Category: Other People’s Books

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End of 2022 and beginning of 2023 book roundup

Catchup post about various ebooks recently acquired.

Acquired from Kobo in 2022:

  • Even Though I Knew The End, by C.L. Polk. SF novella. Picked up because C.L. Polk’s books have generally impressed me and I expect this one to be no different.
  • The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal. SF/Mystery. Which I have already read as of the writing of this post, and which was delightful.
  • The Beautiful Ones, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Probably more Gothic-flavored fantasy? Nabbed this on general because Silvia Moreno-Garcia Is Awesome grounds.
  • Tread of Angels, by Rebecca Roanhorse. Dark fantasy with a side helping of Western.
  • The Secret Skin, by Wendy Wagner. Described on the cover as “sawmill Gothic”. I’ve read this as of this writing, and ultimately found it unsatisfying–partly because it’s a novella, and IMO too short to really fully develop the plot it was laying out.
  • The Annual Migration of Clouds, by Premee Mohammed. SF.
  • Cradle and Grave, by Anya Ow. Post-apocalyptic SF.
  • The Stars Undying, by Emery Robin. SF/space opera.
  • When Women Were Dragons, by Kelly Barnhill. Not sure whether this qualifies as fantasy, or magical realism, or just historical fiction with fantastic elements? It’s our world only women can periodically transform into dragons, and this novel’s about the upheaval that happens in one family as a result. I’ve read this already and found it pretty delightful as well. Lots of themes along the lines of women being angry at how they are repressed in life.

Acquired from Amazon in 2023:

  • Red Shoes: A Riverhaven Novel, by Satyros Phil Brucato. Urban fantasy. Picked this up since it’s written by one of the extended SF/F community in the PNW.
  • Meru, by S.B. Divya. SF. Picked up because it was on sale via Amazon Prime’s First Reads.

77 total for 2022. 2 for 2023 so far.

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Really ought to clean out my inbox more often ebook roundup

Acquired from Kobo:

  • The Stand-In, by Lily Chu. Contemporary romance. This is not a genre I buy a lot of, but I got this one because of a positive review on Smart Bitches, and because I liked that a) it features a bi-racial heroine, and b) the heroine’s in a scenario where she’s asked to be a stand-in for a celebrity, and she actually becomes friends with that other woman. It sounds intriguing, and I also find the cover charming, so let’s do this.
  • The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, by Riley Black. Non-fiction. Bought this because I saw a tweet from the author going around promoting the release, and because it occurred to me that I’d never really known much in depth about the comet that’s supposed to have taken out the dinosaurs. This book will hopefully solve that problem.
  • The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, by Megan Bannen. Fantasy, another one I’m picking up on the strength of a Smart Bitches review. It sounds charming and delightful.
  • The Monsters We Defy, by Leslye Penelope. Fantasy, described on this Smart Bitches review as a magical heist story. Again, sounds delightful!
  • This Side of Murder, by Anna Lee Huber. Mystery. Got this one because it was on sale at the time for cheap, and because I like a period-set mystery. This one’s WWI-era.
  • Becoming Crone, by Lydia M. Hawke. Urban fantasy. Nabbed this one because it’s got a protagonist who just turned 60, and who’s about to discover she has magical powers. And that she’s a Crone–as in, Maiden, Mother, and. Awesome.
  • The Echo Wife, by Sarah Gailey. SF/Thriller/Horror. Nabbed this one finally after hearing quite a bit of buzz about it, and because the concept of a woman discovering her husband’s having an affair with a clone of her is highly intriguing.

Pre-orders from Kobo that showed up:

  • A Half-Built Garden, by Ruthanna Emrys
  • The Book Eaters, by Sunyi Dean
  • Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

New pre-orders placed with Kobo:

  • The Mimicking of Known Successes, by Malka Older. Grabbed this one because basically, “Holmesian SF murder mystery with a sapphic romance” is almost all of my catnip.

60 for the year.

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Ebook catchup post

Took a backhoe to my gigantic email backlog yesterday, and that included dealing with receipts from assorted ebook purchases and getting those files incorporated into my Calibre library! Here now are those books, rounded up.

