Marion: I finished Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. It’s an optimistic delight of a book with a great octopus character.  Currently, I’m reading a debut mystery novel by Tracee de Hahn called The Swiss Vendetta. The interiors and descriptions are gorgeous.

Bill:  Since my last update, I’ve read:

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez: going on my Best of 22 list
Neom by Lavie Tidhar: linked stories in the same universe as his great Read More

Marion: Right now I’m beta-reading a friend’s manuscript about a friendship between two women; one a resident of an assisted living facility and the other a volunteer there. I’m also more than halfway through Rosewater, Book One of the WORMWOOD trilogy by Tade Thompson, and wondering why I overlooked this one for so long!

Sandy: Moi? I am currently reading another top-notch supernatural horror novel that is available nowhere else today except Ramble House. The book in question this week is Walter S. Masterman’s Read More

Kat: I’m so busy at the beginning of a new academic year. I’m teaching an extra class this semester, a large freshmen-level general education course, so that’s taking a lot of my time. But since you heard from me last (it’s been a while), I’ve read Octavia Butler’s XENOGENESIS series (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago), three of Terry Pratchett’s DISCWORLD Read More

Marion: I finished up Locklands by Robert Jackson Bennett with mixed feelings which I shared in the comments of Bill’s excellent review. I needed a palate cleanser, so I reread a couple of things. The Dain Curse, by Dashiell Hammett, reminded me how much I love his world-weary Continental Op, and his dialogue–also unpleasantly reminded me of the racism. Harder to take than I remembered. Continuing the reread trend, I dove into Daryl Gregory’s We Are All Perfectly Fine Read More

Marion: I read and greatly enjoyed Amongst our Weapons, the latest RIVERS OF LONDON book by Ben Aaronivitch, and now I’ve started Locklands, final book in Robert Jackson Bennett’s FOUNDERS trilogy. I spent some time reading the rough draft of my current WIP with an eye to revision, and continue that process today.

Terry: Read More

Marion: Most of this week was spent reaching and completing the final chapter in my draft WIP, which is now… a complete draft. Yay me. I read around in The Lives of Fungi by Britt A Bunyard (research), and finished Book Three in the LIMINAL series by Ayize Jama-Everett. The Liminal War relies on music, family and time travel. To my pleasant surprise, Terry’s review of the first book is blurbed on the back!


Bill:  Since our last update I read:

Ithaca by Claire North,  a superbly voiced mash-up of the The Odyssey  Read More

Justin: Just wrapped up Leviathan Wakes by James S.A.Corey. It is Book 1 of THE EXPANSE series. Read this on a dare and couldn’t be happier that I did. Also making some plans for a trip to Gencon in Indianapolis in a  couple weeks. You should expect to see a write-up from me on that adventure. If you plan to be there let me know and I’ll give you a Fanlit book mark and maybe play a board game or something.

Bill:

This week I read Tad Wiliams' newest tome,

Kat: Only three books read in the last two weeks. Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and the only slightly related John Scalzi’s The Android’s Dream, were both very entertaining. The best book, and actually a 5-star book for me, was Jonathan Carroll’s The Land of Laughs. I loved it!

Bill:  

Since my la...

Kat: Since you heard from me last, I’ve read The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson, The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett, The Stars My Destination by Read More

Marion: The Select Committee on the January 6 events took up a lot of my time this week, but I managed to finish Nicola Griffiths’s luminous novella Spear, and The Extraordinaries, a fun YA superhero-rom-com by T.J. Klune. Now I’m at the nail-biter ending of Leigh Bardugo’s Crooked Kingdom, the sequel to Six ... Read More

Kat: You haven’t heard from me in over a month -- I’ve been so busy. But I did manage to get these novels read: The End of Eternity, The Stars, Like Dust, The Currents of Space, and Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov, Read More

Justin: I’m really between books at the moment. About to start Rise of the Vicious Princess by C.J. Redwine. Weather permitting, I plan to tuck into a few chapters from my backyard hammock. With all the chaos happening in real life at the moment, I am looking forward to the escape of a good book.

