FANDOM NAME: The Fairyland Series - Catherynne M. Valente (5 book series, middle-grade)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: The 30-second version is "It's portal fiction that's set in the 1930's but has modern meta sensibilities," and that is of very little use.
The first book is titled The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and that tells you a great deal more about the writing style.
The narrator is biased as all-get-out. Happily wandering off into side perspectives to let you know about the inner lives of a key or a particularly helpful piece of clothing. "Shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings"-flavored lists. Telling the reader things she would like to tell the protagonist about life, but is not allowed because it wouldn't help anyway and also because the narrator is just a smidge malicious.
The universe is kind, except when it isn't (but those aren't surprises). The universe is definitely queer. The companions are cheerfully bizarre; my favorite is a "wyverary" who appears to be fully a wyvern but believes his father to be a library. He is named A-Through-L. There's a car that's turned itself into a... something that is not a car anymore. There's a merboy who is unstuck in time. Found families all over the place.
It's a fairyland that feels like it has everything in it, and everything includes me.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT: It is books. Libraries and e-reader purveyors have them, and the audiobook version is read by the author.
WHAT I'M LIKELY TO REQUEST: For my nominations and fic requests I focused on a set of changeling characters from book 4, The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, about a troll child who was mailed to Chicago. [CW: child stealing, forced child labor] You could probably read it as a standalone, though the ending would miss the "and here's how it ties back in" punch.
There's a troll who writes down the secret rules of school, a wooden girl who paints forests, a living gramophone, and Blunderbuss the Combat Wombat, a patchwork animal who is exactly as amazing as she sounds. While the author tries to suggest that every child feels like a changeling so it's okay to feel like that, I've gotta say that from where I'm standing, it looks an awful lot like the author wrote a trans+neurodivergent narrative very much on purpose.
Fairyland Series - Catherynne M. Valente
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: The 30-second version is "It's portal fiction that's set in the 1930's but has modern meta sensibilities," and that is of very little use.
The first book is titled The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and that tells you a great deal more about the writing style.
The narrator is biased as all-get-out. Happily wandering off into side perspectives to let you know about the inner lives of a key or a particularly helpful piece of clothing. "Shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings"-flavored lists. Telling the reader things she would like to tell the protagonist about life, but is not allowed because it wouldn't help anyway and also because the narrator is just a smidge malicious.
The universe is kind, except when it isn't (but those aren't surprises). The universe is definitely queer. The companions are cheerfully bizarre; my favorite is a "wyverary" who appears to be fully a wyvern but believes his father to be a library. He is named A-Through-L. There's a car that's turned itself into a... something that is not a car anymore. There's a merboy who is unstuck in time. Found families all over the place.
It's a fairyland that feels like it has everything in it, and everything includes me.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT: It is books. Libraries and e-reader purveyors have them, and the audiobook version is read by the author.
WHAT I'M LIKELY TO REQUEST: For my nominations and fic requests I focused on a set of changeling characters from book 4, The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, about a troll child who was mailed to Chicago. [CW: child stealing, forced child labor] You could probably read it as a standalone, though the ending would miss the "and here's how it ties back in" punch.
There's a troll who writes down the secret rules of school, a wooden girl who paints forests, a living gramophone, and Blunderbuss the Combat Wombat, a patchwork animal who is exactly as amazing as she sounds. While the author tries to suggest that every child feels like a changeling so it's okay to feel like that, I've gotta say that from where I'm standing, it looks an awful lot like the author wrote a trans+neurodivergent narrative very much on purpose.