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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...
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The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson (The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps #1)

Since leaving his homeland, the earthbound demigod Demane has been labeled a sorcerer. With his ancestors' artifacts in hand, the Sorcerer follows the Captain, a beautiful man with song for a voice and hair that drinks the sunlight. 

The two of them are the descendants of the gods who abandoned the Earth for Heaven, and they will need all the gifts those divine ancestors left to them to keep their caravan brothers alive.

The one safe road between the northern oasis and southern kingdom is stalked by a necromantic terror. Demane may have to master his wild powers and trade humanity for godhood if he is to keep his brothers and his beloved captain alive.

CONTRIBUTOR(S): Kevin R. Free (Narrator)
PUBLISHER: MacMillan Audio
YEAR: 2015
LENGTH: 224 pages (5 hours 8 minutes)
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
RECOMMENDED: Highly

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

THE SORCERER OF THE WILDEEPS is lyrical and fantastic, with excellent prose made somehow even better by the audiobook narrator's performance. This falls into a particular category of story for me, one where it feels so good to read on a sentence-by-sentence level that I'm fine being confused by the overall story. The focus jumps around suddenly and unpredictably, with the narrative shifting more often as the ending nears. 

The worldbuilding is immersive, conveying the language barrier in the gap between what Demane thinks and how stilted his speech is with the rest of the caravan. I love the way AAVE is used by the caravan brothers, forming a blend between casual speech and Demane's smatterings of technical knowledge that he keeps trying to apply to what's happening. It creates a visceral sense of the language barrier he experiences, wanting to say so much more but not having the words, or frustrated that the closest words don't carry the meanings he intends. 

The ending is ambiguous, but it's clearly meant to be unresolved rather than a teaser or cliffhanger. There is a sequel, but it seems to be an indirect follow-up. 

Graphic/Explicit CW for blood, violence, gore, injury detail, death.

Moderate CW for cursing, grief, homophobia, racial slurs, racism, misogyny, sexism, vomit, drug use, drug abuse, slavery, colonization, war, animal death.

Minor CW for excrement, child abuse, rape, sexual assault.

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A Black man standing in front of a sculpture of warriors mid-battle. The man is clad in a hip-wrap, leather bag, and wide leather belt. He's holding a spear, and gazing at it in his hand.


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