sandstone78's Reading Hideout 2015 - In the Shadow of Mount TBR

New year, finally new topic! This is another nice picture from Pixabay, a bit more green than previous selections...

I'm very interested in recommendations, especially current books from overlooked authors, out of print books to add to my used bookstore search list, or self-published works worth reading. I'm also interested in reading and discussing critical or informative articles about the genre at large or specific works, so I'll try to post those every so often too!

This year I'm hoping to continue my sort of monthly group reads, focused around more obscure SFF and not opposed to reading duologies or trilogies as well as standalones:

January: Standalone Group Read: Barbara Hambly, Stranger at the Wedding (Thread)
February: Orthe Group Read: Mary Gentle, Golden Witchbreed (Thread)
March: Orthe Group Read: Mary Gentle, Ancient Light (Thread)
April: Standalone Group Read: Melissa Scott, Shadow Man (Thread)
May: Sacred Hunt Group Read: Michelle West, Hunter's Oath (Thread)
June: Sacred Hunt Group Read: Michelle West, Hunter's Death
July: Raksura Group Read: Martha Wells, Stories of the Raksura: Volume Two
August: Hiatus
August September: Standalone Group Read: Carol Berg, Song of the Beast
October: Eliana's Song Group Read: Naomi Kritzer, Fires of the Faithful
November: Eliana's Song Group Read: Naomi Kritzer, Turning the Storm
December: Karen Lord, The Best of All Possible Worlds
January: Karen Lord, The Galaxy Game

Check out the list of potential future group read books and vote- or suggest a book in this thread! My criteria are: no more than about 500 people owning the book on LT, and the book should be available at least in ebook in at least both the US and UK, hopefully with reasonably-priced used copies available if the print book is out of print. I'm open to reading standalones, duologies, or trilogies, but if your suggestion is a series, make sure that all books meet the criteria above (eg no series where book one is owned by 1000+ users but book three is owned by less than 500 because it just came out.)

TBR in 2015:

Currently Reading

A Liaden Universe Constellation Volume 1, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (mount tbr)
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (intend to read)
The Game Beyond, Melissa Scott (mount tbr, proofreading for Crossroad Press ebook edition)
Dreams of Other Worlds, Chris Impey and Holly Henry (impulse buy, audio)

Next:

Patternmaster, Octavia Butler (mount tbr)
Raven's Shadow, Patricia Briggs (reread)
If on a winter's night a traveler, Italo Calvino (mount tbr)
Peacemaker, C.J. Cherryh (mount tbr)
Servant of the Underworld, Aliette de Bodard (mount tbr)
The Romulan Way, Diane Duane
Jaran, Kate Elliott (mount tbr)
Either Side of the Strand, M.C.A. Hogarth (impulse buy)
Rose Point, M.C.A. Hogarth (mount tbr)
Daughter of Mystery, Heather Rose Jones (mount tbr)
Night Calls, Katharine Eliska Kimbriel (reread)
The Steerswoman, Rosemary Kirstein (reread)
The Hero Strikes Back, Moira J. Moore (just barely mount tbr)
Grave Matters, Lauren M. Roy (intend to read)

Soon:

Beyond the Pale, Mark Anthony (reread)
Dust, Elizabeth Bear (mount tbr)
Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey (mount tbr)
Justice and Her Brothers, Virginia Hamilton (impulse buy)
Godstalk, P.C. Hodgell (mount tbr)
Polar City Blues, Katharine Kerr (mount tbr)
A Matter of Blood, Andi Marquette (just barely mount tbr)
The Thief's Gamble, Juliet E. McKenna (mount tbr)
Clariel, Garth Nix (mount tbr)
Iron Wind: Clockwork Lies, Dru Pagliassotti (mount tbr)
Distances, Vandana Singh (mount tbr)
The Serpent's Egg, Caroline Stevermer (mount tbr)
The Element of Fire, Martha Wells (mount tbr)

Top Ten Books to Take Off the Top of Mount TBR:

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino
Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey
Servant of the Underworld, Aliette de Bodard
The Romulan Way, Diane Duane
Jaran, Kate Elliott
Long Hidden, ed by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older
Godstalk, P.C. Hodgell
Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner
Dreamsnake, Vonda N. McIntyre
The Will of the Empress, Tamora Pierce Done!

Completed in 2015:

January
1. Dragonslayer Stories, Resa Nelson ★★★½ (impulse freebie)
2. Earthrise, M.C.A Hogarth ★★★★ (mount tbr)
3. Is it a Choice?, Eric Marcus ★★★ (impulse buy)
4. Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness, Nahoko Uehashi ★★★★ (mount tbr)
5. Friends in High Places, Andi Marquette ★★★½ (mount tbr)

February
6. A Fistful of Sky, Nina Kiriki Hoffman ★★★★★ (mount tbr)
7. Stranger at the Wedding, Barbara Hambly ★★★★ (mount tbr)
8. Binary Witness, Rosie Claverton ★★★★ (impulse buy)
9. Quantum Rose, Catherine Asaro ★★½ (mount tbr)
10. Jhereg, Steven Brust ★★★★★ (reread)
11. Clockwork Heart, Dru Pagliassotti ★★★★ (mount tbr)
12. The Ordinary Princess, M.M. Kaye ★★★½ (mount tbr)

March
13. Golden Witchbreed, Mary Gentle ★★★★★ (reread)
14. The Emperor's Soul, Brandon Sanderson ★★★ (intend to read)
15. The Errant Prince, Sasha L. Miller ★★★★ (impulse buy)
16. Hakusan Angel, Alex Powell ★★★★ (impulse buy)
17. Manifest, Alden Lila Reedy ★★★½ (impulse buy)

April
18. Ancient Light, Mary Gentle ★★★★ (reread)
19. The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers by Tom Standage ★★★★ (impulse buy)
20. The Will of the Empress, Tamora Pierce ★★★★ (mount tbr)

May
21. Shadow Man, Melissa Scott ★★★★ (mount tbr)
22. Stories in Stone, David B. Williams ★★★★ (impulse buy)
23. Fire Season, Philip Connors ★★ (mount tbr)

June
24. Hunter's Oath, Michelle West ★★★½ (mount tbr)
25. Losing Ground, Sasha L. Miller ★★★½ (impulse buy)
26. Feather by Feather, Lynn O'Connacht ★★★★ (mount tbr)
27. Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack, Andrew Schartmann ★★★ (impulse buy)
28. Labyrinth, A.C.H. Smith ★★★★ (mount tbr)
29. Melting Stones, Tamora Pierce ★★★★★ (mount tbr)
30. Luckstones, Madeleine E. Robins ★★★★ (impulse buy)

July
31. Dreaming Metal, Melissa Scott unrated (mount tbr, proofread for Crossroad Press)
32. A Liaden Universe Constellation, Volume 1, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller ★★★½ (mount tbr)
33. Shades in Shadow, N.K. Jemisin ★★★★ (intend to read)

August
34. Write Short Kindle Books, Nathan Meunier ★★★ (impulse buy)
35. Stories of the Raksura Volume 2, Martha Wells ★★★★½ (intend to read)
36. A Gift of Dragons, Anne McCaffrey ★★★½ (impulse checkout)

Finally got the new thread up! Current reads:

Clockwork Heart, Dru Pagliassotti (mount tbr)

I'm enjoying this one so far. Taya is a flying messenger in a highly authoritarian, strictly caste-divided steampunk city. I'm seeing some anime influences in the visual descriptions of things, character types, and some of the scenes ("Oh no, I'm too flat-chested" anxiety has shown up in what I think of as a very typical anime way, eg see Slayers) which is a little different. There does seem to be a love triangle, but I knew that going in so am not bothered- it's being used to show us more about the city more than to drive angst at this point.

Earthrise, M.C.A. Hogarth (mount tbr)

First in a space opera trilogy by Hogarth. I really liked The Aphorisms of Kherishdar, a short anthology of vignettes, a lot, but the follow-up vignette collection The Admonishments of Kherishdar was uneven, and the novel-length work Black Blossom had lot that was of interest but seemed something of a mess structurally, with plot threads and characters getting dropped partway throughout the story.

Earthrise and sequels are set in a different world, one with humans, aliens, various anthropomorphic animals created by humanity in the distant past of the story who have broken off and created their own cultures, and the Eldritch, isolationist descendants of human experimentation with ESP that are basically "space elves" (they're referred to as such in the story as well.)

This story follows Reese, who is sent by her mysterious benefactor to rescue the captured Eldritch Hirianthial, a doctor who has been doing some spy-work for the Eldritch Queen. There are three sections in the book, and the first section seems to complete that part with the second continuing a little while, so I'm suspecting this is going to be more like three closely related, self-contained novellas bound together than a novel with a story that continues throughout.

The characters are likeable, but I'm seriously giving this one a look as the characters have come to a planet with "voluntary slavery" where people can sign themselves over to work for employers (with only the rights they choose to give up under contract) in exchange for food and shelter. Hirianthial, who is extremely anti-slavery, is okay with this since it's consensual and he can tell that the slaves where he is are okay with things thanks to his empath powers- but one would think that being the type of person who will do spywork to try to take down slavers would understand that coercion and other ways to take advantage of people exist?? Reese at least seems Not Okay with it, but so far that's portrayed as "these aliens are too weird" more than anything. The characters have only just arrived at this planet, but I really hope Hogarth addresses this...

Friends in High Places, Andi Marquette (just barely mount tbr!)

Another space opera, this time with a lesbian protagonist, and just barely meeting my mount TBR cutoff as I bought it at the end of December for my Thingaversary. Torri was training to serve in the military of the Empire, but the Empire collapsed and was replaced by the ruthless, corrupt Coalition. Torri joined a resistance movement but has since turned smuggler, trying to undermine the Coalition that way. There is, of course, the matter her old military academy bunkmate Kai, who went on to serve as a soldier for the Coalition, and their mutual unrequited crushes, which turn out (in a chance encounter that serves as a prologue) to have been requited after all. Now a couple of years after that, Torri and her crew have a job intercepting a load of black opals, but Kai turns up as the commander of the troops defending the mines. Fun so far, but with somewhat more- and more explicit- sex scenes than I'd been expecting.

Dragonslayer Stories, Resa Nelson (impulse freebie)

A compilation of two stories about a female blacksmith in a rather interesting culture, where everyone has the power to shapeshift at will, but can be also be forcibly shapeshifted by others' perceptions of them if they allow themselves to be. I've read the first of the stories and found that Nelson does explore the interesting implications of this concept, but the character motivations and moral of the story (which I feel like there was supposed to be one) felt a bit muddled. Certainly worth picking up for free, though, and depending on the second story I'd consider picking up one of the longer works.

>1 sandstone78: Where is that, Sandstone? It looks like Golden Gate in the Free State (South Africa).

Starred! Good luck in your reading this year...

I loved If on a Winter's Night a Traveler many years ago. Hope you'll like it now!

>5 hfglen: I'm afraid I don't know, actually- nowhere I've been lucky enough to visit, I just snagged the lovely picture from a public domain source here.

>6 zjakkelien: Thanks! You too!

>7 Jim53: Invisible Cities is one of my very favorite books, so I'm looking forward to it! I read quite a bit of Calvino when I was in high school, but never got around to this one at the time because I couldn't find a copy. Now I've had one for a couple of years and I still haven't gotten around to it, but this is the year! (Hopefully.)

Clockwork heart has been on my wishlist for a while, so I'm looking forward to your thoughts in it.

If on a winter's night a traveller was the first book by Calvino that I read, and I loved it. Like you though, I think Invisible cities is my favourite.

Hope this is a good year of reading for you.

#4 The characters have only just arrived at this planet, but I really hope Hogarth addresses this...

If I recall she doesn't really do so? I gather from post #3 that you've finished it now. Did I misremember and she elaborates on that somewhat? I really like Hogarth's work in general, but some things have wound up bothering me quite a bit the more books I've read. :(

How are you enjoying Clockwork Heart? I read that one ages ago and remember liking it then.

It's been a good reading year so far, but not such a great updating one- I keep losing my posts half-written, so maybe this third or fourth time will be the charm!

Thinking about group reads books for February and beyond, I've come up with a tentative schedule:

February: Golden Witchbreed, Mary Gentle
March: Ancient Light, Mary Gentle
April: Shadow Man, Melissa Scott
May: Hunter's Oath, Michelle West
June: Hunter's Death, Michelle West
July: Stories of the Raksura: Volume Two, Martha Wells
August: Song of the Beast, Carol Berg
September: Fires of the Faithful, Naomi Kritzer
October: Turning the Storm, Naomi Kritzer
November: The Best of All Possible Worlds, Karen Lord
December: The Galaxy Game, Karen Lord

I'm open to feedback, with the selections as well as the order. Selections after July especially are provisional at this point. The price point is a bit high on Song of the Beast in ebook in the US, and it doesn't seem to be available in the UK in ebook at all, just print- not sure about elsewhere. I'd still like to read her Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone duology, but really bounced off it at the end of last year, so I don' think it's something I could group read well.

Current reads:

Stranger at the Wedding, Barbara Hambly

This one had a somewhat rocky start for me, as I mentioned over in the group read thread- we start with an interesting prologue, with the main character getting dark visions of unknown meaning and a letter from her sister Alix, and then jump to Kyra at her sister's wedding because she knows the visions mean Alix is going to die with pretty much no indication how we got from A to B.

But once I got past the first couple of chapters, I've really gotten engaged in this one- I like the detail in the worldbuilding, and I am liking Kyra more as the book goes along. I'm not sure what will happen with the mystery, though, but at this point I'm enjoying the scenery enough that I'm not terribly bothered that progress on that front is somewhat slow.

A Fistful of Sky, Nina Kiriki Hoffman

I don't read a lot of SFF based in present-day or near-future Earth, but something about Hoffman's style really works for me. I find it really easy to get wrapped up in her characters and their stories, and this one is no exception.

I find it interesting that magic here is pretty much the inverse of that in Stranger at the Wedding- Kyra is an outcast because she has magic in a non-magical family, and Gypsum is an outside because she lacks it in her very magical family- so far, at least, but per the blurb that will end up changing.

Clockwork Heart, Dru Pagliassotti

This one's been somewhat on hold as I try to finish up my group read books so I've not made a lot of progress, but I hope to get back to it next month.

Quantum Rose, Catherine Asaro (audio)

I'm slowly finishing this one... It has most of the hallmarks of Asaro's Skolian Imperiate series- interesting scientific basis complete with occasional large science infodumps, soap-opera-like relationship dynamics, and unusually beautiful characters and scenery. The central concept is particle dynamics reinterpreted as human interaction, which is an interesting concept, but leads to somewhat tedious back and forth.

Unfortunately, the romance, which is central, is rather "squicky" in this one to me (a long-lived Skolian man who looks to be in his thirties or forties or so but is actually ninety, and the protagonist Kamoj, a native of Balumil, who looks to be in her late twenties or thirties but is actually only 19)- and that's the "good side" of the love triangle, with the "bad side" being the abusive, manipulative Jax. There's some potentially interesting plot about how someone like Jax could manipulate the Skolians' prime-directive-like non-interference policy for his own gain, but consideration of whether the Skolians' arrival is actually beneficial or detrimental kind of falls by the wayside, second to Jax's attempts to split Kamoj and Vyrl up.

At the point I'm at now, I think the love triangle might be settled for the moment, and we might be at the point where things might tie back into the other Skolia books. Depending on how that goes, I might recommend this one as an interesting side-story to readers of the series, but I'm not sure I would recommend it otherwise.

Books finished:

1. Dragonslayer Stories, Resa Nelson ★★★½ (impulse freebie)

This short bundle of two stories ended up being the first thing I finished this year. The setting as I mentioned above is very interesting, but both stories ended up feeling somewhat muddled to me- I felt that there was clearly supposed to be a moral to the story, about self-acceptance among other things, but some of the events were odd and didn't quite make sense or fit together. There is a novella and a series of four novels set in the same world, but reading the summaries it seems like they can't possibly be consistent with these short stories, so I don't feel a need to go on at this point.

