Through Gates of Garnet and Gold by Seanan McGuire (Audiobook)

 

This is yet another fantastic Wayward Children novella!!

I love Seanan McGuire’s writing. (Note: I review a bunch of her books so I am copying part of some of my other reviews here to save time.). She has quickly become my favorite living writer and I feel very lucky that she is so prolific. I was first introduced to her work when her book Parasite, written as Mira Grant, was nominated for a Hugo Award. I loved it and quickly devoured the Newsflesh series before I realized that Mira Grant and Seanan McGuire were the same person. 

I was already a big fan of Ms. McGuire’s when the first wayward children book, Every Heart a Doorway, came out, and I loved it! As a kid who grew up loving the Oz series and resenting the Christian imagery in Narnia, it was right up my alley. It is a wonderful book and this is an excellent series, definitely deserving of its Best Series Hugo win.  In this series, the odd numbered books are the main timeline, and the even numbered books tell stories outside the main timeline - sometimes introducing us to new characters when they travel through their Doors, and other times showing up backstory of preexisting characters. 

I was overjoyed when tordotcom and NetGalley awarded me an eARC of Through Gates of Garnet and Gold, especially since it is an odd numbered book, meaning it is advancing the main timeline. 

And we are back with Nancy, who started us off in the first book as our main character before she went back to her world, the Halls of the Dead, where she remains motionless as a statue for most of her time there. 

But Nancy returns to the school because something is killing the residents of her world. The adventure ropes in perennial favorites Sumi, Kade, and Christopher, and introduces a new girl from a world of moths and stories.

It sometimes felt like part of the reason behind this book is existing is to answer some critics of the first book that thought that Nancy was suicidal in wanting to return to the halls of the dead. By more fully fleshing out this world, the author helps to explain the appeal of this realm for Nancy, and how it has nothing to do with wanting to be dead. The cause of all the problems ties back into another character from earlier books, but I do not want to spoil that reveal here. Suffice it to say, that this book really moves the story forward in interesting and surprising ways and I cannot wait for the next odd number book in two years.

I listened to this at 2x speed. 

Hole in the Sky by Daniel H. Wilson

Oh how I wanted to like this book more! I had really enjoyed Robopocalypse and its sequel by Daniel H Wilson when they came out, so I was really interested with this first contact type novel based on its description. I was very hopeful when I got an eARC from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

The main problem for me with this book was that I didn’t care about any of the characters. I understand that writers trying to make characters realistic, and giving people flaws can make them interesting and maybe even relatable. However, the alcoholic deadbeat dad and his redemption arc were just not something that I cared about at all. It also felt very trite to me. That made it really hard to get invested in anything that happened in this book. I’ll check out Wilson‘s next book, but I would give this one a pass.

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor

 

I didn’t know anything about this book before I started and wow was I in for a treat! 

Actually, I knew one thing about it. I would see this book pop up on Audible occasionally as a suggestion in the Science Fiction section, but it didn’t seem like it would be for me. The back cover blurb made it seem like an irritating comedy. So I never got it. Now that it is getting a new edition by Saga Press, it has a much more interesting and enticing dust jacket blurb, so I requested an e ARC from the publishing and NetGalley and exchange for an honest review.

I thought The book with a lot of fun! A modern day scientist (Bob) gets his head frozen, and he wakes up in the dystopian far future as a computer program replica of his personality and intelligence. His brain gets hooked up to an exploratory spaceship, and the rest of the book involves him (and copies) exploring the galaxy.  The pacing and timing are a bit off, but I think the purpose is to dredge up the feeling of having to deal with Time dilation. The pacing does read a lot more like a self published book than a professionally edited manuscript, but that doesn’t attract from its intelligence and charm. I really enjoy the book and I cannot wait to start the sequel.

The Adventure of the Demonic Ox by Lois McMaster Bujold

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I was late to the Lois McMaster Bujold party and only discovered her when she was nominated for Best Series for the Vorkosigan saga. I think it was the Baen book covers that turned me off. But I’m on board now! 

