• Finished Sandra Newman’s Julia - retelling Orwell’s 1984 from this character’s perspective, and I ended up re-reading the Orwell original in parallel with it. Julia adds a great deal of texture and additional layers to the original, whilst staying extremely faithful to it at least for the first half. In the third quarter, Newman takes the plot in some new directions that I can imagine some purists may object to insofar as they could be seen as diluting Orwell’s message. However, this is still entirely consistent and, once this extention has taken place Newman concludes her tale in a way that feels absolutely true to Orwell’s style. Overall, very impressive.
• Currently reading T. Kingfisher’s Nettle & Bone. I have read a couple of this author’s other books and found them engaging and enjoyable, if rather too similar to each other, so had some idea what to expect here. In fact this is surprisingly different to either of the others. Still fairly engaging, but the deliberate ‘fairy tale’ setting of this one seems a bit inconsistently applied and is leaving me rather distant from the world of the book. I appreciate that this is not the aim of the tale, but more texture and world building would keep me more involved. At the two-thirds point things are dragging a bit. However, I am enjoying it in general and it makes its points clearly enough.

Almost done with Forsyth’s The Dogs of War, good book.

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

Walkaway by Cory Doctorow. Half way through and it’s fun. I normally read nonfiction so it’s been a nice change of pace.

I am about half way through Look to Windward by Iain Banks.

I find this one of the most depressing books in the Culture series as it deals with loss, grief to the point of suicide, the trauma of war lasting way beyond the war, intervention by a super power, and a rigid caste system. Its obviously heavily influenced by the Gulf War. Most of what it has to say is unlikely to be new on these topics to most readers but it does say it without being too heavy handed, most of the time.

The dirigible behemoth creatures are a delight.

I finished up VE Schwab 's A Darker Shade of Magic series reread and have been reading the first sequel book The Fragile Threads of Power. I’m almost halfway through it now and it’s pretty enjoyable. Definitely slower paced than her first series but seems like it’s setting up a more complex story

The most recent Ant-Man movie had a subplot where Scott Lang had written a book called Look Out For The Little Guy. Marvel actually released it and so I read that. Other than a few moments that were a bit too one the nose as being references to moments in the movies, it was a pretty enjoyable read.

Beyond that, I had paused The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher to read the Ant-Man book, and I should have that finished very soon and on to the novella Warriorborn to get ready for the new book out on the 7th. That said, I’ll probably read Travis Baldree’s Bookshops and Bonedust first since it comes out the same day.

Thin Air by Richard K. Morgan. Loving it.

I’m reading two right now. The Children God Forgot by Graham Masterton and The Woman in Black by Susan Hill.

Neither of these are technically books but they both tell a story.

Worm by wildbow is a finished web serial that follows a troubled teenage girl who can control bugs and how she becomes disillusioned with society. There’s so much more to it but I genuinely cannot describe the plot without spoilers in less than a few pages. It isn’t perfect but despite it’s extreme length (about 1.7mil words or about 4 ITs by Stephen King) this is my second time reading it and I still love it. Also super powers are semi-normal in this society but they are explicitly gained through incredibly traumatic “trigger events” and usually the people who get them are in situations where even suicide isn’t a viable escape option. Shit gets dark fast and many of the villains in the series are genuinely terrifying.

I’m also listening to an audio drama called the Magnus archives. You may have heard of Chekhov’s gun before; this is Chekhov’s firing squad. It follows the archivist, Johnathan Sims, and his readings of paranormal stories submitted to the archive by the public. He slowly starts to notice trends in the stories and connects them together bit by bit, completely changing his understanding of the world around him and himself. If you like horror and you like mystery this will be hard to put down. It feels as though the authors truly understand the base nature of fear.

Presently reading Fathers and Sons by Turgenev and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams.