This award is also called the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and is stubbornly, defiantly Not A Hugo. (It's just a quirk of the system. Roll with it.)

 

The nominees:

 

Katherine Arden

Sarah Kuhn

Jeannette Ng

Vina Jie-Min Prasad

Rebecca Roanhorse

Rivers Solomon

 

My ballot:

 

Heroine Complex (Heroine Complex, #1)

 

6) Sarah Kuhn

 

The first chapter of this almost read like a parody of urban fantasy, with an Asian-American superheroine fighting off fanged demon cupcakes. A bit too absurd for me, unfortunately.

 

An Unkindness of Ghosts

 

5) Rivers Solomon

 

I didn't care for their book too much--a bridge too far on the handwavey science for me--but this author excelled with their characters, particularly the protagonist. A writer to keep an eye on.

 

Under the Pendulum Sun

 

4) Jeannette Ng

 

Now this is an intriguing book--a Fae gothic, the story of the first Christian missionaries to Arcadia, the lands of the Fae. It's an idea that's obvious and delightful, and made me wonder why on earth someone hadn't written this book before now. That I didn't rate the author higher testifies to the tough competition in this category.

 

The Girl in the Tower (Winternight Trilogy, #2)

 

3) Katherine Arden

 

I believe Arden was actually nominated on the strength of her first book, The Bear and the Nightingale, a Russian folklore fantasy. I preferred her second book, pictured here.

 

Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience

 

2) Rebecca Roanhorse

 

Roanhorse just won the Nebula for what I believe was her first published story, "Welcome To Your Authentic Indian Experience." I wouldn't be surprised, and would be delighted, if she duplicated that hat trick with the Hugos.

 

 

1) Vina Jie-Min Prasad

 

Prasad made quite a splash this year, with two stories on the Hugo and Nebula ballots. The story of hers that most impressed me, however, didn't make either ballot--it's the funny and surreal "Portrait of Skull With Man," from Fireside Fiction.

 

This one was tough. I would be happy with any of the top 4. 

 

 

Fan Writer is kind of a catchall category: in it you find professional writers and reviewers and artful amateurs. Just about anyone can qualify if you can establish a voice and an audience, which is nice. 

 

The nominees:

 

Camestros Felapton
Sarah Gailey
Mike Glyer
Foz Meadows
Charles Payseur
Bogi Takacs
 
My ballot:
 
6) Bogi Takacs
 
I'd never heard of or read em before, although e has been involved in the recent Worldcon kerfluffle (which I am not commenting on here). In checking out eir blog, I decided some of the pieces I read there worked better than the ones included in the packet. Still, in the overall scheme of things, I thought e was just so-so. 
 
5) Mike Glyer
 
Mike runs File 770, a place where I hang out regularly. Both Mike and File 770 have won this award in the past. However, I don't think last year was his strongest. 
 
4) Camestros Felapton
 
Cam is one of the "artful amateurs" I spoke of. I also hang out at his place, and read a lot of the pieces in his packet in their original form, on the blog. Cam tends towards humor and whimsy in his writing, which I enjoy, but his pieces aren't quite up to the quality of some of the others. 
 
3) Charles Payseur
 
Charles runs Quick Sip Reviews and also writes for the Book Smugglers. His packet entries go a little deeper into his subjects, in particular making me re-evaluate a book I didn't like at all when I first read it, Sam J. Miller's The Art of Starving
 
2) Sarah Gailey
 
Sarah takes a little different tack with her included pieces that is very interesting. In "This Future Looks Familiar: Watching Blade Runner in 2017," she uses simple (but not simplistic) language to talk about the film. It's a marvelous review, and forces the reader to completely re-think the film, as well as the meanings of the words "empathy" and "human." Another piece, the riveting "City of Villains: Why I Don't Trust Batman," turns the character of Bruce Wayne inside out, showing that he is not the "hero" but is indeed a villain, this billionaire who has the money and power to make things better but throws it away with his vigilante's ego. It's really a flash story, Hugo-worthy in itself. 
 
1) Foz Meadows
 
This was a tough choice, picking Foz over Sarah. In the end, I went with Foz Meadows because of her gift for insightful and even-keeled analysis. This is shown in this lengthy article on HBO's Westworld, as well as this thorough deconstruction of Alien: Covenant. I love reviewers who can dig into theme and subtext and bring all sorts of interesting ideas to the light. Foz does this very well; her articles always make me think.  

 

 

The nominees:

 

Bitch Planet, Volume 2: President Bitch, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, illustrated by Valentine De Landro and Taki Soma, colored by Kelly Fitzpatrick, lettered by Clayton Cowles (Image Comics)

Black Bolt, Volume 1: Hard Time, written by Saladin Ahmed, illustrated by Christian Ward, lettered by Clayton Cowles (Marvel)

Monstress, Volume 2: The Blood, written by Marjorie M. Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda (Image Comics)

My Favorite Thing is Monsters, written and illustrated by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics)

Paper Girls, Volume 3, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Cliff Chiang, colored by Matthew Wilson, lettered by Jared Fletcher (Image Comics)

Saga, Volume 7, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)

 

My ballot:

 

Consumer Grouch | The wonderful world of Consumerism

 

6) My Favorite Thing is Monsters, written and illustrated by Emil Ferris

 

This made a pretty big splash last year (it also just won three Eisner Awards, the comics industry's Oscars), but I couldn't get into it. The story was too big, too slow, and too sprawling, and the page layout (lined notebook paper) while appropriate for the story, began to grate on me after a while. Nope, not for me. 

 


Black Bolt Vol. 1: Hard Time - Saladin Ahmed (Paperback ...

5) Black Bolt, Volume 1: Hard Time, written by Saladin Ahmed, illustrated by Christian Ward, lettered by Clayton Cowles

 

I know next to nothing about Marvel's Inhumans, and this volume did little to enlighten me. It was a pretty self-contained story, about the king of the Inhumans waking up on an interstellar prison, his powers stripped from him. The art was interesting, bordering on the surreal at times. Okay, but not outstanding. 

 

Bitch Planet, Vol. 2: President Bitch TP | Releases ...

