Marion: I finished Garth Nix’s latest, The Sinister Booksellers of Bath; it was fun spending time with the characters we met in the Left-Handed Booksellers of London. I just started Alaya Dawn Johnson’s lyrical, complex new book The Library of Broken Worlds. I’m loving every description, every secret, every mystery.
Bill: Since our last status I’ve read
- Blade of Dream by Daniel Abraham: book two in another excellent series by him
- Nightborn: Coldfire Rising by C.S. Friedman: solid prequel to an all-time favorite trilogy
- Light Bringer by Pierce Brown: operatic in scale/voice but series is feeling its length
- The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei: a somewhat thin sci-fi mystery that felt a bit YA
- Val Hall: The Odd Years by Alma Alexander: neat collection of retired “third-class superhero” tales
- The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera: this debut didn’t meet its potential but has me interested to see more from the author
- Shigidi and The Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi: a fun and moving heist fantasy against a backdrop of Yoruba folktales/myths
- House of Odysseus by Claire North: a continuation of an excellent series
- Medusa’s Sisters by Lauren J.A. Bear: a very good reimagining
- Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes: a disappointing reimagining
- French Braid by Ann Tyler: very Ann Tyler-y (a good thing)
- Ohio by Stephen Markley: wonderfully written
- The Revolution of the Moon by Andrea Camilleri: fun historical novel
- Fatal Legacy by Lindsay Davis: disappointing historical mystery
- Euphoria: a wonderfully voiced novel by Lily King
- Song of Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay: Kay so enough said
- The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman: quite good collection of interconnected stories
- Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin: really enjoyed this
- Field of Light and Shadow by David Young: a good poetry collection
- Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us by Keggie Carew: an excellent look at our lengthy (often depressing) history with those we share the planet with
- Cro-Magnon by Trenton Holliday: a dense but excellent exploration of our early relatives
Empire of the Steppes by Kenneth W. Harl: am informative look at the nomads of the European steppes and their impact - And in audio I’m up to book 15 of the Didius Falco books by Lyndsay Davis and still enjoying my reread/listen
Sandy: Moi? I recently finished reading another book by one of my all-time favorite authors, Algernon Blackwood; his 1918 offering called The Promise of Air, which, no surprise, is incredibly beautifully written … not to mention mind expanding and eye opening, in Blackwood’s best manner. Currently, I am reading another of Thorne Smith’s hilarious fantasy creations, this one entitled Skin and Bones, from 1933. This book is really making me laff out loud and I look forward to sharing some thoughts on it with you all very shortly….
Terry: It’s been awhile since I reported here, and I’ve been a busy reader! I read Seanan McGuire’s Sleep No More and The Innocent Sleep, the new OCTOBER DAYE novels, both coming out this fall (both were good, but it was especially fun to hear Tybalt’s voice in the second); Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee, which was a very good story, and proof of my longstanding claim that novellas are a great length for SF, fantasy and horror; No Choice by K.J. Parker, another novella that came with my purchase of Under the Skin from Subterranean Press, Parker’s latest short fiction collection; Wild Spaces by S.L. Coney, an excellent coming-of-age horror novella; Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross, which was okay but forgettable; Starter Villain by John Scalzi, which is clever and fun and a very fast and delightful read; Pomegranates by Priya Sharma, which was a Shirley Jackson Award nomination this year, and is a beautifully written take on the myth of Hades, Demeter and Persephone; The Bone Lantern by Angela Slatter, which just won the Shirley Jackson Award for best novella; Mislaid In Parts Unknown, Seanan McGuire’s most recent WAYWARD CHILDREN novella, coming out in January; and I finally finished Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham, leaving me eager to start the next in the series. I also read a couple of Robert J. Parker’s Spenser mysteries (Chance and Hundred-Dollar Baby), more of Louise Penny’s THREE PINES mysteries (Kingdom of the Blind, A Better Man, All the Devils Are Here and The Madness of Crowds); the first of Alan Bradley’s Falvia de Luce mysteries (The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie); and the most recent ORPHAN X novel, Lone Wolf, coming out early next year.
Am partway into The Books of the South, the second omnibus volume of Black Company novels by Glen Cook. Former annalist Croaker is now captain and leading a much diminished Company south in hopes of finding lost annals that reveal more about the Company’s history. As they pick up new recruits, they predictably also encounter new adversaries and get embroiled in local conflicts. So far Croaker’s on again-off again relationship with the Lady (their villainous employer from the Books of the North) is not resolving itself one way or the other.
Prior to that, I read two translated horror collections, The Black Maybe (Attila Veres) and A Different Darkness (Luigi Musolino), neither of which appealed to me that much, despite the recommendations from Brian Evenson. The Veres was a little more subtle and didn’t jump straight into the horror aspect like the Musolino did, so I liked it somewhat better. But I was hoping for something more Aickmanesque, since Evenson comes close to that in some of his stories. Next up is probably The Queen of the High Fields, a short novel by Rhiannon Grist. For non-fiction I have Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys, a travel memoir by Amelia Edwards, and The Modern Weird Tale by S. T. Joshi (what it says on the tin) waiting to be read.
someday I’ll have to do another reread of those Cook books which I mostly loved
I just started the third book included in the omnibus, The Silver Spike, and I feel like I’ve been baited and switched! We’re back in the north with Raven in this one. Arrgh! I wanted to find out what happened to the Lady after the cliffhangerish end of the second book, not go back to the north again. Darn. Have you read the whole series? I was hopping to get a completed story line in this omnibus, but it looks like I may have to read all ten books to get it.