Sunday Status Update: October 9, 2011

Rather uneventful week this time around, evidently, but we still had a few occurences of note.

Bill: This past week I read the concluding book in Marie Rutkoski’s charming YA trilogy which began with the simply wonderful Cabinet of Wonders and closed quite nicely with The Jewel of Kalderash. Even if it doesn’t end as well as it began, I highly recommend it, as you’ll see in the coming review. My son Kaidan and I continue to read Brian Selznick’s Wonderstruck, a captivating twinned tale:  one storyline told all in text, the other all in illustrations. I’ve also finally picked up Diane Ackerman‘s One Hundred Names for Love, her book about her husband’s devastating stroke and subsequent struggle to regain the language that had been so much his life as a poet and novelist. So far it’s as moving and strongly written as I expected.

Greg: Kovacs is just about to figure out who did what and why in Richard Morgan‘s Altered Carbon, and I’m just at tantalized by the mystery as he is. Awesome book. I’m heading to a SC beach tomorrow for the weekend, so maybe all will be revealed while I’m there.

Kat: On audio I finished Kevin Hearne’s Hammered, the third in his IRON DRUID CHRONICLES, Fritz Leiber’s fourth LANKHMAR novel, Swords Against Wizardry, and Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Wandering Fire, the second in his FIONAVAR TAPESTRY. I didn’t care too much for the first FIONAVAR book because it was so heavy and melodromatic, but I’d already purchased The Wandering Fire at Audible, so I gave it a try. I feel pretty much the same way about it as I did about the first book. I won’t read the third. (I love GGK’s later work, though.) The next audiobook I’ve started is Ursula Le Guin’s Changing Planes, which I like so far.

Stefan: I was eaten by the Deadline Monster last week and completely forgot to send in my update, so this one actually covers the past two weeks. I read both The Other Lands and The Sacred Band, books 2 and 3 in David Anthony Durham‘s ACACIA trilogy, but “had” to take a break between the two to read an early copy of Context, a great new collection of essays by Cory Doctorow. After that I practically zoomed through Necropolis, the forthcoming noir SF debut novel by Michael Dempsey. And just now I’m starting Stormed Fortress, the eighth book in the excellent WARS OF LIGHT AND SHADOW series by Janny Wurts, because I may soon be getting a rare and elusive ARC of the long awaited ninth book in the series, Initiate’s Trial, due out later this month. So many good books, so little time…

Terry: I’m trying to catch up on Michael Connelly‘s HARRY BOCSH mysteries, so this week I read The Closer. It’s scrupulously plotted, but the writing seemed a touch lacking to me. I also made a trip to a comics store — first time in my new hometown — and discovered a few new titles and a lot of old ones on which I need to catch up. I even bought boxes and dividiers in order to start organizing my collection, which has been hidden away in brown packing boxes for most of the past decade. Yes, I’m this compulsive about most things. I’m reading the first two issues of the rebooted DC title, Animal Man, with the new Swamp Thing to follow. I’m also still reading a new (to me, at least) magazine, Fantastique Unfettered, and I’ve started reading another of the Booker Prize nominees, Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers. And I finished Tim Powers‘s The Bible Repairman; review to follow shortly. It was a good week.

Tim: It’s been a very busy week for me, but I’ve moved a little further along in Gene Wolfe‘s Claw of the Conciliator, which I’m enjoying very much. I’ve also been reading a mid-2000s Daredevil run by Brian Michael Bendis, which came recommended and I’ve been rather pleased with as a bit of gritty superhero fiction.

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.

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