I missed the target last month–again. This time due to library due dates and poor time management. Mostly the latter. So, naturally, I take on a list that’s likely physically impossible. It makes sense…really. Okay, it doesn’t. But I’m feeling aspirational.
Book of Spores
edited by Frasier Armitage, Eleni Argyró, Adrian M. Gibson & Ed Crocker
ACROSS DIMENSIONS, IT CREEPS AND CONSUMES. Hidden in the vaults of a world-spanning library lie the records of a mysterious book, one made of mold and magic. Varied accounts of its existence remain scattered throughout the multiverse, but when an archivist attempts to bring its pages together, she will learn how dangerous a book—and her own ambitions—can be . . . A mind-altering fantasy, science fiction, and horror anthology, The Book of Spores collects seventeen strange stories by authors from the FanFiAddict book blog and SFF Addicts Podcast, including M. J. Kuhn, Greta Kelly, Adrian M. Gibson, Krystle Matar, C.M. Caplan, Emma L. Adams, Ryan Kirk, Kaden Love, Adam Bassett, Tom Bookbeard, A.J. Calvin, Harry Chilcott, C.J. Daley, Tori Gross, D.B. Rook, Eleni Argyró, Frasier Armitage, and Will Swardstrom. Prepare for your imagination to be colonized by The Book of Spores. Also features an introduction by the father of fungalpunk, Adrian M. Gibson.
I’ve got about 100 pages left to go, and this book is just…stunning. I’m not sure what to say beyond this. Is every story a winner? No. But all of them have something to make a reader excited.
An Egg Is Quiet
by Dianna Aston, illustrated by Sylvia Long
This stunningly beautiful and wonderfully informative book from award-winning artist Sylvia Long and author Dianna Hutts Aston makes for a fascinating introduction to the vast and amazing world of eggs. Featuring poetic text and an elegant design, this acclaimed book teaches children countless interesting facts about eggs. Full of wit and charm, An Egg Is Quiet will at once spark the imagination and cultivate a love of science.
Huh. This sounds interesting.
Out Law
by Jim Butcher
In a city that's just beginning to recover from the devastation caused by the Battle of Chicago, Harry Dresden is finally pulling himself together as well. He's ensconced in his own personal castle, healing his various wounds, and training an eager new apprentice. The last thing he wants is any trouble. But, as history has consistently--and quite annoyingly--shown, what Harry wants is rarely what Harry gets.
It starts with a visit from Harry's most powerful frenemy, Gentleman John Marcone, Baron of Chicago. He needs Harry to assist in the redemption of an underling who's looking to go straight. And since Harry does kinda sorta owe Marcone for saving his life once (stupid honorable debt!), it's not a request he can refuse. He'll just wish he had.
Because this little favor is going to drag Harry into a fight he doesn't want on behalf of a lowlife he doesn't trust against an enemy more powerful and pestilent than he ever could've expected: an insatiable, demonic foe whom Harry himself may have created when he wiped out the vampires of the Red Court so long ago.
Before, all it wanted was blood. Now it wants the entire world . . .
There’s no way this matches Twelve Months, but who cares? It’s Dresden–bring it on.
The Photonic Effect
by Mike Chen
The starship Horizon’s crew spent ten years trapped across the expanse of space. Now they’re finally home—only it’s not the home they knew. The Cluster, once a peaceful coalition of planets, has fractured in the wake of civil war.
Captain Demora Kim wants nothing more than to protect her surviving crew. It’s what she owes them after years of instability and terror. But in times of war, no one is allowed neutrality.
After an attack on a mining station leaves thousands dead, Demi’s efforts become almost impossible. Every ship is needed on the frontline. Thrust deeper into a conflict she barely understands, Demi considers a bold choice—one that might keep her promises but tip the galaxy further into chaos.
This looks to be the most SF of Chen’s novels to date. I can’t wait to see what he’s got in store for us.
