Andrea's 2018 Category Challenge – Attack the Stack

Photo: Jorge Royan via Wikimedia Commons
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Hi, I'm Andrea Blythe, a reader and writer of speculative poetry, fiction, and screenplays living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

My reading capacity has dramatically decreased in recent years to the point where I wasn't even sure if I was going to continue with this challenge. But it's hard to let it go, because I love the people here and I love the way the category challenge stretches me in a bit in terms of what I read. So, I'm here again, but keeping things as simple as possible.

Here are my categories — although there are no caps on any one section, I would like to read a minimum of five books in each category reaching at least 60 books for the year ( a bit of a stretch based on 2017's reading levels).

1. Attack the Stack – Read: 5
My bookshelves are overcapacity, and I keep buying new books, so it's time to whittle away at the quantity of books I own.

2. New Recruits – Read: 10
Books published in 2018.

3. We Are the Champions – Read: 1
Books that have won awards – Hugo/Nebula/Tiptree/Printz/Etc.

4. Intelligence Gathering & Stratagems – Read: 2
Nonfiction books on writing, critical analysis, or anything interesting.

5. Bloodshed and Mayhem – Read: 2
Horror and thrillers.

6. Linguistic Blitzkrieg – Read: 10
Poetry and verse.

7. Visual Onslaught – Read: 11
Graphic novels, comics, and other visual storytelling.

8. Behind the Scenes – Read: 0
Screen and stage plays.

9. Random Acts – Read: 8
Miscellany and overflow.

10. BONUS: Reading the Hugos – Read: 11

Total = 60/60

Attack the Stack
My bookshelves are overcapacity, and I keep buying new books, so it's time to whittle away at the quantity of books I own.

1. Falling in Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson (****)
2. The Tower of the Antilles by Achy Obejas (****)
3. The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (*****)
4. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (*****)
5. Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (****)

Possibilities:
So many.

New Recruits
Books published in 2018.

1. Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor (*****)
2. Freshwater by Akwaeke Emzi (*****)
3. Monster Portraits by Del Samatar and Sofia Samatar (****)
4. The Atrocities by Jeremy C Shipp (****)
5. A Room Away from the Wolves by Nova Ren Suma (****1/2)
6. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells (****)
7. Sawkill Girls (audio book) by Claire Legrand (*****)
8. Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells (*****)
9. Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire (****)
10. Exit Strategy by Martha Wells (*****)

Possibilites:

We Are the Champions
Books that have won awards – Hugo/Nebula/Tiptree/Printz/Etc.

1. Annihilation (Southern Reach #1) by Jeff VanderMeer (*****) - Winner of the 2014 Nebula Award

Possibilites:

2011 Hugo/2010 Nebula - Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis
1987 Hugo/1986 Nebula - Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
1984 Hugo/1983 Nebula - Startide Rising by David Brin
1979 Hugo/1978 Nebula - Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre
1973 Hugo/1972 Nebula - The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov

Hugo:
2015 - The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu
2013 - The Emperor’s Soul novella, by Brandon Sanderson
2007 - Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
2006 - Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
2003 - Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer
Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson - Won the 1994 Hugo, nominated for the Nebula
Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson - Won the 1997 Hugo, nominated for the Nebula

Nebula:
2006 - Seeker by Jack McDevitt
2003 - The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
2001 - The Quantum Rose by Catherine Asaro
2000 - Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear
1997 - The Moon and the Sun by Vonda N. McIntyre
1996 - Slow River by Nicola Griffith
1995 - The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer
1994 - Moving Mars by Greg Bear
1991 - Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick
1989 - The Healer’s War by Elizabeth Anne Scarborough
1988 - Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold
1987 - The Falling Woman by Pat Murphy
1982 - No Enemy but Time by Michael Bishop
1981 - The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe
1980 - Timescape by Gregory Benford
1976 - Man Plus by Frederik Pohl
1972 - The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
1971 - A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg
1968 - Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin
1967 - The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany
1966 - Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

Tiptree Award
2007 - The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall
2008 – Filter House by Nisi Shawl*
2009 Tiptree Award - Ooku: The Inner Chambers, volumes 1 & 2 by Fumi Yoshinaga*
2009 Tiptree Award – Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter's Tales by Greer Gilman*
2011 Tiptree Award – Redwood and Wildfire by Andrea Hairston
2014 Tiptree Award - My Real Children — Jo Walton*
2016 Tiptree Award – When the Moon Was Ours by Anna M. McLemore*
2016 Tiptree Award – The New Mother by Eugene Fischer

Postcards from No Man's Land, by Aidan Chambers - 2003 Printz Winner

Intelligence Gathering & Stratagems
Nonfiction books on writing, critical analysis, or anything interesting.

1. Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer (*****)
2. No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters by Ursula K. Le Guin (****)

Possibilites:
Horror Movie A Day: The Book by Brian W. Collins
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
Apocalypse Postponed by Umberto Eco
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine's Journey Through Myth and Legend by Valerie Estelle Frankel
Writing Poetry from the Inside Out: Finding Your Voice Through the Craft of Poetry by Sandford Lyne

Bloodshed and Mayhem
Horror and thrillers.

1. The Changeling by Victor LaValle (*****)
2. We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory (****)

Possibilites:

Linguistic Blitzkrieg
Poetry and verse.

1. Let’s Not Live on Earth (Wesleyan Poetry Series) by Sarah Blake (*****)
2. No God In This Room by Athena Dixon (*****)
3. The 2018 Rhysling Anthology: The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Poetry of 2017, edited by by Linda D. Addison (*****)
4. Glimmerglass Girl by Holly Lyn Walrath (****)
5. I Am Not Your Final Girl by Claire C. Holland (*****)
6. R E D by Chase Berggrun (*****)
7. Finding Baba Yaga: A Short Novel in Verse by Jane Yolen (****)
8. If They Come For Us by Fatimah Asghar (*****)
9. A Cruelty Special to Our Species by Emily Jungmin Yoon (*****)
10. Basement Gemini by Chelsea Margaret Bodnar (*****)

Possibilites:

Field Guide to the End of the World by Jeannine Hall Gailey
Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda Poems by Pablo Neruda
Cloud Pharmacy by Susan Rich
Today Means Amen by Sierra DeMulder
Come Late to the Love of Birds by Sandra Kasturi

Visual Onslaught
Graphic novels, comics, and other visual storytelling.

1. The Gecko and the Three Grave Robbers by Cheez Hayama (****)
2. The Can Opener’s Daughter by Rob Davis (***)
3. Afar by Leila del Duca and illustrated by Kit Seaton (***1/2)
4. Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror, Vol. 1 by Junji Ito (*****)
5. Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror, Vol. 2 by Junji Ito (*****)
6. Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror, Vol. 3 by Junji Ito (*****)
7. Shiver: Short Stories by Junji Ito (*****)
8. Gyo Vol. 1: The Death-stench Creeps by Junji Ito (****)
9. Gyo Vol. 2: The Death-stench Creeps by Junji Ito (*****)
10. Fragments of Horror by Junji Ito (***½)
11. Herding Cats: A Sarah Scribbles Collection by Sarah Anderson (****)

Possibilites:

Saga: Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples
Hark! A Vagrant by Katie Beaton

Behind the Scenes
Screen and stage plays.

1.

Possibilities

Random Acts
Miscellany and overflow.

1. Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower #3) by Stephen King (***1/2)
2. The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy (*****)
3. Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce (****1/2)
4. In the Hands of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce (****1/2)
5. The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (Song of the Lioness #3) by Tamora Pierce (****)
6. Lioness Rampant (Song of the Lioness #4) by Tamora Pierce (****1/2)
7. The House with a Clock in Its Walls by John Belairs with illustrations by Edward Gorey (****)
8. Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys (***)

Possibilities:

Wool by Hugh Howey
Couch by Benjamin Parzybook

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BONUS: Reading the Hugos

1. All Systems Red by Martha Wells – Nominated for Best Novella (*****)
2. My Favorite Thing is Monsters, written and illustrated by Emil Ferris (*****)
3. An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (*****)
4. Provenance by Ann Leckie (*****)
6. River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey (***1/2)
7. And Then There Were (N-One) by Sarah Pinsker (*****)
8. Paper Girls, Volume 1, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Cliff Chiang, colored by Matthew Wilson, lettered by Jared Fletcher (****)
9. Paper Girls, Volume 2 (same creators) (****)
10. Paper Girls, Volume 3 (same creators) (****)
11. The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang (****)

Welcome back and have a great reading year! Good luck attacking the stack!

Here's to a great year of books!

Hi, rabbitprincess. :) I'm looking forward to what great new (or new to me) books are our there.

Thanks, mammal! Same to you. :)

Happy reading!

Lovely to see your thread set up, Andrea. Good luck with attacking the stack!

Yea! Happy to see you back. You were completely responsible for one of my categories for 2018 - wonder what I’ll take away from you this year.

>14 thornton37814:
Thank you, thornton!

>15 lkernagh:
Good to see you, too!

>16 LittleTaiko:
Thanks! Oooh, neat. Have fun exploring books from all the countries. :)

_____

Book Meme for Books Read in 2017

Describe yourself: The Girl in the Road

Describe how you feel: A Wind in the Door

Describe where you currently live: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Through the Woods

Your favorite form of transportation: The Obelisk Gate

Your best friend is: Hadriana In All My Dreams

You and your friends are: The Liminal People

What’s the weather like: Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day

You fear: Writing Hard Stories

What is the best advice you have to give: Let It Die Hungry

Thought for the day: Your Hand Has Fixed the Firmament

How you would like to die: Tender

Your soul’s present condition: Shopping After the Apocalypse

I love seeing people's meme answers! The fear one is especially good here :)

Great meme answers!