Acquired from Kobo:

  • Aetherbound, by E.K. Johnston. SF/YA. Got this one mostly because I really liked the cover design, and when i read a sample, I found it engaging enough that I’d like to see where the story goes. I like the central story concept of a traveling generation ship where the crew is successive generations of the same family, and the heroine being a young daughter of this family who wants out.
  • Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao. SF/YA. This seems a mix of Chinese mythos, bunches of anime of the “mecha powered by pilots” type, and Pacific Rim. The heroine is a young woman in a culture where females serve as the “concubine/pilots” for male pilots of mecha, and are frequently killed by the strain of the psychic link these pairings require. Only our heroine, a so-called “iron widow”, is capable of turning that psychic link around and taking out her male copilots instead. I’m here for it.
  • Hands of the Emperor and Stargazy Pie, by Victoria Goddard. Fantasy. Bought both of these on the strength of this article on Tor.com, which speaks very glowingly of this author’s work. And from what I see here, there’s a lot of Anna bait in her stories.
  • The Anatomist’s Wife, by Anna Lee Huber. Mystery. Got this one when I saw it come up as on sale via one of Smart Bitches Trashy Books’ sale posts.
  • We Shall Sing a Song Into the Deep, by Andrew Kelly Stewart. SF. This is post-apocalyptic so I’m not sure how much of a headspace I’m going to have to read this any time soon, but that said, I’m intrigued by the idea of the crew of the last nuclear submarine on the planet turning into a religious sect bent on firing their last missile to trigger the Second Coming. And the protagonist is a young girl kidnapped and raised into the crew as one of their Choristers, only nobody realizes she’s female.
  • When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky, by Margaret Verble. This seems to be a magic-realism type story, or what I’d be calling historical urban fantasy if it was getting sold under the SF/F bracket of stories. But it’s getting marketed as general fiction, so…? Period piece with a Native American heroine at a carnival.
  • Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke. Grabbed this on the strength of this being the next book by the author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I have already read it; I got it as a library checkout, and then decided I wanted to own my own copy. It’s not nearly as long as its predecessor, and it’s not terribly heavy on action–but it is rich on imagery and theme and characters. Very glad I read it.

Pre-orders that showed up:

  • Grave Reservations, by Cherie Priest
  • Noor, by Nnedi Okorafor
  • You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson

68 for the year.

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Long overdue ebook roundup post

Geez, this post has been sitting in my Drafts folder for quite some time! I have no particular excuse for this, other than just being very, very lax on getting this post written up! But since I’ve started doing all the Skyrim posts, seeing my Drafts folder on my WordPress site kept reminding me this post was there, and ever so patiently waiting for me to deal with it.

Let’s deal with it now, shall we?

Acquired from Kobo:

  • Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly. This is the book on which the movie of the same name was based, and I bought it on the strength of the buzz about the movie.
  • Unconquerable Sun, by Kate Elliott. SF/Space Opera. Also, a lesbian version of the saga of Alexander the Great IN SPACE, as I understand it. SIGN ME UP.
  • Death of a New American, by Mariah Fredericks. Book 2 of a mystery series I’d already bought Book 1 for.
  • Stealing Thunder and Gifting Fire, by Alina Boyden. Books 1 and 2 of a fantasy series featuring a transgendered heroine.
  • A Peculiar Combination, by Ashley Weaver. Book 1 of a historical mystery series featuring a heroine whose lockpicking talents get her drafted into supporting Britain during WWII.
  • Mirage and Spectrum, by Julie E. Czerneda. SF. Books 2 and 3 of the Web-Shifter’s Library series.
  • The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers. SF. Book 4 of Chambers’ Wayfarers series. And, I’m given to understand, the last one!

Acquired from Amazon:

  • Wings of Fury, by Emily R. King. Fantasy set in the time of Greek myth.
  • The Dispatcher, by John Scalzi. SF/mystery. Ebook version of the audiobook of the same name, which I’ve already listened to and enjoyed. Nabbed this just because I’m a completist, and because the audiobook for Book 2 came out.
  • Spacer’s Cinderella, by Adria Rose. SF/Romance, Space Opera. As you might guess from the title, a version of the Cinderella story set in space.

Acquired from Audible (which also essentially means, acquired from Amazon, but I’m counting this differently):

  • Murder By Other Means, by John Scalzi. The aforementioned Book 2 audiobook for John Scalzi’s Dispatcher series. Like Book 1, this is narrated by Zachary Quinto.

Kobo pre-orders that showed up:

  • The Conductors, by Nicole Glover. Historical fantasy set during the 1800’s, with heavy Underground Railroad themes in the plot.
  • Fugitive Telemetry, by Martha Wells. The next Murderbot book. Yes please, I’ll have some!
  • While Justice Sleeps, by Stacey Abrams. A Supreme Court thriller written by Stacey Abrams. Yes, that Stacey Abrams. She’s got an established career as an author but with this book, she’s writing under her actual name rather than the pen name she uses for her romances, Selena Montgomery.

