Music Monday's originated at The Tattooed Book Geek's fantastic blog and has shown up hither, thither, and yon since then.
Just for funzies, I included one blatant lie in my comments below. Let me know if you can spot it!
Meanwhile, John Scalzi will be giving a talk at a local library. In case anyone wondered what I was going to be up to tonight.
Odds ‘n ends about books and reading that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
We start this week with the sad news that Thomas Perry died.
Publishers Weekly’s The 2025 Freedom to Read Issue is out, highlighting the local work being done on the book banning/library defunding/etc. front.
Banned Books Week Read-In—Libro.fm and Silent Book Club have paired up with nearly 450 independent bookshops and libraries to protest
Librarians Are Being Asked to Find AI-Hallucinated Books—Sigh. Of course they are.
But what about works that actually do exist? The Great Stories Are Out There—But We Need To Connect Creators To Audiences —”Reinforcing why indie storytellers and audiences must forge a new creative ecosystem together.”
HarperCollins to Reissue 35 ‘American Classics’—”HarperCollins has announced plans to “commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence” with its new American Classics series, to be published next spring…the series will feature 35 special-edition trade paperbacks of some of the most influential titles HC has put out since its 1817 founding.” You can see the list here. And, no, I will not be buying new copies of anything just because of the covers.
Horror Books to Read This Halloween Season—I won’t be reading any of these (no offense, Books of Brilliance), but I know some of you get into this kind of thing.
Thriller tropes: What are my favorites—a good overview of some big tropes
A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
SFF Addicts The Shifting Landscape of Epic Fantasy—Recorded live at WorldCon, this panel features George R.R. Martin, Robin Hobb, Brandon Sanderson, Rebecca Roanhorse and Ryan Cahill. I haven’t made it all the way through yet, but I’m really loving this discussion.
To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
Covenant’s End by Ari Marmell
Last Words by Michael Koryta
Time Salvager by Wesley Chu
And I mentioned the release of three books I remember having fun with: Hexomancy by Michael R. Underwood, The Scam by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg, and Yes, My Accent Is Real And Some Other Things I Haven’t Told You by Kunal Nayyar
This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
A Particularly Nasty Case by Adam Kay—a debut mystery from the doctor turned author. Looks promising.
Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Book of Anansi by Angie Thomas—Been wondering when we get this sequel. Looking forward to dipping back into this MG world.
Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach—”explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings”
The Summer War by Naomi Novik—”a young witch who has inadvertently cursed her brother to live a life without love must find a way to undo her spell.”
I Killed the King by Rebecca Mix, Andrea Hannah—YA Knives Out in a fantasy setting. Should be fun.
I’ve been thinking about this post since September of 2022, I just knew I couldn’t write about Be the Serpent without seeing what McGuire did next—my mind wouldn’t let me decide what I thought about it until then. And then after Sleep No More, I had to tackle The Innocent Sleep, and then…well, I kept getting distracted or busy. But I have to put something down about these three so I can intelligently talk about Silver and Lead, and I really want to do that. So, I’m trying a different kind of post than I’m used to.
Oh, I’m also suspending my typical no spoilers rule here. Read at your own risk, this is the only warning I’m giving.
Be the Serpent
DETAILS: Series: Toby Daye, #16 Publisher: DAW Publication Date: August 30, 2022 Format: Hardcover Length: 305 pg. Read Date: August 31, 2022-September 5, 2022; August 25-29, 2023
It felt like I was standing outside this scene and watching it unfold, like none of this had anything to do with me. Like I should have been able to smile politely, say, “No, thank you,” and walk away, leaving everything exactly as it was before I got out of bed this morning.
I don’t know how many friends of mine have stumbled on books 2 or 3 of this series and never kept going. Or stumbled and were pushed on (and were so glad they did). I sort of get that, but I didn’t have that reaction. I did stumble here on book 16, Be the Serpent. Obviously, by this point—it doesn’t matter, I’m going to shake it off and keep going. Toby, Tybalt, May, Quentin, and the rest (the list is getting ridiculously long) mean too much to me to be put off by one novel.
