Good morning, folks! I’m back from Worldcon, and as ever I think I need a holiday to recover from my holiday. (Which I worked through, also as ever, though I did do reduced hours!)

I met some lovely folks, got a couple of books, and also won a proof copy of Garth Nix’s new book. Not bad! I also had my 30th birthday, and though I joked I needed 30 books (one for each year), I only got nine, so I guess nobody should be serving me in a bar… 😀

Books acquired:

Almost all fiction, but quite a few wildly different genres there. Just another week on my TBR…

Books read this week:

Reviews posted:

–The Pandemic Century, by Mark Honigsbaum. Not revolutionary in any way, but there are definitely new titbits of information here. 3/5 stars
–Dread Nation, by Justina Ireland. This wasn’t 100% for me, but it’s a fascinating setting. I had some questions about the characters — relationships don’t work like that! 3/5 stars
–Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers. This had some of the emotional punch of the first and second book, but it didn’t quite add up to a satisfying story for me. It’s a fascinating exploration of a particular corner of Chambers’ world, though. 3/5 stars
–In the Labyrinth of Drakes, by Marie Brennan. A lovely instalment of the series, which solves some mysteries and involves a lot of the lovely partnership between Tom and Isabella. 5/5 stars
–Exit Strategy, by Martha Wells. Not quite what I hoped for, but a good conclusion for Murderbot nonetheless. Looking forward to the novel! 4/5 stars
–This is How You Lose The Time War, by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar. It didn’t work for me that well, but you gotta appreciate time-travelling multiple-dimensional lesbians. 3/5 stars
–Mistletoe and Murder, by Carola Dunn. Fairly standard for this series, but as always it makes a good cosy mystery. 3/5 stars
–Heartstopper, volume 2, by Alice Oseman. It’s just so goddamn cute. 4/5 stars
–The Cruel Prince, by Holly Black. I was told that this gets better if you hold on to the end, which shakes things up, but… I was so bored. I DNFed it. 1/5 stars
–Gene Machine, by Venki Ramakrishnan. I found this disappointing in two ways. 1) The secrets of the ribosome aren’t really unlocked, only the structure. That will tell us a lot more in time, but it doesn’t yet. 2) Ramakrishnan’s obvious antipathy to one particular competitor, of whom he says hardly a kind word that isn’t loaded with begrudging “I’m saying this to be fair, but I don’t really mean it”. She’s a woman; that is now how he treats male scientists. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday. The pre-Worldcon roundup…
–WWW Wednesday. And this week’s roundup.

So how’s everyone doing? Reading anything good? Got your hands on an awesome book? Share! (The news, not the book. At least not till you’ve read it. I’m not a monster.)