She definitely deserved the best series Hugo award for the Vorkosigan Books, and also deserved it equally for the World of the Five Gods series. I have still not read any of the novels in that series yet, but once I started reading the Penric and Desdemona novellas, I couldn’t stop. I was hooked instantly and binged my way through the series. Thankfully, Ms. Bujold is still writing more Penric stories. 

I was thrilled to get a copy of this new Penric novella - Thank you, Subterranean Press, for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. As usual for a subterranean press edition, there is a new cover with gorgeous cover art. 

This book was very enjoyable, like all the Penric stories are. Unlike several of the last books, I was really afraid for Penric in this one - I thought there was a chance he would die, which wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of the series but would change it a great deal. This book included POV sections from Penric’s daughter and adopted ward, which I really enjoyed, but the transitions were sometimes a little jarring. I would’ve preferred actual chapters, personally. But these are minor quibbles. 

Can’t wait for the next one!

A Philosophy of Thieves by Fran Wilde

 

I met Fran Wilde at NYCC a few years ago and she made my day by complimenting me on the Wonder Twins tshirt I was wearing. I had first heard of her when I read Updraft, which I remember liking but not loving. over the years I had enjoyed several of her short stories so I was excited when I got an eARC of her new book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. A Philosophy of Thieves was billed as a heist book so I was really looking forward to some fun heists. 

But when I read it, I disliked everything about this book. I mean everything: the characters, the setting, heist, the plot, everything. I hated it all. The characters were trite, they were boring, and their problems were petty and cliché. This was a slog from start to finish. I’m very disappointed, but I will happily try the next book from this author. I’m hopeful this was just a blip.  

Supernatural Crimes Unit: NYPD: book 1: The Thin Blue Ley-Line by Keith R. A. DeCandido

I’ve been reading Keith R.A. DeCandido’s reviews on Tor dot com for years and I’ve loved them.  His Trek rewatches and superhero reviews are excellent, and I have been enjoying his Babylon 5 rewatch immensely. I’ve not been too enamored of his prose fiction in the past, but I thought i should give it another go. 

So when I saw one of his novels on NetGalley I was curious to see if I would like it, and I thank NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for this honest review. This book, unlike the dragon precinct books, which are fantasy police procedurals in a generic D&D style fantasy world, is a fantasy police procedural in what is supposed to be modern New York City. 

I was very disappointed by this book. If I didn’t know the writer from his excellent reviews and web articles, I would’ve thought it was from a two-bit hack who knew nothing about fantasy, New York, police procedurals, or writing in general. 

The characters were interchangeable, unlikable, and boring, and the plot by the numbers.  After seeing the author complain in his superhero movie reviews about how many superhero movies devolve into the heroes having to close a glowing circle in the sky, imagine my surprise when the climax of this book involved the heroes having to close a glowing circle in the sky. It was so trite! And although I am not a police officer, I know a little bit about how the NYPD and law enforcement in New York operates, and if the author had done any actual research beyond watching law &order reruns, it doesn’t show here. I cannot recommend a book that irritated me so much. 

Nobody’s Baby by Olivia Waite

 

As I said when I reviewed the first book in this series, I am a big fan of generation ship stories, so I was intrigued when I saw Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite on NetGalley and I was very happy to be granted an advanced reader copy by the publisher. At the time I said that I thoroughly enjoyed that book and hope that this author writes more in this setting. My hopes were answered with this new volume, Nobody’s Baby, (which I also got an eARC of from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review) in which the protagonist Dorothy Gentlemen’s nephew Rutherford find an abandoned baby, which is a real mystery on a ship in which everyone is living in replicated bodies that are designed to be sterile until they reach their destination.  Even more so than in first book, the mystery itself seemed almost besides the point, since I was more focused on the characters and the world building. Now, I didn’t mind that, since the characters and the world building are what I am here for. I also enjoyed this book a lot and look forward to many more in this series. 

Butterfly Effects by Seanan McGuire

 

Yes! Yes yes yes! This is the book I have been waiting for for years!

