We read a lot of fun books in this last full week of July!

Bill: I’ve been away on a long family road trip and then a family reunion, so I’ve missed some weeks. Mostly I was hiking, but I did get some fit some reading in between, including all six (so far) of Max Gladstone’s CRAFT series, which I liked quite a bit obviously; Every Hidden Thing, a rare disappointment from Kenneth Oppel, and Equations of Life, an excellent look at how life is constrained by the laws of physics by Charles S. Cockell. I’m currently about half-way through two other non-fiction books:  Jo Walton’s An Informal History of the Hugos, a collection of her blog entries from Tor.com about each year’s Hugo Awards and The Bone and Sinew of the Land by Anna Lisa Cox, about black settlers/pioneers in the colonies/territories/early states. Media-wise I finally was able to finish season three of The Expanse (great last few episodes and fantastic finale) and season two of Westworld (some great moments but also disappointing at times). And I loved, loved Antman and the Wasp, as did the rest of my family — small and fun and often oh-so-cleverly witty.

Jana: This week was okay for reading-time (but not great for writing-time, unfortunately–next week, though, will be much better). I read Rebecca Roanhorse’s debut novel, Trail of Lightning, which blew my socks right off; I read J.Y. Yang‘s third TENSORATE novella, The Descent of Monsters, which was fascinating and inventive; I also read Krista Van Dolzer’s Earth to Dad, a children’s book that’s about coping with loss on both the personal and planetary level. Reviews for these and a couple of other long-suffering books are in the works. As always, I have a HUGE stack of accumulating ARCs waiting for my attention, and my eternal hope is that I’ll have enough free time to get to them before they’re too far out of date.

Kat: I’ve just finished Charlie Fletcher‘s The Paradox and The Remnant, the second and third books in his THE OVERSIGHT trilogy, and William Gibson‘s Idoru.

Marion: I haven’t done a lot of reading this week. I am rereading Robert Jackson Bennett’s Foundryside (the ARC) and enjoying it every bit as much as I did the first time. I started The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay. It’s an old one of his, but beautiful. The rest of my reading time is divided between How to be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman, and the manuscripts of the workshop I’m in next week.

Terry: I have been surprisingly good at reserving reading time each day for the past couple of weeks. I’ve finished Marked by Benedict Jacka, and am wondering if that series might be getting played out; review to follow soon. I also finished The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard, which I apparently should have liked better than I did, according to reviews; I have my own review in the works. I read Ink, Iron and Glass by Gwendolyn Clare, which was just okay, and The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller, which I admired but did not enjoy, and boy, is that review going to be difficult to write! Finally, I’ve been reading Seanan McGuire‘s WAYWARD CHILDREN trilogy of novellas, and should finish the last of them, Beneath the Sugar Sky, by the time you read this. After that I’ll be back to trying to finish a great many books that still have bookmarks in them, including City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett, which I’m enjoying a great deal.

Tim: This week, I continued listening to Andrew Roberts’ Napoleon: A Life, which is very good but so, so loooooooong. I’ve also started two books in print: Philip K. Dick‘s Ubik and Andrzej Sapkowski‘s Time of Contempt. It’s hard to imagine two tones that are more dissimilar, but I’m enjoying both.

Author

  • Tim Scheidler

    TIM SCHEIDLER, who's been with us since June 2011, holds a Master's Degree in Popular Literature from Trinity College Dublin. Tim enjoys many authors, but particularly loves J.R.R. Tolkien, Robin Hobb, George R.R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, and Susanna Clarke. When he’s not reading, Tim enjoys traveling, playing music, writing in any shape or form, and pretending he's an athlete.