lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"But doux-doux," Prince of Cemetery said, "your grandaughter head full of spirits already; she ain't tell you? All kind of duppy and thing. When she close she eyes, she does see death. She belong to me. She is my daughter. You should 'fraid of she."


Blurb: Toronto's wealthy citizens have fled, leaving the town barricaded and wartorn. Worse yet, young, single mother Ti-Jeanne starts dreaming of the dreadful La Diablesse. She knows she must obey the spirits in order to save her family from a deadly fate.

Why is it worth your time?: This book is good! Caribbean folklore and religion combine as the story ramps up to a faster and faster pace. We couldn't wait to see how it ended!

Plural Tags: abuse low focus, bodyhopping, cofronting, nonhumans (spirits, loa/orisha), realitymashing, possession, spiritual, switching, visions

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available on paper, as ebook and audiobook, and in French.

Misc Notes: Won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Had a loose film prequel/adaptation, Brown Girl Begins, but I liked the book better!
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"...and we build a new world that even words can't describe."

Blurb: When a young boy visits his grandfather, their lack of a common language leads to confusion, frustration, and silence. But as they sit down to draw together, something magical happens--with a shared love of art and storytelling, the two form a bond that goes beyond words.

Why is it worth your time?: This is a beautiful realitymashing picture book about a grandfather and grandson finding ways to communicate by sharing art-making time together, with their artistic avatars battling a dragon with their drawing implements of choice. This is a rare communal realitymashing piece that ISN'T a horror story! Well worth checking out!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, realitymashing, family, fictioneers??? (for lack of a better term for one's artistic self-insert), visions

Content Warnings: None.

Access Notes: Available in paper book and ebook forms.

Misc Notes: This book has won a load of awards for good reason!
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"ARTICLE III: The man going by the name Brother Francis is charged with claiming to have begun life miraculously, without father or mother, in the body of a boy about thirteen years of age."

Blurb: An epistolary short story about the fall and rise of Brother Francis/Leopold Graz, who in a post-nuclear apocalypse preached brotherhood and kindness: condemned, burned alive, and then beatified... at a cost.

Why is it worth your time?: Pangborn is a kind writer who tells the story of a boy, his invisible Companion who urges him to great things, and the major front switch that occurs when he is thirteen, which leads to his fall and rise under the pseudo-feudal fundamentalist church afterward. It's pretty good!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, switching, serially singlet, spiritual voices, visions

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Only officially available on paper, but anthologized multiple times; one of them, Still I Persist in Wondering, is screenreadable on archive.org. (Please ignore the pulpy cover.) Available in German and Italian.
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"Whenever you meet people who think they are reincarnated, they were always Somebody in a past life, like Ruth--THE Ruth in the Bible--or Mary Magdalene's mother, or one of Napoleon Bonaparte's generals. No one is ever a third world villager who died of malnutrition at age seven. [...] A friend of mine said I was probably Alexander the Great, because of my near-fanatic interest in him. I said no way in hell."

Blurb: An American female reincarnation of Hephaistion gets to see Alexander the Great, the love of her lives, again, and recounts the experience to the Loch Ness monster afterward.

Why is it worth your time?: Queer genderfucking reincarnation short story.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, the dead, romantic relationship, spiritual, visions

Content Warnings: death, drinking alchohol

Access Notes: This story is in an out-of-print small press anthology, Memories and Visions: Women's Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Susanna J. Sturgis. Used copies can still be scraped up; it is also available in bootleg screenreadable digital form on archive.org. The whole anthology contains many spirited, many-selved stories and is worth checking out!

Misc: Notes: I think this author might be dead, seeing as her website has been taken over by a sketchy lawyer company for some reason. So I feel pretty okay saying that she speaks from experience; she mentions having a Navajo "spirit guide" who was deeply disappointed in her rugmaking skills.
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"The ancestral visions persisted. One day I was flooded with grief and felt as if I was slipping from life. Frightened, I began calling out to my grandmother Lela--she was the one person who I believed could help me. The air filled with an electrical energy and a feeling of peace washed over me. My breathing calmed and I felt my grandmother's presence. My grandmother who had been deceased for eighteen years had rescued me.

