Eddis, Attolia, Sounis

Murderbot chat tomorrow!

2026-04-11T15:54:00Z

Posted by: checkers65477.livejournal.com

A reminder that we will hold our final chat for Martha Wells' fantastic Murderbot Diaries books tomorrow, Sunday April 12. We'll discuss Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse, and the short story Rapport. Hope to see you there!

Check out all the details here.

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Next Murderbot Chat

2026-03-30T19:57:00Z

Posted by: checkers65477.livejournal.com

Hi folks,

Because of the low turnout for the last chat, we're going to postpone until the next scheduled chat on April 12. At that time, we'll discuss Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse, and the short story Rapport. Let's get reading and get fired up for this next chat.

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Another Murderbot chat--tomorrow

2026-03-21T12:18:00Z

Posted by: checkers65477.livejournal.com

A reminder that we will hold our next chat for Martha Wells' fantastic Murderbot Diaries books tomorrow, Sunday March 22. Let's discuss Fugitive Telemetry, the 6th book in the series.

Check out all the details here.

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Mission Murderbot continues tomorrow

2026-03-07T11:14:00Z

Posted by: checkers65477.livejournal.com

Remember to stop by the Conspiracy Room tomorrow as we continue the disscussion of Martha Wells' Murderbot series. This week we focus on one of my favs, Network Effect, which won Hugo, Nebulla, and Locus awards. Yes, it's that good. See you there!

See all the details of the chats here.

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Murderbot Chat tomorrow!

2026-02-21T15:13:00Z

Posted by: checkers65477.livejournal.com

Remember to swing by our next book chat tomorrow, Feb. 22, when we discuss Martha Wells' Murderbot books Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy, along with the short story Home.

Check out all the chat details here.

See you tomorrow!

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Tomorrow! A chat!

2026-02-07T19:55:00Z

Posted by: checkers65477.livejournal.com

Please join us tomorrow, Sunday 2/8, when we start our read-through of Martha Wells' delighful Murderbot series. We'll begin with All Systems Red/Artificial Condition/Compulsory and keep going over the next several weeks.

I just watched the Apple TV series and, seriously, people, just love it to bits.

Check out all the chat details here.

See you tomorrow!

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Mission Murderbot is a GO!

2026-01-17T00:08:00Z

Posted by: ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com

“As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.”

It's not wrong... We're doing it, folks! The next series we're reading and discussing for the WSK Bookclub is The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. This is a very popular sci-fi series with a popular television adaptation on Apple TV, so heads up on placing inter-library loans early if you want to get them from the library. I also have some links under the cut to help you out with resourcing.

Now on to the main purpose of this post, a reading list and schedule! Per the last chat, we decided to cover the starting four novellas--this is one complete story arc--by reading two books over the course of two weeks and discussing both. (Don't panic, these are three to four hours long as audiobooks. You can finish them in less time than it takes to beat Portal.) After the first four novellas, we will revert to a normal one book per two weeks schedule as two out of the remaining three books are novel length.

Reading order is a little tricky as Martha Wells is one of those authors who likes to publish out of chronological order. I decided to stick with publishing order for the novellas and novels as they are chronological with only one exception. However, I've slipped in the short stories where they fit best in the timeline. All chats will be on Sunday at 2pm CT in the Conspiracy Room.

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Reminders will be posted periodically to help keep everyone on track. If this is your first time reading this series, you are in for a treat. (; Happy reading!

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Fantastic Diana Wynne Jones podcast series

2026-01-16T18:07:00Z

Posted by: checkers65477.livejournal.com

For all you DWJ fans out there, I have been listening to some podcasts where Rebecca Fraimow and Emily Tesh discuss lots of lots of DWJ's books. They are both huge fans and bring their experience as authors is breaking down the plots and themes but in a fun way.

Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones

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New Year's Chat Tomorrow!

2026-01-10T22:19:00Z

Posted by: checkers65477.livejournal.com

Well, thank goodness for eachase who reminded me of an upcoming chat. Join us in the Conspiracy Room tomorrow, Sunday, Jan. 11 at noon PT, 1:00 MT, 2:00 CT, and 3:00 ET. We can talk about our next While She Knits book reading schedule and any other bits of news.

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Sounis Backup on Dreamwidth?

2026-01-08T21:39:00Z

Posted by: hazelwillow.livejournal.com

Hello!

So I haven't checked in here in a looong time, but this place will always have a spot in my fandom heart! and I just saw some concerning info about LJ over here: https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3mbebi2xfxc25

I notice we have a backup of Sounis over on Dreamwidth: https://sounis.dreamwidth.org/ but it doesn't seem to have been updating since about 2023. Anyone know why?

Happy New Year to all! <3 <3

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A chat and maybe a Murderbot?

