The Sword and Laser discussion

The announcement of this book as our February pick sparked some discussion about whether or not it counts as ‘cosy’ (or, for y’all yanks, “cozy”). It actually reminds me of the pick from last February, The Empress of Salt and Fortune, in combining elements of both grimdark and cosy.

The first chapter is a good example: it starts with our heroine digging through a pit full of bones, engaged in the impossible task of assembling a bone dog. She is miserable and expects to die soon. We learn that the contents of the pit reflect the progression of starvation, as people ate first cows, then dogs, then each other. So far so grim.
Then, when she does assemble the dog, it runs off. All is misery and despair.

But then… it comes back again! The good bony boy returns and our heroine has a new companion.

This, I think, is the crucial moment that tells us what to expect of the book: there will be darkness and despair, but there will also, ultimately, be hope and occasional bursts of joy. This is a world where bad things happen, but good things happen too - where a character can find a pit full of bones and make a new friend.

I might be too jaded but this book is not grimdark for me. But sure is cozy!

Silvana wrote: "I might be too jaded but this book is not grimdark for me. But sure is cozy!"

Is this akin to:

Lava is slightly warm.
Everest is moderately tall.
Wasps give gentle kisses.

Random thought on the opening: if the people were starving wouldn’t they have cracked open all of the larger bones for the marrow within? Reminds me of the Thor story with Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr, the two goats pulling his chariot. One night he stayed with a farmer and he would slay and cook the goats to eat then resurrect them with Mjolnir the next day. Except one of the children cracked the bones open for the marrow and the goat was lame when brought back to life. The children were forced to become his servants. (The Norse gods weren’t very forgiving.)

Trike wrote: "Silvana wrote: "I might be too jaded but this book is not grimdark for me. But sure is cozy!"

Is this akin to:

Lava is slightly warm.
Everest is moderately tall.
Wasps give gentle kisses."

what LOL no idk how to describe...
But Ruth might have a point there, coz even after all the horrific things happening in the book - the first chapter is considered cheery for me - the feeling you have after reading is cosy.

I’ve now read further and the end of Chapter 16 has a scene where the book’s approach is summarised nicely. It’s not particularly spoilery but I’ll conceal it just in case:
(view spoiler)[ after mentally listing the many injustices she’s encountered, Mara reflects that “nothing is right, except that we make it so”. (hide spoiler)]
That’s the key to GrimCosy: it’s a world where bad stuff happens, but there are good people trying their best.
(As opposed to Grimdark where the main characters are typically amoral antiheroes)

Doesn’t cozy also imply staying home? Or at least being somewhat comfortable and relaxed. I asked Mrs. Trike just now what her definition would include and she maintains that it just has to be comfy. A nice big chair, a blanket, a fire in the winter, that sort of thing.

(She also says there’s no such thing as a cozy mystery, so she might’ve been replaced with a pod person.)

The city the prince and Marra’s sister lives in is described as being specifically designed to intimidate everyone, and I don’t recall them ever being comfortable anywhere. Definitely not on the road, camping out, constantly hiding.

I think we need a different word than cozy. Something-something just desserts.

Maybe to some people the cozy part refers to the state of the reader, not the characters in the book. Something that doesn't get you too excited or upset or is too taxing, it's just fun to read.
I think you're applying "cozy" differently than a lot of others here, Trike.

From my somewhat vague understanding of the current use of "Cozy _" (mystery, fantasy, etc) it includes found family, misfits finding their place in life, wrongs made right. So I'm good with this being "Cozy _)" (whatever followup term you'd use.)

There's usually a cat in a Cozy Mystery, but hey! Supernatural canine instead, why not.

Phil wrote: "Maybe to some people the cozy part refers to the state of the reader, not the characters in the book. Something that doesn't get you too excited or upset or is too taxing, it's just fun to read.
I think you're applying "cozy" differently than a lot of others here, Trike.."

I shall bend this world to my will! Mwa-hahaha!

I feel like the “too taxing” part is what I’m circling around here. Not just untaxing, to coin a word, for me, but also for the characters. I mean, I never found The Lord of the Rings or Dune emotionally or intellectually taxing or in any way uncomfortable-making, not like I did with The Shining, I Am Legend or Kindred. I doubt anyone would call Dune or Lawrence of Arabia cozy, but neither are they taxing the reader.

I read your response to Mrs. Trike (we’re sitting here, cozy against the -11 wind chill reading books with snoring dogs), and I quote, “I don’t think ‘cozy’ and ‘fun’ are synonymous.”