Marion: Mudlark by Laura Maiklem is a nonfiction journey, following the author as she explores the flats of a low-tide Thames River, and gathers up historical treasures. (The British edition is called Mudlarking.) I’m meandering through this fascinating read. I’m about halfway through Read More

Marion: T. Kingfisher’s  Nettle and Bone, a dark, sweet, wry, innovative fairy tale quest, was a sheer joy to read. I was torn between surrendering to the delight and frothing with envy at her storytelling skills. As a complete change of pace, I read Christopher Moore’s Razzmatazz, another virtually indescribable Moore action-fantasy-comedy set in 1947 San Francisco and points north.  Now I’m nearly to the end of R.F. Kuang’s Read More

Justin: I’ve had an absolutely crazy last week or so. We’ve battled the flu, spent some time in New York City, and lost a beloved family dog (Norman) at 17 years old. He’s been a part of my Bio here at Fanlit since I started. Going to miss him terribly. On a positive note I have been reading some very light hearted stuff by Scott Meyer. His MAGIC 2.0 series has been really fun and cathartic during these crazy weeks. The series starts off with Off to be the Wizard (review incoming) and has 6 titles released so far. I’m currently in the second book titled Shell or Highwater.

Bill: The past few weeks have been rough here as we gradually lost my mother-in-law, a remarkable woman who lived an amazingly full and influential life and whose absence will leave a gaping hole in our lives.  Amongst many other ... Read More

Kat: I’ve been sick with COVID, so I’ve spent the last few days doing almost nothing but listening to audiobooks. Since you heard from me last a few weeks ago, I’ve read all of these relatively short novels:  Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord, Patternmaster by Octavia Butler, Read More

Marion: After A Novel Way to Die by Ali Brandon, a light “bookstore murder mystery” with a cat that solves crimes and leaves its human clues by pulling books off the bookstore shelves (the titles contain clues); I DNF’d a domestic thriller I won’t name. I’m only half-joking when I say that I couldn’t relate to the “woman in danger” MC, who goes into basically a fugue state when she’s writing (she’s on her 5th best-seller when the book opens), and so has turned all her finances over to her attentive, failed-writer husband. What could possibly go wrong? I’ll never know, because I set the book aside when he buys a house with the royalties from her last book. I mean, I measure my royalties success in burritos. Now I’m safely back in the pages in Read More

Happy Easter!

Kat: Even though my phone is full of new audiobooks to review, this week I instead read a couple of short older books that have been sitting in my Audible library for years: The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells and The Patternmaster by Octavia Butler.


Read More

Marion: David Walton’s global adventure Living Memory doesn’t come out until October, but I really enjoyed the ARC I finished up. Now I’m about halfway through Max Gladstone’s Last Exit. The book is frustrating in a wonderful way–I keep having to stop and re-read, or at least think about, paragraphs because they are so perfect. I keep pausing in awe and going, “Oh, wow. Look what he did.”

Bill: Recent reading includes our own Marion Deeds’ highly enjoyable Co... Read More

This week, Batman, because of the new movie. I liked it! Maybe not as polished a plot as we've seen before, but deliciously vibey.

Batman: Field report for March: Crime appreciably down during St. Patrick's Day. Lacking any Irish-themed villain, I feel that the rest of my rogues' gallery assumes that the day must be someone else's turf and does not turn up. Very gratifying. I suppose there's always Calendar Man, but no one really seems to care about Calendar Man. Spent most of the night trying to find crime amidst shrieks of drunk college students and blaring Dropkick Murphys songs. Thought I spotted a Riddler crime in process, only to reflect that a group of men in green bowler hats running amok does not necessarily mean anything this month. In the meantime, someone pissed on the Batmobile. Tracked the culprit all of five meters to where he'd passed out on a pile of trash bags. Oh well. April Fool's Day next - th... Read More

Character update will return next week. :)

Kat: I’ve been reading L.E. Modesitt Jr’s ECOLITAN books: The Ecolitan Operation, The Ecologic Secession, The Ecologic Envoy, and The Ecolitan Enigma. Life is really busy right now and I’m struggling to get any reviews out. I hope things will settle down soon.