2026-01-02T16:23:00Z

Posted by: ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com

Hey guys, it's been a while. Would you like to have a New Year's chat in the Conspiracy Room to catch up? Say the 11th at 2pm CT?

We could also talk about getting back on the While-She-Knits train. After watching the television adaptation of Martha Well's Murderbot last summer, I knew we needed to do a group reading of this series!

I believe many of you have already read it, but if you've never heard of Murderbot before, imagine an anti-social, chaos gremlin soap opera fanatic, who happens to have guns for arms, reluctantly protect humans on classical sci-fi adventures. It's amazing. And also, mostly told in novella format, though a couple of the volumes are novel length, so reading the series won't be a huge time commitment. It even has an amazing audiobook.

Let me know in the comments if you'd like to read and discuss this series. I figure if we start in February we can finish around the same time that the new book, Platform Decay, is set to come out and read that as well.

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New Year, New Book Shelves

2026-01-02T15:50:00Z

Posted by: ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com

Happy New Year, Sounisian!

I recently discovered floating book shelves — a wall mount that allows you to decorate a room with books — and you know I had to do a QT one.

stack of entire QT series on a blue wall

And you all said you wanted to see the rest, so here they are. Give these a try if you have the wall space!

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Happy Birthday, Megan!

2025-11-21T10:54:00Z

Posted by: ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com

Wish our favorite author a happy birthday, and congratulate her on nearly thirty years of thief-ing (not a word, but it should be!).

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Happy Birthday, Sounis!

2025-11-02T15:24:00Z

Posted by: checkers65477.livejournal.com

It was 20 years ago today Sargent Pepper taught the band to play...

Wait, that's not right. It was 20 years ago today that Rowena and the elusive Eddis created a little page on Live Journal to talk about a couple of books they loved--The Thief and The Queen of Attolia, both written by an author named Megan Whalen Turner.

Who could have known that their site would turn into a group of the smartest, most fun-loving, most welcoming people on the Internet. With hugely in-depth discussions, tremendously funny in-jokes, and so much excitement as each of the following books were published over the years.

I wish I knew how many real life meetups have happened between people who met here on Sounis. How many book recommendations have been passed along. How many meetings Megan graciously did (and still do) with fans from Sounis, some of which turned into years of friendship and communication. Or how many members have grown up, gotten married, had children or grandkids. Some have, sadly, passed away.

20 years! I'm so grateful for this place and all the fabulous folks here. Happy Birthday to us all!

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Rexy says "Happy Halloween, Y'all"

2025-10-26T19:55:00Z

Posted by: eachase.livejournal.com

Rexy was thrilled to join her first Masked Chat as the Witch of Urkull.

She's not sure if everyone inched away from her because she's a witch or because she's 22 feet tall. But she still had fun.

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Masked Halloween Chat

2025-10-11T15:42:00Z

Posted by: checkers65477.livejournal.com

Mark your calendar for Sounis's Annual Masked Halloween Chat! Dress up as your favorite QT character and let's see who can guess just who is behind that costume.

Sunday, October 26 in the Conspiracy Room. 4:00pm PT/5pm MT/ 6pm CT/ 7:00pm ET.

See HERE for guidelines and other useful info. As always, please comment anonymously if you would like to reserve a character. I'll post a reminder a day or two before and let's see if we can coax a certain author to attend!

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Hamiathes's Gift Exchange 2025 signups are open!

2025-07-26T15:33:00Z

Posted by: jhawkgirl86.livejournal.com

Signups are now open for Hamiathes’s Gift Exchange 2025!

The signup link is here.

Details are available on the Hamaiathes's Gift Exchange Tumblr and on the AO3 page.

Here is the HGE 2025 timeline:

Signups: Friday, July 25 - Sunday, August 3

Assignments sent out: Tuesday, August 5

Fanworks due: Friday, September 12

Fanworks revealed: Friday, September 19

Artists/authors revealed: Friday, September 26

All deadlines are at 8pm EDT

Questions? Leave a comment here or send an ask or message to the Tumblr account!

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Poetry and Cats

2025-04-26T19:50:00Z

Posted by: eachase.livejournal.com

Did everyone see this very Gen & Irene vibe poem that Megan posted to her Tumblr?

You Are Tired (I Think) – apoemaday on Tumblr

meganwhalenturner.tumblr.com

Also, I've been listening through the series again (I can never finish an audiobook in 2 weeks, so I've kind of given up downloading them from my library and just listen through QT over and over) and I noticed this:

The Thief: I wanted to look lithe and graceful and perhaps feral as I unwrapped my feet and sat up. Caught by surprise and nearly blind, I was clumsy and would have fallen off the stone bunk if the chain had not still been wrapped around one foot.

The King of Attolia: He preferred to pace. She had seen it often enough already, back and forth as silent as a cat in a cage.

