Continuing the monthly summaries of what I’ve been reading and writing.
BOOKS
To keep my numbers consistent with what I have listed on Goodreads, I count completed magazine issues and stand-alone short stories in e-book format as “books.” I read or listened to 19 books in January: 8 in print, 5 in e-book format, and 6 in audio. They were:
1. Lightspeed Magazine #116 (January 2020 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams. The usual fine assortment of sf and fantasy short stories. This month’s favorites for me were J.R. Dawson’s “She’d Never Had a Name Before,” N.K. Jemisin’s “The Ones Who Stay and Fight,” and Adam-Troy Casto’s “Fortune’s Final Hand.”
2. The Ascent to Godhood (Tensorate #4) by J.Y. Yang. The fourth Tensorate novella fills in a lot of the history of the current Protector and her arch-nemesis Lady Han. It’s told in a far more conversational tone than the previous three editions, making it feel that much more personal/intimate. I’m hoping this is not the last we’ll see of the Tensorate universe.
3. Loki: Agent of Asgard Volume 1: Trust Me by Al Ewing, Lee Garbett, Jenny Frison, Joerge Coehlo and others. Trade collection of Loki: Agent of Asgard #1-5, the first storyline in which the redesigned-to-look-like Tom Hiddleston Loki appeared. A fun mix of spy/crime capers with a deeper underpinning.
4. The Ferryman by Jez Butterworth. I saw this on Broadway last year not before it closed (and sadly not with the original cast) and with the varying Irish accents I was sure there was dialogue I’d missed, so I picked up the script. It’s a brilliant bit of Irish drama set in the late 80s. Quinn Carney left the IRA years ago, but his younger brother didn’t and wound up missing. The drama unfolds as the brother’s body is found. At the same time, the show is a celebration of family, and like all good dramas there’s a lot of comedy to contrast with the inevitable tragedy. Worth reading, but even more worth seeing.
5. Space Invaders by Nona Fernández, translated by Natasha Wimmer. A group of former childhood friends share memories of a girl who disappeared from their lives during the Pinochet regime. The prose is sparing and beautiful, the unspoken underpinnings even more tense and horrific for what’s implied.
6. The High Window (Philip Marlowe #3) by Raymond Chandler. I set a goal of listening to all of the Philip Marlowe novels in audio form before I realized that most of the recordings are either abridged (Elliot Gould narrating) or full-cast radio plays (which I’m sure are great but miss some of Chandler’s descriptive language). This one was a solid story, but not quite as stand-out for me as the first two Marlowe books.
7. Trading Teams by Romeo Alexander. Billed as a “jock-nerd college romance,” this one is not as frothy as it sounds. There’s a serious sub-plot regarding how we process grief and social anxiety and deal with depression and mental illness. There’s also a lot of meet-cute misunderstandings and a very nice representation of a young man accepting that he is in fact bisexual. Other reviewers have complained about the present-tense style and the nerd character’s depression but I liked the former and thought the latter was handled realistically.
8. Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand. When I realized Hand’s “VH1 Behind the Scenes documentary” style novella about the tragedy surrounding the recording of a famous trad-folk band’s last album was also available as an audiobook, I had to do a reread/listen. The cast is roundly superb and maintain the tension of the print version. I suspect Wylding Hall will join my “frequent re-read / re-listen” list.
9. The Half-Life of Marie Curie by Lauren Gunderson. Following a personal scandal, Marie Curie spends a summer with her friend and fellow scientist Hertha Ayrton. They debate scientific methods, women’s suffrage, the public’s fascination with famous people’s lives, grief and pride and their contributions to the British and French forces during World War One. Played brilliantly by Kate Mulgrew (as Ayrton) and Francesca Faridnay (as Curie), I would love to see the stage version of this.
10. The Adventure of the Incognita Countess (Blood-Thirsty Agent Book One) by Cynthia Ward. A fun pulp-adventure novella starring Lucy Harker (dhampir daughter of Mina Harker and Dracula and step-daughter of Mycroft Holmes). In this inaugural adventure, Lucy is assigned to play bodyguard to an American carrying secret papers across the ocean on board Titanic. Sharp-eyed readers will recognize nods to and guest-appearances by a wealth of familiar real-life and fictional characters, including a certain Jungle Lord and a famous female vampire.
11. Whose Boat Is This Boat? By the staff of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Sold to raise money for hurricane victims in the southeast United States, the author put President Trump’s actual statements and tweets in picture book form.
12. Midnight Son by James Dommek Jr., Josephine Holtzman, and Isaac Kestenbaum. My first non-fiction audiobook of the year focuses on the case of actor-turned-fugitive Teddy Kyle Smith’s statements about encountering a mythic lost tribe (the Iñukuns) in the Alaskan wilderness. We hear little from Smith himself except for material recorded at his trial, but Dommek incorporates statements from family, neighbors and victims to form a picture of what Smith was thinking and why he did the things he did. Compelling but also very open-ended.
13. Pirates of Venus (Carson Napier #1) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Carson Napier’s homemade spacecraft takes a wrong turn on the way to Mars and he ends up on Venus, discovering indigenous civilizations and falling in love with a native girl. It’s classic Burroughs fare, with deeply developed civilizations and language and lots of swashbuckling derring-do.