 

4) Bitch Planet, Volume 2: President Bitch, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, illustrated by Valentine De Landro and Taki Soma, colored by Kelly Fitzpatrick, lettered by Clayton Cowles

 

Now we get into the better stuff. I actually prefer (and have bought) the individual issues of these, as they have extra content that fleshes out the world and the story. Either way, this is a frightening portrait of a hyperpatriarchal future society that is unfortunately all-too-plausible.

Paper Girls, Vol. 3 (Paper Girls, #3)

3) Paper Girls, Volume 3, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Cliff Chiang, colored by Matthew Wilson, lettered by Jared Fletcher 

 

I call this the Little Series That Could. It surprised me last year when I first read it (never having heard of it until it appeared on the 2017 ballot) and it's still surprising me. This particular volume, with its time travel (back to 11,000 BC), is more firmly rooted in the SFF tradition. The characters are well developed and the unfolding mystery is fascinating. 

 

On The Shelf: @ImageComics Set To Release Volume 7 of # ...

 

2) Saga, Volume 7, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples

 

For me, this series takes the biggest jump of all the finalists. The last time I tried to read this, I couldn't get into it at all. This time around, it impressed me greatly. The story made more sense (well, as much as this wacky, surreal universe ever does), and the greater emphasis on Hazel helped. The end is just chilling. 

 

 Monstress, Vol. 2: The Blood (Monstress, #2)



1)  Monstress, Volume 2: The Blood, written by Marjorie M. Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda

 

Marjorie Liu just won an Eisner for Best Writer (tied with Tom King), and Sana Takeda won two Eisners (Cover Art and Best Painter/Multimedia Art) for this series, and for very good reason. This is a richly imagined and fascinating world, and the art is gorgeous. The first volume of this won the Hugo last year. I don't know if Liu and Takeda can pull off the hat trick again, but I certainly hope so. 

 

 

 

 



(Note: Some of these books were not available at my library, so I had to rely on the limited excerpts included in the Hugo packet. This is not ideal, obviously, but was the best basis for comparison I had.)

The nominees:

Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate, Zoe Quinn (PublicAffairs)
I
ain M. Banks (Modern Masters of Science Fiction), Paul Kincaid (University of Illinois Press)
A Lit Fuse: The Provocative Life of Harlan Ellison, Nat Segaloff (NESFA Press)
Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler, edited by Alexandra Pierce and Mimi Mondal (Twelfth Planet Press)
No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters, Ursula K. Le Guin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Sleeping With Monsters: Readings and Reactions in Science Fiction and Fantasy, Liz Bourke (Aqueduct Press)

My ballot:

6) Iain M. Banks (Modern Masters of Science Fiction), Paul Kincaid

This was, I gathered, intended to be a scholarly, academic study of the man and his books. Unfortunately, it was way too scholarly and academic for this reader. The excerpt was hard to get through, and I can't imagine slogging through the entire book.

5) A Lit Fuse: The Provocative Life of Harlan Ellison, Nat Segaloff

Due to Ellison's recent death, I think this has a better chance of winning than it might otherwise have had. For me, it was just okay.

4) No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters, Ursula K. Le Guin

I'll be honest: I liked this book, but I didn't think it was top-tier, and I hope it doesn't win. For one thing, Le Guin won this category last year with Words Are My Matter, which I think is the superior work. Also, we gave the award to her while she was still alive, which is the better thing in my book.

3) Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate, Zoe Quinn

This was actually a pretty harrowing tale of Twitter mobs, harassment, and online hate. But Zoe Quinn is a survivor, and I liked how she came out on top, and used her experience to help other women.

2) Sleeping With Monsters: Readings and Reactions in Science Fiction and Fantasy, Liz Bourke

One mark of a good book, for me, is if reading a sample or excerpt makes me want to own it. That's what happened with this book. I like Bourke's conversational writing style, and I appreciate that she states her viewpoints and biases up front. They happen to fairly mirror my own, but if they didn't, reading her reviews would still be rewarding, which is a mark of their quality.

1) Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler, edited by Alexandra Pierce and Mimi Mondal

I loved this. All those essays, from writers of many different backgrounds, expounding so eloquently on what Octavia Butler meant to them. It made me sad and angry all over again, knowing what we lost by her untimely death.

This is my last full weekend of reading (the voting deadline is Tuesday, July 31), so I may be throwing out quite a few entries over the next several days. I'll get through as much as I can. Onward.

 

 
 

(Disclaimer: I couldn't watch the Doctor Who Christmas special, "Twice Upon a Time." Season 11 is available on Amazon Prime--all except the Christmas special, of course. I visited the BBC America website, but apparently that channel isn't carried by my cable provider, so I couldn't watch it there. I'm not willing to watch the episode illegally, so I suppose I'll have to leave it off my ballot.)

This category, to be frank, is pretty mediocre this year, with the exception of the Black Mirror episode. I watched it for a second time and it holds up better than I remembered, but it doesn't come close to the excellent Emmy winner from last year, "San Junipero."

The nominees:

The Good Place, "The Trolley Problem" and "Michael's Gambit"
Clipping, "The Deep"
Doctor Who, "Twice Upon a Time"
Black Mirror, "USS Callister"
Star Trek Discovery, "Magic To Make the Sanest Man Go Mad"

My ballot:

1) Black Mirror: "USS Callister." This is a deconstruction of toxic masculinity wrapped up in the persona of a sociopathic white male nerd. It's a takeoff of the original Star Trek, here called Space Fleet, with Robert Daly the Chief Technical Officer of Infinity, an online game. This turns dark very quickly, as the "Captain Daly" of Robert's private version of the game reveals him to be the tyrannical god of his own universe, complete with digital copies of his co-workers to manipulate and terrorize.

Watching this for the second time, I noticed that with the exception of Walton, his boss in the real-life version of Infinity who took over Daly's original concepts and didn't give him the credit he apparently did deserve, every one of the imprisoned co-workers is a woman and/or person of color. If that isn't a commentary on Silicon Valley nerd male entitlement, I don't know what is.

