I just finished The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. I liked it. At first, I was like, "So... when does the story start?" but then I realized it was actually reflecting the reviews I'd read -- the characters are the story. I mean, part of me now wants an actual adventure with that crew and not just the little fracas at the end there, but I'm glad to have gotten to know them. Some interesting vignettes and commentary.

Now I'm starting The Ministry of Time, which sounds like a fun romp.

I've had Ministry of Time sitting in my TBR for a while now, interested to hear what you think!

While there are certainly moments of levity, I don't know that I'd call Ministry of Time a romp. I could see the potential for a screen version getting a little rompier.

Oh, I've only read the first page, so I definitley don't have anything besides the cover art and blurbs to go by, which I... heh, heh, heh... judged... to be rompy. That's what I get for, well, you know...

I think I was expecting rompy, or something akin to that based on reviews/blurbs, so I understand.

Another book I totally expected to be a funny romp based on a blurb was Swamplandia! That one was more misleading than the Ministry of Time.

Where does this kind of book stand fall on the moral alignment chart? [link]

Looks like there are lots of charts to choose from. [link]

You can only stop reading in the middle. The book falls off the stand otherwise.

I don’t have strong feelings about leaving books open face down to mark your place (as long as they are your books) but this seems bad and wrong to me

Hugo finalists: [link]

I’ve already read half the Best Novel finalists and own the other three but haven’t started them yet. So I kind of want to get a membership and vote? Maybe even go? It’s mostly appealing to me as an excuse to visit Seattle which I don’t think I’ve done since our F2F there.

I've read Alien Clay, and I'm reading Ministry of Time, but that's it. Liked Alien Clay a lot.