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Late late late but here nevertheless!

What I've Read
Fugitive Telemetry - Martha Wells, Narrated by Kevin R Free - this one is fun. Wells keeps finding new ways to work with the tools she's established in this world, and it's great.

Two-Player by avocadomoon - The Pitt, Mel/Langdon, some exception pining-while-maybe-dating

What I'm Reading

Hunting Toward Heartstill by Blackkat -picked this back up, about 59%
The Power Broker by Robert Caro - Audiobook part 3 - picked this back up again - 39%

The Antarctica Conspiracy Derin Edala – on hold.
The Ministry of time - on hold.
Someone you can build a nest in -on hold

What I'll Read Next
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way
The Tainted Cup
The Deep Dark

Track Changes
Alien Clay
Service Model
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed
Navigational Entanglements
The Butcher of the Forest
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right
The Brides of High Hill
The Tusks of Extinction
“Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics”
“Signs of Life”
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
“Loneliness Universe”
“The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion”
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
“Lake of Souls”

What I've Read
Murderbot Diaries 2-4 (narrated by the wonderful Kevin R. Free ) - After last week, I went on a binge and re-read all the audiobooks: Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy

By my count, this is the third time thru most of these books and they really truly do hold up. Incredibly keenly observed stories of Murderbot encountering people, making observations, and (against its will!) feeling things about them. It's so good.

Highlights: In Artificial Condition, meeting ART but also realizing about getting to have CHOICES and how that changes the relationship to its clients. In Rogue Protocol, being so jealous of the 'pet robot' Miki and how it gets to have people take care of it and that's not beneath contempt. In Exit Strategy, it's the line, "Please. They will kill her."

Lent by Jo Walton - I went into those novel knowing nothing and it just has blown me away. This book cannot be discussed truly without massive spoilers but it is so good I want to shove people at it anyways. I went in knowing basically nothing about it, so was incredibly impressed by the way the book unfolded and I do not want to take that away from anyone. So, I will give you what will not spoil it - this book treats Christian beliefs of the middle ages as hard fact and works from there to show a character trying to live a moral and meaningful life even tho he knows that he may be damned. The characters are so fucking good. I finished it this afternoon and I am going to have to re-read it again soon.

What I'm Reading
Fugitive Telemetry - Martha Wells, Narrated by Kevin R Free ( I know this is technically out of publication order , but I prefer it.)

Hunting Toward Heartstill by Blackkat -about 45%
The Antarctica Conspiracy Derin Edala – slightly on hold.
The Ministry of time - on hold.
Someone you can build a nest in -on hold

What I'll Read Next
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way
The Tainted Cup
The Deep Dark

Track Changes
Alien Clay
Service Model
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed
Navigational Entanglements
The Butcher of the Forest
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right
The Brides of High Hill
The Tusks of Extinction
“Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics”
“Signs of Life”
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
“Loneliness Universe”
“The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion”
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
“Lake of Souls”

What I've Read
All Systems Red by Martha Wells - Watching Murderbot the show with some friends led us into a discussion of differences between the show and the book, so I ended up re-listening to the book. It just keeps holding up - it's tightly written with a narrative voice that is just so clear and so dry and sometimes so scared - I love this book. I'm not sure where I land on the show exactly, but this did confirm that at least some of the plot differences are from the show removing the drones that SecUnit uses to see things remotely.

What I'm Reading
The City and the City by China Mieville - audiobook narrated by John Lee (not my fave but perfectly competent) - This is the first time I'm reading China Mieville after all the online awareness of the accusations and it's for a book club. The book does lean pretty well into the weirdness of the two cities arrangement - where you might have something pass in front of your eyes but you unsee it, because it's in a different city than the one you live in . It's a mureder mystery, so a lot of my final read will depend on how the story resolves

My Favorite Thing is Monsters Book 2 by Emil Ferris - still weird!

Hunting Toward Heartstill by Blackkat -about 45%
The Antarctica Conspiracy Derin Edala – slightly on hold.
The Ministry of time - on hold.
Someone you can build a nest in -on hold

What I'll Read Next
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way
The Tainted Cup
The Deep Dark

Track Changes
Alien Clay
Service Model
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed
Navigational Entanglements
The Butcher of the Forest
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right
The Brides of High Hill
The Tusks of Extinction
“Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics”
“Signs of Life”
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
“Loneliness Universe”
“The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion”
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
“Lake of Souls”

TV: I have started watching Murderbot! I am intrigued by it! Skarsgard is doing really good at displaying Murderbot's discomfort and the team gets nicely fleshed out. I am cautiously optimistic. The fight scenes are less horrifying than I was imagining.

