What are you reading?

[Inanna]

That's interesting, Maria. I think I'll check one or two of those ones out. Do you have a favourite?

Right now I'm reading "The Mercy of Gods" by James S. A. Corey, the same authors who wrote The Expanse series. It's dark. Really, really dark. At this point I'm regretting starting it, and I'm only reading on to see what happens.

Ow. Thanks for the heads up. I have it on my Libby list, I’ll skip reading it.

[Frelga]

I hit another spell of being unable to process fiction. It seems I need to be in near-perfect health to be capable of reading, or listening to, something new, which kind of defeats the purpose.

It's getting better, I hope, and in the meantime here's a book report from the last few months. I still stick to a fairly cozy SF and fantasy, and save the heavy stuff for news and non-fiction.

The Book of Ile-Rien by Marha Wells. A two-novel volume that includes Wells' early novel The Element of Fire (definitely an early novel, but a fun swashbuckling adventure with court intrigue and magic, and a hero whom every woman wants, apparently), and Death of Necromancer, another not-Victorian fun ride with heist, revenge, magic, mystery and some gore.

A River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters. An Amelia Peabody novel that I can't remember reading before. All the Peabody plot points, but in Jerusalem.

Cascade Failure and Gravity Lost by L.M. Sagas. A 2-book SF series by a new author. Some echoes of the Murderbot Dairies in corporate-controlled multi-planet setting, some echoes of Becky Chambers in the found family misfit crew, does very well with both plot and emotional payload

When Among Crows by Veronica Roth. Urban fantasy with Polish folklore flavor. Short and good, but would it have killed the narrator to look up how to pronounce Polish names and words? A sequel is coming out this fall.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopiaedia and Emily Wilde's Map of Otherlands by Heather Fawcett. For some reason, I think people who like Jonathan Strange would enjoy this one. Victorian (probably) England but with fairies. The titular character is a naturalist/anthropologist that studies the fae, in the style of the 19th century obsession with natural sciences. She is strongly autism coded, which works well, and my main annoyance was that she is constantly being mean to the male lead who is being nothing but kind and helpful to her, and also is a fellow academic and a mysterious being. The third book is now out and I have it on hold.

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa. A very Japanese version of Alice in Wonderland. Exactly what it says on the cover - a magical cat saves books from being incorrectly enjoyed by a series of characters, and brings along a shut-in, orphaned boy. I don't know what to think about this one.

Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Raccula. A mystery/treasure hunt story in which a mysterious wealthy man dies and leaves a fortune to anyone who can follow clues, but the real mystery is actually a murder. I wish the author didn't go on at such length about everything main characters are feeling and every past circumstance that led them to feel that way, repeatedly. At least for the female lead there's the parallel mystery of her childhood friend disappearing, and her belief that the friend's ghost is talking to her.

And that's all, plus the newly recorded Pratchett audio books.

Some day, I'll do a roundup of books I abandoned for reasons other than my brain not being able to interface with the written word.

[Impenitent]

Frelga, I do hope you're on a steady road to recovery.

I thank you for the reviews; I have placed several on my reading list, though I'm starting to doubt that I'll read new works any time soon. I seem to need endless comfort food (metaphorically) these days and so fall back on favourites in which I am assured of no nasty stabs to the psyche.

Also, I'm sworn off Amazon, so I need to find alternative sources to feed my Kindle; not easy when many of the libraries to which I subscribed no longer accept international, or even interstate subscribers. Financial crunch all over the place.

Take care, my friends, with some extra for Frelgita.

[Inanna]

Martha Wells is awesome. Frelga, Go on to the “The Fall of Ile-Rien Trilogy”, which is just as much fun.

I’m in the same boat, Impish, I can only read fuzzy warm fantasy novels. And therefore, I’m doing a lot of rereading (And Frelga, This sucks - cannot believe you are having this issue again!)

One new author I’ve been reading is Katherine Addison - fantasy, but not fun like Wells. Bit dark in spaces (which I’m skipping ).

[Frelga]

Inanna, I actually read The Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy last year.