But I do have to wonder what was going on in McGuire’s mind for her to give us this book—I have no proof of this, but in my head-canon, she was so focused on the last pages of this novel and what she was setting up that she didn’t pay enough attention to the execution of this novel. That doesn’t sound like McGuire to me, but it’s the best I’ve got.
The opening is fantastic—and the way that Toby and Rayseline executed their plan was so well done, and the prospect of watching Raysel heal in the midst of Toby’s chaos seemed like a fun lark. And then the horrific happened—the scene where Toby finds Stacy’s kids dead or dying is possibly the most gut-churning thing she’s written (and that’s saying something)*
* If you want to argue that she’s topped that in some recent InCryptid novels, I won’t fight you.
The problems start a chapter or two after that. Once Toby realizes why Stacy killed her kids (because she’s not really Stacy, but Titania, realizing she’s Stacy all along. I don’t know a shorter way to describe it all), she sets out to destroy Titania—but she can’t. No matter how often she tells herself it’s not her, no matter that the “Stacy consciousness” tells Toby to do it, no matter how many frelling times she has that conversation with anyone (including herself several times)—Toby can’t just do it. That’s almost understandable.
But also, McGuire has to tell us several times how this whole thing is tearing Toby apart. But I honestly don’t “see” it happening. I hear about it—I see it when she’s interacting with Stacy’s surviving kids or husband. But otherwise? I really don’t.
I could’ve been satisfied with the ending had it ended 2 pages or so into the last chapter (because that was just a great moment).
But no…we’ve got to do the whole Titania comes back, puts the hurt on Toby, and then rewrites history—wiping Toby’s mind and rewriting her history—having (pretty quickly) found a loophole in Oberon’s decree (he must be pretty rusty from all the nothing he’s been up to for the last few centuries). Sure, the first two parts of that list were certain to happen eventually.
But I just hate, hate, hate the whole “we’ll rewrite history/perception/whatever” storyline. Buffy in the asylum, Picard’s whole other life in “The Inner Light” (although he at least starts off remembering reality), um…other examples I should have at hand, but don’t. At the time, I told friends (and maybe my readers in a WWW Wednesday post or a Saturday Miscellany) that I hate the ending, but trusted McGuire would make me come around to it in the next book (and prematurely resented her for making her eat my words).
In the end, that didn’t happen—I still am going to consider Be the Serpent as the low point of this series. However…I really liked the lemonade she turned this giant pile of lemons into. Which brings us to….
Sleep No More
DETAILS: Series: Toby Daye, #17 Publisher: DAW Publication Date: September 5, 2023 Format: Hardcover Length: 310 pg. Read Date: October 26, 2023-October 27, 2023; January 13-16, 2025
“Romantic love is not required to live a full and happy life, my seedlings,” Father had told us, watching carefully to be sure we took his message to heart, “but if you cannot love one who loves you truly in return, find friends, find companions, find people who will tell you the truths you cannot carry and unveil the lies you cannot see. Most of all, cleave to each other, for you will be the only sure support you have in all this world.”
We spend most of our time watching this Alternate Version of Toby make her way through this version of Faerie that we all can kind of recognize, but not really. A good deal of the “fun” of all this is seeing the ways that Titania’s rewriting of things is similar—but not quite—to our version of things.
Toby, for example, has all the niceness, the kindness, the happiness that we all know she’s capable of—but she rarely gets to express (or she can only express in certain ways). August is…wow. The best older sister, really (sure, it’d be better if she didn’t believe that changelings were lesser beings, but…at least she doesn’t treat them as trash). Quentin, on the other hand, is an entitled jerk.
Thankfully, we get to come into this world just before it starts unraveling, partially because of Toby. Even as she really doesn’t know what she’s doing (or who she is, most importantly), she keeps being Toby—which means taking apart the plans and machinations of her opponents. Everything I think McGuire got wrong in the previous book, she did right here. We even get to revisit some of the bigger moments of the past.
I really liked the story; I thought McGuire executed it as close to flawlessly as is possible. I liked the conclusion—it was exciting, tense, and you honestly (especially now) had no idea how things were going to turn out. Sure, we know that bigger and worse things are on the horizon than we just dealt with—but okay. That’s pretty much par for the course.