Real Life:
In other, sadder news, over the last week, a very dear friend of mine has been dealing with the sudden illness and death of a dear friend of theirs (not someone I knew directly). Since we are each other's emergency phone call buddies for a lot of stuff, that means, while I was in no way attached directly to the person who just passed away, I have been doing a lot of emotional support over the phone and I am feeling the general sadness of human fragility and loss rather than missing a particular person. But he was about my age, and he got sick and died and there's just a whole lot of grief swirly around me even if it's not mine.

Work has been incredibly intense due to hosting events on site, so I have had a lot of traveling to the site, sleeping in a strange place, and doing pointless customer service to support a branch of my org's team that needs people to help manage the events. The whole thing seems wildly pointless.

What I've Read
Oh I have read nothing. Slightly behind on the year to date goals

What I'm Reading
He Who Drowned the World – Book club re-read
The Ministry of Time by Kailane Bradley – 25% ish, it’s kind of The Terror fanfiction
Hunting Toward Heartstill by Blackkat -about 45%
My Favorite Thing is Monsters -Emil Ferris – over 60% - okay this is turning out great.
The Antarctica Conspiracy Derin Edala – slightly on hold.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In – John Wiswell – 15%

What I'll Read Next
Hugo Nominees are out!
Track Changes
The Deep Dark
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book 2
The Tainted Cup
Alien Clay
Service Model
The Ministry of Time
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed
Navigational Entanglements
The Butcher of the Forest
The Hunger and the Dusk: Vol. 1
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right
The Brides of High Hill
We Called Them Giants
The Tusks of Extinction
“Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics”
“Signs of Life”
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
“Loneliness Universe”
“The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion”
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
“Lake of Souls”

Unrelated: I have finished Andor season 2 and would LOVE to talk about it. I had not gotten the memo that this was going to be a 2 season show, instead of 5 – probably should have picked up on it. Still very good, just a much faster pace, I have some specific thoughts about that last image. Probably going to go back and watch Rogue One now.

What I've Read
Rivers of London/Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch – Finished, not super engaging, I don’t think I will read the rest. I just began to find the narrator irritating and I ended up finishing the book without much pleasure, tho the plot was engaging and the story was not bad! It's got some cool magic in it, I don't think that other people would find this a bad book.

What I'm Reading
Hunting Toward Heartstill by Blackkat -about 45%

My Favorite Thing is Monsters -Emil Ferris - No movement

The Antarctica Conspiracy Derin Edala – slightly on hold.

What I'll Read Next
Hugo Nominees are out!
Track Changes
The Deep Dark
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book 2
The Tainted Cup
Alien Clay
Service Model
The Ministry of Time
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed
Navigational Entanglements
The Butcher of the Forest
The Hunger and the Dusk: Vol. 1
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right
The Brides of High Hill
We Called Them Giants
The Tusks of Extinction
“Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics”
“Signs of Life”
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
“Loneliness Universe”
“The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion”
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
“Lake of Souls”

also bought some books – orb of cairado and the foz meadows novella, so stuff to look at there!

Work is full of tangential projects – one of the Big Events is happening so all the people who are normally doing keyboard work are consigned to doing talking to people work, myself included, at weird hours and high intensity for a brief window of time.

Which means that my plans for strenuous reading goals are OUT the window – good luck if I get thru book club and some goofy fiction. Hugo books? Maybe!

What I've Read
Memory Library – Janelle Monae – Okay, turns out this rules. And, excellent book club book! The last three stories really dig into the element of surviving under oppression that is the need for time and space and hope, and how each story handles that is so different and connects so well to each other. Loved “Timebox” and absolutely was destroyed by the selfishness of one of the characters to someone she supposedly loves – center of the book.

What I'm Reading
Hunting Toward Heartstill by Blackkat -about 30% in which is, I think, where I last left it. They are bopping around a dangerous Sith planet and I find this section a little slow but maybe Anakin will experience a consequence!

Rivers of London/Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch – Audiobook is fun, good narrator. Wow, does Ben Aaronovitch hate fat people. Like, it’s a good book but just every so often he’ll just be like, Did I mention this unpleasant character’s body yet? No! Let me fix that! This is not surprising to me, honestly, I read this book before, and bounced, but! I do have a friend who adores them. And claims the fat hatred eases? So, we’ll give this a second chance.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters -Emil Ferris - A comic book I am reading so that I can read the sequel piece for the hugos. Slow going.

