My comment in the open thread was, "As soon as Summer saw the walking house over the garden fence I thought, "Ooh, this is going to be bad."

I followed a link from MetaFilter to the Introduction page, so I hadn't seen the mention of Baba Yaga in the first sentence on the main page. But I recognized the walking house and knew who it belonged to.

I read Chapter 2 last night. I sympathize with Summer's inability to identify her heart's desire. I'm 62, not 11, and I still don't have a firm grasp on my heart's desire.

One of my top 5 favorite Bujold quotes is from Miles in Memory: "You can trade anything for your heart's desire except your heart."

Indeed, but the Bujold quote favoured by this moose is Aral's advice to Miles in A Civil Campaign.

Cadbury (stoutly[1] resisting the temptation to post to DFD threads.)

[1] Yes, I do need to lose weight, the ITLAPD phrase that best sums it up is: "Avast Behind!".

Obvious overlap with DF is obvious. Though Summer is clearly taking an interesting and innovative way out of the situation.

I'm wondering if the house is truly independent. It seems to be, and Baba Yaga is acting as if it is, but if she wants a particular type of target, she could be making the house lure Summer in...

Reading and enjoying. No comments yet. Karen's supporting it on Patreon (one per household seems sufficient to me).

There's a Chapter 2 now? I'll be back later....

Quill #4: It looks to me like the house is a "good servant" -- that is, it knows what its boss's long-term goals are, and serves them regardless of her moment-to-moment persnickityness. And I notice that Baba Yaga makes an assortment of threats, but hasn't actually punished the house that we can see (and she was willing to admit that it was right!). That, combined with the door-knocker's attitude, makes me suspect that BY is surely a rough character, but not blatantly evil or insane (despite milking her reputation).

That said, offering someone their heart's desire, when they don't actually know what that is... that's not particularly good, either. Possibly she is "fey" -- unconstrained by our notions of morality, but perhaps bound by her own strictures.

The Metafilter Link

Dave Harmon, I think "fey" is the right word for Baba Yaga, assuming that the knocker can be trusted. Always keeps her word but can teach the Devil about loopholes...

(CAN the knocker be trusted....?)

And I'm reminded of the saying about someone who is painfully naive: "Oh, you sweet summer child"...

(I thought it was an old saying, but googling tells me that it's from Game of Thrones. It just SOUNDS like an old saying....)

Is the child Summer a summer child, in that sense? And will she be, by the end of the story....?

Oh, and belated <applause> to Abi for the riff on "Summertime and the Livin' is Easy".

@David Harmon on fey. Two of the sources in the Wikipedia article describe Baba Yaga as "may be altogether ambiguous" and "often exhibits striking ambiguity". My previous encounter, in OSC's Enchantment, shows her as unambiguously evil.

@Nancy Lebovitz: Thank you for the MetaFilter link.

Can't help but think of one of my other favorite riffs on Baba Yaga, the witch Brume from McKillip's In the Forests of Serre. Another character who turns out to be much concerned with the heart's desire and the pitfalls that inhere.

IJWTS that it pleases me immensely that Baba Yaga is fat. So am I.

I wonder whether part of the "ambiguity" of Baba Yaga is that the cultures that produced the folklore (and for that matter, our current mainstream culture too!) are unsettled by the idea of a woman with power. A king who might kill you if you displease him isn't "ambiguous"; he's just powerful.

Lila: It's not that BY is ambiguous, it's that culture is ambivalent? :-)

There's also the "power leads to ignorance" thing: In general, women understand men better than men understand women, because they need to -- for personal safety, let alone social position. Men can dismiss women as "those mysterious creatures", because they can afford not to learn about them. Mutatis mutandis for blacks vs. whites, gays vs. straights, employees vs. bosses, and so on.

Nicole @ #13:

Through forest's dark and midnight's deep,
I seek the bird of fire
that none can tame and none may keep,
that sings of heart's desire.

A feather glowing warm with flame
I keep as proof of one unseen
who hides from sight, however keen,
and, out of shadow, calls my name.

Through forest's dark and midnight's deep,
I seek the bird of fire
that none can tame and none may keep,
that sings of heart's desire,

and glimpsed afar, whose burning wings
haunt all my sleep, fill all my dreams,
who is far more than what she seems,
who knows more than she sings.

And to behold her eyes of gold
is to be nevermore the same,
to leave behind your life, your name,
and to forget all other things.

Through forest's dark and midnight's deep,
I seek the bird of fire
that none can tame and none may keep,
that sings of heart's desire.

Jacque, Dave Harmon: those are both really good points.

From my POV in late middle age it occurs to me that "if you don't know what your heart desires, you'd better find out before it's too late" is one possible direction this might be going.

Lovely, Don. Thank you.

On catlike paw the manse will tread
Through woods that smother autumn light,
Not caring that the warm days' sped
Or that we're facing the long night.

On chicken feet, the lesser house
Prowls through suburban cul-de-sac;
Observed by only child and mouse,
The paved road is just one more track.

We ask you, as you take your ease,
To give us solely what we're due:
That if our words your spirits please
You give us gold and silver true.

Wow. Three poems in a row that I can actually parse and enjoy—!

Bruce, H., #1: I've always been rather fond of one from Zenna Henderson: "She never quite managed to forget that glimpse of what heart's desire looks like when it comes at the cost of another's heart."

(It's from one of her non-People stories, "The Anything Box" in the collection of the same name. I'm quoting from memory, so it may be inexact.)

Don, #17: Nice! Is that yours, and is there music for it?

Just because I'm lazy and I want handy access:

Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two

The first two chapters are reminding me strongly of the call-to-adventure from “A Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland…”

Fragano Ledgister @20: I thought you were going a particular way from that first line, but you didn’t, so I had to.

On birdlike claw, to Summer’s heart they steal;
In alleys tread, and vacant lots they kneel.
No sound at all! Her mother’s hold deferred.
Her heart’s desire soon to be conferred …

There ought be a verse for each chapter, but that’s all the muse has bitten me with tonight.

Don Simpson @ 17 - *wild applause* - lovely, and true to its source. Thank you!

All the poetry so far has been fantastic. Looking forward to the inevitable more.

Lee @ 22 - Yes, it's mine, and it has music. Well... I've been known to sing it, but that is not necessarily a guarantee of musicality.

Random thoughts:

I *loved* the stained glass "flipbook". With the triumphant saint (and angel! Was the angel only chasing the saint to make Summer pay attention?) at the end, that we get to see but Summer does not.

Interesting that she picked a frog over a unicorn. Unicorns are fantastical and unreal and powerful and vulnerable. Frogs are about as down-to-earth.... erm, pond... as you get. But frogs... have transformed. They've become very different than the tadpole they hatched as. They're free to leave the pond. Is Summer's heart's desire growth, change, and freedom?

And a weasel companion. Weasels are vicious predators... but they're also small and vulnerable. Not the worst mentor for a girl on her own. Weasels know when to fight and when to hide.

I also loved the stained glass "flipbook." And I hope Ursula's muse will suggest some companion art. I'd especially like to see the saint and the joyous angel dancing a jig at the end (where Summer didn't see).

Yes, the frog suggests a much more pragmatic orientation than the unicorn. I hadn't thought about the transformation aspect, but that's interesting.

Ah!

Chapter Three

Weasels are also tricksters.

Jacque, this time I'm bookmarking "weasel help"; I went to show it to someone and my google-fu let me down....

My cat Dante is not QUITE as helpful as a pair of weasels, but apparently every project from hemming a pair of slacks to fixing the inlet pump of the dishwasher is improved by a feline nose. Right in the middle of things. At all times.

Dante is clearly a weasel in a cat suit. These are far more common than you'd expect. (Also weasels in human suits, but that's another discussion. :D )

Re unicorns: Summer has been well trained not to ask for what she really wants.

Re weasels: Clearly this story was written especially for Jacque.

I was getting a How Many Miles to Babylon vibe out of Baba Yaga lighting the candle and then telling her to get a move on and get "out" before (the candle burned down? Strongly implied).

This pair of paragraphs rung particularly true for me:

And at that point, Summer said to herself, I shall be in so much trouble that it will not actually be possible for me to get in any more trouble, so it doesn’t really matter how long it takes.

There is something very freeing about knowing that you are in the worst possible trouble that you can be in. No matter what you do, it cannot possibly get any worse. Summer would get home and be grounded until she was eighteen, and even if she dyed her hair pink and got her ears pierced while in Fairyland (somehow she didn’t think they did that sort of thing in Narnia) she couldn’t be grounded any longer than that.

Elliott Mason #34: Also known as "might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb".

For Jacque: Chapter Four.

I loved the first part when I saw it on Ursula's LJ years ago, and I'm enjoying it even more now. I'm already champing at the bit for more to read, and we're barely into it yet.

Bruce H. @ 33:

Summer has been trained very well not to ask for what she wants, yes. Setting that (and the author's own love of frogs) aside, there are some other interesting things about the choice, too. If she'd picked the unicorn because that really was the best choice for her, she wouldn't need to go on this journey, although maybe another one would be indicated. If she'd picked the unicorn because she thought she was super special (but wasn't), her bones might make for a charming towel rack. A frog is, on the one hand, very down-to-earth and ordinary. On the other hand, frogs are a symbol of change and transformation. This might well be reinforced with the frog tree and the tadpole acorn. We'll see!

