Sunday Status Update: March 22, 2020

Kat: Well, I’m teaching online only until the end of August, and all other campus meetings have been cancelled, as well as three family trips and multiple concerts and other events. So, that should give me a lot more time for reading in the next few months. This past week I read three novels. A Heart of Blood and Ashes, by Milla Vane, was simply dreadful. It’s getting a DNF from me. The other two novels were by Frank Chadwick: How Dark the World Becomes, and its sequel, Come the Revolution. These were entertaining. Reviews of all these are coming soon.

Marion: I finished Premee Mohammad’s gothic horror novel Beneath the Rising. A review will follow. The relationship between the two main characters brings a unique flavor to this storyline. I started The Relentless Moon, Book Three in Mary Robinette Kowal’s THE LADY ASTRONAUT series. Nicole Wargin is the first-person narrator in this one, since Elma is on her way to Mars, and the first part takes place on Earth, where people are beginning to push back against the rush to colonize Mars and the moon. Then I took a break to read Silent Voices, a mystery by Ann Cleeves.

Sandy: Moi? I am currently in the middle of my fourth book in a row from Armchair Fiction’s Lost World/Lost Race series, and have been enjoying this one very much indeed. The book in question is Charles W. Diffin’s Two Thousand Miles Below, which originally appeared in 1932, and I look forward to being able to share some thoughts with you all on this one very soon. Stay well till then….

Tadiana: I spent the whole of this last week plowing through John Scalzi’s entire INTERDEPENDENCY trilogy, rereading the first two books, The Collapsing Empire and The Consuming Fire, and then diving right into the advance copy of The Last Emperox. It’s a must-read for SF fans! My mind is so full of the INTERDEPENDENCY world right now that I can’t even remember what else I’ve read lately. *checks my Goodreads history* Oh yeah: In the last three weeks I’ve also read the Nebula-nominated novel Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, which was awesome; Stephen King’s The Institute, which was very readable and gripping; and Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini for some old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure.