Penric’s Mission

Lois McMaster Bujold
Completed 9/9/2026, Reviewed 9/9/2026
4 stars

This third novella in publication order is the fourth in internal chronology.  Unlike its three predecessors, the last of which is Penric’s Fox, I really got into the plot of this one.  I thought it was the most intriguing since the first, but also I found it more readable.  Penric’s demon Desdemona is back to her witty banter.  And now I’m used to, and really enjoy, Penric’s word choices and speaking style.  

In this book, he is on a mission to convince a Cedonian general to conscript with the duke of Adria.  However, on the way, he is arrested in thrown in a deep dungeon.  He escapes, only to find out the general, commonly known as Adelis, has been blinded by the man Velka and is now in the care of Adelis’ sister Nikys.  So his mission appears to have been a setup.  He tries to find Adelis and Nikys to get them safely out of the region.  However, they don’t know if the duke of Adria can be trusted or if they should go somewhere else.  

I think my favorite part of the book is the banter between Adelis and Nikys as they try to figure out who and what Penric is.  Adelis is distrustful, but Nikys comes to believe his story.  It’s also a nice refresher on Penric’s origins.  I also enjoyed the sexual tension between Nikys and Penric, which her brother is not too keen on.  There’s a great comeback by Nikys after Adelis accuses her of being jealous of a fellow prettier than she.  She hits him back with, “Why, are you?  Really, Adelis!”  

Another great quote towards the beginning where Penric confronts Velka with, “You’re worse than evil.  You’re inefficient.”  As I noted above, I love how he has uses words in his style of speech.  I always imagine him calm while he prattles on about anything and everything, especially when he’s tired.  His perspective is unique and he’s good at confusing people with what he says and what he withholds.  I guess I’ve really come to like Penric.

And of course, I can’t leave Desdemona out.  She does not mince words and so when Penric beats around the bush at his feelings for Nikys, Des blurts out, “…you’re the one who’s been mooning after her hips for the past fortnight.  So do something about it.”  It’s the type of banter that was so endearing in the first book but seemed to be missing in the next two.  

I’m reading this book in conjunction with the next one chronologically.  This book sort of ends with a cliffhanger and I’d like to see if Bujold keeps the momentum going in the next one.  I give this four stars out of five.  

(Note: this novella is available on Bookshop.org in the collection "Penric's Travels")

American Hippo

Sarah Gailey
Completed 9/6/2026, Reviewed 9/8/2026
3 stars

This is a collection of novellas set in an alternative America where feral hippos rule the bayou.  It’s based on an actual bill presented to Congress to bring the African hippo to the US as an alternative meat source.  The novellas read a little like wild west tales but with antiheroes; no one is simply a good guy or a bad guy.  Even the hippos are morally grey; some are good and domesticated; others are feral and fierce.  It makes for a fun and interesting read.  

The first novella introduces us to a motley crew of people on the edge of the law, led by Winslow Houndstooth, a “hopper” hired to round up the feral hippos in the Louisiana delta area and gather them into a large lake.  This would keep them from spreading along the Mississippi and disrupting trade and transportation.  In this alt-America, Congress and the president passed the bill to import the hippos for meat and domestication but failed to take into account how feral and dangerous they can get.  So Houndstooth gathers together a team of rough folks, a nod to the Seven Samurai, to undertake this mission.  There are several other subplots going on amidst this.  A US Marshall is looking for one of the hippo hunters who is wanted for murder.  He also has a long-standing relationship with one of the other hunters.  They’ve kept it secret since they are basically on opposite sides of the law.  Between this hunt and the not so random hippo attacks, Houndstooth’s team struggles to complete their mission.  The second novella continues the story where more is revealed.  There are also two short stories and a timeline of hippos in America which add some background color to the novellas.  

I didn’t get a tight connection with any of the characters.  There were just too many of them for lengths of the stories.  I also had issues with the names of the characters.  There were two women on the team, one named Adelia and the other Archie, violating the unwritten rule of giving your characters names that begin with different letters of the alphabet to help keep them from being confused.  They both have accents, Adelia being Latina and Archie being French.  Her full name is Regina Archambault.  At least Adelia is pregnant which helps differentiate them a bit.  In addition, there was a domesticated hippo named Abagail.  So there’s three A names.  Then there’s Houndstooth and Hero, the latter being a non-binary love interest of Houndstooth.  Lastly there are two hippos named Rosa and Ruby.  Yeah, it gets confusing quickly.

