20220521_154106 by Elizabeth Fitzgerald on 500px.com

I might have stopped blogging on EGE, but I've been doing these reports so long (and even before the blog), that it seemed a shame to stop. So.

My reading has definitely slowed up a whole lot this year. I'm doing my best to roll with that and have been mostly successful, especially since I don't have to worry about reviewing for EGE. It does mean that my TBR pile is creeping up again, especially with an influx of library books lately.

Mt TBR Status

Mt TBR @ 1 January 2022: 360
Mt TBR @ 30 April 2022: 390
Mt TBR @ 31 May 2022: 396

Items Read

38. Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. Science fantasy A violin instructor who made a deal with the devil must deliver the souls of seven other musical prodigies in order to save her own. She picks a transgender runaway as her final soul. Along the way, she also meets and falls in love with the alien captain of a starship masquerading as a doughnut shop. This is a Hugo nominee for Best Novel and is well deserved. There are some dark elements to the book, particularly in relation to Karina's experiences as a trans woman. Yet the book remains generally uplifting. It has been compared to the work of Becky Chambers and I can see why, though I think there are places where the author's lack of experience shows in comparison. However, the descriptions of music and the emotions it invokes was really quite beautiful.

39. The Cat Proposed by Dentou Hayane. Manga. LDUH book club pick. When a mortal man sees the true form of a bakeneko, they are forced into an engagement to protect the mortal. A sweet story, but ultimately didn't do a whole lot for me.

40. 12 Bytes by Jeanette Winterson. CanFem book club pick. A series of essays relating to artificial intelligence. I was impressed with the depth of the essays and the variety of perspectives and fields the author addressed. I also appreciated the distinctly feminist viewpoint. However, its failure to address the disabled criticisms of transhumanism was somewhat disappointing.

41. letters addressed to the fire by AppleJuiz. Bridgerton fanfic, Pen/Colin. AppleJuiz is hands down my favourite fanfic writer, so I was delighted to see them tackle this pair. Set post S2.

42. The Witch Who Courted Death by Maria Lewis. Modern fantasy. Book four in the Supernatural Sisters. When a medium's twin brother is assassinated and she barely escapes the attack, she must track down the only other person who escaped the same enemy: a witch who doesn't want to be found. A bit ridiculous in places, but fun and full of action. It was interesting to see a character who was both Indigenous and a witch -- it's not a combination I've seen before. The romance between the women was perhaps a touch underdone, but still very lovely.

43. The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi. Historical fantasy. First book in The Gilded Wolves trilogy. The deposed head of a magical house seeks to regain his inheritance by stealing from the organisation who deposed him. Technically a reread, but it has been a couple of years and I have read Six of Crows in the intervening time. This one draws a lot from that influence -- perhaps too much. But I do love a good heist.

44. The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi. Historical fantasy. Second book in The Gilded Wolves trilogy. Having thwarted the Fallen House, Sevarin and his team travel to Russia to seek out their hidden base. Sevarin was much harder to like in this book and the cracks in the team were quite well done. A bit predictable, however.

45. Brindlewood Bay by Jason Cordova. RPG. The player characters are a group of elderly women who belong to the Murder Mavens, a mystery book club. They have developed a reputation for solving crime, but are unaware the town in which they live harbours a dark secret. This is cosy crime meets cosmic horror. I'll soon be running a game for some friends, so it seemed like a good idea to read the rules first.

Acquisitions

Libby Lawrence is Good at Pretending by Jodi McAlister
Story Matrices: Cultural encoding and cultural baggage in science fiction and fantasy by Gillian Polack
Chaos on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer
This All Come Back Now edited by Mykaela Saunders
The Wailing Woman by Maria Lewis
Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart
Botanical Curses and Poisons by Fez Inkwright
Poison by Ben Hubbard
~~Brindlewood Bay by Jason Cordova~~