Nice Places
by Vincent Chu
When Georgie quits his job at Oats Technologies to travel the world for one year, he hopes to escape the daily existential discomfort of corporate life. But after a meditation guru robs him on his way to the airport, he awakens in a guest house in the rundown yet vibrant Panhandle neighborhood of his own city.
Alone with his phone and a desperate urge to assure his friends and family all is well, Georgie shares a photo of "authentic" boat noodles. To his surprise, everyone loves the post and believes he is overseas. Ant, a mixed media artist from Berlin, proposes a collaboration. With her vision and the help of a charming cast of guests and locals, Georgie's unlikely adventures unravel in ways he never imagined.
Chu wrote one of my favorite short story collections a few years ago, and I trust this novel is going to blow me away.
Kings of the Wyld
by Nicholas Eames
Clay Cooper and his band were once the best of the best, the most feared and renowned crew of mercenaries this side of the Heartwyld.
Their glory days long past, the mercs have grown apart and grown old, fat, drunk, or a combination of the three. Then an ex-bandmate turns up at Clay's door with a plea for help -- the kind of mission that only the very brave or the very stupid would sign up for.
It's time to get the band back together.
This month, our Fantasy Book Club pick is one of my all-time favorites. Yes! I have an excuse to re-read it!!
Robert B. Parker’s Booked
by Alison Gaylin
World famous author Melanie Joan Hall asks for Sunny's help in tracking down Book Babe, the screen-name of an enormously popular book reviewer, who has trolled her with a deeply insulting one-star review. This usually wouldn’t matter except that Book Babe has thousands of followers, and her unwarranted blast has Melanie's publisher threatening to pull all her books.
But Sunny's investigation reveals that the reviewer and Melanie have a rich history—in fact, she may even have good reason to hate the torn-up author. And when Book Babe suddenly turns up dead, casting Melanie as a possible suspect, Sunny finds herself in a complicated web, which, if she can't untangle fast enough, might just put a target on her back.
I’m not sure I need more Melanie Joan Hall in my life. But I’m looking forward to Gaylin proving me wrong.
Three Hitmen and a Baby
by Rob Hart
Assassins Anonymous isn't just a weekly recovery meeting for reformed killers—it's also a family.
When Valencia receives troubling news that her brother has gone missing, she wants rush off to LA to find him. But she can’t bring her baby girl, Lucia. Enter the other members of Assassins Anonymous—Mark, Astrid, and Booker, who offer to watch the toddler while she's gone. After all, they're three of the deadliest, most highly skilled people on the planet; what could go wrong?
Turns out, a lot. Shortly after Valencia leaves, Mark is summoned to the lair of Zmeya, a Russian mob boss calling in a deadly favor—she wants him to kill Astrid, his protege and friend. Mark refuses, but Zmeya reveals that she knows the identity of Mark’s ex-girlfriend . . . and his son. Either Astrid goes, or they do.
Meanwhile, Lucia spikes a dangerously high fever, and when Booker and Astrid take her to urgent care, they realize too late, that their fabricated identities are a real liability. Also, they don't know Valencia’s last name, let alone Lucia's. They can hardly blame the staff for calling the NYPD.
Suddenly the splintered group is on the run from both the Russian mob and the police, dodging bad guys and do-gooders while trying to find refuge in a city full of surveillance cameras—all without killing anyone. That is, until Zmeya captures Sara and Bennett, and Mark is ready to throw his sobriety out the window.
Hart’s series about reformed killers has been a blast so far, just going from the title, that’ll continue. Russian mobs, police, and a sick baby. A winning combination to be sure.
Starship Troopers
by Robert A. Heinlein
Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids.
Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job...
The SF Club pick for the month. I trust this’ll be much better than the movie (which was entertaining enough)
The Best Dog in the World: Essays on Love
edited by Alice Hoffman
Anyone who has ever been fortunate enough to share their life with a dog knows the experience is both profound and transformative. Here, in this charming collection of essays, fourteen celebrated authors share unforgettable tales of the dogs who left their pawprints on their hearts.
