The City and the Stars

Arthur C. Clarke
Completed 9/21/2026, Reviewed 9/24/2026
3 stars

Of the books I’ve read by Clarke, I have found most are tales of wonder, not plot.  He spends most of his time describing the awe of something extraterrestrial as we saw in Rendezvous with Rama or “2001: A Space Odyssey” (which I read in high school and in my mid-twenties).  The same holds true here for futuristic living.  The plot is more detailed than usual, but not enough to fill all the holes.  This book was an online book club read.  Most people were on the positive side of meh, I was on the negative side.  Despite an interesting dystopian future, I quickly became bored with the descriptions of everything.  Most others in the club liked them.  But I think we all agreed that despite Clarke’s usual attention to detail, there were quite a few holes throughout the book.

For a billion years, Diaspar has protected its 10 million inhabitants from the horrors of the outside world and the mysterious Invaders with a biodome.  People live to be a thousand-years-old.  They don’t reproduce; their minds are stored when the body is recycled.  At some point in the near or distant future, they are put into a new body.  They never leave the dome.  One day, Alvin arrives.  However, he does not have a past life; he seems to be a new person.  He has an insatiable fascination with what’s outside the dome.  Everyone one else fears the outside, but Alvin wants to prove them wrong.

There are a good number of characters in this book, but little character development.  Alvin has the best arc, as he should being the main character, but it is a little thin.  He’s intensely curious and often iconoclastic.  He kind of has a girlfriend who he’s just not into, though she’s obsessed with him.  He has a cordial relationship with the people known as his parents.  They received him when he was incarnated and he lived with them until the age of twenty, which is about when previous life memories usually begin to return.  He also has a generally good relationship with his tutor.  But it’s not until he meets “Joker” that things liven up.  Joker is a person created by the city’s designers to throw monkey wrenches around to shake up the status quo.  The Joker confirms that Alvin is a new being and he was also created by the designers to shake people up when society needs a strong kick in the butt. 

Alvin really begins to grow when he finds out what’s on the outside.  He also finds someone with whom he forms an intimate relationship.  To me, and everyone in book club, this appeared to be typical 1950’s queer coding for the masses.  Clarke was not openly gay but was honest with people when they asked.  Alvin’s relationship with Hilvar seems to reflect Clarke’s own long-term relationship with a local Sri Lankan man, Leslie Ekanayake.  In the book, one big hole in the story was that the girlfriend from the beginning never gets closure on her obsession with Alvin.  We all thought that was because it would have been a coming out scene, which would have been illegal in Britain in the 50s.

A bigger plot hole to me was that the people in Diaspar understood people from the outside.  Considering their billion-year isolation, I couldn’t believe the language didn’t drift until they became separate, distince languages. Even if you argue that Diaspar’s language didn’t drift because of technology and recordings, the language of the more rural outsiders would surely have evolved over time.  

As for the world building, of course, it’s tremendous.  I had highly vivid images of Diaspar and Alvin’s journeys.  The problem for me with wonder-novels is that the sparkle of the prose and world building begin to wear off.  It’s like the ending scene in the very first Star Trek movie where everyone sat there with mouths agape for way too long.  It gets tedious.  Sure, the plot moved a bit in this book, but not enough to make up for how easy it was to put the book down in the middle of reading when I was distracted by just about anything else.  No matter how interestingly this dystopia was crafted, I still suffered from awe-fatigue.  Three stars out of five.

I Who Have Never Known Men

Jacqueline Harpman
Completed 9/17/2026, Reviewed 9/17/2026
4 stars

My predisposition was against liking this novella.  It was last month’s online book club selection, but didn’t get a chance to read it before now.  The general feeling of the book was negative with a few dissenters.  If I had read it in time, I would have been a dissenter.  I thought this book was tremendous.  The author is Belgian and this is a new translation that has been achieving a cult following.  I found it highly readable, though dense.  When I got into the zone, I read one hundred pages in a night, the rest the following morning.    It’s post-apocalyptic from the point of view of a teenage girl who has no memory of the previous life, being just a toddler when the event occurred.  It follows her for the next forty-some-odd years.  And it’s not a happy book but it is an exploration of what it means to be human and a woman in a world turned upside down.

The book opens with an older woman writing about her experiences in this post-apocalyptic world.  She goes back to her earliest memories.  She was kept in a cage with thirty-nine women, all adults of various ages.  They do not know why they are caged, carefully monitored, and brutally beaten for infractions.  The thirty-nine have been in the cage so long that they don’t remember much of life before.  Their focus is on survival today.  The young girl is an outsider because of the age gap.  She has no name that she remembers.  One day, something akin to an air raid siren goes off and the guards run out.  It just so happens that they leave the key in the cage’s lock.  The women escape only to find a barren deserted landscape that might not even be Earth.