I'm currently listening to The Sword Defiant by Gareth Hanrahan. He's written narrative for video games, including the Middle-earth one, and is currently posting commentary on LOTR following the chronology in the appendices. It's on bluesky and I am enjoying it. I've posted a link to his thread on LOTR as a spy thriller from Sauron's perspective somewhere in the Brie thread.

The book is more dnd than lotr. It's slow going because brain, but also it could be briefer. Or maybe it just feels like that because of the audiobook format, where you can't just kind of skim over passages. As it is, it's like, yes, they are dirty and tired, I get it, proceed.

[Jude]

vison recommended Georgette Heyer to me, and I've been reading her mysteries, which are great. Apparently she's most known for her novels of the Regency era, so I'll probably go on to those when I've finished all the mysteries.

I picked up her "Simon Coldheart" at a used book store. It's not great. I read in the forward (written by her son) that it was an early book that she wished to never be republished, but her son thought it would be a shame that it would be lost to posterity, so he ignored her wishes. I find the faux-medieval dialogue really cringeworthy, and can only take a bit at a time. I usually read one or two chapters, put it aside and read a couple of other books, and then grit my teeth and go back to it. When I finally do finish it, I'll donate it to the free community library around the corner.

[Maria]

I'm liking books by Jenny Schwartz. I started out with "Doctor Galaxy" and it really drew me in fast and held me there. She's really good at science fiction romance and having unusual plots that are more important than the romantic parts. I haven't found a thing to pick apart in the science of her fiction yet, either, and I'm on book 4 right now. After a long string of dud authors, it's REALLY nice to find a good one.

[Impenitent]

Thank you Maria - added to my list. (LOL! I need an elven lifetime to get through it all.)

Jude, Simon Coldheart is prob the worst Heyer book I've read. It's not often I say this but - give it up! Life's too short for that kind of sacrifice!

Inanna, holding hands in sisterhood.

[RoseMorninStar]

Frelga I hope you are feeling better soon. I don't know exactly what you are dealing with but I think many of us are just on 'overwhelm'.

I can only read 'fluff' right now too. I'm more of a fantasy (than Sci-fi) reader.

[Maria]

I waver between fantasy and sci fi, although that is usually dependent on what's available. Just before all the duds, I listened to Brandon Sanderson's newly released "Wind and Truth" in the Stormlight Archives. 61 hours iirc. The Longest Audiobook I've listened to yet. Definitely fantasy. After something like that I really needed something completely different- and tried a bunch of new authors, but wasn't impressed by any of them until Jenny Schwartz.

[Jude]

I looked her up in my library, and the only e-book they had by her was a historical novel that takes place in 1895 Australia.

[RoseMorninStar]

I like historical fiction.

[Maria]

I looked her up in my library, and the only e-book they had by her was a historical novel that takes place in 1895 Australia.

What's the title? I looked on several lists of her books just now and didn't see anything that wasn't sci fi, fantasy or paranormal.
Maybe a different author by the same name?

[Jude]

“Courting Trouble”.

[Alatar]

Sooo tempted by this:
https://illumicrate.com/blogs/news/illu ... robin-hobb

[Inanna]

Oooh that’s pretty!

[Maria]

“Courting Trouble”.

OK, definitely the same Jenny Schwartz. That book is part of the "Bustlepunk Chronicles" shown on this list: https://www.goodreads.com/series/list/1 ... wartz.html

I'm not sure exactly what "Bustlepunk" means, though.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Bustlepunk is a subgenre of speculative fiction, often described as the "softer cousin of steampunk", that draws inspiration from the Victorian era and features a focus on the societal aspects and fashion of the time, particularly the bustle-skirted dresses worn by women.

[narya]

Frelga, I’m sorry to hear you are still in the doldrums.

Inanna, Katherine Addison is dark, but captivating.