Amazon pre-orders that showed up:

  • Heartbreak Bay, by Rachel Caine. Book 5 (and final, due to Caine’s passing away) of the Stillhouse Lake series of thrillers.

Kobo pre-orders I’ve placed:

  • You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson. Prequel novel to the Within the Wires podcast, which I’ve enjoyed quite a bit.

Acquired for free from Tor.com:

  • When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, by Nghi Vo. Fantasy. Book 2 of the Singing Hills Cycle series, and I really ought to nab Book 1 before I read this, I think!

Acquired as a Kickstarter reward:

  • Daughter of the Lilies. Fantasy, graphic novel release of the excellent webcomic of the same name that I’ve been following at daughterofthelilies.com. The author and colorist teamed up to put out a print edition of the first storyline they’ve done, and I was a backer for their Kickstarter.

Total for the year: 51.

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Rest of 2020 and into 2021 ebook roundup post

Geez, this post was sitting in my drafts section of my WordPress for ages. Oops. Let’s see if I can get this finally posted, okay?

Acquired from Kobo during the end of 2020:

  • Hench, by Natalie Zina Walschots. SF/Superheroes. Grabbed this once I saw buzz going around about it from the Bitchery, because it sounds awesome: a story about a young woman in a superhero world driven to serious injury as collateral damage in a fight between heroes and supervillains–and nobody cares because she was temping for the villain at the time. So she starts using her own strong talent for data gathering to show how ordinary people are being harmed by the superheroes, until she winds up being a top supervillain’s second in command. I’m here for this!
  • Secrets and Lies, Reckless, Never Tell, Hidden Sins, and Deception, by Selena Montgomery. All romance/romantic suspense, by Stacey Abrams under her pen name of Selena Montgomery. Bought on general “because damn, Stacey Abrams has been awesome the last several years” grounds.
  • All Together Now, by Alan Doyle. This is Alan’s most recent book talking about his history with Great Big Sea and his life in general. Bought for general “duh, because ALAN” reasons that any Great Big Sea fan will certainly understand.
  • Goldilocks, by Laura Lam. SF. Grabbed this because I liked the last SF novel I read by this author, because this is a plot featuring women, and because the plot in general sounded intriguing.
  • The Last Emperox, by John Scalzi. SF. Nabbed because it was on sale at the time, and because it’s book 3 of his Interdependency series. I liked Book 1 and will look forward to reading this one.

Pre-ordered from Kobo during 2020:

  • While Justice Sleeps, by Stacey Abrams. Forthcoming thriller, this time written under her actual name. Bought on same general grounds of “because Abrams is awesome”.

Acquired from Amazon during 2020:

  • The Psychology of Time Travel, by Kate Mascarenhas.

Acquired from Kobo during 2021:

  • The Key to All Things and The Chocolatier’s Ghost, by Cindy Lynn Speer. Gotten because Cindy is a fellow former Drollerie author, and because I quite loved The Chocolatier’s Wife.
  • The Year of the Witching, by Alexis Henderson. I’ve seen a lot of buzz about this one over the last several months, both on Smart Bitches and Tor.com.
  • The Once and Future Witches, by Alix E. Harrow.
  • Spoiler Alert, by Olivia Dade. Romance by an author I’ve heard about via Smart Bitches, Olivia Dade, and one of whose books I’ve already read as a library checkout. She seems to have a nice trend going in her books of larger heroines, and plus this particular book is heavily fannish as well.
  • Girl, Serpent, Thorn, by Melissa Bashardoust.

Acquired from Amazon during 2021:

  • Subversive, Radical, and Revolutionary, by Colleen Cowley. Fantasy trilogy. Nabbed this entire trilogy because of this review over on Smart Bitches!

Acquired as birthday gifts this very weekend as I write this post:

  • Middle-Earth: Journeys in Myth and Legend, by Donato Giancola. Wanted this because I’ve seen this man’s art come up again and again in discussions of the Tolkien legendarium, particularly on Tor.com. They have a lovely profile and interview of him over here. And the artist’s own page is here.
  • 1000 airs du Québec et de l’Amérique francophone, by Olivier Demers. if you’ve hung around my site long enough to know how big a Le Vent du Nord fan I am, and also that I’m a fiddle padawan, you’ll know why I had to nab this songbook of tunes from the Quebecois repertoire by one of my top favorite fiddle players from the province. I will very, very much look forward to delving into this in depth. :D

161 total for 2020. 11 so far for 2021.