The unnamed narrator, having been kept separate from the rest of the women her whole time in the cage, thinks very differently than the women.  They have context, she has none.  She doesn’t understand anything, even her own body as we discover her puberty was stunted and she doesn’t menstruate.  It’s not until their escape that the eldest women begin teaching her about life, as well as math, reading, and some history.  As they journey looking for other survivors and a place to live, the narrator begins matching ideas and words with real things.  But still doesn’t feel as human as she perceives the other women.  But because of this, she finds herself capable of thinking outside the box enough to solve the problems they face in this empty world.  

There’s an afterward to this book which has some terrific statements about it.  The best is the summary, which I’ll quote here: ”It’s a philosophical treatise as much as a story about an alien world, one that prizes the humanity of its characters and places this humanity square, front and center, even in a disorientating landscape of total strangeness.  The prose is cool water.  Its images are lonely, weird, sometimes horrific, and always arresting.”

I couldn’t have said that better myself.  In the end, it’s about acknowledging the humanity in all of us, no matter how different we feel.  The narrator always felt different, like a new species of human.  It was her greatest asset but learning that she is human was her greatest lesson.  I give this book four stars out of five.

The Prisoner of Limnos

Lois McMaster Bujold
Completed 9/13/2026, Reviewed 9/17/2026
3 stars

This is a sort of sequel to Mira’s Last Dance in that Nikys is involved and the hesitant romance continues.  I found it to be a good solid story, but not quite as riveting as Mira’s.  I did really like several new side characters that Bujold introduced, including Nikys’ possible future sister-in-law Tanar, Tanar’s albino eunuch guardian Bosha, and Nikys’ younger brother Ikos.  All three infuse a little levity and differing temperaments after the stranger danger wears off.  

The story picks up shortly after the trio have settled in Orbas.  Nikys gets a note from Bosha that cryptically says that her mother has been kidnapped.  They decide not to tell Adelis since he’s been stationed with Orbas’ military.  They get funding from the Duke of Orbas and head to talk with Bosha and his ward Tanar.  After a successful and cautious journey, they get the lowdown from Tanar and Bosha that her mother was exiled to the temple of the Daughter on the forbidding island of Limnos.  They attempt to rescue Nikys’ mother, with Pen again dressing up as one of the demon’s previous female hosts and taking Bosha with them to help with conveyance and security.

The story felt more like a standalone featuring these characters than a true sequel.  However, it’s a good story.  I liked Bosha, after the initial suspicion of his intentions and motivations.  He has a very dry sense of humor when he warms up to Pen, which happens slowly.  Like in many of these books, Pen takes time revealing his true talents to avoid possible apprehension, frustrating the other characters like Bosha.  Tanar was also interesting.  She starts off as kind of an airhead, though she’s determined to fend off suitors while waiting for Adelis to return.  She doesn’t know if she loves him but likes the person he is and thinks he’s worth the effort.  The relationship between Bosha and Tanar is odd.  It seems more intimate than just a guardian, making Pen and Nikys confused about Tanner’s commitment to Adelis.  But after some talking, even that concern dissipates.  

I liked the character of Ikos, Nikys’ younger brother, a shipbuilder who she hasn’t seen in years.  He pops up in the form of a deus ex machina to (reluctantly) help Pen in the rescue mission.  I won’t go into more detail than that to avoid spoilers.  But in this case, he really seems to be sent by the god known as the Daughter, the patron of the temple, a true “deus ex machina.”  

The story is a pretty good rescue mission tale.  It’s suspenseful at all the right times and continues to have a good amount of snarky commentary by Des, Pen’s demon.  She’s especially good at calling out the absurdity of both Nikys’ and Pen’s hesitancy in making the first move.  At one point she says, “Marry the sorcerer, dear…and put me out of his misery.”😄I give the book three stars out of five.

Mira’s Last Dance

Lois McMaster Bujold
Completed 9/11/2026, Reviewed 9/14/2026
4 stars

It can be tough writing a review for a novella sequel.  The story is short, so the plot is not usually as complex.  Plus, the character development is already in place.  And of course, there are SPOILERS for the last installment.  That’s the struggle I had while writing this review.    I loved this book as much as Penric’s Mission, mostly because it continues the story of characters I’ve come to really enjoy.

The story picks up as Penric, Adelis, and Nikys continue their trek to the duchy of Orbas, a safe haven for the general and his sister.  Penric was critically hurt and Des needs time to heal him completely.  They end up staying in a brothel.  In repayment, he cleans the place of vermin.  Des alerts him to the madame’s breast cancer, which they try to heal, though it takes away from Pen’s own healing.  They decide he must remain undercover and poses as a woman.  While disguised, he meets a general, Chadro, who wants to buy Pen’s services, being he is in a brothel.  The personality of Mira comes to the forefront to help him pass as a courtesan, as she once was.