"Yet, I still did not trust that my Ancestors really supported me. I believed that I had experienced a psychotic episode and feared that I would end up as one of the 'crazy' ones..."


Blurb: a group of writers "share short stories, poems, prayers, and personal accounts of Ancestor reverence--intimate glimpses of our experiences with the Ancestors, those descended from our bloodlines and some not related to us by blood, but whose lives continue to inspire us."

Why is it worth your time?: It covers a bunch of different writers of different backgrounds (though with a focus towards the Yoruba tradition of Ifá/Orisha), all interacting with their ancestors in different ways, through dreams, channeling, divination, and more! A very personal and interesting collection on the whole, but nonfictional stand-outs include "Erasing the Lines" by M'kali-Hashiki (about losing the ability to contact spirits, and struggling to regain it), "Responding to the Call of the Ancestors: Transforming Vinegar into Honey" by J. Phoenix Smith (about dealing with intense family trauma via ancestor veneration), and "License to Forgive," by Iyalorisa Ayokunle (about having to banish an ancestor from her altar). Also includes a 1990s short story by Nisi Shawl about the nuances ancestor worship when combined with the American legacy of slavery.

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate-focus (depends on the chapter), creator speaks from experience, the dead, family relationships, spiritual, voices, visions

Content Warnings: discussion of slavery's legacy, family trauma, complicated family relationships, fear of madness

Access Notes: This book looks to be out of print and a paper-only release. Though still obtainable, it's not easy to get, so I'm probably going to be feeding my copy through the library book-scanner for accessibility purposes. (This means, regrettably, that the obnoxious handwritten footnotes of the previous owner will be included.) Stay tuned!

Misc Notes: Full Table of Contents (with most spirited-relevant entries in bold, but the whole thing is worth a read):
  • "Introduction" by Luisah Teish and Sauda Burch
  • "Reaching Back To Reclaim Genius" by Awo Fanira
  • "The Breaking" by Xochipala Maes Valdez
  • "Remembrance: Mary 'Pula' Lucero" by Xochipala Maes Valdez
  • "Sparkle and Sheen" by Sauda Burch
  • "Erasing the Line" by M'kali-Hashiki
  • "Mourner's Kaddish" by D'vorah J. Grenn
  • "Remembrance: Douglas Johnson, Sr." by Jessical Johnson
  • "The Old Folks Say" by Luisa Teish
  • "Remembrance: Ralph P. Orduna" by Sauda Burch
  • "Turning to Face the Ancestors: A learning journey recovering heart and memory" by Gail Williams
  • "Remembrance: Samuel Williams, Jr." by Gail Williams
  • "The Cosmic Eye" by Uzuri Amini
  • "Remembrance: Aunt Emmalou" by Arnia Dobbins
  • "Let the Dead Bury the Dead" by Sauda Burch
  • "Remembrance: Family" by Gilbert Burch, Sr.
  • "Remembrance: Donald L. Williams" by Gail Williams
  • "Remembrance: Louise Merrill" by Amanda Bloom
  • "My African Odyssey 20 Years Later: the Ancestors of Goree Island" by Uzuri Amini
  • "Remembrance: Great-Aunt Nancy Collier" by Sauda Burch
  • "Remembrance: Sarangerel Odigan (1963-2006)" by Daniel Foor
  • "Ancestral Legacy: Excerpts from an interview with Andrea (Courage) Johnson" by Sauda Burch
  • "Remembrance: Marsha King", by Andrea Johnson
  • "Full Circle" by Iyanifa Fasina
  • "Remembrance: Rose Maes" by Conrad Maes
  • "Responding to the Call of the Ancestors: Transforming Vinegar into Honey" by J. Phoenix Smith
  • "Remembrance: My Brother Charles" by Rashidah Tutashinda
  • "Acnestral Spirits" by Uzuri Amini
  • "License to Forgive" by Iyalora Ayokunle
  • "Remembrance: Durinda 'Winta' Anderson" by Karinda Dobbins
  • "Remembrance: Great-Grandpa Pablo Valdez," by Xochipala Maes Valdez
  • "The Rainses'" by Nisi Shawl
  • "Remembrance: Grandpa Pete" by Rebecca Rodriguez
  • "Preservation" by Luisah Teish
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"'Have I the honour to address Ti?'

