I just finished Death Masks by Jim Butcher, 5th book of The Dresden Files. Really enjoying the series.

What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening?

When Britain was gripped by 'fairy mania'

"Fairycore" may be trending on social media today but 100 years ago supernatural sprites were a national obsession. Holly Williams explores fairy fever.

Imagine a fairy. Is the picture that appears in your mind's eye a tiny, pretty, magical figure – a childish wisp with insect-like wings and a dress made of petals?

If so, it's likely you've been influenced by Cicely Mary Barker, the British illustrator who created the Flower Fairies. 2023 marks 100 years since the publication of her first book of poems and pictures, Flower Fairies of the Spring – an anniversary currently being celebrated in an exhibition at the Lady Lever Gallery in Merseyside, UK.

The Flower Fairies' influence has endured: they have never been out of print, and continue to be popular around the world – big in Japan and in Italy, where Gucci released a children's range featuring Barker's prints in 2022. Billie Eilish recently had Flower Fairies tattooed on her hand, while their whimsical, floral aesthetic can be seen in the TikTok "fairycore" trend.

(An exhibition at the Lady Lever Art Gallery explores the Flower Fairies phenomenon, and features pantomime costumes (Credit: Pete Carr))

Barker's delicate watercolours certainly helped cement several tropes we now consider classic – almost essential, in fact – in the iconography of the fairy: they are miniature, sweet and youthful, they are intertwined with plants and the natural world, and they are distinctly twee. Yet her drawings were also "firmly footed in realism" points out Fiona Slattery Clark, curator of the show. "The children were all painted from life [and] her plants and flowers are as realistic as possible." Barker drew children from the nursery school her sister ran in their house in Croydon near London; each was assigned a flower or tree, and Barker's detailed illustrations were botanically accurate – she would source samples from Kew Gardens, says Slattery Clark. Even the petal-like wings and fairy outfits were closely based on plants: an acorn cup becoming a jaunty cap, a harebell becoming a prettily scalloped skirt.

For many hundreds of years, fairies were not necessarily tiny and fey, but grotesque or fierce elemental forces

The Flower Fairies were an immediate hit – but Barker was far from the only artist of her era to find success with fairies. In fact, fairy fever swelled within the United Kingdom for over half a century, reaching something of a peak around the time the Flower Fairies emerged in 1923. Over 350 fairy books were published in the UK between 1920 and 1925, including in Enid Blyton's first fairy foray, a collection of poems called Real Fairies in 1923. Fairy art even had the stamp of royal approval: Queen Mary was a fan of Ida Rentoul Outhwaite's ethereal drawings, and helped popularise them by sending them in postcard form.

Fairies have long been with us – in our imaginations, at least. But for many hundreds of years, they were not necessarily tiny and fey, but grotesque or fierce elemental forces, capable of great darkness. "In 1800, if you thought your child was a fairy it would have been like demonic possession – you would have put that child in the fire to drive out the fairy," points out Alice Sage, a curator and historian.

(Each of Barker's fairies corresponded to a plant, tree or flower – pictured, the Silver Birch Fairy (Credit: Estate of Cicely Mary Barker 1934 Flower Fairies))

Yet within 100 years, the whole conception of fairies completely changed. "Throughout the 19th Century, fairies became increasingly miniaturised, sapped of their power – trapped in the nursery," says Sage. As the Victorian era progressed, they are increasingly associated with childhood; as their popularity grew, they shrank.

But first, fairies became a fashionable subject for Victorian artists, often taking inspiration from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. John Anster Fitzgerald, Edwin Landseer, John Everett Millais, Joseph Noel Paton, Arthur Rackham and even JMW Turner – among many others – painted supernatural sprites from the 1840s onwards. But there was still a sense of otherworldly strangeness in many of their depictions – as seen in the work of Richard Dadd, who made his hyper-intricate fairy paintings while living in a Victorian asylum after killing his father.

Then two wider cultural developments came along that changed fairy reputations forever. One was that "children's literature happened", says Sage. The Victorians promoted the idea of childhood as a time of innocence, requiring its own entertainment. Illustrated children's books really took off from the 1870s, with fairies a staple, and increasingly cutesy, feature. The second was pantomime. "Every Victorian pantomime would have this big spectacle of transformation at the end, where children dressed as fairies filled the stage," says Sage. The standard fairy fancy dress outfit today is basically the same as what these Victorian children would have worn: think tinsel, sparkly sequins, and translucent, gauzy wings.

