I haven’t yet but guess I better work on downloading the kindle stuff. I also don’t have whatever it is to de-DRM my purchases anymore so gotta look at that too. Hrm.

I should do that.

Meanwhile - I just came across The Orb of Caraido, a new novella? novelette? Shorter work of some kind set in the Goblin Emperor world. The mc seems to be a new character, a historian. I’m only a couple of pages into it, but I’m liking it so far

-t, I read that last week, it was nice. Not as emotional as TGE or the other novels, but a nice bit of world-building and characterization. Maybe the character will show up in one of the other novels.

I have totally forgotten anything I ever knew about how names and titles work but I'm just rolling with it hoping I'm not missing too much nuance.

I just finished Alien Clay by Adrian T, and I liked it. I generally have liked his books; they're inventive. Then I read a short, fun romp called Several People are Typing by Calvin Kasulke about a guy who gets stuck in Slack. Cute.

Now I want to find my next read, but I don't know what I'm in the market for. I mean, I'll always read sci-fi, but I'm feeling like I should branch out. Maybe I should browse my own damn shelves. I have a few audio books on hold from Libby, but I'm way far back in the queues.

I really liked Alien Clay, both for the alien stuff and the strictly human bits. Very thinky.

I agree. And interesting how he kept me rooting for the home team even after the effects of the long march home -- you know, normally that's be "Oh, no! How do we fix our heroes!" But they... didn't actually need fixing. I mean, I guess maybe we're supposed to feel a bit ambivalent... maybe reading it in the current state of the world pushes me to the side of Kiln biology!

Point of order: What's the whitefont rule of thumb up in here? I mean, obviously, Moby Dick, I don't need to WF, but is there a...dare I say the word... consensus? General vibe? Preference?

The current state of the world certainly makes the human politics (and effects on scientific inquiry) seem extremely relevant! Kiln biology and what usually gets explored in transhumanism make an interesting dialog, for sure.

The current state of the world certainly makes the human politics (and effects on scientific inquiry) seem extremely relevant!

Eerily and frighteningly so.

I’m now in two book groups, one in NC and one in MI. For the MI one we read “When Women Became Dragons,” and for the NC one we read The Fourth Wing, about people who ride dragons. So there’s a bit of a theme for February. I liked the latter better. The former seemed to me to use a bit of fantasy to tell a non-fantastical story of women’s repression in mid-20th century US. It had pacing problems and the symbolism was rather heavy handed, but the protagonist was interesting.

The latter is much more of a classic fantasy, complete with a map of The Continent in the front. It had some YA tropes and vibes, but I enjoyed the characters, their relationships, and the overall writing better.

It was kinda fun to compare and contrast them, though.