>18 rabbitprincess:
Hah. Yeah, it's probably the most suitable to my present reality. :)

>19 thornton37814:
Thanks!

Happy New Year, Andrea. You have some great reading planned for this year and I am looking forward to reading your thoughts. The picture you added to your "New Recruits" category made me smile - it perfectly illustrates our fickle minds being attracted to the new and shiny books and ignoring the feelings of our already loaded shelves.

Hi, Judy, I'm looking forward to reading with you, too. That picture made me giggle. I'm a fan of the distracted boyfriend meme in general. For some reason, it just hits the perfect level of amusement everytime I see it.

Love the meme!

Have fun with your challenge this year.

>23 lkernagh:
Thanks, Lori!

>24 hailelib:
Thanks. You, too!

I am quite far behind on my reading (not to mention everyone's threads), because the number of personal projects I have going in January is absurd. Among these projects is a Kickstarter project I launched to print a limited-edition chapbook, for which I'm creating a new poem every day. It's a lot of work — fun work — but still work.

Anyway, I'm currently reading Falling in Love with Hominids, short stories by Nalo Hopkinson, and Wizard and Glass the fourth book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. So far I'm enjoying both — when I can slip in some time to actually read them that it.

Keeping busy is a good thing! Keeps you out of trouble ;-)

>27 mamzel:
No idle hands here, that's for sure. :)

Stopping by to wish you success with your chapbook project!

Thank you, Lori!

Ursula K. Le Guinn passed away today and my heart is breaking. She wrote some of my favorite books, like the Wizard of Earthsea series and The Left Hand of Darkness. Her work was astounding.

>31 andreablythe:, I started tearing up when my husband told me last night, and then I ended up telling him all about the Wizard of Earthsea series, as well as some of her short stories. I used to bring her short stories into my contemporary lit classes when I was still teaching, and they always ended up driving such amazing discussions; I know a lot of my students went out and bought her novels after those sessions. I guess I knew it was coming, given her age, but the world is worse for losing her.

>31 andreablythe: Hi Andrea. There is going to be a group read of Ursula Le Guin in June. It's "choose your own book" so you can read a beloved favorite or try a new one of hers.

Great that you're here, hope you have time to come by now and again.

ETA: Your chapbook looks great - glad you got it funded!

Hi, all! It's been a wildly busy several weeks (read: month) and I'm finally starting to feel grounded again (will have to see how long that lasts).

The kickstarter project I ran in January was fully funded and I've put together a cover for the chapbook, which will be called Your Molten Heart / A Seed to Hatch and have created a cover:



I'm still working on editing each poem and preparing the book for printing, which is taking much more time than I thought it would.

On top of that my day job projects have been many and I've been in Quebec, Canada this week on a work trip to visit 15 different aluminum companies in five days. It's been a whirlwind, but now I'm heading home. And I'm using my hours at the airport to catch up on a few things I've let slide.

>32 whitewavedarling:
Yeah, her work was amazing and I wish I had studied her in school in order to take part of such discussions.

>33 DeltaQueen50:
That sounds awesome. I will definitely have to jump on that.

>34 -Eva-:
Hi, Eva. I've been doing a lot of projects lately, but I'm hoping to be around enough to keep the discussions going.

Yes, it was funded!

>35 andreablythe: You were in Quebec? Awesome! I hope the weather was all right. Quebec in February can be brutal.

1. Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower #3) by Stephen King (***1/2)
Category: Random Acts

I wrote over 2,000 words on this for my blog and I don't know if that's too much for this thread or not, so I'm only posting a portion here with a link. if you would prefer that I just share the whole giant post here, then let me know.

Spoilers for the previous book (#3) ahead.

“Dreams either mean nothing or everything — and when they mean everything, they almost always come as messages from . . . well, from other levels of the Tower.” He gazed at Eddie shrewdly. “And not all messages are sent by friends.”
— from Wizard and Glass

The third book ended on such a massive cliffhanger — with Roland and his ka-tet set to begin a battle of riddles with a homicidal AI train — that it was a great relief to finally get around to reading Wizard and Glass. This was even though I’ve read these books before and knew how the scene would play out.

Wizard and Glass opens right back with the start of the riddling competition between Blaine the Train and Roland, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake a scene I remember being delighted by when I first read it. And it was just as entertaining to read again, because of how King manages to create intensity in a game of wordplay. I also just really like the idea of riddling, even if I’m not particularly good at it myself. The game plays out, with the group growing more and more desperate each time Blaine smugly answers — with everything wrapping up in a maniacal and humorous form of heroism.

Our heroes all survive of course, arriving at the destination of Topeka, which turns out to be an alternate version of our Kansas — a Kansas emptied of life due to a plague that killed off the population. All of this is an introductory frontpiece to what is ultimately the heart of the novel, Roland opening up to the group with the tale of his first mission as a gunslinger and his first love.

Out of all the Dark Tower books I’ve read, I remember Wizard and Glass the least. Maybe the love story didn’t grab me. Maybe I’ve just been more mentally attached to other aspects of the storyline. At any rate, although it’s a little disjointed feeling with its bookend format (that feel tacked on), this is a solid chapter in the Dark Tower saga.

The rest of this post is here.

2. Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor (*****)
Category: New Recruits

A powerful conclusion to the Binti trilogy, which is incredibly imaginative from start to finish. I love Binti as a character in every way and she grows more and more interesting as the story continues. This third book was amazing and had me crying in front of strangers on several occasions. So beautiful. I really want a boxed set, if they release one.

3. Freshwater by Akwaeke Emzi (*****)
Category: New Recruits

“The first madness was that we were born, that they stuffed a god into a bag of skin.”

I learned about Freshwater after someone (I don't remember who) quoted a short passage on twitter. Just a single sentence or two — too short to know what the story was about, but beautiful enough to make me long to read the book. It was not yet published at the time, so I watched and waited and clicked the preorder link as soon as it appeared, then I waited some more for this beautiful book to be printed and shipped to me.

It was every bit worth the wait, because this debut novel is gorgeous.

“There was a time before we had a body, when it was still building itself cell by cell inside the thin woman, meticulously producing organs, making systems.”

Born in Nigeria, Ada begins life with a fractured self, burdened with the weight of god creatures that have been bound into her flesh. Living "with one foot on the other side" she is a troubled and volatile child who grows into a troubled and volatile adult, with a tendency toward outbursts and self harm. As she grows and moves to America, where she experiences a traumatic event, new selves crystalize within her, each providing their own protections and hungers.

Much of the story is told from the point of view of these god creatures (or spirit beings), which have their own needs and desires beyond that of Ada herself. Their story and her story blends together, as they have been blended together in spirit and flesh. It's a fantastic rendering of having a fractured self, the confusing mix of desires and emotions that make up a person, the ways we work to protect and harm ourselves.

“I had arrived, flesh from flesh, true blood from true blood. I was the wildness under the skin, the skin into a weapon, the weapon over the flesh.”

The writing style in this book is lush and vibrant, evoking the energy and power of spirit realms represented in the voices of the gods the speak this story. It's gorgeous on every page, bringing into existence a story that is unsettling, surprising, and powerful. This is a novel I will return to again and again.

>35 andreablythe: - Oh, love that cover art and congratulations on getting the funding!

>40 lkernagh: Thanks, Lori!

Instead of attacking the stack, I seem to be growing the stack. I’ve been on something of a book buying frenzy over the past couple of months. Here are some of the books I've grabbed from bookstores, small presses, library sales, and in one case a contest win!



Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
I am Not Your Final Girl, poetry by Claire C Holland (won this in a contest! woo!)
Let’s Not Live On Earth, poetry by Sarah Blake (which I just finished reading and need to review
To Live Here, poetry by Soul Vang
Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View
The Changeling by Victor LaValle
The Price Guide to the Occult by Leslye Walton (ARC through LT-ER)
The Tale of Tales by Giambattista Basile
The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales by Franz Xavier von Schönwerth
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Children of Lovecraft, edited by Ellen Datlow
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
Prime Meridian by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Novelists Lexicon: Writers on the Words That Define Their Work
Salsa Night at Hilo Town Tavern, poetry by Kristofer Collins
No God in This Room, poetry by Athena Dixon
Slut Songs, poetry by Jade Hurter

Nice haul!! I was recently given a $100+ gift card for B&N and went a bit haywire, but I ended up spending only $1.17 of my "own" money, so no harm done. :)

There really is something quite satisfying about a good book haul isn't there?

Great haul!

Enjoy your books, Andrea.

Have fun with those!

>43 -Eva-:
Thanks, Eva! Oooh, a $100 gift card can do wonders for filling up shelf space.

>44 LittleTaiko:
So satisfying. I just love staring at the stack, thinking I can read those whenever I want.

>45 rabbitprincess:, >46 DeltaQueen50:, and >47 MissWatson:
Thanks! I'm sure there's got to be some good ones in there.

>48 andreablythe:
Let's just say I'm already set for my Thingaversary in May... :)

Love the book buying! I made a promise to restrict my book buying this year so that I can make some headway with my TBR piles. Result is I have not purchased any new print books but my ereader has stacks of new books. Just one of those things....;-)

>50 lkernagh:

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22 Ambassadors Recommend the One Book to Read Before Visiting Their Country

>51 andreablythe: Interesting link! I found a few that I'd like to read (although I won't be travelling).

>52 VivienneR:
Yeah, it's interesting to see what people see as most representative of their own country.

>51 andreablythe: - LOL, yes I admit to having no self control when it comes to book buying... I am just good at deflecting those purchases to something that does not require dusting. ;-)

>51 andreablythe: Very interesting! Some of those books look intriguing...although I'm fairly shocked to see Atonement as the UK pick (I have Issues with that book).