Huge popularity

Moving into the 20th Century, fairies showed few signs of buzzing off – if anything, they cemented their place. "In the Edwardian era, Peter Pan started to be performed [in 1904], and that carried on for the next 25 years," points out Slattery Clark – enough time for several generations of children to learn to clap their hands to show they believe in fairies.

And as the new century lurched through global upheaval via World War One, fairy mania continued – if anything, widening and deepening. "That golden age of children's literature is really an upper middle-class phenomenon," points out Sage. "What happened from World War One onwards is it explodes beyond that, and becomes an adult concern."

(The costumes displayed in the exhibition are based on the Flower Fairies illustrations (Credit: Pete Carr))

Having been whisked from the woods into the nursery, fairies then made their way to troubled adults on the battlefield or waiting at home. Consider the huge popularity of a print, Piper of Dreams by Estella Canziani, during World War One: a wispy image of a man playing a pipe and surrounded by tiny fairies, it sold a staggering quarter of a million copies in just 1916.

"It's about belief and it's about hope – that's what fairies represent in that time," says Sage. "The supernatural becomes a way of finding some luck and brightness, [when] people don't have control over their lives, their future, their families."

For Conan Doyle, it was all about a search for another realm of being that related to life after death, vibrations, telepathy, telekinesis – Alice Sage

Today, we associate fairies with little girls – but this was an era when fairy art was popular with grown men, too. And technology helped spread it: there was an explosion in sending postcards around this time. They were cheap to buy, and free to post to a serving soldier abroad. "Suddenly everyone can send fairies, and they're flying through the air and across the seas. You can’t underestimate the practical aspect of it," says Sage.

Indeed, Barker herself cut her teeth illustrating such postcards: she produced a patriotic series showing "Children of the Allies", in different forms of national dress, in 1915, followed by a series of characters from Shakespeare, before teasing the Flower Fairies with a set of "Fairies and Elves" postcards in 1918.

Barker never made any claims for fairies being real – "I have never seen a fairy", she wrote in a foreword to Flower Fairies of the Wayside. But it is worth noting that she first published the Flower Fairies at a moment when the desire to believe in magical beings was at a rare high. In 1920, Britain was gripped by the story of the Cottingley Fairies, after two girls claimed to have photographed fairies at the bottom of their garden in West Yorkshire – and were widely believed.

Their beautiful photographs were created by paper cut-outs, floating on hat pins. Although many were sceptical, they nonetheless also fooled many of the great and the good – the photographs were brought to prominence by no less than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes, who wrote a whole book about it, The Coming of the Fairies, in 1922.

(The Crocus Fairies from Flower Fairies of the Spring – the watercolours are still popular today with “fairycore” fans (Credit: Estate of Cicely Mary Barker 1934 Flower Fairies))

Cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths were aged 16 and nine when they took the first photos. Many years later, in the 1980s, they admitted it was a hoax, explaining that they kept up the pretence that the fairies were real a because they felt sorry for the middle-aged men, like Conan Doyle, that so wanted to believe. There was, at the time, a serious resurgence in spiritualism in the UK, with seances and attempts to contact the dead proving understandably tempting for the bereaved. Conan Doyle himself became interested in a spirit world after his son died in the war. And for believers, this wasn't "woo-woo" nonsense – it was supposedly based in science. After all, scientific advances were genuinely explaining hitherto unknown and invisible aspects of our world.

"For Conan Doyle, it was all about a search for another realm of being that related to life after death, vibrations, telepathy, telekinesis – this fascinating world on the edge of the limits of human perception," says Sage. "And obviously that's connected to the loss of his son in World War One."

Like the Flower Fairies, the Cottingley photographs further reinforced the association between children and fairies, as well as cementing what a fairy looked like in the public consciousness. Yet aside from Tinkerbell, Flower Fairies are probably the only image from the fairy-fever era still instantly recognisable today. Why, of all the fairy content out there, have Barker's images endured so strongly over the past 100 years?

"They were [originally published] in full colour, and a lot of books were published in black and white," begins Sage. What looked novel at the time, now seems charmingly period – but the delicacy, intricacy, and imagination of Barker's pictures can still cast a spell. "It's like dolls houses – things that are very miniaturised, but very detailed and realistic, scratch a certain itch," suggests Sage. "They are absolutely beautiful, which helps."

