When The Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

Finally! A return to form by one of my favorite authors. 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 Ive been reading his website regularly for a long time. But his last few novels have been weaker than some of his earlier work, and I think it was due to his habit of rushing through writing them to make his deadlines (as he has eloquently described on his blog). 

But I knew when I got the new John Scalzi book from NetGalley and Tor in exchange for an honest review that I would enjoy it - because I already read it!! I was at NYCC in October and got an ARC from the Tor booth and I got it signed by John Scalzi there. He was surprised because he hadn’t realized they would have hard copies available, and he said that my copy was the very first he had signed for this book!

The premise for this book is fun - suddenly without warning the entire moon - and all of the moon rocks on earth - turn to cheese. The book then has some vignettes and snapshots of how different people around the country are dealing with this. 

In some of Scalzi’s more recent books, the protagonists have been glib and unpleasant ciphers, but not in this book. The characters feel like real people! 

The format of the book is both a strength and a weakness. You don’t get to spend a lot of time with interesting characters before a new chapter starts and we leave them behind (often forever, though some recur in later segments). But a bigger flaw is the ending.  With a high concept SF book like this, a lot of the value comes from the ultimate answers to the question of how did the big weird thing happen. Remember Stephen King’s Under the Dome? Remember how the ending cheapened the whole book and undercut everything? SPOILER ALERT: this isn’t as bad as in Under the Dome, but it’s close. There is no answer. The moon cheese just reverts back to moon rock. Nothing is ever explained. It’s left as a big mystery. This makes the book feel much more fantastical than science fictional, if that makes sense. 

But, problems with the structure and ending aside, I really enjoyed this book. It was a total page turner and very readable. Best Scalzi book I’ve read in years. 

Demon Daughter by Lois McMaster Bujold

As I have mentioned before on the 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 a joy, like all the Penric stories are, although it wasn’t an altogether fun romp. Penric and his wife are hurting after some miscarriages when they encounter a young girl who gets a demon and thinks that she has killed get father and all of her shipmates. A little heavier stuff than some other Penric tales.  But it is all handled with skill and grace. 

It would not be the best place to start with the series, but if you’ve read any of the others before, you will really enjoy this one. Can’t wait for the next one!

The Fourth Consort by Edward Ashton

I’m so glad I took a chance on this book! Ever since I joined NetGalley, I dreamed of the day when I would just be auto-approved for all of my favorite authors.  So a few months back, when I got an email from NetGalley telling me I was auto-approved for a bunch of books by authors I had never heard of, I decided to say “what the heck!” And I downloaded all of them, thinking maybe I’d find something good, maybe I wouldn’t. So I was very pleased to be sucked right into The Fourth Consort by Edward Ashton. I didn’t know anything about this book going in,  it I quickly learned that it was a first contact style book.  Humanity is linked up with a conglomeration of other species (although they are way down in the pecking order) and the protagonist is part of a first contact team for a low tech species of alien bug type people (I kept picturing them as mantis-like).  There is a rival alliance of aliens who get into a shooting match in orbit with this conglomeration resulting in our protagonist stranded on this planet with one other human and a rival alien from a stronger, more violent and honor based culture.  The book was a really fun page turner, hampered just a bit by the protagonist being a great guy who was pretty great at everything he tried. He read like a super-competent cis white guy Andy Weir- style main character and was the least interesting person in the story.  But other than his bland super-competence, the book was a lot of fun! I would totally read something else by this author and I hope he continues these characters’ stories. 

Back After This by Linda Holmes

My internet is not the same internet as my wife’s internet. I asked her the other day if she knew who Linda Holmes was and she said “of course!”  I didn’t know that Linda Holmes was on NPR and used to write for Television Without Pity. I just knew her as a guest and fan of the Flophouse, a bad movie podcast I love. She was really funny on her guest appearance and I learned that she had a book coming out, so I requested and received an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I’m so glad I did!

This book was like a romantic comedy movie in book form - and I mean that in the best possible way. A busy woman focused on her career in podcast production becomes the host of a dating podcast under the tutelage of a relationship influencer. There is a great dog, a meet cute, and many complications. The characters felt well rounded and I kept being surprised in all the good ways by this novel. Highly recommend!!