Elliott Mason @ 34:

I giggled at the line about pink hair and pierced ears not being done in Narnia. I'm not sure if that would get you kicked out with Susan, but it would probably put you somewhere similar.

One of the things I read sf for is the dream images, and those trees work very well that way.

The thing I wondered in Chapter 4 was that Summer is going from tree to tree, and then off with Bearskin and Boarskin, without paying much attention to her starting point so that she can find her way back.

Perhaps she assumes that, by the usual nature of portal stories, she'll end up going home by a different route anyway?

OtterB, this is a child who has never wandered alone without supervision. Certainly never gone to a camp, and most likely not even to a park by herself. Getting lost in the woods is a purely theoretical thing to her; while if she stopped to think about it the possibility might occur to her, right now she's caught up in the novelty of it all.

And, anyway, Baba Yaga's house had vanished, so knowing where the hallway was isn't likely to help her get home.

Good point that "lost in the woods" is theoretical to her. She was so sensible earlier that I thought it might occur to her.

It just gave me a reaction like wanting to yell at the character in the horror movie, "No! Don't go in the basement!"

I thought about that too, but I agree with Cassy B. that since Baba Yaga's house used to let out into the alley, and then let out into the hallway, going back through the hallway is unlikely to bring her home. (Might bring her back to Baba Yaga's, which seems like a good way to become a snack.) So she has to go elsewhere, and with no familiar landmarks, one way is as good as another. Of course, this could become a problem later if she needs to go back to the Frog Tree...

I wonder if Summer's weasel is this kind of weasel?

Keith S. @36: Thank you!

If she needs to get back to the Frog Tree, she can ask someone for directions -- clearly there are a lot of "someones" wandering around. But given her latest gift, I rather suspect that she will eventually plant the new Frog Tree.

A friendly lock, a talking weasel, a magic acorn... "what have you got in your pocketses", indeed?

This is developing into one hell of a charming story.

Chapter 5 is up, and the sand stars are the kind of perfect lasting image that make me wish I'd thought of them myself. Gosh.

I think she's doing a wonderful job of cementing her position as the new Daniel Pinkwater.

Chapter Five

I don't know the stories of Bearskin or of Boarskin, but Donkeyskin's tale is quite dark indeed. And Ursula's description of her inclines me to think that she's referring to the same tale of incestuous rape that I know of.

They cleaned the supper dishes but Summer only has had tea? Or is this "tea" in the British sense, which can include food?

Cassy B.: Are you inferring the details of Donkeyskin's tale? Or did I miss something?

Jacque, there's a traditional fairy tale called "Donkeyskin" in which a king's wife dies, so he decides to marry his daughter. His daughter puts on a donkeyskin to escape from him.

It's not one of the stories that are usually told to kids, and I doubt Disney will be making a movie about her, princess or not... <wry>

I'm kind of interested by how not timid Summer is. She's managed to not internalize her mother's anxiety--she knows all the rules, but she thinks of them from the outside.

Robin McKinley did an excellent version of the story called Deerskin, which I don't tend to recommend to people without a ton of content warnings, but which I've needed more than once to scour my own heart clean of old business that haunts me.

Ah. Thank you.

Deerskin is one hell of a book - in different senses depending on where the reader is at. There are times I couldn't read it, certainly.
...

"I was a chieftain's daughter" subtly suggests to me that Bearskin, Boarskin, and Donkeyskin come from different versions of the story told in different ages or places, sort of the way in _Mythago Wood_ and its related books the same archetype appears in multiple forms.

And it also strikes me how delicately their stories are suggested with:
"Apparently it could have been a great deal worse, if these women had to put on animal skins and flee into the desert."
Younger readers who don't need to understand that will likely go right on past. Adult readers and others who need to can take something away from those words.

Two thoughts occurred to me about this chapter.

One was about Donkeyskin, and has been covered already.

The other, on an entirely different note, was to wonder if the Waystation is by the sea. Because if it is, and for some reason its staff or its usual clientele are cetaceans, it would be a Whale Waystation.

Clifton's idea about the relationship between Donkeyskin, Bearskin, and Boarskin makes sense to me (and explains why, if they're from different fathers and places and times, they might call each other "sister").

I'd been wondering about Bearskin, because I know a Bearskin fairy tale as well, but it's about a dude who makes a bet with the devil, and doesn't fit this Bearskin.

(It's an interesting example of the "bet with the devil" genre, because the dude wins the bet and gets worldly success without losing his soul, but the devil still comes out ahead of the game.)

Cassy, #50: I looked up Donkeyskin (which is available to read online here), and was rather struck by the elements it has in common with Cinderella -- the assistance of the fairy godmother, the virtuous maiden forced to do the most menial of work, the ring* which was too small for any other woman in the kingdom. It's common enough for folk songs and folk tales to borrow bits from each other, and I suspect that's what happened here.

* It doesn't say so, but you will not convince me that it wasn't a magic ring -- nor that Cinderella's shoe wasn't magic either. There's just not that much variation in the human phenotype; without some sort of magic involved, there would certainly have been at least one other woman who the ring/shoe would have fit.

Among many beautiful images and lines, I also have to particularly admire this pair of sentences.
"The notion of these three women — who were sort of interesting, but sort of frightening — owing her anything was a little scary. She wouldn’t mind help, but she didn’t want them to get resentful, the way that her mother did about the credit card companies."

Lee @ #57:

And the Grimms' version, linked at the bottom of that page, has the heroine going incognito to a ball at the palace.

Incidentally, the tale was adapted for television as part of Jim Henson's The Storyteller, under the title "Sapsorrow". (Sapsorrow is the name given to the princess.) As I recall, it moves swiftly over Sapsorrow's reasons for leaving home and concentrates on what happened to her afterward.

Lee @ #57:

And the Grimms' version, linked at the bottom of that page, has the heroine going incognito to a ball at the palace.

Incidentally, the tale was adapted for television as part of Jim Henson's The Storyteller, under the title "Sapsorrow". (Sapsorrow is the name given to the princess.) As I recall, it moves swiftly over Sapsorrow's reasons for leaving home and concentrates on what happened to her afterward.

(Sorry. I should know better by now than to hit reload when submitting a comment produces a server error.)

The line in Chapter 5 that I keep coming back to is Bearskin's farewell to Summer:

“Go quickly or slowly, near or far, in fear or courage—but come back to us.”

That has a touch of the numinous for me. It reminds me of The Fellowship of the Ring where Gandalf sends Bill the pony home before the Fellowship enters Moria, saying "Go with words of guard and guiding on you."

OtterB, that's the thing about summer--it goes away, but it comes back.

Lilah @63, I hadn't thought of it that way.

Lee @ 57: Thanks for that link! I also found, following links from there to related stories, an Italian variant in which she becomes a she-bear, which could befit Bearskin.

Lilah @63: What a lovely observation.

OtterB, Clifton, thanks. Before it sticks, I'd like to point out that an extraneous 'h' seems to have crept into my name.

Oops, looks like my initial typo. Sorry, Lila.

I'm still on Chapter Five as I post this, but my heart squeezed and jumped at this line:

I’m being stupid. It was beautiful when I didn’t know what it was.

That is a piece of amazing truth, and I want to hold its jewel in my palm and think about it a while.

Tom Whitmore @46: Interesting. I'd never heard of Pinkwater till you mentioned him, and I've read the children's and young-adult sections of several different libraries back-to-front-and-back-again, and my whole life is within his writing career.

He's not even British (not that that stopped me; used bookstores meant my Grandfather could source me hand-me-down copies of Canadian editions of Penguin kid novels).

(Chapter 6)

I adore the ambition of the weasel. :->

Also, since I seem to have beaten everyone else to it,

Chapter 6

I too admire the ambition of the weasel! And share, in a quiet sort of way, not so much Summer's scorn at the puns as relief at the, ah, waystation not quite being Made Of Puns as it originally appeared.

I cannot help but thinking of the witch from Brave, and her shop full of bear-themed wood carvings. If you're not doing magic anymore, might as well do a strongly themed shop!

Yay! It's Thursday! *click*

Elliott @69 -- I don't know how I missed recommending him to you at the various conventions where I was selling books to you. Iconoclastic, idiosyncratic and able to turn a trope on its head in just a few words so that the world never looks quite the same again. Try The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death for a sample -- there are a lot more if you like that. That kind of changing of how I see the world is what Vernon seems to be doing in this story.

My favorite Pinkwater book remains Alan Mendelsohn, Boy From Mars, but the Snarkout Boys books, Lizard Music, and Borgel all have strong claims too. Actually, they're all pretty great.

1. Apologies for the error, Lila. When I saw your comment I was thinking "I know better than that" but then I looked and there it was. I must indeed have copy-and-pasted it without looking closely.