>54 lkernagh:
Haha. I totally meant to comment (in >51 andreablythe:), then left it blank by accident. The not having to dust is definitely a great aspect of ebooks. :)

>55 christina_reads:
I thought the same thing. My issues with Atonement are many (to the point that I kind of hate the book) and I feel like there are probably other books that would be better representative of the country.

4. Let’s Not Live on Earth (Wesleyan Poetry Series) by Sarah Blake (*****)
Category: Linguistic Blitzkrieg (poetry)

I picked this up because it includes, "The Starship," a chapbook length poem in which a woman is faced with a looming starship and the opportunity to leave the world behind. This poem stunned me with its strength, compassion, and humanity — and the rest of the poems in this collection manage the same, detailing the detailing the dangers we face as humans on Earth and revealing pathways through them. My interview with the poet, Sarah Blake is here.

5. The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy (*****)
Category: Random Acts

Danielle Cain (a "queer punk rock traveller") is looking for answers regarding her friend's death, which leads her to Freedom, Iowa — a squatter town that professes to be a utopia. However, something's wrong in down, and it's not just the heartless animal life wandering around as though they aren't really dead. I freaking love this book so much. It's strange and surprising, while offering a variety of interesting, believable characters. I just sort of clutched it to my chest when it was over, wanting so much more of these people and this world.

6. Falling in Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson (****)
Category: Attack the Stack

A fantastic collection of stories from Hopkinson, showing the depth and range in her skill as a writer. The stories in this collection are strange, beautiful, and often unsettling. The opening story, “The Easthound,” begins with kids playing word games against an apocalyptic backdrop (a sweetspot for me). Beginning with this playful banter, the story grows more and more tense as we learn what the source of the apocalypse is. Meanwhile, “Emily Breakfast,” presents a lovely domestic normalcy, involving picking homegrown spinach, tending to the chickens — although it's a normalcy that includes cats with wings and other animal deviations. “Blushing” is a completely terrifying Bluebeard retelling. And there are many more tales in this collection that are equally worth exploring.

7. Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce (****1/2)
8. In the Hands of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce (****1/2)
Category: Random Acts

Shortly after telling a coworker that I'd never read any of Tamora Pierce's work, a coworker brought me in all four copies of the Song of the Lioness quartet — books that she loved when she was younger. I picked one up to fill my lunch hour and haven't been able to put them down since. The story of Alanna, a young woman with magic and a bullheaded decision to become a knight despite all odds makes for a delightful adventure story. She dresses as a boy to enlist in training to be a page, a squire, and then a knight — a difficult, strenuous task, which she pursues with dedication, often continuing training on her own during her rest periods. The skills don't come easy, but are achieved through hard work and discipline, which is admirable. Alanna is wonderful and all the characters around her are wonderful, and I cannot wait to continue with the quartet.

My cousin loved the Song of the Lioness quartet when she was a kid! I'll have to let her know that others are discovering and enjoying it too :)

>58 rabbitprincess:
Oh, they're wonderful! I wish I had read them when I was young, because I would have been passionate about these books. As I am now, they're the perfect level of fun adventure to help me destress from life.

A few of quick writerly things and a book thing:

1. I co-wrote a collection of poetry with the amazing poet Laura Madeline Wiseman, which is called Every Girl Becomes the Wolf. It's a collection of fairy tale, myth, and pop culture retellings, mainly from the POV of the witches and monsters in those stories, as well as the victims, spinning the tales on their heads in new ways. It would be awesome if you checked it out and watch the trailer.

2. I'm starting an email newsletter (using Tiny Letter) and I'm going to send out the first one this week. That way I can share more of my writing new there, instead of bombarding people with it here: https://tinyletter.com/andreablythe

3. I'm hosting the Big Poetry Giveaway 2018, and I have a list of people who are giving away poetry books here (you can also sign up to giveaway some books, if you want): http://www.andreablythe.com/2018/03/26/big-poetry-giveaway-2018-guidelines/

Okay, that's it. Thanks for your patience.

My reading has slowed down again because I have so much going on. However, I have finished The Woman Who Rides Like a Man by Tamora Piercer and am currently working on the last book in the series Lioness Rampant. I'm also reading a collection of stories called The Tower of the Antilles by Achy Obejas.

Also, I swear I'm going to catch up on everyone's threads at some point.

>57 andreablythe: - Great batch of reading!

>60 andreablythe: - Love the trailer!

>60 andreablythe:
Wonderful - congrats!!

>61 lkernagh: & 62, Thanks, Lori and Eva!

9. The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (Song of the Lioness #3) by Tamora Pierce (****)
10. Lioness Rampant (Song of the Lioness #4) by Tamora Pierce (****1/2)
Category: Miscellany

I finished up the last two books in the Song of Lioness quartet, and it was a delightful ride. In book three, Alanna rides into the world as the first female knight errant in centuries. Not everyone is happy after discovering that she's really a woman (after keeping the fact a secret for years), but she makes the best of its she can by finding new adventures among the desert people.

Book four wraps things up nicely, bringing back old villains for defeat, revealing new friendships, and coming to terms with love. It all wraps up beautifully for me and was the perfect fun adventure. Again, I find myself wishing I could have read it when I was young, because I would have been in love with Alanna.

One of the many things I really enjoyed about this series in general is the way it handles sex. Alanna has several partners over the course of the series, and it's treated as natural that she would experience attraction and desire. At no point does anyone ever shame her for these relationships, and when the men come into contact with each other, almost all jealous drama is left completely out of the picture — making it more about her choice as opposed to any sense of obligation to these men. I loved that.

All in all, a great series and I'd be down to check out more stories from this world.

And I forgot to point out my Book Haul from the Silicon Valley Comic Con a few weeks ago.

I really enjoyed Artist Alley and seeing the indie creators and publishers, so I bought a couple of comic books to support them, including:

Quince, written by Kit Steinkellner, illustrated by Emma Steinkellner, created by Sebastian Kadlecik

The Gecko and the Three Grave Robbers by Cheez Hayama



I discovered the Science Fiction Outreach Project booth close to the end on Sunday, which was a good thing. I don't think my bookshelves could have handled the amount of books I would have grabbed otherwise. As it was, I got my hands on:

New Worlds of Fantasy #2, edited by Terry Carr
Always the Black Knight by Lee Hoffman
The Null-Friendly Impulser by James Nelson Coleman
The Night of the Wolf by Frank Belknap Long
Terror by Frederik Pohl
A Plague of Nightmares by Adrian Cole
Men Without Bones and Other Haunting Inhabitants of the Wide, Weird World by Gerald Kersh

Hi Andrea, I've been meaning to read the Song oif the Lioness series for years for no other reason than my youngest daughter is named Alana and she loves fantasy! Great to hear that you enjoyed the series. :)

>66 DeltaQueen50:
It was honestly delightful in all the best ways. I would highly recommend it and will probably give to my niece to read when she's older.

11. The Gecko and the Three Grave Robbers by Cheez Hayama (****)
Category: Visual Onslaught

I picked up a copy of this slim comic at the Silicon Valley Comic Con. It's a retelling of a story Hayama's father told about growing up in post-war Vietnam. Although I had a bit of trouble following the timeline of events, it was an interesting tale.

The comic also includes an illustrated passage from Andrew X Pham’s fantastic travel memoir Catfish and Mandala. The illustrations work well to support this moving moment from the story, in which Pham accepts the hospitality of stranger — bringing back memories of his mother.



.

12. The House with a Clock in Its Walls by John Belairs with illustrations by Edward Gorey (****)
Category: Random Acts

When I saw the trailer for the forthcoming movie, I knew I had to pick up this book and check it out. The story of an orphaned boy sent to live with his oddball uncle (who happens to be a wizard) is delightfully weird. The haunting, unsettled reality of living in a home with a clock ticking down to ... something is also wonderful. And discovering illustrations by Edward Gorey was a bonus delight.

>68 andreablythe:
I've not heard about the movie, but the books sounds nice! BB.

>69 -Eva-:
They're middle grade books, which manage to be creepy and light and fun at the same time — which makes me happy.

13. The Tower of the Antilles by Achy Obejas (****)
Category: Attack the Stack

The Tower of Antilles is a beautiful collection of short stories, centered around the Cuban experience, both on the island and as an immigrant elsewhere. These stories explore the nature of individuality, with the question "What is your name?" being the entry point for both the opening and closing stories. There's also a thread of queer experience throughout many of these stories.

One the many story that was resonant for me is "The Cola of Oblivion," in which a young woman returns to Cuba only to be addressed with the old grievances of her family there. It builds to a heavy conclusion, bearing the burdens of family expectation that stayed with me long after I finished the story.

14. The Can Opener’s Daughter by Rob Davis (***)
Category: Visual Onslaught

Vera lives with her mother (a weather clock) and father (a can opener) in a parliamentary mansion, where she is kept mostly in isolation, learning from the ink gods kept in little glass jars and enjoying the company of the garden gods. It's a strange, surreal world she lives in, one in which people have scheduled suicide days rather than unpredictable deaths. As she moves through this world, Vera begins to slowly rebel against her mother and the rules society has placed on the people who live there.

Although I was fascinated by this strange world and I liked the dark, detailed art, I was a bit confused by how some of the storyline unfolded — most particularly Vera's urgent desire to rescue of a boy who had not been mentioned in the first half of the book. It was only after finishing the book that I realized why I was so confused — The Can Opener’s Daughter is #2 in a series. Had I known that going in, I would have sought out the first book and made sure to read them in order (which would most likely have made reading this book more enjoyable), but there was no reference on the cover or inside the front of the book to indicate that this was part of a larger series. This is the second time this has happened to me, and it's incredibly annoying to the point that I almost don't want to bother with the rest of the series.

