2019 Fandom Promo!

[crantz]

Welcome to the Fandom Promo post, everyone!

Here's where you get those eyes on your fandoms for sign ups!

Share what makes your Yuletide fandoms the shiniest and why you love them. A big part of Yuletide is how small our fandoms can be, and this is a good way to make sure other people know what gems there are out there!

Suggested form to use:

<b>FANDOM NAME</b>:
<b>WHAT MAKES IT GREAT</b>:
<b>WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional)</b>:


For reference, last year's promo post!

This post on LJ

Comments

[meme]

FANDOM NAME: The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone (5 books in a non-chronological sequence, one new one)

Set in the same universe with some characters from the books, but otherwise standalone, are two (brief) choose-your-own-adventure games:

• Choice of the Deathless -- in which you play a fledgeling attorney at a magical law firm and have to claw your way up the ranks (and pay off your student loans. so very many loans)


• The City's Thirst -- in which you play the employee of a magical water corporation trying to figure out what's interfering with the city's water supply

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Imagine a world whose currency is soulstuff -- where it can be traded, banked, generated by acts of faith, or drawn from the stars. Now imagine that the gods used to be the central banks of this world. Now imagine that wizards decided to overthrow the gods, and succeeded. Then imagine the wizards realized the world actually needs a functioning economy of soulstuff to continue existing stably, said 'fuck' collectively, and had to found their own corporations.

This very bad summary underlies what's a very fun concept, which is basically: magic lawyers, if the practice of law had the ability to reshape the fabric of the world. The books in my opinion can be read in pretty much any order, though the first published one (Three Parts Dead) will always be my favorite. The standard fantasy risks (death by monsters, scheming wizards, magic going fucking sideways and blowing you out of existence) are all still present, but it's merged and blended with problems of urban infrastructure (imagine if Las Vegas's water supply depended on a magical treaty?), fraud investigation (what if a major bank just collapsed and you have to figure out who's responsible, except the god is a bank?) and more in a way that feels intrinsically different from 'It's like [Real City] but with vampires/werewolves/fae/etc' types of urban fantasy. And don't get me wrong -- I love urban fantasy. But this scratches a pretty different itch.

In this series, if you're sufficiently magical enough, you shed your flesh and end up a walking skeleton fueled entirely by magic, called a Deathless King. If you've ever had dreams of shedding your mortal flesh prison for a slick set of bones instead, this might be the series for you.

Finally, it has a pretty diverse cast -- I won't get into it too much, but I think it's one of the fantasy series that gets fantasy!POC right, in that you can clearly identify that the character is a member of a minority group in the context of the world, and the narrative engages with how that shapes them (ie. one character who's from a group indigenous to an area that an urban city was built on realistically struggles with their rejection/reconnection to the traditional faith and beliefs they were raised with, considering they work for the corporation that goes against those values; another character is trans, and the understanding from that experience meant makes them damn good at their job). Characters of all sexualities/orientations are present and visible. For the CYOA games, you can explicitly choose to "play as male or female, gay or straight, dead or alive (or both).

Anyway, there's a lot going on. I think this might appeal to fans of Discworld -- although the series generally takes itself much more seriously, there's some meta stuff that touches on ideas on humanity and immortality and greater cosmic justice brought up in the Death books, Small Gods, and even some of the procedural aspects and simple humanity of the Watch books.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional):
The books are generally available where all eBooks are sold -- I'll note that there's an omnibus edition that collects the first five which may be cheaper than buying all of them independent of each other.

The CYOA games are available on various app stores, but you can also play it free (for limited saving/replay ability) online at the Choice of Games Website. If you're not sure the writing or worldbuilding will be your cup of tea, I recommend checking these out first.
Choice of the Deathless
The City's Thirst