2. Thirded and agreed on weasel ambitions.

3. What a place to end Chapter 6.

Definitely Borgel, Lizard Musice, Yobgorgle.... but The Big Orange Splot is the one that changed my point of view about arguing politics. It probably works better to connect to people by way of their dreams (what they love, not so much night dreams*) rather than talking about best rules.

On the other hand, I don't know how to connect with people through their dreams, but it might be worth working on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzVTJwpUrHM

*that might be a really cool premise for a story

Clifton @75: It's almost like she's read Dickens' techniques for getting people to tune in next time. :->

OT rave: I don't usually buy hardcovers, especially new. But based on Hope Jahren's blog writing, I made an exception for her memoir, Lab Girl. And indeed, this book is holy-cow good. Once I've finished it, I'll almost surely be passing it on to my niece and nephews.

Ooh, yes, this is good stuff indeed. Is it next Tuesday yet?

Me @#78: Oops, wrong browser tab/thread. I'll repost on the Open Thread, our Gnome Queen should feel free to delete the mispost if she desire. (Hmm, gnomes in Orcus would be amusing.)

I have to say, while I might second reading Daniel Pinkwater in general, the reasons I read him and the reasons I read Vernon/Kingfisher bear approximately no resemblance whatever to one another beyond "clever enjoyable work, often YA, makes me laugh (when it's intended to)".

Just a caveat for anyone off to look for his stuff expecting to see more work that's like Summer in Orcus.

Nancy Lebovitz @76: connect to people by way of their dreams (... night dreams*) *that might be a really cool premise for a story

Or science experiments.

Lenora Rose @ 81: True, true. I don't actually get a Pinkwater vibe so much from T. Kingfisher books. I was just responding to Elliot's not having read any Pinkwater yet, which seemed to demand immediate first aid treatment.

(Although Digger maybe has a touch of resemblance to Pinkwater, what with the oracular slugs and all. Hmmm.)

When I was binging on T. Kingfisher's other books last week, I was actually thinking that something about them strongly reminded me of Peter Beagle, particularly Bryony and Roses. Summer in Orcus, not so much, at least thus far. Probably I should just appreciate them as Kingfisher.

Nancy Lebovitz @76 connect to people by way of their dreams
As it happens, I've just been reading MCA Hogarth's Dreamhealers series, in which a pair of budding esper xenopsychologists develop a technique for this, among other things.

And, of course, performing therapy on people in their dreams was the basis of Zelazny's The Dream Master.

And theft via dreams in Inception.

Chapter Seven

There's something interesting going on here that I can't quite put my finger on. I want to say it's a reflection on the different forms abuse can take.

Summer hasn't had any physical abuse to deal with, but she's been emotionally manipulated by her mother for her entire life. The Wheymaster, on the other hand, has to deal with physical threats. Even Grub seems somewhere on that spectrum. He's clearly a bully, but I'm also reading (possibly imaginary) hints that he gets it from above.

For all that he acts cowed for Grub, it's clear from the last chapter that the Wheymaster really is downtrodden and just trying to make do. Summer and the Wheymaster, in their own ways, help each other to start the journey of their own healing.

On an unrelated note, brief mention of clockwork bees!

Magic cheese for the win! :-) And another hint that this isn't going to be your ordinary hero-tale; most heros depend on luck. It should be interesting how Summer's choice plays out. Interestingly, WP notes that turquoise has an ancient association with luck and protection, so she might be covered there anyway.

I think she made the right choice. Her options were Luck or Grace. And there was no promise it would be good luck.

Chapter Eight!

A number of interesting hints about this world, and fascinating to have them all unseen and half-heard both by Summer and the reader's perspective.

In this story, Ursula's keeping the perspective very tightly bound to Summer's thoughts and perceptions.

Speaking of the story being tightly bound to Summer's perceptions, and thus possibly not mentioning things that seem obvious to Summer, is anybody else getting the impression that Summer is a person of colour?

Clifton #91: Yes, and I think we're already seeing hints of that grace.

Paul A, her hair made me consider the possibility, yes. But it's artfully mentioned in a throw-away line focused on the weasel, that makes it easy to miss. Clever, clever Ursula.

And HOW is she going to get out of the cave? Lunge for the rings? And if she manages to do that, it's harder to go up than down over a cliffside. Is she going to climb down somehow? The cave is deep enough to sit in, but there's no hint that it's got a tunnel to leave through....

Cassy @94:

I expect there will be a flash of a blue something that will lead her in the right direction.

As for "grace", the more I think about it, the more intrigued I am to see how that comes out in the story. Does it mean "grace" as in "graceful", smooth in movement and word, not clumsy, or does it mean "grace" as in "get to heaven by works or by grace"? Or other?

There's another definition of grace: I think of it as... well, kindness. Care. Mindfulness. Generosity. Helpfulness.

My own personal guess is, rather than the overtly physical meaning of grace, or the overtly spiritual meaning of grace, it's this third grace that will become important in the story. I could, of course, be entirely wrong.

And I hit "post" too soon.

I don't necessarily think Ursula will shy away from the spiritual meaning; she had an angel giving hints to Summer earlier, after all. And swinging on those rings to get to the cave might take a certain amount of physical grace.

But the Wheymaster/Waymaster helped her from kindness and care. And that, I think, will become the theme of the book.

Paul A. @ 92, Cassy B @ 94:
Starting from the beginning again, to see if there are other hints of that, if one reads with that in mind - suddenly her mother's over-protectiveness made more sense in context. This year I've read a number of black parents opening up about how terrifying it is to raise a child knowing they could be shot suddenly with no cause, physically attacked by an authority figure, arrested for something completely trivial (like getting a milk carton at the school cafeteria) and so on and so on. Maybe a part of her mother's restrictiveness is her struggle to cope with that.

Independently, noting Baba Yaga's comment in chapter 1, which I forgot to call out before: “Besides, it’s not strangers you need to worry about—it’s the ones you know that get you.” All too often.

Who on earth milks manticores?

Fragano @99 -- that's why the cheese is so rare.

Fragano @99

I hope we find out who milkes mantichores-- Vernon's take on the subject should be reasonable, peculiar, and not obvious.

Probably because of the Narnia callbacks, and specifically remembering The Silver Chair, I was ready for something dreadful to happen when Summer stood on the edge of the cliff and thought about what her mother would say if she saw her standing there.

This is not that book, and a very different something happened, but I feel like maybe the resonance with the other scene it superficially resembles is not entirely accidental. This book is very much in conversation with Narnia.

Speaking of which, rereading The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland... and its sequels while having Summer in Orcus in my head made me delightfully aware of parallels and echoes and resonances. (It seems that upon first arriving in the otherworld, it is common to meet with a Mythic Threesome who will point out your initial direction and/or mission.)

Tom Whitmore/Nancy Leibovitz: I hope it's a unionised job. The pay had better be better than decent.

#103 ::: Fragano Ledgister

Unions are very rare in fantasy-- a large topic in itself. I don't think it's (just?) anti-union sentiment because a lot of modern large-scale organization is rare.

I'm imagining the work being done by something/someone which can control a mantichore and/or domesticated mantichores. Or maybe trade with mantichores in exchange for milking.

Most fantasy books that do labor organization do guilds.

I like the idea of a guild of mantichore handlers.

Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little @ #102:

See also Tomjon's encounters with the three humble old ladies gathering firewood in Wyrd Sisters.

I don't need to see who's milking manticore a -- there's showing your work, and then there's showing the struts.

Nicole #102: yes, there's nods to the pattern, but then we have Summer's own genre-savviness, contrasted with the locals' sardonicism about prophecies.

Cassy B and Buddha Buck,
Why not all the definitions of grace? That would be interesting and play to what I've seen of Vernon's sense of humor.

Because Summer had paid attention in class, she knew that the rock was the type called sedimentary, which lays down in long bands at the bottom of prehistoric lakebeds. But something odd had clearly happened here, because the bands were not flat but diagonal, as if some enormous force had picked the rock up and dropped it down off-kilter.

Heh.

Oh-my-gosh, the Hoopoe! And flock-mind! But mostly Hoopoe...

Is it just me (because of our discussion upthread), or with Reginald is Ursula playing a bit with the concept of grace? He dances... and he offers help, unconditionally. Two types of grace, there.

(Hoopoes dancing doesn't seem to be a natural history thing; just a Reginald thing. I looked for videos to see if they (like many birds) did a courtship dance, but all I find are males feeding females. Which I think we can disregard, because Summer isn't a hoopoe...)

Echoes of Wodehouse. Wodehouse world is clearly an alternative reality, but I had never thought of it as a portal fantasy. Maybe there are characters who go there and come back again and I have just never encountered any of them?

Regency Hoopoe FTW!

Reginald reminds me more of Georgette Heyer than of Wodehouse, though of course there's no reason he couldn't partake of both.

Lila (113): Same here; the slang is definitely Heyer-esque.

Is this where I confess I've never read any Heyer? :)

What caught my eye was the valet finches disapproving of the wrong color waistcoat, which I've seen more than a few times in the Jeeves stories.

Wasn't she writing a Regency romance with ninjas or something at some point? The Hoopoe struck me as Heyeresque, too. And some Regency romance novels have disapproving valets.

Naomi Parkhurst (116): She wrote at least one* extract of a Regency Ninja novel, but denies that she is writing the full thing.