Houndstooth is almost likable.  He’s a native Brit, transplanted here to wrangle hippos.  I had to smile when he hooked up with the blue-eyed federal agent who hired him.  As he tells his hippo Ruby, he can’t say no to those blue-eyed boys.  But he’s clearly fluid in that he later develops feelings for his non-binary associate, Hero.  Even though I liked him in the first novella, he goes a bit crazy in the second when the team is split.  I didn’t feel the slow transformation into crazed desperation to get Hero back.  It felt out of character for him.  

The world building in this collection is pretty good.  I did feel like I was awkwardly riding hippos in the swampy marshes in the bayou.  And I really liked the short story about the cost of getting Ruby’s cracked horns (long, protruding teeth) fixed.  There is some humor sprinkled throughout.  Overall, I’d say it’s a fun book, even if it’s a little more serious than your standard fluff.  What stood out for me was the conviction with which the author wrote.  I could almost believe this was an historical novel versus alt-history.  But I give this book a middlin’ three stars out of five because I felt immersed in the stories’ details, but not the main characters.  I think I would also have enjoyed a little more focus on the hippos, rather than being just the background plot for the human interaction.

Cemetery Boys: Espiritu

Aiden Thomas
Completed 8/30/2026, Reviewed 9/3/2026
4 stars

This took me a long time to read because I began it right before leaving on vacation.  I only spent about 10 minutes a night on several nights because I was so tired from touristing during the day.  Despite indulging on rich food, I lost almost five pounds from all the walking.  Anyway, back to the book.  I was thrilled to see the new Cemetery Boys novel is almost out.  I wanted to read it NOW!  So, now that I have a login on Netgalley, I requested the ARC.  I loved the book, however, like the first, it took me awhile to get into it.  I was caught off-guard over Julian being the dominant narrator.  Along with the intermittent vacation reading, it took me half of the book to feel truly pulled in.  But when I finally did, I got back to feeling warm and embraced by community of brujx (brujo and bruja) in Latinx East LA.  It’s not a cozy story, but in the end, I didn’t want to leave the world created in that book.

Warning: This book has spoilers for the original Cemetery Boys!

After the events in the last book, Julian can now see the spirits of the dead.  But every now and then, he catches a shadow out of the corner of his eye.  As this becomes more frequent, he also notices a hole in his chest in the same place as his fatal wound.  Soon he can see holes in other people.  Yadriel, newly acknowledged as a brujx, has been busy himself trying to figure out from where all the malignos, the dangerous spirits, are coming.  In the middle of fighting a maligno, a new brujx arrives.  Angel, a trans girl from Texas.  They help the Julian, Yadriel, and their bruja friend Maritza with the evil spirits.  But something does not feel right with Angel’s techniques and Julian tries to get to the bottom of that and all the strange things going on.  At the same time, he must keep his own spiritual activities from his brother and the found family they live with. This causes a lot of cognitive dissonance for Julian and anger and suspicion in his family. 

It definitely took me some time to warm up to Julian as the primary narrator.  I fell so in love with Yadriel in the first book that I was a tad resentful at the author.  Even when I warmed up to him, I struggled with his coming into his new existence.  I loved the scenes with Yadriel and I was jealous of Angel getting Julian’s attention.  Obviously, by the time I was having these feelings, I was hooked.  

Angel was quite the wild card for me.  I couldn’t figure out their motivation for a long time.  Was she trying to steal Julian from Yadriel?  Was she really trying to help with the malignos?  Did she have some other fiendish plot? (BTW, their pronouns are she/them).  Yadriel looked to her as an ally, being a trans teen AND a brujx.  Julian liked how good she was at fighting the malignos.  That clouded their perspective as they tried to unravel the dark enigma confronting them.

I also enjoyed getting to know Julian’s older brother Rio and the four kids staying with them.  It was hard to keep track of them initially, but they each had their own personalities.  I was quite impressed that the author pulled that off so well.  Great development for secondary characters.

I give this book four stars out of five.  This book comes out in a few days.  I highly recommend this book and its predecessor.  It’s a look at the Latinx trans teen experience as well as the spirituality of the dead.  Reading this, you’ll become fond of marigold petals 😊

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review the ARC of this book.  The content of this review is my honest opinion.  Cemetery Boys: Espíritu goes on sale on September 8, 2026.