The Antarctica Conspiracy by Derin Edala – slightly on hold.

What I'll Read Next
Hugo Nominees are out!
Track Changes
The Deep Dark
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book 2
The Tainted Cup
Alien Clay
Service Model
The Ministry of Time
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed
Navigational Entanglements
The Butcher of the Forest
The Hunger and the Dusk: Vol. 1
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right
The Brides of High Hill
We Called Them Giants
The Tusks of Extinction
“Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics”
“Signs of Life”
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
“Loneliness Universe”
“The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion”
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
“Lake of Souls”

also bought some books – orb of cairado and the foz meadows novella, so stuff to look at there!

What I've Read
Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian – Why was this so comforting and nice? Did any of it actually stick in my brain?

Death sent the bridegroom by blackkat - https://archiveofourown.org/works/46352779 - Star Wars AU - Mace Windu is the leader of the Jedi, who have been hidden from the Sith Empire for thousands of years. But on a planet in Mandalorian Empire space, multiple Jedi have gone missing, and the actual Mandalor shows up to complicate this. Marriage of convenience and adventure!

What I'm Reading
Memory Library – Janelle Monae – Short stories for my book club, interesting world building around art and music and creativity and memory, but the sentence by sentence writing lacks a sense of cadence. Nothing shocks; nothing stops you in your tracks. This seems like it could have used another editorial pass, but it might just be a matter of taste.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters -Emil Ferris - A comic book I am reading so that I can read the sequel piece for the hugos. Slow going.

The Antarctica Conspiracy Derin Edala – slightly on hold.

What I'll Read Next
Hugo Nominees are out!
Track Changes
The Deep Dark
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book 2
The Tainted Cup
Alien Clay
Service Model
The Ministry of Time
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed
Navigational Entanglements
The Butcher of the Forest
The Hunger and the Dusk: Vol. 1
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right
The Brides of High Hill
We Called Them Giants
The Tusks of Extinction
“Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics”
“Signs of Life”
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
“Loneliness Universe”
“The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion”
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
“Lake of Souls”

also bought some books – orb of cairado and the foz meadows novella, so stuff to look at there!

What I’ve Read
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik – a re-read! This is a favorite series, I have re-read this book like four times in the last decade. I was struck by a particular element of this novel’s pacing – just about the time in training when a book about combat training would have let the main characters try out the new and improved flight formations that they came up with on their own and would have wowed their peers and instructors, the war heats up and the stakes become much more clear.

What I’m Reading
Memory Library – Janelle Monae – Short stories for my book club, interesting world building around art and music and creativity and memory, but the sentence by sentence writing lacks a sense of cadence. Nothing shocks; nothing stops you in your tracks. This seems like it could have used another editorial pass, but it might just be a matter of taste.

Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian – My audiobook choice for falling asleep to, which is not an insult, just a reflection of how soothing this narrator is. Absolutely not paying enough attention to this.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters -Emil Ferris - A comic book I am reading so that I can read the sequel piece for the hugos. It’s literally difficult to read: the conceit is that it’s a child’s notebook, so all the pages have the blue lines of school paper. The art is fascinating and I am about 30 pages in.

The Antarctica Conspiracy Derin Edala – slightly on hold.

What I’ll Read Next

Hugo Nominees are out!
Track Changes
The Deep Dark
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book 2
The Tainted Cup
Alien Clay
Service Model
The Ministry of Time
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed
Navigational Entanglements
The Butcher of the Forest
The Hunger and the Dusk: Vol. 1
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right
The Brides of High Hill
We Called Them Giants
The Tusks of Extinction
“Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics”
“Signs of Life”
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
“Loneliness Universe”
“The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion”
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
“Lake of Souls”

also bought some books – orb of cairado and the foz meadows novella, so stuff to look at there!

What I've Read:

The Javelin Program Time to Orbit: Unknown #1 by Derin Edala This is the first half of a long web novel about an extremely fucked up space ship. Our protagonist starts out in the very media-est res, waking in the middle of a journey to be told, the ship is broken and you have to fix it! Things spiral. The characters have really interesting discussion of their decisions, and I'm looking forward to finishing the story in the next book.

Order 66: Star Wars: Republic Commando #4 by Karen Traviss
This is a fucking BUMMER of a book but it has to be - this series is about a set of clones in the Star Wars universe who are determined to escape the trap they've been born into. Traviss writes a good war story and this series has morally complex people doing good and bad things and feeling absolutely fine about it while they leave wreckage in their wake. Absolutely a must read series for anyone who is interested in the Mandalorian cultural canon - Traviss built most of of it from scratch.

