Another short issue. We get closure on the current plot bunny and there are surprising developments with the crew. Off to new beginnings. Oh yes, and another surprising secret at the end.
Alana with a new haircut. Don‘t ask. They asked, obviously…
Here is my February 2022. My page count is a bit lower this month, due to some distracting family issues. I couldn‘t concentrate on new stories and reverted to comfort re-reading quite a lot of older fanfiction early in the month, which I don‘t really track.
– Empire of Wild ★★★★☆, ebook, TBR, slow burning horror, indigenous folklore about a Rogarou. – Iterum ★★★★☆, Stargate Atlantis fanfic, McShep, re-read / comfort reading — and a ton of other Spirk and McShep fanfiction! – Bots of The Lost Ark in Clarkesworld Magazine #177, June 2021 ★★★★☆, online novelette, bots run amok, aliens threaten, ship and humans need to be saved, little bot to the rescue. – Interview with the Vampire ★★★★☆, ebook, re-read after 30 years or so. Slow start, but re-discovered so many details that I had forgotten. Ultimately rewarding. – Shadecraft #1 ★★★★★, eComic, online for free at Image Comics, YA, Zadie is being chased by shadows… good artwork. – Fire and Ice: The Volcanoes of the Solar System ★★★★☆, audio, non-fiction, entertaining tour through our solar system and a fascinating look at volcanoes. – Saga #56 ★★★★★, eComic – Wikihistory ★★★★☆, short story, online, amusing piss-take on time travel and Wikipedia. – The Legacy by R.A. Salvatore ★★★¾☆ ebook, TBR / StoryGraphReading Randomizer February #1, dark elves and dwarves battling it out in a lot of deep tunnels. – An Easy Job ★★★★☆, short story, online, prequel to Sinew and Steel and What They Told
The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six (ongoing): – SCAR TISSUE by Tobias S. Buckell – human MC fosters a robot. Is the mind just bolted into its carriage or the sum of a whole? And what does it mean to be raised and to learn from experience? Sweet story, I got pretty emotional. ★★★★★ – EYES OF THE FOREST by Ray Nayler – scouts in an alien and dangerous forest, very cool concepts. ★★★★½ – SINEW AND STEEL AND WHAT THEY TOLD by Carrie Vaughn – Graff faked his medical records and something really awkward is going to come out. ★★★★¾
StoryGraph Reading Randomizer / backlog: – The Solitaire Mystery, paper, TBR / February StoryGraph #2, have to see when I can fit this in…
Specfic Movies & TV watched: – For All Mankind, S1, Eps. 1-5 ★★★★☆
And the first month of the year is over already! Here is what read, listened to and watched…
– Activation Degradation ★★★★☆, audio, SF, not Murderbot, just ignore that. Different take on robots/cyborgs/AI. – Cursed ★★★★½, Alex Verus #2, ebook, UF, wizards in London battle it out, good fun. – Black Powder War ★★★☆☆, Temeraire #3, ebook, Fantasy, the way back from China to Europe over land, with stopovers in Istanbul and Prussia, set in 1806. – Fruiting Bodies ★★★★★, short story, SF Horror, a little creepy. – Life on Earth ★★★★☆, audio, TBR pile, David Attenborough narrates his book, natural history. – The Sweet Rowan ★★★★¼, ebook, TBR, sweet Regency romance, set in Scotland, with a wee bit of magic. – Saga #55 ★★★★☆, eComic, SF, finally back after three years of waiting. – The Marrow Thieves ★★★☆☆, ebook, TBR, dystopian YA set in Canada. People have lost the power to dream, except for indigenous people, who are hunted for a cure. – Tietjen auf Tour: Warum Camping mich glücklich macht, paper, DNF after 84 pages reading and skimming to 150 pages / 55%. Travel anecdotes, nice enough, but very repetitive.
Specfic Movies & TV watched: – The Expanse, S6, Ep. 3-6 ★★★★☆ Season finished. They went off script quite a bit. Not sure yet how much I liked this. – Foundation, S1, Ep. 4-10 ★★★★★ Season finished. Excellent! – Venom ★★★¾☆ Entertaining and a little too silly. – Kingdom, S1, Ep. 1-3 ★★★☆☆ Korean zombie series in a historical setting. Unintentionally funny at times. Different. The people in this have the survival instincts of gnats.
