I finished Knife. A quick read, recommended for any Rushdie fan, and for anyone who cares about freedom of speech and the life of the mind.
Now I’m about halfway through Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, a sf satire (recently adapted into a movie starring Robert Pattinson) about a disposable crewman on a dangerous interstellar mission. It’s good enough to keep going, but hasn’t really grabbed me.
How is it? I generally enjoy this series quite a bit.
Still reading Man With a Bull-Tongue Plow by Jesse Stuart. Finished Ruled Britannia, by Harry Turtledove, which was okay.
Next up: Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops, by Tim Robey and Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings.
Finished my third, at least, reread of Artificial Condition the 3rd Murderbot book by Martha Wells. First time reading it in print, Goodness, I do love ART. Read Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity , Communion, Empathy also by Martha Wells, it’s a short 34 page piece about ART and his crew, not really a short story but it gives you hints about what ART’s crew really does and why it and SecUnit hit it off so well.
I saw a post on Martha Wells’ Bluesky account saying that the eighth Murderbot book is forthcoming. 
A sci-fi fairy tale on an astonishing scale - I binged it as well. 
I’ve reviewed Rachel Bach’s three-book Paradox trilogy (Fortune’s Pawn, Honor’s Knight , and Heaven’s Queen ) together here because, first, they are one complete story, and second, because I binged them so hard and fast I didn’t have time to review them one at a time. I think maybe three days elapsed between me starting the first book and finishing the third, and that includes work and sleep? That should let you know precisely how addictive this terrific sci-fi story with strong romantic elements is!
Four books so far this month:
Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This is for an online book club: it was my turn to choose, and I chose one of my favorite authors of the past decade, a book that many of his fans love best. Do I love it best? Well, no: Alien Clay is my fave, due to its heavier politics and humor. But Children of Time is damned good. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that there’s an alien intelligence. This book projects “alien” better than almost any other book I can think of, only Embassytown being in the same category for me. There was scarcely a paragraph in the alien chapters where I lost sight of their inhuman intelligence. Reading it after Project Hail Mary really drives home that book’s faults.
Straight Man, by Richard Russo. I found myself on vacation without the stack of books I meant to bring, so I turned to the dreaded vacation house shelf. Among the Danielle Steele and Clive Cussler, I found this book that looked better. To its credit, it’s undoubtedly better: the characters are complicated, the plot is unpredictable, the writing is lovely. But the blurb on the back where the blurber talked about guffawing and side-splitting? No fuckin way. It’s set in a small-college English department where everyone hates everyone else, and the thing is, they’re right. Everyone in the book is intensely hateable and pathetic, and not in a fun way like Gollum, just in a way that people in the real world are hateable and pathetic. Excellent book, decidedly not for me.
Blackheart Man, by Nalo Hopkinson. More or less set in a fantasy Haiti, that drove off enslavers some centuries ago but the enslavers are back and shittier than ever. The book’s written in strong dialect, with really interesting mythology. I enjoyed it a lot.
The Lesser Dead, by Christopher Buehlman: Vampire Joey Peacock introduces you to the seedy Subway subculture on 1978 New York City. Sound fun? You’ll love it. Otherwise give it a pass. It’s not my favorite by Buehlman (for that, see the magnificent Daughter’s War), but the plot moves from action to bloody action without letting up, and there are some twists that I definitely did not see, and others that I kinda did.
East of Eden
Been a long while…the guy is an incredible wordsmith.
Yes! I pre-ordered it yesterday. Be out in May.
Finished The Big Empty, by Robert Crais. A young Internet influencer hires Elvis Cole to find her father, who vanished suddenly ten years earlier when she was 13. When the bodies start mounting, Cole realizes this is more than just your average missing-persons case. Joe Pike assists, as always. Crais delivers another solid story. Recommended.
Next up is Snafu: The Definitive Guide to History’s Greatest Screwups, by Ed Helms. Yes, that Ed Helms, from The Hangover series and The Office. Apparently he has a popular podcast called Snafu, and this is a follow-up to that. I’ve never heard of the podcast, I’m not really a podcast fan, but this looks interesting. I don’t know when I’ll actually start it though, as our departure for our new home in Bangkok is rather imminent, and things are a bit chaotic at the moment.
I finished Service Model, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, as recommended by @MacDoc. I really enjoyed it, and will be looking for other standalone books by this author! (I don’t have the bandwidth to commit to a series right now).
I also started on The Payback by Kashana Cauley | Goodreads. It’s about three mall workers planning a heist, while being pursued by the Debt Police. This Debt Police thing makes me wonder if the book is supposed to be set in the near future? It’s hard to tell. At any rate, I’m on page 63 and I’m going to stop there.
Next up, Class Clown: the memoirs of a professional wiseass: how I went 77 years without growing up, by Dave Barry.
I finished listening to You Should Have Known by Rebecca Keller. It was okay, but nothing special.
Still looking for my next read.
I just got the new T. Kingfisher Tuesday. I need to read my book club book first but then headfirst into Ursula’s insanity I go!
I still don’t have mine, but it’s on the way! In the meantime, I’ve got more books than time anyhow. 
Still reading Man With a Bull-Tongue Plow by Jesse Stuart. Finished Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops, by Tim Robey, which I enjoyed for its interesting and often funny anecdotes, and Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings, a dark fantasy which is the best book I’ve this year.
Next up: Small Wonder: Essays, by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven Hopp, whose name isn’t on the title page but she acknowledges co-writing three of the essays with him originally; and The Singularity Project by F. M. Busby, a science fiction novel.
When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution’s Greatest Romance Riley Black
The evolution of plants and the relationships among plants, animals, and climate. Told in a series of vignettes of prehistoric life, starting at 1 billion BC and going up to the last ice age.
Pretty good, but could have been better. More detail and background - how to we know these things? , who discovered the fossils and how ? - would have been worthwhile.
Scary shite …the movie Ghost and the Darkness was based on the true events.
Movie still haunts me… 
It’s very interesting to read a first hand account right on the edge of the railroad opening Africa often to tribes that had very little contact with the outside world. Of course the maneaters were horrendous but the other stories are also excellent and easy to imagine oneself back just before the turn of the 19th century before war and influenza ravaged the world. Britain at the height of it’s empire. Very satisfying read.
Would be a good companion read to some of the histories of Africa and empires like the Shaka Zulu …their leader a military and social organizational genius on a par with Napoleon…and who nearly defeated the British army. I might grab a few of the relevant books to re-read.
Shaka kaSenzangakhona (c. 1787 – c. 22 September 1828), also known as Shaka[2] Zulu (Zulu pronunciation: [ˈʃaːɠa]), was the most influential leader of the Zulu Kingdom. He is widely credited with uniting many of the Northern Nguni people, specifically the Mtetwa Paramountcy and the Ndwandwe into…
Big Empty
How is it? I generally enjoy this series quite a bit.
Was not sure initially but like the style of writing and there is an appealing grittiness - I generally find true crime more appealing than fiction but Crais writes close enough to that boundary that it is satisfying. Lots more of his to chew on …any recco for a couple more? TIA
…
I still don’t have mine, but it’s on the way! In the meantime, I’ve got more books than time anyhow.
ain’t that the truth especially including audio books which are lined up. 
AAAAAAA! Don’t remind me!