Best yet? October and August have a relationship now. Simon and Toby are closer than they were. Yes, things are messed up ,and everyone will need to recover and reset. But…we’ve gained a lot.
Sleep No More
DETAILS: Series: Toby Daye, #18 Publisher: DAW Publication Date: October 24, 2023 Format: Hardcover Length: 314 pg. Read Date: October 31-November 1, 2023; January 24-31, 2025
Love is a knife forever suspended an inch from your heart, and if it falls or you stumble into it, you can all too easily find yourself impaled and bleeding.
This felt like an incredibly unnecessary book. Sure, it seemed like a good idea—perhaps even entertaining just to see things from Tybalt’s perspective. But we already know this story. Why bother?
Oh, for so many reasons, it turns out. I ended up loving this book.Rather than picking up months later, like we did in Toby’s POV, we see this from the instant Titania did her thing—or pretty much. We get more than simply Tybalt’s POV—we get to see how all this nonsense is impacting the rest of Faerie—or isn’t, as the case sometimes is. We see just how far the range of the changes are. Most importantly, we see what happens to people who aren’t that close to Toby—the collateral damage.
And that damage is devastating—and is getting worse.
Then we get to see some of the specific incidents described in Sleep No More from Tybalt’s POV, or at least what others tell him. Still, it’s not Toby’s viewpoint. We come away from all of it with a greatly expanded understanding of everything that happened to the characters we know and love (or just know). Also, between the two books, we really learn so much more about Titania than we did before (naturally). And now we really want to see Maeve in action—as apocalyptic as that likely will be.
Could McGuire have done this as a larger-than-usual book from shifting POVs? Probably. But the pacing would’ve been weird, getting the different POVs on the same events would get tiresome (and hard to decide which POV would come first)…and, I think it’d have just been a mess. So much better this way.
My beef with this one—and I think it’s the only one I have in both Sleep No More and The Innocent Sleep is Tybalt’s lack of emotional control. Yes, it has to be hard to see Toby like this, to see her not know you at all—but for crying out loud, man! You’ve been around for centuries, you know the whammy that magic can do to someone’s mind and body (you’ve experienced it first hand!!)—magic from one of the Three? Hold yourself together, know that you’ve got a chance to help everyone—especially Toby, and stop acting like a child when she’s around.
Do the greatness of Sleep No More and The Innocent Sleep make up for Be the Serpent? No. Do they make it more forgivable? Ehhh, kind of. Mostly, I know for future re-reads to expect some rough riding, but that it’s worth it. As I said above, the lemonade she made from Be the Serpent is mighty tasty. And I’m okay with that.
This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase from them, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
I’ve got nothing to use as an intro today…so let’s just get into it, okay?
This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.
The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
Seems easy enough, right? Let’s take a peek at this week’s answers:
What are you currently reading?
 |
 |
 |
| Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause by Ty Seidule |
The Silver State by Gabriel Urza |
On Again, Awkward Again by Erin Entrada Kelly & Kwame Mbalia, read by Jennifer Aquino & James Fouhey |
The first half of Robert E. Lee and Me is a maddening combination of mind-numbing repetition and horrific history. I’m not really enjoying the process of reading (I’m pretty sure that you’re not supposed to), but I’m very glad I finally got this to the top of my TBR.
At the same time, I do need something else to break up the reading, so I’m going to start The Silver State this afternoon. It’s been awhile since I did a legal thriller.
I just started On Again, Awkward Again…or am about to when this posts, so I don’t know what to say. The title and then the cover caught my attention…and it looked cute enough. So I took a chance.
What did you recently finish reading?
 |
 |
| Hansel and Gretel by Stephen King, illustrated by Maurice Sendak |
Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher, read by James Marsters |
This was a gentle reworking of the classic story, with some repurposed art by Sendak–which King used to help in his retelling. I don’t know that it’s an instant classic, but it was fun (and I look forward to sharing that with the grandcritters when they get a bit older)
I think I enjoyed Proven Guilty this time through than I’m used to. Which is saying something.
What do you think you’ll read next?
