@starkatt Nice. :) I've only read the first two (by pub date) Probably gonna read Full Fathom Five really soon now.

I wouldn't go for the silver tattoo ink myself though; I'm... almost certainly more Team Theists than Team Craftsmen. c.c;

@indi You might have heard this already but the protagonist of Full Fathom Five is a trans woman that's actually rather well written imo. It also goes in some interesting directions about what priesthood means.

@starkatt Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, I'm just having to space them out. With my spirituality, these are rough reading sometimes. The whole Seven Leaf Lake segment of Two Serpents was REALLY harrowing for me, especially all you find out about the place when they're staying there after the fight.

@indi Yeah, that one scene in that section especially was really hard. I imagine it's even harder for someone as animist as you are.

@indi The visual of the starlight piercing the water _really_ stuck with me.

@starkatt I mean, especially as someone who grew up in the Desert Southwest, visiting (and sometimes living in places sustained by) those canyon reservoirs, hearing about what places like Hetch Hetchy and Glen Canyon used to be like...

@starkatt Though more to the point I desperately want to hear more about Caleb's efforts; the end of Two Serpents Rise gave me big time happy feelings.

@indi 2SR: "Is magical capitalism an acceptable alternative to institutional ritual human sacrifice? The answer might surprise you!"

@indi ...sorry I just find it super entertaining that I can condense that book into a clickbait title :D

@starkatt No, yeah, that's pretty great. As I said to Elanna while reading it: "These are hitting me so hard because they take all the subtext of my spirituality and basically make it into text" ;)

@indi It's interesting for me in part because I do feel pretty drawn towards the ideal of Craftswoman, and find the metaphor space there really attractive. One of the interesting tensions through the series is the interplay between their more human and more inhuman sides.

@indi Drawing power from starlight, using knives made of lighting, etc. There's a part of me that those all really appeal to.

@starkatt Oh, yeah, I totally get that and I'm interested in reading more about them too!

@starkatt I do also want to hear more about how priests worked with gods, because I hardly ever see things that try to directly face up to 'gods do horrible things but people still want to preserve them, why/how?'. Whether you take that directly, or use 'gods' as a stand in for 'nature/the Earth', it still feels like something that modern paganism/environmentalism doesn't always focus on much.

@indi @starkatt Sliding into this late, but good to see other folks enjoying this series!

I read the first one a while back, then mainlined the next three, and read the fifth one not too long after that, so they all got woven together into a really neat tapestry.

Indi: As far as the priesthood stuff, you get a lot of that in the fifth book, which features Caleb's father.

@emanate @starkatt Yeah TBH I'm well-tempted to just read Last First Snow next because, for reals, I have had this notion of "talking about gentrification through an uran fantasy lens" rattling around in my head for YEARS without me knowing how to quite do it right.

@indi @starkatt It does that pretty damn well, as I recall. :-}

@emanate @indi I'm _really_ looking forward to getting to Last First Snow.

@starkatt @emanate I'm also now really looking forward to book 6 because I've been dying to hear more about the Iskari for, like, forever. :)

@indi @emanate ooh, book 6 is about the Isakri? I too have been curious!

@starkatt @indi Oooh yeah, me too.

@starkatt Yeah, it's Kai-viewpoint, and in an Iskari-occupied city: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31433704-the-ruin-of-angels

@indi I really like the author's choice to subtly lean on how unsettlingly *casual* their use of nearly-boundless power is. A way to emphasize the freakish modernity of Craft.