2. Earthrise, M.C.A Hogarth ★★★★ (mount tbr)

A pretty solid entry in the "motley crew on a ship" subgenre of character-driven space opera. I think fans of the Liaden novels would probably like this one. Reese is a down on her luck trader who accepts a mission to clear debt owed to a past mysterious benefactor- rescuing an Eldritch man who's been captured to be sold as a slave.

This one's all about the characters, and I liked them all. Hogarth does relationships quite well in what I've read of her work, and what draws me to her work is that she includes a variety- family and found-family, friendship as well as romance. I've read that this trilogy is going to be a romance, but it's a very slow build, with Reese and Hirianthial needing time to get to know each other and work through their own personal issues before entering into a relationship- and both of them actually have issues of their own, with difficult pasts causing them to shut others out; we see Reese make a break from her past and Hirianthial starting to live in the present by the end of this book, in a nice bit of symmetry. I found it a refreshing change from the more common tropes of romance where one partner has all of the angst and the other's main task is supporting them through it while asking for little- and sometimes being given precious little- in return.

That said, there were some things that bothered me, some of which I'll discuss below in spoiler-tags; the "voluntary slavery/contract labor" background element whose problematic elements are handwaved away with "our empath feels that these people are content and it feels completely different than the bad kind of slavery," an anti-medical-malpractice-lawsuit bit that doesn't really tie into anything even though there's a logical spot for it to, and somewhat troubling gender dynamics which I'll get into more detail below, but which mainly boil down to a. gosh I really dislike "she's afraid of men" as backstory for justifying why a woman isn't in a relationship, and b. a pretty sharp (but possibly unintentional, given the author has at least one military sci fi series with a female lead) division between violent, protective men and women there to be protected.

3. Is it a Choice?, Eric Marcus ★★★ (impulse buy)

Partly due to a request from a questioning friend and also for my own curiosity and use, I've been looking into LGBT non-fiction lately.

I've been disappointed that while there are a handful of books about coming out and motivational books for people who are certain they aren't straight focused on holding on until "it gets better," quite a few memoirs (alternately about how depressing/horrible discrimination is or making light of the situation), several pop-science or history books and a few academic treatises, and a lot of books to help parents/straight spouses/friends of non-straight people deal with their child/spouse/friend not being straight, there are pretty much no books for questioning people at all, and that number drops closer and closer to "definitely no books" if a. one is neither a teenager nor an adult who's already married and only questioning much later in life- books for both groups, of course, being highly specific to those situations (eg how to break it to your spouse, or how to use resources like a gay-straight alliance at your school), b. one is not a gay man, and c. one is looking for a book published after 2000.

In any case, this is one of the books I'd seen in Barnes and Noble's tiny, tiny LGBT section and picked it up on Kindle on sale for $1.99. It's basically a straightforward FAQ about gay and lesbian people (it doesn't really acknowledge bisexuality or asexuality at all, and only barely touches on gender identity), clearly written and concise but not going into much depth. That lack of depth and focus on short, direct answers makes me feel that the target audience here is more straight people than LGBT people themselves, but I could see this being useful to a young person who wants answers or anyone in general who has basic questions but no one they feel comfortable asking.

4. Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness, Nahoko Uehashi ★★★★ (mount tbr)

Ah, I really liked this one. Balsa returns to Kanbal, the land she left in exile with her father's friend who raised her and later died of illness. It's hard to say much more than that without spoilers, but it does end (with a promise of Balsa going on to future adventures more than any specific hook, certainly no cliffhanger) so I can recommend both this and the first Moribito without reservations on that count, even though it's looking likely no further books will be officially translated into English.

Unfortunately, I think I can understand why sales were low on these- they just don't really fit into the tropes and market of fantasy fiction in the US. The focus is too much on our thirty-something heroine for them to work as middle-grade- there are important children who get POV time in both books, but they're definitely more minor characters. But the writing style- at least in translation- is a bit too simplistic for adult audiences, and Uehashi doesn't really dive into the depth of her worldbuilding and tropes I think a reader looking for adult fantasy would look for, nor are they really young adult, because they are more straightforward adventure stories than focused on coming of age or finding one's place in the world.

Despite their resistance to easy categorization, I would really recommend them to anyone who's looking for non-romance-focused adventure stories with a heroine who has significant talents in the martial arts.

5. Friends in High Places, Andi Marquette ★★★½ (mount tbr)

Another motley crew has adventures story, but this one is definitely a more traditional romance. Our heroine is Torri, a trained soldier turned rebel against the new order turned smuggler, and her love interest is Kai, her former bunkmate at the Academy who decided to continue on and become part in the new order's forces.

There's a short prologue where they meet, several years later, and realize their affections for each other are very much requited, but circumstances take them apart from each other again, until the main story picks up at a mining colony where Torri has been contracted to smuggle black opals to an unknown recipient- and Kai has been tasked with breaking up smuggling rings in the area.

The relationship between Kai and Torri was well-drawn, and I liked both of them, but I felt the minor characters were given somewhat short shrift- I found that most of Torri's crew tended to sort of blur together for me, especially given that they used multiple aliases to keep the Coalition off their trail. The book ends with Kai and Torri having confirmed their feelings for each other, but still kept apart by their different paths; there are two more books in the series and I'm looking forward to reading them.

I was afraid there was going to be more sex than I'm interested in in this one, but that kind of tapered off after the first quarter or so in favor of plot- I think the prologue, which was previously published as a standalone short elsewhere, was mostly to blame for that.

>9 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, you too!

>10 dovelynnwriter: Hello there! No, the whole weird slavery setup really was more of a plot device for Reese to step in and take care of Hirianthial than anything. It just makes no sense that Hirianthial sees content slaves at one place and extrapolates that the entire social institution is okay.

More thoughts, I was also bothered by the whole "medical malpractice is the evilest of evils and ruin poor doctors' lives" thing... Hogarth had a perfect opportunity to make it a bit more nuanced and consider it from the side of the victim and family with the miscarriage, but instead the deck is fully stacked for Hirianthial- the patient won't take any of his advice so he couldn't be blamed, hid all of her symptoms from everyone even though that's completely out of character for a "hypochondriac" so he couldn't be blamed, besides he was overworked because he was busy virtuously taking care of grievously ill poor children (and who could fault him for giving himself to such a worthy cause instead of the unlikeable patient he was under contract to look after who had severe anxiety issues? she's so airheaded, ditzy, and unlikeable so she deserves what she got), and in the end everyone agrees that the pregnant woman was better off not being a mother after all, so no hard feelings and I'm sure she'll get over the trauma fine- in fact she'll be happy because this is a great reason to sterilize her, which she wanted in the first place!

"Women who get pregnant but don't want the baby deserve whatever they get" called back to the (unintentionally?) horrifying "Child Abuse II" vignette in The Admonishments of Kherishdar, where a pregnant woman clearly suffering from severe dysphoria or some kind of mental issue over her pregnancy- screaming that she wants her body back and all- but instead of, I don't know, psychological help, she's punished and sentenced to serve at the temple of motherhood because she "won't give seven months of her life to give sixty years of life to another Ai-Naidari"- a question I might add that Shame himself would seemingly never face, not having child-bearing capacity.

It's rather the same thing here to me- the Harat-Shar woman clearly has horrifyingly intense anxiety over her pregnancy, but we're supposed to see her as a high-maintenance diva and not somebody that, I don't know, perhaps Hirianthial should have considered referring to counseling or other treatment instead of basically telling her to "just get over it," rolling his eyes, and immediately writing her off as just a hysterical woman completely beyond help?

And, some gender things that bothered me a bit... Reese's family- specifically, the implication that they haven't had husbands because they- and Reese- are scared of forming ties to men, rather than something like, say, they aren't interested in men for whatever reason. I wished we'd had a couple of two women or a contentedly asexual woman to offset that. It seemed a bit "man-hating straw-feminist" to me, where they hate men because they are secretly attracted to them and can't deal.

The other was, as I mentioned above, Reese deciding she isn't comfortable with violence, and everyone we see capable of violence- Hirianthial, Bryer, NotAgain- being male. I think this was unintentional, but it fell into iffy gendered tropes for me in combination with the "women need men as protectors" implication from the Reese's family thread. There were some "he's mannered and pretty, but he's not effeminate!" remarks about Hirianthial too- would it be so bad if he was?

>11 sandstone78: Some good choices on your list of suggested group reads; a number of them have been on Mount Tbr for a while and others I've meant to reread. A copy of Stranger at the wedding should be on its way to me so I'll join the discussion on that too. And I do need to read the first volume of Raksura stories!

11> I've been meaning to read Moribito, so I'm glad to hear good things about it.

#11, Ah darn. I was hoping I'd misremembered that. :(

I hadn't looked at that scene this way before. Powerful points. I do think Hirianthial has cultural reasons to react the way that he does, but that doesn't make the scenes any less problematic. I'm going to have to reread at least Admonishments, I think. My brain really, really wants to tie your thoughts into the way Hogarth treats the subject in Flight of the Godkin Griffin, but I don't have the recollection to really explain why. :(

Glaseah are asexual, but you don't really see too much of them n Earthrise and it doesn't really set the rest off much as a result. It's actually more visible in the Dreamhealers duology, which is all about the asexual romance. Reese is... pretty traditional in her gender role divisions (and remains so), which is a bit surprising as well given what we learn of her society on Mars. I read that more as the Mars women being too proud to form ties with men rather than too afraid, but I can definitely see where you're coming from. They do have society-wide fears there.

I think part of that gendered difference in this book comes from the romance angle it has, perhaps? (It... doesn't actually work well as a romance. It's space opera with a strong romantic subplot.) Do you think you'll be reading the rest? *nosy* I felt that the trilogy picked up in the second book, but I'm not sure it'll address some of your concerns well. It definitely balances out the capacity for violence between the genders a little more than this book did (and Hogarth's works as a whole does too), so I think that's really just unintentional/an effect of writing the kinds of characters she's writing in this particular story.

Books Finished:

6. A Fistful of Sky, Nina Kiriki Hoffman ★★★★★ (mount tbr)

Thoughts. The ending of this book made me so happy! I wish I could re-find an article I read about the Legend of Korra, where the author talked about the ending not even seeming within the realm of possibility, and then it happened- except things are quite a bit more clear here! "Marry me" indeed. Definitely a new one for the favorites shelf- a likeable protagonist, interesting relationships, Hoffman's usual storytelling that carries you along like a dream even through the surreal moments (a growling, kitchen-sized grapefruit, for example- definitely a book with a sense of humor!)

I enjoyed this one so much that I'm looking forward to the other titles I have on my shelf that are similar in setting or tone- the Charles de Lints I've been meaning to read or re-read sometime, Child of a Rainless Year, revisiting the Night Calls series so I can get to Spiral Path. I picked up an audio version of A Stir of Bones as well, prequel to Hoffman's Haunted House duology, so I might get to do that.

7. Stranger at the Wedding, Barbara Hambly ★★★★ (mount tbr)

Thoughts. Enjoyed it, with a few logistical quibbles, and will definitely read more Hambly in the future. I read most of this one on Sunday, almost all the way through with a few breaks- it's been a while since I've been able to take time to just sit and read, and I've missed it sorely.

Current Reads:

Golden Witchbreed, Mary Gentle (reread)

Starting this for the February group read. I've started my re-read and have high hopes, but need to locate my suck-fairy repellent just in case.

Clockwork Heart, Dru Pagliassotti (mount tbr)

Still intending to get back to this one. I think a long sit-down read would be perfect if I could arrange it.

The Just City, Jo Walton (library checkout)

This book has two strikes against it for me- being the first in series where the next two books aren't going to be released for a while and probably being a Tragic Death of a Girl book, if the "Apollo's out for REVENGE!" blurb of the second book is any indication- but the idea is fascinating. I read part of Plato's Republic back in high school, and am curious to see where it goes.

In a bit of an interesting coincidence, the book starts off with Apollo trying to figure out why Daphne turned into a tree when he pursued her- and this happens to be the very story I had to translate from The Metamorphoses for my Latin class this week. Both Walton and my professor even brought up the same Bernini statue in discussing the myth.

A few chapters in, though, it hasn't really caught me yet.

Binary Witness, Rosie Claverton (impulse buy)

This is a bit of a departure for me- a mystery. I picked it up after reading this positive review. I'm liking the main characters, but not crazy about the scenes from the perspective of normal, pretty young women right before they get murdered, but- forgive my ignorance- I suspect that's just a thing one can't get away from in mystery novels? At least Claverton cuts away before the murders happen, so I feel a little less like it's fetishizing female fear/pain than in many TV shows I've seen.

A Positive View of LGBTQ, Ellen D. B. Riggle and Sharon S. Rostosky (impulse buy)

This seems to be quite good, and maybe what I was looking for, with chapters on self-acceptance as well as coming out to other people, but the writing is very repetitive, which makes it hard for me to read more than a little at a time. Also, a little disappointingly, it doesn't seem to include anything about asexual people.

>12 Sakerfalcon: Thanks! I hope you've enjoyed Stranger at the Wedding, and I thought the Raksura stories were quite good (though if you haven't read the blurb, I wouldn't- I think the second story would be stronger not knowing so much going into it.)

>13 pwaites: Yes, I would definitely recommend both Moribito books!

>14 dovelynnwriter: I definitely plan to read Rose Point! I actually have the Dreamhealers duology in my TBR as well (but probably not in my LT library, I am so bad at cataloguing these days.) I will be curious to see if my feelings change as I read more in this setting.

I think I see what you're saying about Mars in general, but it seemed like Reese's family specifically- or at least Reese herself- was portrayed as being "afraid" of men. It's one of those things where I am willing to keep reading knowing that the author has happy same-sex relationships elsewhere in her work, though, where I may not be so willing without that outside-the-books knowledge. I'd like to see more of Mars, though, under better circumstances..

I'm glad to know further reading will assuage some of my other concerns as well, though I suspect you're right, and that part of them tend to be part and parcel with the romance- I think you're right that the story makes more sense as a space opera with a strong romantic subplot.

I've thought about Flight of the Godkin Griffin, because I'd like to read more of Hogarth with a female protagonist, but I've seen reviews that indicate that it's very heavy on the rape, which makes me wary.

#15 I'll be very curious what you make of Dreamhealers! It's one of my favourites.

I'm not sure how well it'll assuage them, but they do pick up a bit. I left the trilogy for last and was a little soured on some spoiler points for both books. (And some overall-work potentially spoilery comments.)

Hogarth relies a little too heavily on the "rape as plot device" for my tastes. Rose Point and Laisrathera both have at least one rape, though they're not graphic and the resultant trauma is treated pretty respectfully.

Flight of the Godkin Griffin isn't very heavy on the rape, but it does see the protagonist get raped and want to keep the child. Which I have no problem with as such, but there was something about the way that desire was written that felt a bit off to me. Maybe it was the lack of balance in viewpoint that did it. I do feel the need to add that the Godkindred duology is hands-down my least-favourite of her works. The ones that are heavy on the rape are Alysha's Fall and Even the Wingless.

My biggest issue with Hogarth's books is the overall frequency of rape in them. On an individual basis, I think she treats the topic respecfully and handles the scenes decent-to-well. But there's a definite pattern in that it feels like when something emotionally traumatising needs to happen, rape is the go-to event. I'm still trying to figure out how to note it effectively. I like her work in general and I think there's a lot else to enjoy, but... Yeah.

Reese is... *considers* I think she's definitely afraid of men, but more because she's afraid of forming relationships in general than because she's afraid of men specifically. I read her as more "I'm afraid of men especially". She spends almost as much time avoiding the crew and carefully not thinking of them as friends or people she cares for as she does avoiding Hirianthial. Which doesn't change that it's got a heroine who is afraid of men for... pretty much the whole book, of course. I think it's mid-Rose Point where someone (finally) hits her with a cluebat.

When you're talking about the Korrasami article, that's not this one, is it? That comment is what my brain jumped to immediately upon reading your description.

Interesting links...

