Kathy describes herself as a “carer for donors”. She tells us about her life, the boarding school she grew up in, the people she crossed paths with, and how she became a “carer”.
After she forgets some lines in a theatrical performance, Lulu Blake travels to Snow Road Station, the snowy Canadian town where she grew up, to attend her nephew’s wedding. There she meets with her family, rekindles old relationships, forges new ones and, also, helps out harvesting maple syrup.
The Female Man is a more interesting and consistent story about sex and gender than Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness. Russ is a poet and it shows. Russ hits the reader with evocative words and images that still hold up today (mostly). The Complete Alyx Stories haven’t, but they were influential to writers that came later, like Mary Gentle (as seen in the foreword to her White Crow collection)… So I’m glad Russ wrote them.
Existential Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom describes Yalom’s psychotherapeutic framework based around acknowledging and dealing with the anxiety caused by the following existential issues: death anxiety, freedom (or lack of it), loneliness (towards others and towards one’s self) and the meaninglessness of existence.
Tight and fun story. Suffers from being a little bit too predictable for my taste. It’s playing with a lot of similar elements as Brom’s other work I’ve read, The Child Thief, things like fairies, the Horned God, but Slewfoot is more successful in execution (pun intended) and more nuanced and polished.
The Luau served a first-rate venison steak. What would they say on old Earth if they saw one man eating a kilogram of meat at one meal? Poor damn soybeansuckers!
Hoorah US military (but in SPACE) does a colonialism, oppressing and enslaving the sentient beings on a planet to extract the valuable resources from the land, wood. The oppressed people learn about the concept of murder from the Humans and use it to fight back.
A collection of essays about GMing. Offers some good tips and tricks but it’s not as comprehensive or as much of a must-read as So You Want To Be A Game Master?
A tiny collection of punched up blog posts on DMing from Micheal Shea. The “Session Zero Checklist” was useful but there’s nothing here that’s mind blowing or worth going out of your way to read.
Junji Ito’s art combined with Osamu Dazai’s haunting story is a match made in hell. Absolutely brutal read.
Whenever he [Moebius] finished a page, he would call me on the telephone. Driven by an irresistible curiosity, I would immediately get in my car to go see him. Every time I saw a new page, I swear on the life of my cat Kazan that I experienced a spiritual pleasure exceeding that of an orgasm. There before my eyes, I had the undeniable proof that comic book art was great art, just as respectable as the paintings hanging on the walls of museums.
— Alejandro Jodorowsky, July 29, 2011
Collection of academic articles in comics studies.
An inversion of its predecessor Dune, Dune Messiah tells the story of Paul Atreides 12 years later, now sitting on the Imperial throne, post-universe spanning jihad, being responsible for the brutal killings of billions of people… Our “hero”.
“You can’t beat no orc marines
When we fire our M16s!”
p. 151
Mary Gentle’s Grunts in a nutshell. Grunts is a satire of the schlocky high fantasy Tolkien ripoffs of the 70s and 80s. It pokes fun at the aesthetic of the American military as portrayed in film and literature. It combines Grand Guignol (think slapstick but extra gory and violent) dark comedy with satire on bad fantasy.
What if you combined Johnny Mnemonic and Total Recall but the data in Johnny’s brain is a sentient “personality upload” of a bio-engineered war bear with 12+ PhDs? Also, there’s SuperTrump who’s using his infinite charisma to put chips in people’s brains to get them to comply with anything and everything he wants (yikes).
That’s Bear Head.
These illustrations are kind of whack. All the characters look like little goblins.
But Le Guin’s Earthsea series is fantastic.
Childhood trauma. Check.
Split timeline. Check.
Transported to another world. Check.
Children competing for a prize (to the death?). Check.
This is Japan.
A collection of short stories and novellas set in the Earthsea setting that Ursula wrote to help her find out how to continue the story when prompted to do so by her publisher.
There’s some great stories here but I prefer the Earthsea novels to this generally (don’t get me started on The Farthest Shore).
A Memory Called Empire has big “Hugo award winner” energy: an interesting premise, consistent and intriguing world building, a promising start and a propulsive ending.
I loved my time with it and very excited to dig into the next book in the series although I suspect that it won’t be as good.
The precursor to N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, this is another fantasy setting fully divorced from Tolkien. For that reason alone, I’m into it.
It features a protagonist who gets entangled with the enslaved gods who are used and abused by the people in power. Hijinks ensue.
A collection of small one shot tabletop RPGs. Their quality varies and not all of them will be interesting to the people you play with BUT there’s some bangers in here.
Feels like an Arthurian legend, a mix of fairy tales but grounded in a reality somewhat like our own with some fantastical twists layered into it.
Short and sweet, deserving of all the praise it has received.
A murder mystery set in a Warhammer 40k-esque far far future universe setting with necromancy at the core of everything. Also it’s horny but not explicitly so.
This novel is trying to do a little too much IMO and fails to tell a cohesive story that works all the way through as a result.
It’s not bad, far from it. It’s just inconsistent and a little long.
I was blown away by the premise of Dawn (the first novel in the trilogy) and its execution. The remnants of humanity, after a nuclear apocalypse occurs, are “saved” by aliens and forced to choose between mating with their saviors or never being able to have children again. The rest of the novels didn’t hit me as hard but they were interesting nonetheless.
1/3 essays about life 1/3 book forewords 1/3 book reviews
All written by Ursula K. Le Guin between 2000 and 2016.