This answer did not seem to have quite the effect I hoped it would.

'You are addressing the Sole Companion of the King, the Overseer of All the Works of the King, the Overseer of the Scribes of the King's Book, the Director of the Palace, the Superintendent of the Canal-Banks, the Overseer of the Schools, the Director of the Court-Wigmakers, Overseer of the Pyramid of King Nefer-ir-ka-Ra, Overseer of the Pyramid of King Ni-user-Ra, the Honoured One Before His Lord, Ti.'

I stood corrected!"


Blurb: A green Egyptologist, upon falling asleep in Ti's tomb, gets taken on an educational journey of ancient Egyptian life, accompanied by (the somewhat pompous) Ti, along with illustrated carvings on the tomb depicting the events described.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a lighthearted, informative journey into ancient Egyptian life, made more meaningful by it representing in broad strokes Eady's own experiences of past-life memory. The illustrations are nice additions!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, creator speaks from experience, the dead, visions, voices, nonswitching

Content Warnings: None.

Access Notes: Reprinted in its entirety in Jonathan Cott's The Search for Omm Sety, which is available in paperback, hardback, and online at archive.org
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"Just as the historical Sety and his priests once ministered to, cared for, and paid service to the gods--thereby making the deities a living presence--so Omm Sety brought both these gods and Sety himself back to life because of her total, irrevocable, and unconditional belief in them."

Blurb: A biography of Dorothy Eady/Omm Sety, an Englishwoman who moved to Egypt, got citizenship, and resumed her reincarnated temple duties (via working for the local Egyptologists) and romantic relationship with the pharaoh Sety I.

Why is it worth your time?: It's well-written, nicely researched, and a good story about a fascinating woman! Also includes Eady's short story, "A Dream of the Past," (which gets its own post here). I was worried it'd be too heavy on the philosophy of reincarnation, but that stuff doesn't get discussed at all except the final chapter, after Omm Sety's death. If you choose to skip it, you can just treat this as a biography, no problem.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, closeting, otherworld (Amenti, the ancient Egyptian land of the dead), the dead, dreamfolk, romantic and family relationships, spiritual, (overwhelmingly) nonswitching, visions, voices

Content Warnings: Nothing major; Eady lived through the world wars but that only gets glancing mention, as does her health problems in later life.

Access Notes: Available in hardcover and paperback and on archive.org; found it in my local library.
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
Submitted by [personal profile] beepbird! Thanks, [personal profile] beepbird!

"“The formal definition of insanity,” I said, “is actually quite fluid. Two people can have the exact same condition, with the exact same severity, but one can be considered sane by the official standards while the other is considered insane.""

Blurb (taken from the back of my copy): Stephen Leeds, AKA 'Legion,' is a man whose unique mental condition allows him to generate a multitude of personae: hallucinatory entities with a wide variety of personal characteristics and a vast array of highly specialized skills. As the story begins, Leeds and his aspects are drawn into the search for the missing Balubal Razon, inventor of a camera whose astonishing properties could alter our understanding of human history and change the very structure of society.

Why is it worth your time?: Despite being framed as hallucinations, Leeds' aspects are treated as fully autonomous people who make their own decisions, sometimes surprising him. It's nice to see them treated as rounded characters of their own, let alone rounded characters with independent relationships with each other.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, realitymashing, friendship, romantic, enmity, teamwork, nonswitching, visions, voices

Content Warnings: character death, gun violence, terrorism mentions, kidnapping(? Debatable about whether it counts, but they do get knocked out and wake up tied to a chair at one point), debate about wanting a "cure". This is also the first book of a series, which has a content warning in the comments.