Personal Essays About Destroying Science Fiction

Many interesting essays on the Queers Destroy Science Fiction kickstarter.

If you missed them, there were also many essays posted on the Women Destroy Science Fiction kickstarter too- they've fallen back a few pages, so I've linked to the page with the most recent one, but you may have to scroll down.

Don't Self-Reject

Rose Lemberg on Marginalized Writers & Self Rejection, Rose Lemberg

On Self-Rejection and Writing From a Marginalized Perspective, Malinda Lo

The Cascadia Subduction Zone's recent issue contains Nisi Shawl's essay "Unqualified," which inspired the above. The issue is available as a PDF for $3.

Many more brief and long resources available through the Twitter hashtag #dontselfreject.

Perceptions of Diversity in Book Reviews (also from Malinda Lo)

• Perceptions of Diversity in Book Reviews, Part 1: “Scarcely Plausible”


• "So Many (Too Many?) Issues": Perceptions of Diversity in Book Reviews, Part 2


• "A Lot to Decode": Perceptions of Diversity in Book Reviews, Part 3


• "Readers May Be Surprised": Perceptions of Diversity in Book Reviews, Part 4

Though Lo talks a lot about realistic fiction and her arguments are centered on Earth and human diversity, this series really helped me understand why a review of Golden Witchbreed jarred me so much when the reviewer called Gentle's reasoning for why the Ortheans are gender-egalitarian, that they do not develop secondary sexual characteristics until adolescence, "quasi-scientific" and "not an entirely convincing argument," and their acceptance of same-sex relationships "an even greater leap." Why should the Ortheans automatically have sexism and homophobia just because humans do?

(I raise my eyebrows more at, say, C.J. Cherryh's Atevi, who, despite a deep-rooted aversion to the number two and pairs, seem to have a distinct gender binary, complete with sexism that prevents women from rising to power.)

Current reads...

Clockwork Heart, Dru Pagliassotti (mount tbr)

I admit that despite a promising beginning, I was beginning to feel a little lukewarm on this one, partially because I accidentally spoiled myself on a big part of the plot by reading the blurb of the second book, Clockwork Lies. But then... the revelation that Alister Forlore has been working on a steampunk version of online dating algorithms that match profiles based on numerous variables- the Clockwork Heart of the title! How interesting!

And, just when I was getting a bit tired of the love triangle, Pagliassotti went and blew up Alister Forlore!

And now programmers, and a mystery surrounding punch-card programming! Well. I'm interested to see where that all goes. So, I'm quite interested to read further now.

Golden Witchbreed, Mary Gentle

I've not made much progress into this one yet either, I'm afraid- it really demands a nice, long sit down to get into it instead of the few minutes here and there I've had lately. But, reading further little by little, there are both a lot of things I remembered and a lot of things I haven't. Thoughts will be in the group read thread as I have them.

Jhereg, Steven Brust

I picked this one up in an Audible sale a little while ago, and decided to listen to it next after The Quantum Rose. I really like the setting of Brust's Dragaera series- an empire where most people are very long-lived and humans are in the minority, with (in the Vlad books and Brokedown Palace) and without (the Khaavren Romances) a human protagonist. Magic is also very normalized, and the working of it always shown in detail, which I enjoy.

My biggest problem with the series, though, is that many of the intriguing revelations in Jhereg are not followed up on for example, Vlad being the reincarnation of the founder of the House of Jhereg never really turns into much- first in favor of more self-contained adventures, but later the series becomes something of a slog through the mud as Vlad is separated from the interesting cast and setting Brust has so carefully built up. Issola was quite a big step forward, but then Dzur and Jhegaala were both side-stories again, and I heard much the same about Iorich and Tiassa. Supposedly Hawk picks things up again, though.

I picked up The Phoenix Guards last year when it was on sale, but I'm not sure that I can bring myself to re-read that series knowing Tazendra dies.

Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay (library checkout)

A collection of essays on feminism, gender, race, academia, Scrabble tournaments, and various books and movies among other things. I'm enjoying this one.

The Just City, Jo Walton (library checkout)

I wanted very much to like this, but I just can't seem to get into it right now. I plan to try again another time. The same with The Risen Empire, which I also checked out from the library around the same time and had to return as well.

Books finished...

8. Binary Witness, Rosie Claverton ★★★★ (impulse buy)

I enjoyed this one. I don't really read mysteries, so I can't really evaluate it on those grounds, but I really liked the lead characters, Jason and Amy. It's nice to see a talented female hacker who isn't precocious and quirky for once, and nice to see a female character with a complicated and somewhat tragic backstory that doesn't seem to revolve around a love interest or sexual assault, but instead abandonment by her parents and her severe anxiety and agoraphobia.

The technology was well done, with only one real misstep I can think of (when Amy is trapped in her server room in the basement, I would expect that she'd have a monitor and keyboard hooked up to at least one of the servers to do work), and I didn't guess the culprit until the reveal. One thing I did dislike, though, was that I felt like a pretty big thread of the mystery was just sort of dropped- early on the fact that the killer communicated through the online forums of a particular band is a fairly big deal, but by the end Jason and Amy wonder how the killer even met the object of his obsessions and conclude they'll never know, when I thought that had been fairly well established as probably both of them going to a concert earlier- granted, by that time they'd figured out that not all of the victims were linked to the band, but it's still it seemed a pretty big thing to overlook.

I was a bit uncomfortable with the scenes from the victims' perspectives right up until it cuts away before they're killed, but the scenes at least didn't seem to relish in the womens' fear the way I feel like TV crime shows can. I do think I'll read the next book in the series when I'm in the mood for something a little different again.

9. The Quantum Rose, Catherine Asaro ★★½ (mount tbr)

I listened to this in audio, which may color my judgment of it. It's been on my TBR for ages. I've read most of Asaro's Skolian Imperiate series- Primary Inversion, The Radiant Seas, Catch the Lightning, Spherical Harmonic, The Moon's Shadow, Schism and The Final Key, and Skyfall, but somehow this book and The Last Hawk and Ascendant Sun never really interested me- possibly because they seemed the most directly romance-focused of the series. This one did pretty much bear out its blurb.

The first half of the book is about the love triangle between Kamoj Quanta Argali, governor of a poor province on the colony world of Balumil, her abusive betrothed Jax Ironbridge, and the mysterious Havyrl Lionstar- a member of the wide-ranging Ruby Dynasty who is living in exile on the pastoral world to evade the forces of the Allied Worlds of Earth who have taken most of the rest of his family as political prisoners to stop the war between the Skolian Imperiate and the Eubian Empire (who does not really appear in this book), the topic of most of the rest of the series.

Vyrl sees Kamoj bathing (of course) and sends gifts to her house to offer for her hand in marriage- not really understanding that this is a gift that Kamoj can't refuse because her province can't match the offer, so she has no choice but to marry him. This is somewhat addressed, that is, the characters do talk about it and Vyrl does understand what he's done eventually and feels some remorse, but mostly it's glossed over with "they fell in love anyways after she learned about him so it's okay." (So is the fact that he is nearly 90 and has great grandchildren, but looks to be in his thirties or forties or so, and Kamoj is eighteen and looks like she's in her twenties or thirties or so.)

Jax, of course, is very much not okay with this, and proceeds to (trigger warning) try to burn down Kamoj's province's palace, kidnaps her and rapes her and holds her prisoner without food and water, and coerces her to repudiate Vyrl, using the Skolian Imperiate's laws, particularly their equivalent of Star Trek's Prime Directive which should prevent things like a Ruby Prince swanning in and marrying a local governor to gain political control, to try to invalidate the marriage. Vyrl protests, and an entire court full of technology-enhanced psychic empaths fails to realize that Jax is emotionally blackmailing Kamoj. Eventually, after Kamoj is hidden and kidnapped and raped again, but she reunites with Vyrl, who is leaving the planet.

The second part of the book- the last third or so- is the part that really won't stand alone without reading the other Skolian Imperiate novels, but also the main reason I'd recommend reading this book for those who are already reading the Skolian Imperiate series. Kamoj and Vyrl head to Lyshriol, Vyrl's homeworld to undergo an ISC mission to get Vyrl's family released from the custody of the Allied Worlds of Earth, where they've been held as prisoners, through a combination of media broadcast "spin" and very public civil disobedience. The Lyshriol bits really work better if you've read Skyfall (though that was published later) for a better idea of the setting, because it's fairly sketched in here. I feel like I missed out before not reading this book when I read the series, as many of the characters on the extensive Skolia family tree are here but not really mentioned elsewhere. This book also sets up Diamond Star, about one of Vyrl's brothers who is taken from Lyshriol to captivity on Earth... where he becomes a rock star. There is also a hidden Ruby Dynasty city with a mysterious intelligence hidden beneath the plains of Lyshriol that from what I remember never really comes up again.

At the end, we see Jax again, and he decides to drop the charges against Vyrl in exchange for becoming Balumil's representative to the Allied Worlds of Skolia. What? There was entirely too much sympathy toward Jax for my taste, and the attempts to portray him as some kind of tortured soul, suffering because he was far smarter than the people around him, were completely at odds with his abusive behavior towards Kamoj- which Asaro did rightfully call out as abusive. I'm completely not okay with the Skolians- and Kamoj and Vyrl- basically handing him a huge amount of power and everything he could ever want as a reward for how he treated Kamoj. Maybe I misheard how this all played out?

One interesting thing is that this book was evidently arranged as a metaphor for quantum mechanics- unfortunately, the audio version lacked the author's afterword, so I didn't get the explanation on exactly how, but it's possible to tell some from the chapter titles going through the book.

There really isn't anything else like the Skolian saga that I'm aware of- it has a very particular blend of psychic powers, hard theoretical physics, family saga, military science fiction, improbably beautiful people and worlds, sometimes "squicky" romantic relationships (but to be fair, the gross imbalances of power are as likely to be tilted towards women as men- this is a fairly egalitarian series with a lot of interesting female characters), interesting speculative ideas, humans taken from Earth to space in ancient history by unknown forces, and space opera action. But don't start here if you're interested- start with the earliest published Primary Inversion and go on to The Radiant Seas.

Why should the Ortheans automatically have sexism and homophobia just because humans do?

Bingo. That makes even less sense than Abi Nussbaum arguing that a determinedly parochial race with memory dreams of domination by an alien race has no reason to be paranoid about contact with offworlders ;)

Those diversity essays look very very interesting.

Ooooh, I may have to pick up Binary Witness. I'm not much of a mystery reader either, but the characters do sound interesting. ^_^

I've updated my library with several things that escaped cataloging, including a number of impulse daily deal buys and freebies, bundles, and Kickstarter rewards. Even though I am doing very well on my pacing for my mount TBR goal of 30 books this year I despair that I will ever catch up :)

Current reads...

Bad Feminist had to go back to the library before I finished it, because there were holds, but I hope to check it out again sometime. Possibly I should put it on hold myself.

Golden Witchbreed, Mary Gentle

Ruric! I am so behind on this one, but Ruric.

The way Gentle describes the landscape so thoroughly is bringing to mind Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman books to me for some reason. I still need to read the third and fourth of those, but need to re-read the first and second before that, I think.

The Ordinary Princess, M.M. Kaye

I picked this up for a few dollars during Audible's member sale last year, and have started listening to it after finishing Jhereg. It's a few years older than Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, but it's in the same vein, whimsical and charming- I feel like it draws from fairy tales where Wrede draws from the more modern fantasy genre.

Books finished...

10. Jhereg, Steven Brust ★★★★★ (reread)

This one went by quickly, and made a good listen to put on in the background while doing some particularly tedious review of documentation at my day job. I will note that at least one of these stars is for nostalgia, given that this is a series I discovered and promptly read all the way through years ago without breaks- I really enjoyed spending time with these characters again after a long time away from the series.

As I mentioned above, there are a lot of revelations, twists, and turns in this one. This being a re-read, and having quite a few more books in the genre in my reading history than when I first came to this series, the villain's motivations were somewhat more obvious to me, but overall I felt like Brust does a really good job managing the information both the reader and Vlad have in this book- Vlad "thinks out loud" in the narrative and also does research into problems (which also, him being an Easterner and not a Draegaran, serves to enlighten the reader on aspects of the world), and there are both a ton of interesting revelations and times when Vlad starts explaining his plan, only for Brust to cut away so the reader doesn't find out until later.

It's interesting that Vlad is definitely in a coordinator or thinker role as much as he is in executing things himself- his main talent seems to be making connections and managing people, which is a bit different. It's enjoyable to watch him in action. He has an unreasonable number of talents himself- the term Gary Stu really would not be terribly out of place- but so do the people that surround him. Unfortunately, I think this balance is somewhat lost later in the series- Vlad ends up, due to various events, on the run alone and "protecting" his friends by staying away from them, and gaining even more skills and boons that make him more powerful than anyone else.

I'm undecided whether I'm just going to stop here, re-read the whole series, pick up with the ones I haven't read yet starting at Iorich, or take a side trip to revisit The Phoenix Guards so I can re-read my other favorite Draegara book, Five Hundred Years After.

Curiously enough, this book deals a bit with genetic memory, also a theme in Golden Witchbreed- I've not gotten so far in Golden Witchbreed yet, but it will be interesting to reflect on how both handle them, especially given that in both cases, our protagonists are humans and theoretically not given to such things.

11. Clockwork Heart, Dru Pagliassotti ★★★★ (mount tbr)

This was a solid, enjoyable read, even if I did sometimes have difficulty visualizing the flight suits and what was going on in the flying scenes. I liked the characters and the worldbuilding, and I liked the way Pagliassotti treated computing, especially, and the way it wasn't "oh no computing soul-destroying all-consuming evil!!" but "computing manages the bank records and certain predictions- the city will be inconvenienced but not completely dysfunctional if something happens to the engines."I liked as well that there are various political dissidents that aren't cartoon evil as well as the radical anti-machine terrorist group, even if they aren't a big part of the plot.

I did want more exploration of the potential of Alister's marriage prediction algorithm, Clockwork Heart- it paired up two of Alister's male coworkers because he didn't include selection for gender in their compatibility, for example, where same-sex relations still seem to be quite a taboo in Ondinium, but there was very little exploration of that and I would think it somewhat counter to Alister's aims, given that he was interested in a breeding program- though given that part of his aims were also to prevent horrible marriages like his parents' and unhappiness in general, I suppose one preventing instances where one half of the couple is in the closet would be reasonable.

One last thing to note, Alister's programming team actually had two women on it- granted, there were three men, four if you include Alister, but still it's fairly rare to see at all. Unfortunately, one was basically just there to be Alister's ex that made Taya jealous (and realize that Alister is something of a playboy), and she later turns out to be lazy and, having failed to sleep her way to the top with Alister, decided to try to get rich quick by selling state secrets. But we are at least told she's also a good programmer. Oh well.

I'm looking forward to the sequels, but don't feel a need to read them immediately.

>16 dovelynnwriter: Oh dear, I missed replying to this before! That comment was absolutely what I was looking for regarding Korra, thank you! I don't think I would have found it back.

Thanks for the spoilers re Flight of the Godkin Griffin. I would agree with your assessment about her use of rape- I kind of felt the same with Mercedes Lackey when I read her Arrows of the Queen trilogy last year.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the part in Black Blossom where the Calligrapher basically rapes Shame into seeing sense- the scene I'm thinking of is in Chapter Fifteen, it looks like. Maybe I'm misreading it.

I stopped The Worth of a Shell about a third of the way through, because I kept getting stronger and stronger feelings that graphically horrible things were going to happen to Dlane because she was Too Good For That World. I did see you rated that trilogy quite highly, though- may I request a spoiler for if my fears are along the right lines, and if so if it's worth pushing past that?

I've seen in some reviews that Reese's visit from the cluebat fairy seems a little out of nowhere- I'll be interested to see what I make of it. I still want to read Rose Point fairly soon, but it hasn't been quite time yet when I've picked it up lately- sometimes I enjoy a book but find it tweaks some of my particular irritations, to the extent when I pick up the next one I know all I'm going to be able to do is nitpick until I have a little more distance and the things I like outweigh that, and Rose Point hasn't quite reached that point yet.

