And tell me even more stories...September Books

 2020 Reading Goal: 75/100

1.  A Killing Frost, Seanan McGuire - October Daye, book 14.  This pains me to say, but this is the book where the series officially turned stale.  I've been impressed with McGuire's ability to keep the quality up, and to keep the content fresh up until this point.  BUT, it feels like we seriously spent the first 1/3 of the book doing that annoying exposition thing that long-running series feel they have to do to either make sure return readers remember everything or provide set-up for new readers.  (Does anyone jump into a series 14 books in?  And do dedicated fans forget that much?  I think not.)  AND, then after that there were bits of exposition tucked here and there anytime another returning (fill in the blank) came into play.  It was short on plot, while oddly advancing a big part of the overall arc in a very underwhelming way.  I'm kind of sad about the whole experience, to be perfectly honest. 

2.  Shine in Pearl, Seanan McGuire (novella) - The bonus she's been adding in the last few October Daye books, I generally look forward to the novella.  It was short, and very sweet.  As per usual, these bonus novellas allow McGuire to spend a little bit of time with secondary characters, and that is wonderful.  When she's good, she's very, very good. 

3. Seveneves, Neal Stephenson (audio) - I bought a digital copy of the book a long time ago on sale, and only made it about 10% in.  Life, in general, makes it really hard for me to digest big, long books anymore.  (Hoping to fix that this winter, thanks to some recent life changes.). Having said that, I was thoroughly engrossed in the portion I did read, so I decided to take a chance on it and used one of my Libro.fm credits for the audiobook.  It's so, so good.  

The basic breakdown: Part 1 is the coming apocalypse.  Part 2 is the actual apocalypse.  (1 & 2 read by author Mary Robinette Kowel) Part 3 is the future.  (read by Will Damron) Truthfully, I adored the first two sections, but the third section didn't thrill me.  One and Two were a combo of classic disaster storyline, creative problem solving, personal and political intrigue, and characters you could connect with.  Part three was fascinating...but kind of dull and lacking in the emotional connection.  Read more like a research paper than a story.  The good stuff:  It's an infinitely hopeful book that's centered on women.  Stephenson actually writes women really well.  Characters tended to be of a type, and not therefor as well-rounded as I'd like, but I'm forgiving that because it served the overall purpose of the book and narrative arc.  In fact, it became a key plot point later on.  I love work-the-problem, sciency sci fi, of which there is plenty in this.  I also appreciate Stephenson's ability to write books with so many darn characters while keeping me engaged with all of them.  Kudos.  

Note:  There is a portion in Part 3 about "Tav's Mistake" which is a damning bit of commentary on our current reliance on electronics and social media and the resulting attention issues created by such.  It was very well done and leaves you with a lot to think about. 

4.  Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (audio) - I bought this book a while ago because EVERYONE was raving about it.  Then I tried reading it - multiple times - and just couldn't find my way in.  (I suspect part of that was my initial reaction to the pandemic and the nature of the 9th House.). When I finished Seveneves, I went searching my library's digital catalog for new audiobooks...and guess what, Gideon had been recently added.  Why not try again?  And oh.  my.  goodness.  What a difference a good reader makes!  Gideon and Harrow really came to life with Moira Quirk's narration - and I'm going to look her up to see what else she reads.  It's essentially a haunted house puzzle in space book - with crazy politics, swordfights, necromancers, and enough weird characters to satisfy anyone.  Lots and lots of fun, and you find yourself liking the characters despite themselves.  If I had one quibble, it's that there were so many characters that I occasionally got confused - and I did have to refer to the lists in my book to remind me of who was who a couple of times.  Then again, it's a haunted house book....and in grand, cinematic tradition, that means you need lots of characters, most of which are intended to be killed off at some point so there's no reason to get invested in them beyond the stereotypical roles they play.  

5. The Fated Sky, 6. The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal - These are the second and third books in Kowal's The Lady Astronaut Series, which was inspired by her brilliant short story, "The Lady Astronaut of Mars," which makes me cry every time I read it.  After I read the first book, The Calculating Stars, I preordered the third and decided to wait until it showed up in my inbox before I would continue the series.  Much more fun to read a series back to back instead of having to take the time to reorient yourself. Curiously enough, The Fated Sky was centered on Elma, who is the lead for all of the other books and short stories in this series, but The Relentless Moon turns to Nicole and deals with events on the moon during Elma's trip to Mars.  What's really cool about the whole series is that Kowal created a natural disaster to super rush the space timeline, pushing her storylines back to the 60's. That allows her to take on series issues like racism and gender discrimination in a way that is both historic and super relevant to today's world.  

I'm feeling very tender about these books.  Kowal has done something magnificent, which is that her main characters are women who are always the smartest, most capable people in the room, BUT they both have diagnosed mental illness.  Elma deals with anxiety, and Nicole has anorexia.  I could write a book about why I think this is really important.  Representation, normalization, the complexity of human character, challenges of dealing with a mental illness, the fact that it's a part of a who a person is and not the whole - these are just some of the reasons why I so appreciate and love what Kowal did with these characters.  

7.  The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O, Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland (audio) - I actually read this book several years ago, and I absolutely loved the experience.  When I found it listed on the sale page at Libro.fm, I decided it was worth the investement....and I was so right.  I wanted an audiobook that was just fun, and this fit the ticket nicely.  It's a long book, and there are lots of different, talented voice actors involved, which made the whole thing a joy of a ride.  Glad I invested in the audio.  This is the sort of audiobook I'll pick up periodically when I just want some fun.