With contributions from Isabel Allende, Chris Bohjalian, Bonnie Garmus, Roxane Gay, Emily Henry, Ann Leary, Tova Mirvis, Jodi Picoult, Elizabeth Strout, Amy Tan, Adriana Trigiani, Nick Trout, Paul Yoon, and Laura Zigman, The Best Dog in the World captures the full range of the canine-human connection, from the joy of welcoming a new puppy to the heartache of saying goodbye to a beloved friend.
A love letter to the loyal companions who enrich our lives and teach us about empathy, joy, and unconditional love, this anthology is the perfect gift for dog lovers everywhere, offering a blend of laughter, tears, and inspiration that will resonate with anyone who has been fur-ever touched by the love of a dog.
This book just looks like it’s going to break my heart–and make it grow three sizes.
First Mage on the Moon
by Cameron Johnston
Ella Pickering is drowning in debt. Once a Unity skymage trained to make aerial supply runs in the great war with the Ranneas Empire, following a crash she now uses a wheelchair and works gruelling shifts making magical weapons in the Unity workshops, thinking of better days.
One night Ella witnesses an experiment by engineer Jackan Grissom go awry. His device morphs into a crude rocket blasting skywards before falling into the war’s spell-ravaged No Man’s Land. But this inspires a dangerous dream: could such a device reach the moon – the forbidden home of the gods? Could they go and beg them to stop the war?
They will need help, but as more folk get involved in their blasphemous plot, can they keep it under wraps? Can magic get them to the moon? Or will their heresy lead them to the gallows?
What a strange idea. How did no one think of this before?
Remington Platypus
by Steve Nash
Remington Platypus is many things: badger, detective, Platypus by name, but not by nature. When a grotesque body turns up in the city, a fusion of multiple species, Frankensteined together into something that should never have existed. He knows he can’t look the other way. Someone is making monsters. His boss wants him to walk away. The Murder wants him gone. Their syndicate of crows controls half of the city. In the shadows, the Rev, their enigmatic raven leader, watches. Silent. Patient. And far too powerful. Remington has never been good at playing it safe. But when nothing adds up, and no one is who they seem, who do you trust? In a city of fur, feathers, and fangs, where predators set the rules and prey vanish without a trace, Remington is about to learn that some monsters aren’t born, they’re made.
I’ve heard only good things about this–I’m eater to try it for myself.
The Book With No Pictures
by B. J. Novak
You might think a book with no pictures seems boring and serious. Except . . . here’s how books work. Everything written on the page has to be said by the person reading it aloud. Even if the words say . . .
BLORK. Or BLUURF.
Even if the words are a preposterous song about eating ants for breakfast, or just a list of astonishingly goofy sounds like BLAGGITY BLAGGITY and GLIBBITY GLOBBITY.
Cleverly irreverent and irresistibly silly, The Book with No Pictures is one that kids will beg to hear again and again. (And parents will be happy to oblige.)
This should be fun.
Cherry Baby
by Rainbow Rowell
Everybody knows that Cherry's husband, Tom, is in Hollywood making a movie . . .
Almost nobody knows that he isn't coming home.
Tom is the creator of Thursday—a semi-autobiographical webcomic that's become an international phenomenon.
Semi-autobiographical. That means there's a character in this movie based on Cherry . . . "Baby."
Wide-hipped, heavy-chested, double-chinned Baby.
Cherry never wanted this. No fat girl wants to see herself caricatured on the page—let alone on the big screen. But there's no getting away from it. Baby looks so much like Cherry that strangers recognize her at the grocery store.
While her soon-to-be ex-husband is in Los Angeles getting rich and famous and being the internet's latest boyfriend, Cherry is stuck in Omaha taking care of the dog he always wanted and the house they were going to raise a family in . . . and wondering who she's supposed to be without him.
Cherry had promised to love Tom through thick and thin.
