My 2019 in Books

I might not have mentioned elsewhere on this blog that, in spite of my writerly ambitions, I’m a tragically slow reader. In 2018 I managed to read some 18 books — that’s 1.5 books a month — and considered it an achievement. In 2019 I planned to read 24 — the whole of 2 books a month! — but in the end managed only 20. Here they are, and how I remember them:

Playing Skyrim–Beyond Skyrim

It’s not a witticism. Beyond Skyrim is one of those overambitious projects you sometimes hear about with regards to the highly modable games from Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls series that aim to expand the already huge game world by adding new provinces or rebuilding entire previous games in the latest one. But unlike most (possibly all) of them, Beyond Skyrim is actually playable. And it’s excellent. The new content is of DLC quality, virtually indistinguishable from the vanilla game, and where it differs, it’s mostly for the better.

NaNo 2019 Musings

In the previous post, I announced that this year I would be doing a modified Nano thing, whereby I’d try to complete the rewrite of the Nano 2011 draft for my story Ghost in the Machine. Tl;dr: I did not “win” Nano and I did not finish Ghost. I did write almost every day of November and I did draft two new chapters. But I’m thoroughly uninspired to go on with it.

Fanart (!) for TTSS, and Pre-Nano Ramblings

My friend, HeavenlyEros, made this fabulous poster for TTSS! Eros also helped me create the cover for it, and performed many other feats of great art and friendship, some of which I mentioned before. The Mass Effect fandom is truly blessed to inspire such talented, devoted and kind creators — and so am I, to have such friends. ♥

Two Steamy Mass Effect Fics

Nothing new, I’m afraid. Just some stories I never posted on this site because of adult content. They’ve both been on AO3 for a long time, though. The first is Inappropriate Thoughts, where Garrus and female Shepard from my other Garrus/Shepard stories share some indecent battlefield fantasies (and then go on to enact one). The other is Morning After, where Garrus and male Shepard wake up after their first night as lovers — my one and only story featuring male Shepard, written as a gift for Logsig.

Some, or even most of the people who read my Saren/Nihlus stories, may not even be aware that I used to write Garrus/Shepard at all, even though that stuff always got far more attention from fandom at large. Perhaps this belated advert will help someone discover stories they didn’t know about and hopefully make them happy.

Image: Garrus by Angua33