I love Seanan McGuire’s body of work.  (Note: I review a bunch of her books so I am copying part of some of my other reviews here to save time.). She has quickly become my favorite living writer and I feel very lucky that she is so prolific. I was first introduced to her work when her book Parasite, written as Mira Grant, was nominated for a Hugo Award. I loved it and quickly devoured the Newsflesh series before I realized that Mira Grant and Seanan McGuire were the same person. 

I started reading her works under her own name, starting with Sparrow Hill Road, which is amazing, but I picked it because I was intimidated by her long running October Daye series. When Incryptid was nominated for the Best Series Hugo in 2018, I dove into that and I loved it! It is probably my second favorite series by McGuire (Velveteen Vs. holds a special place in my heart). 

I was overjoyed when Tor and NetGalley awarded me an eARC of the latest Incryptid book, in exchange for an honest review. 

The book picks up with Sarah’s story, her first stint as narrator in several years - but interestingly, she is not alone. Several chapters are also from Antimony’s perspective, splitting up the perspectives in what I think is a first in this series.

After Artie was shattered and put back together again, I have been very sad. I loved Artie and my heart was broken when he and Sarah finally realized their loves for each other were not unrequited only to have Artie effectively die. Knowing how Seanan McGuire writes, I was not expecting a happy ending for those two. So imagine my surprise when I got to read this book! I won’t spoil any details but I was overjoyed at how Ms. McGuire deftly handled these plot threads and I was very happy with how things turned out. The bonus novella shows the aftermath from Elsie’s point of view in a way that was heartbreaking and hopeful in equal measure. 

I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Lives of Bitter Rain by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I have said in the past that I used to think I didn’t like Adrian Tchaikovsky’s books. I mean, I was told that I SHOULD like them since I’m a big fan of Peter F. Hamilton’s space opera doorstoppers. But when I tried to read one of his books a few years ago I rage-quit it like 12% of the way through. 

But then when his novella Elder Race was nominated for a Hugo, I read it and enjoyed it. I also read Ogres when it was nominated, and it wasn’t half bad. I enjoyed Service Model when the publisher and NetGalley gave me an eARC in exchange for an honest review. My main complaints were too many pop culture references and some incoherent worldbuilding. His other big novel from last year, Alien Clay, really didn’t do much for me. I hated the protagonist and felt it was dreary. 

So I was cautious when I got a copy of his novella Lives of Bitter Rain from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. It is part of his Tyrant Philosophers series, which I couldn’t get into when it was nominated for the Best Series Hugo award. 

Sadly, the shorter length didn’t help me get into this book. I read it but it didn’t feel like I retained much of it. The writing was good, the language was good, but the plot was not engaging. This book is clearly not for me. 

Star Trek: Shaxs' Best (and Worst) Day by Ryan North; Derek Charm

 

My first ever comics were Star Trek comics. I loved superheroes when I was a kid, of course, still do, but what I knew of them came from Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and the Superfriends and the Super Powers action figures (which did have mini-comics, (as did He-Man figures, but I digress in this double paranthetical)).  When I fell in love with Star Trek in 1988, I couldn’t get enough of it. So in addition to watching the show and reading the novels, I picked up Star Trek comics at a convention and eventually subscribed to get the TNG comic from DC in the mail. 

Although I fell off reading Trek comics for a while, I recently have started reading more of the IDW Star Trek comics (I enjoyed Godshock and I LOVED Ryan North’s Lower Decks miniseries and his new graphic novel Warp Your Own Way) so I was happy to get an eARC of the trade paperback of Mr. North’s two Shax/Lower Decks tie in issues from IDW and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In Shax’s Best Day, Shax gets to fight a ton of fascist Klingon warriors following the reincarnation of Kahless. In Shax’s Worst Day, Shax is awakened to the unreality of Lore’s reality rewrite by the Sword of Kahless, after which he relentlessly uses his knowledge of past Star Trek technobabble to single handedly take down Lores’s StarFleet in a very satisfying way. It is clear that North knows and loves all of Trek and uses that love and knowledge well. This book is super fun and a great addition to your Trek comics collection. 