What I'm Reading:

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison - 82% - Started Apr 4, 2025 This re-read is great, the voices are excellent

The Antarctica Conspiracy
Time to Orbit: Unknown #2 Derin Edala -10% - Started Apr 7, 2025 like I said, the second half of the larger story.

What I'll read next
Book club - Janelle Monet short stories but I cannot recall which yet.

What I've Read

California Bones by Greg Van Eekhout
The writing on this felt a bit sparse, but the world building and the characters more than made up for it. Osteomancy gives magic to people who consume the bones and other parts of creatures, or, the bodies of other osteomancers. A solid revenge quest which a twist in term of collaboration from an unlikely source. Is the trope of a super powerful magician who was trained from childhood by a father he must later revenge tired? Technically yes but Inigo Montoya was a blast and so are some of these characters.

True Colors by Karen Traviss Star Wars: Republic Commando #3
. Parts of a series in started and fell out of a couple years ago - the source of most Mandalorian world building in Star Wars and so everyone should read it. This series follows a group of clone Commandos who are involved in saving themselves from the machinery of empire - so, not timely or anything. The series has several running plots but also just has some nice father son and brother relationships. Traviss writes military fiction in several properties. I liked this one but it's hard to tell if the individual books are good , and certain characters are too morally complex for the Fandom to handle them well.

What I'm Reading

Karen Traviss's next Republic Commando book, Order 66, which is the downer ending of the series - there's a follow up Imperial Commando after this but, well, no more Republic.
Goblin Emperor - a re read by audio book

What I'll Read Next
Not eentirely sure, need to check the notebook but I don't have it to hand.

EDIT Oh the formating on this post was. BAD. I fixed it.

What I've Read
In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan - Storygraph tells me that I most recently read this in 2022, but I remember reading it back when Brennan was putting it together on her livejournal in a short story format, sometime before it was published in 2018. I really felt so attached to the main character, an abrasive young bi man who lands in an portal story and rather than taking up a sword, figures out that the place desperately needs diplomacy and the ability to make treaties. Elliott spends a fair time getting rejected and somewhat ill-used, but he's so used to benign neglect that he simply doesn't bother with resentment. He simply understands himself as a person who other people will tolerate at best. This boy's self image is like catnip to me, in a terribly self indulgent way. Get loved, idiot.

I'm gonna love you with my hands tied by kaasknot https://archiveofourown.org/works/34586794 - Love this fic. Will not make much sense without reading a couple of the Karen Traviss Star Wars Republic Commando fics. Suffice to say: Some clones from The Clone Wars are raised to be way more badass and Mandalorian than average, and this fic focuses on the random normal trooper they run into on a mission and adopt. The books skip the time period where Corr, our POV character, gets his prosthetics upgraded from basic to badass and gets trained as a Commando - this story covers that period of training with his extremely skittish Commando battle buddy, Mereel. Mereel is a study in weird cultural hangs-up and parental neglect. This fic is a great character study of Corr and his development from a disabled soldier who has lost his family and purpose to a badass commando who will likely be able to handle the weird cultish mentality of the clone family he's kind of marrying into. Corr is thoughtful and morally solid and I liked being in his head.

What I’m Reading
City of Lies by Sam Hawke – 67% - I am technically re-reading this but have no actual knowledge of the book’s plot. Did I finish this?
Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison
How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying - Django Wexler
Male Order – Unwrapping Masculinity -edited b y Rowena Chapman

What I'll Read Next
I am free as a bird now.

Off topic but anyone who uses tumblr - do you have a sense of the current etiquette around crediting someone who made a gif you want to use in a post? Is just doing '

username' on the post cool?

(comment brought to you by a shockingly unpleasant interaction I had with someone on my literal first post in years - they were definitely an asshole but I want to check if they were correct and an asshole or just an asshole)

What I've Read

When the Dead Tree Flowers by Blackkat – https://archiveofourown.org/works/47341819
This is a Star Wars Clone Wars AU focused on minor EU character Granta Omega, who has the complicated power of being invisible in the Force. For this incredibly useful power, he’s kidnapped and held on Kamino and a batch of clones are made using his DNA. This fic takes place just as he escapes, realizes it’s the Domino squad, and goes to find them. Blackkat does great work on establishing just how damaged Granta was by his childhood as a tool of his father’s revenge, and builds a fascinating set of relationships between Granta and his clone children – family for a group of clones who never expected to have a parent who cared, found family for Granta adopting the clones who helped him in captivity, and there’s a hint of a romance with one clone…. The story is 170K and stops at a good place but clearly doesn’t actually finish the plot Blackkat has in mind.

