Quarter 3 Reading Recap
Hello everyone! Or anyone who is still kind enough to be still attempting to read my blog after all this time (hi mom?). It’s been a minute. I’ve gotten several posts halfway written and never finished, but it’s been BUSY days lately. I’ll give a bit of a recap in this post, which is going to cover all of what I’ve been reading in the last quarter. So this post is only like… 3 weeks late? But anyway, here is what I’ve been up to, reading-wise.
Imagine some hold music as I load Goodreads to see what I have, in fact, read in the last three months. Ah, here we go:
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I had this on my list to read, but was despairing of making time for it, because this is a chonky boi book. Nearly 1000 pages in my trade paperback edition, in fact. But it got on our book group list and everyone enjoyed it. We even watched the BBC miniseries for a movie night (the first 4 episodes anyway, we need to schedule a second movie night!). This alternate history follows the two men in the title through the early 1800’s in bringing back lost magic to Britain. The politics and interplay between all the characters was fantastic, and while Strange ended up being my favorite character he had stiff competition for the position. It took me almost a month to read this, and I carried it with me to JordanCon, and our family road trip from Utah to New York and back before I finished. It was all totally worth it though. Highly recommend this one, and it’s a stand alone!
The Next Person You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. I picked this up for a reading challenge thing. It was just meh. Felt like a money grab after The Five People You Meet in Heaven did so well. It had a few interesting points, but I just didn’t love it.
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. A fantastic read. I got this one as a free ebook from the Tor.com book group (which you should totally join, they have great free books every month). I loved it from page 1. Alternate earth in the 1950’s, a meteor takes out DC and sets off a global warming chain reaction. “We have to get off this planet!” is actually a great line in the book. The space program takes off, and Elma (our plucky MC) is in the computer pool (think Hidden Figures) and wants to become an astronaut. It’s fantastic, loved it. And it’s pretty short too.
The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal. Book 2 of the Lady Astronaut series, Elma is an astronaut and on a mission to Mars. Exciting things happen, people struggle, terrorists exist, and I love the story. Slightly longer than book 1, but not a lot. I read both of these first two in about a week.
The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal Book 3 of Lady Astronaut series, follows other things that are happening on the moon while Elma is off to Mars. Different MC obviously, since Elma can’t be in two places at once no matter how smart she is, but Nicole is a great lead and the story is awesome. Almost as much thriller as SciFi here. Quite a bit longer, but still fantastic; it took about a week to read.
Sunreach by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson. This is the first of the three Skyward Flight novellas. That are actually long enough that they’re basically novels themselves, but I hear it’s a branding thing. So this is what FM and the rest of Skyward Flight are up to while Spensa is off being… Spensa. The beginning is mostly concurrent with the end of Starsight, and includes my favorite thing ever: MORE SLUGS!! Jorgen’s trip to the caverns in Starsight leads them to bring a bunch of new slug friends up to Platform Prime, and they’re awesome. Different colors too, which have different abilities than our regular Doomslug. Fine, Happy, Chubs, Boomslug, and the rest are great additions and Janci Patterson did a fantastic job of the heavy lifting for these. I really love how they turned out. I was super lucky and got to read a post-beta draft and work on the gamma (proofreading) draft for this one.
Redawn by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson. As this book doesn’t come out until NEXT WEEK, I can’t say much about it, except it’s the second of the Skyward Flight novellas. It’s bigger, cooler, and sdjsojf more things that I can’t say. Because NDA’s are a thing. I also read both a post-beta draft and worked on the gamma (proofreading) draft for this book. So. Much. Fun.
Evershore by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson. See above, can’t really say anything. This will be out in December I hear. It’s my personal favorite of the three. I worked on both beta and gamma drafts for this.
Dawnshard by Brandon Sanderson. I got my physical copy a few months back and just took a day or two to read it. So fun, great story. First review I ever did on the blog here last year; I’m almost afraid to go back and read it.
Suddenly Hybrid: Managing the Modern Meeting by Joe Allen and Karin M. Reed. Beta/gamma combined at the last minute read. The next book my husband and his friend have coming out early next year. If you have lots of meetings, this is a good book for you.
Fool’s Errand by Robin Hobb, book 1 of the Tawny Man trilogy. Oh I loved being back with FitzChivalry Farseer (now known as Tom Badgerlock since Fitz is supposed to be dead). Also, the Fool in a different type of disguise. Lots of fun adventures in the cold northern parts of the Six Dutchies. Plenty of action but also lots of politics.
Golden Fool by Robin Hobb. Book 2 of the Tawny Man trilogy. Even MORE politics, with still action. Also, lots of magics going on here, plus some betrayals and plotting.
The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson. Book 4 in Mistborn Era 2. Beta read. I actually just finished it two days ago. It’s great, so much great. You’ll all see next year when it comes out.
Currently reading: Fool’s Fate by Robin Hobb Tawny Man book 3! Just started this one actually, it’s been sitting around judging me while I was beta reading. The first 100 pages are great!
Well, that was actually MORE than I thought I’d read in the last three months. Everything is just a blur of busy I guess! Some GREAT reads in here. In fact, only one that was sub-par. And I have a bunch more books that I can review too! Though next week I’ll probably write about the Dune movie; I’m super excited to see that.
If you’ve been still following along with this blog, thank you so much. I have apparently had the domain name for almost a year now (time to renew!) and I’ve had a lot of fun putting some stuff out there. I hope to be back to more regular postings now, but with Dragonsteel mini-Con coming up in one month and then the holidays things are always busy. I will do my best to find some time though, because this has been good for me. Even if no one else really reads it.
