Jana: This week I started reading An Easy Death, the first book in Charlaine Harris’ GUNNIE ROSE Weird West/alternate-history series, so that I’ll know what’s happening when I read A Longer Fall, the second (and just-published) instalment. For fun, I’m doing a re-read of the various Anne McCaffrey PERN books in my personal library, but the order I’m reading them in will be chronological determined by in-book events, so I’m beginning with Dragonsdawn. I’ve never actually read them this way, so I’m excited and curious to see how the internal chronology holds up across the decades that McCaffrey was writing them.
Bill: Since my last status I read: A Queen in Hiding by Sarah Kozloff, Batman and Ethics by Mark D. White, Shatter City by Scott Westerfeld The Bard’s Blade by Brian D. Anderson, Strange Exit by Parker Peevyhouse, Unfortunately they all ranged from solid at best to disappointing. Outside of genre, I finished The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (best book this month so far) and a poetry collection by Christian Wiman — Survival is a Style. In audio I finished Skeleton Keys: The Secret Life of Bone and am currently listening to The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform The Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris, both excellent.
Marion: I finished Ghost Summer Stories, Tananarive Due’s short story collection. The stories are broken into four sections, by theme, and the book opens with a trio of tales set in Due’s imaginary haunted Florida town Gracetown. I love Due’s characters. Later stories included zombies, one of my least-favorite tropes, but she made them work. I’ve just started an historical novel by Ian Weir called Will Starling, set in London shortly after the end of the Peninsular Wars, following a surgeon and a group of “resurrection men.” So far it’s intriguing and good.
Tadiana: Yesterday I discovered a new INNKEEPER CHRONICLES novella by Ilona Andrews had come out while I wasn’t paying attention to their website. I bought and read Sweep with Me the same evening. #noregrets I didn’t like it quite as well as my favorites in that series, but it was definitely fun escapism. In the last couple of weeks I’ve also read Mark Lawrence’s Dispel Illusion, the final book in his IMPOSSIBLE TIMES time travel SF trilogy; Michael J. Sullivan’s Age of Legends, the fourth book in his LEGENDS OF THE FIRST EMPIRE epic fantasy series; and Jojo Moyes’ latest book, The Giver of Stars, a historical fiction novel based on the Pack Horse Librarians in 1930s-era rural Kentucky, which was a nice change of pace. Lots of reviews to catch up on!
Tim: This week, I began The Worm Ouroboros, a venerable fantasy novel by E.R. Eddison. The novel is very interesting so far, not least in showing just how much the style of a high fantasy novel has changed since it was written (nearly a hundred years ago!). It’s always fun to explore one of the old classic works of the genre.
Tim, I loved Ouroboros back when I read in high school and then again a few years later. Always wanted to go back a third (possibly fourth) time.