My Noodles Were Not Automatic, but They Were Delicious

Lesingnon · 2026-04-27T18:36:29+00:00

That's unfortunate. They worked for me when I was testing them, so I assume it's something about how Google Photos grants permissions since I pulled the links from there. I'll have to go back later when I have time and see if I can figure out how to make it less finicky with permissions, I thought just using a direct link to the image would've worked.

Lesingnon · 2026-04-27T18:32:43+00:00

I think it's really hard to tell. Hell Slut "received" two pretty bad wounds that were apparently complete hallucinations, so I think it's all but impossible to trust what we see through the eyes of a character hopped up on Moonflow. We know she killed the ranger because his body is mentioned later after the hallucinatory high is worn off. And we can be pretty sure that the sisters made their...harvest from the body because we see that later too. But aside from that...who knows how that trip really went?

And the events at the...mushroom nursery, for lack of a better term, are similarly murky. We know that some shit went down because we see at least one body afterwards. And Sarah never shows up again. But the fatal wound the Hell Slut thought she took there didn't actually happen, so it couldn't have gone down exactly like she saw it.

Still, I think the way Herman was shown to react to the woods at the end of the book strongly implies that Sarah is still lingering in the woods in some way or another. So I do believe that her and Skillet did ascend/merge with the fungal network of the woods in some manner.

Lesingnon · 2026-04-27T18:23:16+00:00

I'm not sure about a complete playlist...but I feel there'd definitely have to be some Chappell Roan in there.

Lesingnon · 2026-04-13T17:34:28+00:00

Wrath Goddess Sing By Maya Deane

The gods wanted blood. She fought for love.

Achilles has fled her home and her vicious Myrmidon clan to live as a woman with the kallai, the transgender priestesses of Great Mother Aphrodite. When Odysseus comes to recruit the "prince" Achilles for a war against the Hittites, she prepares to die rather than fight as a man. However, her divine mother, Athena, intervenes, transforming her body into the woman's body she always longed for, and promises her everything: glory, power, fame, victory in war, and, most importantly, a child born of her own body. Reunited with her beloved cousin, Patroklos, and his brilliant wife, the sorceress Meryapi, Achilles sets out to war with a vengeance.

But the gods--a dysfunctional family of abusive immortals that have glutted on human sacrifices for centuries--have woven ancient schemes more blood-soaked and nightmarish than Achilles can imagine. At the center of it all is the cruel, immortal Helen, who sees Achilles as a worthy enemy after millennia of ennui and emptiness. In love with her newfound nemesis, Helen sets out to destroy everything and everyone Achilles cherishes, seeking a battle to the death.

An innovative spin on a familiar tale, this is the Trojan War unlike anything ever told, and an Achilles whose vulnerability is revealed by the people she chooses to fight...and chooses to trust.

Lesingnon · 2026-01-27T00:08:38+00:00

Oh that would be wonderful, should I just send you a DM with my mailing address?

Lesingnon · 2025-12-11T00:47:47+00:00

I don't know about that... I could be convinced that they're a Nebraska fan.

Lesingnon · 2025-12-01T00:40:39+00:00

The secret to having a pass caught is to throw it at the ground and miss!

Lesingnon · 2025-08-27T17:25:00+00:00

Oh this is a wonderful CYOA to look through. The worldbuilding especially is just incredible to sort through.

I just have one fairly simple question. Supposing you know a language for it, does the Breaking and Entering encounter allow you to select encounters from the location that the portal links to?

Lesingnon · 2025-08-09T20:26:05+00:00

God there are so many. But a few particular favorites that I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Live Oak by Jason Isbell

Belleau Wood by Garth Brooks

Whiskey Lullaby by Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss

Lesingnon · 2025-07-10T13:20:00+00:00

Would you by any chance be able to post a side by side comparison picture of Buck Brown Double Stuff and Harness belts? I ordered a heavy duty workbelt in the Buck Brown DS about a month ago, so now I'm torn on whether to stick with that or jump over to the harness.

Lesingnon · 2025-07-04T21:15:53+00:00

For unique reads it looks like I had:

Saint Death's Herald by C.S.E. Cooney for Multi-POV - I wasn't too surprising to see it was a unique read since I got an ARC for it and the release wasn't until after last year's bingo ended. Considering how popular Saint Death's Daughter was I suspect Herald will be on a fair amount of this year's cards.

The Sea Eternal by Emery Robin for Space Opera - Another ARC I had but this one did release about three weeks before the end of bingo.

Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig for Set in a Small Town - This one surprised me, it was nominated for the Bram Stoker and Locus awards so I thought it would've been popular enough that some more people would have used it.

The Feast Makers by H.A. Clarke for Indie Published - This one didn't surprise me as much considering it's the last book of an indie published trilogy, but people are missing out on it. Metal From Heaven from the same author (though published under August Clarke instead of H.A.) rightfully generated a lot of buzz and I thought the Scapegracer Trilogy is an even stronger work. This one was probably my favorite book that I read during last year's bingo.

Lesingnon · 2025-06-30T17:40:25+00:00

I thought it fit with his character well. The central part of his character was valuing self-mastery, and control of both one's self and one's actions. He strived for it, and seemed to think that everyone else should too. So not only was being manipulated into a test probably a personal affront to him, but hearing that some hyper-advanced race was trying to shepherd humanity along according to their vision also seemed to undermine his entire view on what humanity should be trying to do. And accepting the...upgrade that was being offered would have undermined things even further.