This is a reminder that Desdemona is a chaos demon who retains the personality imprints of her past hosts.  Pen can draw on this experience in his daily life.  That is why he was able to heal Adelis’ eyes in the last book, as one of the past hosts was a physician.  In this case, Mira the courtesan comes forward to help Pen pose as a woman and to deal with General Chadro.  It’s really a cute sequence, reminiscent of the film “Victor/Victoria.”  She helps Pen make interesting choices in their quest to get to Orbas.  

The sexual tension between Penric and Nikys is still high, and Adelis and Nikys still bicker about it.  Nickys is pretty resistant to marriage to Penric.  She has quite the realization about him: “Most men kept to their assigned parts in life.  If you knew the part, you could reliably guess how they would behave.  She had no script for demon-ridden sorcerer.”  I like this sardonic thought.  As a counter to this, the sexual tension between Penric as Mira and Chadro is pure comedy with an underlying tension of Mira getting too deep into the acting.  

These story lines made the book a very enjoyable read, very tight and humorous.  There is a third novella in this subseries that continues the story of Adelis, Nikys, and Penric, even though this one doesn’t end in a cliffhanger.  I already jumped into that one just because I love the dynamic between the main characters.  I give this book four stars out of five.    

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.

2026 Hugos - Best Poem Nominees

The 84th World Science Fiction Convention

August 27-31, 2026 in Anaheim, California

The Best Poem category is top notch this year.  All the pieces made great impressions on me.  I’m getting better and better at appreciating good poetry.  I think it’s because I’ve been exposed to great prose over the past fourteen years or so with all the genre lit I read.  It still surprises me that you can write sci fi, fantasy, and horror poetry.  Edgar Allen Poe was always the exception in my mind.  Well, I stand corrected and better educated.  Also, I included links for the poems, on some of which there is an option to hear the poem being read.  Here are this year’s nominees in order from favorite to least favorite, which is tough based on their high quality.

“Landing: Seattle,” by Brandon O’Brien. 5 stars - This poem was composed for and read at the opening ceremony of the Seattle WorldCon last year by the very first Poet Laureate of a WorldCon.  It was extraordinary!  I’m probably biased by getting to hear it read by the poet himself and hear the live audience reactions.  I think he exhilarated all the attendees at the ceremony with his reading.  It was about a landing party coming to observe and participate in the WorldCon with Best Poem being an experimental category that year.  

“Hex Supply Customer Support Log,” by Elis Montgomery. 5 stars - This was a coy satire on customer support experiences with someone calling about a missing order of witchy ingredients for a hex.  But the person accuses the customer support rep of being an AI.  It’s great tongue in cheek poetry.  Found it amusing and sooo relevant, especially after finding out I had made an appointment for a furnace maintenance with an AI.  I felt humiliated.  

“The World to Come,” by Jennifer Hudak.  4 stars - This poem conveys the intense thoughts of a new revenant grappling with why they were resurrected.  They are not happy about it.  

“How to Become a Sea Witch,” by Theodora Goss. 4 stars - Delightful poem about becoming a sea witch and all the great things you can do as one.  Lovely word choices

“The Mourning Robot,” by Angela Liu. 4 stars - Another beautiful poem about robots who mourn for the dead, like the professional mourners of old.  Another with lovely word choices.

“Care for Lightning,” by Mari Ness. 4 stars - This was my least favorite poem, but it’s still a remarkable piece.  It’s about being a god and causing destruction, but hey, you get bored and itch for meaning when you’re an immortal.

 

2026 Hugos - Best Graphic Novel Nominees

The 84th World Science Fiction Convention

August 27-31, 2026 in Anaheim, California

A lot of life has happened since my last post.  I got a second roommate who came with a dog.  I’ve been trying to clear out the spare bedroom, which I’ve been using as an office and for storage.  I’ve also learned how to help take care of a dog which is brand new to me.  I dog sat for a friend many years ago, but now I’m actually living with one.  Fortunately, he’s completely taken with me.😀🐶

As for reading, it read quite a bit but did not take time for reviews.  These six graphic novels were all quite wonderful and each could have had their own blog entry.  Instead, I’ve written brief descriptions and reactions below, ordering them according to how I voted for them for the Hugo Award.  If the book is available on Bookshop.org, there is a link for it on the title.

The Invisible Parade by Leigh Bardugo and John Picacio.  5 stars - Incredibly beautiful and colorful art accompanies this relatively short novel about a young girl grieving the death of her grandfather.  When he was still alive, he was reading her a story, but now she’ll never know how it ends.  Then she meets some beings very much like a kid-friendly version of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who help her process her grief.  This all takes place around the time of Dia de los Muertos.  

