Jana: This week I was ridiculously busy, but I did manage to read Emily Skrutskie’s Hullmetal Girls, a YA milSF novel chock-full of strong female characters, and I started reading RJ Barker‘s Blood of Assassins, the first sequel to Age of Assassins (and since the trilogy will be concluding soon, with King of Assassins, I’m trying to get myself caught up). Hopefully I’ll have some time next week to get some outstanding reviews finished up, too!
Kat: I didn’t have much reading time this week, unfortunately. Today I hope to finish The Paradox by Charlie Fletcher. This is a sequel to The Oversight, which I loved. Something surprising about The Paradox: One of the reasons I loved The Oversight was that the audio version was narrated by Simon Prebble, one of the very best narrators in the business. I was put off when I saw that the sequels were narrated by the author himself but, you know what? He’s really good!
Marion: I’m reading Age of Swords, the second book in the new epic fantasy series THE LEGENDS OF THE FIRST EMPIRE by Michael J. Sullivan. It’s more derivative than the first book, but still rollicking good fun and I like the bit of a role-reversal that he pulls off here. I’m also wading through rivers of fictional blood as I near the end of Mats Strandberg’s gory and affecting horror novel Blood Cruise.
Nathan: I’m still reading Dyrk Ashton’s Paternus and dipping back into Marc Aramini’s Between Light and Shadow: An Exploration of the Fiction of Gene Wolfe.
Sandy: Moi? I am about to embark on a vacation to the great American Northwest – Alaska, to be precise – and have decided on the perfect book to bring along to read while I’m there: Northwest Smith! This 1981 collection by author C.L. Moore contains 300 pages of short stories featuring one of Moore’s most famous characters, and of course kicks off with “Shambleau,” one of the greatest sci-fi tales ever written. (And if you haven’t read this story yet, a story that thrilled and amazed Weird Tales readers back in 1933, well then, GET ON IT!) I haven’t read this collection in over 30 years and do look forward to reacquainting myself with it … as well as reviewing this anthology for you when I return…
Tadiana: I just finished Game of the Gods, a SF dystopian novel by Jay Schiffman, his debut novel. It wasn’t what I hoped for, unfortunately. Melissa McShane, an author whose fantasies I’ve enjoyed very much, is dipping a toe in the urban fantasy genre with her new series, THE LAST ORACLE, about a young woman who inherits a magical bookstore that functions as an oracle for the magic practitioners hiding among us. I’ve read the first two books in that series, The Book of Secrets and The Book of Peril. Reviews for all pending!
Sandy, Wow! Alaska! I think you’re bringing the right book.
Anything to get out of the soupy swamp that is NYC in the summertime!
Sandy,
I signed up for Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited this past week, 99 cents for 3 months. I’ve been having a hard time finding stuff I want to read. Northwest Smith is available. Yay! I’ll be reading it soon. Thanks for the recommendation.