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Two Essays on The Count of Monte Cristo

I love The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I have read the unabridged version more than once, and my most recent reread was in 2023. At that time, I wrote a couple of brief essays which I posted on Tumblr, one of which was about a canonically queer character and the other discussed a character who is often left out of the various adaptations. I present for you these essays with expansion and alteration, because I keep returning to them as pieces of writing and because I don't want them to be limited to those original posts. I'd like to thank longtime Patron Case Aiken, who receives a monthly shoutout, as well as new patrons DivineJasper and Sasha Khan. (Quotes are from Robin Buss’ English translation of Alexandre Dumas’ work.) Link to Audio Version. ----- Canonical Queerness in The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas You’d need to change surprisingly little of The Count of Monte Cristo to confirm Eugénie Danglars as a trans man (or a masc-leaning nonbinary person...

The Pale Dreamer by Samantha Shannon (The Bone Season, #0.5)

In the perilous heart of Scion London, a dangerous and valuable poltergeist is on the loose – and it must be caught before chaos erupts on the streets of the capital. Here, the clairvoyant underworld plays by its own rules, and rival gangs will stop at nothing to win such a magnificent prize.

Sixteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working for Jaxon Hall, the most notorious mime-lord in the city. He thinks she is hiding a powerful gift, but it refuses to surface. Maybe this is the opportunity she needs to secure her position in his gang, the Seven Seals…

TITLE: The Pale Dreamer
AUTHOR: Samantha Shannon
PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury USA
YEAR: 2016
LENGTH: 69 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
RECOMMENDED: Highly

This novella is included with some editions of THE BONE SEASON.

Queer Rep Summary: Gay/Achillean Secondary Character(s).

THE PALE DREAMER is a nice prequel to THE BONE SEASON, showing Paige's early days with The Seven Seals. I recommend reading this after THE BONE SEASON, it's not the kind of prequel that stands on its own well, but I enjoyed reading immediately afterwards as a way to see Paige as she was before the events of the main story. 

CW for blood, violence, child abuse (backstory), child death (backstory), murder (backstory), death (backstory).

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