The Space Cat by Nnedi Okorafor, art by Tana Ford.  5 stars – An easy, happy science fiction story about Nnedi and her daughter’s cat who is a secret space traveler.  This book was so sweet and easy, I fell in love with it.  The target audience is 8 – 12 years, but I enjoyed every second of it.  I loved the art and the happy story about Nnedi and Anyaugo bringing the cat home, the time it took for the cat to warm up to them, and the space adventures the cat has when everyone is asleep.

A Wizard of Earthsea: A Graphic Novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, adapted and art by Fred Fordham.  5 stars – Gorgeous artwork accompanies this classic story of Ged searching for his shadow.  It’s been a while since I read the trilogy, so this novel jogged the memories.  I loved that Ged and most of the other characters are finally portrayed as copper colored as opposed to the whitewashed covers of the editions I read.  And the relationship between Ged and Vetch was much more intimate and beautiful than I remember.  The artwork surprisingly evokes deeper emotions than words alone.

A Girl and Her Fed by KB Spangler, art by Ale Presser.  4 stars – The author provided Act 3 of their webcomic series containing everything published in 2025.  This link in the title takes you to the webcomic.  It was a bit jarring coming in the middle of things, but I eventually caught on.  There’s a prophesy that the current hunky president will die in office.  A previous prophecy had been subverted so there’s hope that this prophecy can be subverted as well.  A ghostly Benjamin Franklin is behind the assassination attempt, and a ghostly Abe Lincoln gives advice to the president’s children.  Intense, but smart and sprinkled with good humor.  And there's a talking koala!

Absolute Wonder Woman Vol. 1: The Last Amazon by Kelly Thompson, art by Hayden Sherman and Mattia de Iulis, coloring by Jordie Bellaire, lettering by Becca Carey.  4 stars – I was not looking forward to this one, not having really been a classic comic book kid.  But I was taken by surprise at how much I enjoyed this.  It’s another genesis story of Wonder Woman.  It’s smart, with an excellent combination of fun and intense.  I think my favorite part was when she first appeared to regular humans to save them from giant Lovecraftian sea monsters attacking the West Coast. 

The Power Fantasy Volume 1: The Superpowers by Kieron Gillen, art by Caspar Wijngaard, lettering by Clayton Cowles.  3 stars – My least favorite of the nominees, I found this first volume to be very confusing.  I didn’t understand the nature of the main characters who have superpowers equivalent to the nuclear arsenal of the US until I read the blurb at the end.  The storytelling bounced between scenes and characters too much to keep a coherent narrative in my head.  One character starts a cult, one or more want to stop the cult, one’s an artist.  As an introductory volume collecting five issues, I was too lost to fully appreciate this work by the well-known writer of The Wicked + The Divine.

Guards! Guards!

Terry Pratchett
Completed 7/17/2026, Reviewed 7/17/2026
4 stars

I believe I have acquired all the Discworld books via Deals of the Day, but haven’t read any since The Color of Magic in 2016 and The Light Fantastic in 2021.  This was a book club read.  I felt meh about it in the beginning as characters and mood were being set but really got into the jokes and then the plot as the steam built up.  Like the two I read, this book (Book 8) is not great literature but is quite fun.  And yes, the books seem to get better as the series progresses.  Hopefully, I won’t wait another five years before I read another one.  

Carrot is the hulking son of dwarves.  After living in the world of the dwarves, his father advises him to live in the world of humans, because, well, Carrot is a human foundling they adopted.  Unsure, but trusting of his father, he agrees and gets a job with the City Watch.  Carrot is honored to serve, but the people currently employed by the Watch hate their job.  Their captain, Vimes, is a drunk, and the rest are pretty shiftless and unmotivated.  That is until a Secret Society begins conjuring dragons to wreak havoc on the city in order to install a king who will answer to the Society’s Grand Master.  Vimes and his team try to figure out what is going on as giant dragons were supposed to be extinct.  Soon the team begins to act more like the cops they are and, with the inspiration of the naïve Carrot, try to save the city from this fire-breathing menace.

None of the characters are really deep, but they have better characterization than your standard comic novel.  Carrot makes a good dumb and kindhearted cop.  Vimes begins acting more like a captain, even catching the eye of Lady Ramkin who maintains a shelter for wayward swamp dragons.  Wonse, the Grand Master, is fun as the slimy bad guy, and Vetinari is great as the morally questionable Patrician of the city.  They all throw around jokes, puns, and comic observations; even Wonse gets some good jabs in.  Lastley, there’s the Librarian, an ape who controls all the books in the great library at the university.  He is perhaps the most likeable as he is regularly annoyed by the humans.  I really liked Carrot, Lady Ramkin, and the Librarian right from their introductions.  The others took some time.  In the end, Vimes develops depth and a sense of responsibility and action that he didn’t think he had, which made me very sympathetic to him.  

