648 entries
Dunkin' 2026-09-16 Food I go to Dunks most mornings with my dog. Today, I did the same, but because K is out of town, I only ordered one coffee. I ended up with the wrong coffee (milk AND sugar, not almond milk, no sugar) and so was disappointed. It was my fault, though, and they usually give Imby a pup cup whenever we go in. So I can't…
Continue reading →TC Landos 2026-09-15 Food Didn't want to cook, wanted to eat something I could pick up by foot, so I called TC Lando's and ordered a small Apollo pizza. Wanted to order a medium, so I'd have leftovers, but the pizza was only available as a Small or a Large. It's good - a white pie with spinach, feta, kalamata olives (the best olives in…
Continue reading →I recently listened to an audiobook of The Picture of Dorian Gray and was pleased to find that it remains great. I'm sometimes struck, when going to literary fiction after months in the sff mines, by the fact that authors like Wilde are canonical for a reason. My prose expectations are tempered when I'm reading for the Hugos. There's…
Continue reading →So, if you haven't played Stellaris and you like Grand Strategy Games, you should! It rules. This post is covering my recent run as the Queptilium. The Queptilium Colonies is a xenophilic, egalitarian democracy founded by the Queptilium themselves. These fungoids, as you can see above, have about 19 mutations. This is due to their being…
Continue reading →I spent some time at the house of some friends from grad school, and we were discussing LLMs and poetry. On a lark, I asked Fable 5 to compose a poem in Moore's style: "Write me a poem in the style of Marianne Moore that stands up to a close reading by four literature PhDs." This is what it came up with: The Horseshoe Crab A helmet with…
Continue reading →The project of this blog is reviews of sf/f work, with a focus on stuff nominated for the Hugo Awards. I'm going to shoot for one post a week, where each post takes a year's worth of novellas, ranks them, and gives a brief review of each novella. Hopefully they'll mostly be good, but who can say! 2026 has a pretty strong slate of…
Continue reading →Ann Leckie's latest entry in the Imperial Radch setting, Radiant Star , was even more fun than I'd expected. While I've enjoyed all of the books (and shorts!) I've read in this universe, this latest is a funnier, brighter book than the rest, despite its fairly serious subject matter (starvation, sectarian warfare, &c). Plotwise, we spend…
Continue reading →I just finished rereading the Hugo Novel nominees! My voting slate will look like this, and it's an incredibly strong year. Shroud A Drop of Corruption The Raven Scholar The Everlasting The Incandescent Death of the Author 1. Shroud Starting with my vote for best novel this year, Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shroud is a phenomenally inventive…
Continue reading →I've found myself pouring more time than I'd like into stuff that doesn't have any substance when it's done. Sure, it's satisfying to take over the galaxy in Stellaris, but after I'm done (or I lose a war and patience) it's like all that time's gone. At the same time, I recently completed a review request for an academic journal and…
Continue reading →I just finished rereading the Hugo Novel nominees! My voting slate will look like this -- more detailed reviews in-thread -- but it's an incredibly strong year. Shroud A Drop of Corruption The Raven Scholar The Everlasting The Incandescent Death of the Author 1. Shroud Starting with my vote for best novel this year, Adrian Tchaikovsky's…
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I liked it, but not quite as much as the first one in the series. Definitely worth reading!
Not a flawless book, but an ambitious and enjoyable one. Biggest problem, as is often the case for our buddy Neal, is that he really doesn't know how to write women and honestly isn't all that interested in them. But the world he comes up with is so well-realized and thought through that I was really torn on 4 vs 5 stars -- but, you know, flawed.
Went in kind of blind, on a recommendation from an LLM, and really enjoyed it. Some excellent consciousness-plumbing stuff. Reminded me a bit of Isabel Yap's wonderful prose. Worth reading.
Extremely imaginative and grand in scope, this novel establishes a whole world. Hard, heady science fiction that's as close to someone like Kim Stanley Robinson as you can get. Reynolds is very interested in seeing how different kinds of minds - and different ways of organizing society - might interact with one another. The series drags a bit as it goes on, but this one is awfully good.
Not really "for me," given that I don't know anything about Warhammer 40k, but it's vividly written and well-characterized. Tchaikovksy really is a great author.
Great book, one of the best I read this year. Funny, vibrant, thoughtful, engages with the literary canon in a powerful and interesting way. Strong recommend.
A lot of fun, with a vibrant take on goblins that's compelling and enjoyable. Kingfisher does Pratchett in a way that really worked for me. Not really ambitious enough to go to five stars, for me, but really good.
Enjoyable short stories -- a nice way to revisit a world I spent a lot of time in. Certainly not something someone who hasn't already read at least a couple of the Apt books should jump into, but good nonetheless.
Not bad! Read this as a part of my binging of Tchaikovksy, and this is one of the novellas where I started to feel a bit of fatigue about trope overlap. It's a good novella and stands on its own very well, though.
A bit slight, but with a wonderful fairy tale rhythm to it. Really liked it.
Not a hot take, but this was a real joy to read. Bright, vibrant voices, good worldbuilding, and an involving mystery which plays fair (that is, you can solve it if you pay enough attention.) Great stuff.
A good, sharp novella, well-realized with good characters and a bit of a shambolic conclusion.
The best of the most recent batch of the novellas, I thought this was very compelling. I cared about the characters, and the world was very compelling. Great audiobook reading, too.
Not bad! Not great. Didn't distinguish itself enough from other books by the author for it to really stick out to me.
I liked this better than And Put Away Childish Things! A more interesting world, in my opinion, than some of the other novellas. Good character work, too.
Very fun! Leaned a bit more into the humor that I think AT is actually very good at. Stirring, rousing, fun, good.
Truthfully, I listened to this audiobook during some difficult travel and think that tempered my enthusiasm. It was fine!
I liked it! Reminded me a bit of Canticle for Liebowitz, in a way that was probably intentional. This isn't one of my favorite Tchaikovsky worlds, but it's a good one, and I'd give it 4.5 stars if that was an option.
A solid novella that's right down the middle as far as AT goes. I'm marking it lower than it deserves, probably, because it's a lot like quite a few other novels and novellas of AT's: a frustrated academic lands in an extraordinarily inhospitable environment filled with evolution run amok and it turns out there's some kind of Moreau thing going down. Good prose and good characterization here, though; I did LIKE it, but I think I'm going to need to start reading a different author soon. That said, I just finished SHROUD and it's one of my favorites, so maybe I just like some more than others!
One of the best of AT's "extremely hostile, alien environment, with humans trying to connect." Great planetary setting, and a great interplanetary setting, too -- the "Concern" is just sketched out enough to be interesting while still leaving a lot to the imagination.
I thought this was stellar! Excellent characterization and really fun genre stuff. Compelling and quite different from a lot of AT's other fiction while still being recognizably him.
Good stuff! Tchaikovsky has a few things he hits a lot - I think this is his third prison-camp-on-the-outskirts-of-civilization book I read this year - but he's just a sharp enough writer at a prose level and a clever enough writer at a conceptual level that it's usually a joy.
Liked it! Some good, vivid passages, and a mounting feeling of surreal, bodily dread that worked for me. A quick read.
Quite good, a highlight of my Year of Tchaikovsky. A straightforward story with sharp characterization, and a better twist on wellworn generic tropes than I've seen in some other books I read this year. AT is best known for his serieses, but I think his standalone novels are often his best work.
I liked some stuff about it, but felt that the characterization and voice was a bit leaky -- not enough separation of character voice can really turn me off a novel, and I felt that, particularly towards the middle of the book. Some genuinely touching and cool stuff here, too, though.
Loved the first half, thought the second half was also good but a little bit less propulsive and elegant. A great book.
This was a reread, but what a great story. Reads like The Hobbit. Two weirdly sorta-racist lines about Africa and gender politics that would be a serious problem if the characters weren't rabbits.
Something special and unlike anything else I’ve read. Much more Beckett than most of Saunders, in a good way. With the time. The audiobook seems very cool.
A very fast read for its size. Breezy and charming and heterogeneric in a fun way (epistolary, broadly speaking). Reminded me of Connie Willis.
Excellent prose, real world, some good twists. If I had read this in a classroom, I would have loved to untangle it.
Longer than the first two books in the series, and better. Le Guin is gifted at coming up with and inhabiting points of view that other authors would miss, and of making those perspectives living, breathing, real. Excellent stuff.
Truly excellent, in a way that makes other books look bad. Le Guin’e writing is compassionate and pitiless, her worlds are fascinating and well-realized, and her books are a joy to read even when they’re filled with despair.
I really liked it! Compulsively readable and brisk, a good magic system, characters with distinct voices, and an interesting plot. Not quite as good as _Babel_, a book that it invites comparison to due to its subject matter, but a very good execution of what it's doing. Fans of Naomi Novik and R. F. Kuang will probably like this.
Was happy to wrap this one up. It does feel like Sanderson has momentum building with his whole Cosmere thing - worlds leaking into one another and so forth - which is neat. Some good characterization here, too. Worth reading.
Listened to the audiobook of this and liked it a good deal more than the first time I read it. Very good space opera, thoughtful, good prose, cool world.
