Finished reading TARDIS Eruditorum, Volume 7: The Sylvester McCoy Years by Elizabeth Sandifer, part of a series of critical surveys of Doctor Who. Though a fan of the show, I’ve never seen a single episode of this era, much less read any of the novels, so I expected to skip my way through this volume. But Sandifer always had something interesting to say, and I found myself reading cover to cover.
Set aside The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty about halfway through. I’m frankly a little baffled by the good reviews; I’m not sure I was even reading the same book. Maybe you’ll like it — obviously plenty of people do — but it’s not for me.
Finished reading Subcutanean by Aaron A. Reed, a horror novel with twinned premises: It involves parallel universes, and each copy of the book is uniquely generated. (Mine was seed 40105.) Very effective as horror, and successful (as far as I could tell) in how it was generated, though of course I’m very curious what another version would be like.
Finished reading A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, a short novel. Charming and cozy, as one expects from Chambers. About half the book resonated with me in a perfect, clear note, and I recognized the half that didn’t even though it wasn’t speaking to me.
Finished reading “Mick and Amanda and Reesa and Craig”, “Mick and the Spoonbender”, “Mick and the Fit”, and “Like Uber, but for Monsters”, new short stories by Greg Stolze. Like much of his work, it’s well-crafted, unsettling, and sticks with you for a while.