My cozy examples include books like Legends & Lattes and The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. They have the “found family” acceptance aspect Taloni mentions, but also this sense of home and hearth and somewhat lower stakes than typical.

Not sure the fate of kingdoms is ever cosy. It’s just that the motivation is a personal evil rather than a giant evil.

The boom reminds me of Pritchett who was never cosy. There is anger and despair hiding at the heart of this book which is offset by the hope that if you face the evil of this world with fortitude and good humour you might just prevail.

The book has a humorous and quirky viewpoint but that doesn’t seem cosy to me. I find very few books are cosy. Legends & Lattes is close.

Ruth wrote: "The announcement of this book as our February pick sparked some discussion about whether or not it counts as ‘cosy’ (or, for y’all yanks, “cozy”). It actually reminds me of the pick from last Febru..."

Having just finished - I could not put the book down - I think maybe the best way to put into words that doesn't seem to fit (with others commenting so far) as grimcozy is that this book is essentially and adult fairy tale. That is, it follows a fairy tale structure (and in the author's note at the end Kingfisher tells us that this evolved from a short story into this novel by way of her thinking of a fairy tale) but because it's written for adults, it has more realism to it. So it has to hit the fairy tale beats, but it can also contain a Game of Thrones level of politics between kingdoms and death and abuse and so on in a much more stark way than modern fairy tales. (I'm aware the original Grimm fairy tales could often get quite dark) So I think that's where we get what you're calling the cozy bits from - the fairy tale end. And the grimdark comes from the realism (at least within the framework of a fairytale story with bone dogs)

I just finished the book. I had been avoiding the posts but did see some of the mentions of a "grim cozy". When the book started I thought for sure this was not a cozy and by the end I am firmly in the court that it is cozy adjacent and tipping to cozy. I knew well before the end who would be with who and that the (view spoiler)[bone doggie didn't die again. (hide spoiler)]. That alone doesn't make it a cozy, but the heart and the comfort of the collected family definitely tip the scale. I do think I need to think more about fantasy/scifi cozy because it keeps running into cozy mysteries in my head and they are not alike.

More on cozy, I just looked at my recent review of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy and I tagged that fantasy cozy, but it was a bit grim too, so perhaps grim cozy is a thing.

I didn't tag The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches as a cozy, but I know it has been a few "cozy" list this year. Not grim, but fantasy cozy.

I'm starting to worry, I don't know what cozy is but I will know it when I see it.

Calvey wrote: "... I'm starting to worry, I don't know what cozy is but I will know it when I see it."

That challenge is compounded by most cozy searches returning lists of murder mysteries that occur in small, cozy towns.

For me at least, even though bad, sometimes terrible (grim), things are happening to the characters, cozy is the feeling that everything is going to work out in the end.

In this book I got that feeling from page one. There was just something about the author's writing style that gave me this feeling.

I wish I could put it into words better.

Chris K. wrote: "For me at least, even though bad, sometimes terrible (grim), things are happening to the characters, cozy is the feeling that everything is going to work out in the end.

In this book I got that fe..."

The more I think about it, this is the connotation I have to it now as well. The stakes typically aren't crazy high, and that things will work out, or at least get back to normal at the end. But I do feel that the term is very much a moving target currently, and being a bit of a fad, gets used more than it should, and to refer to more things than it should.

Hmm, I really hope it doesn't turn into another term like "punk" that just gets added on to every other term to define sub genre's. As much as I dislike how that happens, I wonder if Cozy is a bit of the opposite in that way to Punk, where one is usually used to define a very dystopian world, the other can define a much warmer at home feel. Not utopian with all the sanitization that conotates with that, but a good feeling non the less. And if someone starts denoting things "cozy punk" I may just go postal.

Aaron wrote:

That challenge is compounded by most cozy searches returning lists of murder mysteries that o..."

and I have read a lot of those starting in covid and they are typically the same rinse and repeat with the characters....However the "fantasy cozy and this grim cozy" feel different and maybe that is the fairly tale slant. I don't know...I keep going back and forth thinking about defining fantasy or grim cozy, but, maybe I will leave that to Veronica.

I did tag my book review with fantasy cozy and made a brand spanking new grim cozy. oh boy.

John (Nevets) wrote: "And if someone starts denoting things "cozy punk" I may just go postal."

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but…

https://www.goodreads.com/genres/cozy...

I give up. I think I will start writing my memoirs in this...




https://ifanboy.threadless.com/design...

I’m with you. It’s like words don’t mean anything any more. I’m still annoyed with “solarpunk”, which is the stupidest genre name ever coined.

