So this week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is dads, in honour of Father’s Day. I love my dad, but he doesn’t love Father’s Day, so in deference to his wishes, I’ll skip it and regale you with the last ten books I inhaled. Ready?
- Saturn’s Children, by Charles Stross. This might be my preferred Stross book so far… and that’s not saying a lot, I’m afraid. For whatever reason, I don’t get along with Stross’ writing. It doesn’t help that apparently it pastiches/parodies Heinlein, but I haven’t read the right Heinlein to appreciate any grace notes. But I did read it in less than 24 hours.
- The Shambling Guide to New York City, by Mur Lafferty. And the sequel. If I was inclined to categorise books as beach reading, it’d be these two books. Lots of fun.
- Alchemy of Fire, by Gillian Bradshaw. It’s not exactly fast-paced, but somehow it kept me reading from start to finish. Bradshaw’s historical fiction is always good, and I particularly enjoy it when she uses settings/characters that are a little less well-trodden — like a perfume maker in Constantinople.
- The Worm at the Core, by Sheldon Solomon et al. This is non-fiction about death and its role in life, and you’d think that’d make it morbid and boring. It doesn’t. I actually found it really interesting and engaging. It helps that I know I have that very human anxiety about death, and have to look it in the face every day. (Generalised anxiety disorder and I are coming to a truce, though.)
- Sleeping Giants, by Sylvain Neuvel. The idea got me hooked, and the transcript format surprisingly seems to work for me. Recommended, if you enjoy sci-fi. Just don’t yell in frustration when you get to the end of the second book and there’s no third yet.
- The Emerald Planet, by David Beerling. We don’t appreciate plants enough, considering we would literally not exist and definitely could not survive without them fixing carbon for us. This book takes a trip into the hows and whys of that, and the tone is actually really engaging. I like non-fiction, but I don’t often give it five stars. I did for this one.
- Radiance, by Catherynne M. Valente. I don’t always get on with Valente’s style; it leaves me feeling drunk on words, sometimes in an unpleasant and disorientated way. Somehow, it worked in this one.
- Passing Strange, by Ellen Klages. My introduction to Ellen Klages, and one which has left a lasting impression.
- Miranda and Caliban, by Jacqueline Carey. If you know Carey’s work, you can imagine what this is like: a lush retelling of The Tempest, designed to break your heart and make you hope, painfully, that things will turn out differently.
- The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers. I kept picking it up to read a couple of chapters, and devouring whole chunks. I have some quibbles with pacing/structure, but I do enjoy the characters and the world they inhabit. I need to read the companion book!
Anything on my list that catches your eye?
I’m never keen on these holiday/special day themed TTT topics so I did my own thing too. I also have serious anxieties about death but I haven’t made a truce yet!
Yeah, I often find myself doing something else. And heh, I pretty much had to make a truce, or you wouldn’t know of me at all — I’d be hiding under a desk, afraid of everything! But it’s a long road.