Ursula K. Le Guin is great, so to no one’s surprise there’s a lot to love about this text.
A short magical realism novel about a girl, her mother and her step father who’s a human size crane, the bird that is.
Hijinks ensue.
Not my favorite John Scalzi novel but it was fun. I prefer when he doubles down on the absurd and comic modes.
This series is not that, although it does have its funny moments, but it’s an enjoyable romp.
A compelling historical portrayal of the lives of the men involved in writing for and/or editing the influential Astounding science fiction magazine since it was first published in the 1930s.
A short semi-biographical discussion and guide on meditation.
TBH I sped through this, I need to read it again.
I remember it having some pretty funny moment where the author puts Jesus on blast.
I much preferred Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English’s translation of the Tao Te Ching. I’m not an ancient Chinese scholar so I can’t speak to how faithful this translation is compared to the original manuscript.
But I can say that the poetry doesn’t flow well and some translation choices left me scratching my head — wondering if Thomas Cleary understands how the English language works.
An absolute page turner if I’ve ever read one (I couldn’t put this book down). Each time I sat down to read, it only took a few sentences to transport me completely into this world that V.E. Schwab has so carefully built.
A Gathering of Shadows develops the characters introduced in the previous book (along with some fresh faces), portrays the evolution of their relationships with one another and sets everything up for what I’m confident is going to be a riveting conclusion to the trilogy.
Felt more like a soap opera than a space opera at times.
There’s a lot of people thinking about, talking about and having sex. There’s a lot of scheming and plotting that sometimes makes sense but often doesn’t.
So I rolled with it, strapped on my suspension of disbelief pants and enjoyed the ride.
Agatha Christie is described as the “Queen of Mystery” and the “Queen of Crime”.
After reading through Death on the Nile for the first time, I’d recommend that we add the “Queen of Camp” to that list.
Death on the Nile is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. I don’t think that was the intention of the author almost one hundred years ago when it was first published but reading it now I was chuckling nonstop at how campy and absurd it is.
Le Guin mostly successful attempt to write a story in the world of a Wizard of Earthsea told from the perspective of a girl and, eventually, woman.
Ged shows up and steals the show a little bit from Tenar which Le Guin will rectify in the subsequent novels.
All Systems Red is about a sentient robot-human hybrid, calling themselves Murderbot, a slave to a mega corporation, tasked with protecting the humans it’s told to protect.
Terry is dedicated to the bit. More than anything he is committed to creating absurd worlds that feel real. His work has aged beautifully because the world we live in is as absurd as it’s ever been and it’s only getting more absurd from here on out.
Small Gods is about an autistic savant (pour a drink every time Terry Pratchett includes an autistic character in one of his Discworld books) named Brutha who is a lowly priest/monk in the church of Om. Hijinks ensue.
A few different cooky POV characters doing their own thing, eventually meet up to save big T Time.
The second Terry Pratchett book I read, I preferred Going Postal but this one is no slouch.
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within is a science fiction novel about a diverse cast of characters from all over the galaxy, stuck at an inter-planetary truck stop for an indeterminate span of time, getting to know one another and helping each other overcome (or make peace with) problems in their personal lives.
As the characters learned about each other and gradually opened up about themselves, I started to see parts of myself reflected in them making me feel invested in the mostly low stakes interactions occurring between the characters.
I really loved it…
I was skeptical at first (I’ve been burned too many times by boring and tropey fantasy novels that so many people love) but V. E. Schwab reeled me in with some gritty and edgy fantasy that felt really “real” to me.
I was so immersed in the world that I was tearing up by the end of the book which doesn’t happen to me very often (one character’s arc really spoke to me)
“We’re going on an adventure!”
If you liked the previous novel in this series, Children of Time, you’re likely to enjoy this one just as much if not more (I definitely did). If you haven’t read it, I suggest you start with that one (also great) and then read this sequel. Otherwise, you’ll be missing out.
Brave New World is a dystopian novel from 1932 about dystopian shit and it has a lot to say about the dystopia we’re currently living in.
We all enjoy (and love to comment on) our experiences with media, cuisine, design, games and more. Clearly, aesthetic pursuits are an integral part of the human experience, this book tries to tell us why from three different points of view.
Reference guide for experienced climbers who want to further hone their skills. Has newspaper comic-style characters as well as photos to show off the various techniques. Expresses a lot of information succinctly, it doesn’t waste your time.
Monster of the Week is a standalone action-horror RPG for 3-5 people. Hunt high school beasties a la Buffy the Vampire Slayer, travel the country to bring down unnatural creatures like the Winchester brothers of Supernatural, or head up the government investigation like Mulder and Scully. It seems OK, nothing extraordinary or unique other than the conceit.
Think is a book about the big questions in life: knowledge, consciousness, fate, God, truth, goodness, justice. It is for anyone who believes there are big questions out there, but does not know how to approach them. Think sets out to explain what they are and why they are important. If you’re like me, and you knew barely anything about philosophy before reading this, you’re in for a wild ride.
British guy goes to India and meets with nine different people, each one on a different religious path and with an interesting story to share. William Dalrymple acknowledges his white colonialist britishness and seems to mostly stay out of the way and let the people he meets tell their stories.
Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language discusses how we express ourselves on the internet, how we got here and where we’re going from the perspective of a linguist.
The Drifting Classroom is a Japanese horror manga series published from 1972 to 1974 that follows a school (and its students) that is mysteriously transported through time to a post-apocalyptic future.