"It's a real celebration of nature – there is a strong educational aspect to her work," puts forward Slattery Clark, emphasising the botanical accuracy of Barker’s drawings. The educational argument might sound absurd given we're discussing fairy art, but as a child who was obsessed with Flower Fairies, I can attest to the truth of it: all the wildflowers I know the names of I learned from these books.

(Cicely Mary Barker's exquisite illustrations were hugely popular in the 1920s (Credit: Estate of Cicely Mary Barker))

Having each fairy very specifically related to a particular plant was also commercially canny – whether Barker intended this or not, it created space for identification, for collectability, for a kind of innate brand franchising. "In children's culture, we create series that are collectable, that you identify with… It's like Pokemon or something!" laughs Sage. "When I speak to people about the Flower Fairies, especially groups of sisters, it's always 'which one were you?'"

Still, Sage is pleased to see the Flower Fairies exhibited in a fine art context at the Lady Lever gallery. For a long time, men painting fairies has been considered art – but when women do it, it's just silly flowery stuff for children.

"This is fine art – it's mass, popular fine art," insists Sage. "I think a lot of the diminishment of fairies and children's illustration is from a misogynist, snobbish and elitist art historical tradition. I'm so excited to see this kind of exhibition, that reclaims this history." Consider this a beating of wings, then, that takes fairies back out of the nursery – and into the gallery.

Flower Fairies is at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight Village, UK until 5 November.

Holly Williams' novel What Time is Love? is out in paperback now.___

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/520422

Opening Statement of Mr. Harold Schoff, attorney for Mr. Coyote: My client, Mr. Wile E. Coyote, a resident of Arizona and contiguous states, does hereby bring suit for damages against the Acme Company, manufacturer and retail distributor of assorted merchandise, incorporated in Delaware and doing business in every state, district, and territory. Mr. Coyote seeks compensation for personal injuries, loss of business income, and mental suffering caused as a direct result of the actions and/or gross negligence of said company, under Title 15 of the United States Code, Chapter 47, section 2072, subsection (a), relating to product liability.

Mr. Coyote states that on eighty-five separate occasions he has purchased of the Acme Company (hereinafter, “Defendant”), through that company’s mail order department, certain products which did cause him bodily injury due to defects in manufacture or improper cautionary labelling. Sales slips made out to Mr. Coyote as proof of purchase are at present in the possession of the Court, marked Exhibit A. Such injuries sustained by Mr. Coyote have temporarily restricted his ability to make a living in his profession of predator. Mr. Coyote is self-employed and thus not eligible for Workmen’s Compensation.

-Coyote v. Acme by Ian Fraizer

This is one of my favorite editions of this anthology series. It's also one of the hardest to find - this PDF was the only copy available on Anna's. If anyone has alternative file formats available, offering a free boost and upvote if you link them in the comments.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/510179

In the depths of the mutant rain forest where the water falls each afternoon in a light filtered to vermilion, a feline stone idol stands against the opaque foliage.
On the screen of the monitor it rises up from nowhere,
upon its hind legs, both taller and thicker than a man.
See how the cellular accretion has distended its skull,
how the naturally sleek architecture of the countenance
has evolved into a distorted and angular grotesquerie,
how the taloned forepaws now possess opposable digits.
In the humid caves and tunnels carved from living vines,
where leprous anacondas coil, a virulent faith calls us.
A sudden species fashions godhood in its own apotheosis

• from Return to the Mutant Rain Forest by Bruce Boston and Robert Fraizer, page 160

Wikipedia on the Anthology

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/473436

Long ago, so the Storyteller claimed, the evil God Torak sought dominion and drove men and Gods to war. But Belgarath the Sorcerer led men to reclaim the Orb that protected men of the West. So long as it lay at Riva, the prophecy went, men would be safe...

Wikipedia

• Pawn of Prophecy
• Queen of Sorcery
• Magician's Gambit
• Castle of Wizardry
• Enchanter's End Game
• Alternative formats

This series remains some of the best fantasy I've ever read, and it's often very hard to find, as it's been out of print for a while now in most places.

