Sunday Status Update: May 13, 2012

Another week in May.

Bill: Sorry ’bout not responding lately–been crazy few weeks with big final projects and then big final papers (plus staying home with a sick ten-year-old).  But I just turned grades in yesterday so let the reading rompus (sigh) begin!

John: I finished reading Black-Winged Tuesday by Alicia Ryan and I really don’t know what to read next…  Work has been hectic so keeping up with reading has been….difficult!

Kat: As usual, I got a lot of audio reading done this past week including the novellas (or is that novellae?) Stonefather by Orson Scott Card, Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott, and The Night of the Long Knives by Fritz Leiber. I also read the first novel in Karl Schroeder’s VIRGA series, Sun of Suns. The best of these was Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions which was written in 1884 and is both a hilarious Victorian social satire and a brilliantly prophetic treatise on dimensionality.

Marion: I finished Prince of Ayodhya, by Ashok Banker, for the challenge list. This is a retelling of the Ramayana, and I love mythology, so I’m still working out exactly why this version didn’t work for me. This quarter’s Latham’s Quarterly  is titled” Means of Communication.” I’m having fun dipping into that, and I’m enjoying Diana Wynne Jones‘s classic Howl’s Moving Castle.

Terry: I spent this week reading all six of the novellas nominated for the Hugo Award this year. Because that amounts to reading a short novel every day, I’ve done little other reading. I did manage, though, to finish Joe McKinney‘s Flesh Eaters, which won the Stoker this year for reasons that completely escape me (it’s written competently, but there’s nothing new or especially admirable or exciting here). And I’m still trotting through Seanan McGuire‘s Discount Armageddon, which is fun — and I say that as one who does not normally care for SF intended to be amusing.

Tim: This week I read over an annotated copy of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. I’m told by affectionately despairing family members that I really should be able to cite the book chapter and verse at this point, but I did find some of the observations and supporting material interesting.  Also, I did finally see The Avengers. Wow. Hulk smash indeed.

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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