because books are easy to write about
Dec. 23rd, 2020 03:46 pmWhat are you reading now?
When I was in late elementary school there was a short-lived media property centered around Photon, aka "a Lazer Tag knockoff": a TV show that lasted one season which I saw bits of, a series of kids' books which I read two or three of and enjoyed... and a single YA/grown-up-SF novel, Thieves of Light, which I read and reread to death. A few years ago I looked it up and it turns out it was written by a Real Live Writer, Michael P. Kube-McDowell. ("Taking some liberties with the source material, I managed to turn in a military-SF coming-of-age story which I would not be embarrassed to have appear (or reappear) under my own name, and to do it in under sixty days. I still consider both parts of that achievement a small miracle.") Anyway, I stumbled across a copy in Smithers on Monday night, and am now about a third of the way in. It holds up reasonably well, I think, but I doubt I can be objective about it.
"We're traveling too fast to see anything but tachyons, except there turns out to be no such thing." I still love that line.
What did you just finish reading?
First reread of NK Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, because my SubPress copy did in fact turn up. It's still really good, and I am excited for the next two. Interestingly, I remembered the general arc of this one ("Yeine takes the place of the dead goddess"), but I have only vague memories of the next (a blind woman? working with a god walking the earth? to solve a murder mystery?), and nothing at all of the third.
After that, I devoured Kat Howard's second novel, An Unkindness of Magicians, in about a day and a half. It's amazing: full of deeply entwined characters and plot threads, circling around a commentary on power and relationships. My only complaint is that she feels too willing to pull her punches. Like in her first novel Roses & Rot, everyone has the chance for a happily-ever-after, or maybe they get an as-happily-an-ever-after-as-plausible. After the sharp edges of the rest of the book, the survival of all concerned feels ... too generous, maybe. But I loved it anyway, it's one of the best things I've read this year and I read a lot (for me lately, anyway) this year.
(Howard's website claims that a sequel, A Sleight Of Shadows, "will be out in 2020". This seems unlikely, but does give me something to look forward to.)
What do you think you'll read next?
Unsure, but almost certainly a chip off Mount Tsundoku. Maybe Suzanne Palmer's Finder, maybe Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower.
When I was in late elementary school there was a short-lived media property centered around Photon, aka "a Lazer Tag knockoff": a TV show that lasted one season which I saw bits of, a series of kids' books which I read two or three of and enjoyed... and a single YA/grown-up-SF novel, Thieves of Light, which I read and reread to death. A few years ago I looked it up and it turns out it was written by a Real Live Writer, Michael P. Kube-McDowell. ("Taking some liberties with the source material, I managed to turn in a military-SF coming-of-age story which I would not be embarrassed to have appear (or reappear) under my own name, and to do it in under sixty days. I still consider both parts of that achievement a small miracle.") Anyway, I stumbled across a copy in Smithers on Monday night, and am now about a third of the way in. It holds up reasonably well, I think, but I doubt I can be objective about it.
"We're traveling too fast to see anything but tachyons, except there turns out to be no such thing." I still love that line.
What did you just finish reading?
First reread of NK Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, because my SubPress copy did in fact turn up. It's still really good, and I am excited for the next two. Interestingly, I remembered the general arc of this one ("Yeine takes the place of the dead goddess"), but I have only vague memories of the next (a blind woman? working with a god walking the earth? to solve a murder mystery?), and nothing at all of the third.
After that, I devoured Kat Howard's second novel, An Unkindness of Magicians, in about a day and a half. It's amazing: full of deeply entwined characters and plot threads, circling around a commentary on power and relationships. My only complaint is that she feels too willing to pull her punches. Like in her first novel Roses & Rot, everyone has the chance for a happily-ever-after, or maybe they get an as-happily-an-ever-after-as-plausible. After the sharp edges of the rest of the book, the survival of all concerned feels ... too generous, maybe. But I loved it anyway, it's one of the best things I've read this year and I read a lot (for me lately, anyway) this year.
(Howard's website claims that a sequel, A Sleight Of Shadows, "will be out in 2020". This seems unlikely, but does give me something to look forward to.)
What do you think you'll read next?
Unsure, but almost certainly a chip off Mount Tsundoku. Maybe Suzanne Palmer's Finder, maybe Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower.