Books

Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb. I’d read two of the Elderlings trilogies like a decade ago. I recommended the series to a friend and he’s blasting through it. It’s about time I continued although I doubt I’ll keep up.

I started reading The Curse of Saints by Kate Dramis, but I found out after starting the book that it is Romantasy. Everyone was described as wearing skin tight clothes that accentuated their muscles and curves. Women were constantly brushing their hair behind their ear. Men always had smoldering looks in their eyes. The main character mentioned every 3 paragraphs how much she hates the dude she works with, so even though I only read maybe 15% of the book I already know she's going to fall in love with him. I can't describe how much I hated the short bit I read and only read that much because I didn't have wifi to download a new book while on vacation.

I ended up starting Night Angel Nemesis by Brent Weeks. I last read the Night Angel series about 7 years ago, so I have forgotten almost everything that happened. The original series was good, and this one is starting off OK. Not great, but better than the alternative.

Just finished the last Dungeon Crawler Carl book. Now I just wait :(

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. The first book ends kinda flat but it’s the first series in a while to catch my eye and keep me reading. I’m just at the start of the second book as of now.

Just finished "Shroud" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I'm a fan of his works but I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this one. It was an interesting mix of No Man's Sky meets Project Hail Mary with a dystopian corporate bent; but I'm not entirely sure that it worked? Act 1 could (or possibly should) have been a lot longer, and beyond that I shouldn't continue because Spoilers ;)

I just finished “Hench, A Novel” by Natalie Zina Walschots. I went in expecting a light fun read but got something a bit deeper and complex. I very much enjoyed it.

Working my way through "The Monkey and the Monk" translated by Anthony C. Yu after giving up on the unabridged "The Journey to the West." Boy there is a lot of repetition... It's a bit of a slog but I want to get through it.

Currently reading Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline.

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Finished:

Old Man's War by John Scalzi (military sci-fi)

Old people enlist in the galactic military in exchange for new, younger bodies. Follows one particular old man through basic training and a series of battles during his first two years of service.

So I ended up going back through some reviews of this, because it's well-liked/often recommended, and I wasn't a big fan: apparently the context I'm missing is that it's meant to be a subversion/snark of classic pulp like Heinlein. Lacking that connection, I stand by my opinion from last week, which is that while it's certainly not bad, I personally wanted a lot more from either the plot, characters, or commentary.

Bingo squares: war (HM), late to the party (HM)

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (supernatural gothic horror)

An academic invites a small group of people to spend the summer at a reputedly haunted mansion, in order to gather research on the supernatural. Surely, nothing will go wrong.

Aside from a few bits and pieces, this is an entirely different story from the Flanagan show (haven't seen the movie). There's a lot of things left out in the interactions between characters, which I found kind of frustrating in the first half, but as the narrative gets more and more dreamlike, it becomes apparent that that's intentional. I ended up quite liking this, and I can see why it's a classic.

Bingo squares: adaptation, orange, x of y, alliterative (HM)

Re-reading the terror - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3974.The_Terror

This is a comfort read.

And also reading gridlinked - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/98046.Gridlinked

I've heard good stuff about the polity series. Looking forward to seeing the jain nodes in action.

I’m between Hardwire and Mycelium Running, just finished Orson Welles, Camera and his Shadow (but I’m not sur of the translation) and Justice Warrior #1

I started reading some fantasy by T. Kingfisher (both books of The Clocktaur War and a standalone or two), and I enjoyed the duology enough to request some of her other fantasy books from the library, so I'll read some more of them next week. I'd only read some of her horror novels previously. (The afterword on Bryony and Roses made me want to reread the two Beauty and the Beast adaptations by Robin McKinley, so I'm briefly detouring there.)

I read through first book and supplement novella of the Captive's War series by James S. A. Corey, because while I didn't love every bit of the Expanse novels and short stories, I really enjoyed the series as a whole, and definitely didn't regret sticking with it. I'd read the next book--I'm intrigued and want to know what happens next!

I also read the first two books in the Mirror Visitor quartet by Christelle Dabos. Apparently they were written in French and translated by Hildegarde Serle, if any fantasy fans are still looking for hard mode for bingo square 1B, give the first book a chance and see if it sparks your interest. It's called A Winter's Promise, and it's listed as both young adult and romance as well, but I wouldn't have said the first book was either of those (just not what I expect from either of those categories).

Working my way through Master and Commander again. I'm up to Truelove.

The Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality, and Gender.

Finished "the long earth" and "the long war" bij Pratchett and Baxter. They don't read like Pratchett to me, but besides that they're actually quite all right, so I will be continueing this series.

In the middle of an Expeditionary Force book.