The nice thing about the Discworld is that you don’t have to read the books in order.  The world building covers enough that you have no trouble getting situated in the story.  The prose is nice; mostly it’s just plain fun.  There are some very sobering passages in it.  This book was first published in 1989, coming off the Reagan/Thatcher period.  But these passages feel like they’re inspired by the events of today.  The best quite in the book is:

“The Supreme Grand Master smiled in the depths of his robe.  It was amazing, this mystic business.  You tell them a lie, and then when you don’t need it anymore you tell them another lie and tell them they’re progressing along the road to wisdom.  Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they find the truth.  And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable.  Amazing.”

I give this book four stars out of five.  When I finished it, I felt good.  It has great British humor and left me quite satisfied.  The plot is not necessarily imaginative.  It’s the delivery that makes this book a great read.  

Half a Million Hits!

 

Wow!  Yesterday, I had my 500,000th hit on my blog.  Again, I don’t know if it’s lots of bots hitting my blog or lots of real people.  Either way, it makes it easier for everyone to find.  Thanks to my readers, regular and intermittent.  You keep me writing reviews, even after twelve years.  

 I’m quasi-retired now, having been laid off for about a year and not having much luck getting past the AI application screening processes.  I can’t even get jobs that exactly match my previous job description.  It’s a game I’m tired of playing anyway.  That leads me to the decision to investigate monetizing my blog, i.e., adding ads.  Hopefully, they are not too obnoxious.  My intent is not to upset my regular human readers, but to capitalize on the possible bots hitting my blog, hoping they’ll click on ads and generate some side income for me.  Every little bit helps, right?  So bear with me as I redesign the blog a little and add the ads feature.  You don’t have to click on them, but by doing so, you’ll help me out a little bit.  

Keep reading folks!!  I hope you find inspiration to check out some of the authors and titles I’ve reviewed as you search for something to sink your teeth into.  Thanks again to everyone who visits.  I’m still in the midst of reading Hugo nominees and book club selections.  After August 8th, I’ll be back to the eclectic taste genre fiction we love so much. 

 

The West Passage

Jared Pechaček
Completed 7/12/2026, Reviewed 7/12/2026
3 stars

This was a very strange book.  I would put it under the subgenre of weird fantasy.  The author throws a multitude of strange characters at the reader, some very large, some small, some with rabbit ears, square heads, four arms, three legs, tentacles, many eyes, one eye, scales, feathers.  Needless to say, the world building is simply unbelievable, which leads me to my general feeling about the book.  It was overwhelming for me.  I couldn’t keep up with all the characters and their characteristics.  I had trouble visualizing the layout of the land.  And I never got the significance of the title location.  A lot of work and imagination went into this story and I can acknowledge that it was well written.  It was simply just too much for me.  This book has been nominated for the 2026 Mythopoeic Award, but I read it because the author is nominated for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, presented at the Hugo Awards ceremony.  Since I’ve already read three of the authors nominated, I decided I would finish out this category and vote on it this year.  

Winter comes suddenly out of order to the Grey Tower.  Mother Yarrow dies prematurely, leaving young Pell to assume the mantle.  Pell, the new Yarrow, is not trained in all the ways of the Grey Lady.  But she decides to go to the Black Tower to ask the Black Lady why this is happening.  Were the women in grey being punished for something?  At the same time, the Guardian of the West Passage, who is from the Grey Tower, dies prematurely as well, leaving her apprentice Kew unacknowledged as the new Hawthorn.  He decides to go to the Black Tower to be formally acknowledged so he can defend the West Passage from the Beast.  Kew is assigned a squire, Frin, and together, they journey to beg help from the Black Tower to defend the country from the Beast.    

This book is very complex and describing the plot and the characters is not straight forward.  There’s so much more to this book than what’s in my summary.  I have to say I enjoyed the travels of Kew and Frin because of their relationship.  At first, Kew doesn’t want help, but comes to appreciate Frin and the two become friends, a first for Kew.  There’s an implication that there may be more between them which is quite endearing, whether I was reading into it or not.  I have a soft spot for boyfriends on a journey to save the world.  Pell, on the other hand, who becomes Mother Yarrow, is less endearing.  I found her reticence a little tedious, although I do understand her plight as she was thrust into this position without enough training.  There are many, many other characters who come in and out of their lives, but few stay through the whole book.  