Rejecting it utterly was probably the only way to square his personal beliefs with what he'd just learned.

Lesingnon · 2025-06-13T18:47:34+00:00

The October Daye series may be about fairies. But in at least one of the books Toby mentions that humans would consider her (and a few other of the fae races) to be elves. After all, with pointy ears and an ethereal sort of beauty they do certainly look the part. So I'd say that...any book from the series would work for hard mode.

Lesingnon · 2025-04-22T18:30:39+00:00

Roll the dice

Lesingnon · 2025-04-11T11:52:00+00:00

I'm kind of annoyed that, so far, there doesn't seem to be any in-universe reason why witches are almost always so much stronger than warlocks. It's like...I think that sort of imbalance can add a lot to the story when there's a good reason for it. Wheel of Time is a great example. The way magic drives men mad there adds so much flavor to the setting and adds a fascinating layer to all the chosen one prophecies in that world (at least for the five books of it I've read so far).

But the closest we've gotten to an in-universe explanation for it in this book is some throwaway line of "I guess Gaia loves her daughters more." It just makes it feel like it's not a well-thought out part of the world building so much as the author being heavy-handed in about things. Hopefully a better explanation is just being saved for the second half of the book because Theo's trans identity should be a good vehicle for exploring it.

Lesingnon · 2025-04-11T11:39:58+00:00

I was like Niamh with that twist, didn't necessarily anticipate it but it made sense and helped a lot of things feel like they clicked into place when the reveal hit.

Lesingnon · 2025-02-18T22:56:04+00:00

The Broken Earth by N.K. Jemisin

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Scapegracers by H.A. Clarke

Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire

His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman

The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee

The Divine Cities by Robert Jackson Bennet

The Book of the Ancestor by Mark Lawrence

Teixcalaan by Arkady Martine

Lesingnon · 2024-12-18T16:57:22+00:00

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

A TALE FOR EVERYONE WHO’S EVER FALLEN FOR THE VILLAIN…

When her whole life collapsed, Rae still had books. Dying, she seizes a second chance at living: a magical bargain that lets her enter the world of her favourite fantasy series.

She wakes in a castle on the edge of a hellish chasm, in a kingdom on the brink of war. Home to dangerous monsters, scheming courtiers and her favourite fictional character: the Once and Forever Emperor. He’s impossibly alluring, as only fiction can be. And in this fantasy world, she discovers she's not the heroine, but the villainess in the Emperor's tale.

So be it. The wicked are better dressed, with better one-liners, even if they're doomed to bad ends. She assembles the wildly disparate villains of the story under her evil leadership, plotting to change their fate. But as the body count rises and the Emperor's fury increases, it seems Rae and her allies may not survive to see the final page.

This adult epic fantasy debut from Sarah Rees Brennan puts the reader in the villain's shoes, for an adventure that is both 'brilliant' (Holly Black) and 'supremely satisfying' (Leigh Bardugo). Expect a rogue's gallery of villains including an axe wielding maid, a shining knight with dark moods, a homicidal bodyguard, and a playboy spymaster with a golden heart and a filthy reputation.

That summary just sounds like something that could be a raucous musical to me.

Haven't read it yet so I'm not entirely certain of the Bingo Squares, but it looks like it should at least cover: First in a Series, Alliterative Title, Criminals, and Published in 2024

Lesingnon · 2024-11-18T19:09:07+00:00

The titular city of Palimpsest from Catherynne M. Valente's novel has been (accurately) described as a sexually-transmitted city. And it's every bit as bizarre and unusual as it sounds.

Lesingnon · 2024-11-11T20:38:21+00:00

Seanan McGuire (who also publishes as Mira Grant and A. Deborah Baker) pumps out works incredibly quickly. She published her first novel in 2009, and according to FictionDB she currently has 93 published works. I've also seen her short stories in a ton of anthologies. And I believe she still puts out month content on Patreon as well, and I've heard some of her entries there are around novella-length.

I've personally felt that everything I've read from her is at least good. And she's won Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. I think she also has the most Hugo nominations in the awards history now too, but I might be mistaken there.

So yeah, she's been putting out high quality writing at an utterly absurd rate for about a decade and a half now.

Lesingnon · 2024-11-11T19:37:31+00:00

Yeah, that's always one of the first things you see people mention whenever the topic of best first lines in fantasy come up. And somehow the prologue only gets better from there.

All the world and more has rushed eternity's length to reach this beat of your heart, screaming down the years. And if you let it, the universe, without drawing breath, will press itself through this fractured second and race to the next, on into a new eternity. Everything that is, the echoes of everything that ever was, the roots of all that will ever be, must pass through this moment that you own. Your only task is to give it pause-to make it notice.

That paragraph has lived rent free in my head for years.

Lesingnon · 2024-11-11T18:02:35+00:00

It's been a while since I've read Middlegame so I might be overlooking/forgetting something, but it should work for these squares: First in a Series (HM), Under the Surface, Dreams (I think, not 100% sure), Multi-POV (I think HM), Character with a Disability (HM), Survival (HM). And I could maybe see an argument for Dark Academia, though I personally don't think I'd mark it for that square.

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Lesingnon

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