2) Star Trek Discovery: "Magic To Make the Sanest Man Go Mad." This would have taken the No. 1 spot, except for the terrible ending. This prequel to the original Star Trek used a technobabble time-loop plot to reveal a good deal about the characters and this iteration of the show. Unfortunately, they tried to update Harcourt Fenton Mudd by turning him into a nasty, murderous con man instead of the bumbling half-baked con artist of the original, only to attempt--and fail miserably--to revert the character to his original persona in the final scene. Since Harry Mudd murdered all the crewmembers of Discovery fifty-some times over in his attempt to hijack the starship's advanced drive and sell it to the Klingons (hence the 30-minute repeated time loop) he should have been tried for 20,000+ first-degree murder charges. And they just let him go? I'm sorry, but forcing him to stay with Stella, his wife--accompanied by her daddy--who has been pursuing him, is nowhere near the punishment he deserved. Come on, people.

3) Clipping, "The Deep" (song). Unfortunately, I'm just not a hip-hop person. This seemed to have a pretty SFnal concept, but I'm not enough into that kind of music for it to make much of an impression on me. However, as meh as this was, it's still better than 5) and 6), which I have deliberately placed below--

4) No Award

5) The Good Place, "The Trolley Problem" and 6) The Good Place, "Michael's Gambit."

Bah. I'm going to be a get-off-my-lawn curmudgeon about this, because I don't understand why this show is here at all. If I'm not a hip-hop person, I'm even more not a sitcom person, which is what The Good Place is. It doesn't have a laugh track, and it does have Ted Danson, who I will admit is quite good in his fallen-angel/Lucifer role. However, those are its only two redeeming qualities, as far as I am concerned. The other characters are so shrill and annoying they made my teeth ache. I am sobbing over episodes of The Expanse, The Handmaid's Tale, and Luke Cage, among others, that got passed over for this. Please, Hugo voters, let's not do this again.
The Written Universe: The Hugo Awards


Best Novel


1) The Stone Sky, N.K. Jemisin
2) Raven Stratagem, Yoon Ha Lee
3) Provenance, Ann Leckie
4) The Collapsing Empire, John Scalzi
5) New York 2140, Kim Stanley Robinson
6) Six Wakes, Mur Lafferty
 
(Notes: The fantastic conclusion to the Broken Earth trilogy has been my No. 1 since I turned the last page. Since it just won the Nebula, I think Jemisin has a pretty good chance of making the sweep. I think her main competition will come from Six Wakes, a closed-room [or rather spaceship] murder mystery with clones that was not my cup of tea at all, but which a lot of people seemed to like.)
 
Best Novella
 
1) "All Systems Red," Martha Wells
2) "Down Among the Sticks and Bones," Seanan McGuire
3) "And Then There Were (N-One)," Sarah Pinsker
4) "The Black Tides of Heaven," JY Yang
5) "River of Teeth," Sarah Gailey
6) "Binti: Home," Nnedi Okorafor
 
(Notes: This category is very tight. I think Murderbot will come out on top--it just won the Nebula, and the character/voice is unforgettable--but if not, any one of the others could knock it off.)

Best Novelette
 
1) "The Secret Life of Bots," Suzanne Palmer
2) "Extracurricular Activities," Yoon Ha Lee
3) "Wind Will Rove," Sarah Pinsker
4) "A Series of Steaks," Vina Jie-Min Prasad
5) "Children of Thorns," Aliette de Bodard
6) "Small Changes Over Long Periods," K.M. Szpara
 
(Notes: This is another crapshoot. I personally loved "Bots," but if Vina Jie-Min Prasad wins the Campbell, as I suspect she will, that might bleed over into this category.)
 
Best Short Story
 
1) "The Martian Obelisk," Linda Nagata
2) "Welcome To Your Authentic Indian Experience™," Rebecca Roanhorse
3) "Sun, Moon, Dust," Ursula Vernon
4) "Fandom for Robots," Vina Jie-Min Prasad
5) "Carnival Nine," Caroline M. Yoachim
6) "Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand," Fran Wilde
 
(Notes: This was the hardest decision, for me. I could have flipped a coin on any given day and placed any of the top 3 at No. 1. "The Martian Obelisk" finally squeaked through because I thought the ending was just perfect. But I would be happy if any of the top 3 won.)
 
Best Series
 
1) The Divine Cities, Robert Jackson Bennett
2) The Books of the Raksura, Martha Wells
3) InCryptid, Seanan McGuire
4) The Memoirs of Lady Trent, Marie Brennan
5) World of the Five Gods, Lois McMaster Bujold
 
(Notes: You'll notice Brandon Sanderson is missing. I've been putting him off and putting him off, and I think that's because I have a congenital aversion to ten-pound bricks masquerading as books. There's also the time factor to consider. In any case, I think the Divine Cities is the one to beat. Let's also remember that Lois McMaster Bujold already snagged this award last year, for the Vorkosigan Saga. Let's spread the love a bit, please.)
 
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
 
1) Blade Runner 2049
2) Wonder Woman
3) The Shape of Water
4) Get Out
5) Thor: Ragnarok
6) Star Wars: The Last Jedi
 
(Notes: I do not expect Blade Runner 2049 to win, as much as I loved its deliberate pacing and gorgeous look. I think it will come down to either The Shape of Water or Get Out. Although there would be something to be said for giving The Last Jedi the trophy and thumbing our collective noses at the entitled little brats trolling Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran. Also remember that if Carrie Fisher was here [*sigh*], she would undoubtedly chime in with a loud "Fuck you.")
 
 
We're rounding the turn to the home stretch now. Onward.
 

 

This is the last of the Novella nominations. I didn't own this book, so I had to wait to get it in the Hugo packet. This is a peculiar but interesting mash of fantasy and science fiction, Chinese legend and (actual feathered) dinosaurs, magic--here called "slackcraft"--and science, wrapped in an age-old thread of a tyrannical ruler attempting to control a kingdom, and her twin children who are trying to overthrow her.

I liked it well enough, but I think I liked the premise better than the execution. The world itself, the Protectorate, was fascinating, if a little scanty on the details. No infodumping, that's for sure; we find out about the world organically, bit by bit, the tidbits of information unfolding along with the story. (I particularly liked the idea of children being allowed to choose their gender, and able to change their minds at any given time, even into adulthood. I almost wish that's something we could implement in real life.) The prose is smooth and sure, and the author has obviously thought about and worked out the details of her (their?) world, even if we aren't privy to all of them yet.