15. Afar by Leila Del Duca and Kit Seaton (***½)
Category: Visual Onslaught

A young woman suddenly develops the ability astral project herself into the bodies of alien people on other worlds, while her younger brother stumbles upon an illegal business deal and is hunted by criminals. With their parents gone looking for work and no sign of when they will return, the brother and sister make go on the run, risking the heat of the desert to escape to a city where they will be safe. The storyline is set in an African and Arab rooted steampunk-ish world, which makes for some beautiful artwork for this graphic novel. I only wish it was a bit thicker, so that more room could be given to developing these characters even further.

I've actually read quite a lot of books this month. I'm just really far behind in reviewing them.

16. No God In This Room, poetry by Athena Dixon (*****)
Category: Linguistic Blitzkrieg

A beautiful collection of poetry that explores womanhood and sexuality. I don't have the headspace to write a proper review at the moment, but these poems are lovely and Athena Dixon is also an amazing editor and human. You check out the interview with her in which she talks about writing the book.

17. The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (*****)
Category: Attack the Stack

Love, deception, and etiquette are a the center of this story in which a young women travels to the city of Loisail for her first Grand Season. The aim of her trip is to mingle with the Beautiful Ones who make up the wealthy high society in the city in the hopes that she’ll find a suitable husband. But she her manner and her telekinetic abilities make her a target for gossip. When she meets telekinetic performer Hector Auvray, she thinks she’s found the kind of love read about in books — but learns that no one is what the seem in Loisail.

This is a charming fantasy of manners, full of polite but cruel society and wonderful explorations of the people who live in it. I have so far bought and read three of Moreno-Garcia's books and I have loved all three of them. The Beautiful Ones was no exception, and I can't wait to see what she does next.

After watching a video essay on how media scares us, I went on a bender, devouring all the Junji Ito manga that I could get my hands on.

18. Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror, Vol. 1 by Junji Ito (*****)
19. Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror, Vol. 2 by Junji Ito (*****)
20. Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror, Vol. 3 by Junji Ito (*****)
Category: Visual Onslaught

Uzumaki is considered to be Ito’s classic and most famous work, having been adapted into two video games and a feature film. A town in Japan begins to be slowly and inextricably taken over by the shape of a spiral — a simple geometric shape that twists the town and the people in it into distortions of themselves. Some of this is physical, some is mental or spiritual.



The central characters are Kirie and her boyfriend Shuichi and we see the events unfold more and more horrifically. However, each chapter (especially in the first couple of volumes) almost feels like an individual story of a strange event and these stories slowly show how they are connected as the books build to their frightening conclusion.

Ito is a master of weird, cosmic horror, as Uzumaki proves.



21. Shiver: Short Stories by Junji Ito (*****)
Category: Visual Onslaught

About halfway through finishing Uzumaki, I immediately went online to see how I could get my hands on some of Ito’s short stories, which make up the bulk of his work. There are several collections out there, but I zoned in on Shiver because this set of stories was selected by Ito himself as some of his personal favorites and includes commentary from the author as to what inspired them.

Each of these stories is phenomenal and frightening in their own way. A mysterious music record creates an obsession to hear it so intense that people will kill for it. A sick neighbor girl reveals she is being eaten away by holes. A man begins to have long dreams that feel like months or years have passed that begin to distort his physical body.

Almost none of these stories have anything close to a happy (or even content) ending — the horror presented often bizarre and inescapable. Take for example the tale “Hanging Blimps,” in which giant balloons shaped like human heads begin to fill the sky. Some of these heads look like actual people. All of these balloons carry nooses… and I think you can infer from there. “Hanging Blimps” unsettled me in a way no story has in a long time, bringing me to lower the book and take a break before I moved on to the next story.



22. Gyo Vol. 1: The Death-stench Creeps by Junji Ito (****)
23. Gyo Vol. 2: The Death-stench Creeps by Junji Ito (*****)
Category: Visual Onslaught

In Gyo, a young couple vacationing in a seaside town are suddenly accosted by a fish that seems to have grown legs and wandered onto land. Before long, more fish begin walking out of the sea — and not just fish, but sharks, squids, and other creatures — resulting in catastrophic circumstances throughout Japan.

Although I delighted in the beautiful artwork and imagery of a great white shark charging down the hallway of a home, I was not as enthused by the first volume of Gyo. I kept thinking that the story would make a perfect SyFy channel movie, ala Sharknado — at least until I launched into volume two which is offers up some fantastically disturbing body horror. Nothing that could ever appear on network television. It’s brilliant and so horrifying, another showcase of Ito at his best.

>73 andreablythe: Book bullet taken for The Beautiful Ones -- sounds right up my alley!

>75 christina_reads:
It’s so lovely and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

24. Annihilation (Southern Reach #1) by Jeff VanderMeer (*****)
Category: We Are the Champions
Winner of the 2014 Nebula Award

A team of four women — an anthropologist, a surveyor, a psychologist, and a biologist — journey into the mysterious Area X, an area contaminated with some unknown. Other teams have been sent before, each meeting disastrous ends. The biologist narrates the tale, giving no names, in which she becomes more fascinated by the strange, natural world of Area X. This is such a beautiful novel, layered and complex. I can't wait to keep reading the series and learning more about Area X.

>74 andreablythe:
Wow. That art.

>78 -Eva-:
I know! Apparently, Ito would spend hours on just a single panel, layering in detail until it was as perfect as he could make it.

I apologize to all the people who's threads I haven't been keeping up with. I keep telling myself that I'm going to get around to catching up at some point, but haven't had the time or energy to do so.

WorldCon is coming to my hometown in San Jose, so naturally I jumped at the opportunity to attend. This means I get to vote in the Hugo Awards. So, I'm adding a new Bonus Category — Reading the Hugos — and any of the nominated Novels or Novellas I read will go there. For the nonfiction noms, I'll still put them in the Information Gathering category, because I'm a bit behind on that one anyway.

Speaking of award nominations...

25. The 2018 Rhysling Anthology: The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Poetry of 2017, edited by by Linda D. Addison (*****)
Category: Linguistic Blitzkrieg

The Rhysling Anthology essentially acts as a voters packet for the Rhysling Awards, providing a fantastic overview of the best short and long form speculative poetry from the previous years, as nominated by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry association. This is a fantastic anthology, providing wide array of poetic voices, styles, and forms to explore and discover.

>80 andreablythe: Have fun reading the Hugo nominees (and at the con when it comes!).

>81 rabbitprincess:
Thanks! I'm excited!

Don't worry about catching up, we'll still be here when your RL slows down. Have fun at WorldCon!

26. Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer
Category: Intelligence Gathering & Stratagems

It's been a long while since I've read a book on the craft of writing. Although I've often found such books valuable, in a way, I had grown out of them, focusing more on the act of writing instead of reading about it. But Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer was recommended to me recently with such fervor that I immediately picked it up — and discovered one of the best books on writing craft that I've yet to read.

Wonderbook is aimed at writers of speculative fiction, but is valuable to writers of any genre. The main chapters of the book cover the full range of the writing process, including Inspiration and the Creative Life, The Ecosystem of Story (point-of-view, dialog, and other story elements), Beginnings and Endings (with VanderMeer's novel Finch as a main example), Narrative Design (plot, structure, etc.), Characterization, Worldbuilding, and Revision, along with a few interesting appendices. The chapters discuss the theory and practice of writing, while also providing inspiration, prompts, and writing exercises.

I particularly appreciate that VanderMeer does not prescribe The One Way to Write Them All, but rather cites a multitude of sources and examples to present the many sides of any method and, in fact, many sidebar items either question or direct contradict the view of the main text. In addition, the book offers essays and interviews in which fantasy authors — such as Neil Gaiman, Catherynne M. Valente, George R. R. Martin, and Karen Joy Fowler, among others — each with their own viewpoints. In this way, Wonderbook offers a toolbox of approaches to writing that the writer can pull from in order to discover what works best for them.

The illustrations, maps, charts, and artwork throughout Wonderbook, provided by a number of artists but primarily Jeremy Zerfoss, are a key way that it guides its readers through the murky waters of writing terminology, methods, and advice. They provide playful visual diagrams or inspirational asides that are valuable in and of themselves, making specific aspects of the writing process more memorable.

To sum up I'll say, this excellent and would be a welcome addition to almost any writer's shelf.


(One of the many fantastic illustrations in Wonderbook by Jeremy Zerfoss.)

>84 andreablythe:, Lovely review! I also adore this book :) Whenever a writer asks me for a recommendation on a craft book, I start raving about it!

>85 whitewavedarling:
Oh, yes! It's by far the best writing book I've read and will be my go-to rec from now on.

27. All Systems Red by Martha Wells (*****)
Bonus Category: Reading the Hugos – Nominated for Best Novella

Martha Wells’ novella All Systems Red presents the diaries of a company-supplied security android designed to provide protection for survey teams exploring planets for possible resources. Murderbot, as it calls itself, just wants to be left alone to watch hours of vids in peace. But when another survey team mysteriously goes silent, it has to work with it’s team of clients to discover the truth before they’re all killed.
I loved this book. Murderbot is cynical about humans and the world in general, an attitude that is totally understandable given its circumstances and understanding of the universe. But the team of scientists he’s assigned to give him a broader perspective on humanity, showing him people who are able to work together with compassion and intelligence — such considerations they show not just to each other but to Murderbot itself, as they continue to work with and rely on it. It’s so wonderful to read a story that centers people who are good to each other. Plus, the action is intense, making this short and rapid read.