Star Trek: Lore War by Christopher Cantwell; Collin Kelly; Jackson Lanzing; Ryan North

 

My first ever comics were Star Trek comics. I loved superheroes when I was a kid, of course, still do, but what I knew of them came from Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and the Superfriends and the Super Powers action figures (which did have mini-comics, (as did He-Man figures, but I digress in this double parenthetical)).  When I fell in love with Star Trek in 1988, I couldn’t get enough of it. So in addition to watching the show and reading the novels, I picked up Star Trek comics at a convention and eventually subscribed to get the TNG comic from DC in the mail. 

Although I fell off reading Trek comics for a while, I recently have started reading more of the IDW Star Trek comics (I enjoyed Godshock and I LOVED Ryan North’s Lower Decks run and his graphic novel Warp Your Own Way) so I was happy to get an eARC of the trade paperback of Lore War. 

This book really drops you in the middle of a terrible new world in which Data’s evil twin brother Lore has remade all of reality in his own image. It truly is a horrific world and many of our regular characters are twisted in a terrible way. The Sword of Kahless, however, has the ability to awaken people to the changes to reality and slowly but surely Sisko, Beverly, and the others come up with a plan to strike back at Lore. A special highlight in this book is the Lower Decks Shax story written by Ryan North. When Shax is awakened to the reality by the Sword of Kahless, he relentlessly uses his knowledge of past Star Trek technobabble to single handedly take down Lores’s StarFleet in a very satisfying way. It is clear that North knows and loves Trek and uses that love and knowledge well. 

Fate's Bane by C. L. Clark

 

This book was very interesting- I didn’t know anything about the book or the author when I got an eARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. (I think I requested it confusing the author for KJ Parker).  This was a small scale fantasy novel with a sapphic romance between a clan leader’s daughter and the daughter of a rival clan leader who is a captive being raised alongside the other children of the clan. The magic was fascinating, but I never really felt the romance. When two characters get together as children and then hook up as young teens, it is very hard for me to take their “forever love”seriously. They’re still kids for goodness sake! I also had a hard time accepting that the narrator could forgive the other girl after the duel (I don’t want spoil things here so that’s all I’ll say). The structure of the ending was also very interesting. I wouldn’t say that I loved it, but I’m glad that I read it.

Joke Farming by Elliott Kalan

 

I first encountered Elliott Kalan when his podcast, the Flophouse, did a bonus episode in conjunction with The Greatest Generation to review Star Trek V. I fell in love with him as a podcaster when I listened to I, Podius, the I, Claudius rewatch podcast he did with John Hodgman. After that I started listening to the Flophouse regularly, and I realized that he was the writer of Spider-Man and the X-Men, which was hilarious (that’s where the Sauron cancer meme comes from). So when I heard him talking about an upcoming nonfiction book of his about comedy, I knew I had to read it. He is IMHO the funniest member of the original peaches - I think because his clever style of comedy dovetails well with my own interests. 

This book was stellar. It would be easy for a book about joke creation and construction to end up being dry and clinical but this book is anything but. Kalan’s signature wit comes through on every page. I cannot recommend this enough. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

A Hole in the Sky by Peter F Hamilton

I love the books of Peter F Hamilton! I love the Commonwealth books so much! I still remember the first time I read Pandora’s Star - specifically the chilling and alien sections from MorningLightMountain’s point of view - and I wish I could go back and read it again for the first time. 

I also really enjoyed  the Void trilogy, and I adore Great North Road. 

When I finished reviewing the Salvation Sequence by Peter F. Hamilton, I said that I looking forward to more. And I was not disappointed when I got an eARC of A Hole in the Sky in exchange for an honest review - it was fantastic! I love Hamilton’s space opera, and I love a good generation ship story, and this was so much fun! 

I didn’t realize that this book was a YA book when I began it, so in some ways it came across as a breath of fresh air. Some of the sex and violence in Hamilton‘s other books gets a little grim, and it was a pleasure to have a teenaged female protagonist in this book that I wasn’t going to have to worry about. 

