Sunday Status Update: September 19, 2021

Marion: If you’re looking for a spooky “dark carnival” book to head into fall with, I finished Bacchanal by Veronica G. Henry, and I recommend it. I liked the complex loyalties of the carnies, the touch of an all-Black carnival working the American south and southwest (with all the mundane danger that implies) and the creepy little stories about the carnival that Henry weaves into the tale. I read two comic book collections: Batwoman: Elegy. I loved the art,and  the backstory about Kate getting kicked out of West Point was good. Overall, though, while Kate mouths words about finding a “way to serve,” the story is all about her, and personal vengeance. I also read Book One of The Old Guard. For this one, the artwork baffled me, but I loved the growing relationship between Andromachne AKA Andy, and newcomer Nile.

Bill: This week I read the wonderfully fantastic The Escapement by Lavie Tidhar (will be on my best of the year list), the very good Harlem Shuffle (great main character) by Colson Whitehead, and  the somewhat disappointing Doctoring the Black Death by John Aberth. In genre TV, I continue to enjoy Marvel’s What If? and because it was so surreal and thus at least genre adjacent, I’m also tossing in the most recent and as always quite good episode of Ted Lasso.

Sandy: Moi? I am currently reading a novel from 1943 entitled Empire of Jegga, by the author David V. Reed. This is a remarkably complexly plotted space opera that has really sucked me right in, and I do look forward to sharing some thoughts on it with you all very shortly….

Terry: I just finished When Sorrows Come by Seanan McGuire, the latest OCTOBER DAYS urban fantasy. It’s excellent! And I was delighted to get to the end and find that there’s a novella in the book that picks up  immediately when the novel itself ends. That means I have more good stuff to read from McGuire right away, and that’s always a joy.