28. No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters (audio book) by Ursula K. Le Guin (****)
Category: Intelligence Gathering & Stratagems
Bonus: Reading the Hugos – Nominated for Best Related Work

I've loved Ursula K. Le Guinn's writing ever since I first read The Wizard of Earthseaover a decade ago. Since then I've continued to be awed and moved by her books, worlds of fantasy or science fiction, both adult and young adult. Her work has moved me time and time again.

I didn't know she that she published a blog (which she started in her eighties), but as No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters — a compilation of her posts — shows, she approached the task with wit and wisdom.

In her introduction, Karen Joy Fowler says, "What you will find in these pages here is a more casual Le Guin, a Le Guin at home. Many of these essays deal with the personal — the act of growing old or the adventures of her cat Pard. I found myself moved by the insights Le Guin had to share, delightedly laughing at her sense of humor (her essay "Would You Please Fucking Stop?" on the use of cursing in literature had me rolling), or thoughtfully considering her point of view.

”It can be very hard to believe that one is actually eighty years old, but as they say, you’d better believe it. I’ve known clear-headed, clear-hearted people in their nineties. They didn’t think they were young. They knew, with a patient, canny clarity, how old they were. If I’m ninety and believe I’m forty-five, I’m headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub.” (from "The Sissy Strikes Back")

In addition to the personal, her essays look at a variety of topics, from the literary world to examinations of exorcisms, the idea male group solidarity, utopias, fashion in solider uniforms and more.

Le Guin made good use of the casual blog format well (although she dislikes the word itself, saying it sounded like "a sodden tree trunk in a bog, or maybe an obstruction in the nasal passage") — the format giving her space to dive in to a topic as extensively or briefly as she wanted. It's a wonderful collection.

29. My Favorite Thing is Monsters, written and illustrated by Emil Ferris (*****)
Bonus Category: Reading the Hugos – Nominated for Best Graphic Story

Written and illustrated by Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing is Monsters is a masterpiece of the graphic novel form. Set in 1960s Chicago, the story is told by Karen Reyes a young girl with a passion for pulp horror stories. In her spiral bound journals, she draws out her life in a mix of sketches, journal entries, and comic panels — presenting the interconnected stories of her mother, brother, and the people who live in the community around her. When her neighbor, Anka, dies under mysterious circumstances, Karen begins an investigation into her death that reveals how Anka survived and escaped Nazi Germany.

The art is some of the most stunning that I've seen, with it's crosshatched style and selective use of color. Some pages are present full portraits, while others are broken up into comic book panels to move the story forward. The art provides beautiful depth to the characters, who are given greater depth and humanity through the detailed art presented. The colors selected —bright reds, blues, and the like — highlighting specific aspects of their

Also, recreated covers from pulp comics are spattered throughout, breaking up the story like chapter heads. They also continuing reiterate Karen's passion for the horror genre, as she is the one recreating the covers to practice her drawing skills.



One of the particularly interesting aspects of Karen's character is how she perceives humans and monsters. She draws herself in her journals as a half-werewolf — understandable considering both her love for monsters and how she is treated as a freak by other students at school.

In general, the people she has the most sympathy for are those who she presents with some kind of monstrousness. Her friends take up roles as ghosts, vampires, or other monsters to her werewolf. In a world full of human beings capable of performing monstrous acts, Karen relates more closely to the fantastical monsters in the stories she reads.



I was also thoroughly moved by Karen's relationship with her mother and brother. There's such love and compassion between them, even when things are not perfect. Deeze, her artist brother, shares with her his passion for art, introducing her to the classic paintings at the museum and how they speak to him, as well as sharing the work he creates on his own. It's a lovely relationship.





This is an astounding, complex, gorgeous book — one I'll be recommending to every human being even vaguely interested in graphic novels. It's amazing work, and I'm eagerly awaiting the opportunity to read the second concluding volume, and I plan to follow Ferris' career closely from here on out.

Hi Andrea. I'm excited and happy that My Favorite Thing is Monsters is available at my library! I also noticed that Volume Two is on order so I have that to look forward to as well! ;)

>90 DeltaQueen50:
I'm so excited that you'll be able to get ahold of it. It's a big, beautiful book.

30. An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (*****)
Bonus Category: Reading the Hugos – Author Nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Description:

"Aster lives in the low-deck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, the Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster, who they consider to be less than human.

When the autopsy of Matilda's sovereign reveals a surprising link between his death and her mother's suicide some quarter-century before, Aster retraces her mother's footsteps. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer and sowing the seeds of civil war, Aster learns there may be a way off the ship if she's willing to fight for it."

Aster is a fascinating character, an adept healer, as well as a scientist with an avid curiosity for how things — machines, the ship, the universe — work. She's also brilliant, obsessive, and somewhat solitary due the way many in the community treat her, calling her ogre and freak. She's The ways she interacts with other people is complicated by her being aneurotypical. She has difficulties with parsing out meaning behind people's words, has difficulty recognizing sarcasm, and tends to have difficulty understanding the emotional undertones in her interactions with others.

The few people she is close to — Giselle and Theo — are each hard edged and complicated in their own ways. Giselle, her closest friend, is violently self destructive. Theo, the Surgeon General of the ship, is an ally and friend who helped to educate Aster in medicine and health care. Both act as a kind of foil to Aster, providing pushback and counter perspectives to the way she perceives the world.

It's Giselle who provides the key Aster's obsession with discovering more about her mother's past, providing the key to unlocking her mother's journals. As she dives more and more deeply into that history, hoping to understand herself, she begins to see how the some of the stories she's been told may not be what they seem and that the ghosts of the past provide no easy resolution.

This novel provides many layers that could be unpacked. It's a stunning and beautiful accomplishment — and I'll be keeping my eye out for more work from Solomon in the future.

>88 andreablythe: - That sounds like something I would really enjoy. I'll have to search it out soon!

>93 LittleTaiko:
I hope you enjoy it!

31. Provenance by Ann Leckie (*****)
Bonus Category: Reading the Hugos – Nominated for Best Novel

Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch books, starting with Ancillary Justice, is at the top of my list best trilogies that I've ever read. I loved the intricate intergalactic universe she created along with the characters who roam it. I'm pretty much down to read anything Leckie writes at this point.

Provenance is set in the same universe (an instant draw for me), but it's focused on a different region of the galaxy, primarily set on a planet called Hwae, which has their own unique conflicts and cultural values. There is a strong focus on family as a political construct, as well as a passion for "vestiges," or cultural artifacts that provide a level of prestige on the owner.

Driven by the need to impress her politically motivated mother, she embarked on a dangerous and desperate scheme — to bring a criminal out of imprisonment so that e can reveal the location of some stolen vestiges. Of course, nothing goes according to plan. The person she broke out claims to be someone else entirely. She quickly devises a new plan, but her ship home gets stopped by an ambassador with a gripe and once she does make it home, she's greeted by political turmoil. Things only get stranger and more dangerous from there.

I don't want to say much more than that — vestiges play a large role in storyline, as does the question of whether they are valid or forgery It's twisty story with many, many threads from seemingly dissimilar occurances that all somehow come together in the end.

Ingray, at first, seems a bit frivolous. Her plan is absurdly risky and has cost her much in it's execution to only have it fail. However, she's a person who proves herself capable of thinking her way through just about any crisis (with only a little panic in the interim). Her plans are wild and sometimes foolish, but they also tend to work. She's also really compassionate toward other people, helping who she can despite the risk to herself. It makes her lovable.

She makes some interesting allies throughout her journey — most notably, Garal Ket, the prisoner who may or may not be who she was seeking, and Captain Tic Ulsine, who ran away from his life on Geck by making off with a few of their ships. Both of these characters are clever and entertaining in their own unique ways.

On the whole, I would say that Provenance is a lighter romp than the Radch trilogy, the elements driving it more down-home with several iterations of family and family conflict being at center. A lot of the characters motivations are the result of the desire to fit in with family or the rejection of family along with the formation of new families. It's impressive how Leckie is able to bring so many threads together into such an interesting story. It's brilliantly done.

>89 andreablythe:
Ooh, this one keeps popping up in various places for me! I think the price may have gone down on the ebook, but I'm still hoping for my library to step up. #cheapskate #frugal :)

>95 andreablythe: - Oooohhhh.... taking a BB for that one! Loved Ancillary Justice, which I only recently read, so looks like I can look forward to more Leckie reads once I finish the trilogy. ;-)

>96 -Eva-:
Hah! I totally understand the need to be chea— I mean, frugal. ;)

>97 lkernagh:
OMG, I'm so excited for you with the rest fo the trilogy to read and also Provenance — and eeeee, they're so good.

32. River of Teeth (audio book) by Sarah Gailey (***½)
Bonus Category: Reading the Hugos – Nominated for Best Novella

Once upon a time, the U.S. government considered importing African hippos and raising them in the Louisiana bayou in order to address a need to increase the national meat supply — not joking, this was really a thing. Sarah Gailey's novella presents a reimagined history in which this damn foolish/brilliant idea actually took place.

A group of charmingly of devious scoundrels set out on a caper — I mean, "operation" — to clear a section of Mississippi river of feral hippos. Winslow Houndstooth is a former hippo rancher with swift knife skills and a grudge. Regina Archambault ("Archie") is a brilliant conartist, with a protective affection for Houndstooth. Hero Shackleby is a demolitions expert who has become profoundly bored by their peaceful retirement. Adelia Reyes is a heavily pregnant badass . . . and well, I'm going to let you figure out the rest.

