[hildea]

Originally Posted by Gormagon

Now hildea seems to think I'm some kind of misogynistic person, I suppose.

I did accuse you of that, and it was unwarranted. I apologise. I disagree very strongly with you about gender, but that doesn't justify me implying you are a misogyinist.

Anyway...the book in question was "Spread Me" by Sarah Gailey.

Thanks! I've read a short story by Gailey. I took a look at their novels, and will check out the hippo one.

Regarding Goodreads I've just read a press release about a paper about the ratings on this website.

I never found the ratings there very useful. I'm using Storygraph a bit, but mostly I find books through reviews and recommendations from people who I've found to have similar taste to me.

"The Gilded Chain" sounds not like a book for me. I don't like fantasy, magic, kings et cetera.

Looking at the description of "Spread me" -- you might like T.Kingfisher's "What moves the dead". It's a retelling Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", very well written.

Originally Posted by What moves the dead

Given that lack of imagination, perhaps you will forgive me when I say that the whole place felt like a hangover.

What was it about the house and the tarn that was so depressing? Battlefields are grim, of course, but no one questions why. This was just another gloomy lake, with a gloomy house and some gloomy plants. It shouldn’t have affected my spirits so strongly.

Granted, the plants all looked dead or dying. Granted, the windows of the house stared down like eye sockets in a row of skulls, yes, but so what? Actual rows of skulls wouldn’t affect me so strongly. I knew a collector in Paris … well, never mind the details. He was the gentlest of souls, though he did collect rather odd things. But he used to put festive hats on his skulls depending on the season, and they all looked rather jolly.

Usher’s house was going to require more than festive hats. I mounted Hob and urged him into a trot, the sooner to get to the house and put the scene behind me.

(The book has some unexpected use of pronouns, but it's cultural, not biological. The protagonist is from a (fictive) country which has separate pronouns for soldiers (and children, priests and nuns, God, and rocks). So you'd say "he is a man", "she is a woman", and "ka is a soldier".)