The prose is sumptuous as is the world building, but again, I was overwhelmed.  And the order of the storytelling made following the journeys of Kew and Frin and Yarrow tough to follow.  Rather than the chapters alternating between them, the chapters would follow Kew and Frin for a while, then switch to Yarrow.  It made it a little difficult to keep track of each.  There’s also interludes which explain the history and mythology of the five Ladies and their Towers.  Every now and then, there’s an interlude which tells a brief story about the common people in the midst of the chaos of the approaching destruction by the Beast.  I appreciated those even though I didn’t always see their relevance to advancing the plot.  

This book is not an easy read.  It took me ten days get through it because I was never completely taken with any of the plot lines.  When I read it, I enjoyed it, but the effort involved kept me from picking up the book more often than I did.  Gender is pretty fluid throughout the book.  When Kew becomes the new Hawthorn, he becomes a woman, which doesn’t affect their relationship with Frin.  Props to that, but considering that the people were mixed with animals and shapes and forms, gender wasn’t that significant.  I give this book three stars out of five.  I think the average person will either love this book or get lost in the complexity.  I’m in the latter, but I acknowledge the brilliance and effort that went into it.  Hence my rating.  I am definitely interested in seeing what else Pechaček will come up with next.  

2026 Hugos - Best Novelette Nominees

The 84th World Science Fiction Convention

August 27-31, 2026 in Anaheim, California

Novelettes fall between short stories and novellas in size.  These ranged from 30 to 50 pages.  You get a little more world building than the short stories which have to get to the point more quickly.  Unlike the Short Stories, this category wasn’t as tight.  There was one standout, ironically from an author I haven’t enjoyed yet. The novelettes listed below have a brief plot summary with my reaction and are ordered by how I rank them.

“When He Calls Your Name” by Catherynne M. Valente – 5 stars – A woman verbally spars with a vampire named Jolene 😊 who wants to take her husband.  Jolene has been feeding on him for a while and the wife hasn’t known what to do, until now.  Valente credits Dolly Parton.  Yes, there are lines from the song in the story, but it works sooooo well.  And there are two twists.  I have to share a great line:  Jolene tells the wife, “I am sorry [for feeding on her husband].  It wasn’t personal.  It’s only nature.  Wolves hunt.”  The wife replies, “And people shoot wolves from fucking helicopters, lady.”

“Kaiju Agonistes” by Scott Lynch – 4 stars – Nixon still loses in this alternate history story.  Earth must battle a strange monster from the sea.  Planted by the galaxy-faring seed planters, the kaiju’s mission is to wreak destruction until the planet’s indigenous sentient beings refrain from using weapons of mass destruction.  The humans can’t figure that out, so the kaiju speaks directly to them, and gets a PR rep.  This book pokes fun at late-stage capitalism, fascist regimes, the Cold War, and Nixon, who could really represent any oppressive, dictatorial leader.  

“The Millay Illusion” by Sarah Pinsker – 4 stars - A girl in a magic troupe pretends to be a boy because audiences and critics don’t think women should be magicians.  Lottie falls for a new member of the troupe, Susanna, whose obsession with breaking into magic’s big time being herself rubs off a bit on her.  Susanna plays a ditsy female doing amazing magic, but gets no respect from the owner, Uncle Albert.  She goes off on her own, leaving Lottie who always remains on the lookout for her.  This is a good thinker story.  It keeps fresh what women had to do to break into a man’s world.  

“Never Eaten Vegetables” by H.H. Pak - 4 stars – A colony ship carries ten thousand people to settle and begin trade on a distant moon.  Under the eye of the ship’s AI, 95% of them die, leaving 500 to settle, people, and produce goods on the moon.  Because of this horrible accident, the AI, named NEV, as in Never Eaten Vegetables, is set to be shut down.  One settler, Luwa, tries to uncover what really happened that caused the AI to allow them to die.  This is a graphic, intense, and heartbreaking story.  I had to shake this one off before moving on to the next one.

“The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For” by Cameron Reed – 3 stars – A trans woman was supposed to bear the clone of a huge corporate CEO but has three miscarriages.  Coleen, the CEO, finds Mira, another orphan, and tries again.  The trans woman is now in limbo.  She takes care of Mira and they eventually fall in love, possibly destroying the CEO succession of the corporation.  I thought this story was okay.  I didn’t find the story terribly engaging.  

“Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy” by Martha Wells - 3 stars – This is a really good story if you’ve read enough of the Murderbot series.  In the story order, it is #2.5.  Even though I read the first seven books, I had trouble placing the characters.  And there’s no plot.  It’s really just a vignette to bridge a small gap to introduce Peri just as she tells the crew of the ship that she and Murderbot are having a relationship.  Not really remembering enough of the story and understanding the point of the book, I was lost until the very end.  I kept waiting for something to happen, but it didn’t.  I would have given it two stars, but the writing is seriously terrific.