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| Gnomes of Lychford by Paul Cornell |
The Edge of the Crazies by Jamie Harrison, read by Justin Price |
Like I said Saturday, I thought the Lychford series had already ended…oops. Glad to be proven wrong, if only for 160 pages
I saw something about the newest book in Harrison’s series a few months ago, and it look good. Finally got my hands on a copy of the first in the series to check it out.
What have you been enjoying lately?
Yes, two in one day, I have to do some catch up. This week’s Top 5 topic is Top 5 classics I’m not interested in reading.
As I say in the video–this list was hard to come up with! I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about books I’m not terribly interested in reading. If I have no interest in a book, I typically forget it right away. I’m funny that way??
In lieu of spending time formatting a post and hemming and hawing about this and that, I just turned on the camera, hit record, and blathered on a bit.
Let me know what you think!
Music Monday's originated at The Tattooed Book Geek's fantastic blog and has shown up hither, thither, and yon since then.
I’m very pleased today to welcome the Cover Reveals for Adam Holcombe’s upcoming Bounty Inc! Because SF about intergalactic bounty hunters is just what you expect after couple of books about a grandmotherly necromancer, right? Eh, maybe not…but I’m game for pretty much anything he puts out.
I’ll show you this cover below, but first let’s learn a little bit about the book and author, shall we? It’ll just take a moment, and then we can all take a peak at the cover.
About the Book:
A dream lives on while a will is strong, but a significant inheritance from a recently-deceased father sure helps too.
When Wyn throws away his easy life to open the galaxy’s first bounty hunter organization and become a bounty hunter himself, he soon learns that a strong support system will be needed. A support system like an unwise mentor, her giant lizard ex-girlfriend, a woman trapped within her armor, a suspicious cyborg, a possible war criminal, several thousand beetles, and a ten-year-old insectoid with a pet.
Money is never endless, however, and Wyn will need to lead his new friends down a dangerous path to prove Bounty Inc.’s worth and keep his dream alive.
Book Links:
Amazon Preorder ~ Direct Signed Bundle Preorder ~ ARC Request Form
About the Author
Adam Holcombe daylights as a programmer and moonlights as an author. After spending years toying with the idea of writing, he decided to commit and work toward releasing his first novel. Then Gam Gam got in the way, and now he’s writing too many stories to count.
When he’s not locking himself in a cold basement to type away, he can be found squishing his dog (but not too hard), squawking at his tortoise (but not too loudly), goofing off with his wife and daughter (in perfectly ordinary, non-weird ways), playing D&D with friends (I’m playing a character now!), or the usual chilling at home. He is a lover of books, board games, video games, and swords.
He is the author of the Chronicles of Gam Gam series featuring the titular necromantic grandmother Gam Gam, and the Bounty Inc. universe which will be a collective of sci-fi novels spanning a galaxy. You can find out more about both series, along with future publishing news, and additional book content at bountyink.com. Onto the next one!
Author Links:
Bluesky ~ Discord ~ Patreon ~ Instagram ~ TikTok ~ Goodreads
and now…
The Cover
The Complete Cover Wrap:
Click to embiggen either image. And why wouldn’t you want to see them in their complete glory?
Kudos to these fine folk for their work on this eye-grabber:
Cover Art by Kerstin Espinoza Rosero
Cover design by VM Design
I was in from the words “by Adam Holcombe.” I’d pre-ordered the book as soon as I could, actually. The blurb sealed the deal (but I’m pretty sure I read it after I ordered). That cover is just icing on the cake for me–very attractive icing, I should add.
Go and do the right thing–place your orders now.
This lil’ feature is getting harder to find material for—hard to take a quick spin through my social media feeds for things without being distracted by/inundated with/overwhelmed by politics, events, news, etc. and really awful takes on politics, events, news, etc. You’ve probably all encountered similar things in your day-to-day websurfing/social media scrolling. As the philosopher asked, “My world’s on fire, how bout yours?” (or at least it seems to be).
I’m not sure I have a point there…just had to ramble a bit this morning, I guess. How about we get down to biz-ness?
Odds ‘n ends about books and reading that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
What To Do When You’re in a Reading Slump—some tips from a local bookseller
Retiring from Novels—I get his thinking, but hope this retirement is short-lived. If not, I hope his next endeavors succeed.
