Zero to Rings

Well, I finished the zero of Sons of Ymre #2 late Friday night, so the weekend was a bunch of piecework I’d put off until that was done. The zero is awful, full of holes and bracketed notes, but at least it’s not awful and unfinished. Future Me is going to hate me for leaving the amount of plot gaps, notes, and the like, but it couldn’t be helped.

Which means I can turn all my attention to the copyedits for Ghost Squad #2 now. Once that’s done it’ll be juggling new text on Hell’s Acre and revisions on Cold North, and once the latter is done I can move to the second in the Tolkien Viking werewolves trilogy. So all my spooky season work is cut out for me. By the time Samhain hits I should be caught up.

Should be. Gods willing, the creek don’t rise, and the news cycle stops chewing at my ankles.

Oh, and in a week, That Damn Werelion Book releases in e-format. I did have serious thoughts about not releasing it in ebook at all, due to massive ongoing piracy; I was argued out of it. But before that, there’s a new Reading with Lili to prep for–buckle up, bitches, because we’re reading Carmilla this Wednesday. I haven’t decided whether we’ll read the whole thing to kick off pumpkin-spice-and-skull season, or just enough of it to give you the experience. Either way, it’ll be fun. I also have plans to read a bit of Dracula to you right afterward, since Stoker was partly in conversation with le Fanu, and then maybe some Varney to finish the trifecta of Victorian Vampire Vichyssoise. (Because it’s cold as the grave, get it? GET IT?)

Look, I amuse myself mightily; some days, I’m the only one who will. At least the weather is cooperating. It does get warm in the late afternoon, but the wind kicks up in the evening and it cools enough that sleep isn’t an impossibility.

Oh! And I watched not only the Wind season of Seven Souls in the Skull Castle, which was great, but also the first two episodes of The Rings of Power this past weekend. My inner nerd was deeply delighted–I’m all in for Galadriel’s “you do not know who you are fucking with” 20s. She was born in Valinor and by the time the First Age ended she was an adult, but still young for an Elf (even if she was tutored by Melian in Doriath) and I can 100% see the scion of two high kings whose mother-name was “Nerwen” deciding that Finrod’s killer (who was indeed Sauron, as Gorthaur the Cruel who held the island of Tol Sirion during Morgoth’s time) needed a dose of the same medicine. Now, Finrod was part of the quest for the Silmarils, so in canon he wasn’t “hunting” Sauron but instead keeping that dumbass Beren alive–but for the purposes of storytelling I’m down with this because it means the television series about the Second Age doesn’t have to drag in Feanor and his bullshit more than glancingly. (I noticed the difference in how Elrond and Celebrimbor treated Feanor’s hammer, which was a nice touch.)

Still would like to see a whole series about That Bitch, Feanor, and His Stupid LEDs. But problems of interpretation would make it super difficult. Anyway, Galadriel choosing to spend her “clubbing 20s” out clubbing orcs is 110% on brand for the Man-maiden. And I love her actress, whose eyelid twitch when confronted with stupid men is a work of art.

I do have one quibble, though. When an attendant comes to tell Elrond that Galadriel’s returned, she says there’s a meeting Gil-galad won’t have him in. “Elf-lords only.” We’re supposed to believe that Gil-galad–let alone any elf-lord who survived the Wars of Wrath–would get snitty with Earandil the Mariner’s son, a descendant of Beren and Luthien through Elwing his mother, and kin to a Maiar (because Luthien’s mother was Melian herself)? That shit simply does not fly. Even if Elrond was young for an Elf (practically a baby compared to even Galadriel) he was still of that lineage, and nobody but nobody would dare suggest he wasn’t of the Eldar, and ELDAR ROYALTY at that. That’s the only thing that jolted me out of the story, frankly.

I loved the Harfoots’ pop-up village–if ever something Tolkien was meant for a Disney ride, that would be it–and I am firmly Team Poppy.

Plus, I’m calling it–the comet was Olorin’s grand entrance, because Curumo would never be caught dead in rags, much less dependent on the kindness of smaller beings. Plus, the dude can’t be Annatar, who would have shown up nice and handsome and in any case was still swanning around Middle-Earth with Orcs, not coming straight from Valinor. (I love the falling-star motif, since basically Manwe and Varda forced Curumo to accept Olorin as part of the deal.) Now, technically and canonically the Istari arrived at the Grey Havens near the beginning of the Second Age, but this is certainly more dramatic and brings in a nice sense of bookmarking–the ancestors of hobbits were kind to an Istari upon arrival, and he remembers that pity (because he was, after all, a disciple of Nienna) for his entire time on Middle-Earth during the Second Age. (There are some suggestions he was there during the First and we definitely know he was there in the Third, but the hints of him during the Silmarillion are just that–mere hints.)

If that preceding paragraph made no sense to you, it’s okay. You don’t have to know any of that shit to appreciate folks playing in Tolkien’s legendarium as he so desperately wanted them to during his lifetime, I promise. It’s great television and fans of the Jackson screen treatments will enjoy the show. Plus the bigots are super mad that it doesn’t prioritize their bigoted little selves, so that’s a powerful inducement to watching it over and over again.

Also, if anything happens to Arondil, we riot. Dude’s a cinnamon roll with a bow, and we all know how I love that dynamic. I am Team Go Bronwyn Go, too. Anyone who says their romance is uncanonical just hasn’t read deeply enough in the Unfinished Tales and other materials, so we can discount their opinion.

Boxnoggin is trotting up and down the hall, and I suppose I’d best get a run in today, too. Back to the word mines; I am told this round of copyedits is light but there still might be a problem or two in there. If I manage to get these turned around in reasonable fashion this week I might not be so behind at all, and that is a glorious thought. Unfortunately I have to hop to and get breakfast down the hatch before anything else is possible. It feels like a Monday since I took Labor Day mostly off.

At least I feel somewhat rested. That’s a lovely change…