*I could have sworn I'd seen a second one, but I can't find it just now.

Mary Aileen, just continue to the next couple entries from the link you gave - there are several more extracts. (I had not previously heard of this...)

Just read them all myself. Thanks for the link, Mary Aileen.

And hey, there's a disapproving valet mentioned in one of the excerpts.

I doubt it is, but I was hoping the unicorn was a call-out to _The Secret Country_. And Summer's choice between grace and luck reminded me a little of Ted's between glory and length of days.

Chapter 10!

Summer is showing wisdom beyond her years: Although Reginald clearly wasn’t a child, he also wasn’t quite a grown-up as Summer understood it. Summer was pretty sure that real grown-ups weren’t supposed to run away into the country to hide instead of paying their bills.

Dave Harmon, but she's still child enough to believe that Adults Can Fix Things. Which actually says something positive about her mother, now I come to think of it. Her mother may have been overprotective and paranoid.... but her mother didn't destroy her faith in adults.

D. Eppstein #120: "...between glory and length of days" is simply Achilles' Choice, in its original form. I find "grace vs. luck" to be much more interesting.

Cassy B. #122: Indeed -- also, she is still eleven years old.

Hmm. Just noticed that Ursula is actually doing SiO under her alias of T. Kingfisher.

Dave Harmon: Ursula is actually doing SiO under her alias of T. Kingfisher.

Yes. I take that as another sign that this story is going to get considerably darker before it's over, as the introduction warned. The blighted and corrupted wheat seems to be the latest pointer in that direction.

How weird. I don't see a link for Chapter Nine. Am I blind?

The blighted wheat also feels like an echo of Tolkien's desolation of the Shire.

And here we have Chapter Eleven

A rather entertaining character, this one. But I have to wonder, what happens if the travellers are still inside at dawn?

Indeed, an interesting character. Also, a whiff of horror in that things that are innocuous in our world (house hunters) are menacing in Orcus.

The question of what happens if they are still inside at dawn had not occurred to me.

Shall we start a betting pool on how many companions this company will comprise in the end? I'll be surprised if it's not nine.

Bruce H, we're already past nine. Summer, the weasel, Reginald, the were-house.... and a dozen valet-birds.

Cassy B., I'd assume the valet-birds count as one.

Nine would already be unwieldy (see: ideal team sizes), but it would be even more interesting if the group grew to thirteen.

The part of me that gets picky about etymology wants to point out that a wolf who turns into a house wouldn't be a were-anything, because "were" is the part that comes from an old word meaning "man". He ought to be an ern-wolf, or something of that sort.

But the part of me that's read a lot of trashy fantasy is aware that that boat's well and truly sailed.

One of the things I love about Ursula's writing is that, while it makes good use of the expected tropes, there are always things one simply doesn't see coming.

Now, though, I'm reminded of the houses in Kaye Bellot's Green Year Dragonfly, which involves a different kind of househunter.

Well, that is not a creature I would have expected. Would anyone but Ursula have come up with this one?

I'm liking the warm-dry-full as she wakes up, gets warm, and gets fed. I can so feel that transition. (It's amazing how much physical misery cuts into one's ability enjoy one's adventure.) My only quibble is: if you want to get warm, you keep the fire small. ('Least, that's what my-brother-the-boy-scout told me.)

I can't help but wonder if the house-hunter idea came from a child's overhearing adults without the usual context and imagining a, well, hunter of houses (scary music).

Paul A. @132 If Old English for a man who turns into a wolf is "wer-wulf", I'm going to say that a wolf who turns into a house should be a "wulf-hus". Gotta keep the "from" and "to" in the same order!

I wonder if animal houses are going to be a thing in this story? Baba Yaga's hut has chicken feet and can lay eggs, after all.

Dave @131: You're being more inclusive than I. I was thinking only of speaking characters and wasn't counting the valet-birds at all.

Jacque @135: The way I heard that (when I was a Boy Scout, actually) was, "[person of natural, integrated ethnicity] build small fire. Keep warm by sitting close. [person of heedless, exploitive ethnicity] build large fire. Keep warm by carrying wood."

shadowsong @136: Good question! Maybe BY's house was a chicken that turned into a house at night (or some other magically significant time) and got trapped in a silver cage. Maybe that's why the wolves are acquainted with her. If BY's house retains some features of chickenness while it's a house, maybe the wolf will also. If Summer could turn into a house at night, she might suffer less from the cold and the dew.

I burst into tears when I hit this:

—and then she stopped as if she had run into an iron bar herself, because it was exactly what her mother would have done.

Perhaps because "not turning into my mother" has long been a feature of my heart's desire.

Or perhaps I am just weepy and vulnerable; I quit my job today because I could not keep it and also live with myself.

"You can trade anything for your heart's desire, except your heart." (Bujold)

Lila, #139: Yeah, that line hit me pretty hard too. One of the things I do have to monitor myself for is the tendency to treat my partner as my mother treated my father.

Take care of yourself. Doing the right thing is sometimes very hard.

Bruce H. @138: The way I heard that (when I was a Boy Scout, actually) was, "[person of natural, integrated ethnicity] build small fire. Keep warm by sitting close. [person of heedless, exploitive ethnicity] build large fire. Keep warm by carrying wood.

Yup. That was it exactly. 'Cept my brother left off the "carrying wood" part.

Lila and Lee, me too.

And Lila, hugs (if wanted) and sympathies.

Gratefully accepted, Nancy.

I'm giving myself this evening to wallow in misery and then I start applying for fellowships and getting the novel in shape to submit (NaNoEditMo?). My student loans, alas, have no sympathy with my ethical scrupulosity.

Good luck and best wishes, Lila.

The treatise on dew felt much in the spirit of Pratchett, especially when writing from the POV of Susan Sto Helitt.

The line "There’s too little courage in the world to go eating it up" hit me hard and made me linger over its loveliness.

Lila #139: Or perhaps I am just weepy and vulnerable; I quit my job today because I could not keep it and also live with myself.

I offer virtual hugs, and also both condolences and congratulations. It can be hard and painful to do right in this world, but I hope that in time you will also receive the rewards thereof.

Best wishes, Lila. Your choice is brave and difficult. I hope it leads you into more joyous ground.

Usually I find puns a little tedious in fantasy; but Summer's grim response to every pun she encounters makes those puns a delight to me in response. Which is a very neat writing trick, right there.

OK, this is going in my book of sayings, "Wolves are prone to metamorphic instability." And no one had to translate the hard words for Summer, unlike Reginald's slang.

Chapter Twelve

And the author answers my #127 with a figurative "You're overthinking this". ;-) There was actually a hint back when the wulf-hus was introduced, and told us that even transforming within the cage would have damaged, but presumably not destroyed, him.

I just want to pull out this line and look at it again: "It is a great relief, when one has thrown away normal life in search of their heart’s desire, to know that one is doing it right and isn’t going to get yelled at for going the wrong way."

(Also, when Glorious suddenly leaps off to hide from the (presumably) hunters), it's really nice that Summer wasn't prepared and nearly fell off. Scratching one's nose is not something that one normally sees in novels... and it's such an ORDINARY thing.)

My favorite line in this installment was the description of Reginald flying very fast, like a streak of lightning in a tastefully pinstriped waistcoat.

Cassy B. #150: I noted that she probably should have tumbled off behind the log -- it'd be a lot harder for the wolf to hide with a girl on his back.

Lee, Nancy, Fade, Clifton, Dave: an administrator requested a meeting with me today to discuss my departure. It went rather well, and gives me hope that I have not shot off both my feet.

Meanwhile, on topic: I love Glorious, in both forms. The line I wanted to wear around my neck till Tuesday was this one:
But [the wolf's howl] was also very beautiful. It made her heart ache with its wildness and its sorrow and she loved Glorious for being exactly what he was.

Now *I* want a Glorious were-house. Or wulf-hus. Or whatever; one of *those*.

This is an amusing Tumblr post about theoretical school houses to be sorted into--which I post in this thread simply because I was delighted and surprised to see that the eighth house listed would fit Glorious perfectly, should the wolf decide to pursue a formal plan of education.

Chapter Thirteen

I'm not going to shake the mental image of the Sleipnirians for a while ...

Hmm. So, Reginald has redeemed Summer's (and perhaps the readers') worries about his reliability, and the flock likewise in his wake.

Grub is seen and confirmed as monstrous, but there's something odd about that other leader, who might be the Houndbreaker. He seems to be keeping Grub's rougher behavior in check....

re: Grub and Houndbreaker (?):

Maybe not keeping Grub's behavior in check as much as exerting his own authority?

Then Grub would be not only as vicious when released (or more) but grateful?

And Ursula isn't afraid to introduce death-by-violence into what might superficially look like a children's story....

The original Sleipnir's parentage was a little WTF itself, even though no spiders were involved. But I imagine these were a lot worse.

Is it just me, or is Reginald a little like the Scarecrow, and Glorious a little like the Cowardly Lion? If their next companion is made of metal, or chops wood....

Orcus has disappeared? I'm getting redirected to the main Red Wombat page both for chapter 13 and for Summer in Orcus in general.

