Mixed Reading

It's been a mixed bag for reading this month. I read three excellent stories, reviewed below. Two were fantasies of the fairy tale category, princesses, godmothers, and all. If you like that sort of thing, I especially urge you to pick up Nettle and Bone. It's that good. John Scalzi's Kaiju Preservation Society is everything a light science fiction novel should be: an extrapolation of a leap into the unknown. If Kaïju exist, where do they live, and what might hunt them?

There were a couple of disappointments, too. Linda Nagata's Limit of Vision started with an interesting premise of symbiotic nanobots, but somehow didn't manage to turn it into much beyond a standard little guys-vs-evil-corporation saga. Then there was Garth Nix's The Left Handed Booksellers of London. Great title, I just wish the rest of the book measured up to it. It had to have one of the most unmotivated protagonists I've seen. These are supposed to be best-selling authors, but I have to wonder why. At any rate, I just wanted to let you know that I only recommend books here that I really enjoyed. I filter out the rest for you.

I won't have a chance to watch Picard's final episode before the newsletter has to be wrapped up, so I'll leave final impressions for next month. I'll just have to say that I think Alison Pill gets the best actor award so far, from the sheer range of personalities she's portrayed. It's right up there with Santiago Cabrera's split personality holograms from last season.

Till next time…