Overall, pretty good! Read it in a day, so definitely propulsive. I think it’s the weakest of the three, and the ending drags a bit, but it’s worth reading if you like Wizard Stuff, and I love Wizard Stuff.
Read this one more or less in one sitting. Very good. Novik is excellent at folklore and one of the best out there at Wizardry. I am a big fan!
Very solid, well executed, charming and light and a breeze of a read. I want more books about building places, thank you.
Liked this one a lot. So-so prose, very believable characters, a god central metaphor and plot, very readable. Would recommend.
I may come back to this rating later depending on how much I end up thinking about this book. It’s good - lots of well-drawn and distinct characters, a fully realized world, and solid prose. The mood is anxious and repressive throughout, with just a few bright spots, but that’s the goal, I think. A good execution of a good idea, and the fractured form works well.
Liked it a bit more than the first in the series. Maybe it isn’t fair, but it’s hard not to compare this to Babel, which does more interesting stuff with its magic.
Interesting magic system, compelling enough plot, but the prose didn’t particularly impress me. Feels a bit like something Brandon Sanderson would write early in his career. Not bad!
Enjoyed it well enough. A lot of cussing, and it had this thing where everything was constantly at an emotional fever pitch, which I think is what the author is going for but I found a little tiring. I did like it enough to read the next book, though.
Unrated
I'd give it 4.5 stars if I could. A significant improvement in several ways over the first book in the series - the tone is more varied and the characters come through more clearly. Good stuff.
I liked his more recent book more! Had some trouble getting into this one - lots of POV characters with a pretty loose plot made it a bit hard to follow. Some great moments, though, and certainly worth a read.
Good enough that I read it in a day, but I don’t think I’ll be thinking about it all that much now that I’m done. Good writing, good descriptions, overall solid
Not the most ambitious book I’ve read this year, but enjoyable, with great characterization and some really wonderful and memorable moments (there’s a bit where the main character confronts her fairy godmother that was extremely effective). Great worldbuilding, great magic, and an overall joy. If I could ding it for anything, it’s that Kingfisher’s romances tend to be a bit samey, having read a bunch of her novels in the past six months.
Not a bad book, but Scalzi’s voice just really rubs me the wrong way. It’s glib in a way where most all of his characters sound the same, to my ear, and the way they sound is Clever and Cool and Relateable. I did like this better than _Redshirts_, and by all reports Scalzi is a great guy and a lot of folks love his stuff. Guess it’s just not for me!
A bit disjointed, and difficult to get to know the characters. Cool world building though.
This will certainly be nominated for the Hugo this year and may win it.
Really it's probably 4 stars because it's an imperfect novel - the main plot didn't grab me as thoroughly as some of the others in this series - but there's enough here, in terms of prose and in terms of interest, to warrant all five.
Just an absolutely tremendous collection of short stories. 3 or 4 of these are unimpeachable classics.
Quite liked this! Will be reading the next few in the series, in all likelihood. Sharp characters, good style, overall very enjoyable.
Terrific. Very cool, interesting, thoughtful, and hopeful future tech. One of the best “first contact” stories I’ve read. Reminds me in a good way of _A Deepness in the Sky_, but more ecological. I’d teach it in a class with _Ministry for the Future_.
Some interesting stuff here, marred by a sickeningly obvious mystery that the should-be-smart detective doesn't figure out until it's beating her in the face. McGuire is hit or miss for me generally -- she's got some good prose and some good worldbuilding -- but maybe it's a mistake to read a bunch of these in a row.
Definitely a weird book to read knowing it came out just before COVID. I listened to this one as an audiobook and the performance was good. The worldbuilding here is solid, the tech is interesting, and the characters are lively and nicely individuated. A Good Book imo.
Not the best book I've read this year - slight in the way that many of Kingfisher's books are, in fact - but a perfect execution of a novel premise. Kingfisher's novels are generally like candy bars, and this one's a terrific gingerbread.
The weakest of the first three, even though it's in some ways more ambitious than the second one. The conceit is starting to wear thin, and the intergalactic threat wasn't super interesting. Still a good audiobook, though.
The best of the series, I think. Real stakes, and the world starts to come together. Still mostly annoying tho
Quite good. Thoughtfully written, with strong prose. Listened to the audiobook while driving.
Better than some of the others in the series. At the end of the day, though, I think my problems with the series have more to do with McGuire as an author than with anything else -- I have the same complaints about the Wayward Children series.
Outstanding, one of the best books I've read this year. Probably should win the Hugo. Good characters, cool world, thoughtful about language and colonialism and empire. Pairs very well with A Memory Called Empire. I liked it enough that I'm going to read Kuang's other trilogy now.