Lenora Rose @ 163 - I got the same thing earlier (on two different computers/browsers), as did a friend with whom I was chatting. On further examination now, it seems to be the whole of the 'Writings' section, though other sections appear to be fine.

I saw the same thing. I left a note about it for Ursula via the "Contact" section of the site.

It's fixed now, yay!

She noted that there was a website issue that has been fixed; the site's back now and the new chapter is available (and fantastic).

Those of us who follow Ursula on LJ will recognize that killdeer. :-)

All the talk about geography and the sea with nothing on the other side reminds me of other fantasy lands you couldn't leave or get to by normal means. Oz, for instance, with its deadly desert surrounding it, or Fantastica that, by definition, had no borders.

On another note, I am always grateful for characters who say a well deserved "bullshit!" to the idea that, if the villain hurts someone, it's your fault because you didn't do what they wanted you do (submit, surrender, stop fighting, stop protecting others from them, stop existing). I'm revisiting Diane Duane's Young Wizards series (via the videos at MarkReads.net), and there's a part towards the end of High Wizardry that hits that particular sweet spot for me too.

This chapter, besides the point others have called out, I was struck by:

“Our sun doesn’t have a shadow,” said Summer.

“Everything has a shadow,” said Glorious. “Perhaps your sun simply keeps it somewhere else.”

(I have been thinking lately about my own shadow; to be less oblique, thinking about what aspects of myself and my own behavior I may be blind to, as well as those I know I keep hidden from others.)

Hmm, I see no one has linked Chapter Fourteen yet.

Nicole @ #169, amen to that. I was thinking about that very issue after reading the chapter, and it occurred to me that the test of that belief is this: would the villain stop being a villain if you died, surrendered, etc.? Or would s/he just continue on to the next victim?

Chapter Fifteen!

And it's a whipsaw between amusement... who knew that the Department of Motor Vehicles imparted such important life lessons?... and despair.

The Queen In Chains. Is it the Queen that is the problem.... or the chains? (Or, of course, it could be something else, but we are up to chapter 15 now; a little late to introduce a new antagonist....)

I adored the bureaucracy sequence so much. It's an excellent chapter all around, but oh, the lessons of the DMV, those are ones I can take right home with me.

Not to mention that dealing with her mother's histrionics gives Summer an edge in dealing with the clerk's. She knows what tactics are likely to settle someone down who's just pitching a fit because they can.

Several years ago I had a walk with three women who had entered the U.S. as refugees; as we got comfortable together they began telling war stories. They spoke of how difficult it was when social workers tried to convince them that they needed to ease up on their children; that their kids were safe here.

They all said, from the heart, that they knew, knew, that NOTHING would ever keep their kids safe. In sight, and even better, physically touching was the only thing that eased off their anxiety.

We can infer that Summer's mother is learning to cope with an overwhelming trauma. That she's eased up enough to let Summer out of her sight has to be seen as a major step.

Summer is doing the best she can with hugs and reassurance.

If this were the mother's story, Summer's heart's desire might be getting her mom past that pain.

As a bonus, Ursula posted three new chapters today, even though it's not even Thursday. Chapter Sixteen

Thank you for that update, Mary Aileen!

I particularly liked this bit from Chapter 17:

“Now,” said the Forester. “Saving a single wondrous thing is better than saving the world. For one thing, it’s more achievable. The world is never content to stay saved.”

I needed to hear that today.

I clicked "next" too many times and ended up on her front page, where I discovered that Elizabeth Bear had provided a great blurb: "Vernon is the right thing to read in times of woe, in times of joy, and when you are considering planting an invasive non-native and know you probably need a stern talking to."

Teresa, so good to hear about it from the horse's no longer abscessed mouth, so to speak. And that you're solidly on the mend.

(Apparently I cannot spell "abscess" without outside intervention. Is this one in your demonic spelling test? Or maybe I'm not as good a speller as I think I am.)

I managed not to sit around watching the results come in last night mainly because I was at my roller derby league's board of directors meeting, being the secretary and getting utterly exhausted at the gumbo ya-ya multithreaded style of discussion going on there. Then I came home and found my husband had the scotch out on the table and clearly not just because he likes scotch. It was that bad. I took a look at the latest on Five Thirty Eight, then went back out into the living room, said, "I need a hug," and spent the next five minutes just weeping into his T-shirt.

Then I thought something along the lines of, "Damn this, I'm going to do good work now, they can't take that away from me," and spent the next couple hours getting my meeting notes presentable.

I didn't want to get up and see the official announcement this morning. Have been crying off and on. But have also been spending the day in that same spirit of "they can't take this away from me" protest: Doing the good work of daily writing, doing dinner-anna-movie with my husband, focusing really hard on how the weather's still beautiful and the leaves are still doing the autumn thing and the sun indeed rose upon the world despite everything.

A dear friend and teammate posted to our league's facebook group that she's so glad she spent election night at practice, doing ridiculous and scary and bad-ass things on skates, and how nothing about how the election turned out can take the joy of that away.

I really appreciate all the hopeful and determined things people are posting, about being kind to each other, about the quiet importance of telling stories and doing good work, about fighting every step of the way against those who would do harm.

So. Onward, I guess.

And lo, "oops, wrong thread" errors do still occur in this post-apocalyptic Earth 2. Off to repost in the correct thread. My apologies to all!

Posting in the correct thread for once, I just wanted to pull out this bit from Chapter 17 and admire it:

"Tell me about your journey, and start a little before the beginning, because we are usually wrong about where things begin."

Nicole @183:

I read that line, and wanted to steal it for the intro page to a story.

Buddha Buck @184 - Terry Pratchett was fond of the idea, too. One of his Discworld books, possibly "Witches Abroad", began with the acknowledgement that we can never be sure about "the beginning"; all we can tell is "the story so far."

Delurking because I love Summer in Orcus and the speculation here...
Does anyone else get the sense that the Queen in chains is(a stand-in for) Summer's mother? Sending out wasps to destroy wondrous things - like forbidding Summer learning to ride or doing other "dangerous", wondrous things? And her heart's desire to save the wondrous things - to experience them back in her world, and how she needs to convince the queen/mom to let her. Maybe take the queen out of her chains and her motjer out of her fears. SOmehow the forrester seemed to point me in that diection.

#186 Joana re: Queen in Chains / Summer's mother

Very much so. See my post at #177.

Joana @186 and related.

That was one of two thoughts I had.

The other is that perhaps the Queen must be freed from her Chains to heal Orcus. The meeting with Glorious might foreshadow that.

Of course, both ideas could be true.

J Homes.

I was wondering if the Queen in Chains is the girl who became a dragon, but didn't have a dragon's heart to go with it. In chains because of being a dragon's body, uncontrolled by that heart...

But I'm not as sure about the Queen being a stand-in for Summer's mother, because that implies a much more, mm, destructive sort of abuse than the problem her mother has. The active murder and casual violence doled out by the Houndbreaker, the wasps of the Queen, all seem the opposite of Summer's mother, who wants to protect and swaddle and keep things locked in safely.

If anything, the stand-in for Summer's mother is, well, Summer. Who has to learn to not become her mother in turn to her friends, even when the dangers are REAL and IMMINENT, not just imaginary or potential.

So, I guess we're going to have to wait until all of last week's burst should have been posted before we get some more.

Pout.

I was listening to Richard Thompson's Calvary Cross while I was reading Ch. 15 and got a powerful emotional rush when I got to this line: '"This is why she sent you, Summer-cub," [Glorious] said.' I'm not sure what the emotion was, perhaps related to the the longing for home that CS Lewis discusses in The Weight of Glory, but I felt it as an affirmation. "This is why she sent you."

Then a few lines down Glorious says, "But I smell her [Baba Yaga] even under this. Like clean stone under rotten meat." Well, OK, this is not the Baba Yaga I'm acquainted with.

Bruce H. @ 190:

Chapter 19!

I must say, I really like the Hoopoe's house from the standpoint of thinking through the consequences of worldbuilding. When you can fly and perch, it opens up far different options for house layout.

Bruce H. #191: Well, OK, this is not the Baba Yaga I'm acquainted with.

No, this is Baba Yaga as seen by a moderately-powerful native and quite magical native of the world... definitely a hint that there is more to her than her appearance.

Chapter Twenty.

The Birds' Ball is utterly fascinating. And I think the goose guards like Summer.

And of course the Matron's name is Sophia. As it ought to be.

I liked this line: "It didn’t matter if she didn’t like Merope, Reginald did, and that was the important thing."

And Matron Sophia is wonderful.

Singing Wren, I feel like there's something on the tip of my brain about the name Sophia. Is it just that it means "wisdom"? Or is it something from a Heyers novel I read thirty years ago?

Cassy B., The Grand Sophy?

Also: the trouble with being an artist and a writer is that when you write something like this:

"A band played in one corner, consisting of an enormous quantity of guineafowl, sometimes two or three to an instrument."

...people like me are seized with a desperate desire to have it illustrated.

(Particularly since we kept guineafowl for a while in my youth.)

(One ohnosecond later: or Sophie Aubrey, perhaps?)

