Wednesday reading

Recent reading:

Andrew Knighton, Walking A Wounded Land: fantasy novella about using odd magic to resist destructive "development", and the interplay between paths that connect places, and borders that define and separate them. I liked this.

Emma St. Vincent Millay, A Few Figs from Thistles--"reread an old favorite" bingo square, prompted also by the title of Cameron Reed's What We Are Seeking. I still had a bunch of these poems by heart, or close to.

Georgia Summers, The Bookshop Below: Fantasy novel about magical bookstores, the price of magic, murder, and a secret society. The book's viewpoint character judges herself harshly, and sometimes unjustly. She spends a lot of time trying to figure out what's going on, and who lied to her about what. Recommended.

T. Kingfisher, Daggerbound: Sort of a sequel to Swordheart, including some of the Dervish’s past trauma in the hands of downright evil wielders. I think my favorite character here is Large Francis Building, a very intelligent, and very large, sentient pillbug. There's a romance plot, but it's not the main thing going on here. This is set in Kingfisher's Temple of the White Rat universe, and I was happy to read more about the gnoles.

Sofia Samatar, The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain: a good, and strange, science fiction book, set on a mining spaceship; this is largely about structural oppression and resistance. Another book where the background unfolds slowly as you read.

Agatha Christie, The Big Four. A Poirot mystery, about an over-the-top conspiracy to take over the world using cutting-edge physics. The narrator, Hastings, stereotypes Chinese people, and also makes a disparaging comment about women's intelligence while talking about Marie Curie. There's also an "as you know, Bob" bit in which Poirot asks Hastings "now remind me of what we know about this case," which summary is then given to the reader. Not one of Christie's better books.

Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Don't mourn, organize