Sunday Status Update: August 5, 2018

Brad: This week I’ve read crime fiction, comics, and some crime fiction comics. I’ve reread The Criminal: Coward by Ed Brubaker and Batman: Year One by Frank Miller. In crime fiction, I’ve reread See Them Die by Ed McBain. In terms of comics, I’ve been all over the place: I’ve been rereading Love & Rockets comics by Jaime Hernandez and a Kingpin story by Matthew Rosenberg. As usual these days, most of my reading has been rereading. Life is too short to read bad books, so I seem drawn to revisit the books I know already are great.

Bill: This week unfortunately fell into the pattern of Disappointing Second Books, including: Mystic Dragon by Jason Denzel, Moons of Barsk by Lawrence M. Schoen, and Castle of Stars: The Moon King by Alex Alice. Media fared no better. I was often bored by the surprisingly predictable Mission Impossible, and Netflix’s Extinction rode the back of a middle-of-the-film plot twist that lifted a bad movie for about 15 minutes before it fell back into still being a bad movie, one that would have made a better 30-minute Twilight Zone episode.  The one bright light this week was Killjoys, whose season two ending had me moved and surprised while its season three beginning had me laughing loud enough that my wife called up to ask what I was watching. Here’s hoping next week goes better . . .

Jana: This week was a pretty good one for reading, actually!  I knocked out Blood of Assassins and King of Assassins, books 2 and 3 in RJ Barker‘s WOUNDED KINGDOM trilogy. They’re increasingly more complex and consequential as each book goes along, and the third book had many kinds of wow waiting for me. I read and reviewed JY Yang‘s third TENSORATE novella, The Descent of Monsters, which you know I loved, and I’m currently working on a review of Rebecca Roanhorse’s debut novel Trail of Lightning, which is amazing and fresh and superlative. I’m not sure what I’ll be reading next, but I hope it’s something good!

Kat: It was finals week last week, and I had company, so I didn’t get much reading done. I did manage to finish Angel Station by Walter Jon Williams. It wasn’t bad but wasn’t great, either. A review will be coming soon. Not sure what I’m reading next….

Terry: I read Past Tense, the latest thriller by Lee Child; it was great fun. I continued my voyage through Mira Grant‘s NEWSFLESH novellas with All the Pretty Horses. And I read The Traitor’s Blade by Jennifer A. Nielsen. I’m now back to Robert Jackson Bennett‘s City of Stairs, and I’m also dipping into Uncommon Miracles by Julie C. Day.