I love the bird ball and Matron Sophia also. And it's an interesting twist on the whole Regency courtship vibe for everyone to understand that you are courting for this season, not forever.

But my favorite line out of Chapter 20 is “Are the cheeses very fierce in your world?”

Going back to the Baba Yaga question, I'd be hard put to chase it down, but if I'm remembering right, not all the folklore about her has her as an unmitigated monster. Most of her legendary behavior is monstrous, but I think some folk stories have her tricked into granting favors, or even capriciously favoring some supplicants if they complete tasks or chores for her.

...

(And with a little bit of Googling, I discover some references to the story of Vasilissa the Beautiful, a kind of cross between Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel, where after Vasilissa completes Baba Yaga's tasks, she saves Vasilissa by giving her a magic skull lantern which burns up the evil stepmother and the stepsisters - simultaneously helpful and vicious.)

Clifton @ 201

Kindness is sometimes cruel. Justice is sometimes mean. There's a phrase I've read that goes something like "an old testament man/sense of justice". My memory indicates it's in Westerns and was equated with Frontier Justice equated with lynch mobs, posses and other forms of DIY law keeping. See also: "tough, but fair" and "rough justice."

So far, "Summer in Orcas" has put Baba Yaga firmly in the "tough, but fair" category.

Cassy B.: I was referring to the "wisdom" meaning myself. Having never read any Heyer*, I can't say if it's also a reference to anything else.

Lila: I, too, would like to see an illustration of the guinea fowl orchestra.

*I should probably remedy that at some point.

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

(should have refreshed the page before duplicating Paul A.'s link)

Huh. The discussion at the end of this chapter puts Zultan and the Queen-in-Chains in a different relationship.

I had thought of her as a distant evil ruler, like the White Witch, and him as her evil henchman, but if he's in control and she's his weapon, that's a very different story, and maybe calls for a different kind of resolution.

I really like the direction this discussion of Zoltan is going with the setting. We've seen a lot of Evil Overlords get overthrown from their reign of terror, but not nearly so many...roving bands of terrorists with long-term destructive effects, as it were. It's different, and it makes me chew over some of the various ways in which evil can manifest. I like.

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 23: And, perhaps, Summer's descent to Hell begins. (I think it was TNH who commented here that the Epic Journey may or may not reach Heaven, but it always passes through Hell.)

From the description, it sounds like Summer has a concussion.

How long will her friends wait outside before they realize she's been betrayed?

That chapter whipsawed me pretty thoroughly.

I had been somewhat suspicious of the Priestess in the last chapter, then went to thinking she must be OK, as Summer did, and then...

It occurs to me that it's pretty rare for the experience of a concussion to be accurately described in a book. Even a mild bang on the head can be, well, like that. Lots of books, like nearly all movies and TV shows, indulge the conceit that people can be hit hard on the head without consequence other than a plot-convenient length of unconsciousness. The reality is that most people hit hard enough to experience more than a few seconds of unconsciousness would take weeks or months to make a recovery, some of them would be permanently impaired, and some of them would die.

(Let's not even get into the scale of PTSD which most fantasy heroes and heroines should have from their travails.)

Chapter 24

Clifton @ 213:

I think that's a pretty fair assessment of what chapter 23 did to me too. But if chapter 23 was a shock to me, chapter 24 is the one that rearranged the world. We finally get to meet Zultan, who is not what I would have expected. And we find out a bit more about Grub, who I now exceedingly strongly suspect is a parasitized actual grub.

Also, mysterious antelope woman.

I also think that it might be interesting and worthwhile to compare and contrast elements of Summer in Orcus and Black Dogs once we get a bit farther in. I heartily recommend the latter by the way, too.

Seconding the recommendation for Black Dogs. It's a duology and a fairly fast read, but (as usual with Ursula) it plays merry hob with plot tropes and your own expectations.

I've been meaning to get Black Dogs for a while, on the principle that anything Ursula writes seems to be well worth reading.

And yes, totally what KeithS said: this chapter seriously rearranges things.

>> ... strongly suspect is a parasitized actual grub.

By a wasp, perhaps?

I'm also seeing some parallels to the webcomic "Kill 6 Billion Demons", where the first of the Big Bads turned out to be... seriously neurotic, and half-defeated already by their own weakness.

And more germane to the story: I was thinking, mightn't Zultan himself be the first victim of the "wasps"? And then it hit me: Wasps and larvae. Grub is the key to the whole thing.

Re the antelope woman, in case anyone else couldn't remember what had been said about them, the book the stained glass saint was carrying in chapter 3 had this advice:

1. Don’t worry about things that you cannot fix.
2. Antelope women are not to be trusted.
3. You cannot change essential nature with magic.

OtterB, I took that message to mean "don't trust antelope women", but it's Zultan who shouldn't have trusted her, at least so far. Will she also prove untrustworthy to Summer?

OtterB: I had forgotten about that. Thanks.

OtterB, Cassy B., I noticed that phrasing too. "Antelope women are not to be trusted ", but by whom?

We've also seen the third piece of advice, too. Glorious is still very much a wolf, and the Forester is very much a dragon.

On why Zultan killed all the dogs: "Because they would have forgiven me. Unbearable thought, isn't it?"

That line made me flinch, both for all the times I've felt like that, and the times I've seen others unable to stomach any hint of forgiveness or mercy. This is the chapter that's hit me the hardest so far.

Chapter Twenty-five

The antelope woman's telling of the Orcus foundation myth is a stupendous piece of writing.

Craft (Alchemy) #225: Yah. Also, I was flashing on the Jackalope Wives.

Chapter Twenty-six, up a little early.

More exploration of Antelope Woman.

This chapter answers one of the questions I had at the end of ch. 25; the antelope women did somehow manage to reproduce, despite starting out in Orcus with only three women. I had wondered if the one who met Summer was one of the original three, which she still may be, but not necessarily. I'm still wondering how they managed to reproduce. Parthenogenesis, perhaps?

I also note that the ((temporarily?) divided) company now numbers seven; Summer, the weasel, Reginald, Glorious, Ankh, Ounk, and the unnamed antelope woman. Two more to go?

Bruce H. @228: Do the valet-birds count as a companion, en masse? In this episode one of them shows up separately, so they might.

Tom Whitmore @229: See previous discussion at 129 - 137. I'm counting only speaking characters, but there are other plausible opinions. If the valet finches all together count as one (seeing as how they are a group mind), then we're at eight.

Is the antelope-woman a companion, or just a helper-along-the-way? Like the Wheymaster?

I've lost track of the weasel. Is he still in Summer's pocket?

Cassy B. @ 231

The weasel is still at the pipes with Reginald and Glorious. He was allergic to the incense and left before the priestess betrayed Summer.

The weasel had to leave her back at the Great Pipes because he was choking on the incense smoke. Otherwise she might have had some help with escaping earlier. (I got confused about this too and had to go back and see where they got separated.)

Ah; right. Now I remember. (A weasel would have been very useful... if Zoltan hadn't sniffed it out right away. Which he probably would have -- he's a Dog, after all -- even if the Antelope Woman "overlooked" it like she did Summer's other pocket contents.)

Pendrift #224: And then there's Summer's response: She did not understand, but she wasn’t sure if it was a grown-up thing, and she would understand when she was older, or if it was an evil thing, and she would never be able to wrap her head around it.

Or something even more complicated than that....

Chapter 27

"it is easier to fight swords than courtesy sometimes"

Yes, it is.
------
Also, Ursula mentioned else-web (I think in her LJ) that she is planning to double up the chapter-posting the end of December so that she can finish it this year instead of the first week of January.

Yes. Which means that it will be eligible for the Hugos in 2017.

And it also means we're close enough to the end that she's not likely to introduce any more major characters to travel along with Summer.

It doesn't feel like we could be that close to the end of the story; I'm not quite sure why.

Maybe it's the first book of a series?

Clifton #240: I had the same feeling, but Chapter 27 has eased that a fair bit. They'd already identified the threat, collected allies, learned who the major players are, and met some of them. Now they've got their wasp, and they have a basic idea of what to do with it. Doubling up on the installments to finish in December suggests there will be a dozen-odd more chapters, and given the pace of the plot so far I can believe we'll get a decent resolution.

SiO still seems to be a textually short work; I haven't been keeping track of wordcount, but I suspect it might end up about novella size.

Musings on the plot: I find it striking that the wasp capture not only happened offscreen, but was apparently accomplished by the "is that a character?" valet birds. I'm also wondering whether the antelope woman will eventually "pull a Gollum" and be key to the resolution.

And, of course, the author has been distinctly cagey about exactly what the Queen-In-Chains is; Chekhov's Gun would suggest the "girl who became a dragon" (which could be a story in itself), but I can't see how those wasps fit into that.

The wasps of our world don't have queens, but of course Orcus isn't our world... and on the gripping hand, why are the wasps doing what they are doing? Does some benefit accrue to their controller, or for that matter to the wasps? If they're doing it to reproduce, are they actually being controlled by anyone, or just another species that's wandered into Orcus? I still suspect that Grub is a big piece of that puzzle, but don't yet know what he connects to.