Accessibility Notes: Physical book or ebook (legitimate or otherwise); audiobooks are available on audible, Amazon, Google Play, etc. I'd assume that it can be found at libraries given that I found it at a library sale. All text, so screen reading shouldn't be an issue for ebooks. This particular book of the series has also been translated into French and Spanish!
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
Submitted by [personal profile] quailfence! Thank you, [personal profile] quailfence!

"There is a radio in the distance. A radio of the world. Playing sound: Good morning, Elysium. Soon you will return to the world"

Blurb (from TVTropes): One miserable morning, you awaken from pain and darkness in a trashed motel room with the hangover to end all hangovers. You have no idea where, or even who, you are, but some details begin filling in as you explore: you are a police detective visiting Martinaise, harbor district of the city of Revachol, jewel of the Insulindian Isola, in the year '51 of the current century. Perhaps most importantly, you were sent here three days ago to deal with a lynched corpse, but instead went on a deranged bender of drug and alcohol abuse.

Now, you must resume the investigation with the aid of Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi, a fellow detective from a rival precinct. But of course, it won't be as simple as it seems — the victim, a security contractor for a major international shipping company, stands at the center of a labor dispute involving the local dockworker's union, corrupt businessmen, communist agitators, and foreign interests, with blood on the streets looking more likely by the day. Everyone involved is eager to use you for their own ends — and of course, you're no titan of mental stability, what with the two dozen voices in your head vying for your attention...

Why is it worth your time: The aforementioned voices in your heads are your skills. As you get your skills higher, they become more talkative and interact more with you and each other. Overall the game places a lot of emphasis on crafting an identity and making your own choices. While the player character has a past and a personality that goes along with said personality, the main character's amnesia means that you can choose to follow that past or create your own identity. How you choose to shape your personality also affects your ability to connect with and learn about other characters and engage with sideplots, with certain dialogue checks being easier if you level up certain skills - though there is always a small chance (3%, to be precise) chance of success or failure.

Plural/1+ tags: abuse low-focus, people: the dead, people: copies (you can talk to the victim's corpse if you pass a check), people: nonhumans (you can also talk to your necktie in certain circumstances), voices, visions, otherworld (in the form of dreams), type: spiritual, type: medical(?), type: setting-specific (to elaborate: it's theorized in-game that the skills/voices are a result of some combination of an in-universe phenomenon known as The Pale and the player character's pre-existing mental problems, but it's ultimately left unclear as to exactly why this is happening), teamwork

Content Warning:
It's a murder mystery where the player character is a cop who struggles with addiction to/withdrawal from alcohol and other substances. Other warnings are spoilers, see comments.

Note: due to the nature of the game, compiling a full and accurate content warnings list is rather difficult - I had to ask on Discord for help, and even then I still probably missed some things. Some of these things are unavoidable, while others can be avoided with varying amounts of difficulty

Accessibility notes: All dialogue/lines appear on-screen, and all dialogue and most narration is read out loud, though menus and such aren't. There exist let's plays/streams but I haven't seen any of them and the nature of the game, involving lost of little variations and branching choices, means that a completionist playthrough is basically impossible. Translated into Japanese, Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, French, German, Russian, Polish, Turkish, and Arabic, though audio is only available in English. Available on Steam, Gog, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox X|S, and Switch
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"Hi! My name is Maura Ai. That's my body you're wearing."

Blurb: Maura and Francine are mad scientist sisters, but after Maura dies in a scientific accident, Francine tries to resurrect her... only to get someone completely different instead. How do you manage a life that isn't your own?

Why is it worth your time?: This is a "serial singlet" story--after Maura's death, she can communicate with M through mirrors, but never comes back into the body, and M did not exist prior to Maura's death. The story focuses overwhelmingly on the difficulty of the relationship between Francine (who so badly wants her sister back, and just CAN'T) and M (who comes in a blank slate, has very different tastes and aptitudes than Maura, but is terrified of being found out lest she be "taken apart"). Any plural who's had to pretend to be the "real person" will feel this book hard! Also, the art is pretty!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, serially singlet, closeting, the dead, family, friendship, teamwork, setting-specific, visions, voices

Content Warnings: Death! Others contain spoilers; see comments.

