Plenty more fun books on the docket this week!
Bill: This week I read the quietly engaging A Boy and His Dog at the end of the World by C.A. Fletcher; Scott Westerfeld’s Imposters (actually read last week), a solid but more YA and less satisfying return to the world of Uglies; and I’m currently in the midst of Human Errors by Nathan H. Lents, a light but interesting look at all the design flaws in our bodies (though he has yet to get to the one that prevents me from eating all the ice cream I want.). On audio, I continue to listen to the ever-entertaining and informative Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives, by Mark Miodownik. In media my son and I added one more episode each to our watch/rewatch of The Magicians and The X-Files, and I’ve started the second season of Sabrina, which I’m liking more than season one.
Jana: This week we got another blizzard/bomb cyclone — super fun, and it’s not at all weird that this happened exactly one month after March’s blizzard/bomb cyclone — so I spent that day drinking tea and reading Zen Cho‘s Hugo-nominated novelette, “If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again,” which I’ll review for SHORTS. I also read Emma Newman‘s first PLANETFALL novel, Planetfall, and then jumped forward to read the upcoming PLANETFALL novel, Atlas Alone. I agree with the general consensus that Planetfall is a weaker novel than the ones that came after it, but knowing that the series becomes much stronger helped me gloss over the shaky bits. Atlas Alone was thoroughly creepy and mind-bendy, and I liked it quite a lot. I’m still working on Jessica Brody & Joanna Rendell’s Sky Without Stars, which has an interesting setting but also has an insta-love triangle, so there’s some sour in the sweet. I’ve started Ashok K. Banker‘s Upon a Burning Throne, based on The Mahabharata, but it’s a doorstopper and I’m taking my time with it since I’m not terribly familiar with the source material and frequently want to stop and check details against the original just to see where Banker deviates or dovetails. And the to-be-reviewed pile continues to shrink, much to my joy and relief!
Kat: I didn’t at all plan this but I had a week of science fiction and fantasy set in Nigeria which makes a great setting for speculative fiction. I read Nnedi Okorafor’s story collection called Kabu-Kabu, then Tade Thompson’s Rosewater and The Rosewater Insurrection. All three were fabulous and reviews are coming soon.
Sandy: Moi? After reading the first five books of E. “Doc” Smith’s famed six-part LENSMAN series, what could I possibly be reading now but Book 6, the epic finale Children of the Lens? I am tearing through this one nicely and hope to have some words to say about it very shortly….
Terry: I finally finished Seven Blades in Black by Sam Sykes this week. It really picks up about three-quarters of the way through the book, when a lot of the main character’s motivation is finally explained, and the worldbuilding comes into focus. Since finishing, I’ve begun reading Packing My Library by Alberto Manguel, a lovely meditation on books and reading. I’m also deep into The City of Lost Fortunes by Bryan Camp, a noir urban fantasy set in New Orleans post-Katrina. And I’m nearly done with The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard, which has been nominated for a Nebula Award
Tim: This week, I finished Mary Stewart‘s The Crystal Cave, which was very good, and (because apparently one can never have enough King Arthur) began Bernard Cornwell‘s Excalibur, the third and final book in his WARLORD TRILOGY. I’m enjoying 5th century Britain so much that I’m wondering what else I can read in this time period.
I missed the deadline. I finished Rebecca Roanhorse’s original and engrossing fantasy TRAIL OF LIGHTNING and enjoyed it immensely. I followed that with several stories from the Mar/Apr issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Two music-themed stories that couldn’t be more different nestled together delightfully; Tina Connolly’s “Miscellaneous Notes From the Time an Alien Came to Band Camp Disguised as my Alto Sax” (Loved the narrative voice!) and the lovely, magical, tender and wicked “Postlude to the Afternoon of a Faun” by Jerome Stueart.