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Benjamin January Mysteries pimping post
Oct. 2nd, 2013 11:11 amYuletide is starting soon! Do you need another fandom? I mean, four requests and five offers- that's a lot of fandoms, right? Or maybe you just want to hear about some good books, entirely disregarding the whole Yuletide thing. Well, either way, I am here to help! By telling you to request/offer my small fandom, because clearly that’s the solution everyone needs.
The Benjamin January mysteries is a book series by Barbara Hambly, and they are all available as ebooks and extremely easy to find. Set in New Orleans in the 1830s* and focused on the community of free black people, the books use an amazing amount of historical detail in a vivid, compelling way. I love what you might call the world-building: the sense of the setting as a real, detailed, complex place, full of life and people and other stories going on in the background.
*Are you looking forward to the new season of American Horror Story? Enjoying the photos and trailers with Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett? Because their characters are totally also in this series.
There is so much in this series that is exactly the sort of thing I look for in my fandoms:
-Found family / chosen family. THIS SERIES IS MADE OUT OF THIS TROPE. Of course each book has a mystery plot, but the real driving force in the series as a whole is Benjamin January’s need for a family, a community, and how he goes about acquiring and protecting people he cares for. If you like characters being stupidly loyal to one another, these books are for you.
-Us-against-the-world. It is the antebellum South and most of the characters are black people. OBVIOUSLY THE WORLD HERE IS A TERRIBLE PLACE. And yet, they band together, they find what justice they can, what happiness they can, and they save who they can. They have to work on a small scale– none of the characters is single-handedly going to end slavery– but they’re constantly battling to do what they can. These are some Big Damn Heros.
-Competency. Let’s take just one character here as an example. She speaks at least five languages (possibly two more), knows how to shoot rifles, herd cattle, use a microscope, play cards, garden, manage both the teaching and business ends of running a school, and makes her own smoke bombs and fireworks.
-Characters who are geeks. Most of the main characters are over-educated dorks, who have a tendency to quote Shakespeare or ponder about the melting point of wax when someone else might be freaking out over whatever new dramatic development has happened.
-Deadpan snarkers. See above. None of these characters is the sort to have hysterics, no matter what is going on. I really can’t think of a single character who doesn’t get to be funny at least once.
-Women dressing as men to go have adventures!
-Con-men! Okay, so, none of the main characters are actually con-men. But I think if you like this trope, this series will appeal to you, because there is so much picking locks and sneaking around and avoiding police enforcement and pretending to be someone you’re not that it ends up with a similar feel.
-Vague supernatural hints! The series is not fantasy, but every now and then there’s something that hints at not everything being explainable- someone claims to have seen a ghost, or a voodoo curse works just a little too well- and if you wanted to write fic expanding on that, I for one would love it.
-Adults who act like adults. Do you want characters who have emotional trauma but manage to deal with it without acting like 13-year-olds or like they are the only ones to have ever suffered as they have suffered? BECAUSE THAT IS EVERYONE IN THESE BOOKS.
-So much historical awesome: Pirates! Bull-fighting! International spies! Poison! Floods! Alligators! Voodoo! Duels! Hurricanes! Opera! Grave robbers! Edgar Allen Poe! Santa Anna!
-SO MUCH LOVELY DETAIL OF ALL SORTS. Food porn! Clothing porn! Music porn!
There is so much potential fanfic to be set in this world: character studies, a million minor characters who need exploring, world building, gen friendship stories, casefic, romance, and, of course, porn. Did you want a series with diversity? Because we have: tons of women, characters of color, Muslim characters, poor characters, sex-workers who are not looked down upon, gay characters, lesbian characters, a trans character, characters who’ve been raped who are not reduced to victims or someone else’s manpain. Race and color and language and class and gender and the interplay of all of them are a huge part of the series, and– in my opinion, of course– all handled extremely well.
But everyone’s favorite part of fandom is the characters, right? Let me tell you all about the characters!
( Character descriptions and excerpts from the books )
“Okay,” you say, “I’m convinced! But I can’t read the whole series before Yuletide!” Don’t worry! Here’s what I would recommend:
Start with Graveyard Dust. It’s only the third in the series, so you haven’t missed much set-up, but more importantly it’s the book that features major appearances by every single main character. You can get a good sense of the world and the people in it with just this one book. And if you like it, have time, or want more you can go on to read the rest. Of course, if you don't care about Yuletide, you could just start at the beginning, with A Free Man of Color. That's good, too.
