Author: Tim Scheidler

We’re reading lots of cool new books this week! Take a look!

Bill: This week I read Winter of the Witch, the excellent concluding volume of Katherine Arden’s quite good WINTERNIGHT TRILOGY and Robert Jackson Bennett’s sharply satirical Vigilance, which I had some issues with, as apparently did Marion. Stay tuned as we’ll hash those out in an upcoming dual review. I don’t’ usually highlight my children’s book reading here, but I’m making an exception for When the Whales Walked and other incredible evolutionary journeys,

Welcome to 2019! These are the books we’re reading to start off the year.

Bill:
This week I finished just one (very long) book, Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s Labyrinth of the Spirits, review to come. In genre, my son and I watched Ready, Player One which seemed over-long, overly enamored of pop references, and overly predictable.

Brad: This week I’ve mainly been reading comics, though I’ve read some bestsellers: Harari’s Sapiens and Macy’s Dopesick.

Happy New Year’s from FanLit!

Bill: This week, amongst enjoying a horde of family and a warehouse of food, I read and fully enjoyed S.A. Chakraborty’s The City of Brass and its sequel The Kingdom of Copper.  I also read J.Y. Yang’s The Black Tides of Heavenwhich I thought fine enough even if it left me a bit confused on the effusive praise, though I’ll continue on with The Red Threads of Fortune. I’m currently reading my Christmas present of The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafón though that may take some time as its 800+ pages and I’m also frantically trying to finish a portal story,

Christmas is just about here, but that’s no reason to stop reading!

Marion: Reading published works hasn’t made it much to the top of my list this week, but I did finally get to start re-reading Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed. I was worried that maybe it hadn’t aged well since the 1980s but the power dynamic is still believable… and Butler dragged me into the story from the first paragraph.

Sandy: Moi? I am just about finished with The Sapphire Goddess: The Fantasies of Nictzin Dyalhis and hope to get a review written for you all very shortly.

We’re halfway through December, with plenty of books on the docket!

Bill: The past two weeks I’ve read
• Breach by W. L. Goodwater, an OK Cold War fantasy (think Le Carre with magic)
• The Echo Room by Parker Peevyhouse, a disappointing YA that didn’t live up to its opening
• Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec  Nevala-Lee: an engaging pop culture history of early sci-fi
• Never Home Alone by Rob Dunn,

As we start December, it’s time for more reading!

Jana: This week I read Sarah Beth Durst‘s upcoming YA novel Fire & Heist, which is chock-a-block with wyverns, nerdy references, and more than one well-written heist; then I read J. Barton Mitchell’s The Razor, which has some neat ideas and a prison planet that I hope will be further explored in subsequent books. Reviews in progress. I also read Sarah Andersen’s Herding Cats, a collection of her funny and insightful comic strips,

As November draws to a close, we’re reading some fun books!

Bill: This week, like so many others, was involved in travel and family. I did manage to finish the OK but overall disappointing Once Upon a River by Dianne Setterfield.

Marion: I read Alexandra Rowland’s A Conspiracy of Truths last week, and enjoyed it. Right now, I’m reading Mansfield Park, the one Jane Austen book I haven’t read before. Austen was an astute observer of human behavior and had lots of insight into her society and its mores,

We’re reading a lot of new books this week!

Bill: This week I read Lavie Tidhar’s excellent Unholy Land, which will probably be going on my Best of 2018 list, and Marcia Bartuskiak’s Dispatches from Planet 3, a highly readable series of short but informative essays on astronomy and astrophysics. On audio I’m still enthralled by Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Our Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky, which will definitely be on that Best of list.

We read a few more fun books this week!

Bill: This week I finally finished Seth Dickinson’s The Monster Baru Cormorant, a novel I admired more than enjoyed.  I also read How to Love the Universe: A Scientist’s Odes to the Hidden Beauty Behind the Visible World by Stefan Klein, a nicely written overview of a dozen or so major concepts of modern physics. On audio, I continue to be captivated by Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Our Worst by Robert M.