Access Notes: Available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook.

Misc Notes:
lb_lee: A colored pencil drawing of Raige's freckled hand holding a hot pink paperback entitled the Princess and Her Monster (book)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"We sometimes forget that the memories that ESV latches onto are always traumatic. This meant that patients who die have had their traumatic memories repeatedly multiplied by ESV until their brains can no longer function. Thus, it is into a memory of endless trauma that divers and their companions descend."

Blurb: A disabled veteran and the burnt-out King of Limbo are recruited to wade into the memories of patients with a sleeping disease, hoping to find its cause and cure. But something isn't right...

Why is it worth your time?: This is a really solid manga with good art, an interesting story, and robust characters. Sci-fi thriller with flavors of Paprika and Inception.

Plural Tags: abuse low focus, memory work, otherworld, dreamfolk, teamwork, setting-specific, visions, nonhumans (AI/robot animals)

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in paperback and ebook, in English and its native Japanese.

Misc Notes: Six tankoubon volumes in Japan, three big ominbuses in English!
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"In 1424, three saints
appeared to Jeanne in a vision.
Saint Michael, Saint Catherine,
and Saint Margaret came to her
as she walked alone in a field."


Blurb: In an alternate universe, Joan of Arc is called by the saints to fight for the English.

Why is it worth your time?: It's steampunk poetry about Joan of Arc learning alchemy and going to war. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, visions, voices, spiritual, nonswitching, nonhumans (the angel Saint Michael), the dead (other saints)

Content Warnings: None.

Access Notes: Free to read online, screenreadable.

Misc Notes: Two installments:
Listening to God (Listening to God back-up link)
The Voyage to Vaucouleurs (Voyage to Vaucouleurs back-up link)
lb_lee: A colored pencil drawing of Raige's freckled hand holding a hot pink paperback entitled the Princess and Her Monster (book)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"I'm a car. And a hotel. And a babysitter. And all my clients are dead. And I fucking HATE my job. Lucky me, I carry around a refuge in my head. The same place I stick all my temporary residents."

Blurb: After a near-death experience, all Kat wants is to get high and shut up the ghosts in her head. But after she ends up in the middle of a cosmic war between angels and demons, she has to pick a side.

Why is it worth your time?: It's funny, the art is pretty, and Kat's mindscape is a major player in this story about claiming your own mind and life. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, otherworld, the dead, realitymashing, enmity, teamwork, friendship, spiritual, and visions

Content Warnings: Drugs, mild violence, naked nonsexual penis.

Access Notes: Available in paperback and ebook forms. One volume at time of posting.
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
Submitted by [personal profile] acorn_squash! Thank you, [profile] acron_squash! ^_^

“Vern reached out to squeeze Lucy’s hand. Lucy squeezed back. In her mind, Vern said the words, I love you, I miss you. Lucy put down the book, turned to Vern, and said, ‘I like living inside of you.’”

Blurb: Everybody in Cainland is used to hauntings - visions and night terrors supposedly caused by withdrawal from white people's toxins. But in Cainland, everything is connected and nothing is what it seems. After fleeing the Cainland cult compound pregnant with twins, an exoskeleton develops on Vern's disabled, teenage body, a passenger that saps her energy but connects her to something greater than herself. Meanwhile, she learns to communicate with her hauntings and develops loving relationships with some of them.

Why is it worth your time?: It’s a fast-paced thriller with some of the most unique and creative science fiction elements I’ve seen in a while (did I mention the exoskeleton?). Definitely read the content warnings first, though!

Plural Tags:abuse high-focus, the dead, children, setting-specific plurality, family, friendship, and intimate relationships, visions

Content Warnings: The author includes the following content warning: “I hope that even as Sorrowland delves into the pain these colonial states have wrought, one might see the joy, triumph, and humor of those who resist, resist, resist. That said, there is no mincing words about some of the darker themes in this book. Note discussion and instances of racism, misogyny, self-harm, suicidality, and homophobia, inclusion of animal death and explicit violence, and references to sexual violence that have taken place off the page.”