Content Warning: David Eddings has a checkered past regarding the abuse of his adopted son, which he served a year in jail for in 1970. There are likewise dark themes in these novels that some readers may find disturbing. That being said, I believe the work stands on its own as a masterpiece of world-crafting. Please note I present it on those grounds, not as any endorsement of Eddings himself.

Copying from the weekly thread, over at [email protected] :

Finished Summer Knight by Jim Butcher. Fourth book of The Dresden Files. Things keep getting worse, stakes keep getting higher, Harry keep going through hell. Same old, same old.

Currently Reading Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King. It was recommended on reddit for books similar to the comic Y: The Last Man. I didn’t used to like Stephen King much before, but I can understand why. Book is 700 pages long, and first 100 or so pages were pretty much just a set up. I didn’t use to have patience for such slow books in my youth, though I am enjoying it now.

What about you guys? What have you been reading?

P.S: I have mentioned the [email protected] (and the weekly thread) a few times here. Didn't see any rules against that, and am just trying to increase engagement for books-related communities, but if there's any issue with that, I can stop doing it. (Disclaimer, I am a mod there)

About

Mother of Learning is written by Nobody103 (Domagoj Kurmaić).

Blurb

Zorian Kazinski has all the time in the world to get stronger, and he plans on taking full advantage of it.

A teenage mage of humble birth and slightly above-average skill, Zorian is attending his third year of education at Cyoria's magical academy. A driven and quiet young man, he is consumed by a desire to ensure his own future and free himself of the influence of his family, resenting the Kazinskis for favoring his brothers over him. Consequently, Zorian has no time for pointless distractions, much less other people's problems.

As it happens, though, time is something he is about to get plenty of.

On the eve of Cyoria's annual summer festival, Zorian is murdered, then abruptly brought back to the beginning of the month, just before he was about to take the train to school. Finding himself trapped in a time loop with no clear end or exit, he will have to look both within and without to unravel the mystery set before him. He does have to unravel it, too, because the loop clearly wasn’t made for his sake, and in a world of magic even a time traveler isn't safe from those who wish him ill.

Fortunately for Zorian, repetition is the mother of learning…

Review

Well, it has taken me forever to get around to reading this amazing webserial. First, I waited till the edited versions were published as four arcs and then I delayed a bit to put some distance from another time-loop story I had read a few months back. I'm glad I could binge read "Mother of Learning" last week, as I had needed a bit of distraction (from something very positive for a change :D).

The first few chapters were a bit slow and Zorian (main POV character) was annoying to say the least. Speaking from hindsight, they were needed to set up the plot and the character growth was more satisfying as well. Once we got introduced to the time-loop, things got interesting real fast and it was a breeze to finish the rest of this long series in less than a week.

Most loops covered something new, introduced new characters (or covered them in more depth), etc — so don't worry that things would be repetitive. I enjoyed the characters progressing in terms of magical power, getting better at information gathering, etc. As I kept reading, I felt like these four long books wouldn't be enough — turns out that the author had cut short a few sub-plots!

As the title indicates, there was plenty of learning involved. Though the magical academy plays an important role, most of the actual learning we got to see was through mentoring from all sorts of people, including some very surprising choices. And almost all of the teachers had weird quirks, which I came to appreciate as the story moved forward.

The mystery of the time-loop and characters involved were a main driving force. Even though there were plenty of slice-of-life scenes, I'd say the pacing was great. Hardly any dull moment and I just wanted to finish the books ASAP. Good thing I was reading a completed series, the wait would've been excruciating!

One of the annoying things at the start of the first book for me was Zorian's attitude towards his family. He did have some genuine complaints, but I do not prefer reading novels with such family angst. Things did improve a lot by the end and I especially came to enjoy interactions with his sister. But overall, it was a sore point. Zorian's various dates were another thing I disliked (they made sense due to the time-loops and stuff from the past, but I felt like it was overdone).

On the other hand, I loved the various characters who ended up as friends and acquaintances. They played a big role in shaping Zorian to become a better person. The author hinted at a possible slice-of-life sequel — hope that comes to fruition, even if it won't be anytime soon (the author is currently writing a story in a new setting).

Speaking of characters, the various antagonists were well written too. Not everybody was clearly good or bad, and from a certain perspective you could even switch the sides.

The magic system was nicely done, though I found it harder to keep track of abilities and stuff as the series progressed. Some of it was probably because time-loops were skipped and some things got explained during action scenes. I didn't mind though, as I was more interested in the plot and characters.

