Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - October 2024 edition

Cafe Society
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It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, but I’ve only read a few books over the past month.

Moonbound, by Robin Sloan. Quick: name your three favorite entertainments from 5,000 years ago. Song, artwork, novel, field’s wide open. If you struggled, you’ll understand part of what annoyed me so much about this book. It’s set 13,000 years in the future. Humanity has more or less been destroyed through the apocalypse described in the prologue. Yet there are multiple references to cultural artifacts of the late 20th and early 21st century.

Humanity’s descendants, 13,000 years in the future, sing a variant of “Seven Nation Army”? Television shows remain a significant art form four centuries from now? Pixellated handheld gaming devices are popular?

It is a tremendous failure of imagination, to assume that the culture one has grown up in is going to be significant for our descendants in two centuries, much less 130 centuries.

Perhaps it was intended as sly, inside-joke humor. If so, I’m afraid it fell flat for me.

Silver Nitrate, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I keep reading her books, because they’re good enough, but they’re never good enough to really grab me, and this one was no exception. The film industry of mid-nineties Mexico is a cool setting, and power-mad sorcerers and Nazis are cool villains, but this book never rose above that. She’s a genre author without ever breaking genre conventions. Lots of folks love her stuff, and I wish I did, too.

Fuzz, by Mary Roach. It’s the first Roach book I’ve read, and I really enjoyed it: a nonfiction account of conflicts between humans and other animals (and the occasional tree). It’s informative, grim, and hilarious; her observational humor is right up my alley. I’ll definitely seek out more of her stuff.

But far and away the best thing I read in the past month, and a contender for best-of-the-year for me, is The Daughter’s War, by Christopher Buehlman. Now THIS is how you do genre fiction! Often, grim fantasy is edgelord fantasy. “Look at how gross I can be!” the author says, proud as a six-year-old. “Look at me breaking taboos! Grody, right? Hey, watch this!”

Daughters War is nothing like that. It starts from a reasonable, awful premise, and explores that premise fully and unflinchingly. There are moments of visceral horror, but they’re earned.

Part of what makes it work is the careful characterization. The narrator’s voice is balanced with who she is and is fundamentally different from the voice of (its sequel, written first) Blacktongue Thief’s narrator–where he’s wry, self-deprecating, and cynical, she’s straightforward, proud, and insecure. The few sections where other narrators take over show a significant change in voice.

Part of what makes it work is the humor. Different characters joke in the midst of horror, and their jokes are different, and horribly funny.

Part of what makes it work is the excellent writing.

Part of what makes it work is GIANT WAR CORVIDS.

All in all, this is one of the best fantasies of the year.

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I’m so glad to find someone who feels the same! I thought my book club was going to lynch me when I called Mexican Gothic “predictable and kinda boring really”.
I heard her speak at the local university this month, she’s a better speaker.

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Yeah. She’s not bad, but I keep hoping she improves her writing enough such that her prose and plots match her settings.

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Thirded. I read Mexican Gothic, and it passed the time, but I won’t be picking up any more of her stuff. But Moreno-Garcia will crop up in my recommendations forever now.

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If you liked Fuzz, you’ll enjou Roach’s other books. They have the same mix of humor and information.

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Fellow T. Kingfisher fans! New book August 2025!

Hemlock & Silver

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Thanks for the heads up!

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Ugh, can’t finish. I get the feeling I’m meant to be thrilled by this point (about halfway through), but I’m rolling my eyes.

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I’m reading two books- I usually read one for pure pleasure and another almost as a kind of ‘good for you’ hate-read, no idea why I torture myself this way but I do.

The hate-read is The Flame Throwers by Rachel Kushner. My twin sister and I and our kids have started a thing where we choose and read a book from the NY Times best 100 books of the 21st century and this was my nephew’s pick. It’s about (so far) “land art” and very hip/artsy people in the city. I’m not loving it AT ALL. The previous book, chosen by my niece, was “Trust” by Herman Diaz and it was all about finance, a subject that irrationally makes my brain shut down after less than one sentence. My sister and I can’t wait until it’s our turn to choose so that we can read something normal, but of course we’re letting the kids pick first, grrr.

For pleasure I am reading ‘Trading Places’ by David Lodge. Set in 1969, two professors, one from a California university and one from England, trade places for a semester. It’s my favorite type of novel- British, dated, amusing, probably out of print.

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I especially enjoyed Roach’s book about the military, Grunt.

Back on topic:

Finished Beyond Bizarre: Frightening Facts and Blood-Curdling True Tales, by Varla Ventura, which was okay, and Queen’s Bureau of Investigation, by Ellery Queen, of which the best short story was “Snowball in July”.

Next up: Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show, by Tommy Tomlinson.

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Started today on I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, by Jason Pargin. Feeling good, I don’t think this guy knows how to write a bad book.

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Finished Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show, by Tommy Tomlinson, which was okay.

Now I’m reading Practical Demonkeeping, by Christopher Moore.

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Finished listening to Every Vow You Break by Peter Swanson, which was an okay mystery. A fine plot, but a weak ending, IMO.

Next up:

The Fear Index by Robert Harris.

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Finished Practical Demonkeeping, by Christopher Moore, which was okay.

Next up: Prayers from the Ark & The Creatures’ Choir by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold, translated by Rumer Godden, which is a double volume of poetry; and Learwife, by JR Thorp, which asks what would happen if Lear had a wife who had been confined to an abbey during the events of “King Lear”, and is now widowed and childless.

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Picked up the audiobook of “See What I Have Done” by Sarah Schmidt. This is her retelling of the Borden Family murders… got 28 minutes into it and said “Oh hell no.” No certain what drugs led the author to infantilize 32 year old Lizzie Borden to a hyper caffeinated 10 year old but leave me out of it.

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Due to the movie, I started “conclave” by Richard Harris. I’m finding it very interesting.

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That’s also why I started another of his books, called The Fear Index. I’m also finding it quite interesting, about 25% of the way through. I’m not at all familiar with any of his books, but I think I’ll be reading more.

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Oh dear, I got the name wrong.

Robert Harris. Not Richard.

Conclave by Robert Harris.

I have read Pompeii by Robert Harris, that was an amazing book. Really immersive.

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I wondered… Richard Harris was a singer.
Ah well, it’s not like I haven’t had to edit because I’m awful with remember titles longer than 3 words :crazy_face:

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Conclave is pretty good, and I’m looking forward to the movie, and Pompeii is okay, but I think Harris’s Fatherland is a much better book than either (and actually his best, although I haven’t read all of his work). It’s a chilling, engrossing alt-history murder mystery/police procedural set in 1964 Nazi Berlin.

I liked Kerouac’s On the Road when I read it a decade or so ago, but I’ve never gone back to it.