In addition to this, the book also includes the death and sexual abuse of children, the forced removal of children, poverty, homelessness, cults, medical experimentation, and drugs. Pregnancy, childbirth, and consensual sex also appear.

Accessibility Notes: Available in e-book, audiobook, and print.
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"you can’t do anything, we getting in
put some money on a god, i bet we win
i feel the power on my skin, setting in
i feel a demon at my door, LET IT IN"


Blurb: Akwaeke Emezi's debut EP, with the declared premise of, "I'm here, I'm a god, now shake your ass ;)"

Why is it worth your time?: It rocks! It's a kicking album covering themes like spirit lovers, godhood, deviant victory, and Jean Grey! Give it a listen!

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate-focus, otherworld, nonhumans [gods, demons, spirits], dreamfolk, relationships romantic and teamwork and community, spiritual, visions, voices

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: All songs come with lyrics and notes. Parts of a couple songs are in Portuguese and Igbo. You can listen for free, but please do buy it on Bandcamp! It's only $7!

Misc Notes: Contains seven tracks, all less than three minutes:
  1. Let It In
  2. Summoning 101
  3. Diabozinho
  4. The Thing You're Looking For is Inside Me
  5. Jean Grey
  6. Banye
  7. Light Fantastic
lb_lee: A colored pencil drawing of Raige's freckled hand holding a hot pink paperback entitled the Princess and Her Monster (book)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"Goldie let me absorb him. So that I could live. That means my soul isn't entirely my own, ennit?"

Blurb: Burned-out sorcerer John Constantine had a twin who died in the womb. In the world on other side of the mirror, it was the twin who survived, and John who died. And one day, that twin comes out to make him an offer to solve everything...

Why is it worth your time?: It's good! Jes & Cin packed a lot of thought on themes of self-hatred, grief, and sacrifice into these short little comics. Give 'em a shot, they're free!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, otherworld, children, the dead [twins], nonswitching, fusion/integration [failed and successful both], family and enmity relationships, setting-specific, visions

Content Warnings: It is not a spoiler to say that these are comics about a dead twin, and the grief therein!

Access Notes: Not screenreadable. Free to read online, though not posted in order!

Misc Notes: The creators have put it all in one expanded "Director's Cut" post now! (EDIT: here's also the tumblr post version.) Here's the masterpost on the creation of it (back-up link). The authors' notes in the original posts are also well worth reading:
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"The woman who tells her life in the following pages is a Korean shaman [mansin], one who invokes the gods and ancestors, speaks with their voice, and claims their power to interpret dreams and visions."

Blurb: The anecdotes and life stories told by Yongsun's Mother, a mansin who lives outside Seoul.

Why is it worth your time?: Despite its academic source, this book is very readable, namely transcriptions of the stories Yongsun's Mother tells about herself in casual conversation or at work. There's a lot of possession stuff (her deceased husband has just as fractious a relationship with her while dead as he did while alive) that's very different from American norms!

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate-focus, the dead, nonhumans (gods, spirits), relationships of family and enmity, spiritual, voices, visions (dreams), possession

Content Warnings: Domestic violence in the past, and results of the Korean War--starvation, the torturing to death of a spy, and Yongsun's Mother got taken for a spy as a teenager, starved, interrogated, and marched north until she escaped. The war stuff is all in Chapter Four (aptly named "War Stories and a Meeting with the Mountain God"), the DV all over. Yongsun's Mother's familial relationships have always been complicated.

Access Notes: Paperbacks are pretty cheaply available for a few bucks secondhand; the ebook is only available for $149 for some unfathomable reason, which is highway robbery. This is a rare case where we recommend pirating it off Library Genesis instead.

Misc Notes:
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
Submitted by [personal profile] packbat!

"And indeed, this is what must have happened now, because the next thing I knew was that I was waking suddenly out of sleep.

