both know that the Church teaches that celibacy is the ideal. If you can't remain celibate, you're supposed to get married because sex isn't a sin if it takes place within the bonds of matrimony."

"Yeah," said Maria. "That's the problem. I'm seventeen; I'm not getting married yet. I've been trying to stay away from the guy, and ignore him when I can't, but... Damn it, I'd like to at least be friends with him, and avoiding him because I really like him just seems... backwards." 

Cat shrugged. "Yeah. Because the Church is very clear about what it expects, but what it expects isn't realistic. 'Be celibate, or get married before having sex' just isn't how people work. And I'd be a hypocrite to support it."

There was a momentary pause as Maria processed that. "You...?"

"Yeah," Cat told her. "I wanted to see what it was like, saw an opportunity, and took it."

"So what was it like?"

"Honestly? It was good. There was a lot of fumbling around, but we took our time and listened to each other, and it... well, it went pretty well. But you don't have to jump in like that. There are all kinds of intermediate stages, remember."

Maria half-shook her head. "I'll have to think about that. Thank you."

"Sure," said Cat, and went back to her reading. 

Music: In The Mood

 Ray Stevens:

Running to Stay Still

This week has been, inexplicably but relentlessly, busy. Secondborn is trying to catch up last semester's Physics plus some late assignments in English -- and today he's having his STAAR test for Algebra, so that's going to keep him occupied -- and I've been trying to stay on him so this gets done and he doesn't wind up in summer school. Work has been -- for no good reason that I can see -- just one thing after another. Nothing particularly catastrophic or unpleasant, there's just a lot going on right now. 

And, obviously, I've tapered off on the writing. Too much else going on; not enough energy left over; body needs sleep and lots of it. 

I'm still working on the Horny Superteens project, which -- while absolutely 100% pulp -- is doing a lot to preserve my sanity; the snippets of things here are me thinking through what's happening behind the scenes, so I guess those would count as bonus content. I'm hoping to jump back into it as soon as my system resets, but apparently this week is for catching up on the real world and Getting Some Sleep. 

Sleep is good. I like sleep. Sleep with long, weird dreams (that would be last night) is so damned refreshing that waking up from it always feels like a bit of a revelation. 

 

Music: Probably Will

Concrete Blonde:

The Climbing Gym

We have, once again, visited the climbing gym. I have, once again, climbed. I am reminded, yet again, of how very much out of shape I let myself become. I have no real idea of just how sore I'm going to be when this post goes up, but my best guess is groan.

The good news is that I am, slowly, getting back into better shape. The bad news is I'm definitely not there yet. And the other good news is that everybody had a really good time, and we were there for about three hours. So, y'know, plenty of opportunity to wear myself out and remind my body of what kinds of things it used to do.  

And it's really not a bad way to exercise, either. Like, it's not impacting the joints; it's working both strength and cardio -- and balance too, for that matter. Even limiting myself to the faces with the auto-belays, there are plenty of different things to try. Plus, y'know, I like being way up in the air. Especially if I can just let go and know I'll get back down safely.