2026 Hugos - Best Short Story Nominees

The 84th World Science Fiction Convention

August 27-31, 2026 in Anaheim, California

It’s that time of year again, as you’ve seen in my previous posts of novels and novellas.  This post is dedicated to the six nominees for Short Story.  It’s a tight race, and even though there is a difference between the ratings (4 stars versus 5), I liked them all very much.  They are all pretty dark and they comment on problems in our culture.   The stories listed below have a brief plot summary with my reaction and are ordered by how I rank them.  

“Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything” by Effie Seiberg – 5 stars – This was awesome!  The Main Character is a wheelchair-bound superabled woman named RazorBeam.  She’s a paraplegic with laser vision.  She joins the Super-Abled 501 Union and finds it’s not ADA compliant.  She tries to get them to add a ramp and change intersections to make them safer.  The Union members don’t listen to her ideas or needs, nor have they been able to stop the rampaging Doctor Croc.  RazorBeam confronts Doc Croc herself when the 501 doesn’t show up during an attack.  Their conversation is a revealing look into the state of superabled affairs.  This book was smart and effective in conveying a message about how the system fails the disabled community.  Hits all the right buttons.

“Wire Mother” by Isabel J. Kim – 5 stars – Cassie hates that 2/3 of the human population is digital, including her mother.  In fact, most humans have virtual partners and use professional companions/hired humans with a digital overlay for tactile needs.  Not being able to convince her father of her issues with her mother, she finds friendship with another human about her age at the community center, a computer whiz with a penchant for cruelty.  

“Six People to Revise You” by J.R. Dawson – 4 stars – A queer woman has been in therapy forever, dealing with interpersonal issues as well as gender identity.  There’s a new procedure called Revision which will change her, though it doesn’t exactly say how.  To do it, she needs statements from six people about what they would change in her.  The process of obtaining them is intense, but not as much as bringing it up with her wife.  A powerful story of self-awareness and self-care.

“In My Country” by Thomas Ha – 4 stars – An intense tale of living in a controlled society.  Main character’s son becomes a subversive writer, threatening the stability that the MC has lived with all these years.  His daughter and son see through the BS of the regime in power and try to make their father see the truth in the stories’ ambiguities.  Powerful novel.  A difficult read because of the frustration you develop listening to the father lie to himself about what’s happening around him and to his family. 

“Missing Helen” by Tia Tashiro – 4 stars – Well written story about a woman whose husband leaves her for her clone.  So she attempts to meet her to explain that she sold her cloning rights away because she needed the money when she ran away from home as a teen.  She doesn’t know what to expect, but hopes to ease the pain of the divorce.  The kicker in this book is that it’s told in second person and the wife is the “you” in the story.  The ending had WOW factor.  

“10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days” by Samantha Mills – 4 stars – A woman has an Amazon-bought crystal ball in which she sees many different futures, all of them apocalyptic.  In each one, she and her husband find little moments of joy amidst the end times.  It really made me smile, with little jokes and with her final conclusion.  

The Iron Garden Sutra

A.D. Sui
Completed 6/23/2026, Reviewed 6/24/2026
3 stars

Don’t believe the online blurb about this book.  This is not cozy in any way.  It’s a Sci Fi-Horror novel that uses many tropes that are popular right now.  It’s similar to the Alien franchise as people are killed one by one by something in a spaceship.  There’s a lot of body horror here.  There is a monk, but unlike Becky Chamber’s placid monk, this one is miserably self-loathing.  However, after I got about 50% of the way through, I started to really enjoy it.  I like reading horror.  And I liked the enemies-to-lovers romance-in-a-horrible-situation-movie that very slowly evolved.  This book was for online book club, so it was a quick break from the Hugo nominees.  

A generations ship has returned to a human docking station after a thousand years in space.  Everyone aboard is dead.  The Starlit monastery sends Vessel Iris to the ship to perform the soul releasing ritual for the thousands of dead.  He has an AI implant which helps him remember things, like breathing calmly and recalling the hundreds of years of sutras he studied at the monastery.  When he arrives at the ship, he finds a research team already there and it is full of moss, vines, trees, and other plant life.  He tries to avoid the team but inevitably, they interact---a lot.  Some are friendly, but some hate him for having the implant or simply because he’s a monk for the dead.  Vessel Iris senses beats on the ship, like a pulse or heartbeat, that no one else mentions.  So he keeps it a secret, the first of many.  As people die one by one, he keeps his theories to himself because the others aren’t receptive to him.  But his secrets may hold the key to the mysteries of the ship and the reasons for the deaths.

