Kat: My daughter and I finished Marissa Meyer’s final LUNAR CHRONICLES novel, Winter, and now we’re reading a collection of prequel stories for that series. I finally finished Poul Anderson’s The Boat of a Million Years. I’m not sure what I’m going to read next but I have more than 50 audiobooks loaded onto my phone (most are review copies!), so there are many choices!
Bill: I remain buried under student papers, but did manage to finish M.A. Carrick’s The Liar’s Knot — the quite good sequel to the quite good Mask of Mirrora — and Horizons: The Global Origins of Modern Science by James Poskett, in which he brings to light the many overlooked contributions non-Westerners have made to science. In between papers, I’m currently enjoying Bradley Beaulieu’s 1920’s-set Absynthe, which I’m about two-thirds through. As for TV: I remain unimpressed by Wheel of Time and Discovery (may be giving up on the latter) but entirely impressed by how spectacularly, entertainingly bad La Brea is, enjoyed the final season of Lost in Space, am still mostly liking Invasion, and thought Finch and Jungle Cruise were solidly entertaining, but both would have fared much worse without their highly likable actors (Tom Hanks/Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson) carrying the formulaic scripts
Marion: I have nearly finished the third book in Beth Cato’s BLOOD OF EARTH series, Roar of Sky. Cato embraces the story’s steampunk roots, as Ingrid, Cy and Fenris go up against a literal flying citadel. I’m halfway through The Sentence, Louise Erdrich’s haunted bookstore story.
Terry: This week I read Reality: And Other Stories by John Lanchester. It was okay, but it reminded me again of how mainstream writers think they’re being utterly transgressive and original when they write a short story with a plot that science fiction and fantasy treats as common and no longer very interesting. I’ve since started Joe Ledger: Secret Missions Volume One and Two by Jonathan Maberry, which is the purest brain candy.
Tim: This week, I listened to Matt Haig‘s The Midnight Library after hearing some rave reviews. It’s an interesting premise and I enjoyed it, though after a while the Quantum Leap shenanigans begin to feel a touch same-y (partially because the protagonist never seems to figure out how to avoid acting like a blatant amnesiac).
Tim, I enjoyed THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY but had some of the same problems you did. I think the books’ saving grace was the librarian.
Recently finished the latest Outlander book, Go Tell the Bees I’m Gone. It was just as full of fun and intrigue as the rest of them, although this time around Brianna and William take center stage.