Our reads in June 2026

Another month another pile of books.What are you planning to read this month?

Dusty's TBR for June
Emily Tesh - Some Desperate Glory
Algis Budrys - Rogue Moon
Rick Riordan - The Titan's Curse
Ted Sturgeon - Venus Plus X

other group challenge reads
P C Doherty - The Anubis Slayings
Ngaio Marsh - Singing in the Shrouds
Judith Cutler - Silver Guilt

Currently Reading
In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente
Anathem by Neal Stephenson

On Deck
Arena of Antares by Alan Burt Akers

Ordered/Requested
BLAME! Master Edition, 2 by Tsutomu Nihei
Platform Decay by Martha Wells
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut

Since Anathem is so massive, I think just two titles on deck should suffice for this month.

>2 dustydigger: Sturgeon is great and Venus Plus X is a favorite.

Edited to add: Also the topic for a current GSS thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/384646

Just halfway through Erickson's Tours of the Black Clock so unclear how SFnal to consider it overall, but it's internally described as alternate history. This has been on my shelves for decades though I don't recall whether I'd read it already.

Just started W. Gibson’s Blue Ant trilogy which I intend to finish this month:
* Pattern Recognition
* Spook Country
* Zero History

And I expect to have time before June is out to read a non-genre novel that I have been wanting to get to since members of my family have been raving about it this year: A Gentleman in Moscow.

3/4 of the way through Red Mars with Project Hail Mary on deck and Platform Decay waiting for the mood to strike. While reading Dungeon Crawler Carl (Book 4) on my phone app.

My planned SF&F reads for June include:

Ship of Destiny - Robin Hobb
The Man-Kzin Wars II - Larry Niven & others
Dauntless - Jack Campbell
The Anubis Gates - Tim Powers

>4 paradoxosalpha: The paperback cover in the link looks, to me, remarkably like Lord Valdemort. :-)

This month's line-up is Cathedral of the Drowned, Saltcrop, Bear Head, and Ardent Violet and the Infinite Eye.

>4 paradoxosalpha: Thanks for the topic link for Venus Plus X :0)
Oh the nostalgia.Way back when I got into SF as a teenager (early 60s) Ted Sturgeon was King,much praised for his spec fic cum fantasy cum horror,not so much SF.. And his short stories more than novels.
I presume I read Venus Plus X back then but cant be sure this 78 yr old memory is not so good. But I do remember borrowing E Pluribus Unicorn collection and finding the title very cool!That was around 1963.
Checking Sturgeon on my shelf I definitely feel a rereading of The Dreaming Jewels coming on,last read in 2015.Good stuff.
This months other vintage read is Rogue Moon which I have started as a break from the annoying Some Desperate HopeStill got 120 pages of this irrtating stuff to plough through. More about it later when I FINALLY drag myself through it.

More fantasy - I read the first volume of Roger Zelazny's First Chronicles of Amber earlier in the year and recently sped through the remaining four books.

I am a major Zelazny fan. I love his spectacular early stuff all his mythological stuff,and I also enjoy what the critics tend to turn their noses up at because it is not the early stuff. Amber is such a fun series I have returned repeatedly to it for comfort reading since first reading Nine Princes in Amber way back in 1970. Have read it many times since,and my last run through of the whole 10 books was 2 years ago.Just something about it attracts me every time:0)

Finally finished The Raven Scholar last night. Going to take a little sf breather before I dive into my next Hugo finalist, but I did post my review of The Bands of Mourning, which kind of turned into an essay about Brandon Sanderson and "magic systems."

Well I finally conquered Some Desperate Glory. Apparently it is NOT classed as YA,possibly for some violent scenes and adult themes,but I couldnt bear it if I tried to see it as adult,because everything was done so heavyhandedly,and the characters were cardboard,totally without nuance.Tesh did such a good job showing what a cold hard fanatic the protagonist was,and depicted familiar dystopian settings that I disliked her from the start,and when the tale pivoted halfway through to different timelines etc I just couldnt credit changes in her. The final section,breathless adventure unfortunately seemed stretched out too much and I didnt care anyway! lol.Maybe some good ideas,but IMO
the writing wasnt good enough.
I am English but apart from maybe twice recognising a british idiom I found the style sort of without any quirks or interest,more like AI driven stuff,which was weird!.After all this is a cambridge educated woman,a latin and greek and classics teacher so this wooden style is odd.She has several fantasy awards credits,perhaps she does better on the fantasy side? Not interested enough to find out.
Debut novel winner of the Hugo. Go figure.
Anyhoo,once again I am up to date with all 74 Hugo winning novels.

I'm finally making a go at 2312, which I suspect I will like well enough once I overcome the inertia problem of a new read. I even learned a new word, which rarely happens.

That said, there's one sentence near the beginning, and I can't figure out what it means: "Wahram dipped his head in a kind of autistic bow". Are we supposed to infer from his polite gesture that he is autistic? If so, well, how?

>14 Stevil2001: The magical system is definitely an area of intense interest to me in any story suggesting supernatural or magical events are on offer, and I appreciate your musings in that review. I wasn't ever enticed by Sanderson's work and have no reason to change that outlook.

I picked up a used (very good condition) copy of Finity's End, recently, so I'm giving that a read while taking a break from Dungeon Crawler Carl.

>18 Karlstar: I enjoyed reading Finity’s End when it first came out. But Downbelow Station is still the best in that Cherryh universe.

Posted my first review of a Hugo finalist today!