The Benjamin January mysteries is a book series by Barbara Hambly, and they are all available as ebooks and extremely easy to find. Set in New Orleans in the 1830s* and focused on the community of free black people, the books use an amazing amount of historical detail in a vivid, compelling way. I love what you might call the world-building: the sense of the setting as a real, detailed, complex place, full of life and people and other stories going on in the background.
*Are you looking forward to the new season of American Horror Story? Enjoying the photos and trailers with Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett? Because their characters are totally also in this series.
There is so much in this series that is exactly the sort of thing I look for in my fandoms:
-Found family / chosen family. THIS SERIES IS MADE OUT OF THIS TROPE. Of course each book has a mystery plot, but the real driving force in the series as a whole is Benjamin January’s need for a family, a community, and how he goes about acquiring and protecting people he cares for. If you like characters being stupidly loyal to one another, these books are for you.
-Us-against-the-world. It is the antebellum South and most of the characters are black people. OBVIOUSLY THE WORLD HERE IS A TERRIBLE PLACE. And yet, they band together, they find what justice they can, what happiness they can, and they save who they can. They have to work on a small scale– none of the characters is single-handedly going to end slavery– but they’re constantly battling to do what they can. These are some Big Damn Heros.
-Competency. Let’s take just one character here as an example. She speaks at least five languages (possibly two more), knows how to shoot rifles, herd cattle, use a microscope, play cards, garden, manage both the teaching and business ends of running a school, and makes her own smoke bombs and fireworks.
-Characters who are geeks. Most of the main characters are over-educated dorks, who have a tendency to quote Shakespeare or ponder about the melting point of wax when someone else might be freaking out over whatever new dramatic development has happened.
-Deadpan snarkers. See above. None of these characters is the sort to have hysterics, no matter what is going on. I really can’t think of a single character who doesn’t get to be funny at least once.
-Women dressing as men to go have adventures!
-Con-men! Okay, so, none of the main characters are actually con-men. But I think if you like this trope, this series will appeal to you, because there is so much picking locks and sneaking around and avoiding police enforcement and pretending to be someone you’re not that it ends up with a similar feel.
-Vague supernatural hints! The series is not fantasy, but every now and then there’s something that hints at not everything being explainable- someone claims to have seen a ghost, or a voodoo curse works just a little too well- and if you wanted to write fic expanding on that, I for one would love it.
-Adults who act like adults. Do you want characters who have emotional trauma but manage to deal with it without acting like 13-year-olds or like they are the only ones to have ever suffered as they have suffered? BECAUSE THAT IS EVERYONE IN THESE BOOKS.
-So much historical awesome: Pirates! Bull-fighting! International spies! Poison! Floods! Alligators! Voodoo! Duels! Hurricanes! Opera! Grave robbers! Edgar Allen Poe! Santa Anna!
-SO MUCH LOVELY DETAIL OF ALL SORTS. Food porn! Clothing porn! Music porn!
There is so much potential fanfic to be set in this world: character studies, a million minor characters who need exploring, world building, gen friendship stories, casefic, romance, and, of course, porn. Did you want a series with diversity? Because we have: tons of women, characters of color, Muslim characters, poor characters, sex-workers who are not looked down upon, gay characters, lesbian characters, a trans character, characters who’ve been raped who are not reduced to victims or someone else’s manpain. Race and color and language and class and gender and the interplay of all of them are a huge part of the series, and– in my opinion, of course– all handled extremely well.
But everyone’s favorite part of fandom is the characters, right? Let me tell you all about the characters!
( Character descriptions and excerpts from the books )
“Okay,” you say, “I’m convinced! But I can’t read the whole series before Yuletide!” Don’t worry! Here’s what I would recommend:
Start with Graveyard Dust. It’s only the third in the series, so you haven’t missed much set-up, but more importantly it’s the book that features major appearances by every single main character. You can get a good sense of the world and the people in it with just this one book. And if you like it, have time, or want more you can go on to read the rest. Of course, if you don't care about Yuletide, you could just start at the beginning, with A Free Man of Color. That's good, too.