Not only do we need to see the resolution in Orcus, we need to see Summer return to our world and deal with her mother.

Re the antelope woman, Ursula tweeted a cover design yesterday that implies an important role.

And here comes Chapter 28

I love the theme in this story of Summer taking note of "magic words" used by adults in particular situations, and applying them appropriately. This is definitely a life skill that will be applicable after she gets home. (A factor often missing from portal fantasies!)

OtterB @ 244

Well, they have a direction to go to find the queen-in-chains. That makes me think the road trip will end soon. We have about eight installments left and Summer just found her inner power when rescuing Glorious.

I suspect it's time for the final confrontation.

And I am now seriously impressed with Summer. Not that I wasn't before, you understand, but her confidence has clearly grown by leaps and bounds already.

Knowing Ursula's writing in general, I expect the climax will be suitably impressive even if we know it's not that far away now. On a meta, and purely speculative level, since Summer in Orcus is response to a lot of other portal fantasies, I wonder if Summer will manage to accomplish anything massively politically changing for Orcus or not. I'll be quite interested to see how it turns out.

And, despite what Ursula has said on the matter, this is definitely Hugo-worthy already.

KeithS #248: Accomplishing something significant for Orcus seems likely, given she's already directly involved with their Big Problem.

It occurs to me that we still don't know what Summer's "heart's desire" actually is... or if she's already receved it! If it was to be strong enough to stand up to her mother, or just to see outside the walls her mother has put around her....

To be able to Do Things? (I.e., agency, and effective agency at that!)

Dave Harmon @240 & Lila @250

I suspect Summer's heart's desire is to be able to stand up to her mother or manage her mother or get breathing space from her mother. Or just some level of independence/adulthood/authority - which involves standing up to her mother and managing the fall out from it. This is based on the fact that Summer used good business practices and the Antelope Woman's demeanor to thwart the house hunters.

Which brings me to something else. I suspect Summer's mother is an Antelope Woman, too, (or some mix of Antelope Woman and Hound Breaker) but Summer is not. Which is where the ice in her heart came from when she realized the Antelope Woman had betrayed them. Summer had thought Antelope Woman might act better/less chaotic if she'd been treated better/been included more.

Dave Harmon @ 249:

I expressed myself badly. Let's see if I can tease out my thoughts.

In a stereotypical portal fantasy, the child protagonist winds up in a fantasy world, gets caught up in The Biggest Socio-Political Problem of the World, and, with the support of the locals, learns and trains and saves the world. Becoming royalty is optional. Summer in Orcus has a bit of that, certainly, but also subverts that.

Yes, she is, essentially, the head of a small band of local Orcusians, however she's not looking to Save the World, so much as she is to help her new friends and help the Frog Tree. In another story, she would have been the one to orchestrate the capture of the wasp, even if she didn't personally accomplish it. In this story, it was the valet birds, off screen. While the wasp capture was going on, she escaped from the clutches of Zultan. In another story, she would have found a way to subvert one of the guards, or take advantage of a weakness. In this story, she escapes with the help of the antelope woman, who has her own reasons.

However the story ends, I know I'll be happy with it. But, because of all this, I wonder if the end result will be that only a part of the regime is changed. Even if it's the case that the big bad is defeated, castles don't immediately come crashing down, and life doesn't instantly change for everyone. There are others who are positioned to move into a power vacuum. And, even if she facilitates a massive change, she may not, personally, accomplish it. (Although she might. One of the joys of serialized storytelling is suspense. Suspense and speculation. Two of the joys of serialized storytelling are suspense and speculation. I'll come in again.)

What she can and almost certainly will do, though, is at least make the world a little better — hopefully better enough for the Frog Tree's tadpole — and gain her heart's desire, which, like Lila, I think is effective personal agency.

Oh! Summer's power seems to be that she empowers others to do what they could have done and fix what they could have fixed but didn't realize.

And I think perhaps her Heart's Desire is to see her mother recovering and able to better care for herself and better do for herself.

First noting that a comment in the OT by Nancy Lebovitz offers some interesting insights into Summer's relationship with Glorious.

KeithS #252: I think a lot of that is down to her not being a Big Damn Hero or even a Magical Prodigy. Re: Clifton #253, she is certainly, a disruptive element intruding from outside Orcus, which was likely part of Baba Yaga's intention (and a couple of in-world characters have said as much). Even if she's not saving the world single-handedly, she's still driving the plot, and this wasp thing actually does seem to be a major threat to Orcus, so dealing with that would reasonably qualify as "saving the world" for the moment. As for Zoltan -- Summer's just told the people of Orcus exactly what he is -- he might well be dealt with by someone else, or the wasps might be necessary to his survival.

If she succeeds, indeed castles won't automatically come down, and neither will the City of Dogs be easily rebuilt.¹ Some of the marvels will be lost forever... but others will recover or be remade, and new marvels will arise in time. But comments from the natives makes clear that Orcus has seen empires rise and fall before. And that there are plenty of species (and powerful individuals) around, who'd be happy to start hunting spider-horse riders if they didn't have to worry about Zoltan bringing the QiC in for large-scale destruction. And then they'd start rebuilding things, once the current crop of marauders has been neutralized.

Re Chapter 28: Well, it didn't take long at all for the antelope woman's other shoe to drop. Of course, she may yet come back and stir things up again.

¹ That said, I can believe there might be refugee Dogs that the Houndbreaker missed. I find myself wondering what would happen to dogs of our world who were brought to Orcus.

It may be worth noting that the Antelope Woman's action was aimed specifically towards Glorious, and she has good reason for animosity thereof. If Summer had been unable to prevent the house-hunters taking him, the rest of the party could have carried on the quest without him.

Of course, Glorious likely has a major role to play at the climax, so as well Summer did save him. It also seems likely that the Antelope Woman still has a part to play, and possibly the fact that she did not betray the party in general will be important in enabling her to play it.

J Homes

Chapter 29. Rough.

Oh. Oh man. This chapter. And now I'm braced for the next chapter, too.

Clifton #256: Yeah, but they actually won against a bunch of the spider-horses and riders plus Grub. With only one-and-a-fraction casualties, and the one was a professional guard. Of course, they're now facing Zoltan; the question is what he can do by himself; does he actually have the QiC handy, or can he summon her? And if he does... will it do him any good?

Also, it seems Grub wasn't directly linked to the wasps after all, but to a separate abomination entirely.

I was wondering last week if Summer would get a chance to use her cheese knife, and was so glad to see that she did, and to good effect.

Chapter 30

I liked the parallel between the weasel, "... groom[ing] himself over and over, which only made his fur look worse ..." and Summer "...wip[ing] at her face and arms over and over, until Ounk took it away from her and said, 'Enough.'"

I also had a moment of recognition.

“Do you wish us to fight?” asked Ounk, as calmly as if she were asking the time of day, and not do you wish us to die?

The geese are Marines.

My favorite line, I think: His weight made her pocket a tiny bit heavier, but Summer felt a very, very little bit lighter.

I think perhaps that this chapter is missing its italics; in several places we hear Summer's thoughts but they're not marked out in any way.

And I really like the thought that the geese are Marines.

Dave Harmon @ 254:

You're right. I think I was taking the idea of non-traditional hero and ending a little too far in my thoughts.

And now we know what Grub is. I'm not sure how that managed to be worse than I was thinking, but it was. Neat!

Cassy B. @ 262:

Looks like all the formatting of the second half of the chapter is borked (paragraph spacing, too, not just italics). So many good bits of insight from Summer tucked away in there, though.

A thought:

She was told to come alone, and the wasps made clear that the geese, Glorious, Reginald, and the valet flock were not welcome.

But the weasel came, and the wasps accepted that.

The weasel is a part of Summer, she only thinks it came from Baba Yaga.

Buddha Buck: interesting theory, especially in light of what happened when the weasel WASN'T with her (e.g., in her dealings with Cereus and later, with the antelope woman).

Summer watched the realization spread over the goose-guard’s face, and then Ounk dropped her head an inch and said, quietly, "I will go with you to the end."

Ouch.

What that reminded me of was how, after my cat Genevieve died, it took me nearly a year to stop looking for her in her favorite spot by the foot of the bed, where she'd spent her last few years. She was badly arthritic, and we got her a nice soft pad to lay on, and she pretty much stayed there except for eating, drinking, and using the litterbox. And every time I looked and she wasn't there, it hurt all over again.

That line gave me exactly the same feeling. Poor Ounk.

>> The weasel is a part of Summer ...

So, was the weasel's ambition vis a vis the egg just part of the cover story, or is the outsized ambition also part of Summer?

Oh, the outsized ambition is definitely a part of Summer! It's part of what her mother is trying to suppress/repress -- because outsize ambition is dangerous, and leads one into dangerous situations.

Today's xkcd reminded me of this ...

Craft (Alchemy)@ 269

You beat me to it. I wonder if Randall is a fan of Ursula.

Bruce H #261: Thebans, surely?

I was thinking about how Grub's wight fly got defeated so quickly that it hardly seemed to have served a role in the story, and then I remembered what Ounk said: that the decisive action was clipping its wings, because it would have been unstoppable once it took to the air.