Thank you all for your recommendations. Some have been added to my increasingly improbably wish list. The mysteries I read are mostly warm and fuzzy, and sometimes hilarious. The rest may be too intense for your tastes during these trying times, though frankly, I think a thrilling escapist novel is just the thing for me. And the non-fiction I’ve been reading has informed my understanding of the news, so I try to nibble away at them, between chapters of fiction. Here are my reads of note for 2025 that I haven’t yet reported on:

Non-fic. These are the ones I recommend, or highly recommend that you read:
Mutual Aid by Dean Spade (5 hours) – how to help others on a grass roots, and perhaps not mainstream, way. The Black Panthers’ school breakfast program was a classic example. The author shows how you can tell if a helping organization is there to make their board of directors and shareholders look/feel good, or there to help people who may not “deserve” help.
Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future” and How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us vs Them by Jason Stanley are short (5 hours each) and informative.
On Bullshit and On Truth by Harry Frankfurt are delightfully droll and just 1 hour each.
What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon is a painful expose on anti-fatness, by a person who is subjected to it every day.
The Laws of Medicine by Siddhartha Mukherjee is a short (2 hour) discussion of the question: is medicine a science – does it have laws?
Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an essay (1 hr) on the author’s loss of her father. It is very personal, lyrical, and compelling.
We Should All be Feminists, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (45 minutes) is another short essay, also compelling.

Sci-fi:
I went to a book club meeting that was guest-hosted by the guy who runs the Dickhead podcasts and is a Philip K Dick fanatic. The discussion got me motivated to try PKD again. The short stories I read were a little too O’Henry-esque, but I enjoyed the novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, written in 1974. Laughably dated (flying cars…and yet no mobile phones or personal computers) but the story was engaging. Except for the flying cars, it was more of a mystery/thriller than a sci-fi.
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor. I have read quite a few of Okorafor’s books. I didn’t really like this one. It’s a book within a book. The main character is an author, who is writing a sci fi book that everyone thinks is fantastic. The sci fi book is made into a movie and she becomes very famous, and criticized. There are bits of the sci fi book interspersed within the main book, and it didn’t really do much for me. “Death of the Author” refers to the trope that authors, and what they do in real life, should not impact the readers’ experience of their books. I’d just read the article on Neil Gaiman’s demise, so this idea was already knocking around in my head.
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor. I didn’t really like this one, either. It seemed so austere, after having read the exquisite prose of Adichie and others, but after reading it thru (since it was a book club selection) I read the Wikipedia entry, and found that it was actually meant as a screen play. That made much more sense. Screen plays tend to be “Then they did this, then they said that” with very little “atmosphere”.
Merchanter’s Luck by C.J. Cherryh was my introduction to this classic author (she wrote this novel in 1982). It was a love story set in soft sci fi, so definitely a space opera.

Mystery:
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson is a fun ride. The author expertly drops the fourth wall every so often to point out to the reader that he’s dropping a clue, and it works well. It’s funny and clever.
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. Everyone in my book club either loved it or hated it. I thought it was well written, and since everyone in the book lied about everything, I didn’t try to figure out who dunnit, I just went along for the ride, enjoying the well-turned prose and ignoring the 1920s misogyny. Next week, our book club will watch the movie together.
Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chien was a murder mystery and a bit of a romance, set in an Asian shopping village in Cleveland, with the protagonist doing her amateur sleuthing while introducing us to the local flavor. It’s pretty lightweight, but I’ll probably try the second in the series, Dim Sum of All Fears.
Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn has a twist – instead of a bunch of innocent people trying to figure out who the murderer is, this is about four women about age 60 who are just now retiring from their jobs as professional assassins, who heard someone was trying to kill them. They spend the book trying to figure out who the murderer will be, and how not to be his/her next victim. Despite the chilling occupational details, it’s quite funny.

Dystopian Fiction (not quite Sci-Fi):
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. I’m late in reading this classic. It is well written and thought provoking and yes, everyone should read it.

[Alatar]

Just finished "A Time for Truth" by Sarah Corbett Lynch. She wrote it last year when she was 17 I believe. It details her experiences trying to give a victim impact statement about the murder of her father by her stepmother and grandfather. Its a tough read and a damning indictment of the American Justice System. Her father was beaten to death with a baseball bat and a paving stone. The book details her step mothers calculated steps to first paint a picture of Sarah's father as an abuser so that she could keep the children. The case got quite a bit of publicity here. Not sure how much traction it got in the US. Well worth a read.