"A Full Moon stood in the centre of the Single Doorway, flooding the Hall with Light. The Statues on the Walls were all posed as if they had just turned to face the Doorway, their marble Eyes fixed on the Moon. They were different from the Statues in other Halls; they were not isolated individuals, but representations of a Crowd. Here were two with their Arms about each other; here one had his Hand on the Shoulder of one in front, the better to pull himself forward to see the Moon; here a Child held on to its Father's Hand. There was even a Dog that — having no interest in the Moon — stood on its Hind Legs, its Front Paws on its Master's Chest, pleading for attention. The Rear Wall was a mass of Statues — not neatly arranged in Tiers, but a jumbled, chaotic Crowd. Foremost among them was a Young Man, who stood bathed in the Moonlight, elation in his Face, a Banner in his Hand.

"I almost forgot to breathe. For a moment I had an inkling of what it might be like if instead of two people in the World there were thousands."


Blurb: A series of journal entries by a man living in an apparently-infinite House full of Statues, oceans, and clouds, as he comes to learn more about the nature of his world and realize certain truths which were hidden from him.

Why is it worth your time?: Mostly it's a really cool story and we loved reading it? The protagonist's memory issues mean that he is solving a mystery where we know a lot more than he does. But also, the story being structured around a journal lets us see the perspectives of multiple inhabitants of the protagonist's body over the course of the story.

Plural Tags: abuse:high-focus, memory work, visions, closeting,

Content Warnings: gaslighting, animal death (fishing, a monkey offscreen), human death, kidnapping, unsanitary (one character is implied to have soiled himself, another throws up), fatphobia (very brief but intense), violence, drowning. Also, there's a heroic cop character, and the only explicitly LGBTQ+ character out of the dozen or so named characters is a villain.

Accessibility Notes: Available in audiobook, and in MANY languages, including Spanish, Polish, German, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, Turkish, French, Bulgarian, Russian and Czech.

Misc. Notes (if any): There is a lot of obvious inspiration from Jorge Luis Borges and similar otherworldly fantasty, but it also draws from the author's experience with ME/CFS in a lot of subtle ways. And it has a good ending, which for us Packbats makes it easier to deal with the heavy stuff.


lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"These stories were very old, as old as people, and they had survived because they were very powerful indeed. These were the tales that echoed in the head long after the books that contained them were cast aside. They were both an escape from reality and an alternative reality themselves. They were so old, and so strange, that they had found a kind of existence independent of the pages they occupied. The world of the old tales existed parallel to ours, as David's mother had once told him, but sometimes the wall separating the two became so thin and brittle that the two worlds started to blend into each other.

"That was when the trouble started."


Blurb: After the tragic death of his mother, his father's remarriage, and the birth of a baby brother, troubled boy David finds himself sucked into a fantasy world that seems cobbled together from the various books in his room. But those books and stories don't all belong to him, and some of them are very grim...

Why is it worth your time?: It's an enjoyable dark fantasy with truly frightening villains, tragic heroes, all overhung with a backdrop of World War II, which David is too young to fully understand the nature of. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, otherworld, fictioneers, the dead, visions, voices

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: This book is mainstream and well-liked and has gotten multiple printings, so it's easy to find in libraries. Available in ebook, audiobook, paperback, and hardback formats. Also got translated into French, where it won an award!
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"I have divinities I share my life with that are like mother to son, or business contacts, or even lovers."

Blurb: A Risographed art zine, done entirely in shades of blue and black, of religious art and practice by a then-imprisoned artist.

Why is it worth your time?: Short, simple, with beautiful art. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, nonhumans [orisha, mpungo, gods, spirits] the dead, spiritual, visions,

Content Warnings: Imagery of death, racial violence, slavery, and life in prison.

Access Notes: Available on paper only at Snakehair Press for $12 USD. You can also buy full-color prints of the artwork in the zine here!

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pluralstories: James of William Denn leafing through the DSM-III-R (Default)
Many-Selved Stories and Multi Media

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