🫣 Intense Thriller😱, More Time Travel⏳, and Almost Done with My Latest Fantasy Series⚔️

 

    Master of the Revels is the second in a series about time travel and witches. Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland wrote the first book, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. The series is continued solely by Nicole Galland. Galland does an adequate job of moving the story along using the original characters. If you are a Shakespeare enthusiast, Galland's knowledge of the details of the people and theater of that time is extensive, and she weaves it into her plot skillfully. Master of the Revels is less science-y than other Stephenson's books, but if you enjoyed the first book and wonder what happened to them--the first book ended on a cliffhanger then it is worth the time to read it.

Here is a link to a review of another Stephenson's book: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Stephenson

🎭⏳🧙‍♀️

    I found The Fury by Alex Michaelides a tense "locked room" mystery thriller. I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator was stellar. The murder takes place on a remote island during a fierce windstorm. Michaelides kept me off balance for the entire story. I kind of, sort of figured out some of the big reveals, but the ending caught me by surprise. He does an excellent job of obfuscating significant clues and lulling the reader into a sense of trust only to shatter it. I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just say I found this book intense and compelling.

🎭🇬🇷🏝️🔎😱

    I read Daindreth's Sorceress by Elisabeth Wheatley, book four of her series Daindreth's Assassin. Wheatley is good at crafting plots that are believable and inventive for the genre, and occasionally, she produces a gem of a metaphor. She likes the word smear and uses it a lot. 

He smeared his wet hair back. She smeared sweat from her face. 

It seems like an unusual use, but it does bring a clear visual to mind. 

Vesha is a sympathetic and ruthless villain. Wheatley supports her actions with understandable desire. I can see why Vesha pursues her awful path, and I wish she would choose differently for her sake and others.

There are as many court politics as sword fights that occur, and it elevates the series.

I'm looking forward to spending my next audible credit on the final book of the series.  

🧝‍♀️🧙‍♀️⚔️

🕷️🕸️🧙‍♂️🔮🏰 More Sci-Fi with Lite Horror Fantasy and a Feel-Good Read

 

    I have read several books by Neal Stephenson, who excels at both science and historical fiction. I especially liked Cryptonomicon and Anathem. His latest book. Polostan is a historical fiction set mainly in the 1930s. It follows an unusual woman who was born in America to an American mother, moved to Russia with her father as a child in time for the revolution, then returned to the Midwest for her teenage years. She leads a complicated, fascinating life and is present at key historical events, like the Chicago World's Fair. Halfway through, I discovered that this would be a series, and I worried the ending of Polostan would be a disaster of unknowing, but Stephenson did well. I am excited to read the next book when it comes out in September.

🐎🪆🎡🎟️🩻

    After a steady diet of mindblowing sci-fi, I needed a palate cleanser. I chose The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, by Phaedra Patrick, because a review said it was like A Man Called Ove, and it involves an older man who has lost his wife and is unsure how to continue living. The adventures that Arthur Pepper pursues are more hilarious but also uplifting. It is just on the edge of believable. A lot depends on how eccentric you believe the British to be.

🐯🐅🚇👴🏻

     I am enjoying reading Adrian Tchaikovsky at present. Spiderlight, I assumed, would be more of his Children of Time series. It was not. It was about a group of misfits on a quest to defeat the dark forces of their world that could only be accomplished through killing the Dark Lord. They needed the fang of a spider queen and her map to the Dark Lord. One spider is appointed to accompany them in an uneasy alliance. It changes all of them, and they learn astonishing things about good versus evil. Tchaikovsky. This book was entertaining and also thinky-thinky.

🕷️🕸️🧙‍♂️🔮🏰

    I like a weird book with an unusual narrator. Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell is just that kind of book. The protagonist is, perhaps, a slime mold that can take in parts from humans, trees, deer, chain mail, anything, and create an externally believable human. The village it borders sees it as a monstrous worm threatening their safety. Though a monster, she desires connection and understanding, causing story tension and a propelling narrative. It reminded me somewhat of Frankenstein in its setting and sensibility. Some themes include: Who is the real monster? Parent/Child relationships are complicated.

🪼🏰❤️💀

Different Flavors of Sci-Fi

    It has been a Science Fiction season for me. I interpret this to mean things are complicated, and I want to escape. Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson wasn't precisely what I wanted. It takes place about thirty years in the future, and climate change has become a massive problem for low-lying areas around the world like the Netherlands, the United States, and parts of India and China as well as others. A Texas billionaire has a solution. He creates a giant gun that fires sulfur into the atmosphere, which reflects back the sunlight, cooling the earth. The problem is that a beneficial change to one part of the ecosystem generally means a detrimental change to another. And not everyone or every country will like or stand still for that. Stephenson, I think, is considered hardcore sci-fi. He finds science and cultural trends and extends them into the future. The story starts with the Meth-Gators watch and Hogzillas watch and then gets weird. As I read, I thought this couldn't be true, but an internet search would prove me wrong. Termination Shock is a time investment to read (708 pages), but an exciting ride. I wouldn't say it's his best work--Cryptomnomicon or Seveneves-- would be my favorites, but I found it worth the effort.