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End of September ebook roundup post

Acquired from Kobo:

  • The entire Themis Files trilogy (Sleeping Giants, Waking Gods, and Only Human) by Sylvain Neuvel. SF. Grabbed this because I got book 1 as a freebie a while back in paperback, and I liked it, and the ebook went on sale. So I went ahead and got all three of them.
  • Beach Read, by Emily Henry. Contemporary romance. Grabbed this because Smart Bitches reviewed it quite positively, and while I don’t normally read contemporaries, this sounded kind of delightful. In no small part because of the schtick of both the heroine and hero being writers and challenging each other to write each other’s genres.
  • The Duke Who Didn’t, by Courtney Milan. Historical romance. Acquired for general “because Courtney Milan” reasons, but also, I’m quite interested to see how she sets up a historical set in Britain but with protagonists of color.
  • The Case of the Missing Marquess, by Nancy Springer. Book 1 of her Enola Holmes series, which I nabbed since we just watched the new movie adaptation on Netflix. I found it quite charming, and the ebook was on sale for $2.99, so I snapped it up.

Acquired from Amazon:

  • Chaos Reigning, by Jessie Mihalik. Book 3 of her Consortium Rebellion series, sci-fi romance. Nabbed it because it went on sale price and I did like book 1, so.

And last but not least, acquired from John Scalzi:

  • Clash of the Geeks, by John Scalzi and other authors. Chapbook parody fantasy, with stories explaining exactly what’s going on in a painting depicting Scalzi as an orc, fighting Wil Wheaton who’s riding a unicorn pegasus kitten. As you do! Scalzi posted about it on his Whatever blog, and offered freebie copies of the chapbook to readers, so I took him up on that. Because this year? This year definitely calls for some supremely silly reading.

Pre-orders that showed up:

  • When No One is Watching, by Alyssa Cole

150 for the year.

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Book review: Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Sword
Ancillary Sword

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ancillary Sword, book 2 of the Imperial Radch series, is not quite as awesome as Ancillary Justice–but that’s not actually a bad thing, since “not quite as awesome as its Hugo-winning predecessor” is still pretty freggin’ awesome.

In book 2, we’re picking up pretty much right where book 1 left off. Our protagonist Breq has been handed a Mercy and its crew, and has been tasked to protect the Athoek system. While doing that, she has to juggle dealing with a new lieutenant who’s not the baby-faced young officer she appears to be, the potentially hostile officers and crew of the larger ship Sword of Atagaris, making peace with the sister of one of her slain officers from when she’d been Justice of Toren, class conflict on the space station and planetside–and the risk of angering the alien Presger when one of their diplomats is killed. And all of this is happening under the shadow of the threat of civil war across the Radch–by which we mean, war between the factions of the Lord of the Radch herself.

There’s certainly no shortage of action, to be sure. At no point in this story was I ever bored. However, by comparison to book 1, I found Breq’s jumping around from event to event in this plot less focused. There’s no one particular big problem she has to solve in this story, and this gives everything a definite “middle book of a trilogy” feel. Given how book 1 ended, I came out of this one with an overall impression of the Lord of the Radch having just shunted Breq off out of the way, and a hope that the real action would pick up again in book 3.

So is this one Hugo-worthy? Unfortunately, I’m not convinced. It’s really good, but that’s not quite the same thing. It doesn’t really break any new ground that Ancillary Justice hadn’t already covered, and the lack of specific focus to the overall plot detracts from this book’s ability to stand shoulder to shoulder with its predecessor. Still, though, I enjoyed this immensely and will be eager to snap up Ancillary Mercy once it comes out later this year. Four stars.

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Book review: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and Dave King

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into PrintSelf-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print by Renni Browne

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers got recommended on the Facebook group for the Northwest Independent Writer’s Association, of which I am a member. So I decided to check it out. By and large, I’m glad I did. I’ve now written and released five novels, and I’ve worked with a couple of different editors. And a lot of what I see in this book lines up pretty well with what my best editorial experiences have taught me about my own writing.

Because yes–whether you’re planning on querying to traditional publishers or going indie, your work will require an edit pass. Probably multiple edit passes. And if you can’t afford to hire your own editor, and/or you don’t have handy immediate friends with editing skills in your social circle, you will have to do that editing yourself. This text could do you well as a how-to guide for tackling the job.

Here are some of the things the book discusses that I’ve learned about in my own editorial experiences: minimizing dialogue tags, and when you actually do need one, it’s okay to use ‘said’, really; minimizing use of dialect for effect, and techniques to capture the cadence of a character’s accent without making him or her unreadable; using action beats instead of dialogue tags to convey who’s speaking, and how; and all the various ways to think about handling point of view.

