Author: Tim Scheidler

Kat: Due to a very busy week, plus Thanksgiving, I have not progressed much since last week. I continue to listen to Marissa Meyer’s LUNAR CHRONICLES with my daughter. We will probably finish the fourth book, Winter, today. I’m also still reading Poul Anderson’s The Boat of a Million Years. As I mentioned last week, it’s long!

Marion: I finished up Riley Sager’s 2020 haunted house story, Home Before Dark.

Kat:  I continue to listen to Marissa Meyer’s LUNAR CHRONICLES with my daughter. We finished the third book, Cress, last night. We’ll be starting the fourth one, Winter, today. I’m also reading Poul Anderson’s The Boat of a Million Years. It’s long, so it will probably take me a while.

Bill: We’re into the first stage of final papers now, so not a lot of reading this week or coming up beyond those.

Jana: This week I’m reading You Feel it Just Below the Ribs, a novel set within the world of Within the Wires, a podcast co-created by Jeffrey Cranor (of Welcome to Night Vale fame) and Janina Matthewson. The novel and podcast are set in an alternate timeline in which the entire world’s economy and societal structure have been re-organized in the wake of a horrible global cataclysm; the podcast is told through “found audio” sources throughout different decades, and the novel is presented as a found journal with heavy annotations from its fictional editor/publication house.

Kat: Still listening to Marissa Meyer’s LUNAR CHRONICLES with my daughter and will finish the second book, Scarlett, today. These are fun. For something completely different, I read The Psychedelic Reader: Selected from the Psychedelic Review which was published in 1965 and edited by Timothy Leary. Some of it was boring, some of it was crazy, and some was quite fascinating.

Bill: This week I read Jeanette Winterson’s collection of essays on AI, 12 Bytes,

Kat: With book five, Last Dragon Standing, I have finished Rachel Aaron’s HEARTSTRIKERS series. My daughter and I enjoyed it. Now we have started Marissa Meyer’s LUNAR CHRONICLES and will finish the first book, Cinder, today. So far, we’re entertained, and we plan to pick up the second book, Scarlet, next.

Bill: This week I read Amanda Moore’s poetry collection Requeening, the challenging Understanding Genes by Kostas Kampourakis,

Kat: Since you heard from me a couple of weeks ago, I’ve read four of the five novels in Rachel Aaron’s HEARTSTRIKERS series: Nice Dragons Finish Last, One Good Dragon Deserves Another, No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished, and A Dragon of a Different Color. Also Andre Norton’s MOONSINGER / MOON MAGIC series:  Moon of Three Rings, Exiles of the Stars,

Jana: This week I read A. Deborah Baker’s Along the Saltwise Sea again, and enjoyed it a bit more the second time around. Little bits that were unclear in my ARC made more sense in the finished copy, thankfully, and I hope to have a joint review with Tadiana for you soon. I also read Cassandra Khaw’s Nothing But Blackened Teeth, which unsettled me in all the best ways, and was a perfect companion for a chilly October evening.

Bill: This week was mostly reading papers again.

Jana: This week I read two upcoming novellas: Catherynne M. Valente’s Comfort Me with Apples, which is surprisingly complex despite being quite short, and Along the Saltwise Sea, the second of A. Deborah Baker’s UP-AND-UNDER series, which is full of delightful fun and clever ideas. (And now I’m really excited for Seasonal Fears, the second in Seanan McGuire’s MIDDLEGAME series, because I want to see how these two books dovetail.)

Bill: This past week was pretty much student papers,

Kat: Since you heard from me last, two weeks ago, I’ve managed to consume Dread Companion and Night of Masks by Andre Norton (still listening to the audiobooks released this year by Tantor Audio), A Tale of Two Castles by Gail Carson Levine, and three of R.L. Stine’s GOOSEBUMPS stories: Stay Out of the Basement, Monster Blood, and Night of the Living Dummy.

Marion: If you’re looking for a spooky “dark carnival” book to head into fall with, I finished Bacchanal by Veronica G. Henry, and I recommend it. I liked the complex loyalties of the carnies, the touch of an all-Black carnival working the American south and southwest (with all the mundane danger that implies) and the creepy little stories about the carnival that Henry weaves into the tale. I read two comic book collections: Batwoman: Elegy. I loved the art,and  the backstory about Kate getting kicked out of West Point was good.