(The Liaden series is another one that's like this for me, probably the most egregious example- it has so many things I really like- yay space pilots, yay fantasy of manners, yay likeable characters, yay by the way inclusion of same-sex relationships- however minor and backgrounded... oh... oh, wait, you mean all of the lifemates couples must be heterosexual and monogamous by the metaphysical laws that created them? But... but... but....!

It took me eight months to get back to the series after that, despite the book where that was revealed, the distant series prequel Crystal Soldier, otherwise ending on a very compelling cliffhanger.)

>19 dovelynnwriter: I liked it, at least!

>18 imyril: In truth, the review in question up there questioning the lack of sexism and homophobia is the review from Abi Nussbaum. :)

I'll need to continue re-reading, though. I'd thought that the Witchbreed were also native to Orthe, but have a suspicion that for some reason I am probably conflating it with C.J. Cherryh's Faded Sun where there are three species of sentient aliens who are all native to a world.

#20 You're very welcome! ^_^ And no worries about replying. ^_^ I'm glad you got the link and that it's the one you were thinking of. I was really touched by it when I read it.

You're definitely right about the direction of The Worth of a Shell. *thinks how to best phrase things* All three books can be read as a stand-alone novel. They have different protagonists, though the storylines build on one another. All three books also feature rape at some point in the storyline, so be warned of that.

These were some of the first books I read by Hogarth, so my tolerance for repetitive plot devices was a lot higher. However, I really really loved the language and the setting as a whole too. I loved the richness of the detail and the otherness of the jokka. I wanted to learn more about their world and how it got the way that it is. To me, it was definitely worth pushing through, but if you're not as enamoured with the setting it might be a different story. If you like linguistics, I'd definitely recommend A Bloom in the North, though. It's one of the few fantasy novels I've found that actually treats language change and variation realistically. Or at least more realistically. (Plus, it's the book where you learn more about the backstory of jokka society and how it got to be the way it is.)

Does that help? ^_^; *rummages* Here's a brief discussion of it and Hogarth's response. So... I'm hopeful. And spoiler/not-a-spoiler for Thief of Songs: no rape in that one. It's fluffy and sweet poly romance.

On a slight tangent, I've added one of the Liaden omnibuses to my wishlist now. ^_^ Someone else recommended another book in the series and it got bundled with the one you recommended me on my blog! Moar books! (Because I really need another long series to slowly work my way through.) Hopefully the two will give me a good overview of the series and whether or not I'd like to read more of it. (Though boo on the "lifemate couples must be het and monogamous" thing. *grumps*)

>20 sandstone78: Ah. So, err, total #reviewfail from Abi on that one then ;) I will go read it once I've tead Ancient Light.

Earthrise which I reviewed above appears to be free in ebook right now, if anyone is interested.

>21 dovelynnwriter: I believe I have Fire in the Void in audio, so I may start with that and Pearl in the Void and go back to The Worth of a Shell as a prequel then when I get that far, thanks- it's very helpful to know that they stand somewhat alone. I suspect I may go for Thief of Songs sooner!

Is the omnibus perchance The Dragon Variation? I've already talked about Scout's Progress; Local Custom isn't my favorite, though it has a cool linguist heroine (it's probably the most "romance novel" of the series, which means it takes certain tropes that I think jar a bit with the setting), and Conflict of Honors, about the son of the couple from Local Custom and his motley crew and an exiled witch, is where I started the series and another of my favorites- Shan in that one is one of my favorite characters :)

FYI, Agent of Change, the first Liaden book published and a perfectly good entry point, is free in ebook. It's probably the closest to Hogarth's Earthrise as far as being in the sci fi adventure niche, but focused more on a couple than an ensemble.

>22 imyril: Ah, well, in my opinion yes in a number of parts. :) But truthfully there is also a lot to think about in it, mostly about Ancient Light- it was partially her review that made me decide to pick up the series for a re-read when I'd thought I never would.

I think that it's a bit the same thing as The Left Hand of Darkness, really- neither it nor the Orthe books are really about gender per se, gender being radically different is just one of the baselines that the story starts from.

You're welcome. ^_^

*looks it up* It is, yes! Ooooh, thank you for telling me a little more about Conflict of Honors because I knew absolutely nothing about it and now I get to be excited about all three books! XD I like linguistics. (Well, most of linguistics.)

>23 sandstone78: *stagger* book bullet. It sounded interesting, and I can't resist free. Then I'll come back and read the spoiler comments :)

>23 sandstone78: I've just added Earthrise to my kindle. Thanks for the heads-up!

Current reads...

Golden Witchbreed, Mary Gentle (reread)

How come I always seem to be the last to finish my own group read books? :) Alas. Still, that means plenty of time for anyone else to join in that wants to- this month is Ancient Light.

I've been thinking a lot about the various historical analogues going on this one over in the group read thread- there's some interesting worldbuilding going on, with Orthean society being loosely based on Renaissance Europe. An interesting choice- direct historical basis seems a bit rarer in SF than fantasy, so I suspect that's why this one has a more fantasy feel to it to some readers.

The Will of the Empress, Tamora Pierce (mount tbr)

Ah, Emelan. I've been in the mood for a magic-heavy story again, so I've tentatively picked this one up. I'm wary after Battle Magic, which I didn't get along with at all, but despite this book coming chronologically later it was written earlier so I'm hoping that it's more in keeping with the earlier books. A couple of chapters, so far so good.

The Circlet Treasury of Lesbian Erotic Science Fiction and Fantasy, ed Cecilia Tan

I've always felt that I should get around to trying erotica someday, so when I came across this, a compilation of two or three earlier collections, and had a good coupon from Kobo's latest contest, I figured why not- I've heard good things about Circlet and Cecilia Tan. Unfortunately, the few stories I read were more... bemusing than anything else. We started off with Athena/Artemis slash fiction (complete with extra incest points with them calling each other sister or half-sister throughout), a woman who cures herself of cervical cancer through a sex ritual with "primitive goddess power" in a third-world country that expels the tumor (to the befuddlement of Close-Minded Western Medicine Who Told Her She Was Dying), two women who have sex that ends up with one pregnant with the other, ready to be reborn, because that's how they reproduce in their parthenogenetic society...

I suppose my tastes must just be too... tame? vanilla? for this collection, as my primary reaction ended up being "What did I just read?" more than anything else. I've set it aside, and may or may not go back to it if I feel in a charitable mood.

Books finished...

12. The Ordinary Princess, M.M. Kaye ★★★½ (mount tbr)

Charming is the best word that comes to mind for this one, though it was a bit too marriage-centric for my taste and of course while it praises ordinariness, it doesn't go quite so far as to deny that royalty are naturally better than everyone. I do think it would probably appeal to someone who liked Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, though of course there is no one as cool as Kazul, King of the Dragons to be found.

I'm undecided on what my next audio read will be. I've tried and stalled out on re-reads of Foreigner and The Snow Queen, and started Stormwarden, which seems promising, but I kept losing track of what was going on since I just have it on in the background while working and can't devote my attention to it.

>25 imyril: >26 Sakerfalcon: Hope you like it!

>24 dovelynnwriter: Yes! I may have to head back into the Liaden universe before too long. I realize I never answered your question elsewhere about the math in Scout's Progress- because these are fictional piloting equations and not concrete real-world math, it's very qualitative rather than quantitative overall, focused on what Aelliana is trying to achieve rather than the specifics of how she goes about it.

I've tentatively settled on Balance of Trade as my audio read. I wish I could remember whether I've read it before or not...

Still working on Golden Witchbreed. I'll probably write up in the thread later, but I'm thinking over the treatment of the fenborn. Hmm.

Links (edited to add more):

Fantastic essay on Writing Women Characters as Human Beings by Kate Elliott up at Tor today.

Jim C. Hines is doing another round of essays to follow up those collected into Invisible:

- Exponentially Hoping, Merc Rustad (No touchstone, but I really liked their story How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps)
- Fat Chicks in SFF Alis Franklin
- I'm Not Broken, Annalee Flower Horne
- Discovering the Other, John G. Hartness
- Too Niche, Lauren Jankowski
- Nobody's Sidekick, S.L. Huang

The comments on the above are also worth reading.

28> Thanks for all the links! These are some good articles.

I picked up The Emperor's Soul. I've felt like I should read something by Sanderson for ages, and figured I would try a shorter work to see how I liked it before going for one of his huge series.

It's interesting, but despite repeated infodumps (some more glaring than others) about the magic system and its central conceit of "forging," I'm finding it distractingly inconsistent: Is what forging can do limited by what the forger believes, or by what the object itself "thinks it is" (which includes veto rights on becoming what the forger's trying to make it), or by some kind of objective statistical likelihood of things happening in the object's history, which the forger must know extensively, or built on top of traditional forgery that substitutes something similar but of much lesser value?

The first and third of these in particular seem contradictory- surely if it depends on the forgers' beliefs the best thing a forger could do would be to be as ignorant of specifics as possible so that more things would seem possible to them? And all of the above seem to be at odds with traditional forging methods and the way we see forging used- one would think that convincing/rewriting a cruddy pot produced in a factory that deliberately produces cruddy pots to become a beautiful heritage porcelain vase would involve at least as extreme of probability divergence as the impossible task of Shai escaping her cell by convincing the well-constructed walls to be made of different materials so she could escape? Maybe inanimate objects are easier to make "better" or restore than to make "worse" or broken, but that hasn't been stated yet.

I realize this is nitpicking, but when a magic system is presented in as much detail and with as much focus (and the author has a specific reputation for interesting and well-thought-out ones) I'm going to be distracted when I see what seem like gaps in the logic of it :)

>29 pwaites: You're most welcome! I thought so too. More articles in Hines' series are due out starting Monday I believe, I'll try to remember to collect them here again.

30> I think it's eventually stated that it's easier to make objects "better" and more beautiful.

I'll have to check in on Monday then. :)

Current reads...

Ancient Light, Mary Gentle

Gentle's choice to skip ten years for Christie and bring her back to Orthe not as an envoy, but as a representative of a shady Earth corporation is an interesting one. Things have of course changed on Orthe.

I'm reminded of the nine-ish book "reconstruction" arc of Cherryh's Foreigner books, from Destroyer through Betrayer, where Bren comes back from space only to find out Things Are A Mess with the government, though of course there are a lot of differences as well.

The Will of the Empress, Tamora Pierce

This is more like it. I was worried after Battle Magic, but the main four here are the characters I remember from the first eight Emelan books- albeit changed and grown apart.

Books finished...

13. Golden Witchbreed, Mary Gentle ★★★★★ (reread)

While reading the most recent Foreigner books, I've been thinking "I'd like to read a version of this where the envoy wasn't the center of the universe, there weren't typical Western sexuality/gender/family roles even when that doesn't particularly make sense with the alien culture, and there were more important female characters (maybe even the envoy, if I'm stretching it)."

I didn't realize that not only did such a book exist, I'd already it over a decade ago. While it has its flaws (there is so much compressed into this book, and frustratingly Gentle spends a lot of it on how grueling and unpleasant travel can be while some of the character interaction and culture I'd rather see is kept off-screen), it was a pleasure revisiting this one, and I immediately picked up Ancient Light upon finishing it.

Further thoughts over in the group read thread.

14. The Emperor's Soul, Brandon Sanderson ★★★ (intend to read)

I kept reading because I was interested in what happened to Shai though I admit I too was horrified when I thought she'd burned the painting merely for her own convenience! This was about the perfect length for the story told, it didn't feel rushed or stretched.

The magic system ended up bothering me a bit less the less Sanderson tried to explain it as the story went on, though honestly I remained pretty irritated with it throughout and so far as I would recommend this one, it would be in spite of the worldbuilding (a muddle of Asian cultures- Shai (rhymes with hey, not shy at least in the audiobook I sampled) is from the not-Nippon MaiPon and her aunt and uncle have not-Chinese? names but evidently people eat with forks rather than chopsticks) and magic system rather than because of it.

I thought the ending in particular bordered on being a cop-out. I was looking forward to seeing how Shai could escape with her wits and cunning, only to find out that one of her seals turns her into the Terminator and she punches, kicks, swords, and headbutts her way out. Sigh.

I would read another story about Shai (what's up, for example, with her Aunt and Uncle being imaginary, and her being trained by a legendary painter?) and will probably read Elantris which is already on my shelf, but it's neither moved up nor down the list after this one.

I'm behind on my reading updates...

Ancient Light is alternately a fascinating and frustrating read. I admire so much of what Gentle's doing in this book- looking at what happens later, ten years on after the first contact we saw in Golden Witchbreed.

But... so much of this book just doesn't seem to follow on from the first one, the hand of the author is irritatingly visible- numerous character deaths that happened between books feel less like organic, tragic events and more like "the plot wouldn't work if they were still alive, so they had to go," and revelations about the world feel less like "of course!" than "if the author played by the rules she'd previously established, the plot couldn't unfold this way."

There are also moments when characters have the idiot ball... So, rumor has it that someone's giving one group of Ortheans Earth weapons from black market, wouldn't anyone be interested in figuring out who of the, um, ten or so personnel on planet and three or four who've had any contact with this group of Ortheans it is? Especially as this is a very sensitive and volatile situation? If the Company has the region in space locked down so tight that reporters can't get through, wouldn't they notice ships full of contraband Earth weapons...?

Looking forward to April's group read, I'd had Melissa Scott's Shadow Man planned, but I've heard so much good about Michelle West's Sun Sword series I'm thinking of swapping Hunter's Oath and Hunter's Death in the same setting before it, and doing Shadow Man in June. Any objections?

Also, I've signed up for Twitter as @quartzen. So far, I'm mostly retweeting interesting links I come across, with occasional reading and other commentary and who knows what else I'll get around to if I keep it up. Anyone else on Twitter around here?

>33 sandstone78: You're right about the characters in Ancient light not taking the most logical course of action, in that particular case and others. There were so many crises arising one on top of the other that it must have been hard to prioritise which to respond to, but these are supposed to be professionals who shouldn't lose their heads when things go wrong. I think it's another case of the author not playing by the rules again.

I'm still in the middle of The broken crown and probably won't be ready to move on to the Hunter duology until May. While I typically read several books at the same time, it would be too confusing for me to start Hunter's oath before I finish Broken crown. So I personally would find it more convenient to stick with the plan to read Shadow man, but if you decide to go ahead with the Michelle Wests I'll just join the group read when I'm ready.

>34 Sakerfalcon: Much as I agree that authors don't play by the rules (and that Gentle was pulling the strings in this case), I've seen an awful lot of professionals lose their heads when things go wrong :)

And I absolutely agree that there's no excuse for the Company not to been able - or apparently even try - to shut down the illicit arms trade. There are far too few suspects, and the traitor couldn't have been working alone. It didn't really add up, unless you buy that Molly was complicit - which is never actually suggested in the narrative..

>35 imyril: I don't mind what order the Group Reads are in - I'm not planning to join for Michelle West, but I won't be able to resist Melissa Scott.

I'm on twitter as @imyril but I am at best an occasional visitor these days.

Oh, here you are! Hello!

You mentioned Carol Berg's Lighthouse duology. I really loved that series; they were my gateway books to full-fledged love of SFF. :)

I recently read Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker. I thought his worldbuilding was great, and the magic system was unique. There were a couple of glaring holes in logic toward the end, but my real problem was that Sanderson doesn't seem to think women can be complex or real characters. Both of the main women characters fall into tropes. They don't grow or change in the book; they just swap tropes. Can't say I was surprised, given what I know of Sanderson's politics, but it still was irritating. I'd like to try more of his books later.

Golden Witchbreed sounds fantastic.

Edited: punctuation

36> I actually really like some of Sanderson's female characters. Shallen from Stormlight Archives is my favorite.

36: I have liked the female characters in all the Sanderson books I've read EXCEPT Warbreaker. Of course I appreciated him giving them major roles and taking the time to give them points of view, but I did not like the way they were sidelined at the climax. When Siri was captured by the Big Bad and contemplated what she could do and realized her only option was to "hope in Susebron" -- that is, be patient and wait to be rescued -- it took all my willpower not to hurl the book across the room. Had Warbreaker been my first experience with Sanderson's work, I might well have chosen not to read any further.

