Weekly Roundup

This week I finished two books, started two more, and read one short story from The Big Book of Modern Fantasy. I also posted two reviews! Read on to find out more.

This Week’s Posts:

Tuesday: Quick Book Review: One Day All This Will Be Yours

Thursday: Book Review: The House in the Cerulean Sea

This Week’s Reading:

This week I finished reading the Hexarchate Stories collection by Yoon Ha Lee. I imagine it’s a collection that could be quite divisive – there’s a lot of kind of slice of life-y type stories in there, which are nice if you want more detail on the protagonists and their lives, but don’t stand very well on their own, in my opinion. The last story is great, picking years after the events of the last book.

I read the entirety of The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley. It’s very intense, very dark, cleverly plotted, but is a little more heavy handed in its themes than I would have liked. I did enjoy it a lot, even if it had a lot of areas that left me conflicted. It’s going to make for an interesting review, that’s for sure!

I also sort of started reading Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon – sort of because I started it a couple of weeks back only to put it on hold pretty fast after I decided I didn’t want to balance it with SPFBO books. I’m back on it now, and enjoying it for the most part. It’s a standalone epic fantasy which balances modern writing styles and sensibilities with a more traditional story, so I’m intrigued to find out how it develops.

And because apparently I can’t stop myself from picking up new books at the moment, I started reading The Liar of Red Valley by Walter Goodwater, a deliciously dark and gothic novel about a young woman who inherits her mother’s ability to make lies come true – for a price.

The Blade of Tyshalle by Matthew Woodring Stover is still on hold for me – I needed a bit of a change of speed after finishing my SPFBO reading, but I hope to get back to this either next week or the week after.

As I said, I’ve finished my SPFBO reading for the first phase – I’ll not update on this until I start reading for the next phase.

The Slow Read Through The Big Book Of Modern Fantasy

In which I read and review at least one short story a week from The Big Book of Modern Fantasy, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer.

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (excerpt) by Amos Tutuola: Unfortunately I gave up on reading this one half way through. The writing has an almost stream of consciousness feel to it which I struggled with.

Movie/TV Thoughts:

No movies this week, although I did finish Season 2 of Future Man on Amazon Prime, a time travelling comedy series. While the first season was clearly riffing on Back to the Future, Terminator, and other stories about travelling to the past to change the future, the second season instead looks to the far future, with a setup reminiscent of The Time Machine – and any other number of dystopia/utopia tropes. As before, this series is crude and cruel to its protagonist, but there’s a charm to it that keeps me coming back. I love that Wolf continues to find a passion for anything he puts his mind to, and there were some clever sci-fi twists that I enjoyed. I think, as a whole, I enjoyed Season 2 a little more than the first season. Next week, Shang Chi thoughts!

Next Week’s Posts:

About this time last year I posted my favourite series list, so I figure it’s time for an update! That post will likely go out on Monday or Tuesday, so check it out to see how things have changed. I don’t have a lot of reviews ready yet, but I’ll hopefully have my double Patternmaster/Africanfuturism anthology review ready to go.

Next Week’s TBR Shortlist (Not including SPFBO books):

This week I picked up The Light Brigade from the top row of my TBR shortlist.

Here’s a link to my last Weekly Roundup, if you wish to compare the two. The book in the top left is Far From the Light of Heaven by Take Thompson, and the book in the top right is In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire. With three books currently on the go, and the likelihood of me getting a hotly anticipated new arc next week, it’s unlikely I’ll be getting to any of these books next week, but you never know!

As usual, let me know if there’s anything there you’d recommend!