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Links That Burn - New Website

I've made a new website! Links That Burn is a directory of useful, fun, and/or informative websites. It's available in English and German, and will be available in other languages as I am able to find translators. ----- From the About page: The internet used to be a bunch of links to other places, with cool stuff on each website. Then we spent a couple of decades with search engines that worked, and people stopped needing to know where to find each niche website they were going to only use a couple of times a year. Now things are broken again, and people often don't know where those sites are, or are trying to see if generative AI will do it instead. The truth is, it won't work, or it'll be worse, and either way -- please don't use the plagiarism machine.  Links that Burn is a catalog of niche websites that do one or two things, do them very well, and are easy to use. They're free, they don't make you sign in anywhere to use them, and if they have a pai...

In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children, #4)

There's a strange calm in already knowing how a story ends. In An Absent Dream is filled with sadness and wonder, too-clever bargains and barely-survived scrapes. Lessons of friendship, loss, fair value, and the weight of promises. Welcome to the Goblin Market. 

This focuses on someone whom we met earlier in the series as far as the reader is concerned, but in her own timeline she is barely getting started. This creates a sense of tragedy and wonder all tangled together as we slowly learn the reason for the bargain waiting in the end of the story. The pacing is very well handled, skipping what would only bog the story down, lingering on her indecision just enough to make the reader understand what would drive here to her eventual choice. I love Moon's wildness contrasting Lundy's steady attention and determination. 

The story is great, I like this version of the Goblin Market and it has the nebulous mix of rules and capriciousness that makes the setting feel otherworldly, which is perfect for this series. There was a moment partway through where I was torn between rooting for success and failure because both options seemed to have a terrible cost. The slow unfolding of rules helped convey how much Lundy was growing up, it helps to keep the reader from getting an info-dump while still making sure the character knows what she ought.

CW for body horror, child death (not depicted), pregnancy (brief mention).

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A broad-trunked tree with many branches stands in a forest at night, a glowing, partially open door visible in its middle.

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