You Wired Me Awake by

thefourthvine
https://archiveofourown.org/works/63881242
Star Trek alternate original series movies AU – Jim Kirk is a werewolf at the end of his leash. (lol) He’s sentenced to The Academy, which puts supernatural creatures like him to good use, but only if they bow and scrape and never aim for anything ambitious in life. Spock is a vampire. This fic has them conspiring to handle things that human society would prefer they not touch, and it’s so so much fun. Imagine if Kirk and Spock had to conspire against evil Star Trek for the good of the world! TheFourthVine shifts all the tech to magic, but keeps it hard and complex and interesting. Part 1 of a series, this fic is complete but the series is not.

Fingers Crossed That I’m Something You’ll Keep by

thefourthvine
https://archiveofourown.org/works/55775611
It (movies Muschietti) Alternate Universe – Everybody lives
I do not go to this fandom! I have neither read the book nor seen the movie, and yet, here I am, enjoying this strange traumatized man become a school admin and fall in love with a dickish traumatized parent. This might be canon compliant or not but it’s mostly extremely cute.

What I’m Reading
City of Lies by Sam Hawke – 38% - I am technically re-reading this but have no actual knowledge of the book’s plot. Did I finish this?
In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan – 40% ish
Male Order – Unwrapping Masculinity -edited b y Rowena Chapman

What I’ll Read Next
The Route of Ice and Salt (gay and dracula and boats)
Worn: A People’s History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser
Empire of Gold
Madness of Angels Kate Griffin
City of Lies
The Memory Librarian

Reading Journal for March 12 2025

I skipped a week? Which is weird bc I absolutely wrote up last weeks journal and then … never posted it. Life comes at you fast sometimes.

What I’ve Read

Conclave – Robert Harris – I picked this up after watching the movie, and I’m more and more impressed with how close the film kept the story line and how many of the book’s details would have not played well on screen. It’s a loving condemnation of the Roman Catholic leadership, and a very fun read. If you like the movie and are also into art or politics, I recommend it.

Amongst Dust Breathing Souls by Blackkat – Star Wars Clone Wars Era AU focused on a minor Jedi character from the movies called A’Sharad Hett - https://archiveofourown.org/works/55747861 This is just such a detailed and careful fic. Hett is a Tusken, and in the brief comics appearance he gets, he learns of Anakin’s massacre of a Tusken tribe but, because of plot, keeps the secret. This takes that canon event and fleshes out WHY you’d keep that secret, what the impact would be, and how much the process of changing your mind would take a vast effort of personal healing. Loved this. Unabashedly recommend this.

A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck – A novella about a man in a hell specifically for him – having followed the wrong religion in life (not Zoroastrianism), he is condemned to remain in a library of books until he finds his autobiography. It’s a strange book – the prose is very clear and embellished and it reminds me strongly of a Piranesi. It’s magical realism? I guess? I wasn’t annoyed at the book while I read it but I’m a bit miffed at it in retrospect – I think it could have gone deeper into the dark elements of the soul that it was trying to get into.

a star to steer by norcumi – a re-read ! I apparently have read this three times, and it remains an excellent and confusing work of fiction. A Star War Clone Wars fusion AU with Stargate – a really weird vision for both worlds, but what I really enjoy about this fic is the actual work of cultural exchange and mutual understanding that happens in this fic – sometimes messily! The characters from Stargate are largely unchanged from their TV show versions except the question if they’d encountered better allies earlier in the show, with more interest in helping them, and demanding that humans become more compassionate to the victims of the mind-controlling Stargate aliens.

Softer Arena Slave AU - https://archiveofourown.org/series/4025155 – a great Soulmates AU that focuses on Obi-Wan Kenobi, abandoned teenage Jedi, being found with Jango Fett’s soulmate mark – only not by Jango! Instead it’s Jaster Mereel, Jango’s adopted father, who assumed that Jango was dead until he saw the proof on Obi-Wan’s skin that Jango still lives! It’s a great story and very interested in Mandalorian culture.

What I’m Reading
City of Lies by Sam Hawke – 28% - I am technically re-reading this but have no actual knowledge of the book’s plot.

When the Dead Tree Flowers by Blackkat – Star Wars Clone Wars AU focused on minor EU character Granta Omega – God I love this and I really should finish it

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan – 40% ish
Male Order – Unwrapping Masculinity -edited b y Rowena Chapman
It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror – 52%
Power Broker – Audiobook Part 3 – 1%

What I’ll Read Next
Empire of Gold
Madness of Angels Kate Griffin
City of Lies
The Memory Librarian

Reading Journal Feb 26 2025

Personal updates: Work continues skittish but other wise fine. The baby blanket is past the halfway point and it’s going on pretty well.

