Fandom Snowflake Challenge #5

[axael]

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 9th

❄ Challenge #5 on snowflake_challenge.

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Wishlist!

In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, a wishlist of sorts.

• So, I'm doing the little challenge for myself of attempting to read a book a week. Who knows if I will actually manage this, but I think I read maybe four or five books last year and three of them were in the same series, so literally anything will be an improvement on that, lol. To that end: scifi and fantasy book recommendations. Please rec to me your favorite books of the last...five years or so? I enjoy found family and books where the author clearly loves all the characters but that doesn't mean the characters can stand to be in the same room as one another. I also would love any recs for novels translated into English that you found particularly compelling. (Also preferably scifi/fantasy. :)) I developed a fondness for translated-from-Chinese ones, but I haven't poked around anything recently.
  
  
• Hi! Yes! Please rec me fanfiction. I will read any length, and my primary reading fandoms are: Star Wars, SVSSS, BBC Merlin, MDZS, Batfam, Teen Wolf, Stargate, Leverage, The Sentinel, ATLA, Murderbot, Witcher, Game of Thrones, and Fandom-inspired Original Works. I love outsider PoV and Original Characters, and longfic that is...internally consistent enough that I don't necessarily need to know canon. I adore fusions and crossovers and crack treated seriously. (May I direct your attention to my favorite Yuri on Ice+FMA fusion, seated alongside my beloved Dresden Files+Welcome to Nightvale Time Travel Epic.) Also, if you have any time travel fics, I would adore them. I have eaten through a huge chunk of the Star Wars and MDZS ones but I keep finding more and I love them immensely. I will at least attempt a canon I am canonblind for.
  
  
• I would love it if you dropped me your Ao3 or other fic site so I can poke around and maybe chat about your fanfiction that you're writing? Mine is desiderii as an example of what I write/enjoy, though since I mostly write longfic and everything that's up is old and getting older, I'm not asking for comments (lol). Just. Share with me what you do! If you write fic, what's your current fandom and what's your favorite fandom you've written for?

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❄❄ Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost ❄❄
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Comments

[hamsterwoman]

I enjoy found family and books where the author clearly loves all the characters but that doesn't mean the characters can stand to be in the same room as one another.

That is a very good description of a thing I also like! :)

Some of my favorites from recent years:

Novels:
- Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh -- POV is a character who grows up in, basically, a space fascist cult, gradually comes to some realizations by interacting with people she doesn't like very much and via some cool sci-fi effect
- Both of the the novels from Everina Maxwell, Winter's Orbit (which was originally an Original Work on AO3) and Ocean's Echo -- both are sci-fi, m/m, set in the same universe but unconnected. Both have pretty interesting planetary cultures and memorable characters. I prefer Winter's Orbit, which I found more fun, but both of the lead characters in Ocean's Echo are great, I just wish they had more time together at the end.
- Lady Eve's Last Con by Rebecca Fraimow -- a really fun f/f romp through a Conspicuous Consuption-flavored space frontier backdrop, really fun first person narrator running a con, great family feels
- The Unspoken Name by A.K.Larkwood (there's a sequel, but I haven't read it/didn't like the part I read as much) -- fantasy (orcs, elves, gods) with travel between worlds, the first thing I thought about in terms of found family composed of people who can't stand each other.

Novellas:
- The Iron Children by Rebecca Fraimow -- steampunky fantasy with interestingly complex worldbuilding, nuanced morality, and distinctive POVs
- Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky -- really neat novella of a subgenre that I'd describe as "seems like it might be fantasy but it's actually sci-fi", except that your get two POVs, one aware that it's a sci-fi story and another who thinks she inhabits a fantasy world -- probably the most 'found family' of these
- Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson -- sci-fi, time travel with a colorful, cantankerous cast, and some interesting POVs

As for SFF in translation -- I'm a Russian speaker, so I originally read these in Russian, but in one case I've also read the translation I'm recommending, and in another I know people who enjoyed the translation, so can also recommend it
- Monday Starts on Saturday by the Brothers Strugatsky (specifically the Bromfield translation) -- this is an old Soviet book, but thanks to a couple of layers of unreliable narrator, I think it still stands up pretty well for a modern audience. This is a "normal guy stumbles into a magical university" story, so urban fantasy, and very cute. (The modern Chinese sci-fi I've read reminds me a lot of Soviet sci-fi, so if you enjoy that, this might be a fit. Strugatsky have a lot of other worthwhile work, Definitely Maybe in particular is I think a better take on Three Body Problem, and Roadside Picnic is a classic.)
- Vita Nostra by Dyachenko -- a friend-of-a-friend recently described this as "dark polytechnic" as opposed to "dark academia", and that's a great description. This is dark and rather depressing, but also a neat work, and felt very connected to the Soviet/post-Soviet roots of its setting, if that makes sense.

I hope some of these will prove interesting if you check them out!

[axael]

Ooh! Yes!

I have not read any of those, which is awesome. They all sound fantastic. I'm also especially...startled? Pleased? By the novella recommendations, because I have always enjoyed novellas, but I hadn't realized that more were starting to find their way to readers. Heh, plus I have several Tchaikovsky books on my list to read, too, but novel-length.

The Russian translations sound very interesting, and I'm going to have to take a peek!

Thank you. :D

[hamsterwoman]

You're most welcome!

because I have always enjoyed novellas, but I hadn't realized that more were starting to find their way to readers.

SFF novellas are having a HUGE renaissance, I think! (to the point where I think some things are getting published as novellas that may have been better off being something else, either shorter or longer...) But, yeah, Tor.com/Reactor has been publishing a lot, and I think other publishers are starting to do so as well. (The frustrating thing to me about novellas is that often they're priced similarly to full-length novels, and, like, even if I'm really fond of an author, I'm not going to pay $10 for a 100 page book...)

plus I have several Tchaikovsky books on my list to read, too, but novel-length.

I have started and run out of steam on several Tchaikovsky novels -- I was enjoying them, they were just quite long! -- but Elder Race is my favorite of his things I've come across, by quite a margin.