Continuing the monthly summaries of what I’ve been reading and listening to.
BOOKS
To keep my numbers consistent with what I have listed on Goodreads, I count completed magazine issues as “books.” I read or listened to 9 books in October: 7 in print, 1 in e-book format, and 1 in audio format. They were:
1. Lightspeed Magazine #125 (October, 2020 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams. The usual fine assortment of sf and fantasy short stories. This month’s favorites for me were Todd McAulty’s “The Ambient Intelligence,” Ken Liu’s “Byzantine Empathy,” PH Lee’s “The Vampire of Kovácspéter,” and Minsoo Kang’s “The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations.”
2. Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) by Jim Butcher. The second Dresden Files release this year continues the story from Peace Talks, and is pedal-to-the-metal action from start to finish as Harry and company fight to save Chicago from utter devastation at the hands of the Fomor and a mad Titan. Very few quiet moments, but this is a game-changer for Harry as much as Changes was.
3. Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark. A masterful alternate history in which the filming of Birth of a Nation allowed entry to Earth by Lovecraftian horrors who disguise themselves as Ku Klux Klanners. The main characters are strong black women in 1920s Macon Georgia who fight to Kluxxers and their masters. FULL REVIEW HERE.
4. Dagon Rising by William Meikle. The first entry in Crystal Lake’s Vs. series reprints Lovecraft’s short story “Dagon” and then gives us Meikle’s short story response “Dagon Rising.” FULL REVIEW HERE.
5. Surviving Tomorrow: A Charity Anthology to Fight Covid-19 edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt. I had the pleasure of proofreading/copyediting this several months ago. The stories mostly focus on surviving changes in technology and how humanity adapts to adversity. Many of the stories are post-apocalyptic, but not all.
6. Dying with Her Cheer Pants On: Stories of the Fighting Pumpkins by Seanan McGuire. This book collects all six of McGuire’s previously published short stories about the Fighting Pumpkins cheerleading squad, who are tasked with protecting their town from supernatural menaces, and adds four brand new stories to the mix that flesh out the squad’s history. FULL REVIEW HERE.
7. The Bad Seed by William March. This classic about an eight-year-old girl who murders a classmate to get what she wants and the mother who can’t decide what to do about it was adapted into a stage play and a movie. Full review forthcoming.
8. The Sandman (Sandman Audible Original #1) by Neil Gaiman and others. I am a long-time fan of Neil Gaiman and collaborators’ Sandman comics series (like many folks, I read them as they came out and also bought the trade paperback collections). I was skeptical about an audiobook production – the few other graphic novel audioplays I’ve listened to haven’t quite worked for me – but I was happily surprised. I think what makes it really work is the use of Neil Gaiman (and one assumes, his original script notes) as Narrator, describing what we’d otherwise be seeing as the graphic part of a graphic novel. The cast is fantastic from top to bottom, especially James McAvoy as Morpheus and Kat Dennings as Death.
9. A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny. My annual re-read of this classic. Certain people are drawn to a certain location in years where the full moon falls on Halloween, to fight over opening or closing a gate for the Elder Gods to come to Earth. It’s funny, it’s poignant, and there’s one chapter for every day in the month so it’s a month-long reread during which I always notice something I’d never noticed before (or had forgotten).
STORIES
I have a goal of reading 366 short stories (1 per day, essentially, although it doesn’t always work out that way) this year (366 because it’s a Leap Year). Here’s what I read this month and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too. If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it.
1. “The Ambient Intelligence” by Todd McAulty, from Lightspeed Magazine #125 (October 2020 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams.
2. “Everything and Nothing” by Jenny Rae Rappaport
3. “Byzantine Empathy” by Ken Liu
4. “Forty Acres and a Mule” by Stephanie Malia Morris
5. “The Vampire of Kovácspéter” by PH Lee
6. “The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations” by Minsoo Kang
7. “Everquest” by Naomi Kanaka
8. “Poor Fancy’s Followers” by Seanan McGuire, on the author’s Patreon page.
