Bill: I’m traveling so haven’t been on in a while and reading is sporadic.  But since my last time, I think I’ve read (I may be missing one or two): Beneath the Twisted Trees by Bradley Beaulieu, This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, Robot Generation by Terri Favro, Big Sky by Kate Atkinson. In audio my son and I finished Foundation and Empire and Part One of Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov as we drove. I’m currently two-thirds of the way through Hot Carbon: Carbon 14 and a Revolution in Science by John F. Marra and almost halfway through Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Last Light of the Sun. I’ve also read a car-load of college brochures and Environmental Science Four-Year Plans… 

Kat: Last week I mentioned that I was ready to quit John Varley’s Steel Beach, and this week I gave myself permission to do so. I just couldn’t get through it. A DNF review is coming soon. This week I read Peadar O’Guilin’s The Call because its sequel, The Invasion, is up for a Hugo Award (Best Young Adult Novel). It was okay. Today I’ll probably finish The Invasion. Reviews are coming soon. 

Kelly: I finished Seanan McGuire’s Night and Silence, and also read Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss, a short novel that is not fantasy but uses some tropes of folk horror. It juxtaposes beautiful writing with some disturbing commentary on human nature. Reviews to come. My slow, lazy A Dance with Dragons reread continues, with an emphasis on the slow and the lazy, and I’m about to start Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey.

Marion: After a wonderful ReaderCon that left me feeling like a character in the old “Far Side” cartoon — my brain was full — I read a couple of shorter works this week. If you read Bill’s review of This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, then you don’t need to read anything from me about it. This is how you write an epistolary story in the 21st century; this is how you tell a time-travel story and this is how you get yourselves on every award list for 2019. On the plane back from Quincy I read Vylar Kaftan’s novella Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water. This short, fast-paced work is perfect for a plane or train ride. I got interrupted in my reading of Stephen Graham Jones’s original, eerie horror novella Mapping the Interior because I packed it in the flat rate box instead of in my carryon, but those books have arrived so I’m settling in where I left off.

Sandy: Moi? I am currently reading another book in Armchair Fiction’s Lost World/Lost Race series, this one being Frank Aubrey’s 1903 novel The King of the Dead. This is a rather longish one but I do hope to be able to report back to you all on it shortly…

Skye: Whether consciously or not, I’ve ‘picked up’ some books I’ve had sitting on my kindle for a while. I’ve got Vicious by V.E. Schwab, Saving April by Sarah A. Denzil, and The Yarns of the Gods by Julia T. Lye one the go. I also got to go to a book launch for the first time! Amal El Mohtar gave a hilarious an insightful interview about This Is How You Lose the Time War, the novella she wrote with Max Gladstone.

Terry: Readercon was so interesting and intellectually challenging that I’ve fled to thrillers for a break from having to think too hard. I read most of Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz on the flight home, and am now deep into the next in the series, The Nowhere Man. They’re propulsive, and I’m having a good time. Before and during Readercon, I finished Seanan McGuire’s new OCTOBER DAYE book, The Unkindest Tide, which is not one of the best in the series but still well worth reading. I also read Mapping the Interior by Steven Graham Jones, who was one of the guests of honor at Readercon. Finally, I finished The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty, which was a bit of a letdown after the brilliant first novel in this trilogy, but again, still well worth reading.

Tim: This week, I finished The Thousand Names by Django Wexler (what a cool name!). I’m not usually the biggest fan of flintlock fantasy, but I had a good time with this one. I think it’s probably particularly popular with military buffs, as the trials of the various army officers are vividly realized.

Author

  • Tim Scheidler

    TIM SCHEIDLER, who's been with us since June 2011, holds a Master's Degree in Popular Literature from Trinity College Dublin. Tim enjoys many authors, but particularly loves J.R.R. Tolkien, Robin Hobb, George R.R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, and Susanna Clarke. When he’s not reading, Tim enjoys traveling, playing music, writing in any shape or form, and pretending he's an athlete.