This might be foreshadowing something about the Queen-in-Chains.

It might also be saying something about Summer's relationship with her mother.

Paul A. #272: thinking about how Grub's wight fly got defeated so quickly that it hardly seemed to have served a role in the story

The thing is, most things in this story happen quickly, with significant points or character developments found in nearly every scene. Here we have Ankh's death -- but even before that, consider this: Summer was in position to slash its wings, because she was already attacking the molting Grub -- not just reacting to incoming attacks. No, not a Big Damn Hero, but still taking initiative in the fight.

Ursula's handling of the episodic format is giving me serious lessons in pacing and "moving the story".

Chapter 31 is up.

OH!!!! Oh oh oh oh oh. Ohhhhhhhh.

Oh. Oh man. I was right, but I was right in a very shallow and basic "Ah, I see this twist coming, I look forward to it," and then it's like a rollercoaster where even if you can see the turn, it still makes your stomach drop and takes you so much further than you expected.

Nothing in this story is going as expected. And yet, somehow everything is inevitable. Ursula is very good at asking the question, "Why would this be happening? What might explain it?" and coming up with out-of-the-box, utterly plausible answers.

Links for Chapter 31 and Chapter 32. She is doubling up. And it's not done yet! But it really is getting close to the end, and I'm looking forward to the resolution. Roller coaster indeed, Fade.

Wow. (Thanks, Tom Whitmore, for the link to chapter 32; I saw chapter 31 was up earlier and I didn't realize she'd followed it with the next.)

I do hope that was Reginald she saw. And that a hoopoe is strong enough to slow her fall...

And I find it interesting that Summer's great gift is... she can comfort people in distress.

You know, that's actually a pretty powerful ability. And easily overlooked.

I wonder if it was her heart's desire to really understand and believe that she was very good at something...?

Or that Zultan is too weak....

Poor Summer is not trope-aware enough. :-)

It occurs to me that falling into the chasm might be the way home for Summer. I don't really think so--it would be too easy--but it's possible.

Also, Ursula posted on LiveJournal that she's posting the next chapter today. It wasn't up yet when I checked a few minutes ago.

And it's up!

Very satisfying, too. The coda of how she'll deal with being back home could almost be left for the reader. But I don't think it will be.

Chapter 33: Aawww!

Yes, satisfying without being too tidy. She didn't fix the world forever, but she improved it substantially.

And I'm relieved; in the hiatus before Chapter 33 was posted I had remembered that the weasel was with Summer, and thought he might attach Zultan, and feared he would be lost.

Cassy B. #280: And I find it interesting that Summer's great gift is... she can comfort people in distress.

Rereading the thread, I note this prior comment of yours:

Cassy B. #96: There's another definition of grace: I think of it as... well, kindness. Care. Mindfulness. Generosity. Helpfulness.

By now we have seen the Grace in action, and it was the key to the very climax of the story. I suspect that this may also be the heart's desire that Summer was promised: The power to comfort her mother, to ease the distress that drives her.

Hmm. She started the tale by picking up three things: First the lock, which proved key to the tale's climax. Lastly the tadpole seed, which fulfilled her first goal within Orcus. The weasel saved her life afterwards, but it was not lost; I wonder what will happen to it (did we ever learn the weasel's gender?) as Summer returns to her world.

Chapter 34

"It would be a good day for the world if I could not find a child who knew terrible adult things."

"Hearts are complicated. Hardly anybody wants just one thing."

I'm sad that Summer had to start her new life by lying to her mother.

I'm not sad for the textbook salesman. I think more pushy salesmen ought to be eaten.

And I'm not sure at this point whether the button indicating that there'll be a "next" chapter is just an artifact of the website. This is a good endpoint.

I guess I wasn't that far wrong in 280. And I see Baba Yaga is also trope-aware. Not a monkey's paw, indeed....

What a satisfying end to a very satisfying story. Ursula, if you read this... thank you. (And is this a novel or a novella? Why? Oh, no reason. Just wondering....) <gazing speculatively at Hugo ballot>

I do indeed read this, though I have refrained from commenting because--err--fan space, author space, all that, but I've very much appreciated the kind reception from you all!

The NEXT button was meant to lead to the Author's Note, which is now live.

And while I think you are very optimistic (though I am enormously flattered!) it runs almost exactly 90K.

I think the lock is about coping mechanisms and how you can't judge a tool without considering how it is used - it was maladapted to Summer's situation, and imposed on her without her consent, but for the Queen-in-Chains it was appropriate and helpful, accepted willingly.

Bruce, #290: If Summer hadn't lied to her mother, she'd have been locked up in inpatient therapy until she (1) turned 18 and (2) managed to lie convincingly enough to the shrink. I had the same kind of hovering, overprotective, "lock her up in a golden cage to keep her SAFE" parents that Summer's mother is. And many's the time I lied to them when I knew their response to the truth would be the kind of massive overreaction that Summer's mother has been shown capable of having.

I guess what I'm saying is that no matter how much Summer was changed by her quest, the world she has to live in did not change at all and she still has to live there. At least for a few more years.

I also was a bit sorry that Summer had to come back and immediately lie to her mother. But - Summer has changed from the beginning of the book, when she hesitated about what she should and shouldn't say. On her return, she recognized the necessity and acted decisively. There's no internal narrative so we can't be sure, but I'd like to think she lied not so much from fear of her mother's reaction, as because the truth would make her mother very unhappy and do her no good.

Am I reading too much into this to see a parallel between the Queen-in-Chains' situation and the decision Summer and her mother may someday have to make, if her mother's mental illness continues to progress?

Lila #297: We don't actually know that much about Summer's mother, but I'd be damn wary of dismissing her fears as "mental illness". As pointed out above, many parents have entirely rational reasons to be terrified for their children's welfare. It's not paranoia if someone's really are out to get you, or even if they were.

Editing fail, but you get the idea..

Excellent. Just excellent. The twists and turns of the entire story constantly kept me surprised. Pleasantly surprised from the standpoint of a reader, even if sometimes unpleasantly from the standpoint of "oh no, poor Summer!"

I don't mind Summer lying to her mother at all, because it was the right thing to do.

The climax being quiet dialog and compassion, rather than being a big action scene worked very well for me. Compassion and humanity are far more important, in the end, than waving a sword around. Tolkien would be proud.

The ending was a very good ending, and a very right ending to the story. Summer's confidence has grown, which has honed the tools she uses to cope with her mother and the world in general.

OtterB, #296: Perhaps more to the point, here are the questions Summer's mother asked:
- Why is the gate open?
- You didn't see anyone, did you?
- You didn't go anywhere, did you?

I don't see any answer she could give to any of these that isn't a lie, which would not have immediately gotten her accused of lying or worse. It's like in Every Heart a Doorway -- when children go thru a portal and come back and try to tell anyone what happened to them, they are not believed.

Lila, #297: I agree with Dave about this, although for a different reason. Irrationality on a single topic is not the same thing as mental illness. We all have things about which we are irrational; sometimes we recognize it, sometimes we don't, but outside of that we're perfectly functional. The problem comes in when one's irrationality is affecting someone else's life in a negative way.

It is pretty clear that Summer's mother's irrationality is affecting Summer's life in a negative way, Lee -- at least from Summer's perspective. That doesn't mean it rises to the level of "mental illness."

All: you're correct. I expect I'm jumping to "mental illness" because Summer's mother's behavior feels to me like my own mental illness (depression and anxiety disorder with a side of PTSD).

Tom, #302: That was my point. It's a problem, and not just from Summer's perspective either; her mother is crippling her ability to develop mature judgment and valuable life skills. But it's not a mental illness. It's much closer to the attitude my own parents had, which boiled down to a complete lack of perspective about probabilities. If something bad could happen, they would talk themselves into believing it would happen, and then nothing could shake them out of it. Example: I was forbidden to go anywhere near a squirrel because OMG IT MIGHT BE RABID!!! Never mind that there hadn't been a case of squirrel-borne rabies in our area in half a century or more, it was always their first thought about any squirrel.

"Summer in Orcus" is now available for purchase as an ebook.

I've seen it on both the Amazon (Kindle) and B&N (Nook) sites.

It's available as a $5 ebook! I'm going to read through, catch up, and then participate in the thread.

Coming late to the party HOLY HECKBALLS "were-house?"

It's the joke that just keeps on giving, with the househunter and real estate corollaries ...

In no way your standard portal fantasy. Chock-full of bizarre originality.

Elliott, it's on my Hugo longlist for Best Novel.

Congratulations to Ursula for the - it's not a Hugo nomination, but... affiliated with the Hugos, I guess?

She's also got a Hugo nom for short story, so congratulate her on that as well!

I was surprised it was on the ballot (I nominated the illustrator for Best Pro Artist, but didn't nominate the book because I nominated it last year)... but Ursula Vernon posted on File770.com that she had extensive conversations with the Hugo Admins (she wanted to be scrupulous and not take a nomination that wasn't legit) and they determined that the illustrations transformed the work sufficiently that it was eligible this year, and that both Ursula Vernon AND Lauren Henderson would get the Hugo should they win.