Thankfully, Mistborn's Vin does indeed get to be the hero at the climax, at least of Vol. 1; no need of rescue there. In Elantris, Sarene, a smart and charismatic figure (IMO, at least) does get sidelined, but the male hero gets sidelined along with her, so it's a little less bothersome to me. And Shallan of The Stormlight Archive is not content to be a passive observer.

>37 pwaites:, >38 kceccato: Thanks for the extra info! Sounds like his other books offer more, so I'll definitely give him another go.

Current reads:

Somewhat up in the air at this point. I'm still working on The Will of the Empress, but it's slow going. Sandry and Briar are getting the most focus, and they remain my least favorite of the four. I'm getting to the point were I want to just push through and finish. Otherwise, I've picked up a paperback that's been in my TBR, Caroline Stevermer's fantasy of manners The Serpent's Egg, whose main characters seem to be a female scholar whose mentor just passed away, leaving her cryptic clues about the titular artifact, and a lady in waiting of the Queen, whose betrothed was felled by poison and conspiracy, and a non-fiction book about the history of the telegraph, The Victorian Internet.

Books finished:

My three remaining March reads, The Errant Prince, Hakusan Angel, and Manifest, are all from Less than Three Press, a small press that seems to have started out publishing just m/m fiction and diversified to other parts of the LGBTQIA spectrum, still mostly romance. Most of their works seem to be around novella length, but there are some longer and some a bit shorter.

I came upon The Errant Prince and Hakusan Angel separately (the former from a review here and the latter browsing for non-erotica lesbian SFF on allromanceebooks) , not realizing that they were from the same publisher, and picked out Manifest while browsing their site after enjoying both of the above. All three provided a nice counterweight to my heavier read of Ancient Light.

15. The Errant Prince, Sasha L. Miller ★★★★ (impulse buy)

The Errant Prince is about Myron, a trans guardsman who is sent by the king to track down said prince, who abandoned princely duties a few years back. It's novella length, but this feels like just the right length- it's a smaller-scale, character-driven story with likeable characters, and a slower romance of the kind that works best for me, where it's two people who are fairly settled in who they are falling in love rather than a YA-ish finding one's identity through falling in love. (Also there are magic learning scenes, which are always something I like!)

My only quibble is that I never really got a feel for the status of trans characters in this universe- same-sex relationships are readily accepted, even institutionalized (there is talk of same-sex marriages to ally kingdoms together), pretty much everyone seemed to readily accept Myron's gender without a problem, which was nice to see, but we find out that his family had disowned him over it and he had cut ties with them- a decision which is upheld through the book.

16. Hakusan Angel, Alex Powell ★★★★ (impulse buy)

This was an interesting story that seemed to have something of a mecha-based anime influence to it, about countries at war with each other in a setting where human-powered machines are the weapon of choice. Generally machines are piloted by a source who serves as the battery, and a pilot who guides the machine.

Kaede is a source, someone who can power machinery by being wired to a machine through implants and feeding energy to the machine while in a trance-like state. Sources don't have a choice in the matter, being effectively conscripted into the military whether the like it or not, though with some ability to negotiate over their compensation. She has hidden the true extent of her strength because she fears escalating the war, but of course it comes out in an incident in her off-time and she's discovered.

She is paired with Mariko, a pilot who had just begun training in piloting high-level machinery, and they are assigned to the enormous Hakusan ("white mountain"), a titanic spider-shaped machine. This turns out to be just as well, when their nation is attacked by the opposing side, who has discovered a source capable of piloting an equally capable giant snake-like machine- the fight scene is pretty cool, as one would hope from this kind of spectacle-based story.

There's fairly little here in the way of romance, as Kaede and Mari are just beginning to think of something more than their partnership at the end of the story though there's a sweet scene at the ending where they take a break from patrolling to have a picnic on the outside of Hakusan, but I enjoyed the characters and their gradual working relationship.

The setting fell a little flatter to me- there's a major subplot of the government deliberately preventing pilots and sources from getting too friendly, but it's resolved through discussion and debate where each side reexamines their stereotypes, and we never really learn why they were kept apart, nor does anyone attempt to prevent their reconciliation at all. I would have liked a little more on that, but otherwise the story was again a good length and enjoyable.

17. Manifest, Alden Lila Reedy ★★★½ (impulse buy)

A shorter story about a girl who discovers she's trans through cosplay (and eventually crossplay), in the vein of "developing an identity through fandom" stories like Fangirl (I assume, Fangirl is still in my TBR, but it sounds like a similar sort of story). This one is compelling, but it feels a little slight- almost all of it is narrated from a retrospective standpoint, ie "told" rather than "shown."

The family and friendship dynamics felt realistic and nuanced, with the protagonist's conservative family in a middle ground, confused but eventually sympathetic and willing to work on it instead of completely and instantly accepting or completely and thoroughly rejecting. As I'm used to in YA, I found the situation with love interest a wee bit convenient how did I ever manage to get through college without making my standard-issue LGBT YA close friend who turned out to be a lesbian who had feelings for me? *pout*, but that's pretty much par for the course and not a mark against the bo

April
18. Ancient Light, Mary Gentle ★★★★ (reread)

Large, large wall of text over in the group read thread.

This is a frustrating book- and no, not just because of the ending. I could have dealt with that, if it felt earned, but too much of the book relies on coincidence and actions with no logical motivation (and no, not just on the villain's behalf- I could have dealt with that fine too. I'm thinking of the Hexenmeister's convincing Christie that there was nothing in the Tower, Mendez never considering communication jamming if such technology existed, and the Tower's defenses that were hinted at as very sturdy failing to... um, a backhoe or something? and offscreen at that).

We do, however, get a broader view of Orthe than the Hundred Thousand, mainly focused on the southern continent, a truly horrible revelation about Orthe, some chilling glimpses of the last days of the truly alien Golden Empire, and a satisfying though tragic resolution to the arc of the duology's most interesting character, whose complexities and ambiguities make this duology worth reading about just for her if nothing else.

Possibly the book's biggest weakness is the way that much of the cast was killed off between books. Almost none of the Orthean characters except those from the last book ever really came into focus for me, and neither did the major humans (part of the reason being Gentle's decision to make the current envoy and the military commander close associates of Christie's, without us ever getting any of the background on how they met or worked together). Christie never feels like she has ten more years experience- by the second half of the book, when things settle in, she feels and reacts the same as she did last book. If I'm to believe a character has had experience, I need to see her drawing on them, recalling similarities, drawing parallels, building on what she knows- not just a passing mention here or there.

All that said, would I recommend it? Yes, it's worth it to spend time on Orthe again, but with the caveat that this is a book that seems clearly written with its ending in mind, and it's willing to sacrifice whatever continuity with the previous novel or common sense the characters might possess it has to to get there.

>36 LibraryPerilous: Hello! I'm not around as much as I'd like to be lately, but I am still here :)

I do have the Lighthouse duology in my TBR! I actually planned to run a group read of them last winter, but life intervened :( Berg's books that I've read can be pretty grueling, and I'm not always in the right headspace for that lately.

I thought that Shai in The Emperor's Soul was fairly interesting and complex, and she definitely wasn't sidelined, but my problems were with the worldbuilding. I've heard Sanderson's writing talked about as "video-game-ish," and that's kind of how it felt, between the magic system and the conclusion reaching for violent confrontation when it didn't really jive with the tone previously established. Our protagonist who lives by her wits and skill escapes captivity not by either of those, but by using her power to transform into a super martial artist and punching and kicking her way out, leaving a trail of unconscious or worse bodies behind her. Siiigh.

I do plan to give Elantris, which is in my TBR pile, a try, but I need to wait until I'm in a less nitpicky mood.

Golden Witchbreed is very good! I definitely recommend it. I mean to try more of Gentle's work this year- the only other I've read is her YA, A Hawk in Silver. Unfortunately for me, her work seems to go more into the dark, weird, and gritty, which I don't usually go in for.

>37 pwaites: >38 kceccato: Thanks for the notes!

Longer update later, but I've picked up If on a winter's night a traveler and found myself wincing and nodding along at Calvino's description of the peril's of book shopping:

In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop pas the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too. Eluding these assaults, you come up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are holding out:

the Books You've Been Planning To Read For Ages,
the Books You've Been Hunting For Years Without Success,
the Books Dealing With Something You're Working On At The Moment,
the Books You Want To Own So They'll Be Handy Just In Case,
the Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer,
the Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves,
the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified.

Now you have been able to reduce the countless embattled troops to an array that is, to be sure, very large but still calculable in a finite number; but this relative relief is then undermined by the ambush of the Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time To Reread and the Books You've Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It's Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them.

With a zigzag dash you shake them off and leap straight into the citadel of the New Books Whose Author Or Subject Appeals To You. Even inside this stronghold you can make some breaches in the ranks of the defenders, dividing them into New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Not New (for you or in general) and New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Completely Unknown (at least to you), and defining the attraction they have for you on the basis of your desires and needs for the new and the not new (for the new you seek in the not new and for the not new you seek in the new).

Hee! Every time I shop for books. Every. Time.

>41 sandstone78: Looking forward to your thoughts on If on a winter's night a traveler

>40 sandstone78: My impression of the Lighthouse duology is that it's pretty light on the torture, for Berg, but I've not read her other books. It's graphic in a few places, though, but the narrative tone is ... jaunty, for lack of a better word.

>41 sandstone78: That is my life on visiting a bookshop. I think there's the distinct ouch of a perfectly fired BB! Looking at the description of it, I may have passed it by, however, your chosen snippet changes that impression completely.

Catching up on reviews!

19. The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers by Tom Standage ★★★★ (impulse buy)

I didn't know much about the telegraph at all before reading this book- very interesting! Fascinatingly similar to the internet in some ways (especially the internet of the mid-90s or so when the book was written), yet with telephone, radio, and television in between them it doesn't seem like the lineage was quite direct. Lots of food for thought, and has made me reflect on my assumptions about the origin of computing- this gives a fascinating context to the world of pioneers like Babbage and Lovelace.

I did wish for more about telegraph office culture though, especially the experience of women on the lines where gender wasn't readily apparent, but there was a lot to pack into the book already- it definitely came down on the side of being a history of the invention and deployment of the telegraph as much or more than its users.

20. The Will of the Empress, Tamora Pierce ★★★★ (mount tbr)

I've been reading this series for probably close to fifteen years now- I fully admit that at least one of the stars is for nostalgia and the aww! ending. The first quartet, Circle of Magic (starting with Sandry's Book) is an old favorite because of the way it centers craft-based magic and, for the most part, uses of magic other than violence and war. The second quartet, though, where our four protagonists went their separate ways, was crime-based and quite bloody, and the next chronologically (but most recent by publication order), Battle Magic, dealt with a war that was traumatic for several of the characters. I've had issues with what TV tropes calls "protagonist-centered morality" when it comes to violence in this series, especially as the series has progressed.

The Will of the Empress, though, is not a war story- it's a political intrigue story that brings our four protagonists back together, and sends them to the court of noblewoman Sandry's cousin, the Empress of Namorn. The Empress, Berenene, intends to coerce Sandry into marriage to keep her in Namorn- even if it means looking the other way and allowing Sandry to be kidnapped and held by a nobleman until he forces her to sign a marriage contract, according to old Namornese custom. Sandry is also conflicted over her duty to her people, who have been suffering because she hasn't been there to fulfill her duty, instead living with her uncle Duke Vedris in Summersea. (Honestly, Sandry is my least favorite character of the four, and I found very, very little sympathy with her over "but my duties as a noble are so boring and so hard!"- I was very, very thankful when she ceded her lands to her distant cousin Ambros at the end of the book.)

A big reason I finally got back to this book was that one of our protagonists comes out and has a relationship with another woman. I am always glad to have representation, but... I found myself disappointed, because it happened almost completely off-screen. We got a whole lot of "I feel good when I'm around her!", a single kiss, and a lot of the other three characters seeing them happy together. That's it. There is more romance between Sandry and her unwanted beaus than this couple! And of course they split up at the end, because mumble mumble duty and I have to return home and I have a good life here- and Daja gets over her in like a day. From "I want to spend my whole life with you and rearrange it around you!" to "meh, disappointing that we had to part" in a day.

21. Shadow Man, Melissa Scott ★★★★ (mount tbr)

For April group read- thoughts at length in the group read thread linked at the top of my reading journal.

In the universe of Shadow Man, the drugs used for faster than light travel have resulted in a large increase in the percentage of certain intersex conditions in the population. Most of human society legally and culturally recognizes three genders besides man and woman: mem, fem, and herm. And then there is isolated Hara, affected by the same drugs to the same extent, where only men and women are recognized.

Warreven Stiller is an "odd-bodied" Haran lawyer from a prominent family who fights for the rights of the other Haran odd-bodied. In the past, he had the opportunity to marry Tendlathe, the son of Temelathe, Hara's Most Important Man, but he refused because it would have meant living as a woman. Temelathe gets Warreven a political appointment to take him away from a case that could bring the odd-bodied's issues into open debate in the next open election, but Warreven finds himself increasing persecuted by the increasingly violent Haran conservative movement led by Tendlathe, which wants the "corrupting" outworld influence off of Hara. 3e gradually realizes that as a herm, there is no way for 3im or any of the other odd-bodied to be "normal" enough to satisfy them.

The point of view is split between Warreven and Mhyre Tatian, an offworlder who runs a pharmaceutical company and the boss of a witness whose testimony Warreven needs to win the legal case in question, who provides a window into what "normal" is like everywhere but Hara.

There's some really interesting worldbuilding here, as is usual for Scott's work- particularly interesting, she uses three invented pronouns for mems, fems, and herms (written with the deprecated English letters eth ð, thorn þ, and yogh ȝ in the print edition, and %, þ, and 3 in the ebook conversion- I strongly recommend the print edition because it's much easier to read).

Some of the worldbuilding has fantastic payoff (Warreven as Agede!), but a lot of it just never really came together for me. Hara is a restricted planet because its population alone is not susceptible to the rampant strains of HIV throughout humanity- but though it looks like this will be a major plot point (the case Warreven is fighting has to do with emigration restrictions) that never ties into the greater themes of the book, nor does Hara's omnipresent pharmecuticals (there are even stimulants in the soap and the food!) and different levels of pharmaceutical companies, or even really the conflation of odd-bodied identities with prostitution ("trade"). I feel like I still have only a very vague idea of things that were crucial to the story like Haran government and the clan structure and the experience of the odd-bodied outside the small bar-centric subculture in the city where most of the action takes place (basically written off by the characters with a somewhat patronizing "all rural people are conservative and phobic and we can't rely on their votes").

A fascinating and worthwhile read for sure, but probably my least favorite of Scott's work that I've read so far.

22. Stories in Stone, David B. Williams ★★★★ (impulse buy)

One of my goals this year is to read more non-fiction, so I picked up this audiobook about the histories of different types of building stone and put it on in the background while working. Some interesting snapshots of people and places- the focus is definitely on human use of the stone, specific buildings of the stone and the people who built and lived and worked in them, rather than the geological qualities or formation of the stone, though. Interesting.

23. Fire Season: Notes from a Wilderness Lookout, Philip Connors ★★ (mount tbr)

Another non-fiction listen- I'd had the ebook for a while after buying it as a Kindle deal a while back and picked up the matching audiobook for a reasonable price with Amazon's Whispersync program. I was curious about the work of a fire lookout, and forestry and firefighting, and there is a little of that here- but it takes a decided backseat to a somewhat meandering memoir and philosophical rumination about life and nature. I was also not the target audience as evidenced by the "funny" anecdote about how he asked to be excused from a required sexual harassment course because "Who would he harass alone in a lookout tower? Ha ha!" and similar anecdotes. Meh.

24. Hunter's Oath, Michelle West ★★★½ (mount tbr)

For May group read- thoughts at length in the group read thread linked at the top of my reading journal.