The audio book narration by Peter Berkrot is fantastic, bringing all the characters to vivid life. I was as delighted by the idea of riding domesticated hippos as I was horrified by the idea of stumbling upon a group of ferals. Although, I had a bit of a hard time getting into the story at first, the caper — ahem, "operation" — was fun with some solid twists and the ending was deeply satisfying.

33. And Then There Were (N-One) by Sarah Pinsker (*****)
Bonus Category: Reading the Hugos – Nominated for Best Novella

Insurance investigator, Sarah Pinsker, gets an invitation that she at first believes to be a joke — until she stands in a hotel lobby facing a multitude of versions of herself from a multitude of parallel worlds, each representing the infinity (or a small portion of that infinity) of diverging choices she could have made in her life. One of the Sarahs has found a way to open the door and invited the rest of the Sarahs to come to a convention, a meeting of similar (sometimes almost exact variations), which is in some ways unsettling in itself. Then one of the Sarahs shows up dead. Insurance investigator Sarah is set to the task of looking into the murder after a storm rolls in cutting the local police off from reaching the island.

Who would we be if we made different choices in our lives? It's a question pretty much everyone has asked themselves. I couldn't imagine a more poignant examination of that question than this story. In some ways, all the ways the variations of Sara are similar is as fascinating as the ways in which they are different. All together, it's so strange and meta and moving and fascinating — with an ending to sit and think over long after you're done reading.

>99 andreablythe: The surmise of book 33 strikes me as really very interesting. Although I'm not sure I'd want to meet all the possible examples of me.

>100 Helenliz:
Well, I have good news on that one — the novella, "And Then There Were (N-One)," is available to read for free online: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/and-then-there-were-n-one/

I'm intrigued by And Then There Were (N-One) -- that title alone! Also, Provenance looks very interesting. Lots of BBs on this thread!

34. How to Make Friends with a Ghost by Rebecca Green (****)
Category: Miscellany

A charming picture book, presenting the idea of ghosts as friendly companions with instructions on how to obtain and care for such a friend. The art is soft and whimsical. I was delighted to hand this over to my niece for her birthday.

35. Paper Girls, Volume 1, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Cliff Chiang, colored by Matthew Wilson, lettered by Jared Fletcher (****)
36. Paper Girls, Volume 2 (same creators) (****)
37. Paper Girls, Volume 3 (same creators) (****)
Bonus Category: Reading the Hugos – Nominated for Best Graphic Story



One of the challenging aspects of trying to read all the noms in the Best Graphic Story category is that many of the works are later volumes. So, if you're not keeping up — like me — that means you need to first read the previous volumes before reading the actual nominated work just to follow the storyline.

Which is what I did with Paper Girls, Volume 3, and no regrets on that front, because this is a fun story. Shortly after Halloween in 1988, four young paper delivery girls find themselves confronted with a litany of bizarre occurrences — including futuristic teenager rebels, odd spaceships, and dinosaurs flying through the sky — that lead them on a series of time traveling adventures.

Volume 3 reunites the four girls after the events that separated them in previous volumes, and they find themselves trapped in a past highly affected by tiny rips in space. The people there collect the multitude of future technologies that come through. As the girls try to help out a young woman with an infant, a time traveler pops through, offering a few more fragments of insight into what's really going on.

I'm a sucker for a good time travel romp (which I'm sure I've said a dozen times before) and this one is solidly loopy and fun,, but what really makes this story great is that each of the paper girls interesting in their own right. Each deals with the adventures in their own way, revealing their own strengths and perspectives — while also addressing issues of first periods, family concerns, and questions of what it means to grow up. I totally dug this one.

Andrea, your thread is becoming dangerous for me! I have taken another hit and added the Paper Girls series to my list. ;)

>105 DeltaQueen50:
Hah. I'm glad to share the book love. :)

______________________

A few weeks ago, I traveled to Egypt for nine days. I wrote a blog post on six things I loved while traveling there and our side trip to Petra, but thought I'd share a few of the photos with you all directly.

Egypt

View of the Giza pyramids from the roof of Pyramids Loft, where we stayed.


Karnak Temple – A statue of Ramses II with his wife Nefertari.


Karnak Temple – The columns are lined top to bottom with hieroglyphic writing. The tops are meant to resemble a closed lotus blossom.


Hot air ballooning in Luxor – Overlooking the Valley of the Kings and the Nile river at sunrise.

Petra

The Treasury is the most famous structure at Petra, but there is soooo much more to see there, and my sister and I wished we had more time to explore it properly.

What amazing pictures of your Egyptian trip!

Wow, great pictures!

Beautiful pictures! The hot air balloon pic is amazing, although I would be TERRIFIED to go up myself!

What a wonderful trip, and thanks for sharing your great pictures with us.

>107 lkernagh:, >108 rabbitprincess:, >110 DeltaQueen50:,
I would recommend going to Egypt to anyone. While there were definitely some annoyances, my sister and I felt safe the entire time we were there and enjoyed the trip so much.

>109 christina_reads:,
Yeah, my sister was definitely freaking out quite a bit while on the ballon (it took her a long while to start to relax), but I found it oddly calming — partly because our captain was so skilled. I have this thing about heights, where if it's out of my control (a plane, balloon, rollercoaster, etc.), then I can be chill because I can usually trust that things will turn out alright — but if I'm in control of the situation (i.e., hiking near a cliffside), then I freak out because I'm something of a klutz and I can't trust that I'm not going to trip and stumble off the cliff.

Thanks for sharing your wonderful photos of the Egypt trip. It must have been an amazing experience.

No ballooning for me - I recently read Enduring Love by Ian McEwan that opens with a balloon incident.

>112 VivienneR:
Totally understandable. I'm glad I didn't read about any ballooning incidents before going!

________________

38. The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang (****)
Bonus Category: Reading the Hugos – Nominated for Best Novella

This was the last of my Hugo reads, finished too late to include it in my voting. The twins, Mokoya and Akeha, are given away to a Monastery by their mother, the Protector — political bargaining chips in exchange for a service the monks performed for their mother before they were born. As the twins grow, one develops prophetic sight, while the other nurses a defiance that leads them to leave the city and joins a growing rebellion formed by Machinists who are developing ways to fight the Protector without the aid of Tensor magic. While this story builds in tension as the rebellion grows, the heart is the relationship between the twins Akeha and Mokoya, the love and heartbreak they have in each other.

39. The Changeling by Victor LaValle (*****)
Category: Bloodshed and Mayhem

This is a powerful novel, presenting a variety of horror, both mundane and supernatural, a mix of folklore and familial love and violence. Apollo Kagwa is a book man, tracking down rare first editions to make his living. When he falls in love with Emma and they have a son together, he is determined to be a better father than the man who abandoned him when he was young. But Emma begins acting in strange and unsettling ways, building to a terrible act before vanishing — and Apollo's world is spun out of control.

What makes the horrors of this novel work so effectively is how rooted the story is in normal, everyday life before slowly gathering in strange moments one-by-one. It's beautifully evoked, layering in the anxieties of fatherhood and dealing with racism and the ways we fail to be compassionate to loved ones when things are hard and the male ego and so much more — all combined with its undertones of folklore. The worst horrors are not always of the supernatural kind, and this story parallels them well — making for a frightening and deeply moving tale.

This is the second book by LaValle that I've read (the first being The Ballad of Black Tom) and I'm itching to read more of his work.

40. Monster Portraits by Del Samatar and Sofia Samatar (****)
Category: New Recruits

Monster Portraits by Del Samatar and Sofia Samatar is a fictional, illustrated travelogue in which a brother and sister go into the world looking for monsters. The pieces are a mix of flash fiction or prose poetry, intricately detailed incidents and introductions to the strange, brutal, and lovely monsters of the world. It at once explores the idea of monstrousness in the fantastical, as well as the monstrous othering that people do to other people, making them almost into something less than human. Such a beautiful collection of creatures.



41. Glimmerglass Girl by (****)
Category: Linguistic Blitzkrieg

With a mix of the personal and the fantastic, Holly Lyn Walwrath’s beautiful collection of poetry Glimmerglass Girl explores womanhood from multiple angles, revealing the ways we break apart and pull ourselves back together again.

42. The Atrocities by Jeremy C Shipp (****)
Category: New Recruits

This novella is a tightly told horror story. Ms. Valdez is hired as a private teacher for Isabella. She journeys to an labyrinthine estate adorned with grotesque statues and painting, where she learns that the young girl she is supposed to teach is dead and a ghost. As Ms. Valdez begins to uncover the truth about this strange family, she faces the hauntings of her own past. Great story.

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43. I Am Not Your Final Girl by Claire C. Holland (*****)
Category: Linguistic Blitzkrieg

I Am Not Your Final Girl is a collection of horror-themed poetry draws on the female characters of horror cinema — the survivors, victims, villains, and monsters — who prowl through dark worlds, facing oppression, persecution, violence, and death. In her introduction, Claire C. Holland notes, “I draw strength from the many strong women around me, both real and fictional.” The women in this collection channel their pain and rage into a galvanizing force. They fight. They claim power over their own bodies. They take their power back. They do not relent.

“I have known monsters and I have known men.
I have stood in their long shadows, propped
them up with my own two hands, reached
for their inscrutable faces in the dark. They
are harder to set apart than you know.
— “Clarice,” The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

As a horror fan, I know many of the characters and movies referenced, and it’s fascinating to peer in at them from the unique perspective of these Holland’s words. That said, there just as many that I haven’t seen and a few I had not hear of — but not knowing the direct reference in each case did not stop me from enjoying the poem for its own sake, the words drawing me in. And now I have a list of movies that I need to seek out and watch.