Cut for some personal discussion about deciding to not have kids and family being weird.( Read more... )

What I’ve Read
System Collapse! Final book in the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. I seem slight doomed to keep re-reading this series, a delightful limbo. Literally every time I finish this series a new book group or friend picks it up.

What I’m Reading
Conclave – Robert Harris – I picked this up after watching the movie, and I’m more and more impressed with how close the film kept the story line and how many of the book’s details would have not played well on screen. It’s a loving condemnation of the Roman Catholic leadership.

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan – Stalled out but I’ll get back to it.

Kingdom of Copper – about 40%

Wool (The Omnibus Edition) by Hugh Howey – 9% - Weird and interesting but I haven’t hit any major places where the show diverged except tonally.

Male Order – Unwrapping Masculinity -edited by Rowena Chapman - Communist essays about masculinity in England from like 1990 - fascinating. I really think everyone should read political discussions from past decades, it really gives you scope.

It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror – 52%
Power Broker – Audiobook Part 3 – 1%

What I’ll Read Next
Empire of Gold
Madness of Angels Kate Griffin
City of Lies
The Memory Librarian

Reading Journal Feb 12 2025

Personal updates: My job has gotten rather stressful in new ways recently, due to politics. I’m not directly impacted by anything, yet, but there are some potential problems that could arise if announced plans are allowed to go thru - my household has been down one job for several months now and I would like my job to remain incredibly boring and reliable until we can get back to dual income. Fingers crossed.

I had a lovely time last week dog-sitting my parents’ newish greyhound, who is a himbo made out of stilts. He’s adapting to being a pet very well, having been one for less than a financial quarter, and had excellent household manners. (Alas, he remains loud when meeting other dogs and so I was not confident enough to let him work thru it to make friends.)

I would like to get my own dog, but, well, that seems like a financial commitment for a slightly more settled time.

What I’ve Read
Locke and Key Vol 2 and 3 by Joe Hill – This comic series continues to be great and quite creepy. I’m enjoying the art a great deal – honestly, some of the art in Vol 2 where a child finds a magic key that opens his head and allows you to rummage thru his mind via metaphor is some of the creepiest fantasy I’ve seen in a while. It’s both just a cartoon and also really weird.

Honorable mention to System Collapse, which I did not re-read for my book club, but which I got to talk about with some people and had a lovely time.

What I’m Reading
Kingdom of Copper – about 35% - much much faster and more tangled than the first book. Highly recommend picking this up if you found the first book a slog – all the payoff is here for the last book and they are not pulling any punches.

Wool (The Omnibus Edition) by Hugh Howey – I picked this up after watching the series, Silo, on Apple TV, which is good and also somewhat different. I’m just not sure where the series will land but I did enjoy it and I do think that the characters work slightly better in print than in the series. Actors have to act to portray things, a book can just give you the characters thoughts directly.

It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror – 52%
Power Broker – Audiobook Part 3 – 1%0

What I’ll Read Next
The Route of Ice and Salt (gay and dracula and boats)
Worn: A People’s History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser
Empire of Gold
Madness of Angels Kate Griffin
City of Lies
The Memory Librarian

Reading Journal Feb 05 2025

What I’ve Read
Held in Hearts by Marchling - https://archiveofourown.org/works/38604081 - part iii of the enormous AU fic of The Fast and the Furious where soulmates are real but PTSD is realer. It’s deeply self indulgent.

What I’m Reading
Kingdom of Copper
Locke and Key vol 2 – Joe Hill
It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror – 52%
Power Broker – Audiobook Part 3 – 1%0

Static:
The Lottery and Other Stories – 44%
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation – 31%
Ash: A Secret History – 23%
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 10%
Count of Monte Cristo 48%

What I’ll Read Next
The Route of Ice and Salt (gay and dracula and boats)
Worn: A People’s History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser
Kingdom of Copper
Empire of Gold
Madness of Angels Kate Griffin
City of Lies
The Memory Librarian

Reading Journal Jan 23 2025
How are folks doing? It's been a fucking week. I hope you are all well and taking care of yourselves.

I had a nice weekend! I went to a scifi/fantasy convention and got some great new book suggestions and I have a great deal of hope and faith in the kindness of people restored. The world is not all bad - sometimes people invite you to hit things with swords and tell you about how terrible most Jules Verne translations are.