Good but not great, the energy here flagged a bit for me as compared to the first two in the book. That said, I've read seven of these books in the last week, so...
Very much liked this book! Great dialogue, thrilling plot, good characters. The prose itself didn't blow me away, but there were a few lines that were especially great.
Solid, and sets up the last book in the series well. Very readable.
A bit muddled, I thought, relative to the rest of the series, and I found myself flagging a bit for the first time here. Honestly, I think I would have preferred a novel focused on Laurence and Temeraire carving out a home in a remote Australian valley. Gimme chapters about cattle husbandry and cave carving, please.
A delight! The journal device works very well, and Wilde's voice is bright and enjoyable. The world is very cool - the faeries feel otherworldly in the way I really want from a story like this, and I was engaged enough to read it in more or less one sitting. Loved the footnotes, which really add to the book.
Pretty good! The central plotline is compelling, and we get one of the better new dragons in this one. I liked it. My favorite ending in the series, I think.
This one is pretty good. It's different, lots of HGttG references, and it makes the world feel bigger in a positive way.
More of the same from the first book. Some decent first contact stuff. Compelling enough, good problem-solving-style stuff, but nothing amazing. A very solid audiobook, though, good for a long drive.
Liked the beginning quite a bit, was hoping for more space station stuff and less swords-and-sorcery. An abrupt ending, but I did end up sitting and reading the second half in one stretch. I probably won't read the rest of the series -- there's like 21 books in it! -- but might reread Downbelow Station or Cyteen.
Stronger than most of the series! The change of scenery is good for Aaronovitch and the series; adds some well-needed variety.
Really quite good, an excellent dessert to a terrific series.
Good enough that I kept reading, for sure. Outside of my normal wheelhouse inasmuch as it's Napoleanic historical naval fiction with dragons, but I enjoyed it. Novik's characters have vibrant, distinct voices and her worlds feel lived in and interesting. It's not quite Scholomance, but it's good.
I liked it. Very zippy, reads very fast. Not doing a lot that feels New, but it's solid.
An excellent ending to a compulsively readable series. Novik's gift for dialogue is on full display, her characterization is on point, and her world feels rich and full and lived-in. Good, good stuff.
A solid uptick from the previous book, this one wraps up a lot of threads from earlier in the series and is pretty thrilling. Good stuff, works on the nerves.
I enjoyed it well enough, but the constant state of panic was a little bit wearing. There wasn't a moment for characters to take a breath, really, so I didn't feel like I got much out of it from a character perspective, and the plot itself wasn't terribly gripping. Some good set pieces, though. I probably won't read anything else by Bennett, but if you really like Brandon Sanderson you'll probably like him.
As good as this series gets, imo; if you don't like this one, don't keep reading, and if you do like this one you've got a whole bunch of other good books. As ever, Aaronovitch's control over his characters' voices is masterful, the plot propels, the world is charming, and the mystery works. I like it!
Terrific! Outstanding! A wonderful collection of wonderful stories. Great prose, great premises, terrific characters. Strongly recommend.
Really good! Did exactly what it set out to do. I was even happy with the ending, which isn't usually the case for me with Gaiman's work.
Liked this a bit better than the first in the series. Read it in San Diego while traveling, which gives it a nice flavor in my memory. Heavier on the will-they-won't-they romance than I usually go for (which is true for most of the series!), but I found it compelling (if a little bit repetitive in the dynamics of the relationship).
Loved it! Great dialogue, great voice, interesting characters, interesting world. Strongly recommend to those who love London and/or magic.
She's a half-fae changeling, she's had a hard time, and she wants coffee. It's fine.
Five stars to the first 2/3, three stars to the last third. Good, chunky SF with big ideas and long chapters about orbital mechanics, which I liked. This is the Stephenson novel that feels most like a Kim Stanley Robinson novel, which I also liked. Just wasn't crazy about the last act.
Does exactly what it's shooting for and even overshoots the mark in places (in a positive way). Cool magic, cool world, characters with distinct personalities and voices who jump off the page, and propulsive plotting. Like much of Novik's writing, I couldn't put it down. Jumping straight from this to Uprooted.
Good first half, very good second half. Everything set up very well, and all in an interesting world.
Pretty good! Pretty sad. Reminds me of George Saunders in a good way. I need more optimism in my imaginary futures, though, this felt too real to be fun.
My favorite of the White Rat books. Not perfect, but very well executed and enjoyable. Read it on a plane.
First half dragged a bit; second half was terrific. Murderbot's voice remains engaging and endearing, and the world Wells has sketched out keeps me in. I will be buying the next Murderbot book for sure.