Fiscal Funny Business: Susan Grossey talks to Crime Time—a nice little piece from one of the niche-est writers I follow.
(It’s Not) The Death of Criticism (Again)—Molly Templeton explores the nature of, reasoning behind, and the current conversation(s) around criticism
8 Times Authors Took Revenge in Their Fiction—a fun listicle
Misconceptions, Mishaps and CrAzY Stories From Working in Libraries! What is it REALLY like?—I do wonder what the non-PG version would contain…but I think I’m better off not knowing
Mental Health and Fantasy—an updated version of a great post
A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
Dear Dr. Fantasy: episode 80, with Joe (JCM Berne)—Haven’t found/made the time for this yet, but it looks really good.
To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
The Fraud by Brad Parks
Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell—interesting timing for this to come up if you look down below
Indexing: Reflections, Episode 3: Brotherly Love by Seanan McGuire
A Red-Rose Chain by Seanan McGuire
Who Let The Dog Out? by David Rosenfelt
It was a good release week, I mentioned the following: Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins by Reed Farrel Coleman; Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell; Make Me by Lee Child; All In by Joel Goldman and Lisa Klink; and A Guide To Being A Dog, by Seamus Wheaton by Wil Wheaton
This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Gnomes of Lychford by Paul Cornell—”Gnomes, witches, and podcasters clash for the future of the village of Lychford in this delightful conclusion to the Witches of Lychford series.” (I thought the series had already ended…oops. Glad to be proven wrong, if only for 160 pages)
Reacher: The Stories Behind the Stories by Lee Child—”These are the origin tales of all of the Reacher novels written solely by Lee Child, chock full of colorful anecdotes and intriguing inspirations. One by one, they expand upon each novel and place it in the context not only of the author’s life, but of the world outside the books.”
Crooks: A Novel About Crime and Family by Lou Berney—A fascinating-looking book that “follows a uniquely American crime family on an unforgettable journey across four decades.” This review over at The Hard Word sold me.
“I’ll show you the phone.” It was a voice behind me, and I turned. The girl in yellow slacks was there close. I realized with surprise that her head came clear to my chin or above, and she was blonde but not at all faded, and her dark blue eyes were not quite open, and one corner of her lips was up with her smile.
“Come on, Escamillo,” she said, “I’ll show you the phone.”
I told her, “Much obliged,” and started off with her.
She brushed against me as we walked and said, “I’m Lily Rowan.”
“Nice name.” I grinned down at. her. “I’m Escamillo Goodwin.”
According to Some Buried Caesar, 87 years ago today, Archie Goodwin—one of my top 5 All-Time Favorite Characters—met the only woman who could keep his attention for more than a few months, Lily Rowan. Lily shows up several times in the Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin series and threatens to steal every scene she appears in (and frequently succeeds). Check out this post from Today in Mystery Fiction for the details—one of my favorite scenes, from one of my favorite books in possibly my favorite series—(I think I have 3 or 4 copies of it), so I had to say something.
Besides, it’s not like I have a long list of dates associated with fictional events to commemorate (but I really should work on one).
How they met 87 years ago, when Archie’s only in his mid-30s today, is beyond me. But Math was never my strong suit, I’m sure it makes sense, Charlie Epps could probably explain it to me.
Regardless, it’s a great exchange—the first of many between the two. Lily will go on to have great scenes with Mr. Wolfe, as well–one of the more memorable happens at a crucial point in In the Best Families where she does something that no one else does in the Wolfe/Archie books.
Why does she call him Escamillo? (a nickname she never drops, I should add). Well, a couple of pages before that exchange of names, Wolfe and Archie were crossing a field between the road (and their disabled car) and a nearby house, and well…
“Stop! Don’t move!”
I stopped dead, with [Wolfe] beside me. I thought he had discovered something psychological about the bird on the fence, but he said without looking at me, “Stand perfectly still. Move your head slowly, very slowly, to the right.”
For an instant I thought the nut with the gun had something contagious and Wolfe had caught it, but I did as I was told, and there was the second surprise. Off maybe 200 feet to the right, walking slowly toward us with his head up, was a bull bigger than I had supposed bulls came. He was dark red with white patches, with a big white triangle on his face, and he was walking easy and slow, wiggling his head a little as if he was nervous, or as if he was trying to shake a fly off of his horns. Of a sudden he stopped and stood, looking at us with his neck curved.