The mysteries of how the people on the generation ship lost their access to technology were well plotted and well revealed. I didn’t want to put this book down because I kept wanting to find out what was going to happen next. Highly recommended. 

The Everlasting by Alix Harrow

 

I first heard of Alix Harrow when her short story “A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies” was nominated for a Hugo Award. I read it, and I loved it. When her first novel came out, The Ten Thousand Door of January, I read it right away, but was a little disappointed. The book felt disjointed, and I didn’t care for the protagonist or her struggles very much. I felt like the author didn’t successfully make the leap from short story to novel.  

I read Ms. Harrow’s two fractured fairytale novelas when they were nominated for the Hugos and I enjoyed them, although they felt a bit glib (I think in part because I’m getting a little tired of the hard-drinking, Devil-May-care protagonist trope and because I’d read other  fairytale retellings that lined up with my tastes more).

But OMG Starling House! That book was a massive leveling up - one of the absolute best books I read the year it came out. I loved it so much!!! I remember listening to the audiobook while driving on a foggy fall night and feeling throughly spooked out in the most enjoyable way. 

So of course I was excited when the publisher and NetGalley granted me an eARC of a new work by Ms. Harrow. The Everlasting was a book I hadn’t heard much about and didn’t even read a blurb of before I started so I didn’t know what to expect. The beginning made it seem like a fantasy novel but then it became so much more! A story about time travel and national identity and the lies we tell ourselves, I couldn’t stop devouring it because I just had to know what happened next. This book, after Starling House, really cements Alix Harrow as a major talent and a must-read author for me. 

The Time Traveler's Passport collection

  

This is another of Amazon’s themed short story collections by top authors. This time, the stories are all time travel themed and the authors are John Scalzi, R. F. Kuang, Peng Shepherd, Kaliane Bradley, Olivie Blake, and P. Djèlí Clark. This one was a real mixed bag for me. The Scalzi story was enjoyable and clever but with a lack of characterization - something I have come to expect from this author, and it didn’t hurt the story at all. The Kuang story was brutal and breathtaking and the protagonist made a particularly violent choice towards the end that made me dislike them intensely again, not a surprise from this author. And the Clark piece was haunting and sadly realistic. The real standout for me was the story by Peng - I’d never read anything by this author before and I will look out for them in the future. The other pieces were much, much weaker. I might’ve been happier skipping them entirely. I disliked the Bailey story almost as much as I disliked her debut novel (which was a lot). And the Blake story didn’t even feel like science fiction. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. 

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025 edited by Nnedi Okorafor and John Joseph Adams

I always said I never used to like anthologies because of the tonal shifts and the variability in quality of the stories. However, I have really started to really enjoy these best of the year anthologies - it’s a great way for someone like me, who usually prefers single author short story collections, to catch up on recent short fiction. There were some Hugo nominees that I had read before in here that I remembered, but much of this collection was new to me. There was a particularly haunting tale about a family using a device to remove memories, originally intended to prevent trauma, being overused with disastrous consequences, that still sticks with me. 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Snake Eater by T. Kingfisher

 

I don’t like horror - or at least I thought I didn’t. I never wanted to watch scary movies as a kid. I got nightmares from E.T. so I never saw anything with Freddy or Jason. But after reading and enjoying The Twisted Ones and The Holllow Places by T. Kingfisher, I realized that I can enjoy horror by the right author. After all, T. Kingfisher is also Ursula Vernon, the author of the Hamster Princess books, which my daughters and I love, as well as the Saint of Steel series, Thornhedge, Nettle and Bone, and a bunch of other books I have adored in recent years. So of course I was going to request an eARC of her new novel, Snake Eater from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. And I am SO glad that I did because it was fantastic. Like the Twisted Ones, the protagonist is a woman with a dog who moves to a small town and ends up living someplace a bit creepy where creepy things start happening. There is a delightful cast of oddball supporting characters and the dog, of course, is a very good dog who is just fine in the end. 

