samarcand.itch.io
Girly Trans Soul Rebel, author & reader.
So many books.
So many comics.
So much tea.
Pronouns:she/her
Author of The Long Sleep, Down Among The Yla, Ghostkin, The Princess and The Elephant, Stories From The Corner of the Room and All The Books Of Earth.
1,112 posts
996 followers
2,341 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
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I'll write it and see how it goes. I'm pretty sure that in being unnecessarily verbose so I can probably cut it down quite a lot without really losing anything.
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The only problem being, I'm 1/5 of the way through the word count and barely started the story. I'm going to have do some very heavy editing.
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You're totally welcome. It was so much fun to read. I'll definitely be buying the print version when it's available. I know what you mean about the logistics of publishing. It's such a bloody hassle. But totally worth it in the end.
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Nice! I would love the money and space to be able to afford the complete edition.
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This collection is absolutely one for the geeks and nerds. To get the most out of it, you have to have a level of knowledge about DC and Marvel to rival Mark Gruenwald. There were times I referred to Wikipedia to tell me which characters were combined, but if that's you, then I'd say go for it.
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Alan Grant and Val Semeiks is hilarious with Grant bringing his 2000AD sensibilities to the forefront to make a ridiculous character work (for values of 'work' which include both Ambush Bug/Lunatik and Ma Hunkel/Irving Forbush amalgams) - although I'd have loved Keith Giffen to have been involved.
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Dave Gibbons and so on. They show a real love for the two universes and a real sense of fun. Not all of them work ('Bullets and Bracelets' which is a Punisher/Steve Trevor and Diana-Prince-who-isn't-Wonder-Woman story is the weakest for me) but most of them are good fun. Lobo the Duck by
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characters from the two universes. So we have 'Amazon' - Wonder Woman and Storm; Super-Soldier - Superman and Captain America; and so on. And these are written and drawn by some of the best in the business. Amazon by John Byrne (before he went totally off the rails), Super-Soldier by Mark Waid and
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Marvel is written by David and Mars with art by Dan Jurgens and Claudio Castellini and that's fun but ultimately kind of 'meh'.
The real enjoyment is in the 24 one-shots set in the 'Amalgam Universe' which showcases the 'Amalgamated' heroes - characters who are combinations of 2 or more
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#87 DC Versus Marvel: The Amalgam Age Omnibus by Peter David, Ron Mars et al
I really wasn't expecting to enjoy this as much as I thought I was going to but it was actually lots of fun. The main storyline - a straightforward multiversal catastrophe story where the twist is that it's between DC and
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I really hope they plan on collecting the stories in a physical edition, because it deserves a place on the bookshelf of every horror aficionado.
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unwittingly placing themselves in danger.
I honestly thought Kaya Skovdatter's work had reached a pinnacle with the musical episode of 'Witch Side Story', but they have gone even further with 'Killing It On Campus'. I am breathless with excitement for the next story.
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The ending, where everything is revealed including the reasons for the narrative style was completely satisfying. As I said, the killer is obvious - there is only one real candidate - but that doesn't matter. In a way, knowing the killer's identity ramps up the tension when the polycule are
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It seems like the killer knows the conventions of the genre in which they are acting and is both trying to follow them while also trying to subvert them. Which makes the story sound like a Scream knock-off. But, trust me, it's far cleverer than anything that franchise ever managed to pull off.
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regular fourth wall breaks commenting on the action.
As narrative experiments go, it's breathtakingly original, bold and clever. It's also really fucking funny. The killer's asides, which start to actively argue with the story and how it's being shown genuinely made me laugh out loud.
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That scene is written as straight prose (as straight as anything is in this very queer series anyway) while keeping the capitalised names convention for first appearances.
The story proceeds to jump back and forth between the two - standard narrative for the polycule, film script for the killer and
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It goes further when the next scene, focusing on the polycule, begins with the killer - as an aside and absolutely separate from the actual narrative - complains about how the action has moved away from them. But then reassures us that we'll soon get back to them.
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But almost immediately, the conventions start to be undermined when the dialogue is assigned to 'A VERY UNFAITHFUL BOY...'.
And that's when things start to get really weird. The killer starts to interject into the scene description, breaking the fourth wall and commenting on the action.
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with a scene description and dialogue. The description gives us perhaps more background on who the BOY (it follows script convention in putting the character's name in all caps at their fist appearance) is which I think would be portrayed more in action and dialogue, but that doesn't matter.
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(or at least it was to me) from the beginning. Not that the latter part matters. It's not about whodunnit, it's more about why, which is far more interesting.
The slasher flick genre is deliberately chosen here and very much underlined by the narrative style. The story begins as a film script,
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There's a killer on campus and it's all being hushed up by the authorities. Only a plucky band of students can uncover the truth and stop the killer!
Except, the plucky band are a lesbian polycule, the authorities are a bunch of terrifying ghost women and the killer's identity is pretty obvious
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#86 Killing it on Campus By @gothgreenwitch.bsky.social
After the last installment's genre defying narrative, I was really looking forward to seeing what Kaya would do next. And she absolutely smashed it. With this story we are very much in '80s teen slasher movie territory.
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I did! I shall have to check out your other books and I'm following you on ScribbleHub.
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This book is part of the itch.io/b/3065/queer... bundle which runs for another 11 days and has so many good books in it. You should definitely go and buy it if you haven't yet done so.
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And honestly, it didn't need anything else. It was a fun, satisfying story with some really well written, hot sex scenes. I liked how everyone realised that Sunny (the protagonist) was a lesbian before she did. It was definitely one of the more relatable moments.
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#85 - My Boyfriend Is Hotter As A Girl by @detectivered.bsky.social
I enjoyed this a lot. It was exactly what the title suggested. The protagonist's boyfriend (ex-bf at the beginning) magically changes into a girl and she's hotter now.
There's a bit more to it than this but not too much more.
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Sorry. Shit joke.
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Considering you think those stools are badly made, would you consider them stool stools?
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I basically live in a (a very messy) library.
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Honestly, that sounds very like me.
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I don't. Maybe I could start to serialise one of my novels on there. I want to re-edit my earlier ones anyway.
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Fair enough. I just need to get further into the community. And get the next bloody book finished.
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I'm planning on getting it when I get paid on the 24th.
How do you get involved in these bundles? I'd love to offer one - or more- of my books for them.
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Happy birthday!
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I got you down already for Part I!
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This is how I'm going to make my millions. Knock off Les Mis T-shirts.
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ACAB includes Javert.
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I know basically nothing about the story and my first impression is that it's about a man who gets radicalised by the iniquities of the government which feels extremely on point considering... * flails wildly at the world *
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Happy Birthday Charlie then, I guess.
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Is that actually today? I have never had any interest in the birthday of the Royals. Even less since Lizzy carked it. Can your interest be a negative amount?