Stephen is an orphan and not very successful thief until he's taken from the streets of the King's City by a Hunter Lord to be the mentally-bonded huntbrother to the Lord's son, his partner in all things including the yearly Sacred Hunt where the Hunter God kills one of the Hunter Lords in return for keeping the people of Breodan safe from starvation. But, as this is an epic fantasy, Stephen also has a destiny revealed to him through dreams, and the forces of darkness are stirring.

I've been wanting to read some good epic fantasy for a while, and I enjoyed this one- likeable, interesting characters and mythic underpinnings, Gods and Demons and destiny and magic all here in spades. The pacing was somewhat uneven, though, and in the end the whole book felt like it was setup getting everyone in place for the other half of the duology, Hunter's Death. I'm really looking forward to how everything plays out.

However, like all too much epic fantasy, the treatment of women is iffy. This is a somewhat egalitarian setting, but the female characters are often left home and off-screen because they'll "be more useful there"- we're told the Hunter Ladies (who don't participate in the hunt, and therefore form the stable rule of the country) are the real power, but the story remains pretty much uninterested in them beyond their pretty clothes and their grief over the Hunters' deaths and their romantic interest.

Also the only explicitly non-straight character is a bisexual, sadistic succubus who kisses a woman against her will, which... yeah. That. Sigh. It didn't go into all-out torture/pedophilia like The Witches of Eileanan at least (I hate that I have to say "at least" because this is such a common thing). Had to put the book down and walk away for a little while.

Current reads next time? Sometime? Maybe less than a month between updates?

The Victorian Internet sounds like an extension of Standage's Writing on the Wall : Social Media, the first 2000 years, which looks at the dissemination of news throughout history, and how the public has interacted with the news sources.

(Edited to fix touchstone.)

>45 SylviaC: Aha, is that good? I picked it up after finishing the other one and have high hopes for it- just haven't gotten around to cataloging it!

I found it quite interesting, though there were a few slow spots. I read it at the very beginning of January, and can still remember a lot of detail from it, so that is probably a good sign.

Current reads...

Dreaming Metal, Melissa Scott

I recently inquired at Crossroad Press, an e-publisher with the rights to most of Scott's backlist, whether more titles were forthcoming since there had been a long time since the last release- to my surprise, I received an e-mail back that they were looking for proofreaders, and they wondered if I would like to help out. Of course I said yes!

I am currently working on proofing the OCR-scanned document of this book, Dreaming Metal, carefully checking it against paper line by line to make sure the ebook is the best it can be- to my surprise, the original Tor publications were both poorly proofread; I'm finding nearly as many errors and typos there as from the OCR process, and correcting as I go along.

This is a somewhat unconventional way to read a book, but I am reading it as I go along too, this one having languished in my TBR for a while. This takes place after Dreamships, and is a companion to that novel- the protagonist of that book, FTL pilot Reverdy Jian (who has really bad luck with possibly-sentient AI constructs), is one of the three leads here; the other two are Fortune, a stage magician who uses karakuri- non-autonomous robots basically- in her illusions, and Fanning, Fortune's cousin who is a musician.

Jian, uncomfortable working with any of the pseudo-personality Spelvin constructs after the events of the last book, sells off a construct which Fanning helps Fortune buy to coordinate the karakuri in her act. There's a lot of slice-of-life here, especially seeing how Fortune and Fanning go about their professions (their narratives are in first-person, while Jian's remains in third-person like it was in the last book), tied in with radical political groups who variously resent and worship machines (politics which Fanning's band gets caught up in when the mixed-race band whose footsteps they follow in is targeted) and the shadowy Cartel Companies, who did heavy research into AI and near-AI themselves. It's quite a bit different from Dreamships, the action all taking place on Persephone instead of mostly aboard ships, but fits well with that book's themes.

I look forward to it being available in ebook for everyone to read :)

Hunter's Death, Michelle West

For this month's group read. The story so far is divided between the continuing adventures of Gilliam and Stephen on their journey to Averalaan at the behest of the mysterious Evayne and that of Jewel Markess, leader of a den of children in Averalaan, where children and others have started going missing. Both are interesting, but I've not been really drawn in yet- I keep reading bits and pieces and then drifting off to something else.

Melting Stones, Tamora Pierce

Pretty much the same thing with this one. It's pretty clear the problem here is a volcano, and it's frustrating that the characters- including the eons-old living heart of a mountain- aren't picking up on it. I do like this series so much better when it's the characters against nature rather than violent armed conflict, though.

Labyrinth, A.C.H. Smith

This is a reprint of the novelization of the Jim Henson movie with additional concept art included, currently available in ebook through Humble Bundle- I don't know if the ebook is just for this bundle or if it'll be made available at retailers some other time, but it seems like the print version of this reprint is becoming scarce already (Amazon is out of stock and B&N says ships in 1-2 weeks) so if you're interested might be a good idea to pick it up.

I'm enjoying this one- the prose is better than much tie-in fiction I've read, and there's a lot of additional background here that wasn't in the movie, or at least wasn't explicit enough for a casual viewer like me to pick up on it- for example, Sarah's mother is an actress who, it's implied, left Sarah's father for her co-star Jeremy (sounds suspiciously like Jareth? hmmm). A lot of the setting description calls out things that were probably in the movie as background details that I didn't notice too.

(Also, this seems to have actually had an editor for tricky things like continuity, unlike Joan D. Vinge's Ladyhawke novelization, where the very same horse was a stallion early on- and this was a minor plot point- and a mare later on- also a minor plot point.)

More books finished...

25. Losing Ground, Sasha L. Miller ★★★½ (impulse buy)

I enjoyed Miller's The Errant Prince, so I picked up this urban fantasy novella about Earth wizards. It's a gentler kind of urban fantasy than the more action-movie type, far more Nina Kiriki Hoffman than Ilona Andrews- I really enjoyed the family dynamics and atmosphere. There's a really cool magic system as well, of wizards that hold and protect territories and are completely open to the communities they're part of (I wasn't sure if this was a secret world within the real present-day or an alternate world urban fantasy, but leaned towards the latter) and I'd love to see more in this setting.

However, I ended up feeling it stretched on slightly too long, while the conflict never really built up to much (and given the backstory elements it included, it maybe should have)- things were solved a little too easily I thought. The relationship dynamics between Carter and his love interest Tai also felt a bit too close to the couple in The Errant Prince- the easygoing one and the skittish one.

The main thing I disliked was the jarring epilogue- the romance in the story mostly consists of longing, hand-holding, and an eventual kiss, but turn the page to the epilogue and it's basically one long (and explicit) sex scene. I'm not bothered by explicit sex, though it's not really something I go looking for, but it just fit so poorly with the tone of the rest of the book- Tai and Carter didn't even seem particularly in-character to me in it. I'd probably recommend just skipping the epilogue.

26. Feather by Feather, Lynn O'Connacht ★★★★ (mount tbr)

This is a collection by @lynnoconnacht, whom I've enjoyed talking with on LT- I picked it out of my TBR while browsing, and am glad I did. It's a lovely collection of work, like a basket of tumbled stones- some are rougher than others (according to the introduction, this is a collection of everything she had made available online at the time), but there are many beautiful pieces- everything from realistic slice of life to the difficulties of a colony of tree-dwelling non-human creatures, a whimsical children's story about a sentient train pressured and pushed beyond its limits, and a lovely short retelling of the myth of Persephone where she knowingly chooses her fate. Recommended.

27. Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack, schartmannandrew::Andrew Schartmann ★★★ (impulse buy)

I had such high hopes for this book- music criticism about the soundtrack of a game I played extensively when I was a kid! but alas, it was disappointing. I think I'm too much a programmer and not enough of a musician to be in the target audience of this book- the meat of it is in music theory, a language I can pick my way through but am by no means fluent in.

I'm not sure if it's a style choice of the 33 1/3 series, authorial choice, or simple lack of resources, but the lack of any information direct from Kondo (or even Miyamoto, who we're told had strong ideas about the type of soundtrack needed for the game) specifically for this book is a great flaw- there's a lot of stringing together short quotes from pre-existing interviews to make points, but they often aren't directly relevant.

I could forgive this if there weren't so much vagueness on the technical side- there's a pretty good explanation of the channels of the NES' sound chip but very little in the way of how programming was done, to the extent that I still don't know for sure if Kondo did his own sound programming- and so many weird digressions and... U-turns I guess I'd call them? For example, a fairly long section in the short book is about composers in general pushing railing against the limitations and pushing the boundaries of the hardware- culminating in a short interview with a Western game music composer who worked with the NES who says "yeah, but Kondo was different, in fact most Japanese composers didn't have that view of things at all." What? Wouldn't it have... made more sense to lead with that, instead of with the other as if it was Kondo's philosophy?

(The same thing occurs multiple times- another example that sticks out is a lengthy history of the waltz in the section on the Underwater theme, about the origins of the waltz and the evolution of it and the way it made its way into ragtime- but there's no evidence that actually influenced Kondo, it was just kinda around in the musical atmosphere he might have... sorta absorbed by way of jazz or something? And early on, he talks about the big jump in innovation between Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros.- and then mentions in passing that Mario Bros., the 1983 arcade game, is actually a middle step between them.)

There are also some oddly missed connections- the chapter about the sound effects, for example, talks about sound effects representing changes in the physical space of the game world, eg the jump sound effects go from low pitch to high pitch- but so does the end-of-level fanfare, when Mario jumps on a flag pole and slides down it. The author digresses to this being about the player's score metaphorically increasing, and how Super Mario Bros. was at the boundary of transition between score-focused games and narrative-driven games- missing, I think, the fairly obvious that Mario may be going down, but he's going down a flagpole- raising a flag- and the flag is going up.

This isn't to say there isn't some interesting stuff here, though- I don't regret spending the fairly short time it took to read it, and did come away with some food for thought- but it's hard for me to wholeheartedly recommend, even to people with an interest in the topic.

>48 sandstone78: Unsurprisingly, I love the sound of the Melissa Scott - I shall look out for Dreamships and wait for Dreaming Meta in due course :)

>48 sandstone78: ...and in unexpected coincidence, Labyrinth is on television tonight. Any excuse - I love this film. And you're right - the detail about Sarah's mother being an actress is tucked away in newspaper clippings pinned around her mirror in her room. The picture is fuzzy, so you can't see the man she's pictured with (the article appears to be about a stage production rather than her love life though), but he does appear to have big blond hair (although not quite like Jareth's ;)

#48, 50 I always interpreted the film that way. But it was my go-to morning film for years, so I've seen it, um, quite a few times? (I'm not sure if the fact that I don't know the entire script backwards is sad or impressive.) But yes there are scads and scads of background details in the film that you won't necessarily notice the first time around. I probably haven't caught them all, so it'd be interesting to see how I get on with the novelisation.

Thank you for mentioning the Humble Bundle! I didn't know about it and it looks terrific! (Did I really need more books? Um. But. But. Now I want to rewatch The Storyteller...)

28. Labyrinth, A.C.H. Smith ★★★★ (mount tbr)

A reprint of the 80s novelization released with the movie, minus the black and white insert with pictures from the film and plus some concept art and sketches. I was glad to pick this up in ebook- I have a paper copy I'd found at a used bookstore, but that edition is somewhat rare and my copy is somewhat fragile so I found myself a bit too intimidated to actually read it for fear of cracking the spine and losing the inserts.

This is about everything I'd like in a novelization- additional backstory, additional depth from characters' interior monologue, description of the very detailed sets with many things that I failed to pick up on. There's at least one deleted scene here, and somewhat alternate takes on events; the prose is for the most part pretty good, with some occasional awkwardness (ie slips into omniscient because the staff was very insistent that the reader must know the very clever name that they gave this creature and there's no way our cast could possibly know it!)

Recommended for fans of the movie, certainly, for others probably watch the movie first and if you're interested, read this for more.

>49 imyril: I do recommend it! I hope to get my proofing on Dreaming Metal turned in by the end of next week, and will post if I have details I can share.

>50 imyril: >51 dovelynnwriter: I finished the novelization last night, and hmm, there are some things that quite change the feel of the story to me.

Jareth being explicitly tied to Jeremy, a figure in Sarah's real world, is one thing- her interest in Jeremy is at least a crush, which he seems to indulge, somewhat to her mother's discomfort as I read things- they don't show up on screen.

Jareth and Sarah's dynamic is also explicitly romantic/sexual rather than that being subtext too- he nearly kisses her in the ballroom scene, then she pulls away in disgust when she feels everyone staring, and the next chapter blames herself because she must not "really" be innocent (urgh). But also, we see Jareth POV, where he's anxious about aging and seems drawn to her for her youth- we're told that she's too old to be turned into a goblin, but "too young for him to keep" I think the line was, while he imagines Toby as his heir.

The biggest thing though is the ending- we do see Ludo, Sir Didymus, and Hoggle in the mirror with the "If you ever need us..." but Sarah puts away her copy of The Labyrinth and the pictures of her mother (except for the one with her mother and father and her as a child together). Instead of the movie's "I do need you!" and dance party, we get a quote from the "wise man" (with the bird hat) saying that sometimes to need things is to let them go, the end, time to put away childish things.

In short, the book, especially with Jareth being tied to a real person in Sarah's life (the way, as I never noticed as a kid, that her companions are stuffed animals in her room and Didymus' mount is her dog!), feels much more like these are fantasies she has, she has to outgrow her weird dreams and grow up- into, in particular, the feminine role of not hating babies and valuing the "nuclear family" above crushes and her mom's glamorous lifestyle. Am I reading too much into it...? Maybe. I rather feel like it, but at the same time not? In any case, the movie's ending may be less thematically consistent, but I think I like it better for that.

>50 imyril: That evidently is Bowie in the picture! Blown up pic here.

>51 dovelynnwriter: You're welcome! I saw very little publicity on the bundle this time, which surprised me. (It still has an hourish to go if anyone was thinking about picking it up!)

Labyrinth is a movie I strongly remember from my childhood, but I'm not sure how often I actually watched it? I managed not to pick up on some fairly obvious details until I just watched it recently though! (Now I want to rewatch The Last Unicorn again too!)

I'd actually never heard of The Storyteller before watching a reality show based in the Henson studio, "Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge"- not sure about the availability of that outside the US, but it was really interesting and in general had a focus on the interesting craft bits over the irritating reality show "drama" bits.

>52 sandstone78: Hmm. I think I'll stick with the movie ;) I have thought (watching as an adult) that there's a reading of the film as Sarah entertaining herself while she babysits - not least because of the detail of the toys - and for me the Jareth romance subtext is clear and uncomfortable enough without it being made more explicit.

The Storyteller was fabulous television - I've not seen it since I was a kid, when it was on Dutch tv!

...but now I want to re-watch The Dark Crystal. More Jim Henson goodness, and considerably darker than usual.

*wrinkles nose* Thaaaaat doesn't sound like an ending I'm going to appreciate very much. So much of the strength of the film, for me, lay in the promise of that last scene. Having it changed like that... Well, I suppose I'll see when I get to it.

Oooooooh. That seems like it'd be a wonderful show. But then it mentions The Storyteller. And sure if memory serves they tend to make few changes, but I did so love the premise and the way the stories were told...

And yeees... The Dark Crystal. That was a beautiful film. I should rewatch all of these. Sometime. In the copious amounts of free time that I have. >>

Current reads...

The Fox's Tower and Other Tales, Yoon Ha Lee

Wow, I'm really enjoying this one.

Since dragons did not exist in their part of the galaxy, the robots decided to build one. They spent the better part of the year in research and design. They consulted symbologies burned pixel by pixel into old starships and oral histories collected from deep-dreaming visitors in ages past. They tested exoskeletons based on various luminous alloys, for robots are nothing if not empirically minded. And when they had doubts, they erred in the direction of beauty.

