Sunday Status Update: November 8, 2020

Marion: I finished the wonderful Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse, and how I’m browsing the Nov/Dec issue of F&SF Magazine. Effective with the spring, 2021 issue that magazine will have a new editor, Sheree Renee Thomas, as C.C. Finlay retires. I’m curious about what changes that will bring.

Bill: This week in between student papers and election-watching I read two DC comics reference books by Robert Greenberger:  Batman:  100 Greatest Moments and Flash:  100 Greatest Moments, as well as How To Survive in Ancient Rome by L.J. Trafford.  And I started Brandon Sanderson’s Rhythm of War, getting to the end of Part One, which, since it’s the typically massive STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE book, is basically a novel in itself. In genre TV, I watched the first two episodes of The Mandalorian second season—the first enjoyable though too long and the second disappointing. I was also disappointed by the most recent episode of Discovery. I’ve also started Amazon Prime’s Truth Seekers, a sort of minor-level, gently humorous cross between X-Files and Ghostbusters.

Terry: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley proved so enjoyable that almost the moment I finished it I started the sequel, The Lost Future of Pepperharrow. Both titles are sufficiently wonderful to have drawn me in by themselves, but the characters are what keep me there. I’m also reading the new JACK REACHER thriller by Lee Child, The Sentinel, which is precisely on brand despite the fact that Child’s brother, Andrew, co-authored it.

Tim: This week I worked on my review of Jim Butcher‘s Battle Ground (still forthcoming, I swear!) in and around a deluge of papers to grade. I also began reading Kiersten White‘s The Guinevere Deception (all part of my contractual obligation to read everything Arthurian that passes under my nose). It’s an interesting take so far, though I’m enough of a purist that I start huffing to myself whenever somebody changes long-standing elements of the legend “just ’cause.” I’m only a little way in, and White’s already got me going.