What I’ve Read
Marked in Trust – Marchling – https://archiveofourown.org/series/2317160
This is a re-read of a long and thorny recovery fic. A soulmates AU to the first Fast and Furious movie, teenage Brian gets sprung from juvie into the care of his newly found soulmate, Dominic – only Brian absolutely hates the idea of soulmates and never wanted to meet Dom, much less live with him. It’s slow, there’s multiple 100K stories in this series, I’m re-reading the ones I already knew, including….

Bound in Love – Marchling - #2 in the series – https://archiveofourown.org/works/32662693 No way to talk about it without spoiler for the first fic, but slow and detailed and an excellent re-read.

Return of the King – Tolkien, narrated by Robert Inglis. Oh, wow the ending of this snuck up on me – I didn’t realize the audiobook would include all the appendices, so I wasn’t prepared! I ended up crying – the book is so much kinder and more interested in Frodo and his suffering, it feels a little absurd that the epic fantasy genre has just left the hobbits behind. This is a war story that happens to be in a fantasy world, and like all war stories, no happy ending could be anything but bittersweet. Deeply touching, entirely worth it, I’m going to punch Peter Jackson in the back of the head if I ever get the chance.

Catwings – Ursula Le Guin – Picked up a copy of this childhood favorite at a stall at a con! I didn’t realize how much of the book I would still have memorized. A joy to re-read.

City of Brass – Shannon Chakraborty – It’s not a bad story, I think but there’s just too much book in this book. The worldbuilding is clearly really engaging to the author, and I don’t think it’s bad, but the interesting political bits of the plot were immensely slow to develop. It’s also the first book in a trilogy and the book ends on a cliffhanger that doesn’t really bring a conclusion to it. So, I suspect I will read on just to see what happens. It would be manageable if it were a little bit funny or more fun to read.

What I’m Reading
California Bones – I picked up a short story by Greg Van Eekhout in a magazine (Uncanny or Clarksworld, not sure) and it made me want to pick up this book that I have had on my To Read List – Someone on Dreamwidth liked it, can’t recall who but thanks for the rec!

Strange Practice –Vivian Shaw – Xing Book Club -This is probably good but the Englishness of the audiobook narrator, but I’m not having a great time. It’s meh.

It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror – 52%
Power Broker – Audiobook Part 3 – 1%

Static:
The Lottery and Other Stories – 44%
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation – 31%
Ash: A Secret History – 23%
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 10%
Count of Monte Cristo 48%

What I’ll Read Next
Long Live Evil
The Route of Ice and Salt (gay and dracula and boats)
Worn: A People’s History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser
Kingdom of Copper
Empire of Gold

Reading Journal Jan 15 2025

What I’ve Read
Nothing to completion but lots of progress.

What I’m Reading
City of Brass – Necromancy Book Club – 57% - I need to finish this for the book club this weekend. I think this is maybe thin gruel in terms of plot but the author is good on the sentence level and the world building is based on a mythology I’m quite unfamiliar with, so I’m having a good time overall. I really wish I had a better sense of story, overall

Marked in Trust by Marchling – re-read of a long ass fic that I love – Fast and Furious soulmates AU where Dom and Brian meet when Brian is a teen rather than a cop.

Strange Practice –Vivian Shaw – Xing Book Club -This is probably a fine book but the Englishness of the audiobook narrator, but I’m not having a great time. I have resolved to be more generous - plenty of good books are written by English people, why does the narrator just have to have the most irritating RP accent?

The Return of the King – 77% – Audiobook continues to be wonderful. I realized only today that this version seems to include the appendices, so I perhaps am much closer to the end of the story than I realized – the Shire has been Scoured and Rosie Cotton got some personality, so the narrator has started giving us a bit of future Shire info and I’m wondering when the ending will hit me. (Bill the Pony!)

It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror – 52%
Power Broker – Audiobook Part 3 – 1%

Static:
The Lottery and Other Stories – 44%
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation – 31%
Ash: A Secret History – 23%
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 10%
Count of Monte Cristo 48%

What I’ll Read Next

Worn: A People’s History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser
Strange Practice
The Centre -Sidiqi

Reading Journal Jan 8 2025

What I’ve Read
He Who Drowned the World – Shelley Parker-Chan – This is the sequel to She Who Became the Sun and it’s fucking fantastic. Really loves putting the characters in situations, really willing to stare deeply into the consequences of their actions, kind of utterly wonderful about the whole thing. Really an amazing book with a real focus on characters unfolding over time. These people feel a little bit monstrous and a little bit victims and all over inevitable.