“Separate yourself, like sliding wire through
clay. Divide your organs – heart, lungs, tongue,
and brain. You think you need them all?
You’d be shocked what a woman can live
without. We’re like roaches, we thrive”
— from “Shideh,” Under the Shadow (2016)

I read I Am Not Your Final Girl from top to bottom with delight. Although the subject is focused on horror, the collection doesn’t come off as a downer. Instead, it presents a sense of fierce hope in the act of resistance, in rising up, in fighting back.

Footnote: I won a copy of this book in some sort of contest — Instagram or Twitter or something, where precisely has completely swooshed out of my head (it’s gone and I don’t expect to get it back). Whatever or wherever the contest was held, I am grateful to have received a copy of his collection, because I loved reading it.

44. A Room Away from the Wolves by Nova Ren Suma (****1/2)
Category: New Recruits

Feeling betrayed after her mother kicks her out of the house after another supposed indiscretion, Bina takes immediate action — choosing to leave of her own accord. She grabs what money she can and travels not to the family friends her mother selected, but to Catherine House in New York City, the woman's residence her mother once lived. Bina has heard many stories of Catherine House, stories to fascinate her, stories to make her believe she can regain some connection to her mom by going there herself. But when she arrives at Catherine House, she is confronted with dark secrets she doesn't understand and which may leave her trapped within its walls.

Nova Ren Suma is one of my favorite authors. I love the way she builds unsettling atmosphere into her stories and how she complicates female relationships, which are never simple in her tales. A Room Away From the Wolves does both of these things — both Bina's relationship with her mother and her strange friendship with her downstairs neighbor Monet are complex, loving, and problematic. Much of her story is trying to find herself outside the context of her mother, while also confronting her own fears.

As Bina learns about herself, she works to understand the mysteries surrounding Catherine and the house. One of the things I love and am frustrated by in this book is how the story is comfortable allowing some secrets to remain secret. Not every mystery is explained. Not every dark corner is revealed. And the reader is left wondering. It makes me want to pick up the book and start rereading to see if there were some clues I missed the first time around, knowing that I would get to enjoy the beauty of Suma's prose and storytelling all over again.

Footnote: This is the second book by Suma that I immediately saw being perfect for movie adaptation (the first being Imaginary Girls). This could be made into a beautiful kind of haunted house movie, one with complicated female characters at its center.

PS. I'm hosting a giveaway for this book on my blog. If you'd like to participate, go here.

45. Fragments of Horror by Junji Ito (***½)
Category: Visual Onslaught

I adore Junji Ito’s work in general, though the graphic short story collection Fragments of Horror didn’t quite meet the same level of unsettling beauty as Uzumaki or the stories in Shiver. Still, there were a couple stories that stood out for me, with images that linger, including “Dissection-chan,” in which a woman is obsessed with the idea of dissection, and “Blackbird,” in which a man survives a hiking accident through horrific means.

46. R E D by Chase Berggrun (*****)
Category: Linguistic Blitzkrieg

Chase Berggrun used erasure to Bram Stoker’s Dracula text, transforming it from a storyline in which women have little to no agency into an exploration of abuse, violence, power dynamics, and femininity. A powerful collection of work.

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47. We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory (****)
Category: Bloodshed & Mayhem

Five sole survivors of horrific events come together for group therapy in the hopes of finding some sort of resolution or solace, something not so easy to find when they’ve witnessed the underbelly of the world and all the dark things that crawl there. This short novel was riveting, drawing me with, first, curiosity about each of the characters and, then, increasing excitement as the group’s meetings spiraled into dangerous territory. I don’t know if Gergory has any plans for a sequel, but if he does, then I’ll definitely be picking it up.

48. Sawkill Girls (audio book) by Claire Legrand (*****)
Category: New Recruits

Beware of the woods and the dark, dank deep.
He’ll follow you home, and he won’t let you sleep.

The island of Sawkill Rock is a idyllic place, where the the ocean crashes against rocky shores, prize horses graze in green pastures, and where the people are lithe and prosperous and unconcerned. Yet the Rock carries a dark secret — girls have been disappearing there for decades and urban legends abound about a monster in the woods. No on has braved out the truth about the missing girls, not until three girls come together to peer into the secrets hidden on the island.

The story is split between each of the three girls — Marion who is weighed down by loss and is the steady mountain her mother and sister lean upon, Zoey who bares her outcast status with pride and longs to gain justice for the friend she is sure is not just missing but gone, and Val who rules as Sawkill royalty, gorgeous, privileged, and ruthless.

I love novels that center female relationships at their core, and this is the thread that holds this story together. As narration shifts between their perspectives, we get to see and understand each of them from different angles and insight — the weight each of them carries and their individual sense of isolation and loneliness. It's as they begin to understand what links them together — friendship, love, or enmity — that they are able to find away to face the monsters of their world.

Structurally, the novel is tight, each scene feeling essential, with nothing wasted — not one felt like filler, just something put there to take up space. And yet, the story also felt multilayered and complex enough to keep me fascinated and surprised the whole way through. This is combined with beautiful, clear language that brings Sawkill Rock and its girls vividly to life.

I also appreciated how Legrand doesn't pull punches. The novel walks the borderline between dark fantasy and horror, with the monsters being truly monstrous. There's also enough suggestions of bloodshed and dark moments to make this book quite unsettling at points, which I loved.

It also made me cry, which I also loved. So much to love about this book.

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49. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (*****)
Category: Attack the Stack

I did not read the description or any reviews before picking up this book. Enough people told me this was a necessary read and so I read it. As a result, I was expecting quite a different book than the one I got. What I expected was a gritty space thriller (not sure why I came to that assumption). What I actually got was the aforementioned light-hearted space romp — and I'm thrilled, because this is a delightful book.

The story begins with Rosemary Harper who joins the crew of the Wayfarer in order to flee the misfortunes of her past. On the ship, she's presented with a (mostly) lovable bunch of goofballs and odd characters — Ashby, the pacifist captain, Sissix, the reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks, Lovey, the ship's AI system, among several others — who go around tearing holes in the universe (creating wormholes for ships to pass through). It's dangerous work, but their new assignment is even more dangerous still, as they are tasked with traveling to a war torn galaxy in order to make their jump.

The way these crew find friendship and family through each other is just, oh, so wonderful. It's funny and charming and so heartwarming. Conflicts naturally arise within any group working in a confined space, especially when that crew contains a diversity of not only cultural but species differences. It's the ways these characters address these conflicts, always with compassion and a desire to understand another person's perspective at their heart.

Each chapter feels like a semi-contained story within the overarching storyline of the novel, revealing some piece of personal history or new connection between the characters, with everything coming together in the end.

I love each of these characters so much, and love seeing the way they care for each other. One scene in particular moved me so much that after finishing the book, I read it all over again — something like three or four times. And I'm sure that I'll return to moments in this book in the future, whenever I want a little comfort in my life, a moment of believing that people can be good to each other after all.

50. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells (****)
Category: New Recruits

After the events of All Systems Red, Murderbot goes looking into its dark past in an attempt to remember just what happened on the day when a number of humans were killed. Of course, there are problems along the way. I read this novella all in one sitting. I love Murderbot and all his anxieties and the way he somehow tries to do what's right by people, even when all he wants to do is hide away somewhere and watch vids. So far, there are two more books in this series and I'm looking forward to reading them.

51. Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells (*****)
Category: New Recruits

The Murderbot series continues to be phenomenal fun from top to bottom. More adventure, more snark, more robot anxiety.
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52. Finding Baba Yaga: A Short Novel in Verse by Jane Yolen (****)
Category: Linguistic Blitzkrieg

In this retelling of the Baba Yaga fairy tales, a modern teenager runs away from the abuses of home and finds sanctuary in the chicken-legged home of the witch Baba Yaga. She works hard under the tutelage of the witch, who has iron teeth and a sharp nose and rides a mortar and pestle. The witch is not nice — perfectly willing to gobble up children (especially boys), when the situation calls for it — but she’s fair, and the girl finds sanctuary in the home. The poetry is straightforward, but lovely with some fun wordplay thrown in to keep things lively. And the story feels complete with satisfying end.
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53. If They Come For Us by Fatimah Asghar (*****)
Category: Linguistic Blitzkrieg

I fell in love with Fatimah Asghar's writing as soon as I heard her fantastic slam piece, "Pluto Shits on the Universe," in which she gives Pluto voice and the power of chaos. So, when I learned that her collection, If They Come for Us, was available, I knew it was a book I had to own.

This is a stunning collection of poetry, lyrical and powerful and moving. There are many things I love about this book, from the way Asghar addresses the political through the personal to the ways she plays with language and uses humor to drive home meaning.

Among the things I adore is the beautiful physicality found in many of these poems, in which the body is sketched out in vivid detail — and not just the pretty bits, but the full reality of a body that makes up a human being. A body is where "mosquito bites bloom" or where exist "hairs crawling out." In "Oil," she writes, "The walk to school makes the oil pool on my forehead / a lake spilling under my armpits." The specifics of existing in a human body in these poems feel as though the speaker is declaring their existence in a world that doesn't always want them. It's a lovely way to claim space.