Some StoryGraph statistics:
(yes, the last and first page counts are different, I updates something in between screen shooting the stats… 😝)
After a very long hiatus by the authors, the story has moved on by three years as well. I was back in the world of Saga immediately, even though I haven‘t re-read any of the previous volumes. Welcome back, Saga!
Single issues are short, although this one is longer than most with 47 pages. So saying more without spoiling anything is tricky. Good so far. Looking forward to the next one in about 4 weeks.
Content warning: rating M for Mature, aka one graphic, gratuitous sex scene. Which I could have done without.
PSS: I am sure the cover art by Fiona Staples for that new Fartbox album is gorgeous… and no, I never knew that the blue text is Esperanto.
I read a lot of short stories and novellas this year. I used to say anything under 300 pages is not worth reading, when I was still a booksnob. Apparently I changed my mind!
All Systems Red and all of it‘s sequels were part of that shorts & novellas adventure.
I also read a lot of online magazins, like Clarkesworld and Lightspeed Magazine. But also Tor.com provided a ton of material.
Comics also became a large part of my reading enjoyment, partly to blame on comiXology and their devilish sales. My favourite comic series, all caught up to the latest issue: Saga, Vol. 1 and Lazarus, Vol. 1: Family
And we had the end of an era with the final Kate Daniels novel, Magic Triumphs! Luckily Ilona Andrews is working hard on writing other fun stuff, for example Iron and Magic.
I still listen to audiobooks, but I am pretty ambivalent to the experience. If I have the time, I rather read than listen. I keep missing too many nuances, when listening. And I can’t sit motionless and listen, it just makes me sleepy. Listening so far has always been a substitute, when I couldn‘t sit and read. Maybe I need to pick up long walks as a hobby…
One of my favourite audiobooks in 2018 was Blue Remembered Earth. Not because of Alastair Reynolds—I specifically picked this book, because it is narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. A god amongst audiobook narrators! Ok, the book was good as well…
I found Kobna through listening to the most fun series I read in 2018: Peter Grant and Rivers of London. Hail to London‘s most entertaining wizard! Harry Potter in a police procedural for grown-ups and a lot of fun. Plus I get to go back to my beloved London, where I lived for four years and that is still sorely missed.
My most conflicting relationship with an author in 2018 was with Dan Simmons. Ilium netted five stars for it‘s sheer inventiveness, although I struggled with the minutiae of the writing. The sequel, Olympos, ended up as a DNF, because the crazy amount of details and neverending bla-bla-bla of not getting on with the plot superseded the inventiveness. Strike three was The Abominable. I had fun with the mountain climbing descriptions, but the story did not do much for me, was incorrectly labelled as horror and just dragged insufferably. Done, thanks!
My love of all things underwater brought me to the very good Starfish and Into the Drowning Deep, but also to the incredibly pulpy Meg. Embarassingly bad, politically incorrect, sexist, but fun. I even read the sequel… The movie wasn‘t much better, but had Jason Statham in it. Your argument is invalid.
And although I still (mostly) continued my Urban Fantasy hiatus, Vigil proved to be a highly entertaining break from said hiatus and was a fun tour of Brisbane.
I had an excellent reading year and I hope I will discover many more fun books in 2019!
+++ Some potentially boring statistics, aka my tally for 2018:
January – 2105 pgs February – 1652 pgs March – 2730 pgs April – 1250 pgs May – 3111 pgs June – 2693 pgs July – 2940 pgs August – 2480 pgs September – 2080 pgs October – 1761 pgs November – 1537 pgs December – 2378 pgs
My page count is allover the place! The lowest month was April with 1250 pages, the highest May with 3111.
According to My Year in Books according to Goodreads I read over 32.000 pages. Not sure where that figure comes from, I am guessing some of it is from DNFs. That‘s only 9 books though, so… shrugs
Hazel struggles with being different a little. She has beautiful wings. And the zebras have beautiful, multicoloured stripes. Petrichor is finally growing on me. And all the rest… would be a spoiler.
For the next romance read, let‘s have a D. Oswald Heist book!
The Will keeps getting odder and odder. I am surprised that I even recognize him from one volume to the next.
Plenty of weirdness all around. Several „ewww“ moments.
Sweet ending. One more volume and then I am all caught up. Still enjoying it, so this might be the next series I subscribe to…
Cathy's Reading Bonanza 