Marion: I’m finishing up Kit Maquist’s... Read More

Supergirl: The other day, I saved an old man who hated superheroes. I was carrying him out of a burning building and not hurrying because there were a lot of us and I couldn't X-ray vision anyone else inside. And this old man piped up all about how he was sorry to say it, but he just couldn't stand superheroes. I thought it was an odd thing to tell the person dangling you three stories up, but sure, whatever, sometimes the primary colors are a lot for me too. So I asked him why, and he went into this whole speech about how things were classier in the good old days, with the colorful gangsters and natural disasters and spontaneous a capella performances. I asked him how we'd stopped that last one, and he went on another grump about how superheroes made it so no one else looked good, so nobody wanted to try a capella or cowboy guitar or whatever.  Apparently we're just too big and dumb and flashy with our muscles and our cap... Read More

This week, Galadriel.

Galadriel: It is the time in Lothlorien when we honor love. At least, it is that time inasmuch as it is ever any specific time in Lothlorien, as time is something of which we of the wood think little. Seasons change and the world runs by about the eaves of Lorien, yet ever it is our desire to forget that so long has passed from long-ago days. At least, that's what I told Celeborn this week when he mentioned I'd forgotten our anniversary. He got all shirty, as usual, and I had to go on about how I'd lost myself in reminiscences of a long-lost time when I wore a rich hauberk and carried a sword. I waxed quite poetic. Think he might have bought it. Mum's the word.

Bill: The highlight of the past two weeks was t... Read More

This week, Ron from Harry Potter.

Ron: You know, it occurred to me this week that the basilisk was moving through the plumbing back in second year. Yet to hear Harry tell it, the basilisk was a bloody great snake big as a house or whatnot. So either the pipes in this school are just enormous or Harry was misremembering. Come to think of it, nobody's ever around for the end of the adventures except Harry, most times, so no one's there to tell him he's seeing things or forgetting stuff. Maybe You-Know-Who never grew out the back of Quirrell's head. Could have been a trick of the light - who's to know? Or maybe there weren't that many Death Eaters in that graveyard - always seemed a bit unlikely that he'd get away against a whole team of them. And maybe it's a little unlikely that Harry single-handedly saves the school every... actually, maybe Harry's just a lying git.
... Read More

Peter Pan: I like having mothers, but they're always trying to make me grow up. Well, almost always. Sophie's my mother now. She's Wendy's daughter, or daughter's daughter, or daughter's daughter's niece. Or something. Anyway, mothers keep trying to make you grow up and be a man, so I expected Sophie would too, and I told her I wasn't about to grow up and get a beard and work in a bank. But then she kept agreeing with me. "No," she said, "it's actually a really bad time to be a grown-up. The houses are really expensive and the wages are really low and my mom says the American dream is dead." Then she started talking about late stage capitalism, and a lot of other boring stuff. I asked if I could fight late stage capitalism with my sword, but she said no. I could probably fight Jeff Bezos, though. I don't know if she was serious.

Bill: This wee... Read More

This week, Drizzt Do'Urden of Dungeons and Dragons fame.

Drizzt: I learned some deeply troubling news this week. While attending the annual Brooding Drow with Swords Meeting (can't think why people keep snickering when I use the acronym), I found myself unexpectedly one of the very few dark elf warriors remaining. Why, for many years one could scarcely swing a +2 defending scimitar without hitting at least three somber but noble members of my race. I have often reflected that my own modest example must have inspired others, and it has been a source of no small pride to me. Yet lately, the meeting's hallowed halls ring empty, and this last time the mood was especially subdued. I sought out my old comrade Liriel (veteran of many meetings), and asked her the problem. "Oh, fashions change, Drizzt," she said. "Now they're all being Vex and Percy." I inquired who these personages might be, whereup... Read More