There are a lot of exercises in the various chapters as well, on which you can practice. I skipped those, just because I’ve actually gotten in a fair amount of editing practice at this point, working with my own stuff. But if you haven’t edited yourself or someone else’s work before, you might try those and see how valuable they are for you. Me, I’ll be buying myself a copy of this for reference, now that I’ve read the library checkout copy. Four stars.

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Book review: Where I Belong, by Alan Doyle

As I’d already posted, I pre-ordered Alan Doyle’s new memoir Where I Belong straight off of greatbigsea.com, and that book got here yesterday, woo! (Although I only wound up getting it out of the mailbox tonight, since I worked from home yesterday and forgot to check the mail.)

But in the meantime I also pulled down the ebook via Kobo, since I wasn’t about to try to take a signed hardback anywhere in my backpack. And I’ve gotta say, I was expecting the read to be delightful–but hadn’t really quite grasped how fun it would be to go through a few hundred pages’ worth of Alan essentially telling us all about the first half of his life.

I already knew the man has a command of language; I have, after all, been following his blog posts on greatbigsea.com and his own site for years now. And I’ve been to many a GBS concert in which he’s launched into amusing tales while at the mike. I’m very, very familiar with the cadences of his voice at this point, after 14 straight years of Great Big Sea fandom.

And reading Where I Belong pretty much was just like hearing Alan tell a very long tale at a kitchen party, I swear. His voice came right through into his writing, and it was made all the more delightful by assorted pictures of his young self and assorted family members. At the end of each chapter came an additional anecdote, often tying into Great Big Sea, that gave the overall narrative good structure and eventually brought us to the big turning point of Alan’s life: i.e., the founding of the band that would make him, Séan McCann, Darrell Power, and Bob Hallett famous.

Some of this stuff I already knew, just from being in the fandom as long as I have. Some of it, though, I didn’t–particularly Alan describing the poverty of his early life. Boy howdy can I sympathize with that. And now that I’ve actually visited St. John’s, bits of the book kept resonating for me. Particularly Alan’s tale of the first visit he ever made to O’Brien’s–which has sadly now gone bankrupt. :( I’ve been in that store. And I have a very healthy respect for the significance it’s had to the history of music in St. John’s.

Those of you who’ve read Faerie Blood and who will hopefully be getting Bone Walker by the turn of the year–you also know my Warder boy Christopher is a Newfoundlander. And reading Alan’s book, for me as an author as well as a GBS fan, kept triggering little moments of “ah yes, this would be important to Christopher and all of his family”.

So yeah. Absolutely required reading, if you’re a Great Big Sea fan. And I’d even recommend it if you’re not a GBS fan, just on the strength of Alan’s storytelling. The man does have a way with a word. And I’m hearing rumors he may be already thinking of writing another one.

To which there can of course be only one proper response: yes b’y.

And here: both of my copies of the book, the signed one from greatbigsea.com, and the ebook on my Nook HD!

Where I Belong, in Stereo
Where I Belong, in Stereo

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For the Great Big Sea fans, hey look! Alan Doyle, author!

Those of you who’re in Great Big Sea fandom undoubtedly know this already, but just in case you don’t, Alan Doyle is releasing a memoir in October! It’s to be called Where I Belong. Alert fans will note that this is the same title used by one of Alan’s songs on his solo album Boy on Bridge, and it’s about the importance of family collections even when a Newfoundlander wanders far from home. A fitting title indeed for a personal memoir.

GreatBigSea.com announced today over their newsletter that the book’s now available for preorder directly on their site, in hardcover form. So just for giggles, I went and poked around my various favorite ebook sites, and I’m seeing available on a lot of the major ebook sites as well. Here’s a roundup of places I’m seeing for sale!

GreatBigSea.com

Amazon US (Kindle and hardcover)

Amazon CA (Kindle and hardcover)

Barnes and Noble (hardcover only, no sign of a Nook version yet)

Powells

Chapters CA (hardcover and ebook, note that Chapters sells ebooks via Kobo)

iBooks US

iBooks CA

Kobo US

Google Play US

These are all the various links I can get at, browsing on computers in the States. If anybody in Canada or elsewhere wants to add links to this list, drop ’em in the comments!

AND! For those of you who’re on Goodreads, be advised that there is a giveaway in progress for both United States and Canadian readers! So if you don’t want to commit to buying a copy yet, you might want to jump in on this.

As y’all know, I am a voracious buyer of books, not to mention a longstanding voracious buyer of anything with Alan’s name on it. It tickles me deeply that I get to throw some of my book-buying money to Alan’s first venture into writing, and I very much look forward to having a signed hardcopy and a digital version. ‘Cause I ain’t taking a signed hardback on a bus commute!