The main thing that bugged me about this story is the time jumps. Every few chapters, we advance by X number of years. I can see where the plot demands this, but in that case, I think this book needed to be expanded in length to better smooth over the narrative abruptness. As it was, this made it hard for me to relate to the characters and really get into the story. So, my final take on this one: I liked it but didn't love it, and it will not be placed at the top of my ballot. 


Midnight Blue-Light Special (InCryptid, #2) by Seanan McGuire — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs ...                                                                                                                                                                                                           

This is the second book in the Best Series-nominated InCryptid series. It picks up where the last book left off, with the same protagonist, Verity Price (though that will change in subsequent books, as Verity's older brother Alexander and younger sister Antimony take their turns).  Time-wise, this takes place about six months after the events of the first book, with Verity drawing near the end of her year's stay in New York City.

Verity's sometimes boyfriend, Dominic De Luca, reappears with some bad news: the Covenant of St George is descending on the city for a "purge." The cryptids (creatures of magic, myth and legend, also known as "monsters," hiding in plain sight) are in danger. Verity immediately rallies to save her city, visiting the cryptids to warn them, and gathering the more vulnerable ones to hide in the nightclub where she works, the Freakshow.

Two prominent themes in this book are friendship and found family. Both Verity and Dominic have nice character arcs in this book, with Verity realizing her "job," and true calling, is to protect the cryptids, no matter how much she loves ballroom dancing. Dominic also reaches a personal epiphany; for much of the book he is caught between Verity and the Covenant, between the woman he loves and the organization that took him in and raised him. The Covenant also fed him a line of propaganda about the cryptids, and he finally realizes he cannot be a part of the organization anymore. He throws his lot in with Verity and her cryptids, and just in time, as the Covenant representatives (one of whom is a cousin of Verity's from far back, from a line of the family that did not break away) capture Verity and set about torturing her, both to make her reveal the whereabouts of her family and the cryptids in New York.

The back half of this book is a fast-paced, nerve-wracking rescue mission, as Dominic and Verity's uncle Mike lead a team of cryptids to rescue her. We are treated to an interesting POV switch, as several chapters in the middle of the book are narrated by Verity's adopted cousin Sarah, a telepathic cryptid known as a "cuckoo." (As far as that goes, I wish Dominic had at least one chapter to call his own. Getting inside his head would have been interesting, I think.) Verity, being the badass that she is, breaks free on her own before the cavalry gets there. Despite her torture and subsequent injuries, she still gives a good account of herself. With everyone charging in to save the day, the Covenant is defeated...but Sarah, unfortunately, pays the heaviest price, as her telepathic abilities are needed to scour the Covenant members' memories to ensure others of their ilk will not descend on New York, and doing so damages her mind. Hopefully she will recover in future books.

This series continues to impress, so much so that I ordered the rest of the books. This book is a bit grimmer than the first, despite the levity of the Aeslin mice (intelligent, extremely religious mouse-like cryptids, who worship Verity and her family as gods). The secondary characters are well developed, especially Istas the shapeshifting waheela and her constant deadpan bloodthirsty calls for "carnage." I'm looking forward to the rest of the Price family's story.
 A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge

This is another of those books that I had trouble getting into, because it's so very English. (I had the same problem with Philip Pullman.) To be clear, this is not because it's a bad book--I liked this better than La Belle Sauvage--but it's due to the prose style, which is chilly and remote and precise and sporting a rigid British lip. This is the first book by Frances Hardinge I've read, so I have no idea if this is her normal way of writing. Nevertheless, this made it hard for me to relate to her characters.

This book is set in 1642 England under King Charles. The time period seems to be meticulously researched, with a wealth of detail about people's everyday lives, both the higher and lower classes. (One thing that stuck with me is that the protagonist hated taking a bath--she thought the water would seep into her pores and drown her. She usually just wiped herself off with a rag. I'm sure she was a blast to be around, body odor-wise.) Our protagonist, Makepeace Littlefoot, is the illegitimate daughter of a high-class family that has, shall we say, some peculiar characteristics, which she unfortunately inherits. To be specific, certain family members carry the ghosts of their ancestors in their heads, and as each generational "vessel" ages and dies, the person next in line is forced to contain said ghosts, which invariably results in the suppression and eventual death of their own personalities. It was this fate that Makepeace's mother, fifteen and pregnant, tried to spare her daughter when she ran away. 

But Makepeace's mother dies early in the story, and her uncle and aunt cannot cope with her, so they send her to her father's family at Grizehayes. There she gradually discovers just who and what she is. This coming-of-age tale is set against the backdrop of a rebellion against the Crown, with her father's family, the Fellmottes, taking the side of the King to protect their interests (and prevent being killed as witches).

There is a good sense of pacing to this story, and the author definitely knows how to write action scenes. Still, this book never crossed into "can't put down" territory for me, due to the remoteness of the characters. This problem persisted throughout, until I hit the very last pages. At the end of the story, there is a sudden switch in POV, to a new character named Hannah. In just two and a half pages, we are given Hannah's story, how after the death of her husband she joins the army by pretending to be a man, Harold; is taught to fight; and following her death, her ghost is scooped up by Makepeace's half brother, James. James, having been freed by Makepeace (and various ghostly allies she collects along the way) from his own nasty brain-sucking spirits, is traveling with Makepeace with a new purpose: saving the ghosts of those "who usually don't get second chances." This makes the book end on a high but frustrating note, as I would rather have read Hannah's story than that of the ostensible heroine.

This book was okay, but no more than that. It definitely didn't knock my socks off.
 Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire  OverDrive (Rakuten OverDrive): eBooks, audiobooks and ...
This is another entry in the new Best Series category. The author had a previous nomination last year, for her October Daye series, which did not win. To be honest, I'm not expecting this series to win either, not with such competition as Martha Wells' Books of the Raksura and Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities (my current no. 2 and no. 1, respectively). However, I enjoyed this more than I expected to, seeing as urban fantasy as a genre seems to be a bit faded from what it used to be. I know I'm reading less of it, myself.