Like in The Hollow Places, the characters are amazingly detailed and feel so real and the fantastical elements impinge on the story so gradually that you never lose your suspension of misbelief. The mysteries are meaty and satisfying, though the final reveal felt a little out of left field. Only a little though - the wackiness of the museum of oddities setting did help sell it. It worked in the context mostly, but it was the only  weak point in an otherwise excellent novel. I’m so glad I read this book! Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher!

The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst

I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I was first drawn to Sarah Beth Durst when I saw her book The Spellshop in a Barns and Noble with those delightful purple sprayed edges. I absolutely despise deckled edges, and have refused to read books because they made the reading experience unbearable, but I really do enjoy the current trend of sprayed edges. I was intrigued by the Spellshop’s description, bought the book for my wife, and ended up reading it before she did! It was light and fun and enjoyable, so when I saw another book in the same world by the same author I immediately requested it from NetGalley as an audio eARC. 

This book, The Enchanted Greenhouse, was equally delightful! It really upped the ante on one of my favorite parts of the first book, which was delightful talking plants. This book tells the story of someone referenced in the first book - the woman who magically awakened that novel’s plant sidekick - and it tells what happened to her. Because this is a romatasy, there is a romance between the protagonist and a taciturn man with hidden depths who is an excellent gardener and a pretty good baker. This book would be great to read with a cup of tea with honey on a snowy day in front of a fireplace. I really enjoyed it

To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose

 To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose

Why did I wait so long to read this book???

I never heard of this book until the 2024 Hugo Award nominations came out, and it was nominated for (and later won!) the Lodestar Award (and the author was nominated for the Astounding Award). Based on the description it didn’t sound that exciting to me. It sounded like a big standard magical school/dragon riding book, and I’ve read so many of them over the years. But when the author won the Astounding Award in 2025, I decided I should probably give it a shot. 

And I’m so glad I did! This was not like every other underdog magical school outsider story I’ve read before. It was a delightfully nuanced tale of an indigenous girl going to the school in the white European/American coded society’s dragon training academy. The characters were interesting and well rounded (although the protagonist came off as a little too capable at times). The world building was excellent and I loved every minute of it! I’m very much looking forward to the sequel!

The First Thousand Trees by Premee Mohamed

Five years ago, I wrote in a review of Premee Mohamed’s first book: “After reading this book, I will definitely pick up the next book by Premee Mohamed.  This author has a great deal of potential and I look forward to seeing what else she writes.” I am so glad I stuck with this author because she has improved immensely and now she is a must-read when I see she has something new out.

When NetGalley listed this new novella by Ms. Mohamed, I was happy to check it out, and I was even happier when I realized it was a third book in the same series as The Annual Migration of Clouds, a post-apocalyptic novella that was set at a repurposed university where survivors were ekeing out an existence and many people were infected with a parasite of some sort that changes their behavior to push self-preservation. 

This book picks up with the friend of the protagonist of the last two books. In the first book, he had frozen on a hunt and gotten someone killed. This book starts with him having left his settlement looking for a place to start over. He seeks out an uncle who is living in a very strict community. Once again, the story went in some directions I wasn’t expecting, and this book ended up being much more violent and brutal than I had anticipated. The protagonist is not the most likable of characters, but the writing is wonderful. I’m still not sure I know what this book was trying to tell me, but I enjoyed the ride. 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Constituent Service by John Scalzi

 

This  story was a delight!

I’m a big fan of Mr. Scalzi’s work since I found Redshirts on the new books shelf at my local library years ago, and I’ve been reading his website regularly for a long time. After Redshirts, I went through his back catalog.  I remember enjoying Old Man’s War but bouncing off the sequel, the Ghost Brigades, the first time I tried to read it. I went back to it and enjoyed it eventually, but found the series to be a bit uneven. I didn’t particularly care for the Zoe character and didn’t love The Last Colony or Zoe’s Tale, but I enjoyed The Human Division and The End of All Things a great deal more. I realized that what I enjoyed most about this series was the world building much more than I enjoyed the Perry family. This was a space opera set in a world where humans were often the villains and where human civilization was not a monolithic political entity, both ideas that I find interesting and that I thought were executed well. 