By the way. I will apologize for using the phrase "Going Postal". It is rude and disrespectful on many levels to many people, and I need to remove it from my vocabulary. I won't remove it from the post, unless someone requests it. But on rereading the post I was really embarrassed that I had went that direction. Once again, I am sorry, and will try not to let it happen again.

Cozy Punk….I love it.

Though I am a fan of solar punk, so I may not be a good judge of +punk. Don’t ask me why I am a fan of solar punk…I think it is the aesthetics of it…and I always felt A Psalm for the Wild-Built pairs nicely with solar punk.

Calvey wrote: "Cozy Punk….I love it.

Though I am a fan of solar punk, so I may not be a good judge of +punk. Don’t ask me why I am a fan of solar punk…I think it is the aesthetics of it…and I always felt :..."

It’s not the genre, it’s the name. It’s dumb because it doesn’t convey AT ALL what the genre is about, plus it tries to redefine “punk”. It feels like clueless dingbats jumping on the trendy punk label without any understanding of what they’re saying.

Welllll...."Steampunk" was coined out of "Cyberpunk" on account of Gibson's Victorian-setting novel The Difference Engine. Now it stands for gaudy Victoriana, werewolves and flamboyant gay vampires. Sooooo things change.

I was ranting about “grimcozy” to my wife, making up other awful example combo-words that don’t belong together and she laughed, but it’s too dark for public forums. You can probably imagine them if I give you the starting word “happymurder”. Yeah, dark.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Welllll...."Steampunk" was coined out of "Cyberpunk" on account of Gibson's Victorian-setting novel The Difference Engine. Now it stands for gaudy Victoriana, werewolves and flamboyant gay vampires..."

Steampunk is at least in the ballpark; solarpunk isn’t even correct taken on its own. Cyberpunk and Splatterpunk are perfect. That’s how the terms should be employed.

Trike wrote: "I was ranting about “grimcozy” to my wife, making up other awful example combo-words that don’t belong together and she laughed, but it’s too dark for public forums. You can probably imagine them i..."

Old man yells at GrimCosy cloud

So, Trike, you claim that telling bad news in a good way does not work? :-D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi-YL...

Language is fluid and what "cozy" and "punk" means to you now may not be what it means to anybody else.
"A dictionary is just opinion listed in alphabetical order."
I've even seen TED talks by people who write dictionaries and they admit it's just their opinion.

Cozypunk.

Phil wrote: "Language is fluid and what "cozy" and "punk" means to you now may not be what it means to anybody else.
"A dictionary is just opinion listed in alphabetical order."
I've even seen TED talks by p..."

This is the laziest defense of people making up definitions. "Oh language is FLUUIDD! Words mean what I want!!"

I totally get the "cozy" aspect of this, as nothing really terrible happens. I'm more used to cozy mystery novels, in which anything really grim and violent happens off-screen or off-page, and we only get the build-up and fallout and reactions to it.
Have to see, this one doesn't seem grim to me, but I do understand the "cozy" label.
Is (view spoiler)[talking to the dead (hide spoiler)] considered grim? Or going to (view spoiler)[a goblin market (hide spoiler)]?
I didn't find anything in the novel I'd consider grim, but maybe that's just me.
That said. I'm totally down for a (view spoiler)[Lady Fox and Agnes (hide spoiler)] spin-off.

Steve wrote: "I totally get the "cozy" aspect of this, as nothing really terrible happens."

Besides (view spoiler)[wife murder, child death and wife abuse? (hide spoiler)]
😜

Joanna wrote: "So, Trike, you claim that telling bad news in a good way does not work? :-D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi-YL..."

Oh no, that’s perfectly acceptable.

Trike wrote: "Steve wrote: "I totally get the "cozy" aspect of this, as nothing really terrible happens."

Besides [spoilers removed]
😜"

Yes. I think that's along the lines of what I mean. In a cozy, you don't see any of that take place, you only hear/read about it later. You don't see anyone being murdered, but you read that it happened off the page and the main character goes to the funeral. Or if someone is hurt, you don't see them being hurt. You read the part where the main character hears about it or sees marks of abuse. The sex or violence happens off the page.

Of course, I have no doubt that different readers have different views of things. Which makes this sort of thing fun to discuss, I think.

Rick wrote: "This is the laziest defense of people making up definitions. "Oh language is FLUUIDD! Words mean what I want!!""

That is, literally, how language evolution works.

Someone applies a definition to a word and over time it is either rejected or becomes an accepted definition. Sometimes the new definition will become the default definition.

Reading books from the 19th century will prove that.

