The Skull by Jon Klassen
Started: 10/30/23
Finished: 10/30/23
A strange retelling of a folktale about a kid and a castle and a talking skull. Definitely too much for Jack, but I enjoyed it.
novella
Sisters of the Forsaken Stars by Lina Rather
Started: 8/26/22
Finished: 8/28/22
Sequel to Sisters of the Vast Black, we continue the adventures of our nuns who live in a living space ship, but now they’re on the run.
Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Started: 8/7/22
Finished: 8/10/22
Fascinating. A really good example of advanced technology looking like magic, from the points of view of both the scientist and the other.
Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard
Started: 8/6/22
Finished: 8/7/22
A sad one – this poor character just wants to be loved and is only being used by everyone around her.
Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire
Started: 7/31/22
Finished: 8/2/22
Another installment in the Wayward Children series, another heartbreaker. I love these books.
Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather
Started: 12/4/21
Finished: 12/6/21
Nuns in space! Their spaceship is alive, which is kinda weird, kinda gross. I picture it like a giant whale.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
Started: 11/14/21
Finished: 11/15/21
I like good stories about someone realizing they had underestimated someone, or completely misunderstood who they were in the first place. Particularly when EVERYONE was wrong. Good stuff.
Finna by Nino Cipri
Started: 11/12/21
Finished: 11/14/21
Maybe I just don’t like stories set in Ikea-like stores. I almost put this one down, but it’s a Hugo-nominated novella, so I powered through. And it was interesting – aftermath of a failed relationship, alternate universes – but something about the fake Ikea setting put me off. I gave up on the only other book I’ve read with a similar setting, too.
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
Started: 10/26/21
Gave up: 10/27/21
I really liked the short story I read of his last year set in Cairo with a possessed tram car, and there’s a whole series there I’m excited to read, so I was bummed when I couldn’t get into this one. Mashing up Jim Crow and Klansmen with Lovecraftian monsters is a brilliant idea, but I’m a little leery of Lovecraft-related stories, and this one didn’t land for me.
Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey
Started: 9/6/21
Finished: 9/9/21
My biggest complaint about novellas is that I usually want more. I really enjoyed the story, but there is so much hinted at in the rest of the world here, and I want those stories, too.
Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi
Started: 7/29/20
Finished: 7/31/20
I don’t know exactly how to talk about this book. It’s about black kids with powers, set in the real world, with the backdrop of Rodney King and Watts and police brutality and the prison system, and it’s HARD. And it’s good.
Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom by Ted Chiang
Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20
Fascinating near-future story with tech that allows you to communicate with yourself in a parallel universe, which is really cool, but it’s about free will and how people use that tech to make decisions, to justify their actions. The tech is just the next thing (but it’s a very cool next thing to consider).
The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes
Started: 7/18/20
Finished: 7/19/20
This novella was inspired by the song The Deep (by clipping.), which I haven’t listened to yet. The premise is that the pregnant and going-into-labor slaves who were thrown overboard midocean (true) gave birth to mer-people (probably not true) who built a whole civilization and society around a historian who remembers everything so that the rest of them don’t have to. The story is mostly about the current historian who is having difficulties with this burden, but it also goes back into the memories. It’s very good.
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark
Started: 7/16/20
Finished: 7/18/20
Supernatural detectives in a supernatural version of 1912 Cairo with sky trams and djinn and women’s suffrage as a backdrop. I would read a whole series about this.
This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Started: 7/12/20
Finished: 7/15/20
I had heard nothing but wonderful things about this one, but the one time I tried a Max Gladstone book, I couldn’t get into it. That turned out to apply to this novella, too, even though he had a co-author. The premise is really cool, but I seriously considered just putting it down and walking away. The writing was not working for me. I got involved eventually, and I think I liked it…? Interesting, but not really my speed.
To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
Started: 7/8/20
Finished: 7/12/20
Astronauts doing science! Science fiction, but heavy on the science, and oh so optimistic.
In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
Started: 7/5/20
Finished: 7/8/20
Fourth in the Wayward Children series, this one takes one of our characters back in time to when she found her door. It’s so good, and the ending is so sad. It felt sadder than the others, but I’m not sure why – they’re all sad stories because they can’t find their way back to where they feel they belong. I should re-read the first one, at least.
Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh
Started: 3/26/20
Finished: 3/27/20
A Green Man story, but completely different from any other Green Man story I’ve ever read. Really good, and it has a sequel…which isn’t out yet, but it’s due out in June! And there are only supposed to be two, so anyone worried about getting stuck in the neverending wait that comes with a new series can stop worrying.
The Lost Sisters by Holly Black
Started: 2/1/20
Finished: 2/2/20
A novella about the main characters of the Folk of the Air trilogy, set between the first and second books. Nice to have part of the story told from the point of view of the other sister.
The Days of Tao by Wesley Chu
Started: 10/1/19
Finished: 10/2/19
I chose this novella deliberately as something I knew I would like, since I gave up on the last four books I tried to read. Imagine my relief to find I still like this universe and could enjoy this story. Yay for this series!