I feel very attacked

 So, as part of my mild Keith Hartman obsession (Ok, so I love his writing, I'm not stalking him or writing fan letters), I picked up a copy of his first published work, Congregations in Conflict: The Battle Over Homosexuality, written, near as I can tell, when the author was at Duke. 

I had read this previously, in maybe 2005ish, which meant even then, some of the conclusions herein are a bit outdated. (Copyright is 1996, even if most everything discussed tops out in 1995.) Nearly 30 years on, much of what's happened in the intervening years has shown that progress has happened, although at different rates among different factions. However, what I missed the first time I read this, was that all 9 situations explored are in the North Carolina Research Triangle Area. (While two of my brothers live there these days, I doubt either would have an interest in doing follow up for me.) 

Anyway, we start with a Methodist congregation and two Southern Baptist congregations, and how they deal with ministers trying to minister to gay members, and the problems that happen with that. (The Methodist congregation has an older population, and a younger population, with no in-between membership to kind of help reconcile the differing generational views. And since the older folks have the purse strings... Both Baptist churches, which eventually work out to be accepting congregations get expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention.)

We then move into the Episcopals and a bunch of drama concerning a same sex union and the Duke Divinity School dramas of 1992. 

Discussion gets into the Metropolitan Community Church of Raleigh (for those who don't know, they were founded as a church specifically for LGBTQ+ people), and the adventures in what to do with a growing congregation who've moved beyond being just celebrating Gays and God, and also dealing with a minister who's being pulled in several directions due to parishioners dying of AIDS. 

Then we get two chapters of Non-programmed Friends gatherings and the fun of trying to find clarity on blessing unions in both meetings, before getting involved in Dignity, the organization for Black Catholics, and the friction between them and a Jesuit church founded as an all Black congregation, made more complex by edicts from John Paul II and the now Benedict XVI. 

The Epilogue deals with congregations on a national level and the author's predictions on how the drama will play out over the next few years (as the book was written.)  

Thankfully, not all of them came true. Of particular interest to me was discussion on the dueling sexuality reports in the Presbyterian General Assembly of 1991. (I seem to recall perusing both reports in High School for an argument paper on gay rights I was writing. Yeah, that whole, explore gay issues by posing as an outsider trying to understand. Worked out soooo well.) While he (like everyone else) predicted that the Minority report would get adopted, I seem to recall it didn't, and the denomination wound up compromising one way and another. It was ugly, since while Homosexuality was main event, there was a whole "fidelity in marriage, chastity in singleness" clause that had a few folks asking if the ministers were going to become bedroom police. Of course, I also recall an agreement between a few Protestant denominations in the Reformed tradition that would require each denomination to recognize the other's ordinations, and that a few of those in that agreement (like the United Church of Christ) whole heartedly ordained the gheyz. In terms of the Roman Catholics, while they're still not where a lot of us would like to see them, the Scandals of the past few decades and the Promotion of Francis I have moved the needle a bit with them. As for the Episcopals, this was written before V. Gene Robinson became a household name for a few months and nearly broke the Communion. 

This remains a fascinating time capsule of church history and exactly how far things have come in 30 years.

So, pretty much everyone on Athas is an ass

 Finally finished up Troy Denning's The Prism Pentad with The Cerulean Storm, in which we find out everyone left alive in this series is an ass. 

So, when we left off Tithian had more or less killed off his rival Agis, had sent two dwarf banshees to encourage the Mul son on Neva and Caelum to kill the dragon, and had taken possession of the Dark Lens. Rajaat, who isn't dead so much as imprisoned in anextraplanar prison, is plotting to take revenge on his former champions (the current Dragon Boris and the Sorcerer-Kings) as well as escape from Shawshank. Sadira is still married to Agis and Rikus, although she's widowed on one front. The Sorcerer-Kings know the Lens is running loose and want to recover it before Tithian does something remarkably stupid.And the Half Giants are coming for Tyr, since the Lens lets them gain intelligence. 

All of which turns into a very long extended chase to the Dragon's lair, where pretty much everyone gets what they deserve to a degree. 

Again, it's epic sword and sandal and sorcery, with a bunch of characters you love to hate. I do love the ongoing visual of the silt skifs, riding the tides of dust in the dried up waterways of the desert. I like the idea that the villains in here were all Evil, but doing what they thought was best for the world. 

All in all, the series holds up as a memorable D&D adventure series, although one probably not as high quality as the DragonLance Sagas.

Titania is an ass.

 So, finished Seanan McGuire's Sleep No More yesterday, which finally sort of resolves the cliffhanger from the last book. Essentially, we pick up 4 months after Titania was found and essentially remade most of north and central California in her image of what a perfect Fairie would be. Which isn't exactly what anyone living in Fairie would particularly want, beyond certain elder pureblood sidhe.

As such, in this version of Fairie, October is living in Mom Amadine's tower with Dad Simon and Sister August, being a nice subservient changeling girl who knows her place among the purebloods. Quentin is now an utter asshole who likes tormenting her on the rare occasions she enters Shadowed Hills. However, it's a trip to the Hills that leads to October being taken to Tamed Lightning where the local Dryad April gets awakened and begins the long slow process of unraveling the Umbridge-esque pink of Titania's illusions. 

Oh, but it's fun. With the few mixed breeds and a few free changelings living well outside of San Francisco, all of Maeve's descendants either exiled or missing, and much of the kingdom being returned to the state it was in at the outset of the series (including at least 3 dead/elfshot characters coming back for the fun), and everyone's favorite sea witch being trapped in a tree...

Quite a bit is going on here, and the fact that the Summer Queen is a master of illusions means we're not entirely sure of how much of what's returned is real. (Indeed, the finale has a character observe something is up, but what that something is never really gets quantified, so I wonder if that will be the plot hook in the next book.) 

The author states it's fun writing stuff down finally that's been in her head since the outset. And it's fun to read. And I'm happy she didn't start here, since the series has given us characters whom we've come to know and love, and therefore are much more emotionally involved with as this apocalypse happens.

Tithian is an ass.

 So, I'm a lot behind on a lot of things, due to issues of a personal nature. I actually finished The Obsidian Oracle a few weeks ago, but...

Anyway.

This is actually an ugly read. Tithian, King of Tyr, gets in trouble at the outset by sending slavers to the Dwarf city near Tyr, which in turn sets off Neeva, since the slavers nearly take her son. This gets Agis involved, since he gets tasked with tracking down Tithian to bring him back to Tyr to face justice. 

Tithian, it would seem, was actually also after some Dwarven artifacts to get his hands on the eponymous Oracle, currently in the hands of giants. 

The narrative swings back and forth between Agis and Tithian, as they are forced to work together to get the Lens and survive a battle between two factions of giants, one with normal heads, and ones with animal heads. 

And a hell of a lot of betrayals.

For a D&D novel, this is really heavy material to deal with, as even the dering-do is overshadowed by some really ugly actions on pretty much everyone's part in the narrative.