My great-grandmother was raised by her grandparents after her mother died, despite still having her father in the picture. Evidently, at the time, it was widely believed that single dads couldn’t raise kids well. (I suspect people believed this was especially the case with young kids.) Even once her father remarried,…

That Connie Willis novella appeared in Asimov’s in December. I liked it, because I usually like Willis, but it’s definitely not one of my favorites.

Book 2 was a rough read for me too, but Ken Liu translated the third book (which was significantly better than book 3). The ending of the trilogy is worth getting through book 2.

This is not an obscure sci-fi novel. As the article points out, this book was a major hit in China, and it made waves here in the US too when Ken Liu translated it into English. It’s the first translated work to win a Hugo award. When I think about major sci-fi novels published within the last several years (note: it…

National Harbor pretends to be mini-Vegas, with even less appeal than Atlantic City but is less run-down (because it’s still new). Nobody who lives in the area goes there. It’s just a weird tourist trap that tries to attract conferences that want to have a more glamorous atmosphere than whatever random business hotels…

I know, right? Her costume is striking, and I really liked their performance tonight. His costume is just tragic, though.

No mention of this costume atrocity from Thursday night? He looks like he sprinkled some glitter on a piece of blue painter’s tape and then stuck that on his outfit to kinda sorta match hers.

Have you read Kameron Hurley? She writes grimdark SFF, which may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s deeply feminist and innovative. I also love her book of essays titled “The Geek Feminist Revolution.”

Volume 8 of Saga arrived on my doorstep today too!

Volume 8 of Saga arrived on my doorstep today too!

In addition to the stuff I listed a few minutes ago, I’d add Ada Palmer to the list too.

I LOVE N. K. Jemisin’s work. Highly recommended. I second the recommendation of Kameron Hurley. Additional recommendations: Catherynne Valente, Ken Liu (who has also been translating a lot of Chinese SF, like Cixin Liu, but has amazing work of his own), Elizabeth Bear, Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series,…

I got an ARC of The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden. It is an excellent sequel to The Bear and the Nightingale.

I got an ARC of The Girl in the Tower and I can tell you that it is just as excellent as The Bear and the Nightingale. The characters are still great, the writing is still magical, but it moves faster (because it takes place over a shorter period of time) and focuses on a different Russian myth.

Yep, when I see men patting themselves on the back for writing women and talking about all the lengths they went to making sure those women are believable, that tells me they have a hard time relating to women.

It’s a heist story on the moon. There’s still that same aspect of using engineering know-how to survive, since the heist gets complicated. Like The Martian, I think it’s pretty accessible hard sci-fi, though I don’t think he wrote the characters in this one terribly well. The highlights are the world-building and the…

Can’t wait for the new Sanderson book.

Yes. I consider them light reads, despite the length (it’s not like Robert Jordan’s WOT before Sanderson stepped in to finish the series and cleaned up all the loose threads). The world building is a lot of fun, there’s plenty of action, the dialogue is snappy, and the angsty characters grow out of it. Also, I expect…

I see selkies and think of this story, “Selkie Stories Are For Losers” by Sofia Samatar, which was nominated for a whole bunch of prestigious awards a few years back.

Sony has the rights to WOT, so we’ll see if they eventually get around to doing something with them.