Harrow County Vol 2 – Twice Told – Cullen Bunn – This graphic novel does interesting set up but the payoff has so far been a bit less punchy than I hope for. A bit of the superhero rule of returning to the status quo at the end of the story? If the library has more, I’ll keep reading but I’m not super pumped. The art remains great.

Flyaway – Kathleen Jennings – A bit fairy tale, a bit supernatural, very Australian. I feel a bit like when I started reading Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation and I was new to the genre and couldn’t tell what was innovation and what was convention. Disorienting but not in a bad way. I think I will keep this to re-read. The physical book is quite lovely.

Locke and Key – Vol 1 – Welcome to Lovecraft – Joe Hill – This book HIT. It absolutely did not pull its punches, and given that its a horror, it really works. The slow build from normal awful human tragedy to supernatural distortions of the normal world, until things kind of explode. I’m very very interested to see what will happen next.

What I’m Reading
City of Brass -Cute but the story just feels a little preachy.
The Return of the King – 55% - Good lord. The ring is melted but we still have so much book left!
It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror – 52%
Power Broker – Audiobook Part 3 – 1%

Static:
The Lottery and Other Stories – 44%
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation – 31%
Ash: A Secret History – 23%
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 10%
Count of Monte Cristo 48%

What I’ll Read Next
Worn: A People’s History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser
Petals on the Wind
Strange Practice
The Centre -Sidiqi

Year End Reading Meme for 2024

How many books did you read this year? Any trends in genre/length/themes/etc?
101. I count audiobooks, graphic novels, fanfic over 50K, and even traditional books with no pictures!

What are your Top 3 books that you read this year?
Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland, Jackalope Wives by T Kingfisher, and Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey

What's a book you enjoyed more than you expected?
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson and The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery and Dolores Clairborne by Stephen King

Which books most disappointed you this year?
All My Bicycles by Powerpaola – a graphic novel and it was just not that engaging. Also, Romancing Mister Bridgerton was not really landing with me.

Did you reread any old faves? If so, which one was your favorite?
Murderbot! Re-read the whole series again.

What's the oldest book you read?
Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett – this was arguably her most popular book during her lifetime, but her work focusing on girls has had a longer tail. It’s from 1886

What's the newest book you read?
The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke – published October 20 2024

Did you DNF (= did not finish) any books?
A bunch – Gild I bailed on for being goofy, A Court of Mist and Fury because I found the writing really bland.

Did you read any books outside of your usual preferred genre(s)?
I read Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, which was fine mystery but really too English. I also read Horrorstor, which was a fascinatingly constructed book because it looks like an ikea catalogue and the book is set inside a giant furniture store.

What was your predominant format this year?
Digital and audibook.

What's the longest book you read this year?
Dune, according to storygraph, but I would count The Power Broker audibooks as the longest bc the audiobook is broken into three parts. But I didn’t actually finish the whole three, soooo.

What books from your TBR did you not get to this year, but are excited to read in 2022?
I just finished He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan, which was wonderfully written and had a great grasp of character.

Did you reach your reading goal for this year (if you had one)?
I had two sorts of goals, actually. Read 100 books (same goal I’ve had for three years or so now) and read longer books. Turns out, those goals don’t play well together! So I barely made it under the wire. I ended up reading a lot of graphic novels.

(Adding this question myself) What author did you read the most?
T. Kingfisher! I read 7 books by T Kingfisher, all traditionally published. If we are counting fanfiction, then I read the most from Alexandra Rowland aka Ariaste, because I read 6 of their original books and 2 novel length fanfics.

Any thoughts on reading in 2024?
My reading goals were big this year! I still have some left to finish in the new year, but they will get done eventually – this includes finishing the Power Broker by Robert Caro.

I realized after the election, that well, my mental health was suffering and that reading books was harder – I had less focus and energy to read in November 2024 as a whole. While it got better, I am giving myself some leeway on the gap between my performance and my goals. Reading something counts, and if that means we fudge the numbers, so be it.

I had a minor subgoal – Storygraph tracks “streaks” aka continuous days of reading, and over a year ago I had a streak going over 212 days and lost it somehow. I mostly remember being annoyed about the whole thing because I had done the reading but not received the credit. A couple of weeks ago, I hit and passed my old longest streak, and my new subgoal is to read every day this year.

I also found out that you can log magazine issues (at least for Clarkesworld) on Storygraph, so I might start doing that - short stories were a good place for me to be after the election when I was trying to read again.