THE WINTER LONG open thread!: seanan

THE WINTER LONG open thread!

To celebrate the release of The Winter Long, here. Have an open thread to discuss the book. Judging by the comments I'm seeing, some of you have had time, and I'd really, really rather book discussion (sometimes including spoilers) didn't crop up on other posts.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Seriously. If anyone comments here at all, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. So please don't read and then yell at me because you encountered spoilers. You were warned. (I will not reply to every comment; I call partial comment amnesty. But I may well join some of the discussion, or answer questions or whatnot.) I will be DELETING all comments containing spoilers which have been left on other posts. No one gets to spoil people here without a label.

You can also start a discussion at my website forums, with less need to be concerned that I will see everything you say! In case you wanted, you know, discussion free of authorial influence, since I always wind up getting involved in these things.

Have fun, and try not to bleed on the carpet.

marziek

September 9 2014, 00:06:51 UTC 2 years ago Edited: September 9 2014, 00:18:21 UTC

New comment

So now I'm listening to the audiobook, since I'm not getting steady time for the reread, and I have shown up here to say that one of things I have loved most about this book is that I feel that Toby is finally really learning how to use her magic. Not just for her detective work, not just to ride the blood, or escape a dungeon, but defensively, protectively and in a way that shows she's owning who she is like never before in the series. She's strong for those she loves and finally for herself, too. And I love the family she's built for herself, with her sister Fetch, with Tybalt, Jazz, Quentin, Raj and the Luidaeg (still worried about Selkie debt and whatever Toby unleashed by waking the dead- Evening's geas might still have been there but it's clear something else changed). With Arden, Quentin, Tybalt and the Luidaeg in her corner, who needs the cold, crazy Torquill Duchy, slumbering Simon and crazy mama, Amandine, anyway?

Of course, undying curiosity about Amandine's parentage (did she even have a mother? was her mother a tree or a stone or a *gasp* human! I wonder? I have vague worries about a GRRM scenario in which her grandmother is also her aunt, but nevermind...) and where is August? With Acacia? Lost back in Blind Michael's realm? Wouldn't she be powerful, being half Dóchas Sidhe and half Daoine Sidhe? Oh, the anticipation! I want it to be fall 2015!

Real questions, if they aren't spoilers:

BTW, is September Torquill in Rat-Catcher actually Simon and Sylvester's sister?

Oh, and in your world, is Black Annis a whole different person from Gentle Annie?

seanan_mcguire

September 12 2014, 06:30:45 UTC 2 years ago

Not questions, because they have been answered explicitly in the text:

1) Yes, September is Simon and Sylvester's older sister. Or was. She is dead now.

2) The Luidaeg has said that she was the eldest of triplets, and that her sisters were Black Annis and Gentle Annie. So yes, they are different people.

September 12 2014, 08:16:24 UTC 2 years ago

I don't know how I missed the triplets part. Now I have to go read for that again.

Do I want to know who/what killed them? O.o

September's death had to be relatively recent (past few centuries?) right? I mean, Amy named October, and presumably August, for her. Wait- did Toby actually know her? Isn't Gillian July?

September 12 2014, 10:28:14 UTC 2 years ago

You can want to know, but I won't tell you.

October never knew September. January was a surprise, remember?

vixyish

September 12 2014, 16:10:38 UTC 2 years ago

In some of the Luidaeg's memories, she talks/thinks about the children of Titania hunting down and killing most of the children of Maeve. It's not actually stated that they killed Black Annis and Gentle Annie that way, but that's kind of what I've always assumed. Unless you were wondering about more specifics than that?

(I know many spoilers, but this is something it's never occurred to me to ask, so I don't know this one!) :)

September 13 2014, 01:48:09 UTC 2 years ago

Well it's no shock that Titania's evil, shiny children harmed Maeve's. And yes, Luidaeg's many painful memories. (How is it that she so sane after so much loss and others who are younger are so bonkers? Don't get me wrong- love her, glad she isn't bonkers!)

I guess I'm interested in knowing if Eira was responsible somehow.

And I want to know what happened to September. But that's a spoiler for sure. I might as well ask where August is and why, LOL.