The conceit of this series is the existence of "cryptids," creatures of myth and magic (defined by some as "monsters") that live in our world, and the family named Price that protects them. This idea requires quite a bit of handwavium to support the notion that in the day of Twitter, Google Maps, and instant cellphone video, the populace at large would not be aware of the presence of sirens, Sasquatch, Gorgons, and the like. (For instance, our protagonist, Verity Price, talks about members of the family riding along on a Greenpeace ship to "hide the annual plesiosaur migration." WHAT!!!??? The reveal of actual Mesozoic-era survivors would be one of the coolest things ever, especially if said dinosaurs were sentient and could say, "Your industrial civilization is destroying the planet.") If you can't overlook this, you are likely to crash and burn on this series only a few pages in. But if, like me, you are drawn in by the characters, worldbuilding and setting, you are embarking on an enjoyable ride.

Verity Price, in particular, is a strong and compelling character. She is spending a year away from her family in New York City, trying to decide between starting a career as a professional ballroom dancer or joining the "family business" of protecting cryptids. She runs across (or rather, gets caught in the rooftop trap of) a man called Dominic De Luca, who is a member of the Covenant of St. George, the centuries-old secret organization dedicated to killing the cryptids. There is a great deal of bad blood between the Prices and the Covenant, as only a few generations ago Verity's great-great-grandparents were members. But upon realizing that more than a few cryptids were sapient beings that did not deserve death, the family broke away, and has been in hiding ever since.

Like many urban fantasy heroines, Verity Price kicks ass and takes names. (Although I think she is wasted as a ballroom dancer. With her mad tumbling, gymnastics, unarmed combat, and free-running skills--she gets around Manhattan by running across rooftops--she could be cleaning up on American Ninja Warrior.) She is snarky and at times impulsive, but her loyalty to her friends is absolute. She and Dominic get involved in a plot to awaken an honest-to-Ghu dragon sleeping under Manhattan, and along the way we learn a lot about the many species of cryptids populating this universe.

I've seen this series called fluffy, and honestly, I don't know where that comes from. It's not as grim as some urban fantasy books I could name, and there's a lot of humor in Verity's snark and various character interactions, but I don't think this is a particularly light read. It is, however, a surprisingly good one, at least to me.

 

 
City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett

This is the third book in the Divine Cities trilogy, and wraps up the story in a sad, bittersweet, yet ultimately triumphant fashion. The protagonist this time around is an older, wiser and (at the beginning at least) broken Sigrud,  the ruthless killing machine companion of the first book and the shattered grieving father of the second. This time around, thirteen years after the events of the second book, Sigrud is called back to action by the presumed death of his mentor, the former Prime Minister of Saypur, Shara Komayd.

Things are not as they seem, of course. This storyline is the most complex and layered of the three; the reader has to follow it pretty carefully. We have children of the Divine, one of which can manipulate time; another who, when younger and before coming into his full power, was captured and tortured by Shara's aunt, Vinya Komayd; and finally, Shara's adopted daughter Tatyana, who has no idea she is a Divine child. But this is just a pale recitation of this complex plot, where the mistakes and hubris of the past, not just for the people of Saypur but the Divinities themselves, come roaring back to bite them and nearly results in the destruction of everything.

One of the themes of the previous book, City of Blades, was war and the price paid by soldiers. The overriding theme of this book, it seems to me, is similar but subtly different: power. The cost of possessing it, the stark contrast between those who have it and those who don't, and the arrogance of those who do. The climax of the book comes down to the choice Tatyana makes, to keep that terrible godlike power for herself and burn the world down, or give it away and save it. She chooses the latter (which creates a new and different set of problems, humans being what they are), and in the process remakes the world.

This entire trilogy is just outstanding, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone. I'm still reading the Best Series nominees, but I already know what's going at the top of my ballot.
 

This book is kind of a mixed bag. I think it does several important things. First of all, the main character is a gay male teen with an eating disorder (anorexia), which I understand is rare in YA fiction. Matt is not a likable protagonist, but he's not meant to be: he acknowledges that he's all kinds of effed-up. Side plots includes Matt's being bullied by his classmates, and the stress of coming out. This book is raw, honest, and straightforward, whether it comes to Matt's emotions, his dysfunctional relationship with food, or his hate/love for his boyfriend, Tariq. Taken strictly from a characterization and YA coming-of-age story viewpoint, this book is excellent.

However.

(You knew that was coming, didn't you?)

I mainly read SFF (science fiction and fantasy). This book has been nominated for several SFF awards, and just won the Andre Norton Award (presented at the Nebula Awards Banquet) for best young adult SFF book. Unfortunately, to me the SFF element (Matt's anorexia gives him superpowers) is the weakest part of the book. (Not to mention that it seems a problematic plot element, to say the least. But I'm not gay and have never been anorexic, so I'll defer to the author, who is and has been both. Obviously, he knows whereof he speaks, and that lived experience is a huge part of why Matt's character rings so true.) It didn't take me long to realize that Matt is an unreliable narrator, and to my mind there is a great deal of question as to whether Matt's expanding senses and what seem to be mind-control powers are actually happening, up until the last couple of chapters. So at the end of the book, apparently Matt really does bust the pigs out of the slaughterhouse and lead them on a revenge march through his small oppressive town. Then, after he completes his ED treatment and rejoins his family (and this section is, to my mind, unnecessarily rushed--after the extensive details of how his eating disorder took hold of his mind, we should have gotten to see how he freed himself from it), his powers seem to be dead.

Or are they? In the very last chapter of the book, that suddenly isn't the case--he ends up controlling one of the pigs he set free, and it dawns on him that maybe his "powers" aren't tied to starving himself after all. Which, to this reader, makes the entire thing a cheat, and is a huge disappointment. I would have much preferred leaving out the SFF element altogether, if this is how the book was going to end. I think it would have made the story more honest.