I heard Wolfe’s voice, not loud, at the back of my head, “It would be better if that fool would quit yelling. Do you know the technique of bulls? Did you ever see a bull fight?”
I moved my lips enough to get it out: “No, sir.”
Wolfe grunted. “Stand still. You moved your finger then, and his neck muscles tightened. How fast can you run?”
“I can beat that bull to that fence. Don’t think I can’t. But you can’t.”
“I know very well I can’t. Twenty years ago I was an athlete. This almost convinces me . .. but that can wait. Ah, he’s pawing. His head’s down. If he should start… it’s that confounded yelling. Now… back off slowly, away from me. Keep facing him. When you are 10 feet from me, swerve toward the fence. He will begin to move when you do. As long as he follows slowly, keep backing and facing him. When he starts his rush, turn and run—”
I never got a chance to follow directions. I didn’t move, and I’m sure Wolfe didn’t, so it must have been our friend on the fence—maybe he jumped off into the pasture. Anyhow, the bull curved his neck and started on the jump; and if it was the other guy he was headed for, that didn’t help any, because we were in line with him and we came first. He started the way an avalanche ends. Possibly if we had stood still he would have passed by, about 3 feet to my right, but either it was asking too much of human nature to expect me to stand there, or I’m not human. I have since maintained that it flashed through my mind that if I moved it would attract him to me and away from Nero Wolfe, but there’s no use continuing that argument here. There’s no question but what I moved, without any preliminary backing, And there’s no question, whoever he started for originally, about his being attracted by my movement, I could hear him behind me. I could damn near feel him, Also I was dimly aware of shouts and a blotch of something red above the fence near the spot I was aimed at, There it was—the fence. I didn’t do any braking for it, but took it at full speed, doing a vault with my hands reaching for its top, and one of my hands missed and I tumbled, landing flat on the other side, sprawling and rolling, I sat up and panted and heard a voice above me:
“Beautiful! I wouldn’t have missed that for anything.”
I looked up and saw two girls, one in a white dress and red jacket, the other in a yellow shirt and slacks. I snarled at them, “Shall I do it again?”
You’ll Never Walk Alone
by Troy Lambert
DETAILS: Publication Date: July 25, 2025 Format: e-Book Length: 26 pg. Read Date: September 1, 2025
Panic wouldn’t help. The hospital had trained her for high-pressure situations, teaching her to compartmentalize fear and act decisively. But this—this was different. The darkness wasn’t a patient to be stabilized or a diagnosis to be made. It was a thing, vast and unknowable, and it clung to her skin like the rain.
What’s You’ll Never Walk Alone About?
I’m not sure how to talk about this short story without giving it all away. So I’m going to just quote part of the author’s description. I don’t know if I’d have said everything he did (then again, he’s sold more books than I have, so what do I know?)
…nurse Grace Whitmore is caught in a storm—both outside and within. As she trudges through rain-soaked streets after a long hospital shift, every shadow threatens to pull her back into a childhood terror she’s tried to forget.
When Grace senses an unseen presence tracking her steps, paranoia and dread begin to twist her reality. Is it her imagination, or is there truly someone lurking in the dark? Each echo of footfalls drives her deeper into a maze of fear and doubt.
So, what did I think about You’ll Never Walk Alone?
This is a short, intense read. Atmospheric doesn’t begin to describe it–I read this in the middle of the afternoon on a sunny day, and I thought about turning a light on when I was halfway through it.
It’s hard to look at a 26 page story and think, “You know, I think it could’ve been tighter.” But I kind of do–there were a couple of beats to this story that felt repetitive, they didn’t do quite enough to crank up the suspense to justify that repetition.
But that’s just picking at nits. This story starts dark and tense and Lambert keeps ratcheting up both until the last line. And because he’s done such a good job at that, even though you know it’s the last line–and a good and effective one at that–you want the next 20 pages. Not eventually–you want the next 20 pages now. Knowing that you’re just never going to get them is frustrating as well as a relief.
If that doesn’t make sense, just go read the story and come back, it will then.
