Catching up on my reading

With Lady of Temia complete and off to the editor, I have had time to catch up on my reading. Well, not the New Yorkers or the Atlantic. I’m only one person; there’s only so much I can do.

So. Books. Since just about everyone I know has had a book out from Nightshade this year, I’ve basically dropped most of my money there.

Never Knew Another by JM McDermott.
Demons walk in Dogsland, and stalker shapeshifter priests go after them. But the demons are human, and excruciatingly vulnerable, even though they spread disease and death, and they are wholly sympathetic. One doesn’t like a JM McDermott book, but it’s not meant to be liked. Liking is for sissies, and this book isn’t. Beautifully written as always.

Of Blood and Honey by Stina Leicht.
1970s Northern Ireland, the Belfast punk scene, and the Good Folk combine in a rough and tumble novel. Gripping, hyper-real, dirty, as in you can feel the dirt of the city streets that Leicht describes.

The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells.
I loved this book. This has Wells’ signature worldbuilding and wholly real character development, and her wry voice shines through. I can’t even explain how real the world felt, in which each race and city and culture had such well-drawn back story that they lived on even outside the main plot. My favorite was the city on the wheel that slowly turned…Wells could draw on the world she has created for all the rest of her novels and never run out.

Revolution World, by Katy Stauber.
The post-apocalypse has come and it’s pretty cheerful. Okay, Homeland Security are a bunch of douchebags, but the message that science saves and true love conquers all is darn convincing. I wanted to go there.

Not Nightshade, but Tor:

Deathless, by Catherynne Valente.
A Russian fairytale and the Siege of Leningrad. Beautifully written and un-put-down-able. You know how in the UK they bet on the Booker Prize? Well, I will bet that Valente wins the Nebula for this book.