This book is worthy on the one hand, and has much to recommend it, but it is also extremely flawed. Still, the author is worth picking up--he has a deft touch with characterization, and his prose is gorgeous. But this book is not something I'm going to keep around.
 Team Human by Sarah Rees Brennan (9781742378398)

Bah. I tried to like this book, I really did. I gave it 70 pages, which I think is a fair shot. I usually take my current read to work and read it during my lunch break. I did that today, and looked at the book and thought, "I don't like this, and I don't care what happens to these people" (otherwise known as the Eight Deadly Words). With all the good stuff I have to read, I'm not going to waste my time with something I don't like.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that Elliot Schafer, the protagonist, is a mean, nasty, sarcastic little jerk. This kind of character can be done well, obviously, but that is simply not the case here, at least as far as I am concerned. He has a few funny lines (one in particular made me laugh out loud, but no more than one), but he is not the kind of person I want to spend any time with. The second problem is the paper-thin, cliché-ridden worldbuilding. I realize, according to the blurbs on the back cover, that these well-worn fantasy tropes were deliberately set up to be subverted by the author, but since I didn't care enough about the characters or the story to get to the subversive parts, all this cleverness was rather wasted on me. The story came across as a cheap, shallow, boring network sitcom, and I am not a fan of sitcoms.

Nope, going to move on from this one. The next book I've started has already drawn me in, even though I'm only on page 28. (The Art of Starving, by Sam J. Miller, if you must know.) Life's too short to slog my way through what is, for me, a bad book.
La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

First off, let me say that I came into this book cold--I've read none of the previous books that make up
His Dark Materials. I mention this because a lot of reviews I've read reference the other books. The impression I'm getting is that you can't really appreciate this book unless you've read the other three (or however many) and maybe this is so. Unfortunately, this makes me give this book more than a slight sideways glance, because I've always thought books should stand on their own, without having to depend on any previous narrative, and a skilled author will work to make sure the reader is able to follow along.

That does not happen in this book. In particular, the worldbuilding and to a lesser degree the characterizations are simply...lacking. To be blunt, a lot of the worldbuilding makes no damn sense, particularly the idea of "daemons" (which are apparently physical, fleshly manifestations of each person's subconscious and/or id). This is so much a central part of the story you can't ignore it, but it irritated me to no end that not one character asked where in the hell these "daemons" came from, why everyone has them, and whether they are good or bad. One can argue that this is simply a facet of this alternate England and Earth, just as the existence of fairies, London river gods, enchanted islands of forgetting, and a complicated thirty-six-sided contraption called an "alethiometer" that supposedly foretells the future, or something, are other aspects of this alternate Earth. The characters know this and accept it, and therefore, in the interests of the story, the reader doesn't need any gratuitous infodumping. Well, maybe the characters know what's going on, but this reader most certainly did not, and sorely wished for a bit of infodumping along the way.

This book is written in what seems to be a classical English style, which is to say a distant, somewhat omniscient viewpoint. Most of the time we're in eleven-year-old Malcolm Polstead's head (and I don't know any English boys, but Malcolm doesn't resemble any eleven-year-old I've ever met; to note just one plot point, he beats someone to death with his canoe paddle, as professionally as any master assassin), but the narrative is rather chilly and remote, and the characters suffer for it. The pacing is slow, deliberate and methodical, with an almost painful plodding set-up for the first half of the book. The author is skilled enough that he managed to hold my attention until the flood came and all hell broke loose, but those chapters really could have been cut in half without losing much of the story. The ending also leaves much to be desired, as nothing is resolved and the story just comes to a screeching unpleasant halt, followed by the Three Dread Words: "To be continued."

In short, nothing about this book inspires me to read on, not even what happens when Lyra grows up. Sorry, Malcolm. I did feel for your brave little canoe's sacrifice, but it wasn't enough.
 The Mad Professah Lectures: BOOK REVIEW: City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett

This is the second book in the Divine Cities trilogy (nominated for Best Series), and the author has definitely upped his game. I've heard this described as "urban fantasy," and it's not--urban fantasy usually takes place on our world, and wherever this planet is, it certainly isn't Earth (despite the presence of humans). This is a world where the gods are (or were) actual living beings, and god-inspired and -powered "miracles" co-exist uneasily with science, in the form of automobiles, fossil fuels and internal combustion engines, trains, electricity, guns, cannons, and heavy earth-moving and dredging equipment.

After the climactic battle in the first book, which resulted in the deaths of two gods, the country of Saypur is attempting to tame the Continent, its former oppressor. A major goal in this endeavor is the opening of the port of Voortyashtan, once home to Voortya, goddess of war and death. A discovery made here, and the disappearance of a Saypuri diplomat, necessitates dragging Turyin Mulaghesh, a character from the first book and a cranky fifty-something female general, out of retirement. (And may I say that the very existence of this character, let alone as the protagonist, warmed the cockles of my heart, because it's so rare.)

What begins as an irritating final tour of duty for the General quickly turns into a murder mystery and a fascinating dive into this world's history and mythology. (Among other things, the goddess Voortya created an actual afterlife for her followers, the titular City of Blades, which looms large indeed as the story advances.) But there are far deeper themes to be found here: a profound meditation on war and the price it demands of its soldiers, and what it means to be a soldier. Indeed, this latter point--what being a soldier means to Turyin Mulaghesh as opposed to what it meant to Voortya--is what the book's bloody climax hangs upon.

Along the way, the pacing and characterizations are excellent. We see mostly through Turyin Mulaghesh's eyes as she fights for her redemption. She doesn't really find it--as the book acknowledges, some things done in war can never be forgiven or forgotten, for all that they have been swept under the rug--but after the events in this book, she is awakened again to her life's purpose, which is to serve others. (And she may get the chance to do this in an entirely new way at the book's end, as the Prime Minister of Saypur, Shara Komayd, suspecting she is not long for that position, admits she is maneuvering Turyin Mulaghesh into taking up her mantle.)

This book completely avoids the dreaded Middle-Book Syndrome and is better than its predecessor, at least as far as I am concerned. If the final book sticks the landing, frankly I don't see how the series can be beat.
https://d19fbfhz0hcvd2.cloudfront.net/UC/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/city_of_stairs_cover.jpg

This is another nominee in the new Best Series category. I've heard a lot of good things about this series (the Divine Cities), but as I've never read anything by the author I went into it pretty much cold. At first I wasn't sure if this would be my cup of tea, but slowly and surely the story drew me in.

This is a tale of ancient gods who are not quite as dead as they seem, of "miracles" and magic, of a conquered island who threw off the yoke of the oppressor and became the tyrant in its own turn. The bloody history slowly revealed here is deep and rich, with myths that come to horrifying life. There are subtexts of colonialism, and the arrogance of an occupying nation denying and attempting to erase a Continent's history that comes back to bite it in the ass, all wrapped up in a breathtaking final act where past and present collide.