Mr. Scalzi’s novels in the past few years have been more misses than hits for me. Many of them were weaker than some of his earlier work, and I personally think it was due to his habit of rushing through writing them to make his deadlines (as he has eloquently described on his blog). However, I loved his last novel, The Shattering Peace, and, along with When the Moon Hits Your Eye(which I loved up until the ending); he seemed to have gotten his mojo back. 

So I was quite pleased when I got this new John Scalzi book from NetGalley and Subterranean in exchange for an honest review. This book was originally published as an Audible original and subterranean press is putting out a limited edition physical copy. 

This is what I come to Scalzi books for - fun SF worldbuilding and characters trying to solve problems together, with a healthy dash of the absurd. It is reminiscent of Android’s Dream and Agent to the Stars in its sense of fun. It’s a not too distant future and tons of other alien species have encountered Earth and everyone has to learn to live together. Our protagonist gets a job working at a district office for a local legislator and has to work to solve problems for all of the different types of people (many of whom are nonhuman) in the district. It is lighthearted and fun and I would love to see Mr. Scalzi write more in this world. 

Silver and Lead (audiobook) by Seanan McGuire

 A marvelous audiobook, a tad smaller in scope than the last two volumes in this series, but no less impactful.  

I love Seanan McGuire’s body of work. (Note: I review a bunch of her books so I am copying part of some of my other reviews here to save time.). She has quickly become my favorite living writer and I feel very lucky that she is so prolific. I was first introduced to her work when her book Parasite, written as Mira Grant, was nominated for a Hugo Award. I loved it and quickly devoured the Newsflesh series before I realized that Mira Grant and Seanan McGuire were the same person. 

I started reading her works under her own name, starting with Sparrow Hill Road, which is amazing, but I picked it because I was intimidated by her long running October Daye series. I had read some Urban Fantasy before, and I fondly remember Mercedes Lackey’s Diana Tregarde books, but my tastes run more to science fiction and then secondary world fantasy, so I was hesitant to dive into such a long series. I picked up the first book, Rosemary and Rue, when it was on sale as a kindle daily deal, and I found it somewhat disappointing compared to her other work. I reminded myself that it was her first published novel, so I cut it some slack. Then Incryptid was nominated for the Best Series Hugo in 2018 and I dove into that instead. I loved it! So I vowed to give Toby another chance. And I was so glad that I did! It is now one of my favorite series. 

October Daye is perpetually on the top of my best series Hugo ballot - she deserves to win. This type of excellent in a long running series is what this award was designed for and none of the other nominees come close.

I was overjoyed when Tor and NetGalley awarded me an eARC of their first October Daye book after the series switched publishers because we have been waiting a long time to find out what the fallout would be after Toby and a large chunk of Faerie were totally ensorcelled. 

 

This book picks up several months after the end of the last one. (It felt a little bit like when your favorite sitcom picks up after summer break and the characters tell you that not much has happened in the past few months.) Toby is a few weeks from her due date and has been effectively sequestered by her family, who are concerned about her safety and the safety of the pregnancy. I would’ve had a lot of harder time reading this book if I didn’t trust Seanan McGuire so much as an author. I know that she is never going to have her characters be raped, and I believed that she would not hurt or kill this baby. 

This book had a couple of blasts from the past show up again to cause trouble, and it really made me wish that I had done a complete reread before this book. My plan is to get all of the audiobooks and listen to them before the next volume comes out. But she did a good job catching people up on what was going on. Is it bad that one of my favorite parts of the book was a tease for the future? Once again, Marcia popped up in a very tiny role and I can’t wait to find out what that reveal is going to be.

Many of the secondary characters got a moment to shine in this book, though I would have liked to see a little bit more of Jazz. I feel like she is often sidelined. But that is a minor quibble. This audiobook was unputdownable.

Mary Robinette Kowal is a great narrator, even if it was a little off putting at first how much October sounds like Elma York. I listened at 2x speed.