The finish was really, really well done! So many surprising twists and turns till the very end. Overall, an amazing fantasy series that I'd highly recommend.

This looks like it was great fun. Would you take part and if so, which house would you represent?

Update: it's fine to share your thoughts on the author's personal views but please leave the insults at the door.

The communities aren't strictly fantasy related but sharing in case anyone finds this useful. I'll be following [email protected].

cross-posted from: https://literature.cafe/post/1167040

Linked is the community directory. Here's a list of some of the newest communities:

[email protected] - For discussion of all classic books! [New]

[email protected] - For discussion of the Percy Jackson series and other books within the books written by Rick Riordan, as well as the media adaptations of said series. [New]

[email protected] - A cyberspace for sharing and discussing speculative poetry. [New]

[email protected] - A cyberspace for sharing and discussing philosophical poetry. [New]

[email protected] - Writing prompts, duh! [New]

[email protected] - General writing community. [New]

[email protected] - Ebook deals! [New]

Here is a link to the community directory as well.

https://literature.cafe/post/372004

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/415291

Release schedule:

Friday, September 1: Episodes 1-3 "A Taste of Solitude," "Strangers and Friends," and "What Might Be"
Friday, September 8: Episode 4 "Daughters of the Night"
Friday, September 15: Episode 5
Friday, September 22: Episode 6
Friday, September 29: Episode 7
Friday, October 6: Episode 8

"weekly thread" was clearly a lie

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4711771

At least some of the signs were desgined by Anders Sandberg:

• Warning Signs for Tomorrow

I found the image on Bruce Sterling's Tumblr.

The source is from u/FuckMyHeart's (reddit user) comment, which has a bit more info:

• FuckMyHeart comments on Fringe Science Warning Signs

From the same comment and user:

• zip file containing each symbol as its own indexed png with transparency

Just Finished Vita Nostra

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/3764849

First published in Nature magazine, November 1999.

AD 2380: After a painstaking ten-year search, from the Tibetan highlands to the Brazilian rainforests, it’s official — there are no more human beings.

(...)

RSS Feed https://medium.com/feed/@bruces

Via Ran Prieur - August 9

Just how much about "Iconoclasm" is it? Are idolatry and/or polytheism portrayed as evil? Also, is there any equivalent of the Abrahamic god and is it portrayed as just/true?

I don't really have anything to add, I just love this book. I searched for "The NeverEnding Story" in this community, saw that there was no post about it and wanted to fix that :).

Image found on Facebook. I think the source of that specific printing is the Spanish version of the book, [EDIT: as pointed by @[email protected], the version on the link is also a Spanish version, I may have had a brainfart because of the font (?)] ~~but it's very similar to some German version covers~~.

I read a lot of self-pub fantasy and this newsletter is one of the resources I use to pick books to read.

Titles that caught my attention so far:

• Card Mage
• Runelight
• Wakespire (7th book of a series, I've already read and enjoyed the first six)
• The Non-Magical Declan Moore

Here is the second trailer for my Gaslamp Fantasy action adventure novel The Heron Kings Rampant, out now! I hope you like it.

Found this mildly interesting in a world of slick Conde Nast publications.

Can be anything from Hogwarts (the most obvious one) to Scholomance, Brakebills, anything else you can think of. Would you attend it yourself?

Hello everyone,

I joined this community yesterday because I stumbled upon a comment somewhere saying that it was inactive. I tried to post a bit, the posts gained some traction, it seems that you guys already have enough people to get the ball rolling.

Unfortunately, I'm already busy with posting to content to a few others of my communities, so if I may, I suggest that a few of you step in to moderate, and take some actions such as update the sidebar with other relevant communities, reach out to those communities to get your own community listed, cross-post relevant content, organize weekly threads, post some content every day, etc.

I say from the sidebar that @[email protected] is the other mod, but I know from personal experience that he's already quite busy with moderating [email protected].

That's all for me, I hope you guys have a good day/evening/whatever it is on your side of the world!

Edit: The only requirements to do the jobs are the following

• being willing to help the community grow
• check if your current app/website interface supports mods tools (some of them do, but I don't know exactly which ones)
• timezones are quite flexible, the community is still small
• in terms of security, just don't use a very easy to guess password, and make sure you have an email address configured to reset your password if you ever got compromised (but to fair that's not that different from what you might already be doing)