Our protagonist is Shara Thivani, the great-granddaughter of the man who defeated the gods (this becomes very important at the story's end), a spy masquerading as a diplomat. Shara is not a kickass type of woman--although there is definitely one of those present, in the person of one General Turyin Mulaghesh--as she is short, unimposing, and wears glasses. But the way she outthinks and outmaneuvers her enemies is impressive, as is her persistence and determination. The fact that she has a nigh-unstoppable killing machine called Sigrud by her side, posing as her "secretary," also helps as the odds get steeper, although Shara puts all the pieces together and pulls off the victory at the story's end basically by herself, defeating two resurrected Divinities. (With some help from Sigrud, flying a magical steel airship.)

This probably sounds completely over the top. Let me assure you, it's not. The mystery plot clicks right along, and the story is tense and nail-biting. The Divine Cities, with their six dead (and not-so-dead) gods, is one of the most original settings I've read in a while. I've since checked out the second and third volumes of the series from the library, and am eager to tackle them. (In the process I had to return Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings unread, because of holds from other patrons. I'm not terribly sad about that. Just contemplating that six-inch brick exhausted me.)

The only knock the reader might have against this series is that it's written in third person, present tense. This may strike some people as an impossibly artsy-fartsy choice, and it did take a bit of getting used to. But as the plot kicked into high gear for the final battle, the immediacy of the present-tense narration made for a fast, absorbing read. This is a memorable first book, and I hope the others can live up to it
 
“The Cloud Roads” rezensiert in der Bibliotheka Phantastika

After last year's trial run, the Hugos now have a category of Best Series. The Books of the Raksura, by Martha Wells, is among the nominees. I'd read exactly one work by Martha Wells, All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries (which I loved and nominated for Best Novella). So when I got my first stack of Hugo nominees from the library, I decided Wells' series would be the first I'd tackle.

What an excellent decision. I discovered a book, and a series, I'd only vaguely heard of and might never have read, and which I came to love unreservedly. This book pretty much hit all my sweet spots--worldbuilding, characterization, and more than that, the "sense of wonder" engendered by only the best science fiction and fantasy.

This book takes place on an alternate world that is most definitely not Earth, and features characters that are sapient but not human. (As a matter of fact, there are several non-human sentient races on the Three Worlds, and I hope subsequent books in the series spends some time with them, especially the insectoid Dwei.) Our protagonist Moon is a member of such a race, the shapeshifting Raksura. He begins the book not knowing this is what he is, only that he can shift into another form with wings, tail and claws, and he must hide this ability from the "groundling" clans he lives with. Moon serves as a necessary stand-in for the reader, without which we would be hopelessly lost. Martha Wells hits the ground running with this book, immediately drawing the reader in, and provides a master class in conveying a complex world and multiple non-human cultures without infodumps. Nearly every paragraph, it seems, provides some nugget of information, the result being that we learn about the Three Worlds and the Raksura along with Moon, and the pace and flow of the story never flags.

There's quite a balancing act here, as all the characters are recognizably people, but never human--there isn't a homo sapiens to be found, and I fervently hope that remains so through the rest of the series. All intelligent beings, Wells is saying (unless they're so alien as to be incomprehensible, which is not the case here, nor could it be), have similar drives: they love, they suffer, they fight to survive, to have a place, to belong. This aptly sums up Moon's personal journey with the Indigo Cloud Court. His story begins with a rapid-fire series of shocks: being discovered, cast out and nearly killed by his groundling clan; rescued and taken in by a member of his true people, the Raksura; and coming into conflict with the book's primary antagonists, another race of flying shapeshifters (and a nasty, murderous one) known as the Fell. This is a lot to set up, especially as we're being introduced to the world and the Raksuran culture along the way. This is not to say the prose and character beats are frantic or rushed; they aren't, and there are periodic pauses both for Moon and the reader to breathe and digest what's happening. But even in these moments of relative quiet, something is going on: character work, an examination of themes and motivations, more reveals about the Three Worlds and its inhabitants. It's well-balanced and wonderfully done.

I also appreciated Moon as a character. He's not a hotheaded kid; he's a pragmatic, mature adult, and while he makes mistakes, he is neither impulsive nor arrogant. He is loyal and kind, and once he makes up his mind to stay with Indigo Cloud, he goes all in, even though his ultimate place there is up in the air until the end of the book. Despite the tight focus on Moon, the supporting characters are also well drawn, especially the Indigo Court's secondary queen, Jade, who Moon becomes consort to. (Yes, there's an appendix at the end describing the various forms and castes of Raksura, but while I appreciated it, I'm not sure it was necessary. Everything I needed to know was imparted in the book itself.) The story ends with one of those quiet moments, with the Indigo Court having defeated the Fell (at least one iteration, although we know they will be back) and are on their way to their new colony.

Just to show how much I was impressed by this, I hadn't even finished reading this book before I got on the computer and ordered the rest of the series, sight unseen. It's so wonderful to discover an underrated and, I think, somewhat overlooked author in Martha Wells. I hope her exposure in this year's Hugo awards creates many more enthusiastic fans of her work.
Akata Warrior (Akata Witch, #2) by Nnedi Okorafor — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

This is the first year of the Not-A-Hugo Best SFF Young Adult Book (similar to the John Campbell Not-A-Hugo for Best New Writer, technically not part of the Hugo Awards but presented at the same ceremony. Yes, I know it's a bit wacky. Just go with it). I actually read a fair amount of YA, enough to nominate for this new category. None of my nominations made the shortlist, but this little gem of book did, and I'm happy I got the opportunity to read it. I've read Nnedi Okorafor before; I own all three of her "Binti" novellas, and while they are okay, I haven't liked any of them as much as I did this book Akata Warrior is the story of Sunny Nwazue, born in America but now living in Nigeria, newly discovered to be a "Leopard Person" (a wielder of juju, in touch with the spirit world), and learning how to control and use her magic. (In fact, one could view this as a distant relation of J.K. Rowling, with Sunny as the Hermione counterpoint and protagonist.)