I'd heard good things about Yoon Ha Lee's work- her collection Conservation of Shadows is in my TBR- and picked this collection of flash fiction vignettes and fairy tales up on impulse after reading the sample. The prose is lovely, and it's amazing what she is able to pack into a page or two per story- if the above quote from a piece about robots building a dragon to celebrate in a new holiday interests you, I definitely recommend picking it up. Spoiler: no, it does not end terribly, though the stories range from fluff to the bittersweet.

The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison

Okay, so I'm a little late on this one- I kept picking it up and being a little put off by the language, but after about the first chapter I've been having a hard time putting it down. I want to find out what happens next!

Hunter's Death, Michelle West

I think at last the plotlines of Jewel and our heroes from the last book are about to intersect. More thoughts about this in the group read thread when I have time, but right now I'm having seriously mixed feelings about Evayne- her treatment is bordering uncomfortably close to the "every competent adult woman in the genre is an insecure, vulnerable little girl inside" trope.

(I'm more irritated than I might be because I really like to read about female mages, and Evayne is pretty much our only at this point, everyone else who gets a name and dialogue in the Order of Knowledge tending towards the bearded old guy variety.)

The fascinating Terafin balances Evayne out somewhat- part of the reason it's crucial to have multiple female characters in a book, so one doesn't have to carry the whole burden of representation. I am much more interested in Jewel's side of the story in general, but really, did almost all possibly completely all after Duster's death of her den have to be boys? :/ Why are the domicis "men--and the occasional woman" in what seems to be a pretty egalitarian society?

Recently finished...

29. Melting Stones, Tamora Pierce ★★★★★ (mount tbr)

This was a really pleasant surprise to cap off my read of Emelan after my dissatisfaction with Battle Magic and, to a lesser extent, The Will of the Empress: a book about working magic to stop a natural disaster, specifically some really interesting stone and geology based magic. It's not perfect- the minor characters never really came into focus clear enough for me to distinguish a lot of them- but I really enjoyed it gets back to the roots of the series, where magic is used for things other than killing people, and it's also an interesting character study of Evvy. I also loved the ending, where she decided to join the temple as an initiate! I hope to see another book about her there in the future.

(I can't imagine reading this in publication order without Battle Magic to explain Luvo's presence, though- unfortunately, since I really disliked that book and hesitate to recommend it. I think it would stand alone if you've not read any of the rest of the series, but I imagine the "wait, what? how did we get from there to here??" would be too much if you'd read the previously published books.)

The next Emelan book isn't due out until next year at the earliest (the date has been continually pushed back), but it's supposed to be about lightning/weather mage Tris studying at a university, so I'm really looking forward it.

30. Luckstones, Madeleine E. Robins ★★★★ (impulse buy)

A collection of three swashbuckling/fantasy of manners short stories. An enjoyable diversion if you like the genre- it's hard to say much in particular without spoilers although no, the arranged marriage between the two girls doesn't end in romantic love- but there is a lesbian character in one of the other stories. I'd gladly read another story in this setting, but don't feel particularly compelled to seek out Robins' more realistic historical fiction.

>53 imyril: I think the novelization strongly supports that reading, really. I was a little surprised there weren't callouts in the text to the characters looking similar to her stuffed animals, though she does recognize Ambrose for Merlin.

>54 dovelynnwriter: Yeah, I'm so-so on that ending myself, but I did enjoy the rest! I don't believe The Storyteller was the focus of any of the challenges on the reality show- there was a challenge to create a skeksis (sp?) from The Dark Crystal, but most of it was original work and creatures to a theme (eg creatures that live underwater) if I recall.

I've actually never seen The Dark Crystal either though! I should probably rectify that someday (or at least read the novelization!).

55> On The Goblin Emperor and language, I know what you're talking about! I read the first few usages of "thee" and "thou" and wondered what had I gotten myself in for. I eventually got sucked into it and the language became less noticeable (except for all those names).

>55 sandstone78: Oooh Yoon Ha Lee has just been bumped up my wish list (I've been sat on Conservation of Shadows too) and I might have to see out the flash fiction. No way I can resist robots building dragons.

#55 I found the language took a while to get used to, partially because I'm used to authors not knowing what they're doing with it, but I loved The Goblin Emperor so much once I found my footing. I hope you'll continue to enjoy it!

*nods* From what I remember of the show, I'd be surprised if it had been. It relies pretty heavily on live action and film techniques rather than puppetry.

I do hope you'll watch The Dark Crystal sometime! It's beautifully made. The novelisation will undoubtedly give you more information, but the film itself is exquisite and I highly recommend it if you enjoy Henson's work in general. A book just won't do the beauty of the puppets or the work put into the film justice. *wording fail*

>55 sandstone78: >58 dovelynnwriter: I'd second a call to hunting up a copy of The Dark Crystal - the art direction and puppet design are fabulous, and Fizgig is a joy.

I thought The Dark Crystal was a wonderful movie! I preferred it to Labyrinth.

60: The Dark Crystal is 100% fantasy, and I tend to prefer that kind of thing to "portal fantasy." And I loved Kira and Aughra.

I like Labyrinth quite a bit too, but that movie isn't quite as awesome as it so easily could have been. If you look at the way the character is WRITTEN, Sarah is a splendid heroine, brave and imaginative and capable of great kindness even though selfishness is one of her flaws. She's a female geek! I'd be all primed to love her. But Jennifer Connelly's performance is distressingly weak. She plays Sarah like an airhead, with a breathy voice. If only, if only a stronger actress had been cast in that role, we'd have a near-perfect movie instead of merely a decent one.

>55 sandstone78: I should read more Yoon Ha Lee soon. I thought "Warhosts," her contribution to War Stories, was interesting and had an incredibly complex folklore despite being only short story length.

I loved The Goblin Emperor. I just read Liz Bourke's mini-review of Uprooted, noting this similarity, so now I want to read it: "\i\t is nothing like The Goblin Emperor in its characters, incidents, even in its narrative mode. And yet, nonetheless, it touches me in very similar ways, for Uprooted is a generous book, and a kind one. It holds out hope both to its characters and to its readers even in its moments of horror."

That was one of the reasons I loved Addison's book. It's a grim book in places, and it has teeth, but it's also a gentle tale, the story of a decent man staying decent.

>48 sandstone78: Note to self: check out Sasha L. Miller. I love Nina Kiriki Hoffman!

I'm not a fan of short stories in general, but dragon-building robots... *salivates*

Whew. It's been... a long time since I posted a reading update. I have to go back and figure out the exact order I read things in for my tracking purposes, but here are some short impressions in vaguely the order I read things.

Dreaming Metal, Melissa Scott unrated (mount tbr, proofread for Crossroad Press)

I'm not going to rate this one because I proofread it, but it was an interesting exploration of AI (specifically an AI that's not exploring what it means to be human or trying to destroy everyone, but is more interested in creative expression). I liked the characters, and as usual with Scott's work this feels like a world you could live in, mostly communicated through the rhythms of daily life- Scott never forgets that her characters work, for one thing, and that work takes up a lot of their time.

I do wish I'd re-read Dreamships before reading this one, because I felt like I was missing things with some of the political subplots, and given the events in the last book I was surprised the political and human rights aspects of this one had so little focus (though I'm not sure how it could have been worked in given the non-political bent of our protagonists- it would have required a lot of changes to include that); I found some of them uncomfortable as well- one of the political parties seemed to have a whiff of what has become my unfavorite trope, "they have points, but they're extremists willing to use any means to get their way including violent ones, so we can ignore those points." The resolution was also a little rushed, but overall it was definitely worth a read.

A Liaden Universe Constellation, Volume 1, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller ★★★½ (mount tbr)

A collection of short pieces in the Liaden universe, with many episodes that take place in the past of characters we know (sometimes past lives, in the case of the Lute and Moonhawk stories which I found disappointing) and some that seem completely unrelated. There's also the original version of Balance of Trade, which is almost exactly the same as the first chapter or so of that novel. My favorites were a piece about Pat Rin and a piece about a Liaden Scout who finds a mysterious, evil artifact.

I really need to catch up with the series, but I keep bouncing off of Fledgling- I just can't get into Theo and her story for some reason, despite how much I've enjoyed their other books. Maybe next time...

Shades in Shadow, N.K. Jemisin ★★★★ (intend to read)

A trio of short stories about Nahadoth in captivity before The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, a godling (Hado, the "daytime" half of Nahadoth that is split off from him after the events of the first book) coming into his own, and Glee searching for her father between the events of the second and third books. The last one was by far the best, though I liked the second as well- the first felt disappointingly trite, with Nahadoth's "dangerousness" being shown in very predictable ways.

Stories of the Raksura Volume 2, Martha Wells ★★★★½ (intend to read)

It's always a pleasure to visit with the Raksura! I'm very excited for the new duology following up on The Siren Depths that starts next year. This volume, though, contains two long stories and several short ones- the second long piece was the standout, taking place after The Siren Depths with an interesting mystery that starts with some vanished Kek groundlings. The first long story didn't work as well for me- being a prequel about Moon before he came to the Indigo Cloud court, it was missing the character interactions that are my favorite part of the series, though it had appropriately creepy monsters. (I thought everything was resolved a little too easily, though.)

The short pieces include "Mimesis," a story from Jade's perspective that I'd read before in The Other Half of the Sky and enjoyed revisiting now that I've read the other books, a very short character-interaction piece of Moon stepping in to protect the Court from an exploitative groundling trader, and another story in the same setting unrelated to Raksura at all- like with the longer stories, the first two worked better for me because I'm here for the characters more than the cool setting with its variety of peoples.

A Gift of Dragons, Anne McCaffrey ★★★½ (impulse checkout)

After reading the above books, I was in the mood for more short side-stories in a familiar setting, and this fit the bill: a collection of four Pern novellas focusing on a young, bullied dragonrider; a holdless girl who can talk to dragons; a message runner; and a pair of twins where the one who really wants to be a dragonrider isn't the one chosen for the task. These are closer to the young adult Harper Hall trilogy than the main line of Pern novels in tone and content, and if you like that trilogy you'd probably like these- qualified of course with the usual pluses of dragons, likable characters, and world you can sink into and minuses of a bit of sexism and marriage being the only happy ending and true goal of women.

Golden Hearts, Clare K. R. Miller ★★★ (impulse buy)

The "soulmate bond" trope is all over in SFF romance and romantic subplots, but it's vanishingly rare to see one with lesbian characters (especially one that's not paranormal romance). I saw a review for this short self-published work on @lynnoconnacht's blog ages ago and decided to pick it up because I was in the mood for something lighter and fluffier. The characters were likeable, but I never got a good feel for anybody outside the main couple, and the plot about a rebellion seemed a little strained and unbelievable. I wouldn't be averse to reading something else of Miller's, though, especially if it has a lesbian couple.

Write Short Kindle Books, Nathan Meunier ★★★ (impulse buy)

I enjoy reading about the writing and publication process, though I don't know I'll ever be serious about it- my output is far too uneven for me to consider building a career or anything like that at this point, but I do write as a hobby, and have thought about trying to pull together a collection of reviews and essays at some point. This is a book specifically about writing and publishing short non-fiction ebooks, like short treatments of a niche topic or collections of interviews or essays- I found most of what it says to be common sense bordering on filler, but there were a few ideas about breaking down the work and pricing that were interesting to think about.

Writing Nonfiction, Dan Poynter ★ (impulse buy)

On the other hand, this was completely useless, and I regret bothering even at the discounted price I got it for by using a Kobo coupon. It's extraordinarily outdated, clearly written in the era of vanity publishing and spending almost all of its time focusing on that process rather than, you know, actually writing or researching or anything. The methodology advocated here is:

1. Be an expert on something, preferably at the top of your field with a lot of name recognition. Ideally, you'll have been an expert in something not many other people are experts in for several decades and built a reputation on such.

2. Brainstorm ideas and break your book into sections- you don't have to write them in order. You can probably use the outline and topics you already use when you tour around the country teaching classes to people about your topic.

3. Keep your writing in a binder so you can see what the finished project will look like. Format your margins like such and such, and make sure your cover is formatted like such and such. Here are some considerations about covers, make sure your book is a standard size and looks similar to the books it will be next to on the bookshelf at your local bookstore. Oh, yeah, some people read on ereaders like Nook and Kindle too, so publish ebooks too.

Maybe this was useful in its time, but it makes very specific assumptions about who's writing and just isn't relevant for today's market.

2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love, Rachel Aaron ★★★★ (intend to read)

This is a slightly polished collection of fiction writing advice from Aaron's blog- a lot of it is available for free there scattered around different posts, but this collects it all together in a short ebook. The title essay is the main selling point, and a large part of the book- Aaron breaks down strategies that work for her, including simple things like figuring out which time of day you have available to you is most productive and trying not to both write and figure out what you're writing at the same time if you can help it.

The part I'm finding most useful to think about though is the later part of the book, where she talks about how she does her pre-novel planning and organizes that planning- there are insights may not be particularly new but were new to me, like the idea of planning a series by choosing a focal character for each book and solving that character's problem to escape the trap of conflict escalating each book to the ridiculous. Lots of food for thought.

The Litany of Earth, Ruthanna Emrys ★★★★★ (impulse buy)

I'm not in the least a horror reader, and honestly know pretty much nothing about Lovecraft's mythos beyond the basics (eg horrors of the deep, lots of un(insert action here)able things, Cthulhu), but I really liked this novelette set in the US in the 1950s or 60s, which recasts Cthulhu worship as an outlawed religious practice and follows a woman who had been captured by the government for experimentation who finds that Cthulhu worship is now a trend appropriated by people who don't really get it.

It's unexpectedly about kindness, and a world where the horror isn't from monsters of the deep but human prejudice but the moral isn't the simplistic "all humans are bastards." I'm explaining poorly and in a cliched manner, but it's really interesting and worth a read- you can do so at Tor.com's site for free here. I'll definitely check out Emrys' other stories.

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: The Tempest, Susan Wright ★★★★ (impulse buy)

I find that tie-in novels make for wonderful comfort reading when I'm stressed out- like romances, one can generally be sure things will work out all right in the end, and it's a pleasure to spend time in good company. This one is about a powerful ion storm approaching DS9 that might be a living creature- Keiko O'Brien, just visiting, realizes it might be some kind of living being, and she and Jadzia Dax go to investigate it from the inside. Meanwhile, Worf, new to DS9, is dealing with a troublesome group of aliens known for their dishonesty and trying to figure out who or what severely damaged a Federation vessel. This one is worth reading for the character moments- Odo babysitting toddler Molly O'Brien, for example- even though both plotlines' resolutions are somewhat short on "wait, what exactly happened?" explanation.

A Matter of Disagreement, E.E. Ottoman ★★★★ (impulse buy)

I picked up this short steampunk m/m romance novella and its sequels after coming across Ottoman's powerful essay Why We Need Trans Romance. It focuses around two scholars: Andrea, who is in a tight spot as brother won't let him use the family money to conduct his research and can't other secure funding to provide for his research assistants due to the science he studies being considered passe, and Gregory, the face of the new field of mechanical animation that's taking over. Naturally, they meet not knowing who the other is, and things progress from there.

I really liked both of the characters and their interactions, and that they weren't the typical young, conventionally handsome romantic heroes- Andrea is a little heavyset and too forthright for his own good, and Gregory is enthusiastic but can be unthinking. Gregory is also trans, which doesn't seem to be accepted in this setting though the setting has no problem with same-sex relationships.

One thing that didn't work for me- a problem that I also had with another Less than Three Press title, Losing Ground- was a tone shift near the end of the story from a rather typical mannered, understated romance to a long, explicit sex scene. It seemed well-enough written, but explicit sex isn't really my thing, so I ended up skimming through it. Also, the steampunk remains pretty much off-screen, and the two magical disciplines are really only sketched in, but I wasn't really bothered by that at all.

Duende, E.E. Ottoman ★★★★ (impulse buy)

Another work in Ottoman's Mechanical Universe, this one seems to take place slightly before A Matter of Disagreement since we see Gregory apparently single near the end of it. This one follows an immigrant ballet dancer and a castrato opera singer who have admired each other from afar, and finally work up the nerve to do something about it- it's shorter than the previous story, and again has a fairly lengthy scene of explicit sex, but this time the sex felt more... integrated into the story and the characters, I guess, so it was less jarring to encounter. I'm definitely looking forward to reading the third of these stories, Winter's Bees, at some point in the future.