    I've recently discovered Emily Henry and have read some of her prior works. A Million Junes is a Hatfield and McCoy, Romeo and Juliet kind of romance set in a place where the world is thin where the line between reality and the supernatural blurs. what-are-thin-places The two forbidden lovers try to solve the mystery of why their families hate each other so profoundly. It has good things to say about forgiveness, shame, and guilt. A lovely podcast I listened to, Marriage Therapy Radio (https://marriagetherapyradio.com), had an episode about having a personal philosophy of forgiveness. It's been on my mind, and A Million Junes helped me consider it from Henry's perspective while it absorbed me. Not bad, right?

 

    My final book of the week, finished just before lunch today, is Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid. It was apparently a week of reading authors I've read before. Reid is having a moment lately. She also wrote The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Malibu Rising, and Daisy Jones & The Six. This earlier work doesn't feel as accomplished as her latest titles. It is a multiverse story Multiverse. Hannah Martin returns to LA after ten years of wandering. On her first night home, she gets hit by a car, or she gets together with her high school sweetheart. Reid's two storylines contain the same significant events--pregnancy, divorce, and family estrangement, but the different iterations react uniquely. The chapters alternate between the two lines. I like the What-If nature of the multiverse, and Reid has both Hannahs grow and mature. All roads lead to taking responsibility for her life. I didn't think of this as romance fiction when I started, but it did have the happy ending making it a restful summer read.

A Big Week: Theology🌧️, Fantasy 🌹🌿🐻and Sci-Fi 🐙

 

A look at the need for lament in the Church and our hearts

    Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament by Mark Vroegop was gifted to me by my good friend. We share an affinity to understand God better than we do, especially how we walk through challenging, sad events in our present and past, plus be prepared for the ones to come in our future. Pastor Vroegop speaks from his own life and many years of shepherding the members of his congregation through pain and suffering. He turns to the Psalms, where sixty-five of them--over half--are lament. Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy is more than comforting; it also encourages the rightness of mourning.

⛈️💨🌧️🌦️

    If you read this blog regularly, you will notice I've been on a T. Kingfisher reading binge. Bryony and Roses is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast with surprises.

🌹🥀💐

I started a new series this week. To write a good series, you need strong characters, demanding situations, and good peaks and valleys in the plot. Kingfisher has been writing many books (30+), and she knows what she's doing. It's by T. Kingfisher. It is a well-crafted fantasy series that examines, in turn, the surviving knights who served and lost their god. It has left them broken in mind and spirit. The first book, Paladin's Grace (The Saint of Steel #1), focuses on the knight, Stephen, and a perfumer, Grace. Paladin's Grace has lots of lovely tropes: broken hearts, dangerous enemies, menacing zombies, and afraid yet brave heroes. Kingfisher seeks to balance the woman who needs to be rescued because she's helpless and a woman who needs to be rescued because she's overwhelmed by schemers and events. Even though this book is the start of a series, there is a solid ending.

🏮🂼🧟🪴

    I also just finished the second book in The Saint of Steel series, Paladin's Strength. The main characters are another knight, Istvan, and a reticent nun on the run, Clara. They both carry secret burdens that put them and each other in danger, but they both have people to save and mysteries to solve. I like this book even better than the first one because of the road trip romance trope. It works well. 

🐻🧟‍♂️💪

    The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler is hardcore science fiction in the same vein as Neil Stephenson and Andy Wier. Nayler follows three antagonist in this near future story. It balances plot and action with speculation on what defines a human: consciousness, culture, collaboration? Naylor has well developed ideas that integrate well into the storyline and didn't veer into pontification. Also, octopus are a major feature, so win!

🐙🤖🌊 💻

New Series and End of Year Round Up

    I started reading the Longmire series by Craig Johnson. The Cold Dish and Death Without Company are the first two. I'm really enjoying them. Craig Johnson writes a tight mystery- always enjoyable- but I'm most captivated by the dry humor and the supporting cast. The protagonist is mildly depressed, and it would be a much darker book if it weren't for the strong women surrounding him and his faithful best friend. If he can keep this up throughout the series, it will be a fun year for me reading through his catalog. Book 19 is due to come out in 2023. In a future post, I'll compare the book series with the Netflix version. 

🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠

    I have done the GoodReads reading challenge for several years. I have settled on aiming for 100 books and usually pass it, but I'm reluctant to up the number. 100 is a satisfying number, and 125 or 150 just isn't. 

I see some trends in the latest books I read. One is the multiverse and, perhaps related, time travel within your life. Another is same-sex relationships. If it's not the centerpiece relationship, there is one somewhere in the book.

I read several terrific books this year, and a few I wish I hadn't.

📚📚📚📚📚

Most Helpful: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

Favorite Mystery: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Most brutal to Read, but Worth It: The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to the Sexual Revolution by Carl Trueman

Favorite Sci-Fi: The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

Most Disappointing:  The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

Most Comforting: The Penderwick Series by Jeanne Birdsall

Favorite Fantasy: Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Most Interesting Relationship: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Favorite Memoir: Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci

Most Surprising: Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

Made Me Think: Hell of a Book Jason Mott and The Sentence by Louis Eldrich

Most Disturbing: The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin

My Favorite Book of 2022 is:

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

2022 READING 
CHALLENGE

Participants	6,758,337
Books Pledged	334,703,276
Avg. Books Pledged	49
Time Left	3 days, 17 hours

You have read 134 of 100 books in 2022.

YOUR 2022 BOOKS

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•