This is a complex mythology and world, and Okorafor presents it masterfully, building the world in a natural, easy manner without infodumps. It's a delight to read something so outside the confining box of European and/or Celtic fantasy. There are spiders the size of houses, giant flying "grasscutters" (as near as I can figure, a huge winged caterpillar, a fun character by the name of Grashcoatah), a magical dimension existing side by side with the physical world, djinns, juju knives, and a snarky, meta little introduction/Dramatis Personae/"previously in Sunny Nwazue-land" called "Let the Reader Beware":

Okay, let's begin.

Let the reader beware that there is juju in this book.

"Juju" is what we West Africans like to loosely call magic, manipulative mysticism, or alluring allures. It is wild, alive, and enigmatic, and it is interested in you. Juju always defies definition. It certainly includes all uncomprehended tricksy forces wrung from the deepest reservoirs of nature and spirit. There is control, but never absolute control. Do not take juju lightly, unless you are looking for unexpected death.

Juju cartwheels  between these pages like dust in a sandstorm. We don't care if you are afraid. We don't care if you think this book will bring you good luck. We don't care if you are an outsider. We just care that you read this warning and are thus warned. This way, you have no one to blame but yourself if you enjoy this story. 

I don't think I've ever read an intro like that. It certainly made me sit up and take notice.

As befits the thirteen-year-old protagonist and the book's target audience, the prose is simple and straightforward, even discussing some pretty heavy themes, such as finding one's true place in life. Sunny is a well-drawn, flawed, relatable character, as are her friends. During the course of this book, Sunny saves her brother from some nasty characters belonging to a "confraternity" (apparently the Nigerian equivalent of a gang), and visits a spirit city called Osisi to halt an apocalypse. (This continues a storyline introduced in the first Sunny Nwazue book, Akata Witch. Thankfully, the author handles this backstory skillfully, providing just enough information to fill the reader in on what happened in the previous book without disrupting the flow of this one.) But after the bad people have been beaten and she's returned to her everyday life, the book ends with Sunny being more of a typical teenager: attending a book fair (albeit a magical book fair, where "people argued and sometimes fought over books, and some of the books argued with and fought people"--please, get me to a book fair like that), playing in a soccer game--and scoring a goal.

This is a delightful book all the way around, and I appreciated the deep dive into Nigerian culture. We need more books like this, and I'm happy that Akata Warrior exists in the world.
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Vol. 1 by Emil Ferris

Apparently there's quite a story behind this book. The author, Emil Ferris, is in her fifties, and she had to teach herself to draw again after being partially paralyzed by West Nile virus. This is the first half of what is slated to be a 700-page doorstopper, and it's won countless accolades, including nominations for a Hugo and the industry's most prestigious awards, the Eisners.

All well and good. But I struggled to finish this. I thought it started out well--the artwork is like nothing I have ever seen before, modeled after ten-year-old Karen Reyes' sketchpad/diary, complete with background notebook lines. The story concerns budding sleuth Karen, who likes to pretend she is a werewolf girl (and draws herself that way in her sketchbook), clumsily trying to solve the murder of her upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg. It's set in 1968 Chicago, and one of the plot points is the assassination of Martin Luther King. There are several side plots, including the harrowing background of Holocaust survivor Anka that takes up most of the middle section. Karen's brother Deeze is involved in a sexual relationship with Anka, and Karen's mother is diagnosed with and dies from breast cancer. And the very last panel--or page, rather, since there aren't any "panels" in the usual comics sense--ends on a cliffhanger, revealing Deeze's identical twin, Victor, who Karen never knew existed.

Does this sound like a muddled mess? Unfortunately, it is. On the one hand, I can see why it's been praised and nominated for so many awards--it's genuinely something new and groundbreaking. On the other hand, I thought the story needed some severe tightening up, as it's not at all sure what it wants to be. Murder mystery, coming-of-age, coming-out (Karen very hesitantly admits to Deeze that she "likes girls"), Holocaust history, the American history of one turbulent flashpoint year? The storyline blunders through all of these subplots, and doesn't make much sense out of any of them. Plus, at 400 pages, it takes forever to get to what few points it manages to make.

Nope, this book sadly isn't for me. I'm very glad Emil Ferris managed to publish it--the author's background is actually more interesting to me than the book itself. But I won't be picking up the second volume.

 Crash Override by Zoe  Quinn

 This book surprised me. It's not very long, and it's a fast and at times harrowing read. Zoe Quinn was one of the first victims of the nasty Internet blowup from a few years ago known as Gamergate. Unfortunately, her life has changed forever because of it, and she admits she probably won't ever be the carefree, nerdy little game developer she once was. All because of a nasty ex-boyfriend and a slavering horde of sycophants who were all too eager to bring a torrent of abuse crashing down on Zoe's (and other people's) heads, for basically no reason. (I don't care if she did sleep with five guys--or any number of guys [which she didn't]--to get a review for her game. This in no way justifies the doxxing, the rape and death threats, the phone calls to her friends and family, the stain on her reputation, the lost jobs, and the overall vile actions of the mob.)

This book roughly splits the difference between a memoir--what happened to Quinn and how she dealt with it--and a how-to book--how you, as the reader, can protect yourself against online abuse. Some of it is pretty damn pessimistic, especially when the police and tech company representatives dole out such stupid advice as "If this is what the Internet is like, then get off it." That is nonsense. The focus should be on changing the culture and corraling the abusers, not letting them take over and harass people with impunity. I found the how-to chapters particularly interesting, full of practical and pragmatic advice. There is also advice for those who want to assist victims, starting with a simple bottom line: consent is key. Always let the victim set the boundaries of what should be done and when, or anything at all.

At the end of this book, Quinn shows how she is beginning to recover, even going back to making games again. I feel for her, and wish her well. She's managed to take a bunch of rotten lemons and make some tasty lemonade, but I certainly wish it hadn't been necessary.

November 2020

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Words To Live By

There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away. ~Emily Dickinson

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins. ~Neil Gaiman

Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in. ~Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The road to hell is paved with adverbs. ~Stephen King

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read. ~Mark Twain

I feel free and strong. If I were not a reader of books I could not feel this way. ~Walter Tevis

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one. ~George R.R. Martin

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