Asghar is inventive with the poetic form, not only presenting poems in free verse, but using words in unusual ways whether it's putting a stanza upside down so that the book has to be flipped over to be read, or whether it's situating her words within the constructs of a "games" in the form of a bingo card, mad libs, map, or cross word puzzle. The poems in this collection in their beauty and variety offer continual surprises and wisdom each time I read them.
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54. Herding Cats: A Sarah Scribbles Collection by Sarah Anderson (****)
Category: Visual Onslaught

Andersons comics are delightful in how they relate the creative process, anxiety, self doubt, and cuddly animal love. I especially appreciated the last section, which provides excellent advice for fellow artists navigating social media, both in terms of its values and its minefields.
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55. Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys (***)
Category: Miscellany

This is the first book in The Innsmouth Legacy series, which retells the Elder Gods mythos Cthulhu, Yith, etc.). Set in the 1940s, Aphra and her brother Caleb are the last survivors of Innsmouth, the home of a line of water-based humans who transform into creatures of the sea and live long. Due to the fear and prejudices of the U.S. government, their people had been interned in the desert and were slowly dying off — until WWII, when the Japanese began to also be interned in a different shade of fear and prejudice. Having survived, Aphra has made a new family for herself and is trying to reclaim the history and magic of her people. When an FBI agent comes to her seeking information on how to track down a potential Russian spy using dangerous magic, she agrees to help along with members of her growing newfound family.

There are some beautiful things to this book with its multilayered discussions of prejudice, racism, and sexism. I also love the message of seeking and finding found family, and the people in that family and the characters in general are presented with depth and nuance.

That said, I did not love this book — partially because of my own expectations. Because of the Lovecraftian mythos it's based on, I was expecting to be presented with weird, unsettling horror, but the novel is more of a historical urban fantasy, which did not exactly align. Even though I can see why others will love this book, I think it's a case of not-my-cuppa.

>111 andreablythe: - Somehow I missed your trip posts earlier. Sounds like a great trip! You perfectly captured how I feel about heights and ballooning. Being in a hot air balloon was one of the most calming things I've ever experienced. I really am not a fan of heights but I think your comment about things you can't control was spot on.

>124 LittleTaiko:
It was a fabulous trip, Stacey. My sister didn't enjoy it as much as I did, but I would definitely go back.

56. A Cruelty Special to Our Species by Emily Jungmin Yoon (*****)
Category: Linguistic Blitzkrieg

I've started cohosting the New Books in Poetry podcast and my first podcast interview is live!

I had a lovely conversation with Emily Jungmin Yoon regarding her first full-length collection, A Cruelty Special to Our Species (Ecco Books, 2018), which examines forms of violence against women. At its core these poems delve into the lives of Korean comfort women of the 1930s and 40s, reflecting on not only the history of sexual slavery, but also considering its ongoing impact. Her poems beautifully lift the voices of these women, helping to make them heard and remembered — while also providing insight into current events, environmentalism, and her own personal experiences as a woman in the world.

I loved this collection of poetry, which was so moving in how it addressed intense subject matters. Her words are lyrical, vivid, and enriched with a playful examination of language, the way mean slips depending on perspective and how language can be a powerful tool. These poems help to give voice to women whose stories are not commonly told. It's beautifully done.

57. Basement Gemini by Chelsea Margaret Bodnar (*****)
Category: Literary Blitzkrieg

Basement Gemini is a gorgeous chapbook of poetry draws on horror movie tropes to explore female power and agency. There’s a kaleidoscopic beauty to these untitled lyrical prose poems that feel cohesive a cohesive whole. Love this collection.

My interview with Chelsea Margaret Bodnar is here.

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58. Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire (****)
Category: New Recruits

Although it refers to past events, this third book in the Wayward Children series mostly stands on its own. The story begins when Rini falls out of the sky demanding to see her mother, Sumi — only to be informed that her mother had died years before she was born.

One of the delightful things about this series is seeing all the ways the different worlds can exist along lengths of logic or nonsense or whatever. Like Rini and Sumi’s world in which everything but the people is made of candy, sugar, and cakes. Another thing to love are the characters, who are each uniquely wonderful and longing to return to their own weird worlds.

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59. Exit Strategy by Martha Wells (*****)
Category: New Recruits

All I can do is continue to declare my love for Murderbot each time I read one of the novelas in this series. This is the fourth book and without giving away too much, I can say that it brings back some characters from the first book that I’ve been missing. Murderbot and his brilliantly dangerous plans continues to fill me with joy. I would happily read as many of these books as Martha Wells can produce.

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Wooo! And with that I have officially met my goal of reading 60 books this year — didn't meet all my categories, but that's okay.

Congrats on reaching your reading goal, Andrea, and also for hosting the Poetry Podcast, that must have been a very cool experience!

>128 andreablythe: well done! It's always good to hit a target.

Congratulations on reaching your goal!

Congratulations on reaching your goal, Andrea, and with some stellar 5 star reads, too!

Thanks everyone. I'm stoked that I've been able to carve out time for myself to read this many books.

60. Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (****)
Category: Attack the Stack

Arrival (2016) — in which aliens come to Earth and a linguist works with a team of scientists in order to communicate with them — is one of my all-time favorite science fiction movies of all time. The skillful way in which writer and director were able to weave together events from multiple times in the Louise’s life in order to build a beautiful emotional arch is stunning to watch.

Since seeing the movie, I’ve listened to a couple of podcast interviews with screenwriter Eric Heisserer, in which is describes falling in love with Ted Chiang’s novella “Story of Your Life” and his long journey of adapting the complex story into a screenplay and then spending years seeking someone to make it into a film. Hearing his passion for this story and his descriptions of what had to change and what did not in order to make the film possible, I knew I needed to read the original novella.

Just as with the movie, “Story of Your Life” involves first contact with aliens and humanities attempts to work together in order to be able to communicate with and understand them. It’s also centered around Louise, who is relating the story of her daughter’s life. It’s also about linguistics and science and love and the functioning of time. It’s a beautiful story — one that is both intimately similar and vastly different from the movie adaptation of it, both story and movie being beautiful in their own right, allowing me to love them independently of each other.

Reading the rest of Stories of Your Life and Others, I continued to be impressed by Chiang’s skill as a writer. Science is at the core of his work — not in the flash bang of laser guns or space ships or explosions, but in the contemplation and study of our world through linguistics, mathematics, architecture, and beauty.

Many of these stories are driven by humanities pursuit of knowledge. In “Tower of Babylon,” a builder is brought to work on an enormous tower, which is being constructed in an attempt to reach heaven. It’s massive undertaking of generations. To reach the top takes months, some people are born, live, and die on the tower without knowing any other life. As it grows ever taller, the tower reveals the secret of the world in a beautifully surprising way.

While in “Understand” this pursuit of knowledge is driven in a different direction. Rather than building an external tower, a man who wakes from coma begins to developed dramatically increased intelligence, reaching a point of even understanding his own mind and being able to manipulate its function to improve his mental operations. It’s fascinating to see him reach a point beyond human understanding and then to see how our perspective of him shifts toward the end.

“Seventy-Two Letters” dives deep into exploring the power of language by imagining a world in which many of the scientific principles of the world are determined by nomenclature. This is not only the writing of names upon machinery in order to create automatons, but also the biological principles of life. I was surprised to realize that this was a story I had read before (in an anthology, I think). I was fascinated by it was the time because it was such an odd concept and it has stuck with me over the years. Rereading it, I was struck all over again by the strength of this story.

The power of personal perception and how it influences prejudice is explored in “Liking What You See: A Documentary,” a story in which a university group presents that idea of requiring all students to implement Calli, a non-invasive brain modification that prevents the user from “seeing” or understanding beauty (or lack thereof) in another person. By presenting a series of personal accounts of people from variety of backgrounds, the story is able to provide a nuanced examination of the power of beauty and associated issues surrounding media manipulation.

This collection of stories is beautiful — one I would highly recommend for anyone interested in science fiction of a more contemplative nature.

Happy New Year to you, too!

61. The Yark by Bertrand Santini (****)
Category: Miscellany

The Yark is a creature that eats good little children because they are the best for his digestion. Until he meets a little girl that’s just too sweet to eat. The story is fun — although I’m not sure my niece (who is six) is ready to read it yet, since the beginning chapters (which talk about the monster eating children’s toes, fingers, hearts, etc.) might be a little too scary for her just yet. I don’t want to be one of those adults to assume something is too scary for kids when the kids think it’s fine, since it really depends on the kid. But I know my niece and although she likes creepy stuff (Coraline, The Corpse Bride, etc.), there are some things that cross that line into scaring her (The Witches). So, I’m going to hold off on this one for a little bit. However, some other six year old might totally love this book and not be bothered by it at all.

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62. The Barrow Will Send What It May by Margaret Killjoy (****)
Category: New Recruits

This is the sequel to Killjoy’s fantastic The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion. Here we find Danielle and her companions on the run from the cops and seeking out a path toward becoming demon hunters. Along a quiet rode they find their first assignment, when they meet a woman who has been raised by the dead. I enjoyed the ongoing adventures of these anarchist characters and the clever ways they find themselves through the dangers that cross their path. It’s quite fun and I hope there were will be more in the series.

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63. The Twilight Pariah by Jefferey Ford (****)
Category: Bloodshed and Mayhem

Three friends come home from college and start a project of excavating a site at an old mansion. While digging up artifacts from the past, they also uncover dangerous secrets. A fun horror read, with a great twist on the concept of supernatural hauntings.

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you all have a fabulous start to the next cycle around the sun.

I don't know if I'm going to continue with the category challenge in 2019. I love the challenge, but don't feel like I'm able to keep up with the community the way I've done in the past. I wish everyone a fabulous time with all their challenge for the new year, and maybe I'll pop in from time to time when I can.

All the best,

Andrea

>138 andreablythe: Yes, do pop in when you can! And if you set up a thread elsewhere on LT, let us know where to find you :)

>138 andreablythe: Happy New Year! I hope you will continue with the challenge but completely understand if it's too overwhelming right now. Hope you will at least stop by to visit from time to time!

Thanks, guys. I'm still considering it.