Weekly Roundup

This week I’ve finished four books, started three more, and read one story from The Big Book of Modern Fantasy. Read on to find out more!

This Week’s Posts:

Thursday: Book Review: The Outside

This Week’s Reading:

This week I read the novella Inside-man by K.J. Parker. As a loose follow up to Prosper’s Demon I found it to be fairly enjoyable, if not quite as good.

I also finished The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell. It’s one of those books I can appreciate for what it is, without it being quite for me. Characters and themes were great, but the plot is pretty loose and sprawling.

As well as that I read in its entirety Reaper by Will Wight, the ninth book in the Crease series. It was pretty good! I do find myself less into these progression fantasy series once the protagonists and foes get past a certain power level, but Wight manages to put enough pizzazz into things to keep it interesting and even tense. As usual, interesting things are teased for the next book.

I made a brief start to The Sea Watch by Adrian Tchaikovsky, book six of the Shadows of the Apt series; and a more substantial start to both Sistersong by Lucy Holland and Mickey7 by Edward Ashton.

And lastly, I finished another SPFBO finalist too. Busy week!

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.

The Origin of the Birds by Italo Calvino: This evocative story uses the unique story device of having the narrator describe how events might better be represented as a comic strip – and somehow works despite the strangeness. I didn’t quite understand the story as a whole though, and the characters were fairly enigmatic. 3.5/5

Movie/TV Thoughts:

Nothing this week again – Ghostbusters was a bust, but with more free time next week I hope to watch the new Spiderman movie.

Next Week’s Posts:

Hopefully next week I’ll have either my The Old Drift or The Scarab Path reviews done, and also a list of my favourite reads of the year!

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

This week I picked up two books from the top row of my TBR shortlist, The Sea Watch and Sistersong.

Here’s a link to my last Weekly Roundup, if you wish to compare the two (although you’ll quickly find they are the same!). The book in the top row with a blank cover is an arc of The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart, and the book in the third row with a blank cover is A Man of Shadows by Jeff Noon.

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