Slight and fast and a lot of fun. Worthwhile for sure.
Pretty good overall. A rare pleasure to read a Stephenson novel where no underage girls get naked or are raped. Propulsive plot, good characters with distinct voices, good Big Ideas from a sf perspective.
Totally fine. Some good characterization. Dull prose, cool world. Sanderson populates his books with types and sometimes those types do interesting things. Will be reading the rest of the series.
Actually quite good! Things have picked up by this point. I do wish Sanderson had a _bit_ less angst, I find it kinda dull, and all of his characters kind of have the feeling of, like, Barbie dolls with faces drawn on in crayon, but the world is cool and the plot propels.
The best of the series, I think. Delivers on the promise of the first two books. The prose is a bit sharper, too.
I liked it quite a bit, though less than _Goon Squad_. Rec'd if you like that one. Favorite chapter was the email threads near the end.
Better than the first, I think. A bit less angst, a bit more meat. Good stuff, very hard to put down.
Not much of anything to this. It's interesting and fleshes out the world a bit more, but it's _very_ short.
Had to read this one for work. It could have been worse!
Terrific stuff. Great prose, good characterization, a cool premise. Good.
I've thoroughly enjoyed Older's previous work, but the prose in this outing is a step above. Over and over again I found myself pausing, pleased, over particularly apt turns of phrase -- lines like "Mossa, appearing unmoved by her sartorial panache", feel natural in her characters' voices and are thoroughly enjoyable. The world is suggested rather than sketched (which makes sense for a novella) but is intriguing and exciting, the plot + stakes work, and the romance is engaging. Good stuff, strong recommendation!
Not bad, read it quickly, but my least favorite of Kuang's books that I've read. I may revise this after reading the others.
Cool world, but the pacing was off for me. Feelings seemed to kinda just HAPPEN instead of evolving organically. This was most powerfully true for the daughter, whose affection for her Mama felt pretty contrived.
Listened to the audiobook, was very impressed. This was terrific - excellent worldbuilding, good pacing, good characterization. Strongly recommend.
Not a quick read, but a very good one. Extremely funny satire - I loved the potshots at Clarence Thomas. The voice has some of that Hysterical Contemporary Realism that I often like quite a bit.
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Enjoyed this one, read it pretty quickly. Good, chunky high fantasy with good rule-based magic.
Liked it well enough! Good characterization, thrilling plot, one moment that gave me goosebumps.
Very good! I liked it a bit less than I liked the first one, but the politicking and the intrigue is definitely compelling.
This book does exactly what it's trying to do. The prose sings when it needs to and nails that noir feeling, the world feels lived-in, and the characters compel. Very good stuff for fans of detective fiction and SF.
Not a flawless book but a damned good one, with a couple of chapters that really stood out. Ambitious and interesting, and very well-written.
Good, compelling stuff. Made me keep reading. Something about Novik's prose, plotting, and ear for dialogue makes her writing very hard for me to put down.
Slight but solid, some good suggestions of worldbuilding. Overdoes it a bit on the foreshadowing given the length of the text, but it ties together well and the ending is good. I don't need more from this world, but it's great as a novelette.
Listened to this as an audiobook. I liked it enough to listen to the next couple of books. It's fine. Everyone kind of talks with the same voice - he's a bit like Andy Weir in that way - but it works with the premise, so that's fine. The book is at its best when problems are being solved and at its worst when it's wallowing in Scalzi-style pop culture witticisms.
I liked this. It's short but not slight, and has a few moments that stick out very clearly in my mind as I think through it. The characters felt real, the structure works, and it's overall a pretty good book.
Started kinda slow, but I ended up really enjoying it - once I got a third of the way in or so, I couldn't put it down.
Torn between 4 and 5 stars here primarily due to consistency; some of these stories are definitely 5 stars, especially the first and the last ones. Full fledged fairy tale logic on display here, which really worked for me. I loved this book and would recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who enjoyed, say, Her Body And Other Parties.
There's good here, but Aaronvitch could have used an American editor. A lot of the Britishisms that are very charming and good in the mainline RoL novels ring false here. That said, I was into the central mystery and I read the whole thing in a day. Not bad, but not as good as the mainline series imo.
I should have liked this more than I did, but it kinda left me cold. The pacing's a bit off in the first half, I think, and the world feeds muddled rather than expansive. The characterization that comes across in the latter half definitely helps, but I don't think I'd recommend this one whleheartedly.
Zippy and enjoyable. Weirdly feels like the fourth book in a series, but I can't find any evidence of any other books with these characters. Liked the stuff about the ship.
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