Sunday Status Update: June 28, 2020

Jana: This week I read Lina Rather’s Sisters of the Vast Black, a novella with lots of interesting characters and concepts, and a little more hand-waving than I’d prefer when it comes to hard details like timeline and spatial relations. I’m also reading Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars, which I’m really enjoying despite my constant story-induced anxiety. Kowal’s writing is evocative and compelling, to say the least.

Bill: This week I read Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth, which turned out to be one of those books I wish I hadn’t known anything about so I could think it was very good instead of thinking it wasn’t as good as I’d expected given the write-ups. I also read The Big Book of Mars, by Kevin Hartzman, which had solid text but excellent visuals and Thief of Time by Tony Hillerman, the first of his I read ages ago and which held up quite nicely as I reread the series with my son.  In visual media, my son and I continue on with Grimm, and also watched two of my favorites:  Defending Your Life and Groundhog Day.

Kelly: This weekend I’m hoping to finish Scarlet Odyssey, C.T. Rwizi’s debut fantasy set in a world based on sub-Saharan Africa. There’s a learning curve to it, as it throws a lot of concepts and POVs at you right away, but it’s gotten really interesting. I’ve also started The Golden Fleece by Robert Graves, and oh boy is it chock-a-block with Graves’s idiosyncrasies.

Marion: I’m reading John Connolly’s latest Parker book, A Book of Bones. I don’t know if it’s me or the story, but I’m having trouble staying with this one. It might be the number of POV shifts, and how long we stay in the heads of certain evil minions. As always, a Parker book is a mashup of detective suspense and dark fantasy, and this book seems to be heading toward a resolution of one of the multi-book arcs. I also read a Connolly novella online, “The Sisters Strange,” which I had a much easier time with.

Sandy: Moi? I am about to begin a book by Olaf Stapledon entitled Sirius, which is currently in the running to win the Retro Hugo Award for Best Novel, 1944. This will be the first novel that I have ever read by the British author, so I suppose I am long overdue. I’m hoping for the best, as the story supposedly concerns a dog with abnormally high intelligence and is deemed something of a classic. I hope to be able to report back to you all on this one shortly….