Star Trek Voyager: The Nanotech War, Steven Piziks ★★★ (mount tbr)

I got another offer from Scribd for two more free trial months, so I figured why not since I've been in the mood to read Star Trek novels, which are almost all disappointingly pricy in ebook form. (This one, for example, retails for $8.99.) I've had a paper copy of this one around for ages- I really enjoyed Piziks' Silent Empire series under the pen name Steven Harper, and expected good things from this one. Alas.

The characters are for the most part spot on here, and I found myself warming to Tom Paris a little more than I ever did on the show. (Which, to be fair, is not that much more, because Paris is pretty much a puerile jerk, case in point in this novel, he has amnesia and can't remember B'Elanna, to the point she is thinking separate quarters and divorce are for the best- at the end, with his memory back, he pretends he still has amnesia just to mess with her, intending to "surprise" her until Neelix blows his cover. For the record, though, I will still never understand how on earth Chakotay and Seven ended up together, but to the novel's credit it does give a firmer basis for that relationship than any of the TV episodes ever did. Still, Chakotay, urgh.)

The worldbuilding, with two opposing factions of centauroid aliens, was well done, and there were some interesting enough twists and turns, even if they were fairly predictable. I had two fairly major issues with the book, though, one very low-level throughout and one with the ending. The first is some stupid gender "humor"- our crew can't tell whether the aliens are men or women! haha, the aliens thought Chakotay was a woman, haha isn't that funny!- and how Piziks resolves that after having introduced that Chiar gender is fairly indistinguishable at a glance- "Tom could smell their gender." Yes, smell- the aliens have a strong scent, that broadcasts not only their mood and emotions but also their gender- and they have severely underdeveloped senses of smell, which makes pretty much no sense.

The ending... So, Chiar technology is highly reliant on nanites- to the extent that an oppressed country whose nanites have been deactivated is pretty much helpless, lacking the tools and skill to eg construct adequate shelter to the extent they don't even know what a hammer is or what nails are to hold things in place. A member of the oppressed faction uses Seven of Nine's Borg nanoprobes to infect his oppressors' nanite systems, causing widespread panic as all of the nanites borg up and fail across the continent- the corrupt leader of that faction contacts Voyager, panicked that hospitals, transportation, and other necessities are failing all across the continent, and Seven responds by deactivating all of their nanites. Something something moral fiber now the oppressed and oppressor will have to work together in equality Voyager you just killed an unknown number of people because you destroyed their hospitals!!!. Urgh. Seven wonders about her motivation, if she was retaliating the abuse they had done to her when she was kidnapped and if she went too far, and naturally Chakotay reassures her that nah, it's all good. Chakotay you are an objectively terrible person.

Anyways, that's my reading over the summer :) A What-I'm-Reading-Now update sometime soon, hopefully soon measured in days rather than months.

Glad your summer reading seems to have been more good than bad on balance. I'd been holding off on buying the second volume of Raksura stories as I haven't read the first one yet, but your great review is urging me to get it anyway!

Yay for summer reading! Glad it seems to average out in favour of good and enjoyable stories. ^_^ I'm pretty interested in Rachel Aaron's book. The title's always put me off a bit since writing 10K a day isn't the issue, but it sounds like it's actually about a lot more than how to write more.

Clare's Solitary Star features a lesbian relationship, if I recall. The protagonist is actually bisexual and the story sets itself up to have a bisexual love triangle in the later books. I think you might have similar issues about the writing, but if you're interested in exploring more of her work I think that's the one I'd recommend looking at first.

One day I'll get to reading the Raksura stories. They sound wonderful. ^_^

Of Books, and Earth, and Courtship, Aliette de Bodard ★★★★★ (intend to read)

A short fantasy caper set in the world of Aliette de Bodard's The House of Shattered Wings that's also a sweet lesbian romance between an archivist who turned down the opportunity to be Lucifer Morningstar's pupil to make her own path and Lucifer Morningstar's latest, ambitious pupil.

If any of the words in that preceding sentence grabbed you, I recommend this! It makes me eager to get back to the novel to spend more time with these characters, though the novel is much darker in tone and I worry that bad things will happen to one or both of them.

The Garden, Melissa Scott ★★★★★ (mount tbr)

Hmm. I was all ready to rate this one a mediocre three stars at best, and then I came to the resolution, and it just... worked for me.

I've been primed to expect the suspicious lone human in the company of mysterious aliens to be evil, and I didn't expect things to turn out such that the lone human chooses to stay with the alien, who is simultaneously all of the aliens and also the city in a sort of biological Ancillary Justice fashion, because the alien had gone to extreme lengths to save his life... and also, they're pretty clearly in love.

That said, this is unfortunately a fairly flawed novel, and it may not work for you- the pacing is pretty glacial, Scott's usual worldbuilding and sense of daily life lacks the fascinating detail of her original fiction, and the characterization of the Voyager cast is way off- it seems pretty clear that, like many of the other Voyager novels, this was written from character notes created before the show aired- characters repeat their canned backstory, but it doesn't really show through their actions, and personalities are sometimes very different.

(i.e. Tom Paris here is constantly aware of his position due to his burned bridges with both Starfleet and the Maquis in his past, somewhat maudlin, and not averse to honest displays of emotion instead of being an irritating manchild. Chakotay is still reliably an ass, though. There's also a bit of Paris/Kim subtext, and an even fainter- possibly imaginary- bit of Torres/Janeway subtext.)

The more I read these Voyager novels, the more convinced I am that in many ways the television show ended up giving us the weakest and least interesting possible versions of the characters- there are some genuinely interesting potential dynamics here, but somehow everyone ended up very flat and predictable, except for Seven of Nine who is my favorite. And then they paired her off with Chakotay of all people aaaaaaugh

Anyways, flawed, yes, but thinking about the end of this one makes me happy, and upon reflection I suspect there was probably quite a bit of subtle foreshadowing I missed purely because I had my eyes on the wrong target.

>65 Sakerfalcon: On balance, yes, definitely good overall, even if not quite the books I intended to read. On balance I liked Stories of the Raksura, Volume 1 a little better than the second volume I think but both are definitely worth reading! :D

>66 dovelynnwriter: This post about planning a novel was one of the pieces that stood out to me in the book- I think it's fairly representative, so if there is stuff in it that you find useful there's a good chance you'd find more in the book! A lot of it is just about how to organize your writing time as well, rather than strictly volume- I found some things to think about, even if I'm not sure they'll work for me.

I think you would like the Raksura books! :D Thanks for the heads-up by the way (I like reading about bisexual women too, they seem fairly rare still, especially ones that end up with women instead of having romances with men and a throwaway reference to an ex-girlfriend somewhere). I've downloaded a sample of Solitary Star to see if it grabs me. :)

Thank you! Someone linked me to another of her posts, though annoyingly I can't remember which and I really liked it. That post looks less useful to me at first glance, but still interesting!

They sound like books I'd enjoy! I just... haven't got around to acquiring them. >> And you're welcome for the heads-up. ^_^ I hope you'll find it enjoyable! I think I can count the number of bisexual characters I can remember reading about on one hand. :( Off the top of my head, than and one of the stories from Queers Destroy Science Fiction are the only two I can think of right now.

>67 sandstone78: Ah, I'd love to get my hands on a copy of Of Books, and Earth, and Courtship but I missed the free giveaway - and I'm delighted to note that as of last week it's now a thing I can buy :) ...as is In Morningstar's Shadow, which is free here in the UK Kindle store at the moment - another 3 shorts, from what I can see.

I'm about half way through The House of Shattered Wings and enjoying it. I'm not totally bowled over, but there's interesting things going on and I'm curious to see where it goes. And yes, dark. But not grimdark.

>69 imyril: ... and onto my kindle goes Morningstar's shadow!

>70 Sakerfalcon: Yep. I'm now trying to decide whether to finish House of Shattered Wings before I read the short stories or after :)

Assorted reading updates... not actually as much as it looks like, as many of the works here were novella or short-story length, but all worth reading. I have lengthier thoughts on a few other things I've read, but have decided to stop putting off posting what I already have written up until the nebulous future date when I get those done.

Song of the Beast, Carol Berg ★★★★ (reread, group read)

This is a twisty, compelling book that I would recommend- Berg's settings are always wonderfully creative- with caveats that it's fairly weak on women and it switches from being a tense, anything-can-go-horribly-wrong book to a somewhat more predictable (and less dark) what's-actually-going-on mystery part of the way through.

Spoilery thoughts and some general ruminations about the female-author-dominated "first-person protagonist torture" subgenre of books that I feel this book falls into (see Robin Hobb, The Curse of Chalion, Kushiel's Dart, all published a few years before or after this one) over in the group read thread.

In Morningstar's Shadow, Aliette de Bodard ★★★★ (intend to read)

This is a collection of three short stories in the setting of de Bodard's The House of Shattered Wings: one about a woman of House Silverspires reflecting on what she's lost, one about a Fallen caught outside the House after dark who takes shelter with mortals, and one about Selene and Emmanuelle (also seen in Of Books, and Earth, and Courtship, though later) right after Morningstar disappears. It appears to still be available and free at most ebook retailers, and would probably be a good way to see if you're interested in the setting or not- I suspect it will add some context to the novel too.

>69 imyril: Actually, Of Books, and Earth, and Courtship has only been available for purchase, the giveaway was only for In Morningstar's Shadow!

Courage is the Price, Lynn O'Connacht ★★★★ (intend to read)

This is a science fiction novella about a girl with anxiety whose only friend is a ghost (who she sensibly calls Ghost, lacking any better name)- when Ghost disappears, Rue decides she needs to help despite the crushing weight of anxiety. Ghost's nature- and what happened to Ghost- were compelling mysteries that kept me reading, and the reveals were satisfying.

My one quibble is that I'm not generally a fan of writing in the present tense- I do think it worked well as a device for conveying Rue's sometimes excruciating anxiety and uncertainty, I did struggle to get into the story sometimes because of it.

Zero Sum Game, S.L. Huang ★★★★ (intend to read)

I don't read a lot of thrillers- I'm put off by the violence and the body count- and this is definitely a thriller, at least in that respect (as a warning, a major character on Cas' side is a sadistic sociopath who tortures people he feels deserves it according to his particular- religious- moral code, and the results of his doing so are described onscreen)- but I picked it up after reading positive reviews and read it almost in one sitting because I had to see what happened next.

Cas Russell is really good at math- combined with a corresponding superawareness of her own body, she effectively has superpowers. A contract to retrieve a girl from a gang ends up revealing a much more sinister organization that's willing, as sinister organizations do, to kill to protect itself- as is an equally sinister organization dedicated to opposing the first. Cas finds herself up against a woman who's effectively a telepath, who can read both people's body language so well it's like reading their minds and who can, correspondingly, use that same understanding herself to subtly convince- brainwash- people into doing what she wants.

Along the way Cas teams up with a private investigator who does have a conscience, and gradually decides that maybe reaching for violence first isn't the best way to live. I felt this was let down more than a little bit by the "we have no choice" violent climax of the book (and I'm also musing over the ending for another reason, whether the shadowy organization's actions there fall into a trope I dislike, where villains who sort of have a point show their true colors and a gray situation becomes black and white- but I'm leaning towards agreeing with Cas and the other protagonists that no, mind control is objectively bad.) Reviews do say Cas' character growth continues through the sequel, which I have bought and will likely get around to reading before too long.

The Deepest Rift, Ruthanna Emrys ★★★ (intend to read)

This one caught my eye a while ago- I've actually had it on my e-reader longer than A Litany of Earth, but I ended up reading the other story first. This is a short story about a research team posted at a deep gorge populated by possibly-sentient manta-ray-like aliens and an AI copy of a famous professor who has been tasked with evaluating their research.

The protagonist is Deaf, and she and the other scientists on her research team are in a polyamorous relationship; the story is about their research and the strength of the relationship that they've built to do it, but unfortunately I never got much sense of any of them other than the protagonist as beyond "scientists in a contented working/romantic relationship," so that part fell a little flat for me. The proposed solution for the aliens' language is an interesting one, but I found myself bemused that the team hadn't researched the avenues shown in the story before- I could believe they came to the insight at this particular moment, but I didn't understand why they hadn't had more data along these lines.

The parts are all there, and very interesting, but it never really came together for me. Available free to read on Tor.com here.

Seven Commentaries on an Imperfect Land, Ruthanna Emrys ★★★★ (intend to read)

This, on the other hand, is a lovely collection of vignettes about a sort of Narnia-like parallel world that seeps over into Earth, and how the knowledge of it slowly spreads and affects the lives of those who know about it. It's hard to sum up, but worth reading. Also available free to read on Tor.com here.

Winter's Bees, E.E. Ottoman ★★★ (intend to read)

The third of Ottoman's short m/m steampunk romances, and in my opinion probably the weakest, this follows a prince and his best friend who's been in love with him since they were children as they dance around each other and try to negotiate their relationship when the feeling might not be equal on both sides and they are both desperately trying not to hurt each other's feelings. As is maybe inevitable in this kind of plot, I spent a significant amount of the story wanting to tell both of them to just please, talk to each other, please- especially since Ottoman's greatest strength to me is their wonderful character interaction, and Gilbert and Marcel spent almost all of the story apart and anxious.

It was nice to see cameos from the characters of the previous two stories, though, and this remains a diverse and inclusive setting. I predict these will be comfort rereads for me in the future, and genuinely hope that they will write more stories in this setting someday- in the meantime, I definitely intend to check out their other work.

Others See Us, William Sleator ★★★½ (reread)

A re-read! I read so much William Sleator when I was younger, every book of his I could get my hands on, and this was one of my favorites. (I'm so glad that Open Road brought it back out in ebook, but I'm disappointed that they don't have plans to bring out more than the books they did- I'd love to see Singularity, House of Stairs, Marco's Millions, The Duplicate, and others come back into print...)

Jared falls into a toxic swamp and ends up with the ability to read minds right before his family's annual family reunion. He quickly discovers that he isn't the only one with this ability, and, of course, learns that appearances can be deceiving when it comes to other members of his family- especially the cousin he has a crush on.

Does it hold up? Yes and no- not as well as my other fairly recent Sleator re-read, The Boxes, but well enough not to taint my memory of the book. The romance between first cousins is more uncomfortable to think about, where I didn't really notice it when I was a kid, and the same with the fairly blatant foreshadowing, but Sleator does eldritch creepiness and descriptions of what it's like to have psychic powers as well as ever.

Star Trek The Next Generation: Sins of Commission, Susan Wright ★★ (impulse buy)

I picked this one up after really liking Wright's Star Trek Deep Space Nine: The Tempest- both of them had been on sale for $1.99 each, but it looks like the price has gone up. Unfortunately, this one wasn't nearly as good (which I guess might be expected, this being an earlier novel).

It's about a possibly sentient, possibly not species of alien who broadcasts emotional waves that disrupt the crew's behavior, and an investigation into a starliner accident that killed one of the beings- the starliner happens to be owned and run by an old friend of Worf's family. The characterization was very, very flat in this novel, which isn't good in a novel that's all about the crew's deepest fears involuntarily coming to light; there were some nice moments near the end, though (eg Worf's part-Klingon son Alexander, who has been getting into trouble throughout the book, finally admits that he doesn't have any interest in Klingon culture because Klingons killed his mother, a revelation that takes Worf aback).

Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie ★★★★★ (intend to read)

If you've read the other two books and liked them, you will probably want to read this, and you will probably like it. It's more similar to Sword than Justice, but it does reach back and touch on a number of events that happened in Justice. A very satisfying trilogy, with a satisfying ending, and definitely one going on my favorites list.

Also, I'm still convinced that if you like Leckie's Ancillary trilogy, you'll probably like Helen S. Wright's A Matter of Oaths too- they still have a very similar vibe to me, and A Matter of Oaths is still free at the author's website.