Finished reading Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, and its accompanying novella “Ajax Penumbra 1969”. This was fun; it felt like a light Neal Stephenson novel, in length and intensity and depth, and earnest where Stephenson tends ironic.
Finished reading The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. A promising setup (what if people could step through an endless series of parallel Earths?) was let down by merely adequate writing and a very abrupt out-of-nowhere ending (that wasn’t really an ending at all but a setup for the next book). Glad I read this book; not sure if I’ll read the next.
Finished reading Dinner in Rome: A History of the World in One Meal by Andreas Viestad: a light overview of food and history, through the lens of a single (large) meal at Rome’s La Carbonara. The lightness is counterbalanced by an excellent bibliography, like A History of the World in Six Glasses (discussed in the bibliography).
Finished reading The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett, another murder mystery, though not quite so noir-y as Cahokia Jazz. This one is set in an odd fantasy world, and we’re left with a clear path to more stories starring the protagonist and his brash boss.
Thinking back on it, the book feels somewhat similar to Bridge of Birds.
Finished reading Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. This was a harrowing book, written in the early ’90s, about a teenager growing up as the United States is collapsing in 2024. It ended on a slightly hopeful note, and the book’s society is more collapsed than ours, so I guess there’s that.
Content warning: nothing on-screen, but there are plenty of references to rape.