9. “Dagon” by H.P. Lovecraft, reprinted in Dagon Rising, edited by Monique Snyman.
10. “Dagon Rising” by William Meikle.
11. “Evening Primrose” by John Collier, from Fancies and Goodnights.
12. “Last Bus to North Red Lake” by Martin L. Shoemaker, from Surviving Tomorrow, edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt
13. “Windstream” by Andrew Mayne & Roshni “Rush” Bhatia
14. “When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth” by Cory Doctorow
15. “Call It Only” by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
16. “Face Your Furs” by Seanan McGuire
17. “Dale & Mabel” by Scott Sigler
18. “Flinch” by K.D. McIntire
19. “Carousel” by Orson Scott Card
20. “The Monsters Underneath His Bed” by Ken Scholes
21. “Lord of Time” by Livia Blackburne
22. “Evacuation” by Alan Dean Foster
23. “Pure Silver” by A.C. Crispin & Kathleen O’Malley
24. “Writing on the Wall” by Jody Lynn Nye
25. “Back to Black” by Jonathan Maberry and Bryan Thomas Schmidt
26. “We Can Get Them For You Wholesale” by Neil Gaiman
27. “Hopium Den” by John Skipp
28. “The Ultimate Wager” by Raymund Eich
29. “Bitter Honey” by Julie Frost
30. “Voracious Black” by Mercedes M. Yardley
31. “A Love Monstrously Grateful” by C. Stuart Hardwick
32. “The Sweetness of Bitter” by Beth Cato
33. “Six Lil’ Reapers (A Grim Days Mystery)” by J. Kent Holloway
34. “Impact Mitigation” by Jay Werkheiser
35. “Fair Play” by Claire Ashgrove
36. “In Their Garden” by Brenda Cooper
37. “Empty Nest” by Tori Eldridge
38. “Shotgun Wedding” by Peter J. Wacks
39. “Once on the Blue Moon” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
40. “This is the Road” by Robert Silverberg
41. “Dying with Her Cheer Pants On” by Seanan McGuire, from Dying with Her Cheer Pants On: Stories of the Fighting Pumpkins
42. “Tryouts” by Seanan McGuire
43. “Trial by Fire” by Seanan McGuire
44. “Gimme A “Z”!” by Seanan McGuire
45. “Turn the Year Around” by Seanan McGuire
46. “Fiber” by Seanan McGuire
47. “Switchblade Smile” by Seanan McGuire
48. “School Colors” by Seanan McGuire
49. “Compete Me” by Seanan McGuire
50. “Away Game” by Seanan McGuire
So that’s 50 short stories in October. Looks like a bit more than “1 per day,” but in reality I read the Surviving Tomorrow stories when I proofread the manuscript months ago. Still, they count for the year total, which I’m now ahead of again. (October 31st was the 305th day of 2020.)
Summary of Reading Challenges:
“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 1 read; YTD: 4 of 14 read.
366 Short Stories Challenge: This month: 50 read; YTD: 319 of 366 read.
Graphic Novels Challenge: This month: 1 read; YTD: 20 of 52 read.
Goodreads Challenge: This month: 8 read; YTD: 106 of 125 read.
Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 2 read; YTD: 9 of 24 read.
Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 0 read/watched.
Complete the Series Challenge: This month: 0 books read; YTD: 6 of 16 read.
Series fully completed: 0 of 3 planned
Monthly Special Challenge: October’s mini-challenge was “horror, horror, horror!” I didn’t read (or watch) anywhere near as much horror as I’d intended to, but didn’t completely blow it, either. Ring Shout, Dagon Rising, The Bad Seed, A Night in the Lonesome October and The Sandman all land firmly in the horror genre, and Dying with Her Cheer Pants On is an urban fantasy – horror hybrid. Some of the short stories in Surviving Tomorrow are more horror than SF as well.
November’s usual mini-challenge is “Noirvember,” which means for me a mix of crime, mystery, and thriller tales.