Moss’d In Space

Rebecca Thorne
Completed 8/18/2026, Reviewed 8/19/2026
4 stars

I do love my cozy queer genre romances.  This surprisingly entertaining tale inspired by the Murderbot series checked off all those boxes.  It’s fluff, but so enjoyable, I didn’t mind the cliffhanger at the end.  It’s about family, found family, and multiple alien species working together to make a space everyone can enjoy and calling it home.  Oh yeah, it’s also about a spaceship’s AI life support system melded with moss dealing with abandonment issues.  The prose is decent and the world building pretty fun, but I think the strength of this book lies in its characterization.  Between the AI, known simply as Moss, Torian Raznor, and the small cast of side characters, I reveled in the warmth, caring, sarcasm, and the occasional shade getting thrown around.  This may not win any big awards, but it certainly won my heart.

Torian is a failed security guard from a smuggling ship.  She kissed the Captain, Amelia, once and got demoted.  After years of saving every penny from her smuggling gig, she finally has enough to buy a ship to take her sister Celise, who is dying of a rare, recycled-air reaction on their home space station, to a beautiful, terraformed planet so she can recover.  The ship is questionable, based on unknown technology and covered in moss.  Turns out the ship, aka Moss, has been abandoned by the last of an alien race for about 133 years.  Moss resents their old owner/creator and lays the charm on for Torian.  It takes her to the terraformed planet, only to find out she and her sister are too old take the residency exam.  On that trip, she meets the original Nylarian owner/creator Dutch, his Draic husband Zen, and finds an old space station abandoned by the Nylarians.  The station is huge, filled with plants and trees, creating the perfect atmosphere to help Celise and maybe cure her.  Just maybe, they can all work together to create a safe place for people with Celise’s disease while restoring an historic monument.  

I loved Torian.  She’s failed at a lot of endeavors, but talks a good talk, getting into previously unreachable situations.  Despite the negativity from Amelia, Celise, and others, she does her damnedest to pilot Moss with only a community college certificate on a flight simulator.  She’s driven by her persistence in keeping Celise from succumbing to the illness.  I loved her determination.  I also really enjoyed her relationship with Moss.  Tenuous at first, she promises she won’t abandon Moss the way Dutch did.  Together they look for alternative living solutions.  

Moss is a hoot.  The chapters alternate between 3rd person Torian and 1st person Moss.  Loved getting the different perspectives.  Moss is persnickety and resentful while Torian proves herself an uncommon, caring human.  It took me a little while to warm up to Moss, though, not being entirely trusting of an AI.  I liked his regular self-aggrandizement in sentences like, “Celise will like me.  But then again, everyone does.  I’m a delight.” (A possible nod to Sheldon on “The Big Bang Theory”) But Moss does grow (heh) and change despite not admitting to having feelings.  

I loved the side characters too.  Celise seems to have accepted her fate on their home space station.  It takes some effort to motivate her to try for better, even if they fail.  Amelia is a cardboard smuggler with a heart of gold.  Dutch is a big old queen, and his butch husband Zen is a gentle gargoyle-like hulk.  I don’t completely trust Dutch and neither does Moss.  Guess I identified with Moss more than I thought. 😊

I give this book four stars out of five.  Its entertainment value supersedes the rather simplistic let’s all just get along tropes.  But I can never get sick of the found family trope.  This is near and dear to my heart, especially as I’ve been reconnecting with found family from my college and post college days.  There are many good people out there, but the ones who still love you ten, twenty, forty years after scant contact (if any) are the keepers, once you get out of your own way.  

Dungeon Crawler Carl – The Graphic Novel #1

Matt Dinniman, Tevagah (Adapter), Laurel Pursuit Studios (Illustrator)
Completed 8/13/2026, Reviewed 8/19/2026
3 stars

I enjoyed this first issue of DDC – The Graphic Novel, but I wasn’t bowled over by it.  The novel is collected from the online series, and this volume contains about the first third or so of the first novel.  The art is good, standard manga/anime style.  However, I have issues with the drawing of Carl himself.  He looks way too young to be a coast guard veteran.  His character is more boyish than man-ish.  I guess I’m stereotyping here, but I was expecting a little more square-jawed and brooding, looking at least late twenties rather than late teens.  

So that was my first thought when I saw the cover of the graphic novel, and it unfortunately set the tone for disappointment.  I liked Princess Donut and the aliens; I just never got over Carl.  Despite that, I was able to enjoy it by the end.  It was good, but it certainly didn’t rock my world.  

This post is short because I’ve already reviewed Dungeon Crawler Carl.  (Click the link to see it)  I give this first issue of the graphic novel three stars out of five.  It didn’t thrill me like the first book did.  It’s probably because in the original text, there was more of Carl’s inner monologue, his thought processes, his coming to grips with what has happened to the Earth and its people, and the insanity of a live action, galaxy-televised DnD game.  It fleshed out Carl better, making him a more colorful loser cum action hero.  What I’d really like to do is listen to the audio book.  Everyone says the reader is amazing, so I’m going to have to try it.  

