(no subject)

[raven]

The important thing is that I finished the last Murderbot book. The slightly less important thing is that I am not going back to work tomorrow.

Not not ever, obviously, and I don't still have covid, but I'm wiped out and post-viral to kind of a horrible degree, so rearrangements have been made. I'm going back on 11 December, and have been asked to the Christmas party in the meantime. It's fine! It's all fine. I'm just cranky and unsettled.

Entirely coincidentally I have been re/reading Murderbot, with an eye to Dr Mensah, and the Temple of the White Rat, with an eye to Bishop Beartongue; they are two fictional women who have nothing in common except being powerful, harassed women in public service; Mensah unlike Beartongue is not a public lawyer but she has a lot of them to hand, when bringing large pieces of constitutional litigation against her own government. I always have such trouble in interviews explaining my leadership style.

Comments

[watersword]

Also: they are both THE BESTEST.

[raven]

They ARE. I wouldn't have thought of it before but reading all these books so close together makes me love them both even more. I keep imagining them meeting for coffee once a month to complain about their respective domains.

[watersword]

OMG please write this.

[raven]

It just occurred to me that if you explain to Beartongue what a SecUnit is, she's going to imagine a decapitated dead body with a ceramic head stuffed into the top with a spike.

(god maybe I should.)

[watersword]

Pretty please with a cherry on top.

[princessofgeeks]

I heart both those characters.

[raven]

ME TOO. they are so very good.

[philomytha]

Dr Mensah is the best <333. I don't know Bishop Beartongue but she sounds like a character I would appreciate too.

And *hugs* for the rest of it, I hope you're feeling fully recovered soon.

[raven]

If you haven't come across the White Rat books I would really recommend them to you in particular! They are a bunch of lovely, hilarious low-key fantasy novels all featuring the Temple of the White Rat, which is a holy order comprised entirely of lawyers. Their god calls them to run around fantasyland adjudicating disputes and paying bail and providing other practical help, which I appreciate so much as a concept. (Bishop Beartongue is the lawyer in charge, and she's this incredible combination of delightful sarcastic older woman and, as the other characters put it, "the closest you will ever see to true greatness". )

(And thank you. <33)

[philomytha]

This makes it sound like Redwall but they're all lawyers! Though I'm guessing they're not actually anthropomorphic animals... it does sound a lot of fun :-)

[genarti]

omg, that sounds delightful in every way. I've been meaning to get around to it, but I didn't realize (or didn't remember) it was a series! I love T. Kingfisher's stuff as a general rule, and this rec bumps it way up the list.

(Mensah I know I love. She's wonderful.)

[raven]

I really think you'll enjoy them! Start with Swordheart or Paladin's Grace.

[lovelythings]

Rest up! I'm sure there will still be work when you return. But it is hard to get primed for something and then have to put it off.

[raven]

It is true! But the rest is for sure a good idea so I'm trying not to crank.

[chestnut_pod]

I would totally read the crossover you've planted in my mind about Dr. Mensah and Bishop Beartongue meeting! Courts quiver before them!

[raven]

Wouldn't it be wonderful? I'm also wondering if they could just... swap places. When their respective domains annoy them, Mensah deals with the White Rat lawyers and enjoys their magical problems, and Bishop Beartongue takes on unhappy-post-capitalist machine intelligence with an iron fist.

[scribe]

I hope the post-viral bleh leaves you soon! Glad your work is flexible enough to give you the extra recovery time.

I bounced off my initial introduction to the Temple of the White Rat books, but you're making me think I should give them another try! Bishop Beartongue sounds very appealing. :D

[troyswann]

I am sorry for the post-viral bleargh but glad you are staying home and reading and being good to yourself.

(I've had some paradigm-shifting convos with my OT about return to work that I wish I'd had before my return to work, but am happy to have now that I am, sadly but necessarily, retreating again from work to try the whole return once more from the top. In case you want to know what I have learned the hard way, hit me up <3)