Finished reading Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie, a collection of short stories. A handful are set, at least notionally, in her Imperial Radch setting, several are in the setting of The Raven Tower, and several others are their own things. I enjoyed all of them to greater or lesser degrees; The Raven Tower in particular seems perfect for short stories.
Finished rereading The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie. I love this fantasy novel, about gods and bargains and thoughtfulness, and its casual queerness is the cherry on top.
Finished reading Translation State by Ann Leckie. I’ve loved her other Imperial Radch books, and enjoyed this one, but felt like it could have used a more vigorous edit: One character kept shifting between “disturbingly alien” and “distressed teen”, and there was a plot contrivance that bothered even me (normally fairly blasé about that kind of thing). That aside, there was lots to like, including the aforementioned disturbing aliens and Leckie’s usual explorations of personhood and empire.
Leckie fans should read this; newcomers should start at the start, Ancillary Justice.
Finished reading Trudeau & Doonesbury by Joshua Kendall, a biography of the fairly reclusive cartoonist. This was very interesting, especially as someone who read the comic fairly religiously in the ’80s and ’90s; the throughline of the book was Trudeau’s growth from callow prep school lad to thoughtful feminist and advocate for veterans.
One thing I meant to mention about The Every: It struck me how in some ways the book’s namesake shared a philosophy, at least superficially, with the Utopians of Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota, but shallow or weaponized.