14. A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert. A beautifully-written novella about the tragic life of a woman’s maid. This was my first time reading anything by Flaubert, and his skill at catching the details of every-day moments and expressions of grief is on full display.
15. The Adventure of the Dux Bellorum (Blood-Thirsty Agent #2) by Cynthia Ward. This time, Lucy is assigned as bodyguard to Winston Churchill when he decides to return to leading men on the Western Front during World War One, because of rumors the Germans are fielding a team of mind-controlled wolfmen in the area. Complications ensue, of course. Another very fun bit of steampunky-alternate-history-pulp-fiction. (I’m planning a Series Saturday overview of the series, including the soon-to-be-released third installment, The Adventure of the Naked Guide, in the near future.
16. The Sideman (John Simon Thrillers #2) by Bryan Thomas Schmidt. Luddite cop John Simon and his android partner/friend Lucas George return for a second adventure that is more tightly plotted and faster-paced than the first book (Simon Says) without sacrificing any of the intimate moments or character development of the first book. The stakes are even higher this time, as a string of burglaries become evidence of a terror attack in the offing. (I read an ARC; the book will be on sale February 10. Longer review to come.)
17. The Lady in the Lake (Philip Marlowe #4) by Raymond Chandler. Again, I listened in abridged audiobook form. Elliot Gould really nails Marlowe’s world-weariness. I found the overlapping cases this time (Marlowe is hired to track down a missing wife but finds dead bodies instead) a bit more intriguing than in The High Window.
18. Occult Detective Magazine #6 (Fall, 2019), edited by John Linwood Grant and Dave Brzeski. A really fine mix of stories that feature both experienced and novice occult investigators, in stories that take place in eras ranging from pre-history to the far future, in locations from deep in the African continent to a space station. I’m sure a number of these stories featuring series characters, but I never felt like I was coming in the middle. There’s also a wealth of non-fiction book reviews, retrospectives and interviews.
19. The Little Sister (Philip Marlowe #5) by Raymond Chandler. This was the first abridged audiobook that I felt actually suffered from sections being left out to keep the recording under three hours. I can’t point to any glaring plot-holes, but I felt throughout like there were necessary details I was missing. Still, the overlapping cases are intriguing.
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 (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 Men Who Change The World” by Christopher East, from Lightspeed Magazine #116 (January 2020 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams.
2. “All Together, Now” by Jason Hough and Ramez Naam
3. “She’d Never Had a Name Before” by J.R. Dawson
4. “The Ones Who Stay and Fight” by N.K. Jemisin
5. “Story Kit” by Kij Johnson
6. “Destinations of Joy” by Alexander Weinstein
7. “Holiday” by M. Rickert
8. “Fortune’s Final Hand” by Adam-Troy Castro
9. “Off-Balance” by Seanan McGuire, on the author’s Patreon page.
10. “Here We Come A-Wassailing: A Christmas Story” by Thomas Perry, the 2019 free Christmas short story given out to Mysterious Bookshop customers by owner Otto Penzler.
11. “Mike” by Jim Butcher, from The Jim Butcher Mailing List, edited by Fred Hicks
12. “Mother Love” by Clara Madrigan, from The Dark #56 (January, 2020), edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Sean Wallace
13. “No Good Deed” by Angela Slatter
14. “Forwarded” by Steve Rasnic Tem
15. “The Man at Table Nine” by Ray Cluley
16. “The Rending Veil” by Melanie Atherton, from Occult Detective Magazine #6 (Fall 2019), edited by John Linwood Grant and Dave Brzeski
17. “Komolafe” by Tade Thompson
18. “The Way of All Flesh” by Matthew Willis
19. “The Blindsider” by Cliff Biggers
20. “Vinnie de Soth and the Phantom Skeptic” by I.A. Watson
21. “The Empanatrix of Room 223” by Kelly M. Hudson
22. “The Unsummoning of Urb Tc’Leth” by Bryce Beattie
23. “In Perpetuity” by Alexis Ames
24. “The Way Things Were” by S.L. Edwards
25. “Angelus” by John Paul Fitch
26. “The Last Performance of Victoria Mirabelli” by Ian Hunter
So that’s 26 short stories in January. Slightly under “1 per day,” so I’m slightly behind for the year so far. (January 31st was the 31st day of 2020.)
Summary of Reading Challenges:
“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 1 read; YTD: 1 of 14 read.
365 Short Stories Challenge: This month: 26 read; YTD: 26 of 366 read.
Graphic Novels Challenge: This month: 1 read; YTD: 1 of 52 read.
Goodreads Challenge: This month: 19 read; YTD: 19 of 125 read.
Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 3 read; YTD: 3 of 24 read.
Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 0 read/watched.
Complete the Series Challenge: This month: 4 books read; YTD: 4 of 16 read.
Series fully completed: 0 of 3 planned
Monthly Special Challenge: I didn’t set a mini-goal of any kind for January, other than trying to get to some recently-acquired books. 11 of the 19 books read were books acquired in the past 6 months.
February is Black History Month, so my goal is to read primarily authors from Africa or of African descent. It’s also Women In Horror Month, so I’ll be working on reading horror by female writers as well.