She'd meant it.
One night, Cherry decides to leave all her problems, including Tom's overgrown puppy, at home. She ventures out to see her favorite band play her favorite album . . . and someone recognizes her from across the room.
Russ Sutton knew Cherry when she was a young art student with a fondness for pin-up dresses and patent leather heels. Before Tom.
Russ knows Cherry. He likes Cherry.
And best of all . . . he's never heard of Thursday.
I actually read this one already. It was a bit more…explicit than I appreciate, but it’s funny, sweet, and heartfelt.
Go Gentle
by Maria Semple
Adora Hazzard has it all figured out. A Stoic philosopher and divorcée, she lives a contented life on New York City’s Upper West Side. Having discovered that the secret to happiness is to desire only what you have, she’s applied this insight to blissful effect: relishing her teenage daughter, the freedom of being solo, and her job as a moral tutor for the twin boys of an old-money family. She’s even assembled a "coven"—like-minded women who live on the same floor in the legendary Ansonia—and is making active efforts to grow its membership. Adora’s carefully curated life is humming along brilliantly until a chance meeting with a handsome stranger.
Soon, her ordered world is upended by black-market art deals, secret rendezvous, and international intrigue . . . and her past—which she has worked so hard to bury—lands like a bomb in her present. Inflamed by unquenchable desire, Adora finds herself a woman wanting more: and she’ll risk everything to get it.
Today Will Be Different showed me that Semple won’t knock it out of the park at every at-bat, but I’m still looking forward to this.
I probably won’t have time for these, but if I hit a hot streak:
Eyes of Empire
by JCM Berne
A baby dreadnought is terrorizing two star systems. A new wormhole has been opened, a new planetary system revealed, populated by a strange and impossible race. A mad god is on the loose. The il’Drach have destroyed an entire planet, and are on their way to Wistful. Rohan just wants a peaceful day of work and a decent cup of coffee. But if he doesn’t handle the dangers facing his friends, his system, and his sector of the galaxy, who will? And if he DOES . . . what price will he pay?
I got hung up trying to write a post about the previous book in the series, and got stalled out in my reading. I need to catch up on this series.
The Brothers McKay
by Craig Johnson
When Pepper McKay, one of the most hated men in Absaroka County, is found murdered on his ranch in Crazy Woman Canyon, suspects aren’t in short supply. But Sheriff Walt Longmire’s attention is on those who had gathered for a family meeting that evening, McKay’s very different sons: a smooth-talking charmer, a cosmopolitan journalist, a reclusive monk, and a half-Native ranch hand who keeps the place running. Each had a motive. Each claims he’s innocent.
As Walt investigates what happened that night at the O-Kay Lodge, he’s pulled into a tangle of old grudges and long-buried secrets. Then the case takes a sharp turn: a second body surfaces, and a wildfire tears through the canyon, trapping Walt and forcing him into a fight for his life as both the killer and the elements close in.
Just because of the release date (May 26), I don’t think I’ll actually get to this. But, maybe. I don’t know why Walt’s not on the search for his Aunt–but I assume Johnson has a plan.
We Be Dragons
by Michael Weitz
It's 1986 and John Brewer spends his days working and saving for college. His weekends, though, are filled with terrifying monsters, deadly battles, and dark mysteries as he leads his friends through an epic Dungeons & Dragons adventure.
But life outside the game is far more complicated. A horrific farming accident puts people on edge; Henley is a demanding boss hell-bent on making John's life miserable; rancid small-town rumors create suspicion, and a local evangelist believes D&D is "the devil's work."
With both of his worlds-real and imaginary-under attack, will John find the courage to fight back? Is he willing to put his very life on the line?
We Be Dragons is a story about friendship, standing tall, and a D&D adventure that takes readers to a world where fighting for what's right is what life is all about.
I predict good things from this book, I just need to find a way to squeeze it in. It probably won’t be soon–but I could surprise myself.
(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)