Vessel Iris is a miserable person.  He had a horrible childhood, being orphaned and taken to the monastery.  He believes he is a failure in everything he does.  However, between his senses, the AI (called VIFAI), and the discoveries made by the team, he is the only one who figures out what’s going on the ship.  You expect him to be a hero, but he’s not.  He’s a horribly insecure person.  That made reading through the first half tough.  It’s hard to develop empathy for him because of these personality traits.  Fortunately, the pace picks up and annoyance of Iris must compete with the accumulating body count.  

The character of the VIFAI was strange.  I felt like he was on the verge of having a robust personality, but it mostly seemed one-dimensional.  It’s sort of like a slave/guardian angel but he treats it as an equal.  I didn’t develop any empathy for VIFAI either.

Of the other characters, Riyu Alo was the nicest.  She’s the exobiologist.  Ishtan Ora was cute as the bumbling older archeologist, specializing in ancient, returned generation ships.  Tev and Jesi, the engineer’s interns didn’t seem multi-dimensional until near the end.  There are two guards we don’t know much about, but Iris feels guilty about not knowing their names.  Finally, there’s engineer Yan Fukui who is brash and downright mean to Iris (I just got that his last name might be a self-referential joke).  Because of this animosity, we get a better sense of who he is.  We also get background information about him, providing much needed insight into this belligerent character.  Probably the best developed character, but not the easiest to empathize with for quite a while.  But to me he was the most authentic and realistic human in the group.  He also played practical engineer devil’s advocate to Iris’ theories about the ship.  

I thought the prose was fine, but the world building was not detailed regarding the science.  There was a lot of hand-waving about the mycelium network and generations ship engineering.  During book club discussion, there was a lot of “What was that about?” i.e., vague science.  Despite all this, I was very engaged in the last hundred pages or so.  I liked the climax, but I somehow missed the “Book 1” on the top of every page, ending up shocked that it left some pretty huge loose ends.  It’s not a cliffhanger, but there’s a lot to be resolved.  And it seems to me that the resolutions will come in the form of going back to the ship with the remaining characters, the tired trope used by Alien and Aliens and countless other horror flicks.  When it came to rating this, I wavered between a 3 and a 4 because, by the end, I really liked it, but I also recognized that it had the above flaws.  So I settled on three stars out of five.  But I liked it enough that I will probably read the sequel.

The Summer War

Naomi Novik
Completed 6/17/2026, Reviewed 6/17/2026
4 stars

This novella felt overly long, despite being under 150 pages.  It’s about interactions with faeries: their vengeance, their oaths, and complicated stratagems to bring peace between the two worlds.  This felt like a common fae trope: faeries take a human and the human escapes by convoluting the fae logic.  Novik made it more complex than that, in a good way, but the prose felt bloated and there was too much exposition to catch the reader up on the history of the situation.  This 2026 Hugo nominee for Novella is probably my least favorite of the list.  While I felt like it was a great turn on the trope, all the filler and background kept me from feeling like this book was up there with my other favorite nominees.

Celia is a young girl, a daughter of a powerful nobleman, just about to reach her sexual maturity and come into her burgeoning sorcery gifts.  Their kingdom lies on the border with the fae world, called The Summer Lands.  She was very close to her oldest brother Argent, a highly decorated knight and hero.  When he tells his father he is disowning the family and going to live with the fae, young Celia panics.  She knows he keeps being gay a secret and that that is the reason for him leaving.  She inadvertently curses him by wishing he never find love again.  As time goes on, she regrets the curse more and more and is determined to go after him to break the curse.  However, the prince of their kingdom delivers the message that she fulfills the prophecy of the treaty at the end of the Summer Wars and must marry the prince.  However, the prince is in cahoots with the fae and it looks like another war may break out.  And Celia is at the center of this mess.

In general, the characterization was very good.  However, I did not really like Celia and couldn’t empathize with her.  Yeah, the twists and switcheroos of the fae was wonderfully complex, but I couldn’t empathize with any of her feelings through it all.  On the other hand, I liked Argent and her other brother Roric.  Argent stood his ground when it came to being true to himself.  Roric, the forgotten brother, was kind and forgiving despite being treated like he was invisible his whole life.  But the story centered on Celia, and that made it feel very long.  

The world building was great, though.  Novik did a great job of describing the differences between time in the Summer Lands versus human time.  And even though she used summerfolk instead of faeries, she stuck to much of the general faerie mythology while making it feel like her own.  

The biggest reason for taking off a star is the prosy exposition.  I didn’t like how the history of the war and the truce was replayed to bring us up to speed.  It was too chock full of complexity.  And it felt more like it was telling me about it instead of showing me.  It took me until finishing the book that I figured out the difference between the princes, even though their names were very different.  It was part of the fae’s game, but I didn’t like it.  And without empathy for the main character, it was hard to wade through it all to see what happened to her next.  I came close to giving this book three stars, but I settled on four out of five because of the brothers and the exciting twist upon twist of an ending.

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.