Okay, so, I finished @ameliahcrowley 's THE VICAR MAN. I promised to leave an Amazon review but Amazon won't let me. So in the spirit of our agreement, I'm leaving a review somewhere and figuring out Amazon later.

TLDR: The Vicar Man is good! I liked it! If you like funny historical fantasy you will probably like it!

So as you could probably guess from the title, The Vicar Man is a spoof of The Wicker Man, the classic folk horror movie. (It's mostly drawing from the Christopher Lee one, not the Nic Cage one, and thank goodness for that.) Dora's village worships a dark, eldritch god and sacrifices virgins to it for the good of the harvest. When a stranger comes to town- a nice young vicar who genuinely seems oblivious to the horrors at hand-

Dora can't just let him get thrown on the sacrificial pyre. She has to save this guy. And the easiest way to keep someone from being a virgin sacrifice is to make sure they're not a virgin anymore. Problem is, Dora's aro/ace, and moderately sex-repulsed. But a man's life's at stake. She sets off on a quest to seduce the Vicar, poking fun of many historical romance tropes along the way.

It might be more accurate to call this story an unromance novel than a fantasy novel- it follows all the conventions of a romance novel, down to the plot beats, but none of them quite wind up where you'd expect. This isn't a traditional love story- but it's not not a love story. This isn't a traditional horror story- but it's not not a horror story. If you're aro and/or ace, you like the idea of historical romance, but you're not here for the Love At First Sight Based Solely On Pantsfeelings? This book was made for you, specifically.

What it is is a comedy, and it's fast-paced and funny the whole way through. Dora's incredibly likeable- especially if you're a snarky, nerdy bluestocking, or if you've left a high-control religious group- and her inner monologue never fails to please. Norman, the titular vicar, is a sad, wet cat of a man, a poor little meow meow, adorable and kind and So Very Doomed. The relationship between the two of them - well, I shan't spoil things, but I thought it was delightful.

This book has one quality that didn't always gel with me- the language sits a bit wrong for a historical, even one that's set in the year "uh. well. there's probably a king? named George?". There's a fair bit of Tumblr dialect sprinkled through here- in particular there's a handful of jokes that revolve around 21st century feminist terms, sometimes deliberately using them for a jarring and inappropriate effect. And sometimes it hit right, but sometimes it didn't do it for me. I'm oversensitive to language, though- heck, I invented an entire goddess for one setting so I wouldn't have to use 'modern' trans language in a setting where it doesn't belong!- and it probably won't bug most people.

Overall, I really enjoyed the time I spent with THE VICAR MAN- I'd recommend it if you like funny historical fantasy, if you'd enjoy reading a sendup of Gothic romances and folk horror, or if you like the idea of an aro/ace unromance novel. I'd especially recommend it if you like The Misadventures of Sawbones and Its Menagerie- the narrator, Dora, has a very similar narrative voice. They share that 'outwardly quiet and polite, but with a constant snarky inner monologue' energy.

Block "#well I guess this is a liveblog: the vicar man" if you don't want to see my play-by-play. I will try to tag posts that are spoiler-heavy, but no promises I realize what is and is not a spoiler in time.

Thank you! Please to enjoy this fashion plate of two adult women in the 1860s admiring a doll- perhaps early collectors?

I always tell people that taking on a pet like sourdough starter is a lifetime commitment

I mean, I have no problem feeding and caring for a starter, and even waking one up to get it into the dough isn’t a huge deal, but three days to make a loaf of bread just seems excessive, especially when it’s such a deeply inferior method of leavening. 

jmathieson-fic

Sam if you haven't read it, I highly recommend "Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert, on where ideas come from (spoiler: Magic).

Oh, see, I feel like that thesis would probably enrage me, because a central reason I get so mad with authors being flip about it is that there is a quantifiable idea-having process and people don’t like to acknowledge that. Ideas don’t come from magic, they come from you, from your interactions with the world and the way you feel and think about it, and the real kicker is that that’s better than magic. An idea isn’t a gift the universe deigned to give you, it’s something you made. Which is amazing! And yet there is a huge subset of writers who absolutely refuse to acknowledge that their creativity is their own. 

I feel like this is probably a personal failing of mine and an intolerance I really should work on, but when I say “they’re afraid the magic will go away” I’m being intensely derisive of some creators’ weird belief that they have no control over their creative process. 

Sorry, I’m not yelling at you, and I’m sure it’s a perfectly fine book and maybe even this isn’t relevant to the book’s thesis at all. I’m just yelling near you and it, about other stuff :D 

ameliahcrowley

Would it help if people told you random nonsense from their lives? As sort of virtual static.

My favourite thing about Pompeii, when we went there, was seeing all the different things people had chosen to paint on their walls, reading the graffiti (which ranged from essentially "Live, Love, Laugh" through various political affiliations to "Bring back the Republic" and "I hate the poor: lazy scroungers") and realising just how similar it all was to any trawl through Facebook or Tumblr today

I’m loving the faint ramification of this idea, that Tumblr is the modern day Imperial Rome. 

sabra-n

I noticed the ECF and forgiveness forms looked the same and chose to ignore that for my own sanity, since my ten years aren't up yet. SIGH.

On the plus, they are apparently developing a new form to combat this issue, so by the time your deadline hits it might actually be slightly more functional. Like, I wouldn’t hold my breath, but there is a chance. :D 

zensucht

Have you read the Ramona series of children book, by Beverly Cleary? In them Ramona learns to write the letter Q "withal tail like a cat" (I guess, read them in french) and then always add whiskers and ears on her Q... so, I'd say, it's just a Q, but also a cat. (A... Qat? )

LOL yes! This gave me such a flashback. I read all the Ramona books even though looking back there’s a lot in them that was so deeply entrenched in the era they were written that they didn’t always make a ton of sense. 

drgaellon

I have feelings looking at it in your hands! mazel tov!

samjohnssonvt

Sam! That cover is gorgeous!

rhythmelia

Congrats! I love the swooshy title font and author credit fonts, is either of those handwritten?

Thank you! And thank you to everyone who congratulated and complimented the cover. I can’t take credit for doing more than picking the image -- @hellenhighwater did the cover design, including font selection/placement. As far as I’m aware the fonts aren’t handwritten (they were font files) but they might have been handwriting converted to fonts, Hell has insanely decorative handwriting :D But yeah, the cover design looked great in the digital file and came out in the matte cover even better. 

ameliahcrowley

Oh, that looks beautiful! It just looks as though it's missing the obnoxious gold pseudo-seal publishers like to add to announce that this is the winner of the Whoever Prize for Thingummy Fiction.

have u considered Chinese dramas? perhaps Nirvana in Fire?

I think the issue might be gaining access -- between finding the show, finding subtitles, and actually summoning enough attention span to read them, on top of finding the emptional energy to experience anything new right now (this ebbs and flows a lot) I’m not sure I’d manage. 

alixir93

I wonder if you would enjoy The Old Guard, if you haven’t already seen it? The main characters are sort-of-immortal which gives a lot of room for fun fandom stuff across history :D

I did enjoy the movie, but I don’t think I have much to add to it. I found some of the themes a little offputting, too, though I really liked the characters, especially Joe, and Nile. I was also sad when I realized there weren’t actually any flashbacks to Joe and Nicky meeting, because that would have been a lot of fun. 

ameliahcrowley

A bedside (or couch side) lamp to go with the rest of your bread-based furnishings!