A Drop of Corruption

Robert Jackson Bennett

Completed 8/4/2026, Reviewed 8/13/2026

4 stars

This is the book which, while reading, I acquired an additional roommate and his dog.  It took me two and a half weeks to get through this Hugo nominee for Best Novel, sometimes reading only ten pages at a time.  Life simply became too chaotic.  I did get through it before the Hugo voting deadline, reading the last hundred or so pages in just over a day.  I really liked the ending, and I do love the main characters, Ana and Din. I’m just not sure if this book was better than this review will reflect.  The first book in this series, The Tainted Cup, I gave four stars initially but then changed to five stars after a reread.  I wonder if this book will have the same fate if I reread it before reading the third book in the series.

A canton outside the official borders of the Empire extracts the blood from the dead leviathans to create the magic needed to create the human augmentations which were introduced in the first book.  When a treasurer from Empire goes missing, seemingly abducted by a ghost, they call Ana and Din to solve the case.  They quickly find that this was a murder, one of several in the recent past.  In her usual way, Ana sends Din to do the investigating while he brings detailed info back to her through his augmentations.  They work with some local officials and soon find corruption all over this canton, weaving a web of deceit which may just stump Ana.

The book basically follows a similar mystery formula to the first book but of course set in different environs.  I thought, however, the banter between Ana and Din was less fun, more serious.  I missed that comic relief, or perhaps I had become used to Ana.  It seemed less playful and more scathing.   Also, Din’s sexual diversions seem to indicate an addiction rather than just normal appetite.  It makes his longing for the stability of his short time with Kepheus at the end of the last book that much more significant.

Something I really liked in the last hundred or so pages (but avoiding any spoilers) was Din’s cognitive dissonance over what he had to do in his job versus the rewards he gets from it.  The longing for Kepheus turns up, as does a thin side story involving Din’s paying back his father’s debts.  I liked the introspection and the eventual discussions and arguments between him and Ana.  It kept the character development going through the series.  And it kept me liking Din despite his constant need for sex.  

I give this book four stars out of five.  Reading the last quarter of the book in two sittings instead of another ten helped me to up it from the three stars I was considering.  The prose is still great, as is the  world building, with its Lovecraftian Leviathans and the industry around collecting their blood for augmentations in the Empire.  And it makes me want to see what happens to Din and Ana.  I really want to find out how Din attempts to resolve his issues with himself, his habitual promiscuity, and his dissonance-inducing job.  I’m also still excited about whether Ana is going to reveal to Din what her augmentation is.  Lastly, there’s the question of the true nature of the Leviathans.  So, yeah, the series obviously has its claws in me.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC and the opportunity to review this book for voting in the 2026 Hugo Awards.  The content of this review is my honest opinion.

2026 Hugos - Best Professional Artist and Fan Artist Nominees

The 84th World Science Fiction Convention

August 27-31, 2026 in Anaheim, California

This was my first time voting in these categories – and it was not easy to make voting choices.  The styles and sometimes the media are varied.  For example, for Fan Artist, one nominee does knitting, another jewelry.  With each one, I went with my gut reactions to put them in a voting order.  Since I probably can't post the art without all the artists' permissions, I’ve added links to their names so you can visit their galleries.  For Fan Artist, a few only have Instagram links.  But visit them if you can; they are worth checking out.  For voting, I could only consider their work from 2025.  Here they are in my voting order:

Category: Best Professional Artist

John Picacio – This author and artist, along with author Leigh Bardugo, produced the book “The Invisible Parade,” which I adored. The color palette and shadow used to convey the different images was masterful. 

Tom Roberts: This artist produced a handful of glorious covers for books last year.  

Kelly Chong: Another artist with some glorious book covers.  

Tran Nguyen: Beautiful work in fantasy and with comic character images.

Dave Kellett: Author of the graphic novel “Drive,” with art a little reminiscent of Jhonen Vasquez

Lulu Chen: Another artist with gorgeous colors in her artwork.  Gives off very cozy vibes. 

Category: Best Fan Artist

Yuumei: Wonderful!  Unfortunately, I only have an Instagram link for them.

Richard Man: Wonderful artist, both fine arts and photography.

Geneva Bowers: Lovely, striking color mixing.

Sara Felix: mixed media and jewelry.  The tiaras are stunning.

Terri Ash: Terrific knitting art.

España Sheriff: Cool logos and interesting black and whites.