It had been an awkward meeting between herself and the king and Teleus, with Teleus as stiff as a poker and Eugenides draped in his chair like a cat.

~Maybe Costis doesn't think Eugenides can look like a king, but he has achieved lithe and graceful and perhaps feral by this time. :-)

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"If there is one thing a woman understands, it is the nature of gifts."

2025-03-09T21:12:00Z

Posted by: readsintrees.livejournal.com

Ok, so a couple weeks ago I posted about a YouTube channel where someone was doing a Thief readalong. At one point during the first video, she said something about how in the first book Gen should have died when he got stabbed by that Attolian soldier, but he didn't because he was (secretly) in possession of the Gift. This sparked a mini discussion in the comments, because in all of my rereads I had never made that assumption/connection. I'd taken the Magus' research for granted, that the Gift only granted immortality if it was given, not stolen...and in my mind, Gen had stolen the Gift from the temple (he is a thief after all). I just thought he lived because the gods willed it (bigger plans and all that).

Anyway, I texted this question to our own eachase, and she emailed me such a thorough ESSAY on the topic that I asked for permission to share it here. Read, and discuss!

Hey, Jamie,

These sorts of questions bring out my latent English major tendencies, which means I have a lot to say, so I wanted to have a full keyboard to work on.

I re-read the relevant parts of The Thief (I think I found them all; I really need to buy myself eBook version for this sort of thing. Fortunately bookshop.org is starting to work on ebooks) and The Destruction of Hamiathes's Gift. In short, I don't think there's a clear answer. Of course, I wouldn't expect anything else of Megan.

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An Enchanted Chat

2025-03-08T23:34:00Z

Posted by: ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com

Quick reminder, the WSK Bookclub chat for The Enchanted Castle is Sunday, March 9th at Noon PT/ 1pm MT/ 2pm CT/ 3pm ET.

Hope to see you there!

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How insane is meeting up at Crossings Con?

2025-02-24T18:32:00Z

Posted by: eachase.livejournal.com

CrossingsCon

We had so much fun last time, we had to have her back! Please welcome Megan Whalen Turner, best known for her book The Thief, as our Guest of Honor at CrossingsCon! #CrossingsCon will take place Aug...

meganwhalenturner.tumblr.com

I mean, it is a possibility as my kids' first day of school is August 13, so I could still be home for that.

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YouTuber to watch

2025-02-18T16:26:00Z

Posted by: readsintrees.livejournal.com

YouTube suggested the latest (live) video from someone who is ALSO obsessed with the Thief series, and has been hosting a readalong since last August. Why does the algorithm only suggest the important stuff months later?? Anyway, I'm watching her content from the start, and working my way up through the live chat discussion of The Return of the Thief (which was uploaded just a few days ago).

Maybe she's already part of this community, but she didn't mention it in the first video. Maybe we can rope her in! Here is the first video.

(Also, is the LJ archive correct? Is 2005 the start date of Sounis? What are we doing to celebrate the 20th anniversary of this community??)

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Enchanted Castle — WSK

2025-02-11T06:14:00Z

Posted by: ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com

Oh my god, it's February! Before the Holidays, we decided on E. Nesbit's Enchanted Castle, as our stand-alone winter read for the While She Knits Bookclub.

A recommendation from MWT, this book was published in 1907, so we're reaching pretty far back in the timeline.

landscape view of a castle in orange tones

Jerry, Jimmy, and Cathy stumble upon a mysterious castle with a beautiful princess asleep in the garden. The princess is really Mabel, the housekeeper's niece, who is only pretending to be royalty. But when she shows them a secret room filled with treasure where they discover a magical ring, enchantment becomes a reality.

Let's plan for the chat to be Sunday, March 9th, in the Conspiracy Room at Noon PT/1pm MT/ 2pm CT/ 3pm ET. The date is flexiable if for some reason you can't make the chat. Just let me know. So put the book on hold or listen on Spotify Premimium, like I plan to do, and we'll see you at the chat!

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Finally! A long time coming.

2025-02-08T16:04:00Z

Posted by: rouan1.livejournal.com

Hi all, I am so pleased to announce that I finally (after all these years) have obtained a hardcover copy of The Thief. Megan posted on tumblr that she had finished signing several copies of her books at Loganberry Books. In the photo accompanying the post, I saw a hardcover version of The Thief. I had tried to get a hardcover for years but all I could find was the paperback sized faux hardcover ( it’s thicker than a paperback cover but not as sturdy as a hardcover one). So I immediately called Loganberry books and ordered this one and it arrived today. My collection is now complete!

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Happy Birthday!

2024-11-19T21:29:00Z

Posted by: ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com

It's that time again! The theme this year is oldies but goodies. Now, how old is Megan turning?

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Quick, sign the card before she sees!

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