Greetings, fellow book nerds! I hope your summer is off to a good start and that you have many adventures to look forward to. I am looking forward to a couple short trips and, of course, making some kind of dent in my TBR. Which is hard because I seem to be in a reading slump and I haven’t read very much lately.
Sometimes when I’m in a reading rut, I will try reading a genre that is completely opposite of the book I just finished. That often helps me get back on track. That doesn’t always work, though, and then I have to try something else. This time, I went to Instagram and dug around in the #bookstagramchallenges hashtags. I also follow the bookstagramchallenges channel to see a variety of book and reading challenges. Sometimes those are great for kicking me out of a reading rut. Plus, they’re just fun! Also, they’re like lists! I love lists. I love getting to cross things off of them.
For this, I absolutely cherry-picked the prompts I wanted to use from a few different challenges. I went with an all science fiction and fantasy theme for these, since I’m in a big sci-fi mood. I also recognize that there are entirely too many books listed here. I had a hard time picking just one for some of the questions!
- Last, current, and next reads: The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro; The Big Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer (print) and Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (audio); The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow.
- Favorite SFF series: Sci-fi – The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey; Fantasy – The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey.
- Side characters you wanted to see more of: Kamazotz, the Death Bat from Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I guess it isn’t really a proper sidekick, but I would have a ball flapping around on a death bat while on epic quests.
- Quick reads: All Systems Red by Martha Wells. We need more Muderbot in our lives!
- Sad reads: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro; “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury; and several of the stories in Alexander Weinstein’s excellent collection Children of the New World, in particular the titular short story as well as “Saying Goodbye to Yang.”
- Funny reads: Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein (possibly the most hilarious book I’ve ever read); Redshirts by John Scalzi; How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu.
- Weapon on the cover: The Rising of the Moon by Flynn Connolly.
- Favorite mentor: Ged from The Earthsea trilogy by Ursula K. Le Guin.
- Books and drinks: Split and Scumble, both from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series! And, although these aren’t from books, honorable sci-fi drink mentions are: Green (AKA Aldebaran whisky) from the episode “Relics” from Star Trek TNG and A Warrior’s Drink (prune juice eww!) from the TNG episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise.”
- Unpopular opinions: Only Dune is good in the Dune series. The first rule of reading the Dune series is that you should only bother with Dune, not the rest of the books.
- The chosen one: Bastian Bux from The Neverending Story by Michael Ende.
- Revenge plotlines: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.
- Favorite creatures: Mother Thing in Have Space Suit, Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein; the Tendu, the frog-like beings in The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson; and the hen with a demon in her in Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher.
- Loyal and noble: Robbie the robot, the titular character in Isaac Asimov’s short story “Robbie.”
- Book that I would recommend to new SFF readers: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. For fantasy, I’d go with Spinning Silver by Naomi Novak or Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier.
- Maps: There’s an awesome map in Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh. Also, I know I mentioned her several times in this post, but the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey has some excellent maps as well. I spent hours as a child poring over those, visualizing the various weyrs and halls of the planet.
- Favorite anthology: The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu; Black Thorn, White Rose, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (any anthology edited by either of these women are excellent); and Mirrorshades, edited by Bruce Sterling. Click on the clicky-link! It takes you to a free, online version of the Mirrorshades anthology, which is awesome since it’s almost impossible to track down a copy anywhere.
- Book that takes place during winter: City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders. Well, it isn’t winter so much as the night side of a tidally locked planet. Cold counts as winter, right?
- High-flying characters: Sirantha Jax in Grimspace by Ann Aguirre.
- Favorite villain: Sydney from The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden; The Gentleman with the Thistle-Down Hair in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.
- Cool animal companions who aren’t main characters: The Wolf in The Witch’s Boy by Kelly Barnhill; Solovey, the horse in The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden.
- Hopeful characters: Keyne from Sistersong by Lucy Holland.
- Rogues and scoundrels: Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott.
- Ocean or beach setting: The Mountain Under the Sea by Ray Nayler.
- Bounty hunters or assassins: Warcross by Marie Lu.
- Droids and robots: Starship Grifters by Robert Kroese.
- Purple book stack: Star Trek TNG: Q-In-Law by Peter David; Sword Stone Table, eds. Swapna Krishna and Jenn Northington; Flames of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee; Prickle Moon by Juliet Marillier; and Smoke by Dan Vyleta.
- Monthly book haul: Print books – The Rex Nihilo series by Robert Kroese, Star Trek Discovery: Somewhere to Belong by Dayton Ward, Loki’s Ring by Stina Leicht, The Blighted Stars by Megan O’Keefe. Audiobooks: Bacchanal by Veronica G. Henry, Anathem by Neal Stephenson, The Municipalists by Seth Fried, The Fold by Peter Cline, and the Themis Files trilogy by Sylvain Neuvel.
- Monthly wrap-up: I’ll be working my way through The Big Book of Science Fiction for quite a while. I haven’t been reading as much as usual. Also, Seveneves will take me forever to listen to because I can usually only listen when I’m driving. WFH and my kid’s summer break means that I hardly drive anywhere. So I expect that my reading stats for the month won’t be too much bigger than those two books plus The Buried Giant that I read for book club.
Her Grace's Library 