Sunday Status Update: April 4, 2022

Marion: David Walton’s global adventure Living Memory doesn’t come out until October, but I really enjoyed the ARC I finished up. Now I’m about halfway through Max Gladstone’s Last Exit. The book is frustrating in a wonderful way–I keep having to stop and re-read, or at least think about, paragraphs because they are so perfect. I keep pausing in awe and going, “Oh, wow. Look what he did.”

Bill: Recent reading includes our own Marion Deeds’ highly enjoyable Comeuppance Served Cold (no review since obvious conflict, but — checks to make sure nobody is listening/looking — you should read it); Kel Kade’s solid fantasy Destiny of the Dead; Roy Scheele’s wonderfully musical poetry collection, Produce Wagon; Rachel E. Gross’ excellent non-fiction work Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage, and a third reading of Guy Gavriel Kay’s All the Seas of the World because life intervened before I could write a review after the first two. But it’s Kay, so a third reading was more than fine. In audio I finished the absolutely fantastic and highly recommended This is the Voice by John Colapinto. In video, my wife and I are finding AppleTV’s Severance absolutely compelling.  Can’t recommend it enough.  And when my wife goes to bed, my son and I (via Facetime) are watching and thoroughly enjoying Netflix’s All of Us Are Dead, a South Korean zombie series. And I’ve just started and am so far enjoying Doom Patrol.

Sandy: Moi? I am currently reading still another offering in Armchair Fiction’s ongoing Lost World/Lost Race series, this one being English author Henry Carew’s Vampires of the Andes (1925). It’s taking me a while to get through this one, not just because it is a longish book, but rather because the book is SO intricately plotted and rife with historical and geographical detail. Still, I am nearing the conclusion, and hope to share some thoughts on this one with you all very shortly….

Terry: On Marion’s recommendation, I’ve started Everfair by Nisi Shawl. I’m not far enough along to make any comment except that I’m having fun with it. I’m also reading Stacy Abrams’ mystery, While Justice Sleeps, which is making me giggle far more often than is seemly, given that it’s not a comedy; she’s just got lawyers so very, very right. I’ve also started reading the run of CONSTANTINE graphic novels, by writer Ray Fawkes and artist Renato Guedes. One forgets how cavalier Constantine is about lives lost to his magic; it somehow comes as a shock every time.