When they talk about "making love", they don't mean what we think they mean today and describing a person as "gay" meant they were light hearted and carefree in nature.

You live in the land where the right often apply their own definitions to words they don't understand like: woke, socialist etc

Language is constantly evolving, which is why we have stark differences in English usage in the US compared to the Commonwealth countries.

Tassie Dave wrote: "Rick wrote: "This is the laziest defense of people making up definitions. "Oh language is FLUUIDD! Words mean what I want!!""

That is, literally, how language evolution works.

Someone applies a d..."

Language evolution is slower and not a matter of individuals each defining the words the way they want. Most word evolutions come about because a group starts using a word/term and it leaks out into popular use or because someone influential does.

I don't get to assert that the word for the color of the sky on a sunny day is now 'green' or 'floober'. Oh, I can try but then I'm not communicating. Similarly, if we all use the work 'cozy' to mean very different things we're not communicating.

PS: Your example of 'gay' doesn't actually hold up all that well https://www.etymonline.com/word/gay

Oh. Well. So much for that "wine-dark sea" in the Iliad and the Odyssey then. Or as the Greek Kermit used to say, "It's not easy being wine-dark!"

The Oxford English dictionary documents the usage of language and is not prescriptive. It is one of the great strengths of English that this is the case. Once a word gains a particular meaning in "print" that meaning will be documented. This is why the 2nd edition is 20 volumes....

https://www.oed.com/public/oed3guide/...

"The Oxford English Dictionary is not an arbiter of proper usage, despite its widespread reputation to the contrary. The Dictionary is intended to be descriptive, not prescriptive. In other words, its content should be viewed as an objective reflection of English language usage, not a subjective collection of usage ‘dos’ and ‘don'ts’. However, it does include information on which usages are, or have been, popularly regarded as ‘incorrect’. The Dictionary aims to cover the full spectrum of English language usage, from formal to slang, as it has evolved over time."

Tamahome wrote: "Cozypunk."

FTW - I'd ready Cozypunk all day.

Calvey wrote: "Tamahome wrote: "Cozypunk."

FTW - I'd ready Cozypunk all day."

You both are enjoying trolling me way too much.

Grumble. Grumble.

Trike wrote: "Steampunk is at least in the ballpark; solarpunk isn’t even correct taken on its own. Cyberpunk and Splatterpunk are perfect. That’s how the terms should be employed."

I'm sometimes amused to see "Solarpunk" calls in the FB "Open Call" (writing) groups. They're generally calls for utopian societies where we've solved issues by implementing the hippy dream with technology.

Except that the "punk" should imply exactly the opposite. So to my mind there are two actual "Solarpunk" books that I know of.

First up, the Niven / Pournelle / Flynn book "Fallen Angels," where the environmentalists misunderstand science and cause the very issues they purport to be solving - that weren't actually issues in the first place. (It's Niven and Pournelle. Just go with it. If you can swallow the premise, it's actually a pretty good sendup of the SFnal community.)

Then Poul Anderson's book "Starfarers" which involves a ship traveling at high relativistic speeds and accompanying time dilation. The ship returns some 20,000 years later to find an Earth population living in an idyllic environmentally controlled situation with lavish vegetation everywhere. It's hopelessly dull and a significant segment of the population begs to be taken with the ship when it next departs.

But anyhoo, I'll grant the "Solarpunk" peeps their definition, even tho I'll have a laugh at it from time to time.

Words change all the time. Literally. And adding "-gate" to any scandal doesn't make sense but that's what we do. So things like solarpunk or grimcozy don't bother me one bit. To be honest, in general it annoys me more how some people (not in this thread) want to "defend" language. *shrug*

We’re in the middle of cozygate!

Trike wrote: "We’re in the middle of cozygate!"

bwahahahahaha

this is a cozy book for me too. No more grim than any other fantasy adventures we read.

Trike wrote: "We’re in the middle of cozygate!"
BTW: Nobody talks about "Stargate"! By which I mean the scandal that people say "Star Wars" is Science Fiction while clearly the correct term should be "Space Fantasy" as there's not anything scientifically remotely plausible in that series! I mean "science" has meaning! ;-)

Okay, unlike Trike, I am generally free with the word cosy (love a good cozy murder mystery!) but I’m over half way through, and I’m not seeing the cosy here at all. Everything feels very hard and hopeless. I mean, sure, there are light moments, but nothing I would describe as remotely cosy. I don’t feel a sense of ‘everything will be alright’ from this book, which I think is an essential ingredient in cosy. I mean, things might work out, but that is by no means guaranteed or my current expectation.

This doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying it, but cosy? Nope.