Jana: This week I nursed my pup through a minor eye infection, finished Mercedes Lackey’s Eye Spy (ultimately not as good as its FAMILY SPIES series predecessor, The Hills Have Spies), started JY Yang’s The Ascent to Godhood (the latest TENSORATE novella), assisted with building a workbench for my garage, and observed the continuing browning/desiccation of my yard. I hope to have time next week to work on my to-be-reviewed stack, since I’ve been getting some really neat-looking Autumn 2019 ARCs and want to get to them with a relatively clear conscience.

Kat: I read Mercedes Lackey’s MAGE WARS trilogy this week because they’ve recently been published in audio format. The titles are The Black Gryphon, The White Gryphon, and The Silver Gryphon. These were pleasant enough, but hard to get excited about. And now, for something completely different, I’m reading Neal Stephenson’s Fall, Or Dodge in Hell which is fascinating but long-winded (typical for Stephenson).

Kelly: I’m reading The Porcelain Dove by Delia Sherman. It’s kind of slow. I’m in that weird place where I’m never quite bored enough to stop, but never quite gripped enough to devour a big chunk of the book at once, so I’ve been reading it for at least a week now. I think next I might go back to Midori Snyder’s The Innamorati, which I got distracted from a few weeks ago, or maybe tackle one of my library books before they’re overdue.

Marion: I hope to have a review of the third book in Malka Older’s INFOMOCRACY trilogy completed soon. I am in the home-stretch-gallop of State Tectonics. The next book up on my TBR list is Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Gods of Jade and Shadow. Daniel O’Malley’s The Rook was charming and entertaining, and will fit comfortably next to the LAUNDRY FILES books by Charles Stross.

Ray: The George R.R. Martin binge is finally at an end. Freedom! This week I’ve started Jessie Burton’s (of The Miniaturist fame) new novel, The Confession. It’s lacking the elements of horror and suspense that made her debut so famous, but it’s trundling along pretty nicely so far.

Sandy: Moi? I am currently reading another of those Lost World/Lost Race offerings from Armchair Fiction, this one being the 1905 novel The Temple of Fire by Francis Henry Atkins. I recently read this author’s 1903 novel The King of the Dead, enjoyed it quite a lot, and have high hopes for this current book as well. I look forward to getting back to you with some further thoughts shortly….

Tadiana: I did a major dive into retro SF with A.E. Van Vogt’s two EMPIRE OF ISHER novels, The Weapon Shops of Isher and the Retro Hugo-nominated The Weapon Makers, which are imaginative Golden Age SF reads. I also read the two books so far in James S. Murray’s and Darren Wearmouth’s SF horror AWAKENED series, Awakened and The Brink, which were just okay for me. Horror isn’t normally my choice of genre, so maybe other readers would like them better? They seemed awfully superficial to me, but if you need a James Bond-type villain in your life, I’ve got the books for you. In an attempt to restore cosmic balance to my reading diet by reading something with more depth, and also because my husband (a history buff) is bugging me about finishing it so he can read it, I’m now refocusing on reading Sam Kean’s latest non-fiction book, The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb.

Terry: I’ve been enmeshed in heavy duty legal work, and so not reading very much. When I can grab a moment, though, I’m reading Sarah J. Maas’s Tower of Dawn. This book in the THRONE OF GLASS series is different from the others in that it is focused on Chaol Westfall, the former captain of the king of Aldaran’s palace guard, who was gravely injured in an earlier entry in the series. It hasn’t really grabbed me the way the others in the series have, but I’m hoping it’ll do so farther along.

Tim: I’ve been rereading some of Robert Jordan‘s WHEEL OF TIME in the past couple weeks (the recent news about the Amazon TV show might’ve had something to do with it). It’s a slightly different experience this time around, and I’m not sure whether it’s because of my greater age (I first read the series in my late teens) or because I’m listening to the audiobooks this time. I’m at once more impressed with the characterization and sometimes less so with the plotting, though I’m apparently enjoying myself, as I’m already up to The Shadow Rising (book four). Jordan always did have a knack for keeping me reading.

TIM SCHEIDLER, who's been with us since June 2011, holds a Master's Degree in Popular Literature from Trinity College Dublin. Tim enjoys many authors, but particularly loves J.R.R. Tolkien, Robin Hobb, George R.R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, and Susanna Clarke. When he’s not reading, Tim enjoys traveling, playing music, writing in any shape or form, and pretending he's an athlete. View all posts by →

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